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May God’s grace be with you this day in the hearing of His Word, words of eternal life. Amen. The sermon will be looking at the part of the Gospel reading for today. Please be seated. We can see or hear a lot of words on signs, TV, radio, the Internet, all trying to persuade us to go to certain places or do certain things. For example, sale. Buy one, get one. All you can eat. It’s my personal favorite. Free. And, according to Bill Dickinson, if he can’t beat a new Kia deal in Texas, he’s just going to give it to you. All of these words meant to lead us to a place or do a certain thing. I’m going to get back to that, okay? Hang on to that. I wonder if Jesus ever got tired of people asking him so many questions. Well, maybe not. Because there were plenty of times when he did a lot of, made a lot of questions to people. And that’s what we have in the gospel reading today. Where in discussing this bread of life concept, Jesus asked some questions. He asked, do you take offense at this? And what if you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? And then a harder one. Jesus asks, do you want to go away as well? Some people found Jesus’ teachings too difficult, and they left. And Jesus then turns to his disciples, and he asks them, Do you want to leave too? Basically asking, Where are you going to go? Asking, Where are you going to go? It’s a big question for us today too. And Peter’s reply… It’s big for us today, too. Maybe it’s a familiar reply. We sing it before the Gospel reading in Divine Service setting 1 and 2. This is what Peter replied. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe that You’re the Holy One, the Deliverer, the Son of God, the Messiah, the One who gives sinful people eternal life. And Christians today believe Go to Jesus for those words of eternal life. And yet, there are many times when people go away from Jesus, away from his words of eternal life, and there are many ways that they do this. Forgetting, taking for granted, or even ignoring his words. Not wanting to read or hear them regularly. And especially in difficult times, this is what people will do. The very place where they should be going to, they go away from. I see this a lot on campus with college students. Oh, pastor, I’m so busy. I’m under so much stress, so much pressure right now. I really don’t have time. I can’t come to church. And I’m like, listen to yourself. You’re under pressure. You’re full of stress. You’re so busy. You need to go to church. The very place you need to go to, you’re running away from. Instead, people go away from the gathering of God’s people in worship where those words of eternal life are proclaimed and given to them. They go away from the altar. They go away from the pulpit. They go away from the font where all of those words of eternal life are given to them. And they’ll do it too when times are not so difficult. When life is good and everything seems right with the world, people tend to forget and ignore God’s words or just take them for granted. In all of these cases, people seem to go away from Jesus and away from his words of eternal life. Or worse, a person not only goes away from Jesus’ words, but they don’t even want to hear them. They reject them and even despise them. That’s stuff that pastors lose sleep over. And unfortunately, I see this on campus all too often, where the college years can be really hard on a young person’s faith. And some sources have the statistic as high as 70% of Christians who go off to college, they go away from regular worship or even go away from their faith completely. That’s stuff that gives pastors nightmares. Now those words I talked about before, those words that we hear that I listed before, things like sale, all you can eat, buy one, get one, free, and something about Ikea. Those are fairly harmless words, okay? They’re just meant to get you to go to a business or patronize them. Okay, fair enough, that’s fine. That’s the free market and all that stuff. But we can also hear words that are not so harmless, words that take you to places where you don’t want to go. Words like, You’re disappointing. You’re inadequate. You’re a failure. And you’re not wanted. I don’t love you anymore. Words that can take you to places like sadness, heartbreak, depression. And there’s even worse words. Words like, You’re a sinner. You’ve broken God’s law. You haven’t loved Him with your whole heart. You have not loved your neighbor as yourself. Words like, You’ve even hurt other people and many other sins that you know of. You’re guilty of those. And those type of words can take you to guilt or to shame and sorrow. Words like that, words like that seem like death. And how true that is, that our sin, the things that we are convicted of and accused of, they are death. The book of Romans says that the wages of sin is death. This is what you earn for your sin, death. Yes, those are words. Those words about sin are words of death, but not your death. God takes the words of death and puts them on His own Son. He takes the words of death that are meant for you and puts them on Jesus and He dies. By His death and His resurrection from the dead, Jesus takes the words of death that are meant for you and gives you instead words of eternal life. Words like grace and mercy and forgiveness. Words that take us to a place we want to go, a place of joy and happiness and contentment in what Jesus has done. Those are words that say no matter what you’ve done, no matter what sins you’ve committed, no matter how much you’ve hurt others, hurt yourself or hurt God, you are forgiven. And no matter how much you really do deserve the death that you deserve because of your sin, that you instead have eternal life. See, the world that we live in, it just gives death. I mean, that’s all there really is at the end of the day, at the end of your life. It’s just death. That’s where it all ends up. The reward for all of your good works, for all of your actions, for all of your hard work, all of that stuff, it all ends in death. I love the stupid little saying, life is hard and then you… This is eliciting, this is politely eliciting a response. Okay, yeah. Life is hard, then you die. Where are you going to go in life? If it’s in the world, it goes to death. But with Jesus, it goes to eternal life. Those are words that are given right here from this pulpit, from this altar. From this font and from all of these people here, don’t go away from those words. Seek to hear them in gathering together and individually as you seek to listen to them, to read them and hear them in your daily life. Now, St. Paul Lutheran Church, I know it can be difficult. It can be a difficult time when you’re seeking a new pastor. Even more so when you’re also seeking a minister of music. It can be a time that causes uncertainty, fear, and maybe even hurt. It can be a time when we may ask who we are as a congregation, what’s our future, kind of what are we all about. That’s legitimate to do that and to look at those things, but we do not have to ask where you’re going to go. Let me assure you of this. That the gospel will still be proclaimed here. The sacraments still administered and sins still forgiven. The words of eternal life are still very much a part of this congregation and always will be. St. Paul is committed to being a historical, liturgical, confessional, biblical Lutheran church. Centered on Jesus, the one who has words of eternal life. That’s what we’re about, and we ain’t going anywhere from that. Yeah, this can seem like a difficult time. I know, I’m a member of this church too, okay? I know, it’s difficult seeking for a new pastor, a new music minister. But it’s an exciting time. I think the bad questions to ask are, why is this happening? Why so many changes? And the good questions are, What has God got for us next? Who is God leading us to and leading them to us? What’s He going to do next at St. Paul? This is an exciting time because no matter what, we have the words of eternal life for this church, but also for you individually. The words, Pastor Vacancy. Are not words that have to take us away from the joy and excitement of the words of eternal life spoken by Jesus and here at St. Paul. But St. Paul, you also can speak those words of eternal life. Whenever you share your faith with friends or family or whoever, it’s not just sharing your faith, it’s sharing words of eternal life with them. When you tell other people the good news of Jesus, you aren’t just giving them an idea or good advice or information or wisdom for a good life. When you tell them about Jesus, you’re giving them words of eternal life so that they too can come to know that joy of about Jesus, the Holy One of God, the Savior of the world, who has given eternal life with His life, with His death and His resurrection for our and their forgiveness. So may those words of eternal life cause you to go to Jesus and help you to proclaim it to others and having joy in it, St. Paul, having joy during this difficult time, during this time of transition, an exciting time, Full of joy of eternal life in Christ. Amen. Now may the grace of God, which goes beyond all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
