Category: Trinity 12

The Difference between a Christian and a Heathen

9/3/2023

Trinity 12
Mark 7:31-37
Pastor James Preus
August 27, 2023

What’s the difference between a Christian and a heathen? Well? How do you tell the difference? Two men eat lunch, one is a heathen the other, a Christian. How do you tell them apart? The heathen eat just like the Christians do. Two men work a job. They both dig, lay pipe, haul gravel, and drive truck. What’s the difference? Does the Christian swing a hammer different than a heathen? Can you tell the difference between a Christian engineer and a heathen engineer sitting at his computer? Can you tell which house was built by a Christian and which one was built by an unbeliever? Two families go on vacation, one is Christian, the other are unbelievers. How do you tell them apart? You watch a basketball game. Can you tell which players are Christians by the way they dribble and shoot? Christians eat like the heathen do. They work like the heathen do. They rest like the heathen do. They play like the heathen do. They spend time with their families like the heathen do. So, what sets the Christian apart from the heathen? Two things: the ears and the mouth.
Now how can I say that? What is so special about the ears and the mouth that they of all things set a Christian apart from an unbeliever? Well, it is what you do with the ears and the mouth. Ears hear words. And the mouth speaks words. And Christ’s Kingdom stands only in the Word of God. Jesus says, “If you abide in my words, you are my disciples indeed, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31-32) It is the ears that receive God’s Word. It is the mouth that confesses God’s Word. St. Paul says, “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’ So ,faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:13-17)
So, the difference between a Christian and a heathen is that a Christian’s ears listen to the Word of God, but the heathen’s ears do not listen to God’s Word. And a Christian’s mouth confesses God’s Word and speaks according to God’s Word, but a heathen’s mouth does not confess God’s Word or speak according to it. And that is the primary difference between you and the heathen. You listen to God’s Word and believe it. And you use your mouth to confess Christ and praise Him.
Here we see the gravity of the mute and deaf man’s situation and the great mercy Christ showed to him by opening his ears and loosing the bonds of his tongue. Without his hearing, the man could not hear the Gospel, which is the only way to be saved. God reaches our heart and causes it to be born again by going through our ears. The Holy Spirit convinces us with real words to turn from sin and to trust in Christ. So, Jesus did not simply make this man’s quality of life better by opening his ears to hear the voices of his family, friends, and co-workers. Jesus saved this man by opening his ears to hear the Gospel, so that He may believe and be saved. Jesus didn’t just loosen the man’s tongue, so that he could communicate clearly. Jesus cleansed His lips, so that He could praise His God and Savior with pure doctrine.
And this is the greater miracle we should all desire. What good is your hearing, if you will not listen to Christ’s Word? What good is your mouth, if you use it only to speak idle words and do not praise your Savior? And such refusal to understand what one hears is spoken of frequently by Jesus and the prophets, “Seeing, they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” (Matthew 13:13; Isaiah 6:9-10) Indeed, it would be better to be deaf and not be able to hear at all than to have ears that hear, but refuse to understand and accept the words of Christ. And we see this very much in this deaf and mute man. Jesus communicates with him, although the man cannot hear. He uses sign language, so that the man can understand that Jesus intends to heal his ears and mouth.
This is what I deal with frequently when I visit our elderly shut-in members. Many of them are hard of hearing. I must speak slowly and loudly, looking them in the eyes and opening my mouth widely, so that they can understand my words. I frequently point out the passage of Scripture I am reading, so that they can read along with me. And they, hard of hearing though they are, will look intently at my mouth as I preach. Although their hearing is almost gone, they have better ears than most people, who see no value in listening to God’s Word preached! Indeed, it would be better to lose your sense of hearing completely, but have the desire to hear the Gospel through sign language and the written word, than to have perfect hearing, but ignore God’s preaching, or having heard it, to let the seed sown in your ears be devoured by Satan, scorched by persecution, or choked out by the cares and pleasures of this life, as Jesus warns about in His parable of the sower and the seed. (Mark 4:3-88; 14-20)
Of course, Jesus concluded that parable by saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Mark 4:9) And that is a warning we should heed now. How much time do you spend listening to things that are of no benefit to your soul or are even harmful. It seems today that no one can stand silence. People go grocery shopping with earbuds in their ears. People don’t talk to each other while they exercise, they listen to their favorite podcast or music. And much of the discussion of these podcasts is irreverent and crass. And the music produced today is more often than not charged with sexual inuendo or demonic messaging. You have your choice of political commentators to listen to on the radio or on the internet twenty-four hours a day, spouting off their opinions as if they actually matter. Few seek out Christian council from their pastor or another Christian strong in the faith, but rather seek out advice from those, who ignore Scripture and tell them what they want to hear. And that is how most find their preacher as well, seeking out teachers to scratch their itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3).
We are bombarded with noise, hours and hours of messages enter our perfect ears every day, yet, we can’t seem to stand listening to Christ’s Word for twenty minutes on a Sunday morning. And what is the result of this? Our mouths become fountains of foolishness, false doctrine, and even debauchery. St. Paul warns, “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.” (Ephesians 5:4) Here St. Paul teaches us to guard the words of our mouth. But why does filth fall from our lips? Why do we make crass jokes, swear, and cuss? Because we listen to such filth. You cannot remain unaffected by what you hear. Likewise, St. James warns, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not be so. (James 3:10) We curse, swear, utter false doctrine, and slander our neighbor, because that is what we choose to listen to.
But if you listen to the evil and idle words of this world and you repeat these words with your mouth, how then are you different from the heathen? What makes you different from an unbeliever? The two things that set you apart from the unbelievers, is that you hear Christ’s Word and confess His Word. But if you stop listening and stop confessing, then you are no different than an unbeliever. People will repeat to themselves the lie that they do not need to hear God’s Word in order to be a Christian and they can keep their faith private instead of confessing it. Yet, that is not what Scripture says. Rather, Jesus says, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (John 8:47) and St. Paul declares in Romans 10, “With the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (vs. 10) God’s Word travels from the ears to the heart and then from the heart out the mouth. That is how a Christian is made. That is how a Christian’s ears and mouth work.
No one can seem to agree on why Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. Earlier in this same region, he had told a man from whom he had cast out a legion of demons to go and tell what God had done for him (Mark 5:19). Yet, increasingly, Jesus tells those whom He heals not to tell anyone. What is clear; however, is that they don’t obey Jesus. They tell everyone who will listen.
And Jesus certainly would have expected this. This is the way God’s Word works. It cannot remain dormant. It must work through the ears and into the heart and out the mouth. “He has done all things well!”, they proclaimed. Indeed, He has. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. Even more. He opens ears to understand the Gospel and hearts to believe it. And He even prepares praise from the mouths of little babies (Matthew 21:16). He has opened our ears to not only hear, but to listen to His grace. And so, He has created a clean heart in us to believe in Christ our Savior.
He has done all things well! Indeed, He is the only man who has ever done all things well. Adam did evil. And so, have his children after him. I have not done all things well. Have you? Of course, not. Yet, Jesus has. We have been disobedient, and so have merited eternal damnation. Jesus has been perfectly obedient, and so has earned for us eternal life. He did all things well, even to the cross, where He bore the burden of our sins and washed them all away in His blood. By doing all things well, Jesus has won for us eternal salvation and He has left nothing undone that needs to be done to save us.
And that is why our Salvation and indeed the entire Kingdom of Christ can be delivered to us in words. It is not up to us to earn our salvation with our arms and legs or intellect. It is not up to us to build Christ a kingdom by our labor. Christ has done all things well. He has prepared a kingdom for us and paid our entrance into it with His innocent suffering and death. And so, Christ’s kingdom comes to us through words. And we receive our salvation through our ears by listening to this Gospel and believing it. And so, God prepares good words of confession, thanksgiving, and praise from our lips. We can speak good words to our neighbor, because God has spoken good words to us. It is God who has set us apart from the heathen with His Word, so let us keep His Word in our ears and mouth for our salvation. Amen.

