Blog Archives

Two Religions of the World

8/31/2021

Vasily Surikov, "The Good Samaritan," 1874. Public Domain

Trinity 13
Galatians 3:15-22
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
August 29, 2021

How many religions do you think are in the world? A thousand? Should we number every sect and cult, which breaks away from a mainline religion? How could we possibly number them? Well, in fact, there are only two religions in the world. There is the religion of works, that is, the religion of the Law. And there is the religion of grace, that is, the religion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The religion of works is a false religion that teaches that a person is justified, that is, declared righteous by God and inherits eternal life by his own good works. The religion of grace is the one true religion, which teaches that a person is justified, that is, declared righteous by God and inherits eternal life as a gift through faith alone, when he believes that God forgives his sins for the sake of Christ Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection.
Adherents of the religion of works come in many forms. They call themselves Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, and even Christians. Yet, they all believe essentially the same thing when it comes to salvation. They believe that they are saved by their own good works. They think that God, or whatever power they believe in, is satisfied and will reward them for what they do in this life. In short, they trust in themselves. Adherents of the religion of grace are true Christians. They do not trust in their own good works, but rely solely on Jesus Christ and his righteousness. Christians believe that they are saved by grace, that is, as a gift from God when they believe that God forgives them for Christ’s sake.
The purpose of St. Paul’s epistle to the Galatians is to teach that a sinner is justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ apart from works of the Law. In our Epistle lesson, St. Paul argues this point by pointing out that God gave righteousness and salvation to Abraham by a promise 430 years before he gave the Law to Moses. If God promised the inheritance as a gift to Abraham, how could he then give it under the condition of works. That would be to break his own covenant. But if not even a covenant made by men can be broken, how could God’s covenant of promise be abolished by the Law. As St. Paul says, “For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.”
And it is not only that God gave it to Abraham by promise, but God gave it to all people by promise. God said to Abraham, “in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 22:18) This offspring is Jesus Christ, who is descended from Abraham according to the flesh and is God most high, begotten of the Father. All nations of the earth are blessed through Jesus, because he alone has paid our debt of sin and won for us salvation. Abraham was saved through faith as well as all who believe. In fact, salvation has always been a gift from God received through faith in the promised Christ. Immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, God promised salvation through the offspring of the woman, when he spoke to Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) So it is abundantly clear from Scripture that no human being is justified before God by works of the Law, but all are saved through faith in Christ alone.
Why then the Law? If the false religion is a religion that teaches salvation by works of the Law, was God adding something bad when he gave Moses the Law? Or as St. Paul asks, “Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?” He answers, “Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” God did not give us the Law so that we could gain life by obeying its commands. God added the Law because of transgressions, that is, because we were sinners! If we were sinners even before the Law, how is the Law going to make us righteous? It’s not! But it will certainly show us our sin. It will teach us what is righteous and what is not; what is good and what is evil. And when we look at the Law, we will recognize that our works are but filthy rags, and we need to be saved from our sin. That is why God gives us the Law.
The reason the Law cannot make you righteous or give you life is because it can only tell you what to do, but it can give you no power to do it. That does not make the Law bad. The Law is good. The Law expresses God’s eternal will. If you actually did what the Law commanded, you would indeed be righteous and have eternal life. But if you do not do what the Law commands, then you are under a curse, as it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” (Galatians 3:10; Deut. 27:26). Our problem is that we do not actually do what the Law commands.
Take the lawyer from our Gospel text, who asked Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life. Since he asked what he must do, Jesus asked him what the Law says. The Law tells you what to do. He answered correctly, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus told him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” And Jesus is right! If you would love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and your neighbor as yourself, you would have a wonderful life. Your anxiety would go away. You would be content with what you have. You wouldn’t fight with those you love. In fact, you would learn to love even your enemies. And if you did this perfectly, you would live forever.
