Sermons and More from Saint Peter's Lutheran Church in Door County

Sermon Title: Serving God [Sermon]

Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Sister Bay and other area in Northeast Wisconsin.

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we are going to be taking up the theme of serving God. We’re going to talk about how God is served. First of all, we’re going to talk about how God is served in His power and His providence, what sometimes is called His kingdom of power or His reign of power. Second of all, we’re going to be talking about how God is served by means of faith, and so sometimes that’s called the kingdom or the reign of grace. And then finally, we’re going to be talking about how God is served in glory. And God is served no matter what. No matter whether one is a believer or not, whether one acknowledges God or not, God is always served. His ends always are brought to a fulfillment. That’s a big part of what our Old Testament lesson was about for today, which really leads into our first point, that God’s first way He is served is that He is served according to His power and providence.

Isaiah 45, what we just read, it’s one of the most absolute most remarkable passages in the Holy Scriptures for so many reasons. We’re not going to get into all of those reasons here, but one of the most interesting things about this is the fact of what Cyrus is named, the title that he is given. So the very first verse, we encounter this word, “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus.” Shocking that Cyrus would be called anointed.

The Hebrew word there for anointed is mashiach. We transliterate that into English as messiah. And in the Old Testament, various people were anointed as messiahs. Take, for example, King David, who was anointed to protect the people of God, to free them from the tyranny of the Philistines, and to extend their political power. And of course, this was just a little glimpse into the ultimate Messiah, the Messiah Jesus Christ. Christ meaning actually Messiah, actually. That’s the Greek term for Messiah. And here Cyrus is called a messiah. Now, why would that be so surprising? It spells it out there. Cyrus doesn’t even know God. He’s named by God even though Cyrus does not know God.

Now, that only begins to fill in the picture here. So let’s fill in the picture of what’s being talked about here, because Cyrus is probably one of the most important figures in the scriptures, while at the same time being one of the least well-known figures in the scriptures.

Cyrus was the emperor of the Persians, the emperor of the Persian Empire. Now, who was the Persian Empire? In the time of Isaiah, Isaiah foretold various political powers and how they were going to impact the people of God, the kingdom of Judah. In Isaiah’s time, several hundred years after the time of David and Solomon, by the way, by that time, the people of God had laid aside God’s Word. So many of them were worshiping false gods and goddesses. They were engaging in idolatry, to put it another way. And so they were failing to love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and strength and mind, as had been commanded all the way back in Deuteronomy. But also, they were failing to love their neighbor as themselves.

I’m convinced, by the way, that so many of the Old Testament laws were there to reinforce the brotherhood of the descendants of Abraham. But instead of treating one another as brothers, instead, they were hurting and harming each other, taking advantage of each other, manipulating each other. And because of this, in the time of Isaiah, God, through Isaiah, prophesied that foreign nations would descend upon Jerusalem, and that eventually one would overcome them. And that when that one would overcome them, that people would be taken off to a strange land. This was fulfilled when the Babylonian Empire came and conquered Jerusalem. And Babylon, which was originally centered in what we would now call southern Iraq, when they came and they conquered the region they emptied the region of its treasures.

One of the treasures that they emptied from that region were the leaders of the people, their greatest merchants, their greatest statesmen, their greatest generals, their greatest scholars, their greatest religious leaders. They carted all of them back to their own land in what you might call just this massive brain drain so that, in their eyes, they could utilize their abilities to extend their empire even more.

So you’re familiar, you remember Daniel and all those stories from Daniel, like the lion’s den, right? And the fiery furnace of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And how Daniel refused to eat the meat offered to idols, but instead ate vegetables alone, and how he yet still had this marvelous appearance. All of that happened among those exiles to Babylon. Daniel was one of these aristocratic leaders of Israel who had been carted back off to Babylon.

And yet, God promised deliverance. And deliverance through a really curious means, right? Moses was from among the people and knew the one true God. David, the same thing. But here in Isaiah 45, God promises another different deliverer, Cyrus. And Cyrus, as we said, was the leader of the Persians, and under his remarkable leadership, Persia grew from a small kingdom to conquer first a larger kingdom, a very warlike kingdom called the Medes. They conquered them first, and then after conquering the Medes and probably taking a lot of their warriors, then he was prepared to take on the wealthiest empire in the area, Babylon, which we heard about their wealth in Isaiah 45, right? These storehouses of treasures.

And how, and what did the Lord do for him? Babylon fell in a surprisingly fast manner, and Cyrus had access to all this incredible wealth. Wealth, by the way, which was very much associated with idolatry, because back in those times, they didn’t have banks. The storehouses of wealth were ziggurats. Maybe you learned that in history class. They’re ancient temple complexes which, yes, had worship areas, but also had accumulated vast amounts of wealth and had storehouses where it could be held. Buildings, as we read, with gates of bronze and bars of iron that the Lord would open to Cyrus even though Cyrus didn’t know Him.

Now the Lord did this for the purpose of blessing His people. We’re going to get to that here in a minute, but I want you to see this fact, that Cyrus, even though he didn’t acknowledge the Lord, was still a servant of the Lord. God is God over all. He is not just the God of Christians. He is the God of the world. Even more than that, He is the God of the universe. And so even things and even people that do not acknowledge Him, and that maybe to our eyes might even seem to be opposed to Him, yet serve Him and His ultimate purposes. This is God’s reign of power, and all things serve Him under His power and under His providence.

This, by the way, is why Jesus commended the payments of taxes to Caesar. See, the Pharisees put this question to Jesus because Caesar, the Emperor of the Romans, he also was an idolater. Didn’t acknowledge the one true God, but rather worshiped many false foreign gods. And so the question sort of is this: Jesus, isn’t paying taxes to Caesar a form of serving Caesar? And if we are serving Caesar and he does not serve the one true God, aren’t we becoming servants of false foreign idols and gods? And Jesus rejects this, right? Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. And part of the upshot is that insofar as Caesar does not demand you to do anything contrary to the word of God, that even as you render taxes to him, you’re still serving God. And by the way, St. Paul makes that absolutely explicit. Romans chapter 13: “Let every person be subject,” in other words, serve, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God.” If we fast-forward to verse four it says this: “For he is God’s servant for your good.”

And before I talk about for your good, I want to mention that there are multiple ways in which these servants who do not acknowledge God work for our good. First of all, in ordering our civil life here on Earth. But also, there’s another sense in which all things work to the good of those who love the Lord. We’re going to get to that here in our final point. But the point is this, there’s no question who these civil authorities are that St. Paul is talking about. He’s writing to the church in Rome. And the people who were in this authority were Roman politicians, Roman authorities. Almost every single one of them at this point, in all likelihood, idolaters. And he’s saying that these people who do not acknowledge God, yet are servants of God. And so therefore, as they are servants of God, you are called to serve them. And as you serve them, ultimately you are serving God.

All things serve the Lord under His power and under His provision and providence. But we as Christians are called to serve the Lord in a different way. We have a hint at this, by the way, in our epistle lesson.

Today in 1 Thessalonians, Paul talks about a different kind of service. So Paul says, reporting about the believers in Macedonia and Achaia, how they were inspired by the Thessalonians, he says, “For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God.”

And here we come to the Christian service of God, service of Him under His reign of grace, service of Him according to faith. We serve God not under external compulsion, but rather we serve God under joyful, willing obedience as His sons. We Christians are those who have received the good news of the gospel, the message that through the blood of Christ our sins are forgiven, our righteousness fulfilled. And the Holy Spirit uses that message to transform our hearts so that hearts that once were set against God, hearts that once were hard and idolatrous instead become hearts of love towards Him and hearts of love as well to the neighbor as the Holy Spirit has poured the love of God into our hearts by means of faith.

And so therefore, while God’s will always be done, we do God’s will for a different reason and according to a different power. In his explanation to the Lord’s Prayer and the petition that goes, “Thy will be done,” Martin Luther says in the Small Catechism, he says this: “God’s will is always done even without our prayers.” And this just is because of the fact that He’s God, right? But we pray in this petition that His will would be done among us also. And how is God’s will done? God’s will is done when the word of God is taught and kept in His truth and purity. This is the first means by which God reigns over us by means of faith.

My prayer for you, brothers and sisters in Christ, is that you would be attentive to the Word of God. That week by week here at St. Peter’s you would hear the Word of God as it is read and as it is preached. That in your homes as well, in a daily devotional life, that you would also encounter the Word of God. And so the Word of God would enter into your ears and enter into your eyes, but not just remain there. But also that you would consider it. Think on it. As an ancient prayer of the church goes, a hundreds of years old prayer, that you would learn it and mark it. Consider it. The way the Word of God works is that it encounters our eyes and it encounters our ears, but then it works upon the mind. My prayer for you is that the Word of God would not just simply remain in your mind, but that as you consume it, it would go down into your heart. Or as an ancient prayer of the church which we pray here sometimes, that you would inwardly digest it. My prayer is that the Word of God will become a part of you, that it would become a part of your heart, held above all, where your will resides, so that it would shape and form your life. And here we come to what Luther continues to say in his explanation to that petition: When we lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Lord. This is how God reigns over us Christians, by means of faith.

Now sadly, my brothers and sisters in Christ, this side of heaven we have many enemies that would seek to prevent us from serving the Lord according to faith. We have the enemy of the world, which wants to distract us so that instead of being mindful of heavenly things, we only pay attention to worldly things. All the distractions of this life that are always crowding in, that’s an enemy. We have the enemy of those who would pervert the Word of God with their false teachings and interpretations of the Word. We have the enemy of those around us who would seek as well to make us look not to the Word of God for guidance in our life, but rather to those around us. And maybe here we could talk about the enemy of our sinful flesh, because we’ve got this fleshly desire to be acceptable to those around us. And so therefore we seek to conform so often in our sinfulness our lives to the expectations of those around us, the things that they consider to be good, right and salutary instead of the things that the Word of God teaches us to be good, right and salutary. So many enemies around us. Therefore, we need the assistance of others. And here we come to the final way in which God is served, that God is served in his glory and according to his glory.

Speaking of glory, we have a psalm that was probably composed by those who were delivered by Cyrus. Who when Cyrus came to power, he said to them, “Go back to your homeland. Go back and rebuild Jerusalem, rebuild the walls, and even rebuild your temple.” This is the way that Cyrus was a deliverer from the Babylonians.

Psalm 126: When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. That our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy. Then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad.” The way I like to envision this is that it’s depicting the shouts of joy of the exiles returning back from Babylon. And maybe, I’ve never been to Jerusalem, so I don’t know what the roads are like there, but I imagine they’re coming around a bend in the road, in the mountain passes leading to Jerusalem, and then all of a sudden they see it. Mount Zion, the place where God promised to be, where they could encounter God.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, there are those who do in fact see God in His glory, the holy angels. Christ says that our guardians, the angels, they never fail to see the face of the Lord. They behold the glory of God. And I truly believe that the angels bless us and exercise power and authority over this world. This is one of the ways in which God exercises his reign of power by means of the holy angels to direct all things to our wellbeing.

Remember a few minutes ago I pointed out where it said that the authorities work for our good? They work for our good civilly, but also all things in this world work for the good of those who love Him. Romans 8, all things work for the good of those who love the Lord. And in which way is that? The Lord is directing the entire course of this world, and in fact, I’d say the entire course of this universe for the sake of His holy people, for the sake of Christians, to bring us to Mount Zion. As Christians, we look forward to the day when Christ will return in might, in power, and glory.

And on that day, his reign of power will end. He will not reign invisibly through all the invisible ways that he works his will, even over those who do not know him. On that day, even his reign of faith will end because on that day, we will see eye to eye and face to face. Now, we see as in a mirror dimly, and we see by means of faith. Then we will know even as we are known. And on that day, we will become a part of his reign of glory as we see him eye to eye and face to face. And on that day, we will give a shout of joy. On that day, our mouths will be filled with songs of joy. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus, and hasten the day of your reign of glory.

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Sermon Title: Christian Joy [Sermon]

Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Luxemburg and other areas in Northeast Wisconsin.

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we heard from the Apostle Paul in our epistle lesson. He said these words, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice.” And on the basis of this, we’re going to be talking about the fact that Christian joy is a command that the Lord gives to us to obey.

Joy is something that seems in short order these days. Instead, it seems that anger, resentment, bitterness, being down in the dumps, all of these have become rather fashionable. I remember about 10 years ago, I found myself at a children’s birthday party and I was trying to enjoy all of the things in a children’s birthday party, eating the cake, watching the kids play with the balloons, watch them play pin the tail on the donkey, and all those fun little kids birthday party games.

