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Episodes
Weekly sermons and Bible studies led by a retired pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Episodes
Tuesday Oct 11, 2022
Tuesday Oct 11, 2022
Last week, we heard of the first three Christian virtues or qualities in the cluster of the fruit of the Holy Spirit - love, joy, and peace - given by the Spirit so that we may live with hope and confidence in our Lord and remain close to Him and His promises in Christ, by His power. Next is a listing of fruit that enables us to live in a good and proper way with the people God has placed around us (Galatians 5:22).
The first quality is “patience.” This word can literally be translated as “long-suffering.” Living and dealing with other people can be both joyous and very difficult, with suffering and trouble involved at times, suffering along with them and sometimes because of them. The Holy Spirit enables us to seek to have endurance and steadfastness toward them, in our contacts in both the best and worst of times. “Patience” is hard to have in the difficult times; yet the Holy Spirit keep pointing us to Jesus and how much patience and love He has had to have toward us - never leaving us nor forsaking us, and continually forgiving us, as we heard last week.
The Spirit strengthens us to carry on with “patience” toward others, along with the next two qualities - kindness and goodness. God is the one who has first been kind (gracious and good) toward us, though we did not deserve that kindness. Jesus taught in Luke 6:35 that the Lord is even “kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” That is what the Spirit wishes us also to be, as “sons of the Most High.”
Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:31-32, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander (the works of the flesh!) be put away from you, along with all malice. Be ‘kind’ (same word as in Galatians 5:22) to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” The pattern is always the same. The Spirit helps us remember what God has first done for us in Christ and helps us act in the same way toward others, as hard as it sometimes is for us to do.
Paul then adds “goodness” to “kindness” as the Spirit’s fruit in Ephesians 5:22. Someone once called Jesus “Good Teacher,” and Jesus responded, “Why do you call me good? No one is good (same Greek word) except God alone” (Luke 18:18-19). Jesus, of course, was also perfectly “good,” as the sinless Son of God, but He responds this way because the person questioning Him thinks he is only a “teacher” and not the good and sinless Savior.
“Goodness” (uprightness, doing the right things, generosity) is therefore an inner quality that only God has in the fullest perfect way. Yet the Spirit can work in us and bring out in us at least some of that “goodness” in action toward others. For that is what this word means: “goodness” is actually doing some good to and for others. Think about the words of James in James 2:15-16. If we see people in need and say, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled” and yet don’t do anything to help them, “what good (what benefit) is that?” The Spirit works in us to help turn our faith into “goodness” that actually does some good.
The last three parts of the cluster of the fruit of the Spirit are “faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:23). The first word is the word usually translated as “faith,” but in this context, along with other qualities, virtues, it means “faithfulness.”
Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:13, about Jesus, even “if we are faithless, He remains faithful (same Greek word) — for he cannot deny Himself.” Jesus has perfect faithfulness toward His Heavenly Father and keeps all His promises. We struggle, at times, but Jesus, through the fruit of the Spirit, forgives us and strengthens us to be more faithful to Him and His Word and to other people around us.
The word “gentleness” often used to be translated as “meekness.” That word has taken on a very negative connotation, though, to many people. It has the sense of someone who is weak and always backs down and gets taken advantage of and stomped on by others. If you are old enough, you might remember people being called a “Caspar Milquetoast.” There was an actual cartoon series about such “A Timid Soul” who had that name, that ran from 1925-1953 in many newspapers. That “Caspar” was considered too gentle for his own good and could never stand up for himself, and he was named for a meal of squishy toast in warm milk given to people who had a weak, upset stomach, to help with digestion.
In the Bible, though, this word for “gentleness” or “meekness” was used in a positive way by Jesus and is used to describe one of His great qualities. We would tend to think, “The strong and powerful (macho people) will inherit the earth.” Jesus said, “The meek shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5, as we heard last week). Jesus said of Himself, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle (meek) and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
“Meekness” in the Bible is connected with humility and courtesy toward and consideration of others. It especially means, as Martin Franzmann said, simply “trusting in the Lord above all and committing our way to Him and believing that He will vindicate us… and waiting patiently on Him and knowing that the steps of a man are from the Lord” and not from us and our scheming and plans. Franzmann pointed to Psalm 37 and particularly verses 39-40 (Franzmann, “Follow Me”, p. 37-38).
