In the Faith, You Now Know What is Good :: Joshua 1:9, Psalm 46:1, Romans 12:21, Micah 6:8

By

The word for our meditation today comes to us from the confirmation verses of Adelyn, Taylor, Weston, and Dylan. 

Adelyn, Joshua 1:9: Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because YHWH is with you everywhere you go. Taylor, Psalm 46:1: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. ... Weston, Romans 12:21: Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil by good. ... And Dylan, Micah 6:8: He has told you, O Man, what is good; and what is YHWH requiring from you except to do justice, and to love covenantal love, and to walk humbly with your God?

Grace to you and peace ...

Dear Adelyn, Taylor, Weston, and Dylan ... dear brothers and sisters in Christ ... dear friends and family who have joined us in celebration of what God has done among us ... there is a lot to unpack in these four verses ... from Joshua, and Psalms, and Romans, and Micah. But we will focus on one thing ... what God has done for all of you ... not just our four young people. 

These verses remind us of our calling. He has made each one of you his own in baptism. He has sanctified each of you, so that he will always be with you, strengthening your faith, the faith that saves. ... He is reminding each of you that he is exceedingly being found in distress. ... He is enabling each of you to do the work he prepared in advance for you ... doing good and thereby conquering the evil that confronts you every day ... doing justice, loving his covenantal love ... walking humbly with our Lord. 

We need to hear this Good News as often as we can ... of how God saves you ... of how God loves you ... of how God opens our eyes and ears to hear and see the Gospel ... the Good News of not only what he has done for you ... but what he continues to do ... and what he will always do for you ... 

CONFIRMING THAT YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH THE FAITH HE GAVE YOU IN BAPTISM.

This is our theme. That is what this day is all about. 

I. Confirmation is one step in our baptismal life en route to the kingdom of the heavens.

As we begin to celebrate the confirmations of these four young people, I need to remind each of you ... not just Adelyn, Taylor, Weston, and Dylan ... that today is not a graduation day. Nor is it the day you are becoming Christians. Today is not the end of our study of God’s Word; it is just the beginning.Today, with the rite of confirmation, you will be confessing before God that you have received the gifts he gave you in baptisms. For Adelyn, Taylor, Weston, and Dylan, that was in 2009 and 2010. God has done a great work here. In baptism, he poured out his Holy Spirit upon you to strengthen you, enabling you to know he is with you to do the good he prepared for you. 

With the living faith he gave you, you can renounce the devil, and all his works, and all his ways. ... you can confess that you believe in the God who created, redeemed, and sanctified each of you ... that you do believe every Word of the Scriptures, that they are in fact the inspired Word of God, that they provide the faithful and true doctrine of the Holy, Christian, and Apostolic Church. ... More than that, you will confess that you intend to hear the Word of God here as often as possible, and that you will receive the Lord’s supper faithfully, firmly believing that our Lord gives us his true body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will live your life according to the Word of God, repenting of evil ... standing firm in your confession ... even suffering death rather than to fall away from it. 

To this, you probably are saying, “Wow, Pastor, you sure are asking a lot of us!” 

Yes, your confession most certainly is. Just like our confession asks a lot of us here at Trinity Lutheran Church. 

But there is nothing to fear, as you yourselves have already said. YHWH is with you everywhere you go (Jos 1:9). ... giving us refuge and strength (Ps 46:1). ... conquering evil with good (Rom 12:21) ... executing justice upon the cross of Christ, and always remembering the new covenant we will celebrate shortly (Micah 6:8). 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, he guides us with his counsel so that afterward we will receive his glory in the eternal life he prepared for us before the foundation of the world (Ps 73:24). 

II We couldn’t make any of these promises without him.

Adelyn, Taylor, Weston, and Dylan ... you know the truth: We cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, but the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with his gifts, and sanctifies and keeps us in the one true faith (SC II 3). 

So take your confession to heart!

While you will vow to turn away from your sin ... the Lord knows that like me you have too many sins to confess. We can’t begin to number them all. The Lord knows we sin in thought, word, and deed, by what have do and don’t do, by what we think and don’t think. As Saint Paul reminds us in Romans 7[:15-24]: We cannot do the good we want. No, we do the very things we hate. But as he concludes, thanks be to God, our Lord Jesus rescues us from this body of death. 

You can be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might because he has united himself with you. You were baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus so that you can make the confession you are giving today your very own (Rm 6:3-4). Jesus sanctified and cleansed you with the washing of water by the word (Eph 5:25) ... so that he would be your refuge and strength ... so that he could conquer the evil of sin, death, and the devil in your life, and lead you to the sacrament of the altar. 

As our epistle reading for this day reminds us. Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. ... He made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. ... And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Pp 2:5-11). 

This is the Gospel you now know and love. 

Our Lord Jesus was born for this reason. He submitted to baptism for this reason. 

Sin and death have no place with God. So Jesus has removed that curse from us. Christ took your sin to the terrifying cross and ensured your sin was punished and died with him there. There, you are able to see Jesus ... being lifted up on the cross ... destroying your sin and your death. There, he draws all of us to himself (12:32). And now you who look up at the cross and see your sin crucified ... you who then recognize your savior in Christ ... you will be saved. As Jesus told the thief, today you will be with him in paradise.

That is the promise God gave you and which you are confirming today. That is the reason that you, the daughter of Zion, are able to rejoice greatly.

III Behold, your king is coming to you (Zec 9:9)! 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are just a week away from the Resurrection that changes everything. As we begin Holy Week ... bearing witness again to the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus ... It is only fitting that celebrate that Jesus has risen from the dead. A dead Jesus doesn’t do us any good if he didn’t also rise from the dead. But he has risen. And he has entered all of our lives in baptism, where he continues to wash away the ugly stain of sin that goes to your bone. He has proclaimed his word of absolution that your sins are forgiven on account of all he has done, is doing, and continues to do. And he has prepared a feast of forgiveness, the Lord’s supper, a celebration of unending glory. And he has given you the good confession that Jesus is Lord.

Yes, it’s a lot to take in and to comprehend, but you’re in good company. Look around you today. There isn’t a soul here who understands all matters of the faith perfectly. But know the truth of God’s Word. Baptism now saves you (1 Pt 3:21)! Through it, he enables you to know in faith he will never abandon you. That he will always help you. That he has conquered evil by being born without sin for you, living his life without sin for you, receiving the full wrath of God for your sin in your place, dying on the cross for your sin, taking your sin to the grave, and rising from the dead.. 

Lord, who has believed what he heard from us?

I think the answer is clear today as these four join us confessing the faith given to our fathers. So let us celebrate always with the Lord’s feast of forgiveness, receiving this heavenly treasure of the new covenant whenever we can, knowing it will sustain and nurture the faith God has given you until that day when he comes again in glory on the clouds. 

Your sins ... whatever they may be ... have been forgiven on account of Christ. To his glory and our good, in Jesus’ name.

Popular posts from this blog

Advent of New Life :: Matthew 21:1-9

By
Then the crowd, those going before him and those following, continued to cry out to the Son of David, saying, Save us, please! Blessed is the One Coming in the Name of the Lord! Save us, please, in the Highest Heavens! Yes, Come Lord Jesus! Save us now!  Today we begin a new year of looking forward to this Advent of our Lord, the day he will forever and finally come to save us!  BEHOLD, JESUS IS ALWAYS COMING TO FULFILL THE ADVENT OF HIS BLESSINGS 1. We generally are always eager to see the advents of our lives fully realized. There are many advents in our lives. The word advent literally means “coming” or “arrival.” Advent is generally a positive term. That’s because advents normally are filled with hope, peace, love, and joy. So, like expectant mothers, we look forward to their arrival.  To the world, perhaps no advent is bigger than the secular new year ... the day we put away the old and hope for something better in the new. Every year, the media makes a big spectac...
Read more

The Eyes Have It :: Luke 10:23-24

By
What do you see? What do you hear? These are the questions of the day on this Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. What do you see? And what do you hear?  Before we get ahead of ourselves by jumping to conclusions and declaring you can see and hear just fine ... you need to know ... not everybody sees what you see or hears what you hear. Every week your pastor gives three sermons: the one I write, the one I preach, and the one you hear. And each of you might be hearing a different sermon than the person next to you. More than that, some of you may be seeing one thing and others may be seeing something completely different. And some of us will just fall asleep not seeing or hearing anything at all.  As Jesus tells the disciples ... For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to witness what y’all see and they didn’t witness it, and to hear what y’all hear and they didn’t hear it (v. 23-24). That is to say they longed to see Jesus, living, dying, rising, ascending. They long...
Read more

The Mind of Christ :: Philippians 2:5-11

By
The next day, the large crowd that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, took the branches of palms and went out to meet him and began crying out: Hosanna! Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel (Jn 12:12-13). No story has ever had a bigger buildup to a greater letdown than this one. The Jews were all of the same mind: They had been looking forward to this day for more than a millennia. And here he came! Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee (Mi 5:2)! The prophet like Moses (Dt 18:15)! The son of David (2 Sm 7:12)! Our Messiah (Is 61:1) ... Here he came, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey (Zec 9:9), fulfilling the scriptures. Zechariah, Micah, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Samuel, the Psalms. This is the day the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it (Ps 118:24). ... These things are written so that you will believe Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God and that by believing you will have life in his name (Jn 20:31...
Read more