Pentecost 18 – 18 September 2016 – Year C

Pentecost 18 – 18 September 2016 – Year C

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is our Gospel reading is written in the 16^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Luke: Verses 1 – 13. (King James Version.)

He also said to His disciples: "There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.” So he called him and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.' "Then the steward said within himself, 'What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. 'I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.' "So he called every one of his master's debtors to him, and said to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'  "And he said, 'A hundred measures of oil.' So he said to him, 'Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.'  "Then he said to another, 'And how much do you owe?' So he said, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' And he said to him, 'Take your bill, and write eighty.'  "So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.  "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.  "He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. "Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?  "And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own?  "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

If we were to take an inventory of the things we have in our home, we would find things of various levels of value. At the bottom of the scale there would be things of no value at all, things we would immediately decide to throw away. Then there would be things we would decide to keep because we might find them useful someday, but we probably wouldn’t miss them if we were deprived of them. There would be things we would not want to lose, things we use, things that are valuable to us but which we could replace. Then finally at the top of the scale there would be the things that we value most highly, things we would most hate to lose, things we could not replace.

Whilst it is useful for us to take such an inventory, it is even more useful and important to include in such an inventory our spiritual possessions. We need to remind ourselves that what we have consists of more than a house, a car, stocks, bonds, or a bank balance. We have blessings from the Lord that are immeasurable and eternal.

On the basis of what the Lord says in our text, It is just this kind of inventory and appraisal of the things we have, that He encourages us to make. Jesus is instructing us to properly judge the value of what we have; that is to learn what is most valuable and what is less valuable. 

If we are true to God’s Word and our baptism confession, we would like to think that even in our weakest moments, our possessions as believers, consist of more than the material things that we have. We also have the forgiveness of sins; we have our standing as God’s children and heirs; we have Jesus as our Saviour and friend; the Holy Spirit dwelling within us; we have everlasting life. These are eternal possessions, the value of which cannot be measured. There is nothing that can be compared to them. When we lay these things alongside our material possessions, we immediately see in Jesus and His grace what is most valuable, and that there is no comparison.

It is this spiritual understanding that keeps our sinful human nature in an ongoing battle with the temptation to make earthly abundance our god. It is against this temptation that the Lord warns us in the last verse of our text: “We cannot serve God and mammon.” It isn’t that we should despise the material things that we have. It isn’t that we should treat them as if they were of no value at all. For the material things that we have are gifts of God. The employment that we have whereby we earn our daily bread is a gift of God. The roof over our head that shelters us from heat and cold and rain, the car that provides us with transportation, the food that we eat that provides nourishment to sustain our body and life--all these things, and many more, are gifts of God, for which we ought to give thanks. We also ask our Lord for these things; He Himself taught us to pray for them in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” It would be ungrateful of us and sinful to despise these things and treat them as worthless. 

Our text is not about the worth of our God given gifts, what our text tells us, is that we are to continually estimate correctly their value. We are to understand that they are God’s lesser gifts because He Himself tells us that they are. When Jesus talked about the things we need for our daily life He said not to worry about them. Jesus tells us ^{Matt. 6:32-33}; “Our heavenly Father knows that we need all these things, - Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”. He taught us to pray for daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer but in only one petition of the seven. The rest of them all deal with spiritual things: that God’s name should be hallowed among us, that His kingdom come and His will be done among us, that our sins be forgiven and that we be delivered from temptation and all evil.

The Lord teaches us the lesser value of material blessings so that we do not abuse them by setting our heart on them and by making them our god. When we set our heart on material things and place our trust in them we are treating those things as if they were above God. God wants us to set our heart on Him in good times and bad, whether we are rich or poor and ask of Him the best that He has to give.

In our text, Jesus is also teaching us to make that which is less valuable serve what is most valuable, and then, knowing the comparative value of material gifts and spiritual gifts we are to use the lesser gifts to serve the greater ones. This is the lesson of the parable of the Unjust Steward. This is one of the strangest and most striking of the parables of Jesus. It is strange because in it He teaches a positive lesson by pointing us to a man who is dishonest.

He was a steward, with the delegated authority to manage his master’s wealth. It was common for rich men to be illiterate and therefore ignorant in the ways of management, and so, as in this case, they handed over full power of attorney to a Steward or ‘Business Manager’ – undoubtedly to be a Steward one held a position of trust and integrity. This particular Steward was accused of wasting and squandering his master’s wealth and of course when the master learned of his conduct he gave him an immediate dismissal notice - he was about to be out of a job. Suddenly finding himself in this position, the man shrewdly lowered the debts of the master’s debtors, thereby putting them in his debt, so that they would help him out when he lost his position as steward. It was quick thinking on his part. He was just about to lose his position, so in the blinking of an eye, he allowed his masters debtors to illegally cheat the master by reducing the amount on their bill. He had it over them, they would have to support him when he was out of a job. Even the master himself had to hand it to the rascal that he was a shrewd one. 

Jesus tells us the lesson of the parable. Use the lesser gifts of God to serve the greater gifts. He calls material wealth “unrighteous mammon,” – now we could say it’s because money is so much connected with unrighteousness in this world, after all, 1 Timothy 6:10 speaks of the love of money as a root of all kinds of evil – But more to the point, the question is ‘What material possessions do any of us have that we rightfully earned for ourselves – do any of us have righteous possessions?” – Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God, and in His grace He bestows on us the gifts that we enjoy. ^{Romans 3: 1} “As it is written there is none righteous, no, not one”.  You see it is not God’s gracious gift of money in itself that is evil; it is the heart of mankind that is evil and puts money to evil purposes and commits evil to get it. It can also be put to good purposes, and we do put it to good purposes every day when we use it to buy food, clothing, and shelter for our families or when we use it to help someone in need. But our Lord teaches here that money can be put to even higher uses and be made to serve even higher purposes than providing for the needs of this life. It can be used to support the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. It can be used to build churches where the name of Jesus Christ is taught. It can be used to build and support a school where the Word of God is taught. It can be used to support those who then can devote their time and energy to the study of the Word and the teaching of it. 

How does Jesus say this in our text? "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” As we support the ministry of the Gospel with “unrighteous mammon” people are benefiting from that ministry. Souls are saved as people come to believe in Jesus, have their sins forgiven, and receive the gift of eternal life. Then when we fail, as Jesus says, when our life here is over, those people who heard the Gospel through our offerings will be there to welcome us into our eternal home. This is something for us all to ponder. Think of how people like to use their money, what they dream of doing with it. Think of the things they long to buy: the houses, the cars, the vacations. We, too, dream of such things. Then again, all of that will soon pass away and be gone. The houses will be occupied by someone else, the cars will rust, the vacations and good times over and forgotten. However the money spent to support the Gospel will actually have results that will not pass away.

Jesus encourages us to do just this. It doesn’t matter how much we have. What matters is how we use it. What can I do with my money, during this short time I am on this earth, to gain eternal friends? What can I do, to help someone else find out about the greatest donation ever made?

Many years ago a woman was preparing a box to be sent to some missionaries in Asia. A child gave her ten cents, which she used to purchase a Christian tract for the box. Eventually, this tract reached a Burmese chief and was used to lead him to a saving faith in Christ. That chief told the story of his conversion to his friends, many of whom believed. Eventually, a church was established there, and over 1500 people were baptised into Christ’s fellowship of believers, His Christian church on earth. No gift is too small for God to use.  

Friends, please be sure here, Jesus doesn’t say that we are able to buy a place in heaven with our offerings. No, Jesus bought that place for us in His shameful and innocent death on a cross and in His glorious resurrection; our gift of forgiveness and eternal life is a demonstration of God’s incomprehensible gift of grace for us and for all. He only calls us to respond to His grace with free-will offerings and service, that we will surely receive blessings and reward beyond measure when His will be done freely from a thankful heart. 

May the Lord ever teach us rightly to judge the value of what we have that we may use the lesser gifts of God in service of the greatest of His gifts. Amen.

The love and peace of our great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Pentecost 17 – 11 September 2016 – Year C

Pentecost 17 – 11 September 2016 – Year C

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

 

The text for this meditation is written in the 15^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Luke: Verses: 1–10:

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. ² And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

³ So he told them this parable: ⁴ “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? ⁵ And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ ⁷ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

The Parable of the Lost Coin

⁸ “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? ⁹ And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ ¹⁰ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Today’s Gospel comes from the great ‘Lost and Found’ chapter of Luke.  This chapter contains one grand parable that Jesus told in three different stories.  There is the story of the ‘Lost Sheep,’ the ‘Lost Coin,’ and the Prodigal Son.

