This week is busy with so many side projects. I spent almost all day today playing plumber trying to get the sink in the fellowship hall unclogged. Then I think we are power washing the paint off my house this evening to get it ready for painting some time in the next week or so. I am also trying to get my basement dried out as I had water pouring in under the one window. I had to pull back the carpet and get the floor dry, now I am trying to dry out the carpet with dehumidifiers and fans. I also need to finish my landscaping project which I think would have been a huge help in keeping water out of the basement. If I can get the landscaping done, and we get the house painted that will be two HUGE projects done and crossed off the list.
Here is my sermon from Ascension Day. I tweaked it a little as I actually preached it, but then after preaching Sunday's sermon I couldn't remember all the little changes I made. This is the original manuscript though. I will post my sermon from yesterday in a post today too. Enjoy!
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text for this evening comes from the Epistle Lesson of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This opening section of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is very complex and he manages to say so much in just these few verses. Paul is using prayer to give thanks for the faith of the Ephesians, and he clearly states everything he is praying for. Now we are not going to look at everything Paul is praying for today, rather we are going to focus in on one small, but very important, part of Paul’s prayer. Since this is Ascension Thursday I think it is only appropriate that we focus on the ascension that Paul includes in this prayer. Paul does not just flat out re-tell the event of the ascension, but we heard that in both the readings from Act’s and Luke’s Gospel. Paul does however include the ascension in verses 19 to 21, which will be our focus: “according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” This is the ascension of our Christ that Paul adds to the opening of his letter. However, as simple as it is, it paints a picture that may not be seen unless you stop and really think about this event. I want to verbally paint this picture for you, and then as I continue through my sermon, hopefully the picture will become clearer and clearer for you until you are able to leave here with its full beauty in your mind. The picture of ascension that I want to paint for you is the same picture that I have in my mind every time I recite the Apostle’s Creed. When we confess that “He ascended in heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead”, I see Jesus our Lord, or a better title for this picture is our King, our triumphant King, in all his glory and majesty, glorified in the flesh but still has the scars on His hands, feet and side, dressed in the whitest robe we have ever seen, sitting on a beautiful majestic throne of gold, His throne which is attached to the throne upon which the Father is seated, and Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, reigning above all other powers and dominions both of this earth and of all spiritual forces, and as He sits upon this throne in glory. He is our King, our victorious King reigning over all of creation from His throne.
Paul sent this letter to the Ephesians. The Ephesians are a relatively young church when Paul send them this letter and they have a mixed crowd of newcomers to the faith and those who have been in the faith for quite awhile. However, they are not a church in the way we think of today. They do not have a firm established tradition of how things have always been done, they do not have generations of more elder Christians leading and guiding the younger Christians, they do not have boards and committees to keep organized structure in their faith life. They are really just a bunch of believers who gather to worship or in this case hear Paul’s letter. Nevertheless, they are all going to have to deal with sin and death. It is part of our sinful world and Paul knows this. The devil tempts these Christians to try to drive them away from their faith. The devil’s ultimate goal is to drive these newly faithful people to complete and utter despair, leaving them feeling completely abandoned and alone. Then he is able to get them to doubt God, and they may even be foolish enough to reject their faith. The devil will use tragedies, their persecution, natural disasters, and unexplainable deaths to bring about their despair. He is constantly lurking in the shadows, waiting for one of them to be alone and weak. He is constantly a threat to their faith because he is able to use their sinful nature to get them to stray from God and His ways. The devil, sin, and death in this world are their enemies. These things are what shake the faith of the Ephesians and make these followers of Christ question what they really believe.
Paul, however, has the same picture I began to paint for you in his mind as he writes this letter to the Ephesians. He can see the Son of God sitting on His throne and this is why He includes Christ’s Ascension in the opening to his letter. He includes the resurrection and ascension because this is the victory our king has won for His people. The devil, sin, and death are the enemies, trying to constantly make Christians fall away from their faith and essentially away from God. But this is the entire reason Christ took on flesh. Through His death, His resurrection, and His ascension, He completely defeated these enemies of His people. Christ won the victory over sin, death, and the devil by being the perfect sacrifice, by paying the price that no human ever could, and by being the King who triumphantly won the battle. Paul, knowing the troubles and strife’s that these new believers are going to face, and he is reminding them that they can put their trust in their triumphant king who reigns above all other powers and dominions, including sin, death, and the devil.
So these Ephesians hear the good news of their triumphant king from Paul in his letter to them, and this allows them to put their trust in Christ. But what does that mean for us? Many of you are probably saying to yourself, “Come on Vicar, of course we know Christ won over sin, death, and the devil. We hear this message every week.” And knowing you all, I do honestly believe you do know that Christ is our Savior. However, just because we know the message, does not necessarily mean we always believe it in its full entirety. Because you see it is almost impossible for us to wrap our human minds around the fact that God sacrificed His own Son, in order to save us horrible sinners. We are his fallen race that He should have damned to hell, but instead He sent His own Son to receive His wrath and the full wages of our sins. This is where the fourth use of the law comes into play. Now since you are all good Lutherans, you may have thought you heard me wrong when I said the fourth use of the law. Because every good Lutheran knows there are only three uses to the law. However, the honorable Dr. Kolb a professor at the seminary and also one of the two men who translated the Book of Concord, talks about a fourth use of the law. The fourth use is also sometimes called the demonic use of the law. Because when faithful people know and understand the first three uses of the law, and they use the three uses to repent often, the devil does not like this. So he tempts them to sin, but even when he can get them to stumble, they immediately turn to Christ and receive His forgiveness. So the devil, tricky as he is, tries a different approach. Instead of tempting them to keep sinning, he simply whispers in their ears, “You really think the Lord forgives you. You of all people, who sin daily, you think you are good enough for Him? You cannot be serious, you cannot really believe that you, you dirty rotten sinner, are saved from everything you do wrong!” And maybe at first we do not listen to him, but the devil is a persistent guy, and he just keeps getting us to stumble and then immediately whispers the lines of doubt in our ears. Haven’t you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt so dirty of your sins, or so guilty about something you did, and were just so plain ashamed that you did not want to pray to the Lord? I know I have felt this way at times. I think we have all had those times when the devil tricks us into believing that yes we know the price Christ paid, and we know He forgives sins, but His Gospel, His grace cannot possibly be for us personally. It cannot really be that easy to just be free from all our sins by confessing them and receiving the words of absolution. This is how the devil gets us. And even though we are an established church with a rich history and firm foundation of tradition and structure, we still have new believers and young believers in our midst just like the Ephesians. And if we, who have been faithful members of this church for years, can fall into the devils trap of doubt and questioning, just think how easy it is for them to question if they are truly forgiven.
So what do we do? Do we just keep saying that we believe in Christ’s grace and forgiveness of sins, push the doubt to the back of our heart, and hope that on judgment day it is not enough to keep us out of heaven? To use Paul’s famous answer, Absolutely Not! We hear in this text today, Paul telling the Ephesians, but it is still true for us also that all authority and all dominion are under Christ’s feet. The devil still roams this world, we still stumble to sin, and these bodies of ours will wear out and death happens. However, Christ who is our king has power and dominion over all of these. Our king came to earth to fight the good fight. He fought the battle against sin, death, and the devil. And He WON! How do we know He won? Because of this special day we are here to celebrate today. See if Christ had just died, He would have paid the wages of sin, but He would not have defeated death. And even if He had been resurrected and defeated death, if He had not ascended into Heaven, we would not have the hope of life with Him in heaven. In our Hymn of the day we sang the line “On Christ’s ascension I now build the hope of my ascension!” See when Christ ascended into heaven He officially proclaimed that His work was complete. Everything He came to do on earth, He had accomplished. And it is because He ascended into Heaven as the victor, that we too are able to have the hope of eternal life with Him in heaven. He is our victorious king who went home to sit in His throne.
See in the Old Testament when an enemy would be a threat or be attacking the people, the king of the people would go out with his troops to battle. He would watch the battle to know if he had won or not. Then when he won, he would return to his city and sit in his throne which was on the gate of the city where everyone could see it from the city. He would come back and sit in this throne to let everyone know that the battle was over, the victory was won. His sitting in that throne was the sign to all the people that He had been victorious and had kept them all safe from their enemies. He was back in his throne reigning over them, watching over them because they were now safe with their enemies being pushed back and wiped out. This is the same message we get after Christ’s ascension. Christ came to earth to fight the battle. When He had officially won and completely defeated the enemy, He returned home to His city again. And He sat in His throne at the right hand of the Father, where He still sits today. He is sitting on His throne over the gates letting all of His people, you and me and all the baptized faithful children of God, know that He is back from fighting, He was victorious in His fight, and His people are safe from their enemies as He reigns and watches over us. We do not have to doubt if His forgiveness is for us or if His grace is really for us. Our King sitting in His throne where we can see Him, knowing He was victorious and His victory is ours because we are His people, that is our assurance that His grace and forgiveness truly is 100% for you individually.
So you see that picture of Christ sitting in His throne at the right hand of the Father is not just a simple picture. It is a sweet and beautiful proclamation of the Gospel truth that assures us He is our victorious king, He has defeated our enemies, and He does reign over us, watching over and protecting us. Jesus Christ, our King reigns over all powers, authorities, and dominions, as He sits in His throne at the right hand of the Father, because He was victorious in the great battle against all enemies, and now as He sits in His throne, we never have to doubt that His victory is for all His people, including you and me.
In the name of our Triumph King, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Our text for this evening comes from the Epistle Lesson of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This opening section of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is very complex and he manages to say so much in just these few verses. Paul is using prayer to give thanks for the faith of the Ephesians, and he clearly states everything he is praying for. Now we are not going to look at everything Paul is praying for today, rather we are going to focus in on one small, but very important, part of Paul’s prayer. Since this is Ascension Thursday I think it is only appropriate that we focus on the ascension that Paul includes in this prayer. Paul does not just flat out re-tell the event of the ascension, but we heard that in both the readings from Act’s and Luke’s Gospel. Paul does however include the ascension in verses 19 to 21, which will be our focus: “according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” This is the ascension of our Christ that Paul adds to the opening of his letter. However, as simple as it is, it paints a picture that may not be seen unless you stop and really think about this event. I want to verbally paint this picture for you, and then as I continue through my sermon, hopefully the picture will become clearer and clearer for you until you are able to leave here with its full beauty in your mind. The picture of ascension that I want to paint for you is the same picture that I have in my mind every time I recite the Apostle’s Creed. When we confess that “He ascended in heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead”, I see Jesus our Lord, or a better title for this picture is our King, our triumphant King, in all his glory and majesty, glorified in the flesh but still has the scars on His hands, feet and side, dressed in the whitest robe we have ever seen, sitting on a beautiful majestic throne of gold, His throne which is attached to the throne upon which the Father is seated, and Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, reigning above all other powers and dominions both of this earth and of all spiritual forces, and as He sits upon this throne in glory. He is our King, our victorious King reigning over all of creation from His throne.
Paul sent this letter to the Ephesians. The Ephesians are a relatively young church when Paul send them this letter and they have a mixed crowd of newcomers to the faith and those who have been in the faith for quite awhile. However, they are not a church in the way we think of today. They do not have a firm established tradition of how things have always been done, they do not have generations of more elder Christians leading and guiding the younger Christians, they do not have boards and committees to keep organized structure in their faith life. They are really just a bunch of believers who gather to worship or in this case hear Paul’s letter. Nevertheless, they are all going to have to deal with sin and death. It is part of our sinful world and Paul knows this. The devil tempts these Christians to try to drive them away from their faith. The devil’s ultimate goal is to drive these newly faithful people to complete and utter despair, leaving them feeling completely abandoned and alone. Then he is able to get them to doubt God, and they may even be foolish enough to reject their faith. The devil will use tragedies, their persecution, natural disasters, and unexplainable deaths to bring about their despair. He is constantly lurking in the shadows, waiting for one of them to be alone and weak. He is constantly a threat to their faith because he is able to use their sinful nature to get them to stray from God and His ways. The devil, sin, and death in this world are their enemies. These things are what shake the faith of the Ephesians and make these followers of Christ question what they really believe.
Paul, however, has the same picture I began to paint for you in his mind as he writes this letter to the Ephesians. He can see the Son of God sitting on His throne and this is why He includes Christ’s Ascension in the opening to his letter. He includes the resurrection and ascension because this is the victory our king has won for His people. The devil, sin, and death are the enemies, trying to constantly make Christians fall away from their faith and essentially away from God. But this is the entire reason Christ took on flesh. Through His death, His resurrection, and His ascension, He completely defeated these enemies of His people. Christ won the victory over sin, death, and the devil by being the perfect sacrifice, by paying the price that no human ever could, and by being the King who triumphantly won the battle. Paul, knowing the troubles and strife’s that these new believers are going to face, and he is reminding them that they can put their trust in their triumphant king who reigns above all other powers and dominions, including sin, death, and the devil.
So these Ephesians hear the good news of their triumphant king from Paul in his letter to them, and this allows them to put their trust in Christ. But what does that mean for us? Many of you are probably saying to yourself, “Come on Vicar, of course we know Christ won over sin, death, and the devil. We hear this message every week.” And knowing you all, I do honestly believe you do know that Christ is our Savior. However, just because we know the message, does not necessarily mean we always believe it in its full entirety. Because you see it is almost impossible for us to wrap our human minds around the fact that God sacrificed His own Son, in order to save us horrible sinners. We are his fallen race that He should have damned to hell, but instead He sent His own Son to receive His wrath and the full wages of our sins. This is where the fourth use of the law comes into play. Now since you are all good Lutherans, you may have thought you heard me wrong when I said the fourth use of the law. Because every good Lutheran knows there are only three uses to the law. However, the honorable Dr. Kolb a professor at the seminary and also one of the two men who translated the Book of Concord, talks about a fourth use of the law. The fourth use is also sometimes called the demonic use of the law. Because when faithful people know and understand the first three uses of the law, and they use the three uses to repent often, the devil does not like this. So he tempts them to sin, but even when he can get them to stumble, they immediately turn to Christ and receive His forgiveness. So the devil, tricky as he is, tries a different approach. Instead of tempting them to keep sinning, he simply whispers in their ears, “You really think the Lord forgives you. You of all people, who sin daily, you think you are good enough for Him? You cannot be serious, you cannot really believe that you, you dirty rotten sinner, are saved from everything you do wrong!” And maybe at first we do not listen to him, but the devil is a persistent guy, and he just keeps getting us to stumble and then immediately whispers the lines of doubt in our ears. Haven’t you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt so dirty of your sins, or so guilty about something you did, and were just so plain ashamed that you did not want to pray to the Lord? I know I have felt this way at times. I think we have all had those times when the devil tricks us into believing that yes we know the price Christ paid, and we know He forgives sins, but His Gospel, His grace cannot possibly be for us personally. It cannot really be that easy to just be free from all our sins by confessing them and receiving the words of absolution. This is how the devil gets us. And even though we are an established church with a rich history and firm foundation of tradition and structure, we still have new believers and young believers in our midst just like the Ephesians. And if we, who have been faithful members of this church for years, can fall into the devils trap of doubt and questioning, just think how easy it is for them to question if they are truly forgiven.
So what do we do? Do we just keep saying that we believe in Christ’s grace and forgiveness of sins, push the doubt to the back of our heart, and hope that on judgment day it is not enough to keep us out of heaven? To use Paul’s famous answer, Absolutely Not! We hear in this text today, Paul telling the Ephesians, but it is still true for us also that all authority and all dominion are under Christ’s feet. The devil still roams this world, we still stumble to sin, and these bodies of ours will wear out and death happens. However, Christ who is our king has power and dominion over all of these. Our king came to earth to fight the good fight. He fought the battle against sin, death, and the devil. And He WON! How do we know He won? Because of this special day we are here to celebrate today. See if Christ had just died, He would have paid the wages of sin, but He would not have defeated death. And even if He had been resurrected and defeated death, if He had not ascended into Heaven, we would not have the hope of life with Him in heaven. In our Hymn of the day we sang the line “On Christ’s ascension I now build the hope of my ascension!” See when Christ ascended into heaven He officially proclaimed that His work was complete. Everything He came to do on earth, He had accomplished. And it is because He ascended into Heaven as the victor, that we too are able to have the hope of eternal life with Him in heaven. He is our victorious king who went home to sit in His throne.
See in the Old Testament when an enemy would be a threat or be attacking the people, the king of the people would go out with his troops to battle. He would watch the battle to know if he had won or not. Then when he won, he would return to his city and sit in his throne which was on the gate of the city where everyone could see it from the city. He would come back and sit in this throne to let everyone know that the battle was over, the victory was won. His sitting in that throne was the sign to all the people that He had been victorious and had kept them all safe from their enemies. He was back in his throne reigning over them, watching over them because they were now safe with their enemies being pushed back and wiped out. This is the same message we get after Christ’s ascension. Christ came to earth to fight the battle. When He had officially won and completely defeated the enemy, He returned home to His city again. And He sat in His throne at the right hand of the Father, where He still sits today. He is sitting on His throne over the gates letting all of His people, you and me and all the baptized faithful children of God, know that He is back from fighting, He was victorious in His fight, and His people are safe from their enemies as He reigns and watches over us. We do not have to doubt if His forgiveness is for us or if His grace is really for us. Our King sitting in His throne where we can see Him, knowing He was victorious and His victory is ours because we are His people, that is our assurance that His grace and forgiveness truly is 100% for you individually.
So you see that picture of Christ sitting in His throne at the right hand of the Father is not just a simple picture. It is a sweet and beautiful proclamation of the Gospel truth that assures us He is our victorious king, He has defeated our enemies, and He does reign over us, watching over and protecting us. Jesus Christ, our King reigns over all powers, authorities, and dominions, as He sits in His throne at the right hand of the Father, because He was victorious in the great battle against all enemies, and now as He sits in His throne, we never have to doubt that His victory is for all His people, including you and me.
In the name of our Triumph King, Jesus Christ, Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment