You Are Born Again, For You Are Baptized; Nothing Else Is Needed

By: Steve Dawson

Text:  John 3:1-17

To Him who loves us and has washed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.

Most of you already have much by your first birth. When I say your first birth, I mean to say, when you were physically born into this life: fed by your mother at her side, clothed by your parents or guardians, educated by teachers, and so forth.  By your first birth you have some of the following, if not all:  the support of a good boss, the love of faithful employees, loving family, good friends, and a good stable local government.  By your first birth you have the security of houses, apartments, cars, clothing, food, health insurance, public law enforcement, and possibly a 401k.  But when all this has had its day; when you lie in your grave, your friends, father, mother, family, boss, children, and employees cannot go with you but are powerless to help you.  When the strength of your body drains from your muscles and when the mental sharpness of you mind fades away and when you leave behind your popularity, honor, pension, clothing, and insurance plans; when you are cold and motionless inside an icy coffin six feet under—then something more is required.  That something is a new birth, a second birth.  To rephrase this with colloquial language: when you have died with the most toys, when the fat lady has sung, when you are at the end of your rope, and when you are on your last leg, the only option for you is to get out of the frying pan and into the fire… that is unless you have the new birth.  

Considering this, when we take a sober look at life and its end, death, you and I come to realize that it is necessary to look to another existence.  You and I are neither content nor comfortable to let death have the final word.  Thus, this new existence calls for a new birth, new clothing, new identity, and new nourishment that makes one fit for the kingdom of heaven.  

This is true.  It is right.  Listen up!  You must be born again!  Yes, I am speaking to you.  No, not your neighbor!  Not the person behind you.  But you!  Yes, you who are hearing this.  I tell you the truth that you will not see the kingdom of God unless you are born again—born a second time. 

As for this new rebirth though, how is it worked in us?  How does one acquire such a new birth? 

Maybe to be born again is some sort of internal work of our wills or emotions.  Maybe we need to look within the deep caverns of our hearts and conjure up spiritual energy to mystically accomplish this new task of being born again. 

Or, maybe this is some sort of physical change.  Maybe you and I need to figure out how we can bring this about through physical actions and physical works, as if it is something within our grasp. 

Dear friends, truth be told, being born again is not finding new beginnings from fountains of untapped energy within our hearts and it is not attempting to crawl back into our mother’s womb a second time to have a redo. 

Physical birth puts you in the grave.  It does not lead to the kingdom of heaven, since the kingdom of heaven is closed to all sinners born from the womb.  This means that there is no other path, no other road, no other avenue to heaven except through the Word of God, baptism, and faith.  We must be born again through these.  Our first birth is not sufficient. 

You have just heard that this new birth—this spiritual birth—is brought about by the Word of God, baptism, and faith; it is not of your own doing. To be born again is not something that you and I bring about by our thoughts, words, and deeds.   You see, your physical birth entails things such as diapers, milk, mushy vegetables, moms, and dads, which all eventually lead to the grave—to dust and ashes.  However, if you want salvation, life everlasting, and the resurrection of the body, “you need different parents, who will bring you to heaven.  This Christ does.  By [the way] of Baptism and the Word of God, He places you and your Christianity into the lap of our dear mother, the Christian Church.  This He accomplished through His suffering and death that by virtue of His death and blood we might live eternally.”[1]

You, who have ears, hear.  Your baptism into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, puts you in Jesus’ grave.  Indeed, being born again is the end of your sinful nature and the beginning of life that partakes of the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection.  To be born again is the death of a life that is continually mucked in sin.  To be born again is not something that you do but is done to you.  It is you being washed.  To be born again is you receiving the name of the Triune God upon your head and heart.  To be born again is you submerged under the powerful baptismal flood. 

At your baptism, the old sinful nature from you first birth was violently drowned.  Otherwise stated at your baptism the old sinful nature from your physical birth—that malicious, greedy, lethargic, proud, jealous, full of lust, narcissistic, and pathetic sinful nature—was slayed.  Yes, your baptism has teeth, it is potent.  It is the way of your new birth.  From this violent drowning massacre, your old sinful nature was killed; death happened, yet what emerges is life.  Surely, this happens because baptism works forgiveness of sins and gives eternal salvation accomplished by Jesus for you. 

As a result, each and every day you now walk this earth within this new birth.  You are baptized.  The new birth, or we can say the spiritual life, cannot be perceived by the five senses.  It is invisible.  It is found in the Word of God, baptism, and faith.  In other words, your life as a Christian “is nothing else than a daily baptism, begun once and continuing ever after.”[2]  Yes, each and every day there is a purging of whatever “pertains to the [first physical birth], so that whatever belongs to the [new baptismal birth] may come forth.”[3]  It is daily remembering not your first birth, but being returned to your baptismal birth.  It is daily the Lord bringing you back in repentance and faith to the reality of your baptisms. 

There are further implications of your new birth: being born again means that you don’t belong to yourself and your life is no longer your own.  You are not defined by your first birth. 

Because of your second baptismal birth, you have everything that you need in Christ, which means that you can rest with confidence.  You are washed of your sins by His blood; you are secure for eternity as you live day by day in this veil of tears.

Because of your new birth you do not have to be consumed about building a name for yourself, for you have the name of God upon you.  You do not have to worry about your spiritual temperature and your spiritual empires, for you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm in Christ Jesus.  You do not have to lie, cheat, and steal to obtain material goods to somehow prop yourself up.  No, you are baptized.  You are freed from looking inwards and freed from the constant burden of trying to acquire trophies and points for your own spiritual resumes. 

In your new birth you have righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus in which you wear like a robe. 

Nothing else is needed.

This means that your physical clothes and shoes and houses and homes and money and goods can be utilized by you as a simple guest who is journeying through life, until you arrive at your final destination, which is the kingdom of heaven.  In your baptismal birth, you are freed to be concerned for the well-being of your neighbor, for you are taken care of.  Otherwise stated, it is a waste of time and energy when we are shaped by our first birth, rather than our second birth.[4] 

Furthermore, “This new life, to which we have been born again in Christ, is not normal or natural, and will not feel normal or natural to us.  Normal and natural to us is our sinful flesh, which remains the enemy of God and will be a pain in the neck until the end of our lives.”[5]   Nevertheless, we are called by God and by the new birth in Christ, into the life of being God’s children and servants.  It is all gift.

Dear Baptized Saints, “This new life is lived in hope, the Christian hope, which is the confidence that what we cannot see, but God has promised, is true –and so we are confident in ourselves that we have forgiveness and life and salvation, and so we rejoice, and give thanks, and we live out this new life—not according to how things feel, or how things may appear to us, but according to the reality of God's blessings, forgiveness and protection of which He speaks to us in His Word”[6] and gives us in our baptisms. 

You have been born again, for you are baptized. 

You have a new birth, for the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit has been placed upon you. 

You have been born from above. 

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Martin Luther, Luther’s Work’s American Edition: Volume 22 ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1957), 291.

[2] Martin Luther, The Large Catechism: The Book of Concord (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 465.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Robin Fish. “Born Again.” http://lcmssermons.com/index.php?sn=2267 (14 March 2014)

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

Pentecost Then; Pentecost Now

Text:  Acts 2:1-21 and John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

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

Today may be a bit jarring.

Over the last six months we have heard about Jesus:  Jesus being born in a manger, hearing who Jesus was, hearing what Jesus came to do, hearing about Jesus dying and about Jesus resurrecting and about Jesus ascending.  Then today we get the sound like a rushing wind and the divided tongues as of fire and the thousands of converts.

Otherwise stated, it may be a bit jarring to go so quickly from the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, to the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.  However, it really isn’t that jarring.  Despite Jesus being absent from earth due to Him ascending to heaven, mankind was not left alone, for the Lord God was still present with mankind.  There was no break in or jarring to the continuity of God’s presence on earth.  The Lord Jesus ascended and the Holy Spirit was present; He was active and working. 

And some amazing work He certainly did.  The barrier of language was no difficulty for the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit appeared to the disciples that Day of Pentecost some two-thousand years ago resulting in a tongue resting on each of them.  Being filled for a temporary action, the disciples then proclaimed the Gospel in other languages to the devout Jews who had gathered in Jerusalem from every nation.

Take a moment and think about the implications of this.  The Gospel was not restricted; the message of forgiveness was not muzzled.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, the message of the Gospel broke through language barriers.  It was translated into foreign tongues, showing that the forgiveness of sins belonged not only to the Hebrew speaking Jews, but the entire world—every tribe, every nation, every tongue, every dialect.  This Gospel was not to remain as some local story spoken with a hometown accent.  It was a message for the entire world.  It could not and would not be confined, but the Lord saw it fit to translate it, so that all the countries of the world were given the Gospel. 

As a result, thousands were converted that Pentecost Day, long ago.  Thousands added to the Christian faith that Pentecost morning, some two-thousand years ago.  From those thousands of new converts, the Gospel would then be returned to the people’s own homeland, spoken in their own particular language to many more individuals, resulting in the spreading of the Christian faith. 

This was the Holy Spirit fulfilling His office.  This pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was not the Holy Spirit’s grand debut into time and history, but was the Holy Spirit pouring out above and beyond the norm.  It was the Holy Spirit fulfilling His office for a specific purpose to fulfill prophecy from long ago. 

All this stated, can we expect more of this phenomenal “Acts-chapter-two-work-of-the-Holy-Spirit-stuff” in the church today?  Should Zion Lutheran Church be looking to tap into the rushing wind, tongue speaking, and the filling of the Holy Spirit from long ago?  Frankly my friends and contrary to what you might hear from Christian television preachers, we cannot.  The speaking in tongues, the mighty rushing wind, and the devout Jews from every tribe gathering in Jerusalem were real events within a particular time, place, and context.  A time, place, and context that the Holy Spirit orchestrated by pouring Himself out above and beyond, thus fulfilling particular Old Testament prophecy.  That stated, we have not been given any promises from scripture that this could be harnessed or recreated in our modern day. 