But do you? Do you love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind? The Law commanded that the Jews give ten percent of their income to the Lord to provide for the Levites. Ten percent or a tithe is still the standard amount Christians are encouraged to give to the church. Yet, you’ll notice these words don’t even mention money. It mentions your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And to love God with not ten percent of these, but all of them. Do you do this? The simplest way to show God that he is your God is to go to church. I once read a motivational poster that said that a one-hour workout is only four percent of your day. Well, if you do the math, you’ll find that going to church then works out to less than one percent of your week.  Yet, still people find other things to do instead of coming to hear the Word of God, learning from him, praying and praising him. If we each exercised an hour a day, we’d be quite fit. Yet, how many of us take even a quarter of an hour to read Scripture and pray each day. We work hard for our children. We want them to do the sports they like, to get good grades, to get a good job. But do we exert our strength to teach them to be Christians and to hold God above all else? No one wants to be considered dumb. We take pride in the power of our minds. Yet, do you seek to learn from God? Do you love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind?
Do you love your neighbor as yourself? Do you honestly do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Do you think of them as you would have them think of you? Do you speak about them as you would have them speak about you? Here is why the lawyer seeking to justify himself asked who his neighbor was, prompting Jesus to tell the well-known story of the Good Samaritan. The Lawyer seeks to lighten the burden of the Law, but Jesus’ story does no such thing for an adherent to the religion of works.
Depending on whether you are an adherent to the false religion of works or the true religion of grace will determine much how you look at the story of the Good Samaritan. If you, like the lawyer, are an adherent to the religion of works, the Good Samaritan is a devastating blow. Samaritans were hated by the Jews. The Samaritan had no reason to believe that if he were in the same situation that that man would have helped him. But despite that, the Samaritan helped his enemy. He took the injured man’s burden, treated his wounds, and laid him on his own animal and brought him to safety. He paid the innkeeper two denarii, which is two days wages, and then he offered to pay back whatever more it cost to care for him. That would be like you handing a hospital your credit card to care for a complete stranger. No one can live up to this standard. “Go and do likewise,” Jesus says? How? Here we see that the Law is not accomplished by outward show, but in that word that must begin from the heart: Love. The law commands what commands cannot bring, that you love your neighbor from the heart. The Law is good, because it reveals how we should be. We should be like Jesus. Jesus is the Good Samaritan. But when Jesus is a mere lawgiver, just an example to follow, he is terrifying.
Yet, if you are an adherent to the religion of grace, then you recognize the Good Samaritan as your Savior Jesus, who rescues you from your sin and pays for your redemption. Through this story, you recognize what St. Paul means when he says, “Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” By speaking the truth, Scripture exposes you as the beat-up man, half-dead, lying on the side of the road. You have been beaten up and robbed by Satan and your own sinful flesh. You cannot help yourself. The Law doesn’t help you. The priest and the Levite simply walk past. All they can say to you is to get up and be alive. Stop being a sinner! Yet, your Good Samaritan comes, Jesus Christ, with his preaching. He pours wine, which stings, that is, he preaches the Law to you, so that you know you need him. Yet, he pours on soothing oil as well, medicine for your sin-sick soul. He forgives your sins. He bears your burden. He paid for your sins on the cross. And his death fully atones for you. He says, “Whatever more is spent, I will pay it back.” That is to say, as many sins as you have, he forgives them in full.
It is after you have been justified by faith that you can then follow the example of the Good Samaritan, walking by the Spirit. This cannot be done under compulsion, or you will be terrified and it will never be done. But when you have been loved by your Good Samaritan, when you have received the promised blessing through faith in Christ, the Offspring of Abraham, then you will follow with a willing heart. Having loved, you will love without fear of judgment. The Law demands love. It is Jesus, our Good Samaritan, who has perfected love for us. And having received his love through faith, we too will live in love, imperfectly now, but perfectly in eternity. Amen.

