Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

LISTEN

Jesu Juva

“Forgiveness for Me AND for Thee”

Text: Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Luke 17:1-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-14

 

This is an encore presentation of a sermon from yesteryear because I like it and because I think it would be good for folks who were not in the congregation when I preached it the first time to hear.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Violence. Iniquity. Destruction. Strife and contention. Lawlessness increasing, justice perverted. The wicked are winning.

 

Is that a description of what we see today? What is happening in our country and world? Maybe so. But that’s what we heard today from the prophet Habakkuk. That’s what he saw. In his own country. Among his own people who should know better. So Habakkuk complained. He had a bone to pick with God. Why aren’t You doing anything, God? Why are You just letting this go on? Why aren’t You saving? Questions many - maybe you - are asking today, as well.

 

God answers Habakkuk, in verses that (unfortunately) were left out of the reading assigned for today. He didn’t have to answer, God doesn’t owe us any explanations, but He did. And God tells His prophet, It’s okay. I’m sending in the Babylonians.

 

Wait . . . you’re what? That’s the nuclear option! The Babylonians are evil to the core. They are merciless, cruel, and bordering on the inhuman in how they wage war and treat their foes. Lord, that’s not what I meant! Seriously? You’re not really going to use a nation even worse than Your people to discipline them, are You? I mean, they just need a rap on the knuckles, not be blown up!

 

But that’s exactly what God is going to do. It will surely come, He tells Habakkuk. It will not delay. The soul of my people is puffed up, it is not right. But do not fear. Trust. Believe. In Me. The righteous shall live by his faith. Faith that trusts and believes in God not only in the good times, but the times when nothing seems to make sense and everything seems to be falling apart. Such times are not the times to turn away from God and seek help elsewhere, but to turn toward Him and trust that He is working good, even if we cannot understand how.

 

And God did work good. It wasn’t easy, though. The sin and corruption of His people ran deep. So they spent seventy years in exile from their land, living in Babylon. But even that was merciful. They deserved far worse. Then God brought them back. Chastened. Humbled. They rebuilt. And at just the right time, back in their land, God dealt with their sin again, for from them was born the promised Messiah. The same God who used the Babylonians to save them from their wicked ways, now came Himself to save them - and not just them, but the world - from their sins. Then, too, using the wickedness of men - betrayal, hatred, perverted justice, and a cross. A cross which didn’t look good at all! And yet God used to work the greatest good, and exactly what we need.

 

But Old Testament times and Babylonian hordes are, you know, a little hard for us to relate to, even if Habakkuk’s description of their evil ways sounds eerily familiar to what we see today. So let’s bring it a bit closer to home . . . using the words of Jesus from the Holy Gospel we heard today, when He talked about . . . forgiveness.

 

Just like in Habakkuk’s day, there is sin in our world, no doubt. You know that. It seems to be getting worse every day. You sin. Others sin against you. And maybe like Habakkuk, you find yourself having a bone to pick with God about that. About why He lets it go on, why He isn’t doing anything about it, why the wicked seem to be winning. Why God? Do something God!

 

And maybe, like Habakkuk, you don’t like His answer. His two-fold answer, which basically boils down to this: I am doing something about it. I’m sending you in. Wait . . . what? That’s not what I meant!

 

So first, in the first part of His answer, Jesus says, yes, My child, there is sin in the world, I know it. And temptations to sin are sure to come. But don’t just look at others, and point the finger at others - don’t you be the source of them! For the one who causes My little ones, My believers, to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea. Which sounds a bit like the nuclear option God told Habakkuk about, sending in the Babylonians. For a millstone!? Don’t we just need a rap on the knuckles? Is our sin really that bad? It is.

 

Then second, and even more than that, when you are sinned against, when you are hurt, when others trample on you and take from you and cheat you, forgive them. Rebuke them, show them their sin, but not to shame them and hurt them back, but to lead them to forgiveness, which you will give. And not just once or twice. Over and over. Seven times in a day, if that’s what it takes. And even more. For seven is just a number. Jesus said seventy times seven in another place (Matthew 18:22). The point being: forgiveness doesn’t keep count. Just forgive them.