Jesus wove common themes into all three of these stories.  There is the thing or person who is lost.  This represents all mankind for we are all sinners at birth and are lost before God.  Then there is the seeker who finds the lost.  This is Jesus who endured incredible shame in order to find us and take us back into His family.  Then there is the joy of finding the thing that was lost.  Jesus compared this to the joy of heaven and the joy of the angels over the sinner who repents.

The context of this grand parable is the grumbling of the Pharisees and the scribes.  They said, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”  Jesus told this parable in response to their grumbling.

Sadly, most of us are like those Pharisees and scribes.  We do not see ourselves as sinners.  We see ourselves as one of the nine coins that remained in the woman’s purse.  We see ourselves as one of the compliant, obedient ninety-nine sheep that stayed with the shepherd.  Jesus told this grand parable of three stories because it is in our nature to think that God loves us just because we are so lovable.  The three stories in this grand parable teach us that God loves the unlovable.  God rescues the sinner.  He brings the sinner to repentance.

Jesus talked about repentance twice in today’s Gospel reading.  After He spoke of finding the lost sheep, He said, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”  Then, after finding the lost coin, He said, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”   Repentance is so important that after Jesus rose from the dead, He said that the mission of the church was to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in the name of Christ.

We have a real problem with repentance; It go against our human nature, and so we often skip over the words without thinking about what it means. We should understand that true repentance consists of two parts.  The first being that we must admit that we truly are sinners, and then having done that, feel genuine remorse (or sorrow) that we do continually sin. We don’t like that.  We would prefer to think that we are good people.  That was the problem that the Pharisees and scribes had.  This is still our problem today.  Jesus told this grand ‘Lost and Found’ parable in order to teach the Pharisees, scribes and us what John wrote in his first epistle: ^{[1 John 1:8, 10]} If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. … If we say we have not sinned, we make [God] a liar, and his word is not in us.

A few years ago, I saw an example of our natural tendency to reject the life of repentance.  It was a Facebook post by a prominent theologian that said, “Jesus loves it when we tell Him how bad we are.”  The responses to this post were very negative.  The general theme was, “Who is the idiot who taught you that?”

Twice, Jesus taught about the joy of repentance.  “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. … Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  It is correct to say that the knowledge of sin is the knowledge of how bad I am.  Jesus is the one who taught about the joy before the angels in heaven over the sinner who tells God how bad he is and then begs God for forgiveness.  The negative response to that Facebook status showed that most people did not know or they forgot what Jesus said in today’s Gospel, OR they knew about it, but just didn’t know what it means to repent.

It is part of our sinful nature that we DO NOT want to repent.  We say the words of repentance each week at our regular Worship Services, but how often do we say them on autopilot?

“Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

Do we actually think about what these words mean when we say them?  In them, we are telling God that every day we live on this earth we have opposed God’s will for us and deserve to be abandoned to our own inadequate ability to survive. We are telling God that when we die, we deserve to live in hell forever.  How often do we just make the sounds of these words without thinking about what we are saying?

If we are sincere in our confession; if we truly repent of our sins; we become well aware of our sad state and our inadequacies to change! Then and only then can we come humbly to the foot of the cross of Christ and beg for forgiveness and healing. …. “For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of thy Name. Amen.”

There is always good news for the repentant sinner: God is merciful!  The Holy Scriptures tells us that Jesus receives sinners and eats with them.  Jesus is the one who searches for sinners and brings them back to Himself. 

Think how much joy there must be before the angels in heaven.  After He spoke of finding the lost sheep, Jesus said, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”  Then, after finding the lost coin, He said, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  How many sinners does the Holy Spirit bring to repentance around the world in Divine Service?  How many sinners repent in private devotions daily?  What must the joy before the angels in heaven be like as all those sinners repent?

Why is there so much joy?  There is joy because of what comes next.  Jesus has given His ordained leaders of the Christian Church the authority to announce His words of forgiveness: that He earned for the world!

“The Almighty and merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sins, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of his Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Through the Grace of our Great Triune God that was hard earned by Jesus Christ on Calvary’s Cross, all our sins have been borne by Him who took the punishment for sins in our place, and we are therefore declared blameless in God’s sight.

God’s search for lost sinners is much more profound than could be told in any one parable.  Jesus began His search for sinners long ago.  The Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write: ^{[Ephesians 1:4]} He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.  With these words, Paul tells us that Jesus, the Son of God, began His search for us before He even created the world. The Old Testament Prophet Ezekiel spoke God’s promise ^{(Ezekiel 4: 11-13):} “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.  As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.” In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us that He has fulfilled this promise that He made in the days of the Prophet Ezekiel.

When the time was right the Son of God continued His search by taking on our human flesh.  As He searched for us, He humbled Himself under the Law even though He is the master of the Law.  As He searched for us in His perfect life, He encountered the great predator, death itself.  As Jesus died on the cross, it seemed as though death had ended the search, but that was not the case.  What death did not know was that Jesus intended to conquer death with His death.  Jesus suffered on the cross for us, but in His suffering, He did not suffer defeat.  Instead, He conquered sin, death, and the power of the devil.

The victory Jesus won on the cross became evident when He burst forth from the tomb on the third day.  His resurrection assures us that His victory on the cross, earned our salvation for us.  We are forgiven!  Jesus Christ has adopted us into His family.

The whole point of the ninety-nine sheep and the nine coins is that people who insist that they are not sinners also insist that they do not need Jesus.  Those who insist that they are not bad also insist that they do not need Jesus.  Those who insist that they are not lost are the most lost of all.  The shepherd leaves the ninety-nine sheep.  The woman leaves the nine coins.  The search is for the one that is lost.  Jesus searches for sinners.

What joy there is before the angels in heaven over one sinner who repents!  What joy there is on earth among those sinners who are forgiven!  Amen

The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Pentecost 16 – 4 September 2016 – Year C

Pentecost 16 – 4 September 2016 – Year C

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

  

The text for this meditation is written in the 14^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Luke: Verses 25–35:

²⁵ Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ³³ So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

³⁴ “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? ³⁵ It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

In recent years the religion of Islam has been in the news a lot.  One of the sad results of this is that every so often we hear about honour killings.  Honour killings happen when someone kills a near relative for breaking some part of Islamic law.  For example: A young member of the Islamic community seeks asylum from Sharia law by immigrating to the west.  The head of the family, usually the father, comes to the west and kills the youth.  The father feels justified because this young one has rebelled against the teaching of the Koran and deserves to die.  Very often the death is the death of a young woman who had simply adopted the culture of the west by doing such radical things as getting an education, learning to drive, wearing clothing that exposed her face to the public: Things that we accept as normal and appropriate.

For centuries, under Islamic Law, as guided by the Koran, conversion to any other religion is punishable by death.  Some of the religious refugees from Islam to ‘free world” countries have become ordained priests and pastors in Christian denominations.  I have had the opportunity to hear presentations by some of these men who grew up in Islam.  They have to be careful.  There are places they cannot go even in the “Free World” countries.  They have to make sure that they take random routes back and forth from their churches to their homes.  It is not safe for them to be too predictable.  They have relatives who would consider it an honour to kill them for turning their back on Islam and taking up Christianity.

Islam is one of the more extreme religions for persecuting those who convert to other religions.  Never the less, there are many religions who order their members to cut off all ties to relatives who convert out of the faith.  While the head of the family will not physically murder the convert for leaving their religion, they often declare their children dead when they convert to Christianity.  If they live in the same community, they will treat them like a common stranger when they meet them on the street.  The love of father, mother, son, or daughter gets replaced by a cold emptiness in such families.

It is easy to see how Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel apply to people like this.  Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  With these words, Jesus taught that we must be ready to turn our backs on our families in order to remain faithful to Him.  He is saying that the love we have for our family members should look like hatred when compared to our love for God.  Our love for God may even put our lives in danger.

