Last Sermons

I must confess: what follows does not heed the given instructions. It is supposed to be different from the hundreds I’ve delivered in the past but Lutheran pastors are taught to preach every sermon as if it is his last. Perhaps the question should be, “what sermon would you preach if it is the last one the reader will hear?” Now we’re talking about serious stuff, your death. What will happen to your soul when you die? As a Christian you answer it will go to heaven. Why? You answer, “because I am saved.” Why do you need to be saved?

So many pastors talk about being saved but rarely explain why you need to be saved. Every sermon should tell you clearly that you are a sinner, a wicked being marked for eternal damnation, yet you seldom hear this critical proclamation.

This omission is incomprehensible. It is like having a disease and the physician avoiding all talk about that disease and its lethality. This kind of omission is more harmful in theology than in medicine. You are being saved through faith alone and understanding is part of faith. Therefore, being fully convinced that you are a sinner is absolutely crucial to being saved. But repeatedly hearing about sinfulness and eternal damnation that results from sin are so offensive that most preachers rarely mention it. Most sadly, because you don’t hear why you need to be saved, you end up not hearing the full Gospel and risk straying from saving faith.

Sin is the disease and forgiveness is the cure. Forgiveness results from what Christ endured on Good Friday: His suffering, bleeding and dying for mankind. Salvation flows from forgiveness. And He suffered this purely out of love for you.

Christ’s resurrection does not save. His resurrection was absolutely necessary because, by raising Christ back to life, God the Father declared that the Son’s sacrifice satisfied mankind’s sin debt. The Bible repeatedly demonstrates the crucifixion’s importance over the resurrection. The limited space here does not allow for more than one example. (Contact me for more references.) In 1 Corinthians 1:23 and 2:2, St. Paul wrote that he preached Christ crucified and not knowing anything among them except Christ crucified. He omitted any mention of the resurrection. Most certainly Paul believed in and preached Christ’s resurrection, but because the forgiveness of our sins results from crucifixion, he omitted resurrection here.

The soul-saving Gospel is that we are all sinners who need to be saved from the wickedness resulting from what we are and do. Since it is impossible for us to save ourselves, Jesus Christ, God the Son, died for us and purchased our forgiveness through His sacrifice. But this gift can be received only by faith. What is faith? It is more than believing. The part that most forget is trust or reliance. “Saving faith” means placing your whole reliance upon Christ’s bleeding death, and upon absolutely nothing else.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.

There is an awesome life giving truth that has changed my life. It is not a new truth, in fact it was expressed to Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John, Jesus and Paul. It became real to me when I read it the way Paul said it, If God is for us, who can be against us? Rom 8:31(b) NKJV.

I believe that statement has put mankind on a mission of answering and having an overcoming walk every day. It is in the form of a question so that everyone can answer it for themselves. You see, God put within every human being the nature of something bigger than themselves, and the longing of something more. When we try to fill that incompleteness without God we fall short or feel we have not hit the bull’s eye of fulfillment and purpose. Oh, we have times of happiness and fulfillment but it never lasts. Over time we want more and more and from that desire of “want” and we never feel totally satisfied. So what do we do? We ask this question, what is stopping me or is against me that blocks my satisfaction and fulfillment in living my God given purpose?

That question of satisfaction and purpose is not new but started in a garden and ended in a garden. It started with the first Adam and ended with Jesus Christ. It is answered by “TRUST” in saying, “not my will and purpose to be fulfilled but Lord Your will and purpose.” The first Adam thought, God was holding out on him by not letting him eat from one of the trees in the garden. It was not the tree that got him and mankind in trouble, but the disobedience to the will and purpose of God. The heart that said God is not totally for me! Then Jesus Christ came, known also as the second Adam, came and completed His will and purpose, hung on a tree that brought everything back to mankind redeeming us. Because of what Jesus Christ did on that tree I can say to you with total confidence, If God is for us, who can be against us?

What do I do? Know that God is 100% for you! He has given you and is giving you His life giving purpose and best. Did He not send His Only begotten Son, Jesus Christ to save you and make available by receiving Him, life and a life more abundantly? That Resurrected Life is available to you every day in every way. God being God, always has more! He has given you His Spirit that will live in you daily and will make you more than a conqueror. Knowing all of that is true, we can make the answer to the question personal and real, “If God is for me, who can be against me? Nothing and No One can stand against the power and love of God and win.” Just read Romans Chapter 8 verses 26-39 and receive the answer!