Tragically though, we Christians don’t realize this all the time and we try to conjure up awe and inspiration in the church so that we can try to refashion a modern day Pentecost.  Sadly, there is a temptation among all of us that we need to somehow awaken the Holy Spirit to His office through us being on fire or engaged or energized or spiritized.  We read Acts chapter two and hear about the mighty rushing wind, the speaking of foreign languages, and believe that we—like the disciples—can somehow obtain this filling of the Holy Spirit and remake a modern day Pentecost. 

Dear friends, we cannot call down the Holy Spirit by force through our own agendas and He is not sent as a reward due to our own spiritual endeavors.   Furthermore, we do not possess the Holy Spirit as a personal possession where He is put into our debt.  It is idolatry to attempt to tame God and to attempt to harness the Lord for our own personal plans.  Finally, we do not stand a chance in creating a personal Pentecost.  We do not and we cannot re-produce what occurred during that Pentecost some two-thousand years ago.  Why not?  You see, the disciples never set out to have this Pentecost experience.  They didn’t organize focus groups and community polls to find out what the public masses were looking for so that they could “scratch the itch of the masses” and make a big public splash.  They didn’t sit down at a board meeting and discuss membership data, and formulate marketing plans and advertising so that they could increase their market share.  They didn’t even wake up that morning with the intention of going out from behind the safety of their locked doors.  It wasn’t their plans and purposes and intentions that made that first Pentecost what it was.  It was Almighty God that made this happen.[1]

I certainly don’t mean to be a killjoy and I certainly don’t mean to create the impression that I am diminishing the role and work of the Holy Spirit, for I am not.  I am merely trying to set things within their proper context and to expose our overly enthusiastic imaginations.  You see, even though the story of Acts chapter two is most impressive, we as sinful-numbers- driven-emotional-thrill-seeking-Christians will always gravitate to that which is mysterious, large, grand, positive, and exciting, while missing the main thrust of what is going on.

Permit me to explain.

The speaking of tongues in Acts chapter two—the speaking of foreign languages—is so spectacular that we often forget the reason why the apostles spoke in tongues to begin with.  You see, all the remarkable stuff happened so that the Holy Spirit could fulfill His most basic and straightforward task: the proclamation of the Gospel and the gifting of faith unto everlasting life. 

Do not forget that the Holy Spirit, He functions to reveal and glorify Christ; He preaches Christ and testifies of Him. 

In the midst of the Pentecost miracle of the mighty rushing wind, the tongues, and so forth, another miracle was happening; people were being saved unto everlasting life.  “Today’s [reading from Acts chapter two] gives us the historical facts concerning that first Pentecost after Jesus ascended into heaven.  There were the tongues AS OF flame … the SOUND of a mighty wind … and speaking in tongues.  All of these signs were means to one very important end … the proclamation of the salvation of God worked out through Jesus offering Himself up on the cross.”[2]

Indeed, there were essentially two barriers that were being cross, two hurdles, if you well.  The message of the Gospel was breaking through the language barrier and the Holy Spirit through the Gospel was breaking through deaf ears, hard hearts, and unbelief, in order to grant faith, life, and salvation. 

You, who have ears, listen.  Contrary to popular opinions today, the proclamation of salvation through the language barrier and through hardened hearts did not stop on that Pentecost day.  My friends, the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force or a symbol of God’s power, but the third person of the Trinity who has made you holy and still makes you Holy. 

The same miracle of Pentecost continues to this very present day, for the Holy Spirit has led you into this community, placed you in the church’s lap, where He preaches to you and continually brings you to Christ.[3] 

Listen carefully, “neither you nor I could ever know anything about Christ, or believe in Him or receive from Him as Lord, unless these were offered to us and bestowed on our hearts through the preaching of the gospel by the Holy Spirit.”[4]  Therefore, “where Christ is not preached, there is no Holy Spirit to create, call, and gather the Christian church.”[5]  However, “when the Holy Spirit is doing His job, all we see and hear of is Jesus.  When you clearly hear Jesus then you know the Holy Spirit is at work.”[6]

This means that the Holy Spirit—just like at Pentecost two-thousand years ago—“has called [you] through the gospel, enlightened [you] with His gifts, made [you] holy and kept [you] in the true faith, just as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.”[7]

Dear Baptized Saints, the Holy Spirit through the Word is with you; He counsels you, helps you, teaches you, reminds you of scripture, convicts you of sin, points you to Jesus, guides you, and gives all glory to Christ.

Dear Baptized Saints, like Pentecost, the Holy Spirit does not and will not bring the message of Christ to you vacuous and with vague generalities.  No, His message will have substance; it will be the certain and absolute truth, for He will preach what He receives from the Father and from Christ.  Unlike the spirit of lies, the devil, and his mobs, the Holy Spirit will preach about Jesus and will Glorify Christ so that you will believe in Christ. 

