Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Kerrville Texas

Luke 11:1-13
Lord’s Prayer: Doxology & Amen

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

Before we say “Amen” to all we have asked, we typically praise our Father who art in heaven with the doxology: “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever” (Matt. 6:13). These words are in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. They are not in Luke’s version. Luther doesn’t include the doxology in his Small Catechism because it wasn’t in the Latin translation used at the time. The modern textual critics don’t think it was original to Matthew. Versions of the Lord’s prayer from the early church have different doxologies. The Didache [8:2], a church order from the late first/early second century, concludes the Lord’s prayer with the doxology, “For Thine is the power and the glory for ever” (ANF 7:379). The Apostolic Constitutions [7.2], church legislation that dates from 4th century Syria, concludes the Lord’s prayer with the doxology, “For Thine is the kingdom for ever. Amen” (ANF 7:470).

Even if the critics are correct and these words aren’t given to us by Christ, it is still appropriate that we close our prayer with this word of praise. In this we follow the example of David who blessed the Lord in 1 Chronicles 29:11, saying, “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, And You are exalted as head over all.”

But the doxology is more than praise—it is encouragement to our faith. John Chrysostom, a fourth century church father, said Christ gave this doxology immediately after reminding us of temptation and the evil one, to raise our spirits and encourage us. He said to his fourth century congregation:

Doth it not then follow, that if His be the kingdom, we should fear no one, since there can be none to withstand, and divide the empire with him. For when He saith, “Thine is the kingdom,” He sets before us even [the evil one], who is warring against us, brought into subjection, though he seem to oppose, God for a while permitting it. For in truth he too is among God’s servants, though of the degraded class, and those guilty of offense; and he would not dare set upon any of his fellow servants, had he not first received license from above. And why say I, “his fellow servants?” Not even against swine did he venture any outrage, until He Himself allowed him; nor against flocks, nor herds, until he had received permission from above.  

“And the power,” saith He. Therefore, manifold as thy weakness may be, thou mayest of right be confident, having such a one to reign over thee, who is able fully to accomplish all, and that with ease, even by thee.

“And the glory, for ever. Amen.” Thus He not only frees thee from the dangers that are approaching thee, but can make thee also glorious and illustrious. For as His power is great, so also is His glory unspeakable, and they are all boundless, and no end of them. Seest thou how He hath by every means anointed His Champion, and hath framed Him to be full of confidence? (Homily XIX on Matthew, NPNF¹ 10:137)

Confidence. Not in oneself. Not in one’s own strength. Not in one’s own powers. Confidence in the in the One to whom we pray. His is the kingdom, and everything, even the devil, still operates only to the extent the Lord allows, therefore He cannot harm us if the Lord reigns in our hearts. His is the power, so that we trust His power will be made perfect in our every weakness. His is the glory, so that we trust His promise to give us everything we need and that He will bring us into heavenly glory. The One to whom we pray, the One to whom belong the kingdom, the power, and glory, is our Father, and we are His dear children.

And we all know how fathers are with their children. Jesus says, “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” I love the picture. Bread, fish, and eggs satisfy hunger so that a child can grow and become strong. A stone is indigestible and will harm a child if eaten. A serpent and scorpion are dangerous, and while they could perhaps be eaten, both are symbols of the devil and his angels in Scripture. Jesus’ point is that your Father in heaven does not give you anything that harms you. Loving earthly fathers give good things—and only good things— to their children so that their children grow and become strong to live safely in the world.

Your heavenly Father is no different. And what do you need most of all to grow, to become strong, so that you remain safe from temptation, safe from the evil one, and endure in the faith unto the end? The Holy Spirit.  Every petition Christ has given us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer is a petition for the Holy Spirit so that we may hallow His name, live under His reign, in His will, receive our daily bread with thanksgiving, confess our sins, forgive others, be victorious in temptation and finally, when our last our comes, die in the faith. For all this we need the Holy Spirit. He is precisely what God your Father wants to give you. “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Why are we confident that our Father in heaven hears these petitions and that they’re acceptable to Him? Because He has told us to pray for the and promised to pray for them. This is why we say, “Amen.” It’s a Hebrew word which means “verily, truly,” or as Luther renders it, “Yes, yes, it shall be so.” It is the word of confidence. It’s the word Jesus often uses when wants to confidently believe something which we cannot see with our eyes. He said it twice in Sunday’s gospel, although our translation renders it, “Most assuredly.” He promised, “Amen, Amen, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death;” and He testified to His divinity, “Amen, Amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (Jn 8:51, 58). As Christ uses it to draw out attention to the truth and verity of His word, we use it to confess our confidence that God hears our prayer and will grant it. Luther says in the Large Catechism that “Amen” is “nothing else than the word of undoubting faith, which does not pray at a venture, but knows that God does not lie to him, since He has promised to grant it (LC III.119). All our prayers should be prayed with and end in such confidence.

The word is also a reminder that we should not pray frivolously or lightly, doubting whether God hears us or will answer our prayer. He will not give you an inedible stone. He will not give you a serpent or scorpion. He wants to give you good things—and only good things. How did Paul say it? “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31-32). He wants to give you good things so that you can grow and become strong to live safely in the world. The chief good thing He wants to give you is His Holy Spirit.

He commands you to pray. He promises to hear you and answer. And His is the kingdom, the power, and glory forever and ever. The kingdom, because there is none who can withstand Him. The power, because He is fully able to accomplish everything for which you pray. The glory, because He does all things well and makes you glorious through His strength. Hearing how all these are His, do you see how He has, by every means, anointed you, His champion, and framed you to be full of confidence? Since He commands us to pray; since He promises to hear our prayers and answer; and since all things are under His reign, power, and glory, what else can we say but “Amen?”

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Hebrews 9.11-15 & John 8.46-59

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

“Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” This is Jesus’ promise. All those who keep His word—that is, anyone who receives it true, believes it, and places their trust in it—will never see death. Jesus said in John 5[:24], “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Jesus had told the crowd in John 6 the same, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life,” and after that crowd rejected Jesus’ word Peter confessed the very thing the crowd could not: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:63, 68). Jesus has come to bring life to those whose lot is death. This is everyone of the line of Adam and Eve born in the natural way. “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Since all have sinned—and “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23)—Jesus says, “If anyone keeps My word he shall never see death,” so that none who are liable for death are excluded.

Unless they exclude themselves. The Jews with whom Jesus is speaking in today’s gospel lesson do just that. They don’t keep Jesus’ word—receive it as true, believe it, and place their trust in it. They attack it. They attack Him. They accuse Him of being a Samaritan—not a true, full-blooded descendant of Abraham—and of having a demon—an evil spirit of the same lying, murdering mind as the devil. They lash out at Jesus with such vitriol because they believe they already have life. They are children of Abraham. They are followers of Moses. They search the scriptures, believing life to come from obeying all that God commanded through Moses, even though they’re far from the perfect obedience of the heart Moses actually required. They believe their own merits are true merits and place their trust in themselves. They think they have life by their own identity as Abraham’s sons and disciples of Moses, and that these are what make them “of God.”

Imagining themselves to be “of God” by their blood and by their obedience, they can’t hear Christ’s word of promise for what is. They can only hear it with fleshly ears and twist it with devilish intent. “Now we know that You have a demon,”they say. “Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.’  Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Whom do You make Yourself out to be?” But Jesus did not say that He anyone who keeps His word shall never taste death—physical death. He promises eternal life that begins now by faith and continues into eternity. He tells Martha the same thing before He raises Lazarus from the dead: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn 11:25-26). Jesus never promised earthly health, though He restored it to some. Jesus never promised a death-free entrance into eternal life as Enoch or Elijah were given. All the saints, with those to ancient exceptions, entered eternal life through death, just as we also must, unless Christ returns in glory first. They mock Jesus, saying that if keeping His word prevented physical death, He would be greater than Abraham and the prophets who spoke God’s word. “Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead.”

