Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Luke 17,5-6. The 15th Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

Luke 17,5-6 4513

15. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 060

Nativity of Mary

Corbinian, Bishop of Freising, Bavaria, Apostle to Bavaria, † 730

8. September 2013

1. Keep, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy Church with Thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by Thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation. Amen (The Book of Common Prayer, 15. Sunday after Trinity).

2. The apostles said to the Lord: „Add to us faith!“ And the Lord said: „If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, then you could say to this mulberry tree: ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you“ (Luke 17:5-6).

3. Mulberry trees grow quickly when they are young, but they soon grow much more slowly so that they reach an average height between 33-49 feet tall. These trees look like oversized bushes, for their branches grow from their trunks very close to the ground. They produce red or black berries that are about an inch long. Mustard seeds are yellow or black round seeds between 1-2 millimeters in diameter.

4. The apostles had asked Jesus to increase their faith. But why do the apostles want Jesus to add to their faith? They realized that they might take pure doctrine lightly and cause people to stumble. At this point in Jesus’ ministry, no one, not the disciples nor the apostles, have the faith Jesus seeks. In Luke 17 no one truly understands and comprehends Jesus and His ministry; such faith will not be given and received until after His resurrection. They also realized that they failed to forgive their neighbors as their Heavenly Father has forgiven them. Therefore, they asked Jesus to add to their faith. The apostles’ request arises from their recognition that they are unable to do what Jesus has exhorted of them because they lack the necessary faith (Just 645).

5. How often does the apostles’ petition flow from our lips or mull around in our thoughts? I suspect most Christians would say they want an addition of faith. We see the great expectations that God has for us, and we see how miserably we disappoint God. We do not love God with all our heart, and we do not love our neighbor. We fail to rebuke our neighbor concerning sin so that they will repent and receive forgiveness. We do not think about the consequences of sin. When others sin against us, we are quick to refuse to forgive them. We hear and know that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, but we often do not live trusting Jesus to be our life and salvation.

6. Jesus’ words to the apostles offer them encouragement (Just 645). „Even though the apostles do not realize it, they have enough faith to do miraculous things, even something as remarkable as transplanting a mulberry tree, with its deep root system, into the sea“ (Just 645). The apostles will be given the faith to preach the gospel, heal the sick and teach the faith (Just 645). Jesus will add to their faith so they can forgive seven times a day and show how true healing in the reign of God takes place (Just 645).

7. You also have the faith to do miraculous things. You have heard the gospel proclaimed by the apostles and have received their teachings as recorded in the Holy Scriptures and passed down through the Church’s liturgy and tradition. Jesus adds to your faith so you can support the proclamation of the gospel through your support of this church. Jesus forgives you and He adds to your faith so you can forgive others.

8. The hiddenness of the reign of God in their preaching, healing and forgiving may make the apostles feel as if they do not have enough faith, but like a mustard seed, the smallness of their faith in Christ conceals Christ’s great power and through the apostles Christ will produce great wonders for the reign of God (Just 645). Jesus fulfilled His promise to the apostles, and we are the fruit that has been born from that promise.

9. In His Beatitudes this morning, Jesus exhorts His disciples: »Seek first the reign of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you« (Matthew 6,33). This is why Jesus encouraged His apostles; Jesus knew that the Holy Spirit had created faith in them to receive His gospel and believe in Him as the Christ and the Son of God. They did not fully comprehend what they believed early in His ministry, but Jesus knew that through His patient teaching and the working of the Holy Spirit after His resurrection that the apostles and disciples would truly understand what it was that had already believed.

10. The reign of God and His righteousness are the objects of what faith believes. Jesus arrived to inaugurate the reign of God. Indeed, through His teaching and miracles, Jesus proclaimed that the reign of God was already in the midst of the disciples. The reign of God is the in-breaking of God’s reign in His fallen creation so that sickness, sin, death and the devil are all dealt with and defeated. The reign of God is the working of Jesus to remove the curse that His Father had imposed upon sinful mankind and creation. God the Father has subjected creation to futility, and creation eagerly longs for and awaits for the last day when Jesus returns and frees it from its bondage to decay and is set free to thrive in its originally created glory and grandeur (Romans 8,19-20). Jesus’ death and resurrection has initiated this end times reign, but this reign will not be brought to completion until Jesus returns on the last day.

11. God’s righteousness is His holiness and perfection that Jesus, as the True Son of God, has as one of His Divine attributes. Moses tells us in Genesis that Yahweh created man in His Divine image and likeness (Genesis 1,26). »So Elohim (God) created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them« (Genesis 1,27). Elohim created Adam and Eve in His image and likeness; He gave them His own Divine righteousness. This original righteousness has been lost to men and women since Adam fell into sin and passed onto his descendants the curse of sin, so that we are now born with original sin. Jesus arrived to undo this curse of sin and restore His image and likeness to His fallen men and women.

12. The Apostle Paul, quoting the Prophet Habakkuk, proclaims: »The righteous will live by faith« (Habakkuk 2,4; Romans 1,17). Right now, on account of faith in Christ, you are righteous. You may not feel righteous. You might be aware of your faults, sins and flaws, but you are righteous because Jesus has imputed His own righteousness upon you. Jesus now declares you righteous. The Apostle Paul masterfully explains this gospel. He writes: »Sin came into the world through Adam, and death thus entered the world through sin, and so death spread to all men and women because all sinned. As one sin led to condemnation for all men and women, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men and women. For as by Adam’s disobedience all people were made sinners, so by Jesus’ obedience all people are made righteous« (Romans 5,12.18-19). The first Adam brought sin and the curse into mankind; the second Adam, Jesus, brought forgiveness and righteous to mankind. Faith receives and believes this gospel that is manifested in Christ Jesus.

13. You have this faith in Jesus, and He has sent the Holy Spirit to add to your faith. The Holy Spirit adds to you the providence that you have in Jesus. He assures you that Jesus will provide for you and all your needs. He will bless you with food, home, clothing, family, friends, job, a peaceable and just government, good weather, preservation from calamities and other sufferings. When the curse of this world impedes upon these blessings, the Holy Spirit gives you the strength to rely upon and trust in Christ who bears your persecution, suffering and tribulation with you. Indeed, Jesus takes your heavy burden from you and bears it upon His own shoulders and gives you His light and heavenly burden which is easier to bear. Such is the fruit of faith in Jesus. Though that faith be as small as a minuscule mustard seed, yet it blossoms into a strong and healthy mustard tree that weathers all the storms of this wicked world. You have this promise through Jesus, who Himself endured the worst the world can deliver, and He came through on the other side victorious. His righteousness is your righteousness, and His victory is your victory. Amen.

14. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, You are good! We take refuge in You and we are blessed; help us to direct others to You so that they may find rest and refuge in Your righteous arms. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Luke 17,5-6. The 15th Sunday after Trinity

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