A, Post Pentecost 8 Proper 11 - Romans 8:22-27, Psalm 119:57-64 The Battle of the Heart: Our Weedy Addiction

Today we hear Jesus speak another parable about sowing seed.  Last week the seed was sown in four places: on a path, on rocky ground, amongst thorns, and in good soil.  Jesus is the Good Seed sown in Good Soil!  

Mysteriously, He is not only the Word or the Seed; He was also made Flesh, the Soil. The Son of God was sown into the flesh of humanity, the dirt—or Adamah—of Adam. Jesus is the Son of God, the Word made flesh, and the Seed sown in soil to be the Son of Man. Jesus is also the Good Soil who removes the hardness of humanity’s paths, the rockiness that causes us to stumble, and the thorniness that gives rise to our doubts and desires.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.” (Matthew 13:24–26 ESV)

In the parable the man’s servants want to pull the weeds from the crop but the owner stops them from doing so.

Last week we heard Jesus explain the parable to his disciples and He does the same again here with this parable.  Jesus works to till the hearts of His hearers with His Word to make good seed of them as He does us now.

Like the disciples in Jesus’ day, we are in a battle—a battle of the heart. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to continue that battle after His ascension. We now have One who battles for us within the earthly temple of our human body, and One in heaven who intercedes for us before our Heavenly Father.

This battle is one in which the devil, the world, and our sinful self allow all sorts of weeds to grow amongst the crop of good seed sown within us. Left unattended, this weediness will see us thrown into the fires of hell. Therefore, the battle continues within each of us individually, and it also occurs corporately in the church as a whole, making us sons of righteousness through God the Son, who fulfilled all righteousness.

It might surprise us that God allows weediness to continue within us and within the church, just as He allowed Paul’s thorn in the flesh. He does not pull the weeds now because the good crop, grown from the good seed, might also be uprooted in its immaturity. Any gardener knows how hard it is to tell what is a weed and what is not. Even when the weeds can be identified, pulling them out from amongst the crop can easily bring the good plants out too.

Similarly, God does not pull the weeds from within us or from within His church. If He commanded the weeds to be pulled now, we, in our spiritual immaturity and with weeds still growing within us, might find ourselves pulled from the Kingdom of God. Instead, God allows the struggle and battle to continue within us and within His church so that the Holy Spirit might bring us out of ourselves and into the glorious forgiveness given by God’s grace at the cross through the repentance He works in each of us and in His church.

As this occurs, we groan—but not only us; the whole creation groans. Saint Paul says this in Romans chapter eight, the Holy Spirit chapter of Romans. Here, Paul reports on the victory of the Holy Spirit over the desires of our fleshy dirtiness.

In our patient suffering he says, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”  (Romans 8:22–27 ESV)

Just as the disciples struggled and Jesus battled the evil within each of them, overcoming their deeds, understanding, and feelings, He continues that battle within us and within His church. Having sent the Holy Spirit, He wrestles the human spirit of our Old Adam into daily repentance by daily drowning our sinful nature in our Holy Baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Jesus, as the New Adam, restores the flesh of the Old Adam. He rips up the hardened paths of our works, removes the rocks that trip up true understanding of God, and revokes the feelings and desires that take the place of true faith and trust in Him.

When we deeply ponder our deeds, our understanding, and our feelings in the light of God’s Word, our weedy groan comes to the fore. This is especially true in the case of the Psalm we heard and spoke responsively today, Psalm 119:57–64.

Seriously pondering ourselves against what this Psalm says is a good example of the groaning Paul describes. As the weeds within us are exposed by the Psalm’s own words, we hear what its verses say you and I do—or, perhaps more honestly, what we always should do but rarely ever do.

When we see Jesus as the speaker of Psalm 119, we can all breathe a sigh of eternal relief knowing that it’s not about what we do but that God’s own Son has done it for us and the Holy Spirit now calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes us holy in what Jesus has done.

It’s as if Jesus replaces our addictions of the flesh with His addiction to follow our Heavenly Father in the weakness of our human flesh! 

And in His addiction to please the Father, He has sent the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness or addiction, to weed out the addictive weeds and throw them into the fiery furnace through repentance.  So, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father, right now!  Yes!  Right now!  Despite the groaning, caused by our addiction to work our way into God’s good books, despite our addiction to hang onto human understanding that trips us up, and despite our addictions to our desires and feelings that feed on the worries and riches of this world!

Jesus understands your weedy addiction!  In your flesh he remains addicted to the ways, the truth, and the life of God the Father.

Psalm 119 is a one hundred and seventy-six verse Psalm glorifying God’s Word.  Jesus bears the flesh that fulfilled this Psalm and all of God’s Word. 

The Lord is Jesus’ portion; through Jesus’ promise we are kept in God’s Word!  (Ps 119:57)

Jesus entreated God’s favour with all of His heart, so God is gracious to you according to His promise.  (Ps 119:58)

When Jesus thought of His way to the cross, death, and descent into hell, He turned and remained faithful to God’s testimonies. (Ps 119:59)

Jesus hastened and did not delay in keeping God’s commandments for you and me! (Ps 119:60)

When Jesus was ensnared by the cords and weeds of worldly wickedness, He did not forget God’s Laws. (Ps 119:61)

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in God’s creation, Jesus upheld God’s righteous rule and was the first to be raised into the new week without the weeds of our addiction, sin and death!  (Ps 119:62)

Jesus is the companion of those who hang their weedy addictions on His cross and allow the Holy Spirit to produce the petitions and precepts of our Father, dispelling the darkness of our hearts and the world. (Ps 119:63)

Because Jesus hung on the cross, O Lord, the earth is full of Your steadfast love, therefore teach and till us with Your Word and keep us holy in it. (Ps 119:64)

Send us your Holy Spirit! Amen.  

Dear Heavenly Father, as we groan inwardly because of our weedy hearts, send Your Holy Spirit to defeat all our deadly addictions. Place in us the enduring devotion that Jesus had towards Your will and work, our God and Father. Amen.

****

Sermon Summary and Reflection

Today we’re led to reflect on Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds, showing that the battle of faith takes place within the human heart and within the church. Jesus, the Good Seed and the Good Soil, enters the flesh of humanity to overcome the hardness, stumbling, and thorniness caused by sin. Rather than immediately tearing out the weeds, God patiently allows the struggle to continue so that the good crop is not uprooted in its immaturity. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ continues to work repentance, forgiveness, and growth in His people.

The sermon connects this struggle with Saint Paul’s words in Romans 8, where both creation and believers groan as they wait for redemption. This groaning is not hopeless despair but the sound of faith longing for fulfilment. In weakness, the Holy Spirit intercedes for the saints and brings them again and again to the cross of Christ. Jesus, the New Adam, restores what the Old Adam corrupted and gives His people true faith, trust, and hope in God’s promises.

The reflection from Psalm 119 deepens this comfort by inviting us to hear Jesus as the faithful speaker of the Psalm. What we fail to do perfectly, Christ has fulfilled for us. He kept God’s Word, sought the Father’s favour, remained faithful through suffering, and bore our sin on the cross. Therefore, Christian repentance is not a work by which we make ourselves acceptable to God; it is the Spirit’s work of exposing our weeds and returning us to the forgiveness already won by Jesus.

In reflection you’re called to consider where and how the weeds still grow in your heart: in your works, your understanding, your desires, and your feelings.  You’re also called to trust God’s patience. The Lord does not abandon His crop; He tends it. He sends the Holy Spirit to battle within you, drown the Old Adam through daily repentance, and keep you holy in Christ. Even while you groan, you do so as a child who belong to the Father’s kingdom and who will shine like the sun through the righteousness of His Son.  You are a son of God’s kingdom through Jesus’ Sonship! 

A, Post Pentecost 7 Proper 10 - Matthew 13:3–9, 18-23 Good Dirt Gospel

Matthew 13:3–9, 18-23 (ESV) And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.” …“Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

When farmers go out to plant a crop these days they plant broad acreages of land.  It’s ironic that they plant broad acreages but the way in which they cast the seed into the ground is done in the narrowest of ways.   The implements may be still large, pulled behind large tractors, but each seed is sent from a bin of seed down a relatively small pipe into the earth that has been opened and then closed by combine or air-seeder feet and press wheels.