0 Comments

Justified before God

8/15/2021

0 Comments

The Pharisee and the Publican, James Tissot, 1886-94. Public Domain.

Trinity 11
Luke 18:9-14
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
August 15, 2021

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. What does it mean to be righteous? To be righteous means that you are in a right relationship with God. To be righteous is the same thing as to be just. That is why Jesus said that the tax collector went down to his house justified, much to the surprise of his audience, who thought the Pharisee was righteous. Jesus was declaring that the tax collector went down to his house declared righteous by God.

When we speak of being righteous or justified, we are speaking of how we will be judged by God on the Last Day. Scripture declares, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27) Christ Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. Everyone will stand before God and give an account of what he has done, both good and bad. (2 Corinthians 5:10) And God will judge. Those who are judged righteous, that is, those whom God justifies will enter into eternal life. Those who are judged unrighteous will be damned to eternal perdition. To be justified is the opposite of to be damned. This means that the doctrine of justification is the most important teaching in the entire Christian religion. I certainly can’t think of more pressing one! How do I know whether I am justified before God? How do I know whether God will welcome me into heaven or damn me to hell? This is what we are discussing when we discuss justification.

It is God who justifies. Jesus spoke this parable to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. But you cannot trust in yourself that you are righteous. You are not the one who declares yourself righteous. It is God who justifies. Declaring yourself righteous goes hand in hand with despising others. How does the Pharisee justify himself? He compares his works with others. He despises the tax collector to prove that he is righteous. But that is no way to prove yourself righteous. If a friend is helping me build something and I ask him to cut me a board 46 inches long and he cuts me a board 38 inches long, he won’t make the board the right length by comparing it to all the scrap pieces and talking about how much further from 46 inches they are. If you fall short of being righteous, it doesn’t matter how much farther you think others have fallen short.

What Jesus teaches us in this parable is that a man is not justified before God by his own strength, merit, or works, but rather, a man is justified before God by grace, that is, as a gift from God. This is what St. Paul says in Romans chapter 3, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” God justifies freely by grace, not on account of our works. The Pharisee listed off his works, he fasted twice a week, he gave ten percent of all that he earned to the Lord. But it was the tax collector, who listed no works at all who was found righteous by God. This is because God justifies by grace as a gift. It does not have to do with our works. It is in spite of our sins! It depends on God’s grace, that is, on his undeserved love for us. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

This is why St. Paul, who himself was a Pharisee (and a very zealous one at that), declared all his works to be rubbish, so that he could be found in Christ not having a righteousness of his own, but one that comes through faith (Philippians 3:8-9). So, whether you are a tax collector or a Pharisee, an adulterer, thief, or liar, or every-Sunday-Christian, you are justified by grace alone. This is why Jesus concludes this parable with the statement, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The one who humbles himself does not claim his own righteousness, but accepts Christ’s righteousness as a gift. Yet, the one who exalts himself refuses the gift, because he thinks he can earn his own righteousness.

God justifies sinners. The tax collector said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” And God justified him. He declared the sinner righteous. In fact, God only justifies sinners. He will not declare righteous those who have declared themselves righteous and free from sin. He only justifies those, who have admitted their own sin and unworthiness. This is why it is important to preach the law. The law tells you how to live rightly before God. This is why people think that if they try to live according to God’s law, then they will be righteous. But what does Scripture say? “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” (Romans 3:20) And this reveals the main reason people need to hear the preaching of the law. People need to know that they are sinners, so that they know that they cannot justify themselves, but can only be justified by God.

The law told the tax collector he was a sinner. The law called him a cheat and a thief. The tax collector didn’t argue with the law. He confessed that what the law said was right. He was a sinner. So, he did not seek to justify himself by means of the law, but he went to God to be justified by grace as a gift. The Pharisee did not understand the chief purpose of the law. He thought the law gave him simple directions to justify himself, so he simply did more than the directions required, he fasted twice in a week, he tithed all that he took in. But he failed to realize that the law doesn’t rule just outward actions, but the very heart. The law commands you to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. But the Pharisee didn’t love. He hated. He was a sinner, but he did not acknowledge himself as a sinner. He exalted himself instead. And so, he went home condemned.

