Untitled Sermon

I have a question for you: Why are you here? No, I don’t mean, “here at (fill in the blanks) Church,” although that might be an interesting discussion in itself. No, I mean the more fundamental question: “Why are you here?” Why do you exist; what is your purpose? Does your life matter, and if so, why?

This is the ultimate question about which men concern themselves. It is the reason that philosophy exists - engaging and attempting to answer that question. It’s an important question, because once you embrace an answer, everything that you do flows from that answer. Some people choose a particular answer, while others sort of drift along, going with whatever answer is most dominant in their culture.

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Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

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So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

Some people, not many, but some, are born in a position of privilege, not needing to know what it is to struggle or suffer lack. Others are born in families that struggle to survive from day to day. In between those extremes are those who, while enjoying the blessings of sufficiency, know that a single unforeseen event can put them into a desperate situation that they might not know how to navigate. Those who are on top fight to stay there, while those who are beneath them fight to join them - or replace them.

The preacher of Ecclesiastes recognized that death is the great equalizer.

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For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!

Until that moment, however, on earth, most people, even those who don’t give much thought to the Bible, will rather say amen to

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Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything.

That was not the Preacher’s final assessment in Ecclesiastes, but perhaps it did reflect the views of one man who came to listen to Jesus’ teaching:

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Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”

How do we fix our mouths to tell God what He should be doing? There are some, self-proclaimed unbelievers, who think that they can judge God for the results of the Fall, with all of its sorrow and pain. And there are still others who name the name of Christ, those who claim the gift of teaching or the office of pastor, who teach that it is acceptable, right, and beneficial, to demand that God do things in response to the paying of tithes, or the living out of certain lifestyles, or other things that, in essence, are based upon works of the Law rather than the hearing of faith. They would make God a debtor concerning the things that we do, as a result of His having enabled us to do them through His Spirit that He gave to us.

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There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

We cannot think that we can either earn God’s blessing or know, better than God, what should be our lot. We can know, based upon God’s declared will, the sacred Scriptures, that God wills to save sinners. We can know, based upon God’s revelation concerning the creation and His continued sustaining of it, that God created the world with sufficient resources that we might all live in joy and peace.

We do know, based again upon what God has revealed to us in His Word, why we do not live in peace, but instead, engage in unceasing conflict with one another over things that we did not create but are convinced that we can control.

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What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

The world is driven by, bound to, and given over to, corruption. Deliverance is not found in our acquisition and possession of material resources, as much as the world would have us think that it were so. The world declares “Happy are the wealthy, for theirs is the kingdom of this life. Happy are those who avoid sorrow and suffering by placing self above others and acting accordingly, for they shall avoid grief. Happy are those who ignore the needs of others because the ultimate purpose of life is self-fulfillment and self-actualization, which is the only way to self-transcendence.”

In short, unless you get you right, you cannot help anyone else get right. Now, If I said that last statement without the previous ones, you would probably agree with it, because it just sounds right. It is, after all, the same concept expressed by the flight attendant who says, “before you attempt to put an oxygen mask on your child, put one on yourself. Then you will be better able to help your child.” In that limited circumstance, it works quite well.

In larger terms, however, we have a problem in that we have a flawed sense of right and wrong. Our hearts are deceitful above all, and desperately wicked. We sin without thinking and think that we know what “good” even looks like.

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And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Sin corrupts the world as a result of the Fall, and although Satan stands defeated through Christ’s vicarious death and glorious resurrection, he yet walks about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour. In our corrupted wisdom, we try to avoid the pain and sorrow that are the fruit of sin, along with what is the inevitable result – death. God’s Law thunders from Heaven with its demand that we obey, but we find ourselves trapped by sin into bondage that we have no power to escape, and apart from the Law, are convinced that we have no desire to do so.

It is only by the grace of God, proclaimed in the precious Gospel of Jesus Christ, that we find a way out of no way. As baptized children of God, called through the Gospel of His dear Son, we submit to God with repentance and resist Satan based upon God’s command and promise ministered to us by the Holy Spirit:

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Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Those who think they know what is right and good apart from God’s revelation resist the judgments of God’s Law, but those who, like the tax collector in another parable, confess their need for mercy, find that God has a Word that brings peace instead of guilt. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, with its freely offered pardon of repentant sinners, is used by the Holy Spirit to call us into a life-giving, transforming, mind-renewing newness of life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, given to us by God in accordance with His exceeding great and precious promises, is working in us both to will and to do according to God’s good pleasure, as He empowers us and equips us to bear His fruit. God works through the Law to show us our sin and separation from Him, works through the Gospel to call us by His grace into a life-giving relationship with Him through Jesus Christ His Son in the Church, and works through the gifts and fruit of the Spirit to enable us to live as beloved, redeemed children who proclaim His gracious will to others so that they might also know the peace of God through Jesus Christ His Son. As we pray, God directs our hearts and minds through His Word to experience His comfort and peace. As we walk in the Spirit, God orders our steps according to His Word to bring us into situations that provide opportunities to become instruments of righteousness. As we continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God, through Witness - Mercy - Life Together, we continue to show the presence of the Kingdom of God. The Law of Prayer becomes the Law of Faith as God inhabits the praises of His people, and His Kingdom comes into lives and situations that were formerly trapped in the darkness of this present evil age.

This is the treasure that the world cannot neither understand nor replicate. It cannot be earned as a debt or wages, but God freely gives it out of the treasures of His love and grace to those who trust Him to be faithful. Through the Church God pours out the riches of His grace in Word and Sacrament, as we come together in worship, walk together in fellowship, work together in ministry, and live together in the unity of the Spirit.

It’s so near that you can feel it, as the love of God overcomes the fear aroused by sin; so close that you can taste it as you join your brothers and sisters to eat of the bread and drink from the cup that, as it is written, “is given to you for the forgiveness of sins.” It is so real that you can see it with the eyes of faith as you look upon Jesus Christ the Righteous One who died and rose for the unrighteous many. It’s the Gospel, the power of God unto salvation! It is for us, it is with us, and it is in us through Christ Jesus our Lord, who died to save us, rose to justify us, and sent the Holy Spirit to sanctify and keep us in the one true faith. It is an inexhaustible treasure that as we give, it grows. As we forgive, we are forgiven. As we love others for Christ’s sake, God pours out His love upon us through the Holy Spirit who is given to us. As we build up others through God’s precious promises, we ourselves are built up by God. As we direct others to Christ through the Gospel, we ourselves are “looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

That’s why you are here; you are here because God is here, watching over His Word to perform it. You are here because God promised Abraham that his offspring would be like the stars in the heavens. You are here because God is your Father, and Christ died to save you and rose by the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the promises that He will keep concerning you.

So let the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.