Well, today is the big day! Confirmation Sunday! In a few moments, these 12 young people will stand in front of this altar, and make some pretty big promises. This last Wednesday evening, you read your essays entitled “What It Means to Me to Be a Christian” and made some pretty bold statements of faith. Now, you’ve heard me say this quite frequently, but I’m going to say it one more time “Confirmation is NOT graduation from church!”. In order to drive that point home, I thought it was rather appropriate that we have this parable in our Gospel reading for today on Confirmation Sunday, because there are essentially two ways you confirmands, and any of the rest of us here today, can go from here, two different spiritual houses we can build. So I want to look at this parable with you today, so we can gain a better understanding of the great question, a question I’m going to ask you at the end of this sermon today, “You’re confirmed, now what?”
The words of our Gospel reading are the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We heard a portion of it in last Sunday’s gospel reading. Jesus has been teaching quite a bit to those people gathered on that mountainside that day. In a similar way, our confirmation class has been listening to the teachings of Jesus over the past two years through your confirmation instruction with myself and Pastor Kukkonen. You’ve heard the teachings of Jesus through your study of the Scriptures and the Small Catechism has been one of the tools we’ve used to help you understand those Scriptures. This year in particular, we’ve spent a great deal of our time focusing on the Ten Commandments. In a lot of ways, you have a lot in common with that group that’s sitting at the feet of Jesus in our Gospel reading, hearing Him teach. And today, Jesus has some final words to teach you.
The first is a warning. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” False prophets are false teachers, not from outside of the church, but that appear to be inside of the church. There are folks out there who believe that false teaching comes only from outside of the church, but that’s a very dangerous assumption to make. Here, Jesus tells us that there are false teachers within the church, the wolf in sheep’s clothing. They appear to be safe, they talk about Jesus, they might even quote a whole lot of Bible verses to back up their claims. They may be well dressed, popular, and pack the pews of their churches each Sunday, and their offerings may be going through the roof! On the outside, they may look like they have it all together, and that truly, this preacher has been sent from God and we’d better listen to him, because he’s a lot more blessed than our own church and its pastor. Folks, there are a LOT of these wolves in sheep’s clothing in Christ’s church today, yes, even within the pales of the Lutheran church. In fact, some of them are lifted up as the “model” that we as a church and I as a Pastor should conform to. So the question is going to be, how do you know if that person is a true shepherd, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing looking to devour you?
Jesus tells us “you will recognize them by their fruits.” And for you confirmands, this is where the teachings you’ve learned the last two years are going to come into play. And it’s the same for the rest of us here, too. Listen to what that Preacher is telling you. Is he or she proclaiming that you’re a sinner, and that there’s nothing you can do to pay the debt of your sin, or do they tell you that sin doesn’t matter anymore, that God simply accepts you the way you are and you can continue to live however you want, just ignore those ten commandments because they’re outdated? Is that person telling you that Jesus Christ lived the perfect, sinless life you and I could not, and then suffered and died to pay the price of our sins, and then rose again from the dead so that we will rise from death to eternal life with Christ in heaven, or are they simply telling you “This is what Jesus did, so get out there and do it too, and then God will bless you with material wealth beyond your wildest dreams?” What kind of fruit is that preacher offering you, is it the truth of the Scriptures, or is it some other Gospel, which is no Gospel at all? You see, just because someone uses Jesus’ name, or claims to be Christian, or even appears to have a powerful “ministry” going, doesn’t necessarily mean that Christ will acknowledge that teacher on the last day. Our text tells us that many who have run around saying “Lord, Lord” will not enter the kingdom of heaven. And the reason why is that they turned the Christ of the Scriptures into some other Christ, a Christ who cannot save and doesn’t even exist. To these, Jesus simply says, “depart from me, I never knew you.” For any of you out there today who think that your doctrine doesn’t matter, that we just have to say “you believe in Jesus, I believe in Jesus, that’s all we need to agree on,” Jesus has just made it loud and clear that doctrine matters. In fact, doctrine is how you judge a particular ministry or preacher to be authentic or not. And that doctrine is drawn from the Word of God.
Now the only way you’re going to be able to recognize this distinction is by continuing to come here to God’s house each week, listen to His Word be preached from the pulpit. Listen to that word of law that tells us of our sin, that tells us in the words of our Epistle reading for this morning “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That’s right, all of us. Not just “those people” out there, but you and me. Then, listen to the sweetness of the Gospel, which tells us that Christ has died for our sins, and risen again so that we too will rise to eternal life with him. Continue to read and study your Bible, use your catechism to guide your study if you are looking for a guide to help you along. Next fall, when Sunday School starts up again, be sure that you’re up there in that high school room, demanding that Lee teach you the truth of the Scriptures, I know he’s really looking forward to having you there and asking him some tough questions, the ones I’ve come to look forward to having you ask me each week in confirmation.
You see, this is what Jesus is talking about in the parable of the two houses, the essential question is “what is going to be the foundation of your faith? What are you going to base your faith on?” When I was a student at Concordia University, I lived in a dormitory building that was fairly new, it had been built in the mid-1980;s, but there were all kinds of structural problems with Hyatt Village, and in fact, the entire foundation had to be redone on the building one summer or the building was going to eventually collapse. The story was that when the university was building more dorm space in the 80’s on land it owned on campus, they were told not to build that size of a building on that land, because the land was too wet and couldn’t support it, but they ignored the warning and did it anyway. And as a result, the building started sinking, and every time it rained, the ground floor dorm rooms had water in them. Last I heard, the building was still standing, but there is discussion about it having to come down eventually. In a similar way, Jesus is using the parable of our Gospel reading with the two houses to illustrate for us the importance of the foundation of our faith and teaching.
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” When we take to heart the word of Christ, when we base what we believe, teach, and confess both as individuals, and as a congregation, on the words of Christ, then we have a solid foundation. As your pastor this last year, I’ve done my best to provide you with that solid foundation. Now as you go into high school next fall, you’ll have a new set of challenges ahead of you. You’ll start to have friends who are going to say to you “hey, why don’t you stay out late with us on Saturday night, you can sleep in on Sunday since you’re not required to go to Sunday School anymore.” You’ll have difficult times in your life, you’ll have times when you get sick, or loved ones get sick, you may be called to mourn the death of a loved one, or you might have friends who turn on you. You’ll have all kinds of storms in this life, and when you’ve built your foundation on Christ and His Word, you’ll be able to withstand those storms. That doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt, or that you won’t have emotional or physical scars from time to time. But you’ll have the hope that because of what Christ has done for you on the cross, you have the promise that He will deliver you from this trial, and one day, deliver you to eternal life in heaven.
Jesus then continues: “and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Now this should serve as a warning for not just our 12 confirmands, but for all of us. If you’re sitting there today, listening to this sermon, thinking either a) “I don’t need to believe what the Bible says about Jesus, I’m just fine on my own” or b) I have a certificate of baptism and a certificate of confirmation somewhere, so that’s all I need to know and do” you’re terribly mistaken. If that’s the case, you’ve built your spiritual house on sand. Think of those who fall into the trap of what we call “prosperity theology”, promoted by folks like Joel Osteen. If you base your spiritual foundation on the idea that “if I’m right with God, then He will bless me with things of this world”, then what happens if you get sick? Or what happens if your company downsizes and you lose your job? Does that mean that God’s angry with you and you’re not saved anymore? When you build your spiritual house on sand, on false teaching, on anything other than Christ crucified and risen, when the storms of life come crashing down on you, you have nothing to support you.
The same thing happens when you decide you’ve “grown enough” in your faith, and you stop attending church, Sunday School, or reading your Bible on your own. Eventually, your foundation is going to crumble, and you’ll have nothing to support you. That’s why I’ve emphasized a great deal this year that I want to continue to see you here after you’re confirmed. Since the last day of Confirmation class, I’m unfortunately already noticing that a few of you are not here on Sunday morning. I don’t like that, and I’m saying that not because I want to be mean, or guilt you into being here, I’m saying it because as your Pastor, I’m concerned about your spiritual well being, and when you’re not here, it shows me that there’s something wrong. It’s the same when I see adults go inactive. It’s an easy habit to get into, and a very difficult one to break once it becomes a habit. So I encourage you to continue to be here to be built up and have your Savior, Jesus Christ, serve you through His Word and Sacraments. There’s no other place you’ll have your spiritual foundation built up than being in the presence of your Savior.
I posed the question to you this morning, “You’re confirmed, so now what?” In a few moments, you’re going to answer that question in the rite of Confirmation. But it’s not just a question I’m asking these 12 young people. I’m asking every confirmed member of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church that question today. “You’re confirmed, now what?” What’s your answer going to be? Confirmation Sunday is always one of the highlights of a congregation’s life. I couldn’t have asked for a better first confirmation class to have as the Pastor of Our Saviour’s than this group right here. Today, you’ll promise that you’d suffer all than fall away from the faith you were baptized into and you have been instructed in. But you’re not alone in your faith walk. You have me, you have your parents, baptismal sponsors, your fellow members of this congregation to walk that path with you. But most importantly, you have a Savior who loved you so much, that he went to the cross to die for your sins, and raise you to new life, eternally with Him. I am going to encourage you to keep those confirmation promises you’ll make today, and that your answer to the question I posed in this sermon be “I’ll continue to sit at the feet of Jesus, because there’s no better place to be.” May God grant that to you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
