Don't Eat Your Seed
After Pentecost • Sermon • Submitted
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A Sobering Announcement
A Sobering Announcement
Last week, senior members of the Lutheran School Corporation of Indiana’s Board of Directors learned that we have lost students. We have gone from anticipating a student population of 70, to barely being able to make it to 50. Parents gave, among their reasons, “No after-school programs,” “no available meals,” and “disciplinary issues.” The problem is, concerning the first two, this was already known, while the third was “a self-inflicted wound,” in that it was the children of those parents who were the major disrupters.
Lord God, bless Your Word wherever it is proclaimed. Make it a Word of power and peace to convert those not yet Your own and to confirm those who have come to saving faith. May Your Word pass from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip, and from the lip to the life that, as You have promised, Your Word may achieve the purpose for which You send it, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” 32 But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.
There are some things concerning the message of the Kingdom, that it will be hard to teach, not because they will be hard to say, but because they will be hard to take in. Nevertheless, those who occupy the Office of the Public Ministry are called to do three things by our Lord Jesus Christ:
Make Disciples
Baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Teach that we are to observe everything that our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded, trusting in His present grace to sustain us.
1 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
The message of the Kingdom is not an esoteric doctrine to be gazed upon and dissected, allegorized and spiritualized into impotence. It is the message by which the Lord establishes His righteous rule over all the earth. It stands in opposition to the philosophies of men, the doctrines of demons, and the fire darts of the wicked one. It’s sad that those who are citizens of the Kingdom can get sidetracked on issues over which we have no control.
33 And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. 35 And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
Our ranks in the Kingdom, our position, the spiritual gifts we receive, and the vocations which God gifts to us for His glory His to determine and dispense. If He so chooses, He can save us and immediately bring us into His presence, or He can save us and put us to many years of service, to the praise of His glorious grace. All we can rightly do is say, “Thank you Lord, for Your indescribable gift.”
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
One of those gifts, one which we can easily take for granted, is the opportunity to preach, teach and mentor others. The access that God gives to the hearts and souls of others to proclaim and nurture the truth as it is in Christ Jesus can never be taken for granted, for it can change in the same way that the rain clouds move from one place to another.
With no group of people is this more true than of our children. God commands us to “train up a child in the way in which he is to go,” giving us the promise that “when he is old, he will not depart from it” in Proverbs 22:6. In the New Testament, parents are exhorted to train their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” in Ephesians 6:4. When we take that for granted, we can find ourselves wondering how they walked away from the Faith as soon as they walked out of our home? How was the college professor able to shift them from what they had been taught in “children’s church” and VBS?
It’s simple - their minds were not cultivated when they were younger. You failed to teach them a biblical worldview, and modeled the notion that there is “Sunday truth” and “Weekday truth.” Anything that only works inside a sanctuary one day out of the week, but can be ignored outside that sanctuary for the rest of the week is not going to hold anyone’s loyalty or gain anyone’s trust for very long.
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
There is a wisdom that works in the world, it is common, and the world understands it and honors it. This wisdom justifies pride, self-seeking, competition, and self-promotion. This is not the wisdom that comes from Heaven. It is not pure, but is infected with the corrupting presence of sin. It is neither peaceable nor gentle, but demands the submission of others, verbally attacks those who disagree, and only thinks of “mercy” when it needs to receive some.
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Jesus lived it in order that we could receive the blessing of His obedience as we seek to emulate Him. He died and rose again in order that we might follow Him into the valley of the shadow of death without fear, knowing that Christ has conquered death and the grave. The presence of His Spirit, given to us when we were united to Christ, nurtured as we hear God Word proclaimed, and strengthened as we encourage one another daily, is as much a part of our spiritual inheritance as are any of the other promises of God that come with the our adoption as His beloved children.
There is an old saying, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” It meant that persecution doesn’t cripple the church; rather, it leads to growth. It is not when the World feels threatened by the Church, but when the world feels comfortable with the Church, that we are in danger. No one fights a dead enemy, not even Satan. In the Revelation, the Church in Sardis was warned about this perilous condition:
1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
It is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that makes a a Christian, a congregation, or a community, spiritually alive. The Spirit loves the Word and supports the Word, He won’t do anything in the absence of the Word, and He will never leave the Word unattended, but as it is written:
7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.
These three agree regarding the ministry of Christ and the missio Dei. Where these three are found, the Church is found to be alive and well. Where these three are absent, the church is stagnant or worse - dead. Praise God from whom all blessings flow that He has not yet called the coroner on many a church. But He won’t always leave room for repentance; so seek the Lord where He may be found, call upon Him while He is near, and trust that God’s love covers a multitude of faults, and His mercy is new every morning.
And the peace of God, that passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
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