They expect a negative answer. No one would claim to be greater than Abraham, the father of the nation, the one with whom God spoke, the one who was called the friend of God (James 2:23)? No would claim to be greater than the prophets, those with whom God spoke and showed Himself in visions? No one would claim such an honor for themselves. But Jesus will not honor Himself. He will let His Father do that, and He will glorify Him in His human flesh soon. So, Jesus tells them, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” It’s as if He were saying, “Your father Abraham saw My day—the work which I would accomplish—by faith and rejoiced. Your father Abraham did keep My word, which is why Abraham and all the patriarchs continue to live t this very day, for all live to Him (Luke 20:38). When God the Father said to Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” I am the promised blessing.”

They still don’t get it, though. Just as they imagine the “not seeing death” to mean “not physically dying,” so they imagine “Abraham saw My day” to mean that Jesus knew Abraham. Being children of the devil, they can only malign Jesus words and hear what He’s not saying. So Jesus tells them bluntly: “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Not, “I was,” so that He simply predated Abraham. That’s what the Jews seemed to have thought when they said, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” No, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” as in Exodus 3:14, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” The one who tells John in Revelation 1:8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” There are those who say Jesus never said He was God. Like the Jews in today’s gospel, those who teach that do not hear Christ’s words because they are not of God. The Jews, however, have one thing over those who make such a claim today—the understood perfectly that Jesus, in that moment, claimed to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

They pick up stones to throw at Him and show themselves to be true children of the devil. Jesus had said in John 8:44, just a two verses before today’s gospel began, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” They have demonstrated that they will not hear Jesus’ word but deceitfully and maliciously twist it. Now they prove themselves sons of hell by following in their father’s murderous footsteps by preparing to murder the One who has come to bring men eternal life, the One who is, Himself, the light and light of men “(Jn 1:4).

But Jesus eludes them. Using His divine power, hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. The Jews would succeed in murdering Him, but not today. He will be a victim, not because they get the upper hand, but because He, as High Priest of the New Testament, will offer Himself to God as the spotless sacrificial victim. He will be killed by them, but not in this temple built by hands. He will enter the Most Holy Place of God’s presence, once for all, and obtain eternal redemption for all mankind. In order for Jesus to give life to anyone who keeps His word, He must die, for He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” as the author of Hebrews teaches us in the epistle. By His death He makes full satisfaction for sins under the first covenant—the Law.  His suffering and death pay for all of our sins of thought, word, and deed because it is the eternal Son of God, who suffers and dies in the flesh. His blood, shed once-for-all on the altar of the cross, is the blood of the New Testament, which cleanses us from all sins as often as we repent of them and flee to Christ. He dies in the flesh so that all who die in the flesh who keep His word, we never see eternal death. The life His gives begins now through faith in in His Word and extends past the moment of our bodily death into all eternity.

Christ wants to give these gifts to you—forgiveness of sins, new life, and salvation—through His word, and promises you, “Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” He wants you to keep Jos word by hearing it, reading it, and by meditating on it, contemplating it, and applying it to yourself, so that you live each day in repentance and faith: Repentance that acknowledges your sinful nature and the times you have given in to it; Faith that trusts Christ’s promise to cleanse the  conscience from dead works of sin and selfishness, to serve the living God with living works of love for Him and neighbor. Those who are not “of God” do not keep His word. They ignore it, attack it, and Christ hides Himself from them. They remain in spiritual death now and into eternity. But all who are “of God” and keep His word, and to them Christ reveals Himself as the Mediator of the New Testament who gives new life that begins now by faith, and extends into all eternity. “If anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” Grant this Lord, to us all. Amen.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

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John 17:1-17
Lord’s Prayer 6^th & 7^th Petitions

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

There are three great enemies which want to prevent all that you have prayed for in the first five petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. They do not want you to hallow God’s name so that you hear God’s word purely taught or for you to live holy lives according to it. These three do not want God’s kingdom to come among you, so that you receive the Holy Spirit. They want to reign in your heart. These enemies do not want God’s will to be done in you. They want their will to be done in you and by you. They don’t want you to recognize God as the giver of your daily bread and give Him thanks. They want you to think you are your provider. If you still cling to the notion that God gives daily bread, these adversaries will do all they can to make you discontent with what God gives, so that you grumble, complain, and doubt that God only gives good things. These three enemies do not want you to confess your trespasses to God, believe the gospel, and forgive others. They want you to excuse your sins while simultaneously holding grudges against those who sin against you and repent. You know them. You know them well. They are the devil, the world, and your own flesh.

The apostle Paul says in Romans 7:18, “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells.” This is true for every person born in the natural way—that is, from the union of a man and a woman. Lest anyone imagine that the Old Adam can be reformed or rehabilitated, Paul says in Romans 8:7, “The carnal—that is, fleshly—mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.” The sinful flesh clings us to us and daily incites us to sin. Luther wrote in his Large Catechism, “For in the flesh we dwell and carry the old Adam about our neck, who exerts himself and incites us daily to inchastity, laziness, gluttony and drunkenness, avarice and deception, to defraud our neighbor and to overcharge him, and, in short, to all manner of evil lusts which cleave to us by nature” (LC III:102). In short, our very selves, body and minds, tempt us to sin daily.

The world works together in perfect synergy with the sinful flesh. The world consists of the people that populate it. If the people of the world live according to the sinful flesh, it’s no wonder that the world offers easy ways of fulfilling every desire and gratifying every lust of the flesh. We are tempted by the example of others around us. We are tempted by what we see on the myriad screens we watch each day. The world does all it can to influence us—not simply to buy this or that product—but to sin, to like it, and to live in it. After all, “Everybody’s doing it.” The world plays to the sinful nature’s pride, as well. No one wants to be “the least,” the low man on the totem pole, or the last in line. No one wants to serve. They want to be served. And so that world tempts with a way of life, that puts oneself first: hatred, envy contentions, backstabbing, gossip, ambition, and the like.

Then there’s devil, the ancient serpent. Jesus says he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth (Jn 8:44). The devil tempts us to all sins, but Luther thought the devil especially tempts us in matters of the conscience and spiritual matters. The devil especially wants to agitate us “to despise and disregard both the Word and works of God, to tear us away from faith, hope, and love, and bring us into misbelief, false security, and obduracy, or, on the other hand, to despair, denial of God, blasphemy, and innumerable other shocking things. These are indeed snares and nets, yea, real fiery darts which are shot most venomously into the heart, not by flesh and blood, but by the devil” (LC III:104). The devil wants us to doubt God word. He wants to destroy your faith, drain you of the Christian hope, and suffocate your love for God and others. He does this by leading Christians into false security, so that they say, “I know the gospel, I can live as I please!” To those sorrowing over over their sin, He tempts with despair, so that they say, “I know the gospel, and I know it isn’t for me.” He works to bring evil of body, soul, property, and honor upon us, so that we cast aside God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, and die the only truly evil death—death without true faith in Christ.