As others do with all this “fruit of the Spirit,” Franzmann pointed above all to Jesus and “His Messianic entry into Jerusalem with no means of power, no trappings of royalty, on a borrowed beast, with nothing and no one but God to depend on. He came as the meek King (Matthew 21:5), the meek Messiah.” He delivered the meek (who simply trusted Him by faith) by suffering and dying on the cross as a criminal, and only then receiving His mighty resurrection from the dead and return to glory. With “meekness” Jesus was actually the “Stronger Man” who defeated sin and Satan and death for us (Matthew 12:24-29). The Holy Spirit points us to all this and helps us to take up our own “yoke” of service to others, too, trusting that the Lord will ultimately judge with fairness and His mercy and rescue “the meek of the earth,” including us (Isaiah 11:1-5).
Finally, the Holy Spirt seeks to help us have “self-control” in all these things, helping us to hold our sinful passions and desires in check, by His power, and forgiving our failures, as we bring them to Him in repentance. Our old sinful nature was crucified with Christ on the cross (Galatians 2:20) and we receive personally the benefit of all that in our baptism and the gift of faith (Galatians 3:1-2, 24-26 and now 5:24).
The Holy Spirit is with us, too, in the daily battle of, as Luther says, remembering our Baptism and who we are in Christ and drowning those sinful passions and desires that trouble us. Paul put it this way in Romans 8:13: “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit, you keep on putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” In Christ and in the Holy Spirit, we do live, and we march in step with the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:25).
(Hopefully, next week, we will get to what this all means in more practical terms in our lives. The Lord’s blessings!)
Tuesday Oct 11, 2022
Tuesday Oct 11, 2022
Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, based on:
Sermon originally delivered October 13, 2013
Friday Oct 07, 2022
Friday Oct 07, 2022
The Scripture lessons for this week show us God doing just what He wishes to do - helping people in all kinds of situations. He acts in love for us, too, and we are called to thank and praise and trust Him, in Christ our Savior.
The Psalm is Psalm 111. The psalms often praise God’s Word and teaching. This psalm especially praises God’s actions on behalf of His people. Notice how often His work, His “wondrous works” are mentioned. He is “gracious and merciful” and His work culminated in “sending redemption to His people” in the coming Savior. No wonder, then, that the psalmist wants to “give thanks to the Lord” with his “whole heart” in the “congregation” of believers and to continue to “study the works of His hands” and delight in them. (That’s what we do in worship, too!)
The Old Testament lesson is from Ruth 1:1-19. Naomi and family have moved from Israel to Moab during a time of famine. One disaster happens after another, and Naomi feels that “the hand of the Lord has gone out against her,” instead of His works helping her. Her Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth, stands in support of her, though, and trusts her God, the God of Israel. She is even willing to go back to Israel, to Bethlehem, with Naomi. God is working for good in all this, and Ruth meets and marries a Jewish man, Boaz. From their family line comes David, who became king of Israel, and much later, the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, born in Bethlehem. (If you want more detail, you can scroll back on the podcast to several lessons on the Book of Ruth.)
In the Gospel lesson, Luke 17:11-19, Jesus, that Redeemer, sees and heals, from a long distance away, a group of 10 people who had the dreaded disease of leprosy, as they cried out with a great prayer, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Only one of the 10, a non-Jewish person like Ruth, came back in faith to give thanks and praise to Jesus, who actually was the Son of God. Only to this man could Jesus then say, literally, “Your faith has saved you,” giving him both physical and spiritual healing.