God justifies for Christ’s sake. God doesn’t simply say that sin isn’t a big deal. No, God agrees with the law. The law is good. The law reveals God’s eternal will. When God justifies sinners, he doesn’t call good evil and evil good. No, he always and only justifies sinners for the sake of Jesus’ suffering and death for sin. When the tax collector beat his breast and pleaded to God for mercy, he used a special word for mercy. The word he used meant be propitiated, that is, be appeased by this sacrifice; let your wrath be taken away from me on account of this sacrifice. The tax collector is in the temple after all during the sacrifice. Of course, a lamb on the altar is not what actually appeases God’s wrath against sinners, but rather, the Lamb whom that lamb proclaims, Christ Jesus. St. Paul writes in Romans 3 that all are justified by God’s grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

It is Jesus’ blood that makes propitiation for our sins. Jesus’ innocent suffering and death is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Jesus is the only human being who ever lived without sin. He did not deserve to be damned. Yet, he endured damnation on the cross for sins he did not commit. As a man he lived under the law and fulfilled all the law’s demands. And as a man he suffered the punishment of all mankind for all our sins. And Jesus is God. You cannot separate the man Jesus dying on the cross for all sins from the God Jesus. This means his death is a more than sufficient price to pay the debt of all people. When the tax collector said, “Be propitiated to me a sinner,” he was confessing that Christ took all his sins away.

When we talk about being justified before God by grace, we cannot speak of it apart from what Jesus Christ has done for us. Only through Jesus’ obedience and passion for our sins are we justified before God. This is why St. Paul said in our Epistle lesson, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) This is of first importance, because without Jesus dying for us, we are still in our sins. But since Christ has died for us and has risen for us, we have peace with God.

To be justified means to be forgiven. If you are a sinner, then you are not righteous. God declares sinners righteous by forgiving them. St. Paul makes this clear in Romans chapter 4, “David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’” (vss. 6-8) How does God count a person righteous apart from works? By forgiving his lawless deeds; by covering his sins in Jesus’ blood and not counting them anymore.

God justifies a sinner through faith alone. Scripture says, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:28) and “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” (Romans 4:5) It is through faith, so that it can be by grace. Grace means that it is a gift. Faith receives the gift. Faith means to believe and trust that God forgives you for Christ’s sake. The tax collector expressed his faith by asking God to be propitiated to him. He had faith in Christ. Faith is not a good work we do. Rather, faith is trusting in the promise that God forgives sinners by grace for Christ’s sake.

You cannot have saving faith while you are not sorry for your sins. Saving faith means that you acknowledge yourself to be a sinner, who deserves to go to hell; that you are sorry for those sins and want to do better, and that you trust that God will forgive you for Christ’s sake alone. Faith does not believe that God is indifferent toward sin or pleased with sin. Rather, faith confesses what God says is true. And God says that he has placed all our sins on Jesus. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. All people are justified by his death and resurrection. Faith alone receives this justification.

Faith itself is a gift from God given by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel. It is the words of Christ that create faith in our hearts. This is why Christians go to church. The righteous shall live by faith. Faith comes from hearing. If we don’t hear the promises of God, our faith will die. If our faith dies, we lose our justification. If we lose our justification, we cannot stand before God.

If you are justified then you are regenerated, that is, you are born again. A sinner cannot by his own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ. But the Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts through the Gospel. He does this by giving us a new birth, so that we trust in God’s promise. To be regenerated means that you will not only believe God’s promise, but also love God and desire to do what he desires, of course, in great weakness, because of your sinful flesh. So, Christians do good works, but it is not their good works that justify them. The regenerate Christian is justified through faith alone. The righteousness that justifies the Christian is not his own righteousness, but Christ’s righteousness given to him as a gift. This gives you confidence in your justification, because it always depends on Jesus and not on you.

Finally, to be justified means that you are God’s own child. Justification is courtroom language. God is the judge declaring you guilty or innocent, a sinner or righteous. But to be justified doesn’t simply mean God declares you not guilty and sends you on your way. It means that you are clothed in Christ’s righteousness. It means that you are God’s beloved child. He loves you. And he has chosen you to live with him in peace forever. Amen.

0 Comments

What Makes Jesus Weep?

8/9/2021

0 Comments

The Prophecy of the Destruction of Jerusalem, James Tissot, 1886-94. No Known Copyright Restriction. Brooklymuseum.org

Trinity 10
Luke 19:41-48
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
August 8, 2021

What makes Jesus weep? Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, because he knows that the city will be destroyed in the most brutal way. About forty years later in the year 70 AD, the Roman general Titus besieged Jerusalem when it was filled with people, who had gathered to celebrate the Passover. No one was able to leave or enter. There was mass starvation, plague, disease, murder, and all sorts of cruelty. Thousands upon thousands of people, many historians number it in the hundreds of thousands, were killed. The buildings were destroyed and burned, including the great temple. And those Jews who did survive were sold into slavery to do hard labor or were fed to wild beasts as entertainment. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD was one of the most horrific events in human history. Yet, that alone is not why Jesus weeps.

Jesus weeps because of the reason such a terrible destruction would befall them. Because they did not know the things that made for their peace. Because they did not know the time of their visitation. Now, what does Jesus mean by “the time of their visitation”? Who has come to visit them? God has come to visit them. Now, how can this be? God is present everywhere. Scripture says, “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) God cannot get any closer to us than that! Then, how can Jesus say that God visited Jerusalem? Isn’t he always in Jerusalem as he is everywhere else?

God is indeed everywhere. But he is not everywhere in the same way. God’s presence in hell is much different from his presence in heaven. God’s presence in a brothel or opium den is much different from his presence in a church, where the Gospel is preached. By visitation, our Lord Jesus means that God visited Jerusalem with his grace. Yet, Jerusalem rejected God’s visitation of grace. This is what makes Jesus weep. And Jesus is God. This is what makes God weep. Jerusalem rejected the Gospel. Jerusalem rejected her Lord, who came to her with forgiveness and salvation. Jesus is God in human flesh. He is the long-time prophesied Son of David, whom the people of Israel had been waiting for. And he came first to proclaim the good news of redemption to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but he was rejected. He desired to save them. But they would not be saved. And for this, Jesus weeps.

The destruction of Jerusalem is a warning concerning the coming judgment. Jerusalem’s demise is a type of the demise that the world will experience when Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead. And if God did not spare Jerusalem and her people, whom he chose out of all the nations of the world, to whom he sent the prophets, with whom he made the covenants, to whom he promised the Messiah from among their brothers, then we should not think that we will be spared if we reject our visitation. St. Paul speaks of this very thing in Romans 11 saying, “For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.”

So, what is the time of our visitation? How does God visit us with his grace today? The time of our visitation is now. And the way God visits us with his grace is through the Gospel. God visited you when you were Baptized and he placed his name on you, washed you of all your sins in Jesus’ blood, and poured his Holy Spirit into your heart to give you a new spiritual birth. God visits us whenever the Gospel is preached. When Jesus is proclaimed as crucified for sinners; when Christ’s resurrection is preached; when your sins are declared forgiven for the sake of Jesus’ innocent, suffering and death, then God is visiting you with his grace. When the body and blood of Christ, our God and brother, is fed to you in the Sacrament of the Altar, that is God’s visitation of grace.

So, how do we reject this visitation as the Jewish people of Jerusalem did? We must know, so that we can avoid this evil and escape judgment. We reject this visitation when we reject Baptism. This is done either by refusing to be baptized against Christ’s command and promise or by rejecting the Baptism Christ has given you through impenitence and unbelief. We reject this visitation when we refuse to listen to the Gospel and when we refuse to believe it; when we find no value in the Sacrament where Christ supernaturally feeds us his body and blood, which he sacrificed on the cross for us, and so refuse to partake of it. We reject this visitation when we persist in our sins and refuse correction; when we refuse to repent of our sins and ask God for forgiveness for Christ’s sake. In short, we reject our visitation when we refuse to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This also means that we receive God’s visitation when we believe the Gospel. When we believe that our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, then we receive God’s visitation for our eternal benefit.

The other day I heard a guy on the radio talk about how he believed in heaven and hell. The reason he gave for the existence of hell was that there had to be a place of punishment for murderers and rapists and child abusers and wicked men like Hitler and Stalin. And this is how many people think. If hell exists, it exists for those really bad people, but not us. But Christ comes to visit us with God’s grace to rescue us from hell. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God does not want us to go to hell. That is why he sent Jesus to die for our sins on the cross and make atonement for us. And that is why he weeps when we reject him. Without faith in Jesus, we cannot be saved. Hell is real. And it is for all who reject Christ, clinging to their sin and unbelief.