Yes, you should know and learn that the Holy Spirit will be in and with the Word.  He is “there in your Baptism, being poured out upon you in water and Word, giving you a new birth from above in Christ—your very own Pentecost.  [He] is there in the Absolution, as life-giving forgiveness is breathed into your ears.  And the Holy Spirit is there in the Lord’s Supper, giving you faith in Jesus’ Word: This is my Body; this is my Blood for you.”[8]

The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth, in order that you may believe it, use it as a weapon, be preserved by it against all the lies and deception of the devil, and prevail in all trials and temptations.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Jason Zirbel, “Extraordinarily Ordinary & Adequate,” LCMS Sermons, http://lcmssermons.com/index.php?sn=3791 (accessed May 23, 2015).

[2] James T. Batchelor, “Feast of Pentecost,” LCMS Sermons, http://lcmssermons.com/index.php?sn=3790 (accessed May 23, 2015).

[3] Martin Luther, The Large Catechism: The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb & Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 435-436.

[4] Ibid, 436.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Naomichi Masaki (Source unknown).

[7] Martin Luther, The Small Catechism: The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb & Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 355.

[8] Pentecost, (Higher Things Daily Reflections for May 24, 2015).

Alienated By Jesus; Sanctified In Truth

Text:  John 17:11b-19

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

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says that the world will hate the disciples, that the world will hate Christians.  Sorry for the grim news this morning.  I wish I could soften that up a little bit, but I really can’t.  You see, the reason why there will be hostility from the world towards Christians is because the world first hated Jesus.[1] 

My friends, often times we wrongfully communicate to individuals that they should become a Christian because there will be all sorts of peace, tranquility, and that the Christian life is full of ease.  We wrongly communicate that the life of a Christian is one where we go through life simply riding on fluffy clouds, hearing harp music with not a worry in the world.  Problems: what are those?  Tension and hostility: never!  No, my friends, this is not how it is.  Now, it is true when we are in Christ that we do have peace with God, for  our sins are not counted against us; however, even though this is the case, there is a great deal of tension still when we walk in the here and now. 

In the here and now—in our day-to-day lives, in this vale of tears—we most certainly do have tension and hostility.  This unfriendliness comes primarily from three enemies.  The first aggression is our sinful nature: full of rebellion towards the Lord.  The second hostility is the Evil One: he wants to kill, steal, and destroy our faith in Christ.  The third source of hatred is the world: we war with the methodologies of the world, the values of the world, and the beliefs of the world.  Indeed, we are at odds with the ways of the world because we are not of this world.  We experience hatred and hostility from the world because we are not of this world. 

Not of this world?  That phrase sure seems odd to hear, especially since all of us have been born of a woman, raised by parents, are of flesh and blood, eat the world’s food, drink the world’s drinks, breathe the world’s air, hold jobs in the world’s marketplaces, and so forth.  That stated, even though we are in the world as Christians we do not think, speak, act, or believe as the world does.  What the world deems as right and wrong, we don’t necessarily deems as right and wrong.  When the world says, “jump,” we are often compelled to sit.  When the world tells us to sit, we are often compelled to jump.  Overall this nonconformity does not seem to bother us too much for who doesn’t like to be a bit different at times.  However, when this noncompliance leads to tension and brings forth hate, the tables turn.

My friends, when tension and antagonism pours out upon us Christians we typically see two responses.  Otherwise stated, it seems that there are often times two responses to how we interact with the world that is in opposition with us.  On the one hand we cut ourselves off totally from the world.  We create a fortified castle to live in, thus attempting to distance ourselves from hostility to alleviate the tension.  We say that we are not ‘of’ the world.  On the other hand, we can seek to eliminate the antagonism with the world by intertwining ourselves with the world so that we become ‘one’ with the world.  We say to ourselves, “How can there be tension with the world if we have joined ourselves to the world?”    

Beware! Both of these options have severe downfalls. 

If we dig a moat around ourselves, reinforce the walls, pull up the draw bridge, run into our fortified castle, and keep the world ‘out there’ in order to keep us safe inside our metaphoric castles, all that we have accomplished is basically nothing except creating our own castle, a castle ruled by our own self-deception.  Permit me to explain.  If all our time and energy and abilities are spent on keeping evil away from us—keeping sin out in the world and away from us—we can end up forgetting that sin is much closer than we think—it is inside the walls of the castle roaming freely.  That’s right, when we build the walls up, dig the moat, and pull up the draw bridge, we more times often than not end up being a bunch of self-righteous jerks within our own exclusive castle where we excuse ourselves from sin and shift blame to everything outside our walls, while not recognizing the sin inside the walls of our self-made castles.

Dear friends, we have seen in the scriptures and through the history of the church that we can certainly take ourselves out of the world, but we cannot take the world out of ourselves.  In other words, the world and the devil that are ‘out there’ are most definitely our enemies, but our biggest enemy is right here on the inside, behind the walls, inside the moat, and behind the drawn bridge… the biggest enemy is you—your very own sinful nature that dwells inside the castle. 

Listen, you can make the walls higher, secure the draw bridge more, and make the moat deeper, but you cannot escape the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I.  The more we attempt to separate ourselves from the world, the more that we simply isolate ourselves with our sinful nature.  It is futile at best.  Furthermore, Jesus does not pray in His high priestly prayer that Christians should be taken out of the world entirely. 

With that stated, if the end goal is not for us to be taken out of the world, the obvious conclusion or assumption might be that we should become ‘one’ with the world.  To be ‘one’ with the world is where our Christian beliefs and values combine with the beliefs and values of the world.  It is when the Christian faith is amalgamated with the ideologies of the world, resulting in the world loving us.  It is when we lower the metaphoric draw bridge.  Better yet, it is when the walls are brought down and the moat is filled with dry ground, so as to let everything mix together.  To be one with the world is where tolerance reigns; there are no standards, there are no distinctions, and as they say, we are in bed with the world.  

As a result of belonging to the world, we become skillful at concealing our sins.  “Stinginess is disguised as good money-sense; lust becomes [passionate love]; cowardice becomes caution;”[2] the killing of unborn children is the right to choose; greed is camouflaged as ambition; homosexuality turns out to be a committed emotional relationship; euthanasia is cloaked as compassion; rioting masquerades as justice; and on and on and on.  And naturally when our conscience bothers us the world simply points us to a medicine cabinet of solutions or other options to numb the pain of a convicting conscious.  Feeling guilty due to greed?  “Nah, you are just ambitious.  Furthermore, remember the charitable act that you did last month.”  Feeling bad about a sexual sin outside of marriage?  “No reason to feel guilty as long as it was within a committed relationship.”  And so it goes.        

Dear friends, Jesus in our Gospel reading is not calling us to strike up a balance between abstaining from the world and joining the world.  He is not calling for a balancing act where we are to have one foot in the world and the other foot out of the world.  This text is not about you joining the world and it is not about you constructing your own castle, for this way of thinking assumes that you have the ability to overcome and interact with the world by your own strength. 

Repent one and all!  Even though you are in this world—you live, work, marry, and eventually die in this world—you do not belong to this world.  Repent one and all!  Even though you separate yourself from this world—you build tall walls, fill up moats, pull the draw bridge, and reside in a castle—you are still powerless to counterbalance the world.  Repent one and all for you are not of the world and are not of your self-made metaphoric castles.    

Baptized Saints, you who have ears, hear.  You are not citizens of your own self-made castles of protection.  You can’t build the walls high enough; you can dig the moats deep enough. 

Baptized Saints, you who have ears, hear.  You are not of this world.  It does not possess you.  It does not regulate you.  It certainly does not love you.

Baptized Saints, you who have ears, hear.  “You are in this world but you are of another world, the heavenly Fatherland.  You are a citizen of heaven [by your baptisms] who lives for a while—a very, very short while—here on earth.”[3]  Do not run from the world or dive into the world, for you have been baptized and you have been sanctified in the truth of the Word.  “[The Lord] has made you holy.  That does not mean He has made you a ‘good, morally upright person.’  To be holy means to be claimed by God as His very own.  You do not belong to the world; you belong to God; you are holy, His very own, God’s treasured possession, kept in Christ, the holy One of God.”[4] 

Like little Alaythia Jane today, you have been baptized.  When you were baptized your citizenship changed: no longer apart of the world and no longer needing to create your own citizenship. 

In Christ! 

Baptized into His death and resurrection!

Eating and drinking from the Altar of Christ.

You are home in Him. 

You are not embedded in the world or behind the walls of a self-made castle, but you are buried deeply into the wounds of Jesus.

“You are of Christ.  You are holy in Him.  He gives you that holiness that is His very own, for you to share.  He washes away the mud of this world, cleanses you of every stain [of self-righteousness], makes you as He Himself is: a pure and sinless child of the Father.” [5] 

And when your journey is done, “He’ll take you from this vale of tears, from this desert of wandering, into the land flowing with milk and honey, onto streets of God, midst angelic choirs singing, announcing the arrival of another citizen of heaven, who made it to home sweet heavenly home.”

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] See also John 15:18-19.

[2] Chad L. Bird, Meditations and Sermons (Copyright 2014 Chad Bird), 182.

[3] Ibid, 183

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid, 184.

Nothing Beyond Jesus; Abide In Him

Painting by: Steven Dawson

Text:  John 15:9-17

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

While you were a helpless babe (dead in your sin) or when you were rebelling against the Lord later in life, the Lord hunted you down, grabbed ahold of you, put His name upon you, placed you in the ark of His Holy Church, and made you His own. 

The Lord did this—for you and to you.

It is He who made you what you now are, His friends.   It is He who declared you righteous, gave you faith, and placed you in this church; all as complete and total gift.  Everything that you are and will do and will be, originates not with you, but with the gracious Lord who will bring to pass that which He wills. 

It is truly a remarkable thing that you and I have been chosen by the Lord.  It is a marvelous fact that you and I, as Christians, originate from Christ and that the Lord Jesus will see us through. Furthermore, to have the Holy Spirit and to be branches connected to the Vine, by our baptisms, is indeed much.