How do we stand against such lethal, well-armed enemies? We pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” That doesn’t mean, “Lead us in such a way that we avoid all temptation.” No one can avoid every temptation. The monks of the early church discovered this for themselves. Fleeing the world’s wickedness, their sinful flesh tempted them in the solitude of the desert. No, you cannot escape world, because you cannot escape the devil or your own flesh. “Lead us not into temptation” means we ask God to “guard and keep us so that the devil, the world and our flesh may not deceive us, nor mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.” “Lead us not into temptation” means, “Guard us against temptation. Establish our faith in the midst of every temptation so that we are victorious over the temptation. Provide the way of escape which You promised, and Your Holy Spirit so that I take that way of escape.” We must not expect God to take away temptations of the devil, the world, and our flesh. The words of Sirach are true: “My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation” (Sirach 2:1). You will be troubled, you are troubled by these things, but we pray in this petition that God would keep us in the midst of every temptation and give us victory.

And take hear, dear children of the heavenly Father, for this is His will for you. In the gospel lesson we heard this evening, Jesus prayed to His father and our father who art in heaven, “Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.” Jesus prepares to depart this world through death. But He prays for His disciples that the Father would keep them in His name, the name they prayed would be hallowed among them. Jesus says, “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” This is written for you encouragement, dear saints. You are not of this world, which is why the world hates you, persecutes you, and fights against you with temptation the way it does. You are not of the world in the same way that Christ is not of this world. You are of citizens of heaven. God reigns in your hearts by His Holy Spirit. You are sanctified by God’s word—His promise to forgive your sins as often as you repent; His promise to gives you His Holy Spirit to lead holy lives; His promise that Christ will return to take you from this evil world and make for you a new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells.

Christ prays for you. He wants you to persevere in the faith unto the end. He wants to give the blessed end—a death died firmly believing that your sins are forgiven, and you are righteous in God’s sight for Jesus’ sake. For now, He leaves you in the world, though. And while you are still in the world, the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh will do everything they can to bring you back to their name, their kingdom, and their will. How will you stand? By God’s word, for that is how He has sanctified you and continues to sanctify you so that while you are in this world you are not of this world. His word, preached, taught, read, contemplated. That is the means of grace the Holy Spirit wants you to use to fight every temptation. That’s how Christ Himself fought temptation in the wilderness. Every fiery dart of the devil was extinguished against the shield of faith, trusting in the “It is written” of Holy Scripture. You have God’s word, and He wants to imprint His word more and more on your hearts and minds so that He may call it to mind in the moment of temptation.

You also have Christ’s visible words—His promise which He attaches to external elements. You have your baptism, your greatest treasure on earth, for it in you can find the daily forgiveness of sins but also you can use it to fight temptation. In the moment of temptation, “I am baptized! I am the new man in Christ! I have the Holy Spirit! Therefore, I will not fall to this temptation, but walk in God’s commandment instead.” Though that baptismal remembrance, you drown the old Adam, the sinful flesh. Through that baptismal remembrance, you remind yourself that you are not of this world just as Christ is not of this world. By remembering God’s work done upon you when He baptized you, you tell the devil that you are no longer His, but a child of God the Father. This is the escape God promises you in every temptation: His sanctifying truth. His Word is truth and by faith in His word we overcome and stand victorious in the end. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses understaning guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

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John 6:1-15

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

When Jesus sees the great multitude of five thousand men in the wilderness, He asks His disciple, Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” The evangelist adds, “But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.” The word John uses, πειράζω, is also translated “to tempt.” How it’s understood depends upon who is doing the verb. If the devil is doing this, then it’s understood to be temptation. When the Devil approaches Jesus in the wilderness, he does to tempt Jesus to sin, to tempt Him to forsake His identity as God’s Son and live for Himself. When Satan approaches any of Christ’s Christians, he does the same. He tempts us to false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. The devil tempts because he wants to destroy our faith by doubt, disbelief, and willful sinning.

But this isn’t what Christ has in mind when He asked Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” Christ does not want to introduce doubt and disbelief in His promises and power. James writes in his epistle, “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone” (Jam 1:13). When someone is tempted he is tempted to sin, to disbelieve God’s Word, and to trust in himself and follow his own desires. God never tempts anyone to sin, to doubt Him, or to disbelieve His Word, for He is not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor does any evil dwell with Him (Psalm 5:4). When God is doing this verb, He is testing one’s faith, exercising it by giving it a specific opportunity to look to Him to save. Through this exercise He wants to prove Philip’s faith, strengthen it, and purify it from vain imaginations and false beliefs about His power to save to and His desire to do so. Through this exercise, Jesus wants Philip to use his God-given faith to trust in Him, that although he can’t see a way out of this problem, he might believe all the more firmly and confidently that Jesus already knows what He is going to do, how and when He is going to save.

When Jesus asked, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat,” Jesus was looking for faith. His question wasn’t all that different from what He asked the prophet Ezekiel when He showed him a valley of dry, lifeless bones. He asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?” The prophet answered in faith, ““O Lord GOD, You know” (Ez 37:3). Ezekiel saw a situation that we beyond human power, strength, and will, but nevertheless, a situation over which the Lord God had perfect power. Philip looks out upon a situation that was also beyond human power, strength, and will, but only saw human inadequacy.  “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little,” he answers. His eyes can only see their lack and the huge sums it would take to accomplish this feat. Andrew offers lamely, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?” Andrew sees what they do have at their disposal, which is incredibly small and inadequate compared to the number of mouths they must feed. It is only at the moment when they realize their inadequacy that Jesus acts. For when we have nothing, Jesus has all He needs. Their faith tested, Jesus shows them precisely what He already knew He would do, so that their faith in His ability to save in any situation might be strengthened.

This was written for our learning, as all the Scriptures are. Christ allows us to fall into impossible situations. Often, He leads us into scenarios in which we realize our own resources are woefully inadequate compared to the magnitude of what is before us. Do you worry about the salvation of a member of your family? Does the worry arise in your mind, “What am I going to say to them this time to get through to them?” Jesus allows this to befall you to test you, because He already knows what is necessary in that situation. He wants you to learn all the more to trust Him to give you the right words, but even more so to teach you trust Him to act according to divine wisdom and mercy. Do you worry about how to make ends meet in your home, or about how you will continue to live on your income as the world becomes more unstable? Christ allows this come upon you test you, because He already knows exactly how He is going to provide for you today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life. He tests your faith to purify it from needless fretting about the future and to strengthen your confidence in His promise, “Therefore do not worry, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Matt. 6:31-32). Do you see the decay of our culture, our society, and our institutions, then look at the size of Christ’s flock and think, “But what are they among so many?” These are only a few tests the Lord allows to come upon us to make us see our inadequacy and inability, and look in every test to Christ, who already knows precisely when and how He will act on behalf on His faithful people.

What does He say to Philip and the other disciples?  “Make the people sit down.”  He intends to teach about Himself, His person and His office, that is, who He is and what He has come do. He tests and teaches to strengthen the disciple’s faith so their hearts puff up with confidence at the thought of what their Lord is able to do for them. Jesus takes the five barley loves and “when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down, and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.” Jesus takes their lack and turns it into enough to feed all five thousand. And not just feed them, but satisfy their hunger, and not just satisfy their hunger, but satisfy it with so much that there enough leftovers to fill twelve baskets. That’s one for each disciple, so that as each one picked up bread and placed in into their basket, they would meditate on Jesus’ ability to turn five small barley loaves into all this.

He also shows them—and us—that while He will not use His divine power for His own benefit, He does use it for our benefit. He does today what He refused to do in the wilderness after fasting forty days. In Matthew 4 the devil tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread, to use His divine power to serve Himself. Jesus refuses because “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). He will not turn stones into bread to serve Himself. But He will multiply five barley loaves and two small fish to serve man. This is the sort of God we have in Christ Jesus. The point of the miracle is far greater than simply, “Jesus can bend the rules of nature and the laws of physics because “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). That is most certainly true. This passage does show us this. But it shows us so much more. How does He use His divine power? He uses it not for Himself but for man, just as He will do by suffering on the cross and dying, not for His own sake to be the “propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2), so that all who believe in Him may have forgiveness, new life, and eternal salvation. He teaches them not only that He is able to provide for the needs of man but that that is the reason why He has come. He teaches Philip—and all whom He tests—that “the things which are impossible with men are possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

In the moment of our testing, whatever it may be, Christ has no concern for what is lacking in the situation. He sees no improbability. He knows no impossibility. He desires to strengthen your faith by these moments so that you understand, by faith, not experience or hypothesis, that God is able to do all things. More than that, He wants to gently teach you once again that He will give aid, that He desires to deliver, and that He wants to give good things to those who place their trust in Him. He wants to purify our faith by removing from it the dross of doubt. He wants to strengthen our faith so that it is not a flabby faith, but a lively and active faith which boldly trusts God the Father for all good things, even in the worst of situations. He wants His disciples to rejoice in their adversities because they are opportunities for Him to fortify our faith so that it does not fail. In the moment of testing He desires that you turn to His Word and cling to that Word with all your heart, that His promise is not only true but that it is true for you. He wants you trust all the more firmly not only that God is gracious, but that He is gracious to you in Christ Jesus. This is what Christ seeks to teach Philip, Andrew, and all His disciples as they look out on the impossibilities and hardships of life and says, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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John 4:5-26
Lord’s Prayer 4^th & 5^th Petitions

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

Jesus comes to a city of Samaria called Sychar. It’s about the sixth hour, noon. Wearied from His journey, He sits by the well. He sits there, alone, for His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food, daily bread. Although Christ could have turned stones into bread for Him and His disciples to eat, He gives them their daily bread in the ordinary way. They go to the store and buy it from those who sell, who themselves bought it from those who planted and harvested. While they are in town at the market, a woman of the village comes to the well to draw water. She, too, is getting her daily bread. Daily bread, after all, is “Everything that pertains to the needs and necessities of this life, such as food, and drink.” God gives this woman her daily drink in the ordinary way as well. She goes to the well to draw water into her jar, which she’ll then take back to her home to drink. Jesus could have slit open a rock and brought forth water, as He did for the Israelites in the wilderness. Instead, He allows the woman to seek her daily bread through the ordinary means, and He will do the same for Himself. He says to her, “Give me a drink.”

Jesus teaches us that God provides daily bread to all people and He provides it through ordinary means. There are times when God provides daily bread in an extraordinary way. God can miraculously give us our daily bread without our work and labor. He did this for Israel in the wilderness, the widow at Zarephath, and others. On Sunday we’ll hear how Christ feeds about five thousand with five barley loaves and two small fish. But miracles are the extraordinary way that God provides daily bread. The ordinary way is through our work and labor, and through the work and labor of others. By allowing His disciples to go into town to buy food, and by asking the Samaritan woman for a drink of water that she will draw from the well, Jesus blesses the ordinary way God gives daily bread so that we recognize this and receive our daily bread from God with thanksgiving.

 Of course, we know that daily bread isn’t just bread. It’s more than food and drink. Luther teaches that daily bread is “everything that pertains to the needs and necessities of this life, such as food, drink, clothes, shoes, house, yard, land, animals, money, property, a godly spouse, godly children, godly servants, godly and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, trustworthy neighbors, and the like.” Christ teaches us to pray for all these things so that, even though we receive them by our labor and the labor of others, we recognize that everything we have in this life is from the hand of God. This also means that if there is daily bread which we don’t have today, then it isn’t God’s will that we have that particular blessing today, and we should keep praying for that blessing and not lose heart. Thus, we give thanks for what God gives and trust that He gives us what we need when it is best for us, our neighbor, and His glory.

But this text isn’t just about daily bread and how God gives it. The answers Jesus’ request with a question, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” John parenthetically adds that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans so that we understand her comment. But Jesus moves the conversation past ethnicity and even past daily bread. Seemingly no longer interested in a drink of water, He tells her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” It isn’t that that drink of water isn’t important. It’s that daily bread is only one thing God provides. The other thing God provides—that which Jesus offers her here, living water—is more important.

The woman doesn’t understand living water, as least not as Jesus means it. She seems to understand it—in the sense that the phrase was used so often in the Old Testament—to mean running water. “You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus distinguishes between the water of the well and the living water He gives. “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The water Jesus gives is life itself, true life, animated by the Holy Spirit, which results in everlasting life, but still the woman cannot understand. “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” She is stuck in carnal, fleshly thinking. All she can see is her need for daily bread, “everything that pertains to the needs and necessities of this life.”

Jesus promises that God will provide everything that pertains to the needs and necessities of this life, but He has come to bring more than that. He has come to bring living water, water that brings life—life with God, life animated by the Holy Spirit. But living water can only be received by those who acknowledge that they are spiritually dead because of their sins. Before her sits the fountain of living water Himself—the incarnate Son of God—and she cannot even recognize her thirst. So Jesus tells her to call her husband and come back, to which the woman answers that she has no husband. It is this point that Jesus shows her need for living water. “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” He reveals to her the sin in which she has lived and is still currently living, for God did not ordain the estate of living together without marriage, but the estate of holy marriage, and those who persist in living outside of what God has ordained will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:10).

The woman tries to distract, as most, if not all people do when someone points out their sin, by diverting the conversation. In this case, the diversion looks pious because it’s theology, but even this turns that back to the woman so that she may, by faith, draw from the fount of living water that sits right in front of her, receive the forgiveness of her sins and the Holy Spirit to amend her sinful life, worshiping God the Father in spirit and truth. When Jesus confesses Himself to be the Christ, she leaves her water pot there, goes into the city and tells them, and the result is that many believed in Him, and after two days of Jesus staying with them, said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world” (4:42).

The fourth petition—daily bread—is sometimes the petition we pray the most often and the most fervently. That makes sense because we experience our daily bread physically. Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman reminds us what Luther teaches us in the Small Catechism, that, “God surely gives daily bread to all evil people without our petition; but we ask in this prayer that He would allow us to recognize this, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” But as Jesus moves the Samaritan woman’s concern from physical water to living water—the forgiveness of our sins and the Holy Spirit’s presence and reign in our hearts—He shows how we, too, should not be stuck only on asking for our daily bread, but that we always pray for the water that gives life, His gospel, and faith so that we might daily draw living water from its source and fountain, Christ. We pray that “God would not look up on our sins or deny our petitions because of them, but ask that He would give it all to us by grace; for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment.” Since we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment, we confess our sins—those of which we are aware and those of which we are unaware—and believe that He forgives us and raises us to new life by giving us living water to drink.

And so it works well to think of these two petitions together. God gives daily bread, even to the evil. We daily sin much and deserve nothing but punishment, but—thanks be to God—He gives us daily gospel as we come to the fountain of living waters, Jesus Christ our Lord. Having this living water—the gospel and Holy Spirit by faith—we have all we need, regardless of what God gives us for our daily bread or withholds from us on any given day.  Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Ephesians 5.1-9 & Luke 11.14-28

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

Jesus casts a mute demon out of a man. Once the demon is exorcised, the man begins to speak and the multitude marvels. But not everyone. Some say within themselves, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.” Others ask Jesus for a sign from heaven, as if exorcism they just witnessed wasn’t a sign from heaven. Jesus takes on both groups simultaneously. He first points out the absurdity of the thought that He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons. “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub.” Why would Satan drive one of his demons out of a man and lose ground in the war for men’s soul’s? Why would Satan allow one of his servants to cast another one of his servants out of man, and lose that man from his kingdom? No. Satan has a kingdom, and kingdom divided against itself doesn’t stand. A house, a business, a marriage, a family, all of these will fall into ruin if they are divided. Their argument is absurd.

Jesus keeps going, though, because the question of whose work He’s doing is of vital importance. He asks them, “And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.” Were their sons actually casting out demons? Luke tells us in Acts 19 about itinerant Jewish exorcists who attempted to cast demons out using the name of Jesus. Seven of these men were brothers, the sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest. Luke tells us that when they told a demon, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches,” the demon responded, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” then the demoniac proceeded to attack and overpower all seven, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded (Acts 9:13-16). If this is any indication, then there were itinerant Jewish exorcists, but they weren’t very successful. Jesus, however, is casts them out by commanding them directly to leave, and the demons, who so often would overpower other men, willingly submit to Jesus’ word. If their sons could not cast out demons but Jesus could, they would be one more witness that Jesus casts them out by another power.

And the only power is God’s power. So Jesus says, “But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Jesus casts out demons, not by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons. He casts them out by finger of God—the Holy Spirit. That phrase alone should have made these Jews think twice about Jesus’ power. In the days of Moses, when Jannes and Jambres couldn’t replicate the plague of lice, they told Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God” (Ex. 8:19). When Moses was on Mt. Sinani, the Lord gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God (Ex. 31:18). Just as the Lord, with His finger, destroyed the gods of Egypt with ten plagues and engraved His will in stone for Israel, Jesus destroys Satan’s reign in this individual, frees him from the devil’s slavery, and shows us His holy will: to break and hinder every evil plan and will of the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh that sets itself against His will.

Jesus comes to bring God’s kingdom to men, to reign in men’s hearts with His word and Spirit. And to that means that men must first be freed from Satan’s kingdom. “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger one than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.” Jesus is the stronger one. He enters the world, the devil’s palace which he rules, fully armed with deep guile and great might. Jesus overcomes the devil, strips him of his armor which He used to keep humanity imprisoned in his kingdom. Jesus, victorious over the strong man, divides the spoils of Satan’s kingdom, making those He rescues His victory over the devil as well. This is Jesus’ work: to destroy the work of the devil by to earn forgiveness of sins for all mankind, to earn perfect righteousness for all mankind, and to clearly teach us God’s word and will, so that all who believe in Him have the forgiveness He won, the righteousness He earned, and the Holy Spirit so that they, too, might be victorious over the devil’s temptations each and every day.  No, Jesus is not in league with the devil, for “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” It is the devil who scatters. It is the Christ who gathers men into His kingdom and give them freedom from all the devil works and ways.

Jesus still frees sinners from the captivity of the devil using the finger of God. Demon possession is a real threat to those who do not believe in Christ, especially those who play around with demonic instruments masquerading as games and silly outings. But demon possession, for the Christian, is a picture of life apart from faith in Christ. There is no middle, neutral ground between Christ and the devil. One’s heart is either a home for evil spirits or a home for the Holy Spirit. All people are, by birth, enslaved to the devil and captives in his kingdom and the devil is strong. Never doubt that. Jesus calls him a strong man, fully armed. But Jesus is one stronger, and He rescues sinners from Satan’s servitude by baptizing them and by preaching His Holy Spirit into their hearts. He creates faith in our hearts through the means of grace, and that faith receives the forgiveness of sins and justifies us in God’s sight. The faith He creates in us through baptism, preaching, He sustains and grows through baptism, preaching, and the sacrament of His body and blood, strengthening His reign in our hearts, for Jesus says in John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” He dwells in our hearts by faith, reigns over us by His gospel, and give us the Holy Spirit so that He might be victorious over the temptations of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh by the same power with which He cast out demons.

He does not free us from the devil’s kingdom so that we might then build our own kingdom, reign over our own hearts, and live however we see fit. To receive the gospel and imagine that it frees us from devil but does not put us in God’s kingdom, where we live under His will and rule, is to have Him sweep the house of our heart and garnish it but leave it empty. But houses are built to have an occupant. And the house that is unoccupied will soon find itself occupied by squatters. Jesus warns against receive God’s grace in vain by telling us what happens when an unclean spirit goes out of a man. “He goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” When we imagine God frees us to ourselves and not to His kingdom, the strong man will return with other temptations and sins, and occupy the home of our heart, and the latter end is worse for us than the beginning (2 Ptr 2:20).

This is not Christ’s will for us. He frees us from Satan’s kingdom so that we might live with Him in His kingdom, enjoying the forgiveness of our sins and growing in our love for God and our neighbors. How does He keep us in His kingdom? And how do we keep Him in our hearts? A woman cried out at the end of today’s gospel, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!” She is correct. All generations shall call Mary blessed. But Jesus points us to a better blessedness than being the mother of God when He replies, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” The one who hears God’s word and keeps it before their eyes, in their hearts, and lives according to it, is truly a blessed one. For the Son of God only dwelt in Mary’s womb for nine months, but He dwells perpetually with His grace and mercy in the hearts of all those who hear the word of God and keep it. Jesus has come to destroy the works of the devil, in His ministry, by His suffering and death, by His resurrection, ascension, so that He might bring you out of the devil’s kingdom into His own and keep you there even as you hear His word and keep it. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Luke 17:20-36
Lord’s Prayer: 2nd & 3rd Petition

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

“The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” It appears that everyone, even the Pharisees, thought the kingdom of God would be the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. They looked for a kingdom that was of this world, a patch of land with a government, laws, and a king. Jesus teaches them otherwise. The kingdom of God isn’t a kingdom that comes with observation—meaning it isn’t something seen with the eyes. It is a spiritual kingdom, “For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you,” says Christ. God will not reign over a patch of land with a government, laws, and a king. God reigns in men’s hearts, and men’s hearts can never be ruled by an external government, laws, and a king. A worldly kingdom can only rule over men’s bodies and property. The kingdom of God is within you. God reigns in the heart.

How does God’s kingdom come in our hearts? Luther says, “When the heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word, and lead godly lives, here in time and there in eternity.” God rules in our hearts by His Holy Spirit, who comes us through the external word—the word that is preached to us, the word that we read from the page of Scripture, the visible words of Baptism and the Sacrament—so that He might give us new hearts. The heart in which God reigns repents of its sins each day. The heart in which God reigns believes the gospel and receives the forgiveness of sins. The heart in which God reigns wants to live a godly life according to God’s word—in thankfulness to God, but also because it sees that live lived according to God’s word is the best life. The godly life isn’t one of outward fasting and outward disciplines—although those are good exercises—but as Paul says in Romans 14:17, “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Righteousness, because we are justified by faith, righteous in God’s sight, without spot and blemish before our God. Peace, because where sins are forgiven there is no wrath of God to fear. Joy, because where sins are forgiven and no longer remembered, the heart is lightened and rejoices in God’s graciousness. External works follow, to be sure. But they are the result of the fact that Gods kingdom is within us, that He rules over our heart, mind, and conscience, with the gospel.

