It is only the tax collector in the story who understands his real position. The tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ He recognizes that all the categories, classes, and divisions we see in the world in the final estimation don’t mean a thing before God. The stories you tell about yourself—whether ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, or economic success—don’t mean anything when you’re brought before the judgment seat of God on the last day. On that day, the only thing that matters is whether the Father sees in you the reflection of His Son Jesus.Your identity before God is clear and simple. You are a child of God through Holy Baptism. You have been clothed with Christ, washed in His saving blood, branded as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. You might be a worker or employer, long-time American or immigrant, male or female (or some other imaginary gender). According to your baptism, you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This why we read terrifying accounts of history and prophecy. We’re understandably reluctant because God’s wrath revealed is often frightening, gory, and horrific. They are meant to tear down the proud in the imaginations of the heart and keep the godly in the fear of God. And in the midst of every terrible event like the destruction of Jerusalem, we hear of God mercifully preserving the faithful, like Noah or Lot. God the Holy Spirit directs your heart by means of the Word and confession to repent and believe again.

The Gospel is wise and right before God but looks like foolishness to the world. Now, in faith, you forgive even those who don’t deserve it. In faith, you care for those who don’t want it. In faith, you love those who are unloving. You live to serve. You know you are a steward of what you have, not its ultimate owner. You risk discomfort, persecution, and ridicule for your ridiculous faith. You dare to trust God in danger. You would rather suffer martyrdom than be unfaithful to God.

Jesus tells you, “You will know them by their fruits.” A true prophet preaches repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s shed blood. A false prophet tells you to justify, rationalize, or overlook sin. A true prophet preaches justification by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. A false prophet tells you to live a holy life by following rules and regulations, to be a good person in order to be saved. A true prophet only preaches what he has been given to speak from the Word of God. Without your intentional study of God’s Word, you’ll never know if everything this preacher preached and this congregation confesses is good, right, and true. The solid rock upon which the Church is built are the words of Jesus. Let us all commit to the diligent and patient study of God’s Word. Everything else is sinking sand. 

Jesus will never stop putting up with you. He will keep calling you to join Him in the sea, mountain, or desert places. He will keep gathering you together with other poor sinners in need of mercy. He will keep speaking to you His Word that gives faith, life, salvation, and peace. And He will keep shepherding His flock, even those who wander and find themselves outside His fold. 

Every relationship—from home to the congregation, work, school, or society—is full of sinners sinning. You ask yourself why there is so much chaos, disorder, hatred, envy, greed, slander, libel, philandering, home-wrecking, and worse. You think that if there are more rules, more laws, more policies, and more enforcement of other people’s rebellion that everything will get better. But you neglect to listen to what God has spoken and where He has directed that Word. Yes, He reveals the lies of the deceiver and the temptations of the world. But Jesus tells you those are nothing compared to your own heart. A reconciled relationship begins with and requires reconciliation between you and God. 

For you to be a disciple like those of the Scriptures, therefore, is to live daily under the influence of the Word of Jesus. Your heart and mind consciously want to do just that and seek every opportunity to be with Jesus in preaching, teaching, and Sacrament. Jesus himself said to the disciples who had chosen to follow him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31ff). To be a disciple is to have your priorities adjusted so that work, play, and even family are governed by and focused on hearing Jesus and receiving His gifts. 

God the Father, working through the Word of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, will make, accomplish, and do in you what is needful. And by repenting you, forgiving your sin, and amending your heart, the world around you will begin to change. The good measure given to you will overflow in the same kind for those around you. As you are forgiven by God, you forgive those who sin against you. As you are shown mercy by God, so mercy will overflow for those near you. As God removes the plank from your eye, you will compassionately and in love be given to assist your neighbor with the speck in theirs.

Our open rebellion against our fathers and squandering of the inheritance they bequeathed to us cannot separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus. Our refusal to hear God’s Word and gladly hear and learn it can. Because that Word is life and light. When Jesus speaks with the Father’s authority, He reveals all our sinful rejection. But more than that, He reveals the love of God the Father in giving His Son for the bloody atonement of our sin and the sins of the world. His Word restores what we have forsaken. His Word clothes us again and again in Jesus’ righteousness. His Word sets before us a feast of forgiveness, the body and blood of the Word made flesh, Jesus. His Word resurrects the dead to life again. His Word forgives our rebellion against the heavenly inheritance we have wasted in prodigal living and restores them to us again.

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). The means which the Spirit uses is the Word. He does not work apart from Jesus and endeavors only to give you Jesus in the Word. He teaches you all that Jesus taught and reminds you daily of what Jesus said. It is the work of the Spirit that brings you, Jesus Christ, in the Word. Jesus speaks and deals with us still today in the Word. And where the Word is, there is the Spirit, living and active. The word of forgiveness in Jesus’s name is the living Word.

Jesus has not failed you and will not forget you or any of those whom He has called by name in Holy Baptism. He is even now moving heaven and earth to restore and renew your trust in His Word. He overthrows anyone or anything that you have given fear, love, or trust. God will be your God, and you will be His people. He sends the Promise of the Father to you to call you back home, to gather you again to the Christian church, to open your eyes again to the only way of life and escape from death, and to set you apart again as trusting people of God. 

We are not stray, inexplicable pieces but together with Christ, alive, in motion, sent to live and share the life of Christ, growing, changing, shaping ourselves to each person's need so we may have life and have it more abundantly, the joy that cannot be taken away. Remember your Baptism. Live your Baptism. You were born again; new life is given. You are being born each day. Each day pregnant with the next, even the days that seem to deny you and God, for we, too, are going to the Father. Quickened by the Spirit, we go with Christ, who promised, "I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you." (John 16:22).

But Jesus, your good shepherd, has come that you may live and that you may live more abundantly. He leads you out into the world to enjoy God’s creation, be free to roam and feed upon the hills and drink from the springs. His fold doesn’t stay in pen, but He opens the gate and leads you out into the wide world. 

Jesus hasn’t stopped breathing the Spirit upon all of selfish, rebellious humanity. He breathed the Spirit upon you in your Baptism. The Spirit continues to breathe on you, the once slain but now alive army of God. The Spirit gives you to listen to Jesus, to hear His Word, and receive the gifts that Word gives. Jesus tells you to touch His flesh in the Holy Sacrament. He gives you to hunger and thirst for His righteousness, drinking deeply from the well of His forgiveness. “Peace be with you” is proclaimed to you in the forgiveness of sins in His body and blood of His Supper.

You either have all of Jesus or you have none of Him at all. The resurrection witnesses knew what they had shared. The accusation that they had made it all up they could endure. And they had to face persecution, they were beaten, crucified, and stoned. Why would they do that for a lie, a hoax, or even under some mass delusion. But they could not be silenced. St. Peter and John themselves confessed before the Sanhedrin, "For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20)