St Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Last Judgment – November 6th and 9th, 2003
John 5:19-24
19Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the
Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing,
because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20For the Father
loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show
him even greater things than these. 21For just as the Father raises
the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased
to give it. "Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the
truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his
Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20For
the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he
will show him even greater things than these. 21For just as the
Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom
he is pleased to give it. 22Moreover, the Father judges no one, but
has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23that all may honor the Son
just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the
Father, who sent him."
23that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He
who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
24"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and
believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has
crossed over from death to life.
Dear children who believe in the true Son of God,
A little over a month ago, St. Luke’s had a special emphasis put on
"Continuing in his Word". As we look aback on those special sermons
and mailings, I hope that we never forget that getting into God’s Word is the
most important thing we can do. The reason that I bring this theme up again is
because we are now entering the part of the Christian Church Year called
"End Times." The last three Sundays of the Christian Church Year are
looking closer at Judgment Day and what it means for us Christians and also
looking at what it means for unbelievers. The only way that we can truly be
ready for Judgment Day is to know and believe what God has told us in his holy
Word. In other words, we need to be in our Bibles on a regular basis. We need
to be ready and prepared for that day in which God will take us from this world
to our eternal home. God’s Word is very clear and also has the strength and
power to keep us in the faith until that final day comes.
Today is called "Last Judgment" Sunday. On this day of the Church
year we want to take a closer look at what will happen at Judgment Day. What a
special and very dramatic day this will be. Jesus will come to this earth and
will judge the living and the dead. This includes us! Are we ready and
prepared? If God came at this very moment would we be in heaven or in hell?
Just hearing those words sends chills up my spine. Chills of joy for those who
trust in Jesus as their only Savior, and chills of despair for those who do not
believe in Jesus as their only Savior. Today we will look at what makes us
ready as we use a very familiar picture as our theme:. A theme which drives
home the simple point that Jesus means everything for us who are lost in sin
and death.
Sermon Theme: From Death To Life Through Christ
Jesus said: "I tell you the
truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and
will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." This
teaching was not pleasant to the ears of those that heard Jesus speak the words
of our text. It added fuel to their hatred and increased their determination to
get rid of him. Jesus spoke these words just after he was confronted about
healing someone on the Sabbath Day. The words of our text were a stinging
response to those who didn’t believe that Jesus was truly the Son of God, the
promised Messiah of the Old Testament. Jesus clearly said, that he was more
than Joseph the carpenter’s son. He was God’s Son.
Listen as Jesus explains that he
and his heavenly Father are equal. You can almost see the Pharisees and other
church leaders ready to boil over in anger, "Jesus gave them this
answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can
do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son
also does. 20For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.
Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. 21For
just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives
life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22Moreover, the Father judges
no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23that all may
honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does
not honor the Father, who sent him."
Hearing this they became all the
more determined to kill Jesus, because he had the audacity to say that God was
his Father, making himself equal with God. Their blind and stubborn hearts
condemned Jesus, despite the proof which they should have found in the
miraculous cure of the sick man. They closed their hearts which means that they
condemned themselves to eternal death.
The mighty works of Jesus, of which
the healing of the sick man was just one example, can lead to only one
conclusion. It was expressed by Nicodemus: "Rabbi, we know you area
teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs
you are doing if God were not with him" (John 3:2). But the logic of
the Jewish leaders ruled out that conclusion. Instead, they reasoned with
unbelieving hearts: He breaks the Sabbath; He makes himself equal with God;
therefore he is a liar and a blasphemer. We marvel how patiently Jesus defends
himself against those who have set themselves against him. Jesus says, "Jesus
gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by
himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father
does the Son also does. 20For the Father loves the Son and shows him
all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than
these."
What exactly is Jesus saying in
these words? He is pointing out part of the mystery of the Trinity. The persons
of the Holy Trinity do not work independently of each other. God cannot be
divided. The work and will of God is one, even as God is one. Emphatically
Jesus teaches, not that he is just a prophet, or a great Miracle Worker, but
that He is the Son of God, the Christ through whom spiritual and eternal life
would be restored to a spiritually sick and dying race of people. Unless faith
and doctrine begin and end with that truth, it is worthless. When the human
heart comes to the conviction that Jesus is the true Son of God and the perfect
Savior, then a sinner has been reborn and the gift of Eternal Life is theirs.
