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

Jesus’ healing of the paralyzed man from Matthew chapter 9 teaches us about what we need the most in this life and how we get it. As some of you might know, this is one of the passages from Scripture that I like to share with people who are in the hospital when I go visit them for the first time. That’s because they usually have a lot of similarities to the man from our reading. Most of the time, when I come in the room, they’re lying in a bed just like he was, and they can’t get up. They’re experiencing all kinds of physical problems with their bodies and their health and maybe, in that moment, that’s all that they can really think about.

And yet, where does Jesus still start? What was the first thing that He did for the man before he did anything else? Jesus didn’t tell Him to “rise and take up his mat a go home.” At least, not right away. That came later. No, the first thing that our Lord did was look upon the faith of him and his friends and say, “Take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven.” 

This, of course, shows us that what we need the most from Jesus, and what we need the most in our lives, is to have the forgivness of sins. That’s what comes before everything else. That’s why our Lord came into this world to begin with and that was the whole point of His ministry. The Son of God didn’t come down from heaven just to give us momentary healing for our bodies. He came to bring us eternal healing for our souls. The primary purpose of His incarnation, and later on His suffering, death, and resurrection, wasn’t just so that we could “live our best life now,” but so that we could live forever with Him in eternity. And so, that’s the place where Jesus always starts.

What did that crippled guy really need from Christ? What would most people probably say just by looking at? They would probably say that he needed to walk again. If only he could just use his legs, then that would make everything better. But that’s not what Jesus saw. And that’s not what our Lord teaches us to see about ourselves when we look at our own lives too. 

You and I have a lot of different problems. I don’t know exactly what all of them are, but I bet I could take a guess about which ones bother you the most. Maybe you’re sick. Maybe you don’t have that much money. Maybe don’t always get along with your spouse or your kids. Maybe you’re estranged from some of your family members and haven’t talked with them in a long time. Maybe you have low self-esteem and no self-confidence. Maybe you struggle with impure thoughts and have trouble controlling your urges. Maybe you feel lonely and you just want to be married. Maybe you don’t like your job and you aren’t always satisfied with your God given vocations. I’m not saying that all of those things aren’t real problems, and neither is Jesus. But they aren’t your biggest problem, and they’re not the problem that you need taken care of first.

Your biggest problem by far is that you are a sinner. That’s why you have any of those other problems in your life to begin with. Why do people really get sick? Why do our bodies not always work the way that we want them to? Why do people get angry and fight and how come we can’t always get along? Why can’t you just be happy with what you have and why do constantly want more? When you boil it down, the answer to every one of those questions is the same. It’s because of sin. It’s because of the sinful nature that you’ve inherited from Adam and Eve, and because of the actual sins of thought, word, and deed that you and other people commit on a daily basis. 

There wouldn’t be any suffering in this world if there wasn’t any sin in it. But there is. And you’re part of the problem too. Even the sins that you see in other people are the result of the same fallen and sinful nature that resides in your heart too. And so, that’s why Jesus starts with forgiving you your sin.

Lots of people don’t care about getting their sins forgiven. That’s because they don’t see themselves as that big of a sinner. They haven’t learned to look at God’s law correctly, so they don’t understand the fullness of what it really demands. They don’t believe that as we say in the confess, we deserve God’s temporal and eternal punishment. They don’t think that they’ve done anything bad enough to go to hell. And because they don’t think they deserve hell later they can never come to grips with why they might go through things that feel like hell. Even when they experience things in this life that aren’t even close to hell, they still get mad at God. They aren’t satisfied with His promise to forgive them. They don’t know how great of gift God has already put in their lap.

It doesn’t matter how bad your life gets, nothing can make it worse than not having your sins forgiven. When your sins aren’t forgiven, and you don’t have a clean conscience, there’s nothing in this world that can give you true peace and rest. It won’t matter how much money you have. It won’t matter how good your health is. It won’t matter how much pleasure your getting. Your bones will waste away, like king David talks about, when the hand of the Lord weighs heavy upon you. Behind it all, deep down in your soul, you’ll feel the weight of God’s judgment looming, and you’ll know that someday you’ll have to answer for what you’ve done wrong. 

But when you know that your sins are forgiven, then you can put up with anything. When you know that your sins have been taken away by Jesus, because He bore them as His own, then you can be at peace. Then you can joyfully carry your cross, and endure any kind of suffering, because you know that you’re not paying the real price for your sins when you do. Jesus paid that price for your sins already. And if He paid that price, and gave you that gift, He will surely give you everything else that you need too. No matter what He gives, even if He allows you to suffer, you can be confident that it is the best thing for you at the moment, because He gave you the best thing that can be had already.

