The Fourth Sunday of Easter And Rite of Christian Confirmation for Tierra Franzisko and Aidan Rottmann
Stay Inside the Fence Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!) In today’s Epistle, God the Holy Spirit preaches to you, Tierra and Aidan, and this is what He says: “Whoever keeps [God’s] commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” Of course, God the Spirit not speaking to you alone. He is speaking and preaching also to your parents, your grandparents and to every other Christian here who will listen and not ignore: “Whoever keeps [God’s] commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” When God the Holy Spirit speaks to you about keeping the commandments, He is NOT telling you how to be saved or how to gain eternal life. God has already saved you! You already have His gift of eternal life! God saved you on the day He baptized you, when He washed away your sins (Acts 22:16) and adopted you as His dearly loved child (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6). When you were baptized, the forgiving blood that Jesus shed for you upon the cross became yours forever, and all your sins were given to Jesus. Forgiveness is now yours; salvation is now yours; eternal life is now yours; resurrection to happiness is now forever yours—and God’s Ten Commandments have given you NONE of these things! It was Jesus, NOT the Ten Commandments. Jesus has given you all these things and more! So the Spirit is NOT telling you how to be saved, or how to gain eternal life, when He preaches to you today, “Whoever keeps [God’s] commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” Rather, God is telling you in these Words that His Ten Commandments have now become a gift and blessing of your Baptism. I am going to repeat what I just said, because some people will think it sounds strange: God’s Ten Commandments are now a gift and a blessing to you because God baptized you. Some of your fellow Christians—maybe some of your own family members—will think it sounds strange that I would call the Ten Commandments a gift of your Baptism. That is because many people think of God’s Ten Commandments as nothing more than a list of things God requires us to do. And by all means, God certainly requires us to obey His commandments! God not only requires us to obey, but He also threatens to punish everyone who ignores His commandments. For that matter, God will even punish people who say that they are Christians, and say that they have Jesus in their hearts, but then live every day as if God and His Words do not matter. That is why Jesus spoke to each of us the very serious warning, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Yes, God’s commandments tell us what He wants us to do. But the Commandments also do more than that. As you both learned in confirmation class, the Ten Commandments also show us our great, on-going need for Jesus. While they tell us what God wants of us, the commandments also show us how miserably we all fail in each and every thing God has said. Lord, have mercy! God forgive us for the sake of Your Son Jesus! Because the Ten Commandments do such a good job of showing us our sin, they help us to get ready for worship each Sunday (among other things). After a week of incurring guilt upon guilt by breaking the commandments—after a week of having other people break the commandments against us—what could be better than the cool water and green pastures of Sunday morning worship? • Here Jesus confirms and repeats the promises He made to you in your Baptism, that you will be His beloved child forever—even when you do not feel very much like a child of God. • Here Jesus speaks His life-giving Word of forgiveness to you, never holding against you the ways you have broken the commandments—even when you fall back into breaking them again. • Here and only here Jesus serves His body and blood to you, given for the forgiveness of your sins: given this week, given next week, given yet again the week after that. God’s Ten Commandments get you ready for these things. God’s Ten Commandments give you the gift of showing you your sin, so that you will wake up and recognize your need for your Savior. If you should foolishly ignore the Ten Commandments, reject the Commandments, or pretend the Commandments do not matter, then you will never turn your attention to God’s Word; you will never want to come to church; you will never desire to hear Jesus’ forgiveness and assurance and peace, all of which He gives here. Listen again to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church: “Whoever keeps [God’s] commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” With these Words, the Holy Spirit wants you to know that His Ten Commandments do more for you than 1) tell you what He wants you to do, and 2) get you ready for Sunday morning. In today’s Epistle, God the Holy Spirit is telling you that the Ten Commandments also have the power (compare Acts 7:38) to give you help and comfort for every single day of your life! This is an amazing thing: “Whoever keeps [God’s] commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” Pause a moment and check these Words out: • Whoever: that means you. It means me, it means your family, and it means all these other Christians here, too. “Whoever” includes everyone. • Keeps: cherishes, loves, holds close to the heart, and yes, obeys. Even if you should end up foolishly breaking the Commandments, “KEEP” still speaks about your high regard and love for the Commandments—a love that God Himself first gave to you. • Abides: this word means that the living, eternal God is so deeply connected to you, that you might as well say He is inside you and you are inside Him. “Abide” is a word that speaks about living and dwelling and keeping residence. Put all these things together, and you have a wonderful promise from God: “Whoever keeps [God’s] commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” Stated another way, whoever holds and cherishes and loves God’s Commandments continues to live and remain and dwell in God, and God in Him. Do the Ten Commandments give you God’s grace and mercy? No so much. Do the Ten Commandments help you to know that you have God’s grace and mercy, and it will never be taken away from you? Exactly! “Whoever keep His commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” Think of it this way. Suppose you are a cow or a sheep. Your farmer or shepherd leads you into a rich, wonderful pasture and says to you, “All this is yours. Eat, drink, and rest here. You will be safe here.” Now, running around the edge of this pasture is a good, sturdy fence. What does that fence do for you? That fence lets you know where the good pasture ends and the rough wilderness begins. That fence shows you where the Good Shepherd and the Gentle Farmer wants you to be, so that he may watchfully care for you and protect you. That fence is just like the Ten Commandments. Jesus is your Good Shepherd, as you heard in today’s Gospel. When Jesus baptized you and brought you into His eternal kingdom, that is like a shepherd who leads his sheep into a rich pasture. The grass—to so speak—of Holy Communion will continue to nourish you. The refreshing water of Baptism will continue to satisfy your thirst. The fence is the Ten Commandments. The fence shows you where the good pasture ends and the rough wilderness begins. “Whoever keeps [God’s] commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” That is to say, whoever remains inside the fence abides in God, and God in him. Whoever does not jump over the fence and run away abides in God and God in him. Whoever loves and respects and observes the fence of the Ten Commandments will continue to know where the good pasture is, and where the cool water can be found. That fence shows you where the Good Shepherd and the Gentle Farmer wants you to be, so that he may watchfully care for you and protect you. In confirmation class, you learned to think about God’s Scriptures in terms of Law and Gospel. God says to you today in His Scriptures, “Whoever keeps [God’s] commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” • Here is the Law: Stay inside the fence. If you jump over the fence, abandoning God’s Commandments and living as if you do not even know them, then you should not expect to receive any good thing from God, either in this life or in the life to come. • Here is the Gospel: Stay inside the fence. The pasture of Jesus’ forgiveness is thick and green and it will feed you for eternity. Stay inside the fence. The water of Jesus’ Baptism has already cleansed your sins, and will continue to do so all your days. Stay inside the fence, because that is where your Good Shepherd is and that is where you will always find Him. Stay inside the fence: “Whoever keeps [God’s] commandments abides in Him, and He in them.” _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons