5 May 2024 - Easter 6 - John 16:23-33

In today’s Gospel from St. John, Jesus says:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

This is one of many passages in the Gospels where Jesus speaks of prayer, of the importance of prayer, and of the benefits of prayer. In St. Luke’s Gospel, we are also told that, on one occasion,

“Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray...’”

Why did this disciple ask for such instruction? Why should people know how to pray, and why should they then pray?

Today we will seek God’s own answers to these questions in Holy Scripture. On this subject of prayer, we will also welcome some guidance into and through the Scriptures, from Luther’s Large Catechism.

To begin with, we can clear away some of the incorrect reasons why some people might be inclined to pray; and some of the misperceptions that are out there, as to why praying people do in fact pray.

We do not pray in order to persuade God to do things that he otherwise would not do. Likewise, we do not pray in order to inform God of our needs, or of the desires of our heart, which would otherwise be unknown to him.

God already knows everything. That means that he already knows what is best for you and others, and he already intends to do what is best.

St. John says in his First Epistle: “God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”

The Book of Proverbs says: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.”

And as we read in the Book of Job: “With God are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding.”

The Large Catechism points out that God

“wants you to lament and express your needs and concerns, not because he is unaware of them, but in order that you may kindle your heart to stronger and greater desires, and open and spread your apron wide to receive many things.”

God already knows your problems. But he wants you to know them.

He wants you, with honesty and humility, to acknowledge your problems to be the problems that they really are; and to acknowledge him as the God who alone can solve them. He wants you to wrestle with him in prayer, and to be ardent and persistent in your requests, not for his sake, but for yours.

As you think through how you will bring your concerns to the Lord in prayer, you will thereby come to a better understanding of what your concerns actually are.

Praying about your problems causes you to think more seriously about those problems. And it causes you to think more seriously about the fact that only God can truly solve those problems.

Also, contrary to what some might imagine, our prayers are not meritorious works that we perform for God, or offer to God, in order to earn his favor. God is the one who gives us the faith that inclines us to pray.

And through his Word, he is also the one who guides and shapes the content of our prayer. All of our prayers should be based on and derived from the teachings of Holy Scripture. But this principle is most clearly applied in our use of the Lord’s Prayer.

There are two places in the New Testament where Jesus teaches this basic prayer to his disciples, as recorded by St. Matthew and again by St. Luke. God himself, in the person of Christ, teaches this prayer to us. As the Large Catechism explains it, he thereby

“takes the initiative and puts into our mouths the very words and approach we are to use. In this way we see how deeply concerned he is about our needs. And we should never doubt that such prayer pleases him and will assuredly be heard.”

When you in faith speak the Lord’s Prayer - or another prayer that is modeled after it - you can do so with confidence and certainty. You are able to know that God is pleased with your prayer.

You are able to know that you are asking for the kind of things that he wants you to ask for, because he himself has told you that this is how you should pray.

Through the proclamation of God’s Word, God’s Spirit also gives you the faith which prompts within you the desire to call upon him in prayer. In his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul asks:

“But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’ ... So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Your life of prayer is not something you do for God. It is something God does for you.

And what are the reasons why we should pray? Why should we be eager to learn from Jesus how and why to speak to God, just as his original disciples wanted Jesus to teach them how to pray?

There are basically two reasons. First, we should pray to God because God commands it.

Now, from the perspective of the doctrine of God’s attributes, it might seem to us that there would be no logical reason to pray. God is all-knowing and all-powerful, and is going to do whatever he wants anyway.

But such human speculations cannot negate God’s clearly-revealed mandate that we come to him with our petitions and thanksgivings. The Large Catechism again instructs us that, according to the Second Commandment,

“we are required to praise the holy name and to pray or call upon it in every need. For calling upon [God’s holy name] is nothing else than praying. Prayer, therefore, is...strictly and solemnly commanded.”

We are sinning against God if we refuse or neglect to call upon his name, and to acknowledge him alone as the source of all that is good. He alone is the almighty creator of all things.

No other being in the supernatural realm has the right to be the recipient of the devout pleadings of our heart. And we have no right to ask any creature, whether saint or angel, for the kind of divine help that only God can give; or for the kind of divine favor that only God can show.

The First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me,” must mean, if it means anything, that we may not call upon any other entity, whether real or imagined, in the same way as we call upon the Triune God. It is he who has placed his name upon us in our baptism - as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier - and who has thereby staked his rightful claim on all of our worship and devotion.

But God does not only command us to pray. He also invites us to pray, with the sweetest and most comforting promises. That is the second reason why we should pray.

In a commentary on one of the Psalms, the Large Catechism states:

“As [God] says in Psalm 50, ‘Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you.’ And Christ says in the Gospel, in Matthew 7, ‘Ask, and it will be given you.’ ... Such promises certainly ought to awaken and kindle in our hearts a longing and love for prayer.”

The prayers of a Christian are pleasing to our heavenly Father for one important reason: because they are offered through faith in his Son Jesus Christ. Because of our human sin we would not otherwise be worthy to approach a holy God. St. Paul warns in his Epistle to the Romans that

“the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

If an unbeliever would presume to approach God in prayer, in the arrogance of a self-righteous heart, and suppressing in his darkened mind the truth of his sin and of his need for a Savior, the best consequence for him would be for the Lord to ignore him. If such a person did get God’s attention, the result would be divine judgment, not divine blessing.

But in Christ, as we in prayer approach a holy God with repentance and faith, we do not fear this judgment. God is not only holy and righteous in himself, but in his Son he also credits his holiness and righteousness to us, and covers our sin with it for the sake of Jesus Christ.

In his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul writes that God’s righteousness

“will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

That’s what forgiveness means. When God forgives, he forgets. In Psalm 103 we praise God’s unmeasurable mercy toward us precisely for this reason:

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.”

This is the loving God who invites us to pray to him in the name of Jesus, our Savior. This is the loving God who invites us to call upon him as children call upon their dear father.

Some may have the idea that God is more likely to hear the prayers of those whom he considers to be saints. Therefore, when they ponder their own weaknesses and imperfections, they hesitate to address the Lord themselves.

In a certain sense this supposition is correct. God does hear the prayers of his saints. But in Christ, God counts you to be one of his saints!

St. Paul addressed one of his epistles “To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” Another was addressed “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi.”

These letters were addressed to whole congregations of believing Christians, not only to a select few who had risen to a higher level of sinless spirituality. In fact, no one on this side of the grave ever rises to such a level.

But all of us, as we struggle against the ongoing temptations that we face every day, and as we repent of our daily failures, are also invited to believe that for Jesus’ sake we are forgiven; that we are declared to be saints; that we are justified by faith; and that we are helped and sustained by our Lord in all of our fears and trials.

Christ delivered us from sin and death by his sacrifice on the cross. And by his glorious resurrection, he opened up for us the pathway to eternal life with God. Through him, and in his name, we are therefore free to pray to our heavenly Father, without fear, and without ceasing.

To pray “in the name of Jesus” is not a mere formula. It is a faith - a faith that is shaped by the revelation of the Savior in whom we trust, and that accordingly guides and shapes the content and character of any prayer that is offered on the basis of that revelation.

St. John’s Gospel quotes Jesus as telling his disciples:

“Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

But just a few verses later, Jesus also says this:

“The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things.”

And so, the Holy Spirit, sent to us in Jesus’ name, and coming into our minds and hearts through the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments, teaches us the meaning of the prayer that is then to be offered to God in Jesus’ name. We do not teach God the meaning of our prayer, by the demands that we make on him when we pray.

To pray in the name of Jesus is not to compel or cajole God to give us what we want because we have “said the magic words,” as it were. It is, rather, to open ourselves up, in humility, to receive what Jesus wants for us, and to bring our wishes and desires into harmony with his wishes and desirers for us - and for the other people for whom we are praying.

As we pray, the perfect forgiveness of our Savior covers over all of our imperfections and flaws. His perfect forgiveness also covers over any imperfections and flaws that may be present in the words of our prayer, in the thoughts that are reflected in our prayer, and in the motives for our prayer.

Our prayers, flawed though they may be, are therefore not judged by God as inadequate and unacceptable. They are instead lovingly received and heard by God for the sake of the perfection of Christ, who prayed his high priestly prayer for us, and who even now intercedes for us at the right hand of the Father.

The Large Catechism speaks for us all when it summarizes the faith of a believing and praying Christian:

“Here I come, dear Father, and pray not of my own accord, nor because of my own worthiness, but at your commandment and promise, which cannot fail or deceive me.”

Jesus says:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Amen.

---

9 May 2024 - Ascension - Ephesians 1:15-22

In his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul prays

“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.”

In the Creeds we also confess regularly that Jesus is indeed currently seated at the right hand of the Father.

Usually, being seated is associated with resting and relaxing. If someone had been working, and then sits down, this would be because he is not doing his work any more, or is at least taking a temporary rest from his labors.

Is that what Scripture is suggesting regarding Jesus, when it teaches that he is now seated at the right hand of God the Father in heavenly glory? Is Jesus now relaxing, and resting from his work?

Well, in one sense maybe he is. He is no longer suffering, or doing the hard and painful work of redeeming the human race from sin through the sacrificing of himself on the cross. That work is indeed over and done with.

The Epistle to the Hebrews explains that Jesus, as high priest, made a sacrifice for sin “once for all when he offered up himself.”

This atoning sacrifice was full and complete. Through it, the human race has been redeemed and reconciled to God, so that the message of reconciliation can now be preached to all people.

That sacrifice is unrepeatable, and is not being repeated. So, Jesus is resting from such work.

But, this does not mean that his work is altogether finished. Jesus may be seated in glory at the right hand of the divine Majesty - according to the imagery that the Scriptures present to us - but he is not idle. He is still active. He is still working.

In the first lines of his Book of Acts, St. Luke speaks of the Gospel he had previously written:

“The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up.”

So, the events described in the Gospel of St. Luke were about the beginning of Jesus’ work and teaching. But the work and teaching of Jesus continue, and the Book of Acts is going to tell us about that continuing work and teaching.

Psalm 110 declares:

“The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’ ... The Lord has sworn and will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever...’”

Jesus’ priestly work continues, but he is not currently doing all of the things that an Old Testament priest did. As I have already noted, he is not offering any more sacrifices to propitiate God.

But he is continually interceding for those for whom his propitiatory sacrifice was offered at Calvary - just as the priests of the Old Testament prayed for the people of Israel, and asked the Lord Jehovah to be merciful to them and to forgive their sins.

Jesus is still doing that. In his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul writes:

“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

And we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews that Jesus “is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

The picture that Scripture paints for us is the basic lay-out of an ancient imperial throne room, where the potentate is seated in regal splendor on his throne, and his chief advisor is seated immediately to his right: so that when the ruler is having an audience with someone, the advisor can discreetly whisper into his ear suggestions about how to handle that person’s request, or information about that person.

That was important work for an ancient imperial counselor to be doing. And that, in essence, is the work that Jesus is continuously doing for us.

Whenever a penitent sinner presents himself before his Maker for an “audience,” as it were, and implores God to be merciful and forgiving, our advocate and intercessor is always able and willing to whisper into God’s ear:

“Forgive his sins. Give him another chance. Her sins have been atoned for by me. She has been reconciled to you, and is now depending on your Word and promise.”

