God’s wisdom brings us to repentance

From: Joseph P Burkhardt [spalatin@juno.com]

Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 8:47 AM

To: MKTJONeal-2r1@msn.com

Subject: Sunday Sermon

Jeff:

I was good to hear from you since I lost your e-mail sometime back.

I do no work now for OGI since they have completed the shift from OGI to

OHSU. They use their own in-house contractors and carpenters.

The sermon below is on a touchy subject. If you have questions about

it, let me know.

Pastor Burkhardt.

Matthew 11: 16-24

Trinity 10, August 25, 2003

Psalm: 55

OT: Jeremiah 7: 1-7

Epistle: I Corinthians 12: 1-11

Gospel: Luke 19: 41-18

Hymns:

25: "I will sing my makers praises." (Paul Gerhardt) [Sing to 409]

326: "Lord to Thee I make Confession." (Johann Franck) [Sing to 421]

324: "Jesus Sinners Doth Receive."

Communion Hymn: 304: "A awful mystery is here."

655: "I pray Thee dear Lord Jesus." (Thomas Kingo)

Trinity 10 Intriot: As for me, I will call upon God, He shall hear my voice. He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle which was against me. God will hear, and afflict them, even He who abides of old. Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you. Give ear to my prayer, O God, and do not hide Yourself.

Trinity 10 collect: Almighty and everlasting God, by your Holy Spirit You have revealed to us the Gospel of Your Son, Jesus Christ. We beseech You so to enliven our hearts that we may sincerely receive Your Word and not make light of it, or hear it without fruit, but that we may fear You and daily grow in faith in Your mercy, and finally obtain eternal salvation; through Your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. A-men.

God’s wisdom brings us to repentance.

This fall’s television season may well prove, once again, to reveal the attempt of Hollywood to push the envelope as far as it can. Not only will Americans be subjected to such "wholesome" viewing as Will and Grace, and God spare us from this, the myriad of the so-called "reality" shows, but now we get to see a dating or mating game show especially for "gay" couples along with another sit-com blasting us in the face with homosexuality and perversion. As writer Ann Coulter noted in her concluding words in her book Treason, "We live in the world of Jerry Springer." As many of you know, I went to California to attend the wedding of my Uncle Ray’s granddaughter. In the sermon, the pastor of the Foursquare Church brought up several good points about marriage. He stressed the truth to the man regarding his role as the loving head of the home comparing it to the love which Christ rendered to the Church, while emphasizing the need for the wife to remember her role as one who submits in love of God to her husband. He made an interesting analogy about the rings and how they are made of pure gold to symbolize the purity of love husband and wife have for each other. He noted that the rings get nicked and banged up and worn down over the years but never lose their purity. In light of the Jerry Springer world in which we live, this pastor had many good insights to give to those gathered at this wedding. However, as he proceeded through the rest of the sermon, with great difficulty I held back the temptation to raise my hand in at least three areas that clearly trumpeted the differences in our theologies. The first had to do with the term "Born Again." You and I have been taught and Scripture teaches this term in the context of Holy Baptism. This pastor ignored the context of Baptism and instead used it in the context of the Law as our commitment to God, namely, we must make our commitment if we are to be "Born again."

The second point involved Holy Communion. I believe he would have served grape juice and bread to the entire congregation if time were not a constraint. As it was, he gave the juice and bread only to the bride and groom. Even apart from the fact that he served juice instead of wine, the unscriptural nature of the situation struck those of us at the wedding that held to the words of our Savior and that of the Apostle Paul.

First, the pastor announced that the bride and groom would "Commune" alone. The very word "Communion" suggests that the Lord’s Supper is meant for the assembly. It is not to be withheld from the remainder of the assembly unless Scripture itself would exclude such as Paul delineates in I Corinthians 11.

Second, the pastor then declared that the bread and grape juice "represent" the body and blood of Christ. Scripture teaches that the body and blood of Jesus stand in the most intimate bond with the bread and wine so that we truly receive that which our Savior says, His body and His blood. As St. Paul says, "Is the cup of blessing which we bless not a communion with the blood of Christ? Is the bread which we break not a communion with the body of Christ?" The word for "Communion" in the Greek is koinwnia. It marks the most intimate bond between two things so that they become one. Koinwnia is the word used of our faith in Jesus. We become one with our Savior and his death and Resurrection. It doesn’t merely represent our faith. It is our faith.

Thirdly, he noted that the "communion" stressed the commitment of the bride and groom to Christ. Scripture teaches that the Holy Supper is not our commitment to God, but rather God’s commitment to us; His bestowal of forgiveness on us sinners.

Finally, the words of institution were either never spoken or were spoken so only the ears of the Bride and Groom would hear. The point is: we never heard them. The precious Words of institution, the words "This is my body, This is my blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins," are meant for everyone to hear. These words of our Savior are life and salvation. We don’t ever want to withhold their hearing in any service of Holy Communion even if a person does not come to the table itself. The words of institution are wonderful Gospel. And as Paul says, "The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation." The final portion of the wedding service that caused a number of us to shake our heads in absolute disbelief involved a new twist on the old concept of the "Altar call." The "old" method practiced by many churches simply calls people down to the altar to declare their commitment or decision. During the wedding, with the Bride and Groom kneeling behind him, the pastor asked us all to bow our heads. He then elicited an "Altar call" by suggesting that those who wanted to make a decision or commit their lives to Jesus look up and he would simply make eye contact with them and give them an acknowledging nod. When people leave the solid foundation of God’s Holy Word, they become silly.

Someone may now be thinking, "Why is our pastor so critical of another pastor’s sermon and service." I am critical because this man was a pastor of God’s people. Of all the things he should have taught, he missed the one thing that pastors are called to do; bring people to repentance with the Word of God. This is what preaching is all about. This morning we

consider:

God’s wisdom brings us to repentance.

Jesus has just finished a discourse in which He states, "Blessed is he whoever shall not be offended in Me." Or as we hear in the Beck translation, "Blessed is anyone who does not stumble in his evaluation of Me." Unfortunately, many people were offended or did stumble over Jesus, most importantly, the church leaders. So Jesus challenges them, "How should I picture the people of this generation? They are like little children sitting in the marketplace and calling to others, ‘We played a tune on the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a funeral song for you, but you did not mourn.’"

Jesus uses the picture of little children at play. If you have watched children at play, you know how fickle, self-centered and brutally selfish they can be. Jesus pictures two groups of children. In effect, one group says to the other, "We played a game of wedding for you. But you did not like that because you did not dance like they do at a wedding. That didn’t work, so we played like we were at a funeral, but you did not like that one either because you did not play along and mourn. We can’t do anything to please you." These children were fickle. They did not know what they wanted.

Jesus takes them from this analogy to the works of God. On the one hand, God sent John, "Who does not eat or drink, and people say ‘There’s a demon in him.’" It is not that John never ate or drank. Luke tells us that he did not eat bread or drink wine. He ate locusts and honey. This seemed very strange. Was John praised for this? No! It was the very height of evil-mindedness to attribute frugal habits to demon possession. The slander really lay much deeper. John had evidently stepped on toes, and it hurt. At the time Jesus spoke these words, John sat in Herod’s prison. On the opposite end, Jesus came out and did what John did not do. "The Son of Man came eating and drinking." The thought here is not merely eating and drinking but, but drinking wine, and that not with the good folks of sound repute, but with sinners, indeed, the lowest of sinners, tax-collectors, the scum of the earth. The "good" people of the church were not satisfied with this either. They complained bitterly about the actions of Jesus on numerous occasions. John was in the wrong when he did not eat bread and drink wine. Jesus was in the wrong when He did eat bread and drink wine. What then did they expect? How fickle these people were.

Please understand this, what John was sent to do and what Jesus has done was an outflow of the wisdom of God. Though contrary conducts, the results show that God in His wisdom did the right thing. Indeed, God’s wisdom is meant to bring us to repentance which in turn is our very salvation and forgiveness. It is preacher’s job to bring God’s wisdom in order to bring people to repentance.

