What's in your church? [St. Matthew's Day]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ezekiel 1:10-14

• Ephesians 4:7-16

• St. Matthew 9:9-13

 

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

 

Who speaks to you today, as always, only through His Gospel saying,

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

 

With these and similar words, Jesus creates His one holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church on earth. Or at least He gives us the way to identify Her. In this case, it will be filled with sinners. Thus, when we look for a church to attend, we don’t just look for sinners, but the cross. Are there sinners, sure, but are they bearing their crosses; are they The Sick in search of the true Physician of Body and soul?

 

It has now spread throughout the country on the tiktoks, the YouTubes, and I even heard it on American Family Radio that you should find a different church. They said that if you did not talk about a certain, prominent, murdered man last Sunday in church, that you should find a new church. If your pastor did not bring up this certain man’s influence on this generation, His great method of speaking to the hearts of people, and His unjust treatment in front of a great crowd, then that church is not a godly church.

 

And I agree. If your church did not speak of Jesus last Sunday, you should leave that false church and find an actual church that shows you Jesus. Which is not what they meant, but you get it.

 

For today, St. Matthew the Apostle, is our teacher, who I’m sure had been told things like, “if your synagogue didn’t teach you to swindle the goy and give it as tithes to God, then you should leave” or maybe even “eat the rich” or “you earned the money you took, it was their own fault for falling for it” and other such self-justifications.

 

Today, St. Matthew hears a new teaching. The two main words we’ll focus on, from the Gospel today, are “sinner” and “disciple”. Disciple is interesting, because it is a play on St. Matthew’s name. Matthew, in Hebrew means gift of God, but in the Greek it is almost the same as the word for “disciple” or “learner”. 

 

As for sinner, we think we know already what a sinner is. We’ve probably heard that it means “one who misses the mark”, as in Romans 3:23, “All have fallen short of the glory of God”. And its true, our works, done in sin because we are sinners, miss God’s mark of perfection. But some preachers teach that sin is something that makes you a sinner, so “sinner” becomes something that is removable from you.

 

If we let God speak, He speaks of sin as death. From Ephesians 2:1, “you were dead in your sins”. Far from being something curable or removable, sin is a killer. An instant killer. The moment you sin in mind, body, strength, or soul you are dead to God. Not His choice, but yours. You have found something more valuable than God. That is sin.

 

Thus, the word for sin in the Greek, means undead, or without a martyr. Two things here: first, we are the walking dead. Our sin remains and yet Christ has covered it. The believer in Christ goes through life as a sinner and a saint, constantly dying and being reborn, as is the gift of forgiveness.

 

Second, if we remain in sin, there is no longer a sacrifice for sin for us, no longer a martyr for us (Heb 10:26). That is, if we choose our sins over Christ, then we remain dead in them and Jesus is no longer our Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the World. We must live and face judgement without the true martyr: Jesus Christ.

 

This, St. Matthew does not allow and writes his gospel book accordingly. In it, he makes sure that there is no doubt who the sinner is and Who the Savior is. Such that, when we look to find His Church on earth, we find it preaching Jesus Christ, not anything or anyone else. 

 

We will conclude Service today with “Rise again ye lion-hearted”. This lion-heart is the heart of Jesus. We misrepresent this heart by thinking it must be here to work us into a fever or a fervor. That unless we are changing the world, our country, or fighting for the latest cause, then that must mean the heart is not with us. 

 

But that is not what honoring the saints and apostles is all about. We do not honor them by making new ones for ourselves, but by believing as they did. This is St. Matthew’s gospel in a nutshell. In his writing, we see Jesus taught to us and learned by us, as in catechism class. I believe St. Matthew’s greatest line is where Jesus is given a new name, The Crucified (Mt 28:5).

 

This is, then, what the Apostles teach. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “We preach Christ Crucified” and from last week “I glory only in the cross of Christ”, Galatians 2:20. 

From Hebrews 12:2, “for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross” and St. James repeats that in the first chapter of his epistle.

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed”, says St. Peter (1 Peter 2:24).

From St. John, Jesus came by blood, blood and water (1 John 5:6).

“keep yourselves in God’s love”, says St. Jude, “as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life” (1:21), and Jesus is Love.

 

When the Apostles went to church they were expecting the cross. If the cross was not there, then it was a false church. Plain and simple. They were expecting to hold sacred, and gladly hear and learn of Jesus, for them. 

“What did Jesus do for me?” That’s talking about yourself, not Jesus.

 

What did Jesus expect to be in His Church? We can quickly point to the time when Jesus went in and flipped tables and see what He was not expecting. But what was supposed to be there? Prayer? Mercy?

 

Jesus doesn’t just flip the Tables, but replaces them with Himself. Since the beginning of a visible sign of God’s presence among His people, it was always Himself. In the Tabernacle, the precursor to the Temple, Jesus promised Moses: make an Ark, and “There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you” (Ex 25:22). And the sins brought there and the sacrifice made there, will be forgiven.

 

The Presence of Jesus in His Church, is His Presence to forgive. You can see this in Genesis, when Jesus walked with Adam before and after the Fall. The Promise of all the Prophets is the Promise of the New Covenant which will be the forgiveness of sins.

 

And since Jesus teaches that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”, even the prophets preached the cross of Jesus (Heb 9:22). And that cross is not only a piece of wood, it holds meaning. Meaning in Body and Blood. 

 

Thus, when Jesus comes to Church He expects to suffer, die, and rise again for the unrighteous, for those who are sick. He expects to atone for the sins of the world. He expects to find sinners, despairing in their sin, begging for mercy at the Mercy Seat. For in His Presence is “the fullness of joy” over one sinner who repents (Ps 16:11, Lk 15:7).

 

Thus, St. Matthew and all the Apostles, conclude that the Body and Blood of Christ be present in the Church. When St. Matthew is called away from tax collecting, it is not an inner conviction that raises him up, but the Word of God made flesh.

 

So what is it you should be looking for in church? What are the signs that scream: church?

The Word, the Supper, the Baptism, the Forgiveness, the prayers and thanks, the Pastor, and the Cross, which purchased and won all this, for sinners, that they may repent and live.

