Category: Trinity 17

Sanctifying the Sabbath

10/9/2022

Source: I was not able to find the name and date of this artist. It appears to be an Eastern icon. If you recognize it, please leave a comment.

Trinity 17
Luke 14:1-11
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
October 9, 2022

“Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”, Jesus asks. What kind of a question is this? Why wouldn’t it be lawful to heal on the Sabbath? The question lies in the Third Commandment. God gave Moses the Third Commandment, which is written in Exodus chapter 20:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (vss. 8-11)

So, there lies the question. God forbad work on the Sabbath Day, which is the seventh day of the week, Saturday. The word Sabbath means rest. The Pharisees considered healing to be a work. Jesus knew this, so he asked them if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, the day on which God forbid all work. Yet, why did God forbid working on the seventh day? God gave this command for the sake of the body and the soul. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).

First, God forbid working on the Sabbath for the sake of the body. It is not good for a person or animal to work every day of the week without a break. The Sabbath law was not only a ceremonial law for the Jews, but it was a civil law for the nation of Israel. It was illegal for an employer to make his employees work on the Sabbath. A man couldn’t even make his slave or animal work on the Sabbath. Thousands of years before any trade union, God took care of the bodies of workers.

The greater purpose for this commandment was for the sake of the soul. Why did God give everyone in Israel a day off every week? Yes, to rest the body, but is that it? Of course not. Remember the Sabbath day to make it holy. The Sabbath day is supposed to be holy, that is, set a part for God’s use. The children of Israel were supposed to put aside the work they did, so that God could work in them. By not working, they showed that they trusted in God to provide for them, not in their own work. By not working, they demonstrated to the nations, who did not observe the Sabbath rest that the LORD was their God. By not working, they were able to take time as a congregation to hear the Word of God preached and taught to them, to pray, praise, and give thanks.

So, the greater emphasis was not simply avoiding outward work. The greater emphasis for the Sabbath day was to sanctify it, that is, to make the day holy. And the day is made holy by the Word of God and prayer (1 Timothy 4:5).

So, back to the question. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Why wouldn’t it be lawful? Is healing work? Okay, perhaps. But healing is loving. The purpose of this command is to make those who observe it holy. We are made holy when we are joined to God, who is holy. Well, God is love. In fact, Scripture plainly tells us that love is the fulfilling of the Law! (Romans 13:10) You cannot fulfill the Law simply by observing outwards actions, do not touch, do not eat, do this then, don’t do that then. The fulfillment of the law is love. The purpose of the law is love. If you are not loving, then you are breaking the law. If you love, then you are keeping the law.

This man was suffering from dropsy. We don’t use that term much anymore. It means that his body was retaining fluids. This is a terrible condition, which can cause a lot of pain, can damage major organs of the body, including the heart, and even cause death. And the condition is obvious. Someone suffering from dropsy is swollen, so that he looks fat. This man was suffering. Jesus saw that he was suffering. The Pharisees were trying to test Jesus, watching him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. Jesus threw the test back in their face by asking them the question. He silenced them by speaking out loud the evil they were questioning in their heart. Of course, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love is the fulfilling of the Law.

Jesus shows us that we cannot keep the Law simply by our outward actions, but we keep the Law by first loving in our hearts. This is good and true, but it’s not the Gospel yet. It’s not good news, because it still condemns you. The reason Pharisees want to focus on outward actions instead of the heart, is because it is much easier to control your outward actions than to change your heart. But no one loves as he ought to. No one loves his neighbor as his own flesh at all times. And no one at all times loves God with his whole heart, soul, strength, and mind. Even if you go to church every Sunday and read your Bible every day, your heart is not always in it. So, the commandment still condemns you.

The book of Hebrews points this out. The author writes of the people of Israel failing to obtain God’s rest through the Sabbath, saying, “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” (Hebrews 4:8-9)

Here, Scripture shows us that we cannot enter God’s rest by works of the law, but only through faith in Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus has become our Sabbath rest, because he himself has fulfilled all the requirements of the Law and was punished for us in our place. This is why Jesus says in Matthew 11, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

In fact, it is so necessary that you consider Christ Jesus your rest, that St. Paul explains that the command to refrain from working on the Sabbath no longer applies to us. He writes in Colossians chapter 2, “Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are shadows of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” So, just as we are not required to celebrate the Passover anymore or to have our sons circumcised on the eighth day or to refrain from eating pork, shellfish, and rabbits, so also are we no longer forbidden to work on Saturday. These were all ceremonial laws meant to point to Christ. They were shadows. But Christ is the substance. Now that the substance has appeared, we may take our eyes off the shadow and focus them on Christ!

It is essential that you recognize this, because if you don’t you will lose sight that Christ Jesus alone is your Sabbath rest. You cannot find rest in your own outward observances. You can only find rest in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

However, this is not to say that we should not gather every week to worship God and hear his word. The outward observance of the Sabbath has been fulfilled in Christ, but the spirit of the Law continues. We cannot continue in sin, because Christ has fulfilled the Law. Martin Luther explains the Third Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it Holy.”, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” It is foolish even today to work seven days every week without taking a day off to rest. It is wise to have a designated day in the week to rest the body and gather together to focus on God’s Word, which is why the ancients observed Sunday, the day of Christ’s resurrection. It is necessary to take time to hear and learn God’s Word, to grow in faith, and to worship God with his people.

It is impossible to fulfill the Law without love. And it impossible to love unless you first receive God’s love. We love, because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). And indeed, God did first love us. Jesus came in humility to bear our iniquities and take away our diseases. To love is to be humble, because to love means that you put the needs of others before your own. This is what Christ did for us.

And to have faith is to be humble. If you are to receive Christ’s love, you must be humble. You must recognize that you are utterly unworthy of anything from God, to recognize that you are a sinner who has failed to fulfill the law both outwardly and inwardly. If you exalt yourself, claiming to be without sin or to not need God’s forgiveness, then you are exalting yourself above God’s grace. Scripture says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5) This means that it is impossible to be proud in heart and be a Christian. To be a Christian, you must be lowly and contrite in heart. To be filled with God’s grace, you must first be empty. As water gathers only in low places, so grace dwells only with those who are meek and lowly in heart. In order to meet Christ with his grace, you must meet him in humility.
This humility is a characteristic of the faith which receives God’s grace. This humility is also a characteristic of the love, which is produced by the faithful. As Christ in love humbles himself in order to save us, so we in humility meet Christ in faith. And likewise, we in humility love one another. St. Paul writes, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6)

Our common faith in our common Lord and Savior draws us to live selflessly among each other. Our goal is not to have a congregation of like-minded individuals, but a congregation who sets their own selfish minds aside in order to share the mind of Christ, who humbled himself for our sake (Philippians 2:5ff). Finding our Sabbath rest in Christ Jesus, we seek to love one another. We maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace by repenting of our own pride and insisting on Christ’s way, the way of patience and forgiveness. In this way, we do not only sanctify one of the seven days of the week, but we sanctify our entire lives. And the Sabbath rest extends far beyond a single day of the week, but Christ’s forgiveness gives our consciences rest every day of the week as we share it with one another.

It is indeed lawful to heal on the Sabbath. It is lawful to love. And it is meet, right, and salutary that we humbly trust in Christ and love our neighbor at all times and in all places, so that the Sabbath may be sanctified in us. Amen.

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The Spirit of the Law

9/26/2021

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Jacob Jordaens, "Jesus and the Pharisees," 1593-1678.

Trinity 17
Luke 14:1-11
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
September 26, 2021

There’s the letter of the law and then there’s the spirit of the law. The letter of the law uses words to command outward obedience. The spirit of the law is the meaning behind the words, the true intent of the commandment. If a mother tells her teenager to go to bed, and the teen sits in her bed until two o’clock in the morning talking to friends on the phone, she may have kept the letter of the law by going to bed, but she has broken the spirit of the law by staying up late. And so too, these Pharisees and lawyers are very good at keeping the letter of the law, but they prove that they have no intention of keeping the spirit of the law.

The letter of the law for the Third Commandment states, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11). The Pharisees and lawyers kept this commandment to the letter. The letter of the law is easy. But they failed to keep the spirit of the law.

What is the spirit of the Third Commandment? It is the spirit of every commandment: love. (Romans 13:9) The first table of the Law commands you to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” And the second table of the Law commands you to “love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39) And the Apostle Paul states, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:10) This is why Martin Luther in the Small Catechism begins his explanation to every commandment, “We should fear and love God, so that…” If you do not love, then you have not kept the commandment, even if you have followed the command to the letter.

And Jesus, who himself is the author of the entire law, demonstrates this perfectly by showing mercy on the man suffering from dropsy. Dropsy is an illness where a person retains fluids, so that his body swells. Jesus asked the Pharisees and lawyers whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. What Jesus was asking was whether it is lawful to love on the Sabbath. His opponents were silent, because they did not know the spirit of the law. Jesus broke the letter of the law by healing the poor man, so that he could keep the spirit of the law.

