LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 66

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66

CONVENTION SERMON

me for I am a sinful man.” But Holy Week proved it to him
with glaring, glaring clarity, for once, twice, three times he
denied and then he forsook the Lord, and all of that drove
home to Peter, together with the rest of his life, that he was
a sinner deserving of God’s wrath and damnation.
But Peter, by the grace of God, had also come to recognize it was Jesus Christ whom he followed and to whom
he listened and whom he saw crucified and whom he saw
as a risen Savior. He had peace and forgiveness with God,
and he could say that the promised Messiah came and
lived and died and rose and earned for me and the other
apostles, and all people, forgiveness of sins. Of this fact,
we are witnesses.
But my brothers and sisters in Christ, there is not a one
of us here tonight who cannot also say, “Of these great
truths, we too are witnesses.” But by the power of the
Almighty God, the Holy Spirit has reached into your life
and mine through Baptism, or maybe later in our life
through the Word, and He has convinced us that there are
two very important truths. He has convinced us of the truth
that we daily sin much, and we deserve wrath and damnation. And He has convinced us of the truth that in Jesus
Christ we have forgiveness.
First of all, that we daily sin much: there is not one of
us assembled here tonight who does not know that we have
sinned again and again and again against God. You, and
Al Barry, know that very well concerning ourselves. And
when we see our sins, the Scriptures are very clear, for they
say, “The soul that sinneth shall die, the wages of sin is
death.” “Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things
written in the book of the Law.’’ As as we see that parade of
God’s Law we cry out, “Oh, wretched person that I am, who
can deliver me from the body of this death.”
Thanks be to God, through the power of His Holy Spirit,
through Baptism, the Word, the Sacrament of the Altar, we
have come to see in Jesus Christ a forgiving and gracious
God. We have seen that our sins have all been removed as
far as the east is from the west. We have heard God say to
us, through His Almighty, Spirit-filled Word, that though
your sins and mine were as scarlet, they are as white as
snow, though they were red as crimson, they are white as
snow. He has said to you and to me, “The Blood of Jesus
Christ, God’s Son cleanses you from all of your sins.”
I have said this to so many of our fellow believers all
across this church body over the last six years. Of all the
blessings that God will ever give to you and to me, the
greatest blessing that He will give to us is the assurance of
the forgiveness of our sins, so that at night when we go to
bed we can turn and say, “Thank You, God, for forgiveness
of all of our sins.”
You know, nothing has pleased me more, as I have
zigged-zagged back and forth across the church, to say to
my brothers and sisters in Christ, “Your sins are all forgiven you, not just some of them, not just many, not just
most, but all of them. Go in peace, go in peace.” And tonight
as we draw near again and receive the Sacrament we will
hear the words—“Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all of your sins.”
Well, I can suppose my brother pastors are saying,
Barry, if you are going to use two texts, you had better get

to the second one. It is recorded in Acts 8:35. “And then
Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and he
told him the Good News about Jesus.”
I have a suspicion that if you are acquainted with that
particular chapter of God’s Word, you know what this is all
about. It concerns a man called Philip and the Ethiopian
eunuch. You recall that as the number of the disciples continued to multiply and get greater and greater, the apostles were not able to cover all the bases. Because they were
not able to cover all the bases, it wasn’t long before some of
the Grecian women and other Grecian people believed that
they were being neglected. So they decided to pick seven
laymen full of the Spirit, individuals who could pick up
some of the work the apostles had been doing so that they
could give themselves fully to the Word. It was shortly after
they had picked these men, and one of them was Philip,
that persecution broke out in the city of Jerusalem, and we
are told that the disciples and the followers were scattered
in every direction, and the direction that Philip went was
down to a city in Samaria.
Now, when this layman got down to the city in Samaria
as one who had witnessed the forgiveness of God in Jesus
Christ, he began to tell other people about it. And as he
began to tell other people, they began to gather around him
and, yes, preach the Word of God to them. And the numbers began to multiply, so much so that before long the
word got back to the apostles saying, “You know, they are
just growing like wildfire down there in those cities of
Samaria.” And they even came down to see what was happening.
But about the time that they got there, this man by the
name of Philip got a special command from the Spirit of
God. The command was simply this: I want you to leave
this very populous and prosperous type of thing, as it were,
and I want you to go down to Gaza, a desolate place. I have
a job for you there. Listening to the will of God, he went,
not knowing what was to come.
When he got there, before long, a man from Ethiopia
who was returning to Ethiopia, called the Ethiopian eunuch, passed by. He was a high official in the government,
as you recall, a treasurer, and he had, while going up to
Jerusalem, purchased himself a copy of the book of Isaiah,
and he was sitting in his chariot and he was reading this
book of Isaiah, but he clearly could not fit it all together,
and the Spirit said, “Philip, go join yourself to this man.”
Philip drew near and asked him, “Do you understand
what you are reading?” The man said, “How can I, unless
someone helps me?” So Philip climbs into the chariot and
sits down, and he begins to show to him that what he is
reading there in the book of Isaiah points to the promised
Messiah, Jesus Christ.
And that’s where that beautiful passage of God’s Word
comes. “And he told him the Good News about Jesus.” He
told him the Good News about Jesus. Philip, as one who
had seen Jesus, the risen Lord as it were, with the eyes of
faith, was now carrying that message to still others and
others, and still others.
Well, my brothers and sisters in Christ, that is an assignment also given to you and to me. For God did not give
us this message of salvation, and this message of forgive-