 

St. Matthew had already found a cause to live and die for, in his tax collecting. Another cause or movement was not going to move him or rescue him. It would take a man, a man with the authority of God Himself, to baptize St. Matthew into death, that he would be free from the guilt of the Law, and into His Resurection, that he would be free to live at Jesus’s side forever.

 

There is no other Name, in heaven or earth or under the earth, that is Holy on the Sabbath of the Lord. Jesus Christ Crucified, our Martyr, is Who we are to hold sacred, and gladly hear and learn, especially when He once more presents Himself on this Altar, offering sacrifice as our Martyr, for the forgiveness of sins.

 

 

Old, New, and for you [Holy Cross Day 2025]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Numbers 21:4-9

• Philippians 2:5-11

• St. John 12:20-36

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“They came therefore to Philip and asked him, saying, ‘Sir, we would see Jesus’”

 

And we laugh at those Greeks saying, “Don’t you know you can get to God without men??”

Along the same line, if someone were to ask you to defend your faith and find the cross in the Old Testament, would you be able? Maybe you know the verse, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Deut 21:23)? Does today’s Old Testament reading show it? Where do you go to find Jesus, as He promised to be found, in the Old Testament?

 

And in order to accomplish such things that we might see Jesus, we sinfully believe we must improve on His cross. We must make it accessible and palatable to the next generation. We must bring it down to people’s level, to our level, so we can find it as “love”, “tolerance”, or “peaceful”.

 

How old is crucifixion? I don’t believe the Romans or the Greeks before them, invented crucifixion. Not only is history riddled with imaginative ways to hurt or harm our neighbors in their bodies, but there is also the drive to sinfully be like God. All religions in all civilizations stem from God’s one, true religion, thus there will be many copies and twisting. 

 

So it is that before the romanized, sophisticated cross, there was the pole or the stake. Famously used by Vlad the Impaler from the 15th century. Even more famously mentioned in our Old Testament reading today. But both metaphorically and for reals, the pole in all cases is a sign. For Vlad, it was a sign to his enemies. For God it was also, but more than that, a sign of His actions to come.

 

The wood was laid on Isaac, in Genesis 22:6, to bear to the Altar, then he was laid on the wood (v.9). And it is in these and similar happenings in the Old Testament, which we can see the words of Jesus come true. That His cross was foretold and everyone should be expecting it, when the Lord comes into His Temple, a.k.a. the virgin Mary.

 

But we don’t want that. We’d rather take the path the Jews took and make the cross of God in the Old Testament a metaphor. God must bear the cross as in, He must accept that He doesn’t always get His way. So we imitate that. We go through history, claiming to be His chosen race, but then whine and complain, in God’s Name, when things don’t go our way. Just like Him.

 

Repent. We take that Old Testament Cross and improve upon it, where, we believe, God has left it incomplete. We turn it into a ladder with Jesus on top and we on the bottom. All we must do is climb up to Him. Hand over hand, one rung at a time, we move up from a life of rebellion to an obedient life of discipleship. 

 

Thus, we ascend from being immoral to moral, bad to good, unholy to holy. The closer we climb to Jesus on the cross-ladder, the more He blesses us. All He asks is that we give it our best shot. Climb slowly or climb quickly; it doesn’t matter. Just set your heart on the climb to Christ. He’s standing up top, cheering us on, shouting down advice and encouragement, and you’re almost there.

 

Repent. If we find we’re just a tad lacking there, how about the cross as a pair of crutches? None of us are perfect, after all. All of us, in various ways, wind up wounded and broken. But we can stumble our way along the path of life, if nothing else. And the cross-crutches are there to help us on the limping walk of faith. 

 

We can’t support our whole weight; we need help. The cross becomes that help, that stability, that pair of crutches. We do our best; that’s all anyone can ask. Life is a long pilgrimage toward God. And whatever we’re lacking in strength for this pilgrimage is made up for in the cross. Jesus and His cross fill in the gaps. But someday, when we reach Christ, we’ll throw those crutches away and be complete in him.

 

I can climb. I can limp. I will get there, whence I’ll be sure to give all glory to God for helping with my success.

 

Riddled with the cross, Holy Scripture refuses to allow the Holy Cross to assist us in our labors or to lend us a hand as we limp. The wood of the cross will be for Jesus alone. It will be His suffering. It will be His victory. It will be His Throne of Righteousness. As Psalm 96:10 says, “Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns from a tree’”!

 

And the cross has only one purpose: death. Death to God, Who in our flesh our ransom has paid. If we live with Him, let us also die with Him. And, “This is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him" (2 Tim 2:11). 

 

Sinners don’t need help, self or otherwise. They need to die. The sinful nature within us, which hates the cross and wants it to be anything else but the cross, needs to be crucified. It is the only way. “I am crucified with Christ”, says Galatians 2:20. We need the nails, the thorns, and the blood of Jesus, from the cross. We don’t want to die, to self or any other metaphor, but death with Christ is the only Way.

 

And it is the best way. When we die with Christ, we die to ourselves and live in him. We are given what we always lacked. He fills us with the peace of knowing that God is happy with us as a father is pleased with his children. He adopts us into the divine family and bids us call Him Abba, Father. All the stupid mistakes we’ve made, the evil we have participated in, the shame we feel for what we’ve done—all of that dies on the cross as well. Jesus takes it away. We are clothed with him. We wear Jesus. His Name and identity become ours.

 

What does this mean, then, regarding the Old Testament? It means that now we are no longer solely looking for an actual wooden cross, as the Romans gave us, in the words of God. Now, whenever we see suffering, we see the cross. Whenever we see mercy from God, we see the cross. Whenever a sign is given, or victory achieved, or a blessing administered, it is the cross.

 

The Book of Wisdom 14:7 flat out says, “blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes”. In Exodus 12, the blood of the Lamb is spread on the wood of door and lintel. Isaiah 22:20, 23 rightly prophesies, “Then it shall be in that day, that I will call My servant… [and] I will fasten him as a peg in a secure place and he will become a glorious throne to his father’s house.”

