[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints of God, built as Christ’s body the Church, we continue to hear this morning from the Gospel lesson begun last week from Matthew chapter 16, where Jesus was confessed as the Christ, the Son of the living God, by Saint Peter, who was then blessed by Jesus. Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jorah! You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” Peter was given this blessed knowledge of who Jesus was by God the Father in heaven, and he confessed it on earth that Jesus was a man like no other.
That’s the point. Who do people say that I am? Some say John the Baptist, risen from the dead. Others say Jeremiah, Elijah, one of the prophets. Who do you say that I am? And it turns out that Jesus is a man like no other. That’s the point from last week. But it also turns out that Jesus is a God like no other. That’s this week. Because as soon as Peter confesses Jesus to be Christ, Jesus begins to teach Peter and the Apostles and you and I what that means. He told them it is necessary to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.
To be the Christ, the son of the living God, means suffering and death, rejection and shame. It means the way of the cross. Now this is a God, this is a God like none other. So much trouble does the idea that God would suffer and die that immediately Peter begins to rebuke Jesus. It’s hard for us to even imagine rebuking Jesus, but Peter here, standing in for our natural theology and our natural understanding of God, stands up and says, “Far be it from you, Lord; this shall never happen.”
If you’re the Christ, the Son of the living God, that means you should never have to suffer one minute in your life. If you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, it means that you should never have to have any pain, any loss. Certainly, you shouldn’t die. The cross and God in our minds, in Peter’s minds, are the farthest things from one another, but God, the true God, is unimaginably different. He says, “No, it is necessary for me to suffer, for me to die, in order that you might live.”
And Jesus goes even further. He says, “If you’re going to be my disciples, if you’re going to be my followers, then you’re on the same path with me. I will suffer and so will you.” In fact, in verse 24 of our text, we find the word cross used for the first time in the Scriptures, and it’s not the cross of Jesus. Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
So dear saints, we come to something of a crossroads in our own minds and our own thinkings with this text. Jesus says, “It is one thing for you to confess that I am the Christ, the Son of the living God. It’s one thing for you to know that I am, that I am the true God and the Savior, but it is another thing altogether to know what kind of God I am, how I will save.”
When we think of God, we think of glory and we think of power and we think of might. I remember one time I did a survey and I asked people to pick three words to describe God. It was great. The words were wonderful words. Words like powerful and almighty and creator and magnificent and awesome and redeemer and Savior, certainly. But what about these three words that St. Paul chooses to describe God for us? Jesus Christ crucified. Or imagine the shock of hearing Paul preach to the elders in Miletus when he preaches about the blood of God being spilt for our salvation.
We have a God who bleeds and dies. We have a God who is crucified, dead, and buried. We have a God who had, for a few short days, a tomb. We have a God who breathed his last. We have a God who cried out in forsakenness. We have a God who truly suffered, and it turns out that’s the point, that Jesus is not only a man like no other, but a God like no other. He brings with him the cross. So profoundly bound up is the life and death of Jesus to suffering and the cross that when discussing how you know if you’re in a true Christian Church, Martin Luther, in this great little work on the councils in the church, lists seven ways to identify the church, and the last one is this very thing that we’re talking about.
Luther writes this: “Seventh, the Holy Christian Church is outwardly known by the holy possession of the Holy Cross. It, the church, must endure all hardships and persecutions, all kinds of temptation and evil, as the Lord’s Prayer says, from the devil, the world, and the flesh. It must be inwardly sad, timid, terrified, outwardly poor, despised, sick, weak. Thus it, the church, becomes like its head, Christ. And for what reason? Only this, that the church holds fast to Christ and God’s Word and thus suffers for Christ’s sake.”
A couple of paragraphs on, Luther says, with this holy possession of the cross, the Holy Spirit makes this people, that’s you and I, Christians, the Holy Spirit makes us not only holy but blessed. So the cross is a blessing to us. But this is hard for us to understand. Very hard. We, each one of us, naturally think, like Peter, who has his things on the things of men and not the things of God, all of us think that God ought to be antithetical to suffering. We think that suffering is bad and to be avoided at all costs. We think that if we are suffering then it must mean that we are abandoned by God or forgotten by God or being punished by God.
So profound is this problem of suffering that it has a Latin name. It’s called the question of Theodicy, God’s justice, and the problem comes to us both philosophically and every day in our lives. The problem comes to us like this: If God is good and if God is powerful, then why is life so crummy? Why do so many bad things happen? Why is there so much suffering in the world, so much tragedy in the world, so much evil in the world? After all, if God is good, he would want to stop it, and if God is powerful, then he could stop it. The existence of evil, the existence of suffering then, is presented to our conscience and to the conversation of the church as proof that either God doesn’t exist or that he doesn’t care.
But look at what the Lord does. He sees the problem of evil. He sees the problem of suffering. He sees the problem of the fall into sin and the resulting anger of God that each of us deserve. He sees this life filled with so much affliction, so much sickness, so much pain, so much death. He sees it and instead of bringing the suffering to an end, he joins himself to it. He jumps in to the middle of it. The Lord’s solution to the problem of suffering is not to bring an end to suffering, but to suffer all things himself. The Lord’s solution to the problem of sin is not to come and obliterate sin, but rather to bear our sins. The Lord’s solution to the problem of our sorrow is not to somehow make it all disappear, but rather to carry it himself.
And the Lord’s solution to death is to die. To join himself to our death. To take into himself our death. In other words, the Lord addresses our sorrows and our sufferings by joining himself to them so that he might be with us, and this is the point, so that he might be with us in suffering and death. When you are suffering then and are tempted to think that because things are so bad God might be far from us, it turns out that the opposite is what’s true. That God is with us in the midst of our suffering, suffering with us and carrying us through.
Even our sin, we’re tempted to think that our sin means God is far from us, but God is with us as sinners in order to redeem us and to forgive us. And far from separating us from God, death is in fact the way that the Lord Jesus brings us to himself. So the Lord’s solution for the problem of suffering is his cross, to jump in with both feet, to rescue and redeem us. So by this text, the Holy Spirit is rebuking our own sinful flesh like Peter was rebuked, that we would put away the things of man and rejoice, truly rejoice in the things of God. Things like the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross. For in that weakness, in that abandonment, in that crying out, in that death, God is for us. God is with us and God is saving us.
So God be praised that we have Jesus, a man and a God like no other, and God be praised that Jesus has us. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
We praise you, O God, We acknowledge you to be the Lord, All the earth now worships you, The Father ever was. To you all angels cry loud, The heavens and all the powers therein. To you, cherubim and saints, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of salvation, heaven and earth are full, the glorious company of the Apostles with you, the heavenly fellowship of the prophets with you, the noble army of martyrs with you, The Father of infinite majesty, pure and whole, true and holy, also the Holy Ghost of comfort too.
You are the King of glory, O Christ. You are the everlasting Son of God, O Lord. When you took upon yourself to lead the world, you unlocked yourself to be born of a virgin. When you had overcome the sharpness of death, you opened the kingdom of heaven to holy weak peoples. You stand upright and above all, in the glory of the Father. We believe that you have come to be our judge. We therefore pray to help restore our lives.
Who hath redeemed them when the world shall strife. Make them to be numbered with your saints. Then more we ever must be. Oh, how wise have mercy.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. Let us pray.
Almighty God, your Son willingly endured the agony and shame of the cross for our redemption. Grant us courage to take up our cross daily and follow him wherever he leads, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
For obedience to the word, let us pray. Oh, holy and most merciful God, who by thy word has taught us the way of thy commandments, we beseech Thee, pour Thy grace into our hearts, and cause it to abound in us, that being ever mindful of Thy mercies and of Thy laws, we may always incline to Thy will and daily increase in love toward Thee and toward one another. Enable us to flee all ungodliness and to live soberly, rightly, and godly in this present world.
Grant that in all things we may follow the example of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and walk in his steps until we shall inherit the kingdom which he has prepared for us in heaven, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
For pardon, growth in grace, and divine protection, let us pray. O Lord, our Heavenly Father, we acknowledge thy great goodness toward us, and praise thee for thy mercy and grace, which our eyes have seen, our ears have heard, and our hearts have felt.
We are truly sorry for the sins and errors of this day and our past lives. Merciful God, pardon our offenses, correct and amend what is amiss in us, and help us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Write thy law in our hearts and enable us more and more to serve thee by holy, useful, and unblameable lives. Let every passing day remind us of the near approach of the night of death when no one can work.
Amid all the vanity of this present world, keep us united by a living faith and by the power of the Eternal Spirit unto him who is the resurrection and the life, that we may escape death and the bitter pains of eternal misery. Accompany the preaching of thy word and the administration of thy sacraments with the gracious operation of thy Holy Spirit and preserve to us and to all Christians the means of grace and salvation.
Evermore keep and preserve us in the midst of all dangers to which we are exposed, either in body or in soul. Especially, O Lord, we pray for those whose lives and property are threatened by storm or by fire. Prepare us with meek cheerfulness and Christian resignation to receive our sorrows as well as our joys from thee, knowing that health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, all things come not by chance but by thy fatherly hand.
Keep us this day as under the shadow of thy wings, that we may be quiet from all fear of evil and be brought in peace to see the light of another day invigorated and rightly prepared for its work, for the sake of thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Let us bless the Lord. Thanks be to God. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Amen. Lord, keep us; we trust in your word. And those who are your servant.
Thank you, God be praised for his mercy and kindness to us today, and thank you for joining us for our service. What a delight to hear that we have a God like no other, a God who suffers and bleeds and dies and is raised on the third day for us and our salvation. It’s really, really fantastic.
Thanks to everyone who helped with the service today, Aaron for interpreting. A lot of you have sent in questions and comments for Aaron, noting his interpreting skills. We made a video this week asking some of those questions to Aaron about ASL and what it is like to interpret and is it more difficult to interpret theology and that sort of thing. You’ll find that video on our church YouTube channel, along with some Bible studies and other things that you can enjoy there.
But we really appreciate Aaron and his help. Thanks to Jonathan for the music, and Dawn for helping with the flute as well, for the prelude, for the Mueller family, helping with the hymns, and for Carrie, helping with the liturgy and with the camera and the preparation of the service as well. So thanks to everyone for their help, and to Editor Eric on his work polishing up the service and getting it ready for the internet as well.
A lot of things are changing for the announcements and for the life of the church, so the best way to keep in touch with that is on our church YouTube channel. If you’re watching this video, you can find it on YouTube as well. The most latest announcement video will give you all the latest updates, but you’ll want to look for Bible studies during the week.
Tuesday and Wednesday we have scheduled Bible studies normally now, and some new classes will be beginning mid-September, so September 13th, that week will be the start of our youth and our adult new member classes. So get in touch with the church office for any information about that as well.
If you’re watching this service, you’re here in Austin, but you don’t have a church home, we would love to hear from you. Please don’t hesitate to send me an email. I’d love to visit with you, meet with you, take you out for a cup of coffee if you’re ready for that, or meet on the phone or on Zoom; that’d be wonderful.
If you’re not in Austin and you don’t have a church home, but you’re looking for a church home, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us as well. We have a volunteer who’s helped now dozens of people find and get connected to churches all throughout the country and even throughout the world. So throw us your biggest challenges. Tim loves it.
We’re working on Norway, I think, this last week, which is really great to try to… he’s learning Norwegian, he’s going to find. So no matter where you are in the world, you can throw that challenge our way. We’ll see what we can do to help you with that as well.
So that’s on our church website, stpaulaustin.org/contact and click the “help me find a church” button, and we’re on it. Otherwise, thanks for being with us again. God’s peace be with you, and we’ll see you soon.
You’re at the very end now where if you’re just watching, you’re about to spin off into the YouTube vortex, which is exciting. I always think it’s exciting, but just to warn you about that, there are other possibilities as well, including, we did an interview with Aaron, our ASL interpreter, and with some really interesting thoughts from him about what it means to interpret. So that’s on our church YouTube channel.
We also have our worldwide Bible study, which meets on Tuesday mornings. All those videos are also on our YouTube channel. So those are things you can check out, or you can take your chances. But I’m glad you’re here, and we’ll see you soon. God’s peace be with you.