Deo Gloria
Sermon for December 3, 2023
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Theme: We Always Thank God!
- Who has given us his grace
- Who has enriched us in every way
- Who will keep us strong to the end
Well, Thanksgiving is over and now it’s time for Christmas. How many of us didn’t do a bit of Christmas shopping on Black Friday or on Cyber Monday? Quite a few I’m sure. Some people, I’ve noticed, have put up their Christmas lights already. Mid-week Advent services begin this coming Wednesday. And the children in both our Day School and Sunday School have begun working on the parts for their Christmas service. How quickly our thoughts turn from thanking God for all his goodness to images of Christmas: chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at our nose, Yule-tide carols, Christmas pageants, and of course all those brightly wrapped presents waiting for us under the tree. Boy, we can hardly wait!
This morning, however, at least for a few minutes, I’d like to encourage you to hold your horses. Not so fast. Yes, I know Christmas is coming, but Thanksgiving isn’t over. In fact, it’s never really over. As children of God, giving thanks is something we always do. We always thank God. And in these verses from 1 Corinthians, ch. 1, the apostle Paul reminds us why. For one thing, God has given us his grace. Secondly, he has enriched us in every way. And thirdly, he is the one who will keep us strong to the end. Yes, along with Paul we always thank God.
Let’s imagine something for a moment. Let’s suppose that this Christmas you received the most wonderful Christmas present ever. I mean this one is far and away the best, a present you could never forget: a diamond necklace from your husband; an engagement ring from your boyfriend; two tickets to the Super Bowl in February; a brand new iPhone 15; a $5,000 bonus from your boss; your very own Barbie backpack. “Oh, Mom, Dad, this is great! This is the best present ever!” You’d be grateful, wouldn’t you? You’d thank your boss or your parents or your spouse. I imagine you might even thank them for such a wonderful gift many times over.
You and I have been given the greatest gift a person could ever be given. Along with the Christians in Corinth, you and I have been given the grace of God in Christ Jesus. God’s grace–we use those words all the time, don’t we? But what do they really mean? The word grace means “undeserved love,” God’s undeserved love. To say that God has given us his grace means that God has given us his love even though we don’t deserve it, which is really an understatement.
Our filthy mouths, our filthy minds, our hateful thoughts, our spiteful words and actions; our perpetual pride and selfishness; our neglect and failure to help those in need; our unfaithfulness to our spouse, our children, and our Lord–these things hardly deserve God’s love and favor. God is holy. He can’t stand sin. Nor can he stand those who ignore his commands and violate his will. How do you feel as a parent when your children blatantly ignore what you tell them and do what you specifically told them not to do? You’re angry at them and rightly so. Their disobedience is a direct challenge to you and your authority. Now magnify that about a million times and that will give you a little taste of how God feels toward those who disobey his commands. What we deserve from God is hardly his love. What we deserve is his wrath and punishment. What we deserve is death in hell.
The amazing thing, though, is that God doesn’t want us to die. True, we deserve to, but God doesn’t want us to. He loves us too much. And in love God sent someone to die in our place. He sent his own Son, Jesus Christ, to die in our place, to suffer the punishment for our sins so that we might be spared, so that we might not die, but live. For such a wonderful present, such a marvelous gift of his grace we always thank God.
And yet, that isn’t all. In addition to sending his Son to be our Savior, in love God also called us to faith in Jesus Christ. Of all the people in the world God saw to it that we would hear the good news about Jesus. And through that message he worked faith in our hearts, faith to trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior. You and I are believers today because of God’s grace, his undeserved love in Christ–another reason we always thank God.
And that’s not all either. Having brought us to believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, God adopted us into his family. He made us his very own sons and daughters, which also makes us his heirs. How would you like to receive heaven as a gift for Christmas? You already have. It’s been deeded to you as your future inheritance, through the grace given you in Christ Jesus. For this too we always thank God.
In addition to the grace God has given us, Paul mentions a second reason we always thank God in verses 5-7:
For in him you have been enriched in every way–in all your speaking and in all your
knowledge–because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do
not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.
Besides the grace he had bestowed on them, God had also enriched the Christians in Corinth with many spiritual gifts. Paul lists a number of them later on in ch. 12. Spiritual gifts are special abilities God gives to his people, abilities that equip them for service or ministry to Christ and his church. In his Word God tells us that he gives spiritual gifts to all his people–to some he gives more than one, but everyone receives at least one. No one is left out.
Apparently God had bestowed an abundance of spiritual gifts on the congregation in Corinth, especially the gifts of wisdom and of speaking in tongues. Sad to say, though, some of the Christians in Corinth allowed these gifts go to their heads. They became overly proud of these God-given abilities. They boasted in the fact that they could speak in tongues while others could not. They boasted that they had such great wisdom and knowledge and others did not. And as you might expect, that led to problems in the congregation, serious problems which Paul had to address later on in this letter; but that’s really beside the point. The point here is that Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth how richly God had blessed them, so much so that they didn’t lack any spiritual gift as they waited for their Savior Jesus Christ to return.
Sound familiar? It should. Like the church in Corinth, God has enriched Trinity Lutheran Church in many, many ways. To some he has given the gift of leadership. To others he has given the gift of administration, to others the gift of faith, to others the gift of knowledge, to others the gift of evangelism, to others the gift of encouragement. And I could go on and on. God has blessed this congregation with many gifts. Oh sure, God hasn’t given anyone here the gift of speaking in tongues or of working miracles or any of those other very special gifts, but they aren’t necessary either, because we have something the Christians in Corinth did not have: the complete Holy Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments. If we want to confirm whether or not the message someone is speaking to us is legitimate, all we have to do is compare what they say with God’s Word. Like the Christians in Corinth, the Christians here at Trinity don’t lack anything. We have everything we need to serve one another and to serve our Lord, as we wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed–yet another reason we always thank God.
A third and final reason can be found in verses 8+9: “He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.” I remember once a number of years ago, right after the first snowfall, the kids and I made a snowman. He had sticks for arms and rocks for eyes and a nice, warm scarf around his neck. Unfortunately, though, he didn’t last very long. The first night he fell over. So the next day we put him back up again. We even packed some snow around the bottom to keep him from falling over. Then it proceeded to warm up, and Mr. Snowman began to melt. He grew smaller and smaller. Next, his head fell off. Then his mid-section fell off. And finally the bottom piece fell over again. All that was left was a small pile of snow on the ground.
I know it’s not exactly a flattering comparison, but our faith is a lot like that snowman. By itself it cannot stand very well, or very long. Our faith tends to wither in the face of adversity and hardship. Our faith tends to melt under the heat of temptation. At times it even falls flat on its face, into sin and despair. Our faith just isn’t very strong on its own. It’s not very resilient or enduring, which understandably might cause us a bit of concern.
“Will my faith stand the test of time?” we might wonder. “Will my faith weather the storms of adversity and hardship that come into my life? Or will those storms shipwreck my faith? Will my faith withstand the relentless assaults of Satan, or will it falter and fall? Will my faith make it until the day Jesus comes back?” Have you ever wondered about things like that? I know I have.
Thank God our faith doesn’t have to stand on its own. Thank God the strength and endurance of our faith doesn’t depend on us. If it did, it would never make it. Thank God it depends on God. He is the one who will keep us strong. He is the one who will keep our faith firm to the end.
How? Through Word and Sacrament. Through his Word and through the Sacraments God strengthens and sustains the faith he has planted in our hearts. Naturally, if we want our faith to remain healthy and strong, that means we need to continually nourish our faith with God’s Word and Sacrament. We need to come to God’s house regularly and often to hear his Word and how it applies to our lives. We need to read and study God’s Word on our own regularly and often. We need to commune with our Lord regularly and often in his Holy Supper. As we do these things, God will strengthen our faith and keep it strong to the end.
He will not let us down. God is not about to let our faith wither and die, and in the process lose one of his children. He is the one who put faith in our hearts in the first place. And if he started it, he will certainly carry it through to completion. As the Bible says, “He is the author and perfecter of our faith”(Hebrews 12:2). Having created faith in our hearts, God will preserve our faith throughout our lives, provided we don’t cut ourselves off from the means through which he works. As Paul says, God is faithful. And through the means of grace he will see to it that we remain faith-full as well–full of faith to the very end. One more reason we always thank God.
Yes, Thanksgiving–the holiday–may be over. But the giving of thanks on the part of God’s people is anything but over. For Christians, Thanksgiving is really a year-round holiday. For the grace he has given us, for an abundance of spiritual gifts, for keeping us strong in our faith throughout our lives–for these, and many other blessings as well, we always thank God. Amen.