What Does This Mean?

Friedrich Wyneken Called to Baltimore

On November 20, 1844, 175 years ago, missionary pastor Friedrich Wyneken received a call to serve St. Paul Lutheran congregation of Baltimore. After much correspondence, and on the condition that Baltimore wait for him until another pastor was called to Fort Wayne, Wyneken accepted the call. He nominated Wilhelm Sihler to be his successor in Indiana. His two parishes extended the call to Dr. Sihler, who accepted it. Wyneken left the instruction of three candidates for the ministry to his successor. Their education continued to impress the importance of theological education to their instructor, who strongly encoraged both Dr. Sihler and Pastor Wilhelm Löhe to establish a seminary in Fort Wayne. In February of 1845, Pastor Wyneken preached his farewell sermon in Indiana and moved on to Baltimore, arriving in March of 1845.

Friedrich Wyneken was familiar with this parish. When he first set foot in America, he had substituted for their pastor Johannes Häsbärt. His direct, sincere and compassionate care of the members made such an impression on Häsbärt that the pastor personally recommended Wyneken for missionary service in the West. Very likely the members of St. Paul’s remembered that care also.

In his new parish, Pastor Wyneken continued his program of catechesis in Lutheran doctrine and practice. His first series of sermons at Baltimore focused on the differences between Reformed and Lutheran theology, for which he used Luther’s Catechisms and the Heidelberg Catechism as a text. While substantial group of Reformed members of his new congregation withdrew in anger, many of the people
wholeheartedly received Wyneken and welcomed his instruction.

At Baltimore, Wyneken added opposition to fraternal lodges to his arsenal of apologetics. The lodge movement was strong in Baltimore and several of Wyneken’s parishioners had joined one or another. After a thorough study of these movements, he became convinced that membership in a lodge was incompatible with Christianity. Through his witness, he brought the issue to the attention of confessional Lutheranism.

Baptism and Waiting for Christ’s Final Advent

Encore Post: We confess in the 4th part of Baptism: “What does such baptizing with water indicate?” Answer: “It indicates that the Old Adam in us should be daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

“Where is this written? Answer: St. Paul writes in Romans chapter six: “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

When we confess this part of Baptism we see that there are two men at war within us, the Old sinful Adam and the New Man, created in the image of Jesus, to do the good works which God had prepared beforehand for us to do. And sometimes because we are still in our sinful flesh we will fail, miserably in fact, in not sinning. But we know from Jesus himself and explicitly from St. John that if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who graciously forgives our sins.

Only when we die or when Christ returns in His final Advent will the fight that is within us be completely done. Our sinful flesh fights against our desire to actually do things which are pleasing in the sight of our Heavenly Father. You just need to watch children who hear their parent’s instruction concerning cleaning up their toys before breaking out more and kinda begin to put things away before becoming too enamored with the toy train in its box. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, said our Lord of His Disciples. We see in them ourselves too, our spirit is willing but our sinful flesh is weak and sinful.

But Christ promises in Baptism we have salvation, and as Paul says we have are united to Jesus’ death and resurrection that we may live a new life. What we are in Baptism is not fully known, but in the final Advent of our Lord our Old Adam will be stripped away and we will be like Jesus is, pure as He is pure.

Baptism prepares us for Christ’s Final Advent, and we pray with all the saints, “Come, Lord Jesus. Come!” And Jesus responds, “Behold, I am coming soon.”

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

The King and the Unforgivable Debt

Jesus teaches his disciples about forgiveness with a parable about a king who decided to settle the accounts of his servants. One of the servants was brought before the master. he owed Ten thousand talents. A talent was about 20 years’ worth of wages.The math works out to a debt of $11.2 billion. Obviously, he can’t pay it back. And since he can’t, the king decides to sell the man, his family, and all he has. He and his family shall be slaves until they die.

The man throws himself at the feet of the king. He begs for patience and promises that he will pay back this insurmountable debt. Hearing the cry of this servant, the king has compassion. He cancels the debt. Imagine being this forgiven man! What joy you must feel! Surely you would go and rejoice with your family, maybe even have a feast in the honor of your king to extol his mercy, his grace, his salvation for you and your family!

Yet, the man in the parable doesn’t do any of that. In fact, he immediately goes and finds one of his fellow servants who happened to owe him money. The debt? One hundred denarii — about $15,000, so a substantial amount of money. But nowhere near a single talent of the 10,000 he owed his king. And like the servant did before his king, this fellow servant falls on his face and pleads, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.”

Instead, the forgiven man throws his debtor into debtor’s prison. The news quickly gets to the benevolent king. The forgiven servant is again summoned before the king. The king said: “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?”

In his anger, the king delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debts. The jailers here aren’t the jailers we think of today. They aren’t just making sure you don’t escape. These jailers are oppressive and often torture their prisoners. Their job is to exact torture and pain. And this man will be under them until all – every cent – of his debt is repaid. He will never get out.

We, too, are God’s debtors. Our debt is sin. We constantly and continually wrack up our debt of sin. A debt that we are hopeless to pay. We also find ourselves before our King, before God. Our debt of sin warrants being thrown into prision. It warrants oppressive jailers who exact pain and torture until every sin is paid for. Being helpless to pay anything back and knowing what we deserve, we plead for mercy.

Christ our king has compassion for us, his Creation. He forgives every sin and debt that we have wracked up against him. Our Lord and Savior bears a great cost of suffering by dying in our place. And in doing so, our sin is forgiven. Our debt is erased because of the cruel oppression and torture exacted on Jesus Christ. We stand before our God and Father forgiven and cleansed from our sin. And knowing what it took to cleanse us of our iniquities, we fear, love, and trust in him above all things. And part of that fear, love, and trust is to forgive those who trespass against us.

Now, we who are forgiven much are to love much. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We get to show the mercy we have received to others. It is why we freely forgive and do good for those who sin against us. And why, as we prayed, our faithful Lord grants that what we ask in faith we obtain.

Rev. Brent Keller
Peace Lutheran Church
Alcester, SD

Sermon on John 4:46-54

21^st Sunday after Trinity

10 November 2019

Peace Lutheran Church

Alcester, South Dakota

Text: At … Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, “Unless you all see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering … And he himself believed, and all his household.”

Intro: For hundreds of years, God’s people had been waiting for the coming of the Messiah. The prophets gave them signs to look for. So naturally, that was what they looked for. For them, seeing would be believing. They looked so hard that they missed them. The virgin had conceived and born a son. Emmanuel was with them. The Messiah had even added a few bonus signs: he turned water to wine, gave a record catch to fishermen. The man in our lesson today did not miss these things. He came to the Messiah for his son to be well and trusted Jesus when he told the man it would happen. He had faith in Jesus. Believing soon became seeing.

Faith is trusting God to keep his promises
1. It is not putting our faith in signs
2. It is not expecting God to make us well
3. It is not about getting everything we want
4. It is about putting ourselves into his hands, knowing he will care for us
5. It is about believing that God will save us.
At just the right time, Jesus became man
1. He lived in every way like us – except he did not sin
2. He suffered and died on the cross to pay for our lack of faith
3. He won for us eternal life, where there will be no suffering, grief or pain.
4. We can go our way, confident that we are in his care.

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30–31, ESV)

What is a Good Work?

Encore Post: At first, the answer to this question seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? We all know what it means to be good. We start “advising” our children when they can barely walk to “be good.” Our schools, armed forces, institutions of all descriptions give awards for “good behavior.” Exceptionally good deeds attract occasional “feel good” T.V. news segments and feature articles. A few of these “go viral” on the internet.

But when you try to pin it down, the definition of good work changes quite a bit depending on the person we’re praising and who it is that notices the deed. What is good sometimes varies by age and by culture. A toddler who picks up her toys is being good. A firefighter that runs into a burning building to save a child or even a pet is a hero. Generally speaking, someone who takes care of others, especially if they do not have to, is often called good. We call this definition of good works Civil Righteousness.

