Sermon for the Wednesday after Laetare, 2025

The Church stands or falls on how one is made right with God. Works won’t work. You can’t strong-arm your way in; you’ll fail. And failing, you’ll flee—you’ll run away—because you don’t have what it takes to stand before Almighty God. Many who wear and bear the name Christian are stuck within these two responses. Either they have not yet learned that taking matters into their own hands will ultimately fail, or they have already fled and forsaken the God of the Scriptures. What about you? Do you know that taking matters into your own hands regarding salvation won’t cut it? Do you know that you cannot storm the gates of heaven, as it were, based on your own works and merit? Or, have you already learned that and so have fled from the scene in search of a god other than the One who sacrifices Himself for your sake? Would to God that neither is the case! The Scriptures are not some guidebook on how you can somehow make yourself right with God; they’re all about how God has, single-handedly, made you right with Him, apart from anything you could do. The Bible is bloody. It recounts, time and again, how people have sinned, either in shedding their neighbor’s blood or in shedding their blood themselves. Yet, more importantly, the Bible is filled with the blood of the One who has ransomed you back to Himself. We should flee, yet not to some bloodless Christ: one who isn’t concerned with redeeming lost, miserable sinners. Rather, we should flee to the One, who fulfills the Scriptures by His bloody suffering and death. Jesus’ atonement for the sins of the world is at the heart of the Christian religion.

Readings:

• Old Testament: Deuteronomy 11:1-7

• Epistle: 2 Peter 1:2-11

• Holy Gospel: Matthew 26:46-56

Sermon: