Sermon for Trinity 8 - Matthew 7:15-23
July 23rd, 2008 | by Christopher Gillespie |
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Vicar Christopher Gillespie
Immanuel Lutheran Church of Frankentrost
Saginaw, Michigan
Trinity 8 - Final Sermon of Vicarage (July 13, 2008)
Text: Matthew 7:15-23
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Almighty and everlasting God, You would have all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. By Your almighty power and unsearchable wisdom break and hinder all the counsels of those who hate Your Word and who, by corrupt teaching would destroy it. Enlighten them with the knowledge of Your glory that we may know the riches of your heavenly grace and, in peace and righteousness, serve You, the only true God; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
The time has come for the Gillespie clan to depart from your midst. It is bittersweet time. I have grown close to many of you. You as a congregation have shown great love towards my family in our year together.
As we approached the end of vicarage, a number of you were asked to evaluate my performance as a vicar. The evaluation asked one-hundred and twenty questions. For example: how often I express my confidence in the Lord? Do people come away from my sermons knowing they have sinned but also grateful for their forgiveness? Do I convey the forgiveness of sins through the works of Christ? Do I give evidence of continual and thorough study of the Scriptures? Do I proclaim Christ clearly? Do I give clear Scriptural explanations on points of Lutheran doctrine?
I won’t ask you to respond. Some of you have already done that and sent them off to the Seminary. But I’m sure you would all agree that the questions I just asked all highlight the fundamental question that must be answered on a man’s vicarage. Does he preach and teach according to the Word of God?
Jesus himself commends us today in our Gospel to show this kind of great care and concern we should have for the content of our preaching.
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
A great number of men aspire to the office of the Holy Ministry. Despite your recent history of quality vicars, do not rest assured that this is automatically the case. The admissions department at Fort Wayne and St. Louis make great efforts to review their candidates before accepting them into the Seminary. But despite their thorough evaluation of the applicants, occasionally a seminarian slips through with poor character or worse yet, false doctrine.
Yes, its true. Not every man who aspires to this noble task of proclaiming God’s Word share the same doctrine of the Holy Scriptures that has been confessed by the Christian church which you hear here every Lord’s Day. I wish it weren’t true. But Christ tells us to beware of false prophets. They are real. They may have all the appearances of being pastor but in reality are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
But here at Frankentrost, you recognize the truth of Christ’s Words and take an active part in evaluating third-year seminarians. First and foremost, you judge them by the fruits of their lips. Do they confess Christ and Him crucified? Do the speak with the sweetness of the figs or grapes of the good tree of Jesus?
You take seriously the confession of the next generation of pastors. If any bad trees are planted within the forests of young saplings, maturing trees, and majestic ancients, you know that their bad fruit may be too tempting for the weak and infect the soil, trunk, and air around the good, consuming them like a virus. Their infection will destroy the willing forest, dooming it to rot, decay, and the eternal fire.
Our Lord commends to us another set of criteria to judge those who pass through this place on their way to he preaching office.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
The evaluation of your vicars is not just upon the words of my mouth but also the actions born of my heart. The bulk of the questions on that evaluation were not related to my public confession but rather to my character and virtues. The questionnaire asked: how often does he take time to listen to the concerns of others? Does he back down when he ought to stand firm? Does he take decisive charge when given the authority to lead? Does he keep his word? Does he become moody when pressure increases? Some of the wolves will say:
“‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
The kind of shepherd Jesus wants for his flock is one who not only preaches and teaches the Word of God but lives a godly life according to it. This is nothing less than he expects from every Christian. The lives of every Christian are a testament to the faith they have received and the Holy Spirit at work in their hearts. But he who is called to be shepherd of our Lord’s flock on earth has a special duty to attend to his outward life. He is the most public figure and greatest witness to the faith within the church.
Paul commended Timothy in his first epistle a number of virtues for those aspiring to the office of overseer.
“Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.” (1 Timothy 3:2-7 ESV)
It is appropriate for the seminary to be concerned about the character of your vicars as the aspire to the pastorate. Recent disgraces in Roman Catholic and Protestant churches alike highlight the importance of being above reproach. A great disservice has been committed against the Gospel by those who call themselves pastor or priest and then lead lives in accordance with sin and not the Father’s will. Men have coveted money and wife and as a result stolen and committed adultery and other sexual sin. Such public transgressions certainly disqualify a man for office. Paul’s qualifications for overseer are nothing less than the fruits of a sanctified life… a life where the Holy Spirit dwells and is active.
What is especially dangerous though is to do the opposite. Sometimes you expect more from your vicar, and pastor for that matter, than Christ or Paul demand. These men of faith have made great sacrifice to serve as stewards of Christ for you. Jesus is not suggesting we judge those who serve as pastor by petty matters such as the quality of their dress, the intellect or lack thereof, or hobbies and interests.
Instead Jesus speaks calls wolf in sheep’s clothing the man who calls himself pastor but whose life shows only bad fruit. This man is a hypocrite. He says one thing and does another. Think for a moment what he is to say. The pastor has been instructed to preach the Law and the Gospel. The good fruits of this preaching ought to be repentance from our sin, forgiveness of those who trespass against us, and godly lives lived according to the Ten Commandments.
Those who cannot confess with the congregation that they are sinful and deserve nothing but God’s wrath and eternal death… are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Those who cannot forgive their neighbor for their sin, who can administer the Office of the Keys sincerely… are wolves. Those who openly transgress against God’s command are false shepherds who lead the flock astray.
The prophet Jeremiah records our Lord’s Word regarding these wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Thus says the Lord of hosts:
“Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’” (Jeremiah 23:16-17)
Not only does the wolf gloss over his own sin, he will gloss over yours. He will give you hope were there is none. He will say to you: “just try harder next time” or “you’ve lived a good life, that’s got to be worth something.” These are vain illusions of those whose hope is in themselves and not the Jesus Christ. The true prophet does not neglect his flock by preaching so false hopes. Instead he preaches repentance for the forgiveness of sins, all as a free gift of God in Christ Jesus.
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 23:1-2)
In today’s Gospel he tells us what kind of attendance he will give to those wolves. They will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Every self-righteous seminarian can’t help but quake in his boots at this Word of Law from God. It calls the faithful steward of the mysteries of God to repent of those times he has sinned against the Lord in thought, word, and deal and receive those comforting words of forgiveness.
Not just for the one aspiring to be pastor, who stands in your pulpit but for every sinner did our Lord come and rescue. Jeremiah prophesied the salvation of all believers immediately before our appointed Old Testament reading. He said:
Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23:3-6)
Thanks be to God that our own merit and qualifications do not make us a true prophet. Rather the true prophet is led by Spirit who preaches and teaches according to the Word of God. Even more so, the the true prophet speaks of the righteous branch, Christ, who was raised up for us and our salvation. The voice of the God’s prophet gives credit for heaven to nothing else than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. By him we may dwell securely in the hope of the heaven He won for us.
I pray that I have demonstrated this purity of practice but also reflected the fruitfulness that Christ commends to us in the Gospel. Despite the shortcomings of this vicar, I am thankful that your Christian Spirit has forgiven me where I have fallen short of expectations, where I have caused offense, or have been quarrelsome. As Paul said in today’s Epistle
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.” (Romans 8:17)
I pray that you will suffer together with your next vicar. Tell him when he falls short and forgive him where he fails. Do this as you would do for your pastor and each other, living according to the Father’s will who is in heaven. Heed Christ’s warning, that were the truth of God’s Word is absent, ravenous wolves will quickly enter in and consume you with their false teaching. But never fear, God will not allow these wolves to pursue you unless you have abandoned your hope, love, and trust in Him alone.
May the Lord grant in us the wisdom to recognize those wolves in sheep’s clothing that prowl around us, filling us with vain hopes of freedom without Christ or salvation by our own good deeds. May He grant His Holy Spirit to His pastors and those who pursue this office … that they might preach and teach the Word of God in its truth and purity, administer the forgiveness of sins truly in present in the Sacraments with faithfulness, and lead holy and decent lives to the glory of God. May He preserve His Word among us and show shelter us from the ravenous wolves that threaten our faith and His eternal promise. Amen.
Tags: wolves sheep shepherd