Jesus came, though, to be the Savior of the whole world, as our Epistle lesson, 2 Timothy 2:1-13 tells us. Paul wishes that Timothy “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus,” as a younger pastor, and then find other “faithful men” who can teach others, too, about trusting in and “remembering Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the Offspring of David” and the Center of the Gospel. Paul is bound with chains, soon to die at the hands of the Romans. “But the Word of God is not bound,” and Timothy and others can still share that Word, so that more and more people, even down to our own day, can “obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” “God remains faithful” to His promises, and “He cannot deny Himself” and His saving plan, available to all people in the world. Through Him, we have come to faith and salvation, and anyone else can, too.
Friday Oct 07, 2022
Friday Oct 07, 2022
Last week, we spent much time thinking about a long list of “works of the flesh” - what our sinful nature, with which we were born, wants to pull us back into. It is part of the struggle we have now, as Christians, between the “new creation” we are as believers in Christ Jesus and our old sinful flesh and desires. The great good news is that we are forgiven and continue to be forgiven, as we are in faith in Christ, no matter what we have struggled with on that long list of “works of the flesh.” As Paul wrote, along with another long list of sins of the flesh, in 1 Corinthians 6:11, “Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Paul had told the Galatians in Galatians 5:18, they were now “led by the Spirit,” who had brought them to faith in Jesus (Galatians 3:2-3) through “putting on Christ” in their baptism (Galatians 3:26-27) and through “hearing” the Good News of “Christ crucified” (Galatians 3:1-2). And, Paul assured them, God had not only brought them to faith, through the saving work of Jesus and the “life-giving” work of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:25- “We live by the Spirit”). (See also John 3:5-6, where Jesus says, We are “born of water and the Spirit” … “born of the Spirit” and are not just “flesh," but “spirit.”) God also provides His “new-born” Christians with “the fruit of the Spirit” who now lives in and with them (and us) (Galatians 5:22).
The “works” of the flesh are plural, are many and varied, as people do these evil things. The word for “fruit” of the Spirit is singular. It is the picture image of one cluster of fruit, every part of which is important. The listing in Galatians 5:22-23 is of a cluster of nine virtues, qualities the Holy Spirit seeks to produce in every Christian. Some commentators, including Lenski, think the virtues are listed in groups of three. The first three are vitally important for us all - love, joy and peace.
Listed first is “love.” There are several Greek words for different kinds of love, and this is the one for sacrificial Christian love. This is most clearly demonstrated for us in Jesus, who as God the Son limited Himself and became a real human man and sacrificed everything, including His life, for us and our salvation, out of love for us, while we were still weak, ungodly, sinful enemies of God, who deserved nothing from Him. (See these words used about us in Romans 5:6-11 and yet how God still “showed His love for us” in sending His Son for us “to save us from the wrath of God and reconcile us to Him” and “justify us by His blood” and give us new and eternal “life” through His resurrection from the dead.) That is the love of Christ for us that Paul is constantly talking about in all his writings, including Galatians. Our hope is in Christ and His love.
The next “fruit” is “joy.” This is the joy and confidence we have because of the grace of God already given to us and how blessed we are in Christ, on very happy days, but also in times of trouble. Paul wrote in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say: Rejoice.” Paul was not perfect, but this “fruit of the Spirit” was evident in his life many times. See 2 Corinthians 6:4-10. Paul wrote of the many good and bad things he had been going through; and yet he was “always rejoicing” - or at least trying to do so. The only perfect one, again, was Jesus, who taught in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-12), “Blessed are the poor in spirit… those who mourn… the meek… those persecuted for righteousness’ sake… when others revile you… Rejoice and be glad.” Jesus even said, in Matthew 5:48, “You therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”
Obviously, none of us is perfect. It is also very hard to have joy when bad things are happening, in our own lives and in the lives of loved ones, and when we hear the news in the world and even in our own community. Lenski says, though, “Pessimism is a grave fault.” But we sometimes think: How can I help not being pessimistic, when so many bad things are happening? Maybe that is part of our problem, for which many of us, including me, need repentance. We focus on the news and other social media and our own weaknesses and failings and all the grumbling and troubles we hear and failures of leaders and politicians, no matter what their names are; and we forget and neglect to spend more time also focusing on good news and “counting our blessings” and especially listening to and reading God’s Word, through which the Holy Spirit works to bring us the good fruit of love and joy in Christ that we need so much.
