Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

“Get the message straight, Missouri! Get the message out!”

That clarion call was issued a number of years ago by the now-sainted President of our church body, The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.

“Get the message straight, Missouri! Get the message out!”

The message to which Dr. Barry was referring was, of course the message about Jesus Christ, the message we call the Gospel, the message that it is by grace through faith in Jesus that we are saved, not by our own works.

I have to admit that when Dr. Barry issued that clarion call to our church body, I really thought it was a stupid phrase. I would have never imagined that I’d be preaching a sermon using that title. I am at least a fourth generation member of The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. I am a second generation church worker in The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. In my nearly 40 years of life, including 3 years at Lutheran High School La Verne, 4 years at Christ College Irvine and 4 years at Concordia Seminary St. Louis, trust me, I have heard many sermons preached by clergy and aspiring clergy of The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. Some of those sermons have been very good. Some not so good. I thank God that in the hundreds of sermons I have heard preached by Lutheran preachers I can’t honestly say that I have ever heard anything but the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached and I would like to think that fact is the standard not the exception, so why the clarion call from our Synodical President, “Get the message straight, Missouri! Get the message out!”?

In the more than 15 years since Dr. Barry coined that phrase, I have grown in my understanding of why I think he said what he said. In fact, if you heard some screams of pain and frustration coming from the Church Administrative Center this past week, it was just me reacting to some bad doctrine. Just this past week, I again heard two phrases that I have grown to extremely dislike. Both phrases were used by members of this congregation. Phrase #1 – “She was a good woman.” Phrase #2: “He really is very religious.”

You know, with some minor tweaking to those phrases, they could both be very properly used about Abraham. Abraham is the “Father of Faith.” He’s the one to whom all three “People of the Book” can trace their origin – the Jews, the Muslims, the Christians. Abraham’s the one to whom God promised, “As many as the stars in the sky, so shall your descendants be” [Genesis 15:5]. Abraham was the one who was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, simply because God told him to. Abraham was faithful. He is the “Father of Faith.” He was a good man. He really was very religious.

Yes, but.....none of that matters in God’s eyes.

Listen to what St. Paul wrote about Abraham some 2,000 years ago: “The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness – for us who believe in Him, Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” [Romans 4:23-25].

The righteousness of Abraham – his uprightness in the eyes of men and especially in the eyes of God – was not his own doing. It wasn’t something he earned no matter how good or religious he was. Even Abraham’s salvation was a gift of God, something totally unmerited.

But, as St. Paul reminds us, that’s not just something for Abraham. It’s a message for each of us as well. Don’t get me wrong. It’s very important and very admirable to be a good person. It’s very important and very admirable to be a religious person. In the end, though, neither of those things give you or me our entrance ticket into Heaven. You and I are saved simply and solely by grace, by God’s unmerited favor shown us in Jesus Christ, Jesus Who had to be crucified because of all of our “good works,” Jesus Who spent three days in the grave, Jesus Who burst the bars of death and rose victorious to life on Easter Sunday so that you and I could also live.

If Abraham needed God’s grace and favor and if St. Paul found that important for him to mention, how much more important is God’s grace and favor for you and for me?

“Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to Thy Cross I cling.”

That, my friends, is the message that we must get straight. We have to first get it straight in our own minds – that we are saved by God’s unmerited grace shown us in Jesus Christ. Whatever is in you hand, waiting to show St. Peter at the pearly gates, let it go and grab onto Jesus. He is the only way into Heaven!

That, my friends, is the message that we must get out because there are thousands of people dying every single day without knowing Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, people who are making an appearance before God, telling Him how good they were in life or how religious they were, but it won’t get them very far in God’s eyes, anymore than Abraham’s goodness and religiosity got him.

Would you please say a phrase with me? ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves. It is the gift of God – not by works so that no one can boast” [Ephesians 2:8-9].

“Get the message straight, Missouri! Get the message out!”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena