In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It’s still a common thing nowadays for people to talk about “conviction” as if it were a virtue by itself. When an important public figure is honored, let’s say at their retirement party, or maybe a funeral, often times you’ll hear it said that he was a man of great conviction. “He always did what he thought was right,” and “he never backed down from his principles.” The idea that someone has strong beliefs about certain things, and that they let those beliefs guide their life, is seen by many as an objective good no matter what. In fact, in some cases its even viewed as a cause of salvation.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but ever since the Second Vatican Council, this is actually the official doctrinal position of the Roman Catholic Church. In a section called Lumen Gentium 16, they argue that even atheists of goodwill can be saved if they follow the dictates of their conscience. So long as a person does what is in himself, and doesn’t suppress what he thinks is right, God will apparently overlook everything else. You can literally hate God, and not even believe in Him, but if you hold to that belief sincerely enough, Rome says that it might just get you into heaven.

Well, that’s absolutely insane. And it’s a good example of what happens when you reject the foundation of Scripture alone. God’s Word does not teach us that “conviction” is a virtue by itself, or that doing what you think is right excuses you from your sins. It certainly doesn’t save you from them! On the contrary, our convictions, need to be grounded in the right thing. They need to be formed and shaped by the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us through the text of the Bible.

And that’s exactly what Jesus is getting at in our Gospel lesson today from John chapter 16. In that passage, Christ comforts His disciples by promising them that after His ascension into heaven He would send them a Helper, who would guide them into all truth. Specifically, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit would do that by convicting the world of three important things. As we read in our text, “And when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” Those are the three things that we need to have a proper conviction about if we’re going to be saved.

First, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit convicts the world concerning sin. That means that He gives us the proper attitude about what sin is and how we should actually think about it. There are lots of different opinions out there about sin and, especially, what kind of sin truly condemn a person to hell. 

Most people assume that sin isn’t really that big of a deal, and that you only go to hell for committing the really bad ones like murder or adultery. Even though people in our society can’t even agree among themselves about what counts as murder or adultery, I’m thinking here of things like abortion or cohabitating, the assumption is that as long as you haven’t done anything like Hitler or Bin Laden did, you’re automatically good to go. God will just let the rest of it slide, and you don’t need to worry about it. 

Isn’t it interesting, though, that when people in the world talk about what sins might send somebody to hell, they almost never talk about sins against the first table of the law. It’s only the ones that have to do with your neighbor. Apparently, God doesn’t care that much if you worship other gods, misuse His Name, or never remember the Sabbath day. He only cares about the things that have to do with the way other people treat you. 

But none of that, of course, comes even close to the proper conviction about sin that we get from the Holy Spirit. What does Jesus tell us in our text today from John 16? He says that the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, “because they do not believe in Me.” This is an amazing statement. Certainly, Christ does not mean that unbelief is the only sin that there is. We hear about all kinds of different sins elsewhere in the Bible, even from Jesus Himself. But the point that our Lord is making here is about where sin really comes from, and what makes something truly sinful in the first place.

According to Christ, that which makes something sinful in the eyes of God, and worthy of eternal damnation, is not just the “bad things” that we say and do, but even the good-looking things that we say and do for the wrong reasons. In fact, it’s everything that someone does apart from faith in Christ. That’s literally what Saint Paul tells us in Romans chapter 14, “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” All of our acts of kindness, all of our charitable donations, every time that we help someone in need, even the times that we try and follow God’s Commandments, if we do any of that for the purpose of trying to earn us a place heaven, it will have the exact opposite effect, and condemn us to hell instead.

That is the true conviction of sin that comes from the Holy Spirt, and the only one that leads to salvation. It’s the reason why we in the Lutheran Church are not ashamed to call ourselves “poor miserable sinners” every Sunday morning. Because that’s who we are by nature. That’s who we are apart from Christ. And our only hope for salvation is Christ. It’s not us, and it certainly not our works, either good, or not so bad.  

The second thing that the Holy Spirit convicts us of then, and this is related to the first thing, is a proper understanding concerning righteousness. Besides showing us what sin is, and what kind of sin actually condems someone to hell, He also shows us what true righteousness is required for salvation and where we find it. because many people in this world get sin wrong, assuming that it’s not that big of deal, that leads them get righteousness wrong too, and totally miss the point of where it comes from.