Nothing else will do. Any other basis for faith and doctrine is a lie and leads
to eternal destruction.
This is not the only place in the
Bible that we can find this wonderful truth. We know what Jesus says about
himself in the Bible: "I am the Resurrection and the Life" (John
11:25), and again: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
(John 14:6). But he did not just say these words; He demonstrated them by
works. He healed the sick and even raised people from the dead. But the most
outstanding proof of His life-giving power was his own empty tomb on Easter
morning. Because he lives, we shall live also. We pass from death to life through
Christ.
The fact of life through Jesus
alone is stressed from another angle in the words of our Lord, "Moreover,
the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son." We
will live eternally, either to bless God eternally in the joy of heaven or to
curse the day that we were born in the pains of hell, depending upon our
relationship to Christ. "If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is
Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved" (Rom. 10:9).and "Whoever believes and is baptized will
be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:16).
In our acceptance or rejection of Christ lies the sentence that shall be passed
upon us on Judgment Day. Unbelief closes the door and shuts out the grace of
God in Jesus Christ, which alone can save the sinful soul.
The purpose of Christ’s coming into
the world was to bring men life. He came to bring men the fullness of life by
bringing sinners into communion with God through the forgiveness of sins, and
to give them the golden crown of eternal life beyond the grave in the presence
of God and His holy angels. "I have come that they may have life and
have it to the full." (John 10:10). Let men laugh at and ridicule this
simple faith in Christ, who became man that he might die for sin and reveal
God’s eternal plan of salvation for a lost world! It will remain everlastingly
true. Those who reject him will someday see him again. Then they will be in
despair for the hour of grace will be gone, and the hour of judgment has come.
They will pass from death into eternal despair. But those who believe in Jesus
will see him with great joy. They will be able to cry out, "Thanks be
to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" (1 Cor.
15:57.)
A second thought that Jesus wanted
us to remember from this text is that
2.
The Blessings of Eternal Life are ours through Faith alone
All men are by nature under
the curse of sin. Even as a dead man cannot give himself life, so those who are
dead spiritually because of sin cannot give themselves spiritual life. New
spiritual life must be given to the sinner. And this new life comes when the
Holy Spirit through His Word and Baptism creates faith in Christ. The spiritual
resurrection of faith must precede the physical resurrection to eternal life. A
new life must be created, the life which we live by the Spirit, the life which
flows from and is lived in the faith of Jesus Christ. Those who believe in
Jesus as the only Savior will not taste eternal death. The death which a
believer now has is the end of the tears and evils of this world and the
entrance into eternal life. This resurrection from spiritual death now shows
itself in a new life.. Jesus gives spiritual life to those who believe in Him. "I
tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has
eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to
life."
The new spiritual life in the faith
of Jesus Christ cannot be lived without a struggle while we are still in the
flesh. Our sinful nature rebels against the new life of the Spirit. The Old
Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with
all sins and evil lusts, and again, a new man should daily come forth and
arise, who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever. If Christ
lives in us by faith, and if we daily seek strength from His holy Word to
overcome our sinful flesh, then we shall be enabled through Christ to live the
risen life upon earth and to rise to eternal life in the world to come. Our
life will become truly worth while.
Two truths become apparent from a
study of the defense of Jesus before His enemies: first, that the assurance of
eternal life can be found in Jesus alone, and second, that the blessings of
eternal life are ours through faith alone. These are truths that cannot be
repeated too often, for when we lose them, we have lost everything. Possessing
these truths in faith, we have everything. Houses filled with material things
and a bursting pocketbook become worthless in the hour of death; but the heart
filled with faith in Jesus has the treasures of heaven. These are truths,
therefore, which always delight the Christian heart, no matter how often we
have heard them. Amen.