1.
Grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God our heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. Amen. On this day we remember the passion of our
Lord Jesus when He rode into Jerusalem to make His way to the cross to bring
about the forgiveness of our sins, we also celebrate with Heather, as she
confirms her faith in Jesus in whom she was baptized and received eternal life. The message is taken from Psalm 119:9-16 and
is entitled, “I Will Not Forget Your
Word,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Psalm
119:9–16--9 says, “How can a young man
keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. 10With my whole heart
I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! 11I have stored up your
word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. 12Blessèd are you, O LORD; teach
me your statutes! 13With my lips I declare all the just decrees of your mouth. 14In the way of your testimonies I delight as
much as in all riches. 15I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on
your ways. 16I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.”
3.
Notice
how the Psalmist says that he won’t forget the Word of God. That he has hidden God’s Word in his heart that
he might not sin against God. Heather,
as you confirm your faith today I’m sure that you could recount to all of us
the countless hours that you spent these past three years studying Luther’s
Small Catechism. During those years you
memorized the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the
Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and the Office of the Keys. And not only did you memorize these six chief
parts of the Catechism, but also Luther’s explanation to them, as well as the Scripture
verses that coincide with these specific teachings of the Christian faith. But, why did you do all of this
memorization? Well, the Psalmist answers
that question for us, “So that we won’t
wander from the Lord that we may keep our way pure.”
4.
Heather
on this day you confirm your faith in your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
remember that you are standing before God and this congregation reaffirming the
saving faith that God gave to you as an infant on the day you were baptized. Your confirmation day isn’t a graduation from
the church, but only the beginning of your life with God and His Church. As you confirm your faith you are saying that
you will stand with Christ’s church on earth to confess His name before men,
even if that means you may suffer death for your belief in Jesus Christ as your
Savior. And this many people have done
from age to age in the church’s life.
5.
But,
there are those today who have a different understanding of what means to be a
Christian in the church today, which is far different from the faith that
you’ve been taught in confirmation class. A
word out there for those who are trying to understand American religious life
today is called, “liminal.” That’s the phrase used by Robert Putnam and David
Campbell in their recent book, American Grace. Putnam is best-known for his 2000 book
“Bowling Alone,” which described the decline of civic and social engagement in
American life. The title came from the observation that while the numbers of
bowlers had risen, the number of people participating in bowling leagues had
declined. Putnam saw this as a metaphor for how Americans were increasingly
going their separate ways.
6.
In American
Grace, Putnam and Campbell examine the increasing reluctance of younger
Americans to identify with a particular church or religious tradition. Contrary
to what you may have heard, these people are not atheists nor agnostics: many
claim to believe in a “higher power” and a personal God. A quarter of them want
a religious funeral! What’s more, many
of them have belonged to churches in the past, and may belong to one again. Putnam
and Campbell call these people “liminals,” from the Latin word for “threshold.” “Liminals,” in their words “seem to stand at the edge of some religious
tradition, unsure whether to identify with that tradition or not.”
7.
What we’re seeing isn’t so much a march
towards secularism as it’s yet another example of Americans’ increasing
preference to “bowl alone.” Liminals want the benefits of a tradition or
community without putting in the work, including the willingness to subordinate
your desires to a larger whole, which is what makes community possible. Christ cannot be known apart from His Body,
the Church. As Martin Luther said, “he
who would find Christ must first find the Church.” From Jesus’ analogy of the vine and branches
to Paul’s discourse on the parts of the body in 1 Corinthians, it’s clear that
we belong to something much bigger than ourselves.
8.
Here in Psalm 119 we see that the
Word of God makes us pure and holy. It’s
also what makes us the Church, since we gather around this saving Word every
time we gather together for worship. And
God has given us His Word and His Church for a good reason. We all can remember the days of our youth and
we know that today in the 21st century our young people’s lives are
so open to temptation and peer pressure.
Whether it’s underage drinking and drugs, to having sex before marriage,
dropping out of school, and so many other things. Our youth today need to be taught and
immersed in the Word of God so that they can keep their way pure. But, it’s not just our young people; it’s
also us adults too. For who among us
will deny the fact that we’ve been tempted to sin against our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ and deny His name before men.
9.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus has given
to His Church the Word of God to be preached and taught among us, to call us to
repentance of our sins, and to receive from Him forgiveness. How sad it is that
there are many Christians who have the opinion that what Christ did for me on
the cross to forgive my sins comes to me directly, without the use of the Word
and the Sacraments. Many people today have a “Christology without Ecclesiology.” That is a thinking of Christ
without His Church, or, Christ without his Word and Sacraments.
10.
The concern is a valid one: if I’m stuck out in a desert somewhere
for many months, having no access to a Church, a pastor, the means of grace, or
even a Bible, can I still receive the forgiveness of my sins? Now, this is an
extraordinary situation, but many men and women of the armed forces find
themselves in these circumstances during times of war. What am I to do if I’ve
sinned against God, but have no pastor, or a fellow Christian, around to
comfort me with the promises of the Gospel?
11.
First, I would say to that person that he has his baptism. One who
is baptized is a child of God. His sins have been forgiven, and he lives daily
in that baptism “through daily contrition
and repentance.” Of course he also has prayer, but prayer isn’t a means of
grace. God has promised to hear our prayers, and to answer them. But he hasn’t
attached his promise of forgiveness to prayer like he has to Baptism,
Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper.
12.
Here’s also where one can comfort himself with the divine promises
of Scripture that he’s learned by heart. “Whoever
believes and is baptized will be saved.” “God so loved the world that He gave
His only-begotten Son…” “There is now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus.” “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.” A
Christian can, for a time, sustain his faith through the remembrance of such
promises and his baptism, but once he does have access again to a Church and
the means of grace, he should make use of them as soon as possible.
13.
Wherever there’s true faith, faith that clings to the divine
promises, there’s also Christ, the forgiveness of sins, and the good favor of
God. But consider this analogy: one might eat a meal, and it could sustain him
for a time, several days even, but eventually he needs to eat again. So also as
Christians, our faith might be sustained for a time by the hearing of God’s
Word and the partaking of the Lord’s Supper, but eventually we’ll need to “eat”
again to sustain our faith.
14.
Luther understood this better than all of us–our salvation is
through Christ, but what Christ did for us isn’t given or made available to us
except through the Word. “Faith comes by
hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.” This is why the Lord
instituted the preaching Office: “In
order that we may obtain this faith…” (AC, Article V). The 2nd
article of the Creed teaches us how God won our salvation through His Son Jesus
and his death on the cross for us. The 3rd
article of the Creed teaches us how it is given and received, namely, through
the Word and the Sacraments. If we can
experience God’s grace without the Word and Sacraments, then there’s no need
for pastors and there’s, essentially, no need for the Church. Christ without
the Church, access to the Head without the Body. That’s what a person is
ultimately saying when he says: “I can go
directly to God for forgiveness. I don’t need to go through a man.” My hope for all of you is that you would
continue to receive God’s Word and Sacraments for the forgiveness of your sins
through the Church Christ has given to His people. May you all continue to
confess this Christian faith that God has given you by the power of His Holy
Spirit before God and men, that you may be faithful unto death and receive the
crown of everlasting life. Amen.
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