The fact that Jesus wept over Jerusalem shows that God desires all people to be saved. There are some who teach that since those who are saved are chosen by God before the foundation of the world, that God also chooses others before the foundation of the world to go to hell. In other words, they teach that God does not really desire to save all people, but he only desires to save those whom he ultimately saves. Jesus proves that this is wrong by weeping over Jerusalem. He wants them to be saved. He wants them to receive their visitation. He wants them to know what makes for peace, that is, faith in Christ. But they would not. They have refused to accept the Gospel.

But even after they refuse the Gospel and Jesus has predicted their destruction, he shows his desire to save them by going into the temple to preach the Gospel. And in so doing, he does save some. Even from the cross, Jesus prays to his Father that he would forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. How is God to forgive them, but by bringing them to faith? And it is in Jerusalem, that city whose destruction Jesus has proclaimed, where Jesus sends his Holy Spirit on that first Christian Pentecost, so that three thousand are added to the saved on that day. Yes, Jesus’ tears tell us that he does not delight in the destruction of Jerusalem. He desires to save them all.

And it is not only the Jewish people he desires to save. St. Paul declares that God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). No one goes to hell, because God doesn’t want him in heaven. No one goes to hell, because God has destined that person to hell. People only go to hell, because of their own stubborn unbelief. People only go to hell, because they refuse God’s visitation of grace.

So, what should make us weep? It should be the same thing as that which makes our Lord Jesus weep; that people reject Christ’s visitation, persist in unbelief, and are damned to hell. When King Agrippa asked the prisoner St. Paul if he would persuade him to be a Christian, St. Paul answered, “I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.” (Acts 26:29) And that is exactly how we should be. We should desire that everyone be as we are, to confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior, to receive his visitation and have confidence in our forgiveness and salvation.

In Romans chapter 9, St. Paul makes a disturbing declaration that he could wish that he were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his kinsmen, if it meant that they would be saved. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenant, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs; from their race came Christ our God in the flesh! How awful is it that they would reject Christ’s visitation! And so, we too should pray for the conversion of all Jewish people to the faith God intends for them, that they would accept the Messiah whom the prophets promised to them, who indeed came to save them.

Likewise, we should pray for the conversion of our brothers and sisters, children, parents, spouses, friends, and neighbors, who still will not believe in the Gospel. To them has been given saving Baptism! To them the Gospel has been proclaimed! To them God has been offered as their Friend and Savior! We should weep for them. We should proclaim Christ to them. We should invite them to church. We should pray for them. God desires that they be saved. He sent Christ Jesus to die for them. God does not want anyone to die in his sins. And neither do we.

Finally, we know what makes Jesus weep, but what makes Jesus rejoice? Jesus tells us that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents. That is to say, God and all his angels and saints rejoice when one sinner receives his visitation. God’s grace did not fail because Jerusalem rejected Christ. God’s grace does not fail today, because so many still reject him. God has preserved his people. He has given them true faith and made them his children. God’s children are sinners, who have repented of their sins and believed in Jesus Christ as their Savior. God’s people are those who have received God’s visitation of grace through faith in the Gospel of Christ. God’s people do not come from a particular city. They are not limited to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. God’s people come from every nation and language on earth. God’s people are sinners, who have been forgiven, who have received Christ’s visitation through faith.

And so, you should rejoice today, not only that you have repented of your sins and received Jesus’ visitation of grace through faith in the forgiveness of sins, but also rejoice at these your brothers and sisters in Christ, who have received their visitation in faith.

May God keep us as his people and may we continue to receive his visitation of grace, so that we may stand without shame when our God visits us in glory to judge the living and the dead. Amen.

0 Comments

Who is your God?

8/2/2021

0 Comments

Parable of the Unjust Steward, Marinus van Reymerswaele, circa 1540. Public Domain.

