PASTOR'S MESSAGE

   

“I Will Never Leave You"

John 14:15-21

 (Preacher: Reverend Timothy D. Storck)

May the words of my mouth and the meditation found in all of our hearts be pleasing to You, O Lord.  Amen.

 Christ is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

 Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

 

Introduction:

                The instructing was almost complete.  They had been together as a group for nearly three years.  Some called earlier and others shortly thereafter, yet they had listened, sometimes not paying attention, but they heard the Words of the Shepherd and He had called them to Himself.  The instruction was almost complete.  The instruction got more difficult during those last few days. 

                The words spoken by the Teacher were most difficult to comprehend.  The world is going to hate you for who you belong to.  Outside of the Vine you will not produce any good fruit, even if it is pleasing to the world.  There will be some that believe when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.  (Sounds like the Muslims, doesn’t it?)  The world will rejoice when you suffer.    

[For many of you in our confirmation class have been together for three years, studying and learning the Words of the Good Shepherd.  You have had opportunity to hear His voice and to follow after Him.  Early on your parents brought you to the font, to Sunday School and confirmation.  Now this early instruction is nearly complete but never over.]

                Last weeks Gospel text placed us in the Upper Room where we are again today.  We heard the comforting words to Thomas, I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  Only through Christ are we saved. 

                Our Lord’s last few hours with His disciples were ones that left them in fear for their Lord was going to leave them.  They would not follow the Lord where he was going, even against the insistence of Peter.  Yet, they would not be abandoned in these difficult time for the Lord had promised them another Comforter.  Hear the text of the Gospel for this day and know, He Will Never abandon you.

                If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither see him nor knows him.  You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live.  In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.  And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Thus far the words of our Lord.

I.

                It is fairly simple for us to believe that we have been abandoned.  It surrounds our very selves, parents abandoning children, husbands and wives divorcing, churches abandoning the true teaching of God.  Parents may use abandonment for discipline and control over children and their spouses.  I will leave you behind if you don’t behave yourself.

                Jesus never used that tactic with His disciples.  He never told them that He would abandon them if they didn’t do something.  He didn’t attach strings to His Word.  As Christians we feel that we have been abandoned.  We find ourselves in difficult situations and conclude that God has abandoned us and our families.  As my friends daughter Vivian clings to life in the NICU in FWA they, the world is inclined to teach, could say that God has abandoned them.  We are good at living in despair, as though we had nothing, as though we aren’t baptized, as though we did not have Christ or the Father or the Holy Spirit, as though we did not have Jesus’ words of life, the only person we can blame is ourselves.  We are good at blaming God for abandoning us.

                We find ourselves living like the world lives.  The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and his is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.   Though we have been given the Holy Spirit in Baptism how often do we ignore those things that God has given to us?   He does not abandon us, we abandon Him.  We can’t believe that mere words connected with water or with bread and wine can do such great and miraculous things.  We can’t believe that piece can come to us through His Word.  Job’s three friends wanted Him to turn His back on God.  Curse God and die, the pleaded with him.  Even in the destruction of Job’s family He knew God’s promises. 

                We neglect and misuse the gifts He gives to us. [You confirmands have done this.  Possibly skipping out on confirmation class.  Our deciding to sleep in on Sunday morning after staying up late with friends on Saturday.]  We all do something like that.  We turn our backs by developing an attitude that has little use for the Divine Service.  Where will those temptations lead you?  I don’t know and neither can Pastor Buss, your parents or any parishioner.  Only God knows.  But God knows from one degree your another you will depart from Him.]

                I’m not just picking on you this morning, because it is confirmation day.  We all do it.  We have all abandoned the gifts God gives us.  And we do it in familiar ways.  Developing a bad attitude about Bible class, finding it much easier watching the sports on Sunday.  Rather than looking to God’s gifts given to us in Holy Baptism and in His church we seek peace elsewhere.  We turn our back on what God gives us. 

                We fear that the Holy Spirit is not with us if our emotions aren’t on a high during the service and the sermon really moved me that day.  We struggle and wonder why we didn’t have just the correct words to speak when our friends ask about our faith, so God must not have been with us.  Notice how easy it is to feel abandoned by God when there is no emotional high, or that we can’t remember when we came to Jesus, out of fear even the disciples locked the door believing that the Jews were going to come after them and that the Lord would not look after them.

                Repent.  Repent of those times you have believed that God has abandoned you though He claimed you as His own.  Repent and know that Christ promises to be with us to the very end of the age and that His back will never turn on you.  Repent and hear the Gospel knowing that your sins are forgiven.

II.

                [Confirmands] you are not and never will be alone while you remain in the faith.  As Christ departed from His disciples and left them for three days at His death and then again at His ascension He left them with a promise, I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Jesus is coming even now.  The preparations are being set in order for His return.  He came first in the incarnation.  He came again in the Resurrection and at Pentecost.  He will come again on the Last Day.

                The world believed that it would no longer see Jesus or have to deal with Him after His death and even for those that saw His ascension into Heaven.  You are spiritually alive because JESUS is ALIVE even now.  For Jesus is the God of the living and not of the dead.  He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  You are alive by faith Only because Jesus is alive.  You are alive by faith because Christ Himself claimed you out of the depths of our original sin and placed His name upon you.

                In the rite of Holy Baptism the pastor marked your foreheads and your hearts with the sign of the cross.  That was done to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.  You have been redeemed and in the washing of Baptism, when that name was placed upon you Father, Son, and Holy Spirit you were placed into a special union with God.  Hear again the words of verse twenty: On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

                On the day of Pentecost the disciples knew.  We have that intimate knowledge through God’s Word even know.  There is an intimate unity between the Father and His Son Jesus.  This union is so close and intimate that no one can fully explain it.  Yet, the verse doesn’t end there, for it expresses to us and to the disciples that we exist in Christ and He in us.  The Father and Son’s relationship is as close as ours is to Jesus.  We are even as close as the Son is to the Father.   God is our Father we are His children.  He won’t abandon you.  God the Father forsook His Son on the cross so that He would never forsake you.

                Take heart then.  For twice in the confirmation rite you will hear [or have heard] questions such as these:  Do you intend to live according to the Word of God, and in faith, word, and deed to remain true to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death?  And again; Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?  You can answer both with a hearty, I do, by the grace of God, because of the gift God gave to you.  You don’t even need to fear death at the hand of the world or Satan, for death has been defeated by our Lord.

                No wonder the disciples and the apostles could stand in the face of death.  Paul could boldly stand in front of the Areopagus and proclaim His faith, even as some called him a babbler and other mocked him.  And Peter from our Epistle lesson could write, But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed.  Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as Holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; Even in the face of losing your friends in high school for not following along, even in the face of losing jobs or being ridiculed in class, and in the face of death you have nothing to fear.  For Christ has given you His Holy Spirit, He has given another Comforter. 

                With the giving of the Comforter He works through means, Baptism, in the Word when you read or hear it, in the Lord’s Supper, in the Holy Ministry, in other Christians when they speak the Word to you, in you as you speak the words of Jesus to others.  The Spirit always comes to us through means, and He always uses means – creaturely, earthly stuff like water, words, bread, wine, pastors, and people.  Through these means the Spirit keeps you in the true faith and lays the Words of our Lord on your hearts and minds so that we would trust Him and receive His presence in our lives.  Use them often as you promise to do in your confirmation vows.

                When death’s final hour arrives be it from old age or at the hand of someone who doesn’t believe your confession know that death is not the end for it has been swallowed up in the death of Christ.  As Christ’s body was raised from the sleep of death yours will be also.  Take heart.  Hold Fast.  Know that Christ has died for you and lives again FOR YOU.  YOU WILL NEVER BE ALONE, In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

[Bettina, D.J., David, Anastasia, Molly, Mariah, Jayme, Lauren, James, Brandon, Kymberlie, Sierra, and Connor, my prayer for each of is that you always remain in the true faith, to life everlasting.  Amen.]

 

Christ is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed!  Alleluia!

Amen.

 

          

  

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