Sermon on February 27

 1 Samuel 16:7 For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Don’t judge a book by its cover. You know that old saying. Well, know this: God does not judge by outward appearances. He judges by what’s in your heart.

Saul was the first king of Israel, but it didn’t go well. He was evil – evil to the heart. And his worst evil was that he didn’t listen and didn’t obey the Word of God.

In the verse just previous to the Old Testament reading today, it says this:  “And Samuel (Samuel served as prophet at the same time that Saul served as king) did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:35).

So God speaks to Samuel here in Chapter 16 and says, “Let’s not grieve over Saul any longer. Go and Anoint a new king. Go down to Bethlehem and I will show you who I want to be my king.”

Now Bethlehem was not a very important town at that time, but we know it would become so. And already here God is preparing for the great event to take place in Bethlehem, by choosing a new king and a new line of kings from Jesse’s family.

So God sends Samuel to Jesse’s house in Bethlehem. And Jesse introduces his sons to Samuel. Everyone would expect that the oldest, the first born would be the choice. Eliab was by all appearances the excellent candidate. He was well-built, tall, strong.  “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” 1 Samuel 16:7.

Seven sons of Jesse, each in turn, are brought before Samuel. None are chosen. So Samuel says, “Have you got anyone else?”

And Jesse says, “Just the little one, David. He’s out tending the sheep.”

“Go get him.” Says Samuel.

David is brought in and he’s the one! And he is anointed, the King of Israel, the best King ever.

We know David yet today. We know something of his heart. We know his faith. The Holy Spirit of God was on him and led him to write Psalms that are sung and prayed by believers for 3000 years now, Psalms like the 23^rd, where the former shepherd boy, now King, David, praises “The Lord is my Shepherd.” And another, Psalm 51, which will be a prayer included in our service Ash Wednesday. It’s the Psalm that says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

You see, David wasn’t without flaws. He sinned. In fact, he was guilty of some big sins. To the guilty, the notion that God sees in the heart is shocking. It incites fear, regret and shame. It’s from the heart where all sin starts. Evil thoughts and desires fill the hearts of sinful human beings.

The sinner can’t say, I’m going to change my heart. I’m going to fix it. NO, as David teaches us, the only way to pray is to ask God to create a new heart within me.

Lent is our times to prepare our hearts for Easter. How? Not by outward appearances. It’s not about outward things (like eating more fish and seafood, although that’s ok to do if you enjoy it). It’s about the inward work of God, the Creator, creating something new within us. And He does that by the Word of Christ. When we hear and believe that Jesus lived, died and rose again to save us, God creates in us new, reborn hearts.

We hear in the Gospel reading today, what great things Jesus can do. A blind beggar cries out to Jesus, “Son of David! Have mercy on me.” The beggar recognizes that Jesus is in the kingly line of David. Jesus is the King greater than his ancestor.

Jesus says to the beggar “, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well”  (Luke 18:42). How would Jesus know this man has faith? He was just a beggar along the road, annoying people who walked by. Jesus, the Lord, looks at the heart. He sees this man’s faith.

Also in the Gospel reading we hear Jesus predict his death in Jerusalem (Luke 18:31-34). Evil men would judge Jesus and find that he deserved crucifixion and death, even though he had done nothing wrong, nor was there any evil in Jesus’ heart. The hear of Jesus was pure and innocent, righteous and holy. But sinners back then. . . well, all sinners of the world, you and me, made that pure heart of Jesus stop beating.

On the third day it beat anew. In heaven it beats now for you. The Lord loves you from the heart.  He forgives your sins from His heart. He keeps you in his heart. Which is why I can now say to you: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). Amen.

Sermon for February 13, 2022

 The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the twentieth chapter.

1[Jesus said:] “The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16So the last will be first, and the first last.”

 This is the Gospel of the Lord.

All of us need to learn. All of us need to be taught by our Lord – whether young or old, whether you’ve learned lessons from books or from life, or if you’re just starting out -- we all need to hear from our Lord, learn from him and believe him. And many of his lessons, we need to learn again and again, like this one he’s teaching today, about our work for him and the wages we expect. We need to learn from him because our sinful human nature always gets things wrong when it comes to good works and faith.

In this parable that Jesus told, some of those workers in the vineyard made a fuss about the pay they were getting. It wasn’t fair. Those of us with a human nature, can sympathize with them. It hurts our pride when we see someone else get more than we did, and we, by our own reckoning, deserve more than they. It’s human nature to expect to get credit. We share in the grumbling of the vineyard workers when we don’t get the credit we think we should.

The boss had to chide these workers. A denarius was a fair day’s wage. It was agreed upon beforehand. It was awarded appropriately. The boss was faithful and just to the workers. It was his choice, and his business alone, to be generous toward those who came late and worked little.

By means of this story, the Lord teaches us about our human nature. We are slow to be thankful for what God has given us. We don’t count our blessings as we should. It’s only when they are diminished or gone, that we seem to notice the blessings. And then we gripe and complain. We sinful, self-centered human beings tend to think we deserve only good from God. “We’ve got it coming”, so we assume. Thinking this way we take credit in our own abilities and strength and goodness. We fail to give God the credit for our blessings and for our life. We’d rather trust ourselves than trust God.

Faith and Good Works

Faith –believing in God and what God has done for you. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves. It is He who has saved us from our sinful condition by sending His Son to die for us on the cross. It is He who has given us faith, and is bringing us into eternal life. Salvation unto us has come by God’s free grace and favor; Good works cannot avert our doom. They help and save us never. The sinful human nature within us gets this wrong.

Arrogance

We are tempted to make too much of our own good works and inherent abilities. It is arrogant to take credit for what is not ours. The master of the vineyard was disappointed with the arrogance of those workers who thought they deserved more pay and more credit. So we are tempted to look around at what others are doing and say, “Well at least I’m not as bad as so and so. God and everybody else ought to recognize that.” No, there is no one righteous. No one good except God.

Ephesians 2 says, “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Your good works don’t count up to your credit. Your good works give you nothing good for yourself and your standing, but they are for the good of your neighbor. It is arrogant to boast about your goodness and your good works. Arrogance is the exact opposite of faith. The arrogant need to repent.

Despair

Despair on the other hand comes with great frustration when you realize that no matter how hard you try, God doesn’t notice you or award you. In despair, the sinner says, “I can’t do this.” and so gives up, gives up on God, gives up on heaven. Despair is the exact opposite of faith in the other direction.

License

You can be tempted too think to much of good works. You can also be tempted to think too little of good works. When you get a license, you have the privilege to drive. Some think that the Gospel is a license to do whatever you want in this life. The thinking goes like this, if God forgives me all my sins, it doesn’t matter what I do.

Here’s the next verse in Ephesians 2, “¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

You can’t just skip good works and carelessly, lazily go through your day without even trying. Faith without works is dead. Those guys in the parable who were just standing around all day, weren’t even trying to help out with the vineyard. They showed by their lack of work that they didn’t care about the Master and didn’t expect him to care about them. In the same way, a person who does nothing good for God or neighbor is showing that he cares little about God and doesn’t expect God to care about him.

Believers want to do good works. But they don’t put the cart before the horse by saying that their good works are what make them good Christian people. No, It’s by grace you have been saved. Believers trust in their salvation from God and then love him and love their neighbors with words and actions that show their love for God.

What are good works?

There’s this mistaken idea that the best works are great and extravagant, like giving a sum of money to fund a hospital, giving years of your life to serve the church or the poor. As if certain super good works make one a super Christian. The master of the vineyard paid all the workers the same. The Lord above gives the same salvation to all who believe. The works God has for you to do are taught in the 10 commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

These are the good works God has prepared for you to do:

The 1st commandment, You shall have no other gods: Love the Lord God by believing in him.

The 2^nd Commandment, You shall not misuse the name of the Lord. This is God’s command to  call on his name and pray. By the way, Lent starts next month. I’m going to ask, to challenge each of you to keep up and improve your daily prayers through Lent. Your prayers are the good works God has for you.

As is coming to house to hear His word, the 3^rd commandment, Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.

The 4^th commandment, honor your father and mother and other authorities.

The 5^th commandment, You shall not murder. Good works are most often simple. Care about others, their health and life and well-being. 

The 6^th commandment You shall not commit adultery. But love your spouse, treat others decently.

The 7^th commandment You shall not steal. Be kind and considerate to others and care about what’s important to them.

The 8^th Commandment – You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor, but by speaking kind  words, be a good neighbor.

The 9^th Commandment – You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. Be happy with others for their good fortune, mourn with others when they have loss.

The 10^th Commandment – You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, people or animals, be content with what you get from God and don’t get all arrogant and upset because he gives others good things.

What is faith?

The hymn says it well: “Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone and rests in Him unceasing; and by its fruits true faith is known with love and hope increasing. For faith alone can justify; Works serve our neighbor and supply the proof that faith is living” (LSB #555). Amen.