Without a doubt, it is much to have the Spirit.  To retain the Spirit though is more.  That is to say, many people begin the Christian life by the Spirit—by abiding in the Lord’s love—but then end up finishing in the flesh. 

This is really the temptation of all of us.  This is the desire of the evil one as well. 

Permit me to explain. 

The Holy Spirit through the Word and Sacraments has placed you in Christ Jesus.  Like a dead and helpless branch you were grafted into the True and Living Vine.  Then once connected to the True Vine, you were called to simply abide in the Lord’s love. 

What does it mean to abide in the Lord’s love though? 

To abide in the Lord’s love is not for you to cultivate a high degree of morality or to get busy and to do stuff in order to abide.  But rather to abide in the Lord’s love is to stop trying in your own power.  That is to say, to abide is not to get busy and do stuff, but rather to abide is to simply remain; to trust, believe, stay, and rest in the Lord’s care.  To abide in the Lord’s love means that the Lord will work in you to strengthen your faith towards Him and He will work through you to show fervent love towards your neighbor.  To abide is to not leave.  To abide is to remain in Jesus, to be in His church where you are reminded of your baptism, declared to be saints from the Word, and where you receive the body and blood of the Lord for the forgiveness of your sins.    

But like a dog returning to its own vomit, we foolishly resist this abiding in the Lord.  We abandon the Lord’s care and return to our own power, our own strength, our own narrative, our own agenda, and our own endeavors.  Otherwise stated, “Jesus wants us to have this mind picture of a branch lovingly grafted into the main vine.  If the branch does absolutely nothing, the main vine will incorporate the branch into itself and the branch will thrive.  If the branch tries to contribute anything to the process, it will mess up the process.  The branch will go into rejection and die.”[1]

There is no doubt about it, like children, we don’t like to abide, we don’t like staying put.  We wiggle.  We squirm.  We are antsy.  We are always trying to spot the nearest exit sign to we know our escape route.  It isn’t that we have had too much sugar and that we are ADHD, but rather this resistance to abiding is due to mainly two reasons.

The first reason is that we forget that the Lord has chosen us out of sin, death, and damnation unto life; we begin to believe the idea that ‘we’ were the ones that chose Him.  We inflate our abilities, downplay our sinful condition, and then selfishly take credit for choosing our life of faith.  We treat Jesus as if He is just another kid on the playground lineup for a game of dodgeball, and we did Him a favor in picking Him.  We persuade ourselves into thinking that we could have done anything, we could’ve chosen any other religion, but we chose Jesus.  The poor lad is fortunate to have us, since we are so wise.  Lucky little fellow!  Thus, this whole abiding thing is really not that serious.  Abide in Jesus and His love?  Abide in Jesus by being receptive and dependent?  Nah, that is too restricting and too overbearing, besides we were the ones that chose Jesus! 

As a result of this mentality, when things are going well we just go on our merry way.  We tell ourselves that we are masters and commanders of our Christian life; therefore, it isn’t so much about us abiding with Jesus, but rather about Jesus keeping up with us.  After all, this mentality sees Jesus as a needy lap dog trailing behind us biting at our heels from time to time in order to be noticed. 

That being the case, we come to the conclusion that we really don’t need the church and we don’t need the Word and Sacraments.  Why would we, we can simply summon Jesus to do our bidding whenever we want.   After all we have created and remade Jesus into the image of a false god, a divine butler who abides with us when we summon Him to our needs.  That is to say, we summon a savior that doesn’t exist, a savior that we have created in our own minds.

The second reason we resist abiding and remaining in Jesus is that this becomes too boring for us.  We look at our culture and even other churches and become seduced with the idea that there is more to the Christian life than simply abiding and remaining in Jesus.  We begin to drink the Kool Aid that Jesus is a means to greater and better things.  We begin to think to ourselves:

“Sure, it is good to simply abide, but wouldn’t it be better if I moved to a higher spiritual tier?  Wouldn’t I rather move to a more victorious status?”

Our ears are tickled and we begin to listen to those who say,

“Don’t merely abide in Jesus being a Sunday only Christian, but be filled by spiritual powers and move to a higher dimension of spiritual greatness.  Simple Word and Sacraments are great, but look at the bright lights, the prosperity, the spiritual experiences, the new hot trends, the phenomenal progress, the new programs, the new methods, and so forth.  Move beyond abiding you naïve trivial Christian!  Step out of your traditions and comfort!  Don’t be a lazy Christian.  Move beyond and upward!  There is so much more waiting for you!  Don’t just merely abide.” 

And so, we begin to believe that Jesus can’t be the end game and that by simply abiding in Jesus’ Word and Sacraments we are missing out on so much more.  Ever so slightly we end up chasing shallow and empty promises of greatness.  We end up on a wild goose chase; following a carrot on a stick; looking for the treasure at the end of the rainbow.  After all is said and done though—after all the chasing and climbing—there is no goose or carrot or treasure, just us alone abiding in our sin without Jesus, looking into the great dark abyss of hell and damnation.