Jesus’ parable of the sower speaks of sowing seed by broadcasting seed widely over a smaller area.  It seems contradictory that we plant on a large scale with large implements via such a precise narrow casting system, where once the opposite occurred with seeming reckless abandon.  They planted a smaller number of seed over a relatively small area with a less accurate broadcasting of the seed, a handful at a time, with a wide cast of the arm.

But that’s how it was done once!  It wasn’t mechanical but rather it was more hands-on and personal.  Thankfully how Jesus acts with humanity is not impersonal and mechanical, but organic and hands-on with each person!  And the parable of the sower, is a parable where the Word of God is not piped into perfectly prepared places but is cast far and wide into the hearts of all types of people.

Jesus paints a picture of the sower casting seed, and it falls into four places.  A path, a rocky patch, thorn and weed infested ground, and good soil.  One might be quick to criticise the sower for his seemingly careless casting of seed.  But anyone who has cast seed or fertiliser by hand, knows that to cover every part of what you have to cover, there will be over castings that don’t end up where they’re meant to land.  Nevertheless, we will come to see why it’s good that the Word of God is cast in less than perfect places, for the benefit of you and me.

Jesus sits to teach the crowd telling them the parable. Afterwards the disciples ask Jesus why He spoke in parables, He says, “I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” (Matthew 13:13 ESV) The irony continues in that Jesus explains the parable to His disciples.  It almost suggests that Jesus knew the real reason why the disciples asked Him why He speaks to people in parables.  Although they were blessed in hearing what they heard did they really understand what Jesus was saying?

We know the Apostles only saw, heard, and understood what Jesus was saying in parables or plainly about His forthcoming crucifixion only after the Holy Spirit chose to reveal it to them after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.

We know one of the twelve apostles chosen from the wider group of disciples was Judas Iscariot.  He received Jesus’ teaching of this parable, yet he went on to charter a path not unlike the seed scattered on the path, of which we hear, “the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.” (Matthew 13:19b ESV) Why would Jesus give of Himself and His time knowing that Judas would betray Him?

Peter “the Rock” on which Jesus says the church would be built along with all the other apostles and disciples hear and receive Jesus with joy. But when Jesus speaks of His crucifixion their understanding of Jesus’ Word is tested. Jesus rebuffs Peter’s refusal to hear the truth, saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:23 ESV) Later on Peter scatters after the rooster crows, along with all others, leaving Jesus alone to bear the burden of sin and death on the cross. 

So again, why would Jesus give of Himself to anyone like them knowing they were so shallowly rooted in themselves and their own understanding? They didn’t even endure for a minute without Him and fell away like seed cast on rocky ground the moment He walked the narrow rocky way of the cross?

And thirdly, after Jesus was crucified where were the eleven apostles found?  On account of hearing God’s purpose and plan for Jesus’ crucifixion through parables and prophecy they didn’t continue the proclamation of Jesus’ promise made through parables and His prophetic Word!  No! They were hiding in fear of the Jews, choked by fear and the loss of riches in themselves that they too would be crucified like Jesus.

It appears Jesus’ three years of ministry was for nothing since even His disciples didn’t understand as they hid in the upper room on the evening of His resurrection. Nor did the two disciples recognise Him walking with them on the road to Emmaus because they were so worried and distracted like seeds choked by thorns—thorns that crowned Jesus’ head on the cross!  

Why would Jesus die for His disciples knowing that the riches of their understanding would fail in misunderstanding and be what saw them stricken with poverty over the death of their leader on a cross for criminals?

The reason is because Jesus Christ was sent by God the Father as the Word made Flesh, and being the very Son of God, He was sent by God whose Holy Word is powerful and is given for a purpose.   We hear from Isaiah, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10–11 ESV)

Jesus is the Word of the kingdom sent to accomplish and succeed for God’s purpose, in the face of our loss of understanding of God. Yet mysteriously He is not just the Word, but the Word made Flesh.  What is that flesh?   

