Trinity 15
Today’s OT reading from Isaiah gives us a wonderful comfort: For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. We usually run to this verse for comfort when something bad happens to us and we can’t understand all the how’s and whys. It is a beautiful confession of faith that with our feeble, finite human minds we cannot understand all the workings of God. Together with the assurance from St. Paul that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord, who are called according to His purpose [Rm 8.28], we receive tremendous comfort. How beautifully Scripture fits together and harmonizes and gives us a rich comfort. This is another reason why it is good that we are not only familiar with Scripture but that we memorize it—then the Holy Spirit can do His job as Comforter and recall to us God’s word, work and promises.
But what is also amazing and comforting is context of when the Lord says: For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways. It isn’t in the context of questioning the why of suffering; instead, it is in the context of repentance. Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways. So what is the Lord talking about in these verses? –His grace and mercy! His thoughts and ways when it comes to grace and forgiveness are much different than ours, much higher than ours! That’s what we see in today’s Gospel, Jesus’ parable of the vineyard workers.
And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house. Why did the ones who worked all day complain? –Because they were paid the same amount as those who had worked only an hour. The ones who had worked all day thought they would be getting more when the saw the wages of those who had worked only a short time. It was only fair! So what was Jesus talking about in this parable? –God’s grace and mercy! The grace of salvation! When it comes to God’s grace and mercy, God is not fair! That’s the very definition of grace and mercy—God not giving us what we deserve, namely His wrath and damnation, but what He in His love and generosity give us instead: the forgiveness of sin, the holiness of Jesus, eternal life. God’s grace and mercy are not and cannot be earned. When God shows us His mercy and grace, He is not being fair. And that’s a good thing for us. We don’t want God to be fair and give us what we earn and deserve.
Because God is not fair and does not give us what we earn and deserve, we can in repentance seek the Lord and call upon Him, we can forsake our wicked ways and our unrighteous thoughts and return to the Lord. Because why? Instead of giving us what we deserve, we return to the Lord that He may have compassion on [us], and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Because why? For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.
In our times of struggle, trial and temptation, and when it comes to God’s grace and mercy we find tremendous comfort in the Lord’s words in our OT reading, For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. But this is also a general principle that we find—God’s ways and thinking and our ways are not always the same. Guess whose are best!
We see an example of this in our text from today’s Epistle. For the next month our Epistle readings come from Philippians. St. Paul wrote this and other letters while he was in prison in Rome. St. Paul used this time in prison to further the spread of the Gospel and to strengthen the churches that he had started or visited. Certainly you would think that God would have wanted St. Paul out traveling, preaching. But again, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. We/ the Church down through the ages are the beneficiaries of God’s higher ways and thoughts because we today have this letter—and others—written by St. Paul under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration when he was in prison for our reading, instruction and edification today.
As we examine our text, we get a glimpse of what St. Paul and really, ultimately the Holy Spirit sees as a “healthy” congregation; of when the Holy Spirit considers that it is going well for a church. And as we do that we will again see here: For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.
That question of what is a healthy congregation, of when is it going well for church is an important question but one which is answered quite incorrectly in so many ways. If the church has a beautiful, debt-free building, if its members are well respected people, if it is prominent, if it there is great peace among the members, if the church is a bee-hive of activity, if it has programs for children and youth, if the church is active out in the community, and certainly a whole host of other things, then it goes well for that church; then it is a healthy church. But St. Paul, sitting in prison, with every fiber of his body caring for the well-being of this church in Philippi has a different idea of what is the ideal church. He describes that ideal church in our text: Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of hear that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. For St. Paul, then, speaking by the Holy Spirit, the healthy church is one that is standing firm, striving together for the faith, and one that is not afraid. How different is that from most people’s idea?
The first thing St. Paul lists of healthy church is: you are standing firm in one spirit. That one Spirit is the Holy Spirit. Here we come to a basic definition of the local church—it is a group of people that the Holy Spirit has called by the Gospel, enlightened by His gifts, sanctified and keeps in the true faith and has gathered around the word and sacrament at a particular place. In other words, the church is a divine creation. Our parish is a divine creation made of up Christians in whom the Holy Spirit has created and preserves in faith in Christ. We are not a group of people with similar interests like the garden club. We are brought to faith and gathered by the Holy Spirit. St. Paul writes toward the end of our text: it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should…believe in Him. Here we see that our conversion is solely the work of God, His gift of grace. Not only that we are converted but that we remain in the faith is God’s gracious working and gift by the Holy Spirit. So the healthy church is, then, what? –When we are standing firm in one spirit. Since it is only by the Holy Spirit’s work in the word and sacrament that we are and remain Christians, it is the healthy church in which people are regularly in the word of God in church hearing the word and daily at home reading and studying Scripture and speaking to the Lord in prayer; in the healthy church people are regularly around the altar receiving Jesus’ body and blood, as He comes to us and unites Himself to us; in the healthy church people confess their sins and receive our Lord’s forgiveness and holiness in the absolution. It is well in the church in which the people are constantly in the word and sacrament, where the Holy Spirit is at work.
And where the Holy Spirit is at work in the word there He is working a glorious unity. And that’s what St. Paul mentions as another marker of the healthy church: with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. That one mind, that glorious unity, is one that the Holy Spirit brings about through the Gospel. St. Luke describes the church in Jerusalem this way [Ac 4.32]: Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul. That’s the glorious unity of doctrine. In our day and age people find more and more ways to divide and separate people from each other; but the Holy Spirit creates unity—true unity, a unity of faith in doctrine. Christians throughout the world join with Christians from the ages past in the one true faith: Credo in Deum Patrem… That’s a unity that transcends any and all human division—it’s a unity in doctrine worked by the Holy Spirit. Even look at us here—we have many and varied backgrounds, and what truly unites us? –Our Spirit worked faith in Christ! And that unity leads us to do what? –With one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. We strive for the faith by standing in that faith. One way we strive for and contend for the faith is by adorning it with a life of good works. Our text: Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. By contending for the faith we stand for the faith and in the faith. There are many pressures for us to give up the godly/ moral life and to live like the world around us. There are the pressures to let our Christian faith be evident and to live it out only for an hour on Sunday and not let it affect our lives in what we do or say or vote. But we are not alone! We have our fellow Christians with us with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. The healthy church is the fighting church/ the striving church in which we are encouraged by our fellow Christians and we encourage them. We encourage the other with our own faithfulness; as they see us in church around the pulpit and altar with them; as we pray for our fellow Christian; as we encourage them by our words. May we each examine ourselves to see how we can encourage the other as with one mind [we] striv[e] side by side for the faith of the gospel.
And finally, according to St. Paul here, a church is healthy as while standing firm in the Spirit and striving for the faith of the Gospel in a world that is hostile to it, we are not frightened in anything by your opponents. In other words, we are courageous. This is a courage worked by the Holy Spirit through the word. By the work and conviction of the Holy Spirit in the word, as He worked that one mind in us, we are not overcome with fear and give up the faith or even one point of doctrine. Far from being afraid or doubting when our faith is questioned or ridiculed or attacked, we go back to the word and by the Holy Spirit’s work become all the more convinced of its truth. That we stand in the faith even when attacked and are courageous is a great comfort to us because there is a token of our eventual victory over our enemies; it is evidence of our salvation—that God Himself is guarding and keeping us. A healthy church is one made up of Christians, who when attacked remain steadfast, as St. Paul writes in our text: This is a clear sign to [your opponents] of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. We are unafraid because for us Jesus fought and won the battle, defeating our enemies; as we stand we see the Lord’s faithfulness to us, His dear children and heirs of heaven.
God’s thoughts are not ours—even when it comes to what is a healthy church. It’s not all sorts out outward things; but a healthy church is one in which the Holy Spirit has created a firm faith; and united in this faith we strive together in and for this faith against all enemies all the while courageously relying on the Lord. INJ