Today we again celebrate a social holiday, that of Father’s Day. Indeed, it is well that we celebrate Father’s Day as we celebrated Mother’s Day because it is specifically through the vocation and gift of fatherhood and motherhood that God gives us the core of our families and as He instructs parents to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So, we welcome especially our Father’s and wish you a blessed and happy Father’s Day. Now, let us get to our text.
There once was a young man, college age, who decided to take a summer job as a lumber jack in order to earn some money for the next school year. While visiting his home congregation, before heading up to the camp, he was approached by several of the members and ask how he thought he would fare at this camp. He was reminded by some that this was a very rough and rugged lumber camp that was known for its lack of Christians. He was also told stories of how years ago a man went there proclaiming to be a Christian and how he was mistreated and abused. The young man, self confident in his faith, answered that he thought he would be alright. After the summer months were over the young man returned to his home congregation before returning to college. When asked how he had fared at the lumber camp and if he was mistreated or abused for being a Christian he answered that he had no trouble, as he said, “no one found out that I was a Christian.” I do not know if this is a true story or not, but it does serve to some degree to illustrate our text for this morning. The theme of our text might be stated as, “confession is good for the soul,” whereas this story illustrates Jesus warning in the text that we be not afraid of men lest we fail to confess faith in Him, which would be devastating for the soul.
Our text is a part of Jesus commissioning His disciples before He sent them out to bear witness to Himself. He has told them a lot about Himself by this time, but they do not know everything about Him. He has even asked them to keep some of the things He has told them secret, at least until they fully understood what He told them. The same is true for us today. Jesus has told us a lot about Himself. We read about His life, the signs, wonders and miracles He performed, and the parables He spoke in His Word, the Bible. We are the students with His disciples that He is referring to in verse twenty-four of our text. There are some things in the Bible which we may not fully understand, but as we grow in our faith we will understand more fully, and then can even more fully and confidently bear witness of our faith in and relationship to Christ.
Jesus goes on to tell His disciple and us that we should not expect to be treated any better than He was treated while we are here on earth. We remember how He was beaten, mocked, and spat upon. He was even called Beelzebub, which is another name for Satan. As His students, His followers we can expect no better treatment. Of course, we can be and we must admit that we are often like the young man in our story who went to the lumber camp. How often do we find ourselves hiding the fact that we are a Christian so that others will not make fun of us? How often do we find ourselves sounding and acting like those around us so that we “fit in?” How often do we find ourselves keeping our mouths closed and not letting anyone know we are Christians? But that is not what our Lord wants from us? Perhaps you have heard the saying, “If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” When it comes to professing and confessing our faith, too often we do not do a good job, instead we fail miserably.
However, Jesus goes on to tell us that this cannot be so, that if we are Christians, we cannot hide that fact. All those things He told His disciples to keep secret, when they finally understood what it all meant, they could not keep it to themselves, but proclaimed it to the ends of the world. The same is true for us. Have you ever seen a new Christian? How bubbly they are. They want to tell everyone about their new found faith. We remember at Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when the Pharisees told Jesus to ask His disciples to be quiet, Jesus said that even if they were quiet the stones would sing praises. We are so excited about the good news of Jesus and eternal life that we can not keep quiet, but sing and shout His praise.
Now here at verse twenty-eight the stage is set. We have been given God’s Word, the Bible. We have been told how we can expect to be treated, and we have been told how we will not be able to keep quiet about our faith. Now Jesus puts our call to bear witness into perspective. Verse twenty-eight reads, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” He is not necessarily asking us to be martyrs, at least not for martyrdoms sake. As another saying goes, “Martyrdom is the gift you can only give once.” If it is possible to retreat from a situation without denying the truth of the Gospel, then it is better to leave and begin anew elsewhere than to be martyred. God is only calling us to not fear humans in our witnessing.
