Today’s Scripture

Psalm 91     Deuteronomy 26:5-10       Romans 10:8b13     Luke 4:1-13

 

Grace, mercy and peace to all of you from God our heavenly father and Jesus Christ who is our risen and ascended Lord and Savior.  Amen.

 

            Today through both of our Easter Sunday messages, we follow the theme: Holy, Holy, Holy.   In it we take a closer look at what it means to be Holy, set apart by God for his unique purposes. 

 

            We know that only God is holy in and of himself.  He is perfect in any and every way.  There is no way any one person or group of persons on this earth can make themselves holy in any way, shape, or form.  Yet he has made you as believers in Christ Jesus holy.  He has set you apart to be his own people for his own special purpose.

 

            This holy nation of believers in Christ Jesus is far different than what many people perceive as a holy nation.  Throughout history and existing in our United States today are religious and political leaders who would want you and I to believe that one nation or another is a “holy nation” in itself.  It is one thing to love your nation, to pledge your political allegiance to your nation, to serve your nation in various ways, to defend it, to build it up, and to pray in thanksgiving and supplication for the countless blessings God gives us in our nation.   But it is idol worship to even insinuate that God would bow down in homage to any nation and give his blessing because of the good and just things people do in this or any other nation.  God, in his holiness, is set apart from us infinitely, yet he gives himself to us completely.

 

            So many of us can trace ancestry back to a certain point.  You seek the answer to the question, “Where do I come from?”  You know the answer to, “Where am I today?”  What is the answer to the question, “Where am I going?  Where will I be in the future?”  In the Deuteronomy passage, God’s people recognized that they had been wanderers as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been.  They remembered their bondage in slavery to the Egyptians.  They knew God was bringing them to the land he had promised, to restore them in citizenship as a separate people.  In this setting, God used the example of an earthly kingdom to teach them at that time and you and I today how he restores those faithful to him to be his eternal kingdom.

 

            Therefore, as Christians, we find ourselves citizens of two nations simultaneously.  Most, if not all in this room today, are citizens of the United States of America.  The USA, as all other nations, is an earthly nation with its own borders, governing structure, economic structure, laws, rights and privileges.  We rejoice that in this nation God gives all citizens many blessings in and through this nation to all people who live here, citizens and aliens alike, good and evil alike, believers and unbelievers alike.  God’s gifts in creation are for all, great and small, strong and week, able and needy, to show his love to people in terms we can easily understand and relate to.

 

            Our other citizenship is in God’s kingdom of grace and glory.  We are members of his holy church, the bride of Christ, comprised of all who believe in his dear son, Jesus.  We enjoy this citizenship in his kingdom of grace today knowing our misery as sinners and his grace in the forgiveness of sins.  We enjoy the citizenship in his kingdom of glory at the very moment he closes our eyelids in the death of these sinful bodies and takes each and every believer to live in his heavenly realms, a kingdom of glory that, as Jesus told Pilate, is not of this earth.

 

            As citizens of an earthly kingdom and citizens of God’s kingdom of grace and glory, we struggle with this dual citizenship.  We struggle with both external and internal things.  We struggle with the inconsistencies that do exist in this world.  Why are some prosperous and some not?  Why is there disease, natural disaster, hunger and wantonness?  Why do some abuse their positions of authority at the expense of others?  Why him and not me?  Why me and not him? 

 

            Then we struggle with our own inconsistency before a perfect, just and righteous God.  Why am I a sinner?  Why can’t I be perfect?  How can I escape from the snares that Satan, this sinful world, and my sinful nature set before me?  How can I escape God’s punishment?  How can I gain God’s favor? 

 

            The great gift in God’s kingdom is his love for you.  You are the one he created in his own image.  He loves you.  He wants you to be his own in his kingdom not just today as a servant of his will on earth, but he wants you as his child and heir of his kingdom forever.  He has called you to prosper his kingdom, to make it grow.  He guards and protects you in all your ways as he sends his angels concerning you to do just that.

 

            Satan does prevail in tormenting you here on earth.  But Jesus, on your behalf, overcame those temptations both in the wilderness and when Satan came again at a “more opportune time.”  Jesus overcame all of those fits of rage and sly deception all the way to the cross and overcoming that death in the resurrection that he freely gives to all who believe in him.

 

            You are marked with the sign of the cross as a citizen of God’s kingdom in the faith of your baptism.  In that baptism God who created you redeems you from sin and makes you holy again in his sight through the blood Jesus shed on Calvary for you.  As a citizen of God’s kingdom, you are different than others in this world knowing God’s love for you in his commands and gifts and promises alike.

 

            As citizens of the United States, we work together to build this nation.  Each one does his own part as an individual and as members of different groups within the borders and structure of this nation.  As citizens of God’s kingdom, we work together without the limits of earthly borders to build his kingdom not just for today, but for all eternity. 

 

            Workers for improvement in our nation and society know the group or party they belong, the person(s) they support, and the platform of policies and practices represented.  As workers in God’s kingdom, we too need campaign workers, each and every one of us.  We need to know the party to which we belong, the true Christian faith.  We need to know the one we believe in, the one true God in three persons, Father Son and Holy Spirit.  We need to know the basic tenets of this citizenship as expressed in the three articles of the creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athansian).  As Paul writes to the Romans, we are to confidently and boldly profess what we believe.  As Jesus did with Satan in the wilderness, we are to stand firmly to God’s truth in his word without changing it or altering its intent in any way.  As God’s people entering Canaan, we are to return the firstfruits of his gifts to us to support the work of growing his kingdom.

 

            Today, the students of the confirmation class lead us in our service of hearing God’s word, singing praises to him, bringing our prayers to him, and rejoicing in celebrating the greatest gift, his own son whose body and blood sacrificed on Calvary is given each time we gather to strengthen faith in him. 

 

As these young people lead us, we remember learning the basic teaching and belief of the Christian faith in the six chief parts Luther so beautifully presents in his Catechisms for us.  God’s law is a law of love for his children to live in this world.  We condemn ourselves against this law in our sinfulness, breaking God’s law in our thoughts, words and deeds.  We need a Savior.  God, our maker, is also our redeemer.  He took human form upon himself in order to live and die lives and a death that we cannot.  He did this in order to pay the price to bring us back into perfect unity with God again.  God makes us holy by the power of his Holy Spirit, working the miracle of faith in our hearts as we hear his words of promise, keeping us one nation in faith in him to all eternity.  God gives us the gift of prayer to talk to him in our thoughts and words.  God gives us the opportunity to confess all of our sins and lay them at Jesus’ feet for the complete forgiveness that is the key to his kingdom.  God gives us the blessing of baptism where he marks us as his dear children, continually washes away the stain of sin and presents us in Jesus’ holiness again.  God strengthens us over and over again with the sacrificed body and blood of Jesus, knowing that it was the complete, perfect, and personal sacrifice for each and every one.

 

If our citizenship is of this world alone, we are to be pitied as Paul writes to the Corinthians.  But our citizenship is both of this world with all of the earthly blessings, privileges and responsibilities God gives, and of his kingdom of grace and glory, his perfect love for you that he makes you holy in his image again for all eternity.                        Amen.