We also know Christian people who have been through hard times and have kept faith in Christ and found renewed joy even in their struggles, just as Paul did. Talk with those you know. If we think about it, we have all been through difficult periods in our lives, too, and the Lord has helped us through, as we remembered and leaned upon His promises.
The Lord has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). Jesus promised, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). And we know that eternal life in heaven awaits us. Not even death or anything else can separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:34-39). All that can renew our joy, too, and help us in times of pessimism. And we seek to come to the Lord, when we fail, for His mercy and forgiveness. “If we confess out sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
That also brings us to the third “fruit of the Spirit” - “peace.” “Peace” does not mean the absence of war or trouble in our lives. Jesus Himself was very realistic, as He also lived in this very sinful world for our sake. He said, “In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” “I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace” (John 16:32-33).
Jesus also promised just what Paul was talking about in Galatians 5:22-23 - the coming of the Holy Spirit to bring the fruit of faith that we all need. Jesus said, “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit does that for us through the Word of God, which He inspired the Biblical writers like Paul to write down for us.
Jesus went on to say, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). This peace with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit gives us “wholeness” and “well-being” (what the Old Testament word for peace, “shalom,” means.) Paul called it “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, which guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” It means that we can talk over anything now with our Heavenly Father in prayer, as His dear children, even in “anxious” moments and times of “suffering” (Philippians 4:6-7 and Romans 8:14-17).
If you go back now to Galatians 5:22-23, note that Paul added these words: “Against such things there is no law.” All this “fruit of the Spirit” was a gift from God for the Galatians and for us, too. We are all free in Christ to enjoy God’s love and peace. We are taken care of by our Lord already, through Christ, without worrying about more things we must do to try to earn God’s real favor and blessing for ourselves. We are free to think less about ourselves and to use more of our time and energy in this life to help others find the same love and joy and peace in Christ.
The list of the other six in the cluster of “the fruit of the Spirit” are virtues and qualities by which the Holy Sprit enables us to help and serve others. We will look at these next week and then hear Paul talking about what that would mean for us and others, in a practical way in our lives. The Lord’s continued love and joy and peace be with you all, in the days ahead.
Friday Oct 07, 2022
Friday Oct 07, 2022
Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost, based on:
Sermon originally delivered October 6, 2013
Friday Sep 30, 2022
Friday Sep 30, 2022
The Scriptures for this Sunday remind us that we are only unworthy servants of our Lord and need to keep trusting Him and His plans, no matter what. The prophet Habakkuk has to learn this in the Old Testament lesson, Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4. He cannot understand why the Lord would seem to let evil go by without doing anything about it. He has to learn to “live by faith” and wait for God’s wise ways of doing things, in the coming Savior Jesus. (If you want to look more at Habakkuk, there is a earlier series of podcasts that you can find and listen to at any time, if you keep scrolling back.)
David has learned this lesson over time, as he writes in Psalm 62. God alone is his Rock and Salvation. David will “wait in silence” upon the Lord and “not be greatly shaken,” for the Lord is his Refuge. He will not put his trust in people of “low estate” or “high estate” or in any forms of evil, but only in the power and steadfast love of the Lord.
In our Gospel lesson, Luke 17:1-10, Jesus reminds us that we are only “unworthy servants” of our Lord, even if we have done everything commanded us. And who of us has always done our duty? Have we ever caused someone else to stumble, to sin? Do we always forgive, again and again? Do we always do our expected work faithfully and then do even more, seeing it as our Master’s expectation? It is impossible. We finally are taught that we live by faith in our Lord, not by our great efforts, and the tiniest faith that our Lord gives and works in us is enough.