I agree with the commentator (Dr. Lenski) who put it this way, “What Jesus says is this: ‘If the disciple is going to yield to the low motive of fear, then let him be scared, not of the minor danger, but of the supreme danger.’” If we are going to be afraid of someone, it should be God who can do much more damage than any human being. The main point is that we should act with boldness. Why should we not be afraid? The reason is that Jesus will be there to protect us. He is the one who has given us life. Each one of us is a precious person to Him. He planned for our conception, birth, and life. He brought us to faith, some of us through Holy Baptism as we were brought in by our parents, some through His Word, either way, it is He who brought us to faith and He keeps us in that faith.
He has blessed us abundantly. My favorite example to show how much He has blessed us is this: Think about what we had when we came into this world. I will give you a hint, nothing. Now think about what we will take with us when we die. I will give you another hint, nothing. Now put these two together and you will have the answer to what is actually ours. Your last hint is nothing. Everything we have is God’s, He has loaned us everything we have to use while we are here on His earth, and He would have us use it to His glory. Obviously, if He has given us all of this we must be of some value to Him. In our text He says that we are worth more than many sparrows. There are other Bible passages which say the same thing, as in Matt. 6:26 when He says that the birds neither sow nor reap yet He takes care of them. We are of so much value to Him that He even knows how many hairs, or lack of hairs, we have on our head. With all this in mind it should be easy for us to not fear him who only can destroy the body. However, our young man in the lumber jack story is a good example of how easy it is for us to deny our faith in Jesus.
The ultimate value Jesus has given us is shown by the fact that He gave His life for us. Paul says that for a “very good reason” one person might die for another good person, but Jesus loved us so much and valued us so much that while we were His enemies, that is, while we were actively fighting against Him, which is our nature, He died for us. He lived the perfect life for us, in our place. He suffered the pangs of hell for all of our sins for your sins and for my sins, in our place. He rose on the third day declaring victory over sin, Satan, and death. He did all of this because of His great love for us, for you and for me, love which shows we are of such value to Him.
Our text ends with Jesus’ promise that if we will confess Him before men, He will confess us before His Father in heaven. As another commentator (Dr. Kretzmann) expressed it, “A confession of Christ in word and deed, an open proclamation of the truth and a steadfast defense of the truth, is demanded for every follower of Christ.” “There is no neutral ground: for every one the choice is only between confession and denial.” How do we confess Jesus? We confess our faith in Him by our deeds, what we do. We are all witnesses of Him. When it is known that we are Christians, others will look at us and judge what a Christian is by how we act. So, we definitely confess our faith in Jesus by our actions. If you are like me, however, sometimes we do not make a good or positive confession. Sometimes we make a rather bad or negative confession. And for these Jesus also offers us His forgiveness.
We also confess Him by our words. I have found it interesting or should I say thrilling that no matter how confusing our verbal confession, and our confession by action, of Him might be, Jesus uses it in great ways. Confessing our faith in Jesus does not mean giving an hour lecture or a testimonial of our faith. Confession of faith in Jesus may be as simple as being there for someone in their time of need. It may be as simple as a few words of comfort or encouragement. It may be answering a question a friend has about our church or our faith. We confess our faith in Jesus in many ways. Almost every Sunday morning we confess our faith through either the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed which are both confessions of our faith. It does not matter how we confess our faith, but rather that we do confess, because Jesus last words in our text are that if we deny Him, so He will deny us. He makes no bones about it. That means eternal death!
I believe that the young man in our story did confess his faith. He confessed that he had no faith, at least no faith in Jesus. Our whole text for this morning is a section of great encouragement. Jesus is speaking to us as He speaks to His disciples. He has come, and continues to come to us in His Word, bringing us to faith, strengthening us in faith and keeping us in faith in Him, and forgiving us when we fail. He reminds us that we should expect to be treated as He was, that we will not be able to keep our faith to ourselves, that we are to not be afraid of how we may be treated as others can harm us only in our body. He goes on to encourage us by telling us how valuable we are to Him and He ends by promising that when we do confess our faith in Him He also will confess knowing us to His Father in heaven, which means eternal life. This morning it is especially great to see our father’s confess their faith and bring their families to Divine Service. Finally, I pray that you will go boldly out into the world, into your various vocations and confess your faith by word and deed. And ultimately your confession will be a confession that rejoices and says, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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