Sometimes the letter of the law needs to be broken in order for the spirit of the law to be kept. Jesus demonstrated this when he would heal people on the Sabbath day. The priest Ahimelech demonstrated this, when he took the show bread, which is only lawful for the priests to eat, and gave it to David and his men, because they were hungry and in distress (1 Samuel 21). Love and necessity may bring a Christian to break the letter of the law in order to keep the spirit. However, people will try to abuse this. Neither love nor necessity permits you to commit adultery or fornication, despite the abuse of the word love. It is not loving to serve a false god to avoid offending a non-Christian friend. Rather, love means to put God first and your neighbor’s needs before your own.

The purpose of the Third Commandment was two-fold. First, for the body. God commanded that the people of Israel observe the day of rest for themselves and for their servants and animals. It is neither healthy nor virtuous to work all day every day. Everyone should take a moment of rest for the sake of their body, mind, and soul. The second purpose of the commandment is for the soul. The Sabbath was a day to rest from your labors, so that you could hear and learn God’s holy Word. As Luther wrote in his hymn on the Commandment, “And put aside the work you do, So that God may work in you.” This commandment taught the people of Israel to love the LORD their God.

Because Jesus has fulfilled the Law by coming in the flesh, suffering and dying for our sins, and rising from the dead, we are no longer obligated to keep the letter of the Third Commandment by refraining from work on a particular day. St. Paul writes in Colossians chapter 2, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in question of food and drink, or with regard to festival or new moon or Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” This is why we are not forbidden from eating pork or shell fish, neither are we obligated to celebrate the Passover or the Feast of Booths. And we are not forbidden from working on Saturday. These were all a shadow. Christ is the substance.

Yet, the spirit of the law remains. We are still required to love God. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Jesus commands us to listen to his word and to believe in him. This is why Martin Luther explains the meaning of the Third Commandment like this, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”

Why do Christians go to church? Because they love Jesus. Jesus promises us that wherever two or three are gathered in his name, there is he in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20). After commanding that his disciples baptize and teach, he promises, “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) Jesus promises to be where his Word is taught and preached. He promises to be in the Sacraments, even feeding us his very body and blood every Sunday. Christians go to church, because they love Jesus. They want to be with him. The want to learn from him. They want to pray to him and praise him. They want to love those who love him. They want to be comforted by him.

Christians love Jesus, because they have faith in him. Jesus again invites us, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) Of course, the word Sabbath means rest. Jesus is our Sabbath rest. We love Jesus, because he gives us rest from our burden of sin. Jesus labored like no man has ever labored before. And he did it for us. He took our sin from us, so that all who come to him in faith are released of their burdens. We go to church out of faith and love toward Jesus Christ, who has redeemed us from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Through faith the spirit of the law is fulfilled in us, because through faith we love our Lord.

Christians go to church on Sunday, because Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday and from that week on, Christians have been gathering on the first day of the week to hear the teaching of Jesus, to pray, and to receive the Sacrament. In the year 303 AD, the Roman Emperor Diocletian declared an edict forbidding Christians from gathering to worship and commanded that they hand over their Sacred Writings. In February of 304 AD, 49 Christians in Abitinae, North Africa were caught gathering for worship on Sunday despite the prohibition. Although they were tortured, none of them denied their Lord. When the man who hosted the church service, Emeritus, was asked why he lent his home for this illegal activity, he answered, “Sine Dominico non possumus.”, which means, “Without Sunday (literally: the things of the Lord), we cannot live.” They loved the Lord Jesus. They could not live without going to church on Sunday to receive from him the rest Jesus’ promises in his word and Sacraments. These saints of Abitinae kept the Spirit of the Sabbath and each earned a martyr’s death.

After Jesus healed the man with dropsy, he told a parable about being humble. He concluded, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Jesus is not simply giving instructions on banquet etiquette. By teaching us to be humble, he is teaching us about faith and love.

The Proverb says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) Would you trust an art critic, who was blind? Would you be flattered if a deaf person told you that you had a beautiful singing voice? Of course not! Then why do you listen to your pride, which is blind to your faults and deaf to all constructive rebuke and criticism? Pride prevents you from having a repentant heart. It lies to you and justifies all your sins, so that you don’t feel bad. And pride does not trust in Christ. Why would someone sit in the place of honor, when he has not deserved it? Because he does not trust that he will be given a place of honor if he sits in a lower seat. People justify themselves, because they do not believe that God will justify them if they come to him in humility with their sins.

But the humble have faith. The humble confess their sins, that they are poor miserable sinners. The humble trust that God will raise them up based on his own mercy. This is what the man with dropsy did. He no doubt heard that Jesus had compassion on the afflicted, so he found Jesus and came to the banquet, despite the disgust others would have over him, because he trusted that Jesus would heal him. To be humble means to have faith that Christ will exalt you.

Pride is antithetical to love. A person who is proud loves himself. A person who is humble loves others instead of himself. We humble ourselves before God out of love for him. When we go to church to hear his word and to praise him, we are humbling ourselves to say that God is more important than anything else we have going on in our life. We humble ourselves before Jesus and acknowledge him as our Lord, because we love him instead of ourselves. And this love draws us to humble ourselves before our neighbors as well. St. Paul tells us in humility to count others more significant than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). Humility is the outward exercise of love, which is the spirit of all the commandments.

Jesus does not only demonstrate perfect love for us to imitate. Jesus perfectly loved us to save us from the disease of our sin. Through faith, we humbly receive Jesus’ love and are counted perfect by our heavenly Father. Faith in Christ’s love exalts us to the heavenly places, where we have been called to live with God for eternity. And this faith in Christ’s love also produces love in us, so that we seek to fulfill the commandments, not out of selfish ambition, but out of love for God who loves us and out of love for our neighbors, who are loved by God.

May Christ dwell in each of your hearts through faith, so that you may be forever grounded and rooted in love. Amen.

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Humility Before God Is Confidence in His Salvation