His flesh is the flesh of humanity, the same flesh as you and me, the same flesh of the disciples and apostles, yet His flesh understood who the Father is and He lived in that flesh without the dirtiness that was man after Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Ironically when they ate the fruit of the tree the knowledge what resulted was not knowledge of good and evil but a loss of knowledge of themselves and God, so that they neither feared God as the Creator, nor trusted Him.

Before the fall, Adam was created from the earth. God gathered the dust of the ground and breathed His breath, or spirit of life, into him. We hear in Genesis two, “…the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Genesis 2:7 ESV) Literally He moulded man from the dust of the dirt.  In Hebrew Adam is moulded from the dust of the Adamah!  Adam was created by God moulding and breathing life into powdered dirt—Adam from the Adamah—dirt became a living creature in the image of God!

This dirt was not dirty but was the holy pinnacle of God’s creation.  The dirt of Adam and Eve’s flesh became dirty, after the fall into sin. 

Jesus did not fall into sin but was sent down into the dirt that humanity’s flesh had become.  Jesus experienced the paths and ways of humanity but was never led down the garden path into sin as was Adam, you, me, or His disciples.  He understood what it is to have perfect hearing and understanding.  He was never plucked from His path by Satan!

Jesus was not rocked by what God sent Him to do, nor did He turn stones into bread when He was tempted by the devil to do so!  Rather, “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

Jesus was never deceived by riches or tempted by the cares or worries of this world. But He continually looked to the Father despite being sent by Him to die for those who could not understand or misunderstood what He was sent to do!

That is why Jesus became our flesh, the cleanest of dirt, to cleanse us of our dirtiness.  Jesus is the Good Soil­—Good Dirt.  The seed of God’s Word is sown in the good flesh of Jesus.  The mystery is this: Jesus is both the Seed and the Soil, broadcast by God the Father into all the nooks and crannies of humanity to save us from ourselves.  To save us from our hardened ways!  To save us from our rocky hearts with no depth of soil! To save us from the deceptions of this world that cause us to look away from Him to our desires and cares caused by our deadly knowledge of good and evil. 

Better than any farmer, Jesus Christ seeks to till us with His Word, to make us good soil like Him, producing yields of a hundredfold, or sixty, or thirty, by the Holy horsepower of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

***

Sermon Summary and Reflection

Sermon Summary

This sermon reflects on Jesus’ parable of the sower in Matthew 13, showing that the Word of God is not distributed narrowly or mechanically, but cast widely and personally into the hearts of all people. The four soils describe the different conditions of the human heart: hardened by unbelief, shallow through lack of root, choked by worldly cares, or made fruitful by hearing and understanding the Word.

The sermon then turns from the soils to Christ Himself. The disciples, including Judas and Peter, reveal how easily human hearts can resemble the path, rocky ground, or thorny soil. Yet Jesus still gives Himself for such people. He is the Word made flesh, sent by the Father to accomplish God’s saving purpose. Unlike fallen humanity, Jesus remains faithful, undefiled, and fully obedient, even through temptation, suffering, and the cross.

The central gospel comfort is that Jesus is both the Seed and the Good Soil. He enters the dirt of human flesh to cleanse what sin has made dirty. By His Word and Spirit, He tills hardened, shallow, and distracted hearts, making them fruitful in Him. The sermon ends with the promise that Christ continues to work in His people, producing fruit by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Reflection

This sermon invites hearers to examine the condition of their own hearts before God’s Word. At different times, each person may recognise hardness, shallowness, fear, distraction, or attachment to worldly cares. The parable is not merely a warning about others; it is a mirror that reveals our need for Christ to break, deepen, clear, and renew us.

The sermon’s strongest comfort is that fruitfulness does not begin with our own spiritual strength. It begins with Jesus, who is faithful where we are faithless, rooted where we are shallow, and fruitful where we are barren. He does not abandon imperfect soil but comes into it with His Word, His cross, and His Spirit.

A faithful response is therefore not self-reliance, but repentance and trust. We pray that Christ would keep sowing His Word into us, protect it from being snatched away, root it deeply in faith, free it from the choking power of worry and desire, and make our lives bear the fruit He promises.