Bible References: Gen 15:1; Deut 33:29; 1 Sam 17:45-47; Isa 54:17; Jer 1:19; John 10:28-30; 1 John 4:4; Ephesians 1:7-21; Ephesians 2:1-10; Rom 8:26-39

Jonah had gone a long way from God: He left the will and presence of God, traveled across the Mediterranean, went to the bottom of the sea, and rode who knows how far in the belly of a whale.

But our text tells us that our reluctant prophet found the way back. The people of Nineveh had gone a long way from God as well. Their ancestors had known the One True Living God. They descended from Noah who found grace in the eyes of the Lord. But they had forsaken the God of Noah and fashioned for themselves gods of their own choosing and worshipped them in perversity and promiscuity.

They also find the way back.

You may be looking for a way back. The way back can be summarized in one word: repentance.

The Book of Jonah offers us TWO PICTURES OF REPENTANCE.

Jonah 2:7-9 shows us that Jonah himself repented of disobeying the Lord.

The People of Nineveh also repented when Jonah preached to them. In fact, both the king and the people joined in a fast, wore sackcloth, and abandoned their wicked ways.

The Bible shows us repentance is not an accessory. Repentance is a necessity. Throughout the Old Testament God called to His people, “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions.” (Ez. 18:30) Hosea tells us that Israel went into captivity because they refused to repent. John the Baptist proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Jesus preached, “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” The disciples, Peter, Paul, John, all preached the message of repentance.

Repentance is a constant theme in the Bible for two reasons. First, Repentance is necessary for salvation. Jesus said, “I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:1-5) But Repentance is also necessary in the Christian´s life: to restore broken fellowship (1 John 1:9), to grow in Christ (2 Cor. 7:9-10), and to avoid or end the chastisement of the Lord (Heb.12:6).

The Book of Jonah shows us well THE ESSENCE OF REPENTANCE. Genuine repentance produces heart-wrenching sorrow, not over the consequences of sin but over the fact that we have sinned. Genuine repentance always leads to total abandonment of the sin and going a new direction.

What happened in Nineveh? The people believed God´s Word. They repented. They were heart-broken over their sin. They abandoned their wicked ways. “Then God saw …that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them.” They found the way back.

What happened to Jonah? Jonah repented also. His heart was wrenched because of his sin. He told God he would obey. “So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.”

Some say, “You can´t keep a good man down.” That is not quite right. “You can´t keep a repentant sinner down.”

Sin will bring you down; but repentance will bring you back up. Be heart-broken over your sin; utterly forsake it; march the opposite direction to Christ. God will raise you up.

Repentance is the way back.

What sustains you in your vocation? Whether you are talking about your career, marriage, life at home, friendships, or hobbies, each of us can reflect on what it is that sustains us for the long haul. It’s a struggle. Many things that we think will sustain us too often don’t. Spending a career chasing money leaves us feeling the weight of “golden handcuffs.” We work to become the king of the hill, and then find out that it’s lonely at the top. Our bodies fail, feelings fade, and we encounter the weight of disappointments in relationship after relationship, in pursuit after pursuit.

The Bible has a word for this feeling: “vanity.” It’s what the writer of Ecclesiastes (given the Hebrew title “Koheleth”) writes about at the beginning of his book. But we might use another word today: “futility.” And so James Kugel translates the opening verses of Ecclesiates this way: “‘So futile,’ says Koheleth, ‘everything is so futile!’ What does a person ever gain from all the effort he expends on this earth? One generation goes off and another comes in, but the earth stays the same forever.”

Whether it’s our career or family or the many other relationships we have in life, it is a very normal thing to encounter this feeling of futility in “the big boring middle of the long book of life.” Faced with this, we can seek satisfaction in thrill-seeking, or perhaps we can just retreat to our couches and assume that this is just as good as it gets. But there is another way, and it’s a way forward that can change everything.

Jesus said in John 10.10 this: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” The gospel of Jesus Christ is here to bring life. Jesus gives his life to pay the price for our sin and failings so that we don’t have to pay that price. Jesus is alive, and thus declares his victory over sin and death. Feelings of futility exist because we live in a sinful world, and the victory that Jesus is claiming, now in part, and completely in the future, is a victory that casts aside futility. In Jesus there is purpose. In Jesus there is meaning. In Jesus there is hope. In Jesus there is a present. In Jesus there is a future.

We can discover our need for Jesus when we encounter our own sin and brokenness. We can discover our addiction, anger, pride, or lust and in doing so discover that we need a savior. But the Ecclesiastes writer reminds us that we can also discover our need for Jesus in the ordinary malaise that we can encounter on any given day. In our feelings of boredom in our job, in frustrations with long-term bad patterns in our marriage, in feelings of failure in the direction of our children’s lives, in countless ways where we see futility, we discover the place where Jesus can offer hope.

Jesus came to give abundant life, now and later. Whether you struggle in deep sin or rebellion, or just struggle with feelings of futility, put your trust in Him. He is the answer that you need.

Life is short. Eternity is a very, very long time. The wise man remembers this. I am 46 years of age. Just in the past couple of years, my 44 year old cousin Mike died, one of my closest childhood friends Tony died at 46, my father-in-law died, and my own Dad died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Life is short.

My own wife has recently battled thyroid cancer and I experience various aches and pains in my body now that never used to be while my vision weakens. Frankly, these are “the hoofbeats of death.”

The Bible says, “The minds of the wise think about funerals, but the minds of fools think about banquets” (Eccl. 7:4). Death forces us to put aside issues like, Who won American Idol, the Biggest Loser or the NBA championship? Rather, death presses us to ask questions that truly matter like, What is life for? What lasting significance does life have? Are my relationships with others right? But especially, is my relationship with God right? Eternity is a very, very long time.

The Bible says, “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb. 9:27-28).

Note that the day of our own funeral has been “appointed” by God. We will “die once.”
God reminds us that after our death “comes judgment” when the risen Lord Jesus Christ will usher the righteous into glory and cast the wicked into hell, forever.

God also tells us that Jesus Christ “died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people.” On the Cross, Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath, the punishment of Hell itself, in the place of, on behalf of, as a substitute for, God’s people—that we might be reconciled to God our Father as His adopted children forever.

Having been risen from the dead, God promises that the Lord Jesus “will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him” through faith. In that Day our bodies will be raised and put on immortality. Since Jesus already dealt with the punishment for sins on the Cross, the believer no longer has to fear God’s judgment in terror but can look forward to that Day with peace, joy and confident hope, knowing God himself “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more” (Rev. 21:4).

The basic message of the Bible is: Jesus Christ came to save the sinners, the ungodly. There is an old saying, “When a man knows he is going to be hanged soon, it wonderfully focuses the mind.” The day Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross, a criminal hanging on a cross next to Him put his faith in Christ. Christ said to him, “This day you shall be with Me in Paradise.” That proves that the good news of the gospel is that we are not saved by our good works but through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.

Life is short. Eternity is a very, very long time. The wise man remembers this.

I often wonder what my life might be like if I live a hundred years. I’m not sure King Solomon was a hundred when he wrote this, but I imagine he had lived through a myriad of experiences as a king. He built great buildings including the Temple in Jerusalem, planted wide vineyards, and expanded the borders of Israel further than ever before. And he even wrote great classics that people still read today. He made it a point to busy himself with all the many different activities he could experience if a person had limitless resources. It was like a great experiment. How far could I sail across the world without falling off? It could be an exciting life full of action and adventure, even romance. Solomon wanted to experience it all. At first Solomon’s experiment had an unexpected conclusion summed up in his words, “Meaningless! Meaningless!” he said, “All is meaningless!” Fortunately, he came to a better conclusion to his life experiment later: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). Solomon came to believe that life is heading somewhere, and that somewhere is into the presence of God who created us. One day we will each stand before the Lord and give an account of how we lived. Consequences relative to every choice we make will be given. Solomon deduced that if we want good things then we’ll “fear” or respect God and His expectations of us, or face the negative consequences at the end of our days. Fortunately, Solomon’s words aren’t the last words God gave to the world. If that were the case, we all would be doomed forever. We read in the Scriptures that came later, “All have sinned and fall short (present tense) of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We all have a history of not following God’s commands such that there aren’t enough good things we could ever do to outweigh the bad. The biggest sin we make is to live our lives as if there is no God. How that must feel like a slap in the face of God! The good news is that even if we forget or ignore God and His wishes, God has not forgotten us. Knowing that we need serious help to get on course with Him and to keep following the course that leads to genuine life, God sent His Son into the world. The Son gave His entire life for us so that we might land safely on God’s wonderful shore. All He asks is that we let Him in the boat with us and do His work well. And even when we fail Him, He remains true to us. The name of God’s Son is Jesus the Christ. We know the world is not flat, but life is still full of so many dangers. And with every passing day we come closer to the end of this journey. If we will pay attention to where we are heading and invite Jesus into the boat, He will make sure we land safely on the other side.

If this were the last sermon that I would ever preach I would preach on the subject, “God’s last invitation.” My text would be Revelation 22:13-21; the last passage in the Bible that contains God’s last invitation to humanity to come to Christ that they might be forgiven of their sin and saved by the Grace of God.

I think it is appropriate that the book (Revelation) which has as its theme, “the Second Coming of Christ,” ends with a final invitation to come to Christ in light of that glorious reality. As the Revelation of God closes we see that the Bible has come full circle. It opened in Genesis 3:15 with a promise of Christ’s First Coming. It closes in Revelation 22 with a promise of His Second Coming. Three times in this text Jesus says, “Behold, I come quickly.” Jesus Christ has been shouting for thousands of years that He is coming and the tragic thing is that so many people are not listening! In my last sermon I would feel compelled to warn and encourage people to listen to that shout.

Today people treat His Second Coming like many did the announcement of His First Coming. Many forgot the promise, others scoffed at the promise, others were unconcerned and laughed at the promise – but come He did. I encourage you not to allow the sad scenario that accompanied Christ’s First Coming to be played out in your life. Why is it so important to respond to this last invitation now?

We live in the space of time. Within the parameters of time are days. The Second Coming of Christ will replace time with eternity. On that day there will be no more days, they will be replaced with eternity. When the Bible speaks of salvation it speaks in reference to days, “Behold, now is the accepted time, today is the day of salvation.”

When days slip into eternity no other invitation will be extended. Praise God the invitation still stands today. Have you taken advantage of it? This text gives us some incentives to respond to this invitation.

I. The Person of Christ – vs. 13 & 16
The One who has been given “a name which is above every name” invites us to come to Him. The One who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and ending of all things invites us to come to Him. There aren’t multiple Alphas and Omega’s; there is one. His name is Jesus and we are invited to come to Him and know Him.

II. The Participants in Heaven – vs. 14-15
We are invited to come to the One who will take us to the place where Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and every other saved person will dwell with God for eternity.

III. The Perfection of Scripture – vs. 18-19
God’s perfect Word, the Bible, tells us that we must respond to this invitation and come to Christ as our Savior if we want to go to heaven when we die. When this perfect Word says, “You must be born again,” you must. When the Bible says there is a wonderful place called heaven, we can count on it, it is a fact.

Here is the Good News. The text says “Whosoever will let him come.” That’s you, that’s me, that’s anyone! Accept His invitation today; you will live not to regret it.

The most important message in the Bible is the story of God’s love for humanity. Jesus was the picture of that love as He gave His sinless life to pay the penalty for our sins and purchase for us a place in heaven. However, this is not a new concept for those reading a publication called the Cross Reference or for most of Bay County for that matter. Do not misunderstand; Bay County is a mission field. But I believe that there is a huge population of professing Christians in Bay County, some who attend Christian churches and many who do not. Thus, if this were the last sermon I was to ever preach, it would be a heart to heart talk with fellow believers from John 13:34-35. Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

There are really only two categories of people in Bay County. There are those that are professed disciples of Jesus Christ, and those that are not. Now let us assume that you are a disciple (remember you are reading the Cross Reference). In the verses above Jesus said that the world will know you are my disciples “if you love one another.” 

Surely you have heard the story of the Good Samaritan where Jesus taught His disciples how to love their neighbors. Jesus’ definition of neighbor included all people everywhere. But in John 13:34-35 Jesus says this is a “new command.” This command is for disciples to love other disciples as Jesus loved them. These were teachable moments between Jesus and His disciples, and He knew that His disciples, like disciples today, were prone to endless conflict about selfish matters with each other.

So what does this command mean then to you and me? It means that Christians (aka disciples of Jesus) are to love each other unconditionally. Perhaps a change in perspective would help. In reality the mandate of every Christian is to make disciples. And the call of every church is to make disciples. So as a believer your mission is the same as every disciple. The mission of your church is the same as every church. All who are under the banner of Jesus Christ alone for salvation, by grace, and through faith in Him are on the same team. Each person and church should be seeking to share the Good News with those who have not yet professed faith in Christ. When we do not love each other, it is a huge obstacle between the message of Jesus Christ and the many that do not profess faith in Christ. In addition many of those that do profess Christ but are not active in a local church will tell you it is because of some conflict with a Christian or a particular church.

Jesus’ message is simple, but difficult to live out. Some disciples are harder to love than others. Some disciples do not play well with others. Some disciples are strange. We all are some days. Jesus’ words are clear, undeniable, and without caveat. Disciples are to love each other. Our goal is worthy, our message is true, and our mission is one. So to Jesus’ disciples in Bay County, LOVE ONE ANOTHER!