Trinity 3
Dear friends in Christ. What a comforting Gospel reading this morning: Then all the tax collectors and the sinners were drawing near to Him to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes were complaining, saying, "This Man receives sinners and eats with them." Sinners were coming to Jesus in order hear about a Savior from sin and the forgiveness of their sin. And, this glorious comforting Gospel truth is spoken about Jesus by His enemies. They intended it as an insult; but for us sinners who are worried about our sin, who see no worthiness in ourselves, who see and feel only God’s wrath over sin, who realize that only death and damnation await us, these are the best words we could hear: This Man [Jesus] receives sinners and eats with them. Jesus does not turn us away when we come to Him in sorrow over sin and long for rescue from sin; He does not reject our repentance; He welcomes us.
For us today, how rich these words are in meaning! Not only does Jesus welcome and receive us as we come to Him with repentant hearts, not only does Jesus do like He did that day and eat with them, but He gives us to eat, He feeds us in the Blessed Sacrament with His very body and blood for the forgiveness of our sin. Never let us doubt that Jesus receives us and forgives us!
Then Jesus in response to His enemies’ words, This Man receives sinners and eats with them, tells the most comforting parables. In the 2 parables, Jesus, the very God Himself, searches for us sinners. Precisely because Jesus searched out and called them to Him all the tax collectors and the sinners were drawing near to Him to hear Him. The same thing applies to us. Because Jesus sought us out in the waters of Holy Baptism and in His holy Word, we are Christians now. Because, when we sin, He continues to seek us out to draw us back to Him that He may give us the forgiveness of sin, we continue to be His dear Christians. There is one sentence in our Lord’s parable that we dare never misinterpret: What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness…? The point Jesus is making with this statement is how important the one lost sheep is/ how important each sinner for Him to go out and seek it, calling through His holy word. In no way, though, are the 99 sheep to develop a false sense of security—as if they aren’t in danger. To put it differently, in no way are we ever to take our faith for granted and think that we are not that bad a sinner; that Jesus is just for those other people. We dare never become careless in our faith.
That’s where today’s Epistle from St. Peter comes in. Lest we become careless in our faith, he exhorts us to humility and warns us of the danger that we are in since your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. In our lives as Christians, we will, then, be both full of humility and strength.
1. St. Peter writes: Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. There are two types of humility—both of which we are called to. The first is an external humility. Here is where we regard ourselves as insignificant and others greater than us. How difficult this is because of our old sinful nature that wants us to make self number one, that puts self first, that so easily judges and condemns the other while lightly passing by and excusing our own sins. In external humility we despise none and lead a life of service to the other.
The other humility is an internal humility. Here is where we recognize that we are sinners, that we have a corrupt nature, that we are sinners down to our very core and that all that we earn and deserve is God’s wrath and eternal punishment. Here we recognize that with our deeds—no matter how good we may think they are—do not get us anywhere before God, do not earn His favor. Here we recognize that the fact that we are Christians, God’s dear children and heirs of heaven, is all due to Him—not in the least to us. God alone gets the credit. Certainly recognizing this, there is no way we get careless in the faith; no way that we think we have no need of Christ—that now we can do it ourselves.
Because this humility does not “come natural” to us, because left to ourselves and our own devices, because of our old sinful nature, we are not humble, that’s why the Holy Spirit has St. Peter here write: Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God. Yes, our religion, our faith, is not a proud thing; it is not an “individual” thing where I pulled myself up by my bootstraps; it’s not a thing where I can pat myself on the back. There is certainly never a point that we come to that God can and does leave us alone because we are so good and perfect and will remain that way. It is as we prayed in this morning’s collect: without [God, our Protector] nothing is strong and nothing is holy; and, like we prayed in last week’s collect: [Our Lord] never fails to help and govern those whom [He] brings up in {His] steadfast fear and love.
What does this mean? God continues to work on His dear Christians. It’s not that He saves us and then forgets us. Rather He keeps working on us throughout our lives to keep us in the faith and to break and put to death our old sinful nature. One way the Lord works here is through the trials and sufferings He allows to come upon us—those very same trials and sufferings that the pride of the human heart resists and fights against. Humble yourselves. Precisely through these trials, the Lord is working to strengthen and purify our faith—that very faith that He gave us and which our old sinful nature, in cahoots with the devil and sinful world around us, is trying to extinguish and kill. What the Lord allows and sends, let us humbly receive and recognize that the Lord is working through it His good and gracious will toward us: Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God.
Notice the apostle writes: We humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. He is the One in control. He can and does intervene in human affairs. We accept what the Lord sends our way—that’s humility: recognizing He knows the best way to deal with us. Let us not overlook the phrase: the mighty hand of God. That phrase is so often used in the OT to describe the Lord rescuing His people—for example from slavery in Egypt. Let us recognize as in the midst of trials we humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand, He is ultimately rescuing us with His mighty hand. That is really His purpose—rescue. Our text: Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you. At the right time—in the Lord’s timing and in the Lord’s way—He brings us the way out and rescue. He exalts us—we don’t exalt/ rescue ourselves.
What does trial and the Lord delivering us have to with humility? When suffering and trial come, we accept it; that’s the humbling ourselves. But we do not stand there like rocks. What do we do in the midst of it? We humble ourselves as we are casting all [our] anxieties on him, because he cares for [us]. We go to the Lord in prayer and wait for His help/ rescue, for His mighty hand. How this drives home to us—and humbles us as we realize—that the Lord is in control, not me. Recognizing our powerlessness breaks our reliance on self. What a lesson we need to keep learning over and over again—and breaking our old sinful nature with.
This true humility in which are casting all [our] anxieties on him, because he cares for [us], is an act of faith—and so in trial faith is being strengthened. Since we have grace, righteousness and forgiveness of sins through Christ, we know God cares for us. That’s faith: it both trusts the word and promise of God and receives these very same gifts and blessings. Through faith we have a tremendous comfort in the knowledge that God cares; that He loves as a Father—our almighty heavenly Father—and knows what oppresses us and what we truly need.
In our time of trial/ suffering, we are, then, by faith, not offended by how long God seemingly stays away and leaves us lying in our misery. In true Christian humility: Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. In all things and at all times our good and gracious Lord is working to strengthen and purify our faith. Though it will be difficult, He will strengthen us through it and in the end He will give a glorious help and deliverance coming from His mighty hand.
2. Precisely because our faith is strengthened and purified as we in that faith, turn away from self and humble ourselves and turn to the Lord looking for and receiving His help, strength and rescue, the devil will also be right there attacking us, trying to destroy faith. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith. The Christian, then, is not only called to humility but strength. And in fact, that strength comes from humility—as we in faith turn away from ourselves and our own strength and efforts and turn to the Lord and humbly rely upon Him and His strength as we resist the devil.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Often, precisely when God is humbling us to put down our old sinful nature, when we are in times of trial the devil, like a roaring lion, will attack. He will come and look for our weaknesses; He will come trying to lead us to doubt or question our Lord and His leading; He will come to try to get us to think that God is somehow doing us wrong; He will come to try to get us to stop relying on the Lord and His strength. But what does the apostle write here? Be sober-minded; be watchful. That we do this is something that the Lord has worked in us! We recognize in the humility of faith what a great gift and blessing the Lord has given us in Christ and the forgiveness of sin and eternal life in Him. Our Lord has sought us out to give us these gifts and blessings. We do not want to lose it so we are always on the lookout for the devil and his attempts to draw us away from the faith and lead us into sin and complacency; trying to devour us spiritually; trying to drag us back into the slavery to sin, death and hell.
In the humility of faith, we do not want to trust our remaining in the faith to us. Instead, in the humility of faith we turn to our Lord and His strength to keep us in the faith. Really, it is our Lord’s gracious working that we see, hear and feel in ourselves that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. When we feel our sin and the devil breathing down our back, then we run to our Lord and His word and sacrament. The comfort of the sacrament is given when the heart feels its burden is too heavy and it gains new power and refreshment.
That very longing for the Lord’s grace and strength to resist the devil—Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world—that comes from the Lord; He kindled it. He will strengthen and help us in our weakness to persevere in the true faith to the end. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. By His holy word and Sacraments, our good and gracious Triune God will firmly keep you in His word and faith to the end. Because the Christian is humble and relies on the Lord, the Christian is strong—strong in the Lord who will bring us to Himself in heaven. For that we offer Him our thanks already now: To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. INJ