Questions for Personal or Group Reflection

• Where do I see hardened, shallow, or thorny places in my own heart?
• What cares or desires most often compete with God’s Word in my life?
• How does it comfort me that Jesus is both the Seed and the Good Soil?
• What fruit might Christ be seeking to grow in me through His Word and Spirit?
• How can I make space this week to hear, receive, and dwell in God’s Word?

A, Post Pentecost 6 Proper 9 - Matthew 11:28-30 A Balancing Yoke

When you read or hear God’s Word, does God reveal His message to you? Does hearing or reading His Word leave you wanting to know more, or do you find yourself thinking, “I’m glad that’s done; now I can do something more constructive”?

If so, you may be weighing up God’s Word in the wrong way, and the depth of God’s power in His Word may remain hidden from you. Perhaps you are not allowing God the Holy Spirit to open God’s Word to you. Perhaps it is not important enough in the scheme of your life.

Or perhaps your stubborn, independent self-sufficiency is not allowing the Holy Spirit the time to work His will in you. Like stubborn Pharaoh placing a harsh burden on the Israelites through hardheartedness, you may be placing a harsh burden on yourself through your own stubborn self-sufficiency.

The question we must ask ourselves is this: “Do I want to continue in self-sufficiency, letting my heart become darker and harder through stubborn perception and deception, with the very real possibility that God hands me over to drown in my sins and their consequences?” No! I believe most of us don’t.

Next Sunday we’ll hear Jesus’ address what can happen to the Word of God when it has been sown in the heart. For now, He invites those who are weary from human hardheartedness to come to Him, take on His yoke, and learn from Him.

This invitation from Jesus is not simply a comforting saying; it reveals what God is doing with our weariness. He is drawing us away from the exhausting burden of self-sufficiency and towards the rest that comes from being yoked to Christ.

Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30 ESV)

We’ve all heard the saying, “there’s no rest for the wicked”.  This saying finds its origin in God’s Word where in Isaiah 48:22 we hear, “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.” (Isaiah 48:22 ESV)

But we’ve also just heard in Zechariah chapter nine, “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” (Zechariah 9:12 ESV)

We are prisoners from our wickedness, but ones with hope of restoration from the strength of God!

Chances are God is allowing your weariness to reveal something about yourself, just as He has done with individuals and groups throughout history. Perhaps God is teaching you how you relate to Him, especially when self-sufficiency leads you to forget or refuse to let Him be your God. Yet He remains the God whose kingdom, power, and glory are, were, and will continue to be.

God’s kingdom, power, and glory manifest themselves to us through His steadfast love. Our God is a God of generosity and mercy. So too are God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit invite us to receive Their generosity and mercy, and to live in the steadfast love of Their providence, salvation, and will.

We mostly think our heavy burden and weariness is a negative that has been inflicted upon us by the sins of others.  However, the reality is unlike Jesus, we are far from gentle and lowly in heart.  When push comes to shove from the sins of others our meekness or gentleness vaporises like an oasis in the desert, proving to be a mirage or deception.  Any lowliness of heart hardens in the heat of the moment.

Yet Jesus invites you to take on his yoke. A yoke still sounds like a burden to us. Most of us picture oxen yoked to a plough in the paddock, or a dray hauling heavy loads up a hill while the bullocky breaks the sound of shackles and chains on straining cattle with his most colourful language.

Jesus is not like a coarse bullocky, nor does His yoke make beasts of burden. No! “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” (Psalm 145:8–9 ESV) So too is our Lord Jesus since He and the Father are one!

But what is His yoke if it is not a beastly yoke? Another yoke is similar to that which rests on the neck of the beast, and it does carry things. However, the focus is more on balance than burden. In fact, if the balance is not right on a yoke the burden can be unbearable. So, what can we learn from Jesus about His yoke and the balance of what He bears and how He bears it? In other words, what does Jesus invite us to learn from Him?

