[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints, Jesus goes to be baptized by John.
And John looks at Jesus and says,
You don’t need this. I should be baptized by you, and you come to be baptized by me.
John was baptizing for the forgiveness of sins, and Jesus never sinned.
He never did anything wrong. He didn’t need to have sins washed away.
He was clean already.
But something else was going on in the baptism of Jesus.
And this was very hard for me to understand.
In fact, I’m still working on understanding it.
I don’t think it’s because it’s unclear in the text, but I think it’s because we are
wired in this modern world not to think in biblical terms.
So you guys have to endure this sermon because I’m really preaching to myself trying to figure
this out.
See if you guys can come along for the ride here because we, when we think of people,
people, think in terms of the person and not in terms of the office.
I think we think very little about office.
I mean, we do sometimes.
We use words like calling or vocation or station in life or job, but we normally think
about people as individual.
We live in a very individualistic society with a very individualistic minds.
And so, I want to think about the baptism of Jesus under the rubric of calling, or of
office, that’s probably better, of office, because when Jesus is baptized, he is put into
the office of being the Savior of the world.
His name is Jesus, that’s the name that was given to him when he was born, but he was
not Jesus the Christ until John baptizes him.
That’s what Christ means.
means. The Hebrew for anointed one is Messiah and that gets translated into Greek as Christ
and so Jesus is anointed. He’s set apart for the office. I want to think about the office
in four different ways because we all, and this is how we ought to think of our own lives,
I think, not only in terms of our person but also of the offices that the Lord has given
to us, and the Lord has given to all of us an abundance of offices.
In fact, it’s nice just to jot them down every once in a while.
In fact, this is what Luther says when we go to confession and we wonder what we ought
to confess and how do we think about it, and he says, well, consider your station in life,
your office, according to the Ten Commandments, and you’ll have plenty to confess.
But it’s not, it’s not only what to confess, it’s what to pray for.
And it’s not only that, it’s what to do every day.
When you wake up in the morning, what should I do today?
Well, what’s your station in life and what does the Ten Commandments say about that station
in life?
But even more than that, I’ve been looking on and off the last couple of months on the
websites that research all the kind of mental disorders that are going on and making note
of the extreme rise of depression, of loneliness, of thoughts of suicide that have, I mean in
last two years since COVID, it was already bad enough and it’s gotten a lot worse, a lot worse.
And as people are thinking about that, one of the things that they’re noting is that
people feel like their lives are meaningless and they are purposeless. Well, this is how to
go after those questions. Now, look, before you get to your calling, you have meaning because
God created you, because Jesus redeemed you, because you will be resurrected to live with
Him forever. But why are you alive? What’s your purpose in life? What’s the meaning of the life
that the Lord has given you, well, what’s your station in life and what do the Ten Commandments
say about it?
That gives us meaning and purpose.
Now we all have all different callings.
All of us have the calling of being a child.
You have a mother and a father.
Even if you never met your mother or father, even if they have gone to heaven already ahead
of you, you have a mom and a dad, that’s how you ended up here.
So all of us have the calling of child.
Now, in the family there’s lots of other callings.
Many of us are called brothers and sisters, which have their own unique challenges.
Some of you are called to be husbands or wives.
Some of you are called to be parents and even grandparents.
Some of you are called to be widows and widowers.
These are different callings according to the family.
And I think it’s good as if you’re just meditating on this, writing it down, what are my callings
in life, that we don’t want to be abstract about it.
The Lord has not made you an abstract child.
I am not just a son in the abstract.
I am the son of Chuck and Alinda Wolfmuller.
Very specific mom and dad, even though those closest of neighbors we mostly just call by
their titles, mom and dad, but there’s a very specific calling that the Lord has given us.
And who the people that the Lord has given you as your neighbor, that is the specific
object of your love and
affection in that station
in life. We have callings
in the family, we have
callings also in the state.
All of us are citizens in
one way or another,
probably most of us of the
United States, I imagine
most of us even of Texas,
some of us of Austin or
Round Rock or Cedar Park or
Leander or Dripping Springs
or unincorporated
Williamson County or
whatever. You’re citizens
And some of you might have other offices according to the state.
You might work for the state.
You might be soldiers.
You might be police or judges or you might have some other official magistrate.
You might have an office according to, you might be elected.
And it’s one of my hopes that, I think, and this is my opinion, so I’m going to step
down from the podium.
I think more of you should run for office this year, by the way.
But we’ll see how that goes.
But you have different offices according to the state.
You have different offices according to your work.
You are working.
you are maybe an employee, an employer. You might be a student or a teacher. You might
be retired, which is an office in and of itself. Many of you have told me that I never was
this busy until I retired. So that is its own calling. And you have offices according
to the church. You’re members of the church. Some of you have different roles and things
to do in the church. This is your station in life. And what the Ten Commandments say
about your station in life is important.
We should think about it more.
Think about it in this way.
It wasn’t until Jesus was baptized, anointed, and put into the office that He began doing
the work of the Messiah.