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God Justifies the Sinner

8/24/2023

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

Trinity 11
Luke 18:9-14
Pastor James Preus
August 20, 2023

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” This oft-repeated proverb of Jesus summarizes how one goes to heaven or hell. To exalt oneself means to lift oneself up high. No one is more highly exalted than God, who dwells in the highest heaven. Those who exalt themselves seek to ascend to God. Whoever exalts himself to God will be humbled. To be humbled means to be brought down low. You can’t be humbled lower than hell. So, Jesus says that everyone who exalts himself to God will be cast down to hell. But whoever humbles himself, acknowledging that he deserves hell, God will lift-up to heaven. You cannot exalt yourself to heaven. Only God can exalt you. He exalts the humble.
Jesus teaches us in this parable that those who trust in themselves that they are righteous are those who exalt themselves before God and are therefore cast down to hell. God is righteous. All righteousness comes from God. To be righteous means to be in a right relationship with God, it means to be brought up to God’s presence and to be looked upon favorably by God. The Pharisee was self-righteous. He did not wait on God to exalt him and declare him righteous. Rather, he declared himself righteous, that is, he justified himself. And for this, God condemned him.
The Pharisee in Jesus’ story went to the temple to pray. He stood separate from the people, fitting with his title Pharisee, which means “one who is separated.” He then thanked God in his prayer, but his thanksgiving was only a pretense to boast in himself. He says, “God, I thank you, because I am not like other men.” He is not thanking God for making him different than other men. It could have been a good prayer if the Pharisee had said, “God, I thank you that you have kept me from sin and unbelief, which has captured other men.” But no, the Pharisee only brags about his own actions. “I am not like other men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, even as this tax collector.” Fitting with those who trust in themselves that they are righteous, the Pharisee despises others, even accusing the tax collector of extortion, unrighteousness, and adultery. Think of it, the Pharisee stands in the same building where the sacrifice of atonement for sins is offered, and he points out to God another man’s sin!
Yet, this is the manner of all the self-righteous. Because if you will justify yourself, then you must condemn others! Why? Because no one will be justified by works of the Law (Galatians 2:16). If you ignore the works of everyone but yourself, and only consider your own works according to God’s Law, then you will only see your own sin (Romans 3:20). You will only see how you have failed to love God and your neighbor as you ought. But, if you can drag your neighbor into the mix, then you can convince yourself that you are more righteous than your neighbor. And so, slandering one’s neighbor in his heart has been the mode of justifying oneself since the fall into sin!
Check if you have done this? When is the last time you justified your own actions by comparing them to another? “Oh, I may have looked at women with lust, but I’ve never cheated on my wife like others I know.” “Sure, I’ve lost my temper at my wife and children, but I’ve never stuck them, like the sleaze with his mugshot in the paper.” “I may be cheap at times, but I’ve never stolen like others.” “I’ve hated my neighbor in my heart, but I’m not a murderer.” And so, the self-righteous justify themselves in their own hearts, seeking to lift themselves up to God by stepping on the necks of their neighbors. If you look at the Pharisee closely, you might find yourself looking back from the mirror.
Then the Pharisee tries to inflate his righteousness by bragging about his works. “I fast twice a week.” That’s good, but what good is fasting if not to learn that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God? And God’s Word says that no one living is righteous (Psalm 143:2; Ecc 7:20). “I tithe all that I get,” he brags. Very good. You gave back a tenth of all that God has given you. But have you observed the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness? (Matthew 23:23) The Pharisee’s boasts may be able to fool those around him and even his own conscience, but they cannot fool God, who looks on the secret heart.
The tax collector demonstrates to us how one is exalted to heaven by being humble. He, like the Pharisee, stands by himself, but for a different reason. The tax collector feels unworthy to stand in the congregation of the righteous. He cannot even lift his eyes up to heaven, because he is ashamed. He beats his breast, showing that he recognizes that the source of his sin and shame comes out of his own heart, a point the Pharisee completely misses. By striking his breast, he behaves like the crowd leaving the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion, lamenting the great injustice that has been done, for which they only can blame themselves (Luke 23:48). It is as if the tax collector is saying, “On me, me only is the guilt. It is all my fault.” And that is what he says, “Have mercy on me, the sinner.” Our English translation has him say, “a sinner,” but it is better translated as the sinner. He does not do as the Pharisee and we so often do, and point out the sins of others. He doesn’t say, “Yes, I’m a sinner, but everyone’s a sinner, so it’s not that bad.” No, he doesn’t bring up anyone else’s sin but his own, and confesses himself to be the guilty sinner. He doesn’t try to distance himself from his actions, but acknowledges that they came from his own heart. No, the tax collector does not exalt himself to heaven declaring himself righteous before God. Far from it. Rather, he drops himself into the depths of woe. To the world this seems counterproductive. Yet, we must remember what Scripture says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15)
