Psalm 50:1-15; 2 Peter 3:3-14
LSB 885
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Confrontation with mortality has a way of prioritizing one’s thinking and sharpening one’s perspective. My friends, hear these words of St Peter tonight - and his entire second letter - as his farewell discourse. His parting thoughts on the Christian life of faith and love. Gone is the bravado before Holy Week when he pledged to be jailed or even die with his Lord Jesus. How’d that turn out? Flailing around with his sword in the garden. Frightened by the questions of a servant girl in the courtyard. The rock was reduced to a pebble. He came face to face with his the possibility of his own death and he was scared. He denied to save his own skin.
Fully absolved and freely restored, Peter took his place in humility, learning that his strength is not internal, his resolve not innate. Rather, as the Lord promised St Paul, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). As the two greatest Apostles, with hands stretched out, were dressed and lead by another where they did not want to go, did they confess together and to one another, For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak then I am strong (2 Cor 12:10)?
He goes to his death, his martyrdom. An inverted cross. For he said, “I am not worthy to die in the same manner as my Lord.” He learned. It is a hard lesson. When this is all over. When all this pandemic and politics is behind us. Will we have learned?
For the Epistle from Sunday is preached to us tonight. The Christian faith cannot be without works. Peter has realized this. Thus does he exhort us, his friends and fellow disciples, to test ourselves by good works and become sure of our faith. Be established in the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone and not in the myths of men. In whatever field they may claim expertise.
Beware of false teachers who will arise from within. They will follow their own sensuality, reveling in their deceptions, having eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved (2 Pt 2:19). Be watchful and alert, dear Christians.
For the Apostle means to stir up your mind by way of reminder. He seeks to call you back to the basics, back to your catechesis, to prioritize your thinking as you too confront death. Scoffers with come with scoffing. Their sinful and unbelieving behavior will go hand in hand with their self-indulgence and mockery of God’s Word and work in the creation of the world.
The fathers have fallen asleep. Stephen, James, and John have already suffered martyrdom. Peter and Paul are not far behind. Nero’s insanity will swell leading to the bloody persecutions of Trajan and later Diocletian, just as Christians in every time and place have suffered somewhere. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. So it was at the time of Noah, a herald of righteousness. For one hundred years he built the ark. He preached. He pleaded. He prayed and sacrificed. Not a single convert. Not one. How his soul must have been greatly distressed! And in His justice the Lord deluged the world that He had created by His Word with water and it perished.
By this same Word, beloved, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. Hold fast to this Word in these last days of great distress. Cling to it for your life both now and hereafter. For the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises. He does not delight in the death of the wicked. He desires all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
It is in mercy that He restrains the judgment. That He holds back consuming fire of His wrath, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Thus does He also in mercy reveal to you your sins. And in mercy, by His Word and Holy Spirit, repents you of them, and grants you pardon, remission, and forgiveness of all your sins. This is the warp and woof of the Christian life. Our daily bread and butter.
It doesn’t progress beyond repentance and forgiveness, sin and grace, Law and Gospel. But precisely through this, in meditation on His Word, by prayer, and in suffering, does our Lord forge and fashion you as a theologian of the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the sun, moon and stars will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
My friends, since all these things are to occur, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?
Firstly, and always, dear Christians, repent of your sins, repent of your lack of faithfulness and love, of your lukewarm confession and fruitlessness, of all that is not Christ. Fear and love Him, the Mighty One, God the Lord, who speaks and summons the earth, as your Lord and God.
But also trust in Him as your great Good Shepherd. He is your merciful High Priest, your Savior and Redeemer. Hear His voice in the preaching of His Word and the gift of His Table. Follow Him through the Cross and death into His Kingdom. The Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. The Kingdom which is your inheritance not by works, but by grace through faith. For your righteousness avails nothing, but His righteousness is yours.
Love Him, therefore, because of who He is, and because He loves you faithfully forever. Love Him, by loving and serving His Christians. Love them in His Name and for His sake. These are His brothers. Such love is the evidence and fruit of your faith and life in Christ. For Christ Himself works in you, both to will and to do, according His His good pleasure. And by the Tree of His Cross into which you are grafted as a branch to the Vine, He bears fruit in your life. To reject such fruit of faith is to squelch and reject faith in Christ. To deny mercy is to deny Christ!
Therefore live in love toward your neighbor. Not to merit or maintain your salvation, for that is a free gift, an inheritance of your Father who is in heaven. But because this is the life of Christ. He daily and richly provides you with food and drink for your hunger and thirst; with safe shelter and sanctuary from the cold, from darkness and death; with clothing for your nakedness; with comfort and care in all adversity; with good health in place of all your illness, and with release from your prison.
So then, as for you: feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the poor, visit the sick and imprisoned. Do it for Jesus’ sake. Do it in His Name as He does so for you. Do it all as unto Him.
Learn to see Christ in your neighbor’s frailties and weakness and needs. Not only in the occasional act of kindness and charity, but especially in the daily duties and commands of your vocation. Children, honor and obey your parents and those in authority over you. Parents be patient with your children, bringing them up in the care and tenderness of the Lord, showing them unconditional love even as you are loved in Christ. Husbands and wives love and respect each other. Workers of all kinds obey your employers and serve them in honesty. To all, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, showing greater honor to the weaker and neglected parts of the Body of Christ.
Above all, do not ignore and neglect the Church, for she is the Body and the Bride of Christ. For how you react to the preaching of His Word, to the severity of His warnings and the promise of His grace, is of eternal significance. Therefore hold fast His Word, gladly listening and doing what He commands. As St Peter writes, Be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish, that is living by faith toward God, and at peace, that is, living in love and charity and service toward one another.
For this is the significance of the Church on earth, and of this congregation: Here the eternal judgments are declared and delivered. Here the Son of Man exercises His authority to forgive sins, and with that forgiveness of sins He gives you life and salvation. Here He clothes your nakedness and shame with His righteousness. Here He feeds you and gives you drink of His Body and Blood, freeing you from the prison of your sins. Here works of mercy accompany the preaching His Word, for love grows forth from faith. Here the Christian who is served by Christ goes forth and serves his neighbor in Christ.
Here He gathers you to Himself, to feed and clothe you, to heal you, to set you free; even as you wait for and hasten the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
LSB 885
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Confrontation with mortality has a way of prioritizing one’s thinking and sharpening one’s perspective. My friends, hear these words of St Peter tonight - and his entire second letter - as his farewell discourse. His parting thoughts on the Christian life of faith and love. Gone is the bravado before Holy Week when he pledged to be jailed or even die with his Lord Jesus. How’d that turn out? Flailing around with his sword in the garden. Frightened by the questions of a servant girl in the courtyard. The rock was reduced to a pebble. He came face to face with his the possibility of his own death and he was scared. He denied to save his own skin.
Fully absolved and freely restored, Peter took his place in humility, learning that his strength is not internal, his resolve not innate. Rather, as the Lord promised St Paul, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). As the two greatest Apostles, with hands stretched out, were dressed and lead by another where they did not want to go, did they confess together and to one another, For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak then I am strong (2 Cor 12:10)?
He goes to his death, his martyrdom. An inverted cross. For he said, “I am not worthy to die in the same manner as my Lord.” He learned. It is a hard lesson. When this is all over. When all this pandemic and politics is behind us. Will we have learned?
For the Epistle from Sunday is preached to us tonight. The Christian faith cannot be without works. Peter has realized this. Thus does he exhort us, his friends and fellow disciples, to test ourselves by good works and become sure of our faith. Be established in the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone and not in the myths of men. In whatever field they may claim expertise.
Beware of false teachers who will arise from within. They will follow their own sensuality, reveling in their deceptions, having eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved (2 Pt 2:19). Be watchful and alert, dear Christians.
For the Apostle means to stir up your mind by way of reminder. He seeks to call you back to the basics, back to your catechesis, to prioritize your thinking as you too confront death. Scoffers with come with scoffing. Their sinful and unbelieving behavior will go hand in hand with their self-indulgence and mockery of God’s Word and work in the creation of the world.
The fathers have fallen asleep. Stephen, James, and John have already suffered martyrdom. Peter and Paul are not far behind. Nero’s insanity will swell leading to the bloody persecutions of Trajan and later Diocletian, just as Christians in every time and place have suffered somewhere. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. So it was at the time of Noah, a herald of righteousness. For one hundred years he built the ark. He preached. He pleaded. He prayed and sacrificed. Not a single convert. Not one. How his soul must have been greatly distressed! And in His justice the Lord deluged the world that He had created by His Word with water and it perished.
By this same Word, beloved, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. Hold fast to this Word in these last days of great distress. Cling to it for your life both now and hereafter. For the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises. He does not delight in the death of the wicked. He desires all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
It is in mercy that He restrains the judgment. That He holds back consuming fire of His wrath, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Thus does He also in mercy reveal to you your sins. And in mercy, by His Word and Holy Spirit, repents you of them, and grants you pardon, remission, and forgiveness of all your sins. This is the warp and woof of the Christian life. Our daily bread and butter.
It doesn’t progress beyond repentance and forgiveness, sin and grace, Law and Gospel. But precisely through this, in meditation on His Word, by prayer, and in suffering, does our Lord forge and fashion you as a theologian of the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the sun, moon and stars will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
My friends, since all these things are to occur, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?
Firstly, and always, dear Christians, repent of your sins, repent of your lack of faithfulness and love, of your lukewarm confession and fruitlessness, of all that is not Christ. Fear and love Him, the Mighty One, God the Lord, who speaks and summons the earth, as your Lord and God.
But also trust in Him as your great Good Shepherd. He is your merciful High Priest, your Savior and Redeemer. Hear His voice in the preaching of His Word and the gift of His Table. Follow Him through the Cross and death into His Kingdom. The Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. The Kingdom which is your inheritance not by works, but by grace through faith. For your righteousness avails nothing, but His righteousness is yours.
Love Him, therefore, because of who He is, and because He loves you faithfully forever. Love Him, by loving and serving His Christians. Love them in His Name and for His sake. These are His brothers. Such love is the evidence and fruit of your faith and life in Christ. For Christ Himself works in you, both to will and to do, according His His good pleasure. And by the Tree of His Cross into which you are grafted as a branch to the Vine, He bears fruit in your life. To reject such fruit of faith is to squelch and reject faith in Christ. To deny mercy is to deny Christ!
Therefore live in love toward your neighbor. Not to merit or maintain your salvation, for that is a free gift, an inheritance of your Father who is in heaven. But because this is the life of Christ. He daily and richly provides you with food and drink for your hunger and thirst; with safe shelter and sanctuary from the cold, from darkness and death; with clothing for your nakedness; with comfort and care in all adversity; with good health in place of all your illness, and with release from your prison.
So then, as for you: feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the poor, visit the sick and imprisoned. Do it for Jesus’ sake. Do it in His Name as He does so for you. Do it all as unto Him.
Learn to see Christ in your neighbor’s frailties and weakness and needs. Not only in the occasional act of kindness and charity, but especially in the daily duties and commands of your vocation. Children, honor and obey your parents and those in authority over you. Parents be patient with your children, bringing them up in the care and tenderness of the Lord, showing them unconditional love even as you are loved in Christ. Husbands and wives love and respect each other. Workers of all kinds obey your employers and serve them in honesty. To all, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, showing greater honor to the weaker and neglected parts of the Body of Christ.
Above all, do not ignore and neglect the Church, for she is the Body and the Bride of Christ. For how you react to the preaching of His Word, to the severity of His warnings and the promise of His grace, is of eternal significance. Therefore hold fast His Word, gladly listening and doing what He commands. As St Peter writes, Be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish, that is living by faith toward God, and at peace, that is, living in love and charity and service toward one another.
For this is the significance of the Church on earth, and of this congregation: Here the eternal judgments are declared and delivered. Here the Son of Man exercises His authority to forgive sins, and with that forgiveness of sins He gives you life and salvation. Here He clothes your nakedness and shame with His righteousness. Here He feeds you and gives you drink of His Body and Blood, freeing you from the prison of your sins. Here works of mercy accompany the preaching His Word, for love grows forth from faith. Here the Christian who is served by Christ goes forth and serves his neighbor in Christ.
Here He gathers you to Himself, to feed and clothe you, to heal you, to set you free; even as you wait for and hasten the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
RSS Feed