Enduring Joy!
[This is the sermon prepared to be preached at Living Water Lutheran Church on Sunday, June 21, 2026, the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.]
Matthew 10:5a, 21-33
This is a picture taken on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1955.
My parents and I are standing in my grandparents’ front yard in Columbus. We’re there, after worship, for Easter dinner.
We’re also there to celebrate something else: About an hour before this picture was snapped, I was baptized. I don’t remember the day, but I can imagine it was a joyous occasion. (Especially after I got out of that coat.)
When we’re baptized, or, if we weren’t among the blessed ones baptized as children, when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, or, when, if you’re a fathead like I was, you come back to Christ after wandering away from Him, there is joy in knowing that by God’s grace given in Christ, you are saved from sin, death, and condemnation.
That’s why we celebrate things like Baptisms, confirmations, and renewed confessions of faith!
We rejoice that the devil, hell, and death once again take it on the chin, and God wins.
But, you know, that day of celebration when I was born anew in the waters of Holy Baptism and received the Holy Spirit wasn’t just a day of joy, or cuteness, or family celebration.
I also died that day. The apostle Paul wrote to the Romans: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6:3) And he goes on to say that this happened so that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)
But as long as we occupy this earthly flesh, sin clings to us. Martin Luther is reported to have said, “The Old Adam is drowned in baptism, but he is a good swimmer.” In other words, until our physical deaths, we will be dogged by temptations, and we will sin, even though by grace given in Christ, we are God’s saints, His set-apart-ones. As human beings, we tend to default to sin and death. This is why the first of Luther’s 95 Theses says, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent'' (Mt 4:17),’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
It’s not just the sin in us or around us, nor the work of the devil that tempts us to unbelief, though.
And that brings us to today’s gospel lesson from Matthew 10. The preceding two chapters of Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ ministry recounts Jesus cleansing lepers, healing the sick, casting out demons, restoring sight to the blind, and raising the dead. Then, Jesus called His twelve apostles and gave them authority over unclean spirits and the power to heal in His name. The apostles and all the other disciples of Jesus must have been filled with overwhelming joy. They must have thought, “At last, everything is going to be great! God’s Messiah has come into our world. All our problems will be solved, and we’ll live happily ever after.”
But, as He sends the twelve apostles out to preach His gospel and perform His signs, Jesus tells them, and everyone who follows Him: “Brother will deliver brother over to death,” Jesus says, “and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.” (Matthew 10:21-22) Jesus goes on to say that His followers will be hounded from place to place by persecutors.
When God returned me to faith in Christ in my early twenties, I experienced real joy! I had peace with God. I had eternal life. I wanted everyone to have these blessings. However, I also experienced the rejection of friends and acquaintances who now counted me as a “religious nut.” When a friend I had known since junior high school left his wife, and a mutual friend suggested that he talk with me, his answer was emphatic, “No. I know what Mark will say.” I didn’t even know what I would say. But my friend didn’t want to talk to me now because I belonged to Jesus.
It isn’t just the devil and our own internal sin that will bedevil us in our life with Christ, then. The world around us, even our closest friends and family members, and people we thought trusted in Jesus as we do, will often turn away from us. Or even turn on us. Christians from all walks of life know what that entails: from the Christian employee who won’t fudge on ethics and misses getting promoted, to the kid at school who, because of Jesus, refuses to rag on the classmate everyone loves to hate.
And all around the world, Christians face more grave forms of persecution. Christianity Today recently estimated that about 380-million Christians face high levels of persecution or discrimination, one in seven of all the Christians in the world. Pastor Prin has spoken about the persecutions and martyrdoms afflicting our sisters and brothers in Christ in Nigeria these days. It’s happening also in China, Russia, and Iran. It’s happening in Finland, where a Lutheran pastor and a member of parliament have been repeatedly tried in court and threatened with prison time for “hate speech” because they taught what the Word of God says about the gift of sexual intimacy as something that belongs only in marriage between a husband and wife.
A few weeks ago, we celebrated the third great festival of the Church Year, Pentecost. On Pentecost and in our Baptism, God gave to everyone who trusts in Jesus the same call: the call to preach and to teach others about Jesus, and about how, through His sinless life, death, and resurrection, and the faith in Him given to us through the Word by the Holy Spirit, we are saved from sin, death, and hell. We’re called to share Christ with everyone. That won’t always be welcome. After all, Jesus says today, if the world called Him Beelzebul, that is, the lord of the flies, the devil, we who bear His name can’t expect to be better treated by the world.
That doesn’t sound joyous, does it? And it wouldn’t be joyous except for the promise Jesus gives us again today in our gospel lesson. He says, “the one who endures [meaning, who endures trusting in Jesus] to the end will be saved.”
Friends, there are two different kinds of fear with which we can live our lives.
One is the fear of the world and what it can do to us. The world can bully you, deny you a promotion, malign you, or even kill you. But when you follow Jesus, this world cannot take away your salvation, your peace, your hope, or your eternity with God. And it can’t take your joy.
The other fear with which we can live our lives is the fear of God. This is the holy awe and reverence that comes to us when, by the power of God’s Word, we know that in Christ our sins are forgiven, that nothing in this dying old universe can separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus.
It was delivered to you in Baptism.
It will be delivered to you again in Holy Communion.
It was delivered to you in the words of absolution you received earlier in the service.
And it’s even being delivered to you in the words of this sermon.
In the good news of Jesus, there is an eternity of joy that not even death can take away from you.
Friends, you’ve heard me say it many times: In Jesus Christ, all your sins are completely and totally forgiven, and you belong to Him forever.
So, no matter what the world does or threatens to do to you, follow Jesus, knowing that the Risen Lord has already given you risen life and gives you the power to live each day in His joy. You who endure to the end are and will eternally be saved. Amen