We call this God’s Kingdom of Grace. Christ goes on to tell us how He will come again in glory. “For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day.” When Christ returns, all who have belonged to His Kingdom of Grace will be brought into His Kingdom of Glory. This is Christ’s reign over all things visibly, not a millennial reign upon the earth, but His eternal reign over all things in which we will experienced eternal righteousness, joy, and peace. When we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” we are praying that God would give us His Holy Spirit now—here, in time, through His means of grace—and that we persevere in God’s kingdom until the end—our death or Christ’s return in glory, whichever comes first. This is God’s will for us, and, having our wills sanctified by the Holy Spirit, our will, too.

But there are forces that do not want you, or any Chrisitan, to persevere in faith until the end. There are wills other than God’s at work in this world. The devil, the world in which we live, and even our own sinful flesh wants to keep us from hallowing God’s name. God’s name is hallowed when His word is taught purely and correctly, and when we, as children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. So, the will of the devil, the world, and the very flesh in which we live, is that God’s word is distorted, and we live distorted lives according to His distorted word. Nor does the devil, the world, and our own flesh want God’s kingdom to come among us. They don’t want God to reign in our hearts. They want to reign in our hearts as an unholy trinity, so that we live the kind of lives they want us to live.

In 2 Timothy 3, St. Paul describes how the evil triumvirate of the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh desire men to live. They want men to be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power (2 Tim 3:2-5). The devil would tempt us to all these sins, and more, in the course of our lives. The world is no help to us. Its influence is pervasive. It glorifies everything the devil desires us to be. Our own flesh, created good but corrupted by the sin we inherit from our first parents, is eager to follow the devi’s promptings and the world’s prodding. An honest appraisal of our flesh will sound like St. Paul’s appraisal of his flesh in Romans 7:18, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells.”

This is why Christ then teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And just as God’s name is holy in itself; just as God’s kingdom comes even without our prayer, so God’s will is done even without prayers. We pray this so that God’s will may done among us also. How is God’s will done? Luther teaches us what God’s good and gracious will is and how it is done among us. “When God breaks and hinders every evil plan and will — like the will of the devil, the world and our flesh —that would keep us from hallowing God’s name and prevent His kingdom from coming; and when He strengthens and keeps us steadfast in His Word and faith until the end. This is His good and gracious will.” Too many Christians in our world think God’s will is a hidden plan God has for their lives, so that they have to constantly decipher God’s will based on signs and hunches. This is no better than ancient superstition which sought to divine the will of their gods by signs in creation. We certainly pray that God’s will would be done in our daily decisions and we ask for His guidance, but we make our decisions based on God’s word, and if it is about something neither commanded nor forbidden, we use our sanctified common sense and do what we think it best for ourselves, our closest neighbors, and God’s glory. When Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done,” He is teaching us to pray about God’s will that we hallow His name and that His kingdom comes among us, so that He reigns in our hearts by faith, and that we remain in this until the end.

“Until the end” is a dire phrase, but a necessary one, when we consider the power and guile our enemies possess. It is also a necessary phrase when we consider that we do not know when our end will be, whether the end of our life or Christ’s return. He will return to bring us into His kingdom of glory—everlasting blessedness—at a time when no one expects. He tells us simply that the days of the Son of Man will be like the days before the flood destroyed the world, or fire and brimstone destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. It will be days of eating and drinking, men marrying wives and women being given in marriage, buying, selling, planting, and building. It will be days in which there is little concern for God’s kingdom—His reign in men’s hearts—and concern only for the things of this life. In other words, it will be a time in which the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh lead many astray so that they follow their own will rather than God’s. Since our Lord Jesus could return any day, we pray each day that His will be done: That He would break and hinder those wills opposed to His—even within ourselves—and strengthen and keep us steadfast in His Word and faith until the end, whenever that may be.

And we pray this with confidence because, as Luther teaches us, “This is His good and gracious will.” The apostle John tells us, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8), those that He works directly and those He works through the world and our flesh. Do not doubt that God wants to break and hinder the devil’s will for you, the world’s will for you, and your own sinful flesh’s will for you. Do not doubt that He wants to strengthen you by giving you His Holy Spirit, so that you believe His holy Word, and lead godly lives, here in time and there in eternity. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Lk 11:13). Don’t doubt that He wants to keep you steadfast in His word and faith until the end. This is His good and gracious will. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds Christ Jesus. Amen.

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1 Thessalonians 4:1-7 & Matthew 15:21-28

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

Jesus travels outside the boarders of ancient Israel to the region of Tyre and Sidon. This is Canaanite country. While Tyre was an ally of king David and Solomon, the most infamous Sidonian in the Old Testament is the woman is Jezebel, daughter of the Sidonian king, wife of king Ahab, and the one who brought Baal worship into Israel. Recently in our study of Ezekiel we’ve hear how Tyre would be giddy with glee in Jerusalem’s fall and say, “Aha! She is broken who was the gateway of the peoples; now she is turned over to me; I shall be filled; she is laid waste” (Ezek 26:2). Tyre and Sidon were types of the wicked world in the prophets on more than one occasion, whom the Lord would destroy on account of their pride. The region of Tyre and Sidon was definitely not the house of Israel.

Yet, Jesus’ fame had spread to that region. In Mark 3, “a great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea  and Jerusalem and Idumea and beyond the Jordan; and those from Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they heard how many things He was doing, came to Him” (3:7-8). In Mark’s account of today’s gospel, he tells us that when Jesus came to the region, “He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden” (7:24). When a certain who’s daughter is demon possessed hears that Jesus is in the area, she won’t miss her opportunity. She cries out to Jesus, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.” Here in the region of Tyre and Sidon, Canaanite country, a woman believes in Jesus. She’s heard the report about Jesus, how He can cast demons out of people. She’s heard the report about Jesus, that He is merciful to those who come to Him in humble faith. But she’s heard and believes a bit more. She’s heard—and she believes—that Jesus is the Son of David, the long-promised Messiah. Even though she’s of Canaanite descent, not part of the house of Israel to whom the Messiah was promised, she believes Jesus to be the Messiah and comes to Him in her hour of utmost need.

“But He answered her not a word” Matthew writes. He flat out ignores the poor woman. The disciples come to Him and urge Him to send her away. What is interesting at this point is that Jesus does not send her away. He says—to the disicples, but within this woman’s hearing— “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This is similar to what He told the twelve when He sent them out in Matthew 10[:5-8], “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” Israel had been the incubator of the Messiah for centuries. It was only right that Israel have opportunity to receive the Messiah first. Paul says in Romans 1:16 that the gospel is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. This isn’t racist. It’s not xenophobic. It’s the order God had prescribed. Christ comes first to Israel, then the gentiles.

The woman persists. “Lord, help me,” she says as she falls down before Him. Then He speaks more difficult words. “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” He has ignored her. He has said that He hasn’t come to help people like her. Now He calls her a dog. How many of us would have given up after being ignored? How many of us would still be there when He said, “I didn’t come for people like you?” How many of us wouldn’t have sighed in frustration and hurt, turned from Jesus, and left? Why doesn’t this woman do that? Faith. She believes the reports about Jesus, that He is merciful and compassionate, even at the moment when Christ sounds as if He were the exact opposite. She believes that He is the Son of David—the Messiah—and that He not cast out anyone who comes to Him in faith. So she says, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” She says to Jesus, “I may not be a child of Abraham, with a seat at Your table of blessings. But I’ll settle for being a dog who can snatch up the crumbs.” This woman may not be a biologically descendent of Jacob, but she’s more like Jacob than most Israelites.  so much that she grabs hold of Jesus by faith, and like Jacob wrestling with God, says, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” (Gen 32:26).

Jesus had said that He was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Here in the region of Tyre and Sidon, He found one. She wasn’t a child of Israel by blood, but she was by faith. And that’s far better than being an Israelite by blood who does not have faith in Christ. Paul, who was a child of Israel by blood and faith says it this way in Romans 9[:6-8], “For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.’ That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.” Faith in God’s promise is what makes a person a member of Israel, just as God gave that name to Jacob after a night of wrestling Him, refusing to let God go until He had been blessed. This is what Jesus sees in this Canaanite woman, and why He answers her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

God often does this very thing to those who come to Him in need. He does not often answer our prayers immediately, but is silent, answering us not a word. He does this to test our faith, that is, to exercise it and strengthen it. Remember, Jesus did not send the Canaanite woman away. He did not cast her out. He exercised her faith to show her, His disciples, and you, what faith does. Faith believes the word of Jesus, applies it to oneself, and clings to His word regardless of what it looks like externally, no matter how long it takes for Him to answer. David demonstrates this faith in Psalm 130[:5-6] when he prays, “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord More than those who watch for the morning — Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.” Luther paraphrases David’s words: “And though it tarries till the night and till the morning waken, My heart shall never doubt His might, Nor count itself forsaken. Do thus, O ye of Israel’s seed, Ye of the Spirit born indeed; Wait for your God’s appearing” (TLH 329:4). Being a member of Israel by faith, this is how we always ought to pray and not lose heart (Lk 18:1). And when the Lord answers, then we have a double blessing. We have that which we asked, as well as a faith that is stronger than it was when we first believed, so that we abound more and more as St. Paul says at the beginning of today’s epistle.

It is God’s will that we abound more and more in faith towards God—trusting His promises, clinging to His Word, submitting to Him in the midst of afflictions. This is why He exercises His saints through hardships, afflictions, and crosses. It is also includes our sanctification. He gives us His Holy Spirit so that as we use His promises more and more each day, we also abound more and more in holiness. The example Paul gives in the epistle is the holiness of body that avoids sexual immorality of every kind. Living by faith in God’s promise and desiring to walk in His will, we possess our vessels—our bodies—in holiness and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.  This is for our benefit and the benefit of our neighbor, whether that neighbor be our spouse or someone else’s. Since we are children of Israel by faith, we do not live as the gentiles, by which Paul means unbelievers. Since we are children at the table, which Christ has set with His blessings and benefits—forgiveness and salvation, peace and joy in the heart, the Holy Spirit and new life—we do not live as those outside the house live. But as obedient children we want to live as God has called us, and God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Many Christians have forgotten this, imagining that holiness is a gift only instantaneously given upon entering paradise. But not only Christ gave Himself into death the forgiveness of our sins; He gave His Holy Spirit for the abolition and purging of our sins, so that might cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor 7:1).

This is God’s will for us: that as His people—His Israel who trusts His promises—we abound more and more in faith and in holiness, both of which He exercises us in daily. May God grant this to us all. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Matthew 15:1-20
Lord’s Prayer: Introduction & 1st Petition

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

When Jesus teaches us to pray, He first teaches us to approach God—His Father—as our father. God is our father because He has created us. Malachi asks, “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?” (Mal 2:10). While in Athens, St. Paul quotes the Greek poet Aratus’ saying of God, “For we are also His offspring” (Acts 17:28). God is the father of all mankind in the sense that we are His creatures. But this isn’t what Jesus means when He teaches us to pray, “Our father, who art in heaven.” He teaches us to pray, not as creatures of the Father, but creatures whom He has adopted as sons. He adopts us through the gospel. John [1:12] says, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” Peter says that God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Ptr 1:3). He does this by created faith in us through the gospel and through baptism, the washing of regeneration, or rebirth (Titus 3:5). It is in this sense, as God’s adopted children, adopted for the sake of His only begotten Son, Jesus, in which our Lord teaches us to approach God as our father. This is why Luther teaches us in the catechism, “With these words, God would invite us to believe that He is our true Father, and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we should ask Him, as dear children ask their dear father.

Believing God to be our true father, we know He will give us only those things that are good for us. Jesus tells us in Matthew 7[:9-11], “What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Only a sadistic man who hates God and himself will give his child something that could harm them. Sadly, such men exist in our fallen world. Generally, however, earthly fathers want to give their children good things. If earthly fathers—who are sinful men—know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more does God the Father—who has made us accepted in His beloved Son—give us good things? Or, as Paul says in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” This is spirit in which we pray: not as creatures, but as children who are dear to God as His only begotten Son is dear to Him. With this, Jesus teaches us approach God our Father in humble confidence and heartfelt trust that He hears us and will lovingly answer our prayer.

But Jesus doesn’t leave us to own devices. He teaches us what we should pray for as well. This reminds us that prayer is something we must be taught. It doesn’t come naturally to us because of the sinful nature. Jesus teaches us to pray in the Sermon on the Mount, while in Luke’s gospel He teaches the Our Father when one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). Jesus has mercy upon His disciples—then and now—and teaches them not only how to approach God in prayer, He teaches them the things for which they ought to pray.

For what are to ask our father who art in heaven? “Hallowed be Thy name.” To hallow something is to make it holy. And Luther gets right to the heart of the matter when he says, God’s name is certainly holy in itself; but we ask in this prayer that it may be made holy among us also.” Luther echoes Leviticus 22:32, “You shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel.” God’s name is holy, sanctified, set apart from all other names because He is the only God. His name remains holy whether Israel hallowed it among themselves or not. So that’s what we’re asking: that we hallow God’s name, that we sanctify God’s name, that we keep His name holy among us.

And what is His name? Jehovah in the old English translations, but that’s really a mistranslation of the Hebrew Yahweh. Yahweh is the personal name that God gave to Moses. When Moses asks for God’s name, He answers, “I AM WHO I AM. Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you. Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’” (Ex 3:14-15). The name He gives to Moses is Yahweh, which means “I AM” or “The One Who Is.” He also says in Isaiah 42:8, “I am the LORD, that is My name.” It was translated as Jehovah, but in modern times it is simply translated as LORD in a smaller font size. The Jews were so afraid of taking God’s name in vain that they simply stopped using it, and that began the tradition of placing Yahweh with Adoni, or LORD, when translating the Old Testament into English. And while we hallow God’s name—Yahweh, Jehovah, God, Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—we ask in this petition for more than simply keeping God’s personal designation set apart and sacred so that we use it lie, curse, swear, and the like.

God’s name is an extension of His person. It includes His entire reputation, characteristics, descriptions, and His teaching that He’s revealed to us in the Scriptures. God’s person, reputation, characteristics, and His teach is all holy in itself, but we ask in this prayer that it may be made holy among us also. How do we hallow God’s name? Since God’s name is His teaching, His Word, God’s name is hallowed “when God’s Word is taught purely and correctly, and when we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it.” God cannot be separated from His Word, since that is where He reveals Himself.  To keep God’s word holy is to keep His name holy. The preacher hallows God’s name by preaching God’s word purely and correctly, and by living a holy life according to God’s Word. His hearers—you—hear that word purely and correctly taught and hold it sacred by believing it and living holy lives according to it. To teach or live differently from God’s word profanes God’s name. This is why it’s so important for us to flee false doctrine and fellowship with false teachers. How can we live according to God’s word if we don’t know God’s word or have a falsified interpretation of it? This can only come by God’s grace, so Luther writes, “Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven!” And since preaching and living differently from God’s word profanes His name, we pray in this petition as well, “Guard us against this, O heavenly Father!” As His baptized children, we do not want to profane His name.