The universal attitude about righteousness, which is common to all men, unless the Holy Spirit convinces them otherwise, is to think that righteousness is something that comes from us. It’s found in you, and in the way that you live your life for other people. If you’re a good citizen, or a hard worker, or even the pious religious type, who always says your prayers, and never misses a church service, then doing those things is what make you righteousness before God in heaven.

But listen again to what Jesus says in our text today. He tells His disciples that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of righteousness, “Because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer.” That, of course, is a description of our Lord’s ascension into heaven, which is the culmination, and victory lap, of all of His redemptive work to save us. It’s a summary of the Gospel! Jesus Christ, true God, and true Man, came down from heaven to win for us eternal life. He came to give us what we poor sinner don’t have by ourselves, which is the kind of righteousness necessary to be saved. The way that Jesus accomplished that for us was by living a completely perfect life in our place and then He suffering and dying as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. That’s how He fulfilled all righteousness on our behalf. Remember what Saint Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The way that you get the kind of righteous that you need to go to heaven is not through doing a bunch or righteous deeds, which you could never do enough of, but through faith in the perfect righteousness of Christ. It’s through trusting in what Jesus did for you, not in what you do for Him or for others. As Saint Paul also tells us, this time in Romans 10, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” And as he says in Philippians chapter 3, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that depends on faith.” 

The true conviction about righteousness that comes from the Holy Spirit, the one that actually saves, is that we find it in Jesus alone. We get is not by our merit, not by our works, not by anything that we do at all. But only through faith in what Jesus did for us. 

And finally, Jesus tells us in our reading today that the Holy Spirit also convicts the world concerning judgment. That means that He gives us the proper attitude towards God’s coming judgment on the Last Day and how we should get ready for it. 

There is a very popular idea in our time which says that Christians aren’t supposed to judge anything. People take that one verse from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, “Judge not,” and they twist that into something that’s completely different than what it was ever intended to mean. They make it about how you shouldn’t make any judgment at all, and never even say that something is wrong. 

But the kind of judging that God’s Word forbids is not telling someone else what God’s Word says. It’s stating your own personal opinion as a fact, even if it isn’t backed up by the Scriptures. Listen to what Jesus tells us elsewhere about judging in John chapter 12. He specifies that “the one who rejects Me and does not receive My words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.” Or what about John chapter 7? There Jesus literally says, “Judge with right judgment.” 

When we Christians tell other people what God’s Word says from a position of humility and not hypocrisy, we’re not doing the kind of Judging that Jesus forbids, we’re doing the kind of judging that He commands. That’s because we aren’t making a personal judgment at all. We’re just pointing out the judgment that already exists in His Word. For example, when we tell a couple that they can’t sleep together before getting married because the Bible says it’s wrong, that’s not a bad kind of judging. In fact, we’re trying to help them avoid God’s judgment so that they don’t fall into it. What does the author of Hebrews tell us in Hebrews chapter 13? He writes, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” We don’t want that to happen. We don’t want people to go to hell. So, sometimes we have to tell them what the Bible says about how you go to hell so that they won’t actually end up there. We warn them out of mercy and love, just like we would want to be warned too, so that they’ll repent and be saved as well.

In fact, that is the entire reason why Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of judgment. He says it’s because “the ruler of this world is judged.” The ruler of this world is a reference to Satan. What our Lord is getting at is that He has already conquered the Devil through His death on the cross. He’s already paid the price for our sins so that they can’t condemn us any longer. There is no sin that Satan can accuse us of having done that we can’t have forgivness for in Jesus. The only way not to have it is if we refuse to receive it through unrepentance. But anyone who comes to Christ with sorrow in their heart asking for His mercy will not be turned away. They can have confidence that God will restore them and forgive them, and not even the Devil can say otherwise.

No, having conviction by itself isn’t necessarily a good thing. It doesn’t excuse you for your sins and it certainly won’t get you into heaven just because. You need to have conviction over the right things. You need to have the convictions that come from the Holy Spirit. First, you need to believe that you are a sinner, who is completely damned apart from Christ. You have nothing good to offer God on your own, and even your best works don’t contrite anything at all towards your salvation. Second, you need to believe that Christ is your righteousness and despite your sins, He gives you forgivness for them out of His own mercy and love. You’re saved not because you’re a good person, but because Jesus traded places with you on the cross and bore the punishment you deserved. He acted as your substitute, traded His innocence for your guilt, and you receive the benefit of everything He did through faith alone. And third, you need to believe that the prince of this world is judged. God has already revealed His judgments to us in the Bible, and we cling to His Word for truth and grace. Satan can only harm those who won’t take refuge in Jesus. But everyone who does, no matter what they’ve done in the past, doesn’t have to be afraid of him at all. They can rest assured that despite their sins, they have full forgivness for them in Christ.