Knowing that you need the forgivness of sins before everything else is important, but it’s also important to know how you get it. Lots of people don’t know that either. Just like they scoff at the idea that forgivness is more important than everything else, they scoff at the idea of how God chooses to give it to us. That’s what also happened in our reading.

After Jesus forgave the paralyzed man, a dispute arose between Him and the Pharisees about whether or not He really had the authority to do it. They accused Jesus of blaspheming because they said that who can forgive sins but God alone.

Jesus proved that He had the authority to forgive sins, by doing something that only God could do. He told the man to take up his mat and go home, and he did. Only God could heal a man of his paralysis like that. Only the maker of heaven and earth, who spoke creation into existence by the power of His Word, could use His Word to do something like that too. But Jesus has that power. He has the authority to reverse the effects of sin on the body, because He endured the punishment for our sins Himself. That’s why He can forgive us. And that’s why He can authorize anyone else to forgive in His name too.

As I’m sure you know, there are many Christians today who do not like the fact that our pastors in church say that they can forgive sins. Those individuals usually say the same thing that the Pharisees said about Jesus in our Gospel reading. They say, “who can forgive sins but God alone.” But our pastors don’t forgive sins on the basis of their own authority, they do it by the authority of Jesus.

Jesus has the authority to do anything that He wants. He can make people who are sick get better. He can tell crippled people to get up and walk home. He can cause people who are dead to come back to life again. And He can authorize his ministers to forgive people in His stead. 

What did Jesus say to the disciples in Matthew chapter 16? He said, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” That’s the office of the keys. That’s the special authority that Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners and to withhold forgivness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent. Christ showed us that He has that authority in Matthew 9, with the healing of the paralytic. He promised that authority in Matthew 16, tell his disciples that He would give them the keys of the kingdom. And then, after He rose from the dead, e bestowed that authority in John chapter 20. Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, “If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven then, and if you withhold forgiveness from any it is withheld.”

That’s the reason why our pastors say what they do in church. That’s the reason why they forgive us our sins. It’s because Jesus tells them to. And when Jesus tells us to do something, we do it. We do it, and we can have confidence that it counts because the command comes from Jesus. When our pastors do what Jesus says, and forgive us our sins in Jesus’ Name, that is just as valid and certain even in heaven as if Christ our dear Lord did it himself. 

You need the forgiveness of your sins. You need it more than you need to get better from your sickness. You need it more than you need a promotion at work. You need more than you need extra food on your table or extra money in your bank account. You need it more than you need to be married. You need it more than you need to have friends. You need it more than you need anything. And Jesus gives it to you. He gives it to you by grace through His called and ordained servants of the Word. When you repent of your sins and confess them to God, He says that He will forgive you. And just to be certain that you hear it, He gives you a pastor to tell it to you in plain words. “The one who hears you hears Me,” Jesus says, “and the one who reject Me rejects Him who sent Me.” When you hear the words of your pastor forgiving you your sins, either in church or in private confession, that’s the voice of Christ. That’s the same forgivness that Christ purchased on the cross.

And if you have the forgivness of sins in Jesus, you have everything that you need. If you have God’s forgivness, then eventually everything else that you need will be added unto you too. The healing of your soul will result in the healing of your body on the last day. The suffering that you are going through now will gave way to the future glory that is to be revealed to you. But for now, if Jesus starts with the forgiveness, and makes you wait a little while before you get everything else, then so be it. You can wait. You know that it won’t be long before you take up your mat and go home too, because just like Jesus told the paralytic, He tells you the same thing: “Take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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

Today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew chapter 22 gives us an excellent summary of the two main teachings of the Bible. As we all learned in Catechism class, the two main teachings of the Bible are the law and the gospel. The law is God’s Word of command that tells us what to do, and the gospel is God’s Word of grace that tells us what Christ has done in our stead. God uses the law to show us our sins and our need for forgivness, and He uses the gospel to show us our Savior and how in Him we have forgivness. If you don’t understand the difference between the law and the gospel, you won’t be able to understand the Bible. Not only will it confuse you when you read it, but you’ll end up reading it wrong. You’ll assume that the law passages are actually gospel, that the gospel passages are actually law, and get all mixed up about your salvation.

That’s exactly what happened with the Pharisees. They didn’t understand the difference between the law and the gospel. They thought that the reason why God gave us His law was so that we could save ourselves by keeping it. They had reduced God’s law into a list of rules, 613 to be exact, and they taught that as long as you followed the rules you’d be saved. That’s why they asked Jesus about which rule was the most important. They didn’t care about which one He picked. They just wanted Him to pick one of them. Then they could argue with Him about whether or not He was right, just like they argued with each other. Which rule is more important? Is it the rule about keeping the Sabbath day? Is it the rule about tithing, or giving money to the poor? Is it the rule about not taking God’s Name in vain?

But Jesus didn’t pick one of their rules, did He? In fact, He didn’t reduce God’s law into a set of rules at all. Instead, He summarized all of the law at once with two simple commands. First, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and second, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” As Jesus said, “On these two commands depend all the Law and the prophets.”

God’s law is about much more than just following a set of rules. It’s about loving Him above everything else and loving your neighbor as yourself. It’s a lot easier to follow a couple of rules than it is to actually love someone. For example, you can make a rule about how you have to go to church. That’s a good rule. You should go to church. But just because someone comes to church every Sunday, and follows that commandment in an outward way, that doesn’t mean that they’ve actually kept it their heart. What if you only come to church to make your parents happy? What if you come to church, but you hate being there and don’t want to listen to anything? What if you come to church because you think that the very act of showing up gets you some kind credit with God? Is that what it really means to keep the 3rd commandment? Are you really loving God from the bottom of your heart when you do that? No. You’re’ just following a rule.

Or what about a rule like, “you shouldn’t gamble.” That’s a good rule too. You shouldn’t gamble. Gambling is a sin. The only way that you make money when you gamble is by taking it from someone else. There’s no honest labor there. There’s no exchange of goods and services and actually serving your neighbor. And how can you even gamble without being greedy? How can you try and win a bunch of money without coveting something that you don’t already have? Of course, Christians shouldn’t gamble! That should be obvious. But just because you don’t gamble, and you don’t break that rule, it doesn’t mean you’ve actually kept God’s law. Lots of rich people don’t gamble because they know that the house always wins. The reason why they don’t play the slot machines or bet on sports isn’t because they’re concerned with being greedy. It’s precisely because they are greedy. They don’t want to lose their money. So, so what if they don’t gamble? So, what if they follow that rule? That doesn’t mean that they’re loving their neighbor like God wants us to. 

God’s law is more than just a list of rules. What God cares about from us, and what His law demands, goes far beyond what we do on the outside. It goes right to our very heart. God doesn’t just want us to behave in a certain way, He wants us to be a certain way. That’s what His law is about. That’s what His law really is.

When we stop looking at God’s law as a list of rules and start seeing it for what it is, we also start to see something else too. We start to see just how much we fail to keep. We start to recognize just how much we aren’t the way that we’re supposed to be, and how far away from God’s will we’ve actually fallen. Who loves God with their whole heart, soul, and mind? Who is perfectly united with every single desire that God has, and never wants anything different than what He says is good for us in the Bible? And who has loved his neighbor as himself? Who has been just as much concerned all the time with the needs of others as they are their own? Have you ever had an impure thought about another person? Have you ever coveted something that belonged to someone else? Have you ever said something about another person, that you know you’d never want to be said about yourself? If you have, and you know you have, then you haven’t kept God’s law.

The law of God doesn’t show us how to save ourselves. It shows us that we need salvation. It shows us how impossible it is for salvation to come from us and how the only way that we can be saved is if it comes from someplace else. And that’s what Jesus was trying to show the Pharisees with His question. They asked Him about the law and He showed them how they had the law all wrong. Then He asked them about the gospel, and they showed Him that they didn’t have that right either. 

What exactly was the question that Jesus asked the Pharisees? He said, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He.” Then they said back to Him, “the Son of David.” To which Jesus replied, “how is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ‘the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”

The point that Jesus was trying to make with his question is that just like the Pharisees didn’t understand the law, because they had reduced it to a set of rules, they didn’t understand the gospel, because they had reduced the Messiah to a mere man. Yes, they were willing to accept that the Messiah was the son of David, but they couldn’t explain why David also called Him his Lord. How could it be that before the Messiah was even born, He had a conversation with God, and they both talked about each other as equals? The answer is obvious, and the implication is obvious too. The Messiah is more than just a man, He is God Himself. And if the Messiah is God Himself, then He must have come to do much more than what the Pharisees thought He would. He must have come not just to set up a worldly kingdom, and return the Jewish people to their political power. He must have come to set up an eternal kingdom where salvation alone is to be found.

That is who the Messiah is. And that is what the gospel is. The gospel is not about what we do for God. It’s about what He does for us. It’s about how we have eternal salvation in Jesus. It’s about how God sent His very own Son to put all of our enemies under His feet. Who are our true enemies? Are they foreign nations that try and attack us? Are they people who make fun of us or treat us poorly as work or school? Can any of those people keep us out of heaven? No! Our true enemies are sin, death, and the devil. That’s what prevents us from being able to be saved on our own, and so that’s what the Messiah has come to save us from.

Your problem is not just that you break a couple of God’s rules now and again. Your problem is that you’re not who you’re supposed to be. Down to your very core, something is very wrong. When you look at God’s law and see it for what it actually requires, you should know it. You should know that you haven’t loved God with your whole heart or your neighbor as yourself. And that’s why you can’t look to God’s law for your salvation. That’s why you have to look to Jesus instead. Jesus is everything that you aren’t, and everything that you should be at the same time. Yes, He is a man, just like you. He’s David’s son. But He’s also David’s Lord. And He’s your Lord too. He is the Savior of sinners. He takes all of your sin, and the sin of the whole world, and bears it as His own so that by grace He can give you His forgivness. He takes all of your law breaking, and through faith He exchanges it for all of His law keeping. 

If you look for salvation in the law, you’ll never find it. If you try and reduce God’s law into a set of rules, that doesn’t mean that you’ve actually kept it. But if you look for salvation in the gospel, if you look for salvation in Jesus and what He’s done for you, then you’ll have real confidence. Then you’ll see someone who does love God with His whole, heart, soul, and mind, and who does love His neighbor as Himself. And when you see Him suffering and dying anyway, like you should have suffered and died, you can be certain that He did it in your place, and that all of your sins have been forgiven. You can rest on the certainly of the gospel, and let the law do its work of condemning you, because you have a Messiah in Jesus. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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

Of all the things from the Bible that people like, I would say that the idea of angels, has to be at the top of the list. Nothing quite fascinates the imagination like the thought of these holy and mysterious creatures out there watching over us. And yet, this is also a very good example of why it’s important not just to believing in something from the Bible, but to actually believe the Bible. Because even though lots of people like the idea of angels, there’s a lot of misconceptions about them that really have no basis in the Word of God. And any time that we believe something that God’s Word doesn’t teach us, or add to it, subtract from it, or change, there is a danger of it harming our faith. It doesn’t matter if it seems small or insignificant to us at the time, as the Bible says elsewhere, a little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump. Meaning, just a little bit of false doctrine here or there can eventually contaminate the whole thing.

So, in this morning’s sermon, as we celebrate the feast of Saint Michael all Angles, we’re going to do so by considering a few basic facts about angels from the Bible, as well as respond to a couple of the most popular misconceptions.

First, what exactly even are the angels? Holy Scripture tells us that angels are spiritual beings created by God to do His will by serving and protecting humanity. As the book of Hebrews says, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.” Although angels can appear at times in the form of people, like they did when they visited Abraham and Lot in Genesis, they’re still spiritual in nature, and don’t naturally possess bodies of their own like we do. Just like a frog is a frog, and a duck is a duck. Angels are angels, and people are people.

Now perhaps, you’ve heard it said before that when someone dies, they become and angel. This is especially common when it comes to the death of young children as well as those who die in tragic accidents. For example, I bet you’ve seen if before where a car or a truck has a name on the back of it with a date and pair of wings. This is also a popular thing on Facebook. You might see someone post about the death of loved one and say something like, “heaven got another angel today.” Certainly, we don’t want to be cruel or insensitive here, but we also still need to follow the Word of God. And when we look in God’s word, and study the Scriptures, we don’t see that teaching there at all. In fact, the Bible makes it very clear that we don’t turn into angels when we die. Yes, Jesus does say in Matthew chapter 22 that we will be “like” the angels someday, but as He goes on to explain that is because we won’t marry and procreate in heaven, not because we will literally turn into angels.

Again, angels are non-corporeal beings. That means that they don’t have bodies. But humans do have bodies. And even more than that, God promises that after we die, He will one day raise our bodies back to new life again we’ll live in them forever. So, turning into an angel wouldn’t be an upgrade from what God promises, it would be a downgrade. As amazing as the angles are, as it says in Hebrews chapter 1, “For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’” Even when it comes to Jesus, He didn’t become an angel after He died, nor did He assume the nature of an angel when He entered into God’s creation to save us. No! He became a man. He became like one of us. And when we die in the faith, we will become more like Him. God won’t change our nature and make us different creatures. He'll restore our nature, and make us perfect humans.

The next thing that the Bible tells us about angles is that God often uses them to bring messages to people. In fact, the word “angel” literally means “messenger.” We, of course, can recall how Gabriel visited Mary and told her about the Christ child as well as how the angels appeared to the women at tomb and proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection to them. But we need to be careful with these examples too, and not interpret them in the wrong way. Just because God has done something in the past, that doesn’t mean that He will do the exact same thing for us necessarily in the future. All over the place, the Bible warns us about being on your guard against so-called “special” messages from God, even if they come from an angel. As Saint Paul writes in Galatians chapter 1, “But even if an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” In Colossians chapter 2, Paul also specifically warns us about those who go on and on regarding visions they claim to have experienced and to avoid them. Instead, we should be satisfied with the content that God has already given us in the Bible, and evaluate every other supposed revelation through that. Even though God can communicate by using angels, we need to remember that the devil also disguises himself as an angel of light, and uses everything at his disposal to draw us away from the written word. So, we should hold fast to God’s Word and not put stock in extra messages, even from what might look like an angel. We certainly shouldn’t listen to that “angel” at all, if it says something that contradicts the Scriptures. 

Furthermore, we learn from the Bible that as supernatural beings, angels also are sent by God to watch over and protect us. Here we can recall how the angels closed the mouths of lions and when Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den, and saved him from being eaten by them. Angles also ministered to Jesus after His temptation in the wilderness, and came and help Him when He sweat drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane. In perhaps the most incredible account about angels of all, maybe we remember how Elisha prayed to God that He would open the eyes of his fearful servant at Dothan, when the Assyrian army had them surrounded, and when God did, Elisha’s servant saw that the hills around them we’re filled with angles. As Elisha famously said, “those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

Even though we cannot always see God’s holy angels around us, or feel their protective care, God promises to use them daily to keep us safe from evil. As we pray in Luther’s morning and evening prayers, “let your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me.” 

And yet, because God’s Word does say that He uses His angles to take care of us, sometimes this has led to the opinion that each person must have their own personal guardian angel. Certainly, this belief isn’t as problematic as becoming angles when we die, but I still think that we need to be careful here. There’s only one verse from the Bible that mentions anything close to this idea, and still it’s not entirely clear. We heard it in our Gospel lesson from Matthew 18. Jesus says in reference to children, and why we shouldn’t lead them into sin, because “their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” But that doesn’t necessarily prove that we all have one personal guardian angel. It just proves once again that God assigns angels to us to take care of us in general.

So, again, this is about not going beyond what God has revealed to us in the Scriptures. It’s enough to know that He uses angles to help us. Whether or not He does that by using one angel per person, we don’t know, and it isn’t our concern. And we certainly don’t need to try and figure out who our angel is so that we can do something like pray to them or try and communicate with them. The Bible tells us that we should pray to God alone, and go directly to Jesus for help, not bypass Him for an angel. As Jesus says in Matthew 11, “come to Meall who are weary and heaven laden and I will give you rest.” And as Saint Paul reminds us in 1 Timothy 2, “there is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Jesus Christ.” 

And finally, God’s Word tells us that the angels worship God by constantly adorning Him and singing His praises. That’s what the prophet Isaiah saw when God gave Him a vision of heaven in Isaiah chapter 6. He saw the angels surrounding the throne of God singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts.” And remember what the shepherds saw the night that Jesus was born: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased.” We don’t worship the angels. But we do learn from the angels how to worship God. The angels are a model to us of what faithful Christian worship should look like and how we do. That’s why in our Liturgy, and specially in Divine Service setting 3, the one that Martin Luther compiled, we sing both the Gloria and the Sanctus, “Glory be to God on High” and “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Those two songs from the angels in Isaiah 6 and Luke chapter 2.

Angels are indeed a wonderful gift from God. The more that we think about them in accordance with God’s Word, the more that it should cause us to we marvel at the love of God. That’s why God tells us about them! These creatures are amazing. They have the ability to do things that we could never dream of. And yet, what do they do with all that strength and power? They use it to serve us. They are glad to do God’s will and take care of others who are less powerful or less magnificent looking than they are.

You are I can learn from that. Don’t ever think that its beneath you to serve others and put their needs before your own. And don’t get bored with worshiping Jesus. And if you do, just look at the angels. Listen to what God’s Word says about them and don’t make up your own opinions. Then the doctrine of angels will do what it’s supposed to do. It will comfort you and build up your faith in Jesus. In Jesus’’ Name. Amen.