When we look at the history of the Holy Christian Church, we see the blood of the martyrs spilled on almost every page.  The Holy Spirit inspired the writer of Hebrews to describe the martyrs with these words.  ^{[Hebrews 11:35-38]} Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.  Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.  They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated … wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.  These martyrs demonstrate their willingness to give up their lives rather than give up on Jesus.

Whilst most of us do not have to worry about family members out to kill us because we are Christians, there are times when our family ties cause friction with our Christian faith.  There are times when our own family members, rather than respecting our beliefs, will attack them.  They will tempt us to abandon the teachings of Christ in order to maintain peace in the family.

This goes straight to the First Commandment: “I am the LORD your God, ……You shall have no other gods before me.”  This is God basically telling us that we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  Anyone or anything that we love more than we love God is an idol.  That includes our father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters; and even our own life.

Jesus also said, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  Our cross is the hardship we endure simply because we are faithful to God’s Word.  It is the attack that the world mounts against us simply because we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

The world hates the Children of God and will use all its resources against us.  Sometimes our own family will turn against us.  We must be ready to cut off ties to father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, rather than be unfaithful to Jesus.  We must be ready to lose our lives rather than be unfaithful to Him.

The question is: Can you do that? ……..No you say!  Well neither can I … I simply don’t have the resources to conform to Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel.  In fact, the parables that Jesus tells after these statements tell us that we don’t have the resources to carry them out.  Our attempt to surrender all in order to be faithful is like a man who starts a tower he can’t finish or like a king with ten thousand men who is facing a king with twenty thousand.  The world will overwhelm us if we try to carry our cross in our own power.  We do not have the power in ourselves to deny our family or our life and follow Christ.  We can’t do it alone.

Fortunately, we are not alone.  The Holy Spirit inspired the writer of the book of Hebrews to say, ^{[Hebrews 4:15]} “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”  Jesus is our high priest who experienced the same attacks that we do and triumphed over them.

Did the world use Jesus’ family to attack Him?  Listen to the words that the Holy Spirit inspired Mark to write: ^{[Mark 3:20-21]} Then [Jesus] went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat.  And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”  Later on Jesus said, ^{[Mark 3:34-35]} “Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”  Jesus Himself had to deny His own family in order to remain faithful.

Jesus Christ was also faithful to His cross.  His cross was not just a metaphor, but the real thing.  His death was not just persecution for being faithful.  His death was the sacrifice that made us part of God’s family.  You see, when Jesus endured His cross, He was making sure that there was one cross we would never have to endure – the cross we earned with our own sin.  Jesus Christ endured the cross of our sin so that we don’t have to.  He took all our sins onto Himself and paid the debt for those sins.  By His faithful suffering and death on the cross, He triumphed over sin, death, and the power of the devil.

We know that Jesus successfully defeated His foes because death was not able to hold Him.  He demonstrated His triumph by rising from the dead and ascending into heaven.  His resurrection and ascension contain the promise that He will return and raise us from the dead so that we might live with Him forever.

Jesus offers His triumph to all people through the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith.  By faith, the Holy Spirit adopts us into God’s family.  He promises us that we shall always be together.  Before Jesus ascended to heaven He said, ^{[Matthew 28:20]} “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”   He also said, ^{[Hebrews 13:5]} “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  His triumph means that He is always by our side.  He will be always be with us while we live here on this earth, and, when our time here is over, we shall live forever with Him.

Evil has no conscience.  It will attack us with all its resources.  It will attack us through family and friends – even through our own body.  Evil will even try to convince us that we are in the wrong when we remain faithful to Christ and His teachings.  In spite of this, we need not fear, for the Holy Spirit works and sustains faith in us and works through us to give us the strength to remain faithful in spite of the world’s persecution – even if it means we lose family and friends – even if it means death because of our faith.

In the rite of confirmation, we hear these questions:  Do you intend to hear the Word of God and receive the Lord’s Supper faithfully?  Do you intend to live according to the Word of God, and in faith, word, and deed to remain true to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death?   Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?  We never answer these questions with a simple, “I do,” because we can’t.  Instead we answer, “I do, by the grace of God.”  For it is only by the grace of God that we can be faithful to God even if the world threatens death or our family and friends ridicule us.  By the grace of God, the Holy Spirit will keep our faith strong.  God will be with us here in time and we will be with Him forever in eternity.  Amen

The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen