Luke 15:17ff “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.” 

This wayward son gives us a beautiful picture of repentance. He is no longer the arrogant, demanding, rebellious son who left home. He starts by confessing that his sin is first an offense to God. He comes knowing that he is not worthy of anything for which he asks, that he has nothing to offer his father, but that he is entirely at his father’s mercy. “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He comes turning away from his past life, the wicked freedom to sin that he wanted, and willing to serve his father. “Make me like one of your hired men.” In all of this, he comes in trust, in faith, knowing and believing his father can save him. “So he got up and went to his father.”

And how did his father react? We find that all the time his son had been living in this self-indulgence, he still loved him. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”

Do you get the picture here of a father who so loves his son that he never stopped hoping for his return, never stopped watching the road to see if maybe today his son would be back again? This is the image our God wants us to keep in mind when he calls himself our Father. This is the kind of Father that he is to us all. Everything about the father’s actions tell us how eagerly, how freely he forgives you and me. He was filled with compassion. That is the deep caring for someone that is so emotional, so moving, that one can physically feel it. It so fills the father that he can’t hold himself back. Before the son gets all the way home, the father has run to him, and thrown himself upon him with a big bear hug and kissed him. No sin stands between father and son any more. He doesn’t make his son prove himself. It’s as if none of the sinful past had ever happened.

The father doesn’t even let his son completely finish his confession of sin. He immediately starts making sure that there is no doubt of his grace. So he removes the rags and dresses his son in the finest robe. Our own heavenly Father removes the rags of our sin, and he dresses us in the purity of Jesus’ own life. This is not the cold, heartless purity of something like pure gold or pure silver. This is the warm, living, loving, compassionate, giving purity of Jesus’ own perfect life.

Then a ring is placed on the son’s finger, the kind of official ring used for a seal or signature. It is a sign that his son has all the rights and privileges that come with being a member of the family. Even though he has misused and squandered his father’s wealth, he is an heir again. And we are God’s own sons, full-fledged members of his family. All his promises for life belong to us right now. All his promises for heaven belong to us right now, too.

Finally, slaves go barefoot, but a son wears shoes. No detail of his return to sonship is forgotten. He must be sure. And we must be sure as well. Each week, in the celebration of our Father’s presence and feast of his blessings we call worship, we find assurance again and again that he loves us as his own children. The hymns, the absolution, the preaching, the Lord’s supper all say the same thing: Our father welcomes us home, embraces us for himself, and claims us as his own.

Never be afraid to come home. Only love is waiting.

Luke 15:11ff “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided the property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.”

Did you notice how thanklessly this son takes his share of the estate? He comes to his father and positively lays this down as a command. “Give it to me.” There is no polite request. There is no recognition that he really has no right to any of this before his father passes away.

And how many people don’t take God’s good gifts in exactly the same way? It doesn’t matter what the gift is. It may be money or possessions, but it doesn’t have to be. Whatever God has given–health, talent, family, position–is taken with a sort of “life owes it to me” attitude. And when people can’t have what they want, they sulk around, and the “life owes it to me” attitude becomes even worse.

Then this son takes his undeserved wealth and his thankless attitude, and he travels far from home where he can abuse it all freely. He doesn’t want his father looking over his shoulder telling him what to do with what is now his own stuff. He wants the freedom to do as he pleases. He squanders it all in wild living.

It’s just like the people who want to be free from the shackles of God and religion, and tell the church to mind its own business. After all, it’s my money, and it’s no one else’s business if I want to blow huge sums of it on lottery tickets. It’s my body, and it’s a free country, and I have every right to share my bed with whomever I please. It’s my time, and if I want to sacrifice most or all of it on the altar of career, or prestige, or recreation, that’s up to me. Let the other fools waste it in church or Bible study.

And even if we haven’t wandered completely away from the faith, it’s just like us when we have our own secret sins, the ones we freely indulge ourselves in when no one else is looking, and we feel like we have escaped far away from our Father’s watchful eye, if only for the time being.

When I have been self-indulgent in sin, my Father’s love often comes in the shape of pain or trouble, as it does here. “After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything” (Luke 15:14-16).

Was this a good thing or a bad thing that happened to this young man? So often we fight just to have a “comfortable” life. We don’t want to be too rich or have too much. Life can be fairly simple if only we don’t have too much trouble.

But often we find God’s goodness in the hard life. What if this man had settled down into a comfortable life after his wild living? Sometimes the world’s solutions for problems can put a big enough band-aid on life’s wounds, they can take away the pain of the symptoms well enough, to make a person think they are alright. What if that had happened to this man? What if one of the citizens of this foreign country, away from his father, had really befriended him, had given him a nice job so that he could enjoy a simple but comfortable life? Maybe he wouldn’t have starved, but he might have been eternally separated from his father. Were the humiliation and the hunger really this young man’s problems?

Sometimes life is hard, and we find ourselves grasping at anything to make us feel better. As Christians, we find ourselves begging God, “Take it away! Take it away!”

But what is the Lord doing for us at such times? This young man could have died in unrepentance, died full of himself and full of his sin, eternally separated from God without the famine and the hunger. Maybe we haven’t wandered so far away, or maybe we are already fairly close to our heavenly Father when trouble comes, but still God uses these things to bring us closer to himself.

One of my own sons had cancer and two years of chemo. Another had to have his jaw and skull broken in multiple places and his jaw wired shut to correct a severe issue with his bite. These situations created plenty of misery. I wouldn’t wish this on my sons again, and I wouldn’t wish the worry on our family again. But I know that we found ourselves much closer to our heavenly Father in prayer during those times. Even if sin were the reason my life has become hard, I can be sure that our Father loves me as his own dear child, and only wants to pull me closer.

1 Corinthians 10:11-13 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

To keep us from falling, Paul offers these helpful truths. First, we live in a special time in world history. “The fulfillment of the ages has come.” We see God’s promise kept. We look back on Jesus becoming a man and living in our world, shouldering our sins as our substitute, taking our sins to the cross and dying to pay for them all there. We live in the certainty of a resurrected and victorious Lord who has forgiven all our sins, conquered death, and now rules over the universe to bless and benefit his people. The love God showed to make us his own, and the blessings we can claim by keeping the faith, are clearer for us to see.

We can throw the weight of those gifts into the scales against the puny promises temptation offers. Just what do we get by following gods who are nothing but fantasies? How do a few moments of illicit pleasure compare to the eternity of God’s love and grace in heaven? How is grumbling against God’s care for our lives supposed to improve our situation in any way?

Second, we have not been singled out for particularly difficult temptations. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.” God’s list of right and wrong hasn’t changed. The desires of human hearts haven’t really changed. We have all wanted pretty much the same things. The differences are little more than variations on a theme.

So it comes down to a simple question: Are we going to trust what God says, or not? Are we going to trust him when he says this activity is bad for us? Are we going to trust him when he says that all the decisions he makes for our lives are good for us? Are we going to trust the one who became one of us and even died for us to save us? Remember how the devil began the very first temptation in the Bible: “Did God really say…?” Questioning what God says still lies at the heart of every temptation. In a sense, they are all the same. Learning to trust God’s word no matter what he tells us is a key to keep us from falling.

Finally, the Lord promises that even temptation is subject to his management, and his limits. “And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

Based on this verse, sometimes people say, “God won’t give you more than you can handle,” but that is more than Paul says. He is talking specifically about temptation to sin. He is not saying that God will never give you a problem that is more than you can solve on your own. He is not saying you will never face a tragedy that might paralyze you with fear, or melt you into puddle of tears.            

Nor is he promising to keep temptation from coming or to make it go away. We are constantly exposed. But it is all the common kind, right? And, “he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” If we have listened to his promises, if we have believed his words, his Spirit lives in our hearts, his strength works through our wills. “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” We are equipped. We are strong to stand and resist whatever temptation we might confront. His power keeps us from falling.

1 Corinthians 10:6-10 “Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.’ We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did–and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did–and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did–and were killed by the destroying angel.”

A shortness of breath; nausea, indigestion or heartburn; lightheadedness or dizziness; feelings of heavy fatigue; cold sweats; a tight feeling in the chest spreading to the arms and neck–these are warning signs of a heart attack. Call 911 or have someone take you to the emergency room immediately.

Dabbling in other religions and interest in other forms of spirituality; accepting and adopting sex outside of marriage as normal and healthy; questioning and challenging God’s promises and providence; grumbling about your standard of living–these are warning signs that faith is fading. The true spiritual life in you is dying, and you need to seek God’s remedies before it is too late.

Most of the Christians in Corinth were new to the Bible faith. A few of them grew up in Judaism. The Jews knew the accounts of Moses and Israel’s forty years of wandering in the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land. They were aware of the many bad examples set by their ancestors. Paul wanted the rest of the congregation to be aware of this history so they could see the warning signs, too.

Bad example number one: Israel worshiped the golden calf idol at the foot of Mount Sinai. They waited just over a month for Moses to come down from the mountain with God’s instructions. Then they grew tired of waiting and wanted a new god to lead them. They proposed a new god–something they could see, a shape they could understand, not some invisible being. Their new god would be fun to worship. A party atmosphere surrounded his worship, not a serious God reminding them of their failings. Three thousand people died as a direct result of this experiment in idolatry.

Maybe our idols aren’t metal statues in the shape of farm animals. Maybe they are green pieces of paper and little metal disks we collect and trade. The cult of money doesn’t ask us to change. It just promises a happier version of ourselves.

Even the increasingly popular turn toward atheism doesn’t so much promote God’s nonexistence. Have you ever listened to one of these people talk about their unfaith? It becomes clear they still belong to a cult. It is the cult of self, an idol far more jealous of glory and praise, and far less gracious and giving, than the God Moses met on Mt. Sinai.

Bad example number two: Shortly before Israel entered the Promised Land, thousands of Israelite men were lured into the promiscuous sex practiced as part of a fertility cult in Moab. The Lord sent a deadly plague to chastise them.

For us, departures from God’s command to limit sexual relations to one man and one woman joined in marriage is one of the great cultural tragedies of our time. We still pay an incredible price in sickness and death. Over 15,000 Americans die of STD’s each year according to the CDC and National Institutes of Health. The spiritual toll contemporary attitudes and practices take on human souls can’t be measured.

Bad example number three: Israel complained about the free food the Lord gave them in the wilderness. They also grumbled about the new country he was giving them, because taking possession would require a military campaign. Both incidents resulted in more loss of life.

Have you ever felt as though you didn’t have enough? This car, this home, this job, this income, maybe even this family was something less than you needed. Envy is a sin that gets little attention. It is a close cousin to greed and a common human failing. I am not immune to it. I can’t afford the vacation someone else took. I have to buy used instead of new. This can turn my heart against the Lord. My spirit accuses him of not doing right by me. That is as spiritually poisonous as any of the other examples Paul has given.

Can we say we have faith in the God we are accusing of cheating us? Paul provides examples from these past events so we don’t miss the warning signs of a dying faith. Confronting this isn’t meant to hurt us. It is meant to turn us. The Lord has something better for us than golden idols, sexual pleasure, or material possessions. He loves us without limits. He gives his Son to save us. His grace is inexhaustible. Heaven offers even more. Don’t ignore the warning signs. Don’t miss the alternative to false gods we think we want.

Luke 13:34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”

Jesus’ desire to gather such faithless people is not a passing whim he felt one particularly good day when he was in a generous mood. “How often” he says. “How many times I wanted this!” It is truly his standing policy toward the lost. It is the eternal stance he takes from Creation to Judgment Day.

There is no flip-flopping on this matter like the politician who changes positions with every shift in the breeze. Jesus never stops wanting the murderous, lost, and unwilling people who have rejected him. “God our Savior wants all men to be saved,” Paul writes Timothy. “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance,” is the way Peter said it in his second letter. They say that for a relationship to work between a man and a woman, love has to be a little blind. But for Jesus still to want us, and a lost and hostile world beyond us? No one else will ever love you that way.

Nor is this some cold principle or policy he is following because, you know, the world needs it. I was speaking to a special ed teacher who has many students who act out in the classroom. Some even become violent. She has taught herself not to take their behavior personally. She has to put some professional distance between herself and the students so that she can continue to serve them.

Jesus takes no professional distance. “I have longed to gather your children together.” This is his deep and heartfelt desire. He has thrown caution to the wind, and allowed himself to love each of us without boundaries, without limitations, without regard for the consequences to himself. He pours himself into winning us. He invests his whole heart in having us, no matter who we are or what we have done.

But it is not a selfish love. It is “as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” The hen does not gather her chicks because they are so cute and soft and fuzzy. We might like holding the little chicks because we get a kick out of this. They make us feel good. Not so much the mother bird.

The hen gathers her chicks to protect them. Perhaps the owl, or the hawk, or the fox is looking for dinner. The hen puts herself between her young and the danger. She is no match for any of these predators. But she will give her life, take their place in the fox’s jaws or the hawks claws, to save her young.

Which is the same reason that Jesus was heading for Jerusalem. He was putting himself between us and the danger to our souls. He was giving his life, taking our place, on the cross to save us from sin and rescue us from the jaws and claws of the devil who wants to devour us himself. When we come to Jesus in repentance and faith, this is what the people he gathers find.

Luke 13:34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”

Humans are social creatures. The occasional loner prefers to be alone. But generally, we like to be together. We gather for parties. We gather for family reunions. We gather for class reunions. We gather to cheer on our favorite team, or celebrate our nation’s birthday, or support our favorite candidate. We want to spend time and interact with those who have things in common.

God made us this way, because he is this way himself. He could have gone through eternity alone. It’s not as though he needs anything. He’s God. But he wanted beings something like himself to love, to enjoy their company. So he made our kind, not just Golden Retrievers to fetch a ball or lick a face, but rational creatures capable of speech and independent thought, a race of beings who could create things, look beyond their own care to the care of others, and have an intelligent conversation about it all with him at the end of the day.

Ever since our first parents decided to abandon God and his plan, to run their lives and their world their own way, he has been eager to win us back. He doesn’t force us as such, but he knows we will never come on our own, either. So he began sending messengers with messages. Eventually he came to live with us himself, to expose our foolishness, make restitution for our offensive behavior and the damage we had done by our rebellion, and lead us home. He planted seeds of love that have the power to change our hearts and win them. To this day his hand is always reaching out, his arms are always open, seeking to gather us back, hoping to gather us back, before it is too late for us to return.

The Jewish people, the city of Jerusalem, had a history. When prophets like Isaiah and Habakkuk confronted King Manasseh’s promotion of gods whose religions involved dirty sex and worship, like Baal and Asherah, or child sacrifice and worship, like Molech, he had the prophets put to death. After Jeremiah’s warnings about Jerusalem falling to the Babylonians came true, and the leading people of the city were taken into exile, the few who remained assassinated him.

Who sent these prophets? Jesus answers the question here. The hearts of these people should have rightfully belonged to him. Everything they had came from him. He gave them their land. He made them a nation. They owed him their lives. As far back as their slavery in Egypt he had spared them from genocide. Was it so much to ask them to acknowledge his gifts and kindnesses? Was it unreasonable to expect them to worship and follow him, the only God who ever gave them anything, who did everything for them?

“You were not willing.” There is this thing about following and believing and worshiping the true God. He is actually God. We live under him, not the other way around. His way prevails. His rules apply. Breaking them may be forgivable, but having them is not negotiable. Over time Jerusalem and its citizens decided, “We like our way better. We like the freedom to live any way we want. We think we will do fine on our own. If you don’t stop sending us those prophets to make us feel guilty, we will get rid of them.” Their own hearts and wills stood in the way.

Maybe we aren’t murdering the clergy like Jerusalem once killed her prophets, but maybe that is just a matter of time. We live in a place and time when the gospel call is not rare, but for many of our fellow citizens, at least, “you were not willing.” Instead of running to Jesus, they are running from him.

And the old false gods also live among us in new, secular form. Baal and Asherah have been repackaged as the sexual revolution, where everything is permissible as long as both parties consent. More and more people their souls to worship at the altar of this god of sexual freedom, and it is a jealous god that can stand no criticism. Woe to the infidel who suggests there might be something wrong with it.

Moloch is the new culture of death. In it even infanticide is being defended, and the solution to terminal disease or old age is so-called “merciful” execution for the invalids.

We must be careful here, lest we forget that all these idolatries live within our own hearts. We feel the pull, the appeal, if we are honest. You and I have visited the temple of “I can do what I want,” or “I can get by on my own.” Still, Jesus wants to gather his people. They may not be willing, but he still is.

Hebrews 4:15-16 “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Many people go to support groups for help. Perhaps not every support group has the answers a person needs, but people go because they expect to find people who understand the problem, the question. The group isn’t populated by professionals with canned answers, or academics who have been studying the issue for years. It consists of people who share the same problem. They understand it from the inside, because they have lived it. It is easy to make them understand.

Because of this, you don’t expect judgment at the support group. No one at AA expresses shock when a new person attends and confesses that they have a drinking problem. It’s what everyone expects. And because they have been there themselves, they sympathize with their weakness.

As our high priest, Jesus isn’t exactly the same as a fellow struggler at a support group, but some of the same principles apply to his sympathy with our temptations. He lived our lives. He wasn’t born into wealth or privilege. He wasn’t given a human body with an iron skin, or a numbed heart. When people made fun of him, and people did make fun of him, it hurt. When he got cold, or hungry, his body wanted relief. He was a male human being, and he could find a pretty woman attractive. A glass of wine warmed him on the inside. You know when you bump the top of your head on something sharp, like the corner of a cabinet door you forgot was open above you, and you get that burst of maddening pain? That’s what it felt like for him, too.

All these things presented temptations to him, just as they do for us. He has been there. He gets it. And though he never let it take him all the way to sin, he doesn’t judge us for our weaknesses. “I resisted the sin. Why don’t you?”

No, our high priest sympathizes with our weaknesses, and his heart is open to give us help. His sympathy leads us to come to him with confidence, and to know he is always ready to help.

Years ago I started seeing a doctor because I had asthma. From the beginning, he seemed to think it was all in my head. He gave me the impression that he was annoyed that I had come to see him. When the tests he ordered revealed that I did have asthma, he was genuinely surprised.

After taking the medication for a while, I was having some issues with hoarseness in my voice. So I made an appointment. Again, he seemed slightly annoyed that I came. When I got to the examining room, he shined a flashlight in my mouth, and then he said, “I’m not an ear, nose, throat doctor. I probably can’t help you. What do you want me to do?” It didn’t sound as if he cared, and he suggested he wasn’t able to help. I never went back. I had no confidence in him.

As your high priest, Jesus cares. He sympathizes with your weakness. He gets the job done. He is the Son of God who has gone through the heavens. Why wouldn’t we keep going back to him, confident of his mercy when we need help, and confident of his grace when we have sinned? We don’t need to look any further. Hold firmly to this faith, because your high priest makes it possible to pray with confidence.

Hebrews 4:14-15 “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.”

Perhaps the idea of having a great high priest doesn’t fill you with an immediate sense of good fortune, like “You just won the sweepstakes,” or “You just received a promotion.” What does this mean? I have someone in a black shirt and white collar I can confess my sins to? A couple thousand years stand between us and the picture the writer of this letter is using.

For almost a millennium and a half, from Moses to Jesus, the high priest was the Bible believer’s access to God. He sacrificed the sheep and the goats that made sure God was still on our good side, that the lines were still open to receive his blessing, that our latest sins and messes (because we are always committing sins and creating messes) weren’t gumming up the works. He brought the prayers before God’s throne so that you could be sure your messages were getting through. They weren’t being returned or rejected when they arrived. If you wanted the Lord to hear you or help you, this was sort of important. The only alternative was to try to get through life now, and judgment day to come, entirely on your own. You might have some success with the first task. You were doomed to fail with the second.

But there were some issues with the high priests themselves. They were unsteady humans full of sin and self-interest just like you and me. Before they could even do their work God required them to offer sacrifices for their own sins, or he wasn’t interested in anything else they brought as offerings or had to say. At times the high priesthood became so corrupt that the Lord couldn’t even deal with them anymore. He arranged for the execution of more than one of the priests for abusing the office across the centuries. By Jesus’ time the whole thing had become a political game. That’s not the kind of institution you want to depend on when your eternal fate is hanging in the balance.                  

If these Jewish Christians who received the letter to the Hebrews went back to their old faith in Judaism, and the religious life of the synagogue, that’s all there was for them: a corrupt and spiritually empty institution rejected by God. They might feel less alone in the world. They would be part of a bigger family of faith. But it would all be based on something that didn’t work anymore. Spiritually, they would be doomed.

If they stayed in Christianity, “we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God…” Jesus had none of the shortcomings of the merely human high priests who had come before him. Concerned about how his work might be received by God in heaven? Concerned whether corruption or incompetence might get in the way? Jesus is the Son of God “who has gone through the heavens.” He doesn’t share our human failings, or those of the other high priests. He isn’t a mere man calling on God from an earthly temple far, far away. He is a resident of heaven. He is the Son of the God whose grace and help we seek. He is acceptable, he has access, like no priest before him. Above all, he offered God the one sacrifice truly capable of erasing our sins: the sacrifice of himself. That meant every advantage for holding firmly to this faith.

