“A Letter from Christ”
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text is today’s Epistle Reading from 2nd Corinthians, in which the
Apostle Paul says that YOU are “A Letter from Christ.” You are invited to
follow the sermon outline on the last pages of the bulletin. An old story tells about a member of a church’s pastoral search
committee, who was frustrated as candidate after candidate was rejected for some
perceived flaw. Every pastor they considered was either too young, or too
old; too inexperienced, or overqualified. So this board member stood up
and read a letter supposedly from a candidate: “Understanding your pulpit is vacant, I should like to be considered
for the position. I have many qualifications. I’ve been a preacher with much
success and also have had some successes as a writer. Some say I’m a good
organizer. I’ve been a leader most places I’ve been. I’m over 50 years of age
and have never preached in one place more than three years. In some places, I
have left town after my work caused riots and disturbances. And I must admit
that I have been in jail three or four times, but not because of any real
wrongdoing. My health is not too good, though I still accomplish a great deal.
The churches I have preached in have been small though located in several large
cities. I’ve not gotten along well with religious leaders in the towns where I
have preached. In fact, some have threatened me and even attacked me physically
and more than once I was forced to leave town, sometimes secretively. I am not
too good at keeping records. I have been known to forget who I have baptized.
However, if you can use me, I promise to do my best for you.” The board member then turned to the committee and said, “Well what do
you think? Should we consider him?” The committee members were appalled!
How could they consider a sickly, trouble-making, absent-minded, former prison
inmate? Was the board member crazy? Who sent the letter? Who had such nerve? The
board member who read the letter replied: “It’s signed. . . The Apostle Paul.” There is more than a little truth to that parody. We now
recognize the Apostle Paul as one of the greatest geniuses in world history, who
literally changed the course of history, perhaps more than any person other than
Jesus Christ himself. But, as Paul himself tells later us in 2nd
Corinthians, in his own day many people said of him, “He is unimpressive and his
speaking amounts to nothing.” Paul had spent a year and half preaching and teaching in Corinth, and
when he left to continue his missionary work other places there was a good-sized
and growing Christian congregation. But, after he left, the trouble
started. False teachers and charlatans out for money came and led the
Christians at Corinth astray. These false teachers turned the people not
only against the true doctrine, but also against the Apostle Paul himself.
That hurt Paul deeply, and it shows in 2nd Corinthians, a letter he wrote to
urge them back to the true faith which he had taught them. “Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from
you?” Paul had heard how the false teachers who came to Corinth got into
the congregation’s good graces with impressive letters of recommendation.
These letters might have been phony or from other gullible people who had been
led astray. Because of these impressive references the Christian
congregation at Corinth welcomed them and turned over to them the preaching and
teaching ministry. These false teachers even claimed to be what Paul
sarcastically calls “super apostles,” supposedly superior to Paul and the other
apostles. The teachings and work of Paul and the other actual apostles
Christ appointed were dismissed by these new self-proclaimed “super apostles” as
passé, and superseded by their superior new ways and new teachings. As
Paul writes later in 2nd Corinthians, “For such men are false apostles,
deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.” “Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from
you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by
everybody.” Paul is saying, “How could you forget so soon what I did and
taught among you? The proof of my true apostleship, the proof of my true
teaching, isn’t some mere piece of paper. The proof is YOU.” As he
wrote the Thessalonians, “Your faith in God has become known everywhere . . .
how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.” The
Word which Paul preached to them and the power of that Word to bring them to
faith and transform their lives was a far greater and more impressive testimony
and letter of recommendation than any piece of paper brought by the false
teachers. “Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from
you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read
by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of
our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on
tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” Martin Luther explains in his commentary on Deuteronomy that the stone
tablets on which the Ten Commandments were originally engraved symbolized the
natural hardness and coldness of our hearts toward God on account of our sin.
We pray in Psalm 51, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me.” The first successful human heart transplant was
performed in 1968 by Dr. Norman Shumway. ALL of us need a SPIRITUAL heart
transplant, replacing our dead, cold hearts of stone with new heart and a right
spirit. Only God can perform this spiritual heart transplant: “Create in
me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” God performs this spiritual heart transplant through the Gospel, as
Paul writes the Corinthians: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the Gospel
I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.
By this Gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.
Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as
of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures. . . God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself in
Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the
message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as
though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf:
Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” That Good News Paul wrote for the Corinthians 2,000 years ago is still
God’s personal message of Good News for you. Because of Christ’s death and
resurrection, your sins are not counted against you, you are reconciled to God
and righteous in his sight. Paul tells the Corinthians that God has “put his
Spirit in our hearts” and “made his light shine in our hearts.” Like Dr.
