Hear the Teaching of Jesus

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity

August 9th, 2026

Jesus weeps as He rides into Jerusalem. He sees into the heart of man. They cannot see the things that make for peace. Jesus just heard the shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” Jesus weeps because He sees their blindness and hardheartedness. They want to kill Him, and they don’t even know it.

They don’t know the things that make for peace. It is His death. It is horrific and yet glorious because it brings peace. In the death of Jesus we see both what we deserve and what we need and it’s death leading to life. God’s death and life in Jesus. But they didn’t see it that day in the City of Peace, Jerusalem. Jesus weeps at their blindness and their hardened hearts.

Jesus said: “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” The things that make for peace are found in the flesh and blood of Jesus that died and rose to save us. Those things are then given to us in the teaching of Jesus which are the Words of Christ that create faith.

The blindness and hardheartedness that made Jesus weep is not foreign to us. All of us at one time were dead in sin and blind to the Truth. But God spoke and opened our eyes of faith. All of us are still daily tempted to fall back into the darkness. Some of those among us have given themselves over to this dreadful state and their faith is dying or dead. What leads a person into this state of blindness and hardheartedness in the things that make for peace? It’s simply refusing to hear what God is speaking in His Word.

In the life of faith the flesh must be continually put to death by the Law and then raised to new life by the Gospel. It’s that simple and yet that crucial for our endurance in true faith until we die.

Being a Christian is not easy. We say it’s simple, we don’t have to do anything, just believe in Jesus. Yes, it’s true, faith in Christ alone saves us apart from anything we do. In that sense there’s nothing easier. The hard part isn’t being saved; Jesus took care of that on the Cross. On His way to the Cross He also keep the Law perfectly for us. “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” The work is finished in Jesus. No sacrifice or perfect obedience on our part will save us.

Faith is not the hard part. That is given to us and worked in us by the Word of God and the Spirit. The hard part is living in the fallen flesh with faith until we die. Our fallen flesh does not want to be saved. It does not want to hear about Jesus. It does not want to receive the things of Jesus that make for peace. Every day is a battle against the flesh that loves itself and wants to drag us back into the darkness of sin and unbelief leading to eternal death. The only thing that overcomes this fallen flesh is continually hearing the Words of Jesus.

Our flesh is blind. Our flesh has rejected its Creator and His will for us revealed in His Word. Left alone in the flesh we are spiritually blind with dead hearts of stone. There is only one thing that can breathe life into this dying flesh and open our eyes of faith. It is the work of God through the ministry of His Spirit. And the ministry of the Spirit only works with and where the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity. It wounds in order to heal. It kills in order to raise to new life. We must die and rise again, over and over on this side heaven until we rise eternally at the Resurrection.

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem for the last time, He spent His few remaining days in the temple teaching. There is no record in Scripture of any miracles being performed by Jesus in those final days in Jerusalem. All He did was teach. It is the Word of Christ that saves, not the miracles.

Only one miracle can save and that is the death and resurrection of Jesus. And that miracle comes to us in Words. By teaching daily in the temple and driving out those who sold, Jesus is making a statement. He is the new temple. If you want to find God and find peace for your sins you must hear the teaching of Jesus.

Jesus has much to say and we need to hear all of it. Some things are difficult. But if we are truly hearing what Jesus is speaking, we will find peace because at the heart of it all we see the bloody Cross and we see Jesus and its glorious. Because in that death and blood there is forgiveness and reconciliation and redemption and eternal life - a new creation.

We find the answer to our fallen flesh and our sin and death in the blood and death of Jesus. Through His flesh and blood and death we are taken into the Holy Place and our hearts are sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Eyes of faith are opened to see. We are brought from death to life.

Jesus didn’t come to fix all of our problems and heal all of our diseases on this side of heaven. He came to speak His Words and to die and to rise from the dead for us. The work is finished. Now the fruit of that work must be received by hearing the Word of Christ continually. It opens our eyes of faith and softens our hearts of stone. This is the miracle and gift that comes to us in Words.

Now, a point about the children. Jesus said: “For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you… because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Jesus makes a point to mention the children in the destruction of Jerusalem. That destruction happened in 70 AD about 40 years after Jesus made this statement. It was horrific. The Roman army under general Titus came in and besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, hundreds of thousands of Jews died. Many children.

The way of death wasn’t always quick. The Roman army surrounded the city during the Passover after all the Jewish pilgrims who made the journey to Jerusalem for the Passover were in the city. They were trapped. Food and water supplies cutoff. A slow and agonizing death of starvation. Imagine the children. Getting weaker, crying, starving, dying. Horrific.

And yet as horrific as the physical starvation of a child is, it is not as horrific as their spiritual starvation. Physical starvation is temporary. Spiritual starvation is eternal. Spiritual starvation is painless and pleasant because the fallen flesh enjoys it - even as the heart of faith is weakening and dying.

There are eternal repercussion for refusing to hear and conform your life to what Jesus is teaching. If not in this life then in eternity to come. For those of you with children, no matter how young they are, heed the warning of Jesus about the destruction and the children. Jesus warns you because He wants to save you and your children. Jesus baptized your children and He needs to keep teaching them to save them.

Saving faith is created and kept alive through hearing the Word of Christ. Hearing the Word of Christ must happen continually until death to keep faith alive and strong. You have a choice in this matter. You can keep your children from hearing the words of Jesus weekly. In doing so you are simply keeping them from the visitation of Jesus which is the holy precious Gospel that saves them.

The Word of Christ and the Spirit worked faith in your children in their baptism. The strength and the life of that faith is dependent on their continuing to hear the Words of Jesus. What you teach them and where you bring them is a matter of spiritual strengthening or spiritual starvation. They need to be brought to where Jesus is teaching so they can listen, learn, grow, and be strengthened in true faith until their life ends.

They need to learn and develop the habits found in the weekly rhythm of life in the church in the Divine Service. They need to learn the liturgy and sing the hymns. They need to be in the Divine Service and Sunday school every week. LIS is a great school, but it is not the ministry of Word and Sacrament. That is the job of the church. Right here is where Jesus does His work in your children to save them.

Your children are learning from you. What are you teaching them? If you make coming to church to hear the Words of Jesus and to kneel at the altar to receive the body and blood of Jesus a weekly priority, they will to. If you make coming to Sunday school after the Divine Service a priority, they will too. If you teach them to open the hymnal and sing the liturgy and the hymns (and not look at the screens), they will grow to love the hymnal and the hymns and the liturgy of the Divine Service.

On the other hand, if you make the Divine Service and Sunday school one option among many on a Sunday morning, they will learn from you and when they grow up they will choose the other options which are the ways of the flesh. Having learned to make the Divine Service one option among many, they will grow to despise and stay away from the Divine Service where the Words and the body and blood of Jesus are found. When that happens the faith Christ gave them in their baptisms will begin to weaken. They will begin to starve spiritually as they abstain from hearing the Words of Jesus and from eating and drinking His body and blood. With time they will fall from the faith.

What are you teaching your children while it is still daylight? The night is coming and then it will be too late.

Jesus loves the children. Jesus baptized the children into Himself. Jesus is watching over and paying close attention to the children. He wants them in the places where He visits them to feed them and strengthen their faith with Himself. Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” In Jesus name. Amen.