Yet, it is not his acknowledgment of his own sin that ultimately lifts the tax collector out of the pit of hell into the heavenly places. The word the tax collector uses for mercy reveals his steadfast faith in Christ his Savior, which justifies him. The word the tax collector used for mercy is perhaps best understood as “make atonement for me.” It can also be translated as “be propitiated to me” or “be expiated toward me,” but few people understand what those words mean. I think you are all familiar with the word atone. Atone means to cover a sin or wash it away. It means to make amends. The Pharisee and the tax collector are standing in the temple, where each morning and evening a lamb is sacrificed to make atonement for the sins of the people. The Pharisee points out the sins of others for which God makes atonement, to boost himself. The tax collector points to the sacrifice of atonement and prays to God, “Let that atonement be for me, yes, even for me!”
Of course, it isn’t the lamb sacrificed in the temple which makes atonement for any sins, but the Lamb of God to whom these lambs point, who makes atonement for the sins of the whole world. The Apostle writes of Christ in Hebrews chapter 2, “Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make atonement (or propitiation) for the sins of the people.” (vs. 17) And St. John writes in his first epistle, chapter 2, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” And by propitiation, what he means is atonement. Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, has made atonement for the sins of the whole world. He has paid for them with His blood. He has washed them away, covered them, made amends for them, however else you want to explain atonement, they are gone! And this tax collector in fervent faith prays that that payment for sins would be applied to him personally. And by the fact that Jesus says that he rather than the Pharisee went down to his house justified proves that God answered his prayer.
And here we must make a clarification about humility and pride. The world turns Jesus’ words on their head and claims that if you say that Jesus is the only way to salvation, then you are prideful. The world says that it is arrogant to say that you know the way to heaven and that there is no other way. But it is not arrogant to say that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). It is not prideful to say that you are certain that you stand righteous before God for the sake of Jesus’ innocent shed blood, suffering, and death. You are not boasting in yourself when you confess that you know you will go to heaven when you die, because Christ has prepared a place for you. Rather, Scripture exhorts us, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9:24; 1 Cor. 1:31; 2 Cor. 10:17; Gal. 6:14) And we should never stop boasting in the cross of Jesus Christ, which alone grants full forgiveness of sins and makes us righteous before our God. We do not exalt ourselves by standing on God’s Word, rather those who claim that we cannot know are the ones who exalt themselves above God’s Word.
Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re arrogant or prideful for standing on the promises God makes to you in Holy Scripture, when He says that Jesus has washed away all your sins, when He says that your Baptism has clothed you in Christ and has indeed saved you (Gal. 3:26; 1 Peter 3:21), when you confess that Christ indeed feeds you His body and blood in His Sacrament for the forgiveness of your sins. This is not arrogance or pride, but humbly receiving from your gracious Father’s hand in heaven.
Jesus says that the tax collector went down to his house justified. Do you think he felt righteous? He didn’t look righteous. Jesus doesn’t tell us about any good works he did? Presumably, he bore fruits of repentance as Zacchaeus did, who gave four-times more to anyone he defrauded and shared his wealth with the poor (Luke 19). And we’ve heard that St. Paul worked harder than any other apostle after being saved by grace (1 Cor. 15). But we’ve heard of no good works from this tax collector, just that he went down to his house justified. Although good works indeed follow saving faith, no works done by this tax collector contributed to his justification before God. So, I ask you. Did this tax collector feel righteous?
It doesn’t matter. Probably not. That’s not the point. The Pharisee sure felt righteous, but that didn’t do him any good. He looked righteous too, but that did nothing for him before God’s throne. It is not how you look or feel that determines whether you are righteous before God. It depends entirely on your faith in Jesus Christ, who made atonement for your sins. You may be the worst sinner in this congregation. You may feel like the worst sinner here. Your shame may be welling up in your heart, so that you feel the compulsion to beat your chest until it’s numb. But you should believe for Christ’s sake that your sins are covered. You should believe that God has clothed you with a garment of salvation and a robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). You should believe that though your sins are like scarlet, Christ has washed them clean in His own blood (Isaiah 1:18). You should believe that God has made atonement for you through the death of Christ Jesus your Savior. And you should humbly receive this promise, because God has promised it to you. Amen.