Paul teaches Timothy and us about that faith in our Epistle lesson, 2 Timothy 1:1-10. Paul has seen that “gift of faith,” in Timothy’s grandmother and mother and now in Timothy himself. That faith can be “fanned into flame,” not as Timothy looks at his own works, but but as he and we look at “the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.” That Gospel is the Good News, not of what we have done for God, but of what God has done for us through Jesus, “who saved us… by His own purpose and grace.” Paul knows that he and Timothy and we are only servants, unworthy servants, but Jesus came to serve us and gave His life for us to forgive us again and again of every sin and to give us “a holy calling” to share with others “the promise of the Life that is in Him, Christ Jesus.”
Friday Sep 30, 2022
Friday Sep 30, 2022
Last week, we heard of the freedom that we have in Christ, allowing us not to be wrapped up just in ourselves, but enabled, through the Holy Spirit, to serve others in Christ’s love. This is a struggle, though, as we heard, between the new person we are in Jesus and our old sinful nature, which still troubles us. Paul encourages the Galatians (and us) to “walk by the Spirit” and not “by the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). There are good things we really want to do in following Christ, but the desires of the flesh are opposed to these good things. That is the battle we now face, as Christians (Galatians 5:17).
Paul reassured the Galatians and us, though, that if we “are led by the Spirit,” with faith in Christ, we are “not under the law,” in the sense that we must keep that law to earn God’s grace and be saved (Galatians 5:18). The law still serves its purposes, though, in reminding us of what is right and wrong and showing us where we may be going wrong and calling us to repentance.
Galatians 5:19-21 describes sinful “works of the flesh” for us. Paul says that they are “evident” - open to the eyes of people, in showing what these sinful cravings are. Paul groups them in categories, according to some commentators, including Lenski.
The first three are “sexual” sins, which were a serious problem for Greek and Roman cultures, including those in Galatia, because of very low sexual moral standards of that time - which we seem to be getting back into in our own day. The first is the term for all kinds of sexual sin, for the married and the unmarried. We get our English words “porn” and “pornography” from this word. The second word is “uncleanness” - not just specific sexual sins but what also leads to them. The third word has the idea of having all restraints removed, “plunging on as a runaway horse,” with no limits or controls on oneself (Galatians 5:19). Our sinful nature wants to do what it wants to do, not what what others think or say.
The next two words have to do with worshiping of false gods or gods of our own making. The first word is the word from which we get the English word “idolatry.” It does make a difference what or whom we worship. There is only one true God, and the Triune God alone is to be worshiped. The second word is the word from which we get the English word “pharmacy.” This does not refer to the work of modern medicine with genuine, approved pharmaceutical products; but in the ancient world, drugs and other potions were often used for “sorcery” and other secret pagan religious rites, connected with idolatry. Even today, don’t we also have much use of illegal drugs and pills and potions that can be harmful and even deadly to us (Galatians 5:20)?
The next four words refer to personal, individual animosity and conflict we can have with others. The first word is “enmity” - personal dislike and hatred toward others. That can quickly lead to the second word, “strife” and “struggling” with others, motivated by things like the third word, “jealousy” toward others. That can also result in the fourth word, “fits of anger” that we direct toward others (Galatians 5:20).
The next four words refer to conflict that also develops between parties or groups of people. People begin to take sides, in support of some and in opposition to others. This leads to “rivalries” among people and “dissensions” and can even lead to “divisions.” This third word is the word from which we get the English word “heresies," for some divisions can become so serious that some groups go away from the truth and reject it in their lives and beliefs. (Paul used the same word in 1 Corinthians 11:19, saying that such “factionalism” can ultimately show who is correct and who is not, according to the Word of God.) Such divisions are not what God wants, though, and often flow from the fourth word, “envy” even among various groups. The divisions created by the false teachers at Galatia are particularly what Paul is talking about in referring to these particular works of the sinful flesh. They had created so many problems and much confusion among the Galatians (Galatians 5:20-21).
