Sermons

At Easter, the church, kept from gathering in the sanctuary by an epidemic, worships at home, each in their own house. In that time, joined together online, the world is held captive by fear, and the church too is passing through an age in which it is hard to keep the faith.

The time shut in at home becomes either a blessing or a judgment, depending on how it is seen. Just as Obed-Edom, who brought the ark of God into his house, was blessed because he rejoiced rather than being afraid, if families worshiped and prayed together in that time, it was a time of blessing given by God. Jesus told his troubled disciples that there are many rooms in his Father’s house, and that house is an eternal dwelling place that even Satan cannot invade.

Only those who keep the faith without fearing death enter that dwelling place. God’s people must not be afraid or proud, must not compromise with the world, and must hold fast to the word. Then they will live in the glory of God in the eternal home that Christ has prepared.

Jerusalem falls, and King Zedekiah is carried away captive to Babylon. He suffers the humiliation of having both his eyes put out. Though king and people quarrel among themselves like drunken men, God does not restrain them, and he declares that he will have no pity on them.

This is not God casting them off in a fit of anger. Judgment came because they would not turn back, though he had given them countless opportunities to repent. Those who do not fear God do not fear sin, and those who do not fear sin come to despise his word. The belt of authority given to kings and priests is used for their own glory. When it is, that belt is thrown away like a ruined one.

God’s people, too, are divided by obedience and disobedience, and will receive either reward or judgment. Yet Jesus Christ, who conquered death through the cross, will come again like a thief. Those who hold fast to their faith as the Word teaches will welcome his return.

Jesus gave himself as a ladder that stands always beside the steps of faith. The Creator came down to this earth, which he had made his footstool, and for the sake of sinners he cut himself into small pieces and drove in the nails, becoming a ladder.

Each Christian’s faith is different, yet whatever step one stands on, no one can climb without this ladder. Those who cling to the things of the world, determined to live by their own strength, and never set foot on the ladder can only end up back in the place of death.

On the day the angel’s trumpet sounds, this ladder will be gone forever. Before that day, while the opportunity to repent remains, one must take hold of the ladder and climb it to receive eternal life.

When an eagle’s beak and talons grow dull, it tears them all away itself on the rocky crags, and only after enduring a season in which it can neither eat nor fly does it rise higher into the open sky on a new beak and new talons. A young eagle, too, is able to fly only after a long training in which its mother drops it from the nest and catches it again, over and over.

This is the path a Christian must walk. Only with the resolve to cast off falsehood, hypocrisy and bad habits can a person stand in a renewed faith, and suffering is the hand of God letting go and catching again and again, to make his people strong. So it was with Moses: only after forty years as a prince and forty more as a shepherd in the wilderness did he come to see his own helplessness and become a leader who obeyed.

The story of Abraham, standing before the command to offer up Isaac, points to the same conclusion. True faith does not hold on to its own righteousness and its own zeal but entrusts everything wholly to God. Christians who lay aside the old things they once relied on in the world and gain new strength through patience come to know the freedom and peace of an eagle soaring through the open sky.

As the disciples were crossing by boat to Capernaum, a storm came upon them. When the waves rose high in the darkness, they forgot everything: the words they had heard until then, even the miracle of the five loaves and two fish. Only the waves before their eyes remained, and these became the object of their fear.

Satan sends such hardships to shake the faith of God’s people. Yet those who keep their faith and their lives apart can do nothing but tremble whenever trouble comes. Peter, too, saw Jesus coming to them over the waves and boldly stepped out onto the water, but when he saw the strong wind, fear seized him again and he sank.

Faith is made complete not in feelings but when it is shown in action. Whoever doubts, even with Jesus right before them, goes down into the water; but whoever holds on to his hand and relies on him to the end can walk even upon the roughest waves. May God’s people sail boldly across the sea of this world with a faith as great as a warship.

Because people are so preoccupied with the Second Coming and with salvation, heretical sects are springing up among those who have fallen for Satan’s schemes instead of living by the Word. Satan, who tempted Adam and brought him into death, is a fallen archangel, cast out when he tried to seize the place of God, and even now he clouds people’s minds so that they hear the gospel and still fail to understand it.

That Satan can foretell the future is no marvel; it shows that a spirit cast out for opposing God really does exist. Those who have met Jesus Christ love their brothers and strive to keep away from sin, while those who have not met him go on following their own nature, and their lives make it plain. The heresies and false christs now flooding the world, along with wars, famines and earthquakes and such things as the legalization of homosexuality, are signs that the Second Coming is near.

No one knows the day or the hour, yet the faithful, as children of light, must stay awake and keep themselves sober. Satan does not bring a person down at a single stroke; he makes a small cut and leaves them to rot from within. But whoever holds out, even in small ways, will find that God guards that life and makes it grow. For those who walk the way of truth, God becomes a shield and a fortress, so they must not be afraid, but must be ready to meet Jesus Christ with lives that bring no shame.

