WEEKLY SERMON
Advent 2
1 Corinthians 4:1-5 – Messengers and Receivers Prepare Together!
December 5-7, 2009
by: Pastor Wessel
1 Corinthians 4:1-5 –1So then, men ought to regard us as
servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.
2Now it is required that those who have been given a trust
must prove faithful. 3I care very little if I am judged by
you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4My
conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord
who judges me. 5Therefore judge nothing before the appointed
time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in
darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each
will receive his praise from God.
Introduction –
What different kinds of preparations are you making this time of year?
Do you have deadlines at work that you have to complete before
Christmas? Do have cleaning and cooking to do as you prepare for
relatives to come? Are you involved in Christmas services and have to
prepare songs?
In order to have the events of our life run smoothly, it is good
to be well prepared. When you are unprepared, that can be one of the
worst feelings, like you’re caught in a sailboat in a powerful storm and
you can do your best to control the boat, but ultimately the stronger
forces of the wind and the waves are just going to take you and you are
just along for the ride. When the responsibility of family and work and
school combine into one powerful force, do you feel like you are
sometimes along for the ride and there is no possible way you can manage
it all? When you prepare for tomorrow, there can be great benefits. When
you fail to prepare for tomorrow, there can be negative consequences,
some worse than others.
In the season of Advent, we talk about preparing. What are we
preparing for? Are we baking cookies for our company? Are we cleaning
the house? Are we practicing the big song? Are we finishing up the end
of the year tasks? Well, we are preparing for a guest, we are preparing
for the boss, and we are practicing a song, but maybe in a different way
than you think. The guest is Jesus, he is our Lord that we want to
serve, and we use our lives to sing praise to him. We prepare to
celebrate the birth of our Savior, prepare for him to come to us each
day with his word of grace, and prepare for him to come again. No matter
where you think you fit in this room today, God makes clear to us that
it is important to be prepared for Jesus at all times. We prepare our
hearts, whether we are a messenger of God’s Word or a receiver of God’s
Word.
Messengers and Receivers Prepare Together!
1. Messengers must prepare by being faithful with their message
2. Receivers must prepare by taking the message to heart
The messenger who gets the most attention this weekend is John, who
announced to the people of Judea that the kingdom of God was near. He
told people to repent of their sins and turn to God for refreshing. He
turned the attention of the people to the coming of Jesus, the promised
one of God. John came to prepare the hearts of the people to receive the
Lord.
In the city of Corinth, in Ancient Greece, there were a number of
messengers who had come and proclaimed Jesus Christ of Nazareth to be
the Savior of the world. Especially, the apostle Paul had brought the
good news. Paul recognized the great calling he had received from Christ
Jesus himself to be the servant of Christ. He had the joy of managing
the mysteries of God, the wonderful truth about how we are saved that
can be known only because God reveals it to us. The fact that Christ
came to be our Savior is a mystery because it is not a truth that can be
discovered through scientific experimentation and observation.
Mathematical equations cannot explain the grace of God. God has to tell
us about his grace and it is the responsibility of the messengers of God
to speak God’s words to his people.
We never want to underestimate the importance of a faithful
messenger of God. The word in itself is powerful and we are blessed by
the work of messengers who have been dead for many years, leaving the
legacy of God’s Word for us. But in our world today, God still calls
individuals to serve his people with message of his law and his grace.
Messengers must prepare for the Lord by being faithful with their
message. Servants of Christ, those entrusted with the secret things of
God, have great responsibility and great accountability before the Lord.
God warns us not to add to or subtract from his word. He calls us to be
prepared with God’s Word when it is convenient and not convenient, be
prepared to teach, rebuke, correct, and encourage.
There is great harm to God’s people when ministers are unfaithful
in their responsibilities. When they do not proclaim the Word of God
truthfully, when they are careless or lazy, or abuse their positions
within God’s church, they themselves are in danger and may not be
prepared for the coming of our Lord Jesus.
“Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove
faithful”
That is a general statement, of course, that applies to many different
situations in life. But especially when we speak of God’s servants, who
work for the spiritual well-being of God’s children, faithfulness to God
is key.
A time will comes when the Lord reveals what is in the hearts of all
people. When our Lord Jesus returns for the final judgment, we will see
clearly who was a faithful servant of Christ and faithful with the
management of the mysteries of God. Until that time comes, you must use
God’s Word to evaluate the words of preachers and teachers. Be faithful
with the word yourself, read and digest it in your mind, search it, and
do all you can to understand it, so that you can hear clearly whether or
not one speaks for God.
Pray that I and your pastors and all pastors be faithful. As you have
been blessed by pastors preaching the deep mysteries of the Bible to
you, we as pastors have also been blessed by other ministers who, by
God’s grace have been faithful to their calling. Of such people, the
writer to the Hebrews says,
“Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the
outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.”(Hebrews 13:7)
Paul and John are wonderful
examples for ministers of God to follow. They proclaimed God’s word
boldly and clearly, because by faith, they knew that people needed to
hear it. Sadly, those who didn’t want to hear the Word from their lips
persecuted and killed them.
The very same Word that they proclaimed was the Word that fed their
faith as well. When messengers of God are faithful with the message,
they make sure that they always apply it to themselves as well. The Holy
Spirit had made them messengers, filling them with faith in our Lord
Jesus Christ before they proclaimed the truths of that faith to others.
None of us has hearts that are ready by themselves. We are all sinners
in need of hope and healing. Faithful ministers recognize their need for
a Savior from sin to prepare their hearts, just as they proclaim to us
our need for a Savior from sin to prepare our hearts.
2. Receivers must prepare by taking the message to heart
By telling the Corinthians to wait until the appointed time to make
their judgment and letting the Lord make the judgment, he is basically
guiding them to refocus on Christ. Their congregation had been split
because some members seemed to admire Paul more, others Simon Peter, and
others a man named Apollos. Paul had to remind the Christians that he,
like the others, proclaimed Jesus Christ crucified and risen as our
Savior. So, although there may have been a difference when it came to
speaking ability or personality, the message was consistent. There
wasn’t even a question that one of these men may have been teaching
false statements about God’s Word. Were they being faithful? Yes! So the
congregation in Corinth should respect them and prepare themselves by
taking to heart the message of God’s Word from Paul and the others.
It is not up to us when we receive God’s Word to filter it. We do
not get to pick and choose what we want to believe and what we want to
set aside. We place our will, our desires, everything about us, in a
position where we look to God’s Word as the authority that governs our
lives.
To prepare a recipe, you need to assemble the ingredients. Flour,
eggs, baking soda, sugar. They all work together in your baking. In
preparing for the coming of the Lord, who brings everything together on
the last day, we need sorrow over our sin, a repentant heart that
eagerly wants to turn away from that sin, and a faith filled hope that
latches on to the promise of eternal life in Christ.
What other ingredients so often get into the mix? Do you look too
long and too often at what we have in life (or don’t have) and find
yourself very “unsatisfied” because you haven’t been able to meet your
goals? Do you mix in a selfish desire for acceptance and think you’ve
only made it when everyone likes you? Do you mix in a deep desire for
something you know you shouldn’t have? What things get mixed into your
life that mess up your preparation for the Lord? What things turn your
eyes away from God? What glitters like a shiny ornament and attracts
your attention a little too long, long enough to put your soul and maybe
other aspects of your life into a danger zone?
The devil wants to catch you off guard. He doesn’t want
messengers or receivers to be prepared for the Lord. Your enemy the
devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
He can take a bite a lot easier, if you aren’t awestruck this year by
the Son of God becoming a human like you and me, but instead, because
you are used to it, may not think more deeply than, “Yeah, Jesus was
born in Bethlehem. My Savior. Nothing new. I’ve known this for years.”
The sinful nature is fed very well when your worship of God is a
footnote in your week that says, “If possible, take time to thank God
for Jesus” instead of your worship of God being a permanent part of your
day, with your prayers reaching out to him always and your ears eager to
hear him speaking his encouraging words.
Spiritual procrastination is a danger for each and every one of
us – yes, even us who serve in the public ministry. A procrastinator
thinks there is always time later. A planner realizes there may not be
time later. One the one hand, God tells us not to worry about tomorrow;
on the other hand, he warns us not to be caught unprepared for what
tomorrow may bring. In all things, God calls us to look to him, for the
many needs of today and for the uncertainty of the future. We are truly
prepared when we place everything into the hands of God, trusting in the
salvation that God has given to us through our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ.
Conclusion –
We thank God today for those who have shared the word with us, so that
we have been brought to faith in our Lord Jesus. By God’s grace,
faithful servants administer the mysteries of the gospel in Baptism and
the Lord’s Supper, they proclaim the truths hidden from our eyes but
revealed to our faithful hearts. We have been blessed because God has
prepared their hearts for his coming and he uses them to prepare our
hearts. Preparation is never done until the task is complete. Your may
get everything done well in advance of Christmas, but until the day
arrives, you are still in a state of preparation, anticipating, looking
ahead to a wonderful day. Your life as a Christian is the preparation of
a wonderful day. It is not the day when Christ gets to be with us as a
baby, but that wonderful day for which you prepare is the day Christ
calls you to be with him, the place where he is even now blessing you
with his love and protection. Amen.