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Let God’s Word be enough for your faith

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Sermon for Trinity 21

Ephesians 6:10-17  +  John 4:46-54

We sometimes to refer to the Church on earth as the Church “Militant,” because when a person becomes a Christian, he becomes engaged in a battle, in a struggle, not against flesh and blood, but, as Paul writes in today’s Epistle, against forces of evil in the spiritual realm, against the devil and his demons and against their influence in the world. Christians are not couch-sitters but battle soldiers, equipped, not with firearms or physical weapons, but with the spiritual body armor and the spiritual weapon that God provides. The battlefield is your every-day life in this world, which is destined for destruction, and the struggle is real.

Among the spiritual pieces of body armor that God provides is the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Since today’s Gospel focuses on the faith of the nobleman who came to Jesus, we’re going to have a look at the faith part of the whole armor of God, which is essential for standing and withstanding in the battle that is raging all around us and in which God has made us all battle soldiers.

Jesus had performed a single miracle up in Galilee so far, His first miracle of changing water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Then He had gone down to Judea and had performed many miracles there. And many of the Jews from up in Galilee had seen those miracles, because they had also gone down to Judea to attend the feast of Passover. Now Jesus is back in Galilee, back in Cana. And a nobleman from the town of Capernaum—about 16 miles away from Cana—heard of all the signs Jesus had been doing, and he was hopeful that Jesus could help his dying son. He went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

There’s faith there. A little faith, at least. Faith in Jesus’ power to cure an earthly disease. It isn’t necessarily saving faith—faith in Jesus as his Savior and Redeemer from sin—but at least the nobleman believes Jesus can help. He also assumes, apparently, that Jesus has to come with him, has to be there in the room with his son to perform some sort of healing ritual.

Jesus’ first response is a warning, and an expression of righteous frustration on God’s part. Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe. Believe what? That Jesus can do miracles? Well, they already knew that, after seeing all the miracles He had performed in Judea and after hearing about changing water into wine right there in Cana. But this is important. The miracles were not the purpose of His coming. They were to be signs confirming His teaching and His identity as the Son of God. They were to be signs confirming that He had been sent by God, that He was the promised Christ, and that He was to be their Savior from the spiritual forces of evil, from sin, death, and the power of the devil. That’s what the people were supposed to believe, and not primarily because of the miracles, but by the power of Jesus’ teaching, that is, by the power of His Word, both the Word written in the Old Testament and the Word that He and John the Baptist had spoken. In summary, they were supposed to believe in His words and promises. In the end, His Word was supposed to be enough.

But hardly anyone believed yet in His words and promises. Their faith was limited to what He could do for them to improve their earthly lives. And even that faith was built on the foundation of what they could see with their eyes.

The nobleman was still in that category. But he was desperate, and he did believe Jesus could help his son, if only He could be there in the room where his son was. Lord, come down before my little boy dies!

Jesus was willing to help, but not to come down with the man to his house. No, Jesus simply said, Go! Your son lives. Nothing to look at, nothing to see. Just a word and a promise to cling to, a word the man was to believe, without seeing a thing.

And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken to him, and he went. Just the word and promise of Jesus. And the nobleman believed it. Maybe not yet with the full conviction of an unshakable faith (“I know for certain that my son is now healed! How happy I am!”), but he believed it enough to act on it. He stopped begging for Jesus to come with him. He left, hoping to get back and find things as Jesus had said. Again, it wasn’t a perfect faith; there were surely shadows of doubt in his heart. But it was still faith, clinging to the word of Jesus for dear life.

He started walking those 16 miles back to Capernaum, but had to spend the night somewhere along the way, because the miracle took place in early afternoon, and he could only walk so far before sunset. But he got up the next morning, still hopeful, and continued his journey. Then his servants met him along the way and told him his son had been healed the day before, at the same time Jesus had spoken that almighty word. Then we’re told that he himself and his whole house believed. Believed what? That Jesus had healed his son? That was no longer a matter of faith, but of sight. No, the man and his household now believed in Jesus Himself, that His word was powerful, that His word was true, that He had come from God, that He was the promised Christ, that their lives and their very souls were now safe in His hands.

With that kind of faith, the nobleman was prepared for what was to come, both for himself and for Jesus. Regardless of the miracles Jesus would do over the next few years, most of his countrymen would never believe in Him. Many would follow Him for a time, but then turn back when He didn’t perform signs on demand, like they wanted. And the sight that looked like total defeat for Jesus—bloody, beaten, and hanging on a cross with a crown of thorns pounded into His head—caused all whose faith was built on sight to turn away. “This can’t be the Son of God. Just look at Him dying on that cross!” But the nobleman and his family had been brought to a faith that was stronger than that, faith, not in what was seen, but in the word and promise of Jesus, which is true in spite of what anyone can see.