Those are the convictions that the Holy Spirit gives. They are the only convictions that save. May God give them to us all for Jesus’s sake. May He open our hearts to His Word constantly so that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth, even to the One who is the way, the truth, and the life. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We Christians are not at home in this world. That’s what Saint Peter is getting at in our Epistle lesson today from 1 Peter chapter 2 when he tells us that we are sojourners and exiles. A sojourner is someone who is on a journey away from their home, and an exile is someone who has been temporarily removed from their home. Our true home, of course, is in heaven. It’s not the 2000 square foot ranch we have here in Denver Iowa, nor is it the 4-bedroom farmhouse out in the country. It’s the place in our Father’s house, which Christ prepared for us through His death and resurrection. It’s eternal life with Jesus and all of His saints in glory, an inheritance that we receive through faith alone. That’s where we belong. And that’s where we’re trying to go.

And the point of our reading this morning is how we’re supposed to live on the way there. Given the fact that heaven is our home, and that this earthly life is not all that there is, but only a temporary trip and a momentary journey towards our true destination, what does that mean for us Christians here and now? We get three different things in our reading.

First, Saint Peter reminds us that we should abstain from the passions of our flesh and not indulge our sinful desires. As he writes in verse 11 of our text, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” 

How do most people think about their life here in this world? Even if they don’t say it out loud, they act as if the point of it is simply to enjoy yourself as much as possible. They give little thought to the reality that someday their life will come to an end and that no matter what they’ll have to face God’s judgment. Instead of asking questions like, “what must I do to be saved,” they assume that everyone goes to a better place when they die anyway, so what’s even the point? That’s why they ignore the cries of their conscience and don’t pay any attention to God’s Word. It’s why they don’t make a habit of regularly going to Church to receive God’s forgivness, and barely ever come to receive the Sacrament. It’s why they live in their sin on purpose and do things that the Bible expressly forbids without any remorse at all. They devote themselves to money, work, fame, and pleasure, because, in their mind, that’s what this life is all about. 

But, in the end, that sort of attitude leads to their eternal ruin. And the same would be true for us if we lived in the way that they did too. That’s why Saint Peter tells us in our text this morning that we need to abstain from the passions of our flesh which wage war against our soul. You and I, and every baptized believer in Christ, is engaged in an ongoing spiritual struggle that isn’t over until the day we die. It’s the struggle between what’s called our “Old Adam” and the “New Man.” Our “Old Adam” is the fallen and sinful nature that we’ve inherited from our first parents Adam and Eve. Elsewhere in the Bible, like in this passage from 1 Peter 2, it’s referred to as the “flesh.” Even after we become Christians, and the Holy Spirit enters into our hearts, giving us the gift of faith, our flesh continues to cling to us and refuses to go away entirely. We have to keep on putting it death over and over again so that it doesn’t kill us instead and destroy our faith in the process.

If you remember, that’s exactly what the Catechism teaches us in the fourth part on Baptism. I know that we love to talk about how Baptism forgives us of our sins, and that’s true, but what else is our Baptism for? What does such baptizing with water indicate? “It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” The way that you put your Old Adam to death, so that he doesn’t kill you and destroy your faith, is by repenting of your sins and looking to Christ for forgivness. We don’t just do that one time. We have to do that all of the time. Otherwise, if we give into our passions, and follow them wherever they lead, they’ll lead us away from Jesus and off the narrow path that leads to heaven. If we try to build a permanent residence here in this world by doing whatever feels best to us in the moment, forgetting that everything in this world is ultimately passing away, then we risk the possibility of passing away along with it. 

So, we’re called to conduct ourselves as if we aren’t really at home here, and not lose sight of the real goal. When the cares and pleasures of this life pull our attention away from what actually matters, we listen to God’s Word and let it pull us back of what truly does. We remember that nothing in this life, no matter how enjoyable or satisfying it may seem, lasts forever, but thank God, because none of it can even begin to compare to what He has prepared for us in heaven. 

