Sermon Text: Matthew 21:1–9
ADVENT IS ABOUT FAITH
Dear fellow redeemed: Have you ever acted on faith? Of course you have. If after church you go out to your car you will do so in faith that it will start. If you fly in an airplane, you have faith that it will go up and down again safely. If you take medicine, it is with the faith that it will do you some good. Of course we are talking about normal everyday faith here.
Sometimes this faith is based on experience. You might have been a little anxious on your first trip on an airplane, but on your 20th it is just normal. The doctor who prescribes the medicine has had years of experience with it, so you trust his experience. Sometimes faith is based on integrity. When you stand at the altar and exchange marriage vows with someone, you have come to know that they are trustworthy, and so you believe them. Sometimes faith is based on calculation. Men went to the moon based on math. Sometimes faith is based on lies or emotion or delusion or deceit.
Sometimes faith is based on something sound but also contradicted by something sound. Experience tells me that people who die stay dead, but I trust in God’s promise of my resurrection because the One who promises my resurrection has Himself defeated death. Christian faith is more than this. Christian faith, saving faith is a new birth to a new life that affects the way we live altogether. We are now alive to truths that transcend all else. We understand the nature of human beings, where we come from, how we relate to the God of all things, and what is our destiny. We live by faith and it is by faith that we receive and treasure the gift of God in which our faith is placed.
This is the nature of advent. Advent means “coming,” and “coming” has to do with what is, but is not yet present, has not yet come. In our text for today, we see two expressions of faith which we also live out in our lives as the faithful, the believers. Finally …
ADVENT IS ABOUT FAITH
I. Faith in Little Things
II. Faith in Great Things
III. Faith Receives God’s Gifts
I. Faith in Little Things
Faith in God’s promises touches our lives in so many ways. So also there with the disciples. Jesus told two disciples to take a hike of a couple miles, predicting what they would see, and told them to act in faith, really, that what He told them would happen. They did what He told them and accomplished what He sent them to do. Jesus sent two disciples, 2telling them, “Go to the village ahead of you. Immediately you will find a donkey tied there along with her colt. Untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, you are to say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” * * *
6The disciples went and did just as Jesus commanded them. 7They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their outer clothing on them, and he sat on it. How many times do we do what Jesus says, trusting in Him and His word? We give sacrificially to the work of the church, trusting that He will not only care for us, but that we will be blessed accordingly.
We show mercy and grace toward others. We see their humanity, their creation in God’s image and as objects of His atoning work. We see in others not just a body and a brain but a mind and a soul and treat them accordingly. We trust that families are not just social accidents, and neither are motherhood, father- hood, parenthood, or our roles as husbands, wives, and children. Rather these are part of a created order for the blessing of mankind. We trust that when we come to the divine service that God Himself is there bestowing His gifts through the gospel in word and sacrament. While we trust and believe these things by virtue of the faith given us, Satan and the world oppose these things every day: Don’t give, let the government tax and be the good in the world. You see humanity, but people are only animals. You value family based on marriage and procreation, but any group can be a family. You think you receive forgiveness, but that’s just a programmed superstitious response. These are the lies that oppose our faith, even in “little things.”
II. Faith in Great Things
But at the center of all of this is the great promise of salvation and everlasting life. We trust God’s word because He is our Creator who has made us and revealed Himself to us. He is our Redeemer who became a man to die our death for us and destroy death on our behalf. He is our Sanctifier, the One who calls to faith and builds His church through the world and through- out the ages.
The little things the disciples did served the greater. They took a hike and came back with a donkey’s colt and, whether they knew it our not, they were fulfilling a centuries-old prophecy. 4This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: 5Tell the daughter of Zion: Look, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
And it was faith in this greater prophecy that showed in the worship of the crowd. 8A very large crowd spread their outer clothing on the road. Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them out on the road. 9The crowds who went in front of him and those who followed kept shouting,
Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!
The crowd that was following cried out in faith (as I paraphrase it) “Lord save us! Save us, Son of David; praise be to the One who comes in the authority of Yahweh-Jehovah; Lord save us here and in the highest heavens!”
Did they know everything that was going to happen? No. Even though Jesus had told His disciples what would happen, their understanding wasn’t clear. That came later. Remember, our faith is a new life in which our center and our hope and our trust is in God and His word. Even now, as I laid out last Sunday, we trust in the Risen Christ for life, salvation, and our own resurrection, and end to the old order and the making of all things new. But we don’t know what that
will look like.
The word of God, and therefore our faith is TRUE, but not exhaustive. TRULY we will rise physically from the dead, with glorified bodies like the glorified body of Christ at His resurrection. But “now we see as in a mirror, darkly,” then we will know perfectly. Now we know in hope, then we will know by experience.
III. Faith Receives God’s Gifts
In even the littlest things faith receives what God gives. In faith the two disciples went on a hike and found what they trusted they would find. We give sacrificially and receive, not just monetarily, but truly, far more than we give. We show grace toward others and come to know love as Christ loves us. We devote ourselves to family and find an orderliness that is a blessing in our lives. By faith we receive God’s gifts. This is true in the greatest things as well. You receive the forgiveness of sins by our Lord’s promises in the gospel and through His body and blood, also reconciliation with God, and everlasting life in the resurrection. And you also receive a “down payment” here and now. “…, when you also believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. He is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of God’s own possession, so that his glory would be praised.” (Ephesians 1:13– 14, EHV)
The Holy Spirit shows in the creation of His church in spite of all opposition, in our own confessions of faith, and in the fruits of the spirit that distinguish Christians in love, joy, peace, long-suffering, and the other virtues of faith. So Advent is a time of faith. As the people of Jerusalem looked forward to the coming of the so of David and cried out in joy at the salvation He brings, so we look forward to His coming in power and glory to make all things new.
AMEN