10/7/2020

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Trinity 17
Luke 14:1-11

Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
October 4, 2020

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

With these words our Lord Jesus not only sums up his parable, but he sums up one of the most common lessons throughout Holy Scripture. In his parable he explains that it is wise to pick the lowest place when invited to a wedding feast, because it is better to be told to come up higher than to be humiliated by being told to give up your seat for someone more important than you and walk blushing to a lower seat. This seems like good practical advice. There is no sense in trying to exalt yourself. It’s much better to let others lift you up. If a young man trying to impress a girl brags about how he can dunk a basketball, the girl will think much less of him if he then fails to reach the net than if he had never bragged at all. We can think of many more examples of how people are humiliated, because they claim to be something that they are not. Yet, if you work hard and let your work speak for yourself, you are much more likely to have others praise you. Yet, Jesus is not simply giving practical advice on how to deal with people. Jesus is giving us the most important lesson for how we should behave before God and how God acts toward us!
The entire Bible is filled with examples of God exalting the humble and humbling the proud. Cain was the first-born man on earth. His mother praised him at his birth. Yet, God accepted his younger brother Abel’s offering and rejected the offering of proud Cain. God chose Abraham, a man who called himself “dust and ashes,” to be the father of his chosen people. God chose Abraham’s younger son Isaac instead of the older and prouder Ishmael. God chose the younger brother Jacob over his older and favored brother Esau. God chose stuttering Moses to lead his people against mighty Pharah. God let the armies of Israel be defeated when they marched against their enemies confident in their great numbers. Yet, he gave Israel victory when they went out with much fewer soldiers trusting in the Lord for victory. God didn’t choose Jesse’s older, taller, and stronger sons, but the meek young boy David to be king over Israel. He didn’t choose a queen in a fine palace, but a poor Galilean girl to give birth to His Son in a stable in the lowly town of Bethlehem. This is why the Virgin Mary herself sang “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has exalted the lowly.”
Why is this the consistent pattern throughout Scripture? Why does God humble the proud and exalt the humble? Because he saves by grace, that is, he saves as a gift apart from works. We do not save ourselves. Only God can save.
And this also teaches us what it means to be humble before God. To be humble before God means to repent of your sins and trust in God for forgiveness and salvation. This is why we begin our worship by confessing our sins before God, acknowledging that we are poor, miserable sinners, who deserve both temporal and eternal punishment. It does you no good to deny your sinful condition. It does you no good to defend your sins or explain them away or make excuses. To be humble before God means that you acknowledge your sinful condition and acknowledge real sins that you have committed. To refuse to repent, to refuse to say sorry to God for what you have done wrong is to exalt yourself. It is to lift yourself up to a higher position, to sit at a higher seat. Yet, God will still see that you are a sinner. He will humble you. And the humiliation that comes from refusing to repent is damnation.
Yet, to be humble before God does not only mean that you are sorry for your sins. It includes faith in God’s forgiveness. Indeed, unless you have faith in God’s forgiveness, you cannot truly humble yourself. And it is a lack of faith in God’s mercy and forgiveness that drives so many to try to exalt themselves. Why do they try to lift themselves up? Because they are afraid to wait on God’s mercy! They doubt that God will actually forgive them if they were to acknowledge how far they fall short. But to humble oneself before God involves waiting on the Lord, knowing that he will indeed forgive, rescue, and restore you!
Yet, it is also important not to confuse humility with uncertainty. Often times people will interpret a Christian’s confidence in the Gospel with pride. And worse, Christians will think that their own confidence in God’s Word and promise is prideful. So, in an attempt to be humble, they will doubt God’s word. They’ll be timid and say they are not sure whether Baptism really forgives sins and saves or whether Jesus’ true body and blood are really present in the Lord’s Supper. They’ll doubt whether the pastor actually has authority to forgive sins. They’ll be unsure whether Jesus really is the only way to heaven, or whether we can actually know the truth. They’ll doubt whether salvation is really a pure gift or whether they must do enough good works to be save. This uncertainty and doubt are falsely interpreted as humility, but it is nothing of the sort! Rather, it is arrogant pride that would cast doubt on the true words of Christ and subjugate Holy Scripture to the fickle thoughts of men.
True humility is to stand on the Word of God, to believe God’s promises in Christ and to hold on to these promises even against the whole world and every devil of hell! This is why Scripture says, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” And why St. Paul writes, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” St. Paul is strong, because he holds on to God’s word and promise against all attacks and persecutions. When you boldly confess your faith in Christ, in the Baptism with which he washes you, in the Supper he feeds you, in the forgiveness he declares to you, yes, in every word he teaches you in Scripture, your boldness is not pride, but humility; you trust not in yourself, but in Christ your Lord.
True humility produces true love. Love is the fulfillment of the law. Yet, we know that we cannot fulfill the law. Rather, the law exposes us as sinners and condemns us for our sin. This is why our faith requires humility. We acknowledge that we have fallen short. We acknowledge that we are sinners. In humility we receive forgiveness and salvation as a gift, which we have not earned. Yet, this faith produces fruits of love that those who refuse to humble themselves can never produce.
If you trust in yourself to fulfill the law and to please God instead of humbly repenting of your sins and trusting in Christ, then you will fail to love. Look at the Pharisees, who despised the man suffering from dropsy. They thought they were righteous. They thought they had fulfilled the law. Yet, they lacked love! They arrogantly sat themselves at the high table and Christ humiliated them.
This is the story of Satan. Satan was an exalted angel. Yet, it is said, he attempted to usurp Christ’s high position and as a result was cast down from heaven. This is why Jesus tells his disciples, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18) And so, everyone who tries to exalt himself follows in Satan’s steps. And as Satan was cast down to hell, so will everyone who refuses to humble himself.
Yet, as Satan sought to exalt himself, Jesus did the exact opposite. No one had claim to a higher position that Jesus the Son of God. Yet, he humbled himself by taking on the form of a servant. And although he had no sins of his own, he took on our sin in human flesh and died the humiliating death of crucifixion on a cross. The guilt of all mankind, including all your guilt, clung to Christ Jesus and he took responsibility for it all. No being ever has or ever will endure such humiliation. And as a result, Scripture says, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)
Therefore, everyone who has faith in Jesus follows in his humility, not in an attempt to make atonement for his own sins, but in confidence that as God the Father raised up Christ, so he will raise up everyone, who trusts in the atonement Christ. As we follow Christ in his humiliation, so we follow him in his exaltation.
This humility produces true love, because it receives the love of Jesus. You can count others more significant than yourself, because you trust that God will make up for anything you lose here on earth. As Jesus out of love for you humbled himself, so you have the desire out of love to humble yourself to your neighbor. Imperfectly, yes. In this life you remain tainted by sin in your actions. Yet, faith still produces its fruit to demonstrate who you really are in Christ Jesus.
When Jesus says, “he who humbles himself will be exalted,” he is promising us that God will exalt us to heaven if we repent of our sins and trust in Christ. As Jesus endured the greatest humiliation, even laying his body down to death, confident that God will exalt him out of the grave and into heaven, so we humble ourselves before God confident is his promise to lift us up. In humility we acknowledge our salvation as a free gift, which we have not earned, but which God gladly and willingly bestows on us for Christ’s sake. Amen.