 

Now it was the disciples turn to say: wait . . . what? Let’s get this right. Don’t cause others to sin, and if we do, the millstone around our necks and all that. OK. Got it. But when others sin against us, they don’t get a millstone, we have to forgive them?? Do you know what you’re saying, Jesus? What you’re asking? We can’t be that! We can’t do that! You’re asking the impossible! If you want us to do that, increase our faith!

 

Maybe you feel that way. For forgiveness . . . that’s just not the way the world works. If you point out someone else’s sin against you, that’s just an invitation to get screamed at (or these days, shot at!) and be told to shut up, sit down, and mind your own business. And to forgive, that’s just an opportunity for others to continue to walk on you and take advantage of you. But if we, as Christians, won’t do those things, those who aren’t Christians won’t do those things, and the sin and wickedness in the world just continues to grow, with more necks being fitted for millstones. Jesus didn’t say it would be easy.

 

Maybe the disciples had Habakkuk in mind when they said to Jesus, Increase our faith! Since, as we heard, the righteous shall live by his faith. But faith is so hard. To trust, to believe, when it doesn’t seem to be working, when nothing seems to make sense, and everything seems to be falling apart. At such times, don’t turn away from God and look to take vengeance yourself, or harbor that grudge, or make them pay for what they did to you. Turn instead toward the Lord, who is working good, in the world, in the church, in you, even if you cannot understand how.

 

For He has given you the faith you need. For really what matters is not the size and strength of your faith, but the size and strength of the one your faith is in. If your faith is in yourself and what you are able to do, then no amount of faith will be enough. But if your faith is in Jesus, then even faith as small as a mustard seed is more than enough.

 

For there is nothing Jesus is not able to do. In fact, far greater than a flying mulberry tree, Jesus took all of your sin, and mine, and of His people from Habakkuk’s day, and all the sin of all this horrible, no good, very bad world and hung it around His own neck, a weight bigger than the biggest millstone, and He was cast into the sea of God’s wrath against it. Taking it all and atoning for it with His own blood and death. And it is atoned for - His resurrection showing that. That there is no longer any sin, any death, any condemnation that could hold Him in the depths of the grave. He won. Life won.

 

And that victory and life He now gives to you. For He’s the Master who came and served His servants. Quite the opposite of God using an even wickeder Babylon to discipline His wicked people - is God using His perfect Son to serve us with the forgiveness and life we need. We may think, like Habakkuk: Oh, they just needed a rap on the knuckles. But nope, God knew they needed even more. And today, maybe we think: Oh, we just need a little more faith, a little more grace, a spiritual boost. But nope, God knows we need a lot more than that! Much more. And so He gives even more. He gives us Himself. He comes and serves us. First on the cross, and now giving us the fruits of the cross in the Body and Blood of His Son. The Master serving the servants. It’s not the way the world works! But why would God do that? The world isn’t working very well! So He does better, and what we need. Forgiving us, feeding us, washing us, absolving us, mercying us.

 

And while that really doesn’t make much sense, and it’s hard to wrap our minds around a God who would do that, for people like us, thank God He does. So that you can forgive. You can help others stuck in their sin. That’s how God’s dealing with sin today. Sending His Son for you, and sending you for them.

 

Do not fear. No, it’s not easy. But the righteous live by faith. Faith not that I know everything and how this is going to turn out, but that Jesus knows. And faith that, as Paul later wrote to the Romans (1:17), that it is not the Law but the Gospel that is the power of God for salvation, for saving. Or in other words, you are never so weak as when you exercise your power and hold someone’s sins against them, and you are never so strong as when you exercise God’s power and forgive them, and let God and His Gospel do the rest.

 

Maybe that shocks you and doesn’t quite make sense. That’s okay. Habakkuk felt the same way! But it did work out, perfectly, according to God’s plan. It is not for us to know and understand everything; it is for us to trust and believe.