That’s the kind of faith we all need. That’s the kind of faith God wants to nourish and grow in each of us. God isn’t looking to create faith in you by showing you any other signs but the ones He has already given in Holy Scripture. He isn’t looking to bring you to faith or to strengthen your faith with bright lights or shiny visions or spectacular miracles, and certainly not with the testimonials that other people might give of such things. He gives you His Word, recorded in Scripture, and also preached by a pastor whom He has sent. And He expects that to be enough.

He gives you His word that the water of Baptism saves. You can’t see it washing away sin. You can’t see it giving new birth or sealing the new birth of faith. You can’t see the Holy Spirit working in it. But Jesus speaks the word that Baptism is a washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, and He expects you to believe it. He expects His word to be enough.

He gives you His word that “this is His body” and “this is His blood” in the Sacrament. You can’t see anything but bread and wine. You can’t see or taste the body that was sacrificed on the cross or the blood that was poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. And human reason tells you, “It can’t be Jesus’ body and blood. It must only be a symbol of those things.” But Jesus speaks the word about His holy Supper, “This is My body, this is My blood.” and He expects that to be enough.

Of course, it isn’t enough for our sinful flesh, for our fallen human reason. We demand to see a sign of God’s love and faithfulness, to see a sign that tells us, “The Bible is true!” or “God is truly on our side!” Or maybe we simply refuse to be comforted by God’s promises, we go on living in despair, as if the world really were out of control, as it appears, as if Jesus’ word about His reigning over all things at the right hand of God weren’t really enough.

No, you need to repent of your reliance on human reason and what your eyes can see. You need to repent of the despair and the hopelessness that your experience tells you is all too reasonable. And you need to listen to Jesus again, just to Jesus, just to His Word, and cling to it for dear life, whether it’s His Word about Baptism, or the Lord’s Supper, or about the final victory of His Holy Christian Church—or about the raging spiritual battle in which you have been made a battle soldier, as Paul depicts you and all Christians in today’s Epistle.

With the shield of faith, He says, you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. What are those flaming arrows? They’re attacks on your soul—spiritual attacks. They come in the form of temptations. Temptations to sin against any of the Ten Commandments. Temptations to go along with the world in order to avoid persecution, to be silent when you know you should speak, to ridicule when God calls on you to show mercy, to hate when God calls on you to love. Temptations to despair, or to disbelieve God, or to forfeit the peace and joy that God offers in His Word. With the shield of faith, you’ll be able to extinguish those flaming arrows and say with Joseph, “How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?”

Those arrows also come in the form of persecution, demonic persecution, which may sometimes be direct, but is usually indirect, as the demons influence society and government to turn against those who believe in God, seeking to make your faith in God’s Word seem ridiculous, seeking to make you bitter and angry and sorrowful. With the shield of faith, you’ll be able to extinguish those flaming arrows, too.

Those arrows also come in the form of demonic lies, lies from false teachers and false prophets about who God is and what God’s will is, lies from government officials and candidates for office, lies from “scientific experts” to support demonic agendas, lies from your own neighbors and from your own culture about what is right and wrong. With the shield of faith, you’ll be able to extinguish those flaming arrows. That doesn’t mean the lies go away, or the persecution goes away, or the temptations go away. It doesn’t mean we turn the culture around or turn it back to God. It means the demons won’t be able to destroy you. They won’t be able to snatch you out of God’s hands. They won’t be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Faith is powerful protection in this battle, which goes together with the other pieces of armor that Paul mentioned. Keep your faith focused on the word of God alone. Believe what He says, no matter what things look like. Don’t worry about signs that you can see. You have the word of God as the true lamp for your feet and the light for your path. Let that be enough. Amen.

Source: Sermons

The formation of the faith that serves as a shield

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Sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity

Ephesians 6:10-17  +  John 4:46-54

As St. Paul warned us in the Epistle, we have so many enemies in this world, so many people who would see us fall and cause us to perish eternally. Not people, actually. Not flesh and blood. But principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this age, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places—they are our chief enemies, the devil and his powerful spirit army, who work night and day to drag us into hell.

But God has provided us with armor, so that we can go into daily battle with those enemies and conquer them again and again. The “full armor of God,” Paul calls it, the whole set of armor, made up of all the individual pieces a soldier needs to succeed.

One of those powerful pieces of armor is the shield. The shield was a vital piece of armor for the Roman soldier, because it only took one good archer on the enemy’s side to take down any number of soldiers with their arrows, shot from a long distance away. Likewise, the devil shoots his arrows of temptation, doubt, and false doctrine. And the shield that defends a Christian from the devil’s fiery darts is faith.

But not just any faith will do. Having faith in the wrong thing is like having a shield made of paper. No, the faith that the apostle Paul calls a shield and a vital piece of the full armor that God provides, the faith that protects you from the devil’s flaming arrows is a very specific thing that requires a very specific formation.

We see Jesus forming that kind of faith in the Gospel. And through the Gospel, He’ll form the same kind of faith in you.

There was a royal official, a nobleman, who had a sick son. Very sick, with a high fever caused by an illness that was about to kill him. What a terrifying thing it is to have a sick child, and to see him getting worse and worse, without any signs of recovery! It made his father desperate. It made him recognize how helpless he was, how hopeless, how needy. And that turned out to be a good thing, a great blessing from God, because it caused him to look up, away from himself and his own works and his own noble position, to seek help from somewhere else, to listen for any word of the existence of a Healer, of a Helper.

And then he heard just such a word. Jesus of Nazareth was back in Galilee. The word was, He had turned water into wine here in Cana not too long ago, and then He had been preaching and healing all these sick people down in Judea. The word was that Jesus could heal the sick, and this nobleman heard the word and believed it. He had a kind of faith already.

So he left Capernaum and went over to Cana, where Jesus was, and implored Him to come down and heal his son.

But Jesus chose not to go. Not because He didn’t want to help the nobleman, but because the man and his whole house needed a lot more than a healing miracle. They needed faith—the kind of faith that would last, that would shield them from enemies that were so much deadlier than sickness.

He said to the man, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.” It’s a rebuke toward all the people who weren’t listening to what Jesus was saying or to what the Old Testament Scriptures were saying about Him. They were all holding back judgment about Him, not ready to believe in Him as the Christ until they saw enough miracles, until they saw enough divine glory in Him to put their trust in Him.

But faith that relies on sight is not faith—certainly not the kind of faith that can shield a person from the devil and save a person from death. Besides, what was it that the man and his family and the rest of Israel needed to believe? Not just that Jesus could perform a healing miracle, under certain conditions, like Jesus being in the same room with the sick person. They needed to believe in Jesus as the Creator of the universe, as the God of free grace and favor, as the holy Son of God who had taken on human flesh so that He might deliver sinners from sin, death, and the power of the devil. None of that was visible. None of that could be seen then, nor can it be seen now. But it all had to be believed, if their faith was to do them any lasting good.

Well, the nobleman, the desperate father, is not exactly encouraged by Jesus’ words. It seems like he wasn’t even listening. He wants to see the sign. He wants to see the wonder. He’s not interested in anything at the moment except the healing of his son. Sir, come down before my child dies!

Jesus won’t go with him. That would be too much sight, too much seeing, like giving an alcoholic a drink in order to cure him of his addiction. No, Jesus gives the father something far better than sight. He gives him a word, a promise. Go your way; your son lives. Before, all the man had was a general confidence in Jesus as a good man who could do miraculous things. That’s a good start, but it doesn’t give you anything specific to believe. But when God gives you a word, when God makes a promise, now faith has something to hold onto, something to cling to.

So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him. He saw nothing. He experienced nothing. But see how the Holy Spirit worked through that word of Jesus to cause the man to believe what Jesus said, without having to see anything at all. Now, suddenly, he doesn’t need Jesus to come down to his house with him. Now, suddenly, he is content to go his way, believing that his son would be healed.

When he found out on his way home that his son had, in fact, gotten better at the very moment when Jesus said, “Your son lives,” it says that he himself believed, and his whole household. Now what did he believe? And what did his household believe? That his son was alive? No, that wasn’t something that had to be believed. It could be seen. What did they believe? They now believed in Jesus as the Savior sent from God. They now believed the word of Jesus, who not only said, “Your son lives,” but also, He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.

It’s good to have faith in Jesus as the One who can heal the sick, as the One who can keep you safe from thieves and robbers, as the One who can keep you and your loved ones safe from reckless drivers and natural disasters. But that kind of faith isn’t enough yet, because, while God has told you in His Word that He is always merciful, kind and good and cares for you as a loving Father, He has not told you that He will take away all sickness, danger and death from you while you live on this earth. Faith without a promise from God won’t shield you when the devil hurls accusations against you, when God’s commandments condemn you for your sins. A word-less faith won’t help you when God, in His wisdom, allows sickness to remain, or permits some tragedy to strike.

But when God makes a promise, now faith has something to rely on. Because faith that relies on the Word of God, the Word of Christ, is faith that cannot be shaken.

So listen carefully to the Word of God when it is preached. Scour the Holy Scriptures for those precious promises of God whenever you’re doing battle against the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh. He attaches the promise of the forgiveness of sins to a pastor’s absolution, to Holy Baptism, and to the bread and wine that are His body and blood. He promises to uphold His Holy Church and to make it victorious over the very gates of hell. He promises grace and every blessing to His saints, strength to bear up under the cross, providence for your body and your soul, fatherly guidance for your life and even resurrection from the dead. Armed with faith in these promises—faith that is formed by the Holy Spirit Himself—you have the kind of faith that will serve as a mighty shield against all the devil’s flaming arrows. Amen.

 

Source: Sermons