God always accepts this advice, and acts on it. And this is because, within the mystery of the Holy Trinity, God is thereby actually advising himself, and reminding himself of his own grace and saving will.

There is never a conflict between the First and Second Persons of the Godhead, in their shared divine thoughts, and in their unified divine intentions.

When your conscience drives you to your knees, and prompts you to ask for God’s forgiveness for your failures and transgressions, a part of you might wonder if God really is willing to forgive. After all, the Bible tells us not only about his mercy, but also about his wrath.

When the Lord delivered the Hebrews from slavery, he at the same time judged and punished the Egyptians. So you might wonder, as you contemplate the sins by which you have offended and provoked God, if he will in this moment treat you like the Hebrews, or like the Egyptians. He is capable of either.

But, as you enter God’s throne room, and prostrate yourself before his righteousness and holiness, you will always be able to see, with the eyes of faith, your intercessor also seated there, right next to the king, whispering into his ear. And you never need to wonder what he is telling him about you, or what he is asking him to do for you.

Indeed, you have a friend in high places - in the highest place of all, within the counsels of God himself. The Epistle to the Hebrews gives us this comfort and certainty:

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses... Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

One of the other jobs of an Old Testament priest was to be a teacher of the people. The prophet Malachi tells us that “the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”

And Jesus, from the right hand of God the Father, is still doing this, too. During his earthly ministry, he was, of course, a great prophet, preacher, and rabbi.

But that ministry did not come to an end when he ascended into heaven. It just changed, in terms of how Jesus was now going to continue to carry it out.

In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says to the Jews: “I send you prophets and wise men and scribes.” A scribe is, literally, a writer.

Jesus is promising that when he is visibly gone from the world, he will still send into the world spokesmen, teachers, and inspired authors, to proclaim his Word, and to write down and preserve his Word for all future generations.

Jesus speaks through those who speak in his name. “He who hears you hears Me,” he tells his disciples.

Jesus absolves through those who absolve in his name, and judges and warns through those who judge and warn in his name. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained,” he tells his church and its ministers.

And Jesus, though invisible to our eyes now, still abides with his church. He himself still says to us:

“Take, eat; this is My body, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of Me; Drink of it, all of you; this cup is the New Testament in My blood, which is shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

These sacramental words do not come up from our remembrance, but they come down from Jesus in heaven: through the inspired writings of his scribes, and through the lips of his called servants.

These words are spoken by Jesus for the sake of our remembrance - to invigorate and renew our remembrance - so that we will never forget who died and rose again for us; and so that we will never ignore the Savior who is even now coming among us supernaturally, mystically uniting us to himself and to each other, and filling us with life and hope.

In his Holy Supper, the risen and exalted Savior is indeed our teacher. But he is not only teaching our minds. He is teaching our hearts, transforming our wills, reshaping our convictions, and preparing our bodies for our own future resurrection in him.

And Jesus is also continually teaching new people, and bringing them into the fellowship of his church. The work of missions and evangelism is Jesus’ work. He is doing it. It doesn’t originate in us. We are his instruments and servants.

As we go forth to teach all nations, we do so because all authority “in heaven and on earth” has been given to him; because he has commanded us to go; and because he promises: “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

And as we go, not only is he with us and in us, but he also goes before us. In his providential rule over the affairs of men, God’s Son clears a path for his church and for its mission.

We read in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians that God the Father “put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

That’s a lot of work!

In his state of exaltation, of course, Jesus never gets tired. He is no longer living according to the limitations of his human nature, as was the case during his earthly ministry. Not only is he still busy, but he is more busy than ever, never resting.

And from the right hand of God - reaching out into the universe with his divine power and divine presence - he is busy in ways that were not possible during his time on earth, when he limited himself to being visibly present, in one place at a time. That’s not the way it is now.

Now he is anywhere and everywhere he wants to be, with both his divinity and his glorified and immortal humanity: simultaneously governing all the congregations of his saints in the whole world; simultaneously speaking his righteousness upon all his people in every nation; simultaneously making himself present on all his altars for the church’s Sacrament of the Altar.

Ascended to His throne on high, Hid from our sight, yet always nigh,
He rules and reigns at God’s right hand And has all power at His command.

Through Him, we heirs of heaven are made; O Brother, Christ, extend Thine aid
That we may firmly trust in Thee And through Thee live eternally. Amen.

---

12 May 2024 - Easter 7 - Acts 11:1-18

Please listen with me to a reading from the 11th chapter of the Book of Acts, beginning at the 1st verse:

Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” But Peter began and explained it to them in order: “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

So far our text.

In the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his church before his ascension, he told his disciples that they were to bring his saving gospel to all people in all nations. He makes the same basic point in the three different forms that this Great Commission took - in Matthew, Mark, and Luke:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”

“Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.”

Jesus gave his disciples this commission in more than one way, because this was something that was really important to him. And he wanted to make sure his disciples got it.

And this was a new thing for Jews to hear, since previously - under the Old Testament dispensation - they were supposed to remain separate from the Gentile nations. So, the changes in thinking and in living that the Great Commission required, would need to be emphasized, so that it would all sink in deeply.

As far as Jesus’ earthly ministry was concerned, during the time he walked the earth, his own focus was more limited. He said on one occasion: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

But Jesus was also always thinking about what his church would do in his name in the future, after his resurrection and ascension.

During the course of his ministry, in a way that reminds us of a seminary field work exercise, he brought his disciples on at least a couple occasions to Gentile lands that were adjacent to the land of Israel - to the territory of the Syro-Phoenicians north of Israel, and to the territory of the Gadarenes east of Israel - to give them a taste for what their future ministries in the pagan world would be like.