Paul added two more works of the flesh: “drunkenness” and “orgies” (carousing and revelry that gets far out of hand and becomes immoral). He also indicated that he could add many other examples of “works of the flesh,” too (Galatians 5:21). You can find lists of “works of the flesh,” the sinful nature, in Scriptures such as Romans 1:18-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Ephesians 5:3-5, Colossians 3:5ff., 1 Timothy 1:8-10, Revelation 22:15, etc. Paul also added the solemn words, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21).
When we hear those last words, it might seem that there is no hope for any of us. Don’t we all sometimes have “fits of anger” and “strife” and “jealousy and envy,” etc.? We still sin, at times, because we are still in the struggle between the Spirit and the flesh,” as long as we are in this sinful world.
A better translation of Galatians 3:21 is that we are in danger if we “keep on doing such things,” without remorse or concern or seeking God’s forgiveness and His help to do better. These lists show that we are sinners and drive us back, as Christians, to our Savior and the forgiveness and acceptance that come only through faith in Him. We will inherit the Kingdom of God not by getting everything right, but by clinging to our perfect Savior Jesus and His mercy for us. We will talk about this more next week and as we think about “the fruit of the Spirit.”
One last thought. What Paul talked about in Galatians 5:15 is a danger when the “works of the flesh” get control of us at times, even in churches and families and other groups. We can ”bite and devour one another” when “strife, jealousy, rivalries, dissensions and envy” get the best of us. May the Lord help and forgive us and give us greater love and service to each other, when these difficult times come, as they did at Galatia and as they still can today.
Friday Sep 30, 2022
Friday Sep 30, 2022
Sermon for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, based on:
Sermon originally delivered September 29, 2013
Wednesday Sep 21, 2022
Wednesday Sep 21, 2022
The Scriptures for this Sunday are very relevant, as they speak to financial, money concerns that many of us have in these days of high inflation and uncertainties about the future. The Old Testament lesson is from Amos 6:1-7. Amos speaks words of warning from God especially to the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, though he speaks also to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The rich, “notable” people of the land are feeling “secure” and they are satisfying all their own desires, while not “grieving over the ruin” of many troubled people among them and helping them. They lie “at ease” on their beds inlaid with “ivory” and their beautiful couches. They eat luxuriously and have plenty of time to listen to and sing their favorite “idle songs” and drink not just glasses, but bowls-full of wine. If they continue this way (as they did!) ignoring the Lord and His will, judgment and exile was coming for them, as it did, at the hands of the Assyrian armies.
The Psalm is Psalm 146, a psalm of praise to the Lord. The warning is not to put too much “trust in princes” (or queens and kings) and other human beings who cannot bring “salvation” to us. Rather, our hope and help are in our Creator Lord, who “keeps faith forever” for us and cares about us in all the difficult times in our lives. Ultimately this psalm is also a prophecy of “the Son of man,” our Lord Jesus, who came to save us, no matter who we are, as we trust in Him. (See Luke 4:16-21.)
The Epistle lesson is from 1 Timothy 6:6-19. It fits best with our other readings for today. (A reading from 1 Timothy 3:1-13 could also be chosen, about important qualities needed for what we would call pastors and elders and other church leaders today. But even they are reminded not to be “a lover of money” or “greedy for dishonest gain.”) In Chapter 6:6ff., we are reminded of what is most important for us: “godliness with contentment,” satisfied with the basics we need for our life, and staying in the faith and love of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not money itself that is evil, but “the love of money” - a “craving” through which “some have even wandered away from the faith.” Those who are wealthy are called “not to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God.” They are also called to do good with the blessings they have received and “to be rich in good works” that help others.
The Gospel lesson is Luke 16:19-31 - a story Jesus tells about “a rich man” who had the best of everything and “feasted sumptuously every day,” but ignored and would not help in any way a poor, sick man, Lazarus, who lay at his gate, day after day, who wished only for scraps that fell from the rich’s man’s table. Both men died, and Lazarus was taken to the joy of heaven. (Other Scriptures make it clear that he was taken to heaven, alongside Abraham, not because he was poor, but because he had been brought to faith in his Lord God. The rich man ended up in Hades, in hell, in torment, not because he was rich, but because he rejected his Lord or in his focus on himself had wandered away from the faith.) The rich man now wishes only for a “scrap” - a drop of cool water - “in his anguish in the flame” - but it is too late. He wishes then that someone could go and warn his five living brothers, who are in eternal danger in unbelief themselves. He is reminded that they have the very Word of God available for them, as he did, and if they ignore and reject that, they would not believe, even if someone would rise from the dead - which Jesus eventually did, in His victorious saving work, available to all.
Wednesday Sep 21, 2022
Wednesday Sep 21, 2022
Last week, we heard how relevant Paul’s words in Galatians are to our own day, because so many groups, including churches and other religious groups, still erroneously teach that we are saved by good works that we must do to merit our salvation, along with trust in what the Lord has done. In that view, Jesus has not done enough for us to rescue us, and we are left without the “freedom” and confidence we are meant to have through simple faith in His completed work for us. We are left with uncertainly about whether we have done enough ourselves to be totally acceptable to God and to reach eternal life.
Paul said it again in Galatians 5:13, “For you were called to freedom, brothers.” As Jesus had said about Himself in John 8:31-36, “If the Son set you free, you will be free indeed” - free from “the slavery to sin” and “its condemnation.” As Paul also wrote, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). At the same time, Paul wanted to make it clear that this freedom is not now a license to do whoever we want in our lives.
Paul wrote, “Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law of God is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:13-14). Once we are brought to faith in Christ through our baptism and the Word of God, God is able to do genuine good in and through our lives, for His honor and to help other people.
Remember how Paul wrote, earlier in Galatians, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20) and Paul said, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith; for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:26). Paul also spoke of believers as people “born according to the Spirit,” as Isaac was, who are “children of promise” (Galatians 4:29). (See also the words of Jesus, who said, speaking of baptism, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:2-7).)
Christians are therefore people in whom both God the Son, Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit are at work, under the blessings of God the Father. Paul wrote about this also in 2 Corinthians 5:17-19: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us a ministry of reconciliation.”
As Christians, there is therefore a part of us that is “new” in Christ and really wants to do the right things that God wants, in love for God and for our neighbor, and in gratefulness for all that Jesus has done for us as our Savior. Jesus describes the “good fruit” that comes as we abide in Him by faith, in John 15:3-5. We will bear some “fruit for Him,” not to gain favor from Him by following laws and rules, but just because we are connected to Him as our Lord. One of our Lutheran writings says, “Good works are not necessary for our salvation; but they are necessary.” They will be there in each of us and through each of us in some way.
We want to do good works, but not because we must in order to earn God’s favor and gain salvation. The motivation is different. It is in thankfulness to God for what He has already done for us and promised us; and God is working in us to strengthen us and help us, and motivating us through His Word. It is motivation by the Gospel, above all, and not by laws and rules we must keep. See how Paul describes this life in thankfulness to God in Colossians 3:15-17. We live by faith in our merciful Lord, not by fear. And we live in daily repentance for our sins, as our Lord taught us through John. (See 1 John 1:7-10.)
The problem is that we also still have our old sinful nature within us, with which we were born. There is a battle that goes on then, within us, even as Christians, between what we want to do as believers and what our sinful nature still pulls us to want to do. Paul described that in Romans 7:15-25. He had “the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out,” all the time. He said, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” He called himself a “wretched man” and knew that only in Jesus Christ his Savior, did he have forgiveness and “no condemnation,” even in his struggles. (See Romans 8:1-4.) He thanks God that he will have victory through the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 7:25) and not by his own efforts.
Next week, we will see how Paul described walking by the Spirit, in contrast with living in the desires of the sinful human flesh. That struggle is part of our life, too, as Christians, but we have hope in Christ and in His Holy Spirit, living in us.