“Yahweh Is the True God of Everlasting Mercy and Grace”
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
Dear recipients of Yahweh’s mercy and grace, … grace, mercy, and
peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord [Amen.]
“Oh, the height of Jesus’ love,
Higher than the heav’s above,
Deeper than the depths of sea,
Lasting as eternity!
Love that found me—wondrous thought!
Found me when I sought Him not.
“Only Jesus can impart
Balm to heal the wounded heart,
Peace that flows from sins forgiv’n,
Joy that lifts the soul to heav’n,
Faith and hope to walk with God
In the way that Enoch trod.”
(Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
611:2-3)
Old Testament
Reading..................................................................................
Isaiah 65:8-9
Thus says the Lord: “As the new wine is found in the cluster, and they say,
‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,’ so I will do for my
servants’ sake, and not destroy them all. I will bring forth offspring from
Jacob, and from Judah possessors of my mountains; my chosen shall possess
it, and my servants shall dwell there.”
Prologue: My father took very seriously the saying: “Don’t throw
the baby out with the bathwater.” He refused to throw away many gadgets,
gizmos, and watchamacallits, that seemed to be worn out and useless simply
because there was one or more parts in them that, well, was or were still
good and could be used to repair something else. Having lived through the
depression era of our nation’s history that followed World War I, he saved
almost anything and everything that had any real or perceived value
whatsoever. In so doing, he rescued many such items from being thrown onto
the garbage heap.
In a somewhat similar fashion, God refuses to discard repentant
poor miserable sinners to the trash pile of eternal damnation. The big
difference, however, between what my earthly father did and what our
heavenly Father does is that Dad’s determination was based on the
possibility that those gadgets, gizmos, and whatchamacallits, that seemed
worn out and useless still had some value to them; but our heavenly Father’s
determination is based only, fully, and completely on His inherent love for
us, His sin-stained and guilt-riddled children. That is, as today’s Old
Testament Reading revealed, …
“Yahweh Is the True God of Everlasting Mercy and Grace.”
A subtle and virtually-unnoticed change occurred four Sundays ago.
We transitioned from the Festival Portion of the church year to the
Non-Festival Portion. That is, we moved from the festive celebrations of
our Savior’s birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and outpouring of the
Holy Spirit on His disciples to this long green season of Sundays after
Pentecost. During these six months we continue to hear about our Savior’s
compassion for rebellious mankind, emphasize the application of His mercy
and grace to repentant sinners, and learn how we Christians can more
effectively love God by loving one another and others. One of the main
things that includes is realizing that …
I. Yahweh Desired Then and Still Desires Today for Sinners to Repent.
(1-5)
1I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be
found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here am I, here am I,” to a
nation that was not called by my name. 2I spread out my hands all the day
to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their
own devices; 3a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in
gardens and making offerings on bricks; 4who sit in tombs, and spend the
night in secret places; who eat pig’s flesh, and broth of tainted meat is in
their vessels; 5who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am
too holy for you.” These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all
the day.
God sent Isaiah and all the other Old Testament prophets to
proclaim His two-part message of Law and Gospel to His chosen children of
Israel. That two-part message consisted of “You have sinned and deserve to
no longer be My beloved children,” and “I still love you with an everlasting
love as your caring faithful father.” In fact, this is Yahweh’s
compassionate response to His people’s prayer in the preceding chapters 63
and 64 of Isaiah in which they repentantly confessed their sins and begged
Him to receive them back to Himself as His own dear possession. He reminded
them then (as He does us today) that He was always ready to be embraced by
them; and not only them, but by all people including ourselves who pray as
we did in today’s Collect: “Cast out all sins and evil desires from us, and
pour into our hearts Your Holy Spirit to guide us into all blessedness.”
After all, sin was all around them, in them, and throughout them
then even as it is with us today. Perhaps many of you, like myself, find
yourselves fighting feelings of spiritual and emotional gloom, hopelessness,
despair, and depression over our nation’s and the world’s rebellion against
God and His holy standards. So many people today both outside and inside
institutional churches not only condone what God condemns, but embrace,
promote, and even exalt what is fiery smoke in His divine nostrils. Among
the countless items that fall into that arena are: 1. sexual sins such as
pornography, homosexuality, and living and sexing together outside of
marital commitment; 2. devaluation of human life by child abuse of various
types including murder of unborn children, neglect of aging senior citizens
and approval of euthanasia, and even physician-assisted-suicide; 3. the
escalation of denying Jesus by refusing to faithfully and frequently come to
Him in public worship wherein He serves us His gifts of forgiveness,
salvation, and eternal life through Word and Sacrament, as well as failure
to bring Jesus into the home through individual and group prayer and reading
the Bible and devotions; 4. Giving priority to worldly fun and
self-indulgent pleasure instead of honoring God above all things; and 5. the
partial or wholesale disregard for Yahweh’s holy will and, thereby, for
Yahweh Himself.
Is it any surprise then that family, community, and church
relationships are suffering damage and destruction, resulting in the fabric
of our society being weakened and ripped apart? Is it any surprise then
that people are vulnerable to atrociously wrong beliefs that motivate them
to kill massive numbers of fellow human beings in the name of “Allah”? Is
it any surprise then that the institutional church is decreasing in
influence and facing increasing difficulties in carrying out the “Great
Commission” of telling the God News about Jesus to all people? Is it any
surprise then that more and more people are willing to settle for less and
less quality within and outside institutional churches by giving in to
models of secular social gatherings that are governed by the principles of
fun-focused and prosperity-driven self-indulgence rather than Spirit-guided
truth that embraces self-sacrificial obedience to God and self-denying love
for one another?
You see, there’s really nothing new under the sun. What
confronted the Israelites over 2,600 years ago in the realm of sin is the
same thing that’s confronting us in our contemporary 21st century. And the
divine response was the same then as it is today, namely, …
II. Yahweh Threatened Sinners Then and Still Threatens Sinners Today
with Severe Punishment. (6-7)
6Behold, it is written before me: “I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will indeed repay into their bosom 7both your iniquities and your fathers’
iniquities together, says [Yahweh]; because they made offerings on the
mountains and insulted me on the hills, I will measure into their bosom
payment for their former deeds.”
Moses recorded that God said about His commandments: “I, the Lord
your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the
fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but
showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My
commandments.” (Ex 20:5-6 ESV) The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther (not to be
confused with the “King, Jr.” one!) explained that this way: “God threatens
to punish all who break these commandments. Therefore, we should fear His
wrath and not do anything against them. But He promises grace and every
blessing to all who keep these commandments. Therefore, we should also love
and trust in Him and gladly do what He commands.” (Luther’s Small Catechism
with Explanation. Copyright © 1986, 1991 Concordia Publishing House, St.
Louis, MO. Pages 14 & 93.)
The stark reality is that all of you here this [evening / morning
{and you who are listening on the radio}] (and, yes, I as well!) are what we
confessed a few minutes ago: “poor, miserable sinner[s]” whose lives are
filled with “sins and iniquities with which [we] have ever offended [God]
and justly deserved [His] temporal and eternal punishment.” But then we
heard Pastor Marks declare that most joyful news of all: “in the stead and
by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins in the
name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Lutheran
Service Book. Page 184.) That Holy Absolution along with God’s Holy Word,
Holy Baptism, and Holy Communion all communicate to us wretched sinners God’s
abundant mercy and grace whereby He practices divine amnesia by not only
forgiving our sins but forgetting them as well! He does so for the sake of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who lived for us God’s holy Law that we cannot do;
suffered and died for us the painful punishment exacted by our just and
righteous God for our sins and washed them all away with His shed blood; and
arose from the dead in a majestic display of divine power whereby He
validated all that He did for us as both temporally and eternally
beneficial.
Now we need not fear His just and righteous threat of eternal
punishment in hell’s fiery abyss. Rather, we now thankfully revel in and
celebrate our Baptismal identity that Saint Paul described in today’s
Epistle Reading: “… for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through
faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on
hrist. … you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then
you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. And because you
are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba!
Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an
heir through God.” (Gal 3:26-29, 4:6-7 ESV) As we bear that in mind, we
become beggars and doers of a different kind as we heard about in today’s
Gospel Reading: “The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might
be with [Jesus], but Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home, and
declare how much God has done for you.’ And he went away, proclaiming
throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.” (St Luke 8:38-39
ESV)
So, despite the mounting worldly evidence to the contrary, let’s
always remember and never forget that …
“Yahweh Is the True God of Everlasting Mercy and Grace.”
Recalling that all-important truth, let’s gratefully declare what
the current Gradual states: “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your
heart, the word of faith that we proclaim. For with the heart one believes
and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (Rom
10:8b, 10 ESV) As we do so, let’s also ever retain in our hearts and in our
minds the truths that …
I. Yahweh Desired Then and Still Desires Today for Sinners to Repent.
(1-5)
and …
II. Yahweh Threatened Sinners Then and Still Threatens Sinners Today
with Severe Punishment. (6-7)
In the light of all that, let’s also keep in our hearts and in our
minds what we pleaded and promised in today’s Introit: “Be to me a rock of
refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save
me, for you are my rock and my fortress. You will … comfort me again. I
will also praise you …, O my God; I will sing praises to you …, O Holy One
of Israel. My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul
also, which you have redeemed. And my tongue will talk of your righteous
help all the day long … .” (Ps 71, 3, 21-24a ESV)
By the way, do you remember those five text-related sins that I
identified earlier in this sermon? Christ’s shed blood has already washed
them away! Do you remember any of the sins you committed [earlier today /
already this morning] … or yesterday … or this past week … or, well, anytime
in your past? They have all been washed away with Christ’s shed blood. So
revel in the glorious fact that Yahweh Is the True God of Mercy and Grace …
and gratefully replace those washed-away sins with sanctified thoughts,
desires, words, and deeds that honor God by loving one another.
God grant it all for the sake of Jesus Christ, His humble Son, our
holy Savior. [Amen.]
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
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