And, in an important sense, their ministries would be a continuation of his ministry. In the version of the Great Commission that we see in Matthew, Jesus promised: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

He was mystically going to go to the Gentile world with them, to bring his gospel of forgiveness, life, and salvation to the Gentile world through them.

What was not clear to the disciples, however, was exactly how all of this was to be done.

The Jews had a tradition of receiving Gentile converts into Judaism. A Gentile family that was converting to Judaism underwent a special kind of baptism - administered to men, women, and children of all ages - which was said to be their “new birth” as Jews.

Then after this, the male members of the converting family were circumcised, and the family was from that day forward bound to observe all the moral and ritual obligations of the Mosaic Law.

It seems as if the original interpretation of the Great Commission, on the part of the disciples, was that making disciples of all nations would probably mean converting a select number of people from all nations to a Messianic form of observant Judaism.

This would have involved not only a faith in Jesus as the Savior, but also an adherence to all the ceremonial requirements of the Old Testament, including the kosher dietary regulations, the rules for Sabbath observance, and everything else.

If this was what they were thinking, then anyone who would have refused to submit to the Law of Moses, would continue to be seen and treated as an unclean person, and would not to be welcomed into the fellowship of the Jewish Christians.

But that is not what God had in mind, for what the Christian Church was supposed to look like. And so God supernaturally pushed through a “course correction” for his young and still-learning church, through the events that are recounted in today’s text.

This happened in two steps. First, the apostle Peter had a vision in which he was commanded by the Lord three times to eat an assortment of unkosher animals. Peter’s response was:

“By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.”

It was hard for Peter to break out of his old way of thinking, which had been ingrained in him over a lifetime. The real point of the vision was not, however, to coax Peter to eat unkosher food.

The imagery of this vision had a deeper symbolic meaning: to show Peter the new kind of relationship he should now have with “unkosher” people. And in the second step, God did then bring Peter to the unkosher home of an unkosher Gentile family, so that he could preach the gospel to them, and welcome them into the fellowship of the Christian church as Gentiles.

This universal scope of the gospel is so well-established today, that many people may not realize that the first controversy that took place in the church was over the question of whether the Christian faith was really for the Gentiles, or if it was only for Jews - and for those few Gentiles who were willing to become Jews.

Many Jewish people today think that Christianity is only for Gentiles, and that Jews who believe in Jesus as the Savior in some sense cease to be Jews. How sadly ironic.

The ethnic and racial divisions that tend to trouble our society have very little in common with this first controversy within Christianity. In the first century, Jewish people did not think of themselves as “white” and as having a lot in common with other “white” people.

To them, all who were not Jewish were together in the same broad category, as Goyim. It made no difference whether they were European, Asian, or African. If they were Gentiles, then they were not children of Abraham, and they were unclean.

But what the Great Commission did - especially once God had clarified to Peter exactly what the Great Commission means - was to remind the early Christian church of something that the patriarch Abraham was very much aware of.

We see in the Book of Genesis that after the Lord had revealed to Abraham his plan to destroy Sodom, Abraham asked:

“Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

Indeed, the God of Abraham was not only the God and the judge of Abraham and the Hebrews. He was - or should have been - the God and the judge of all people and all nations, even though most nations had already fallen into idolatry.

But God always had a long-term plan to cleanse them of this idolatry, to forgive their sins, and to bring them back. In Psalm 86, the Lord inspired David to offer this prayer:

“There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.”

And what God planned, God accomplished. He sent his Son into human flesh to live under the Law of Moses among the people of Israel. But in the death and resurrection of that divine Son, God redeemed the world.

Jesus was and is - as Simeon the Prophet announced - not only the glory of the Lord’s people Israel, but also “a light to lighten the Gentiles.”

Many if not most of the people of Israel, since the coming of Christ, have, however, refused to see his glory. And many if not most of the Gentiles have closed their eyes, and their hearts, to his light.

But Jesus is there for them. He’s there for all of them in the means of grace: in the open invitation of the gospel that Jesus proclaims through the ministry of his church; and in the open pathway to baptism, and to fellowship among his people, that Jesus lays out through the mission of his church.

With St. John in his First Epistle, we confess from within our Trinitarian baptismal faith that we abide in God, and he in us, “because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”

Because Jesus is the Savior of the world, that means that he is your Savior. You might say, “Well, of course he is,” because you have been well-catechized to believe that - or at least to say that you believe that.

But if you ever have a crisis of conscience, when you might be overwhelmed by guilt, by a feeling of personal unworthiness, or by a crushing fear of damnation, God wants you, in your repentance, truly to believe then, that Jesus is your Savior.

No failure is too embarrassing to be pardoned. No transgression is too egregious to be forgiven. No sin is too shameful to be absolved.

And if you ever feel out of place or uncomfortable in a congregation comprised of people who are in some ways not like you - in terms of their economic status, their ethnicity, or their personal histories - God wants you, in your devotion to his Word, truly to believe then, that Jesus is your Savior.

If it is his church, then it is your church, too. There are no unkosher or unclean people among those who have turned away from their sins, and who have turned to Christ and confess him as Lord.

Jesus is also the Savior of everyone you know: from as many cultural backgrounds as are represented in your circle of relatives, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. This means that everyone you know likewise has a place in God’s house and family.

And if they are not already connected to a Christian congregation where God’s Word is faithfully proclaimed, and where God is reverently worshiped, everyone you know has a place in your church - right here, in one of these empty pews.

In the name of God, invite them to come with you. Tell them why you come. Tell them why Jesus is your Savior, so that they can hear in your story, the reasons why he is also their Savior. And Jesus is the Savior of people you will likely never know in person, during your lifetime in this world, on every continent of the globe. Yet there are ways for you to help even them to know that God wants them in his house and family.

Social media can be a way, in terms of what you post, and what you forward. I know that people from various states, and from some other countries, often watch the videorecordings of our services which we post online. Some of those people click through to these recordings when I link to them from my Facebook page.

It’s also always interesting to see who “likes” the sermons or sermon excerpts that I also occasionally post, and to see who forwards those posts.

The financial mechanisms and overseas mission relationships of our church body can be a way. Your donations enter into a pipeline of compassion that opens up, at the other end, in places of need: in South America, in Eastern Europe, and in India.

We also have access to a special fund managed by a sister congregation in Wisconsin, through which we can support pastoral education efforts for our sister church in Kenya.

The world in which we live seems not to be coming together in greater unity, but seems instead to be characterized by an ever-increasing disunity. And many of these sad human divisions follow national and ethnic lines.

But we, as members of the one, holy, Christian, and apostolic church that Jesus established, are marching to the beat of a different drummer, and are moving in the opposite direction.

As the unbelieving world is pulling itself apart through anger, pride, and fear, Jesus is pulling his church together, more and more, in faith and love: faith in him, love for him, and love for one another because of him.

The forgiveness and justification that are conferred by the gospel overcome sin and rebellion - even the sin and rebellion that may still infect you.

The truth and light that are revealed by his gospel overcome error and darkness - even the error and darkness that may still lurk within you.

The healing and reconciling power that is in his gospel overcome despair and hopelessness - even the despair and hopelessness that may still cast a pall over you.

St. Paul - previously a very proud and zealous Jew - writes in his Epistle to the Ephesians that with the coming of Christ, and with the new revelation of God’s will for humanity that accompanied his coming, we now know “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

As Christ, by means of his gospel, now lives and work in you, he also lives and works through you.

He is generous and helpful toward others through your generosity and helpfulness. He is patient and encouraging with others through your patience and encouragement. He is the friend and companion of others through your friendship and companionship.

In Christ, everyone, everywhere, is invited joyfully to sing, in the words of William Kethe:

All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
Him serve with fear, His praise forthtell, Come ye before Him and rejoice.

For why? the Lord our God is good: His mercy is for ever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood, And shall from age to age endure.

Amen.

---

19 May 2024 - Pentecost - Acts 2:1-21

We have passed through the first half of the church year, which was marked in sequence by the four chief festivals of Jesus Christ: the festival of his nativity, the festival of his epiphany or manifestation to the gentiles, the festival of his resurrection, and the festival of his ascension. These festivals remind us of vitally important events in the earthly life of our Savior.

Today - the Day of Pentecost - is the chief festival of the ~church~ of Jesus Christ, as it signals the beginning of the ~second~ half of the church year.

Jesus had departed from the earth as far as his visible presence was concerned. Yet he had promised that he would be with his disciples always, even to the end of the age.

And he had also promised that he would send the divine Comforter, or Helper, to be their companion and guide in the important mission that he was entrusting to them. That’s what happened on the first Christian Pentecost.

This was not the first time that the Holy Spirit was present in this world. He had always been present. King David, in a prayer of repentance, had implored God the Father, “take not Your Holy Spirit from me.”

But now, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came afresh in a new and different way. He came to create and empower the church, and to energize the mission and ministry of the church.

And he came to stay. He is still among us, and within us: building up our faith, emboldening us in our ~confession~ of faith, and inspiring within us the ~fruits~ of faith. And so we pray, as all Christians in all generations have prayed:

“Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love.” Amen.

----------------------------------------------

The unusual events that took place on the first Christian Pentecost definitely got the attention of the people who witnessed these events. These people were Jews.

Many of them were a part of the Jewish diaspora - from various other countries within and outside of the Roman Empire - who were in Jerusalem temporarily as pilgrims, to observe the back-to-back festivals of Passover and the Feast of Weeks. We are told in the Book of Acts that

“they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, ‘Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.’”

There were two things about this miraculous sign - the bestowal of the gift of tongues on the apostles - that this international Jewish crowd found remarkable. First, they noticed that the languages of their homelands were being spoken by Galileans.

How did fishermen from a backwater village like Capernaum become fluent in the native tongues of places as diverse as North Africa to the west, and the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys to the east? But that wasn’t the only thing this particular crowd noticed.

Remember, they were Jewish. The ones who were not from Judea would have been a part of minority Jewish communities in their non-Jewish home countries.

In their social and commercial interactions with their Gentile and pagan neighbors, these Jews were exposed - on a daily basis - to the various ways in which the national idolatries of their respective countries permeated the society.

Pagan shrines, pagan amulets, and pagan images were all over the place. There were prescribed idolatrous religious rituals for all of the various professions. Prayers were offered throughout the day to false gods.

Pagan religion did not offer people a personal, heartfelt kind of spirituality. It was an inch deep. But it was a mile wide. And it was everywhere.

The only places where a pious Jew could go to escape from this idolatry, and from having to see it and hear it, was his own home, and his synagogue. In those religiously “clean” places, the praises of the true God - the Lord Jehovah - were reverently chanted in the texts of the Psalms of David, and in other texts from the Hebrew Scriptures.

These Diaspora Jews would have spoken the local language of their communities when they were on the outside, in their social and economic interactions with their pagan neighbors. But when the praises of the Lord were sung, at home and in the congregation, it was always and only in the Hebrew language.

As far as spoken prayers and outward worship were concerned, the only examples of such activities that they ever heard conducted in the pagan language of their homeland, were pagan prayers and pagan worship.

Prayers to the true God, and the recounting of his mighty works of salvation, never took place in those Gentile languages. These orthodox expressions of worship took place only in the language of God’s people: the language of Israel; the Hebrew language.

Liturgically speaking, Hebrew was, in a sense, the only “clean” language. Even though they didn’t use Hebrew in their ordinary life-activities from Sunday through Friday, Hebrew was the language that they did use on the Sabbath to sing God’s praises, and on any other occasion when the Scriptures were read, or prayers were said, in their homes.

The other languages that they knew, and that they spoke outside the home and outside the synagogue, were, as it were, “stained” - as far as their religious use was concerned - by the false religions that those languages were otherwise used to promote. They were the languages of false worship, as compared to Hebrew, which uniquely was the language of true worship.

Those native pagan people in these communities who didn’t know Hebrew, and who didn’t know the God who was praised and honored only in Hebrew, would, it was thought, remain trapped in their spiritual darkness - until and unless they would come to the synagogue, and learn the language of the synagogue.

But the international Jewish crowd that was gathered in Jerusalem on Pentecost was confronted by something that day, that was calculated by God to overturn in their minds any such thoughts that they might have had regarding their pagan neighbors’ lack of access to the truth of God, and their lack of access to the true worship of God.

On the Day of Pentecost, in Jerusalem - for the first time ever - they heard the praises of their God sung in the Gentile languages of their homelands. For the first time ever, they heard the mighty works of God proclaimed in languages that previously had been used - religiously - only for the worship of idols.

God’s vision had always been a vision for the whole human race. He created all people, and desired to save all people from sin.

Abraham was indeed called by God to come out from the pagan city of Ur, and to become the father of a new nation. This was not, however, because God desired the salvation only of this nation, but so that this nation could be the repository of the oracles of God - the divine promises of a Redeemer - for the ultimate benefit of all nations.

In the midst of all the spiritual darkness and satanic deception that reigned among the rest of Adam’s descendants, there needed to be at least one nation in which the Word of God would be known, so that this nation could be a fit “vessel,” we might say, for manifesting and delivering the salvation of God to all the rest of the nations.

And now, in keeping with God’s eternal plan, this Redeemer had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus had lived and died according to God’s plan, and had risen from the grave according to God’s plan, for the forgiveness and salvation of all who would be baptized into his name and trust in him.

And who would now be invited to believe in this Savior, and to be liberated from the guilt and power of sin through him? To whom would the gospel now be preached?

Only the Jews? Many thought so. But God’s plan was different.

God was not going to demand that the Gentile pagans become culturally and linguistically Jewish, and learn Hebrew, before they would be allowed to hear the message of Christ. No.

The miraculous sign of Pentecost demonstrated to the crowd that day, that the message of Christ was now going to be preached to these Gentiles in their own languages - their own seemingly tainted and unholy languages. They would not first have to raise themselves up out of their pagan cultures, to make themselves worthy to hear about their crucified and risen Savior.

In the Gospel of Christ, the Holy Spirit will come down to where they are - all the way down to the level of their ignorant unbelief - and create saving faith in them.

In the gospel of Christ, the Holy Spirit will come down to where they are - all the way down to the level of their misguided and superstitious idolatry - and graciously lift them up into the true worship of the true God.

And all of this can and will take place in their own languages. All of this can and will take place for you, too, in your own language.

God wants you to be told that your sins are forgiven, in a language that you already understand. God wants you to be taught how to thank him for his grace, and how to pray to him, in a language that you already speak.

The events of Pentecost assure all people - whoever they are, and whatever their culture may be - that God’s love in Christ is for them, and is going to be delivered to them in a way that they can comprehend and grasp. And the events of Pentecost also sharpen for the church an awareness of what the mission of the church now is.

Obviously we should always be willing to share the gospel with the people we know, and with whom we already interact comfortably in our communities. But what about other people?

What about people from a different culture, who live in a different part of the state, or in a different part of the world, and who speak a different language? Are we to be concerned also about them?

One of the lessons of Pentecost that God wants us to learn, is that we are indeed to be concerned about them. We are to be witnesses of Christ also to them. Depending on your particular calling, this will mean one of two things.

God may call you to study a new language, or to develop a sympathetic appreciation for a different culture, or to go as a missionary to a country where people have not yet heard about their Savior.

Or, God may call you to support those who do these things: with your prayers, with your personal encouragement, and with the finances with which God has blessed you.

But in one way or the other, God wants you to be involved today, in the mission that he entrusted to the church on the Day of Pentecost. This will continue to be the mission of the church until the day Christ returns.

I’d like to tell you a little bit about my college roommate and Christian friend Richard. Richard and I had a lot in common, and enjoyed the time we spent together during our college years.

But as is often the case, after we graduated, we drifted apart and lost contact. This was in the time before email and Facebook. I often wondered what had happened to him, but didn’t know how to track him down.

After several years, I found myself as a missionary of sorts in Ukraine. I wasn’t living in a third-world country, and we had quite a few modern conveniences - such as the Internet, and the new convenience of email - so I wasn’t a missionary in the way that someone who goes to a remote area of South America is.

But Richard, as it turns out, did become such a missionary. One day, in Ukraine, I received an email from the alumni office of my former college, announcing the sad news that my old friend and former roommate was now dead - along with his wife, whom I had never met.

Richard had been working as a Bible translator in a interior region of South America - near the border of Guyana and Brazil. He had studied and learned the language of the isolated Indian tribe that lived there.

At the time of his death he was putting the finishing touches on the first-ever translation of the New Testament into that language. Richard had been laboring over this project for some time, with great devotion to God, and with great love for the people among whom he was living.

But he and his wife were murdered. The perpetrators were never caught.

Yet the translation work he had completed was not lost. The New Testament that he prepared has now been published. It is being used for the spreading of the gospel among those who understand, and speak, that language.

