"DO YOU KNOW HIM?"
Third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7)
June 25, 1990
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
"Whoever acknowledges Me before men, I also will acknowledge him before My Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny before My Father who is in heaven."
Matthew 10:32, 33 (ESV)
If you had a close friend or relative who happened to be rich and famous--a movie star, perhaps, or maybe a renowned leader in politics or education--a person living in splendor, securely established in power and influence, you probably wouldn't have much of a problem acknowledging that person as being someone who you are close to. As a matter of fact, I think it's safe to say that you would go out of your way to find opportunities to tell people about your special relationship with that individual. If you were to see him in public, it would just warm your heart to have him acknowledge you with some greeting that let everybody know that you know this man and are close to him. But suppose that very same close friend or relative was neither successful nor respected. Suppose he was one of those people who live in a cardboard box under a bridge, his life ruined by his own excesses or perhaps just by a stroke of bad luck. How eager would you be then to acknowledge him as a close friend or relative? Would you go out of your way to have contact with him? Would you even admit that you know him? How would you react if he approached you and greeted you warmly in the presence of several of your friends? I'm afraid that the answer to all of these questions is painfully obvious. We most likely would avoid him like the plague, and distance ourselves from him as far as possible.
We have a close Friend and Brother who is powerful and influential and has also seen the very lowest levels of poverty and despair. If there is any doubt in your mind as to who this Friend and Brother may be, I'm talking about our Savior Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all, so that all matters of life and death (and everything else) rest in His hands. And yet, He is also One who has lowered Himself to our level (and even beneath our level) so that He might grant to us the forgiveness of our sins and give us a share in His divine glory. Do we acknowledge Him as a close Friend and Brother? Maybe we don't think that's so important right here and now, but I assure you that the day will come when we will desperately want to acknowledge Him, and we will certainly want Him to acknowledge us as well. That's just the point that Jesus is making in our text. He says that if we acknowledge Him as our Lord here, He will acknowledge us as His people on the day of judgment, but if we deny Him here, He will likewise deny us. We can't have it both ways. Here in the world, in this life, we have the opportunity to either acknowledge Him or deny Him--by what we do and by what we don't do.
The most obvious way in which we can acknowledge Jesus in this world is in our personal faith. Do we fear God? There is a lot of misunderstanding about that concept: the fear of God. Fearing God does not mean being anxious about what His feelings toward us might be. The fact that He became Human to save us assures us of His infinite love for us. No, to fear God simply means to humble ourselves before Him, realizing that He is not someone to be ignored. On the contrary, He is a Force to be reckoned with. But He is even more than that. He is the ever-present One--the One who is with us no matter what--the One who will never leave us nor forsake us. That knowledge and trust and confidence are what faith really is.
But faith, as Saint James reminds us, is not a dead and stagnant thing--not if it is genuine. Genuine faith is living and active--something that moves us into action. If our faith in Christ is to be a way in which we acknowledge Him before men, then that faith needs to be apparent to all the people who we come into contact with. Do our friends and relatives know that we are disciples of the Lord Jesus? Can they tell that by the way that we live and the things that we say and do? Do the priorities in our lives make it obvious that Jesus Christ is our number one Concern? Or do we live like everybody else does--going about our business and striving for self-centered goals as if there were no God at all (or if there is a God, He doesn't really matter)? Whatever we are devoted to--whatever we take confidence in in this life--is, in fact, our God. And it's important that the God who we acknowledge and serve in this life is able to carry us into the next.
We also have the opportunity to acknowledge or deny our Savior by what we don't say or do. How many opportunities pass people by every day because of their own self-centeredness? They can't do this or that for someone else because they're too busy. And just what are they too busy doing? --things for others or things for themselves? They work themselves to death to "make ends meet," so they say, but do they pursue money so relentlessly because they need it for survival and for helping others, or do they pursue it because they somehow have to pay for all of those luxuries that they just have to have because all of their friends have them? Pursuing our own comfort and our own pleasure is denying Christ, since He has called us to serve not ourselves, but others, with the promise that, in serving others, we are serving Him.
The sad truth is that most of the people who claim Jesus Christ as Lord are pitifully indifferent to the countless opportunities that He places before them to acknowledge Him before others. They encounter people in need every day, and, like the priest and the Levite in Jesus' parable, they comfortably pass by on the other side. They hear their Savior's name blasphemed and His Gospel ridiculed in the public square by the rich and powerful, yet they continue to listen to them or buy their products, making them even more rich and powerful. They don't bother to vote or take a stand on matters in society that clearly involve the values taught in the Scriptures. All of this amounts to denying Him before men. But there is forgiveness for all of that, as there is for all sin. And in the cross of Jesus there is even more than just forgiveness. There is the courage and the power to try again to be faithful witnesses.
God looks out for us. Acknowledging Jesus "before men" is not something that we do of our own accord; it is something that we do when we have no other options. Like the dying thief on the cross (Luke 23:42), we turn to Him only when we realize that there is no other place to turn. That's not always a bad thing. It shows that the Law has done its job in destroying our self-confidence, making us ripe for hearing and receiving the Gospel. We live always in a state of repentance and our trials and tribulations, which make us despair of any human hope, are used by the Spirit of God to turn us to our only Hope, which is Christ. It is then that we have the motivation and the strength to acknowledge Him "before men," confident that He "also will acknowledge [us] before [His] Father who is in heaven." It is then that we, like the apostle Paul, can see that Christ's "power is made perfect in [our] weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9) and can boldly confess with him: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.