Sermons from Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County

On Reformation Sunday, Pastor preaches from the gradual of Psalm 48, “That you may tell the next generation,” calling God’s people to walk about Zion, rejoice in Holy Baptism as the moment of righteousness by grace, and trust Christ as our mighty fortress rather than our own works.

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the liturgy of the divine service, we have various responses to our readings. It’s structured very intentionally. Before the Old Testament, we have the collect, and if you pay attention in the collect of the day, that prayer that I say from the altar, we hear all the themes that are present in the readings for the service, beginning with the Old Testament. And then between the Old Testament reading or the first reading and the Epistle reading, we have the gradual, which is what I’ll be preaching on today, the gradual from Psalm 48, and that sets the tone for the epistle that explains the themes for the epistle. And then we have the verse set before the gospel reading, which is a brief summary of what the gospel is about for the day. It’s rather brilliant the way our church fathers set this all up. These short sections of Psalms introduce the themes. Unlike some traditions where the pastor feels it necessary to stand up and give his opinion about what the readings mean, the liturgy accomplishes this by using the word of God, which is very fitting and appropriate, especially on the feast of the Reformation. Today’s gradual is taken from Psalm 48, especially the last two of the three last verses.

Walk about Zion and go round her, go round about her. Tell the towers thereof, Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces. The ye may tell it to the generation following, for this God is our God, for ever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death. The people of God are to walk around and take a look at the city of God, Zion, the holy Christian church throughout all the world, and the countless ways in which they’re blessed by living in this city, chiefly through the forgiveness of their sins, as Christ on his cross conquered our old evil foe who sought to bring us great woe. On Calvary, Jesus Christ won for us peace with God and eternal salvation through the forgiveness of our sins. This is the eternal gospel which the angel of revelation so urgently proclaimed. Fear God, give glory to him, for the honor of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water. This is the message that we take unto the world as we teach all that our Lord commanded and as we baptize in his triune name. This is exactly the message that Paul preached to the Romans. The righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and to all who believe. Holy baptism is the moment of righteousness.

In these blessed waters, the waters of the font, the stain of sin is washed away, and the very life of Christ is poured out upon the sinner in water and word. In the font, you were brought into the city of God, not because you met the law’s demands, but because Christ has clothed you in his righteous garments of salvation. Let Mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments.

This is the joy of the Reformation, by the faith given to you in holy baptism, by the work of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel, you are judged righteous, holy, and innocent. You are an heir of salvation purely by God’s grace, and so the church on earth and the angels in heaven rejoice. And they continue to do so every time a person is brought to faith through the waters of holy baptism, as we will do in a few short minutes for Clara Van Horenbeck. We rejoice. We rejoice in God’s love. We rejoice in his great mercy, which is ours, apart from any work that we’ve ever done. We do not get to boast.

We did not choose Jesus. He chose us. He died to pay for our sins. He sent his Holy Spirit to call us by the gospel, and he continues to send his Spirit to strengthen us to do the good works that he’s prepared, including telling all of this to the next generation. This telling is important for Jesus warns us in the gospel. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence. The violent take it by force. As our hymn stated, the old evil foe now means deadly woe.

Deep guile and great might are his dread arms in fight. The devil does not come to you with a pitchfork and burning sulfur. If so, it would be easy to recognize him and ward him off. But he comes to us with lies and deceptions, and foremost among those is that you can save yourself, that you can do enough good works or be righteous enough on your own. Our psalm hints at this deception in the Old Testament. Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind. Most of us have no idea where Tarshish is or what that means, but if you read in 1 Kings about King Jehoshaphat of Judah, he had rejected God. King Jehoshaphat despised the word of God. He convinced King Ahab, one of the wickedest kings to ever rule Israel, to go to war with Syria, all based on the advice of his false prophets. And Ahab, for all of his wickedness, he knew these prophets were liars. And so he asked Jehoshaphat, don’t you have a prophet of God or don’t you have a real prophet here? He said, I haven’t got one, but I don’t like what he tells me, right? I don’t like the word of God. But they call the prophet Micaiah, and he comes and he speaks the truth, and he tells Ahab, if you go to war against Syria, you will die. That’s not what Ahab wanted to hear. It’s not what Jehoshaphat wanted to hear. Do they honor the word of God? No. They have the prophet arrested. They strike him. They give him the bread of affliction and lock him away. They do violence to the kingdom of God. But no matter how much violence is done, no matter how much you or anyone else does not like the word of God, it will not change his word, one iota. King Ahab went to war, and King Ahab died. But what about these ships of Tarshish?

Jehoshaphat wasn’t content defying God by going to war. He defied God’s provision, and he sought to get more gold for Israel by building this massive fleet of trading ships. And the Lord looked at him and his arrogance and his pride and his greed, and he sent an east wind and smashed those ships to smithereens. The mighty of this earth, the kings, the princes, presidents, prime ministers, all our corporate oligarchs, they will all be cast down. None of these men are greater than the Lord Almighty. They can plot and scheme all they want, but the Lord sits in heaven and laughs. Take heed, though.

You don’t need to be a tech oligarch or a president to let your pride and arrogance lead you astray. Each of us at times despises God’s word when we break his commandments, when we put ourselves and our desires above the will of God, when we fail to make use of his sacraments or to hear his word, when we put our trust in our own works, in our own efforts, when we strive for joy and peace in our lives apart from God. Such sins all seek to usurp the authority of the King of kings. And should we allow ourselves to be led astray by such deceptions of the old evil foe, we should not be surprised when the Lord sends an east wind to dash our delusional rebellion to pieces and to bring us again to repentance, to call upon the Lord, to be sorrowful over our sins,

He is a trusty shield and a weapon who fights on our behalf. And this echoes the beginning of Psalm 48. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation. The joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. The joy of the whole earth is the holy Christian church. This is the place where you find your joy and peace. The psalm continues on the sides of the north of the city of the great king. God is known in her palaces for a refuge.

He is our mighty fortress. Mount Zion, the holy Christian church, the city of God, is your refuge. It’s the place he has appointed for all who call upon his name in faith. It is here that he’s promised to be present in word, in sacrament. It is here where we behold him face to face. We partake of his very body and blood in the sacrament at his table. And it’s here where we can dip our fingers in the cool waters of the font. We can make the sign of the cross on our foreheads and recall our baptisms. The very moment of our righteousness, our baptism, is a mighty fortress. When the kings of the earth, when the devil, when our sinful flesh, when these all conspire to accuse us, to remind us of our sins, to turn us away from our salvation, then we simply point to those waters of the font. We, as God’s children, are not defined by our sins. We’re not defined by our struggles, the anxieties of our life, our temptations. We are defined by the name into which we were baptized. Likewise, the city of God, the church, is not defined by her sins, her shortcomings, or any scandal.

She is defined by the pure preaching of the gospel and the right administration of the sacrament. These are her strong towers. They are her glorious beauty. They are that which preserve her and those who dwell therein from every assault of the evil one through the Lord’s steadfast love. It’s in this place, on this mountain of God’s holiness, that we learn that though we have sinned and fallen short of his glory, yet we are justified. We are forgiven. We are made holy and free by God’s grace through the work of Jesus Christ. It was the Lord who, with the shedding of his holy precious blood, cleansed us of all sin, so that the Father’s judgment, now passes over us, that we may know his unfailing peace. Walk about Zion.

Go round about her. Tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks. Consider her palaces. Consider the sacraments, that they may tell it all to the following generation. For this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide, even unto death. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org