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Trinity 17 God Exalts the Humble by Grace through Faith

9/24/2018

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Luke 14:1-11
September 23, 2018

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” These words are repeated in one form or another several times throughout the holy Scriptures, including from our Lord’s mouth a number of times. The mother of our Lord, the Virgin Mary herself spoke such words in her Magnificat, when she rejoiced for the child in her womb, saying, “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.” And in her song, Mary expresses nothing more than what is consistently repeated in Scripture. Psalm 113 articulates it well, “He raises up the poor out of the dust and lifts the needy out of the dunghill; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.” (vss. 7-8)
And what Jesus is teaching with this statement is nothing short of the hope that all we Christians cling to: we are saved by grace apart from our works. He who exalts himself will be humbled. Who will humble him? God will. God casts down the mighty from their thrones and humbles the proud. He who humbles himself will be exalted. Again, who will exalt him? God will. God exalts the humble, that is, those who claim the lowest place at the banquet. God exalts those, who claim nothing from their works, but rely purely on God’s grace.
Exalting yourself before God is a foolish thing to do. While you might be able to convince others that you are great or even convince yourself that you are righteous, God cannot be fooled. He searches the innermost heart of man. He who searches the mind of God and knows his inner thoughts certainly can search you and find any blemish there is to find. And we all know there is plenty for the Lord to find wrong with each of us.
So, it is foolish to exalt yourself, yet that does not mean that people don’t try. In fact, it’s quite difficult not to exalt yourself. Humbling yourself is much more challenging. Because, to humble yourself you must rely solely on God to elevate you to a proper place. Fear creeps in, “What if God doesn’t exalt me? Will I be stuck at this miserably low spot?” And that is why people try to exalt themselves. They trust in themselves that they can get a better spot at God’s banquet. And they don’t trust God to give them an adequate spot.
So, you see, to humble yourself takes faith. To humble yourself, you must trust that God will lift you up. Those, who refuse to humble themselves lack faith that God will exalt them. Those who do humble themselves trust in God, that he will give them a greater position in his Kingdom than anyone could dream for himself.
St. Paul teaches us how to have such faith. He writes in Philippians chapter 3, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as dung, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” (3:8-9) St. Paul, who certainly could claim much higher works than any of us, does not count any of them toward his credit or boast to sit at a higher seat. Rather, he trusts that God raises the needy out of the dung heap and, having washed them all clean, sets them before princes.
Now, how can St. Paul do this? How can he so readily let go of his good works and take such a lowly spot for himself? Because he has faith that God has instore for him a much greater position than he could ever gain from all his works. Again, St. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:8, “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”
That God exalts the humble means that God saves sinners by grace apart from their works. But to humble yourself to receive such grace takes faith in God’s promise to exalt you. Therefore, grace and faith cannot be divorced. To be saved through faith means that you are saved by grace.
Now, how lowly must you humble yourself, so that you can be exalted by God? Jesus says in Matthew 18, “Whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Yet, truly, we must humble ourselves even lower, yes, even to death. Unless your sinful old Adam die, so that you can be raised again to new life by the Holy Spirit, you cannot be saved.
Our pride tries to save our old Adam. We want to say there is still something good in us that we can show to God, so that we don’t have to trust solely on his grace. But God says, “No, you can’t save the old Adam. He must be drowned. He must be crucified with Christ and be destroyed.” And this is why we return each week with the same confession, “I, a poor miserable sinner, confess unto you all my sins and iniquities...” The old Adam continues to rise again. This is why St. Paul writes in Romans 7, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh.” And again, he writes in Colossians 3:
“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” (3-11)
So, we learn that we must die every day and take the lowest spot with full confidence that God will raise us up again through faith in Christ.
You can have such confidence that God will exalt you, because Christ Jesus humbled himself, even to the point of death on the cross. He had the right to claim equality with God, yet he took the position of sinners for your sake. And God has highly exalted Jesus, who plunged himself into the mire of your sins and into the pit of hell, as he suffered the consequence of your sins on the cross. Jesus did this confident that God would raise him from the dead and place him above all things. So, when you humble yourself by repenting of your sins and claiming nothing in yourself to earn your salvation before God, you join yourself to Jesus’ death. You trust that if you have died with Christ through faith and through Baptism, that God will surely raise you from the dead, just as he raised Christ Jesus.
Humbling yourself is scary if you don’t know if you will be lifted up. But when you look to Christ, who has been exalted by God, even after being smeared with all your sins, then you have confidence that you too will be raised. Christ is your assurance that God will tell you to move up higher. Your Baptism is a token that you can remember even now, your own personal rainbow in the sky, which assures you of God’s promise. When Jesus tells you to humble yourself, he is not telling you to grovel before the hangman in a last-ditch effort to spare your life. He is telling you to take off your dirty robes and trust that God will give you a princely robe. Trust not in yourself, but in God, who has promised you every good thing through the merits of Jesus Christ alone.
Through humility, you learn that God deals with you by grace, not according to your own works. This grants you great peace with God now and for eternity. Yet, humility also creates peace and unity here in the church on earth. When each person considers the other more significant than himself, peace is sustained. St. Paul writes in our Epistle lesson, “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Humility, bearing with one another’s burdens helps maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. How easy it is to think of others and their need to repent when you hear the law preached. Yet, God wants you to examine yourself and think of your own need for repentance. Do not seek out the sins in others, but seek out the sin in your own heart, so that you can repent and be filled with the Holy Spirit. When you consider that your place in God’s kingdom is a pure gift given to you by grace, not on account of your own goodness, you cannot boast to be a better Christian than the other soiled lambs, who come to be cleansed in Jesus’ flock.
Humility leads us to forgive the fault in others, to strive for unity in Christ and not force our own ways upon others. When we trust in God’s grace alone on account of Jesus’ merit, we have no need to tear others down so to make ourselves look better. God will lift each of us higher than we could ever imagine for ourselves. And so, it should be a joy to lift others up now, knowing that we lose nothing from it.
When you rely on God’s grace you are able to focus on loving your neighbor. The Pharisees were offended that Jesus broke the Sabbath to heal someone, because they did not know that the law is subordinate to love. They used the law only to advance themselves, so that they could establish for themselves a higher seat at God’s table. But the law was given, that we might love our neighbor. Jesus fulfilled the law of the Sabbath by loving his sick neighbor. But this can only be understood if you yourself have received God’s love. This can only be done through faith when you humble yourself to receive God’s love.
He who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. These are terrifying words to those who trust in themselves. But for us, who fear the consequence of our sins and trust in Jesus, these are the most comforting words we can hear. These words are a promise from God that he will exalt us, who trust in Jesus and not in ourselves. May we always believe this promise until God lifts us up to dine with him on the Last Day. Amen.

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Trinity 17: God Exalts the Humble

10/9/2017

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Luke 14:1-11

"For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." It is certainly good advice to be humble. It does no one any good to boast. Rather, let your actions speak for themselves. If you are invited to a wedding and you sit in the best man's seat you will with red face have to walk through the hall of wedding guests to your own seat when the true best man arrives. And if a young lad boasts to a pretty lady that he can dunk a basketball, he'll lose every chance of dating her when he fails to swipe the net.

But humility isn't just good advice, it is a Christian virtue, indeed, it is the God given second nature given to a Christian through faith in Christ. St. Paul urges you in our epistle lesson to "walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love..." Why is humility a manner worthy of your calling? Because you have been called to follow Christ Jesus. No one has humbled himself so greatly as our dear Jesus did. St. Paul writes to the Philippians in chapter two:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:3-11)

We Christians want to imitate Jesus. He is our Brother, our Master, our Friend, and our Savior. If such humility is not beneath him, then none of us can claim to be too good to humble ourselves to serve our neighbor in any way we can.

Our Lord's humility is the source of our salvation. Had not Jesus humbled himself to the point of death then we all would be damned for eternity. Jesus, who is the eternal Son of God lowered himself lower than any sinner, even those in the depths of hell. He suffered the greatest wrath any being has ever suffered. And he did this to save us from the punishment of our sins. And now our Lord is exalted above every name, he is to be worshipped by all for all time. And our Lord did not ascend to heaven alone. He leads a train of captives now freed from sin. He exalts us with him, having freed us from the depths of hell. All glory be to Jesus forever!

Yet, we do not humble ourselves only to imitate Christ and behave as Christians, although we certainly do that. But being humble is how you become a Christian. You must be humble to receive salvation by grace. Many have this mistaken view that you become a Christian by being a good person. If you're honest, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and read your Bible then you become a Christian. They think that if God is impressed enough by your good works then he'll call you one of his Christians. But this is not the way you become a Christian. St. Paul writes, "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in God's sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." (Rom. 3:20) In fact, St. Paul, whose good works would put all of ours to shame, said this about his good works, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith." (Philippians 3:8-9)

This is why our hymn of the month is so fantastic! No other hymn articulates the Christian faith so concisely! Just listen:
Salvation unto us has come
By God's free grace and favor;
Good works cannot avert our doom,
They help and save us never.
Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone,
Who did for all the world atone;
He is our one Redeemer. (Paul Speratus, LSB 555)

This hymn articulates the biblical truth that our salvation is a free gift from God and it does not depend on our works at all. "Good works cannot avert our doom." What does that mean? It means that there is nothing you can do, no matter how fabulous you think it might be, that can prevent your damnation. When you come before God asking to enter heaven, God doesn't want you to offer him anything. He wants you to come to him completely empty handed, humble, and lowly, so that he can give you eternal life purely as his gift to you. If you do not come empty handed, then you will put your trust in something other than Christ Jesus, and that is idolatry. God wants you to trust in Jesus Christ alone, and not in your own works.

God commands that you come before him empty and humble, not because he gets some strange satisfaction in humiliating those to whom he gives gifts. Rather, God intends to rescue you from your sinful condition. God isn't trying to get you to accept a fake reality. God wants you to grasp on to the true reality of your situation. You are a lost and condemned sinner, who can offer nothing to God to earn your salvation. Our hymn puts it perfectly, "From sin our flesh could not abstain, Sin held its sway unceasing; The task was useless and in vain, Our guilt was e'er increasing. None can remove sin's poisoned dart Or purify our guileful heart— So deep is our corruption." (Ibid, Stz. 4) God wants you to realize the gravity of this situation, so that he can save you by grace and rescue you from your sinful condition.

On Monday in the wake of Sunday night's horrific mass murder, many of us were glued to the news waiting new information. After the murderer was identified I saw a headline that stated, "The Face of Evil." But when I looked at the first pictures released of the evil man, who wreaked such havoc in Las Vegas, I saw an ordinary man, whom you wouldn't be surprised to see in the grocery store or even in one of these pews. "The Face of Evil" looks just like you and me.

Of course, you can't actually see evil. Evil is on the inside. But the fact remains, evil is within every one of you and me. Jesus says, "Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander," (Matthew 15:19). These are what defile a person and they are all within us. The evil that grew and festered within last Sunday's murderer is the same evil that originates within our hearts. It is only by God's grace that we are kept from committing such heinous crimes. This is why these things keep happening. Atrocities like the Nazi's genocide of Europe's Jews to the murder and displacement of millions of Christians in the Middle East will continue to happen, because the evil which causes it is deeply rooted in the human heart.

This is why we bring our babies to be baptized. As cute as they are, we know that they are born sinners. They cannot choose to come to Christ. God must come to them. So, we bring them to Baptism, so that God may give them a new heart and wash away their sins in the blood of Christ.

And even after we are baptized our sinful flesh still fights against our new man to keep us from doing what we want to do. And so, we confess our sins every Sunday. The words, "I, a poor, miserable sinner," are not pandering to God. We are confessing a dark truth that dwells within us. And we come to our merciful God for him to wash it out and raise us out of our darkness.

You see now how obscene it is to present your good works to God as payment for your sins. That would be to boast in your sin and to offer God filth. But rather, aware of our sins we offer God nothing and claim nothing, but the blood of Jesus, which has washed away our sins. And with that humble faith our God lifts us up, not to a false security, but upon the certain foundation of Christ. And when your faith is founded on Christ you have certainty that God will exalt you to heaven.

Do not seek the glory of people. Sure, you can impress them and it might feel good for a while, but it will end. Seek rather the glory of God. And you can't fool him. God glorifies those of a humble and contrite heart.

The world despises humility. And when you are humble it is easy for others to abuse you. But do not be embarrassed by your humility or weakness. St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12, "But the Lord said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (12:9-10) When I am weak, then I am strong. Wouldn't you exchange all your strength for Jesus' strength? Wouldn't you exchange all of your boasting, so that you could boast in Christ? Yes, this is what it means to be a Christian. The Christian says, "Far be it from me to boast in anything, except in our Lord Jesus Christ." (Gal. 6:14)

The humble shall follow their Lord, who humbled himself on the cross and is exalted to the right hand of the Father. They too shall be exalted. Amen.

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

Sanctifying the Sabbath

The Spirit of the Law

Humility Before God Is Confidence in His Salvation

Trinity 17 God Exalts the Humble by Grace through Faith

Trinity 17: God Exalts the Humble

Rev. James Preus

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