Next, Saint Peter tells us that beacuse we are not at home in this world we should also be careful give a good witness to unbelievers. As he writes in verse 12 of our text, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” This is almost identical to what Jesus Himself tells us in Matthew chapter 5. “In the same way,” Christ says, “let you light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

One of the primary reasons why God keeps us in this world as long as He does, and doesn’t just take us out of it immediately, is for the sake of our neighbor. It’s so that others, who don’t yet know the Gospel like we do, would be able to hear about it and come to faith as we have. And yet, nothing stops people from wanting to listen to the Gospel more than when false Christians give it a bad name through their sinful behavior. 

This, of course, can happen in a lot of different ways, but think about the example that Saint Peter uses in our text. He singles out as particularly important how we treat those in authority. Peter says, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by Him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good.”

Yes, the ultimate authority in our life is God. We are citizens of heaven above, and our first allegiance always belongs to Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Therefore, when earthly authorities try and get us to disobey God’s Word, we don’t not have to obey them in that specific matter. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to listen to them at all. It doesn’t mean that we can disrespect them, and just do whatever we want instead. In every matter that is not sinful, even if we don’t like it, or think its dumb, we’re called upon to obey it. Even though we are free in Christ, as Saint Peter says, we don’t use our freedom as an excuse to do evil things, but live as servants of God.

When those who bear the name of Christ act as if this privilege entitles them to ignore those in authority, they end up teaching others to despise all authority, even the authority of God. This exact thing has happened in our time with words like “submission.” Because of certain ideologies, like the feminist movement, which taught people to hate that word and think it’s always bad, nowadays many people don’t even like it when they hear it in the Bible. And yet, submitting to Jesus, and letting Him be in charge is the most wonderful thing that there is. It literally means allowing Him to serve you with the forgivness of your sins and lead you to heaven. 

So, we lead others to Christ, and prepare them for the day of His visitation, when we show respect to those in authority, and give the word “authority” a good name. We do it when we obey our earthly leaders, even the ones we don’t like, and willingly submit to them, as long as they don’t ask us to violate our allegiance to God. Then we give a good witness to the world, and don’t put a stumbling in front of them believing the Gospel. In fact, we get them ready to listen to the Gospel, and give ourselves more opportunities to preach it. We represent our homeland well and serve as good ambassadors of our true King.

And, finally, the fact that we are sojourners and exiles here on earth, and that heaven is our true home, also teaches us to patiently bear our cross, and willing accept any suffering that we might experience along on the way. As Saint Peter also writes in our text this morning, “For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.”

Just like any trip you go on, as we journey through this life towards our eternal dwelling with Christ, we can expect to face certain things before we get there. That’s what happens every time that you travel. Who has ever been away from their home for a long period of time and not run into something difficult or challenging on the road? We should expect nothing different while we’re traveling through this fallen and sinful world.

And yet, we can also use that truth to comfort ourselves along the way. If we have to deal with difficult or unpleasant people who makes our life bitter and hard, we can remember that that’s how it goes sometimes when you travel. Sometimes you have to put up with an unfriendly host, who doesn’t always treat you very kindly. But we have a kind Father waiting for us above, who’s mercies are new every morning, and who’s steadfast love never comes to an end. Yes, right now, it’s like we’re staying at a cheap hotel in a dangerous part of town. But soon, we’ll be with Christ in paradise, and the former things will be forgotten.

If we see other people living securly in the world, having what look like a good time in life, while nothing seems to be going our way, then we can encourage ourselves with the truth that not every trip is the same. Sometimes you coast down the road at 70 miles an hour, and at other times you have to wait in traffic at a dead stop. But eventually the cars start moving again, and you don’t have to sit there forever. Regardless of how long we have to wait, our wait will be worth it. Eternal life in heaven isn’t that far away, and we’ll have plenty of time to rest once we get there.  

And if we experience so much temptation in this world that we think we can’t bear it any longer, we can take heart that we are not on this journey alone. Just as Christ was with His disciples in the boat during the raging storm, He is with us in the boat of His Church too. Our Great Captain is still at the helm, and He promises never leave us or forsake us. In His holy Word and blessed Sacraments, He gives us forgivness for all of our sins, and makes a sure and certain pledge of our salvation. No matter what we suffer with, or who we suffer from, we know that Jesus suffered the true price for our sins on the cross already, so we can suffer anything that we need to. God wont forsake us in our suffering, but will even use it to bring us closer to Him.

We Christians are not at home in the world. We are sojourners and exiles on our way to heaven. That simple truth should change the way that we live and act here and now. For one, it should compel us to abstain from the passions of the flesh and not indulge our sinful nature. Since Jesus has prepared for us a place in our Father’s house, we should put everything in our life in the right place too. We shouldn’t live in the moment, as so many people do, but we should live for that one moment when we see Christ face to face in glory. Likewise, we should give a good witness to our neighbor. God has allowed us to stay in this world a little while longer not for the sake of serving ourselves, but for serving others and bringing them to Christ. One of the ways that we do that is by obeying those in authority over us and teaching them that authority is a good gift that comes from God. It’s not degrading to submit to someone else, that’s exactly what we do as Christians with Jesus, because He gives us everlasting life. And no matter how hard our life is at times, it won’t last that way forever. If we cling to the Lord and His promises, forsaking our own righteousness, and trusting in His alone, then regardless of how our journey went, and the end of it we will hear, “Welcome home, though good and faithful servant.” In Jesus’ Name.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” That’s what Jesus says about Himself in our Gospel lesson today from John chapter 10, and with these words our Lord introduces us to what is without a doubt the most beloved metaphor for His relationship to the Church in the whole Bible. Christ is the Shepherd, and we, His Christians, and the sheep.

The reason why people love this illustration so much, and rightly so, is because it’s easy to understand. As Martin Luther once said in the Smalcald Articles, “[Even] a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd.” My little kids might not be able to explain you the difference between consubstantiation and transubstantiation, but they can still tell you who belongs to Jesus and who doesn’t. It’s the believers. It’s those who actually trust in Christ and look to Him for forgiveness.

We hear things all of the time nowadays about who the true Church and where you find it. One of the favorite talking points of Roman Catholics, and you see this all over the internet, is that they’re the Church that Jesus founded. Since they can trace the ordination of their priests back to the time of the Apostles, or so they say, the claim is that this somehow automatically validates everything that they say and do. It proves the legitimacy of their doctrine. And yet, you don’t have to be an expert in the Bible to know that many of the things that they teach aren’t in it. What about purgatory and the idea that after you die you have to go to a place of cleansing in order to be made holy enough to enter into God’s presence? Where is that in the Scriptures? And doesn’t that completely undermine what the Bible actually says about the death of Jesus? Doesn’t God’s Word tell us clearly that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all of our sin? So, why on earth would we need to be cleansed from it even more, and even if we did, how on earth could our own suffering ever do that? It’s ridiculous.

Or what about praying to the saints, and sacrificing the Mass on behalf of those who are already dead? Sure, God’s Word does suggest to us that those in heaven might pray for us, but where does it ever say that because of that we should pray to them? The Bible tells us to pray to Christ alone. It says that there’s one Mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ. And who is Communion for? Is that gift for people who can’t even eat it and drink it anymore because they’re already dead? Of course, not! It’s for the living, so that when they die, they can die in Christ and go to heaven.

Just because a certain denomination looks old, and does things that have the appearance of ancient tradition, that doesn’t mean that those traditions are right. That’s the same dumb argument that the Pharisees made in the Bible. They opposed the Ministry of Jesus because they said that their Rabbis from the past had always been doing things their way. They appealed even to Moses and the Prophets, as if the Scriptures were on their side, even though they ignored large portions of them. And the same thing is true today. We don’t find the true Church just by looking for things that look old, we do it by listening to the voice of our Good Shepherd. We follow after God’s Word, and derive our beliefs from clear Biblical teaching. Human traditions, and ancient ceremonies, may be helpful to remind us of God’s Word, but when they get in the way of it, we need to get rid of them. We embrace them only insofar as they actually point people to Jesus, because He is the Good Shepherd, and no one, and nothing else.

Besides helping us see who the real Church is, the illustration of a Shepherd watching over His sheep is also good for teaching us about sin and how the grace of God works. If you know anything about sheep, you know that they are not very bright animals. Lots of times they wander away from the flock and put themselves in danger. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it before, but a few years ago there was a great video going around online of a shepherd trying to pull one of his sheep out from a crack in the ground. He’s literally yanking on its back legs, but the dumb thing keeps going further and further into the hole. And when he finally pulls it out, what does it immediately do? It takes two hops and jumps right back into the same crack.

We laugh, but that is a very accurate depiction of our sinful condition. In fact, our sinful condition is much worse. Sheep are animals that don’t have the use of reason. They can’t think and talk like we can, and yet, what have we done with all of our “big brains?” The prophet Isaiah tells us, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned – every one – to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Even though God made us to be a people of his pasture and the sheep of His hand, and gave us special privileges that were given to no other creature in all creation, we didn’t use those gifts in the right way. We didn’t use them to follow His Word; we used them to turn away from it. Just like Adam and Eve before us, we too thought that we knew better than God did, and went on our own way instead. We jumped over the fence of His holy commandments, thinking that the grass would be greener on the other side, and instead, we found ourselves on the edge of cliff, hanging over the abyss of hell. We wandered so far away from the herd, that we could never find our way back. And the devil, that wicked wolf, who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, almost had us completely consumed in his jaws before Christ came along and pried us loose. 

As the prophet Amos says in Amos chapter 3, “As the Shepherd rips a pair of knees or a piece of an ear out of the loin’s mouth, so also shall the children of Israel be safely ripped away.” That’s what Jesus, our Good Shepherd did for us, but He didn’t do it in the way you’d think he would. Christ didn’t overcome the devil, and deliver us from our sin, by overpowering him physically. He did it by taking our place and dying in our stead. Jesus defeated our enemies, by letting our enemies attack him instead of us. He became a sheep Himself, the Lamb of God, in order to take away the sins of the world. As Christ tells us in our Gospel lesson, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” This is what distinguishes Jesus from every other false god and every other false shepherd that there is. It’s what makes Him different than the hired hand. He is the only one who can save us.

Yes, all religions claim some sort of salvation for their followers. The Buddhist’s teach about Nirvana. The Hindu’s talk about reincarnation. The Jews say they’ll be an afterlife. And the Muslims make their claims about terrorists getting a bunch of virgins. But for all the differences among those different religions, one thing is the same in them all. They way that you get to have whatever their version of heaven is, is through the way that you live your life. It’s through your own good works and your own good deeds, whatever those works and deeds might be. But that’s not how it is with Jesus. Our good shepherd, the Good Shepherd, doesn’t deliver His sheep by showing them the way to do it themselves. He knows His sheep. He knows that no matter what He showed them, they could never do it on their own. So, He does it on His own. Christ takes care of every part of what’s needed for our salvation so that we can have complete and total confidence in it. He proves His mercy and love to us, by saving us while we were still sinners. He gives us what we don’t deserve.

We don’t stop being sheep once we become Christians. On the one hand, that means we’re still helpless little lambs. We don’t stop falling into sin and getting ourselves into trouble just because we’ve been converted. That’s not an excuse to sin on purpose, but it is just the plain truth of how things go. Despite our best intentions and efforts, we still wander into danger and make all kinds of bad decisions. Time and time again, we hop over the fence, and do the same stupid things over and over. Our Old Adam clings to us to the day that we die, and we never get rid of him until this life is over.

But that’s why we listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd, and put of faith in Jesus. We do that because of what He’s already done for us and what continues to do for us even now. Christ not only paid the price for our sins once and for all, and went out and found us when we were doomed and lost, but He keeps on gathering us to Himself through His Word and Sacraments. By the preaching of His Law and Gospel, He leads us away from our sins to the green pastures of the Church where He feeds our souls with the forgivness that we need to be healed. As King David says in Psalm 23, he leads us in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake and prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. Jesus gives us His holy Body and precious Blood for true food and true drink, so that we would have no doubts that He is ours and we are His. Surely, His goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives, and because of it, we know that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

That’s what Jesus does for His flock. That’s what He promises to those who believe in Him. Faith in Jesus is what makes you part of the Church. It’s the only that that does that. It’s also the only thing that saves. Not because faith is something special on its own, but because faith looks to Christ. Faith relies on the work of Jesus and Jesus is the One who does the saving. Christ is the Shepherd and we are His sheep. And there’s nothing better to be than that. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.