Trinity 9
Luke 16:1-9
Pastor James Preus

Trinity Lutheran Church
August 1, 2021

What is the unjust steward’s god? It’s obvious; isn’t it? Mammon. Earthly wealth. Whatever you fear, love, and trust in most is your god. And this unjust steward fears money. He revere’s its power to feed one’s belly and he is terrified of running out of it. He loves wealth. He desires to have it more than anything else. And he trusts in it. He trusts that if he can get money, he will be provided for. The next question is: Does he serve his god well? And we must answer, yes. He serves his god very well. This is why the master commends the unjust steward for his shrewdness.

Now, who is your God? If you are to call yourself a Christian, it must be the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirt; the God, who sent his Son to die for our sins and who sends his Holy Spirit into our hearts through the Gospel. Now, we must ask. Do you serve your God well? Do you love him with all your heart, soul, and mind? Do you fear him and trust in him? Here we get a sharp rebuke from our God, Jesus Christ, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their generation than the sons of light.” This infidel steward, this dishonest thief is more shrewd than we are. He serves his false god with greater diligence than we serve the one true God.

So, what does Jesus exhort us to do in light of this revelation? Our true Master Jesus says, “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Jesus tells us to make use of unrighteous wealth, that is, unrighteous mammon. Why is it called unrighteous mammon?  Because it will fail. It gets destroyed by rust and eaten by moths and stolen by thieves. And even if you can protect it from the rust, moths, and thieves, you will lose it when you die. God said to the rich fool, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20) And even if you have a slightly more noble goal for your wealth, to leave it to your children, it will remain unrighteous mammon for them. It will most certainly fail them too.

Yet, Jesus does not say that we should then throw away all earthly wealth and live as hermits as we pilgrim here on earth. The unrighteous, destined to fail wealth is given to us by our most generous heavenly Father. And he intends for us to use it for the good of his kingdom. Now, you might ask, what is the difference between a Christian using unrighteous wealth and an unbeliever using unrighteous wealth? It is the difference between being a master and being a slave. If mammon is your god, you are its bondservant. And you will serve earthly wealth until the day you die, when it will leave you to go to hell, so that it can enslave another victim. But if God is your God, that is, if you have faith in Christ Jesus who purchased you with his own blood, then mammon is your servant. And you must never be its slave.

Mammon can be used for good or evil. Gold can adorn the ears and arms of a harlot. Or it can be formed into a chalice to carry the very blood of Christ Jesus and to feed it to his Christians for forgiveness and salvation. A website can be used to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the forms of sermons, Bible studies, and other writings. Or it can be used to share the most perverse filth intended to draw victims to the slaughter. Money can be spent on excessive luxury, drinking, partying, and vacationing, and it can be spent to take care of the poor, support the preaching of the Gospel, to build churches, fund missions, and establish Lutheran Schools, so that future generations can be encouraged in the saving faith.

The Christian is in possession of greater wisdom than that of the shrewd steward. The Christian has the knowledge of an eternal dwelling stored up in heaven for all who believe in Christ Jesus, bought and paid for by the priceless blood of Jesus and his innocent suffering and death. Yet, Jesus warns that one cannot serve two masters; one cannot serve God and mammon (Luke 16:13). This means that the Christian must make everything in his life, including all his earthly wealth serve the aim of that final goal of obtaining that eternal heavenly dwelling. This is not to suggest that anyone can purchase the kingdom of heaven with unrighteous mammon, but rather, to warn that becoming a slave to unrighteous mammon can cause you to forfeit your eternal heavenly dwelling.

This is why Jesus instructs us not to use unrighteous mammon for our own pleasure, but rather, being content with what we need, to make friends with it, who will welcome us into our eternal dwelling. Now, who are these friends? This lesson is from Luke chapter sixteen. At the end of this same chapter, Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus. As you know, Lazarus was poor, died and went to heaven. Did Lazarus welcome the rich man into his eternal dwelling? No. The rich man died and went to hell. He didn’t make Lazarus his friend with his mammon. Rather, he only pleasured himself in obedient servitude to his unrighteous god. Had he had faith in Christ, he would have made his mammon serve him. He would have helped his brother in Christ, Lazarus. Lazarus would have welcomed him to Abraham’s side.

To make friends with unrighteous mammon who will welcome you into your eternal dwelling when the mammon fails means to use your unrighteous wealth to help Christians here on earth, who will be your friends forever in heaven. This means that you should be generous to the poor and use your unrighteous wealth to do God’s work to provide for every living thing. This especially applies to those of the household of God. St. John writes, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17) Whatever you have, you have received from the Lord. It is not right for Christians to go hungry while their brothers and sisters in Christ get fat.

To make eternal friends with unrighteous wealth also means to support the mission of the church. Under the Law of Moses, the children of Israel were required to give ten percent of their earnings to the Lord (Numbers 18:21ff). Christ Jesus has set us free from the requirements of Moses’ Law. Yet, both Abraham and Jacob freely gave one tenth of their wealth to God before Moses ever gave such a command (Genesis 14:20b; 28:22). And we Christians, who live by the Law of the Spirit of Life and not under the Law of Death certainly should be as generous with our first-fruits.

But in fact, not a tenth of what we have belongs to the Lord, but all of it. And we owe it all to him. If we truly recognized that all our earthly wealth will fail us, and that our faithful God promises to provide our daily bread each and every day, and even more, that he promises to give us an eternal dwelling as a free inheritance, we would seek to use our unrighteous wealth for the greatest good of furthering Christ’s kingdom by supporting Lutheran churches and schools, so that friends may testify of us on that final day that when they were hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and in prison, we helped them (Matthew 25:31ff). Christ tells us that we can actually use our worthless money and vanishing time and talents to do something that will last for eternity! We can make friends in future generations, who will thank us, just as we will give thanks for those before us who built this church and sweat and bled, so that we could have the Gospel today.

Our English Standard Version Bible translates it, “dishonest manager.” I like the translation, “unjust steward” better. A steward is one who manages that which does not belong to him. We are all stewards. Everything we have doesn’t actually belong to us. We have it for a time, on loan from God. And, just as with the steward in Jesus’ parable, our stewardship will be taken away from us. When we die, we will no longer be able to be managers of what God has entrusted to us. And also, like the steward in our parable, we will have to turn in the account of our management, as St. Paul also says in Romans 14, “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” And as Jesus’ parable about the talents also teaches us (Matthew 25:14-30), our Master will ask for an account of what we’ve done with the little that was entrusted to us; how we spent the unrighteous wealth God gave us; what we did with the talent and time God gave us.

Yet, unlike that unjust steward in Jesus’ parable, we will not need to weasel ourselves into someone else’s home. And indeed, we cannot trick, cheat, or steal our way into heaven. Rather, the debt we have incurred against our Master has been paid in full by the innocent suffering and death and precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has taken all our sins away. Our Lord Jesus intercedes for us now in heaven, showing our heavenly Father the marks of the nails in his hands and feet and the scar of the spear in his side. We do not need to cheat our way into our eternal dwellings. Our way has been rightfully bought and paid for. Christ Jesus holds in his hands the receipts. And in the Book of Life, written in Jesus’ blood, are the names of all who repent of their sins and trust in Christ Jesus for forgiveness and salvation.

Only an unbelieving scoundrel would then conclude that we need not care then how we spend our earthly wealth, time, and talents. Having been set free from slavery to sin and from hell, we cannot then turn in servitude to the false god Mammon. We must not obey it. Rather, being confident of both our eternal dwelling and our daily bread by the generosity of our God, we seek to put our mammon to work in the service of Christ’s kingdom. We ought to work as if it depends on us, but thank God that it doesn’t. Unbelief causes one to neglect making eternal friends with the mammon God gives him. It comes from not trusting that God will provide for you today and tomorrow. It comes from doubting that God has an eternal dwelling prepared for you (John 14:1-3). So, in order to have a generous heart and to seek to use our mammon to God’s glory, we must believe that Christ has won an eternal dwelling for us. Then God will be your God. And you will be his servant. And He will store up eternal friends for you. Amen.

0 Comments

"For faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." ~ Romans 10:17

Two Religions of the World

Justified before God

What Makes Jesus Weep?

Who is your God?

Rev. James Preus

Archives

Categories