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

The more that you read the Bible, the more that you come to realize just how many stories there are that have to do with angels. From Genesis to Revelation, there is hardly a single page of sacred Scripture that does not at least make mention of these magnificent and mysteries creatures. For example, the Bible tells us that an angel was placed at the entrance of the garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned in order to guard the tree of life. It says that angels visited Abraham and Lot and safely led Lot’s family away from Sodom and Gomorrah before God destroyed it. An angel protected Hagar and her son Ishmael when they were cast out into the wilderness. Angels appeared to Jacob in a dream, ascending and descending on latter to heaven. They also accompanied Moses when he gave the people the Law at Mount Saini. An angel stood in the way of Balaam and prevented him from passing by on his donkey to curse the Israelites. An angel came to Elijah and fed him after he ran away from the wicked queen Jezebel and fell sleep under a broom tree. An angel appeared to Zechariah, and Mary, and Joseph announcing the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus, and giving them directions of what they were supposed to do afterward. An angel broke the chains off Paul and Silas when they were in jail at Philippi. An angel guided Peter out of prison and led him to the house of the other disciples in Jerusalem. And Jesus tells us that when He returns in glory, all of the angels will come with Him. It is impossible to believe that the Bible is the literal Word of God and not believe in angels.

So, on the day in the Church when we are given to think more deeply about the angels, namely, the Feast of Saint Michael and all angels, which we celebrate today, let us simply consider together why God tells us about them at all. What is the benefit of the teaching of angels?

The first benefit of the teaching of angels is that it humbles us by reminding us of God’s majesty. When we look around at all of the things that God made which we can see, it is overwhelming for us to think about already. The earth that we live on is massive. Outer space is enormous. There are stars and galaxies and planets which are so far away from us that we can barely view them with a telescope. And who knows how many thousands of lifetimes it would take a person to travel to one of them if that were even something that was possible to begin them. And yet, God reminds us in His Word that all of that is merely a small picture of everything that He has actually created. In fact, there is an entire world that exists alongside our world, which, without His help, we are not able to see at all. And that, of course, is the world of the angels. It is the spiritual world, filled with these spiritual and heavenly beings. 

Not only does the Bible teach us very clearly that angels are real, but it also tells us that there are a great number of them, and that all of them are extremely powerful. As Saint John says in the book of Revelation, “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.” Sometimes angels are depicted today as cute and cuddly creatures. But that is not true at all. Even though there are so many of them that only God can count them, a single angel by itself can do more than a whole host of men combined. Remember how it was that a single angel killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in just one night? Or remember how a single angel struck down all the first-born sons of Egypt, also in a single night? The Bible tells us that angels can cause earthquakes and move oceans. They can travel the span of the earth in a solitary second, and they can disappear and reappear before us in the blink of an eye. 

Truly, when we stop to think about the angels, we cannot help but be filled with wonder and amazement toward God who made them. When we consider the vastness of God’s creation, both visible and invisible, how could we not be overwhelmed by the majesty of His glory and the great power of His might? In the span of six literal days, God created the heavens and earth and all that is in them, including the angels. And yet, at the center of His creation, the only thing that He says that He made in His own image and likeness, is us lowly humans. 

The second benefit of the teaching of angels is that it comforts us by reminding us of God’s loving care. Even though the angels are so great and powerful, the Bible tells us that God made them to serve us, and that their chief task is to watch over and protect us. In Psalm 34, we read that the “angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him.” And Psalm 91 tells us how, “[God] will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” Likewise, the author of Hebrews writes, “Are not [the angels] ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?” While the Word of God is unclear whether or not each one of us has our own personal guardian angel, what is certainly clear is that none of us are without the help of angels. As Jesus tells us in our Gospel lesson today from Matthew eighteen, referring to children and all those in special need of God’s care, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

In addition to all of passages from the Bible that tell us how God promises to use angels to help us, there are also many wonderful accounts from the Scriptures of this actually happening to real people in the past. When Daniel fell into the lion’s den, who was it that closed the mouths of those ferocious beasts throughout the whole night so that they did not devour him? It was the angels. When Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego were cast into the fiery furnace who was it that stood with them in the midst of the flames so that not a single hair on their head was singed? It was an angel. And in perhaps the most inspiring account with angels from the whole Bible, there is the story of Elisha and his fearful servant. When Elisha was trapped in the city of Dothan, completely surrounded by the Syrian army, and his servant trembled at the sight of the enemy, Elisha prayed that God would open the eyes of his companion, and when he looked up what did he see? The mountains around them were filled with angels. As Elisha said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

The teaching of angels gives us Christians comfort at every moment of our life.  If we are afraid to travel, and get nervous when we or our loved ones have to leave home, the teaching of angels reminds us that there are always those who accompany us along the way. If we are scared of the dark, and get worried about the safety of our little ones at night, the teaching of angels helps us to sleep it peace. It assures us that our beds are never left unprotected, and that even if we can’t stay awake and watch, there are always those who can. The angels are with us when we are tempted and they come to our aid when we suffer. After Jesus overcame the devil in the wilderness, the Bible tells us that it was the angels that came to minister to Him. And when His agony was so great in the Garden of Gethsemane that He sweat drops of blood, the angels were there too. Even in the hour of death, the God’s Word assures us that God’s holy angels never leave our side. As we learn from the account of poor Lazarus, when a believer dies, it is the angels that come and carry our souls to heaven. 

And finally, besides humbling us and comforting us, the teaching of angels also encourages us. It encourages us to live a godly life by reminding us that we are never alone. We may not always be able to see the angels, but the angels always see us. They see the good things that we do, and they also see the bad. If we actually do believe what the Bible says about the angels, and the spiritual world that surrounds us, how could that not change the way that we live? When we consider just how great and powerful the angels are, and yet how they willingly and loving use that strength to serve us, how could that not enliven our hearts to serve others too? In fact, the Bible even tells us that in serving others, it is possible to serve the angels themselves. Remember what we read in Hebrews chapter thirteen, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware.”

God’s angels watch us when we work, and they also watch us when we worship. Their presence teaches us to take things like church seriously. When the women in Corinth, for example, refused to cover their heads during the service as a demonstration that they did not have to submit to their husbands, Saint Paul told them that they were offending the angels. And the same is true whenever someone takes God’s Word and Sacraments lightly today. It is with angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven that we laud and magnify God’s glorious Name in worship. From the moment that His Name is spoken at the Invocation, to the moment that His Name is in placed on us at the Benediction, the angels of God are there. And their presence encourages us to keep God’s Name holy. It encourages pastors teach the Word of God in its truth in purity, and it encourages the children of God to lead holy lives according to it. 

In fact, that is what the angels care about the most. There is nothing that makes the angels in heaven happier than when a sinner confesses his sins and looks to Jesus for forgiveness. There is nothing that gives them more joy than repentance. As Jesus Himself tells us in Luke chapter fifteen, “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” If you are thinking about or planning to do something than you know is wrong, and that God’s Word forbids, then think instead about the angels. If up to this point in your life you have lived in your sin with little or no attempt at stopping, then consider again the angels. And if you are sorry for the things that you have done, and want to do better, then remember the angels too. Remember the things into which the Bible says that even “the angels long to look.” The angels long to look at Jesus. They long to behold the face of the crucified and risen Lord, who died for the sins of the world, and they want nothing more than for each and every one of us to do the same. 

And for those who mourn their sins and put their faith in Christ to forgive them, one day, we will. One day, all those who trust not in themselves or their own works, but in the merit and blood of Jesus alone, will see Jesus face to face in eternity. No, we do not become angels when we die. Angels are spiritual beings without bodies and we believe in the resurrection of the dead. But even though we do not become angels when we die, we do become like them: confirmed in bliss, incapable of sin, completely united with the will of God, and singing His praises in the heavenly choir forever. May God grant it to all of us for Jesus’ sake. And may He use the teaching of angles to strengthen our faith along the way. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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

Today in the Church we remember Saint Matthew, who the Bible tells us was a tax collector that Jesus called to be one of His apostles and later on inspired to be an evangelist. In our Gospel lesson this morning from Matthew chapter 9, we get to hear a little bit more about Saint Matthew’s call and also about some the events that happened after it. Apparently, after Jesus called Matthew, He went and had dinner at Matthew’s house along with some of his friends. This led to the Pharisees ridiculing Jesus and falsely accusing Him of supporting other people’s immoral behavior. It was a classic “guilt by association” kind of argument. In response, our Lord quoted the Bible to the them and said, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’”

So, what I’d like to do in this morning’s sermon, as we celebrate Saint Matthew, is do exactly what Jesus tells us to do in our text and spend some time thinking about what it means that God’s desire mercy and not sacrifice.

Now, the first thing that these words have to do with is what God wants from us. This becomes very obvious when we consider their context, and where they show up elsewhere in the Scriptures. The phrase, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” is a direct quote from the book of Hosea. If you remember Hosea was the prophet that God told to go and marry a prostitute in order to show the people of Israel how they were being unfaithful to Him by following after other gods. Hosea represented God and his unfaithful wife represented Israel. In chapter 6 of his book, Hosea speaks the words from our text and then he adds this after them, “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me. Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with blood. As robbers lie in wait for a man, so the priests band together; they murder on the way to Shechem; they commit villainy.” The problem in Israel was that even though the people were regularly coming to the temple to make sacrifices to God, outside of the temple they were engaged in all kinds of wickedness. Apparently, things were so bad during the time of Hosea that even the priests were guilty of committing literal murder. So, do you think that God was still pleased with their sacrifices given all of the other things that they were doing too? Do you think that He was still happy with them for coming to the temple and going through the motions of worship, despite everything else that what was going on in their lives as well? Of course, not!

In fact, not only was God not happy with them, but because of their unrepentant sins, even their sacrifices were something that displeased Him. This is the exact same thing that we see taking place in 1 Samuel chapter 22, which is when king Saul offered to God a sacrifice that he wasn’t supposed to. There we read, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than to sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” Or think about what David once said in Psalm 51. After his sin with Bathsheba, David rightly confessed, “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Ultimately, what God wants from us, and the first part of what it means when Jesus says, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” is for us to actually repent of our sins and look to Him for forgiveness. It’s for us to follow God’s Word, to be truly sorry for the times that we haven’t, and to trust that there is mercy to be found only in Christ.

That’s what the Pharisees got so very wrong in our text. That’s what they were completely unable to see. Not only were they guilty of doing many of the same things that they ridiculed other people for doing, like loving money and wanting stuff that didn’t belong to them, but they were completely unrepentant for it. They weren’t sorry for it. they didn’t think that they needed to be forgiven for it, because they didn’t think that they had done anything wrong in their lives at all. The Pharisees thought that God was pleased with them already because of their pious looking lives, when, in fact, their self-righteous deeds were the very things that condemned them. 

To put it into our own context, God doesn’t care about how many times a person comes to church, puts money in the offering plate, and takes Communion, if at the same time they are being stubbornly disobedient to Him elsewhere, treating other people like dirt, or only doing those things because they think that they can earn His favor by the mere act of doing them. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to do pray, come to church, and take communion at all, it’s that He wants us to do them in the right kind of way. He wants us to do them in genuine repentance and faith. Taking the Lord’s Supper, for example, which is supposed to be for the forgiveness of oursins, at the same time that we refuse to forgive someone else for their sins, is not taking the Lord’s Supper in repentance and faith. Giving a tenth of what you have to the church, when the reason why you have that money to begin with is because you stole it from somebody else or tricked them into giving it to you through bad business practices, isn’t doing it in repentance and faith. And saying your prayers at night, while you send text messages to your mistress, is obviously, not doing it in repentance and faith. Doing any of those things without repentance, and without faith, makes all of those things worthless to us. It makes God just as mad as if we’ve never done them at all.

God desires mercy and not sacrifice. What He wants from us the most isn’t our money. It isn’t our prayers. And it isn’t our church attendance. It’s our repentance. God wants us to turn away from our sins, follow His Word, and to come to Him for forgiveness and healing when we fail.