There’s a reason that we don’t hear about anything in the life of Jesus except His visit
to the temple when He’s 12 years old, when He’s learning the Scriptures.
We don’t hear anything in the life of Jesus until His baptism, because that’s when the
work of being the Messiah begins.
Now let’s think about this in four ways, four things that I want to talk about when it comes
to office and calling.
Number one, that the Lord has often instituted a ceremony for us to enter into the office.
Number two, that when the Lord gives us the office, He gives us the authority that goes
with it.
Number three, when the Lord gives an office, He gives promises to accompany the work of
the office.
And then number four, we need to think about office in terms of law and gospel.
So first, ceremony.
The Lord often has instituted, and culture and our own history often institutes a ceremony
when we enter into an office.
Just think, for example, of marriage, a ceremony when a man and a woman start out as a man
and a woman and they end as a husband and wife. Or think of ordination, that’s when
June 25th is when I was ordained and the pastors gathered around and laid hands on me and now
I was set apart for the office of preaching. Or think of your own confirmation. Do you
know the Lord, when you were confirmed, gave you a particular office, the office of public
confessor? So that when you come to the Lord’s Supper and you take the body and blood of
Jesus, you proclaim His death and His resurrection until He comes again in glory.
So the Lord has set you apart for that particular office.
I think we should do more with this, by the way.
I mean, sometimes when people go into public office there’s a swearing-in ceremony, or
when some people get jobs there’s sort of a welcome thing to it.
But I think we should add more ceremonies to people entering into offices.
A lot of you have moved into new homes and you’ve asked me to come and do a home blessing.
I think that’s really great.
But what about when you get a new job to get together and pray that the Lord would bless
you according to that new office?
Or I think when couples find out that they’re expecting children, we should come into church
and pray for them as they enter into the office of being parents.
And I don’t wonder if then when your oldest child turns 13 you get another blessing as
the parent of teenagers, you know, a new office there.
Or when children move out, or when you retire, or when something else like this happens,
to know that you are living according to office, and this is important.
This is important.
In the Old Testament, when people were set apart for the office of king or the office
of priest, they were anointed by the prophet.
The oil running down over the beard of Aaron, that’s what Psalm 133 talks about, and that
That was so beautiful because that oil set Aaron apart as the high priest.
Or Samuel, remember, who came and found David, the youngest son of Jesse, and he anointed
him with oil to set him apart in the office.
This is why Psalm 46 verses 7 and 8 says of Jesus, you will possess the spirit of gladness
beyond all your fellows so that Jesus Himself is ordained into His office as the Savior.
here. And with the office comes authority. I mean, with the office comes duty. With the
office comes commands. With the office comes instruction. But with the office comes the
authority to do that. We can think of this in terms of, well, we can think of this in
terms, think of a judge as an example. You know, if you or I told someone that they had
to go and live in a room with bars on it for the rest of their lives, we would probably
ourselves be arrested, but when a judge who has authority to sentence someone to prison
does it, not only is it not a sin, but it is in fact a good work.
Or to think of it in terms of the doctor.
If you go and see the doctor, he does all sorts of sinful things to you if he wasn’t
a doctor and checking you out to make sure that everything’s working out right.
Or parents, or marriage, think of it like this.
Think of your marriage day, the things that were sinful when you woke up on your marriage
they become a good work when you go to bed that night.
So that the office gives you the authority to act in a certain way, to do certain things.
It’s also true with preaching.
When I was ordained, I received the authority.
The stole is an indication of it, to be able to stand in the pulpit and preach.
So that the office sets us in place to exercise authority.
It’s one of these important questions that we ask, who has authority to do what thing?
And we want to make sure that even if we know the right thing to do, we want to know that
it’s our thing to do, that we are the one authorized to do it by the office that the
Lord has given us.
But not only does the Lord give to those in office the authority to do it, He also gives
promises, especially this, the promise of the Holy Spirit to help us in the work of
the office. When Jesus was baptized, the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended
upon Him in the form of a dove. Now, question, did Jesus not have the Holy Spirit before
His baptism? Of course He did. Of course Jesus had the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit eternally
He proceeded from Him as the Son of God, but now the Holy Spirit comes upon Him for the
gifts of His work and His office.
And so it is when we put someone into office.
Maybe most clearly when a pastor’s ordained and all the other pastors dressed in red put
their hands on them and prayed that the Holy Spirit would come, and you sit in back and
I remember someone telling me about this story where someone was, a dad was sitting with
his son in the back of the service during an ordination and they said, come Holy Spirit,
Spirit, and the son leaned over to his dad and said, he didn’t have the Holy Spirit before
now?
Maybe we should have called the pastor who had the Holy Spirit before.
Well, no, of course, every baptized child of God has the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit
comes upon us when the Lord gives us offices for the work of that office.
You know, the Lutheran Church has been accused for years and years of not preaching enough
about the Holy Spirit, and I’m not any longer interested in defending that assertion because
I think it might be right, but I think I know why.
