Sermon for St. Michael and All Angels

Psalm 91:11-12

¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways.
¹² On their hands they will bear you up,
    lest you strike your foot against a stone.

 

We believe in angels. Unseen to us for the most part, nevertheless we believe in them. As we say in the Nicene Creed, “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.” God made all that we see. God also made much that we cannot see, including the host of heaven, armies of angels.

Now the skeptics will think it’s silly to believe in what is unseen, invisible and cannot be proven scientifically. But it’s not good to be a skeptic all the time. It’s not silly to trust what someone tells you, to take someone at their word. Imagine if a mother were to tell her child, “I love you.” What an impudent child it would be who would answer, “I’ll believe it when I see it. Prove it to me, and then I’ll believe that you love me.” No! that’s not how children of a loving mother think. A child hears his mother say, “I love you,” and he trusts his mom, he takes her at her word and goes about the day with the certainty that he is loved and cared for.

How much more so can you take the Lord at His word! He who loved you, chose you, died for you, lives for you and is even now thinking about you and making room for you in the heavenly kingdom. You trust Him that He won’t lie. In fact, our Lord has shown that all His promises come true, when He rose from the dead on the first day of the week.

Don’t ever let anyone make you feel silly for believing in angels or anything else that God says, because your Lord and God is trustworthy, reliable, and it’s important to hear what He says and take it as true.

So the Lord, in His word tells us about angels:

·        They serve God around His throne in heaven.

·        They praise the Lord for Holiness and His goodness toward creation.

·        They guard and protect believers here on earth, especially children.

·        There are many angels, in the order of tens of thousands, at least.

·        They are various kinds of angels, and they hold various positions, Michael for example is said to be archangel, that is a ruler of angels.

All these are pleasant notions to think about. But the Lord also gives warning at this point, that we should also hear. Apart from the angels, there are also evil forces at work in the unseen realms. The Devil and his demons are working:

·        To tempt you to sin

·        To sow doubts in your hearts

·        To lead people to despair

But the word of God defeats each of these attacks.

·        Against temptations, The word of God promises forgiveness and righteousness

·        Against doubts, the word of God is the means the Holy Spirit uses to build and maintain faith

·        Against all despair, the word of God brings hope and peace.

In Luke chapter 10, Jesus had sent out 72 men, two by two, to go ahead to the towns and villages where Jesus would be going next. These 72 went preaching about the Kingdom of God and healing people. The spiritual turmoil in those years Jesus’ bodily presence on earth, was so great that the manifestations of the work of demons became unusually noticeable, visible. These 72, by preaching the name of Jesus, were able to cast the demons out. They return to Jesus all excited by they had seen and experienced.

Then Jesus tells them something interesting, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” The 72 preachers participated in action on earth that had heavenly results. Their preaching and their healing and their casting out of demons had good results on earth, and alongside the work of angels in heaven, there was spiritual victory in the invisible realms.

So for us even now. When the word of God is preached, Satan falls, his armies of demons are disarmed. When you hear and believe the Gospel of Jesus, it is as though you are putting on armor to defend against the demonic attacks aimed at you – temptations, doubt, despair.

·        So, have you any temptations? Recognize that it’s not just flesh and blood, not just some physical phenomenon, it is spiritual, and remember you have spiritual help.

·        Have you any doubts? That’s coming from Satan’s teams, but you have spiritual help. Hear the Lord’s word again and believe it. And the angels are on your side, and rejoice in heaven every time you repent and believe.

·        Are the troubles of this earthly life enough to make you feel like giving up, in despair? The Lord invites you to trust that there is more than what you see and experience in this world. There are angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, with you to laud and magnify the Lord and God.

That’s one of the most comforting doctrines that the Bible has to tell us about angels. They are worshipping in heaven, while we are worshipping here on earth. Angels and those believers who have gone to heaven before us are sharing with us now in heavenly praise and worship. It’s why we sing so much in our worship, because we are told that’s what the worship in heaven is like, they’re singing things like “Holy, holy, holy.” That’s why are worship service is designed to be reverent and holy, different than our ordinary daily activities. We are getting in practice for our eternity with all the saints and angels.

Amen. 

Sermon for Trinity 16

Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

From Luke 7 “Jesus said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”

After I get finished here with 1000 words or so, you’re going to join with me and all the people of God and confess the Christian faith out loud and say “[We] look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

We say this regularly, joyfully, confidently.

We say this in agreement with God and in disagreement with those who don’t believe the Christian faith or the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

I know it goes against our comfort level to disagree with anyone, but sometimes we must. God calls us to do so. We are to confess His truth and when there are other ideas presented as truth we are to say, “No. That’s wrong. Here’s how it is.”

There have always been those who by their words and attitudes, operate with the assumption that, “This is all there is. When we die, there’s nothing. Better enjoy it now, because eternity is not for us.”

Jesus gives a real lesson in the Gospel reading for today. He says to a dead man, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”

When He Who is Lord of life and the only hope at death, says “Arise”, the dead rise.

Jesus declares: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40).

That little show at Nain is for us to know that in Jesus Christ there is life. Life now! Life after death for those who are with Him.

You’ve heard this before, sure. But you kinda have to imagine what it sounded like to the crowd that day. There were two parts to that crowd: Those who are following along with Jesus, to listen to Him, to see a miracle, perhaps. And then the crowd that was part of the funeral procession for this young dead man.

With this great crowd on all sides, Jesus motions to those pall bearers to stop. That must have seemed unusual. The He says to the grieving mother, “Stop crying.” Don’t say that to someone who’s crushed by the pain of death. Don’t tell them to stop crying. . . . Unless you can fix their problem. And surprisingly, Jesus does. He addresses the corpse – speaks directly to the dead body. Weird. He says, “Arise”. And the dead man sits up and begins to speak.

And that crowd on all sides, responded. And the response was so cool. “16Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” They confessed the Christian faith. God had indeed visited His people. He came to His people that day and brought them good gifts. Gifts of life and joy and a happy surprise from the word and power of His Son Jesus Christ.

We will have something similar on the last day, similar but much better. Revelation 21, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And we will have our moment to confess the truth of the Christian faith. Better to say, we will have eternity to confess that truth.

When life’s brief course on earth is run

    And I this world am leaving,

Grant me to say, “Your will be done,”

    Your faithful Word believing.

        My dearest Friend,        I now commend

My soul into Your keeping;

        From sin and hell,        And death as well,

By You the vict’ry reaping.

 

So with this confidence, look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. We as a congregation are going to buck the trend of the world, which is more and more skipping out on funerals, having instead celebrations of life in their backyards or at a beer hall as if God has nothing to with life or death or anything beyond.

 Let your family know that you want a funeral in God’s house where those of us who are left after you go will hear the life giving word of Christ, will confess the Christian faith in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, and we will pray and worship Him who has brought us out of death to life.

 Amen.

 

Sermon for Trinity 15

 

Grace, Mercy and Peace are yours from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,

Matthew 6:24 [Jesus said:] “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

 

The Lord has said, “You shall have no other gods.” This is the first of 10 Commandments.

There are many people, perhaps some among you today, who say, “Ah, that’s the easiest commandment. I’m not even tempted to believe in or worship any other god than the one true God.”

But this is the First Commandment, and it is the first to be broken. All other sins against any of the other commandments come from sins against the first commandment.

There are three ways in which you could break the First Commandment.

1.      When you don’t fear God above all things.

2.      When you don’t love God above all things.

3.      When you don’t trust God above all things.

It’s important to understand the meaning of the First Commandment: We should fear love and trust in God above all things.

First of all, Trust. A person must think of this, must study themselves, “Why do I make the choices I do? What am I trying to get? What am I hoping for? Am I trying to find security in earthly things? Am I trying to form my identity based on material things? What will it take for me to have joy, happiness, or peace of mind?” All this is to say, “What does my heart completely trust in?” Martin Luther says in the Large Catechism: “To have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts.”

Secondly, Examine yourself as to what do I love most? Be especially careful of this in the good times in your life. When you are experiencing success; able to get all the pleasures and all the recreation that money can buy; when you are enjoying the respect of others which success brings, then carefully ask, “What od I love the most?” The love of money, success, and earthly pleasure competes against the love of God. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. . . . he will hate the one and love the other.”

Now some might say, “Fortunately for me, I don’t have a problem with the love of money. I ain’t got any! What’s there to love?” Well then, here’s the third way you need to examine yourself: What do you fear more than God?”

It’s very common, isn’t it? That when money is lacking, the worry kicks in and doubts and depression, as if there is no God.

This all requires personal examination of the heart and attitude. It is also for the Christian Church to examine herself as to how we are doing together as a body. Galatians 5: 6 says: “One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches.”

The Christian Church ought to be asking why is it that we are having trouble providing for the livelihood of the preachers and teachers of the word? Do members love their money and possessions so much that they want to horde it all and will not be generous? Do members trust money for everything, such that there is no need or care for God and for God’s house? Do members fear money so much that they fret saying, “What if we don’t have enough? We can’t share or it will run out?

This last question Jesus addresses in this Gospel reading, Matthew 6:

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

The Lily can teach us how to grow, how to live and how to die.

This world we live in is a mess. From our perspective as believers, we recognize that the mess is caused by sin. When people don’t fear God above all things, and don’t love God above all things and don’t trust in God above all things, the result is a mess. You ought to expect nothing but death and hell.

Then God decides, “I’m not going to give up on this world that I have created.” He chooses to save it, to wash away sin, to destroy death. Jesus Christ our Lord is the fix for sin and the death of death. In this messy world of sin and death our only hope is in Jesus. Our destiny is tied to His. Our existence is dependent on Him. If he dies, we’re lost. And then He died.

But again, God didn’t give up, but raised Him from the dead.

Your sins – even the worst sin of loving stuff more than God – are forgiven; your punishment is abolished, because God said so.

And there’s a little sign that God is sure of this, and meant what He said: Lillies blooming in the side ditches. Amidst grass that fades and turns brown, fit only for fire, lilies bloom. Lillies teach us not to worry. The lily’s days are short and few. Bu it are not despondent, because of what it doesn’t have. It doesn’t let its few short days be filled with anxiety about its short life and all the problems of the world. Its beauty is not marred by anxiety for the fire or mower that is coming. No. the Lily just blooms and so glorifies God. Lilies serve God by being a beautiful thing in their day.

Learn from the lilies how to live. You have enough to glorify God.

Learn from the lilies how to die. These symbolic decorations of Easter point us to Christ who rose from the dead and who brings us into His eternal life.

Gracious God, You send great blessings

    New each morning all our days.

For Your mercies never ending,

    For Your love we offer praise. Refrain

Lord, we pray that we, Your people

    Who Your gifts unnumbered claim,

Through the sharing of Your blessings

    May bring glory to Your name.