The generation Jesus spoke about has not gone away, it has just changed names. Along with Ann Coulter, we might call this the "Jerry Springer" generation or perhaps "The fast food generation." People don’t know what they want. The last thing many want is the wisdom of God as it comes in the pure teaching of God’s word and the proper administration of the Sacraments. The last thing on people’s mind today is repentance. The people on Jerry Springer want revenge. They want to make excuses for their infidelity, their homosexuality, their so-called lifestyles. They want a fast food religion, a religion without taking the time to reflect on sin and without the restriction of believing in Christ Jesus Crucified, a religion of their own making, a religion that fits their convenience.

However, before we condemn the world out there, we need to recall the challenge of Jeremiah from the Old Testament lesson for this morning. Judah was guilty of external religion. The idea of repentance had long ago disappeared from their thoughts. If we were to put it in modern terminology, they appealed to church membership. "The Temple of the Lord," was their cry. In the meantime they practiced revenge. They were loveless, rude, selfish and unforgiving. They followed the gods of wealth and pleasure and comfort. But is it only "they?" Are we not really also "fickle" when it comes to God’s wisdom? Please let me illustrate. Can we honestly say that as the Temple of the Holy Spirit our lives are free from revenge? We too may cry out, "I am the Temple of the Lord," but can we say that in all our dealings with others we render mercy and kindness and forgiveness? We want others to be kind to us, but are we kind in return? Can we say in good conscience that we never indulge our flesh? Can we say that our hearts are free from lust and greed, from discontent and covetousness? Like little children, we are fickle, self-centered and, brutally selfish. Paul says that the wages of sin is death. We should be in hell already. We are the scoundrels that need to be on our knees in deepest repentance. This is what the preacher must preach. The sermon theme for this morning reads, "God’s wisdom brings us to repentance." In His wisdom, God has given us His Law and Gospel. Like the two games in the analogy of Jesus, these two set at opposite extremes to each other. Like the Church leaders of Jesus day, by nature we don’t know what we want. We want to sin, but we don’t want to be responsible for it. God gives us the Law, but by nature we don’t like that because it shows us our sin. At the opposite extreme, God shows us the work of His Son on the cross, but again by nature we don’t like the sound of that tune because it does not fit with the melody of our human pride and goodness and self-esteem. Oh, what fickle people we really are! Yet, herein is God’s wisdom. The Law brings us to see our sin while the Gospel tells us we will not be accountable for them. To this world of Jerry Springer, God has given His only begotten Son, Jesus. That doesn’t make sense but it is the wisdom of God. God required that His own Son Jesus, live in this world for one purpose, to keep the Law in our place perfectly and then die on the cross for every sin. This does not make sense, but this is the Wisdom of God. Jesus rose from the dead to proclaim victory over sin, death and the devil. That doesn’t make sense, but it is the wisdom of God. Jesus left His Holy Word of forgiveness and absolution, not for the good people of this world, but for habitual sinners like you and me. That doesn’t fit with our human reason, but it is the wisdom of God.

Does your conscience bother you? Is your heart burdened with a pet sin that you have vowed over and over again to eradicate from you life only to have it return with a vengeance? God bids you to look to His wisdom. That wisdom says, "Look at the glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Ironically, the condemnation that people brought against Jesus is the very message of the Gospel. God’s wisdom says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." That wisdom says, "If we confess our sins, He will keep His promise and do what He obligated Himself to do; He will forgive our sins and wash away all unrighteousness." At the beginning of this sermon, I spoke of the "altar call" of the pastor at the wedding I attended. Once again, when people leave the solid ground of Holy Scripture, they become silly. Scripture does allude to an altar call, but it is not one where the individual must walk forward to consummate his decision or dedicate his life to Jesus. Neither does it involve an approving nod from the pastor. The "altar call" of Scripture is the Lord’s Supper. In that Supper, Jesus gives us His very own Body and Blood which He shed for us on the cross. To sin burdened people, Jesus does not say, "Come forward and make your decision." To people like you and me who are in a life and death struggle with our sinful flesh, Jesus does not say, "Look up and I will give your commitment a nod of approval. In the very midst of our daily struggle and sin Jesus says, "Come for all things are now ready." In Jesus your forgiveness is complete. In Jesus your sins are paid. In Jesus you have the inheritance of life and salvation. Yes, bring your sin and come to His holy table this day. "Come, for all things are now ready." That is the wisdom of God, indeed our forgiveness and salvation. Go in peace. You are covered in the blood once shed. Soli Deo Gloria

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