And that brings us to the second part of what these words from Jesus mean. Besides having to do with what God wants from us, which is always our repentance, the other thing that they have to do with is with what God wants for us. What God wants for us most of all, is for us to be saved. He doesn’t just want us to confess our sins, and be sorry for them, He wants us to be forgiven of them and cleansed from them too. As Jesus says so beautifully in our text today, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick… I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Our Lord did not come down from heaven in order to tell righteous looking people that they were doing a really great job on their own already, so keep up the good work. He didn’t become incarnate as a man and walk on this earth as our Great Physician, simply to tell us that we have a clean bill of health as it is. No, Jesus came to call the whole world to repentance, and then to die for the sins of the whole world too. He came to show us the real sickness that we have, which is our sinful condition, and then to bear our sins in His own body, crucifying them on a cross, so that everyone who believes in Him might be healed and saved.

The entire point of our Lord’s Ministry was for the purpose of saving sinners from their sins. The entire reason why He lived, breathed, preached, and died, was so that we, who are otherwise dead in our sins and trespasses, could have new life. Why does God want us to repent? Why does He constantly show us our sins and insist that we turn away from them? He doesn’t do it to be mean. He doesn’t do it to spoil our fun. He does it because He actually wants us to have forgiveness for them. He actually wants us to receive the cleansing that makes us whole. 

God desires mercy and not sacrifice. As the prophet Jeremiah tells us in Lamentations chapter 3, “His mercies are new every morning, they never come to an end.” There is not a day that goes by that God does not offer to us His mercy and love. There is not a sin that we commit that He is unable or unwilling to forgive. And there is not a person on this earth that He does not want to save. It wasn’t just the tax collectors that Jesus wanted to save. It was the Pharisees too. He wanted the obvious sinners, and He wanted the not so obvious ones as well. He wanted people who were secure in their sins, and He wanted people who didn’t think that they had any sins to begin with. Jesus told Matthew to come and “follow me” and that is exactly what He was doing when He told the Pharisees to go and learn what this means. Jesus was inviting everyone into His Kingdom. 

The call of God’s grace is a universal call. As the Scriptures teach us elsewhere, “God desires all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth,” and “He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” It’s true that not everybody listens to God’s call. Not everyone cares about His invitation. Some people embrace their sins, and other people embrace their own righteousness. But that doesn’t mean that God never tried to call them. And that certainly doesn’t mean that He never wanted to save them.

Just like there are two different ways for us to understand the words, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” where one has to do with what God wants from us and the other has to do with what God wants for us, there are also two main takeaways that we should apply to ourselves this morning. On the one hand, these words from Jesus, are a clear call to repentance. If you are doing things in your life that are against God’s Word with no intention of stopping, thinking that as long as you go through the motions and act like a Christian one day a week, you’ll be fine, then think again. God will not let you into heaven just because you showed up a few times at church. He will not give you a place in His Kingdom just because you gave a few dollars in the offering plate. You can’t serve your sinful nature and also serve Jesus at the same time. Eventually, the disease of your sin will spread until it kills you.

On the other hand, these words from Jesus, are a clear invitation to receive His grace. If you are sorry for the things that you’ve done, and nervous that maybe you’ve done them one too many times in the past, then think again. Jesus is the Great Physician. He is the healer of body and soul. There is no wound that our Lord cannot mend. There is no sin that He will not forgive. No one who comes to Christ with sorrow in their heart will be turned away. No one who seeks His grace will be denied it, regardless of how much they didn’t want it before. Jesus called tax collectors and made them apostles. Jesus called thieves and made them evangelists. Jesus called sinners and made them saints.