And I was sitting out in their yard underneath some big, beautiful trees, enjoying a beautiful day. They had a house right along the bay of Green Bay there. And enjoying the birthday cake, sitting out on a lawn chair. And the grandparents of the child struck up a conversation with me. And they said, “Oh, what do you do?”

I said I’m a Lutheran pastor. Oh, they were excited to hear about that. And, “Oh, you’re a Lutheran pastor, that’s wonderful.” They said what synod are you a Lutheran pastor in? I said I’m a pastor in a Lutheran church, Missouri Synod, the LCMS. That was apparently the wrong answer, ’cause boy did I get an earful about 10 minutes about how this is bad, this is wrong, even immoral.

I won’t tell you what direction they were giving me these criticisms from other than it was from the South. They were from Illinois, of course. No offense to those of you who happen to be from Illinois here today. But in any case boy they were on my case about this fact. And isn’t that something?

Children’s birthday party where even that kid’s own grandparents couldn’t help themselves from contaminating the joy of that occasion with bitterness, discord, disagreement, and so on. I just smiled and took it all and tried to enjoy the rest of my cake, but it certainly was hard. As I said, anger, resentment, bitterness.

People wanna introduce it into the incredible feast the Lord has granted us in this life, and not only in this life, but also in the life to come. Every single moment, every single day of our lives, every single breath is a lavish gift from God to be received with thanksgiving and a cause to lift up prayers to God.

God, continue to grant me your blessings. That’s what it means to rejoice, by the way. And instead of thanking the Lord for His blessings, instead of confessing our faith in Him, both to others and to Him in prayer, instead, so often people are filled with anger, resentment, and bitterness, and all of these negative things. But we as Christians especially are called to a better way.

We’re all called to a better way, but of all people, Christians have more than enough cause to rejoice in every circumstance. We’re gonna be taking this theme out today under four headings. First of all, what does it mean to rejoice? Second of all, the various things that cause us to not rejoice. We’re going to talk about the fact that we all have an obligation to rejoice. And then finally, we’re going to talk about the promise that the Lord has to us with regards to joy. So let’s take up that first heading first.

To be quite honest with you, in the first through thirds of my ministry, three-quarters of my ministry, I had a really hard time preaching on Christian joy ’cause I didn’t understand what it meant. I typically thought of Christian joy as a static thing, as a state of being, something maybe like an emotional state. That’s not the way that it’s described in the New Testament in most circumstances. Instead, in the New Testament, it’s talked about as an action, something that we do. What did St. Paul say? Did he say have at every and every circumstance warm, fuzzy feelings? He didn’t say that. Did he say in every circumstance, you have to be in this certain state? He didn’t say that. He didn’t say be joyful, okay? He said instead, “Rejoice.” Do the act of giving joy, making joy is an action in the Christian understanding.

And what is this action of Christian joy? First of all, Christian joy is confession of the blessings that the Lord has given us, expressing the blessings that the Lord has laid out for us. I’d like to call your attention, if you brought a Bible along, or if you have a Bible app with you you can open up your Bible to the first chapter of Philippians. And there in verses 18 and 19, he said this: “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance.” Okay, what I want you to see there is that Paul draws a very tight connection to rejoicing and proclaiming the wonderful works that God has done for us through Christ Jesus.

Okay? And then as well, in our reading for today we get this connection with joy and thanksgiving for all God’s benefits once again. After he says and encourages them to rejoice, what does he say? He says, “In everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” All right, so on the basis of this, I want you to see the first component of rejoicing, and it’s gratitude for the blessings that the Lord has given. Gratitude that is expressed, whether to others in confession of the faith that we have, or confession of that to God himself in prayer, “Lord, thank you for all of your blessings.” That’s the first part of Christian joy. And the second part of Christian joy goes right along with it. What did St. Paul say?

He said, “Not only acknowledging his benefits, but also let your requests be made known to God.” Okay. Christian joy in our other readings for today is linked to a feast, right? Now here in the United States of America, probably the feast that we most think about, for example, is Thanksgiving Day. And I think back to Thanksgiving, especially the Thanksgivings at my grandmother’s house. And remembering back to that what does the rejoicing in that look like? Enjoying the blessings that my grandmother and my mother and my aunt prepared and laid out, enjoying that, saying thank you for this blessing. And then, and this is critical because it’s an intrinsic part of Thanksgiving, asking for more, right? And nothing would give my grandmother greater joy than asking for more.

In fact, if you didn’t ask for more, she would offer you more. And if you said no, oh, that look on her face. Worst look I’ve ever seen on anybody’s face. The disappointment, right? Christian joy, and really the joy that all people are called to give to God. Lord, thank you for your blessings. Thank you for my house and home. Thank you for every breath that I breathe. Thank you for the food that you give me. Thank you for my family and friends. Thank you for my clothing. Lord, give me more. And the Lord invites you to do that, by the way.

And as Christians, we have all the more cause to rejoice. Lord, not only have you given me my clothing, shoes, house, home, all of those blessings, you’ve not only given me these worldly blessings, but you’ve also given me spiritual blessings. Lord, you accomplished for me the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ Jesus. Lord, give me more. Forgive my sins this day. Lord, you have granted me faith by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who by means of the Word of God transforms my heart to trust in you. Lord, give me more. Make me more attentive to your holy scriptures. And through this, may the Holy Spirit lead me into greater faith and greater understanding and greater love for you and greater love for others.

Lord you’ve granted me greater love for the neighbor because through the outpouring of your love into my heart, I can see that overflowing to others, but I do that imperfectly now. Lord, help me to do that. My brothers and sisters in Christ, that’s what rejoicing looks like. And that’s why we are called to rejoice in every circumstance, whether in low times or in high times, whether in what the world would consider good times or bad times, or as St. Paul talks about it, in times of hunger and plenty, abundance and need. In all times, we are called to rejoice. Yes, there can be circumstances in this world in which our life does not look the way that we might want it to look like. There may be troubles at home. There may be troubles at work. Someone that we love may have passed away. Maybe someone has harmed us or someone that we love, yet in every circumstance we can continue to acknowledge God’s goodness and still look to the Lord for His blessings. That’s precisely what St. Paul does here in Philippians, by the way.

Did you catch what he said in verse 10 and following? “I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I’m speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” And he goes on to talk about, whether in times of need or in times of plenty, and so on. You know what St. Paul’s talking about there? He’s saying to the Philippians, “I rejoice when you expressed your care and concern for me.” And do you realize why they were doing that? He was in prison. He was in chains. He was in the darkness of a Roman dungeon on account of his proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he’s saying to the Philippians, “I’m here in chains, arrested, imprisoned, and I rejoiced.” Why? “Because this gave you occasion to express love to me.” Paul meant it when he said to rejoice in every circumstance. And in like manner, we can do as well. No matter our circumstances, we can continue to acknowledge the Lord’s benefits, and yet ask Him for more.

However, there are some obstacles to Christian joy. First of all is the obstacle of our own sin. How much misery, how much darkness, how much chaos, how much destruction do we introduce into our lives and into the lives of others through our own sin? We ourselves are the cause of so much sorrow, so much frustration, so much darkness. It’s for this reason that St. Paul encourages the Philippians to consider those things which are above rather than those things which pertain to the darkness of this world. As he says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

In other words, don’t be consumed by the darkness of this world. Don’t seek to imitate it. But rather instead, set your mind on things above and your heart on things above so that the glory of God can shine in you as you turn your face to Him. It’s a good reminder for us as well. Sometimes, however, there is cause for sorrow in this world, not on account of anything that we have done, but rather instead on account of things that have happened to us or around us or to those we love, not on account of any evil in us, but rather on account of the fact that we live in an evil and fallen world. And we acknowledge those things.

And in fact, even in those times, it is okay to mourn and to sorrow. And yet we do not mourn as those who have no hope, because we understand that the Lord has many blessings yet to give us, even as He has granted us many blessings. And this is why we as Christians of all people have cause to rejoice. Because we know how the story ends, and we have great hope for blessings, lavish blessings laid up for us through Christ Jesus.

This is the promise of the Lord. They will bring to its fullness Christian joy. Today we heard about this in Isaiah chapter 25. “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.” Now when Isaiah was saying this, he was looking forward and really perceiving two events. This gets a little complicated but we can put this simply. He saw and he looked forward to two events, and it’s fascinating what he says here.

To us, the people of God, God promises this: a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. The Lord is going to give us an incredible blessing of Saturday night prime rib and Von Stiehl wine, and that is what we get. But what does He do in turn for Himself? Because He eats as well. He gives to us this lavish feast, but he swallows the bitter pill of misery. He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil, the sorrow that is spread over all nations. And that’s not all that he will swallow up. He will also swallow up death.

Isaiah was looking forward to Mount Calvary, where Christ Jesus would swallow the bitter pill of this world’s darkness and evil and sin. There, Christ Jesus swallowed the bitter pill of our sins. There, Christ Jesus swallowed the bitter pill of death. There, Christ Jesus swallowed the bitter pill of sorrow and instead gave us the lavish feast of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. And on account of this, we look forward to the great Messianic feast when Christ returns in power and might and glory. Our old sinful nature will melt away and be replaced by nothing but love for the Father and nothing but love for the neighbor. No longer will we have sin to cause any kind of darkness or despair, and there will be nothing evil in the world to afflict us either, for God will trample under His feet all of His enemies, all of our enemies. And that is what we look forward to as Christians on the great return of Christ Jesus. And therefore, we thank the Lord for these benefits, and we ask for their fulfillment in Christ’s return. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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Sermon Title: The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ [Sermon]

Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Sister Bay and other areas in Northeastern Wisconsin.

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today in our sermon, we are going to be taking up the theme of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. We’re going to be taking it up under three headings. First of all, we’re going to talk about the fact that knowing Christ means forgetting what is behind. Second of all, we’re going to talk about the fact that knowing Christ means bearing fruit with the blessings that we have received. And finally, we’re going to talk about the fact that knowing Christ means knowing what our future holds, and therefore pressing on to that future.

Knowledge, training, it can make all the difference. We can have all the raw materials, but if we aren’t oriented in the right way and things aren’t structured the right way, it can actually go in the opposite direction. Instead of being a blessing, it can be a curse. Or at least simply not utilized in the way that would be good and right.

A pertinent example of this to me is in my own family. Back about, I don’t know, about 20 years ago or so, 23 years ago or so, my brother came back from Marine basic training and his advanced training as well, and was a completely different person. That’s an age-old story, right? But it was very stark and very dramatic with my brother.

He had all the raw materials to be an impressive individual. So when he took the ACT, for example, he scored higher than a lot of valedictorians that I’ve known. But even while he had that intellectual capacity, he really didn’t apply it. He was a C and D student. He had a tall, big frame, taller than me by probably about 6’3″, 6’4″ or so, and very broad-shouldered and so on. But before he went off to boot camp, he was pretty flabby, pretty weak, hunched over. He came back a lean, mean, American fighting machine. It was incredible to see how the Marines were able to take all these blessings that he had been given, and were able to help him to use it and apply it to benefit others, in this case, our nation, in his service in the military.

And the Lord Jesus Christ does an even more profound thing than this by filling our hearts with His love and giving us the knowledge of Him. Through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, we are transformed to render unto God the fruits that he desires, the fruits of thanksgiving to him, the fruits of seeking to serve him, and the fruits of loving service of the neighbor as well.

And the way the Lord does this is first of all by, in the knowledge of him, forgetting what lies behind. And when Saint Paul talks about forgetting what lies behind, I think this is a very personal thing for him. Paul is not talking just in objective ideas. He’s talking about objective ideas, but it’s through the filter of his own subjective experience, the life that he had actually lived.

‘Cause man, did Saint Paul have some skeletons in his closet, in some senses quite literally, that was good for him to leave behind. He was a man who had been blessed in many ways, and we’re going to talk about these ways in which he had been blessed in a minute. But yet he used those blessings to hurt and to harm others.

Consider, for example, his role at the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the very first Christian martyr. While he himself, it appears, did not cast any stones, he yet facilitated those who did. He watched over the cloaks of those who had laid them aside in order to stone St. Stephen, and he looked on with approval. So much approval, the next time we encounter St. Paul, he’s actually himself actively persecuting Christians.

And the great honor and the great wonderful blessing that we have in the knowledge of Christ Jesus is the ability to forget the guilt and the shame of our past. To leave that behind.

You see, Christ Jesus through His wondrous, loving, atoning death for our sakes, He took the just condemnation that we have all deserved according to our sinfulness. The condemnation that we have deserved is eternal death. And some people think, including some theologians think, that’s far too harsh of a sentence for our sin. But it’s just the natural result of what we have done.

So consider our readings for today, our other readings, which compare the people of God of old to a vineyard. In the Lord Jesus Christ, in his parable today, somewhat modifies this to talk about them as the tenants of the vineyard. What had they received? Incredible blessings. Israel had been taken up out of Egypt. It was about to die, and yet the Lord dug them up there from Egypt and planted them in the fertile soils of Canaan. There, he watered and fertilized this vine so that it went to branch out so that many nations stood under their protection, and provision, and power. Lord had granted them many blessings.

But what had they failed to do? They failed to render him the fruit that he desired from them. Lord desired that they love Him with all their heart and soul and strength and mind. And yet they let their heart be divided. Maybe they acknowledged Yahweh with their lips, and yet with their deeds and with their hearts, they were continually going after other foreign false gods.

In the parable of the vineyard, of the tenants of the vineyard, Jesus relates how the tenants of the vineyard failed to render to the owner of the vineyard the fruits that were his due. And the common thread with both of these is this: a rupture in the relationship with the one who had given them such great blessings. Israel, when they failed to give God his due, they said, “God, we’ll take those blessings, but we don’t want anything to do with you who gave us those blessings.”

That’s why condemnation is just. By the way, brothers and sisters in Christ, God has given us everything. God has given us life. If we reject God therefore, we reject the giver of life, and we reject life itself. It’s our preference to have death rather than life. If we reject God we reject the giver of all light. Therefore, it’s a preference for darkness.

We can go on and on, but here is what Christ Jesus, our Lord, did in His holy and precious death. Even while His heart was a heart of undivided love towards God, an undivided love towards the neighbor, yet He suffered the just consequences of a rejection of God, which was His own rejection. “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Christ Jesus took the condemnation we have all deserved, leaving us therefore only the fruits of His righteousness, which therefore becomes our righteousness, our grace, our mercy. So that no longer are we guilty or ashamed before the Lord, but instead we can look to Him as dear Father. With hearts that then trust Him and acknowledge Him and look to Him as in faith.

Which brings us to our second point, because that knowledge of God through Christ, it transforms our hearts so that now we are, in fact, able, imperfectly this side of heaven, but yet we are able to bear the fruits that God so desires. We can have all the blessings from God, and yet we can use them to evil ends.

And this is, in fact, what we find with St. Paul. He recounts so many of the blessings that he received from the Lord God. He says, for example, “I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

He recounts many of the blessings that he had received. First of all, he was born into a pious family. And as being born into a pious family, they kept for him the laws and the rules and the regulations that were prescribed for a pious family. In those days, they didn’t bring the children to baptism as we do now, but instead they were to bring their children to be circumcised, their sons to be circumcised, and he had received that blessing.

Not only this, but he was born of the people of Israel. He was descended from Abraham according to the flesh. And it says a Hebrew of Hebrews. What I think he might mean by this, by being a Hebrew of Hebrews, is that he was well-versed in the Hebrew scriptures. He knew the Old Testament, the Bible as it stood in that time. And not only this, but he was taught to observe the laws of the Old Testament in a very strict way so that those who were concerned about such things could find no charge to level against him, and yet this was all lost. Why? Because he used these blessings to be a persecutor of the church.

He received many other blessings besides these ones that he lists out. Not only did he have a good Hebrew education, but he also had a good Greco-Roman education. He was familiar with the philosophers and the poets and the playwrights of the Greco-Roman world. He was not only a Jew, but he was also a Roman citizen. Because of this, he was a prime person to do what he ended up doing, to extradite people from Roman provinces such as Syria back to Jerusalem in order to try them there. He was the exact right person to do the devil’s work of persecuting the Christian church.

All these blessings that he had received from the hand of God, he turned to evil ends. And so it is with so many of us, so many around us. The Lord has blessed our country and our land with incredible material prosperity. We are the richest nation, the most powerful nation that has ever existed on the face of planet Earth.

Because of this, our hearts ought to be filled with gratitude towards God. His courts ought to be full. We don’t need to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day in order to make means come together. And yet so few people come to give thanks to the Lord God and to receive His blessings of eternal life. The Lord has granted us such blessings, and yet so many people turn aside from His ways. And instead of rendering God the obedience that they ought to do, instead of loving neighbor as themselves, instead they follow their own ways and look to who they consider to be number one. People use their blessings and use them towards evil ends, and fail to render God His due. They fail to offer up the fruits of righteousness.

But for those of us who know Christ, it is entirely different. For those of us who know Christ, our hearts are transformed. That makes all the difference. Just as my brother had all the raw materials, but needed a personal transformation in order for them to be put to good ends, so also as Christians, we are transformed. Our hearts, instead of holding God at arm’s length or even further, instead are filled with love and gratitude towards Him. And these hearts are transformed to the neighbor as well, that even as God has loved the neighbor, so also that love is reflected in us towards the neighbor as well. So that we render to God what is His due, thanksgiving, obedience. We render to our neighbor what God desires of us to do, loving service.

Now that’s certainly imperfect this side of heaven, and St. Paul acknowledges that as well in Philippians. He says, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Jesus Christ has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

This side of heaven, the old sinful flesh still hangs around our necks. Because of this, we will fail. We’re going to fail sometimes to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind. We’re going to fail to love our neighbor as ourselves. And yet, on account of the mercy we have in Christ Jesus, we know what lies ahead for us. We know that when Christ returns in power and might and glory, we will be utterly perfected, completely glorified. No longer will our hearts be divided. No longer will we love anything before the Lord God. No longer will we put anything in God’s place. No longer will there be any shade upon our hearts to prevent us from loving neighbor as ourselves.

That is what we look forward to as Christians. We know what lies before us. Because we know what lies ahead of us, we press on and we strain towards it, seeking by the power of God to become more and more who we will be when Christ returns. To seek to love the Lord God more and more, and to seek to love the neighbor as ourself more and more. Not that by these means we earn our own righteousness or our own salvation, but rather as a reflection of the love of God so lavishly poured into our hearts, this love by which He became one of us, to live for us, to die for us, to bring us forgiveness and everlasting life.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

The post The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ [Sermon] first appeared on Saint Peter's Lutheran Church.

Sermon Title: Shining with the Light of Christ [Sermon]

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we heard from St. Paul these words: “Be children of God, without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” And we are going to be talking about shining with the light of Christ in our sermon today.

So I’m sure many of you have heard the legend of the lemmings, right? What’s the legend of the lemmings? Up in places like Norway and Sweden, there are these little animals. They’re maybe like a hamster or a gerbil or something like this, very similar, a little creature. And the legend of the lemmings is that, once a year, they all go and jump off a cliff into the sea.

That’s not exactly right, although that is a legend. We’ll talk about how that became famous. But it’s based on something that does happen. So pretty often these lemmings will have these big, huge mass migrations, where just huge numbers of them will just pick up and all together start running across the landscape to some other place. And as they run across that landscape, they can do things which seem to be rather ridiculous, run straight headlong into a river or a stream or something of this nature. And that’s the basis of the legend of the lemmings running off of a cliff.

But how did that idea become so popular? Of course, it was Disney. Back in the fifties, Disney produced a movie in which they showed, in real life, a bunch of lemmings running off of a cliff. And so that’s the source for why maybe your parents said, “Would you just run off a cliff like a lemming?” Meaning, are you just gonna follow the masses and the crowds and just do whatever they do because they’re doing it?

But interestingly enough, knowing that background to the story helps us to see really what’s behind the masses of people in their confusion. So how did Disney get those lemmings to run off a cliff? They hired a lemming wrangler. And the lemming wrangler’s job was to feed those lemmings, raise those lemmings. I imagine that those lemmings really thought the lemming wrangler was a great guy, right? Whenever he showed up, they got fed, and he had to make them reproduce until he had this nice big, large mass of lemmings. And then one day, this individual who you think is so great and taking care of all your needs and whatever, drives you out to what seems like a really nice environment, right? You had been maybe housed in a barn somewhere in Norway, but now he took you out to this beautiful field, and he starts shooing you in the direction he wants you to go. You think this is the right way to go because my lemming wrangler is telling me where to go. And all of a sudden you start running with your fellow lemmings straight off a cliff.

This was before those times, the times now where you see the things like “no animals were harmed in the making of this video.” That didn’t exist in the 1950s. It’s a great illustration, I think, for what happens to the masses of people around us. Because even as people collectively come to various moral positions which are contrary to the word of God, which will ultimately lead them to running off the cliff, the way that people come to various spiritual ideas which have an even worse consequence, running off the cliff to perdition—well, there’s someone behind that, the devil himself.

And when God snatches us out of that by means of our calling, our election, our sanctification, so that we come to trust in His Word and trust in His grace and mercy, He’s snatching us away from this great mass of people and from the one who seeks to do us in. Praise be to God for that. That’s really at the heart of our message today. ‘Cause as we shine like lights, this is a call to live as Christians, to believe as Christians, and that’s always going to look different than the mass of people around us. And praise be to God for this.

We’re gonna talk about this in our three points. First of all, we are going to talk about the point that the mass can be massively wrong. Second of all, we’re going to talk about that repentance is a matter of understanding that we as individuals stand under God’s law. So we as individuals stand under God’s law and we’ll be judged individually. Then finally, praise be to God, the Lord redeems us individually so that in turn, while we shine collectively as lights with our fellow Christians, yet this will be distinct and different than the rest of the world.

There’s another story from the 1950s that I’d like to tell you that helps you to see how the mass can be massively wrong. Most people, when they try to understand what’s good, what is right, or what is true, normally what they will do is they will look around at the people around them, and as long as their customs and practices and beliefs look within range of similarity of the people around them, they think that they’re at least right, or in the range of being right. And that’s the instinct that most people have, but that’s an instinct that can lead to really mass delusion. And there are documented examples of mass delusion.

I think it was 1954, there was something called the Seattle Windshield Mass Delusion. What was the Seattle Windshield Mass Delusion? Basically, one night a police officer was walking around Seattle, and Seattle is a place where there’s a lot of houses close together—most people don’t have garages—and so the cars were sitting out in the driveways, and the lights are shining down and made it easier to see the surface of the windshields. And he noticed something. In so many of the windshields on the beat that he was walking, so many of these windshields had divots and pockmarks in them. It seemed like every other windshield had a divot or a pockmark in it. He went and he reported that to the newspaper. The newspaper picked up that story. They published it. What did everybody do as soon as they opened the newspaper? They went out and inspected their own windshields. Guess what they found? Divots. Pockmarks.

“Something’s gotta be causing this,” people thought. And there were all kinds of theories. Some people theorized that gangs of young ruffians were going around with BB guns to put pockmarks in people’s windshields. And so people would stay up late trying to catch these young ne’er-do-wells, and cops began being on the lookout for these bands of boys causing all these problems. Other people thought that it was because there was nuclear fallout coming down and landing on the windshields and causing these pockmarks, so people began to panic that maybe there’s nuclear fallout falling on Seattle. And so people started going around with Geiger counters.

There was a guy on the police force, and I’m guessing he was probably one of the least popular guys on the police force, right? ‘Cause he’s one of those contrarian guys. He didn’t go along with the crowds and the rest of his police officers looking for these ne’er-do-wells. He thought maybe there’s something else going on here. You know that guy. When you say something and everybody agrees on it, it’s, really? Usually not a very popular guy. And so what he decided to do when his beat came up, he wasn’t gonna walk around the driveways. He decided to go check out the new car lots. And guess what? No pock marks on the windshields of the new cars. What everybody had noticed and began thinking was some sort of massive conspiracy was just the normal wear and tear on an average car with probably less advanced glass technology than we have now. It’s as if everybody would’ve gotten panicked over the northern Wisconsin rust epidemic on cars. It just happens, right? It doesn’t mean people are going around putting rust on your cars. It just happens.

It’s one of the most well-documented cases of mass delusion. And there are many examples of mass delusions, many examples of mass psychosis. There have been documented examples of entire countries of young women having a laughing epidemic. There are examples of werewolf panics in medieval Europe.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the masses around us can be and often are massively wrong. Paul saw this. What did he call the masses of people around him? A crooked and twisted generation.

What about Ezekiel? Ezekiel looked around him and found a generation that too was massively wrong. It was the saying that he quoted, a saying that seemed to have been common in his age, that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and their children had their teeth set on edge. Evidently, it seemed like many in his generation were blaming their problems on the generations that had come before. Instead of honoring father and mother, they disregarded and disdained father and mother. Instead of taking personal accountability for the problems of their household and for the problems of their city and their nation, they blamed the ones who had come before them.

That wasn’t the only problem that Ezekiel called out. Ezekiel also called attention to the sexual immorality of the people around him. And in addition to this, Ezekiel also focused in on the idolatry of his generation, of the people who ought to have been God’s people. They were practicing syncretism. Maybe they hadn’t rejected the one true God, but they mixed in with the worship of the one true God, worship and beliefs associated with other false foreign gods. They all point in the same direction, the people said.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Can you think of an age in which generation is set against generation? Can you think of an age marked by mass sexual immorality? Can you think of an age in which people are practicing and believing in syncretism, picking and choosing the religious beliefs as if from a spiritual smorgasbord? Boy, does that not sound familiar.

