Church Sermon - May 22, 2005

Rev. Mark F. Bartels

Old Testament Lesson; Deuteronomy 4:32-40
Gospel Lesson; Matthew 28:16-20
Sermon Text; 2 Corinthians 13:11-14

This will probably be a rather difficult sermon for me, because this is a farewell sermon.

About eight years ago, we moved into our new neighborhood. And, at that point, (it is hard to believe), my boys were little. It was not long and they met a little first grade friend from the neighborhood, by the name of Jimmy. They soon became fast friends. For the past eight years, there has been a well-worn path between Jimmy’s house and our house. There have been countless times when Jimmy’s bike has been parked in front of our house, and our boys’ bicycles have been parked in front of Jimmy’s house. There have been many sleepovers. Jimmy has eaten at our table many times, and our boys the same at his house.

Several years ago, all on his own, Jimmy came to me and said, "I’d like to start going to church with you."

And so, all by himself, all by himself, Jimmy started to come to church, here at Holy Cross Lutheran Church. Then he said, "I’d like to be baptized."

And so, Jimmy was baptized, a couple of years ago.

Finally, Jimmy said, "I would like to get confirmed."

And so, two years ago Jimmy started confirmation classes! All by himself, Jimmy went through confirmation class, here at Holy Cross Lutheran Church. Jimmy was going to be confirmed next week, May 29^th, here at Holy Cross. I was so looking forward to seeing Jimmy, who is a young man now, stand up in front of the congregation and profess his Christian faith in Jesus, as his Savior.

But, life takes some unexpected twists. Jimmy recently found out that he is going to be moving out to Oregon, and so, Jimmy won’t be confirmed here at Holy Cross Lutheran Church. It also means our family is going to have to say farewell to Jimmy. "Good-by."

We all have had to say good-by to people we love. Maybe someone you love has moved across the country, and you know it is hard. Maybe you have an eight grader, who is going to be graduating from Holy Cross in another week. It is going to be hard to say good-by to those eighth graders. Maybe you have a student who is going to be in college for the first time this fall. You know it is going to be hard to drive away from that college campus and say good-by. I have been in the hospital and have watched people say their final good-by to someone they love dearly.

We say good-by here at Holy Cross every Sunday. At the end of the church service we have a final good-by in the benediction. Even this week, when the service is over it will be good-by for each one of us. We will go our separate ways for the week. We won’t be with each other, during the week. There have been many people who have walked out of these doors on a Sunday, and during the week, the Lord has called them Home, for eternity. It has been our final good-by.

However, in our scripture reading for today, the Holy Spirit teaches us, as Christians, how to say good-by, how to say farewell to one another. St. Paul said good-by to his friends in the Corinthian congregation. Let me read the words of the text, one more time.

"Finally brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints send their greetings.

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

That is an awesome way for us to say good-by to one another! Whether it be for days, whether it be for a week, or whether it be for a long, long period of time.

The picture that God wants us to have in our minds, as we say good-by to one another, is the picture that you see on the front of your bulletin. For about four hundred years, from about the 1300 until about the year 1700, many, many famous artists painted a picture of the Triune God that is very similar to the picture I have on the front of your service folder. There you see the Triune God, in an artist’s mind.

That is the picture that God wants us to have in our hearts and in our minds, as we say good-by to one another, whether it be for a week, or whether it be separation by great distance.

St Paul says,

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

Let’s think about that a little bit. When we say good-by to one another, whether it be for the week, or by great distance, we won’t be able to be with one another. We won’t be able to be with one another. But, we know that the Triune God will be able to be with our loved ones, whether they are in high school, during the week, or at work, during the week, or in their neighborhood, during the week, or out in Oregon. We know that. And so, our prayer is that we commit our loved ones into the hands of the triune God and nothing could be safer than that.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, be with you all. Grace has been described this way by a famous author.

Grace means

you can’t do anything

to make God love you more.

And, grace means

you can’t do anything

to make God love you less.

In Jesus Christ, God shows us how much He loves us. He loves us so dearly that He took on our human flesh. He purchased us at a price, which we cannot even begin to imagine, by suffering for our sins on the cross. Nothing we can do can make Jesus love us more than that. Nothing!

He loves us to the greatest extent possible, and nothing we can do can make Jesus love us less. You can’t do that. No matter what sin we fall in, no matter how deeply we fall, Jesus has purchased us with a great price. He loves us more than we can imagine.

When we say good-by to a loved one, what a joy to be able to commit them into the hands of Jesus Christ and His grace and say, "May the grace of Jesus Christ be with you. May you know that no matter where you go, no matter what happens, no matter what sin you may fall into, may you know, may you know that no matter what you do, Jesus will not love you less. He forgives you all your sins. May you know that you do not have to do anything to make Jesus love you more. He already loves you more than you can imagine!"

When we say good-by to our loved ones that way, we leave them in safe hands. We have nothing to fear, nor do they.

May the love of God the Father be with you. What an awesome way to say good-by, (whether it is for the week, or for a lifetime), to someone we love dearly. God the Father loves us so much that He did not even spare His greatest treasure, His own dear Son. He saw to it that He would do whatever it took, to take care of our greatest needs. If that meant He had to sacrifice His own Son, on the cross, to pay for our sins, the Father did that.

Martin Luther says, "The love of God is all summed up in a nut shell in John 3:16 (which you all know by heart), "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son. That whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

A famous author broke that Bible verse down into little, tiny parts. It expresses the true love of God.

The greatest lover

The greatest extent

The greatest number

The greatest act

The greatest gift

The greatest invitation

The greatest simplicity

The greatest person

The greatest deliverance

The greatest difference

The greatest certainty

The greatest possession.

That’s how dearly the Father loves you. No matter where you go, during this week, or during your lifetime, may you take that love of God with you, and know you are loved dearly, and that your sins have been paid for at the price of God’s own Son. And, no matter if this whole world forsakes you, God loves you. You are in the greatest hands possible. And, you are saved.

May the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. In seminary, we learned Greek. There are two different types of Greek. There is a Greek called Classical Greek. It is the intellectual Greek. It is the Greek of Plato, Aristotle, and Homer. And then there is a Greek called koine Greek. We learned koine Greek. Koine means common. It is the Greek that the common people all over the world, at that time, spoke. It was common. They shared it in common. The word for fellowship is koinonia. It comes from the same word as the Greek word koine. It means common, something that you share in common, something that you have together.

The Bible passage says, "May the koinonia, (the fellowship) of the Holy Spirit be with you."

The Holy Spirit is the person of God who takes Jesus out of history and He puts Him into your heart,

The Holy Spirit does that through Word and Sacrament, as He works in our hearts. "May the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you."

We cannot be in safer hands, when we say good-by to one another, (whether it is for this week, or for the rest of our lives), than to know that we have the fellowship of the Holy Spirit who unites us with faith, with that one Triune God.

When you look at this picture, this depiction, of the Triune God, it reminds us that although God is three persons, He is one God. There is only one true God. He is an absolute unity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one in essence. He has the same thoughts, the same desires, and the same hopes. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are unity. They work together with one another to accomplish those same goals.

What is their goal? Their goal is for you to be in Heaven. And so, God the Father, in His love, found a way for you to be in Heaven. That was to send His own Son. God the Son, in His grace, carried out the Will of His Father and became one of us. He died for us. God the Holy Spirit brings Jesus to us, so that we can be in Heaven by faith in Jesus, as our Savior. They are a unity. They work together.

They bring us into unity with one another. We have unity with one another. We all cling to the Triune God.

We all have

the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

together.

We all have

together.

We all have

together.

And so, we know we are united, whether we are separated by days or by miles. We are united. We have a bond together that nothing can separate. What an awesome thing to know, when we say good-by.

And so St. Paul says, "Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection."

We are united. We have the same goal. Our goal is to aim for perfection. We know that we have been saved by Jesus. We know that we are going to Heaven. Now, we want to live our lives with the same goal. In this life, we want to aim for perfection, aim to model God’s life in our own life. No matter where we are, no matter how far we are separated from one another, we are united.

Our goal is to display the same grace in our lives that Jesus Christ displays in our lives. Let people know they can’t do anything to make us love them more, nor can they do anything to make us love them less. We love them, because Jesus loves them.

Let them know that we have a love for them that the Father has for us. We will sacrifice, whatever it takes, to meet their needs. We have that common goal, whether we are separated by days or by miles.

"Be of one mind." Have one mind, no matter where you go this week, (or where you go for the rest of your life). As Christians, we are united. We have one mind. We have the revealed Word of God. This here, the Bible, is the mind of God. He has spoken His mind to us. We are united around the mind of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know His Will for us. We rally ourselves around the Truth, together.

So, when we say farewell at the end of the service to each other for a week, (or for a lifetime), we know that we are safe, because we have the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

When I think about Jimmy, it reminds me that we have an awesome Triune God! The awesome Triune God is already out in Oregon, waiting for Jimmy. And, He will go there with Jimmy. When I heard Jimmy was moving to Oregon I asked him, "Jimmy, where are you going to live in Oregon?"

He said, "I am going to live in Portland."

I told him, "Jimmy! My brother, Tim, is a pastor out in Portland! Where are you going to live in Portland?"

When he told me, we found out it was only about 20 miles from my brother’s church!

I called up my brother and said, "Tim, I have a good friend who is moving out there. He was going to be confirmed on May 29^th, but he is not going to be here on May 29^th. When is your confirmation?"

He told me that it was the second Sunday in June, so I asked him, "Can you take Jimmy under your wings there at your church, and see to it that Jimmy gets confirmed?"

He told me that they would love to do that!

What an awesome God we have! He is a God of grace. He is a God of love. And, He will watch over us (and He has proven that many times). I love the hymn, which says,

So, farewell, whether it is for the week or for the rest of our lives. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Amen.

Top of Page || Church Sermons || Return to Home Page