For Christians and Jews, a person that keeps the Ten Commandments is thought of as a good, God-fearing and righteous person. We are tempted to think that if we can check off each one of the commandments in our daily routine that we are pretty good people. We’re tempted to pat ourselves on the back when we achieve this feat on the surface. It is very possible to be righteous on the outside, but in God’s eyes, this form of good works is simply not good enough. Without faith in Christ, our righteousness in like a dirty rag.(Isaiah 64:6-7)

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus takes on what the Jews thought it meant to be righteous — to be good people. God wants more than just holy deeds. He wants our every thought to be holy. “Be perfect,” he said, “as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) Only Jesus himself lived up to that standard. That is why St. Paul tells us that no one is saved by works done according to God’s Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. (Galatians 2:16)

God and the Good Works Christians do

Encore post: Crafters carefully select the materials for their works. They weigh their qualities, imagine what can be done with them, use their experience and training to prepare them for use. With great care and the confidence that comes from their skills honed by years of practice, they prepare, shape and fashion a quality product. The best are held up as works of art, masterpieces of their craft.

Even more so, God prepared us for salvation. By his grace and through the faith he gave us, he made it so. Our sins are forgiven, their power over us destroyed and we will rise from the grave on the last day — all for Christ’s sake. But there is more to God’s plan for us than these things. He has made us in Christ a new creation — people who want to do good works and do so as naturally as a good tree bears good fruit.

And God does even more for us. He prepares the good works for us do. He gave us his law, so we know what his will is for us. He places us in the right time and place, then urges us to do them. Because we love him, we follow through serving him and loving our neighbor. (Ephesians 2:10, Philippians 2:12-13) So it is that we are instruments in God’s hands, doing good, showing his mercy to others and bringing the Gospel to them.

Words that Carry Weight

Encore Post: Perhaps you can think of a time when you received some words with weight behind them. I remember the words of the pastor who announced to the congregation that my wife and I were married. Perhaps you have had similar words spoken. Maybe they weren’t words of great joy but maybe they were those heavy words from a doctor saying you had cancer. Or you can remember back in high school how the gossip got around. That old lie we tell ourselves: Sticks and stone may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Words definitely carry weight. Some good weight and others much worse.

And so it is with Jesus. He is preaching the Word given Him to preach. We were told what this Word was last week in his first sermon, right out of the prophet of Isaiah. He was anointed to preach good news to the poor. He preaches with authority unlike any people of the towns had seen. And His Word carries weight! And His Word is effective!

Jesus’ word has power. You might think it odd, but have you ever read the bible out loud to yourself? To hear the words, reverberate into you own ears. Paul makes the connection to faith. Faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ.

In a manner like Peter’s mother-in-law, you have been raised back to life by the word of Jesus. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. But by the power and authority of the Word of Jesus you are made alive. You were called by the very Word of Jesus at the moment of your Baptism. The very Word which was preached and proclaimed to the demon was said to you. “Out you unclean spirit, and make room for the Holy Spirit.” You were dead in trespasses and sins, held in captivity and slavery of sin, death, and Satan. And Christ speaks a mere word from the cross, “It is finished.” The time of slavery is finished, the time of death is done. “It is finished,” says your Lord and Savior Jesus.

And He speaks life into you, calling you to a life of faith in Him. Clinging to the promise and pledge that by his life, death, and resurrection, we too have the same resurrection. You have already been raised to a new life by Baptism where He speaks to a very wonderful Word carries real weight!

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

How Did We Get the Bible?

Encore Post: When we think about the Bible today, we think about it as one book. And so it is. God is the author of all of Holy Scriptures. He spoke though his prophets, evangelists, apostles and — most importantly — his Son. (Hebrews 1:1-2) It has a single theme: how God saved the world by sending his Son to die for us.

Yet in most languages the word for Bible is plural — Biblia — books! In fact, when we call the Word of God the Holy Scriptures you can see that even in English. Scriptures is plural too! The Bible is a library of sixty-six books written over a period of about 1500 years. At first they were written literally in stone and clay tablets. Later they were recorded on papyrus (paper made from reeds that grow along the Nile River) and on animal skins, rolled into scrolls. Copies were made by hand, one by one, a scholar carefully copying it letter by letter. Later the whole thing would be memorized and passed from one teacher to his students.

At the time of Jesus’ ministry, a new form of the book took form. Rather than roll a book up on spindles, small segments were sewed together along one edge creating a codex — the form with which we are most familiar. It was easier to carry, to page through and to read. To make many copies, one person would read it from a desk called a lecturn — a reading stand — and multiple scribes would carefully write it down word for word.

At first the words of Jesus were memorized by his disciples and hearers. It was a part of the way rabbis taught. They would perhaps also take notes on Roman wax tablets from which they would later copy. After a period of time the Evangelists (literally translated gospelists) would bring these together with their own testimony and that of others to produce books from which the faith could be taught. The rest of the New Testament are letters written mostly by St. Paul, St. Peter and St. John, to pass instructions and encouragement to growing churches far away. The ones the church recognized as the very words of God were copied and collected into codices (plural of codex) and carried wherever the Gospel would be preached.

Eventually the Word of God would be translated into many languages and copied in numbers greater than any other book in history. When the printing press came into being, the first book printed was — you guessed it — the Bible. Now everyone could afford to buy one. In our age, the Bible continues to be the most translated and printed book. Yet it also now is in electronic form. It is easier than ever to read, learn and hear God’s own message to you.

Inerrancy: What Does It Mean?

Encore Post: Inerrancy means to be without error. If the Bible contains errors then what use is it for us and our salvation? How could we find the errors? What would be true, and what would be erring? If one thing is wrong in the word it might as well be thrown out entirely.

This is what we get with Higher Historical Criticism of the Bible. If the words written on the pages of the Bible are not truly God’s word then certainly the words there are riddled with errors because they were written by men. The Bible was questioned even in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. For a much greater overview , I highly recommend you take an opportunity to read the newest book by David Scaer where he lays out these things as they were happening inside the Missouri Synod’s St. Louis Seminary in the 1950s, leading to the walk out of its liberal faculty in 1974.

One place that people said even Jesus erred in the Bible was when he gave the saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 10:23-26) Those with the view that Jesus erred would say that Jesus had no idea of germination. It was always assumed that it died but now science has shown otherwise. They claims Jesus didn’t know this. But all that does it show their cards when it comes to understanding Jesus. They think He was just a man and not God in the flesh. But the Bible tells us otherwise. And besides, those of the errant view did not care to see what Jesus was doing in the verse before it. He tells the the people, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Jesus is talking about his death on the cross and his resurrection. He is speaking about your salvation, not about the science of how a seed germinates and the like. He effectively says, “I am the seed that must die in order to bring life to you who believe in me.”

But if we take seriously the words of John 1, that Word was Made Flesh, we should take seriously the words which are recorded for us in the Bible because that word speaks of Jesus. For He is the Word of the Father, and that Word has been glorified for us by his incarnation, life, death, and resurrection, for our salvation.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

The Word of God Changes Everything

Encore Post: A good book, a great movie, a stirring song or a work of great art — all of these have the power to take you away to another place, another time, worlds away from day-to-day life. You can escape into them and find an energy there to face life for a little while longer. Yet even the best of them, even the most inspiring, do not change your world at all. Everything is still where you left it and you have to go on.

The Bible is different. It is not just any other book. It is like no other book. The Bible is God’s Word, breathed out by his Holy Spirit in the same way that God created the world. (1 Timothy 3:15-17) By God’s Word, the Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts. (Romans 10:14-17, John 20:30-31) This faith takes hold of the promises of Holy Scripture, trusts the Gospel it hears when the Bible is read and lives by it. (Romans 1:16-17)

This is the reason why Christians have read the Bible in every worship service since Christ founded it and why the Hebrew and Jewish believers before them have read and meditated upon it for 3500 years. Great literature and works of wisdom authored by human skill can be very helpful to us when we want to understand the world and God who made it. These writings can just as easily confuse us, faith to provide insight and often completely mislead us. They often miss the mark when they assume that by our wits, we can understand God. But we cannot.

Because Holy Scripture is God’s own message, it can be trusted to be true, where every other message can fail us. It teaches us when we do not know what to do. It is eternal and never-changing and so is a solid base on which to build our lives. It helps us see through the complications and confusion of life in a sin-filled world. The Word of God changes things, reviving our souls, giving us joy in times of depression and comfort in times of grief. (Psalm 19)

The very center of the message that the Scripture proclaims is the Cross. God saw us lost in our sins and loved us. Not willing to see us die forever, He came to seek us, find us, lay down his life to save us. In Jesus, he took all our sin and guilt upon us. As the Lamb of God bore it all away. On the cross, he paid the full debt due because of it. Rising from the grave, he broke the power of sin, death and the devil forever. That is why we gladly hear the Word of God, give thanks to him for it, and use its power to obey it and serve him gladly.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana