Sermon - Advent Midweek 2 - 2018

The strict church. Has anyone ever referred to (Peace/St. Paul) as the strict church? I know I’ve heard it a few times before. Someone will ask me what church I’m the pastor of and I tell them and they reply “Oh, Missouri Synod, they’re strict.” Now, I understand these people don’t say that as a complement usually, but instead of getting all defensive and offended, rather we should try to take it as a complement. 

Because, yes indeed, we strictly hold to the true Word of God, and that is a good thing! Jesus tells us “As you are going, make disciples of all nations.” How are disciples made? Firstly by “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” But we don’t stop there with baptizing, we don’t believe that once you’re baptized all has been done that needs to be done. No instead Jesus instructs us to also be “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” 

Jesus commands us to joyfully proclaim His teaching, so that faith which believes in His death and resurrection, and that saves us from eternal death, would be increased. Jesus is quite strict about this, He doesn’t let us off the hook and teach as little as we want or for as short a time as we like. We are to be teaching, present tense, continuing ongoing action, for as long as we live upon the earth. 

Neither does Jesus allow us to only teach the things we like or that make us feel good or that are politically correct, but we are to teach in order that we may “keep all things” God has taught us. We can’t pick and choose to teach only those things which are popular or accepted by the world. Our teaching is not to be merely cliche and bite size, but to be in depth mining all of the treasures of Jesus’ teaching. Even those teachings that make us uncomfortable and unpopular. 

Have you ever been ashamed of Jesus’ teachings? Maybe they don’t all embarrass you, maybe most of them are fine, but some of them you really don’t want to admit to believing. I know I’ve felt that way before. Sometimes God’s Word is just a bit too difficult, too hard, too controversial, and it embarrasses me to speak it and proclaim it aloud. For all of us who have been offended by God’s Word, who are ashamed of it, who are embarrassed to speak it before others, let us repent.

Instead of being ashamed of Jesus and His teaching, we should be ashamed of how cowardly and petty we are to care more for the opinions of others than for faith in Jesus. Because God’s Word and His teaching, His doctrine, is not embarrassing or shameful, God’s Word has the power to grant salvation. “Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ.” 

God’s Word shows us the way to salvation through Jesus Christ. There’s no other source of knowledge about God and about His wonderful love for us than in His Word and teaching. I suppose if you look around the world you may come to believe that there’s a god out there who made everything. That’s simple logic. The odds are better that God created everything than that everything came into existence randomly. But just because you believe that there is a god who created things doesn’t mean that you believe in the one true Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who became man for you in the person of Jesus in order to die and take away your sin so that you might enter into heaven. The only way you can know and believe that Jesus is the Christ, true God and true man, who died for you, is through the Word of God. 

That’s what the strict adherence to God’s Word is all about. When we proclaim God’s pure saving Word, we are like St. Paul who says “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” Being strict about God’s Word isn’t some sort of vain intellectual exercise, it’s not about the pride of being right, it’s not even about the wholesome striving for truth and excellence.  We are strict about God’s Word because our desire is that we would be saved and all those around us would be saved with us. 

We strive for the purity of God’s Word because we desire to proclaim God’s Word alone which is holy and perfect. We go out and “declare this [Word] with a shout of joy, proclaiming it, sending it out to the end of the earth, saying ‘The Lord has redeemed His servant!” We actually proclaim this teaching with joy on our lips, not shame and embarrassment, but with gladness and zeal! “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

This is actually a matter of salvation. Put aside pride and arrogance, shame and embarrassment, the things we are dealing with today deal directly with our salvation. If you refuse to confess God’s Word with your mouth and believe it in your heart, then you’re refusing to be saved. 

Jesus and His Word, His teaching, His doctrine, are intrinsically connected. Jesus is the Word made flesh. If you reject the Word of God, even a little bit of it, just one point, you’re rejecting Jesus. Consider that for a moment. Your shame and embarrassment of the Word of God, of His teachings, is a failure to confess the Word and believe it. “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” This is the Word of God, and you have no reason to be embarrassed by it whatsoever. “Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.”

But on the other hand, when you do believe the Word of God, when you do confess it with your lips, when you desire to keep it pure and undefiled, when you’re strict about it and adhere to it with firmness, you are confessing Christ before the nations and you are doing all of this by the power of faith that He has given to you. God the Father will not put you to shame, but He will lift you up from your sin and place you high upon the cross with Jesus. You will be lifted up from this place of death to the place of life as you gather around Jesus in heaven. 

This is all joy upon joy to proclaim! Every word of His teaching is life and salvation! When we strictly proclaim God’s Word, we are declaring that God the Father is loving and gracious to us. He is good and kind and gentle, He gives us all the things needed to live and thrive upon the earth. God the Son is both true God and true man who loves us by dying for us and rising for us so that we might live and rise with Him. God the Holy Spirit directs us and leads us to faith in Him and keeps us as God’s Holy people protected unto heaven. 

We keep God’s Word very strictly and hold onto only the pure Word of God because we desire only to hear, have, and to hold the one true God and we desire that others also would have the Loving God proclaimed to them. God’s teaching matters because God matters. So this evening, let us proclaim aloud with joy this teaching of Jesus Christ, let us strictly proclaim the doctrine of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to one another in the Words of the Apostle’s Creed. You can find them on the back page of the hymnal if you need.