St. Matthew 16:21-23

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Last week in our text, Jesus was saying some things to people that we would never want to hear Him say to us. They would die in their sins, where He was going they could not come, they were of this corrupted, dying world rather than His kingdom. He was saying those things to people who weren’t believing in Him. He was saying it in judgment of their unbelief.

Today, it’s the case again, that Jesus is saying something to someone, that none of us would ever want to hear Him say to us. He says it this time, to His own follower, Peter. He says, “Get behind me, Satan!” To this believer, though, He says it, not in judgment, but for His good. He says it in order to make him understand something very important for him to understand. He goes on: You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

We’re talking about faith this morning. On the bulletin cover you see the Latin phrase, Sola Fide, which means faith alone. The last couple of weeks we had, Sola Gratia—Grace Alone, and Sola Scriptura—Scripture Alone, and now, Sola Fide—Faith Alone. These are phrases that Martin Luther used to talk about how we are justified or made righteous before God. They stand against any idea of us being righteous through things we have done or accomplished. We are righteous before God because He has been gracious to us (loving us even though we don’t deserve it—Grace alone), because we are able to draw near to Him through the Spirit’s work in the Holy Scripture (Scripture alone). That work of the Spirit, is that He puts faith in our hearts that clings to the One in Whom God has placed His grace for us—in Jesus, the Christ. Sola Fide—Faith Alone. We’re saved only because we have this faith in Jesus. Our sins are forgiven in Him.

Peter is setting his heart on the things of man, Jesus says. And again, He’s referring to Peter’s insistence that Jesus won’t die as He has said. That’s for Peter to have his heart set on the things of man. Really, he’s subscribing to the popular point of view of the time, that the Messiah would be someone who would only live. Were He to die, according to that thinking, all would be lost.

How could the Messiah (how could Jesus) die like that? How could He be overtaken by His enemies? How could He fail to win a very clear—even military-like victory in this world? Even in the late moments, on the occasion of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden, Peter was still trying to defend Him with a sword, to prevent what Jesus is predicting in our text, that He will go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed (also rise, of course).

Other things Jesus had been doing had been making sense with Peter’s Messianic expectations. He was compassionate and powerful. He was able to do things like heal the sick, even raise the dead. He’d fed giant crowds of people with just a small amount of food, and done other amazing things. That’d all checked out.

But how could it last if that person was going die? How could He be everything they’d been thinking He’d be?

In our Gospel lesson, similarly Jesus is predicting His death. And it says of the disciples that, they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. The fact of the matter is, on the occasion of our Gospel lesson and in our text, they just simply weren’t really paying to attention to the prophets’ words in Holy Scripture. That’s what it means when it says His saying was hidden from them, that they weren’t grasping what He was saying.

Now, had they thought about Isaiah’s words in the 53rd chapter, for instance, then Jesus wouldn’t have been saying anything so mysterious to them.

Isaiah 53:4-5

Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.

53:12b he bore the sin of many,
    and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah’s words anticipate perfectly Jesus’ prediction in our text, that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.

The thing is: that’s also Who the Messiah would be. He’d be preaching the good news and doing powerful miracles (like Peter had expected), but also dying for the peoples’ sins.

If the disciples had been paying attention to the Psalm writer’s words, they’d have seen it too.

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

6 But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

16 For dogs encompass me;
    a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet—

I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me; 

they divide my garments among them,
    and for my clothing they cast lots.

Again, these words from Psalm 22 certainly anticipate (hundreds of years before), Jesus’ prediction in our text, of Him suffering and being killed. They describe the scene that took place at the cross, with the peoples’ scorning and despising, the piercing of His hands and feet, the soldiers’ dividing of His garments, even the very words that express His atoning for peoples’ sins: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Again, we’re talking about faith this morning. Jesus is harsh with Peter because He wants him to grow to understand what faith really is. Faith isn’t that we figure out in our minds how we think everything best turns out, and then we say to ourselves, “it better turn out that way.” That isn’t what faith is.

