The Fourth Sunday after Easter I Trust You to Trust for Me Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed!) Alleluia! Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Epistle, God says that our Lord Jesus “continued entrusting Himself to the One who judges justly.” Stated another way, Jesus repeatedly and incessantly handed Himself over to the justice of God the heavenly Father, both His Father and yours. Dear Christian friends, Like everyone else in the world, you have something in your brain that influences and shapes the decision you make. I do not know exactly what that thing is for you personally, but everyone has something and here are some possibilities: · A child who has experienced the pain of divorce might not wish to marry because he does not want to risk the possibility of feeling again the pain of divorce. Divorce is that thing in his brain that shapes and influence his thinking and his decisions about marriage, children, finances, and so on. · If there is a medical condition in your family, that medical condition will likely become the thing in your brain that shapes the way you think: “I have a bad back, so I will not try to lift that piano.” “My husband’s arthritis means that we usually vacation close to home.” “I no longer drive after dark because my eyes are getting worse.” · Your finances can exert control over your decision-making. So can your job, your hobbies, your addictions, your temper and even your cat. It almost does not matter what the thing is. Everyone has something in their brain that influences and shapes the way they think and decide. What is it for you? Today’s Epistle is especially important because it tells us about the one thing that was always in the middle of our Lord’s brain; that one thing that influenced and shaped ALL of our Lord’s thinking during the days of His humiliation. Morning, noon, night, in any and every situation, Jesus “continued entrusting Himself to the One who judges justly.” Jesus repeatedly and incessantly handed Himself over to the justice of God the heavenly Father. No matter what was happening; no matter what threat had arisen or what decision had to be made; Jesus constantly geared all of His thinking around one, central idea. Here is the one idea that had braced its feet in the middle of our Lord’s brain: “My Father knows best. My Father makes all the right judgments at all the right times. My Father is just.” Why does our Lord’s pattern of thinking matter for you and me? Our heavenly Father does NOT wish for us to think of today’s Epistle as if it were an article in a psychology journal, merely giving insights into our Lord’s mind. Today’s Epistle is a divine gift, and the gift has three parts: 1. First, God has given today’s Epistle for our instruction, so that we will train ourselves to think the same way that our Lord Jesus insisted upon thinking. It is also written here that Jesus “left you an example, so that you might follow in His steps.” Stated another way, Jesus created a pattern for us to follow, not only in what we say and what we do, but also in the way we think. As you heard: “when Jesus was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to the One who judges justly.” God wants you and me to think the same way. Be like Jesus. Continually entrust yourself to the One who judges justly. In all your situations, in all your decision-making, in all your thinking about anything, set this one, central idea set like a fencepost in the middle of your mind: “My heavenly Father knows best. My heavenly Father makes all the judgments decisions at all the right times. My Father—my Lord’s Father—is just.” You might be inwardly saying, “Pastor, I cannot think the way Jesus thought, or gear my brain the way He geared His brain! My sins are too many, my fears are too great, my brain is too cluttered, my past is too scarred, and my present is too difficult. I simply cannot re-orient all my thinking.” If you feel as if you are unable to re-tool your brain after the example and pattern of our Lord’s brain, you are not alone. My brain is rotten, too. But we should both know better than to protest what our God has written. The long and the short of today’s Epistle is this: our Lord Jesus “continued entrusting Himself to the One who judges justly” and He wants you and me to do the same thing. That is why He “left us an example, so that we might follow in His steps.” We should think for a moment about the consequences of not patterning our thinking after our Lord’s thinking, He who “continued entrusting Himself to the One who judges justly.”
· If we do not change our thinking to pattern our Lord’s thinking—if we do not continually entrust ourselves to the One who judges justly—we will never come to know the day-to-day joy of our Lord’s resurrection. Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed!) Alleluia! Our Christ also knew He would rise. All of our Lord’s confidence was pinned to the certainty of His resurrection. Even while sweating blood at the thought of His death (Luke 22:44), our Lord Jesus was nevertheless able to say to Himself, “I shall prolong My days; the will of the Lord will prosper in My hand” (Isaiah 53:10). Why could Jesus think so confidently, even in the hour of His death for our sins? Because He “continued entrusting Himself to the One who judges justly.” Jesus promises the same confidence to you: When you pattern your thinking in the same way—when you continually entrust yourself to the One who judges justly—you will finally be free and you will live without fear. · If we do not change our thinking to pattern our Lord’s thinking—if we do not continually entrust ourselves to the One who judges justly—we commit sin. It is the sin of unbelief, the sin of idolatry, the sin against the First Commandment. When we do not continually entrust ourselves to the heavenly Father who judges justly, we are saying to our Father, “I do not actually fear, love and trust in You above all things.” 2. That, by the way is the second gift God gives us in today’s Epistle: the gift of repentance and sorrow for our sin. Like everyone else in the world, you have something in your brain that influences and shapes the decision you make. So do I. Neither you nor I have the same thing in our brain that our Lord Jesus had in His brain. Not a single one of us has “continued entrusting himself to the One who judges justly.” I know this because I have seen you in action and because I know myself. No matter what our intentions might be for our future decision-making; no matter how much desire we might feel for improved thinking after the pattern of our Lord’s thinking, we still have the past to deal with. We still must confess and admit that we have not continually placed ourselves into the able hands of God, and today’s Epistle makes such a confession possible. We would not even know what sin is, were it not for God speaking to us (Romans 7:7). Therefore, this Epistle is a gift from above because it exposes our willingness and inability to entrust ourselves “to the One who judges justly.” 3. That puts us in position for the third gift that God gives us in today’s Epistle. In addition to setting before us the example of Christ; in addition to exposing our sin and failure to entrust ourselves “to the One who judges justly”; look what God does for us here! God speaks the forgiveness of sins to us on account of our crucified and risen Lord. After showing us the Christ who “continued entrusting himself to the One who judges justly,” God gives us this second picture of Jesus: He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. What do these Words mean? These Words mean that · God will not hold against you your inability to continually entrust yourself to Him, or your inability to center all of your thinking and your decision-making upon “the One who judges justly.” Jesus “bore our sins in His body on the tree” and that includes the sins that live in our brains. · Christ has so thoroughly forgiven us by His death and resurrection that God now considers our sin dead, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” God looks at our brains as if they are whole and complete and functioning correctly, entrusting ourselves to Him who judges justly. “By His wounds you have been healed”; NOT you will be healed or your might be healed. “By His wounds you have been healed.” · Although Christ certainly “left us an example, so that we might follow in His steps,” He is not merely our example. He is also our hope and our confidence, our death and our resurrection, our daily strength and our every breath. Like everyone else in the world, you have something in your brain that influences and shapes the decision you make. Have you had the wrong thing in mind? Have you used the wrong things to influence your thinking and your decisions? Do not be afraid. Christ Jesus your Lord “continued entrusting himself to the One who judges justly.” Jesus did so for your sake. Jesus did so in your place. Jesus also has given to you His perfect trust in God. In those times when you know you have not done well entrusting yourself to God your Father, simply pray to Jesus, “Lord, I need You to do my trusting for me. I trust You to trust for me.” _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