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He Does All Things Well

9/7/2022

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Trinity 12
Mark 7:31-37
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
September 4, 2022

“He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

In Genesis one, after each thing that God creates, Moses writes, “And God saw that it was good.” At the end of the sixth day, Moses writes, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) God cannot make a mistake. He can only do good. He can only create good. And the creation God made from the beginning was very good. It was perfect. There was no flaw in his creation. Everything was made exactly as he intended it to be. There was no sickness. There were no lame or crippled animals or diseased trees. Adam and Eve had no sin, no pain, no suffering. There was no death.

Yet, that is not the creation we see and experience today. In this creation, we’re plagued with diseases, pain, disabilities, and death. We aren’t perfect, even at the best of times. And we’re all sinners. We don’t walk with God. Like Adam and Eve after their fall into sin, our natural inclination is to hide from God. We do not live in a perfect world. And it is common for people to blame God for this imperfection. It is even used as an argument that God doesn’t exist, because if he existed, he would have made a perfect world. But we cannot blame God for the world’s problems. Disease, illness, pain, disabilities, sin, and death are all our own doing. St. Paul writes in Romans chapter 5, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” The source of all our problems is sin. And we have no one to blame for sin, but ourselves.

When Jesus came to earth, he found his good creation corrupted. They brought to him a deaf and mute man. Christ created the man’s ears and tongue, but they did not work. They did not work, because the man was corrupted by sin. Jesus has come to undo the effects of sin. After Jesus healed the man, the crowd shouted, “He has done all things well! He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” This is most certainly true. And this proves that Jesus is God himself, he who saw in the beginning that all he had made was good. This also proves that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed Savior of the Word. The Prophet Isaiah prophesied that when the Christ would come, “the deaf shall hear.” (Isaiah 29:18) Jesus has come to restore his creation. Yet, he has not come simply to cause the deaf to hear and the mute speak, because eventually those ears will stop hearing and those tongues stop speaking when they are in the grave. Christ Jesus has come to conquer sin and death itself.

When Jesus healed the man, he touched his ears with his fingers and he spat and touched the man’s tongue. Why did Jesus do this? Well, the most obvious answer is that Jesus was communicating to the man what he was going to do. Remember, the man is deaf. He can’t hear what Jesus is saying. So, Jesus touches his ears to communicate that he will heal his ears. And he touches his tongue to communicate that he will break the bonds of his tongue. Jesus used sign-language. And he continues to use sign-language for us today.

Jesus uses sign-language in Baptism. In Baptism, we have water poured over a person. This indicates that the old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires. We picture the old Adam being washed away in the flood and a new man rising out of the waters after the image of Christ, who himself was baptized with water. In the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus tells us that the bread is his body and the wine is his blood. Since Jesus is God and can do far more than we can ask or think, yet, he cannot lie, we believe him. Yet, why are Jesus’ body and blood separated into bread and wine? My blood is in my body, as is yours, and as is, presumably, Jesus’ as he is enthroned in heaven. Why then are Jesus’ body and blood separated in the Sacrament? This is sign-language, which teaches us that Jesus was sacrificed for our sins. A sacrifice is made when the blood is poured out of the victim. Jesus is our Victim. His blood was poured out on the cross to make propitiation for our sins. In the Sacrament, we receive the fruit of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, all wrought for us by Jesus’ bitter sufferings and death.

