Portions of this sermon were
borrowed from a sermon by Rev. Rex Spicer entitled, "Wolves and Sandcastles" as appeared in "The
Concordia Pulpit for 1984" (copyright 1983, Concordia Publishing House)
"Wolves and Sandcastles"
Matthew 7:15-29
The Third Sunday after Pentecost
- A June 1, 2008
Our
In our
Gospel reading this morning from Matthew chapter 7, we find Jesus' closing
words of His well-known Sermon on the Mount.
Of course that Sermon on the Mount began with the Beatitudes where Jesus
pronounced His blessing upon "the
poor in spirit, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven." And then in the main part of the Sermon on the
Mount Jesus teaches his disciples how to live as His blessed people. For example the Sermon on the Mount is where
we find Jesus teaching His disciples things such as, "You are to be the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world." And of course there we also find Jesus giving
the golden rule, "do to others what
you would have them do to you."
But again, this morning our reading is the conclusion of this sermon by
Jesus. And as Jesus concludes, He ends
basically with a word of warning for His blessed people. "Watch
out," he says. "Beware!" For something, or rather someone is lurking wanting
to do you in. And
actually Jesus warns His disciples of a double trap - the first being the fatal
seduction of false prophets and the second being the thinking that we can somehow
build a life apart from the Word of God.
And to illustrate these warnings Jesus uses the images of wolves and
sandcastles. Wolves and sandcastles. ...
Occasionally
you will hear of someone who gets caught - busted for trying to sell counterfeit
artwork or ancient artifacts. They take
a non-original, doctor it up, try to pass it off as
the real McCoy and hope to sell it for far more than it is actually worth. Of course many of these counterfeiters are
good at what they do so it generally takes an expert in the field to detect the
deception. Well in our reading for this
morning Jesus tells us - His disciples, those claimed by His cross - He tells
us that fakes will come. Not fake artwork,
but fake prophets. False
teachers and preachers whose purpose is not to teach and preach Christ and Him
crucified - but rather to deceive and to mislead. "Wolves
in sheep’s clothing," Jesus calls them. And certainly our world has seen many of them
- the world is filled with many of them even today.
But how do
you detect them? How do you know if what
someone says is in line with God’s Word?
Well, I guess like those who detect fake and deceptive artwork, we need the
experts then. Experts
in the Word of God. "Well,
that's the pastor's job, right? It's his
job to watch out for that sort of thing and teach us what is right."
Well, ok. ..
But how do you know that what the pastor is saying is right? How do you know what I say to you today, what
I teach your kids and grandkids in Catechism class is true and correct? Faithful to God's Word of Christ crucified? Well we just trust the pastor; he seems like
a nice enough guy.
Well I guess I would be a bit flattered if that were the thinking, but
no, may it not be. Not that I can't be a
nice guy, but it's not about me or what I think or what anyone thinks. It's about faithfulness to God's Word. And so again, how do you know that the
one teaching or preaching is being faithful to God's Word?
Well, in
order to know what is not true, you – as God’s baptized and redeemed people –
YOU must know what is true. That IS your
job. It's part of being a part of the
priesthood of all believers, it's being a member of
the body of Christ, a sheep of your shepherd.
To judge what is preached from this pulpit, taught in those classrooms,
shared at the bedsides against the Word of God.
That IS your job. … But did you know that according to the recent
statistics, only 11% of LCMS adults are in a regular Bible Study at their
church. 11%. That's pathetic. Actually here at Our Redeemer it's probably
less than that - and that's really pathetic.
The sad fact that confronts the church today is that far too many of its
people do not understand its message; do not know its doctrines. Our Bibles become an heirloom rather than God's Word of
eternal life. Yes we learned it in Catechism class, but what happens
as time goes on? ... We forget. Or the
world and our sinful nature slowly and subtly begin to change our thinking away
from the Word of God. …
Are we
playing in the sand enjoying momentary distractions and failing thereby to
build a life on the Rock which is Christ and His Word? If this is the case, we are ripe for deception. For when we cannot tell the good fruit from the
bad, when our judgments are made on the basis of personality, good deeds, and
fine voices putting forth what sounds good to us and tickles our fancy, we are
in trouble. May the Lord have mercy on
us all. For such
a way of judging allows us - and our children and grandchildren - to be
deceived and to come up empty, deprived, and diminished – for eternity.
And don't be
fooled, there are many churches - many churches that bear the name Lutheran
even - that have been torn up by wolves.
Many that have been led astray by deceptive and
dangerous teachings that take us away from Christ and Him crucified and risen
for us sinners. If we take our minds off
of God's Word, we are not above being led astray - I don't care what it says on
the sign out front. And so "watch out," Jesus says. "Watch
out for false prophets, they will come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly
they are ferocious wolves."
"Watch out for them." …
…
Having
warned us about false teachers, Jesus then turns to the more subtle deception -
and that is the temptation to build sandcastles. Building sandcastles. And the truth is,
this deception seems to start quite young for us. I mean we are taught to build a life on being
both nice and successful, right? Our culture programs us to trust in our own
strength of mind and body. Society teaches
us to rely on our financial resources, family, social connections. This training, well it seeks to convince us
that this is the life - that this way of life will make us happy and bring us
wholeness and meaning. Be well fed, have
a good job and fine friends, and maybe add a little religion and you're set for
whatever life might throw at you. … Fools building castles in the sand with their
very own lives is what that is. It's
foolish because it is a deception - temporary, shifting as sand on the
seashore. Here today, washed away by the
waves for eternity.
You see the
ultimate question life asks us is not can we play bridge or basketball or the earn a decent living, but rather, "What is your
life built upon?" "To whom do
you belong?" Do you belong to the
master of the shadows, or do you belong to the Light of the world? .. A mother raises her children with love and
sacrifice. She sees to it that they are
well clothed and fed. She goes to their
many school and extracurricular activities and stands by them in difficult
times. Yet she never tells them of Jesus
and His love. With one hand she gives
them all things, but yet with the other she deprives them of eternal life. …
What is your life built upon? …
You see the
wise person of whom Jesus speaks in our Gospel lesson - the one who builds his
house upon the rock - is the one who has been given a life built upon Jesus and
his cross and empty tomb. The wise
person whom Jesus speaks of is the one who has heard and believed the message
of redemption from sin, death and hell by the blood of Jesus. The wise person whom Jesus speaks of is the
one who has been made alive to the reality that one's job, house, fun, spouse,
and children were not made to do serve one's own purposes. No.
The wise person whom Jesus speaks of knows that all these things were
made and given to us to serve God's purposes with. And that is the life you have been given -
that is the baptized and redeemed life you have been given. And so, guided by God's Word you can now ask,
"How can I best serve God by serving my neighbor through my job? How can my house - God's gift to me of
shelter - be a blessing, not a distraction in my service to Him? How can my leisure time rejuvenate me for
service in God's kingdom? How can I help
keep and strengthen my spouse in the faith?
How can I best raise my children that they may be humble and faithful
servants of our Lord, Jesus Christ?"
That's a life of no sandcastles, that's a life built upon the solid rock
that will never be washed away. …
Now today,
in just a couple of minutes, two of you - Katey and T.J. - will stand up here
and publicly confess your faith before the world and before God. You have heard God's Word of Jesus, by God's mercy
and Spirit you have believed that Word, by God's grace you confess that same
Word here today. And by God's grace all
of us, all of you dear brothers and sisters in Christ, have heard that same
Word. And so by God's Spirit know,
believe that Jesus lived the perfectly God-pleasing life in your place; He died
an agonizing death on