It’s Confirmation Sunday at Christ the King and Living Hope! This Sunday, we had the joy of confirming six youth as they affirmed their baptisms. Each of them selected a confirmation verse they found meaningful, so the sermon touches on each of their verses as well as the story of Martin Luther and the Reformation.
Today’s Scripture readings are Romans 3:19-28, Psalm 46, and Mark 10:46-52.
Here’s the livestream from Living Hope and the sermon podcast audio.
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Grace and peace from God our Creator and Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen
Some of you might remember that the last time we celebrated confirmation at Christ the King and Living Hope was almost two and a half years ago, and it was my very first Sunday as your pastor.
It was a great day, but for me it was a strange confirmation sermon to give, because I didn’t know any of the people getting confirmed.
This year’s class, I think I know pretty well. They’ve had plenty of time with me and Christin—and all of them can tell you Christin is responsible for the vast majority of everything confirmation related, but I’ve been there too, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know each of them. In fact, I’m a little sad to be done with confirmation class with them.
I realize, though, that some may not share my sadness. In fact, they might be pretty happy to be done with confirmation class.
So, here’s my message for them—and this is a paraphrase of the Romans reading we just heard: You don’t get to boast that you’ve completed confirmation.
Because whether you did all the worship notes and put weeks of effort into your project, or you just did one or two a year and put your project together late last night, even if you missed half the classes, God loves you the same.
One of the reasons I like having confirmation on Reformation Sunday is today’s focus is all about God’s grace. We’re not celebrating the church splitting apart into different factions; we’re celebrating how God used Martin Luther to call the church back to God’s grace as the heart of our message.
Completing confirmation classes might seem like an achievement—and it is—but it’s not what saves you. Hear that? You do not need to be confirmed to get to heaven. You do not need to be confirmed for Jesus to love you.
You don’t need to give money to the church, you don’t need to go to Lighthouse events, or Sunday School, or even show up at worship for God to love you. And if you do all those things, if you give all your money to church and you come to worship every single week and you make quilts and sign up to serve meals at Family Promise and go off to Haiti as a missionary, God won’t love you any more than God does now.
Paisley, the confirmation verse you picked says “We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus.” God loves you because God created you.
God’s love doesn’t depend on anything you do; it depends on the one who created you, who sees you as beautiful.
And there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that can stop God from looking at you with love. Nothing you do, nothing you don’t do, nothing anyone does to you. God sees you as a precious, beloved, beautiful creation.
And then your verse continues: You are “created in Christ Jesus to do the good things God created us to do from the beginning.” God made each of you for a purpose.
Confirmation has been about exploring questions of faith not because Christin and I think reading Bible stories and the Small Catechism are fun, but so we can learn how God wants us to live, how we are supposed to treat our neighbors.
We are called to reflect God’s love to the world. The good things we do are not so that God will love us, but to make this broken world more beautiful, closer to the work of art God created it to be.
Now, there are people who think if you’re good enough, you can go to heaven. You just need to do a little bit more good than bad, and if you’re basically a good person, then you’re in. You’re good.
Sounds great, right? Maybe it’s motivation to do some good things in your life, do some good deeds, try a little harder.
But here’s the problem—and this is what Martin Luther ran into, starting the Reformation 507 years ago—how do you know if you’ve done enough good? How do you measure it?
Luther tried to be a good person. He did all the things his religion said he should do; he even became a monk and a priest. But he never knew if it was enough, because he knew how far away he was from perfection.
He was anxious about all the impure thoughts he had. He knew his laziness, his fear, all the ways he failed at loving his neighbors the way God wanted him to. And no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many good works he did, he couldn’t do enough.
Everett was at Christ the King this morning, but his verse is Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Here’s the thing: That verse is not saying we can do everything. Being confirmed does not turn you into church Superman and enable you to leap tall buildings in a single bound. You’re not going to suddenly stop sinning and turn into the perfect Christian after this morning either.
Luther and his church had missed a key part of that verse: Our power to do good, our ability to follow Jesus, it all comes from God. Your verse means that everything you do is because of God. It’s “through Christ.” Everything you do depends on God, and it’s all a gift. That’s the promise of grace.
Luther was stuck trying to do his best on his own, trying and failing to be good enough to please God, and eventually, he got angry at God for setting such an impossible standard.
And then of course, he felt guilty for getting mad at God, which seemed sinful, so he was even worse off. But it’s not just Luther, right? It’s all of us.
Romans 3, our Reformation Day Scripture reading, says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You and I aren’t any better off than Luther; you cannot do enough or give enough or earn enough to make up for your sin.
The best you do is never going to be enough. You are not God, you’re a human being. You are not perfect enough to deserve to go to heaven. But that verse keeps going: Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption of Christ Jesus.
Luther heard that promise of God’s grace, and it changed his whole understanding of God. God is not out there angry that we’re not good enough, not doing enough, ready to condemn us to hell; God is in love with us, and God offers us eternal life for free, as a gift. Jesus has come to us to give us life, out of love. Not because we’re so great, but because God is loving. God is love.
Jennings, your verse talks about God being our rock, our fortress, our deliverer. God is the one we can always turn to, the one who is always there, our mighty fortress.
And as I hope you learned in confirmation, God being there for us is not something abstract, like we have to look around and find where God is and wonder what God might be like. No, we believe God has come to us, come in person to experience life as a human being. That’s how much God loves us: Jesus Christ to be God with us and to lay down his life for us.
Knowing that promise, believing God’s love is for you, recognizing God’s presence with you in this world gives us the strength to get through life.
Tyler, your verse says, “I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” When life gets hard, the strength to keep going comes from God’s grace.
You wrote that this verse reminds you of how God is with you through everything. Hold onto that truth; hold onto that promise. When you wander away from God, God does not forget about you. God never gives up on you. God comes chasing after you.
Jake, your verse talks about that. The 23rd Psalm says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” God watches over us, protecting and leading us, the way a shepherd leads their sheep.
Again, that’s an example of grace, because sheep aren’t necessarily good at following a shepherd. Sheep don’t choose their shepherd. But when the sheep wander away, the Good Shepherd comes after them. Our Good Shepherd invites us to follow, and promises to provide for us.
I want to make very clear that this morning is not a graduation. You are not done with church because you’ve made it through confirmation classes.
Finishing confirmation is an accomplishment, but it’s really an entrance into life as an adult Christian. Not a single person in this room has figured out everything there is to know about God. All of us have doubts and questions, and that’s ok.
Landon, I love the verse you picked, from Psalm 19:14. “May the words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”
I pray that verse over and over, especially when I don’t have the right words to say, because it’s a prayer asking God to use whatever we have to offer. It’s asking God to take the feeble words we say, and use them to make a difference, asking God to use what we do to bless our neighbors. And by grace, that’s what God does.
In a few minutes, you’re going to make some pretty big promises, and at some point, maybe before you get out of the room, you’re going to fail to keep those promises. And there’s grace for that. God calls us to follow as faithfully as we are able, not to perfection, but to faithfulness.
You and I are here this morning because of God’s grace. We can go to God in prayer because God loves us. If you remember nothing else from this Sunday, or even nothing else from confirmation class, remember this: God loves you.
You are saved not because of anything you do, not from any works of the law, any good deeds, but because of God’s love. Because of what God has done for you. Amen