And this brings us to another point of Jesus’ miraculous healing of the deaf and mute man. When Jesus healed the man, he looked up to heaven and sighed. In fact, he groaned. He looks up to heaven, showing that all authority he receives from his heavenly Father. And he groans, because this healing took something out of him. Jesus must spend himself in order to restore his creation. This foreshadows Jesus’ cross. Jesus is our Savior. He takes away our sins. We believe that his Word has the power to save us. Baptism forgives our sins and grants us new birth. The Lord’s Supper forgives our sins, strengthens our faith, and increases our love for one another. How? Only by means of Jesus’ cross. The waters of Baptism cleanse you of all your sin and grant you new birth only because they are joined to the blood Jesus shed on the cross. The Sacrament of the Altar gives you forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, only because Christ poured out his blood for you and gave his body over to death. The absolution proclaimed to you, which calms your guilty conscience is only true because Jesus groaned under the weight of your sin. Jesus’ groan proves to us that there is no restoration of God’s creation without the heal of the woman’s seed being bruised (Genesis 3:15). There is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of Christ’s blood. Our forgiveness and salvation were bought with a great price, the innocent sufferings and death of Christ Jesus our Lord. The Gospel preached to you and believed by your heart is not cheap. Jesus groaned in bitter pain to grant it to you.

The first thing this deaf man heard was Jesus’ voice. How fitting. For what greater purpose did Christ create this man’s ears than that he hear the words of his God and believe them. And so, just as this man’s friends brought him to Jesus to be healed by him, so we bring our children soon after they are born to hear the voice of their God. Before a child is baptized, his ears are clogged by Satan and his mouth bound, so that he cannot sing his praises. Yet, in Baptism, when Jesus’ liberating words are spoken, the ears are unclogged and the tongue loosened. Everyone’s ears are clogged to the Gospel and lips bound by Satan until Christ sets them free. And he does this in no other way than through his Word. Baptism itself is empowered and joined to Jesus’ blood through Jesus’ Word and promise.

And so, we not only start out our life hearing the words of Jesus as he opens our ears and loosens our tongue, but we begin our weeks the same way. I have a pet peeve, which my wife learned about after we were married. I dislike calendars, which start the week with Monday and kick Sunday to the end. But I don’t repent of this pet peeve. I’m right. The first day of the week is Sunday. Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, which is Sunday, after having rested in the tomb on the Sabbath, which is Saturday, the last day of the week. That is why Sunday and Saturday are called the “weekend.” They are fixed at the beginning and end of each week like bookends. The start of the week is Sunday, not Monday. And for nearly two thousand years, Christians have started their week by going to church to hear the word of God. There is no better way to start the week. You see, Satan does not leave our ears unclogged and our mouths loose after we are baptized. He works with the sinful world and your own sinful flesh to stop up your ears and to cut off your tongue from praising God. This means that you need Christ to speak his Ephatha to you again.

Consider this past week or the time since you were last in church. What evidence do you see that you are not perfect as God intended you to be? What evidences of your own impending death have you experienced? How does your conscience feel? Are you proud of all that you have done? Would you stand by it before God on Judgment Day? God has given you ears, eyes, mouth, hands, and a mind. Have you used them all to his glory? Have you looked at what you should look at and kept your eyes from evil? Have you listened and paid attention to God’s Word, or to that which does not edify you? Have the words you have spoken been charitable, kind, and true? What have your hands been busy at? Would you be ashamed to reveal your thoughts to others or to consider that God already knows them?

The deaf and mute man wanted to hear and speak, but he could not. So, he went to Jesus to be restored. St. Paul laments that the good he would do he does not, but the evil he does not want to do he keeps on doing (Romans 7). The reasons are the same. The body is corrupted by sin. You review your past week and you see that your eyes, ears, mouth, and hands, yes, even your very heart do not work as God created them to work. You need to be restored. And you’ve racked up a debt by your sins which is insurmountable, which goes above your head. You need to be forgiven. That is why you start your week by going to church. Hearing Jesus’ words, which he groaned in bitter pain to win for you, you are forgiven and restored. Those sins for which your conscience is afraid and ashamed are wiped clean. Each week, you get a clean slate. By means of his Word and Sacrament, Jesus gives to you that which he has gained for you on the cross with bitter groans.

This is why David says in Psalm 51, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” We need the Lord to open our lips. He does this only by first opening our ears to hear his Word. Unless Christ speaks to us, we cannot confess his name and be saved (Joel 2:32; Romans 10:13ff). After Jesus healed him, the man spoke plainly. The Greek words is ὀρθῶς (orthos). That’s where we get the word orthodontist, meaning, straight teeth, and orthodox, meaning, right praise or straight teaching. Every Christian should be orthodox. We should speak the truth of God’s Word. Orthodoxy saves, because by it we learn the Gospel. But you can only speak rightly if Christ speaks to you.

Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel 2:32). To confess Christ as your Savior from sin is to confess that God has restored you. You may not feel that way now. You may still die and shed this outer form. But through Christ, you will receive a much greater life in the resurrection when the entire creation will be restored perfectly forever. So, as long as we live in this fallen world filled with sin, sickness, and death, we return to him who restores us. Our consciences are restored week by week, year by year, until what we hold to be true through faith will come to completion. Amen.

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The Letter Kills, but The Spirit Gives Life

9/1/2020

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Moses with the Ten Commandments, Rembrandt, 1659, Public Domain

Trinity 12
2 Corinthians 3:4-11
August 30, 2020

St. Paul tells us that ministers of the new covenant are made competent by God. God makes them sufficient by the message that he gives them to preach. This is commonly misunderstood today. I’ve preached much on the importance of judging one’s pastor. It’s not because I think people are reticent to judge, but rather, because Jesus commands us to judge with right judgment and beware of false prophets. But Jesus does not command us to judge our pastors based on whether we like their personality or style or whether we agree with what he is preaching or not. Jesus commands us to judge whether the preacher is preaching the truth according to Christ’s word.
This is what makes a preacher sufficient; not how flashy or entertaining he is; not how elegant his speech is; not that you like everything he says. Pastors are not sufficient in themselves at all. Their sufficiency is from God, who has sent them to proclaim the saving Gospel. So, it is important that every Christian make this distinction when judging whether you should or should not believe what the pastor preaches. Judge not whether you like what is said. Judge whether it is the truth. And judge whether your pastor is a minister of the covenant of the letter or whether he is a minister of the covenant of the Spirit.
The covenant of the letter kills. It does not save. The letter is the Law, which was engraved in letters on stone. This Law, which was given to Moses, was glorious. It was so glorious that Moses needed to cover his face so as not to frighten the Israelites, because his face shone with the reflected glory of God’s Law. The Law of God is good and wise and sets God’s will before our eyes. Just listen to God’s Law:
You shall have no other gods. You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God. Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Can you find anything wrong with these commandments? Of course not! They are holy and good. If we actually lived according to these commandments, there would be less crime in the world, less heart break, less senseless deaths, less suffering. Those who devote their lives to these commandments do find some glory in this life, for a time. In fact, most religions in the world are devoted in some way or another to living according to these commands in order to acquire glory. Most religions in the world teach that you reach the glories of heaven by living a good life and doing good.
Yet, St. Paul says that this ministry of the letter brings death! How can this be? He explains it in the seventh chapter of the book of Romans. “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”
So, St. Paul maintains that the Law is good, yet the Law kills. Why is that? It’s not because the Law is bad. It’s because we’re bad. We are sinners. So, when the Law shows us what we ought to do to be good, instead of it glorifying us and giving us eternal life, it shows us our sin and that we deserve to be punished, as Romans 3:20 says, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in God’s sight, since through the Law comes knowledge of sin.”
This is why God calls his ministers, ministers of the new covenant of the Spirit, not of the letter. God wants his ministers to proclaim the words of eternal life. Only the ministry of the Spirit gives life. The ministry of the letter kills. Those ministers who preach only the letter, who give you hope only in your own works for your salvation are ministers of death. There is no set of rules that you can perfect that will earn you eternal life.
Yet, that does not mean that ministers of the Spirit should not preach the Law! In fact, ministers of the Spirit are required to preach the Law precisely because it kills. The letter must serve the Spirit, so that the Spirit can bring the dead back to life! St. Paul goes on in Romans chapter 7, “Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.”
The Law, these commandments of God do not give life, but rather they expose the sinner to be sinful beyond measure. Now why would God want his ministers to do this? Why would he want people’s sins to “become sinful beyond measure”? It is so that he can save them by grace! St. Paul writes in Galatians chapter 3, “But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”
The Letter imprisons everyone under sin, so that no one can deny the reality of his sin. If you can’t escape the reality of your sin, what can you do? All you can do is ask God for mercy. That is the condition a sinner must be in in order to receive the gospel. If you think that you can overcome your sins yourself or that they are not a big deal, you will not accept the Gospel.
This is why faithful pastors must preach the Law. The Letter must do its work and kill, so that souls may be saved on the Last Day. This is why it is of the utmost importance that when the Law is preached to you and your conscience is pricked and you don’t like what it says, that you do not try to resist the preaching of the Law, but confess yourself to be a sinner, so that God may have mercy on you.
The letter serves the ministry of the Spirit. The ministry of the Spirit is the ministry of the Gospel. Now, it is not as some imagine, that the Spirit comes apart from the words of Holy Scripture. Rather, the Gospel of the Spirit is proclaimed in the Holy Scriptures.
The Gospel is that Jesus Christ is true God and true man. He was born without sin. He is the only man to never sin. He fulfilled the Law perfectly. The letter had no right to kill him. Yet, Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, took upon himself our sins. Scripture says, “God made him who knew no sin to become sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) And St. Peter writes, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” (1 Peter 3:18) Christ is the righteous one, who died in exchange for the unrighteous ones.
This is the message of the Gospel. Christ Jesus has taken away the power of the letter to kill us, by himself dying in our stead! He takes away our sin, which gave the Law the power to slay us! Jesus is our life, which is given to us not by our works, but through faith.
The letter demands works; the Spirit produces faith. This is the difference. The reason the Law cannot save you, is because you cannot save yourself. The Law simply demands works, but gives you no power to accomplish them. The Gospel saves, because it does not require works, but rather gives you the gift of life to be received by faith.
The Gospel must predominate a preacher’s sermon if he is to be a minister of the Spirit. This does not mean that a preacher preaches lots of Gospel and only a little Law. Rather, it means that the Law serves the purpose of the Gospel and not the other way around. It is important for sinners to hear that they should not worship other gods; that they should put aside their work and pleasure and hear and learn God’s Word; that they should obey authority; love their neighbor; be chaste and not fornicate; not steal, and not covet. It is important for sinners to hear this, so that they can beware of their sin and repent. It is important for the Law to kill you now, so that you are not sentenced to eternal death on the Last Day.
The Gospel predominates by responding to the killing of the Law by bringing sinners to life. Are you guilty of loving other things more than God and neglecting to worship and serve him? Have you been disobedient or lazy? Have you hurt someone by your words or deeds? Have you been unchaste? Greedy? Have you been dishonest? Have you coveted what does not belong to you? Has the Law exposed you to be sinful beyond measure? Then repent and believe in the Gospel! Jesus forgives your sins. He paid for them with his blood. He died for the idolater, the sloth, the rebel and criminal, for the fornicator, homosexual, and adulterer, he died for liars and covets and thieves. Jesus’ blood makes atonement for all sins. Repent of your sins; don’t cling to them or defend them. Cling to Jesus, who forgives and saves.
The ministry of the Spirit makes alive. Obviously, that means that the Gospel gives eternal salvation to all who believe it. Yet, the Gospel makes you alive today. St. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 2, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” God has done all that for those who believe in the Gospel. You see, the Law commands you to do, but does not give you the power to do it. The Gospel calls you to believe something that has already been accomplished and also gives you the power to believe it! To be made alive by the Spirit is be given faith in Christ!
And this new life that you receive through the Gospel produces good fruits now in this life. We are not called to continue in our sin, but to die to sin and to live to Christ. The Spirit who dwells in you through faith, also empowers you to love, to be merciful, patient, and forgiving. The Spirit accomplishes in this life, what the Law cannot because of sin. Even more, the Spirit gives us the promise of eternal life, which was denied us by the Law. This eternal life has been given to us as a gift from the Father by the Spirit through Christ Jesus. Amen.

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The Triune God Restores His Creation

9/9/2019

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Bartholomaeus Breenberch, Jésus guérissant un sourd-muet/Jesus healing a deaf-mute, 1635. Public Domain

Mark 7:31-37

Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
September 8, 2019

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.” (Genesis 1:1-4) The Triune God created the heavens and the earth. The Father created all things through his Son and with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit hovered over the face of the waters. God the Son is also known as the Word of God. St. John’s Gospel begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1-3) God said. He spoke a word. He did not create anything without speaking a word. And so, he showed from the beginning that all things were created through the Word. The Father created nothing without the Son and the Holy Spirit, who is the Lord and giver of life.
The Holy Trinity created the race of man. Man and woman are a special creation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Scripture writes that on the sixth day, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. …' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Here the one God uses the plural pronouns “us” and “our” to show that humans are created in the image of the Holy Trinity.
And in Genesis chapter two Scripture goes into even greater detail of how the Holy Trinity worked to create the first man, “When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (vss. 5-7)
In this marvelous account we see the workings of the Holy Trinity. The Father formed the man out of dust. He used water to make the mud. He spoke; the particular work of the Son of God. And he breathed life into him; the work of the Holy Spirit, the giver of life and breath. The heavens and the earth are God’s creation. The Father created nothing without his Son and the Holy Spirit. Mankind is the crown of God’s creation. “And God saw everything that he made, and behold, it was very good.”
Of course, we know it did not stay good. “All mankind fell in Adam’s fall; one common sin infects us all. From one to all the curse descends, And over all God’s wrath impends.” When our first parents sinned, they changed the entire creation from good to bad. The life that reigned before gave way to the rule of death. And love and peace with God were replaced with enmity. God’s creation was broken. Man lost God's image and became sinful. And sin brought death.
Only God created the universe. No one and nothing else could. And no one except God can restore God’s creation to its previous glory. Adam and Eve tried to cover up their mistake, but they failed. God found them. He knew what they had done. It is like when a small child finds his mother’s knitting project and decides to play with the needles. When mom returns, he hastily tries to put the needles back. But it’s too late. He’s ruined the project and he does not know how to fix it. His mother must take away the needles and mangled yarn and fix it herself. This is what God must do. We cannot fix the creation. We cannot fix ourselves. We need God to fix us.
To fix his fallen creation, God needed to address the cause of its ruin: sin. So, God went to work, much like he did when he first created the universe. God spoke through the mouth of his prophets and finally through an angel. The Holy Spirit descended upon a virgin daughter of the man of dust. And God the Son, the eternal Word through whom and by whom and for whom all things were made, became a son of the first man of the ground. In the womb of the Virgin Mary, God formed the second Adam, by whose obedience the earth would be restored.
Adam deserved to die, because of his sin. And all his children deserve to die, because of their sin. Yet, this second Adam committed no sin. Yet, on behalf of Adam and all his children, he died, laden with the sins of the world. He obeyed his Father’s command. He did what the Holy Spirit anointed him to do when he was baptized in the Jordan River. Jesus Christ died to conquer sin and death for us.
As with the creation of the world and of the first man, God saves without our help. His creation was good without our work. And so, God accomplished the work of salvation for all mankind, the restoration of his lost creation, without our work; without our help. And this teaches us that we are saved by grace, apart from our works. This grace is received through faith.
In our Gospel lesson Jesus demonstrates the work of the Holy Trinity. He restores the broken body of this deaf and mute man in the same manner that he created the world and indeed restores the world. Jesus looked up to heaven. He shows that he can do nothing apart from the Father, even as the Father creates and restores nothing apart from his Son. Jesus sighs. He lets out a deep breath, demonstrating that the Holy Spirit and giver of breath works through his word. As with the creation of the world and of Adam, he uses water. He spits. He touches the man, even as God touched the earth and mist to form Adam. Yes, here we see the Holy Trinity restores in the same manner in which he creates.
And the restoration of this deaf and mute man is not independent of Christ’s cross. On the cross Jesus let out a cry to God the Father as he gave up his last breath, and so he finished his work of taking away our sins. And so, this sigh from our Lord as he restores the ears and tongue of this man shows that all our ailments are healed through Jesus’ cross. This miracle is only a foreshadow of what Christ will do for all of us through his cross. We’re all going to die. Our whole bodies will need to be restored, not just our ears and tongues. And through the work Jesus accomplished on the cross, it will be done. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will restore us to our intended perfection, our intended goodness, through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
We are saved through God’s work, not ours. It was impossible for us to save ourselves. Rather, we are saved through faith when we believe that God has redeemed us through Christ Jesus. As Scripture says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. … For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” (Romans 10:9-10, 13)
Yet, there is a problem. In order to believe, you must first hear the Gospel. And in order to confess, you must first have a tongue ready praise your God. Yet, in our sinful state inherited by the first man of dust, we do not have such ears and tongues. We have ears, but we cannot hear the words of God. We hear sounds. We hear words and sentences and we can understand the grammar, but because of our sinful flesh, we cannot truly understand and believe the Gospel. In such a state we cannot confess Christ. Out of the heart the mouth speaks. And Jesus teaches us that out of the heart come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. Such a heart cannot make a tongue sing praises to God!
So, for us to truly hear and understand and believe the Gospel, we need God to open our ears. And for us to confess God rightly, we need God to loosen the bonds of our tongue and purify our hearts. And our Gospel lesson shows us how this is done. It is done through the work of the Holy Trinity. The God who created the universe, the God who restores all creation through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of his Son, is the same God who must open our ears and loosen our tongues, so that we may believe and confess this Gospel.
A couple weeks ago Lane and Drew Brown were baptized. They were about a month old. They don’t speak English yet. I might as well have been speaking Aramaic. Yet, through the words of Christ spoken through this unworthy pastor, and through the water poured upon their heads, the Holy Trinity opened their ears to hear God’s Word and loosened their tongues to confess the name of Christ. We believe that the Holy Spirit himself hovered over those Baptismal waters, even as he did at the creation of the world. We believe that the words spoken joined those babies to Jesus’ cross. And through those words, Christ has granted them healing that only his suffering and death on the cross can give.
This is how our God works. This is how he restores his creation here and now. All of us, when we were baptized experienced the work of this Holy Trinity, who creates and restores. God speaks. He sends the Holy Spirit. He saves us not by works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:5-8) When you were baptized, God healed you through the power of Jesus’ cross.
This work of the Holy Trinity continues throughout our life through the ministry of the Word. God the Father continues to send forth his Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Word and through the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood to give to us the merits of Christ. Through the word of Christ, God continues to open our ears and loosen our tongues, so that we can believe this Gospel and be saved. It is through hearing the word of Christ that we continue in the grace of our Baptism, and that we finally defeat death.
A few days after Lane and Drew were Baptized, our sister in Christ, Eveline Benn died. Yet, she too was baptized into Christ 97 years ago. The Holy Trinity opened her ears to hear the Gospel. And he loosened her tongue to confess his name. And not even death can take that away, because she was baptized into Christ’s death and Christ has conquered death. She will rise again and live forever.
The Holy Trinity has indeed restored his creation, which was corrupted by our sin. He is indeed growing his Church as he opens ears and loosens tongues to hear and confess Christ’s holy name. And as it was said at the creation of the world, and as it was said when Christ healed the deaf mute, and as it is sung by the Church throughout the world, so will it be declared for all eternity in the new creation: He has done all things well. Amen.

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

The Difference between a Christian and a Heathen

God Justifies the Sinner

He Does All Things Well

The Letter Kills, but The Spirit Gives Life

The Triune God Restores His Creation

Rev. James Preus

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