 

Moses was commanded to stretch out his hands to initiate the wonders of God and to part the Red Sea. Have you ever wondered what that looked like and why Pastor prays this way at the Altar?

 

The cross was always the plan and it was always the center of prophesy, as Jesus taught in St. Luke 24:46, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day”.

 

The cross was used to mark the Messiah and that same cross is now used to mark us, His followers. Bear your cross and follow me, He says. This means several things at once. It means that the suffering of our God and the sufferings in this world is real. It means that the Way of the Cross is the Way of God most High. It means that evil is real and our sins nailed Him there. 

 

It means that His Way is the Way of Salvation. It means that salvation purchased on the cross is our redemption. It means that all things of God flow from the cross. And since on it is the Word of God Who takes away the sins of the world, we hear the cross in His Word.

 

From Deuteronomy 11:18-20, “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates:”

 

Jesus, there, is talking about His cross. Thus, the cross is not only for the Old Testament or only for the New, but for you. “In the cross of Christ I glory”, says our Introit. When we hear His Word and believe, we are marked with the cross. When we receive His baptism, we are marked with the cross. When we commune with Him, we are marked with the cross.

 

And to show that to ourselves, we make a way for it to be visible to us and cross ourselves. This way, not only our spirits, but our bodies will have a reminder that we too bear the cross and we too share the promise of the resurrection, in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

 

To do so, we take our right hand. The first three fingers are brought together in a point, to remind us of the Three in One, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The last two fingers are brought together to remind us of one Jesus Christ with two natures, God and Man, Who was crucified, nailed to the cross through His palms.

 

Making the sign, we begin at our head: Christ, and the forehead which we are commanded to fix His Word. We travel to the belly, our true, false god in sin, we are taught of in Philippians 3:19, because Jesus travelled to the depths of our sin and hell to redeem us. We continue to the right shoulder, because Jesus sits at the Right Hand of God and finish on the left, for it is there in our heart that He has promised to dwell, in Ephesians 3:17.

 

Now you may mark yourself, should anyone ask you where the cross of the Old and New Testament is. It is not in a vatican vault, it is not in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, or the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Rome, or the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain, or any place else but, on your forehead and on your heart, to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the Crucified.

 

The Responsibility of God [Trinity 12]

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 29:17-24

• 2 Corinthians 3:4-11

• St. Mark 7:31-37

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“And looking up to heaven, He sighed deeply and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ which means, “Be opened!”

 

When we see something wrong in the world, the very first thing we say is, “Who did that”. When you find milk spilled in the kitchen or the toilet paper all over the floor, you shout, “Alright who did this”. When Jesus walked through Eden and found death all over and the rank of sin heavy in the air, He asked, “Who did this” or “Who’s fault is this”.

 

Though unlike in my house, there were only two people in Eden, so the answer was pretty easy. This is why the Lord said, “Adam where are you” instead. 

 

For us to have to face this deaf and speech-impeded man today in our Gospel reading, we find the roles reversed. It is not the Creator asking, but the creature: “who did this”. Why is this man born this way? Why must he face life with such handicaps? 

 

The disciples asked this same question in St. John 9:2, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Notice how they only try to blame people, as if trying to blame God for something is unthinkable. God would never cause sorrow or sadness, so there must be some other reason, right Jesus?

 

Jesus says, Nope. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Jn 9:3). Now, I don’t know about you, but that sure sounds like Jesus just said, “Its God’s fault” to me. Or at least, God didn’t care enough to change things, in order that He would be able to show His might.

 

That’s hoodwinking, that is. To create the problem just so you can sell the solution is bearing-false-witness to the highest degree, as is common in our country today. Is that what God is doing here, making people sick just so He can swoop in like the hero and save them?

 

God did not create death. God did not create sin. But He did create responsibility and someone must be responsible. Someone must hold the key to at least understand what is happening. 

 

They say that if you put too many keys on your keychain, you can end up destroying your car’s ignition cylinder and switch, over time: or a person. How many keys do you have? House keys, car keys, office keys, other people’s house keys. What about emotional keys? Family? Marriage? Community? Job? 

 

It is not unheard of, especially in our days, to hear of mental breakdowns and an ever increasing reliance on pharmaceuticals to deal with alleged “mental health”. It seems to be only a matter of time before we all break down. Is it because we are living in harder times?

 

In a way, yes. Harder because the strain on us is not physical, but mental. It is the world overburdening us with “keys” we have no business holding or caring about. The world’s cares are not our business, but the media wants them to be. Our country’s emotional and moral strife is out of your reach, but the internet wants it in front of your face, constantly.

 

Why is that? It is for the same reason this deaf and speech-impeded man is thrown in Jesus’s face. The devil, the world, and our sinful nature want to see what He will do. We can’t even handle our own family business and we think we can solve the world’s problem with Dominion voting machines? What can this Jesus do in the face of actual incurable handicaps?

 

Jesus takes responsibility. The Lord owns up to the fact that He is in charge and things are a mess. “In order that the Word of God might be revealed as Him.” Might be “epiphanied” as Him. Because He is in the flesh, suffering as we do, we can know that He is not just giving trials to see if we “measure up”. God does send us sorrow and sadness and He lays the cross heavy on our shoulders such that we break underneath it. 

 

Not us, but that sin and death in us would break, which make the cross we bear too heavy, in the first place. For the true epiphany, the true “showing” in this act of Jesus, today, is God made manifest. True God is Jesus, in the flesh. Not alien flesh, but our flesh. The same flesh susceptible to sin and death. The same flesh that bears the ailments and handicaps of this life. God lowers Himself even beneath our burdens, in order to carry all burdens.

 

This is Jesus’s cross He joyfully bears. He picks up the too-heavy key chain and the broken cylinder as His own. In this man’s suffering, we see part of our Lord’s suffering. 

 

Yet, in revealing Himself as Jesus, we run into another problem. That of His hiddenness. Why must we suffer here? Why can’t God just get rid of all suffering with a snap of His fingers? It is the hidden will of God that says, this is the way. That He has chosen to make salvation in this way: the way of the cross. 

