Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
The Kingdom of God Has Come—and STILL COMES—Near to You
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen. In today’s Gospel, Jesus sends preachers out into His harvest. Jesus says
to them, “Whenever you enter a town and they receive you… say to them ‘The
Kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do
not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘…know this, that the Kingdom of
God has come near to you.’” With these Words, Jesus wants you to know that this
one message—“The Kingdom of God has come near to you”—will serve you well. This
message will serve you well, both when it is on your lips and when it enters
your ears. This message—“The Kingdom of God has come near to you”—is the one
message to be preached in the Christian church on earth, whether that message
is believed or rejected by those who hear it.
Dear Christian friends,
We must admit right away that our Lord Jesus has an odd way of
speaking. In everyday language, it is much easier to speak about you going to a
kingdom, rather an entire kingdom traveling here to you. But Jesus is not
interested in giving you instructions on how you can get to His kingdom or how
you must find your way into His kingdom. Jesus knows that you and I and all
people have the same problem when it comes to the kingdom of God: we have
neither the will nor desire to enter it. Even if my spirit should be willing to
set out on a quest to seek and to find the kingdom of God, my flesh is far too
weak (Matthew 26:41) to succeed in such a quest. (Perhaps you will agree that
it is not my flesh alone that cannot find the strength or energy to enter God’s
Kingdom.)
So Jesus speaks in a strange way in this Gospel, but in a way that
gives comfort and peace. “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.” Your Lord
Jesus is so keenly interested in having you securely placed into His kingdom
that He leaves nothing to chance! Jesus does not even take the risk of plucking
you up and transporting you to His kingdom; Jesus brings His kingdom to you! By
bringing His kingdom to you, there is no room for you to wonder whether you
have traveled far enough or done well enough in life to be certain you are in
God’s everlasting kingdom.
Think of this analogy: if you must travel a certain distance in order
to get to go swimming on a hot afternoon, you run the risk of getting
sidetracked along the way. A flat tire, road construction, an ice cream stand,
or countless other distractions might prevent you from ever making it to that
delightful place where you can have your refreshing swim. On the other hand, if
someone brings the water to you and dumps it on your head, there is no room for
you to doubt that you are indeed wet—receiving right there on the spot all the
refreshing benefits that water gives to you.
In the same way, Jesus tells sends men out into His harvest with the
instructions to preach one and only one message: “The Kingdom of God has come
near to you.” Do not worry about finding your own way into the kingdom of God,
because “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.”
· As you can see from today’s Gospel, God’s kingdom comes near to you
through the preaching of the Word. Other Bible passages teach us that Baptism
and Holy Communion are likewise nothing other than God’s Word—they are simply
God’s Words tied and joined and married to physical elements; to water, to
bread and to wine.
· When God’s kingdom comes through the Words of Jesus, you receive all
the benefits of being in His kingdom, not the least of which is the forgiveness
of your sins and the protection of your king.
In the same way that someone would come and dump a bucket of cool refreshing
water over your head on a blistering, hot day, so the kingdom of God likewise
comes to you and brings its benefits to you through the Words of Jesus that get
proclaimed to you.
Whenever you enter a town and they receive you… say to them “The Kingdom of God
has come near to you.” But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive
you, go into its streets and say, “…know this, that the Kingdom of God has come
near to you.”
There are a number of benefits that Jesus has for you here in today’s Gospel:
1. The first and greatest benefit is what I already mentioned: absolute
certainty that you are indeed a part of, and included in, the kingdom of God.
How can you be certain of this? Not by what you have done, not by the distance
you have traveled, not by any sense of completion or satisfaction you might
feel, but by your nearness to the Words of Jesus. Where Jesus’ Words
are—whether they come to you in preaching or in Baptism or in Holy
Communion—there the Kingdom of God likewise comes to you. All the gifts of
God’s kingdom—forgiveness, protection, and eternal life—all the gifts come
along with His kingdom.
2. A second benefit to today’s Gospel is this: Jesus gives one and only
one message to be proclaimed in the church: “The Kingdom of God has come near
to you.” Stated another way, today’s Gospel lets you know what you should
expect when you come to worship. You should not expect to be given a long list
of demands, each of which you have to meet before you can be part of the
kingdom; you should not expect to be stirred up or whipped into action; and, as
I have told you a million times before, you most certainly should not expect to
be entertained by worship. When you come to worship, you should expect to this
message from Jesus: “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.” ALL the
preaching of the Church is nothing other than a variation on this one theme.
Christmas sermons, Easter sermons, sermons for the Pentecost season—each and
every preaching of each and every Bible passage in the year boils down to this
one, essential message for you:
“The Kingdom of God has come near to you.” Stated yet another way, the
preaching of the Church must always be focus your attention what God does for
you, and not about what might do for God. I even say this: If the preaching in
your congregation does not finally boil down to, “The Kingdom of God has come
near to you,” then your pastor must be corrected and rebuked and thrown out if
he will not change his preaching.
3. A dear Christian lady asked me about this the other day. She wondered,
“Pastor, why do your sermons focus so much on what gifts God gives to each
Christian, rather than telling Christians to go out and tell others about
Jesus?” This Christian lady asked a VERY good question. Must we tell others
about Jesus? Absolutely. “How are they to believe in Him of whom they have
never heard?” (Romans 10:14). Ought we not to live holy and decent lives
according to the Ten Commandments? By all means! “I appeal to you, therefore,
brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1).
Listen again to this lady’s wonderful question: “Pastor, why do your sermons
focus so much on what gifts God gives to each Christian, rather than telling
Christians to go out and tell others about Jesus?” Now listen to the answer
Jesus gives to this question in today’s Gospel: “Say to them ‘The Kingdom of
God has come near to you.’” Jesus knows that, when the kingdom of God comes to
you and takes root in you, this kingdom will create good fruit in you. The
kingdom of God that comes to you will begun to go to war with your sinful and
fleshly desires, creating in you a new desire to live as well as you are able
according to the Ten Commandments. The kingdom of God comes to you, bringing
new hope and joy that miraculously well up within you, so that you might even
find the courage to speak to others about Jesus. The preaching of the Church
does not need to spend a lot of time telling you how you must act or what you
must say because “The
Kingdom of God has come near to you” and this is a miracle-producing kingdom!
This is a kingdom that bears fruit, “in one case a hundredfold, in another
sixty, and in another thirty” (Matthew 13:23).
4. Here is yet another benefit to this one sermon in the Church, that “The
Kingdom of God has come near to you.” With this sermon, you now have something
to say to your friends and neighbors! Memorize Bible verses if you are able. If
you are not able to memorize so well, simply tell your friends, “The Kingdom of
God has come near to you.” Use this message as a way of explaining to your
friends and neighbors that Jesus does not require them to seek Him out. He is
happy to come to them, and indeed, He HAS come to them through your speaking of
His Words. This message may sound strange to them, but what do you care? It is
not your message and it is not your power that saves! These things belong to
Jesus, who does much better than all others in delivering His kingdom
There is comfort personally for you in this evangelistic proclamation of God’s
Kingdom, as well. Maybe your friends and neighbors listen to you; maybe they do
not. Either way, their acceptance or rejection of Christ has nothing to do with
you, your success or failure, whether or not you have spoken well enough, or
whether or not you have done a good enough job of convincing them. Jesus in
today’s Gospel claims the sole responsibility for those who hear and believe,
and Jesus hangs a millstone around the necks of those who refuse to believe.
Stated another way, you have not sinned if your neighbors refuse to hear the
message. The Kingdom of God has still drawn near to them. Stick to the Words
and let Jesus do the work.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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