Shumway transplanting a physical heart, through the Gospel proclaimed in the
Word and administered in the Sacraments, God the Holy Spirit spiritually creates
a NEW heart within you, to trust in Christ your Savior. “You show that you
are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but
with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of
human hearts.” “You are a letter from Christ.” Like the Apostle Paul, God has
made YOU his ambassador to the world, to share the Good News that “God was in
Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not counting men’s sins against
them.” For God not only communicates to the world this Good News of
salvation through the epistles, or letters, found in the Scripture. He
also communicates the Good News to the world through YOU. Luther says that
we are, “living epistles of Christ, written by the Spirit, inscribed not like
the Law on tablets of stone, but inscribed on human hearts with the ink of the
Gospel and Sacraments, so that our very hearts are living letters from God,
aglow with his love.” “You are a letter from Christ” to the world. There are many different
kinds of letters. What kind of letter are you? You are first of all God’s Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s cards to
the world. As a Valentine you share the Good News of God’s love. As
the Apostle John writes, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us.”
But, it’s not just a generic message of love from some higher power, but the
specific Good News of God’s love for the world in CHRIST: “For God so
loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into
the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned.” That is why you are also a
Christmas card and Easter card. Sharing the Christmas message that “for us
men and for our salvation [he] came down from heaven and was incarnate by the
Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man,” and the Easter message that
for us he “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried . .
. [and] the third day he rose again from the dead.” You are God’s
Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s cards to the world. “You are a letter from Christ.” As you share the Good News of
full forgiveness in Christ, you are God’s bill for the sins of the world—but
stamped in red “PAID IN FULL” by the blood of Christ. As Paul writes in
Ephesians, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins.” The Good News we are to share as living letters from Christ is that
the bill for the sins of the world has been “PAID IN FULL” by his blood.
As the Apostle John writes, “the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every
sin . . . He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours
but also for the sins of the whole world.” As you share the Good News of
full forgiveness in Christ, you are God’s bill for the sins of the world—but
stamped in red “PAID IN FULL” by the blood of Christ. “You are a letter from Christ.” You are also God’s sympathy card
to the world, his messenger of compassion and kindness and comfort, for
suffering, sorrowful people in our troubled world. Paul begins 2nd
Corinthians beautifully describing our role as God’s sympathy card to the world:
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so
that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have
received from God.” You are God’s sympathy card for suffering, sorrowful
people in our troubled world. “You are a letter from Christ.” In the New Testament we
distinguish between the “General Epistles,” which aren’t directed toward
specific persons or congregations, and the epistles such as 2nd Corinthians,
which were originally meant for specific people. You are not only God’s
“general epistle” to the world, but he has also sent you “special delivery” for
certain, specific people. To your spouse, you are God’s special delivery LOVE letter. As
Jesus said, “At the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said,
‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his
wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but
one.” And as Paul says in Ephesians, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her.” To your spouse, you are
God’s special delivery LOVE letter. To your children and grandchildren, you are God’s special delivery word
of counsel and guidance. As Proverbs says, “Train up a child in the way he
should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” And as Paul
says in Ephesians, “Bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
To your children and grandchildren, you are God’s special delivery word of
counsel and guidance. In your occupation, you are God’s special delivery REPLY to the prayers
and needs of his people. For example, we pray in the Lord’s Prayer “give
us this day our daily bread,” and in reply God sends us farmers and countless
others who through their occupations help provide us with all the wants and
needs of the body. The Apostle Peter puts it this way: “Each one should
use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering
God’s grace in its various forms.” In your occupation, you are God’s
special delivery REPLY to the prayers and needs of his people. “You are a letter from Christ.” But, there’s one kind of letter
you aren’t. If your mail is like ours, most of the mail you receive is
probably junk mail. But, as the American Gospel singer Ethel Waters
famously put it, “God don’t make no junk.” There’s quite a market right now in selling old cancelled checks signed
by famous people. I saw a fascinating selection of these in a store once.
One was signed by Carol Burnett for an oil change. Another was signed by
Doris Day for her phone bill. They’re just old cancelled checks that the
stars had thrown away. But, someone got ahold of them, and now they’re framed
and matted and sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. If they
were from anyone else they would be junk, like the 30 years of old cancelled
checks I shredded a few years ago. But these are very valuable because of
who they’re from. Imagine if you received a personal, handwritten letter from the
President; you wouldn’t throw it away like junk mail. Because it’s from
the President, it would be valuable and important. Quite often I will have
elderly people ask me, “Why am I still here?” People of all ages can
wonder if they are important, if their lives and work in this world are
valuable. Like a letter from the President or even a cancelled check from
a star, because you are “a letter from Christ,” you are never junk mail, you are
valuable and important. Because, “God don’t make no junk.” “Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from
you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read
by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of
our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on
tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” You are “A Letter from Christ.” Return to Top | Return to Sermons | Home | Email Church Office
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