And even as Ezekiel called out people from this mass, this massive delusion of their time, so also God calls us. And this is an individual call. Because if we will turn away from the mass delusions of the masses around us, this means then we as individuals must reckon with our own individual sin.

Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live. He shall not die.

Now, on the one hand, there is the call there to repentance to understand that we are not going to be reckoned before God’s judgment seat en masse with the great masses of people, and that as we do so, we will not be reckoned according to the opinions of the masses, but rather according to the law of God. That is the beginning of repentance: to understand that we as individuals are held accountable to the righteous commands and demands of a righteous God. And that call is as pertinent today as it was in the day of Ezekiel.

Yes, to consider ourselves accountable to a righteous God means that we may face rejection from the generation around us. This may mean that people might consider us to be strange and alien in our time and in our place.

But brothers and sisters in Christ, even as we understand and acknowledge that we are held accountable to God’s righteous expectations individually, there is a promise as well. That even as we are individually reckoned, yet also by the work of God in Christ Jesus, we are individually redeemed.

Yes, the scriptures say that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. The work of Christ Jesus is universal in nature insofar as His righteousness covers over all sin, but yet not all belief. And the promise of God is this: that we have been redeemed not only collectively, but also individually. You see, the saving work of God consists in our individual calling and election.

Before the foundation of the world, God wrote the names of all His people in His book, in the Book of Life. To those that he called, he also sent the Holy Spirit, who by the message of the gospel has converted the heart to individually trust and believe in God and in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

And by means of the sanctifying work of God, this individual sanctifying work, therefore the light of Christ, his righteousness has come to shine in our hearts. The righteousness of Christ dwells within us. That has a righteousness and a glory that is going to shine with greater and greater brilliance as we are transformed from one degree of glory to the next. And we await with great thanksgiving for that glorious day when no longer the shade of sin that still hangs around us on account of our sinful nature will no longer be, but instead nothing will inhibit the glory of God as it shines from us and out of us, reflecting God’s glory even as it shines upon us.

And yet until that day, the glory of Christ yet still dwells within us. And while it may be muted and shaded by our sinfulness, it yet still shines. And my brothers and sisters in Christ, my encouragement to you this day is to let that light shine. Don’t cover it up. Don’t try to just fit in with the masses. But instead, let it shine in the midst of this crooked generation.

One last story. Back when I had the great blessing of studying abroad, there were many of my fellow classmates who wanted to try to not appear to be American. They thought that if they looked American maybe they might get taken advantage of or picked on or something like this. And so they would sew Canadian flag patches—what would you call it—on their backpacks and that sort of thing, try to pawn themselves off as Canadian. I knew that people would take one look at me and say, “That’s a corn-fed boy from the middle of America.” There was no hiding it, and let me tell you, there wasn’t. You could walk down the streets, and the shop callers would all call out “American, American.” In fact, they usually could pinpoint exactly where you were from. At that time, I lived literally right on the border of Texas, and so they’d say, “Yo, Texan.” I said actually, I’m one mile from Texas, is my legal address. All right? Couldn’t help it. It just shined forth.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, you belong to a nation far more distinctive, far more brilliant than the United States of America—or even, doesn’t Texas consider themselves to be a nation too, something like this?—even more brilliant than Texas. You belong to the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus. You belong to a kingdom which has no beginning, which has no end. Do not try to cover that up, but rather instead let the glory of Christ shine in you as you conform yourself not to this age, but to the age to come, that you allow your opinions to be formed not by the masses around you, but rather instead by the holy scriptures. Whether moral or spiritual, let your light shine.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

The post Shining with the Light of Christ [Sermon] first appeared on Saint Peter's Lutheran Church.

Sermon Title: Daily Repentance [Sermon]
Sermon Text: Isaiah 55:6-9
Sermon Summary: The proper time for repentance is today, not years past or some future date. God invites us to daily confess our sins and covers us with the robe of Christ’s righteousness.
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Liturgical Date: Pentecost 17, Proper 20 A
Calendar Date: 2026-09-20
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church, 316 W. Main St., Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420.

Saint Peter’s serves Sister Bay and other area throughout Northeast Wisconsin.

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. You may be seated.

Today we heard from the prophet Isaiah, “Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him, and to our God for He will abundantly pardon.”

And on the basis of this passage, we’re going to be taking up the theme that the proper time for repentance is today. Not sometime off in the future, not far off years ago, but rather instead today.

Back in college, as many of you know, I had my dirt bag white water rafting guide days. And one summer I was getting ready and making the preparations for when I’d be guiding out west in Colorado.

The place where I was gonna be guiding out west didn’t have a bunk house for the guides, and so we had to kind of provide our own arrangements for sleeping. And so I went and I looked around the community and I found a Dodge D-100, a 1989 Dodge D-100. You know, this is just before they transitioned to that more rounded body. It was still the boxy body, classic look.

But what really set this pickup truck apart from just about any other that I could find, it had an eight-foot long bed. And for a six-foot long guy, that was the perfect size for me to live out of the back end for a summer, and that was my plan. I was literally going to use the bed of the pickup truck as a bed.

Now, I ended up not needing it there. I found a literally one-room shack with no electric and no water that I lived in for the summer. So a bit of an upgrade over what I was looking to. But anyways, I still had this pickup truck.

And as I was driving out west to Colorado from where I went to school in Indiana, I drove through Topeka, Kansas, where my granddad, a jack-of-all-trades farmer, lived. And my granddad saw the pickup truck and about lost his mind ’cause it was full of rust. He couldn’t stand the sight of that rust. And so he took me into his shop, handed me an angle grinder, and started showing me everywhere he wanted me to knock the rust off that vehicle, on the bumper, on the doors.

And on the doors after I knocked that rust off the vehicle, he gave me a can of white primer, and he said, “Okay, go ahead and put this primer over it. Unfortunately, the day is getting short and I don’t have any top coat, but when you get out to Colorado, make sure you buy some top coat.”

So across the country I go, out to Colorado in my baby blue pickup truck with white spots on the doors there. It looked like I was driving the sky there, like clouds in the sky. Off I went out west and, you know, I had a good intention. Yeah, when I get there, I will go ahead and buy that top coat.

Friends, do you think I ever bought that top coat and painted over those white primer spots on my doors? No. It stayed that way for a few years until I finally sold it, and what was absolutely predictable happened, right? Eventually, the rust stains started showing through again, and eventually, well, I had big old holes in my doors.

I’m here to tell you that we have a corrosion far more serious than rust on the side of a door. And that corrosion that we all have is the corrosion, the corruption of sin.

And on the one hand, we might be like 21-year-old Chris Jackson and say, “You know, I’m gonna take care of that at some point in the future.” The fact of the matter is that the time to address that corruption, that corrosion of sin, it’s not at some ambiguous point in the future, but instead it is now.

And that is the point that Isaiah was making to the people of God in Jerusalem about 2,700 years ago. Isaiah was telling the people of Jerusalem this: Now is the time to repent. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.

What Isaiah was saying is this: You may think, people of Israel, that you have time to lay aside your sin. You may think that you have time to get rid of all those idols that you are hiding or maybe not even hiding but rather instead putting in full sight on your rooftops. You may think you have time for that. And you may think that you have time to reform your business practices by which you defraud one another. Instead of using your business to serve one another, instead you are using it to defraud one another. You have time to reform those practices, but the time is now. You don’t know about the future.

And brothers and sisters in Christ, that is a message as pertinent today as when it was first preached by Isaiah so many thousands of years ago. And that’s a message that we as well need to hear.

Oh, we may think that we have time to lay aside whatever our besetting sins are. Maybe this is the abuse of alcohol. Maybe this is lust. Maybe this is greed. Whatever it is, we may think that we have time, but the fact of the matter is that the Lord has not guaranteed the next day, let alone the next breath.

This was driven home recently to me and my family. Right now she didn’t end up going, but right now my wife’s classmates from high school are celebrating their 20th anniversary of their graduation with a reunion. And an email went out pointing out the fact that of her class 20 years ago, these are people still in their 40s mind you, but of their class 20 years ago, 30 people in her class have already passed away.

And as a 46-year-old man, I look around and it seems like every other day I hear about a guy my age that’s drawing his last breath. Brothers and sisters in Christ, the day to repent is now. Not far off at some future date.

But rather, God calls each of us to daily confess our sins. We’re gonna talk about that a little bit more in a minute. To daily confess our sins, and God, who is faithful and just, will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

In other words, if we confess our sins, God will in fact remove that rust from us far better than I could with that angle grinder, and God will cover us over with something better than an automotive top coat. But instead, He will cover us with the robe of Christ’s righteousness. A righteousness which he earned for us through a holy life that he lived for our sakes, and an atoning death that he died for our sins.

Now on the other hand, there may be some of us present who know that their days maybe are a little bit more numbered than others, but who think that the opportunity for repentance has far passed. Maybe the years have grown long and the sunset is in view. And we look back upon our lives, and all of a sudden we understand how we have failed to do as God has commanded, and we think that maybe there is not time to get right with God, and that time has passed.

And to this we have this beautiful parable that the Lord Jesus Christ preached. The parable of the master of the vineyard, this generous master who gives to all of his workers equally, whether they came in the cool of the morning or as the day was waning, he gives to each of them the same reward.

And so it is with our God. Whether we have come to Christ as an infant, as Leighton was just baptized, or whether we come to Christ at late age, God’s grace and mercy remains the same. And it is able to cover over all of our sins.

And so my message for you is this, is that repentance is not something that we ought to have done far back years ago, nor is repentance something that we can delay for some future date, but rather instead, the proper moment of repentance is right now. And this applies for each and every one of us.

I’d like for you to open up your hymnals to page 325. Page 325. So this is the Small Catechism, which, in a great blessing, is included in our hymnals, and on page 325 we have the Small Catechism’s discussion of the sacrament of holy baptism. And on the right-hand column, down towards the middle of the column, there’s the fourth part of the teachings regarding the sacrament of holy baptism.

And it asks this question, “What does such baptizing with water indicate?” I’d like for you all to read the answer along with me. “It indicates that the old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

This is a beautiful representation of the Lutheran teaching regarding repentance. There are some Christians who teach that repentance is maybe a one-time occasion in your life, or maybe something if you backslide that maybe you do a few times, or maybe even once a year when the revival season comes around. For those who have this viewpoint, repentance is an infrequent activity.

There are other Christians who maybe believe that repentance is a little bit more frequent. Maybe repentance is something that you do every few months or every month, and they maybe have a little bit different understanding of what repentance is in the first place, but repentance, once again, is an occasional thing.

But as Lutheran Christians, we believe that the entire life of the Christian is a life of repentance. That every day, yes, we are called to reckon with our sin, to examine our lives according to the law of God. According to the Ten Commandments, we are called to examine our words, our deeds, and even more importantly than our words and our deeds, the motions of our minds and the affections of our hearts.

And if we are honest, we will see that daily we fail to keep God’s holy and righteous commands and demands and the law.

And some people may think, “Well, what a miserable thing to do, Pastor Chris. Why in the world would you think upon your sins on such a daily basis?” It’s because on the other side of this is something so precious, so beautiful, and such a blessing. That as we said, if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will in fact forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness day by day.

And so brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the true reason why repentance isn’t just something that maybe ought to have happened years ago, and maybe not something that we wait to happen into the future. But instead, God invites us to daily, today, repent of our sins so that we may have the assurance that we have His grace and mercy to life everlasting.

Praise be to God for this. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Sermon Title: The Power to Forgive [Sermon]
Sermon Text: Matthew 18:21-34
Sermon Summary: Forgiveness is not a power that lies in us but a gift God bestows through the gospel. He transforms our hearts so we can forgive from the heart, as Jesus commands, and receive the blessings that ripple out to others.
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Liturgical Date: Pentecost 16 Proper 19 A
Calendar Date: 2026-09-13
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church, E5221 Church Road, Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420.

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Back when I was Sunday school aged, at the age of five years old, my dad, for whom the faith was a very important thing to him, asked me a question. He said, “Christopher, what did Jesus do for you?” And I answered him, “Jesus died to take away my sins.” And oh, my dad was so proud. You know, the buttons on his shirt burst and he was so happy that his son knew that essential fact of the gospel. And then I turned right around and said, “Jesus should give them back.” Little five-year-old Chris Jackson couldn’t comprehend forgiveness. Couldn’t understand it.

It didn’t make sense to him, right? So if someone wanted to take something from me, it was probably something that I wanted, right? If my little brother wanted to take my He-Man figurine from me, it’s because that He-Man figurine was super cool, and he wanted it. If my parents would take something from me, you know, maybe I had found my dad’s screwdriver and was playing with that, and my parents took that away from me, that was something good that I kinda wanted, but they didn’t want me to have, right?

It was totally incomprehensible to me, and actually it is incomprehensible that someone would want to take something that is worthless from you. And more than worthless, something that could actually hurt you and harm you. The point that I’m getting at is this: that the forgiveness of God, his grace and mercy, is something that the mind cannot comprehend.

It goes beyond our understanding. And praise be to God for this, that because it is something that goes beyond our understanding, it is therefore something that we can trust in, something bigger than us, something that we can have faith in. And the grace and mercy of God is not something that we receive by means of the mind, but rather it’s something that we receive by means of the heart as we trust in him, right?

That has everything to do with what we are going to be talking about today. Because today we saw Jesus asking us to do something which seems incomprehensible. Something that there’s no way we can accomplish it, and that’s the point. That forgiveness is not a power that lies in us, but instead it is a power of God. And it is a power that He bestows upon the Christian as we receive His grace, as we receive His mercy, as we receive His forgiveness. God empowers us to do that which seems incomprehensible. That’s the third theme of our sermon today, the power to forgive.

Because truth be told, what God asks us to do here seems beyond us. It certainly seemed beyond Peter, right? Peter came up and said to Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” And Peter thought that that in itself would be a fairly generous thing to do. But Jesus blows that out of the water, says, “No, I tell you, not seven times, but 70 times seven.”

And Jesus even goes beyond this. Because Jesus qualifies what this forgiveness ought to look like. And this is not just an external kind of maintaining appearances. It’s not just being polite to the individual that you feel has wronged you. It’s much deeper than that. Jesus, at the end of our reading today: “And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers,” the unforgiving servant, right? “Until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” Oh, Jesus. Why did you have to add those last three words there, from your heart? Because, you know, I can make a good effort at doing things externally, right? I can seem to keep the commands at least in an external way. I can keep up pretenses well enough.

From the heart, that’s a different matter.

I mean, God demands purity of the heart. That’s why I find the ninth and 10th commandments to be the hardest commandments, right? Thou shalt not murder. And certainly, you know, I have not taken an innocent man’s blood with my hands, but according to the ninth commandment, you shall not covet, which have to do with our heart. Jesus says, “Look, even if you have hatred in your heart against your brother, you are a murderer.” And He does this with all the other commandments, by the way. The fact of the matter is that God sees our hearts and cares about our hearts, even in a sense, even more than the external actions. And those external actions themselves can be hard to control.

I mean, just yesterday, I obviously would like to shed a few pounds. But just yesterday I spent multiple hours cleaning up the toilet paper that showed up in my yard again, because I’ve got high schoolers, got a few more years to deal with that issue. Okay? So I’m out there cleaning up the toilet paper. We’re still not done, but we’re making headway against it here. I’m out there cleaning it up for hours in the morning and into the afternoon, and I even took a late lunch just to kinda keep on working. Finally, I come in, and it was kind of a hot, muggy day yesterday. And, you know, I fixed my lunch, and I take my dish over to the sink, and right next to the sink is the refrigerator with that freezer underneath. And in that freezer was some nice creamy vanilla ice cream. And I knew I shouldn’t, but after that hot morning and afternoon, I knew that would taste so good. And so, yeah, I scooped myself a little bit of ice cream there yesterday afternoon.

What am I getting at? We can do a halfway decent job at putting on the external show. But even there, it’s easy for us to crack, and it’s hard for us to control ourselves externally. And certainly when it comes to forgiveness, we might be able, as I said, keep up those pretenses, be polite, be at least neutral.

Lord, I have a hard enough time controlling my hands when it comes to the freezer. How can I control my heart?

And that’s the point, brothers and sisters: that when it comes to the demand of God to forgive the brother from the heart, something that goes beyond the way the secular gurus talk about forgiveness. I mean, you can hear secular people talking about forgiveness, but it’s all about, like, mentally moving on and, you know, getting freedom from that. But Christian forgiveness is different. Christian forgiveness isn’t just about the psyche, it’s about the heart. And it is not just about what you can gain from forgiveness, although there is much to gain from it, but it’s also about the love that the Lord desires for you to pour out for the neighbor. And that, my friends, is not something that you can accomplish for yourself. That is something that can only happen by the power of God.

And the Lord has given us many blessings unto that end. First of all, the Lord has given us solemn warnings in the holy scriptures about the danger of unforgiveness, and those warnings can be hard to hear, and yet they are necessary for us to hear, and it is good for us to hear those warnings. We heard one of those warnings this morning. “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” We have another warning that is so important that the Lord incorporated it in the prayer that he taught us to pray. “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

And those are some very hard words to pray and to read. They’re a good reminder to us about the danger that comes alongside a lack of forgiveness. You see, if we harden our hearts against our neighbor, then we may run the risk of hardening them to a place of total hardness against our neighbor’s creator, God himself. And if our hearts are hard against our neighbors so that we do not forgive, then they may become so hardened that we do not receive the forgiveness that the Lord desires to give us, a forgiveness that we can only receive by means of faith, hearts that look to God in trust. It’s a stern warning, but it’s a good warning that we must hear and heed.

The Lord also empowers us unto forgiveness by means of putting before our eyes the blessings that come along with forgiveness. Blessings for ourselves, blessings for others as well.

We have a beautiful example of this in the example of Joseph. Right? Now, his brothers sought a measure of forgiveness from Joseph, but it was just a measure of it. They thought, “Look, because of what we did to Joseph, perhaps he will have us put to death. In fact, he probably will. So let’s do this instead. Let’s concoct this story about our father, and then in addition to that, we will offer ourselves up to him as slaves.” So the idea is Joseph could have us killed. Probably the best that we could ask for is to be his slaves instead. And so therefore, they come into his courtroom. They throw themselves down at his feet. They beg him to make them their slaves. But the forgiveness that Joseph had was such an incredible forgiveness that instead of letting them sit there groveling face to foot, he lifts them up so that they can look to him eye to eye. And he welcomes them into his palace, and he sets a feast before them, and he eats with them as brothers.

And what incredible blessings came by means of this forgiveness. Blessings for Joseph to be sure. Joseph gained back family and brothers through that forgiveness. Blessings to those brothers as well, so that they could be relieved of this shame, they could be relieved of this guilt. But not only this, but they could receive many blessings: land, a way of life, and a heritage. And by means of this mercy that Joseph showed, not only did Joseph benefit, not only did these brothers benefit, but we have benefited. Because the line of Abraham was preserved. And through this, the Messiah came forth. So that we would have the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus, and the forgiveness of our sins.

Praise God for these blessings that came about through this forgiveness that Joseph showed. A forgiveness that was incomprehensible to his brothers, but was made possible only by means of Joseph’s faith in God.

And here’s where we come to the ultimate power of forgiveness. Joseph understood how good the Lord had been to him. And because of this knowledge, that is what transformed his heart so that he could in fact forgive his brothers from the heart. And it is that power which transforms our hearts as well.

As we hear the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as we receive the fruits of what Christ so lavishly won for us in his life, his death, his resurrection for us, as we receive those gifts in holy baptism, as we receive them through the Lord’s supper, through holy absolution, through the proclamation of the word of God, God, by the power of the Holy Spirit who uses these means, transforms our hearts and gives us that peace which surpasses all understanding.

The peace with God that we have, we can’t grapple with it with our minds. Five-year-old Chris Jackson was in essence telling the truth from a worldly perspective. And yet by means of the heart transformed by the power of God, we can apprehend that mercy with faith. And it is that transformed heart, not something that we have done, rather that God does for us and in us by means of the holy gospel, that we in turn have the ability to forgive. And the ability to receive those blessings the Lord desires to pour out on us through forgiveness.

Above all the blessings to maintain community. To have households healed by means of forgiveness. Churches kept in community and common purpose by means of forgiveness. Relationship between parent and child, sibling to sibling, so that not only we might receive those blessings, but so also we might be founts of blessings to others as well. Means by which the Lord loves others.

And as we saw with Joseph, that ripples out. It’s a blessing we enjoy, it’s a blessing that those in our lives enjoy, and it’s a blessing that ripples out to bless others in our community and generation to generation. All praise and glory and honor be to God for the mercy He has shown us and empowers us to show mercy as well.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The post The Power to Forgive [Sermon] first appeared on Saint Peter's Lutheran Church.

Sermon Title: Worldly Sacrifice for the Sake of Christ

Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Ephraim and other areas in Northeastern Wisconsin.

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” And on the basis of this, we’re going to be talking about the theme that worldly sacrifices aren’t sacrifices at all.

I have stared directly into the eyes of evil, evil incarnate. Black eyes, just as black as night. And around the eye it was a face full of hair, shaggy hair, and that shaggy hair went all down its body. The face of evil that I stared into stood about two and a half feet off the ground. His name was McGregor. He was a Portuguese water dog. He was the dog that Mary and I first owned when we first got married. And we had to get rid of him. He was a threat to our family. He developed these very strong opinions about a few things, and if you went against that opinion the teeth would start to flash, and the voice would start to snarl, and we just could not have this creature in our home. It was very scary and certainly when you had little kids in the house, just completely not something that we needed at all. So we ended up getting rid of him. But here’s the thing, it took us far longer than it probably should have to get rid of him. And it was maybe a little bit sad when we got rid of him. We certainly liked him in some ways, even though he was categorically evil.

And isn’t this just like our sins, brothers and sisters in Christ? Amen. Which while they do much harm to us, they do much harm to others, yet we cling so closely to them. But with these words, Jesus invites us to lay aside our sins, to, as the theologians say, crucify the mortal flesh or to mortify the flesh. And that’s part of what we’re going to be talking about today. We’re going to be talking about the fact that simply giving up the evil things of this world, it’s pure gain. Even the good things that Christ our Lord asks us to sacrifice, we sacrifice those good things for the sake of better things. And of all those better things that the Lord grants us, eternal life is chief among them.

Let’s think on that first point. Simply giving up the evil things of this world is pure gain. Back to that dog McGregor, certainly there were some things that we enjoyed about him. He brought certain pleasures. I remember one of the things I really enjoyed when our kids were little and we’d walk the dog to the playground in the neighborhood, and the dog would come along, and the kids were there, and all the neighborhood kids were around there. I actually had this thing trained that he could climb up the eight-foot-tall slide and slide down that slide, and literally the entire playground of kids would—their jaws would be dropping to see this shaggy dog climbing up the slide and going down the slide. Gained a little bit of neighborhood notoriety through that. And certainly, it was fun to pet him when he was in a good mood. There were certainly some things that we enjoyed about him. Nonetheless, he was a threat to us and to our family, and isn’t this so much like our sins?

The sin of bearing a grudge. The sin of holding on to bitterness. This is a sin. Let’s have no mistake about it. We pray after all, “Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We ought to forgive even as we have been forgiven. We have freely received, so also ought we to freely give, and yet it feels so good sometimes to cling to that bitterness, to cling to that grudge. What does that grudge, that bitterness let you do? It lets you put someone lower than you. It lets you look down your nose. You say, “You have done this to me, therefore you are less than me, and I have this leverage over you now.” Don’t get me wrong here. If we are wronged, yes, there can be frustration, sorrow, anger. But the nursing of a bitterness or the nursing of a grudge is holding that against somebody. And that is indeed a thing of status. That can feel good in a way. It can feel good to hold yourself up and above somebody else. And yet it’s ultimately destructive. If we hold and nurse bitterness and grudges to those around us, it cuts us off from relationship with them. There can be no relationship with others without forgiveness. And so therefore, when we nurse that bitterness, when we nurse that grudge, we cut ourselves off from the love that the Lord desires of us to give that individual and the love that the Lord desires for us to receive back from that individual. It’s destructive. Harmful.

What about other sins? What about the sin of being given to drunkenness? There comes some certain worldly pleasures with that. The thrill of letting go, the freedom maybe from anxieties or cares or regrets or sorrows or whatever it is. I can give you some relief from that momentarily. But with drunkenness comes ill health. Drunkenness comes as well potentially a threat to others and to our own safety. Drunkenness maybe comes with activity that we later regret. And that too is its own kind of destruction and danger. What about the sin of lust or promiscuity? Same thing. In the moment, a thrill, but in the end, heartbreak, sorrow, destruction.