As humans, we tire and weary ourselves with the old knowledge-of-good-and-evil narrative. As we all know, this is as old as humanity itself, reaching back to Adam and Eve. Since then, we have embellished this knowledge in countless ways. Unfortunately, these embellishments exhaust humanity more and more, as each of us uses this knowledge on others while it’s used on us.

As humanity prides itself on advancement in technological, social, academic, and practical knowledge, how much do these advancements become the very things that create a greater burden upon us? The things we thought would make life better often make us more anxious and burdened about living. This tiredness ends in eternal death when the knowledge of good and evil remains as one’s yoke.

What we learn from Jesus is that our balance is way out of whack! Judging ourselves and each other with a yoke of good and evil misjudges and misunderstands the yoke of Jesus. His yoke is a yoke of holiness built on the Law, that shows us that both the good and evil deeds that come from our natures are wicked. Our wickedness is that we do not fear and trust God but that we would prefer to fear and trust the desires of our hearts above God.

Jesus’ yoke rebalances the holiness of God in human life. In His meekness and humility, He removes the burden we place on ourselves and each other. Jesus’ yoke took Him to the cross, and He calls us to bear our cross. Yet the yoke of our cross is not the yoke Jesus bore in His death. That yoke has already been borne.

We learn from Jesus that bearing our cross is about putting off the very things that weary us. What we learn from Jesus is not that we must be good like Him and use Him as a method for our salvation. That would place Gospel before Law: Jesus did it, showed us what to do and how to do it, and now we must do it to be saved. Put simply, this is just a revised version of the knowledge of good and evil.

Paul shows us the reality of trying to make ourselves self-sufficient in Romans chapter seven, where he cries out, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”(Romans 7:19 ESV)

In the exhaustion of Paul’s good and evil he celebrates, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25a ESV)

What we learn from Jesus while on earth, during life, ministry, cross, death, and resurrection is that He rested His divinity as the Son of God and was wearied with what worries every human being. But in the weakness of yours and my flesh He remained holy and without sin. Unlike us He was not wicked, and unlike us He lived life solely to please God the Father, setting Him aside in all holiness. And He did not do this from His own divinity but was led by the Holy Spirit in hallowing God and His name before all.

This is what it truly means to be gentle and lowly in heart, or meek and humble in heart. Where we become soft and sin making us hardhearted, Jesus was hard against sinning while becoming soft towards those who know their reality and call on the name of the Lord for help.

Jesus now yokes us with His Word of Law and Gospel. The Holy Spirit uses that Word to show you the weight of your sin and the weariness it brought upon Jesus Christ on the cross. Yet the same Word gives you the gift of His sinless life, which did not deserve the cross. By the power of God’s Word, you are made holy and given rest in the holiness of the Father’s presence, in peace.

Since this yoke balances yours and my debt with our Father, surely it gives you and me the will to walk in meekness and humility, to love others as Christ loves us, and to serve others as Jesus served us at the cross and as He continues to serve us before the Father in Heaven. Amen.

Heavenly Father, we bless You for blessing and balancing us with the yoke of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Help us to speak of the glory of Your kingdom and tell others of Your power. Let the Spirit dwell in us so Your power is made manifest in meekness and humility to others. Let us make known the glorious splendour of Your everlasting kingdom, now and forever. Amen.

***

Sermon Summary

This sermon calls hearers to recognise how easily God’s Word can be treated as something weighed, judged, and managed by human self-sufficiency rather than received as the living Word through which God reveals Himself. The burden addressed is not only the suffering caused by others, but also the heavier burden created by stubborn independence, hardheartedness, and the old knowledge-of-good-and-evil narrative by which people judge themselves and one another.

Against this weariness, Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:28–30 is presented as more than comfort. It is the gracious call of Christ to come to Him, take His yoke, and learn from Him. His yoke is not beastly oppression but holy rebalancing. By His Law and Gospel, Jesus exposes the weight of sin and gives the gift of His sinless life, which has already borne the burden of the cross for us.

The sermon therefore moves from human exhaustion to divine rest. Christ, gentle and lowly in heart, does not leave sinners to carry the crushing yoke of self-justification. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus joins us to Himself, we’re taught meekness and humility, and willed to rest in the Father’s presence. To bear the yoke of Christ is to be freed from sinful self-sufficiency, rebalanced by grace, and drawn into a life of humble service.

Bearing the yoke of Jesus in the wider context on Matthew 11

Matthew 11 places before us the picture of children in the marketplace calling, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” Jesus uses this image to expose a generation unwilling to respond to God’s visitation, through Him and John the Baptist. John comes with the solemn dirge of repentance, yet they will not mourn. Jesus comes with the joyful music of the kingdom, eating and drinking with sinners, yet they will not dance. They reject both because they do not want God to set the tune. 

Reflection: What unrepentant things do I do to set the tune for my life?

This refusal is unrepentance. Christ’s mighty works are the music of God’s kingdom breaking into the world: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor receive good news. Yet Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum remain unmoved. They have heard both flute and funeral song but answer neither. Their burden is not lack of revelation but resistance to it; their hearts remain yoked to themselves.

Reflection: What goods and evils need to be unyoked from my life with the yoke of Jesus Christ?

At that time Jesus rejoices that the Father has hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. These little children are not childish in stubbornness, but childlike in dependence, receptiveness, and trust. They receive what the Father reveals through the Son. Here the mourning of the burdened becomes blessed: those who labour and are heavy laden know the dirge of sin, disappointment, judgement, and death, yet Jesus does not leave them under that load. He reveals the Father and calls them to Himself.

Reflection prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, send the Holy Spirit to move me to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and to respond with thanksgiving when I hear it.  Help me to mourn over my sin, so in repentance I daily place it on the cross.

To take the yoke of Jesus Christ is allowing the Holy Spirit to teach and move us to respond to God’s music. His Law teaches and moves us to mourn what sin has done; His Gospel teaches and moves us to dance before God’s mighty works in Christ: His mercy, healing, forgiveness, cross, resurrection, deposit of the Holy Spirit, and promised rest. His yoke is not the heavy yoke of performing for God, nor the stubborn yoke of refusing God. It is the gracious yoke by which Christ brings mourners into joy and the weary into rest.

Reflection:  How does the yoke of Jesus encourage me to be humble in my blessings, and endure in the hardships, of this life?  How does the yoke of Jesus enable me to be “like Jesus” to my neighbour? 

A, Post Pentecost 5 Proper 8 - Romans 7:1-13 A Worthy Wedding

The fullness of God’s Word dwells in Jesus Christ, because He is the Word made flesh.  In His flesh, Jesus bears the fullness of the Law: its holiness, rules, statutes, promises, testimonies, steadfast love, commands, and demands.  This is the Law we have spoken responsively in the Introit and confessed from Psalm 119.

God’s Law is His word of truth.  It exposes us and shines its light upon human reality.  Before God’s holy Law, is there anywhere to hide?

No, there is not.  We who hold to God’s Word must first be examined by the Law.  If the Law does not ask its questions of us, we will never hear the truth about ourselves.

So God’s holy Law asks, “Are you holy as God is holy?  Are you merciful as God is merciful?”  And the answer that comes back from us is sin. 

Or, to use Christ’s own words, the Law gives two answers: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37–40 ESV)

These words expose the simple reality of our humanity.  We love ourselves more than we love God and our neighbour.  When we hear the Law, we either turn away disheartened, or we reject it in favour of our own laws—laws that excuse us and condemn our enemies.

But because the Law is of God and is holy, rejecting the Law means rejecting God.  We either turn away from Him disheartened, or we stand in judgement over Him.  Either way, we make our Heavenly Father the enemy.

Jesus makes this clear in today’s Gospel reading.  Three times He says that if we love parents or children more than Him, or if we do not take up our cross and follow Him, we are not worthy of Him.  Jesus strikes hard with the Law, because He bears the fullness of God’s Word in His flesh.

Jesus also tells a parable in which the kingdom of heaven—the kingdom of God—is like a king giving a wedding feast for His son.  In that parable, those first invited prove unworthy, and another man, brought into the feast in their place, is also rejected because he is not wearing the wedding garment. (see Matthew 22:1–14)

Paul carries this wedding theme into his letter to the Romans, where he explains that in baptism we have… “died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” (Romans 7:4 ESV)

What, then, is this fruit of God, and how are we to produce it?  These questions cannot be answered by ourselves.  When we trust our own understanding and feelings, we are tempted to return to another law, becoming a law unto ourselves.  That new law also threatens to turn us away from God and make us His enemies once again.

Left to ourselves, humanity produces the fruits of humanity.  We do human things because we are human beings; and because we are sinners, our human works are marked by sin.  Being human, after the fall, means being sinners who do sinful things. 

Yet the Law is not sin, nor are we permitted to shrug our shoulders and carry on wilfully sinning.  Paul rejects that kind of self-justification for those who take the kingdom of God seriously and understand their marriage into it through baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Otherwise, we would be like an adulteress: rescued from sin and death revealed by the Law, only to return to justifying ourselves by what we do.

Rather, the Law serves its purpose in several ways.  After the Law shows us what we are and what we do, Jesus Christ is baptised into the Law.  The Word made flesh comes in our flesh, sets aside His divine privilege, and lives in the same flesh as you and me.  Jesus is born into the same human condition, yet He does not succumb to sinful emotion, deed, or being.  He becomes what neither Israel nor humanity had been able to be: faithful to God in heaven and faithful to His human neighbours on earth—faithful even unto death.

In His birth, baptism, death, and resurrection, Jesus bears the fruit that fulfils all righteousness, so that we might flee the wrath to come and bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Jesus comes so that we are blessed and invited to “the marriage supper of the Lamb. These are the true words of God.” (Revelation 19:9 ESV)

This answers the question of why we produce fruit.  We produce it because Christ was baptised into the Law and death, yet without sin, and because we have been baptised into His death and resurrection.  But the question of how this fruit is produced still needs to be answered, lest we try to justify our way into the kingdom of heaven through our works—making ourselves worthy by churchly charity, giving, prayer, praise, and other practises.  Do not misunderstand me: these are good works, but they do not justify us.  Rather, they are works the body of Christ does for the salvation and good of others.

So how do we do them?  How does this fruit happen within us?  The Law still works within us, and in Lutheran theology this is known as the third use, or third function, of the Law.  This is why the Ten Commandments remain a core teaching of Lutheran theology.  Yet this is not our use of the Law, even though the Law still functions within us to the glory of God and for the love of our neighbour.

Paul’s analogy of marriage reaches its fullness in something profound.  He says, “‘Therefore a man shall leave His father and mother and hold fast to His wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:31–32 ESV)

Notice that the man leaves His parents, not the woman.  We do not leave our place in order to become Christian; rather, in His incarnation, Jesus leaves His Father to be pledged to His bride.  In Jesus Christ, God has… “put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” (2 Corinthians 1:22 ESV)

Just as Jesus was carried along by the Holy Spirit in His ministry, so for Jesus’ sake we who have been baptised into Christ… “are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” (Romans 7:6 ESV)

The Holy Spirit is the body of Christ’s “how”.  All that glorifies God is done in us and through us by the Holy Spirit.  The new way, the new function of the Law, is the Holy Spirit using God’s Law within us so we can love God and serve our neighbour.

How, then, do we do the works Jesus did while on earth, and even the greater works He promises in John 14:12?  Jesus tells us, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.” (John 14:15–17a ESV)

By the new way of the Holy Spirit, He works this new obedience of Jesus Christ within us, because… “the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2 ESV)

This third function of the Law is not one that leads us to death.  Rather, the Holy Spirit leads us out of sin and into a righteousness in keeping with repentance.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit to help us flee wrath, run to Christ, and take up our cross to follow Him, who has fulfilled all righteousness in His death and resurrection.  Therefore, as Paul encourages Timothy, we too can be encouraged: “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” (2 Timothy 1:14 ESV)

This is God’s gift of grace upon grace to those who are human upon human, sinners upon sinners.  It does not justify our sin; it forgives sin in those who know they cannot justify themselves, and who are made worthy to enter the wedding feast of the Lamb of God. Amen.