Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Trinity - Rom 11:33-36

 

   Holy Trinity

                                                                                                            Rom 11:33-36

                                                                                                            5/31/26

 

 

            In 1964 the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic church issued Lumen Gentium, which is Latin for “light of the Gentiles.” This was one of the principal documents of the Second Vatican Council, and as an official declaration of this church council it is considered to be dogma in the Roman Catholic church – it is something that must be believed.

            Lumen Gentium addresses the relationship of those who have not received the Gospel to the people of God. In speaking about Islam it says, “But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these are the Muslims, who professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.” So the dogma – the position that must be believed by Roman Catholics – is that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

            Now it seems very unlikely that any Muslim is going to agree with this. The Koran certainly mentions Jesus, whom it calls Isa. But according to the Koran Jesus was only a man, and not the Son of God. He was a great prophet and apostle who did not die by crucifixion, but instead was taken up into heaven by God.

            The Koran explicitly rejects the idea that Jesus is the Son of God. It also condemns the very idea that God is anything but one. It says to people like you, “O followers of the Book! Do not exceed the limits of religion, and do not speak against Allah, but speak the truth; the Messiah, Isa son of Marium is only an apostle of Allah and his Word which he communicated to Marium and a spirit from him. Believe therefore in Allah and his apostles, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you. Allah is only one God; far be it from his glory that he should have a son.”

            The idea that there is only one God has existed in the world for a long time. It was the faith of Israel in the Old Testament. It has continued to be the faith of Judaism. It has been the belief of Isalm since it was created by Muhammed in the seventh century. The philosophical thought of the Greco-Roman world included positions that looked very much like monotheism – the belief that there is only one God.

            Because the Christian faith knows the Old Testament to be the Word of God, it too confesses that there is only one God. Yahweh had revealed about himself in the Old Testament, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” This confession of one God continues in the New Testament. St Paul told the Corinthians who lived a world that believed in hundreds of gods, “Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘an idol has no real existence,’ and that ‘there is no God but one.’”

            It all seems straightforward … until the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. In Galatians Paul describes how we were under the curse of the law. The holy and just God has revealed his will. But as fallen people, we live imprisoned under sin.  Therefore Paul tells us, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’”  We cannot live perfectly according to God’s will so we would have faced God’s curse and judgment.

            However, God did not leave us there. Paul goes on to say in Galatians, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”

            Now Paul has explained exactly how God redeemed us.  He wrote, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Jesus Christ received the curse in our place when he died on the cross. Paul began the letter by saying that Jesus, “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”

            This deliverance did not just mean forgiveness. It is the rescue from death itself. During Easter we celebrated how God raised Jesus from the dead. God vindicated Jesus and began our resurrection in him. Paul told the Romans about the Gospel that it was “promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

            Paul says that God sent forth his Son into the world to redeem us. He explains that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. He describes God as the Father. The simple picture of the one God has become much more complicated.

            Our text this morning is from the end of Romans chapter 11. We should recognize from the start that Paul is not talking specifically here about the Holy Trinity. Instead, he is bringing his discussion about how God has dealt with Israel to a close – a topic that he began addressing in chapter 9.  Many Jews, the descendants of Israel had rejected Jesus Christ. But Paul seeks to explain that this fact doesn’t mean God’s word has failed. Instead he is dealing with both Jews and Gentiles in order to save.

            Paul explains as much as he can … until he can’t go any farther. As he reaches the point where it exceeds human understanding and our ability to explain it the apostle exclaims, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

            Now if we cannot understand and explain what God does, what chance do we have in understanding and explaining who God is – what he is like in his very nature?  After all, God is God, and we are not. And so Paul’s words give us the right attitude as we come to what God has revealed about himself in Scripture. We find that we can describe what God is like on the basis of his word, even if we can’t understand and explain how it is true.

            What we learn is that God is one, and that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is one and when the risen Lord instituted baptism he said to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He said not “names” but “name,” for there is only one God.

            There is one God, yet in Scripture God reveals himself again and again as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The baptism of Jesus is the beginning of his ministry. Jesus stands in the water. The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove. And the Father says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Paul ends Second Corinthians by saying, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

            Now one way to try to explain this is to say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not truly distinct from one another. Instead, they are different ways or modes by which the one God reveals himself. This is known as modalism. It is an ancient heresy that continues today in so-called “one God Pentecostals.” But at Jesus’ baptism we see all three persons of the Trinity interacting at the same time. On Pentecost we celebrated how the Son who is seated at the right hand of the Father poured forth the Spirit. Jesus talks about the Father and the Spirit and how he relates to them. There is no getting around the fact that while there is one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct from one another.

            The other way to explain it is to say that the Son and the Spirit are not really God. This is what the heretic Arius said about the Son, and others made similar claims about the Spirit. They argued that the Father created the Son and the Spirit. They are like God in being highly exalted creatures, but they are not God in the same way that the Father is God.

            It is only because of Jesus Christ that we know God to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so questions about the Trinity are closely linked with the confession about who Christ is. Scripture is clear in revealing that he is God. John says about Jesus, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Yet John has just about the Word, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Paul told the Colossians about Christ, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” The Son, Jesus Christ is true God. He was not created because nothing created can be God.

            In the same way the Spirit is true God. The Spirit is set side by side with the Father and the Son. Peter says that to lie to the Holy Spirit is to lie to God. The Spirit carries out the divine work of creating new spiritual life as he regenerates and renews the believer.

            There is one God. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are distinct from one another, and yet they are also related to one another. The Church uses the term “person” to confess this truth. The Son is the Son of God. He eternally stands in relation to the Father as the Son. We confess this truth using the language of “begotten.” We are using human language to describe what God has revealed about himself, so as we have seen, this does not mean that the Son was created. Instead it means that he alone stands eternally as the Son in relation to the Father.

            The Spirit also relates to the Father and the Son as the One who proceeds from them. Jesus said, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” Paul told the Romans, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ.

            God’s Word teaches us that he is eternally this way. There has never been a time when he was not this way, nor will there be in the future. We confess this in the Gloria Patri every time we say, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.”

            These relations between the persons of the Trinity exist within God himself. But Scripture teaches us that they do not in any way divide the oneness of God. Jesus said, that “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” He said, “I and the Father are one.” The Spirit is the Spirit of God. The Spirit is the Spirit of the Son. And when we speak about the external work of God we recognize that it is the one God who acts as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

            These are the truths that we are about to confess in the Athanasian Creed. At the end of that creed we will say, “This is the catholic faith: whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.” This is not the claim that one must remember and understand every statement perfectly. It is saying that you cannot knowingly reject these biblical truths.

            And at the same time there is the need for each one of us to grow in our understanding of the Holy Trinity. To confess Jesus Christ is to confess the Trinity. We see this as Christianity stands in opposition to Isalm. We see it as Christianity stands in opposition to Mormonism, and the Jehovah Witness. We see this as Christians reject the false claims made by the Roman Catholic church about God.

            While there are indications of the Trinity in the Old Testament, it is only in Jesus Christ that we have come to know the triune nature of God. The Father sent the Son, as he was incarnate by the work of the Holy Spirit.  Our very knowledge of the Trinity reveals God’s action to save us.

             

 

       

 

  

 

 

 

 

           

 

Relief for persecuted Lutherans in Sudan

 

During the summer of 2025 I had the opportunity to teach a class on Galatians at the Concordia Lutheran Institute for the Holy Ministry in Yambio, South Sudan. This is the seminary of the Ev. Lutheran Church in South Sudan/Sudan. I had two students who have now graduated and returned to serve in their home area of Sudan.

Sudan is ranked as the fourth worst persecutor of Christians in the world. These two students described how they had known of Christians being killed by Muslims. During May the area where these Lutherans live in the Nuba Mountains has been attacked by Muslim tribes.

The Muslims burned homes and churches.

Families were forced to flee into the mountains for safety.

Food has been destroyed and the people are suffering.

I have been in contact with the Rev. Peter Anibati Abia, the Bishop of the Ev. Lutheran Church of South Sudan/Sudan. He reports that he will be able get relief funds to the Lutherans in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan. Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Marion, IL will be collecting funds to help these Lutherans and will send them to the Ev. Lutheran Church of South Sudan/Sudan and Bishop Abia.  

If you would like to help these brothers and sisters in Christ, a check can be made out to "Good Shepherd Lutheran Church," noted as "Sudan relief" and sent to:

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

1801 Westminster Dr

Marion, IL 62959

All donations need to be received by June 14 so that they can be wired to South Sudan.

