Sermons 2025

Text: 1 Timothy 1:5-17

Theme: “Steadfast in Honest Faith”
 

Outline
1.    Paul encourages Timothy to remain steadfast in the faith in face of those who would wander away into false theology
2.    Christ keeps us firm and grounded in the faith
3.    How do we remain steadfast?
3a.    Holy Baptism, Absolution, and Holy Communion!
 

Sermon
 

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Especially to you Jayden and Cole as you celebrate your confirmation today.
 

My dear beloved flock, the text for our mediation today is the Epistle lesson of the First letter of Saint Paul to Timothy chapter one verses five through seventeen.

Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Do you know what I have here? Right, I have a tape measure. They are used to measure how long or how big something is. For example, your hands measure small. My hands measure large compared to yours. This communion railing measures the biggest of all, same with the pews. Our sinful natures like to do something similar. We like to compare ourselves to others as a means of justifying our own sins. We like to say Chief of sinners though I be, that guy is worse than me.” How does Jesus help us to view our sins rightly? How does He keep us steadfast in honest faith unto the end? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

1.    Remain steadfast in the faith: Don’t measure yourself!

Saint Paul encourages young Timothy to remain steadfast in honest faith. He encourages him to not wander away into vain discussions about genealogies or the traditions of the Mosaic Law. What are is the temptation? The temptation of the Devil is to take us from the true and honest faith into things that really serve no purpose. There were people in Ephesus who wanted to be Teachers of the Law. They wanted to constantly discuss the Law  and traditions of Moses. They wanted to spend all their time pouring over family trees and genealogies to see exactly how close one could get to Abraham and his family line. They constantly compared themselves to each other, thinking one was better than the other because they knew this obsure detail of the Law or were one generation closer to Abrahm than the other person. It was a constant game of measuring each other. For what? For no good purpose. Saint Paul says that they have missed the mark. They have aimed for the Gospel and fallen far short of it. They have missed the forest for the trees we might say.

Yet, how often do we still measure each other today? Our sinful nature constantly likes to measure each other in order to justify itself. We love to take the parody of our office hymn, “Chief of sinners though I be, that guy is worse than me.” I am not that bad of a person. I am not as bad as Hitler or Stalin. I at least did not cut off that person because I wanted to go faster on the highway. I did not ride their butt to get them to move faster as they were going forty in a seventy-five. I have not messed up that badly. Measuring sticks are ridiculous when it comes to measuring our holiness, our righteousness, our justification, or our sanctification. They set me at odds with my neighbor as I am constantly trying to keep up with the Jonses and show that I am so much better. It sets me at odds with myself as I realize that I can never excel at perfection. Our measurements are always skewed anyway (another word for fallen!)

Yet what does Saint Paul say? Chief of sinners though I be. Paul does not say that He was only a sinner in the past. He says “formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent.” He was a murderer. He constantly sought people’s harm and death, merely because they followed Christ. He was a liar and used His words not to honor God’s name but to profane it.  Paul does not limit himself to only his past actions. Paul uses a present tense verb, a continual action now that continues into the future. 

Paul says do not measure each other. Do not compare yourself to another. It does no good. A comparison of sins cannot save you. All it can do is continually damn you. A sin is a sin. There is no room is left to quibble about greater or lesser sins. My own sins are the worst, for only those can damn me.  

2.    Christ keeps us firm and grounded in the faith

Indeed, my sins do damn and condemn me. The Law is Good. It condemns the Old Adam within me that would constantly do nothing without bit or bridle. I, you, and the entirety of the world stand damned to Hell without the Gospel. 

The sweetness of the Gospel. “Jesus came. “ God took on flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. He was given the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins. He saved sinners like Paul, yes, and Timothy, and all the bozos I compare myself to, but translated to me, personally and individually as part of that group, Jesus came to save sinners like me. Jesus came to save me. Jesus saves at the cross. The sinner who soberly faces her sin has no place to run but to a savior, and the savior to run to is at the cross. The cross is where sin goes to die. 

The Christ who faces the sinner with law faces him from the cross and says the law is for sinners. So, come to me at the cross. I will kill your sin, as the whole weight of the law for sinners comes down on me. The cross is where sin goes to die, and sin indeed died there. It is in Christ’s dying that your sin is gone. You are counted just in His atoning death, personally and individually (and the world of sinners universally). 

Jayden and Cole in just a few moments, you will confess that fact in your confirmations. You will confess as individuals and as brothers that you believe that what Jesus did, He did entirely for you. You will promise that according to His great riches shown in mercy and grace, you will remain steadfast in this faith and suffer all, even death itself, rather than fall from it.

3.    How do we remain steadfast?

How do you remain steadfast in this true faith without wavering? How do you suffer even death rather than give up the honest faith? How do you live holy lives without constantly measuring yourself to others? Because of what Jesus continues to do for you. Not only has Jesus died your death, killed your sin. He has raised you to newness of life. Here and now, even with your sinful Old Adam clinging to you, you have His Holy Spirit living within you. You are counted righteous, as one of His saints. 

To that end, Jesus constantly gives you His very self to strengthen you in your faith and grant to you the forgiveness of your sins. How? His very body and His very blood, given and shed for you! The forgiveness of sins given on the Cross for the world, here is given specifically, personally to you. Not only are you given the forgiveness of your sins, but as Saint Ignatius of Antioch put it, “The medicine of immortality and the antidote to prevent us from dying.” A food that feed to eternal life, a foretaste of resurrection from the only body to raise triumphant from the tomb on its own. It nourishes our souls and works in them a mighty power. This blood drives away devils, calls the angels and Lord of angels to us. The bread may have tasted like stale cracker but the devil knows it was the very body he was unable to keep in the tomb. The very body that descended not hell to proclaim victory, the very body given as the propitiation for our sins. It may only be a drop of sweet wine, but the devil knows that this is the blood of Christ, the blood by which he was eternally defeated, the blood at which the demons run back to hell in terror, the blood with which we were redeemed.

Dear Saints, loved by God, continue steadfast in the honest faith, not wavering into delusions or idolatry, but steadfast in what Jesus Christ has done for you.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.