Perhaps this all sounds abstract to people like us who never brought an animal to a priest to have it sacrificed, or thought about needing some kind of holy man to get our prayers heard in heaven. But understand that we need this kind of help no less today. It’s not as though God has changed. He finds sin no less offensive than he used to. It has to be dealt with in some way.

You can sample the other religions of the world, and this is what you will find: a great moral teacher, like Mohammed or the Buddha. They will tell you how to live. Maybe they will even help you to be better than you are right now. But lists of dos and don’ts won’t remove your taste for sin altogether, and they provide no solution for the evil we have done. We are still stuck with that. Even some Christian groups offer loads of advice on how to live. For a while it may feel as though we are making progress. But the long-term effect is to pile the guilt of our shortcomings higher and higher. Many, many souls end up crushed under the weight.

Another alternative is to find some religion that still has human priests to make a sacrifice on your behalf. Then we still have all the issues of their human failings. They serve in corrupted institutions of faith and worship. They bring sacrifices God did not request. They offer no help for maintaining our relationship with him. God once said to the Jews, “The multitude of your sacrifices–what are they to me?…I have enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats…Stop bringing meaningless offerings!” (Isa. 1:11, 13). What good will the sacrifices be anywhere else?

In contrast to all this, we have every reason to hold firmly to this faith we have right now, faith in Jesus as God’s Son, the High Priest who has gone through the heavens. That’s the kind of priest whose service and sacrifice we can trust.

2 Corinthians 3:9, 11 “If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!… And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!”

When the children of Israel first heard God’s voice booming down the Ten Commandments behind the smoke and darkness, the fire and lightning, on Mount Sinai, they had a sense, a premonition, of what this ministry meant. “When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

Here Paul calls Moses’ ministry “the ministry that condemns.” And some people might be surprised to hear it, but that is what God’s law does. It’s not because there is anything wrong with the law. It’s because there is a sinner in us, and he has to die. It works a little like antibiotics for the soul. You know what antibiotics do, right? They kill living things, the bacteria that make you sick. Pneumonia will kill you. But antibiotics will kill the pneumonia. That’s good for getting rid of the disease, but you can’t make a regular diet out of penicillin or tetracycline or cipro. That could kill you.

So the ministry of the law is good for what it does, dealing death to our sinful nature. But it doesn’t have the glory of giving us life or nourishing our faith. That belongs to another ministry, the ministry of the gospel we have been given.

Paul says it this way, “…how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!” The good news about Jesus makes us righteous. It takes his payment for the sins of the world and makes it ours. It takes his perfect life of love for friends and enemies, for public sinners and self-righteous hypocrites and makes it ours. It plants a living faith in us and presents us to God as new and holy people, stripped of guilt and clothed and covered in the kindness and mercy by which Jesus lived and walked for some thirty years. Spiritually speaking, it doesn’t just make us well. It raises the dead. To bring us the righteousness that comes from God it works the miracle of spiritual life in our souls.

So we have the glory of living in this ministry, of having this mission, of carrying around with us this message that makes sinners holy, that makes the guilty righteous, that makes the dead alive. Your church may not be the biggest or most influential in your community. But your ministry is still more glorious than you think. You raise the spiritually dead to life!

Add to that the glory of how long that ministry lasts. “And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts.”

After talking to God on Mount Sinai, Moses didn’t spend the rest of his life with his head shining like a light bulb screwed into the top of his neck. After each session with God, the glory faded, and he looked just like everybody else again.

Paul uses this as an allusion to the glory of the law, its relative importance for our lives. Yes, it exposes our sin. It leads us to repent. It prepares us for grace. But even in this life, it is not what faith lives on. And in the perfection of the life to come, the glory of the law will fade to black, no longer necessary for people who have been transformed into creatures of perfect love.

But the ministry that is all about God’s people living in his love as holy, righteous, radiant children free from sin and death–there is no end to that. That is like one of these fluorescent bulbs that starts out a little dim when it is cold. But as it warms the intensity of its light grows brighter and brighter until it reaches its full brilliance. Already now, with each new insight of faith, the glory of the gospel grows inside of us, spreading its light farther and farther into the dark recesses of our souls. And when we finally reach the other side, and we have put all sin behind us, and life is all we know, the love of God will reach its full brilliance in us. “How much greater is the glory of that which lasts!”