When Christ invites us to take up our cross and to follow him, it’s an incredibly pregnant phrase, and I don’t want to reduce it to any one thing. But at the very least, part of what Christ is inviting us to do is to repent of our sins. To lay aside these worthless things. And that’s pure gain. When we gave up that dog, what did we gain? We gained a sense of safety. We gained a sense of relief. We got a place in our house that we could get a much better dog that you see Sunday to Sunday sitting at our porch, that we love her so much. It was pure gain. And the invitation to repent of our sins, that too is pure gain. Yes, there may be some things from a worldly perspective that are lost, but truly those things are not losses. It’s all pure gain.

Now, when Christ invites us to take up our cross and follow him, on the one hand there is an invitation to lay aside the worthless things of the sinful flesh. On the other hand, there is also an invitation to take up and to receive the means by which the work of the cross comes upon us in our lives. To lay aside the good things that the Lord does give us for the sake of better things. Now, sometimes the Lord invites us to lay aside good things for the sake of better things. We can see this right exactly in this passage by the way. And we think about the context in which Jesus is saying this passage. Jesus is answering Peter, right? This is in the midst of this dialogue and this back and forth with Peter where Jesus says, “Look, the time is coming and coming soon when I’m going to travel to Jerusalem, I’m going to be rejected, I’m going to be killed, and on the third day rise.” And Peter says, “This is never going to happen to you.” And Jesus rebukes Peter, and then on the basis of that, he then goes on and says, “If anyone would be my disciple, he must take up his cross, deny himself, and follow me.” And think about this in the context of Peter. Because that call to Peter was certainly a call to lay aside what I would call objectively good things.

Now, this is different from Matthew, right? Matthew was this tax collector, and we think of tax collectors today, and we think of some disinterested bureaucrat in a faraway office who makes a paltry little salary from the government and who has all kinds of laws and regulations and procedures all around what he does. This was not the case with a tax collector in the time of the Roman Empire. Roman tax collectors were businessmen. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a businessman at all, if the business is legitimate and isn’t exploitative. But that’s the thing about the way the tax business was structured. You were required as a tax collector to have a certain amount of taxes to collect and to hand over to the Romans, and one of the ways that you made money was adding a little bit for yourself on the top. And right away you can see the ability to be exploitative. And so there’s this tinge to Matthew’s background, right?

Peter, it’s hard to find anything like that, right? Think about the way that Peter made his daily bread. It’s hard to think of anything more wholesome, right? He’s a fisherman, and he goes out and he toils, sometimes late into night, forgoing sleep. He toils when the sun comes up under the harsh Mediterranean sun. He’s literally earning his bread by the sweat of his brow. He’s risking his life for the sake of this. And his business is just giving food to people. It’s hard to think of anything more wholesome than that. And then on top of that, he seems to be fairly successful at what he does to some degree. He seems to own this property, which is big enough that he can play host to his mother-in-law, and he’s an established member of Capernaum there and seems to be known in the synagogue. Peter is a model of an upstanding man embedded in his community, good to his family, and who earns his way through honest, wholesome work, right? That’s not to say he wasn’t a sinner, but it is to say that his life, in my eyes, that looks like a good life.

In Jesus, when he called Peter to follow him, right? To become a fisher of man, this was laying aside what I would call objectively good things for the sake of the better thing which is to be an apostle of the Savior of the world. And praise be to God for this because through the work of Peter, the message of the gospel has gone out to the four corners of the world, even here to Forestville, Wisconsin, so that we might ourselves believe and have eternal life.

Now, the Lord does not call all of us or most of us to make those kinds of sacrifices, the kinds of sacrifices that Peter was commissioned to do. And yet the Lord still continues to want to give us good things that requires laying aside of other good things. The Lord desires to give you the forgiveness of sins. The work of the cross which Christ so lovingly did for you in His righteous life that He lived unto your righteousness, in His atoning death that He died unto your forgiveness. Christ wants you to receive that. And we receive this through the means that the Lord has: through the word, through the sacraments. And to receive those gifts means that we have to lay aside other good things, right?

Third Commandment, honor the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? With these words, the Lord encourages us to gladly hear God’s word, right? And what does this require? You hear me week by week. I say it fairly often. I encourage you to have a devotional habit within your home. Now in order to open the scriptures and to return the word of God back to Him in prayer, what does that mean that you have to do? That means that you have to lay aside things which are objectively good, right? You have to lay aside your chores. You have to lay aside your hobbies. You have to lay aside your work, and you have to be still to hear the word of the Lord and to receive that gift. You have to stop working and doing so the Lord can work and do for you.

Here at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, the Lord gives us the life-saving gospel and the forgiveness of sins through the means of grace. He gives it to us as it is proclaimed in the holy absolution, proclaimed from the pulpit, as we receive it in holy baptism, and through the Lord’s supper. By these means, the Lord grants us the forgiveness of sins, and this means that we have to lay aside things which might be objectively good, right? We have to lay aside the time that we might use for a hobby. We have to lay aside our work. We have to lay aside that time so that the Lord might give us his gifts. And yes, that might mean sacrificing things that are objectively good for the sake of something better: the word of God and the forgiveness of sins.

And what great blessings the Lord gives us through these means. By means of the gospel of Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the guidance of the holy scriptures, the Lord empowers us. And yes, it’s imperfect this side of heaven, but the Lord empowers us so that we might, in fact, lay aside those sins which are so harmful to us and to others. Maybe instead of holding ourselves over others in the bearing of a grudge and bitterness, instead as we receive that forgiveness of God and as we receive the guidance of the holy scriptures and as we pray to the Lord, “Lord, not my will but thy will be done,” then the Lord’s will in fact be done with us and among us and in us as we are empowered to forgive. And it might seem impossible for us. With our God, all things are possible. We can go down the list of all the other things we named and didn’t name with regards to sins, but by this means the Lord frees us from their consequences and frees us from their grip.

The greatest gift that the Lord gives us are not the gifts of this world, even as we receive those gifts and we’re glad for those gifts, but rather the gift of the world to come. Christ Jesus, he invites us to take up our cross and follow him. And by these words, He invites us to crucify our sin in true repentance, and He invites us to receive the merits of His cross by means of the Holy Gospel. And what does this do for us? This opens the door of eternal life for us. Jesus invites us to follow Him. And Christ our Lord has gone down into the valley of the shadow of death. But yet he has emerged upon the other side as our good shepherd leading his sheep. He has emerged on the other side to the green pastures and the still waters of eternal life. And this is where Christ our Lord desires to lead us. And he leads us there through the repentance of our sins and the reception of His holy and most precious gospel. So my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us indeed gladly take up our cross and follow where He leads. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Sermon Title: The Christian’s Relationship to Civil Authority
Sermon Text: Romans 10:1-13
Sermon Summary: Civil authorities are instituted by God for our wellbeing and are to be obeyed unless they command what is contrary to his word. God also rules his people inwardly by transforming hearts through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Liturgical Date: Pentecost 15, Proper 18 A
Calendar Date: 2026-09-06
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County

Saint Peter’s serves Sister Bay and other locations in Northeast Wisconsin.

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we are taking up the theme that civil authority is instituted by God for our wellbeing. La tema del sermon, la autoridad civil es instituida por Dios para nuestro bien. So today we are taking up that theme on the basis of our reading from Romans chapter 13. “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” And on the basis of this we’re going to be taking up three points. First of all, that civil authorities are instituted by God. That therefore, second point, civil authorities are to be obeyed insofar as they do not require anything contrary to the word of God. But then finally we’re going to be talking about the fact that God rules in another way besides the civil authorities. Rule not of external compulsion, but rather instead a rule of the heart by means of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A rule that he exercises over his people. So let’s think of that first point.

Civil authorities are instituted by God, and the scriptures are absolutely 100% clear about this. It doesn’t get any more clear than Saint Paul saying, “There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Now I want you to take a look at the end of verse one there in Romans chapter 13. Let me ask you a question. Do you see an asterisk? Do you see a footnote? No. You see a period. They have been instituted by God, period. No ifs, no ands, no buts, no asterisks, no footnotes. God is Lord of all, and therefore nothing happens apart from His will. And when it comes to the government, when it comes to civil authorities, it is God who has established them in their place.

Now, in God’s wisdom, God does, on occasion, settle people into civil authority or groups into civil authority which are unrighteous and unholy, and go against the will of God. As Christians, we are very aware of this, and yet we understand that God has His purposes, which we may not fully understand. Think about the civil authorities in the time of St. Paul. St. Paul was very familiar with civil authorities in various ways. He, for example, was aware of the fact that the Jewish civil authorities brought Jesus forward in order for Him to be tried in front of Pontius Pilate, the Roman authority, and eventually killed. St. Paul wasn’t there, but St. Paul also knew of the fact that Pontius Pilate was an unrighteous man and had betrayed what is good and what is true. He knew that even while Pontius Pilate knew the truth that Jesus Christ had done nothing wrong, had no deserving of death in Him, yet he gave Him over to be crucified. Pontius Pilate knew this from the inside. Or rather, I should say, St. Paul knew this from the inside. St. Paul, after all, before he was converted to Jesus Christ, used the political system in order to extradite believers from Damascus, for example, from various places back to Jerusalem in order to be persecuted there. And in many ways, he was probably the right man for that job, both as a Jew and as a Roman citizen, and an educated one at that. He was able to play in both parts of that political system, and to his own evil ends. St. Paul understood that yes, there can be evil actors in civil authority, and they may do things and command things which are unrighteous, and yet St. Paul is convinced of this fact that they are all in that authority by the power of God, and their exercising of evil is contrary to the will of God, which God’s will is to bless us by means of their authority, which brings us to our second point.

The civil authorities are to be obeyed insofar as they do not command anything contrary to the will of God. So God has established authority for a very clear purpose, that it may go well for us. We see this in His institution of authority, for example, in His discussion of authority in the fourth commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” We’ve always understood that, by the way, to, yes, talk about the authority that father and mother have, but we also understand that this applies as well to all other forms of authority on Earth. And that’s the first command with a promise. Honor your father and mother, honor authority in order that it may go well with you all the days of your life. And I’m convinced Saint Paul has this in mind in part as he discusses the civil authorities, where he says this, that “Rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.” And so therefore, we are called to obey civil authority externally in part so that things might go well. Things might go well for us, things might go well for those around us as well.

Through civil authority come things like traffic laws, which order our traffic so that we don’t go running into each other willy-nilly. Through civil authority comes the various laws by which we’re able to hold up a contract so that we can do business one with another in ways that are predictable and expectable and are down to our mutual wellbeing. Through civil authority comes protection from all kinds of powers which would seek to undo us. Through civil authority, for example, comes protection from fire which might consume our homes if it’s not suppressed, protection from criminals who would rob us and deprive us of the things that the Lord has given us for the upkeep of our bodies and for the wellbeing of those in our households as well. And it is for this purpose in part that Saint Paul encourages Christians to be obedient to authority. And notice St. Paul doesn’t really give, once again, much of an exception. Now there are ways in which clearly Christians are not called to obey civil authority in some matters. We’ll get to that in a minute. But that’s a very high bar that is there, right? It’s a very high bar. St. Paul doesn’t say, “Obey civil authority insofar as you like the person who is in authority.” Saint Paul doesn’t say obey civil authority insofar as you agree in your personal judgments with the various laws. He says, “Obey so it might go well with you, and as well so it might go well with others.”

It’s been a little concerning to me, quite frankly, that many Christians are appealing to various kinds of unscriptural things to work out for themselves various easings of conscience with regards to their relationship with the civil authorities, and with law. God’s Word will have none of it. God calls us to be obedient insofar as what we’re called to do does not expressly violate the will of God. And there’s precedent for this as Christians as well. In the time of the early church, there were things that were being commanded by the civil authority, which clearly did go contrary to the will of God. So for example, it was commanded by the civil authorities in the early Christian times, at various times and various places, to render pagan sacrifice, to sacrifice to the pagan gods, or to make an allegiance to Caesar as if he is God. He certainly claimed at times the title of the Son of God. And Christians refused to do this, and they refused to do this oftentimes to the shedding of their own blood. It’s a big reason why Christians were persecuted, were rounded up, were taken and were put in front of gladiators and wild animals in the various circuses, in the coliseums around the Mediterranean world. Christians refused to render unto Caesar what is God’s, even while they gladly rendered unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, including tax, revenue, honor, respect, and so on. And as Christians, we are called in like manner to do the same thing, to render these things to the civil authorities, but to never render to them anything that belongs to God alone. And the greatest thing that is owed to God above all is our hearts. We love the civil authorities and render them honor and respect, but we do not allow them to take a place in our hearts where only God ought to be. We do not make a God out of civil authorities, but instead we recognize that they stand under the one true God.

