7-13-2025

“JESUS JUSTIFIES YOU!”

Text: Luke 10:25-37

Sunday July 13, 2025 – Pentecost 5

Trinity – Creston

       Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Our text for this Fifth Sunday after Pentecost is the Gospel lesson form Luke 10 that was just proclaimed.

Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind us that your saving work alone is what justifies us freeing us from the accusation of the law and freeing us to serve our neighbor.  Amen.

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

“Desiring to justify himself, [the expert in the Law] said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ ” (v 29).

You can never forget or ignore why Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. It all has to do with a lawyer, an expert in the Law or Torah of Moses. The lawyer doesn’t come with good intentions. He’s come “to put [Jesus] to the test” (v 25), to tempt him.

The lawyer is doing the very thing Jesus says not to do when he says to the devil: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Lk 4:12).

In fact, it’s worse than that. The lawyer asks a follow-up question. He did so not because he really wanted to know who his neighbor was. It wasn’t because he wanted to know how best to love his neighbor or how to be the best neighbor he could be. No, “he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ ”

You see, it’s no innocent question. It all has to do with “justification.” Verse 29, as well as verse 33, are the keys to the whole thing! What does justify mean? “It means to be pronounced righteous” (AP V 131). It means to be declared innocent of all charges before God.

We could also say that “justification is the forgiveness of sins” (AP V 169). “People are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. By his death, Christ made satisfaction for our sins. God counts this faith for righteousness in his sight” (AC IV 2–3).

To understand Jesus’ parable, you can’t lose sight of this! The parable has everything to do with the questions that the expert of the law asked Jesus. They are no innocent questions. He’s putting Jesus to the test in order to justify himself. You are not justified, innocent, or forgiven (all synonyms) by yourself, but rather by Jesus alone. It all has to do with what Jesus does for you and not, thank God, what you do for Jesus or for your neighbor.

But that’s hard for us to remember because we are always trying to justify himself before God. It’s hard to remember because our flesh, our body, our mind, our desires, make it so we only ever tend to think of old Adam as kind of a “frat boy.” Which means we only recognize him when he’s, well, living a sinful lifestyle. “The works of the flesh are evident,” Paul says (Gal 5:19).

But old Adam is very religious in his sin. He believes the lie of the devil: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). So he runs around dividing good from evil, according to his standards—working, striving according to his own homespun righteousness.

Old Adam is often moral. He could be the Pharisee from another parable. He might be hypocritical, like indignant David before Nathan tells him that he is the man. Old Adam moves to his own religious observance, like Saul thinking he could buy God’s favor by making a sacrifice God had said only priests were allowed to offer. Old Adam is the moral leader, the one who’s better than others.

Old Adam lives apart from the Lord. He tries to gain life without the Lord’s help—by works of the Law! He adds sin to sin. Works and God’s Law don’t save. “Do this, and you will live” (v 28). But he doesn’t! That’s the point. “By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20).

We’re all legal beings at heart. “Who’s my neighbor?” Who indeed? You know who they are. You know the people for whom you’re supposed to be neighbor. And maybe you are—to their faces. Always calculating: “This girl,” “that guy” isn’t my neighbor because she’s that way, he’s this way, did this certain thing, wronged me in some certain way.

Old Adam lives how he wants, then sets up all sorts of standards and measurements so that he’s forgiven and righteous. And it may not have anything to do with the Lord. We do it so often we don’t even realize it! Like the lawyer in Jesus’ day: “Of course Jews don’t have to love Samaritans! What? A Samaritan loved a Jew?” Well, actually he didn’t even acknowledge the name “Samaritan”: “The one, I suppose,” he called him.

Or we use the Lord’s gifts to justify ourselves! We quantify, we calculate, we self-justify. We legalize the Lord’s Word and his Sacraments. Instead of faith being the only thing that prepares us for the Sacrament, as the Small Catechism clearly teaches from God’s Word, we parade vague, often self-defined, “preparation.” Or, another old Adam trick: to say he believes the confession of sins but really doesn’t, because if he did, it might mean he needs the Lord’s Supper more.

And, see, the Sacrament is poison to old Adam because it’s eternal life to your new man in Christ. If all else fails, old Adam will just decide that he’s better than others, because, after all, he’s doing a good work by receiving the Supper. But nothing we do can make us righteous before God and earn us eternal life.

If we claim our good works make us righteous, “what else is this than to transfer Christ’s glory to our works? It means we would please God because of our works, not because of Christ. But this robs Christ of the glory of being the Mediator. He is the Mediator forever, and not merely in the beginning of justification” (AP V 196). You’re only ever justified by faith alone in Christ alone.

Against old Adam’s sins and his works stands Christ. To sinners Christ says, “You’re guilty.” And to sinners who parade their works before him, he says, “Do!” That’s all he says. “Do this, and you will live” (v 28). “Go, and do likewise” (v 37). “The Law says, ‘Do this,’ and it is never done” (Luther in the Heidelberg Disputation; AE 31:41).

The Law doesn’t give life. That’s what the stand-ins for the Law in Jesus’ parable show. What help did the priest and Levite provide the man in need of healing and life? None. So also works. Old Adam will think someone has faith or is saved because of things they’ve done, even though they absent themselves from Jesus and his Word and gifts. “If righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (Gal 2:21b).

We are all justified beings by faith in Christ and what he has done for us. Yes, “the Law says, ‘Do this,’ and it is never done.” But “faith says, ‘Believe in Christ,’ and everything is already done” (Heidelberg Disputation).

Against your sins stands Jesus’ blood and cross. Against your works stand his good works in your place. Credited to your account. Received by faith alone. There is no alternative. It’s either by works or by faith. If it’s faith and works, your works become more important than Christ. “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom 3:28).

The Lord’s Word and gifts to such destitute, dead, dying sinners are completely free gifts. You haven’t and you never can earn them or deserve them. The Lord gives them exactly because you can’t earn them, because you are unworthy and in desperate need.

Like the Samaritan in the parable with the oil and wine. Freely bestowed because of a need! And so also with the Lord’s Supper, you can trust Jesus’ judgment about your need, trust his gift, trust his Word, his blood not only shed for you at Calvary but placed into your mouth at Communion.

Today’s text is all about these things, because Jesus told this parable to a lawyer who wanted to justify himself. But,

Good Samaritan Jesus Justifies You, and, Thank God, You Don’t!

Yes, old Adam always tries to justify himself. We’re always trying that! We’ll use any means necessary. But you’re only ever justified by faith in Christ on his cross alone. It’s only trusting Jesus that justifies us because it’s Good Samaritan Jesus that justifies you, and, thank God, you don’t!

Where does Jesus do his justifying, his declaring righteous, his forgiving sin? Each and every time he gives his Word and gifts—Baptism, absolution, the Lord’s Supper. No piling up of your works allowed.

And correct answers about Baptism or Communion don’t count either. Even demons know those things! Even unbelievers could recite them. Trust and confidence in them only because of what Jesus says, that’s faith. Faith that Good Samaritan Jesus justifies you, and, thank God, you don’t!

“And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom 4:5). Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Amen.