May 13, 2012
Dear friends in Christ.
For the past few years I have made a habit of
assuring my children of my love by telling them a simple truth. From time to time I will take them in my
arms, sit them on my lap, or simply sit down next to them and tell them, “if
all the children of the world were lined up together, and I could only pick two
of them to take home and be my own, I would search and search until I found
you. And when I found you I would take
you home to be my children.” Though I
don’t remember where I first heard this, I have spoken these words, or a
variation of them to my children on a regular basis for the past few years, and
they have loved it. They have loved it,
because by saying these words I am able to assure them of my love for them. I am able to assure them of my pride in them,
that we belong to each other, and that we are part of a family together. Though my children have heard these words on
many different occasions over the past few years, I know they enjoy hearing
this because these words assure them that they are indeed loved by me.
Well, in many ways, this is what the season of
Easter is all about. For it is during
the season of Easter that we are continually assured of our Savior’s love for
us. We are regularly assured that it was
through Jesus’ innocent suffering, death, and resurrection that all of our
sins, mistakes, wrong doings, missteps, call them what you will, they have been
washed away. We are assured that in the
same way that Jesus was raised from the dead through the Glory of God the
Father, our bodies will also be raised from the dead by Jesus when he calls
them out of the grave on the Last Day.
We are assured that just as Jesus ascended into heaven, as we will
celebrate next Sunday, we too will ascend to our Savior’s side, one day when
Jesus calls us home. But of all the
assurances that we receive during the season of Easter, the greatest assurance
is the assurance that eternal life is ours through faith in Jesus Christ, our
Savior. Eternal life is ours through
faith in Jesus Christ our Savior, who died and rose again to free us from our
sins and give us the gift of everlasting life by his side forever in
heaven. In fact, this is the very
assurance that Jesus gives us in our lesson today, in John 17:3 where Jesus
says, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, NIV84)
These words are truly words of great assurance for
us as Christians, for with these words Jesus is assuring us that eternal life
is ours because our knowledge of God goes much, much deeper that just simply
knowing that there is a god. Our
knowledge of God encompasses who our God truly is, as he has revealed himself
to us in the pages of the Scriptures.
This is very important knowledge because there is a great deal of
confusion in our world today about who the true god is and how we attain
salvation. For example, if you conducted
a nation-wide survey and asked Americans what they thought or believed about
God and who God is, you would find that just about every person would have a
different idea or opinion. If you asked
someone who claimed to be Agnostic, he would tell you that you can never really
be sure if there is a god, and if there really is a god, then there is no way
that you could never really know him. If
you asked a Muslim, he would tell you without hesitation that there is no god
but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet.
If you asked a Jehovah’s witness, he would tell you that there is no god
but Jehovah. If you asked a Mormon, his
answer would sound very Christian as he would probably tell you about God the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yet, by
taking a closer look at the Mormon faith you would find that a Mormon’s idea of
God is different than our idea and concept of God. Though this list could go on and on, it is
clear from these examples that there are quite a number of people in our own
country that simply do not know who the true God is. Though they may have all sorts of different
ideas about him, when their beliefs are compared to the Scriptures, it can be
said that they personally know the true God about as well as we personally know
the President of the United States.
Though we could easily pick him out of crow because we are constantly seeing
his picture on TV, I doubt that there is any one of us here who knows him or is
even remotely acquainted with him. But
even though there are many people in our country and even in the world who do
not know who the true God is, as Jesus is speaking today he assures us that we
have eternal life because we know who the true God is!
We know who the true God is because we have come to
know the true God through Jesus Christ our Savior who has revealed him to us
through the pages of the Scriptures! We
have come to know the only true God as the God who created the heavens and the
earth in six twenty-four hour days; resting on the seventh. We have come to know him as our good and
merciful Father in heaven who watches over us and richly and daily provides us
all that we need for our body and life.
