READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
1 Kings 17:8-16
Galatians 5:25-6:10
St. Matthew 6:24-34
To you all who are in Accident, beloved of God, called to
be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. (Rom 1)
Who speaks you this morning saying,
“But if God so
clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown
into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”
Today our Lord connects anxiety with serving false gods. The
anxiety comes from knowing, deep down, that your god is false, that he does not
hear you, that he is not coming to rescue you, and that you are wrong. As we
said last week, we look to our false gods for activity and presence in our
daily lives, counting on their power to lift us up in the moment.
Whereas the one, true God is handing out faith, forgiveness,
life and salvation, and those things rarely have a visible component to them in
our daily lives, outside of Word and Sacrament. At least one in which we can
say definitively: God loves me. Which makes the First Commandment so
frustrating to us and why we seek after other gods when the real one appears to
not care for us as He cares for the sparrows or the lilies.
On the First Commandment, Dr. Luther says, “where the
heart is rightly disposed toward God and this commandment is observed, all the
others follow” (LC 1:48). Not only will obedience to all other commandments
follow, but peace, rest, safety, and even the Kingdom of God and His
Righteousness will follow you all the days of your life (Ps 23:6).
The Law of God is necessary. By Law we don’t just mean the
Commandments, but each and every demand that God makes of us. Each and every
time God tells us to do something or gives us a conditional statement, that is
His Law. Such as St. John 14:15 where Jesus says, “If you love me, you will
keep my commandments.”
Is there room in there for discussion? The Fundamentalist
will be happy to write you out of God’s Book of Life if they don’t see you
keeping even one of the commands. More importantly is the question, is there
room for mercy? Also no. Either you get it done or you don’t. Either you keep
the command or its broken and you will not get out of
“Breaking-Commandment-prison” till you have paid the last penny, Jesus says in
St. Matthew 5:26.
Unless, of course you turn to St. Paul’s letters. For it is
there that St. Paul appears to overturn this holy Law and say things like Ephesians
2, “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken
down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by
abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might
create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and
might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing
the hostility” (v.14-16).
Among other places, here we hear of “abolishing the law of
commandments” and immediately our fundamentalist friends are triggered. That’s
anarchy! You mean everyone can just do whatever they want and be forgiven?
Blasphemy. And they would be right, if all that other stuff surrounding “keep
my commandments” did not exist.
Stuff like “if you love me”, Jesus said. Which is exactly
what the First Commandment is aiming for. And if God has to say “you shall
have no other gods” and make sure it is written down for all generations to
be taught and learn (Deut. 6:7, 11:19), it means you aren’t doing it. And since
God’s Word doesn’t change, neither does your transgression against it.
Repent! We don’t need Jesus to tell us that we love Mammon,
our money and possessions. We live it everyday. “Many a one thinks that he has
God and everything in abundance when he has money and, possessions; he trusts
in them and boasts of them with such firmness and assurance as to care for no
one”, says Dr. Luther (LC 1:5). Even on the other hand, “he who has none doubts
and is despondent, as though he knew of no God. For very few are to be found
who are of good cheer, and who neither mourn nor complain if they have not
Mammon. This [care and desire for money] sticks and clings to our nature, even
to the grave” (LC 1:8-9).
We don’t need Jesus to tell us that we have founded and
unfounded anxiety for food, drink, and clothes. We don’t need Him telling us
that we provoke one another and envy one another, as we heard from our Epistle.
We don’t need to be told that we do not restore those who sin against us, are
deceived, and mock God by failing His commandments. We know.
We are reminded every time we look in the mirror. We are
reminded every time we look at a “more successful church” and every time we see
a perfect Christian on TV. And yet this is exactly where God’s Law wants you:
weak, comfortless, and dead to the Law.
Because Jesus’ cure is to say this to us, “O ye of little
faith” in verse 30 of the Gospel. This is why St. Paul brings up the “household
of faith” at the end of our Epistle reading. Because Faith alone receives
the gift of forgiveness and salvation that God hands out.
This is why Galatians 3 says:
“Now before faith came, we were held captive under the
law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So
then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be
justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no
longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all
sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were
baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:23-27). [As Rilynn
declared to us today].
Our obedience is not the answer. Faith alone is. Have the
Commandments gone away because of this? No. They are even more in force,
because they never have and don’t point to a perfect obedience from you. They
point to a perfect obedience from the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Philippians 2:13 says, “It is God Who works in you to
will and to act according to His good purpose.” Listen to that again: It is
God Who works! It is God Who loves, God Who gives clothing and shoes, food and
drink, house and home, land, animals, and all that I have. He richly and daily
provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.
How? With His Body and Life. Faith is the primary and only
way to fulfill God’s Law. And to prevent us from having other gods, God comes
in the flesh and sets Himself up as the standard. Where false idols have no
ears, no eyes, and no heart (Habakkuk 2:19), Jesus has all those things. Where
other gods are pieces of wood, silver, or gold (Ps 96:5, 115:4-8), Christ is
living flesh. Worse yet, they turn out to be demons (Deut. 32:17) who only
desire your hurt, but God laid down His life for you.
When Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters” He
doesn’t mean there are two masters to choose from on some sort of “master
buffet table”. He means no one can do it because there is only one master. Any
other master is a figment of the imagination and turns out to be only a man.
For only a true Master can suffer and die and yet remain Master.
Remember our Ephesians 2 passage from earlier. Jesus doesn’t
simply get rid of the Law, He abolishes it in order to “…create in himself
one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and
might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing
the hostility” (v.14-16).
You are just dying to be your own master and god and that is
the hostility created between you and God when God gives His Law. But the Law
is not given to create hostility. It is there to show the great love God has
for you. It is there to show the lengths God is going to go to retrieve you
from your sin. It is there as a path for the God-man to follow and win
salvation for you.
2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves, to see
whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about
yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the
test!” Examine yourself to see, not whether you have followed the commands
and not whether you have faith, but whether you are in the faith. Christ being
placed in us is how we are “in the faith”. And the only objective certainty of
Christ being placed in us is Word and Sacrament. [Baptism]
Not one Christian fails this test because the outcome is not
based on whether or not you feel that Jesus is in you, but whether or not you
can prove to God and to everyone else that He is there. Your works of the Law
won’t do it. You keeping of the commands won’t do either, as we have already
explained.
The work of Christ does prove it, though. The work of Christ
which opens ears to receive faith and believe. The work of Christ which
baptizes and saves and the work of Christ which feeds and forgives. If you take
our Old Testament reading as this example, Elijah “not being anxious” did not
put flour and oil in the widow’s jars day after day. Faith did.
And as we said last week, faith saves. It makes you well,
gives you peace, and saves you. And this faith only comes from the one true
God, whom we should fear, love, and trust above all things. Having no other
gods means never ascribing the suffering, death, and resurrection to anyone
apart from Jesus Christ.
Thus, Faith ascents to being baptized. Faith agrees to eat
and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus. Faith allows for the preaching of God’s
Law and Gospel, all in order that you may be certain and confident that God has
saved you. Having no other gods means receiving the gifts the Holy Spirit
brings in Word and Sacrament. Having no other gods means hearing Jesus say, “Be
it done to you as you have believed” and receiving forgiveness, light, and
salvation from Him.
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