Bear up one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ - Galatians 6:2

Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost - Acts 2:1-21

 

   Pentecost

                                                                                                                        Acts 2:1-21

                                                                                                                        5/24/26

 

 

John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John the Baptist was on the divide between the old and the new. He dressed like a prophet and spoke like a prophet of the Old Testament. And yet he was also the fulfillment of prophecies made in the Old Testament by Isaiah and Malachi. He was not announcing something that God would do in the distant future, but instead something that was about to happen in the present.

Like the prophets sent by God in the Old Testament, everything John says about the future is true. But since John speaks like a prophet of the Old Testament, everything is not true exactly in the way he expects. John announced that the coming One would bring God’s end time judgment. He said of this One, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John didn’t understand that the coming One, came first to suffer and die. When John sat in prison because he had spoken God’s truth to King Herod Antipas, and he heard about the miracles Jesus was doing, he was confused. This wasn’t what it was supposed to look like. So he sent two disciples to Jesus with this question: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

Jesus replied, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”  Our Lord’s answer used the language of Isaiah to say that, yes, he was the coming One. But he also acknowledged that it didn’t look exactly as John expected when he said: “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Today, on the Feast of Pentecost, we see another example of how what John the Baptist said was true – just not in the way he expected. John had said about the coming One, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” On Pentecost the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord did this not in the fire of destroying judgment, but instead in tongues like fire as the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit.

The Feast of Pentecost brings the season of Easter to a close. The Lord Jesus who had risen on Easter was no longer visibly present with the disciples as he had been for forty days. But Pentecost is still part of the season Easter because it brings some unfinished Easter business to conclusion.

On the evening of Easter, Jesus appeared in the midst of the locked room were the disciples were present. As they were talking, Jesus himself stood among them, and said “Peace to you!” He demonstrated that he was the same Jesus who had died by crucifixion on Good Friday and had been buried as he said, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”  He even took some broiled fish and ate it in front of them to prove the point.

Jesus announced that he was the fulfillment of everything that had been written about him in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

These words summarize what Christ has done for us. He suffered and died on the cross in fulfillment of God’s saving will. He did it in order to give the forgiveness of sins. At the Last Supper Christ had applied the words of Isaiah chapter 53 to himself as he said, “For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’” Though he was the sinless Son of God, Jesus chose to be identified not just as a sinner, but instead as The Sinner. He received the judgment of God against the sin of every person – against your sin.

Sin brings death. It did for Adam. And it did for Jesus the second Adam. But in Christ God was working to defeat death, and so on Easter God the Father raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection. He is the beginning of the resurrection of the Last Day.

Christ had won this salvation, and for forty days he was with the disciples. He ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” When the disciples questioned about his saving work for Israel he told them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Ten days ago we celebrated the ascension of Jesus as he withdrew his visible presence. For ten days the disciples waited as the risen and ascended Lord’s promise remained unfulfilled. Then on the Day of Pentecost when they were all together in one place there suddenly came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. It filled the entire house where they were, and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability.

In both Hebrew and Greek, the word for “spirit” can also mean wind. The sound like a mighty wind announced what was happening – the Holy Spirit was being poured out. And as John the Baptist had declared – there was fire. But it was not the fire of judgment. Instead, what appeared as tongues of flame were distributed on the heads of the believers.

Pentecost was one of the major feasts of the Old Testament. Faithful Jews from all over the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world who lived in the city were celebrating it. When they heard the sound they were drawn to where the disciples were located. They were bewildered because the disciples were obviously Galileans. They were not educated and sophisticated people. And yet they were speaking in all of these foreign languages as they proclaimed the mighty works of God.

We learn in our text that all were amazed and asked one another, “What does this mean?” Some mocked as they said, “They are filled with new wine.” They accused the disciples of being drunk. Peter stood up and called for their attention. He began by pointing out that this explanation was just dumb. After all, it was only 9:00 a.m. and no one was drunk at that time of day.

Instead, this was an event of God’s end time salvation. It was a fulfillment of God’s Word. Peter said, “But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.’”

In his sermon Peter went on to declare that although God had attested Jesus to them by his mighty works, they had delivered him up and killed him by the hands of lawless men.  Jesus had died and had been buried. But in fulfillment of David’s words in the Psalm 16, God had not allowed his holy One to see corruption.

Peter announced, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand,

until I make your enemies your footstool.’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

            On Pentecost the risen Lord fulfilled his word. Ascended and exalted to the right hand of God, he poured forth the Spirit. Christ had described the Spirit as the power that would enable witness in the world. In the Gospel lessons during Easter from John we have learned about how the job of the Spirit is to bear witness to Christ. It is to take what belongs to Jesus and make it known to us.

            The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and so the work of the Spirit is to deliver what Christ has won for us. The Spirit is the presence of Christ with his Church. During his earthly ministry Christ’s presence and work was tied to one place. But now as the ascended Lord he has poured forth the Spirit so that he is present and at work wherever the Gospel is proclaimed. The Spirit is the presence of Christ at work all over the world at once.

The risen Lord had said, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Jesus has accomplished salvation by his death and resurrection. But this Good News – this Gospel – must now be proclaimed and believed. This is the work of the Spirit. When he preached on this text Martin Luther commented, “God gives the Holy Spirit to push that preaching into the heart so that it remains and lives there.”

Christ has done everything to give sinners forgiveness and eternal life. As Luther went on to say: “The treasure lies there in a heap, not yet distributed or applied everywhere. Therefore, if we are to have that treasure, the Holy Spirit must come and put it into our hearts, so that we believe and say, ‘I also am one of those who are to have this treasure.’”

The Holy Spirit has done this for you.  He did it through the word of the Gospel. And he did it through the water and the Word of Holy Baptism. John the Baptist had come baptizing with water. He said the coming One would baptize with the Holy Spirit. We learn in our text that this word “baptize” was a metaphor for how Christ would pour out the Spirit on the disciples in the dramatic event of Pentecost.

But the risen Lord took up John’s water baptism and transformed it into his own as he commanded the disciple to make disciples by baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had already said that in order for a person to enter the kingdom of God he must be born again of water and the Spirit.

And on Pentecost Peter pointed his hears to the water of baptism. Those hearing him were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter responded, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”  Peter tied the gift of the Spirit to baptism, and promised that this was true for them and for their children.

Pentecost was the fulfillment of God’s promise through Joel to pour out his Spirit. Now, God has done this for you through baptism. The apostle Paul said that in baptism we have received but “the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” God poured out his Spirit on you in baptism as he gave you new life and made you a child of God who has shared in Christ’s saving death.

            In his quotation from Joel, Peter emphasizes that it is in the last days that God has poured forth the Holy Spirit. It is the last days because in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the Last Day has started. He is the beginning of the resurrection for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

            And the Spirit who has given you new life in Christ is the guarantee that you too will share in Christ’s resurrection. The apostle Paul told the Romans that we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies.  He describes the Spirit as the first fruits because it is through the Spirit of God present in you now that God will raise you from the dead. Paul said, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

            On Pentecost the risen and exalted Lord Jesus poured forth the Holy Spirit on his Church. Through his Spirit Christ is at work everywhere the Gospel is proclaimed. The Forgiveness of sins and salvation won by Christ are given out through the Spirit as he works and sustains faith. You know that you have received the Spirit because you have been baptized - the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Spirit. And as you live in the last days that began in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the presence of the Spirit within you is the guarantee that God will raise your body to be like Christ’s when he returns in glory on the Last Day.

           

 

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter - Jn 15:26-16:4

 

   Easter 7

                                                                                                            Jn 15:26-16:4

                                                                                                            5/17/26

 

           

            “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” That’s what Jesus says in our Gospel lesson this morning.

            Now it would seem that if you are trying to gather people into your group, and preparing them for the time when you will no longer be visibly present with them, this is not the best way to go about doing it.  It doesn’t seem helpful to say: “Hey guys, they are going to ostracize you completely. In fact, when someone kills you they are going to think that they are offering service to God.”

            Yet that is exactly what Jesus says this morning. Then he explains why this will happen when he says, “And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.”  According to the Lord, everything comes down to knowing the Father and knowing Jesus. And so this morning we want to consider why this is so. We need to examine why people don’t know them, and why we do. And in light of this we can then understand why these words of Jesus are not something that should turn us away.