We have come to know him as our loving Father who graciously sent his
one and only Son to bear the curse of sin for us. We know Jesus Christ, the Son, our Savior,
who took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. We know Jesus Christ our Savior who was
stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
We know Jesus who was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our
iniquities. We know Jesus Christ, whom
God the Father chose to crush and cause to suffer so that we might be free to
live for him through faith in the one who freed us from our sins. We know the true God; God the Father who sent
his Son to save us. We know Jesus, the
Son of God who freed us from our sins, and we know the Holy Spirit who was sent
to us by both the Father and the Son so that he might create faith in our
hearts, which believes in the true God as the Scriptures reveals to us. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, who came
into our hearts on the day that we were baptized. This is the Holy Spirit who lives in our
hearts and strengthens our faith through the power of God’s Word and
Sacrament. It is through his work,
calling us to faith and encouraging us to grow in our faith by gathering with
other believers in worship and making time to read God’s Word that we come to a
deeper knowledge of who the true God is.
It is through the work of the Holy Spirit and we are assured that we
have eternal life because we believe in the true God who has revealed himself
to us in the pages of Scriptures—three persons; the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, yet only one God!
How wonderful it is to be reminded of this very
fact, for it is through this regular reminding that we are built up in our
faith and assured that we have the gift of eternal life to look forward to
because, as Jesus said, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, NIV84)
Though we heard this truth time and time again, as
Jesus speaks these words to us he is taking just one more opportunity to assure
us that eternal life is ours through faith in him and not because of anything
that we have done. For in the same way
that my children thrive on the assurance of my love, and even ask me to tell
them again and again how I would choose them, so also Jesus knows that we
constantly need to be reminded and assured that eternal life is ours through
faith in him. Jesus constantly reminds
us and assures us that eternal life is ours through faith in him and not
because of anything we have done, because he knows that we are constantly
receiving a different message from the world.
He knows that satan is constantly working overtime to make even the
strongest Christians feel that either they need to do something to attain
eternal life, or that their faith has nothing to do with gathering with other
believers to receive Jesus assurance.
This is why Jesus tells us, “This is eternal life: that they may know
you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3,
NIV84)
Now, as Jesus speaks these words to us, he is simply
laying the truth of our salvation out before us so that we can clearly see and
be assured that eternal life belongs to us only trough faith in Jesus, who is
the Son of God, our Savior. He is the
one who was born on this earth as true God and yet true man. He is the one who lived a perfect, sinless
life, completely and perfectly doing what we could never hope to do—obeying
each and every one of God’s commandments perfectly. He is the one who willingly shouldered the
mountain of our sins and slowly stumbled on his way to the place of the skull
so that he might surrender his life over to death in our place. He is the one who willingly endured the
puncture wounds of the nails through his hands and his feet. He is the one who suffered the pains and
punishment of hell and damnation as he was rejected by his own God and Father,
all so that we would never have to face that rejection. He is the one who laid down his life so that
he might die in our place and appease his Father’s righteous anger over our
sins. He is the one with whom we have
been buried through baptism so that just has he has risen from death we too
might live a new life. He is the one who
is speaking to us today, to assure us that we have eternal life in him because
through faith in him we know the true God.
Now, as I’ve shared this assurance with you, I
haven’t told you anything that you didn’t already know. I’ve simply reminded you and reassured you
that eternal life is yours through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior. This is what our Church does! This is why you called me to be your Pastor,
so that I might weekly remind you and assure you of your salvation through
faith in Jesus. And this is what Jesus,
our Savior, is doing for us today. He is
the one who is standing before and assuring us that we are heirs of eternal
life through faith in him! Though there
may be times when this news simply seems too good to be true, you can be
certain that it is true. Though there
may be times when your emotions simply cannot accept this message as true,
Jesus continues to tell us and assure us that it is true so that we can find
comfort in this truth. Though there may
be times when we simply don’t feel that this can be true of us, Jesus assures
us that it is. He assures us that
eternal life is already ours through faith in him. For in the same what that I regularly assure
my children that if all the children of the world were lined up together, and I
could only pick two of them to take home and be my own, I would search and
search until I found you. And when I
found you I would take you home to be my children. In the same way that I regularly assure my
children with these words, today our Savior has once again assured us that
salvation is ours through faith in him.
As he has told us, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, NIV84)
Amen.
Pastor
David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