Dear friends, “Jesus said, ‘Abide in my love.’  This is the love of the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep.  This is the great love that lays down life for a friend.  This is the love of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  This is the love of the God-man who stood between God and us and took the full force of the wrath of God for us.  This is the love that bled on the cross and said, [Luke 23:34] ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’  This is the love that rose from the dead and promises us eternal life.”[2] 

Abide in this love—it is for you.

Abide, remain, and stay in the Lord’s love for you.  Keep your eyes upon the Word of God spoken to you.  Guard yourself from believing that you are independent and self-sustaining; watch that you are not seduced away from Christ the living Vine.

Abide in His love. 

Baptized, Saints, hear this today, nowhere in scripture is Jesus spoken of as a starting point, the beginning, but now you must move beyond Him.  Salvation in Jesus is not a launching pad for greater and better euphoric mystic experiences or a baseball base that needs to be rounded before you get to home plate.  Jesus is not a means to another end.  No!  He is the end. He is the alpha ‘and’ the omega.  You do not move beyond Jesus.  Jesus is the beginning and the end.     

Abide in Him; abide in His love to and for you.

Dear Baptized Saints, hear this today, the Lord chose you.  You did not vote on your salvation.  You contributed nothing to your salvation except sin and resistance.  And thank God that this is so, for if anything is left in our hands to enable us to strive after salvation, we would never have certainty and we would mess it all up. 

Dear Baptized Saints, hear this today, the Lord not only chose you as heirs of His kingdom, but also builds the kingdom, fills heaven with saints like you, robs hell, hinders death, and sustains you daily by His Word and Sacraments.  He chose you in order to draw you into His divine life, so that you will abide in His love forever.

Abide in Him, do not leave; stay and receive. 

Dear Baptized Saints, hear this today, the Lord did not leave you in your sins and in death, but staked His life to rescue you.  He delivers to you His purity, holiness, death, resurrection, and Himself in the water, word, bread, and wine.        

Abide and remain in the Lord where His love may continue to shine upon you and carry out all its saving purposes for you and through you.

Dear Baptized Saints, abide in His love to and for you. 

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] James T. Batchelor, “Sixth Sunday of Easter (Confirmation),” LCMS Sermons, http://lcmssermons.com/index.php?sn=1306 (May 8, 2015).
[2] Ibid.

2015 Confirmation Sunday at Zion Lutheran: Abide In Him

Text: John 15:1-8

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

Jesus is the true vine and you are branches. As branches, you have been grafted into Him and abide in Him.  You have been placed in the garden, the holy Christian Church.

Adam, Annah, Grace, Reed, Taylor, and Troy, it is certainly obvious from the illustration in today’s Gospel reading, as well as all your confirmation instruction, that Jesus deserves all the credit for declaring you clean and for connecting you to Him. Indeed, as dead helpless branches, you have been gathered off the desolate ground, scooped up, forgiven at the cross, made His own, and grafted into the true living vine—all by the power of the Lord’s Promises pronounced and applied to you.

He did this—for you. 

Now, as living branches that are connected to the True Vine (Jesus Christ), notice that the calling for you is ‘not’ for you to work towards becoming ‘more’ connected or ‘more’ grafted into Christ, but the calling is to simply abide and remain.

What does this mean though? 

It means that you are not to leave and abandon Him, but to stay with Him, remain here long after this Confirmation Sunday.  It also means that you can confidently know that you have already been cleansed and are fully and completely grafted into the vine through the Lord’s powerful Word, His Word that delivers the benefits of Mt. Calvary to you.

Listen dear Confirmation Students, despite what others may say or what you might someday think or feel, you are completely declared righteous because of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection.  From your confirmation instruction you know and confess that you are also completely sanctified—that is to say, made clean—by the Word spoken to you.  You are counted as saints for Jesus is your all-in-all.  You are lacking nothing and I mean absolutely nothing.

Adam, Annah, Grace, Reed, Taylor, and Troy, there is more to this though. Do not believe the misguided advice of well-intentioned Christians who try to create the impression that the goal of the Christian life is to move closer or upward towards the vine in order to obtain something that it is lacking. Do not listen to the adjectives of well-intentioned Christians; adjectives like: more, greater, truer, further, higher, more real, and nearer.  This kind of chatter and nonsense gives the impression that you, as branches, are lacking and should ascend up the vine to obtain a greater or improved status. But this is not the case for you!  You are not lacking anything in Christ. The reason being, you have every spiritual blessing in Jesus.  He has declared you clean.  Yes, His Word is enough. He has declared you spotless; it is what it is.  It is not necessary for you to move upon the Holy One, but rather it is the Holy One who has already moved upon you with a declarative Word. “You are clean; you are washed; you are mine!”

Adam, Annah, Grace, Reed, Taylor, and Troy, also do not believe the foolish idea that as branches of the vine that you need to produce good fruit—that is good works—as some sort of payment or bargaining tool for being connected to the true vine.  This irrational boloney says that you need to produce good works in order to prove that you are clean or to do good works to validate the integrity of your Christian faith.  Listen!  You are a Christian and are forgiven by Jesus not on the basis of what you do, but on the basis of what Jesus already did for you.  It was finished at the cross.  Not 90% or 95% finished, but 100% finished! It is Jesus and Jesus alone—for you!  Indeed, as branches of the true vine, the good works that each of you bear certainly have no power to make you cleaner or more connected to the vine.  That is Jesus’ work. But rather, the good works that you walk in are simply a result of being connected to Jesus by the Word and faith.

Now, while it is spot-on to confess that good works are not the cause of you being a Christian and do not preserve faith, it must be noted that it is certainly true that evil works do destroy faith.  What this means is that even though you are cleansed by God’s forgiving Word, you are daily in need of the vinegrower’s work upon you.  Otherwise stated, you are in need of God the Father’s work upon you.  This is so because the old sinful nature still clings to you, as it still clings to me. You are simultaneously sinners and saints. 

Thankfully, God the Father will indeed act upon you.  However, He will not act upon you by applying spiritual cosmetics to your sin, in order to masquerade your sin as legitimate fruit. He also won’t give you exhorting pep talks to encourage you to try harder or somehow produce more good fruit, or possibly reform your sinful nature.  No, what is needed is something much more radical and that is an end to your old sinful nature. What is needed is death. Your sinful nature needs to be cut off and thrown away, that is to say, drowned in the waters of baptism, for you have been baptized.  The Vinegrower needs to act upon the branch—that is you—by pruning and stripping you of unneeded leaves—sin.  Thankfully, God will not allow or permit you to simply exist in an unpruned status.  You are too important to Him.  You must be acted upon and tended to every single day, for to not do so would be to let you degenerate into a wild and barren branch.  To not act upon you would be to allow you to decay into nothing.  Thus, God does indeed cultivate, feed, prune and strip you so that you yield good fruit.  Do not resist this pruning, for it is good and necessary.  It is a gift.    

Adam, Annah, Grace, Reed, Taylor, and Troy, you will be constantly pruned to bear more fruit; however, this leads us to ask, ‘fruit for whom?’ As you already know from Confirmation Class, Martin Luther once said, “God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does.” This is so true in regard to our illustration before us.  The branches are not called to produce fruit so that the vine can eat the fruit. This means that you don’t produce good works, but you simply bear good works, good works that are prepared in advance for you to walk in.  You don’t do good works to become a Christian; rather you do good works because you already are Christians.  And these good works are there for your neighbor.  They are there to be given away to your moms and dads, your siblings, your cousins, your friends, your teachers, your fellow students, and so forth. 

Blessed Baptized Confirmation Students, today and for the many years to come, remember that Jesus says that apart from Him you can do nothing.  That’s right you can do nothing apart from Christ.  Your Christian life is not the establishment of the unholy trinity of ‘me, myself, and I’ as an independent self-sufficient vine, it is rather to abide in Christ the true and only vine, by faith; continually receiving the Word and Sacraments that are for you. Adam, Annah, Grace, Reed, Taylor, and Troy, abide in Him as His living and precious branches.

Blessed Baptized Confirmation Students, today and for the many years to come know that as branches of God the Holy Spirit, you only do good to the extent that He rules, leads, and guides. If God the Holy Spirit would withdraw His gracious hand—if you ceased to be branches of the vine—you could not for one moment remain in the faith, let alone bear good fruit.  You are dependent upon the vine and cooperate as you receive all that is good and salutary from the vine.  Adam, Annah, Grace, Reed, Taylor, and Troy, abide in Him as His living and precious branches.

Blessed Baptized Confirmation Students, because good works are the fruits of the Spirit, you get to look to Christ and His Word rather than yourselves and what you are doing. The reason for this is, if you look to the good works to spur on more good works, your endeavor will prove to be futile at best. It is foolish because Jesus, the true vine, is the author and perfector of your faith and good works; Adam, Annah, Grace, Reed, Taylor, and Troy, fix your eyes on Jesus, His Word is for you.

Blessed Baptized Confirmation Students, remember what you have learned, know that you are declared forgiven because of Jesus’ death on the cross and you are completely clean by the Word spoken to you.  You, along with all of us here today in your midst, are counted as saints for Jesus forgives you and all of us of our sins. Be of good cheer with all of us that our sins are forgiven.  Know in today’s Communion Supper that there is no condemnation for you are in Christ Jesus.  The Body and Blood are for you, for the forgiveness of your sins.  You are clean; Jesus is your all-in-all.  Adam, Annah, Grace, Reed, Taylor, and Troy, abide in Him as His living and precious branches.

Blessed Baptized Confirmation Students the Triune God has brought you up and instructed you now in the way of life, that you understand Him as your Creator, Redeemer, and the One who makes you holy.  As beloved branches, abide in Him—receiving, faithing, living in Him and His Word for you.  Adam, Annah, Grace, Reed, Taylor, and Troy, today confess, “Jesus, my true vine, to You I live.  Jesus, my true vine, to you I die, living or dying, Lord Jesus, I am your beloved branch.”

This Confirmation Sunday, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Amen

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