In a sense, this publication is an enduring testimony to my friend’s work. But Richard would not want us to look at it as a monument to him.

He lived and died as a servant of God, under God’s call to do this work. He lived and died as a believer in Christ, by whom he had been forgiven all his sins, and in whom he had been made an heir of heaven.

Richard lived and died as a Christian indwelt by the Holy Spirit - the same Spirit who was poured out on the Day of Pentecost, and who had prompted the apostles on that day to declare the mighty works of God, in languages they had not previously known.

After Richard and I graduated from college we went our separate ways. But at a deeper level, in faith and in vocation, God actually kept us together. And as members of the communion of saints - the mystical body of Christ - we are still together.

All Christians, of all tribes and countries, are in this way also together - outwardly divided perhaps, but spiritually one in Christ. And it is God’s will that Christ, in whom we are one, be praised in all nations, in all languages.

Richard’s story of faith and faithfulness is one of thousands of similar stories that could be told. Since the Day of Pentecost, the church of Christ - led and impelled by the Spirit of Christ - has never been silent or stationary. And the church has never locked itself into one culture or one language.

Two thousand years ago, the gospel began to go forth from Jerusalem to all nations. We, whose ancestors at the time of the first Christian Pentecost were languishing in pagan darkness, are thankful beyond words for those who brought the message of Christ to our forebears and to us: in a language other than Hebrew, and in a cultural setting other than Judaism.

We are thankful for the pastors who teach us and preach to us now, in a language that makes sense to us; who now absolve us and administer the Lord’s Supper to us, in a language that we can understand; and who now lead us in the worship of our Triune God, in a language that we can speak, and in which we can sing.

And in this thankfulness, we heed God’s call, confess God’s name, and declare God’s praises to others. God is the one, ultimately, who is making all this happen, through the people he has sent into our lives.

And God is the one who will use us, and send us, to continue to make this happen for other people. As the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us once again, he brings Christ and Christ’s forgiveness to us once again, and renews our faith.

And, he nudges us, and pushes us out into the world - to all nations - to bring the gospel that fills us with hope, also to them. In the fellowship of the church, as the church of Christ lives and moves over the face of the earth, we, and all of God’s people, still see and hear what the crowd on the first Pentecost saw and heard:

“Usi chuyemo my, shcho hovoryat vony, pro velyki dila Bozhi, movamy nashymy.”

“Wir hoeren sie, mit unsern Zungen, die grossen Taten Gottes reden.”

“Les oimos hablar, en nuestros idiomas, de las maravillas de Dios.”

“We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” Amen.

---

26 May 2024 - Trinity Sunday

Imagine a married man saying something like this:

“I know that I was united in marriage to a woman several years ago, but I can’t remember which woman it was, what she looks like, or what kind of person she is. So, as far as who I will spend my time with now is concerned, I suppose one woman is just as good as another.”

What wife would tolerate hearing such a thing from her husband? But God does very often hear this sort of thing from many people who were baptized as Christians, and who in their baptism were claimed by God and united to God, but who now do not know - or care - which God they actually serve and worship.

The “civil religion” of our society does still reflect a belief in the existence of God. We are “one nation, under God.” “In God We Trust” is engraved on our money. But which God is this?

I suppose we should not expect everyone in America to understand very much about the God who created this world, and who sustains it by his power. But what about those who have been baptized into the Name of this God: to whom God has revealed his Name?

They should know who their God is. But do they know? Do they care? Do you know which God you believe in? Do you care?

You can’t just say, “I believe in the one God who exists.” Lots of people say that.

But when they go on to describe that one God in whom they profess faith, these descriptions often differ markedly. This “one God,” according to the way different people perceive him, would seem actually to be many different gods.

When the apostles and the other early Christian missionaries brought the message of Jesus to the non-Jewish nations, they were thereby introducing these polytheistic peoples to an idea that, for them, was very strange.

These nations were told that there is only one God: a heavenly Father who created all things, and who still sustains this universe; who in the person of his Son has redeemed our fallen world; and whose Holy Spirit is working and active here and now in regenerating sinners, in calling them to faith, and in uniting them to the fellowship of the Christian church.

The pagans of the Roman Empire and beyond, did not have a tradition of cultural monotheism, as we do in America. It was indeed a new and strange idea for them to consider, that there was actually only one God. And, this was not understood or grasped very well by some of them.

For the first few centuries of Christian history, one heresy after another arose among people who wanted to use their own reason and imagination, in answering the questions, “Who is this one God? What is he like?” Sometimes they also blended a few of their previous pagan notions into their new belief in one God.

But the ancient orthodox Fathers patiently responded to these threats and challenges, and answered these questions, on the proper basis - that is, according to the authority of the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures, through which God reveals himself, and teaches humanity about himself.

When the Scriptures were brought to bear on these confusions and errors, and when the teachings of God’s Word were carefully explained by faithful theologians such as Irenaeus, Athanasius, Hilary, and Ambrose, the confusions were clarified, the errors were corrected, and the believing church was established with confidence in God’s own truth.

The believing church was also established in its conviction that there is an important and direct correlation between an informed faith in God, as he actually exists; and the eternal salvation from sin and death that the one true God alone gives and bestows.

As is stated in the Athanasian Creed, from the fifth century: “Whoever will be saved shall, above all else, hold the catholic faith. Which faith, except it be kept whole and undefiled, without doubt, one will perish eternally.”

This creed - together with the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds - emerged from these centuries of turmoil, as important pastoral tools for teaching and confessing the Biblical doctrine of the Triune God with clarity and precision. These creeds brought together in compact form all the pertinent strands of Scriptural teaching regarding the oneness, and the threeness, of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In its liturgy, the church also sang the truth of one God in three Persons into the minds and hearts of the faithful, with words like these: “You only, O Christ, with the Holy Spirit, are most high in the glory of God the Father.”

