Beware of people who are on God's side! When the Pharisees, who thought they kept the Law, heard the Apostles preach of Christ, they threw them out of the synagogues, thinking they were doing God a favor! When Christians in other countries are rounded up and killed by Muslims, those Muslims think they are doing a service to their god. They think that because they are holy and live the right way, the Christians who believe in Christ are worthy of death and their god will be proud of them if they slaughter those Christians. In our own church body, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, there is a great bias and disappointment among our leaders of those churches that are small, still use that old-fashioned hymnal, and don't send tons of cash to the bureaucrats in St. Louis. There are many out there—and I have heard them—who think that they are on the Lord's side, ready to do whatever it takes to grow His church and to look down upon anyone who doesn't fit their vision for what the church should look like. That's why congregations who get stirred up for Jesus are encouraged to get rid of their old fashioned pastors and why when a pastor who is on fire for Jesus comes in the faithful people are told to take a hike. This stuff happens, brothers and sisters in Christ! But it happens in our own hearts too. We come to church. We try to live right. We were born Lutherans perhaps. And so we have a right to look down on others because we think we have got religion figured out. Beware of people who think the Lord must be proud of them. Repent of thinking that for yourself!
Jesus tells His disciples that when the Helper comes, He will testify of Jesus. The church is not the place to get fired up about what great things you're doing for God; about how you're getting with His program and getting your life turned around. It's not about what you can do for God. The Spirit's preaching isn't how you can be a part of God's plan if you just give your life to Christ. No. The preaching that the true Holy Spirit delivers is what Jesus says: “He will testify of Me.” Of Jesus. True preaching and religion is about Jesus. Jesus who was born of the Virgin to become man and live a perfect life a scandal to those who think God could never do such a thing! Jesus who was arrested and beaten and crucified by the religious leaders who though they were doing God a favor by getting rid of Jesus! Jesus who rose from the dead and ascended so that His disciples would have that comfort even when they were being killed for His Name, that they too were safe in Christ and would rise from the dead. Jesus told them what would happen so that they would know and that even when they were being crucified upside down and skinned alive and burned at the stake, those disciples had that comfort of the Holy Spirit, that Christ had saved them and would raise them from the dead.
When the Lord's Old Testament people began to turn away from Him while all the while going through the motions and thinking they were God's special people just because—the Lord punished them. He sent them away. Sent them to Babylon. And what saved them? What rescued them? Did they straighten up and decide they had better be even more religious? No. The Lord saved them. That's what Ezekiel says. The Lord says through Ezekiel that He was going to gather them back from being scattered and then wash them with clean water and give them new hearts! What we need, brothers and sisters, are not hearts that are on fire for Jesus! We need hearts that believe that we are nothing except for God's grace. We don't need hearts that are on God's side but hearts that believe God is on our side. Not that we are for Him but that He is for us. That's the preaching of the Holy Spirit: Not how you can get on God's good side but how He has put you on His own good side by sending His Son to be your Savior on the cross.
See, when it comes to religion, we like to think we're doing all right. We joined a church. We go to church. We call ourselves Christians. We come and worship as if we're doing God a favor! As if He's better off for our being here! Repent! See that God does not need you. He does not need me. Rather by His grace He calls us in Christ. He sprinkles us, too with clean water, the water of Holy Baptism. For Baptism is not us making a choice for Christ and then proving it by Baptism. Baptism is the proof that Christ has made a choice for you, claiming you as His own and putting Himself and all that He has in your corner! When He absolves us, we are not just hearing that “it's OK, we're not that bad.” We're given the Good News that all of our sins and iniquities for which God ought to cast us into hell have been wiped out by Jesus' blood and forgotten by God, never to be brought up again. When we come to the communion rail, it's not because we presume that Christ wants us there because we're such good Christians but because He calls us unworthy sinners and invites us to feast upon Him. Being a Christian, a child of God, is HIS work, not ours. Our religion isn't our doing something special for God. It's Him doing the saving work for us. It's always Him, doing the saving, doing the washing, doing the preaching, doing the feeding. That's what the Holy Spirit bears witness to.
And that's why the world will never understand our church. That's why the churches that surround us will never understand our church. Its why our Synodical leaders won't get it. For them its all about what they are doing for God. The work hard to look busy for Jesus. But the moment you tell them that they can't do anything from God or apart from God, they will not like you. The moment you offend someone and tell them that God is not impressed with them but that they are a moldy sack of sins—well they'll not like you. In bad cases they may just ignore you and look down on you. In worse cases they'll disown you and have nothing to do with you. And in the worst cases, they'll kill you, as they do our brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world. That is why Jesus tells us this. He tells us this so that when the world thinks our religion is stupid because it doesn't puff up ourselves, we won't be surprised. It's why St. Peter tells us not to get upset when we suffer for the Name of Christ. Because remember the Holy Spirit's testimony, His preaching: You are Christ's. He has made you His own by His death and resurrection, through Baptism and His Word and body and blood. You are His. He has claimed you. Nothing can overturn His work or undo His salvation or snatch you from His hand.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, be comforted by this Good News when the world is against you. When religious people attack you and belittle you. Never mind all of them. You stand firm in that simple faith that trusts that Jesus alone is your salvation. If the world and the holy people want to mock you, then cling to your Baptism, to Christ's Word, to His body and blood. When you suffer for the Name of Jesus, rejoice! Rejoice because the Spirit of God rests upon you and He testifies of Jesus and He promises to keep you in the true faith. Beware of those who think they are on God's side. And rejoice because God is on your side in Jesus Christ. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
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