Grace, Mercy, and
Peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
Amen
For
which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first
sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to
finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying,
‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’
In the Name of Jesus
Have you ever made a change in vocation, a change in
employment, a change type of work, in your life? What was that like? It’s not the most comfortable at first is
it. While I haven’t made a major change
in vocation, nor to I intend to do so, I have had some unrelated jobs through
the years. I started working at a Lutheran camp doing maintenance. Mowing lawns, picking up garbage, painting,
pool cleaning, I even had a chance to build a covered wagon. After that job, I went to work in
retail. Nothing from the maintenance job
prepared me for what I would do in retail.
Then after a couple of years of doing inventory, stocking shelves,
learning how to run cash registers, I moved into a business office where I
imputed numbers all day every day. My
job choices didn’t really build off each other.
Each time I started the next job it was a clean, fresh start.
With major job changes in life, there is more of a risk at
stake. What is it going to cost to learn
the skills required? Once the skills are
acquired, how available are the jobs?
Where am I going to have to move to find said jobs? You have to calculate every step of the
process. One wrong calculation, one
missed number and the whole formula is off and failure could be close at
hand.
Our text this day is all about a life change, and a very
critical one at that. We are all
familiar with the concept that is being talked about by our Lord. Now great crowds accompanied
him, and he turned and said to them, “If
anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children
and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear
his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. At
face value it sounds pretty harsh doesn’t it.
Especially verse 26, If anyone comes to me and does
not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and
sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
But what is our Lord really saying? Is he really calling us to denounce parents,
siblings, wife, and children? This isn’t
the first time that Jesus alludes to this thought of turning from family and it
is in these other verses we more about what Jesus is talking about. He says things like My mother and my brothers
are those who hear the word of
God and do it. He says that
houses will be divided over following him.
And maybe the most important and most relevant to us this morning and
our Gospel, he says in chapter 9, As
they were going along the road, someone
said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to
him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the
Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To
another he said, “Follow me.” But
he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said
to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim
the kingdom of God.” Yet
another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but
let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No
one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of
God.”
A big life change.
One that had a lot of risks, a lot of requirements involved. The change from our sinful life to a life of
picking up our cross and following Jesus is drastic and dramatic. Let’s look at our former life, a life with
which we are all still in touch with.
The life of sin is one that we know so well. A life at which we don’t need to work at to
be good. Take the illustration into mind
that our Lord uses, which you heard at the beginning of this sermon.
We know how to build the base of a sinful life. In fact it really wasn’t even our doing. Because of the fall into sin, because, as
David says, in sin did my mother conceive me, the sin we commit comes naturally
to us. The base, the foundation, of sin
is always present. This is the life that
our Lord is telling us we need to leave.
And this life we have left. We
were all brought to the font, washed, marked, and made God’s child. There a sledge hammer was taken to the
foundation of sin and it was shattered.
But the replacing foundation, the true foundation, is much harder for us
to build, indeed even we cannot.
But when we become God’s child, when we become his disciple
and pick up our cross and follow him, he himself becomes our foundation. A foundation that we had no part in
laying. Remember our Lord’s words, you
did not choose me but I chose you. You are a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the
excellencies of him who called you out
of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people,
but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have
received mercy.
Christ
bore the Cross, he bore even our crosses making it possible for us to carry
them. Because of Christ, bearing our
crosses, picking them up and following him, does not mean death. Christ came to earth to be perfect, suffer,
die, and rise again and by doing so became the foundation for our faith. The Holy Spirit is able to work faith in us
because Christ has purchased and won us with his blood. We, who once were even crushed by the
foundation of sin have overcome that and now stand firm on the foundation of
Christ. It is no coincidence that we
sing things like Christ is our Cornerstone or Christ is made the sure
foundation or even the Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.
As
Christ conquered, as he shattered, smashed, the sinful force within us, he
calls us to look to his cross, the cross of Calvary. It is there that we are strengthen against
sin, death, and the devil all of which he condemned to a life of torment on
that tree. Here is it that that
sacrifice comes to us in, with, and under the bread and the wine. The building blocks of faith. The Word and Sacraments. The Foundation given to you.
Yet, this is more than the laying of a foundation. It is the building of a heavenly
dwelling. Left on our own, the
foundation with sit exposed, like in the parable, and over time it would crack
and become unusable. But the Holy Spirit
has built on that foundation. He works
faith in us through the hearing of Scripture.
He brings you here to get the materials needed for the building of a
strong tower. In time you will realize
that you are not an independent tower, you are not a lonely believer. Through the hearing, the strengthening, the
building you will realize that you are being grafted into the ONE who is our
strong, mighty fortress, our ever present help in trouble.
You are brought into the family of believers, the family of
God. Look around you, this is your heavenly
family. Those who hear the Word as Jesus
says. Don’t hate your family, your
earthly family that God gives you. But
put God first as he is calling us to do in our reading. Flee from your former life, your life of sin,
for is of no use to you. Don’t look
back, as hard as it is, for you can’t return.
Remain in the strong fortress of Christ.
Look to his cross, learning how to bear your own. Knowing that he has paid the ultimate price, giving
his life.
And I am sure of this, that He who has begun a good work in you, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Amen
SOLI DEO GLORIA
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