Fourth Wednesday Lent Sermon 3/14/12

Fourth Midweek Lent Date: 03/14/12 Text: Psalm 51 Title: Against You and For Me Our text for tonight is Psalm 51, which we prayed earlier in the service. We will also be continuing to examine the explanation of the Office of the Keys as we read from the catechism earlier as well. Remember the story of King David lusting after his commanders wife who after she became pregnant had her husband killed, so he could take her as his wife to cover up the whole mess. David thought he had come up with the perfect solution to the problem. Everyone would think it was just a kind act after her husband had been killed in battle. That is what King David thought, but we find out later that his subjects knew what he had done and in doing it he had made a mockery of God. God knew that David’s unbelief had driven him to lust, adultery, and murder. So God sent David a prophet to preach the Law to him. Nathan came to David with a story, which we all familiar with; the man who had a favorite lamb that a rich man took to feed his guests instead of using one of his own. When David heard this great misdeed that the man had done, he declared the man guilty, and condemned him to death. Nathan then said the most pointed law in all the Scriptures: “You are the man!” David’s response gets to the heart of the matter. David who knew he had sinned against the lord, but was continuing to ignore his conscience, for after all it is good to be the king; was so struck with the prophet’s accusation that he responded with, “I have sinned against the LORD” David in Psalm 51 writes in verse 14 “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” David knew that any sin he did was fundamentally against God. He knew that because of his sin God had every right to condemn him to everlasting hell and punishment. When we confess our sins to God, as we do every Sunday morning we are saying that God has every right to condemn us, that we deserve nothing but hell and punishment. While some might believe that God is sometimes arbitrary and unjust in His punishment; punishing some, but not others, we confess in this psalm and our confession on Sunday morning that God is right and just in condemning us for the sin we have done against Him. All sin like King David’s sin is ultimately against God; even those little white lie sins where no one is really hurt, for all sin is against the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods.” That is the terror of sin that troubles the conscience. That was Peter’s sin from our reading. His pride would not let him see himself as a weak sinner who needed Jesus. It is that same pride that eats away at you and I when it comes to humbling ourselves when we make our confession before God and each other. I would be willing to bet that some visitors to our church on Sunday morning are offended by the Confession and Absolution at the beginning of the service. “It is negative. I want my religion to be joyful and happy. I want to give God my best; I don’t want to wallow in self-pity.” But confessing my sins is not an act of self-pity. Remember the words of the psalm, as they are written verses 16 and 17 of our Psalm for today. “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” So hear again the words from the catechism: What is confession? Confession has two parts. First, that we confess our sins, and second, that we receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven. Notice that it doesn’t say, I confess my sin, singular, or even generally speaking, but my sins; plural. Now God does call on us to confess our sinful nature. But what this catechism section is getting at is that when I confess my sins; specifically that that troubles me, I am led to better to understand my sinful nature. So what this explanation is talking about is that God wants me to actually confess my sins. In other words, God wants you to know and acknowledge with your lips what you have done wrong, and that you deserve to be punished for it. But then God desires that you ask for his mercy and forgiveness, which he gladly and willingly gives, for you cannot out sin God’s forgiveness won for you by Jesus. Perhaps an illustration is in order. Part of the discipline of teaching children right from wrong is getting them to recognize that what they did was wrong. So you ask them to tell you what they did wrong. Now the parent knows perfectly well what the child did wrong. This isn’t for the parents’ benefit; it’s for the child’s benefit. It is the same way with confession. God desires you to confess your sins not for him, for he knows perfectly well what you did and will continue to do, but for you. God wants you to see yourself as a sinner. Why? Because he wants you to know that you need Jesus, for Jesus came to seek and save the lost, the sinner, the contrite, the messed up, the ones who know that they live and move only by God’s everlasting mercy. That is why God wants you to confess your sins. But even that is not finally the point. God wants you to confess your sins and see yourself as a sinner, true. But He wants that so that He can forgive your sins. That’s God’s work. God’s proper work is to forgive, to love, to show mercy and pity. God wants to forgive your sins, as King David writes after his confession, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation.” What a great prayer! God, give me back the joy of living in you. God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, comes to restore your joy, to blot out your sins, and to save you. He comes to open your lips to sing his praise. He comes to give you a new life in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. In other words, God comes to you to forgive you. He comes to absolve you and free you from your guilt of sin. If God can forgive David who had a loyal subject of his murdered, so he could take his wife as his own, God can forgive you. So we pray and sing with the whole Church on earth and in heaven the song in Psalm 30 verses 4 and 5, “Sing praises to the LORD, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy name. For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” finishing in verse 12, “O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!” Amen.

Third Sunday in Lent 2012

Third Sunday in Lent 03/11/12 Text: I Corinthians 1:18-31 Title: Saved By The Foolishness Of The Cross. Sometimes a pastor when speaking the Word of God will say something that sounds foolish or even offends you, something like I said a couple of weeks ago when I told you that the popular belief that God hates sin, but loves the sinner is not in God’s Word. The problem with the statement that God hates sin but loves the sinner is that the statement is incomplete and thus lets sinners off the hook for their sin, because it leaves Jesus’ saving act out of the picture. God loves sinners because of and through Jesus. I am sure that when I made that statement a couple of weeks ago, it made some of you, at the very least uncomfortable. You might have even rejected what I said, as being false, for isn’t God love? God must love me. And I would have to answer, “Yes God is love, but he still hates sin and the sinner.” It is one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith like God is love and yet he hates, God died on the cross and yet God does not die, and that we are saints and sinners at the same time. All things that are true, but this side of heaven we will never fully understand. In our Gospel reading for today we see the anger of God for sin and sinners, as he drove out the animals, upset the tables of the money changers chasing them all out of the temple. His judgment fell on them for they were desecrating the temple, his Father’s house of worship. There is no doubt that the Jews that were there that day were offended by Jesus’ words and actions. They wanted to know what gave Jesus the right to do what he was doing. He tells them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They heard law because they were thinking of the building that they believed he was now desecrating and according to their understanding of his words threatening to destroy and then the most foolish thing of all he is going to rebuild in three days what took 46 years to build. Jesus is not speaking of the earthly temple they were so proud of. He is speaking of his death and resurrection. Jesus is the temple, for where God establishes his presence there is the temple regardless of whether the Temple was in the form of the Tent of Meeting, the Ark of the Covenant, the blessed Virgin's womb, or in our case Saint John Lutheran Church in Hattiesburg Mississippi. Jesus preached the cross to the unbelieving Jews. They were offended, as they stumbled over his words. In the Greek the word is scandalized by his words, a much stronger word; for to be scandalized is to fall and be impaled, not just stumble over something set in one’s way and then get up and go on one’s way. They refused to believe; that is they died to his words and because of that they are still waiting for the Messiah's first coming, which they missed 2,000 years ago. But it is not just the Jews who thing the preaching of Jesus on the cross is scandalous. Anyone that does not accept his death for their payment of sin believes the preaching of the cross is offensive or even scandalous. There are those who call it child abuse and refuse to accept the forgiveness won on the cross for them because God the Father killed his son. Others just flat out reject the Gospel message of Jesus dying on the cross for the world. You probably know some of them, for they are the ones who don’t get that they are damned without Christ and his saving work. It is all foolishness, a scandal, they would say. The preaching of the cross is scandalous, for we who believe we are good-hearted and loving are by nature hard-hearted and loathsome toward the preaching of the cross. We want to hear something better. We by nature would rather sing “Give me that old-time religion." Get a spiritual high. Have the pastor preach on anything but our sinfulness and the cross. To sing "In the cross of Christ I glory." is scandalous. We live in an increasingly intolerant and hostile society that is also offended by the cross. The world has no use for the cross, except to wear as jewelry. But that does not stop people from taking offense of the cross, for it was not too long ago that a teacher was fired from her school because she, as a Christian, wore a cross pendant as a witness to her faith. She was not telling her students to believe in Christ, but she merely wore this piece of jewelry and was fired for it. The cross scandalizes people today. The world as we know it wishes that Jesus Christ had remained in the tomb, for the world does not want to accept the reality that Jesus Christ, by his death and resurrection, showed himself as being the only Way, Truth, and Life which in itself is offensive. To say that Jesus is the only way to heaven is wrong and proves how foolish those who believe are. It is scandalous. Yet in the cross we still have hope, for despite the best efforts of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh over the last 2000 years, the cross is still the enduring symbol of the hope that we have, the hope that is ours in Christ. Our hope endures, for the preaching of the cross endures. Look at the cross and remember what the Lord won there for you: the forgiveness of sins. Jesus paid the entire debt of your sins. Now God sees you through his Son's blood and declares you righteous for Jesus' sake. You are now loved. While the cross is still offensive and foolish to the devil and our sinful world we find joy and comfort in it, for we are being saved through the preaching of the cross. We cherish the preaching of the cross, but we do not worship the cross, for God does not offer His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation from the cross. He won our forgiveness there. Today he gives forgiveness at the Baptismal Font, the Lord’s Supper, the Absolution, and the preached Word of God. Without Lord's bloody death on the cross and his glorious resurrection, the Word of God would be just words, and the Sacraments would be empty of their power. But thanks be to God who gives the victory through Jesus Christ. The Word who became flesh took on our human flesh and died, taking on our sins of the flesh and heart upon himself. It may not seem like much; those things we use and do in the church; plain water, ordinary bread and wine, and a sinful pastor’s words; all foolish things right? But hear the inspired words of Saint Paul in our text: "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are". Our gracious God using those things we deem as ordinary and maybe even foolish attaches his Word to them, giving us extraordinary gifts through them; forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. Having received these gifts; Absolution, preached Word of God, and it a few moments the Lord's Supper, we become partakers of the scandal that is the cross. And being partakers of the scandal our hearts and minds have been changed. In the words of the great hymn we tell others of the scandal of the cross, "Lift High the cross, the love of Christ proclaim Till all the world adore His sacred Name. O Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree, As Thou hast promised, draw us all to Thee.” This is the great triumph of the Cross, that we who are still sinners, deserving of God’s wrath, are loved by God because of Jesus’ saving act and will live into all eternity with Christ the crucified and risen! Amen.