230108 Sermon on the nature of true faith (Baptism of our Lord) January 8, 2023

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

It is fairly well known that in order to be saved from what
we deserve for our sins we must have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. There are
many passages that could be cited as proof for this. I’ll give you just one.
Christ our Lord says in the last chapter of Mark: “Whoever believes and is
baptized shall be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Faith and baptism make for salvation. Unbelief brings condemnation.

Since faith in Jesus is so important, it shouldn’t be surprising
that the devil should want to mess around in this area. The devil’s specialty
is theology. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, it was through the devil’s false
theology. They weren’t brought into temptation by their lower passions. It was
by means of their higher, spiritual abilities that the devil convinced them
that the rule God had given them was rather arbitrary. Maybe God was holding
out on them. Do not think that the devil only deals with filth and blood. He
dresses up as an angel of light, puts on his preaching gown, and teaches
religion.

So it is also, then, when it comes to what I’d like to talk
about today—deceiving people about faith. But before we get into how we can be
deceived, we should first know what it means to have true faith. The main thing
that you should always remember about true faith is that it is absolutely
mandatory that it be connected with the Word of God.

Adam and Eve’s first sin was despising the clear words that
God had spoken to them and preferring something else that seemed better and
wiser. Faith must stick with what God has said and refuse to be moved from what
God has said. Adam and Eve should have told that snake to take a hike, but
unfortunately they were charmed by it.

Faith must absolutely be tied up with the Word of God. But what,
then, does that mean? Beware the devil here too. It’s easy for us to fall into
a chain of logic that goes like this: Faith must only rely upon the Word of
God. The Word of God is recorded for us in the Bible. The Bible is an awfully
big book. I’m not a very good reader, and even when I try to read the Bible I often
find it confusing. So I guess I won’t ever know the Word of God because I’m not
going to master the entirety of the Scriptures.

Now the more honest and direct conclusion that should be
drawn from this chain of logic is that I guess I don’t and I won’t have a true
faith. But since people know that unbelief means hell for them, that’s not the
conclusion that most people draw. Instead most people just kind of throw up
their hands and say, “I guess I’ll just have to hope that I have faith. I’m
sure not going to read the Bible. That’s way too much work and I’m not smart
enough.” So what that means is that you won’t do anything seriously when it
comes to God’s Word, and you’ll just have to hope that that’s good enough.

This is dreadful and unnecessary. It is dreadful because it
is the very opposite of faith. Everything is left in doubt. If you can’t master
all of the Scriptures, then you’ll have none of it—even though no human being
has ever mastered the Scriptures. This is also unnecessary. Nowhere in the
Scriptures does it say that we have to memorize or master everything that has
been revealed.

The Scriptures do say about themselves that they are
inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that therefore they are profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. So
you should never believe that it is not worthwhile to learn more and more from
the Scriptures. But there are some things that God has said which are more
essential and upon which our faith is necessarily dependent.

Getting to know these essential teachings has been the
primary task of the Christian Church from the very beginning. Christ our Lord
says in the last chapter of Matthew, “Therefore, go, and make disciples.”
A disciple is a follower or a student. And so Christians from the very
beginning have been teaching others the very things that they themselves have
been taught. And what did the Apostles and Christians teach? They didn’t just sit
down with the Bible and start at Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. They could have.
That wouldn’t necessarily have been bad. But probably those ancient people
weren’t too different from us today. And so they collected the most essential
teachings and taught that to those who might become Christians.

We have a very handy and time-tested tool from that
tradition in the Christian church with the little pamphlet called “Luther’s
Small Catechism.” I’m not talking about the book called Luther’s Small
Catechism with the explanation. The explanation greatly expands the content so
that we end up dealing with a pretty big book again, and then we end up with
all those same complaints and laziness that people have with the Bible. No, I’m
only talking about the original Small Catechism, but a little pamphlet. It is
simple and small enough to be read by a child; profound enough to never be
mastered—even by Luther himself, who says as much.

And I can even make the material smaller yet. In the
Catechism the first two chief parts, the Ten Commandments and the Creed, are
what is quintessential—the essential of the essential. These two first parts of
the Catechism answer two utterly and absolutely fundamental questions: Who am
I? and Who is God?

The Ten Commandments answer the question of who I am. I am a
sinner. Why? Just because I say so? No. I am a sinner because I have broken all
ten of the commandments. So next time someone asks who you are, if you really
wanted to get down to the fundamental and nitty-gritty about yourself, you
could answer: “I’m a sinner.”

And who is God? God is the justifier of sinners. God created
me. God sent his Son to be my Lord and to redeem me. God sanctifies me by the
Holy Spirit giving me faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord. God justifies sinners. God
has tied himself up in his very nature with justifying us sinners by the
Christ’s holy, precious blood, and his innocent suffering and death.

So when it comes to having a true faith, which absolutely
and mandatorily must be tied up with the Word the comes from God, these two
fundamental questions tower above everything else: Who am I? I’m a sinner. Who
is God? He is the justifier of sinners. If you don’t have these two fundamental
things straight it is impossible to do anything true or beneficial with
anything else that the Word of God might say.

So if you want to go to heaven, that is, if you want to have
a true faith, I can give you no better advice than to diligently read your
Catechism—again, the pamphlet, not the book. We give these catechisms out for
free. If we run out I’ll print some more. And even within the Catechism itself,
the Ten Commandments and the Creed are the essential of the essential. They are
tremendous guides if you will take them seriously. Examine your life and your
faith by them and you will be able to avoid countless errors and tricks of the
devil.

Now let’s get into some of those tricks just a little bit. In
a way there’s no end to the devil’s tricks. What I’d like to talk about today
is one that commonly afflicts folks in our circles. It is very common for our
people to pretty much follow the rules, and go with the flow, but we certainly
don’t want to go overboard when it comes to how we are supposed to live. This
is a kind of Christianity we can develop for ourselves where we are choosing
for ourselves which commandments we might want to keep.

Maybe we don’t like to pray all that much, and so we break
the second commandment. Or maybe we’re just really independent and forceful
characters—leaders, you might say—so of course we don’t want to honor our
parents or the other authorities God has placed over us. Or maybe we have a
thriving business, but the successfulness of that business depends upon lying,
cheating, and abusing our customers or our workers. Or maybe we have a hot
head, and we can’t help it, and anger burns within us. Or maybe we twitter
about what is going on with everybody else and can’t keep our mouths shut. Or
maybe we don’t like hearing God’s Word, we don’t like the pastor of the church
service, or we had a fight with someone at church.

Now realize that all the while, and in the midst of all
these sins and more, it is not uncommon at all for us to believe that we just totally
believe in Jesus. Boy oh boy do we ever believe in Jesus. We just believe in
him so much! Start playing Amazing Grace, and don’t be surprised if you see a
tear come into our eye.

Our society and especially our churches would be much better
off if there were less bragging about a faith that just might be imaginary and
hypocritical, and instead paying more attention to the Word of God. And not
even to the whole Bible, which, of course, would be fine, but just the Ten
Commandments and the Creed. If we payed attention to the Word of God, we’d then
know that we are sinners, and we’re in the wrong. We might repent and change
our ways. The Word of God says that the sacrifices of God are a broken and
contrite spirit. A broken and contrite spirit God will not despise.

But not a lot of people are going to do that because it’s
awfully convenient to ignore God’s commandments while relying on the belief
that you are a believer. This is very convenient, because then you get to do
all the things that you want to do. You can basically be the god of your own
life. You have the knowledge and you determine what is good and what is evil.
Pity the fool who might tell you otherwise. And then, after you’ve lived your
life just the way that you want to live your life you get to go to heaven.
Because the Scriptures say, do they not, that “Whoever believes and is
baptized shall be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned.” And
there’s one thing you know for sure about yourself, and that is that you are a
believer in Jesus! Boy oh boy are you a believer in Jesus.

But what if your fake, made-up faith is just that? And,
frankly, how could it be anything but fake? Any so-called faith that allows and
basically encourages you to go deeper and deeper into lawlessness and sin can’t
come from the Holy Spirit. It comes from an evil spirit.

So how should we handle all those breakings of the Ten
Commandments, that even Christians with a true faith find themselves doing? Again,
remember that true faith is utterly bound up with the Word of God. So may God
bless you by having the Word of God come to you so that you may repent. May
God’s Name be hallowed among us and may God’s kingdom come among us so that you
may repent.

Having the Ten Commandments around, having a true
interpretation of them, is a gift from God. Those who despise and ignore those
commandments also usually end up having God take away his Word from them.
Realize that you are not in control of your own faith. True faith is worked only
by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, so those who make themselves deaf
to God’s commandments can end up having God make them totally and irrevocably
deaf. He scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

So do not despise and neglect the Ten Commandments which
reveal your sin. When God reveals your sin to you, that’s never fun, and you
shouldn’t expect it to be fun or easy, but you should understand that it is
good and that it is a gift. Thank God that he reveals afresh, once again, who
you are. Who are you? You are a sinner. So turn away from your self-justifying
and believe what God reveals about himself. Who is God? He is the justifier of
sinners.

This true faith, which lives on the Word of God, is kind of
like a bird. Birds don’t sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns. They are
dependent upon their heavenly Father feeding them their daily bread, day by
day. So it is also with the true faith of a Christian. Our faith is in need of
constantly being fed, day by day, bringing us to repentance and faith over and
over again until we finally die with faith in Jesus.

Whenever anybody talks about faith in a different way from
this humble and needy kind of process, I’m immediately skeptical. Maybe I might
give some credence to someone saying that he or she has gobs and gobs of faith
if they scrupulously keep the Ten Commandments, if they are gathering with and
encouraging their fellow sinners, and are giving their all in a life that is
lived in God. But that’s not what’s usually going on. Instead, they talk about
how much faith they have for the very purpose of you leaving them alone. They
don’t want to hear God’s commandments. They don’t want to repent or change. They’ve
been tricked.

Instead of boasting about how strong your faith is, I think
it is much closer to the truth to boast about how good God has been to you by
faithfully bringing his Word to you. This is what is behind Paul’s advice that
if we are going to boast, we should boast about our weaknesses. Christians are
thankful when they realize how God has pulled them out of the pit of
unrepentance and unbelief again and again. And we should believe that God will
continue to be faithful to us, bringing his Word to us. We shouldn’t live in
terror of God withdrawing himself from us. On the other hand, when God speaks
to us we should listen. Don’t make yourself deaf to it or remove yourself from
it, lest God should remove himself from you.