We confess - as the Athanasian Creed summarizes it - that “The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten but proceeding.”

In addition to this mystery of the eternal relationships of the Divine Persons within the Godhead, we also confess that when the time came for God to redeem the world from sin and death, the eternal Son took to himself a human nature, so that he is now both God and man.

And in addition to this mystery of the incarnation, we also confess the mystery of the humiliation of the incarnate Christ. The Son of God in human flesh - during his time on earth - lived according to the limitations of his humanity, and not according to the power and glory of his divinity.

St. Paul explains to the Philippians that Christ Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be held onto for advantage, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Only in this way could God’s Son take sinful humanity’s place under the demands of the law, and satisfy them. Only in this way could he die as the atoning sacrifice for humanity’s transgressions. Only in this way could the infinite God come close to us, and be our companion in our human weakness and suffering.

These are the three important distinctions that need to be kept in mind, if we are going to understand what the Bible teaches: about the eternal Trinity of Divine Persons within the one Godhead; about Jesus as God and man in one Person; and about Jesus as suffering servant and Savior, by whose life, death, and resurrection you and I are reconciled to God, and are forgiven.

This is the one God who exists. And he does not just exist. He also saves. He is holy and righteous, but he is not distant.

The true God is eternal and immortal in himself, but in his love for us he made himself capable of dying. And he did die - and rise again.

The true God is a God who judges the world, and who does not ignore human rebellion and wickedness. St. Paul writes in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”

But, the true God is a God who pardons and acquits those individuals who are covered by Jesus’ righteousness. Jesus himself tells us, in St. John’s Gospel:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”

And in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus also tells us that on judgment day, he as divine judge will say this to those who are his, by grace alone:

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

The true God is a God who reestablishes peace with us through Christ; and who, through Christ, removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west.

No other imagined God does these things. No other imagined God is conceived of as even being able to do these things, or as wanting to do these things.

If the “one God” in whom you believe is not the God who does these things, and who offers this salvation, then the God you think you believe in does not exist. Or, even worse, that supposed “one God” may be, in truth, a Satanic deception.

On occasion Jesus was accused by his opponents of being possessed by a demon. Perhaps the contrived gods in whom many put their contrived faith, really are demons. Consider St. Paul ’s words in his First Epistle to the Corinthians:

“What pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons, and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.”

Satan is not interested in getting people to believe in him according to what he really is: namely, an enraged and disgruntled creature of the one true God. He is much happier when people mistakenly believe in him as their “one true God.”

When Satan or his minions masquerade themselves as a deity, this can take many forms.

The devil can accommodate himself to various false theologies: as long as those false theologies take people’s devotional attention off of the divine-human Christ; or poison people’s minds against the grace of our heavenly Father; or close people’s hearts to the Holy Spirit’s work of regeneration, and his gift of forgiveness.

Indeed, when the devil - in his deceptions - redirects toward himself, the worship and service that properly belong only to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he does not, in so doing, pretend to be a God who atones for sin.

Instead, he either weighs people down with ever more demands, paralyzing them with guilt and despair; or he fills people up with ever more self-righteousness, puffing them up in pride.

The devil, according to who he really is, does not love you. When he pretends to be God, and when he pretends that his lies are God’s truth, he might pretend to love you.

But any supposed “love” that keeps you captive to the power of sin and death, and that calls good evil, and evil good, is not love. It is hatred - hatred for your soul.

One way to know that it is the real God of the universe who is reaching out to you - and that it is not the devil or any other false alternative - is when the God who is reaching out to you, is reaching out through his saving message that he did so love the world, as to give his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life.

The Triune God gives. He gives his grace and favor. He gives himself.

He continually gives his gospel to you, in Word and Sacrament. He continually gives you the faith by which you receive the gospel, and all its benefits.

He gives to his penitent and believing adopted children, the body and blood of his only-begotten Son, for their forgiveness and renewal in faith.

That’s the God to whom your baptism united you. In baptism you were not “married,” as it were, to just any God, with one God being just as good as the next. You were baptized into the Divine Name of the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

That’s the God whom you serve and worship, and to whom you pray and sing, when you worship, pray, and sing to God through your baptism - on the basis of the Name that was placed upon you in Baptism.

This God continues to make himself known in the Scriptures, as a God who makes and keeps promises. He is not just the creator - although he definitely is that - but he also establishes and maintains relationships with his creatures.

He is Jehovah - the Great “I Am.” In the incarnation, the Lord Jehovah descended to our benighted human race and became a part of it, in order to reconcile us to himself, and elevate us by faith into a gracious mystical union with him.

Your relationship with God in Christ exists on his terms, however. You don’t get to pick which God you will serve. And you also don’t get to pick and choose which commandments of God you will obey, or which promises of God you will believe.

He is in charge of this relationship. He is God. He gets to criticize you, and to change you into his image. You don’t get to criticize him, or to change him into your image.

When the relationships that God has established with his creatures are strained or broken, his Divine Spirit restores them - by driving his people to a true repentance; and by lifting them up once again in a true faith.

He is the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. He is the God of Moses. He is the God of David.

And he is the God who is Jesus, and who therefore has become your God, by purchasing you with the price of his own blood; and by filling you with his own life and wisdom.

St. Paul writes in his First Epistle to the Corinthians:

“We know...that ‘there is no God but one.’ For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth..., yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and for whom we exist; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we exist.”

“No one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says, ‘Jesus is accursed!’ And no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.”

And as we confess in the Athanasian Creed:

“We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, Neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one; the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.” Amen.