The Fourth Sunday of Easter

SERMON - Confirmed…Now What?

INI

Part I: You Are Blessed to Know

Text: Luke 10:23-24

Then He (Jesus) turned to His disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.”

In Christ Jesus, whose name we confess and whose truths we embrace, dear fellow redeemed and especially today you our Confirmands:

Today you are being CONFIRMED. What does that mean? It actually means a number of things. It means that the faith the Holy Spirit created in your hearts at the time of your baptisms and which your families have carefully nurtured has matured to the point that you are ready to confess it publicly before your fellow believers. It also means that you are now communicant members of our congregation—able to examine yourselves and receive in a worthy manner the Lord’s Supper. It likewise means that you have chosen to step forward and promise with God’s help to remain faithful to your Savior and His Word for the rest of your lives. Truly, your Confirmation Day is important for each of you, as it is for all of us, your fellow believers, as we either look back with fondness upon or forward in anticipation of the day of our own confirmations. As you prepare to make your confirmation vows, it is important for you to recognize that you are blessed to know amazing spiritual truths and that you are called to follow a most amazing Savior!

I.

In the verses preceding our text Jesus sent out seventy of His followers on a mission trip. They returned to Him rejoicing in everything that the Spirit enabled them to accomplish. They were especially excited that they were able to cast out demons (cf. Lk. 10:17). Jesus cautioned them, however, regarding such enthusiasm and rather encouraged them to rejoice that their names were “written in heaven” (cf. Lk. 10:20). He then publicly thanked His heavenly Father for revealing His gospel truths to babes in heart—simple, ordinary Christian men, women, and children, rather than to the religious elite who opposed Him. After dismissing that larger group of followers, Jesus addressed His disciples privately with the words of our text—words that are truly amazing!

He told them that they were blessed by God because of what they were privileged both to see and to hear. He informed them that they had come to know and believe in truths that generations of godly Old Testament prophets and kings had only dreamed of knowing. Dear Confirmands, members, and guests of Immanuel—we too are blessed to know amazing spiritual truths that generations of believers before Christ could understand in only a very limited sense as they peered ahead through the lenses of Old Testament prophecy.

In order to demonstrate that this is true, let us reconsider your personal explanations of the Lord’s Prayer given last Sunday. Greer—you explained the Address: “Our Father, who art in heaven.” Did you know that Abraham, to our knowledge, did not address God as “Father”? Moses was the first to speak of God as being the “Father” of Old Testament Israel (cf. Dt. 32:6), but this teaching was not stressed before Jesus came. God is identified as “Father” only fourteen times in the entire Old Testament with six of those references to God as the “Father” of the coming Savior. In the New Testament, however, this amazing truth is thoroughly developed. God is mentioned as “Father” more than one-hundred fifteen times in John’s Gospel alone. In Romans the apostle Paul points out that we are privileged to call God “Abba”—the Hebrew word for “Daddy” (8:15), while in Galatians he assures us that we are “all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (3:26). You and I are privileged to address God with an intimacy unknown by the Old Testament heroes of faith!

Courtney—you spoke of how we are to hallow God’s name. We New Testament Christians know the name of God’s promised Savior—Jesus, who is also the “Lamb of God” (cf. Jn. 1:29), the “Living Water” (cf. Jn. 4:10), the “Bread of Life” (cf. Jn. 6:35), and the “Good Shepherd” (cf. Jn. 10:11). We know, as the apostle Peter proclaimed so clearly and forcefully, that “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Therefore, it is our privilege to hallow God’s name by identifying Jesus Christ as the “Cornerstone” of our faith (cf. Eph. 2:20) and applying His teachings to our lives on a daily basis.

Jessica—you spoke of how we are to pray that God’s kingdom might come. In John’s Gospel we hear Jesus tell Pontius Pilate that His kingdom is “not of this world” (18:36). In Luke’s Gospel Jesus reminds us that “the kingdom of God does not come with observation….(but rather) is within you” (17:20-21). The apostle Paul assures us in 1 Corinthians that our bodies are “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (6:19), who lives within our hearts. When we, therefore, pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, we are praying that Christ would work personally and mightily in our hearts and lives.

Stacy—you spoke of God’s will, which is to hinder every effort of Satan to undermine us, but also to enable us better to understand and apply God’s truths in our lives. Jesus came to reveal and indeed has revealed God’s will and truths in the Bible, calling upon us, among other things, to love each other even as we have been sacrificially loved by Him (cf. Jn. 13:34).

Colleen—you pointed out how our daily bread is everything that we need for our physical bodies and lives. Jesus assures us that whatever we ask in His name, He will do (cf. John 14:13). He commands us to ask and promises us that we will receive (cf. Matthew 7:7). He urges us to seek first His kingdom and righteousness with the certain assurance that everything we need will be provided for us (cf. Mt. 6:33). We, therefore, do not have to fear, but can live with confidence!

Nicole—you reminded us all of the forgiveness we both need and are to give. Our sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. We have been redeemed and washed clean by His precious blood (cf. Rom. 3:24-25). Consequently, we will want, as encouraged by the apostle Paul, to be “kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave” us (Eph. 4:32).

Ben—you spoke of how we ask God to prevent us from falling into temptation. The New Testament Scriptures assure us that Jesus is our constant help. He has promised and is with us always (cf. Mt. 28:20). The writer to the Hebrews reminds us that because Jesus became a true man like us and experienced the same temptations of Satan that we do, He is in the unique position to provide us just the help we need when tempted (2:17-18). We can rely upon Jesus!

Mitchell—you addressed the subject of deliverance from evil. You alluded to Old Testament examples of David and Daniel. From the New Testament we learn that Jesus has been given “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Mt. 28:18), and that He is even now at God’s right hand exercising that authority on our behalf (cf. Eph. 1:20-23). We can be confident that He will prevent evil from entering our lives or help us successfully endure the evil that does come our way.

Finally, Angela—you spoke of the power and glory of our Savior God and the certainty with which we can pray. The Scriptures assure us that God will hear and answers our prayers, and Jesus will return one day to judge the living and the dead. In view of these and all of the other promises of God we can live our lives and await Jesus’ return with boldness, joy, and confidence!

My dear Confirmands and all who are present this morning—these are amazing truths revealed by God through Christ in His holy Word. Today you will be CONFIRMED! You, as we all, are blessed to know these amazing truths! Amen.

—Pastor Paul D. Nolting
To God alone be the glory!

Part II: You Are Called to Follow

Text: Luke 9:23-26

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.

Dear fellow redeemed (Dear Angela, Stacy, Courtney, Jessica, Mitchell, Nicole, Ben, Colleen, and Greer):

You have declared your faith. You have promised to abide with Jesus, our Vine. You have promised lifelong faithfulness to God and His Word…Now, what? Actually, that question itself is a little misleading because it implies that something has changed now that you are confirmed. Nothing has changed. You have certainly come to a milestone in your life, you have reached an early goal of your confirmation instruction, and you are now communicant members; but you are still sinners, you are still in need of Christ’s salvation, you are still in need of feeding your souls with the Word of God and growing in knowledge and faith. You are still called to Follow Jesus, your Savior.

Jesus called His disciples by finding them as He began His ministry and then saying to them, “Follow Me.” He found fishermen, a tax collector, and others but what they had in common was a love for Jesus that was worked in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has worked the same in your hearts, not with a direct in-person call of a visible Savior, but through His voice recorded in God’s Word.

Through the Word of God we have been called to faith and to following Jesus, but we’re not very good at it. Isaiah writes, “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” (Isaiah 53:6). By nature we’re terrible followers, God says, “Go this way.” We say, “No! I want to go this way, so this way I shall go!” God says, “Stay on the path.” We wander all over the place, getting into trouble here and then there. Only by God’s grace are we able to follow at all. Only by His grace are we able to believe in Jesus as our Savior. Only by Jesus’ leading are we able to remain faithful to death and receive the crown of life.

You have come to know the truth of God’s Word and through an ongoing study of the Word that knowledge will increase and your faith will grow. You know it, but knowledge is worthless if it is not put to use and applied. You know, but it’s very important to put that knowledge to use and also follow.

Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” [v.23] To have an idea of what is involved with taking up our cross, we need only to look at Jesus who took up His cross to be our Savior. When Jesus took up His cross, He wasn’t thinking of Himself, if He had been He wouldn’t have left Heaven to become man and live under the Law and die for our sins. Jesus was thinking of you and me and all sinners and willingly sacrificed Himself for us and our eternal well-being.

Jesus’ road to the cross didn’t allow Him to focus on the things of this world, if He had done so He wouldn’t have been our Savior. When the Devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he tried to persuade Jesus with the allurement of earthly power and riches (cf. Matthew 4:9-10), but Jesus was not swayed—He remained focused on His purpose and on the goal of saving souls (cf. Hebrews 12:2) and was not distracted by the things of the earth.

As Jesus took up His cross for us, He also took every opportunity to proclaim the work He came to do and the Gospel message of salvation. He saw the whole work of redemption through to its glorious conclusion—His victory over death and the salvation of souls.

Jesus calls each of us to follow Him by daily denying ourselves—our sinful desires and selfish wants—and taking up our cross. This self-denial and following is daily because our spiritual enemies never sleep or take a day off and because our need for our Savior never goes away.

We take up our cross when we follow Jesus’ example and not think of ourselves, but sacrifice. When we maintain a focus on important spiritual matters and concerns and not become distracted by the things of the earth. Denying ourselves and the sinful pursuits of our flesh and focusing on our Savior will save our life because then we will stay attached to the Vine (cf. Scripture reading), but if we hang onto all of these earthly and fleshly desires, then we will lose our life with the Savior. Follow Jesus by remembering what is most needful, but keeping a proper perspective and serving your soul’s needs. Jesus said, “…whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?”[vv.24-25]

We take up our cross when we proclaim the Gospel and testify to our Savior at every opportunity. We who have come to know the remarkable love and mercy of God have so much to tell and to share! We who know the fulfillment of God’s salvation through Christ Jesus have so many souls to reach! As children of God and followers of Jesus we have been called to proclaim His name to others. Taking up the cross and following Jesus includes giving witness to Him even when that might lead to more self-denial and sacrifice. But again, the blessing is far greater than the sacrifice and the failure to proclaim Christ speaks of a sick and dying faith that leads to destruction: “…whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.” [v.26]

The world does not follow Jesus. Many confirmands before you have made the same promises you have made and then have become distracted, tied up in other things, and then forget—they forget their vows, forget their daily self-denial, and in some cases forget their Savior altogether. There are many, many distractions and these will only increase—be aware of them and stand watch against them.

There are many things and perhaps also people who will try to pull you and push you in ways different than the one to which Jesus is calling you to follow. To counteract this, David prayed in Psalm 86: “Teach me Your way, O Lord, and I will walk in Your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name” (Psalm 86:11). Pray regularly for a heart that is not divided between various loves, but one that is undividedly centered on Christ and following Him.

When you are tempted to go this way or that, hear your Savior saying, “Follow Me” and go to His Word to find a light that shines upon the paths of righteousness.

When you are facing sorrows in the losses and troubles of this life. Listen for your Savior’s comforting and reassuring call, “Follow Me,” and be assured that He will hear you when you pray, that He will strengthen you for the day, and that He will use even the hardship for your blessing.

When you are in the middle of something so emotional, so confusing, so complex, so frustrating—or all of the above—and you just don’t know what to do. Listen to the Word and hear Your Savior’s voice saying, “Follow Me.”

When you have a chance to declare Your Savior to others, when you are facing opportunity to witness to His name, hear Him say, “Follow Me” and declare the wonderful works of God you have come to know.

You are confirmed! That means you are blessed to know the grace of God and you are called to follow. There is much that can stand in the way of following and try to trip you up—stand guard, watch, and pray and feed your souls with the Word of God so that you remain grafted as branches in the true Vine. As you do this we can be “confident of this very thing, that God who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Amen.

—Pastor Wayne C. Eichstadt