 

And when you do, and when you forgive, you may feel like you’re doing something heroic. It might seem that way. But, Jesus goes on to say, don’t expect a standing ovation from heaven! Rather, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ You see, we don’t earn or deserve anything by what we do, even something as hard as forgiving! It is, start to finish, all gift, all grace, from God to you. From the one who took the millstone with your name on it and hung it around His own neck. And instead, drowned you in the gracious water of baptism, to raise you with Himself to a new life. A forgiving life. A trusting life. The life you now get to live. A life of freedom, knowing the outcome isn’t up to you - God already has that worked out. And if He can use the Babylonians, He can use you and me, too, to accomplish His good and gracious ways.

 

For as Paul told Timothy and the congregations he was serving, God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed . . . The world isn’t going to like the Gospel you speak and live, it isn’t going to like God’s kind of love, it isn’t going to thank you for pointing out their sin. What’s new? But in Habakkuk’s day and in our day and all the days before, in between, and yet to come, our loving and merciful God and Saviour is working to save each and every soul. Through His cross. Through His forgiveness given by you. Not the way we’d do it! But it is not for us to know how and understand everything; it is for us to trust and believe. And the empty tomb the evidence you can. The righteous live by faith. For faith receives that new and resurrected life. And then lives that new and resurrected life. A life to live now. A life to live forever.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Congregation at Prayer

For the Week of Pentecost 17 (October 6-11, 2025)

Invocation: In the Name of the Father and of the (+) Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Speak the Apostles’ Creed. 

Verse: Psalm 32:17 – “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.”

Hymn of the Week:  Lutheran Service Book #846 “Your Hand, O Lord, in Days of Old”

Hymns for Sunday: 790, 846, 620, 855 (v. 7), 758, 813

Readings for the Week: [The readings for Thursday-Saturday are the Scriptures for this coming Sunday.]

Monday: Psalm 111

This psalm begins and ends with “praise the Lord!” What reasons for praise are listed in between? Write a list and do so!

Tuesday: Proverbs 25:6-14

When we think of ourselves more highly than we ought, what danger do we put ourselves in? What is better? How can we focus on others more than ourselves?

Wednesday: Ephesians 4:1-6

What is the “calling” Paul speaks of here, to which we have been called? How are we to live in that calling? How can we?

Thursday: Ruth 1:1-19a

Why did Ruth refuse to depart from Naomi? What had happened to her? What caused this change in her?

Friday: 2 Timothy 2:1-13

What is the only thing that matters to Paul? What does he exhort Timothy to do? How does Jesus strengthen us to endure?

Saturday: Luke 17:11-17

What did the Samaritan see clearly that the other lepers missed? Where did the nine go? Where did the Samaritan go? Why?

The Catechism - Baptism: What does such baptizing with water indicate? [Part 1] It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

Collect for the Week: Almighty God, You show mercy to Your people in all their troubles. Grant us always to recognize Your goodness, give thanks for Your compassion, and praise Your holy name; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Amen.

The Prayers:  Please pray for . . .

+ yourself and for all in need (remembering especially those on our prayer list).

+ God’s blessing, wisdom, and guidance for our congregation’s Board of Evangelism and Outreach.

+ the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Panama, for God’s wisdom, blessing, guidance, and provision.

+ God’s blessing, guidance, and provision for Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, IN.

Conclude with the Lord’s Prayer and Luther’s Morning or Evening Prayer from the Catechism.

Now joyfully go about your day (or to bed) in good cheer, child of God!

Collect for the Week © 2018 Concordia Publishing House.

Lutheran Service Book Hymn License: 110019268

Sermon for Saint Michael and All Angels

LISTEN

Jesu Juva

“No Ifs, Ands, or Buts”

Text: Revelation 12:7-12; Psalm 91; Luke 10:17-20; Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

War in heaven. Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and his angels. 

I don’t know what that means, really. How do angels fight each other? Does their war look like our wars? What weapons do they use? I don’t think I really want to know. I’m just glad the good guys won.

But unlike our wars, angels don’t die. We see the horrid pictures from Ukraine and Israel, the destruction, the devastation, the mourners. Not so in this war. The great dragon and his angels did not die but were thrown down to the earth. And not in sadness, but in great wrath. They were like a stirred up hornets nest that gets knocked down - swarming, looking now for men and women to sting with their evil venom. No wonder John heard the voice in heaven say, woe to you, O earth and sea. Woe to us who now endure their wrath.

Thank goodness we’re not alone! We’d stand no chance. Stirred up hornets are bad, but how much worse a foe we cannot see, and more powerful and crafty than us. But as we heard in the Introit today: He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. God’s good and faithful angels are not in heaven celebrating their victory or relaxing that the foe has been cast out. No, our Father commands them to come here, where the evil angels were cast down, to guard us, to continue the fight here. Imagine how mad that must make satan and his angels! Bad enough they got thrown down from heaven. Only to continue to be opposed. To continue to lose! Making them only want to fight harder. They couldn’t topple God, they couldn’t defeat their good brothers. So now they’re after the low hanging fruit: the Church and Christians here on earth.

So what does this fight here that continues look like? What are the weapons in this war?

Well, we have a few examples in the Scriptures. The first one in the very beginning of creation, when the devil when on the attack against Adam and Eve. His weapon was his words. For his target was not Adam and Eve’s physical life, but their spiritual life. And how do you attack and kill a spiritual life? You remove it from its source of life. And if the source of spiritual life is faith, then that’s what you attack. Undermine their faith in God as their good and loving Father, and their trust in His Word. And that’s what we hear him do. Did God really say? Sting them with doubt. Get them to rely on their own reasoning instead of God’s Word. Convince them to believe that what seems good to them must be good, even if God said it isn’t. Do that, and now he’s got them on the road to spiritual death, of trying to find life apart from their heavenly Father.

There’s the story of Job. The devil stung Job over and over, inflicting all kinds of physical hardship and harm against Job, but the goal was for all that to affect his faith and spiritual life - that he curse God and die. The devil also attacked Jesus in the wilderness . . . with words. If you are the Son of God . . . He even tried to use God’s Word in going after Jesus, though what he did reminds me of the political commercials we hear today: use the words of your opponent out of context, or just enough to twist them for your own purpose, even if that’s not really what they said. ‘Cuz it doesn’t matter. All that matters is sting them with doubt, and chip away at faith and belief, that they look for life apart from their heavenly Father.

And I think the devil has a favorite word that he uses to do that - especially today - to achieve these ends with us. Did you even think about that? If you had to come up with the devil’s favorite word, what would you pick? I think it’s the word BUT. Yes, God said that BUT . . . Of course you shouldn’t do that BUT . . . You know you shouldn’t say that BUT . . . Yes, God defined marriage this way, BUT those two people love each other! How can we say no to them? Yes, all life is important and valuable, BUT that person is suffering a whole lot, BUT that baby isn’t wanted, BUT that person is saying things I disagree with. I know I should forgive BUT . . . I know I shouldn’t gossip BUT . . . I know I should love my spouse BUT . . . All those BUTS aren’t just wrong thoughts, words, and deeds, but wrong faith. That’s what God said isn’t right, or isn’t good enough, which means my heavenly Father isn’t right, isn’t good enough, isn’t trustworthy, isn’t true. The devil’s ifs, ands, and buts lead us away from life to death.

So in this battle now being waged here on earth, you fight fire with fire - you fight words with words. And we heard that today, in John’s vision, that they have conquered the devil by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. Victory comes by the Word and the blood, or, if you will, by the Word and Sacrament. The devil wants wiggle room. The devil wants loopholes, doubts, uncertainty. The devil wants to make the clear unclear, to lead us astray. And so against that our weapon is the sure and certain, clear and steadfast Word of God. What God said is true, good, and reliable. Period. That’s how Jesus fended off the devil’s attacks. That how Adam should have done so. And it’s how we can. 

And the blood of the Sacraments heals us when we are wounded in the battle. The blood that washes us, that absolves us, that feeds us, strengthens our faith and revives the life of God in us. When we baptize here, when we confess our sins, when we come to the altar, these are not peaceful things! This is the front lines of the battle for your soul, for your spiritual life. And the devil knows it. That’s why he wants to keep you away from these, for he knows how damaging they are to him and his cause. Now, how is he trying to do that with you? Maybe by making you too busy. Maybe by stirring up controversy. Maybe by making these gifts seem insignificant, or boring, and other things more important and exciting . . . 