 

Does the power of handicaps, cap the love of God? No. Does the strength and weight of your “keys” deny you access to the favor of God? No. For if Jesus can return sight and speech to this man, indeed, if He is able to be made man, suffer and die and rise again to glory, then what can stand in His way? Nothing.

 

Thus, if He promises you a cross to bear, it will be His cross that He already bore for you. And if He promises a death like His and a resurrection like His, and eternal glory like His, what is to say that He is hiding something or playing tricks? 

 

We may be born blind or mute or with too-heavy of burdens, but that corruption is not God’s doing, neither is His sitting still in light of it. He has thrown Himself into it, flesh and blood. It is no business of ours what God does with what He has created. If one suffers and another does not, who are we to say we could do it better?

 

This is the Lord’s impenetrable will. We are not allowed to peek there. He has, however, His Revealed Will, which is shown partially in today’s blind and speech-impeded man, and fully in Christ on the cross. That He has come to take responsibility, though it is our own fault. He has come to bear the burdens too heavy for our sin-filled bodies.

 

He bears them and He crucifies them, along with Himself. Jesus opens this man’s eyes and mouth to speak of Him. Jesus opens heaven to all believers. He has but one, singular will: that all repent and live in Him.

 

They say that the devil’s greatest trick he played on the world was convincing everyone he doesn’t exist. That’s only half-right. He convinces us that he doesn’t exist, while existing to convince us of this. He, sin, and the world give us a double-mind, able to believe two contradicting things at once. That lies can coexist with truth. That light can remain with darkness or even needs it. 

 

Such is the satanic twist that now we go about our lives, looking at suffering, and thinking double thoughts. See, Jesus is just doing the same thing. How can there be suffering, yet healing promised by God? How can there be healing promised by God when I have yet to experience it?

 

The difference is not that one is healed and another is not. The difference is, one has faith in the Resurrection of all flesh, and another does not. In satan’s kingdom, suffering is meaningless and so he is double-minded about it. In the Kingdom of the heavens, suffering produces hope in the Resurrection.

 

It is with the Resurrection of Jesus and His promise made to us in Baptism, that we then can see suffering and healing, not as contradicting, but as the narrow way. The narrow way of hope that God knows what He is doing.

 

That He can bring salvation even out of suffering. That He can conquer this world with His death and resurrection. And that He can grant kingdom-expanding faith in Word, water, body, and blood.

 

Because that’s the real fear, right? That God is not responsible enough to be able to encompass all my fear and all my suffering and all my doubt in His plan. There must be a gap. There must be more than His Church, because its not working. But Jesus doesn’t ask for a clean heart, He gives it. He doesn’t ask for a right spirit, He gives it.

 

He doesn’t ask for you to have the key to life, only He has that. From Revelation 3:7, “These are the words of Him Who is Holy and True, Who holds the Key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open”.

He asks simply as He asks another blind man, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”, in John 9. The answer, as always, is: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

My Pharisee the hero [Trinity 11]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 4:1-15

• 1 Corinthians 15:1-10

• St. Luke 18:9-14

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”

 
With this, Jesus introduces us to the Pharisees, a biblical word that is well known and overused. But they are given as examples for us, for God says, “you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (Mt 23:3). So what do they preach and what do they practice that earned them un-justification in today’s Gospel, even with this apparent endorsement from Jesus? 
 
The real lesson, in today’s Gospel, is mercy. Not just mercy on a global scale, but mercy on a small scale, as in “I will show mercy”, saith the Lord (Ex 33:19). If the Lord is merciful, then we should be merciful, that is, fighting for the Truth, His Church, and His forgiveness in a world full of the opposite. This mercy the Pharisee, in our Gospel reading, forgot.
 
Yet, that fight is how the Pharisees are actually the heroes of just before Jesus’s time. They fought the good fight. Where the world wanted to forget God and become sinful pagans, they fought for the Word. Moses and the prophets are theirs, for they believe their words are God’s words. The existence of Angels and demons, the resurrection and judgment on the last day, the necessity for preserving and keeping the Law, and even waiting for the coming of a Messiah are all treasured beliefs, with which we agree.
 
And when the Greeks and the Romans came, conquering and threatening religious and civil life, it was the Pharisees who stood up and became vassals of those states, securing an appointed, intermediary role between their people and Rome. All they did was for the good of the people and for God. If not for them, their religion would have ceased to exist, allegedly.
 
Thus, among them come some heroes of Christianity: Nicodemus, Gamaliel, Nathaniel, most probably Simon of Cyrene, the apostle Paul, and even the historian Josephus were or had been Pharisees at some point. Now maybe you can understand why Jesus said, “Your righteousness must exceed the scribes and the Pharisees” (Mt 5:20), back on the 6th Sunday after Trinity.
 
With this example, the Christian in this world then, must be a defender of truth. The marriage of one man and one woman is the truth, not divorce or polygamy or any other deviation. Defending the dignity of women, not promoting pornography. Protecting children and raising them in truth, not pawning them off to others. Living with honor, high morality, and virtue. 
 
This is what the Pharisees fought for, this is what Jesus proclaimed. 
When exactly was it in our lives, that we traded honor for gaslighting, high morality for tolerance, and virtue for vice? When was it that we thought, “Cain wasn’t so bad, just misunderstood”? Or, “I can get by with my sins, God will have to forgive me in the end.”
 
“You hypocrites!”, says our Lord in Luke 12:56, “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” Do you not know that this day your soul is required of you? Do you want this to be the Day the Lord Returns and finds you, doing what, not what you are supposed?
 
Dear Christians, do not be proud of what you have made of yourself. Be thankful. Thankful that you have been passed over, thankful you have a Mediator, thankful there is Mercy. 
 
Be like your heroes, the Pharisees. For, what did all the true Pharisees, in Jesus’s time, do? They listened to Proverbs 9:8, “Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you; Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you” and converted. Do not correct a hypocrite, but rebuke a Pharisee. 
 
And what is rebuke, but teaching and preaching the truth. Show truth to a Pharisee and he will love and believe and be saved. “I am the Truth”, says Jesus and that is what He showed them.
 
We hear from Isaiah 30:18, “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him”.
Wait for Grace to come upon you. Not just grace to hallow God’s Name, do God’s will, or let His Kingdom come in your own fashion. But wait for Grace and mercy to act in the flesh, on His own.
 
Thus, a true Pharisee converts from his Old Testament hypocrisy, to New Testament forgiveness when Jesus suffers and dies to institute the New Covenant promised by their prophets. That is, “the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer 31:31-34)
 
Know the Lord? No. We all already do. 
Believe the Lord. Believe that He has come in the flesh. Believe that He has come in Mercy. Believe that He is Grace, mediating between God and man for the forgiveness of sins and the redemption of all works. 
 
For it was according to the Scriptures, our Epistle teaches, that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and raised on the third day. Not so that we could self-justify our actions, but that we could find healing in His wounds and mercy in His Body and Blood. 
 
Since the true Pharisees are all Christian now, what we are left with are hypocrites. Hypocrites who not only trade God’s Word for man-made laws, but who trade the Lord’s Christ for man-made religion. They trade communion for lording it over others. They trade humility for the best seats in the house. They trade service for worldly honor.
 
But, Service is God’s business. When you trade that away, you lose. You cannot out-serve God. You can follow His example and mimic Him, but your service is in His shadow, in His wounds. First God serves, first God is wounded for your transgressions, first God is humbled on the cross, then, in His exaltation, you are exalted.
 
Not your service to Him, but His to you. There’s the lesson from the Pharisee, or hypocrite, and the Tax Collector. The Hypocrite relied on himself and declared himself the winner before the end. The Tax Collector relied on “not-himself”, “anything but himself”, because he knew that Jesus had come to seek and save the Lost. He believed that Jesus had come to give His Body and shed His Blood that he would live.
 
For the Voice is in the Blood, as Genesis 4 taught us today. The Blood cries out, not for vengeance, but for mercy. The God Who Justifies is the God Who bleeds for His creatures. 
 
So the word and judgement we should be concerned with is hypocrite, not Pharisee. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy”, says Jesus in Luke 12, “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops” (Lk 12:1-3).
 
That leaven we know is evil and malice toward our neighbor and toward God (1 Cor 5:8). Toward God Who, in our days, speaks to us through His Word alone and manifests His Glory and His Mercy in cross and Sacrament. The malice satan has is the malice of the hypocrite. They want to be like God, but they don’t want to do it God’s way.
 
The remedy to hypocrisy is humility. Humility towards God’s Will and actions. Not “thank you Lord for making me, me”, but “thank you for granting Your Holy Spirit through Your Word alone”. Not “thank you Lord it could always be worse”, but “thank you for uniting me to You in baptism”, “thank You for making me a part of Your Body in Communion”.
 
 

Rookie Numbers [Feast of St. Bartholomew]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 3:1-8

• 1 Corinthians 12:27-31

• St. Luke 6:12-19

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“And when day came, He called His disciples and chose from them twelve, whom He named apostles:”

 

As we celebrate the Feast of St. Bartholomew (or Nathaniel) today, we hear our Lord Jesus Christ choosing Twelve out of many, to be His chosen Apostles. 12 sent men, as Jesus was sent by the Father, to swindle the whole world out of their time, effort, and cash. And St. Bartholomew gives one of the best models of how to do this, that is, to be skinned alive for the Faith. So, once you do that, then the fame starts rolling in.

 

Jesus gives us twelve men to spread His Gospel and they are the only ones authorized by God, to do such a thing. If you want the words of God, you need an Apostle. Plain and simple. These twelve were not here for mysterious purposes, but to proclaim the free Justification of Sinners in Jesus, and for us to continue living in that teaching.

 

Throughout history, when men try to create religion, in order to keep the divine and the human separate, they often turned to symbols to describe heavenly things, because God is unknowable and can’t describe Himself or His own things, apparently. One of those symbols is numbers and thus numbers have been used in many religions. You think your mathematics are harmless, but it is a religion.

 

What I think happened was, God used a certain number of things for whatever purpose He described and some people took those numbers of things as the real message and gift from Him. That is, if you have the right number of things, or offer the right number, or are the right number, then you have access to God and no one else does.

 

So when God creates the world and everything in it in 7 days, 7 becomes a mysterious number. When God reveals Himself to be three Persons in one God, 3 becomes a religious number. When He chooses 12 tribes of Israel and 12 Apostles of the Church, now 12 joins the mix. And so on.

 

In this arithmancy, or numerology, however, numbers are given the driver’s seat. As in, they can even predict and move God without God’s approval. For example: if you chant a 3 by 3 Alleluia, then it is most pleasing to Him and your prayers are heard. If you accidently add an Alleluia, then He is displeased. 10 is right out.

 

Numerology is one of the things the Jews turn to after their return from the Babylonian exile, when the Glory Cloud would no longer appear in the Second Temple they built. With the apparent lack of the supernatural, the natural had to suffice for religion. As long as the proper amounts were present, as long as the proper days were observed, as long as the calculated laws were followed then God must still be there.

 

One example of this change is seen in the menorah, the candles used by modern Jews for Hannukah, mainly. The menorah, literally “candlestick”, was supposed to be based off the candelabras in the Temple, which had seven lights on them. 7, of course, being the days of the week according to the days of creation. A reminder of God’s giving light to the whole cosmos, yet being present with His people, in a tent.

 

Just before Jesus arrives, in this no-supernatural-temple-intertestamental-time, Hannukah actually happens where the menorah in the Temple stayed lit for 8 days, when there wasn’t enough oil for 1, in the attempt to restore the Temple again. Thus, the Jews changed the menorah for themselves, thinking that this was now at least some small miracle and word from God in so long a time. So now the menorah has 8 +1 candles, by law.

 

Now aren’t we acting the same way, pastor, with our candles?

[If you look we don’t have 7 either. We have 8 and if you count the Paschal candle, that’s 9, just like the Jews.]

Well, technically, there were two candelabras in the Temple, 2 x 7, for the two eyes of God, which makes 14. And the 8 we have are for the eighth day of Resurrection and Jesus at the center, with the Paschal candle, makes 9.

 

And on and on the crazy goes. And unless we heed the words of Isaiah, we will fall into the same trap of legalism and mysticism, forgetting God and forgetting the point. Isaiah says in 22:11, “but you looked not to Him that made it from the beginning, and regarded not Him that created it”.

 

Jesus is the giver from the beginning. There is no power in amount of things given or the number of stars, or the size of offerings. The sole power of them all is the Word of Promise behind them. It is Jesus Who promises that He will create all things in 7 days. “7” is not there first, then Jesus uses the magical power of 7 to do His work.

 

It is Jesus Who promises to rise again on the eighth day, not giving special power to “8” or using the special geometric and algebraic qualities of “8”, but giving resurrection.

 

Likewise, The Twelve. He gave the twelve sons to Jacob, the twelve tribes to Israel, and the 12 Apostles to the world in order that “their line … [go] out unto all lands, and their words to the ends of the earth” (Rom 10:18). That is that the Gospel be preached to all nations.

 

Here is what the religions of the world get wrong. They look to the creature, rather than the Creator. They look to the thing given and divine some mystery in themselves, instead of hearing from the Mouth of God what is the use and of what number.

 

Jesus only has one number: complete. Now, where does that fall on the number scale? It doesn’t. And that’s part of the point. All the way from the beginning, God plays ritual reversal. Where the world wants to create access points to heaven, God chivalrously just opens the door. Where the world wants to decode, and sacrifice, or please God, He speaks plainly.

 

The ritual reversal is: we don’t offer anything to God. He offers it all to us. It is all a gift. “He gave gifts to men”, He says in Ephesians 4:11. If Jesus wants to give 12 Apostles, then He gives the Apostles, not the number 12. After this, the number 12 now simply has the added job of reminding us of the Apostles, every time we hear it.

 

Our own candles in number are only here to point us to God. And by pointing us to God, point us to His greatest work of salvation on the cross. For there is only 1 Jesus on the cross, Who is 2 both God and man, part of the Trinity 3 in 1, giving us the 4 Gospels starting with the 5 books of Moses and the 6 days of Creation, with a 7th day of rest and an 8th day of resurrection, dying for us in the 9th hour, perfecting the 10 commandments, accepting us up to the 11th hour, through His chosen men, the Twelve.

 

It is not the numbers, it is Jesus. He says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people”, in Romans 10:21, not “all day long I have given them number codes”. It is the hands of Jesus, pierced and scourged, that are the message that gives faith, forgiveness, and eternal life. 

 

This is what St. Bartholomew, and all the Apostles, suffers and dies for. It is the hands that are tattooed with nails that are held out for all to see and believe. And there are two hands, just as every man has, held out by God Himself, proclaiming to repent and believe the Gospel preached to you.

 

Jesus reveals to us that “a great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed who has been adorned with the sun, and the moon under beneath her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev 12:1). What does one do with that truth from God’s own mouth?

 

Or when Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn 14:6) and “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise” (Lk 18:31-33)? 

 

If we keep God relegated to numbers and mysteries, then He is easy to control and life is easy for us. However, if God Himself has invaded our sinful world, and if He has proclaimed such truths to us, and if He has risen even from the dead, then what is more important than hearing that preaching and His Word, holding it sacred and gladly learning it?

 

And if that Apostolic preaching and teaching says that the living Christ comes among His gathered people to teach them and feed them in public worship, and that the life of the church flows to her from Christ Himself, then what is more important than weekly gathering together to receive His gifts and respond to Him with our prayers and praise and offerings?

 

Now you have a glimpse into St. Bartholomew’s motivation to suffer and die as his Savior did. Nothing is more important. Nothing is more important than communing with God Who comes to Church. Nothing is more important than seeing His Christ behind everything. Nothing is more important than knowing and believing that Christ is in His Word and Sacraments and in death, which let’s us trust that Baptism has the strength divine to make life immortal mine.

 

So, regardless of whether there are twelve gates, twelve angels, twelve names, twelve tribes, twelve foundations, twelve pearls, twelve fruits, or twelve times twelve and a half; now in these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son.

 

To be debt free [Trinity 9]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 2 Samuel 22:26-34

• 1 Corinthians 10:6-13

• St. Luke 16:1-9

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“The Lord commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.”

 

Thus far from God’s Word, written for you to show you He does not change the rules behind your back. He does not, one day, chose Judaism, then the next choose Christianity. It has always been faith alone in Jesus, that pleases God. Jesus simply reveals the Resurrection in Himself, that we too may believe and live like we have a tomorrow, forever.

 

They say rich men are like God because they both are so rich that they have nothing to worry about. So if the rich man decides to change something on a whim, it makes no difference to him. He doesn’t suffer from the decisions, those who have less do. The manager in today’s parable seems to have a run-in with a rich man’s flightiness. He thought he was ok, until he wasn’t.

 

“The job changed on me”, cries the manager. Monday we were doing it one way and now Tuesday, the rules have changed. “Lord”, the manager explains, “if we are going to get ahead in the world, then we need to make a profit. If we want to make a profit, we have to get the goy for all they’re worth.”

 

And it was a successful, soft life for him. Notice what the manager can’t do when he’s fired. Not strong enough to dig and too proud to beg. Entitled. Spoiled. Full of soy lattes. He was comfortable in the work and thought he was following all company policies. 

 

Like Job, he was the perfect, moral businessman. Wealth, he knows, comes as a reward for playing by the rules and “goodness” is like money in the bank. The “goodness” of following the rules, no matter what was thought of them.

 

What Job knew, however, was what the manager forgot: that this world of business is unstable. At any given moment, currency can change, interests can flag, and attention shift. If any small thing of that sort should happen, you can find yourself bankrupt as quickly as you were made rich. For you were invested in one currency, or area of worth, but now the system is operating on different currency.

 

Both Job and our manager find themselves in this situation. Both are turned out. Both are bankrupted. Both have been shown that the goodness they thought they had a hold of, was not the right goodness. To them, the Lord changed the rules and it was not fair.

 

This is exactly what the Jews were fighting and how they felt, just before the exile to Babylon. In Isaiah 22 we hear, that the secret places of David and the houses of his city were all pulled down to strengthen the walls of Jerusalem, in defense against coming enemies. In this distrust of God’s faithfulness, even the religious ceremonies and ceremonial items were used as grocery items, instead of proclaiming God and keeping the Sabbath holy. 

