So the Pharisees said to one
another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after
him.” (John 12:19)
Jesus says, “Follow me.” He says
that to you Trice, and Grace, and Miyah, and Kendall. Follow Jesus.
Confirmation is about a lot of
things: The fulfillment of your midweek Bible lessons and catechism
instruction, your joining this congregation as a confirmed and communicant
member, it is a rite of passage, a sign that you’ve grown up. But most
importantly, it is the public confession that you are following Jesus. Your are
his disciple. He is your Lord and Savior. This is confirming what’s been true
since your baptism, You are a follower of Jesus Christ. So consider now, what
all that means.
First, you are a follower of
Jesus, and that means you are not a follower of other things that are against
the Lord. We teach from our catechism that there are especially three enemies
of the Lord and his ways, that hinder his will and don’t want his Kingdom to
come: the devil, the world and our sinful nature.
You are a follower of Jesus, so
obviously you are not a follower of the devil. Now, what that will mean is
you’ve been brought into an arena where the devil is fighting. He has to work harder on you, than he does on
someone who doesn’t care. He will work harder to tempt you, to lead you astray,
to give you what seem like good reasons to give up and not bother with the
religion and the faith of the Lord and his church. But you just have to say,
nope, I follow Jesus.
Likewise, You are a follower of
Jesus, so you are not a follower of the world and its ways. You are making a
public statement today, that is completely different from what the world around
us says. You’re saying that the Lord God has created you. And He redeemed you
from sin and death. And he sanctified you and gave you a new birth and new life
of faith. The world says that nothing created you, you just came to be by
chance and chaotic randomness and that’s all there is to look forward to in the
future. So the world says you’ve got to take care of things yourself, and you
hear what kind of things the world says, without any acknowledgement of the
Lord and his law: the world says, Choose for yourself what kind of person you
will be, what gender you will be, what you will think and feel, choose for
yourself without a thought or care about the people around you or the God above
you. To which you are saying, in your confirmation vows this morning, I follow
Jesus Christ. Him alone I serve. Him alone, I trust.
The third spiritual enemy working
against you when you follow Jesus is your own sinful nature. All of us who are
born of flesh and blood are by nature selfish. So we always bent on putting
ourselves first, reluctant to put others first, even including the Lord Jesus
Christ. To make the vows of confirmation, means you have to repent of your
sins, repent of your sinful nature, repent of your self-first attitude.
Think about what Jesus was doing
as he was riding that donkey on the Palm strewn street. You know where he was
riding to? He was riding into Jerusalem. And we know what was waiting for him
there. There were a lot of people crazy angry toward him. These Pharisees that
are watching on, were filled with anger and hatred. “We’ve got to stop him.
They said. We’ve got to put an end to this or the whole world will go after
him.
Jesus was riding right into the
middle of that hatred and anger. He was riding to his arrest and trial filled
with false witnesses. He was going forward toward a beating, thorns, pierced
hands and feet. He is riding on to his death. You’d think he wouldn’t want to
do that. But he rode on, for your faith and your salvation.
Jesus says, “Follow me.” So that
means you will probably have to go where you don’t want to go, for Jesus’ sake.
Here’s what I mean: Jesus will say, “Follow me; repent of your sins and your
selfish sinful nature.” And that’s not the favorite place to go. It’s not the
easiest, most pleasurable thing to do. The sinner in all of us wants to say,
“No, I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to admit that I was wrong. I don’t
want to let on that I’m not right.” Jesus says follow me, even if it’s not
where you want to go. Follow me, He says, “I’m going to the cross. Repent of
your sins and believe what I say. There at my death on the cross, you are
forgiven and redeemed.”
It's good to follow Jesus, despite
what your human nature makes you feel about it. It’s good to follow Jesus,
despite what the world says. It’s good to follow Jesus despite what the devil
would try to trick into believing otherwise.
It’s good to follow Jesus to his
cross. You do that when you pray your prayers of repentance and ask for him to
forgive you your trespasses. You follow Jesus to his cross as you continue to
hear what he says in his word. You haven’t learned it all yet. He has more to
teach you. Keep reading, hearing, learning, and believing. You follow Jesus
when you come with faith and joy to the altar and receive his body and blood
with his promise, this is for you, for the forgiveness of sins and where there
is forgiveness, there is life and salvation.
And when your last hour comes, follow
Jesus. He’ll take you home. None of us knows when that day will be, how it will
be, what it will be like. Because it’s unknown, it’s kinda scary. And we might
want to say, Lord I don’t want to go where you are leading me. When we who
follow Jesus reach that point, we can close our eyes in death and have peace.
We can be like the Daughters of Zion who rejoice and say, "Behold, your king is
coming to your righteous and having salvation is he, Hosana! Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord."
Amen.
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