Because for a hundred years, the Holy Spirit has been taught as the office destroyer.
The Holy Spirit is the one who comes, and now instead of saying words that you understand,
you say words that nobody can understand.
Instead of coming and giving the gift of self-control, the Holy Spirit comes and you lose control.
people, instead of coming to support the order that God has instituted, the Holy Spirit comes
and everything goes crazy.
That’s how the Holy Spirit has been taught.
And that is not only wrong, but it’s the exact wrong doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
Because over and over in the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit comes to support the work of the
office.
When the apostles are ordained to be preachers, the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost so that
they can proclaim the marvelous works of the Lord.
And all throughout the book of Acts, wherever preachers are needed, the Holy Spirit will
come and then they will begin to preach.
In the Old Testament, when the Lord needed judges, the Spirit would descend on the judge
and the judges would do their work.
In other words, the Holy Spirit comes, and this is God’s promise to you, the Holy Spirit
comes to give you the strength and the wisdom that you need, the patience and endurance
that you need to do the works that the Lord has given to you in your office.
I know it’s hard being a child and honoring your father and your mother, but
do you think that the Lord would give you that command without giving you what
you need to keep it, to help, to help you in doing it? Or do you think he’s left
you on your own to do it by your own strength? I know it’s hard to be a
husband and to be a wife and to be a parent and a grandparent and to be a
widow or a widower. I know it’s hard to be single and to be chaste, but the Lord Jesus
has given you that office and with that office comes the promise of the Holy Spirit for help.
I know it’s hard to be a citizen and a good neighbor and a Christian, but the Lord has
promised the Holy Spirit to you according to the office that He’s given you. Jesus,
when He teaches the Lord’s Prayer in Luke chapter 11, He teaches the prayer there and
And then he gives this promise, so the Lord will give the Holy Spirit to all who ask.
So when we consider our life according to the Ten Commandments, we pray that the Lord would
give us the Holy Spirit so that we could do it.
And that is a promise.
The Holy Spirit will come.
And He will help you.
You can rely on that.
But now we get to the fourth thing.
So there’s the ceremony, the authority, the promise, but the fourth thing is how do we
think of our calling in terms of law and gospel?
Because it might seem so far like it’s a lot of law, and that’s true.
When the Lord addresses us, according to our offices, it’s all law.
This is a hard thing for me.
I’m still trying to figure out how to teach it, but I’ll tell you how I realized it.
I realized that when Jesus says the words that institute the Lord’s Supper,
take and eat, this is my body given for you.
Or take and drink, this is the blood of the New Testament poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.
Christians do this often in remembrance of me, I realized a few years ago that when those
words come to me as your pastor, they are law.
They are telling me what to do.
I am to give to you the Lord’s body and blood, and if I do not do that, then I stand guilty
before the Lord.
The same is true with baptism.
Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you,
and look, I’m with you all the way to the end of the earth, that, for me, as your pastor,
is law, instruction, command.
It tells me what to do.
Even the command to forgive sins, when Jesus breathed on His disciples and He says, whoever
sins you forgive, they’re forgiven, whoever sins you retain, they’re retained, that, for
For me, as the public absolver in this place, is law.
We do not receive the forgiveness of sins in our office.
Our offices reveal to us that we are sinners that need forgiveness.
When you consider your station in life according to the Ten Commandments, you know that you
have failed, that you have broken God’s law, that you have deserved His temporal and eternal
punishment.
It’s true, but there is one exception to this rule.
There is one calling, one office that brings the fullness of the gospel, and it is the
office of baptism.
When the Lord baptizes us, He calls us His own dear children.
He forgives all of our sins.
He overcomes sin, death and the devil. He opens the way for us to everlasting life.
He looks on us with peace and gives us comfort. When we come as the Lord’s
baptized to hear His Word and to be absolved of our sin and to receive the
body and blood of Jesus, then we have it. So the Lord has an office that is an
office of grace and a calling of justification.
And it goes back to the font, in fact it goes back to the Jordan River where Jesus Himself
was there being baptized by John.
He took there, when Jesus was in the water, He took upon Himself the work of redeeming
you, of rescuing you, of taking all of your sin upon Himself so that this baptism is for
you a washing, a holy washing, so that you can stand before the Lord pure, clean, unspotted,
unblemished.
So we go about our lives as citizens and sons and daughters, as parents, as friends, as
neighbors, as Christians.
We sin, we try to love, we begin to love, and we fail to love, and we come back to the
Lord Jesus, with all of this sin and with all of this shame and with all of this filth
and stench and you know what He does? He says to you that you are my child. In fact,
God says the same thing to you that He said to Jesus when He was baptized. You are my
child in whom I am well pleased. God be praised. And may God the Holy Spirit come and give
us this wisdom and courage to know our offices and to live according to them but to have the
even greater comfort to know that we are the Lord’s baptized, cleansed, and holy.
May God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen. And the peace of God, which passes all
understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
