The sermon for August 27 was based on Luke 18:9-14.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

In The Large Catechism's "Brief Exhortation to Confession," blessed Dr. Luther summed up the Christian life like this: "This is the essence of a genuinely Christian life, to acknowledge that we are sinners and to pray for grace." [LC 6:9] Everything you are and do as a Christian is summed up by those two things: acknowledging that you are a sinner and praying for grace. This is what the Lord Christ taught by the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. This is what you must learn and believe: if you will be a Christian, then you are to all the time acknowledge that you are a sinner and pray for grace. No trying to call yourself something other than what you are: a sinner in need of God's mercy. No trying to be saved by anything else than God's grace and mercy given to you in and through Jesus Christ.

Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector to save you. The Lord knows that you are only too ready and willing like the Pharisee—to speak or think wonderfully about yourself and badly about others. It is so easy to think you are a good and godly person and the rest of the people are ungodly. So easy to judge others while you have such a high opinion of yourself. The Pharisee, he marches into the temple and slaps God on the back. He's "buddy-buddy" with the Lord. He's a doer of good works and that makes God his pal. That is the religion of the world. That is the preaching of the TV preachers: Get on board with God and you can treat Him like He's your best bud to hang out with. Think like that and you won't walk out of here justified. Approach the Lord of heaven and earth as if you are some great example of what a good Christian is, and you cannot be saved. If you find that when you talk, the words that come out are all about others, then repent! If you take stock of your thoughts and find that they are directed against other people, then repent. If you realize that your heart and mind just loves to criticize others, judge them, talk badly about them, then do the real work of a Christian and repent! Acknowledge that you are a sinner and pray for God's grace in Jesus Christ.

Otherwise, sin will consume you and you will perish! This is what happened to Cain. Why did Cain kill Abel? The usual answer is that he was jealous of his younger brother. But jealous of what? What really happened? Simply this: Abel worshiped like the tax collector. He came before God with nothing but the promise by which the Lord promised to cover his sins. Abel, whose name means "nothing" confessed before God that he was indeed nothing apart from God's promises. Cain, on the other hand, supposed he was a real godly type, a real religious person. Cain, whose name means "got something" thought that he was indeed "something" before God. Thus the Lord respected Abel's offering, and He had grace upon Abel. But the Lord didn't respect Cain's because Cain thought he could make the Lord notice him by his good works. Instead of hearing his father's preaching of repentance and faith in God's promise, Cain hardened his heart and killed his brother and was banished from God's sight. Such is the end of those who despise the righteousness of God and seek to live in their own standing before God. So you should learn both from the Pharisee and from Cain to repent and seek God's mercy, to acknowledge truthfully that you are a sinner and to pray for the Lord's grace.

To do this, learn the prayer of the tax collector: "Lord, be merciful unto me, a sinner." What does this prayer mean? What does it confess? What is it asking? How shall the Lord answer this prayer? These simple words express simply and clearly that essence of the Christian life: to acknowledge that you are a sinner and to pray for grace. The tax collector is under no illusions as to what he deserves from God. For all of his sins, he deserves everlasting death and damnation. For every thought, word and deed which has neglected and despised God and His Word and turned against his neighbor, this publican knows that he is guilty. There is, however, one thing he has going for him and it is to this that he clings: God's mercy. "Lord, be merciful unto me, a sinner." On his own, from his own life, this tax collector is doomed. But with God's mercy he has hope. He's got a prayer. And he walked away justified, that is, saved, because of God's mercy in Christ.

The mercy that the Lord has on the tax collector is not just some vague notion that God just sort of likes people and lets them have a second chance. The only mercy the Lord has for the tax collector is the only mercy He offers everyone in the world: that He sends His Son to live your life and die your death. That the Son of God comes into this world, born of the Virgin, lives a perfect life, suffers and dies on the cross in order to wipe out your sins. The mercy for which the tax collector teaches you to pray is the mercy the Lord has upon you by washing you with water and His word at the font. The mercy the Lord gives is to absolve you through the words of men called to forgive your sins in Christ's stead and by His comand. The mercy of God is that He feeds you with the Body and Blood of Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. God's mercy is poured out upon you through the Holy Spirit as He comes to you through Christ's Word and Sacraments and your ears are filled with the promises of God in Christ. In short, to live as a Christian is to acknowledge that you are a sinner and to pray for grace. That is, to recognize and learn and believe and confess that you are nothing of yourself but that you are everything in Christ. That in Christ, your Father has taken you who cannot even lift your eyes to Him because of your sins, and He has lifted up your eyes, and smiled upon you through His Son.

Have no doubt that if you live by such mercy, those who live by their own righteousness will look down upon you and hate you. Just look at Cain and Abel. Abel lived by faith, trusting in God's promised mercy. So Cain killed him. The tax collector quietly pleaded God's mercy while the Pharisee despised and judged him. Understand that if you live by the righteousness of Christ, that is, if your hope is in your Baptism, and Christ's Body and Blood, and your confidence is in the promises of Christ as you learn in the Scriptures and recite in the Catechism—if that is where your hope and trust are, then those who find their confidence in themselves will despise you. They will hate you. They will go after you. They will seek to take you down and even to kill you. But never mind them! Just pray with the tax collector: "Lord, be merciful unto me, a sinner." That prayer is answered for you in Christ, at the font, by the ministry of your Pastors and at this altar.

The essence, the center, the sum of the Christian life is this: To acknowledge that you are a sinner and to pray for grace. For you are saved by God's mercy to you through Jesus Christ. Those who despise that righteousness and lift themselves up will be cast down by the Lord into the lowest depths of hell. But those who are low in their sins, the Lord promises to raise up in Christ. "Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner." Thanks be to God; He has such mercy upon you in Jesus Christ. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes . . .

Last Updated: 5/27/2009