Sunday, July 20, Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

“All the Difference in the World”

Psalm 27:1-14; Genesis 18:1-14; Colossians 1:21-29; Luke 10:38-42

Divine Service IV with Holy Communion

Hymns: #523 “O Word of God Incarnate”; #566 “By Grace I’m Saved”; #703 “How Can I Thank You, Lord”

Dear Friends in Christ,

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

     St. Paul writes, in his letter to the Colossian church, “Once you were alienated from God.” You were enemies of God, he tells them, lost in the world and headed for hell. But now, he says, “You’ve heard the Gospel that’s been proclaimed in all the world” –  and now by God’s grace you’ve come to believe it. And that, for us, makes all the difference in the world! And you and I, by putting the Good News about Jesus in people’s ears, can make all the difference in the world to the people around us, too. Heavenly Father, help us to do this!

     How did you come to know Christ? Some of you have known Him all your life. Some of you have come to Him later in life, but that’s OK; what matters is that you’ve come. Sometimes the Lord gets ahold of people and changes their hearts all at once - like Martin Luther converted by a thunderbolt; or like St. Paul knocked off his high horse on the way to Damascus; or like anyone who’s ever been inches from dying and called out, “Jesus, save me!” - and He did! I knew someone once who came to Christ because they prayed, “God, if You’re real, move that cloud” – and the cloud moved! A coincidence? Maybe, but whatever it takes is OK by me, as long as it gets you there, brother. A lightning bolt, a miracle, a miraculous healing, a disaster averted… God will do that kind of thing, if that’s what somebody needs, and all praise to Him for it when it happens.

     For most of us, though, the path to faith is more subtle than that. God draws most people along inch by inch, day by day, promise kept by promise kept. Faith isn’t usually something that springs up all at once, but more something God grows in us. “God is patient with you,” says St. Peter, “not wanting anyone to perish, but all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.” Come to think of it, isn’t a miracle stretched out over many years even more amazing than a miracle that happens all at once?

     There are four little words in St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians that we read from today that make all the difference in the world, as far as explaining how God in His mercy gets faith into us and keeps it there. Those words are: Once, But, If, and Now.

      St. Paul writes, “Onceyou were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” That’s our human condition in the presence of sin: Separated from God, estranged from Him, cut off and alienated from heaven - like cockroaches running for cover when you turn on a light, or like bugs that run for the darkness when you roll over a log. We’re imperfect people, running from the bright, white light of a holy God; while all the while God, because He loves us in spite of our sin, pursues us, calling out to us by His Holy Spirit, and by the pleading of the godly people He puts in our path. The Spirit says, “Turn from your sin and turn back to God while you still have time! (Turn around, don’t drown!) Because at the end of that road you’re on is disaster - death without faith and then an eternity in hell.” Resisting the call of the Holy Spirit and closing your ears to the loving voice of God, and dying in stubborn unbelief, is really the only unforgivable sin there is. And ONCE, says St. Paul, that was us; but now comes the next beautiful word… BUT.

     BUT is a beautiful little word, when you find it in Scripture, because BUT often indicates there’s been a change in the narrative, that the story has been turned around. BUT is a grace word here; ONCE you were, BUT now you are. So doesn’t that little word BUT makes all the difference in the world? Paul says, “But now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation…”

     “Reconciled” is another beautiful word. A reconciled relationship is a relationship that’s been restored. “Reconciled” means the separation and alienation that once was, has now been turned around. We’re no longer enemies of God or at odds with Him, no longer going that wrong way on the road to disaster. The Spirit has called us to turn from our sin and turn back to God, and we’ve heeded the call and done it. And in turning, we’ve found God to be kind and loving and forgiving and good, with arms wide open to welcome and receive us.

     How is that even possible? How can God love and forgive and welcome a sinner like me? “By Christ’s physical body,” St. Paul says here. By Jesus putting His holy, sinless, perfect body on a cross for my sake, so that now when God my Father looks at me, He no longer sees the awful stain of my sin, but a child of God made pure and holy in His sight, “without blemish and free of accusation.” How can I thank God enough for doing that for me? ONCE I was what I was, BUT now I’ve been changed by God’s grace and brought to faith. What in the world can a proper or even adequate response to that incredible mercy be? Martin Luther puts it perfectly in our Small Catechism: “Therefore it is my duty to thank, praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true!”

     And that brings us to Paul’s third little word – and this one honestly, is harder to do, because it takes a little work. “ONCE you were” is our past, and “BUT now you are” is where God found us and changed us and brought us to this day; and now comes the big IF, the qualifier, that word tells us what we have to do to move on with Jesus from here. The IF points us forward from this day to the future that still lies ahead of us.

     “If you continue in your faith,” Paul says, “established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.” That word IF says we still have work to do, that we can’t stand pat or stop to rest. The hope we have in the Gospel, the Good News about Jesus, has been held out to us, and now we need to lay hold of God’s truth with both hands and with all our hearts and never let it go.

     Faith isn’t an automatic thing; don’t fall into that trap. Faith is something we have to fight for every day. This world is a madhouse, the devil is the king of liars, and he’s after our souls; and the moment you think you’re “established and firm” is the moment you’ll find yourself in trouble. IF you continue in your faith, you’ll be good, and you’ll be blessed, and you’ll be saved. But there’s always that question we can’t afford to ignore: “What if we don’t?” We can’t afford to take this faith we have for granted. Backsliding is just too easy; I’ve seen it happen to people a thousand times. “So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall,” St. Paul says.

     So we have the ONCE – and thank God that awful past is gone. And we have the blessed BUT that’s changed us and turned us and brought us to faith and reconciled us to God. And we have the IF that points us forward to the future God wants us to reach for in faith. And that leaves us at last with the last of our four little words; that leaves us with the NOW. What do we do with this good day God has blessed us with? What can we do to “thank, praise, and serve God” once we leave this place today?

     St. Paul says here: “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of His body, which is the church.” I pray none of us will ever have to suffer like Jesus did, or like St. Paul and the other disciples did. If we do, I hope we can rejoice like Jesus and Paul in what we suffer for God. But even if we’re spared that physical suffering, we’ll still be asked to make sacrifices for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of His holy Christian Church on earth. It could be as simple as giving up your time, or the pleasant afternoon you had planned, for the sake of someone who might need your help. But even a little thing like that could make all the difference in the world for someone. Paul says in another place that God gives us “open doors for the Gospel” for us to walk though; and we should never pass up an opportunity like that because we were too busy doing something else. If you have a chance to “present the Word of God in all its fullness” (or as full as you know it, anyway) you should do it. Don’t ignore the “holy nudge”; NOW might be the time someone is willing to listen. 

     If Christ in us is our hope of glory, it is also the only hope for everyone in the world around us; which means we need to get the Word of Christ into as many people as we possibly can. We’re here, right now, today, to “proclaim, admonish, and teach,” with all the wisdom God has given us and with all the love He’s put in us, to “present everyone before God as perfect in Christ.” That is, to bring them along from the “Once you were” to the “But now you are”, and to the blessed “holy moment” which is the day of their salvation. It is to this end, says Paul, that we labor, struggling with all our energy, and with the power God gives us to make it happen.

     That “power to change the world” (and make no mistake, that’s exactly what it is) comes from hearing the Word of God, and from sitting at the feet of Jesus like Mary did, and being obedient to what He has to say. And the power comes from these blessed Sacraments God had given us - from the baptismal water that’s been poured upon our heads, and from the Body and Blood that’s waiting for us today on the Communion table. Welcome to the blessed, holy, life-changing Mystery – as Christ, the hope of glory, comes to give Himself to you.

     Father in Heaven, we thank You that what we once were, we are no more, by the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, shed for us upon the cross. We thank You that though we were sinners, we have been forgiven and forever changed. We ask You for the power and the grace to continue in our faith as our days and years go on. And we ask You to help us live this good day for You. In Jesus’ name; Amen.