Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. (Amen.)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Today’s appointed Gospel Reading essentially picks-up right where last Sunday’s appointed Gospel Reading left‑off (Matthew 9:35-10:20): in the middle of Jesus’s sending out and instructing His twelve apostles. As we heard moments ago, Jesus continued to make clear that those faithfully preaching and practicing law and Gospel would be persecuted, but Jesus also promised that the one who endured to the end would be saved (confer Matthew 24:13). Jesus said that everyone who confesses Him before people, He also will confess before His Father Who is in heaven, but whoever denies Him before people, He also will deny before His Father Who is in heaven (confer 2 Timothy 2:12). For all that Jesus says in today’s appointed Gospel Reading, for us at Pilgrim this morning, those two statements seem to be the most‑relevant law‑warnings and Gospel‑promises. Some people will not endure—“remain under”, or “stand firm” (NIV), “hold out” (NEB), or “be faithful” under (AAT)—the persecution, but they will deny Jesus in order to avoid whatever they fear, and so those people will not be saved; Jesus will deny them before His Father in heaven. But, those who endure the persecution and confess Jesus will be saved; Jesus will confess them before His Father in heaven. So, “We confess Jesus and endure, and Jesus confesses and saves us”.
We understandably want to know as much as possible about what the immediate future holds, so that we can make what we think are appropriate plans and carry them out. There is such a thing as sanctified human reason, and following, God’s direction in the book of James, we might even say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:16 ESV). But, we simply do not know much about what the immediate future holds, and our plans cannot ignore what God tells us about our need to confess and endure. One Bible scholar says our denial of Jesus might be our failing to do justice to the claims of our neighbors, our failing to acknowledge our discipleship, or our failing to confess Jesus in faithful teaching and practice (Schlier, TDNT 1:470). On account of such denials and lack of endurance, we might face judgment at any time, for, at any time, we might die or the Lord might return.
We may be averse to conflict. With Rodney King, we may ask everyone to just get along, at least as much as possible, especially in our families. Yet, in today’s appointed Gospel Reading, Jesus says siblings, parents, and children will deliver over one another to death, and we will be hated by all for Jesus’s Name’s sake, on account of our faithful confession of Him. Such conflict is unavoidable among the faithful! Fear is mentioned repeatedly in today’s appointed Gospel Reading. We may fear the impact of division in the congregation; we may fear refinancing the mortgage on the Parish Hall; we may fear finding another pastor at some point in the future. But, in what or in Whom do you trust? Do you trust the Missouri Synod or the Almighty God? Do you not think that if you are faithful to God at the expense of the Missouri Synod that God will provide for all your needs? As we heard Jesus say in today’s appointed Gospel Reading, the only thing that we should fear is God’s destroying our souls and bodies in hell.
St. Peter is a classic example of someone who both, by God’s leading confessed Jesus (Matthew 16:13-17) and out of fear of two servant girls and others later denied Jesus (Matthew 26:69-75). But, by God’s leading St. Peter was sorry for his denial of Jesus and trusted God to forgive him for Jesus’s sake, and so he was forgiven. Likewise, by God’s leading, we confess our sins and faith and God forgives us. “We confess Jesus and endure, and Jesus confesses and saves us”.
Of course, our confessing and enduring are not the reasons why Jesus confesses and saves us. Jesus confesses and saves us by grace through faith in Him. But, our confessing and enduring are, we might say, necessary conditions for Jesus to confess and save us, though even our confessing and enduring are ultimately God’s work in us. Because by nature we are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1, 5), we need God to save us, and save us is what God does. Out of God’s great love and mercy, the Son of God took on human flesh, lived the perfect life that we fail to live, and died on the cross for our failures to live that life. Jesus died for all people, including you and me, and then He rose from the dead. When we trust God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake, then God does forgive us. God forgives our sinful nature, our denials of Jesus and our failures to endure suffering, or whatever our sin might be. God forgives us through His Means of Grace, His Word in all of its forms, especially His Sacraments.
In today’s appointed Gospel Reading, Jesus said to His apostles that what He told them in the dark, they should say in the light, and that what they heard whispered, they should proclaim on the housetops. Like Jeremiah in today’s Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 20:7-13), the apostles and their successors, including pastors today, cannot but read and preach God’s Word of law and Gospel to groups such as this group. Likewise, they cannot but apply the Gospel to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine in the Holy Supper that are the Body of Christ given for you and the Blood of Christ shed for you. We believe, teach, and confess Christ’s real, physical presence in the Holy Supper, as we believe, teach, and confess the Gospel in all of its articles, which is the basis for unity in the Church. Through God’s Word and Sacraments, God forgives our sins, and through them He also enables us to confess Jesus in teaching and practice and then endure the consequences of that confession. Those who confess and endure do so only by God’s gracious preservation, while those who deny and fail to endure do so only by their own fault (Pieper, III:89).
As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 6:12-23), we who believe are set free from sin and death, and so we do not present ourselves and our bodies’ members to sin as instruments for un‑righteousness, but we make ourselves and our bodies’ members available to God as instruments for righteousness. We at least try to live our lives as God would have us live them, including telling others about our personal experiences of God’s forgiveness, and, more importantly, telling them what Jesus says about Himself. When we were confirmed here or when we otherwise became members of this congregation, we vowed to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than to fall away from faithfully confessing the teaching and practice of Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. As we heard in today’s appointed Gospel Reading, our Lord not only knows that persecution comes, but He also remains in control and works through our persecution, the suffering we experience because we are Christians, the crosses we bear. We may not see and understand how He works now, but He does. We can bear the persecution more-readily because He has told us about it beforehand and sustains us through it (confer Pieper, I:434, with reference to Luther, StL III:1078 ff.). Ultimately, as we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 91:1-16; antiphon: v.1), we hold fast to Him in love, and He delivers us.
Considering today’s appointed Gospel Reading, we have realized that “We confess Jesus and endure, and Jesus confesses and saves us”. Next Sunday we will hear the final portion of Jesus’s sending out and instructing His twelve apostles (Matthew 10:34-42). Until and after then, with daily sorrow over our sin and trust in God’s forgiveness for Jesus’s sake, we live in His peace and joy now, as we will live in His peace and joy for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