Maybe if we could really see what’s going on here . . . like the disciples in the Holy Gospel we heard. Jesus had sent them out with His authority, and they returned with amazement, reporting to Jesus, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name! Maybe if we got to see that! You know, some demons writhing on the ground here, or flying away, screaming . . .

But just because we cannot see that, doesn’t make it not true, doesn’t mean it’s not happening! And maybe it’s better that we don’t see that, just like we weren’t given a glimpse of the war in heaven. 

Instead, when the disciples pointed this out to Jesus, so filled with excitement that Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name! Jesus points them to something even greater than that. He says: don’t get so worked up about that. Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. 

You see, we like the spectacular. The fast and flashy video games. The sensational stuff on the news. Satan being cast down from heaven. Big crowds, miracles, stuff like that. Stuff that’ll really bring ‘em in! Jesus points to a book. Now compare this! 100,000 people filling a stadium, cheering for their team . . . and people in a library filled with books. Jesus! Look at that! We want that! And Jesus says: look at this! This is greater. That your name is written in the book, as Daniel said.

And to continue with Daniel for a moment . . . there shall be trouble, he was told. Maybe we haven’t even seen the worst of it yet. But your people shall be delivered, he is promised. And there will be life and righteousness, forever and ever. The trouble will end, the life will not. When Daniel wrote that, God’s people had seen some trouble. They were living in Babylon. The Temple had been destroyed. Jerusalem had been destroyed. Their nation was no more. Gone. It seemed like the bad guys were winning. The hornets were swarming, with no end in sight.

When Jesus’ disciples came back to Him that day and said, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name! they saw hope. Cracks. The beginning of their deliverance. A deliverance that would be completed not in a grand show of power for all the world to see - not yet. It was a deliverance witnessed by just a couple of women, in a garden, on a quiet and peaceful Sunday morning. A few days before that, it was all hornets! The swarm all mercilessly attacking Jesus, all on Him who couldn’t swat them away for His hands and feet were nailed down. Until they took Him down. Until He died an ugly death. Because it was not enough for Jesus to just deliver us from the devil and his angels - He came to deliver us from enemies even greater: sin and death. And for that, He had to die Himself. And then the victory was an empty tomb. 

And because of that, not only are the demons subject to Jesus’ name, so is sin and so is death. So we baptize in Jesus’ name, and with that water your name is written in the book in blood. We absolve in Jesus’ name, and your sins are cast down. We feast in Jesus’ name, His table, His food, His Body and Blood - and the Bread of Life gives you everlasting life. And when Jesus returns - on that day when there will be a great and mighty show for all the world to see - the heavens that the devil and his angels were kicked OUT of, you will be ushered INTO. And so in one of our hymns we sing, Lord, let us last Thine angels come, to Abram’s bosom bear me home (LSB #708 v. 3).

The war in heaven was a great victory, no doubt. But it was the fight waged on the cross that was even greater. So that’s what the devil doesn’t want you to see, doesn’t want you to believe, doesn’t want you to receive. Don’t eat that food, from the tree of life! Look at this fruit! Doesn’t it look good? You’ll love it! Oh, I know, God said don’t do that, say that. BUT . . . your life will be better, happier, richer! Trust me. Would I lead you astray? I’m on your side . . . 

Don’t click on those words! They kind of sound like that email or text you got recently, from that “Nigerian prince” or that “poor widow” with millions of dollars that they want to give to you! Don’t they sound like that? Put your phone down, close the computer, and read and hear and receive the Word of truth, the words of life. God’s Word with no ifs, ands, or especially no buts! Only truth, only life, only Jesus.

And one day you’ll see. One day those angels will come for you, to bear you home. The angels who won the war in heaven, who proclaimed Jesus’ birth, who announced His victory at the grave, and the angels and archangels who join us here. They don’t save you, they can’t. But they serve the one who can, and did. The one wrote your name in the heavenly book in His own blood. 

So today we remember and thank God for the angels. But as the angels are always reminding people in the Bible who saw them, don’t thank them! Don’t worship them! They’re just doing their job. Thank the Lord who won the war, and even better, gives that victory to you.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.