St. Paul writes in our epistle lesson: now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. Paul wasn’t talking about the mirror you have in your bathroom. You wouldn’t see dimly in that mirror; you’d see a perfect reflection of yourself. He is talking about a first century mirror of polished brass, that allowed a person to see a dim reflection of himself. Were you, now, to have that sort of mirror in your bathroom, you would long for the clearer image.

His point is pretty clear: we don’t know, or fully understand everything, though we wish we did. Peter had thought that a clear image of the Messiah was that He would live in this world, providing for His people, protecting them. Instead, the truly clear image of the Messiah was what Jesus had been telling them on a number of occasions. It was what the prophets had said. He would be a suffering servant, dying in a rather horrifying way (and then rising, of course).

But it’s interesting; look in our Old Testament lesson, how the prophet describes the situation of Christ’s saving of us: “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Whether we think or not, that those are the kind of words that should describe what’s happening at the cross (because that’s what they’re describing, God coming with vengeance to save us), it is how God chooses to put it through the prophet’s words. His being crushed is the winning of a victory for us in the only way it could be won.

It couldn’t have been won in the way Peter had imagined it. It couldn’t have been won with the Messiah living comfortably in this world, winning victories over Israel’s enemies, and whatever else they’d all imagined. No sins would have been paid for then. His death had to happen (as foreshadowed in the death of the Passover Lamb in Moses’ time—that lamb without blemish or defect whose blood saved the people from the judgment that had come upon those who were opposing God).

That’s what Jesus wanted Peter and the others to understand. God has everything firmly in hand. And the fact is, it isn’t how we would have imagined it. Right? Faith puts aside our own thinking about how everything seems like it should turn out, and holds instead to what God has said in His Word. Peter and his fellow disciples had a lesson to learn in that.

You have a lesson in it too. So do I. You, at times, have wanted faith to be God bending His will to whatever you thought should be the case. Sometimes, you might even have decided that whatever it says in His Word can’t really be the way things are. You have been Peter telling Jesus there’s no way things are going to be the way He’s said they’re going to be. Instead, they’re going to be your way.

That doubt of God’s Word is one of your sins (and mine) for which the Messiah had to suffer and die. It couldn’t have been any other way, even if we might wish it could have been. Rather than, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you”—Better for Peter and for us, to say, “Your will be done, LORD.” According that perfect will of God, the one without any doubt (or any other sin) has been put in the place of, and died for all sinners. There aren’t any more sins for you to be accused of in the judgment; because Jesus was accused of all of them, and made to pay for them at the cross.

And beyond those words so troubling to Peter, about Christ’s suffering and death are the ones that can bring true joy to your heart this morning. After the suffering and the killing that Jesus mentions, are the ones about Him rising from death. Take those words as a great comfort this morning because, having been forgiven of your sins in Christ’s sacrifice, you too will rise to be with Him. There isn’t any other way it could work out that would be better. God has it all worked out. It is worked out in the best possible way for you. God be praised. Amen.

Other Lessons This Week:

Isaiah 35:3-7

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

St. Luke 18:31-43

Taking the twelve, [Jesus] said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

John 8:21-29

So [Jesus] said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” Jesus says that at the end of our Gospel lesson, the one about the seed that was sown, landing in various kinds of soil. The seed represents the Gospel message—the good news of God’s saving of the world from sin and death. It goes out like seed flung from the hand of a sower, to some who reject it outright, like it was on a hard-packed path. And it goes out to some who receive it half-heartedly (finally putting it aside)—like it was in shallow, rocky soil. And it goes out to some who receive it more deeply, but finally let other things in this world replace it—like it was deeply set in weedy or thorny soil. And it goes out to some who treasure it unto eternal life—like it was in good soil.

Jesus wants everyone to be in that last group. He’s leading His listeners in the parable to (among other things) recognize what God is doing for them. He’s leading you, too.

His whole purpose for coming into this world was to say also to you, Where I am going, you can come. Even though you have fallen short of God’s glory, you won’t die in your sin; I have seen to it. I’ve performed perfectly in your place everything that was required of you; I’ve done it in full. My doing of it gets considered now as if you’d done it. God doesn’t have anything against you anymore. In Me, you have forgiveness and salvation. You are of My kingdom.

God’s Son came into this world according to an eternal plan to do all of that, and to make you aware of it. That’s what he wants to say to you. He wants you to know that God would have you in his kingdom, that the sacrifice Jesus has made is for you along with the rest of the world. All of that is what He whole-heartedly wants to say.

So, what Jesus has to say in our text is the opposite of what he really wants to say. He doesn’t want to tell anybody they’re going to die in their sin. He doesn’t want to tell people that where He’s going they can’t come. He doesn’t want it to be said of anyone that they’re of this corrupted, dying world rather than of His kingdom.

Since we know He doesn’t want to tell people they’ll die in their sins, or that where He’s going they can’t come, or that they’re of this world rather than His kingdom, one might rightfully ask, Why then? Why does He say it to people in our text? And…could there ever be a time in which He might say it to me?

We’ve already said He doesn’t want to (but that doesn’t really answer the question, does it?). That’s why it’s important that on this particular day in the Church Year, we talk about the precious nature of the Holy Scripture, of God’s Word of grace. You want to be comforted this morning. You want to know how God feels about you, what He’s done for you. There’s a way to know it.

When we’re talking about the things we get from Holy Scripture, one of the things we have to say is that we certainly get warned through the Holy Scripture. That’s one of its great purposes, and the gist of a lot of what’s said in our lessons this morning. We get warned through the Holy Scripture.

Jesus is certainly giving a warning through the parable in our Gospel lesson. Warning: You aren’t going to get the comfort you’re seeking, the assurance of God’s being graciously disposed toward you if His Word is prevented from penetrating your heart. It’s seed doesn’t penetrate the hard path, it penetrates very shallowly and briefly the rocky soil, it only temporarily penetrates the weedy/thorny soil.

If you’re to get comfort from God’s Word (which is what He wants for you to have), that Word has to find itself in a heart that receives it and rejoices in it, and treasures it. So, you’re warned through the Holy Scripture. It’s possible for the human heart to put up defenses against what God is trying to accomplish in it. To this, Jesus says, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

What He wants you to hear, He kind of makes clear from these words in our text: believe in Me. He wants you to hear the message of God’s grace (to be found in Him) and believe it. That doesn’t seem so hard, does it? I hope all of you believe in Jesus; I hope that’s why you’re here.

But when we talk about the hard path, the heart that says “a firm no” to anything other than what’s rational and reasonable—what can be seen, and demonstrated, and calculated, and verified: that’s your natural state. Your natural state is not to accept anything that must be believed. You inherited that from your first parents. They were that way after they sinned, so you’re that way according to your nature.

But that isn’t too big of a problem for God to solve. He declared the coming of a Savior right after the first sin. As for you, the Holy Spirit baptized you into that Savior’s death (or opened your heart through the preaching of the Word). Your hard-packed path turned to soil that can receive the sower’s seed, and bear fruit. You came to believe in God’s grace—believe that it is present for you in the atoning blood of the Christ.

Once again, we’re talking about the precious nature of the Holy Scripture, of God’s Word of grace. If you’re to get comfort from God’s Word (which is what He wants for you to have, and what you want to have), that Word has to find itself in a heart that receives it and rejoices in it, and treasures it. So Jesus warns,

don’t let your interaction with the Holy Scripture be shallow, casual, non-committal. And having made a firm commitment to it, don’t let other things replace it.

But you might ask,

Will God’s Word really be effective in changing even my hard heart that has many times been treacherous, that has many times deceived me, led me into sinful activity that offended God and added to my guilt and shame?

Will it be effective in answering my doubts (that finally aren’t all that different from those of the people Jesus is addressing in our text—the ones who will die in their sins, the ones who can’t come where He’s going, the ones who are of this corrupted, dying world rather than His kingdom)?

God answers it through the prophet’s words in our Old Testament lesson. He says, My word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. And then He goes on to talk about His people going out in joy, being led forth in peace, flourishing eternally.

Dear sinner who has come here this morning seeking God’s grace, who has come here to confess your sins, who has come here to find comfort and joy, recognize it to be flowing out to you this morning in the preaching of the Holy Scriptures. Recognize that these Scriptures are declaring the One Who says to you, Where I am going, you can come. He says it on the basis of His having been perfect under the Law in your place, and having made payment for every one of your sins with His blood on the cross. Recognize that these Scriptures are declaring the One Who says to you that you won’t die in your sin. He says it on that basis of His having risen from death—the very evidence that God has accepted His payment for your sins. Recognize that these Scriptures are declaring the One Who says to you that you are of His kingdom. After all, He is the very one who said,  In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:2-3).

That’s what Jesus wants to say to you this morning. That’s what he’s leading you to recognize. God be praised. Amen.

Sermon— St Matthew 11:16-24

[Jesus said] “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,

“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
    we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”

We might say sometimes, that a person is impossible to impress. Even though the person is being shown important and interesting things, he or she always wants to see more, always wants something even more important or interesting. Impossible to impress.

Jesus is expressing frustration early in our text. It could be said that His listeners are impossible to impress, in the sense of hearing something important to them and accepting it. His illustration is for the purpose of making that point. They are like characters out of children’s song in the marketplace about whom a speaker laments that even having played the flute for his audience, he hasn’t been able to get them to dance. Having sung a dirge (or funeral song), he hasn’t been able to get them to mourn. What more can he do?—that’s kind of the idea. What will impress them?

Jesus points out that His audience’s inability to be impressed can be illustrated in the fact that John the Baptist’s stern adherence to the Law (illustrated in his not eating and drinking) offended them; they weren’t impressed with his not eating and drinking. Jesus’ more easygoing approach (illustrated in eating and drinking) still offended them. They cannot be impressed!

And their inability to be impressed is a real problem for them, considering what Jesus is trying to impress them with. He isn’t merely a flute player trying to make them dance, or a singer trying to make them mourn; He has something much more important for them. In fact, it’s so important that they face a real problem should the present situation continue. Jesus is talking about the day of judgment. God has been trying to impress upon them an urgency for some time. Jesus compares their city to notorious cities of the past (Tyre and Sidon, and Sodom), saying that as difficult to impress as those cities were, had they seen what these people have seen from Jesus’ ministry, they certainly would have been convinced. But these that Jesus is talking with now; they’re just not willing to hear what God is telling them.

The prophet Jeremiah was experiencing the same frustration in our Old Testament lesson. He knew what he was facing, being sent to speak to God’s people. “I don’t know how to speak,” he’d said to the LORD. The whole section is about the prophet receiving the encouragement he needs from the LORD so that he will no longer be afraid of the people to whom he’s supposed to speak. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”—the LORD says to him. He needed that much encouragement. He needed the LORD to say a little later: I have put my words in your mouth.

He was facing the same apathy (if not outright hostility) from his would be listeners that Jesus is facing in our text. He would be speaking to a people that up to this point had seemed impossible to impress. Yet God is telling him in the lesson, “I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” God will be with the prophet, giving him strength, and patience, and eloquence to bring His message to people not easily impressed, not easily accepting of the message they need.

Isn’t it the same sort of thing in our Epistle lesson? St. Paul is telling his readers, Don’t be like your forefathers in the wilderness who weren’t sufficiently impressed with the Gospel even though it was so near to them. God was present with them in the cloud—moving along with them on their journey from Egypt to the Land of Promise. He caused the sea to part before them so that they could escape pursuing Egyptian soldiers, and emerge dry and safe on the other side. They were eating and drinking the spiritual food from Christ Himself. Even with all of it they were impossible to impress. They were still bent on pursuing their own way to their destruction.

Will you be impossible to impress like they were; that’s kind of the question before you today, isn’t it? What could cause it to be so (you want to know so you can avoid it)?