And God rules over us therefore as Christians, yes, through civil authority, through the stick and the carrot of the law. And St. Paul talks about that, right? So he gives approval to those who do good. There is your carrot. And then he says, “But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.” And there is the stick. But as Christians, we render obedience to the civil authorities for a far greater reason and a far greater purpose, not simply externally, of external compulsion, but rather out of internal desire to honor and to love God, who has established the civil authority. God rules over us Christians above all, not through the external compulsion of stick and carrot, but rather through the internal formation of the heart. God transforms our hearts by means of the Holy Gospel. Apart from the work of God, our hearts are cold, dead, set against one another, and set against God. But through the message of the forgiveness of God in Christ Jesus, the Lord transforms our hearts into hearts that then trust Him and love Him and have faith in Him, and that faith empowers us Christians to live as subjects in the civil realm in ways that other people cannot and do not.

One of my children is a student at the United States Military Academy at West Point. And something that’s been such a joy for me to see is the preponderance of Christian students there. There is a palpable Christian ethos on that campus, in many ways far more than many externally Christian campuses. And that doesn’t surprise me when you start to think about it. Because as Christians, those who trust in the Lord, therefore, we are able to serve in the civil realm in the way that others do not. We’re willing to sacrifice life for the sake of our fellow countrymen. We’re willing to trust God even in political situations we don’t agree with, because ultimately we know that God is in control. And therefore, a soldier, for example, can serve even when the political situation is something he doesn’t entirely understand or agree with, and yet he can serve, a Christian soldier, knowing that God is ultimately in power, and that His will be done, and that he does a good thing for the sake of his countrymen in terms of working for his defense.

And so my urging for you brothers and sisters in Christ is this: is to above all understand that your ultimate home is in heaven, and your ultimate king is the King of Kings, the Prince of Princes, the Lord of Lords, God in heaven. A God in whom you have faith, a God in whom you trust, and a God whom you love, and out of that faith and trust in Him, therefore seek to live to the well-being of those around you in the civil realm. As messy, as complicated as that can get, seeking to do good, not simply out of external compulsion, but rather out of love for the neighbor. And by this means, we Christians are able to live in the civil realm in ways that go beyond and surpass those who have no faith. In a minute we’re going to sing God Bless Our Native Land. And the very last phrase of that hymn is, “God save our state.” May this truly be the case. May it be the case that the Lord preserve our state, both the state and the national government. And may we as Christians be at the forefront of love for the neighbor and seeking a good civil life together. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Title: Office of the Keys: Heart of the Church [Sermon]
Text: Matthew 16:19
Liturgical Date: Pentecost 13, Proper 16 A
Calendar Date: August 23, 2026
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County. 316 W. Main St., Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420.

Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County serves Luxemburg, Wisconsin, and other areas around Northeast Wisconsin.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we heard these words from Christ Jesus, our Lord: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” And on the basis of this passage, we’re going to be taking up the theme of the heart of the church.

As many of you know, last weekend I was out of the pulpit here at St. Peter’s as I traveled to Greeley, Colorado for two purposes. I’ll talk about one of those purposes in a little bit. But the first purpose was to lay my beloved grandmother to rest. A lovely, fine Christian lady. Lived to the age of 98, a blessed end, and really a very beloved woman to me and to our whole family.

We laid her to rest last weekend. And when I think about my grandmother, I think about many things. One of the things I think about is her home in Warsaw, Missouri. This was her retirement home with my grandfather, Hugh, who himself had been ordained into the ministry, was a pastor as well. And their retirement home there in Warsaw, Missouri, to me was a palace.

It was maybe one of the greatest houses on the planet. It was just a really special place. No better place than my grandmother’s home. Now, I started to look at it in a little bit different light, however, when she was getting ready to move away from there. After my grandfather died and she wanted to move closer to my mother, her daughter in Greeley, Colorado, and she was getting it ready to sell, and I was there in my last visit to that home, looking around.

And the way I perceived things was a little bit different because I started looking at it not from the eyes of an adoring grandson, but rather from the eyes of a potential buyer, and what I saw was shocking to me. So I looked into the kitchen, the source of so much love from her, right? And I think the house had been built in the ’70s and, go figure, that linoleum was straight from 1974.

Countertops, same deal, and cheap ones at that. Cabinets, really nothing special. Pretty cheap and crummy. Really not a nice kitchen at all. And then I went and looked at the dining room. This source of great joy as we gather around the table to eat that delicious grandmother food.

And I looked down at the floor and my grandfather Hugh was a big man. I mean, he was 6’6” in his prime, muscular, and had other forms of body mass as well due to my grandmother’s good cooking. Huge man. And I looked down at the floor and I realized, oh my goodness, the place where he had scooted his chair in and out at mealtime over the years, he had worn grooves down to the subfloor, right straight through the carpeting and the padding because he was such a big man and just had put that pressure on there.

Holes in the carpeting. I looked up at the ceiling. This is a Christian home, so we prayed up to the Lord, right? And I looked at the ceiling and realized popcorn ceilings from 1974, but misapplied and therefore really pretty splotchy. A lot of that popcorn had come down. And I looked at the walls and, for a few years there my grandfather was in a motorized wheelchair, and I looked at the walls about four inches up from the ground and well, he had rubbed grooves in many of the walls where the wheels of his wheelchair had hit the walls, right?

Cheap doors. Just a really honest-to-goodness kind of a crummy house. And I never realized it before. I had been completely oblivious to it. Why was it a palace in my view? It’s because while the externals weren’t amazing, the internals were all correct. She had attended to the heart of the home. It was a place of love, affection, good food.

It was a restful place. One of the few places on Earth where I’ve ever felt truly at ease, and above all, centered on Christ Jesus the Lord. And because of that, to me, it was a palace.

Our home, brothers and sisters in Christ, is in heaven. And that’s a palace beyond compare. And we all look forward to that and anticipate that, but until we get to heaven, the Lord has granted us a home, a spiritual home here on Earth in the Holy Christian Church and in St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. And what our sermon is about today is remaining attentive to the heart of what it means to be a spiritual home here on Earth.

That we remain attentive to the heart of what it means to be the church. And it’s all tied in to what you probably learned back in catechism class, the Office of the Keys. Let’s review it. I’d like for you to open up your hymnals to page 326. Open up your hymnals to page 326.

On the left-hand column, about three quarters of the way down, there’s a question there: What is the Office of the Keys? I’m going to ask you to read the answer along with me. What is the Office of the Keys? The Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His Church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.

All right, so now the Office of the Keys actually has three primary texts that we draw it from in Scripture. In our gospel lesson, we read one of them in Matthew 16, and another very important passage which addresses the Office of the Keys is John chapter 20. Let’s read that together. Where is this written?

This is what Saint John the Evangelist writes in chapter 20: “The Lord Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’” In a way, there we see the carrying out of what Christ promised in Matthew 16.

Christ promised, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.” Here in chapter 20, He actually does the deed and gives the disciples the keys. All right. Now let’s take a look at the final question regarding this. What do you believe according to these words? I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain—even in heaven—as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.

Now, when we usually think of the Office of the Keys, and it is in the Small Catechism written in the section dealing with confession and absolution, we usually associate it just with confession and absolution, but really it applies to all the means of grace.

It applies to all the ways the Lord opens up the kingdom of heaven to us by means of His grace and mercy, which Christ so lavishly won for us on the cross. Through His blessed death, through His holy resurrection, Christ Jesus has opened the kingdom of heaven to us. And the Lord extends that grace to us through means, through the means of, well, we actually just sang about it in Built on the Rock, through the Word of God as it’s proclaimed, through holy baptism, through the Lord’s Supper.

These are the means the Lord has given us to extend that grace and mercy, and that’s the loosing key. And that’s the key, the loosing key, to release us from our sins and from our bondage to death, and our bondage to the devil, and on the one hand to close the gates of hell to us, but on the other hand to open the doors of heaven to us.

That’s the key that the church wants to exercise, and that’s the key that ultimately God wants to exercise as well. We have fancy theological terms for this, like the proper work of the church, and so on. But this is, to put a short explanation, this is what we want, right? This is what all our ministry leads up to: to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life through that forgiveness.

Now, on the other hand, we have the binding key. So on the right hand is the loosing key, the key of the gospel. In the other hand is the key of the law, the key by which we bind sins to those who are unrepentant. And we do this through the proclaiming of the law sometimes, unfortunately, as well through Christian discipline within the congregation.

And when we boil it down, the Office of the Keys is really the one work proper to the church. It’s really the one thing that separates the church from every other organization on Earth. Now, it doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that the church does or should do. We should do a lot of different things, right?

So, and I praise God for all of these other things that the church gets involved in. For example, our sister congregation, St. John’s, last two weekends a group of men went with Lutheran Emergency Response Teams, or Early Response Teams, to help clean up after the tornadoes down in Menasha. So friends of yours that I’m sure you know, Glenn Smith, Randy Klott, and Todd Althoff rode went down to do that.

Praise be to God for this. The church should be doing this. It’s an outgrowth of who we are in Christ. We who have received a heavenly home therefore are glad to serve others when it comes to their earthly homes. Praise be to God for this. But here’s the thing: you don’t need to be a part of a church to do that kind of work, right?

Now, it’s good that we do. We ought to do it, and actually I may be overstating the case there because fact of the matter, most of that kind of work, most charity work in the world is done by Christian organizations and Christians. But you don’t need to be, right? There’s Lions Clubs, there’s Kiwanis Clubs, there’s all kinds of ways that you can do that kind of work.

So it’s not proper to the church. The church engages in fellowship, right? And one of my favorite times of the year, I love Advent and Lent, and honestly, one of the reasons why I love Advent and Lent, I love the meals. I love church food. Okay? I love getting together with my brothers and sisters in Christ, having a little meal together before or after service, and then worshiping the Lord together.

It’s a wonderful time. But you don’t need the church in order to have social time, right? I mean, I live just a few houses away from a social establishment, a very popular one that’s very full from 2:30 in the afternoon to 7:30 in the afternoon, and yes, I do see you coming in and out of there.

And so once again, you don’t need the church in order to socialize, right? Other institutions do that sort of thing. But what can a social establishment not give you? What can the Lion’s Club not provide you? What can your job not provide either? That’s the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, freedom from all of the guilt and all the shame and the joy and anticipation and hope of life everlasting.

That is the one thing that the church offers. And if we are neglectful of this, if we are forgetful of this, if we pay attention to all of the external things, yet neglect that heart, well then we’re like a palace of a home where there’s no love, no guidance, nothing of the sort.

I knew a lady who was, in many ways, the exact opposite of my grandmother. Nice lady. She lived up the street from me. I lived in Oakville, Missouri at the time, and she lived just a few houses up the cul-de-sac from me. Had the nicest house on the cul-de-sac. Bushes immaculately trimmed. Lawn always just perfect.

No weeds. Spic and span. Always out vacuuming out her cars, washing windows, all that good stuff. Beautiful, beautiful home. Nothing wrong with that, by the way. It’s good to take care of the things the Lord has given to us. And yet she had neglected the heart of the home. Her marriage, nonexistent. Her son, well, he was in the same grade as me.

I never told her this, although I think maybe she had an inkling, but literally a drug dealer. And so she had this home where everything was sparkly and pristine on the outside, but had neglected the heart of what a home ought to be, a place marked by faithfulness, love, and striving together for mutual uplift. Striving for the good together. That had been lost.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, sometimes churches are attentive to all of the external things but completely forgetful of the heart of the church. You know, there are lots of churches that have just an utterly pristine building, and maybe they have the best possible tech, and they have a pastor who is way better looking than I am.

Everything externally looks amazing, and yet you can go Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and barely hear the name of Jesus proclaimed. Barely. If you’re lucky, you might hear the name of Jesus. And the forgiveness of sins? Forget about it. Maybe one Sunday a year for what they call Gospel Sunday. A complete neglect of the heart of the church.

Now, that’s maybe not something that we might experience here, but I think that we have potentially other ways that we might be allured to be neglectful of the Office of the Keys. One of the ways, very common in Lutheran churches, is by forgetfulness of the binding key. Remember that key which retains sins and warns sinners away from their transgressions.

And there are lots of reasons why churches may be neglectful of this. There are churches that may see the law of God and the Ten Commandments as traditionally explained and understood by them to be something of an embarrassment. So therefore they seek to redefine the law of God, and they might say, “You know, God said that then, but now we know this.” On the other hand, there are churches who aren’t going to go quite that far, but rather instead churches that simply, while not saying, “Look, we’re gonna redefine the law of God,” but rather just simply fail to preach it and to teach it.

And they’re neglectful of it that way. You know, because the law of God, it’s hard. It’s a hard word, and you know, a hard word isn’t loving. It’s not caring. Quite honestly, the exact opposite is the case. I mentioned how we celebrated two things over the last week. And first of all, laying my grandmother to rest.

And second of all, oh, such a blessing, got to spend some time with my two young nephews, one just a few weeks old for his baptism, praise be to God for that, and the other who is nearing two years old. Such a blessing as well. Lovely little boy. But it was also a reminder that when you’re taking care of children that are four years old and younger, it is a constant suicide watch.

They’re always trying to off themselves. And so because of this, you have to speak hard words—lots of hard words. “No, don’t go running out into traffic. No, don’t go and pet that snarling pit bull. No, don’t put the butter knife into the electrical outlet. No, don’t throw yourself in the swimming pool without your floaties.”

And we would be utterly unloving if we were unwilling to say those hard words. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we sinners are spiritual two-year-olds. And even of us who are redeemed, the old sinful nature still clings around our necks. And sin is ultimately us trying to off ourselves eternally, by the way. And the church fails to love unless it is willing to say, “No, don’t do this thing.

I know it is appealing for various reasons. I know that everybody else around you is doing it for those reasons. I know that people will think you odd for your failure to engage in this way.” Don’t. And if you have, turn away, repent so that you can receive the forgiveness of sins and not die in your transgression but instead receive eternal life.

Final way is when churches and individuals are neglectful of the means the Lord delivers His good grace and mercy, the way that the Lord gives us eternal life. You want to desire to have a better and prolonged life here on earth, what we would otherwise call health. Now, I might say, “I wanna be healthy.”

Many of us probably would say, “Yeah, I wanna be healthy,” and we say that with our lips, but then when it comes time to avoid that second helping, or it comes time to go to the gym or take that walk, or it comes time to put the phone away, stop scrolling, or hit off on the television and go to bed to get some better sleep, well, our actions speak differently. We say that we want the health, but we don’t want to use the means that are right there in front of us to attain that better health.

Spiritually, a lot of times churches and we as individuals are the same way, right? The Lord gives us eternal life through the means of grace, through these things of the loosing key that we talked about, the proclamation of the Word of God, holy absolution, baptism, the Lord’s Supper. And yet, while we may verbalize that we want eternal life, yet we are neglectful of the means the Lord gives us eternal life.

And my prayer for us, my prayer for us as St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, both collectively and us individually is this: that we would, while we attend to the external things, and we do all of those things and do them well, that we always remember the heart of what we’re about. That as well, we would in addition be attentive not only to the gospel of God, but also to the law of God. Then finally, that we would gladly make use of the means of grace so that we would be built up in the faith and receive life everlasting. And here’s the thing, as long as that heart is there, everything else is in place.

And that’s what we sang about today, right? Built on the rock, the church will stand even when steeples are falling. Do you know what that hymn is about? The hymn is about this: look, even if our edifices crumble down, even if institutionally things start falling apart, even if we’re a little shabby around the edges, as long as we attend to the heart of the church, the Office of the Keys, the church will stand and Satan will not overcome.

And wherever we make use of the gifts of God unto eternal life, there is a door to heaven even if we don’t have any functioning doors to enter. Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us individually and collectively attend to the heart of the church. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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Title: Spiritual Pride & Spiritual Humility
Text: Romans 9:1–13
Location: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County; 316 W. Main St., Forestville, WI 54213; 920-856-6420
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson

Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Luxemburg and other areas in Northeast Wisconsin.

Transcript
Today we are taking up the theme of spiritual humility, and in contrast to spiritual pride. And there’s a great story from the life of Martin Luther that I think really illustrates our true position under God. After Martin Luther perished, there were many efforts by people to make sure that his dying faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and his commitment to the doctrine of justification, remain established, that nobody could say that he recanted on his deathbed or took back anything that he had taught.

And one of the most fascinating pieces of evidence they found was on a little scrap of paper. And on this little scrap of paper, some curious writing there. Writing in both German and Latin, by the way. Lutherans love to do this. They love to mix up their languages. Our cornerstone, by the way, has both German and Latin on it back from the 1800s.

And on this little piece of paper was a little bit of German and Latin. The German said, “Wir sind alle Bettler.” And then the Latin said, “Hoc est vere.” What does that mean? We are all beggars, wir sind alle Bettler. It is true, hoc est vere. Today, in our Old Testament lesson, Jesus, the Word of God in his pre-incarnate state, the Word of God is inviting us to be beggars.

To receive food without payment and drink without money. And that certainly is a position of spiritual humility. That’s my prayer for us today, that through this sermon we would more and more put aside spiritual pride, but instead embrace spiritual humility and receive the gifts that Christ has humbly won for us.

Spiritual pride—it’s a terrible malady, and it’s one that’s incredibly common all across the church and those who claim the name of Christian.

Right now, there’s a really big movement called the New Apostolic Reformation, for example. What is the New Apostolic Reformation? It’s one of the most powerful, popular spiritual movements going on in the United States of America and across the world. How powerful is it? Guess what? The leader of the White House’s faith office is an adherent to the New Apostolic Reformation.

And what does it teach? It teaches that God is appointing new apostles for this time, with an authority almost bordering on the apostles that were appointed by Christ himself. Now how do you know that the Lord has appointed you an apostle, or how can you know that someone has appointed someone else to be apostle?

It’s a little bit hazy to me. But certainly you must come yourself to this idea that the Lord has granted you special authority over others. It’s a form of spiritual pride. There are other forms of spiritual pride. A few years ago, I was watching some TV show. I can’t remember what it was, but some lady was having various kinds of personal problems, and she was kind of depressed and hanging out in her apartment.

And Sunday morning comes along, and her friend comes, bursts into the apartment and says, “Get yourself ready. We’re going to church.” The lady says, “I’m not going to church.” And the friend says, “What? Do you think you’re too good for church?” And she thinks for a moment and says, “Yeah, I do think I’m too good for church.”

And isn’t that the case? The church—it’s a hospital for those who are sin-sick. And there are many people who don’t think they have that sickness of sin, and so therefore they see no need to receive God’s grace and mercy as he offers it in word and sacrament.

There’s other forms of spiritual pride. So most of us, we probably don’t fall into that category that would consider ourselves to be apostles. It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, prime climactic real estate in Northern Wisconsin, and you’ve all chosen to be here instead of out on the lake or whatever it is.

Certainly there’s some evidence there that you know that you need what the Lord offers here. And so maybe you might be thinking to yourself, spiritual pride, that’s not my problem. That’s the thing about spiritual pride. If you don’t think you’re spiritually proud, guess what?

You have spiritual pride.

How many of us, when we really get down to it, can say that we utilize the Lord’s gifts as we ought? How many of us can say that we pray as we ought, that we read the Scriptures as we ought, that we allow our speech to be salted with the Word of God to each other as we ought? The plain fact of the matter is, none of us can.

In a sense, all of us turn up our noses at the gifts of God in one way or the other. All of us have spiritual pride. It’s one of the great enemies of true authentic Christian faith. The kind of faith that shows up to Christ as a beggar saying, “Lord, please give me your good gifts.”

And because of that, the Scriptures deal abundantly with this. Paul deals with this in the early church. He was dealing with this in Romans. We’ll get to that in a second, but as we talked about the kind of spiritual pride that would hold itself up above others on account of various kinds of spiritual gifts, Paul addresses that too.

The same sort of thing where people were holding themselves up as super Christians with a special kind of authority, spiritual authority over others. That happened in the church at Corinth. So Paul said, “Look, the gifts of the Spirit are there for the sake of service of others. And even if you have incredible spiritual powers but have not love, then it’s all pointless,” in 1 Corinthians 13. And here in Romans, he is talking about another kind of spiritual remedy to spiritual pride, and this is the knowledge of the predestination of God.

So last week we talked about predestination, and we talked about the wonderful blessing that the knowledge of predestination is. And here Paul continues on that. In the extended reading, which I had Arnie read, which went beyond what’s printed in the bulletin there, Paul uses predestination to address spiritual pride in the Roman congregation.

Now, what kind of spiritual pride was going on among the Romans? At the Roman congregation, there were those who were holding themselves up above others within the congregation on account of their ethnic background. So there were those who were Jewish by birth, who could trace their lineage generation by generation back to Abraham, and not only this, but also observed the Old Testament law.

All the various kinds of laws and strictures that were given to the children of Israel at Mount Sinai, they continued to practice, and they held themselves in a higher status over those who couldn’t trace their background back to Abraham, what we often call the Gentiles, and who themselves as well didn’t live according to those Old Testament principles.

And Paul’s trying to cut them down a little bit. Trying to cut them off at their knees in a couple different ways. So first of all, Paul undercuts them here in this passage by talking about what it means to be descended from Abraham. What that does and doesn’t mean. And he references, first of all, Isaac, and says, “Think about Isaac.”

Abraham had two wives. He had Sarah on the one hand, and he had Hagar on the other. From Sarah, he had Isaac. From Hagar, he had Ishmael. Why was one son chosen over the other? And St. Paul argues there is really, in a sense, nothing to commend Isaac over Ishmael. It was God’s sovereign choice.

Now, there might be a little bit of a weakness in that argument, because someone might say, wasn’t Sarah a free woman and Hagar a slave? Therefore surely Isaac would receive the promise instead of Ishmael. Paul says wait. Just a second. Think about the sons of Isaac. Esau on the one hand, Jacob on the other.

They had the same mother, Rebecca. And according to the ways of the world, it might be thought that Esau would be the favored one. He was the firstborn after all. He was as well his father’s favorite. And yet, it wasn’t Esau, but it was Jacob who inherited the promise. And this was determined by God before either of them had even come to be.

So surely it wasn’t that God looked ahead and said Esau is going to be this incredible person, or rather, Jacob’s going to be this incredible person, so I’m going to give him the promise. No, it was entirely God’s providential decision and choice before any of them had even come to be. It had nothing to do with them, but it was purely about God and his decision and his choice. And so yes, you may be descended from Abraham according to the flesh, and there is much benefit to that.

And he lists many of these benefits after all. He says, to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises, the patriarchs, and the greatest blessing that from their race according to the flesh, Jesus Christ would be born. But even all these things, they aren’t deserved. Pure blessing. Pure gift.

Didn’t earn it. God just saw fit to give it to you. So because of this, there is no room for spiritual pride. If anything, you ought to acknowledge how humble your situation is, that God would simply give these things to you out of His grace, out of His mercy.

And that point applies to us in a slightly different form, but it still applies to us today. Our status with God has nothing to do with our abilities, with our works, with our virtue, with our knowledge. But instead, our status with God has everything to do with Him, with His sovereign choice. And the flip side of that doctrine of predestination, God’s sovereign grace, is the doctrine of justification.

If our status with God has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Him, then salvation is pure gift. And that’s the great promise of the doctrine of predestination and salvation by grace through faith: they go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin.

You can’t have one without the other.

And praise be to God that this salvation by grace has been won for us through perhaps one of the greatest paradoxes of the Christian faith: the fact that almighty and glorious God humbles himself to serve us. It’s at the core, by the way, of the miracle, the feeding of the 5,000, the humility of God in Christ.

The feeding of the 5,000—it’s, aside from the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you might consider it maybe the most important miracle that Christ did. There could be an argument for that because, as far as I’m aware, and I could be wrong, and maybe you can check me on this, but as far as I’m aware, there’s only two miracles which are recorded in all four Gospels.

The one is the resurrection of Christ, and the second is the feeding of the 5,000. And why did they consider the feeding of the 5,000, the apostles, so important under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Many reasons, one of which I am convinced is that this feeding of the 5,000 shows us two realities. First of all, it shows us God’s humble service to us in creation, and second of all, it shows God’s humble service to us in redemption.

In creation, first of all, because this feeding of the 5,000 opens our eyes to the fact that all of God’s earthly blessings are truly from Him by grace, and this is His humble service of us. Our God is not far off, but rather daily supplies us with every need. Yes, the Lord works mediately through all kinds of means, and yet it is the Lord at work.

When the seed is down in that gritty ground, it is the Lord who causes it to germinate. When that seed is nourished by the rain, it is the Lord who has sent those waters upon the land to nourish it. It is the Lord who sends the sun’s rays to cause the plant to transform that energy into the kernel.

And ultimately, it is the Lord who brings that kernel to our table to sustain this body and life. Every good gift in this life is from the hand of God. How marvelously humble is the Lord of glory.

And therefore, God’s humility was not done. Even though we have failed to honor God as we ought, God yet sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who even though He was equal with the Father, did not consider equality with God a thing to be clung to, but made Himself nothing, taking the very form of a servant and humbling himself even to the point of death, even death on the cross. What incredible humility in the incarnation and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

My prayer for you, brothers and sisters in Christ, is that in perceiving, in treasuring this humble work of Christ, that the Spirit would move your heart to humbly receive the gifts of God. Acknowledging, yes, His incredible benefits in this life, but above all receiving His benefits of grace and mercy for the life to come.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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