            At the very beginning of his Gospel, John throws us into the deep end of the pool. He says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

The reference to “in the beginning” clearly identifies that we are talking about Yahweh, the God of Israel, and his act of creation. And if there is one thing the Old Testament makes clear it is the fact that Yahweh is one.  We learn in Deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The Lord is one, and he is the only God – the Creator of heaven and earth. All other so-called gods are nothing.

Yet John also refers to the “Word,” and in the rest of the Gospel we learn that the Word is the Son of God. Without ever denying the fact that God is one, John tells us that the Word is God. In fact, all things were made through him.

We learn that Father sent the Son into the world. As John tells us, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” And through Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, we begin to learn more about the Father and the Son.  Although distinct from one another, we learn that Father and Son are also united in some way. Jesus tells the Jews that they should believe his works “that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Christ just comes out and declares, “I and the Father are one.”

While Jesus reveals that he and the Father are one, he also makes it clear that the Father has sent him into the world to carry out a mission. He has spoken what the Father wants made known. Jesus says, “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.”

And Jesus reveals that he is doing that the Father has sent him to do. He said, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

Jesus lay down his life by being lifted up on the cross. We learn that this was an act of love for us by God the Father. In chapter three we read, “For God loved the world in this way, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” This giving of the Son on the cross was necessary so that we would not perish.

The reason for this is our sin. God is the holy God. Though created for fellowship with God, through Adam’s sin we were all plunged into sin. Now the flesh, fallen sinful nature, brings forth more flesh – more fallen sinful nature. And we do as we are. We just confessed using the words of First John: “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

God is the holy and just God. But in love for us he sent his Son as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. As Isaiah said, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Christ received the judgment against our sin. He cried out “It is finished” as he died on the cross. But this was not end of God’s saving work. He had sent the Son to lay down his life. And he had sent him to take it up again. This is what Jesus did on Easter when he rose from the dead. By his resurrection Christ has conquered death and restored us to life. We now have life with God – a life that death cannot end. And it is a life that will be resurrection life when Christ returns on the Last Day and raises our bodies.

Jesus, the Son of God, is the revelation of God’s saving love. Johns says in the prologue: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”  Jesus declared, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.” When Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us,” Christ replied, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

You know Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, and so you know the Father. Baptized into Christ you have been born again of water and the Spirit. Your sins have been washed away. John says in his first letter, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

We are the children of God because of Christ. Because this is so we are no longer part of the world - this age that is ruled by Satan and sin.  We once were. As Paul told the Ephesians we “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” But God called us as his own through the work of the Spirit. This was not our doing. It was God’s. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

In our text Jesus says, “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” Christ explains that we will receive this treatment because we belong to him. Just before our text he said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

Thankfully, we do not live in place like Sudan or Nigeria where Muslims kill Christians because they believe in Jesus, and think that they are serving God in doing so. But we do face social pressures against Christ and his word. The institutions of media, entertainment, and education treat Christianity as if it is benighted vestige of the past to which no thinking person would belong. Jesus’ own assertion that he alone is the way to Father receives condemnation because it is “not inclusive.” To even talk about sin – much less to identify particular sins on the basis of God’s word such as fornication and homosexuality – brings the world’s hatred. We are told that you can have your Christian faith in private, but don’t talk about it out in the world.

These challenges are real. And the point of our text is that Jesus said it would be this way. But we are willing to take up our cross in whatever form it takes and follow Jesus because through him we are children of God. We do have life – a life that death cannot end, and that will be resurrection life on the Last Day. For as Jesus said, “In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart. I have overcome the world.”

If we are to continue in the faith while facing this opposition, we need to be sustained. And we find the source of this in our text as Jesus says, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”

The ascended Lord has sent forth the Spirit as he promised. He bears witness about Jesus as he takes what belongs to our Lord and makes it known to us. Jesus had promised earlier, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

In the Scriptures we encounter this inspired witness. These words are never mere words because they are the Spirit breathed words as he guided the authors so that what was written is what the Spirit has given to us.  They are words through which the Spirit continues to be at work to create faith in Christ and to sustain it.

And so there is the need to read them daily at home. There is the need to read them in devotions with our children. And we need to do what you are doing at this very moment – to come to church to hear the word read and proclaimed by Christ’s Office of the Ministry.

This is how Christ enables us to live as God’s children in the midst of a world that is hostile to him, and therefore to us. We do so because of the blessing that we have received in Christ.  He is the saving revelation by which we have come to know the Father. In him we have forgiveness and life which will have no end.