 

“but you didn’t look to Him Who made it from the beginning”, says Isaiah, “and did not regard Him Who created it”. “For this sin shall not be forgiven you until you die” and “your robe, your crown and your management” shall be given to another (Isa 22:11, 14, 19-21). 

 

Awful harsh for simple business transactions, no? No. This manager, from the Gospel, was not in charge of simple business. Look at his shrewdness. He was in charge of debt, make no mistake. And St. Matthew just so happens to call sins, “debts”, in his Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:12). 

 

What kind of debts? Huge, ungodly debts. These debts of oil and wheat are similar in size to the debt of the Unforgiving Servant in St. Matthew 18:24. His debt was ten thousand talents or twenty years of paychecks. The oil measures in at about 900 gallons and the wheat about 9000 gallons (fluid and dry measurements were considered the same). All unpayable.

 

Repent! What we and the manager and the Jews forget is the business of the Lord. We want the Lord to pay attention to outward appearances, statistics, and prosperity. We want His success to be based on how successful we are. And He promises as such, so it seems, and to our experiences, if you want your religion to be ahead of the others, you reward your followers better than everyone around them.

 

The manager was comfortable in this. Job was not. Job knew God to be a hard man and so he “would send and consecrate [his children], and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, ‘It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.’ Thus Job did continually.” (Job 1:5)

 

And instead he suffered for being dutiful. Even his health and family were removed from Job, not just his job. However, same as the manager, this was not a change of the rules or a change of currency, on the Lord’s part. For the Lord’s business is forgiveness.

 

Pat what you owe! (Rom 13:7), the Word says, and we are debtors.

But I will prosper you, says the Lord (Jer 29:11).

So, who is right? The manager? Job? The Lord? 

 

Jesus says that we have our very life from the Word from His own mouth. The same life that Adam said came from his wife, the mother of all the living (Gen 3:21), the very life in the Breath of God (Gen 2:7). Indeed, Jesus even gives the command to “be fruitful and multiply”, suggesting success and blessing. 

 

But success and blessing are not the same thing, though they can be tied together. The world sees success and blessing as prospering in the material, money in the bank, people in the pew, a stable family life. So it transfers that experience to life with God. That if we pay the right amount, in those things, God will reward us.

 

“The measure you use will be used against you”, Jesus told us a couple Sundays ago. That measure is not just how you treat God, in some sort of imaginary way. That measure has to do with God, with His Christ, and with the neighbors He gives to you. For example, the measure you use against your wife will be what is used against you.

 

Jesus brings the measure and it is Himself. Jesus brings the rules and they are the Word made flesh. “A good man deals graciously and lends; He manages his words with judgement” says Psalm 112:5. Grace, pity, and favor are God’s mode of operation in the Old Testament and Grace, pity, and favor are shown in the Life of Christ. 

 

Jesus did not change the rules with Job. The cross was always the Way. Though Job could have success, Job’s greatest success would be found in the death of death. He even rejoices in this in his famous chapter 19 and when his fortunes are “resurrected” at the end of his book. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God” (Job 19:25-26).

 

Resurrection from the dead. Resurrection from the thing that actually destroys success and actually changes the rules on us: death. It was sin, death, and the devil that ruined the manager’s job, because he was focused on profit and not mercy. This reveals the shift from the Old Testament times to the New Testament times. 

 

Jesus did not change the rules on the Jews, he just continued to show mercy. He simply continued to cancel the debt of those who transgressed against His laws, no matter who had done so. Indeed, it was grace and mercy for they were His laws and His business which we profaned. And if the Lord commends shrewdness for dealing mercifully with a little, then He will commend a kingdom for dealing mercifully with all.

 

Jesus manages His own House perfectly. It is managed by faith and it is governed through grace and it is measured by Christ alone. There was no great change that took place from the Old Testament to the New and there is no great change from the New Testament to you. 

 

The New, is the Resurrection where, all having died to the Law that increases our debts, are freed from the Law by baptism. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.” (Rom 6:3-5)

And “now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of [debts]” (Rom 7:6).

Faith works fruit [Trinity 8]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 23:16-29

• Romans 8:12-17

• St. Matthew 7:15-23

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits”

 
This is the Lord’s Holy Scripture and He includes it for you to hear of fruits, or works, one more time. Not only are you required to do good works, but prophets have their own set of works, as St. Jeremiah teaches today in our Old Testament reading. Different from your commanded works, a prophet is to proclaim the Christ, the Messiah. And the only Good Tree is the cross of Jesus. If a prophet does not preach and teach the Blood of Christ, then he is false.
 
The Blood of Jesus is the only claim we have on God for anything. And yet, there are still those who teach that works merit salvation and sanctification. Those teachings are presented to us to fool us into thinking a diseased tree can bear good fruit. Their falseness is found in that they will turn to a dictionary, rather than Scripture, to make this point.
 
And the dictionary reads like this:
a) Even in the fallen state, man can, by his natural intellectual power, know religious and moral truths. 
And, b) For the performance of a morally good action, Sanctifying Grace is not required. 
Although the sinner, they explain, does not possess the grace of justification, he can still perform morally good actions and, with the help of actual grace, even supernaturally good works, and through them prepare himself for justification. Thus all works of the person in mortal sin are not sins 
 
The works of sinners are not sins? That’s convenient. The dictionary goes on:
c) The Grace of Faith is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action, they say, even infidels can do morally good works. Thus not all works of infidels are sins. And, 
d) Actual Grace is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action, for fallen man can perform good works without the help of Divine grace, by his natural powers alone. Therefore not all works which are achieved without actual grace are sins
 
Hopefully you can already hear the rise of the false doctrine of theosis. That, if there are works you can do which are not sin, then continuing to do them will cause you not to sin, and therefore not be a sinner any longer. The problem we all have is our sin. If we get rid of them, then we have no problem.
 
Grace seems to be their focus here, but its used in a strange way. That grace is sufficient for you in weakness, the false prophets will quote from 2 Corinthians 12:9, but “grace” used their way appears to be just a wink and a nod. As if God looks at your works and says, “Well, at least you tried” and that is good enough for eternal life. “Do your best and God will do the rest”, they preach.
 
Faith is not even mentioned; much more is the glaring omission of Jesus in all of that. We can work ourselves into godliness with “grace” without Christ. He may be our mediator at first, but then passes the baton to us, to greater heights of holiness. Thus, we peek into their million dollar dictionary of theological terms and find these two gems: condignity and congruity.
 
Both describe this imagined acquisition of God’s Grace. Condignity, or de condigno, declares that God will dignify human works with the grace of forgiveness and righteousness, no matter who does them. Congruity, or de congruo, promotes a grasping at any good work in the hope that God will offer His grace in return. 
 
How can either of those offer hope to the despairing soul? They cannot, because they are primarily meant to elude Scripture. If we can define away “sin”, “death”, and the “power of the devil”, then we can redefine and be “sinless”, “deathless”, and in control ourselves. He who defines the terms, wins the debate; apparently even against God Himself.
 
Repent. The intention of the one who works does not distinguish the kinds of merit he earns because of the work. In their security, hypocrites simply believe their works are worthy, and that for this reason they are accounted righteous, in their own minds. If you speak over yourself, “I am a good tree” enough times, even you begin to believe it.
 
However, there are also always conditions to being good enough. According to the false prophets, your “good enough” works must be morally good and in accordance with the moral law in object, intent, and circumstances. It must be done freely, without coercion, within or without. It must be supernatural, aroused and accompanied by actual grace and proceeding from supernatural motive. 
 
That’s a lot of big words there, miss… But how can works be accompanied by grace if we are seeking grace through them? How can we do supernatural work, when we are only flesh and bone??
 
This is St. Paul from our Epistle reading today. We are not debtors to the flesh, that is we have nothing that we owe to God in our flesh, to perfect our flesh for faith, before He gives us faith. Living according to the flesh, including good works, is to be a debtor to the flesh, having no Spirit. To live by the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit. Not by your whims and fancy, but by His Will as the Third Person of the Trinity, only revealed in the Word.
 
The Spirit leads us to the Tree and Holy Scripture tells us plainly the Good Tree from the Bad tree: Jesus. The same Jesus Who promises to make us fellow heirs with Him, provided that we suffer with Him. Suffer what? Suffer the belief that Sinners sin. That we sin because we are sinners and any work done by a sinner is sinful.
 
At the foot of the cross, our Father declares to us His Will and His Judgement. That His lovingkindness, from our Introit, be found in the suffering of Jesus Christ, His Only Son. And that that same suffering was inflicted in the Temple, His holy Temple, the alleged center of holiness and righteousness for the entire world.
 
The Will of God accomplished there which is to be praised and rejoiced in, is that Christ became sin Who knew no sin, for you. He took on the spirit of the false prophet and ravenous wolf, demanding works too good for sinful man. The thorns and thistles He wore as a crown and was cut down in His prime, tossed and left for the fires of hell to care for Him.
 
But we know what happens next and this informs us as to what actual good fruit is. Good Fruit is Resurrection Fruit. Not only does the Spirit give us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, which any man can practice, but He will raise us from the dead to life everlasting with Jesus.
 
That fruit is only found in, with, and under the Body and Blood of Jesus. To please God, faith alone is necessary. To receive Christ’s own resurrection, baptism into His death and resurrection is necessary. To have the fruit of the Spirit: forgiveness, faith in Christ, and eternal life, eating and drinking the Body and Blood is necessary.
 
Necessary because that is where the Promise to be, is. The Promise is not, “in your works you will find salvation”. The Promise is “salvation belongs to the Lord” and “He will have mercy on whomever He will” (Ps 3:8; Ex 33:19). If He wants you to find salvation in work, He would have promised it and made a list for us.
 
But, salvation is His. It is His to hand out where and when He chooses. If He chooses.
 
In Jesus we know that’s what He chooses to do. There is no redefining of work or grace or salvation that will make a good tree a bad tree, or a bad tree a good tree. The standard is God’s alone, not man’s to weasel around with, redact, and find a another way in.
 
And the standard is the Cross of Christ. If a false prophet wants to be heard and believed, let him die and rise again, proving his words. A true prophet is heard, because he proclaims Christ Crucified, Who has died and risen for His own Word and His own glory. That He hands out His grace by His grace and that the sinner is justified for Christ’s sake, by grace, through faith alone. 
 
Can sin be done in faith? No. In order to sin again, after we have been forgiven and saved, we must be lost. “It is false”, our Confessions state, “and must be censured, when it is asserted and taught…that [we] might or could act contrary [to the Law of God], and [yet]…retain faith and God’s favor and grace” (SD iv:20)
 
If you want your works to reach God, they must be baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, you must be fearful that any one of your good works could be a condemning sin. “So you also”, declares Jesus in Luke 17:10, “when you have done everything commanded of you, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” 
“If you live by the flesh, you will die by the flesh”, says Romans 8:13.
 
Our Confessions stand here:
“Here mercy has a clear and certain promise and command from God. The Gospel is properly the command that directs us to believe that God is reconciled to us for Christ's sake. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him" (John 3:17). Whenever mercy is spoken of, faith in the promise must be added. This faith produces sure hope, because it relies upon God's Word and command. If hope would rely upon works, then it would be uncertain, because works cannot quiet the conscience, as has been said before. Faith makes a distinction between those who obtain salvation and those who do not obtain it. Faith makes the distinction between the worthy and the unworthy, because eternal life has been promised to the justified. Faith justifies. (Ap V (III):224)
 
So what is it that makes a tree good and healthy? Faith. What makes good fruit from the Good Tree? Faith. What causes you to be known by the Lord on the Last Day? You got it.
Not the faith you have worked up on your own, made your own, and which is impervious to anyone’s opinion or scrutiny, even from the Word of God.
 
But the faith given. That faith that has the Crucified as its object and looks to the cross to reveal, explain, and teach all things. For, the Blood of Jesus is the only claim we have on God. We are not here to make our flesh sinless, but to be baptized into the death and resurrection of our flesh.