So, go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this has a been a very sad week in country’s history to say the least. The ugliness of sin was laid bare before our eyes, reminding us yet again of our desperate need for a Savior. A young Christian man with a wife and two little children was murdered in cold blood simply for trying to reason with America’s youth on our college campuses and rescue them from the poison of woke indoctrination. You might not have agreed with every little thing that Charlie Kirk ever said, which is true for just about every one that there is, but there are a lot of things that he said that you should agree with. He sounded the alarm on the transgender movement and tried to convince people that God never lets anyone get born in the wrong body. He defended marriage between one man and one woman, and encouraged those who had been brainwashed by the porn industry that God has a better plan for their life. He was a strong advocate for the value of all life, even life in the womb. And on many occasions, he appealed to the authority of the Scriptures and spoke boldly about the forgiveness of sins in Jesus, and how through faith in His sacrifice a person could be saved from eternal damnation. No, Charlie wasn’t a Lutheran. But he was a Christian. And that means he was one of our own.

What should we make of the unspeakable atrocity that took place a few days ago? How should we respond to the martyrdom of one of God’s beloved children?  When we listen to the world around us, we hear all kinds of different answers. Some people call for violence. Some people call for political and social reform. And some people are completely silent. But when we listen to God’s Word, we hear the only answer that matters. As Saint Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, our Epistle lesson for today, “We preach Christ crucified.” So, permit me to explain to you all this morning for a few moments what it means to preach Christ crucified and why this is the message that we need to hear now more than ever.

In the first place, preaching Christ crucified means preaching God’s wrath against sin. If it wasn’t clear to you by now, this world is a messed-up place filled with all kinds of evil. Even though God didn’t make it that way the begin with, that’s how it is now, and it’s not just some else’s fault. It’s our fault too. The Lord has given us all very clear Commandments for how He wants us to live our lives, and every single one of us has fallen short of His glory. It isn’t just that we sometimes make mistakes or mess up, like spilling a glass of water or burning a piece of bread in the toaster. We sin. And God hates our sin.

If you don’t think that God hates sin, and that it actually makes Him angry when we do things against His holy law, then look again at the cross of Jesus. The Bible tells us that when Jesus died on the cross, He wasn’t suffering for His sins, but for ours. What that means is that when we look at His suffering, it shows us exactly what our sins deserve. Remember what Jesus once said to the women who were following after Him and crying while He was on His way to being crucified. He said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” That’s the attitude that we are supposed to have when it comes to the cross. We aren’t simply supposed to think, “O poor, Jesus, He didn’t deserve any of that,” but “Woe is me; I deserve that. And if God were fair, that’s what I should have gotten from Him instead of Jesus.”

The death of Jesus on the cross is God’s call to repentance for the whole world. Here’s what the Lord thinks about false worship and false teaching. Here’s what He thinks about skipping Church and being disobedient and disrespectful to your parents. This is price that had to be paid for getting divorced, fooling around with your boyfriend or girlfriend, and hurting people with your words and actions. This is the just punishment for talking behind peoples’ backs and wanting things that don’t belong to you.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that Christianity is all about God accepting you just the way that you are. Don’t ever believe the lie that preaching Christ crucified doesn’t have anything to do with preaching against sin and calling out things by name. Just look at Saint Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Actually read the rest of the book where he tells us that we should preach nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. In that same letter, Paul goes on to talk about all kinds of different sins and why we Christians can’t embrace any one of them. In chapter 4, he talks about lawsuits among believers and why it’s wrong to sue a brother or sister in Christ in court. In chapter 7, he talks about not leaving your spouse except on Biblical grounds. In chapter 3, he talks about why it’s wrong to hurt your body or the body of another. And in chapter 6, he talks about why you shouldn’t get drunk and why you can’t live like a homosexual. Remember how Saint Paul defends the reason why it’s not okay to go around sleeping with prostitutes, which is apparently something that was actually happening in the church of Corinth? He says it’s because “You were bought with a price.” Paul frames the entire argument in the context of Jesus’ atoning death on the cross. He does that because that is part of what it means to preach Christ crucified. It means preaching why He had to be crucified and calling people to repentance for their sins.

But that, of course, is not all that it means to preach Christ crucified. It doesn’t just mean preaching the wrath of God against sin and calling people to repentance, though that’s certainly part of it. It also means, preaching the forgiveness of sins too and showing those who are sorry for the things that they have done that there is still hope for their salvation. The death of Jesus doesn’t just show us how much God hates sin, and what He had to do to His own Son because of it, it shows us how much God loves sinners, and what great lengths He has gone in order to save them.

The most famous passage in the whole Bible is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Everybody knows that verse. But do you remember what comes right before that verse? Before that verse Jesus says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” It was on the cross that God showed us His love. It was in Jesus being lifted up and suffering and dying in our place that God actually gave us the answer to how we can go to heaven someday even though we don’t deserve to. As Saint Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8, “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” And as we read in 1 John 4, “And this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

There is no sin that Jesus didn’t die for. There is no sin that our Lord did not make up for, and atone for, when He laid down His life for us on the cross. And there is no sin that God will not forgive when we ask Him for it.

Why do we preach against things like transgenderism, homosexuality, abortion, and every sin that there is for that matter? We don’t do it because we hate people, we do it because we love people. We do it because we want people to know the love of God in Christ. We want them to stop hurting themselves and their souls, and instead receive the healing forgiveness that comes from Jesus. It’s wrong to reject the body that gave God you and try and make it look like the body of another. It’s wrong to have sex outside of marriage and use someone else for pleasure when even common sense itself tells you that it’s unnatural. It’s wrong to take the innocent life of child in the womb just so it makes your life a little bit easier in the present. None of those things can take away someone’s pain, and none of them can give us a clean conscience before God in heaven. But the blood of Jesus can. Will people who trusted in Jesus for forgiveness think that they were born in the wrong body in heaven? Will people who struggled against their sinful and unnatural desires, and relied on Christ in the process, have any of those desires in heaven? Will women who followed God’s Word and protected the fruit of their womb even though it made their life harder, still have a hard life in heaven? No, they won’t. God will take care of it all. The sin that He has forgiven, He will finally remove completely. All of its effects. All of its pain. All of its sorrow. All of it will be gone for those who put their trust in Christ.

And that’s why we preach Christ crucified. That’s why we call the whole world to repentance, including ourselves, and proclaim to everyone that there is forgiveness to be found only in Jesus. The reason why we do that, and why this is the exact message that we need to hear now more than ever, is because there is no other message on earth that has the power to save a person’s soul. As Saint Paul writes in our Epistle lesson, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Telling people that their sins aren’t sins, won’t save them. Telling people that God accepts them exactly the way that they are and that they don’t need the forgiveness that comes from Christ won’t save them. And telling people that in order to have God’s forgiveness they have to do something more than repent and believe the Gospel won’t save them either.

It’s true that not everyone wants to hear the preaching of Christ crucified. We saw that very clearly last week. As Saint Paul reminds us in our text, “Jews seeks signs and Greeks seek wisdom.” Some people don’t want to listen to the preaching of Christ crucified because they don’t think it’s that important. Hearing about things like sin and grace, repentance and forgiveness, doesn’t interest them as much as other things do, and they can’t see how it does them any good here and now. If they want anything from God at all, they want a miracle, but they don’t realize the miracle that they already have in Jesus. Others don’t want to listen to the preaching of Christ crucified because there are things that go along with it that they don’t like or that they don’t understand. They want everything in their life to make sense to them, and nothing in their religion to conflict with how they view the world already. They want wisdom, but they don’t realize that the wisdom of God is wiser than men.

Regardless of what keeps people from listening to the preaching of Christ crucified, the only thing that will change their mind is the preaching of Christ crucified itself. We didn’t want to hear it either. Every single one of us from the moment of our conception was blinded by sin and hostile to the Gospel. And yet, through the preaching of the cross, the Holy Spirit called us to faith and enlightened us with His gifts. Through the preaching of the cross, the power of the cross was applied to us, and salvation itself was given to us. And so, we keep preaching the cross. We preach it even if it means that we suffer for and die it. We show other people their sins and we show them their Savior. We don’t budge on anything that the Bible teaches and we put our confidence in everything that the Bible says. We call the world to repentance and we teach them how Jesus died for the sins of the whole world too. We preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And we listen to the sermon that we preach while we do it. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.