"Stand Firm As Christ's Body In These Evil Days!" 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

August 08, 2021
Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

Jesus wept over Jerusalem - destruction of the Temple would come in 70 AD, but they wouldn't listen to Christ's Word. Jesus is our Peace - He comes to visit us with forgiveness, life, and salvation in Word and Salvation! The 10th after Trinity commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem - may we repent and cling to Jesus - our only Hope and Peace. Sermon Text; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. Sermon Theme: "Stand Firm As Christ's Body In These Evil Days!" preached for 10th Sunday after Trinity, 8-July-2021, at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Tell City, Indiana by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert.

Episode Notes

The Tenth Sunday After Trinity                                         8-August-21

Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Sermon Theme: “Stand Firm As Christ’s Body In These Evil Days!”

      by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert


I.N.R.I. Jesus wept. Recently He stood in a cemetery in Bethany weeping. His friend Lazarus dead our Lord groaned within Himself. Death hurts, it isn’t our friend, it isn’t natural. Death is the wages paid by sin since the day Adam rebelled against the Creator and His life giving Word. Adam, deceived by Satan’s lies, bowed down to the idol named, “ME.” Death passed to us all, for we are conceived and born in Adam’s sin, captured by Satan, deluded by our self-idolatry, and chained by death and its fear.

        Jesus wept at a dead man’s grave, but there is hope - dead Lazarus will hear His Creator’s voice calling him from the corruption of the grave to life. Lazarus while living had heard the voice of Jesus and by the grace of the Holy Spirit clung to Him as his only Hope for deliverance from sin, Satan, and death. Jesus speaks to a dead man and he listens. Lazarus rises to new life and is freed from his grave clothes.

         Jesus weeps in today’s Gospel. Death is drawing near for an entire city - for an entire nation whom He loved. He is broken hearted. How often Jesus tried to woo her preaching His life giving Word in her walls. Rising up early, staying up late, placing His Living Word into the mouth of His prophets. Calling her to turn from sin, return to Him and live! They would not listen. Jesus is the Word of the Lord throughout all the Old Testament preaching by His prophets. Some they mocked, scourged, chained, imprisoned, sawed in two, or slew with the sword. They refused to hear the Word of the One who alone could bring them peace. Lying prophets preached to them a Christ-less Cross-less peace - which was no peace. Holding fast to deceitful lusts they turned God’s mercy into a license to freely break God’s Commandments. Having no shame they couldn’t even blush. God gave them what they wanted. He removed His Word from their nation and allowed the Babylonian empire to lay siege to Jerusalem. History records that on August 9th, 586 B.C. the Babylonian army breeched the Temple mount and burned Solomon’s temple to the ground and turning Jerusalem into a pile of rubble. The survivors were taken to be slaves in Babylon for seventy years. Rejecting the Word of the Lord they had no wisdom, their nation was destroyed.

       Jesus weeps. The Word of the Lord entered our history through the womb of the Virgin Mary. He came preaching, “Mar 1:15 "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." The Lord God had sent His only begotten Son to the vineyard of Jerusalem - surely they would listen to Him. They don’t. He weeps. Within a week they will collude with Rome to have Him crucified. He rises. Their city is doomed. History records on August 9th, 70 A.D. the Roman legions breeched the Temple mount in Jerusalem, leveling it and the city to the ground, slaughtering its citizens, and selling any survivors into slavery for a penny a piece. They didn’t know the things that made for their peace. Rejecting God’s Word they had no wisdom and their nation was destroyed.

      We live in evil days. Western culture is dying. Rejecting God’s Word we have no wisdom. We don’t know evil from good, male from female, marriage from mating. Our idols of fear, scientism, power, control are crumbling. Do we know what makes for our peace? Today God the Holy Spirit calls us to repent. Turn away from the lies of this present evil age. The lies of popular culture. The lies we’ve allowed into our homes camouflaged as entertainment. Repent and believe in Christ Jesus - Hear His Word - for it alone is life, hope, and peace. God the Holy Spirit calls us to : “Stand Firm As Christ’s Body In These Evil Days!”

       Satan loves division in marriages, families, congregations, and nations. He tore Adam and his wife apart, set Cain against his brother Abel. The first century Jewish historian Josephus records that when the Roman general Titus had laid siege to Jerusalem in 70A.D. they had plenty of food within the city to last for years. Zealots, in order to stir up the people to fight, burned the stores of grain. Division among the people meant that they would starve to death some resorting to cannibalism before their destruction came.

          Satan had stirred up division in Paul’s congregation in Corinth. One party claimed to follow this former pastor, another that one, still another some other famous name among the apostles. Paul rebukes them for Christ is not divided. Living in these evil days beware of Satan stirring up division in our congregation over which pastor we claim to hear. (Vs.1-2). The gifts of the Holy Spirit bind us together as brothers and sisters in the family of Christ. They don’t bring division. God the Holy Spirit doesn’t lead us away silently into lust, desire, and death. He isn’t a dumb idol that says nothing as we follow our feelings. He is the Lord and Giver of Life who speaks through the pen of the prophets and apostles. He graciously breaks our sinful stubborn self-serving wills to keep us in the Father’s Word and Faith in Christ Jesus until we die.

           How can you tell the difference between a false preacher and true preacher (vs.3) Does the preacher that you are listening to preach only Christ Jesus and Him crucified and risen as your Hope? Or does the preacher tell you that you can live your best life now as you take a little Jesus and do the rest yourself? To call Jesus accursed is to preach that He hasn’t done all for your salvation - you have to add your own effort - salting it with the popular lie - “God helps those who help themselves.” To call Jesus accursed is to preach that faith alone in God’s grace alone in Christ alone doesn’t save the sinner. It is to put our feelings, our love, our experiences in the place of Christ Jesus and His clear Word of Promise.

     In these evil days the body of Christ stands firm as it listens only to preachers, whose appearance might be weak and speech contemptible, who hold only the Crucified and Risen Savior Jesus before your eyes as the only Sacrifice for sin - the Savior of all men, especially of them that believe by the power of the Holy Spirit.

      We confess: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. This is not a “one and done” experience. It isn’t that we can’t believe until the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel - then we can go through life on the power of our own reason and strength. This false deception is why many have their babies baptized and never feed them God’s Word in their homes daily and weekly bring them into the Lord’s House that the Holy Spirit might feed their faith. It is the lie that confirmation is the golden ticket to heaven and we don’t’ need to feast with Jesus weekly at His Table. We forget the second paragraph: In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. Satan, the evil spirit, separates us to pursue a homemade isolated spirituality, masquerading as an angel of light he leads us into darkness. God the Holy Spirit gathers us together in a living vital community. He keeps us with Jesus Christ in the one True faith through Christ’s Word preached, forgiveness poured, spoken, and fed us every Sunday with in the Lord’s House. In short He teaches us to confess “Jesus is Lord” not only with lip service, but with our lives - we want to be in the Lord’s House to receive His Cross won - empty tomb certified gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.

       Christ’s Body - the Church- stands firm in these evil days by returning daily to its birth. (Vs.4-6) Paul calls us back to our baptism. God the Holy Spirit gifts us with Faith in Jesus at the font. He equips us with different abilities to serve the body of the congregation as we live our faith in loving service. Later in this chapter He will remind us that as our physical bodies have many parts - so we have many different parts and functions within our congregation. We are not all eyes or ears -the Holy Spirit has set us individually into the body of Christ freeing us to serve one another in love.

      Christ Jesus calls us to different areas of service. He is our Lord who humbled Himself to become poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. He didn’t keep account or quit serving if no one recognized His effort - in fact while we were sinners He died for us. Learn from Him to persevere in serving one another in love - for it is the Lord Christ whom you are serving - no work is beneath you in the body of Christ - our local congregation.

       We might have different activities, but it is God the Father who created you in your mother’s womb and sustains you to this day - who is at work through you. He richly and daily supports your body and life. All you have, and all you He has graciously given you. Use your abilities, talents, time, and treasures to serve one another in the body of Christ. You are your brother’s keeper.

         God the Holy Spirit frees us to build each other up in Christ Jesus and His Word. (Vs.7) The gifts He gives are not self serving. When a cell in our physical body begins to live only for itself - it is called malignant - a cancer - living only for itself it destroys the body. Not you dear Christian, use your various talents to edify one another. (Vs.7-11) This isn’t a laundry list to see of what you can boast or brag about - these are all gifts of the Holy Spirit. He blesses different pastors with different abilities in fulfilling their office. Some are wise in Christ’s doctrine, others knowledgeable of God’s work in history, others never lose heart, others are gifted to expose false teachings, others are gifted in languages, still others in translating into our mother tongue. He blesses members of the congregation with different abilities also - these serve the whole body. God the Holy Spirit reminds us as members of the body of Christ, 1Co 12:25-27 that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. (26) And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. (27) Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.

           Jesus weeps. He weeps over nations who have rejected His Word of Life and are on the path to destruction. He weeps over congregations who have rejected God’s Word and torn themselves apart by their pride through Satanic deception. He weeps - and we comfort one another - with His Word, forgiveness, peace, hope. Amen.




Content Copyright Belongs to Emmanuel Lutheran Church
5761