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Disclaimer: This is a transcript of Pastor Fenker’s sermon. It was preached from an outline, and the transcript taken automatically from the audio. Please forgive any typographical or formatting errors.

᛭ INI ᛭

Well, that is quite a doozy of an epistle reading, isn’t it? It is a bit jarring, even for us, who believe the word of God, who listen to the word of God, who desire to live the word of God. It’s jarring. 
And a bit surprising. Probably because it sounds like the nightly news. It sounds like what you or really read or maybe see on social media. It’s how our politicians deal with one another. It’s how society orders itself. There’s even a month celebrating what St. 
Paul, or rather God the Holy Spirit through St. Paul, condemns.

Even Christ himself warns us. that the love of many will grow cold. 
And so it is that men are malicious, inventors of evil, heartless, ruthless. Care to disagree with anyone? It doesn’t go well for you. 
And when the Son of Man comes, Christ says, will he find faith on earth? Will he? Yes, he will. A remnant. always a remnant, who believe his word, who rejoice in his word, even in his word of law, and who desire to live, a life that accords with his word.

St. Paul’s words sound like our society. And he wrote them some 2000 years ago. News slash. Human nature’s the same. Human nature was the same 2000 years ago, and it was the same some 4000 years before that with Adam. After Adam fell, all went along with him. And human nature. It’s the same yesterday. It’s the same today, and human nature will be the same until the end of time.

What Paul says here, we should not let slide by. We don’t want to ignore what the word of God says about the 6th commandment and how men and women ought rightly to relate to one another chiefly as husband and wife. But the word of God is also true. All of the commandments are true, not just the sixth. Not one dot, not one slash of a letter, that’s what jots and tittles are, none of them pass away. Until all things happen, until the consummation of all things. And so Christ brought up the 5th commandment in our reading this evening. We pondered the 4th commandment during the time for reflection on God’s word in the confession. In all these ways, God’s word comes not just at those out there, but even at us. For we get caught up in the same fervor and the same ruthlessness and heartlessness that is in our age.


We wink an eye at certain sins, shrug off others, and maybe even celebrate others that we ourselves are doing. But you are without excuse, Paul says, or rather the Holy Spirit says through Paul in Romans chapter 2. For he goes after every single commandment and shows that human nature is, in fact, the same yesterday, today and forever. We get angry. We hold grudges. We don’t forgive. We lust, we steal, we backbite, we complain, we grumble, we want, it’s all a mess.

But our refuge is not in the law. Our refuge is not that we vote the right way. Our refuge is not that we are on the right side of social issues. Our refuge is the Lord. The Lord, who took on all the sins of the world. The sins listed in Romans chapter one. He took them all in his own body on the tree, even your sins and mine, pick a commandment, any commandment. Christ died for them. And in his righteousness, he has delivered you because he gives you the true righteousness, a righteousness that surpasses a righteousness of the law, of your action before God. It is a righteousness that comes through faith in IHS Christ, who paid the penalty for your sins and even the sins of the whole world.

And this Christ has brought you to himself in the waters of holy baptism. He has made you his. And you, and he is yours. His father is now your heavenly father. You have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. And now you are made new. You are made new to be a faithful child of God. To live a life that accords with the word of God. Where husbands and wives, love, and honor each other, where we preserve and protect our neighbor’s possessions and income. Where we are not angry, where we forgive, where we support our neighbor in his body, where we honor father and mother and all authorities.


And he aligns us with this, starting 1st at the font and continuing our whole life through. As we are made new daily and much by the work of the Holy Spirit. who continues to work repentance and faith, who continues to work repentance and new life, as we live a life that is pure before God, by his working in us. And so, the prayer of our the last stanza of our 1st hymn this evening is a prayer that is good for us every day. 


All that I am and love most dearly receive it all, O Lord, from me. (Whatever is not right is his.) Let me confess my faith sincerely. Help me, your faithful child to be. Let nothing that I am or own, serve any will, But yours alone.

And his will for you is that you would be saved. And his will for you is that you would love your neighbor as yourself, as he himself has outlined in the Ten Commandments. In all 10 commandments. Especially where the rubber meets the road of those commandments. 
Loving one another as God and Christ forgave us, husbands and wives, loving each other, and not going after the things that the world are. Things that fill the nightly news, that fill the streets with protesters, fill social media with anger, and vitriol on both sides.

But news flash. Yes, our human nature may be the same yesterday, today, and even till the end of time. But more importantly, for you and for me, the message is that IHS Christ is the same yesterday And today, and he is the same not till the end of time But forever. And he has secured an eternal redemption for you and for all, a righteousness to be received by faith in him alone.

᛭ INI ᛭