As Saul heads toward Damascus, an intense light pours down before him and a voice speaks. Struck blind and fallen to the ground, he realizes that the Jesus he has been persecuting is the living God. Though dismayed at the command to heal the eyes of his enemy, Ananias obeys.

After meeting Christ, Saul immediately leaves behind the faith of the Jews and enters a life of proclaiming the gospel. Yet he confesses that two hearts are at war within him. Because it was a faith that could be kept only by giving up human righteousness, a heart thankful for grace and the weakness of the flesh were always in conflict. He was beaten, shipwrecked, and even carried an illness in his body, but God did not take that thorn away. Instead, it was the hand that held him back from becoming proud.

Faith is sometimes full, like a high mountain, and sometimes collapses, like a deep valley. On the mountain, believers must be humble; in the valley, they must cry out to God. The glory of the world collapses in a moment, but faith that holds fast to Christ does not collapse.

The owner of the vineyard orders the fig tree that has borne no fruit for three years to be cut down. The vinedresser pleads with him to leave it alone for just this year, promising to dig around it and put manure on it.

To be cut down is not a passing punishment but eternal destruction. Even so, Jesus does not give up on his people when they bear no fruit; even now he is pleading with God in his wrath to grant them this one year. We are here today because of that plea, because of God’s patience, and because the Holy Spirit has kept us.

The years gone by cannot be called back, like an arrow once shot into the air, but the time ahead can still be filled with as much good as we choose. Whether or not we have served faithfully until now, we must put it all behind us and, with the gifts we have received, bear the fruit of repentance, prayer, devotion and love. May each of us ask whether we have become a tree thick with leaves yet bare of fruit, and make 2020 the year in which opportunity becomes blessing.

The last Sunday of 2019 is a time to look back over the year. Even as a great windstorm arises and the boat is about to sink, Jesus sleeps on undisturbed, and the disciples wake him and cry out in complaint.

Being afraid and complaining when trouble comes is entirely different from believing that Jesus is there in the boat and giving commands by the word. The disciples had already heard and seen the word of truth, yet they never tried giving the command themselves and did nothing but complain to Jesus, and Jesus, seeing this, rebuked their lack of faith. Every problem met that year, too, is not something to complain about; it is each person’s own part, which they must deal with themselves by holding fast to the word.

When the time given is not simply let slip away but filled with faith that walks with God, that time becomes meaningful. God has promised that blessing will come upon those who listen to his word, wherever they go and in whatever they do. In the new year, may the church believe that promise and live with its self-esteem kept intact.

Parents who send a son off to the army are afraid, even though they know he will come home. In the same way, we celebrate the birth of Jesus while knowing that the cross lies ahead of him. Just as God had promised when he spoke to Satan, the offspring of the woman was born in a manger.

Immanuel means that God is with us. Mary could have lost her life by becoming pregnant, yet she answered that she wanted it to be done to her according to God’s word. She knew her son would bear the cross, and still she raised him to the very end. Her sorrow was greater than the joy of fulfilling her calling, but she embraced it because it brought God’s promise to pass.

God sent his Son into the world not to condemn it but to save it. Whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. Christmas is not a festival of the world. It belongs to God’s people, who believe this truth.

Joseph proudly tells his brothers about his dream, in which their sheaves of grain bowed down to his own. Jacob’s favoritism had already turned them against him, yet Joseph gave no thought at all to how they felt; all he could do was boast that they had bowed before him.

Faith has steps like these as well. When Christians come to know a little of the Word, receive a church office and begin to serve, they reach a low, sharp peak, where conceit at knowing God well and pride begin to grow. The sin most often committed at this stage is judging the weak faith of other believers. Joseph, too, was spiritually immature, and so he failed to grasp God’s greater purpose and put his own boasting first.

Through his season of suffering Joseph came to see that even his brothers had been instruments in God’s plan, and in the end he fulfilled his calling to save his whole family. Christians who never climb past this step remain like stagnant water, however many years they attend church. But when they discipline and humble themselves, holding fast to their faith out of love for God, they come to true maturity and to their reward.

Lot’s wife was led out of Sodom by the hand of an angel, yet her heart stayed behind with the wealth and the relationships she had left. She knew that life lay in running on with judgment at her back, but in the end she looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Faith is not made by dragging someone along. Self-deception, laziness, discourtesy and stubbornness, not knowing what should come first: to see such stumbling blocks and leave them where they lie is a road that ends in a fall. David, too, stumbled at a time of ease after his victories in battle, because he had not cleared his stumbling blocks away.

When the Word collides with human nature and stumbling blocks begin to come into view, that shows how far one has grown. They must be cleared away the moment they are seen, for that is the way up the steps of faith.