June 19/20, 2011 sermon by Pastor Paul G. Eckert

June 19/20, 2011 Sermon by Pastor Paul G. Eckert
Trinity - Sermon based on various texts
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Last month I said that Mother’s Day was not a church festival, and I say the same thing now about Father’s Day. But let us tie both days together by saying that God compares Himself with both a mother and a father. In Isaiah 66:13 God says: "As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you." And in Psalm 103:13 He says: "As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him." What a comparison!
We can, however, go beyond a comparison and speak of God actually being God the Father. And that brings us to a mystery about our God that goes beyond our understanding. This Sunday, while it is used for Father’s Day thinking of earthly fathers, in the church year is called Trinity Sunday thinking of our heavenly Father who, with His Son and the Holy Spirit, is the one true God.
Now as we on Mother’s Day, with a little different format, talked about JESUS AND MOTHERS, so in a similar way this Father’s Day let us, keeping in mind the Trinity - Father, Son, and Spirit - talk about
JESUS AND FATHERS
1. JESUS AND HIS ETERNAL FATHER
Matthew 28:19 Jesus said, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ---."
1. Notice the singular name (in the name of) and not names, and
then three persons mentioned: Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
Genesis 2:26 Then God said, "Let us make man ---."
2. Notice the plural us. One God, yet He says, "Let us."
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3. So God was there and the Spirit was there in the beginning. But
was the Son also there with the Father and the Spirit?
John 1:14, 1-3 Referring to Jesus we are told: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.... In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
4. The Son was there too, wasn’t He!
5. But why was God’s Son sent, why did He become flesh? Listen!
John 3:16-17 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
6. And what made this necessary for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
2. JESUS AND THE FIRST FATHER
1. The first mother, Eve, sinned; but Adam was right there.
Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
2. Sin came. And now Adam, the first father, with Eve, the first
mother, passed on to all people something besides body parts.
Romans 5:12 Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned ---.
3. That is why God so loved the world, loved it enough to send
His Son to do something about mankind’s eternal problem.
1 Corinthians 15:22 As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
4. How wonderfully this grace is summed up in Romans 3.
Romans 3:22-24 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
5. What a God we have, the one and only true God, Father and Son
and Holy Spirit! To Him be praise and glory forever!
6. But now let us move on more rapidly with our sermon points.
3. JESUS AND ANCESTOR FATHERS
1. The first ancestor I’ll pick out of Jesus’ family tree is Abraham John 8:56-58 Here Jesus said about Abraham, "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and
was glad." "You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to
him, "and you have seen Abraham!" "I tell you the truth," Jesus
answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
2. Yes, Jesus is the eternal Son of God who became flesh for us.
3. Another well known ancestor in Jesus’ family line is King David.
Luke 1:31-33 "[Mary] will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
4. Jesus, the Son of the Most High, would be our victorious eternal King. But now let’s go back to Jesus’ birth and to His youth.
4. JESUS AND HIS GUARDIAN FATHER
1. This was Joseph, a good and an honorable man
Matthew 1:18-19, 24-25 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly....
2. Then God sent an angel to Joseph with this result.
[Joseph] did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
3. To this guardian father Jesus gave honor and respect, like when
He was found after being left behind at age 12 in the temple.
Luke 2:51 Then [Jesus] went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.
4. Children, Jesus obeyed the 4th commandment perfectly for us.
Ask God’s help to do the same, and not just on Father’s Day.
5. JESUS AND PRAYER TO OUR FATHER
1. We might think of Jesus’ long prayer to His Father in John 17, or
His prayer in Gethsemane that His Father’s will be done. But we
might think especially of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray.
Matthew 6:9-13 "This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father
in heaven, ---.’"
2. Marvel at the Lord’s Prayer our Lord gave us, at the fact that He
encourages us to pray "Our Father." Did you catch that
"Our"? Jesus says that we should call His Father our Father.
Only Jesus has made that possible. Only through faith in Jesus
are we members of God’s family and can call His Father our
Father. The next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer think a bit
more of those opening two words: Our Father.
6. JESUS AND A FATHER’S SON
1. A father’s son could apply to many.
2. I here am thinking of a son named Rufus. Sound familiar?
3. His father, Simon, had helped carry Jesus’ cross to Golgotha.
Mark 15:21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.
4. It seems clear that his son followed in his footsteps, because the
Apostle Paul in his Romans letter refers to a man named Rufus.
Romans 16:13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord ---.
5. May God help us to take up our crosses and follow in the same
footsteps, ready to confess Jesus in a world that will deny Him.
Luke 9:23 Jesus says this to us: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."
7. JESUS AND HIS FORSAKING FATHER
1. Marvel at this!
Mark 15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" - which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
2. Why? You and I and the whole world - we are the answer.
3. The wages of sin had to be paid; with His innocent death for us
the guilty, Jesus paid, Jesus endured the hell we deserved.
4. Now we are forgiven not forsaken! Now we have eternal
assurance that God will never forsake us.
Hebrews 13:5 God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
8. JESUS AND HIS RECEIVING FATHER
1. The price for our salvation having been paid, Jesus proclaimed
His victory in a loud voice.
John 19:30 Jesus said, "It is finished."
2. Jesus’ resurrection was God’s proof positive that Jesus’ mission
was successfully finished, completed, that Jesus was no longer
forsaken, but that He had been received as the victorious Savior.
Acts 17:31 "For [God] has set a day when he will judge the world
with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of
this to all men by raising him from the dead."
3. Listen also to these words.
Philippians 2:8-11 Being found in appearance as a man, [Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
9. JESUS AND HIS FATHER’S HOUSE
1. Jesus was received, He returned to His eternal glory.
2. Now that glory will welcome us too. Listen to Jesus referring to
His Father and then to His promise about His Father’s House.
John 14:6, 2-3 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. --- In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."
3. What a promise! We’ll be home! With Jesus! And then we "will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
Praise God the Father for sending His Son to be our Savior. Praise God the Son for being willing to be forsaken in our place so that we need not be forsaken. Praise God the Holy Spirit for bringing that message into our hearts by Word and Sacraments, for working faith in our hearts by the Gospel message of salvation in Jesus.
Truly knowing God revealed in His Son and brought to us by the Spirit, that makes every day for us children of God a special Father’s Day.