Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

This sermon on 1 John 4:16-21 contrasts worldly love with God’s true love, urging us to abide in His Word and serve others not out of fear, but because He first loved us. Drawing from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, it shows how abiding in God transforms our hearts, destroys idols, and frees us to love sacrificially. Real love begins with God and is revealed through Christ.

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Transcript

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, last week I was away attending a wedding of one of my nephews out in Sun Valley, Idaho.

It was an extremely beautiful event set in the wonders of God’s creation in the hills overlooking the ski resort.

And during the ceremony, the officiant and the couple made vows to each other, and in these vows and in the ceremony, they spoke much about love.

They did, however, not speaking of God’s love for us, but of the emotion of love that a man and a woman might feel toward one another.

St. John writes, God is love.

And he who abides in love abides in God, in God in him.

As beautiful as the setting and as beautiful as the wedding, as beautiful as the bride and the groom may have been, for me that service was incomplete.

If you wish to understand love, you first have to understand God.

True love.

Love, as you and I were created to feel, requires that you abide in God and have God abiding in you.

We must start by seeing how God wants to be loved, as he reveals to us in his law.

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Now, in my many years on this planet, my travels and visits, aside from seeing a few little Buddhist statues, or maybe when we visited a Hindu temple, seeing the statues to their pagan gods.

And more recently, I think the Norse gods, the Odin and Thor and stuff like that are becoming popular.

But we don’t tend to have false gods, statues or idols to them physically in our hands.

We do, however, have many such idols in our hearts.

And one of the foremost idols we have is this notion of human love.

I will argue that Valentine’s Day is the high holiday where this pagan god is worshiped.

The angels in heaven, the angels that worship with us here this morning must look in derision at those little babies on the cards, you know, the ones with the wings and their little heart-shaped arrows.

These mighty warriors of God would not dare be caught flying around in a little diaper.

They would not be passing out candy more likely to give your beloved the diabetes than to engender feelings of true love.

I remember as a child in school having to pass out cards to all of the other kids in the classroom.

You couldn’t leave a single kid out on Valentine’s Day.

That sentiment of love in those cards was as false as those protesters today with their rainbow flags.

When we elevate the human emotion of love to this point where it is the focus of weddings, holidays, or an entire month, we’ve made it into an idol.

True love abides in God.

True love remembers the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

We keep it holy as we abide in God’s word.

This is the rebuke that Father Abraham gives to the rich man in Jesus’ parable today.

When the rich man begged him to send Lazarus to warn his brothers to avoid going to hell, Abraham says to him, they have Moses and the prophets.

Let them hear them.

As the rich man pleads with him, no, Father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.

Abraham replies, they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead.

To abide in God and his love means that first, we must listen to Moses and the prophets, to the word of God, every word.

The rich man had heard Moses and the prophets.

He know this because he calls Abraham father.

Yet he did not abide in that word.

He did not have faith.

He did not trust in God above all else.

How do I know this?

He’s in hell.

He’s in hell because he did not love as God commands him to love.

He did not love as God has loved him.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

The rich man had received many good and gracious gifts from God.

He was formed by God in his mother’s womb and given life.

He had a family which included at least five brothers, and he appears to love.

He’s been blessed with a nice home.

He’s been given wealth that enables him to dine sumptuously, every single day.

He’s received many, many good things in his lifetime.

All this, God does for him only out of fatherly divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in the rich man.

For all this, it is his duty to thank, praise, serve, and obey God, to abide in his word.

Yet, he does not.

He does not abide in God’s word.

He does not love his neighbor as himself.

The poor man, Lazarus, at his doorstep, is exhibit one in the prosecution’s case against him.

We don’t know anything about this man named Lazarus, other than that he was hungry, sick, homeless, and that he loved God, that he abided in God’s word, for he goes to heaven and he dies.

We don’t know how he became to be in his circumstances, the circumstances in which Jesus cites in this parable.

Was he an alcoholic?

Was he a drug user?

Maybe he’s an ex-con who couldn’t get a job.

Perhaps he’s mentally ill.

He could be a veteran suffering from PTSD.

Maybe he lost everything he had on Wall Street or at a casino.

It doesn’t really matter, does it?

This man had heard Moses and the prophets.

This man abided in God’s word, and if he had come to his circumstances because of any sin, he had repented of those sins and been forgiven.

He was saved.

A person’s circumstances in this life, the trials and the tribulations they face, do not define them as a person.

God does.

God creates them and God redeems them.

God loved Lazarus every bit as much as he did the rich man, even though he didn’t give Lazarus nearly what he had given the rich man.

But Christ died for both of them.

Christ died that their sins would both be forgiven and that they could abide in him forever, in his mansion with many rooms.

What Lazarus lacked in his unhappy life on earth is now abundant for him in heaven, and so much more than he could have ever imagined or asked for.

Lazarus was a servant of God, a servant who had been placed on this rich man’s doorstep as his neighbor that the rich man might have that opportunity to demonstrate God’s love to him.

Just as Jesus would later instruct his disciples, when you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back and you be repaid.

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

Jesus, love incarnate himself, reveals that the love of God is not transactional.

The son of God came to pour out his lifeblood, his precious, priceless blood and calvary, to win your soul back from sin, death, and the power of the enemy.

He did not redeem you with gold or silver or precious gems by which he could be repaid, but with a gift of his love, which no man and no woman can ever deserve nor repay.

This God’s sweetest love, who on us his grace has bestowed, invites us to the wedding feast of the lamb in his kingdom, at his table, where all of your sins are forever forgiven, where they are washed away.

Here, abiding in his word, in his love, the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind are healed and raised to new life, given blessing upon blessing in his name, given a gift they can never, ever hope to repay, a gift that he now asked them, only that they share with their neighbors.

God had poured out grace upon grace to the rich man.

Not so that he could simply feast sumptuously every day, not so that he could hoard them, not so that he could build a bigger barn, not so that he could gorge himself on rich dainties from the tribe of Asher.

And we see this at the wedding of Cana, by the way, when Jesus creates so much wine, so much more wine than the people there could ever drink, he doesn’t do it so they can get loaded.

Jesus gives these manifestations of God’s love, he gives them to the rich, he gives them to the people at Cana, that they might in turn share his love, share every manifestation of that love with their neighbors, especially with Lazarus.

Lazarus is that neighbor that God put at this man’s doorstep specifically so that he could demonstrate God’s love to him.

The rich man didn’t have to go to North America, he didn’t have to go to Europe, he didn’t have to travel to Asia to find some poor child who’s hungry, whose belly’s distended by hunger so that he could do some nice thing, maybe he could have, but God put a neighbor right on his doorstep for him to serve.

When Jesus tells you to invite those who cannot repay you to your table and that in doing so you will be blessed because they cannot repay you and you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just, Jesus is not advocating works righteousness.

John teaches us as much in his epistle.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment.

But he who fears has not been made perfect in love, we love him because he first loved us.

We serve our neighbors because we love them.

We don’t serve them because we fear going to hell.

If you believe in Christ, every single one of your sins has already been paid for.

You have nothing that you can do to pay for a single one of them yourself.

You can’t do it.

No matter how many poor people you feed, no matter how many Lazaruses you give all your money to, that won’t get you into heaven.

Your faith in Jesus Christ alone has done that.

But we can give Lazarus everything we have, everything that we’ve received, not to avoid going to hell, but because we know that we are going to heaven, where we will never thirst, hunger, or sorrow again.

We can give without fear of being impoverished or being hungry or thirsty, because faith trusts that our Father in heaven will continue to give us our daily bread.

If not in this life, then in the next.

Faith trusts that even should we lose our lives, goods, fame, child or wife, that these all be gone, yet our victory has been won, and the kingdom of heaven will be our inheritance forever.

This faith then frees us.

It frees us to live and to love as God has called us to do.

He who loves God must love his brother also.

Jesus commands us to love one another, to love our brother because he loves our brother.

He poured out his holy precious blood to redeem our brother.

He died for the sake of our brother, for the Lazaruses of this world.

If he loves them, how can we not?

This love though, does not always look like the love that the world expects.

The world expects that Lazarus, and the world in this case is evidenced by the rich man.

The world expects that Lazarus would have mercy on this rich man and dip his finger in the waters to quench his thirst.

The world expects that Lazarus had warned the rich man’s brothers.

Unless they repent, they’re going to join him in hell.

The world expects signs and wonders.

They expect these things because they have rejected the word of Moses and the prophets.

The world expects tolerance for sin.

The world expects tolerance for wickedness.

Pro tip, God does not.

Consider God’s command to the Israelites upon their preparation to enter the promised land.

You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations, which you shall dispossess, serve their gods.

On the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree, you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, burn their wooden images with fire.

You shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place.

You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things.

Well, you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put his name for his dwelling place, and there shall you go.

Love begins by abiding in God’s word.

Abiding in God.

Abiding in the place he’s called you to be.

Today we carry out this commandment, but I’m not telling you to go to your neighbor’s house and chop his little Buddha into little pieces and light it on fire.

I’m not telling you to do that.

Please, don’t take what I’m saying that way.

To be obedient to God, he wants us here in worship.

He wants us to worship him.

He wants us to remember the Sabbath, not misusing his name, not forsaking to gather together as he’s commanded in person.

Because here, he forgives your sins.

Here, you are forgiven in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Because God forgives you.

He wants you to hear it from the mouth of his servant.

Here, you have the waters of life poured over your forehead, washing you clean of every sin.

Here, you receive his body and blood in person, in the flesh.

He comes to you as no other God can possibly hope to do because they are dead gods and you serve the living God.

He’s commanded you to do all this.

We serve him taking the cup of salvation and call it on the name of the Lord.

But abiding in his word means that we have to remove the logs from our own eyes.

We do have to go into our own hearts and chop down those idols and utterly destroy the false gods in our own hearts to make room to abide with God and he with us, that we may learn to love as he has loved us.

It means rejoicing.

It means rejoicing because God has spoken to us by Moses.

God has spoken to us through the prophets, and in these last days, God has spoken to us through his son.

We rejoice because God has chosen to abide in us, in our hearts, in this place, in this time, so that we may learn to love as he has loved us.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

This sermon on John 3:1–17 explores Jesus’ midnight encounter with Nicodemus and the mystery of being born again—born from above by water and the Spirit. It contrasts life in the flesh with life in the Spirit, emphasizing baptism’s power to renew us through Christ’s cross. Discover how God’s love in sending His Son enables us to live not by the flesh, but as heirs of eternal life in the Spirit.

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Transcript

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

Amen.

You may be seated.

Nicodemus, a man of the Pharisees and a member of the Sanhedrin, went to talk to Jesus at night.

He addressed Jesus reverently as Rabbi.

And as a teacher come from God, he knew that no one could do the signs that Jesus was doing unless God was with him.

He acknowledged Jesus’ teaching and his miracles.

Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

These very first words of Jesus to Nicodemus caused confusion.

And in part, it can be explained by an ambiguity in the Greek.

In our text, the word anothin is translated as again, to be born anothin, to be born again, which seems to be the way that Nicodemus understood Jesus.

However, the word can also be understood as from above.

With that, we get a bit of a different meaning from what Nicodemus understood.

We would have instead this, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

This helps to establish the two types of birth that Jesus taught to Nicodemus through the rest of the Gospel reading from this morning.

There is an earthly birth in the flesh, and there is a different heavenly birth from above, that is from the spirit.

Jesus begins with the birth that all mankind is born into, saying that that which is born of the flesh is flesh.

This isn’t a circular argument using a word in order to define itself.

It’s not like the false definition of woman that has been propagandized in recent years that says a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman.

Rather, that which is born of flesh is flesh actually teaches us that what is born of the flesh is concerned only with the things that impact the flesh.

Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.

This path leads only to death.

The flesh we know is hostile towards God.

It does not love God.

It doesn’t want to love God.

In fact, it’s incapable of loving God.

We cannot submit to or keep God’s law, especially when it comes to the first three commandments.

It has contempt towards God and doubts His word.

In the flesh, we even sin when we do works that outwardly look good to our neighbor.

Nothing that man does from the perspective of the flesh can please God.

In fact, the desires of the flesh have us flee from God as we learn from Adam and Eve as they hide in the garden.

In the Old Testament reading today, Isaiah is in great fear because of his unclean lips.

He knows that man cannot come face to face with the triune God and live because of man’s impurity of the flesh.

Just like Adam, Eve and Isaiah, according to our flesh, we are guilty of all sin.

We cannot justify ourselves or come to live a holy and pure life.

The right punishment for this is eternal punishment and death.

We were unable to free ourselves of the guilt and sin of the flesh.

Often, we still live our lives as if we are born only of the flesh.

We set our minds on things of the flesh concerned most with ourselves and how we can get what we want.

One of these temptations of the flesh is a tendency towards laziness.

Many of you, I’m sure, are paid to do a job.

We are paid to serve those we work for, to help them to prosper in their vocation.

But regularly showing up late or leaving early or taking a long lunch is often out of laziness.

Your flesh tells you, it doesn’t matter.

You’re going to get paid anyway.

It’s not hurting anyone.

Also taking time during your workday to send personal texts or emails isn’t what you’re paid for either.

It’s also a form of laziness in doing the thing you want to do, rather than what your boss has instructed you to do.

Laziness, though, often extends to our homes as well.

Your wife nicely asked you to take out the trash two days ago, a task that takes about five minutes, and you still haven’t found the time.

We also neglect time we have with our family.

If you didn’t know, it’s the norm now in America to spend hours a day scrolling on social media, or watching TV, or playing video games.

Almost half of American teens say they’re on the internet almost constantly, and the average American spends almost four hours in front of their phone screen.

But no one seems to have the 12 minutes a day it would take to read or listen through the Bible in a year.

It’s not so much busy-ness as it is lazy-ness that keeps us from finding the time for God’s word.

The temptations of the flesh fight against the things of the spirit.

Diligence is needed in teaching the family the word of God, but the flesh tempts us to neglect our duty to our family and to do what’s easy instead.

We tell ourselves, well, I guess I didn’t have time for that again today.

I really want to start my devotions with my family, but I’m just so busy.

Sometimes maybe we really are that busy, and other times we throw our time away through temptations of flesh.

The habit of scheduling your time can certainly help prevent some laziness, but when temptations of the flesh come unexpectedly, don’t expect yourself to overcome them on your own.

Trying to do things on your own often makes things worse.

Instead, pray the Lord’s Prayer.

Pray, Dear Father, let me not fall into temptation.

He will answer, He has promised to help guard and defend those who call upon His name.

While we were still in a sinful and fleshly state, still hating God, still His enemies, the Father sent His only begotten Son.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and so we are not left without hope.

Jesus told Nicodemus, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Just as you are only conceived and born once in the flesh, you are also born of the Spirit one time in your baptism.

There is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

In your baptism, you were born of water and the Spirit, washed to a new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

We have been justified by God’s grace.

Jesus further explained how the birth and the Spirit would become possible for those of us born of the flesh.

He said, and as Moses lifted up the servant in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Many in the time of the Exodus perished in the wilderness, having been bitten by fiery serpents as punishment for their disobedience to be healed.

They had to look upon a bronze serpent that Moses lifted up.

All in the camp, who looked upon that bronze serpent were saved.

In this way, the father loved the world so much that he sent his only son to be lifted up on the cross, that whoever looks only to the son of man for the forgiveness of sins and believes in him will have eternal life.

Christ’s death on the cross opened for us the way in which we could be born again.

In our baptism, we die with Christ on the cross and we are born of the Spirit and the water.

Therefore, we are not of the flesh, but of the Spirit because the Spirit of God dwells within each one of us.

Our bodies that were dead in the flesh according to our sin are given new life because of the righteousness of Christ.

We have been given new life through the Spirit who dwells within us.

Those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit and are given life and peace.

The faith given to us by the Holy Spirit enables us to live spiritual lives.

As we have been reborn by faith and justified by Christ’s death, we can begin to fear God and love him.

We can begin to obey the first table of the law.

Being born of the Spirit, we can pray to our Father in heaven and expect him to answer and help us.

Just as an earthly father will answer and help and protect his own children.

Born of the Spirit, we come here to worship and praise God for his many great gifts to us.

Not only this, but in the Spirit, we’re able to begin to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Our hearts are turned toward spiritual and holy impulses and away from the desires of the flesh.

All this begins after we have been justified by grace through faith in the Son of Man who was given up for us by the Heavenly Fathers.

In our baptism, we have been reborn and gifted the Holy Spirit who enables us to live as those born of the Spirit.

Born of the Spirit, we are no longer flesh.

We are no longer children of the flesh, the children of the Kingdom of God, as children of the Heavenly Kingdom.

We are heirs of the hope of eternal life.

Amen.

This sermon on 1 Peter 4:7-11 unpacks what it means that “the end of all things is at hand.” Christ’s redemptive work is finished, and now believers are called to speak God’s Word boldly, love fervently, and steward their gifts faithfully. Like Noah and Lot, we must proclaim truth amid rejection, trusting the Spirit to work through our words. Jesus saves—our role is to speak and serve in love.

Faith Lutheran Church in Pinellas County is located at 1620 Pinehurst Rd, Dunedin, FL 34698. It can be contacted at (727) 733-2657. https://faithdunedin.org

Transcript

Brothers and sisters in Christ, more than 1,500 years ago, Peter wrote those words that we read earlier.

The end of all things is at hand.

The end of what though?

Certainly, as we heard before the service, the school year has just ended for those still matriculating, and congratulations again for our youth who just graduated.

But this is certainly not what Peter had in mind.

Many assume that he’s saying that judgment day is nigh, that 1,000 years is but a day in the eyes of the Lord.

So repent and believe.

And this, though wrong, is closer to Peter’s meaning.

Certainly, judgment day is coming, and we do need to repent and believe, but this is not what Peter is getting it here.

Peter has been warning his readers to be ready for that day, to be ready for the end, but the end of which he’s writing here, the end of all things, is the work of redemption that Jesus Christ accomplished for us on the cross, and which is completed, and thus he has ascended into heaven.

This is what Peter has been teaching the church in his letter, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, by whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient when once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah, but the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls were saved through the water.

Christ’s death on the cross covered all sin, every sin, and that committed at first by Adam and Eve, to those which you and I will commit in the future, even the ones we may commit as we draw our final breaths.

Covered, paid for, done, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

God’s love and sin in Christ, to bear our shame and transgressions to the cross.

This love has covered all of your sins.

God’s love, the blood of the lamb, has washed your robes as white as snow, clothing you in Jesus’ holiness and righteousness.

But in order to receive this gift, you must believe.

Moses, excuse me, Noah, his wife and his three sons, and their wives, eight souls in all, were saved through the waters of the flood in the ark.

Because they had heard God’s word, and they believed that he would do as he said.

They repented from sin.

They strove to be obedient to God, including by building the ark, and including by loving their unbelieving neighbors.

Noah took 120 years to build the ark, 120 years.

During that time, he was proclaiming God’s word to his neighbors.

Do you think they didn’t wonder why he was building a boat in the middle of nowhere?

It gave him an opportunity to preach.

And yet, the people that heard it rejected his word.

And they perished, not just in the waters of the flood, but in the fires prepared for Satan and his angels.

In our creed, we just confess that Jesus descended into hell.

He did this not to suffer for sins in hell.

He had already done that in the cross.

But he did it as Peter taught to preach to those who were disobedient, to show them the folly of their unbelief, the consequence for rejecting the love of God in Christ Jesus.

For souls such as those who had rejected Christ’s work of redemption, this is the end of all things.

Christ has come, Christ has taught, and revealed all that is needed for the salvation of man.

He died, and he has risen, and now he has ascended to God’s right hand of power.

His enemies, sin, death, and the powers of hell are mere footstools of his.

His work of redemption is completed.

The end of all things is at hand.

Now the work of the saints has begun.

Now the church is called to be serious and watchful in our prayers.

Exaude Domine, hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud.

Hallelujah.

I was once told by a well-meaning member of the church that if I wanted to become a good preacher, it kind of implies I wasn’t, I should include no less than six jokes in every sermon.

Six jokes.

That’s 40 percent of the average sermon.

The majority of you do not regularly attend Bible studies during the week, so the precious few minutes of the sermon is the only time that I have to proclaim the ways of the Lord, to speak his oracles, to spend 40 percent of that time telling jokes is not taking God’s words seriously.

It’s elevating my words, my humor, my opinions above his.

It’s treating you as if you were mindless imbeciles, unable to grasp the richness and beauty of what our Lord has done for you, or as if you had the attention span of a gnat.

Even worse, it would be neglecting to show you the fervent love of God, the love that covers a multitude of sins.

Sin is serious business.

Sin should not be glossed over by humor.

Sin cannot be paid for by human love.

Not all love is love.

I’m sorry.

To claim this, I’m actually not sorry.

To claim this is to deny the objective truth that God’s love in Christ Jesus alone atones for your sins.

God’s love alone atones for your sins.

Not my love, not your love, no matter how much you love.

You cannot atone for a single sin.

His love has covered my sins.

His love has covered your sins.

And this is why Peter tells us not to speak as court jesters, but as the oracles of God.

If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things, God may be glorified through Christ Jesus.

Each of us, each of us have been given gifts, and Jesus calls us to use our God-given abilities to speak his word to all men.

To speak to mankind, specifically we are to speak to those whom God has placed into our lives, both family and neighbor alike.

This is what it means to be good stewards of his manifold grace.

Like Noah, however, we have to be prepared to be rebuffed, to be ridiculed, to be rejected.

We should feel no guilt when this happens.

We should learn to shake the dust off of our proverbial sandals and get on with the work that God has given us to do.

Noah was not able to save a single person to whom he preached outside of his family.

Later in scripture, we read of Lot and his family in the city of Sodom, and God had sent him to preach to the men of that city.

And they too rejected God’s word, and they take it a step further.

They told Lot, this one came in to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge.

Now we will deal worse with you than what they were planning to do to the two angels.

Neither Noah nor Lot apologized for speaking God’s word.

Neither one of them softened their tone.

They didn’t stop to crack a joke.

They didn’t make light of the sins they’d been called to condemn.

For to do so would not be speaking the oracles of God.

It would not be God’s love.

It would be preaching peace, peace, when there was no peace.

You and I, we are commanded to teach all that the Lord has said, all of it, even the parts that the world and our neighbors will hate.

To do any less is not love.

To do any less means that we are not using the gifts that the Lord has given us properly.

We speak, we speak all of it, for the end of things is at hand.

Christ has accomplished the salvation of all mankind, and now he’s sending his spirit to move us to do those good works which he has prepared in advance for us to do, to speak God’s love to our neighbors.

Imagine the courage that it took for men like Noah and Lot to speak, to condemn the cultures in which they were living, knowing that no one else outside their family would take them seriously, knowing that they might get killed for saying the very things God had called them to say.

Yet they spoke anyway.

Just as today, you and I must speak.

It’s not your job to save your neighbor.

I hope that doesn’t surprise you.

It’s not your job to save your neighbor because you cannot.

You can only speak the oracles of God and have faith that the Holy Spirit will use those words to create faith in your neighbor’s heart.

You are not even to worry about what to say, for the Holy Spirit will give you the words at the right time.

This isn’t done mystically.

It’s not like a dove is going to descend from heaven and sit on your shoulder and whisper in your ear what you’re supposed to say.

You’re equipped with the words to speak every time you read scriptures, every time you participate in the divine service and hear his words, every time you engage in a Bible study or pray or sing hymns.

With these words, you learn the language of God, you learn to let go of your own fears and you learn to speak the oracles of God.

You learn that Jesus alone is the savior of mankind.

Noah and Lot, Moses, King David, St.

Paul, Peter, none of these men were saviors.

And neither are you or I.

You’re mere humble servants, equipped with unique talents, skills, and gifts to serve our Lord.

Jesus saves.

Jesus paid the price for sin on the cross.

That debt has been paid in full.

In God’s word, you learn that Jesus alone is wise, wise enough to guide us through the end of all things.

Jesus’ law, his wisdom, his spirit is what we need to find peace.

As we turn to him, as we repent for our sins, we hear that our sins are forgiven.

We hear and we live, and we have peace.

This is true for our neighbors as well.

As we surrender our lives to Jesus, as we allow him to direct our lives, we find freedom and peace.

We surrender control over what we think we’re doing, and we trust that the good shepherd, the keeper of Israel, that Jesus alone will defend us from the assaults of the evil one with the shield of faith, that he will guide our footsteps in the way that we should go.

Rather than rely on our own strength or intellect, we turn to the giver of these gifts.

We turn to the shepherd of our souls.

We cry out loud to him for his wisdom and his guidance.

And above all things, have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins.

We have spinned to one another without grumbling.

As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

Your shepherd has given you his grace.

He’s given you the forgiveness of sins.

His love was poured out for you.

And it continues to be poured out in the chalice, in the waters of the font, and in the living waters flowing from the pages of Holy Scripture.

These means of grace have covered all your sins.

Every one of them.

Now, he sends you forth to bear the same hospitality to the world you find at your doorstep.

The Lord is calling you to use your gifts.

Jesus came to pour out his love, to cover your sins, to usher in the end of all things, whether people want to believe in him or not.

He was approaching Jerusalem during Holy Week, and he stopped to gaze upon the people for whom he had come to die, for whom he loved so much that he would pour out his own life.

He stopped and he saw the city, and he wept.

He wept saying, if you had known even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.

Jesus wept for the loss of Jerusalem.

He knew the fate that awaited them, as surely as he had seen those lost in the flood or in the fires of Sodom.

Jesus wept.

He wept, and then he moved on.

Jesus had a mission to complete, and he pressed forward to Good Friday and to the cross.

And we too need to heed this lesson of Jesus’s.

We’re to weep for the loss of this world.

It’s a tragedy that those who reject the time of their visitation, the ones who turn the deaf ear to the Messiah and take pride in their sins, that they will be lost forever.

We weep, and then we move on.

Jesus didn’t stop to beg people to believe in him.

Jesus didn’t camp outside their houses and plead with them.

Jesus simply declared the truth of his word.

Jesus offered to them faith by the power of the Holy Spirit, and if it was rejected, he moved on.

And the church, too, has the same mission, a mission to share God’s word.

There’s a lot of people out there who haven’t heard and who need to hear, but there’s other people out there who will hear and not join us.

There’s others out there who will hear and seek to betray us or even to crucify us as they did their Lord.

So when we encounter these people, we don’t waste a whole lot of time.

We shake the dust off our sandals and move forward with his mission for the sake of the others who will hear and who will believe.

We cannot allow the doubters.

We cannot allow the enemies of the Lord.

We cannot allow our wicked culture to turn us from the mission that our Lord has given us.

We can allow fear of speaking to turn us from that mission.

The end of all things is at hand.

He is risen.

He is risen indeed.

Let this be our battle cry as we go forward from Easter in triumph and joy.

Let it be our battle cry as we go forth to call the world unto our Lord’s victorious banner.

Let us go forth in love.

Let us go forward trusting that the Word of God will do everything that our Lord promises it will do, that it will restore lost sheep to the fold.

That it will do these things because the Lord is our good shepherd, and in him alone do we find peace and salvation.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.