A number of people are employed to work in a vineyard in our Gospel Lesson. The ones hired in the very beginning start out impressed, huh? The vineyard owner makes them an offer that gets their attention. He will sort of rescue them from idleness (sitting around in the marketplace), and pay them a certain amount that’s suitable to them (They’re excited about it in the beginning). They have been able to be impressed, or convinced that what’s been offered to them is to their good.

We could think about Baptism in that way (or about a person coming to faith through hearing the Word). Through Baptism, through the Word, the Holy Spirit, like that land owner, makes a certain offer to a sinner that gets his attention. God will forgive his sins because Jesus died for Him. Though he’s guilty of falling short of God’s glory, God will consider him innocent, fit for His eternal kingdom through this sacrifice Jesus has made for him. And that makes an impression on the person. He will cling to Christ for forgiveness and salvation. He is suitably impressed. What could ever get in the way of that?

You know that parable sees many more hired throughout the day, and equal payment made to all at the end (though these hired first have been there several hours more than others). All get the same. The ones who have been hired first, then, are angry because they think they deserve more.

We could say that they have come to a point at which they are no longer impressed. What has been given to them (that seemed great in the beginning) doesn’t seem so good anymore. They’ve become resentful of the treatment they are receiving, envious of others. They might even have begun to think of how nice it would be to have more of the world’s good things than they have had up to this point.

We asked, what could cause you to become impossible to impress like were Jesus’ audience? What could make you unwilling to hear God’s Word with a believing heart?

The long day in that parable, in which the workers were in the vineyard, can be compared to the long time of our lives in this world. St. Paul and the other apostles wrote letters to the congregations encouraging them in the Christian faith because of what happens to people during the course of long lives in this world.

You experience all sorts of things, don’t you? You might have experiences like those earliest hired workers in the parable, that make you envious of others, unsatisfied with what God has provided for you in this life. You might have been affected by tragic events that caused you to question God’s love for you. You might have become tired of feeling like an outsider in this world, as it moves further away from God’s purpose and will, and thought sometimes, why can’t I decide for myself on things? Every moment of your life God has been trying to impress upon you an urgency, that you repent of your sins, and believe in the grace He provides in Christ. But all of those things we just mentioned have gotten in the way of it.

Any time you have heard God’s powerful Word and been clinging instead to envy of others, doubting of God’s love, desiring to be able to embrace the world’s ungodliness, Jesus could rightly have said of you, that Tyre’s, and Sidon’s, and Sodom’s ability to be suitably impressed by God’s Word was greater than yours. You could have been among those of God’s people in the wilderness—the ones with whom He wasn’t pleased, and who were overthrown there. You could have been among Jeremiah’s audience of whom he was so afraid.

But praise be to God, you have a Savior from all of it. In the eyes of the Divine Judge Jesus became known as the one impossible to impress. He became your envy and dissatisfaction. He became your doubt. He became your worldliness. He became it in the sense that your charges were applied to Him instead of you. He offered Himself in your place, so that you might have what He always had—innocence, perfection before God. You needed it in order to be in heaven.

He distributes it to you this morning at the altar in Holy Communion. He earned it for you at the cross; but here, at the altar He gives it to you to place upon your lips—this payment made for your salvation.

You were suitably impressed in your Baptism or in your hearing of God’s Word. The Spirit impressed upon you that you’re a sinner in need of God’s grace. He put faith in your heart; faith that clings to Christ for forgiveness and salvation.

You tread a long path in this world day by day, though. You’re tempted to leave it all behind, grabbing instead the world’s approval, the world’s possessions, the world’s point of view. So, your Savior feeds you here each week. He invites you over and over, to come to Him and have God’s grace and His kingdom. And it will be worth the wait. It will be worth the struggle. Amen.

Jeremiah 1:4-10

The Word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Then I said, “Ah, LORD GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”

But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

1 Corinthians 9:24–10:5

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

St Matthew 20:1-16

[Jesus said], “The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 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, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’

But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.”