Jesus shows us this very thing in the gospel we hear read earlier. The Pharisees had profaned God’s name by teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. They weren’t teaching God’s word purely and correctly. They added their own traditions and superstitions to God’s commandments, so that neither they nor their hearers could possibly live holy lives according to God’s holy word. Rather than teaching people to honor father and mother, they taught it was holier to donate money to the temple than use it to care for their aging parents. Like the ceremonial washing of one’s hands, they cleansed the outside so that it appeared clean, holy, and just, while the inside—their hearts and minds—were defiled with sin, especially self-righteousness. They couldn’t live holy lives, nor could their hearers, because they refused to recognize their hearts at the fountainhead of sin within them. Only by recognizing the sinful root seeking forgiveness and a new heart from God could they begin to live holy lives. But the external is always easier, and it allows the Old Adam to remain in command. Jesus tells His disciples precisely what do with them: Leave them alone. God will uproot them in His time and His way. Such is the fate of those who do not hallow God’s name in their preaching and life.

But to those who want to hallow God’s name among themselves, who want God’s word taught purely and correctly, so that they can live holy lives according to it, Jesus explains the parable. He teaches His disciples what the Pharisees refuse to admit: that what comes out of a man’s mouth is what defiles him, because those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart. And only God can give a new heart, and that only comes by the Holy Spirit’s working contrition, faith in the gospel. And faith in the gospel is what makes us new so that we begin to live holy lives according to God’s holy word. And that can only come when God’s word is taught correctly and purely. May God grant this to us all, as a body of believers and individually, that we hallow God’s name, so that God’s Word is taught purely and correctly, and when we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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2 Corinthians 6.1-10 & Matthew 4.1-11

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

At His baptism Jesus is revealed as the Messiah. The heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:16-17). Having been publicly revealed to be the Messiah—the Christ—Jesus doesn’t go to Jerusalem. He doesn’t begin to teach God’s word and correct the doctrinal perversions of the scribes and Pharisees. The Holy Spirit leads Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He humbles His flesh by fasting forty days and forty nights, then He humbles Himself by allowing Himself to be tempted by the devil.

Why did eternal Son of God—the Word made flesh—allow Himself to be tempted? The author of Hebrews explains in his second chapter, “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Heb 2:17-18). In the womb of the Virgin Mary, God the Son assumed our human flesh and was made like us in all things so that He might be our High Priest, our Mediator with God. All things includes temptation. The same author writes in chapter 4[:15-16], “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Jesus was tempted for our comfort. He knows our temptations intimately and can sympathize with us in temptation. He was tempted for our aid, so that He might give His victory over temptation to us by faith and live His victory over temptation in us by faith. With this in mind, let’s look at the three temptations the devil attacks Christ with.

The first seems simple enough. Jesus is hungry after fasting forty days and forty nights. The tempter comes to Jesus and says, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” In this temptation we see so many of our temptations. The devil—or our own sinful flesh—points out that we’re lacking something, and then tempts us to get what we lack by our own power and devices. It’s the temptation to take daily bread into our own hands. If God hasn’t provided something for us that we want, even something we need, the devil, the world, and our flesh tell us to get it ourselves. The Spirit led Him into the wilderness where there wasn’t any food. If it were God the Father’s will that Jesus have food and drink, He wouldn’t have led Him into the wilderness or He would have miraculously provided it like He provided bread for Israel in the wilderness. The devil’s temptation is simply, “God isn’t giving you daily bread so get it yourself. Turn these stones into bread.”

And Jesus is truly tempted. It would be a play act if He weren’t. But He doesn’t give in. He fends off the devil’s temptation, not with divine might, nor with miracle, but with Scripture. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” Jesus shows the devil’s suggestion for what it is: an invitation to doubt God’s care. Jesus cites part of  Deuteronomy 8:3, and if we look at rest of the verse—and the one that comes before it—we see how Jesus understands His time in the wilderness. The Lord had said: “You shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD” (Dt 8:2-3). Jesus’ lack of bread in the wilderness is a test from His heavenly Father, an opportunity for Jesus to exercise His faith in His Father’s provision. Jesus is in effect telling Satan, “My Father will provide bread for Me when it is good for Me and for those I have come to serve.” Jesus trusted that His Father would provide for His life, because it isn’t bread alone that upholds man’s life, but God’s Word which gives life.

Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” This temptation runs into a different direction. It’s as if the devil were saying, “Fine, you trust in Your heavenly Father. I get that. Prove it, or rather, make Him prove His word, after all, ‘It is written.’” This temptation, too, is a temptation to doubt the Father’s goodness and wisdom. But to do this would be to misuse God’s promise. Jesus responds, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’” Jesus cites Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not tempt the LORD your God as you tempted Him in Massah.” There, Israel had demanded water and complained that God had brought them out of Egypt just to kill them with thirst. Israel demanded God fulfill His promises in their time and in their way. So, here at the pinnacle of the temple, Jesus will not tempt His Father in heaven by demanding He fulfill His word in a certain way. He will not demand his Father prove His goodness. Like the first temptation, the second is a temptation to doubt and disbelief God’s word, goodness, and wisdom. The difference is that the second temptation hides itself under a false and hypocritical use of the Word.

Finally, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” The third temptation is to forsake the ways of God for the ways of the devil. It’s idolatry, to be sure, but idolatry that would achieve glory, pomp, and power for Jesus. The devil knows God had promised the Messiah in Psalm 2:8, “Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession.” Once again, the devil tempts Christ to circumvent God’s Word—as well the humiliation and suffering of the cross—to rule over the nations. The devil will give Jesus the world, but Jesus must conform to the world’s ways, which are the devil’s ways. We are all to familiar with this temptation. You can get what you want if you go along with the crowd, if you compromise your beliefs, if you sell your soul to the devil. But Jesus cuts through this temptation, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Jesus will not obtain His inheritance in any other way than the way marked out for Him by the Father: humility, suffering, and cross. All three of the devil’s temptations are one and the same: forsake God word and ways and walk in my words and ways instead, and I will give you all God promises but faster, better, and without suffering.

Jesus was tempted—and victorious—for our comfort and aid when we are tempted. He was tempted in in all points as we are tempted. Jesus’ temptations are our temptations, for every temptation we face is temptation to forsake the path of faith in God’s promises and get for ourselves what God has promised to give. Since Jesus knows by experience our temptations so that we may come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:16]. He was victorious over temptation in His human flesh so that He might give His victory over temptation to us, and it is ours by faith. All who believe in Christ Jesus receive the forgiveness of their sins and Christ’s perfect righteousness in God’s sight, including His victory over the devil. He was also victorious over temptation in His human flesh so that He might live His victory over temptation in all who believe in Him. Christ promises mercy and grace, strength and fortitude in the midst of every temptation, so that we might stand against it and overcome. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us not only through the forgiveness of sins acquired by Christ, but also through the abolition, the purging, and the mortification of sins. By the Holy Spirt, we resist temptations as Christ resisted them, by relying upon the words of God, Holy Scripture, that which is written. Jesus’ victory over the devil is ours by faith. Since the Head was victorious, the body enjoys that blessing, an all who believe in Him are the body of Christ. He wants to live out that victory in us each day, so that we increase in faith which trusts God’s Words, lives according to it, and rebuffs the devil whenever and however he approaches in the same way Lord Jesus did: Confident trust in God’s Word, so that we can say, “It is written.” Amen.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.