Sermon for 7/26/26: Eighth Sunday After Trinity

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Free Fruit

Matthew 7:15-23

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

When our Lord issues a warning, He means it to be taken seriously. “Beware of false prophets,” He says, and we need to beware because they are all around us. The trouble is, they look and sound good; they do and say good things; many of them, no doubt, even mean well. However, do not be fooled—not by church titles, by fancy decorations, or even by official church pronouncements, for those can be sheep’s clothing. To be sure, there are true sheep of Christ wearing such things—your own pastor faithfully wears a collar and a stole, and you rightly call him “Pastor”—but these things may also be worn by false prophets. And you will not know if they are true sheep or false prophets simply by what they look like or what they call themselves or even how they behave. They will all look and act the same: like sheep.

Instead, Jesus said, “...you will know them by their fruits.” What are the fruits of a prophet? They are not his good works, nor even his apparent success. The fruits of a prophet are the words he speaks. The fruits of a preacher are his preaching, and not what his preaching accomplishes. What does he say about God? Above all, what does he say about Jesus Christ? If he does not preach Christ crucified, if he does not call you to repentance and faith, if he does not bestow on you the forgiveness of sins won for you by Christ and feed you with your Savior’s body and blood, then he is a false prophet, and he is dangerous and even deadly to faith.

And here, you see, is the great irony: false prophets, who dress in sheep’s clothing, preach good works. They try to get bad trees to bear good fruit. And that would seem to be a good thing. But Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” Prophesying in His name, casting out demons in His name, performing many wonders in His name—all would seem to be good works; they would seem to be the fruit that good trees produce. But bad trees cannot bear good fruit! Even when their fruit looks good, it is not. And those without a true faith, despite their good intentions, are cast out. God accepts only faith in Jesus Christ, and the justice of God requires that, without that faith, you be cut down and cast into the fire. Your works are not enough. They cannot save you.

Only those who do the will of the Father enter the kingdom of heaven. But the will of the Father is not something you do. That’s the shocking thing, and you, too, may be shocked by that. In all the religions made by men, the best you can ever hope for is good works. But the will of the Father is that His Son would drink the cup of His wrath and then spill His own blood on Golgotha’s ground, that you might then drink that life blood in the cup of blessing and live! That is His will. And in this way only, bad trees are declared good as only God is good. For bad trees are grafted into the good Vine, Jesus Christ, and into His works, His faith, His submission to the Father’s will; and it all counts for you. He declares bad trees to be good, and He welcomes them to Himself in divine grace and mercy. From the Savior’s brow, pierced by the crown of thorns that pressed into it, flows wine to make glad the hearts of men, to give them a joy and a peace words can never fully express—a joy found only in the forgiveness of sins and a cleansed conscience.

Without the death of Jesus Christ for all of us, and His defeat of death, Hell, and Satan in His resurrection, there are only bad trees. And without exception, bad trees produce only bad fruit. This is a serious warning from our Lord because it truly is a matter of life and death: spiritual life and death. Do not let yourself be tended by false prophets. Cast them out if they would lead you away from the crucified Christ. So be watchful; listen for the voice of your Shepherd as you hear it from your faithful pastor. But do not be afraid. Instead, confess your sins to God, express to Him your heartfelt sorrow for your sin and your desire to amend your life. Trust that Jesus has paid your debt. You are forgiven all your sins. You are loved, and blessed, and cleansed by Him.

There is no one to accuse you. You are now a good tree with good fruit according to His Word and blessing. He blesses the work of your hands, whatever that is, and uses it for the good of the whole world. He gives you good works to do because He gives you a part in His kingdom; because He loves you. You will never enter the kingdom of heaven because of your works, but because of His! But, amazingly, His works now belong to you. And that is because everything He has, He gives to you. You are free: free to believe, free to serve, free to live. In the name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

Sermon for 7/19/26: Seventh Sunday After Trinity

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A Free Gift

Romans 6:19-23

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

 

All things considered, the Bible is fairly easy to understand. All you have to do is read it as if it’s all talking about Jesus, and you’re doing fine. So if this is the case, why are there so many different interpretations of it? The thing is, the Bible is clear, but we are not. What God says in the Bible is clear, but we don’t think the way God thinks. In the book of Isaiah we hear, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Clearly God reveals His thoughts to us when He writes them down in Scripture, so of course we can know them. The problem is, we disagree with them. This is why there are so many different interpretations of God’s clear biblical teaching. People disagree with God because He doesn’t think like they do. For example, people disagree with God regarding the consequences of sin. He says, “The wages of sin is death.” People hear what God says, and they understand it, but they then reject it. They think they may do as they please without paying the consequences for their sins. They think that, since they can make excuses, change the subject, point the finger at others, and avoid confronting their own sin, the wages of sin don’t have to be paid. They are wrong. What God says, goes. They all die. They all face judgment. 

People also disagree with God on how to get to heaven. They think that the road to heaven is paved by their own good deeds. They ascribe this opinion to God. But God says, “The gift of God is eternal life.” They hear what He says, but they assume He cannot mean it. “Surely there must be something we can do or think or say to earn our place in the Kingdom of God,” they think. So they try to figure out some way to change the plain meaning of God’s Word so it will teach what they have already decided God must think.

The reason people reject what God says in the Bible is because they elevate their own reason or feelings or experiences above what God clearly says. They think they are Bible-believing, but they reject what the Bible says. This is why people deny that babies sin and so need to be born again in Holy Baptism; this is why they deny that Jesus clearly says that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper really are His body and blood; this why they deny that Jesus can set a man apart so that he can speak words that give Christ’s forgiveness of sins. The Bible clearly teaches these things, but sinners cannot understand how they can be true. So they deny what they cannot understand.

Some people reject the Christian faith after suffering the loss of a loved one, especially in tragic circumstances. How could a kind and loving God permit such a thing? But when St. Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death,” he is not ascribing cruelty to God. God is kind, loving, and full of mercy. But “the wages of sin is death.” People die because they are sinners, because sin dwells within them from conception until the day they die. Sin isn’t God’s fault; He didn’t create us to be sinful. He created us in His image: to know Him and to love Him and to be like He is. Sin comes from ignoring the Word of God and trusting lies instead.

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul wrote this to the Romans in response to the false idea that the free gift of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life is an encouragement to disobey the law. Nobody who understands sin would make such an argument. Sin isn’t freedom to do as you please. It is slavery to the darkest passions of the sinful heart. Sin kills you. Sinners die.

This is why the death of Jesus is such a wonderful event. It couldn’t have been for His own sin that he died. After all, Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Law; He committed no sin. He died for us; He died to pay the price for our sin. He paid the wages of our sin with His innocent life. Life is not cheap. The purchase price for our lives was the blood of God’s only begotten Son. “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You cannot buy it. You cannot earn it. You do not deserve it.

Take what He gives you. Believe Him when He tells you that He has removed your sins from you as far as the east is from the west as He washes you in the waters of Holy Baptism. Believe Him when He tells you your sins are forgiven, even we He speaks it through the mouth of a sinful pastor. Believe Him when He tells you that the body and blood that you eat and drink in the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar take away your sins and give you eternal life.

Jesus earned the gift of eternal life for you by His holy obedience and sacrificial death. God gives the gift of eternal life to you in His Word and the Holy Sacraments. You receive the gift of eternal life by faith, which is another gift from God. You need do nothing to earn it; indeed, there is nothing you can do to earn or deserve it. It is a gift. It is for you: a free gift to give you life in His name. In the name of the Father and of the Son (†) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

 

Sermon for 7/12/26: Proper 10a

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The Word Works
Isaiah 55:10-13 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

 

         

One of the challenges of life is that some things work, while others don’t, and we need to find those things that work. Even more frustrating is when something that used to work no longer does, and you need to figure out why or find something to take its place. Thank God that our salvation does not depend on our intelligence or talent or wit. In this reading from Isaiah, God tells us that there is no chance of failure when things have to do with His Word. He has taken the chance of failure out of the equation.

The Church belongs to God. It is His creation, His work. He created it by the power of His Word. If we want the Church to live and thrive according to God’s will, we need to faithfully hear that Word and then faithfully proclaim it it to others. As we are faithful to God and live in and under His Word, our churches will be precisely what God intends them to be. That is His promise.

This promise is also a guarantee: the Word will accomplish what it says it will do. There is no chance of failure. The Word of God will change your life if you believe it. And that’s the problem: it is hard to believe. Even great churchmen through the ages have stumbled over the Word of God. The Church staggers at times in the presence of the Word like a drunken man. The guarantee God gives is that His Word works. Still, many imagine that they need to use clever gimmicks to make the right sort of things happen in the Church. They want to devise ways to be more effective than simply proclaiming and listening to the Word of God—as if anything man devises on his own can be expected to succeed!

All Christians say that they believe the Word of God. We Lutherans are especially known for our confidence in the power of the Word. But then we behave as if everything depends on us. The guarantee here is that, whatever He sends His Word to accomplish, He will do it—not us! How many times in the Scriptures does God deliver His people in the face of insurmountable odds? He does just what He says He will do. The promise of God is that He will accomplish what He desires to do: He will build His Church; He will cause us to believe; He will cleanse us and make us holy—all by His Word. But we often act as if the survival and growth of the Church depends completely on us doing the right things, that our spiritual growth depends on our efforts. But our lives, individually and corporately, are in the hands of God. He will make things happen by power of His Word. We need simply trust God and step back, and we will see what God accomplishes in us through all that He has promised and all that He intends by means of His Word. There is no chance of failure!

What the Lord requires of us is faithfulness, which means that we need to learn the Word; we need to live the Word; we need to prayerfully study the Word; we need to speak the Word; and, above all, we need to trust the Word. And we don’t need to dress it up to make it more acceptable to others. We don’t need to tinker with what the Church does so that the context of the Word is more inviting. These things may not be bad in and of themselves, but they do nothing to enhance the power of the Word and, indeed, they may actually get in the way of the Word. The Word works because God gives it the power to do so.

If we have problems in our Synod—and we do, and we always have had some; and if our congregations have problems—and they do, and always have—the reason, ultimately, is because we don’t trust the Word of God. We talk a lot about trusting it and believing it, but we don’t really expect it to work. History bears witness to the fact that our Synod grew and was strongest when we simply trusted God and His Word. And that is why the promise of this text is so challenging. It flies in the face of our expectations. It says something that offends our human natures. Just listen to and speak the Word of God, be faithful and trust God, and everything will work out as God intends. No, not everything will work out pleasantly; not every moment will be happy; you may not be the envy of the community. But it will all work just the way God wills it to work.

God wants us to know Him, to trust in Him, to live with Him in joy and in peace forever. But for that to happen, we need to confess that we are sinners, that we are not good or decent or holy. We need to confess that we cannot by our own reason or strength earn the salvation we so desperately need; we can’t even come to faith in Him on our own. We are sinners, and He is our Savior, who has purchased us from our guilt and sin and shame by His death on the cross; He has poured out forgiveness, life, and salvation; He has sent His Spirit to us so that we can believe and hold fast to His precious Gifts. The peace we have is the fruit of the faith we are given in the waters of Holy Baptism: trusting God and believing that our sins have been forgiven. When we stand with Him in faith, it can’t get any better.

The work of the Church is accomplished by the Word of God. There is no chance of failure when we faithfully use His Word. Some believe that, if the Word of God is really effective, God will do things we want Him to do in the way we want Him to do them. But God does not perform on cue like a trained dog; the Word will not always do what we expect. What is true, however, is that when we use the Word of God faithfully—when His Word is preached in its truth and purity, when His Sacraments are administered according to His institution and will—good things are happening: God’s good things. The Word works exactly as God wills it. That is a guarantee with no chance of failure. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always.  Amen.