I’m sure you’ve probably heard the slogan, “Deeds, Not Creeds!” Theology by way of slogans is always a risky business, not least of all because they are prone to be either legalistic or licentious. But it’s fair enough to insist that, if you’re gonna “talk the talk,” you better also “walk the walk.” The Holy Scriptures also teach that we are to be doers of the Word, and not hearers only. Even so, let your doing begin with your hearing and your speaking, your confessing, of the Word of God.
To listen to the Word that God speaks, and then to pray and confess what He has spoken, is the first and foremost thing that you are called to do as a Christian. To do so in faith is to worship the Lord your God, to glorify His holy Name. It is also the first service of love for your neighbor, to speak what the Lord has spoken, just as God Himself does everything by His Word. Indeed, we know from the New Testament that our Savior, Jesus Christ, is Himself the Word-made-Flesh.
So, when you speak the Word of God, you speak Jesus. That is not a small or insignificant thing. It is the most powerful thing you are given to do. And everything else you do in faith toward God and in love for God and your neighbor flows with that speaking of the Word of Christ Jesus. For it is by the preaching, teaching, hearing, confessing, and praying of His Word — and so also by living in accordance with His Word — that God’s Name is sanctified and kept holy among us.
You honor the Lord your God by saying the same thing that He has spoken to you in Christ Jesus. That is what confession is, to say the same thing that God has said. What is more, there is nothing better you can say to your neighbor than the Word that God has spoken to us by His Son. That is to speak both the Law and the Gospel unto repentance and faith in Christ Jesus. Above all, it is to speak mercy and forgiveness in love for your neighbor, as God forgives you with His Word.
It is by the hearing and speaking of His Word that the Spirit of your God and Father speaks in you. In this way, no matter how little you may be, no matter how young, no matter how uneducated or simple, you do what God the Father in heaven does. You speak the Word who is the Son of God, Christ Jesus; and in speaking the Word of Christ, you breathe the Holy Spirit upon your neighbor.
This is a high and holy calling that you have been given as a Christian, to confess what God has spoken. And to be sure, let all your deeds be in harmony with such speaking. What you confess, that is also how you are to live to the glory of your God and Father. But bear in mind that your speaking of His Word is already an activity, a deed, a work of love that you perform with your lips and mouth, whereby you give life to your neighbor. And Holy Scripture takes this very seriously.
What you say with your mouth matters. Your words are not incidental, but they are significant. They matter very much. Your speaking makes a difference for you and for your neighbor, whether for good or for evil, depending on whether what you say is right and true or wicked and wrong.
Consider the case of Job, for example. In spite of what he suffered, the Word of the Lord declares that Job did not sin with his lips. He had his doubts and fears, he had his questions and concerns, but he did not do what his wife advised — he did not curse God — he did not sin with his lips.
Eventually, the Lord restored to Job all that the devil had been permitted to take away from him. But prior to that final restoration, Job confessed with his words his faith in his Redeemer and his hope in the Resurrection; and he confessed the Almighty, that God is righteous, just, and wise, that He is the Maker of the heavens and the earth, and that He has the prerogative to do as He will with His own Creation. Then God Himself says to Job’s would-be friends that they have been wrong, that they have spoken wrongly concerning God, and that Job has spoken rightly about Him.
What is more, God sends those men to Job, instructing them to ask Job to pray for them. He does pray for them, and he is heard. What is spoken matters. It means something and does something.
Now, tonight you have heard the case of Nebuchadnezzar, and his words also mattered, first for evil and then for good. The word in his mouth to begin with was met with the voice of God from heaven, it was met with the Word of God. And whereas the words of Nebuchadnezzar had been false and powerless, the Words of God were immediately fulfilled.
When Nebuchadnezzar spoke in praise of himself, he was driven to madness. For this is the true madness, to exalt yourself above the one true God, and to credit yourself with all that you have been given and received as a gift from the Lord.
So, Nebuchadnezzar was driven to madness, driven away from other people to live with animals. And the once mighty king became like a beast himself, without words and without reason.
The animals cannot speak as man does. They honor and acknowledge God by looking to Him and relying on Him for everything they need; and in this they are both wiser and more innocent than fallen man. But the animals cannot speak as man does, and so they cannot confess the Lord in the way that man is able to confess; nor do they blaspheme His holy Name as man has so often done.
The ability and capacity to speak, as God Himself speaks, is both powerful and dangerous. With your mouth and lips and tongue you are able to call upon the Name of the Lord, but so are you also able to curse His holy Name. With your mouth you can speak truly, or you can speak falsely. You can help or hurt your neighbor with your words. And you are held accountable for what you say, just as the king of Babylon was. The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain.
Nebuchadnezzer was driven to be like an animal, and in this way he was humbled by the Lord who brings down the lofty and exalts the lowly. Just so, when God had humbled Nebuchadnezzer, the Lord then lifted up his eyes to heaven. Nebuchadnezzar looked up to the Most High. He no longer exalted himself, but he praised God. His reason returned to him, the genuine logic of right words instead of blasphemy. Hence, he praised the true God with his speaking, with his confession.
As surely as it is real madness to speak falsely about God, to praise yourself instead of Him, this indeed is real wisdom and right reason, to speak the Truth concerning the Lord Most High, both His Law and His Gospel — to confess what He has spoken and revealed concerning Himself.
With this sort of speaking or confessing, with such a Creed, you praise and honor the one true God, the Holy Trinity. You exalt and magnify His holy Name. And as I have already said, you also serve, support, and strengthen your neighbor with that Word of God. You call your neighbor to repentance and to faith, and you comfort your neighbor with the mercies of God in Christ Jesus.
Do not underestimate how important your words are to your brother or sister in Christ. Do not be ashamed or afraid to speak the Gospel to your neighbor. You don’t have to come up with your own clever words to do so. Speak as you have been taught from the Bible and the Catechism; speak as you have heard in the Liturgy; speak as God the Father speaks to you in Christ Jesus.
In particular, as you are gathered together as the people of God, as a congregation of His Church, as one Body in Christ Jesus, you serve and support and strengthen each other by your praying, by your confessing, and by your singing of His Word. St. Paul mentions this more than once in his Epistles, that by the singing of Psalms and hymns and Spiritual songs the Spirit of God dwells among you richly. You fill each other up with the Spirit of Christ Jesus, unto faith and life in Him.
Do not doubt that as you sing the hymns of the Church, as you confess the Creed alongside your brothers and sisters in Christ, and as you join the whole congregation in praying and confessing the words of the Liturgy, your voice strengthens and sustains your neighbors in ways that you might never realize. Not only that, but here in the gathering of His Body, here within His Church, the Word of Christ rings out, so that you also are strengthened and sustained by your neighbors.
Parents, you have the special privilege and the special responsibility to do much the same thing for your own children. Indeed, the Lord your God commands you to catechize your children in the prayer and confession of His Word. And you do so by telling them the stories of the Bible; by rehearsing the Catechism with them; by singing hymns with them in your home; and especially by bringing them faithfully to church for the Lord’s Liturgy of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.
By this catechesis and confession of Christ, you fathers and mothers do the most wonderful and amazing thing that you can possibly do for your children. With the Word of the Lord you fill them with the Holy Spirit, you fill them with Christ Jesus, you strengthen and sustain them in the one true faith, and you bring them to their God and Father in heaven, as others have done for you.
For thousands of years Christians all over the world have been confessing the same priceless Word of the Lord, rehearsing and savoring the salvation of God in Christ Jesus, His Love, His mercy, and the Life that He bestows by His Ministry of the Gospel. By taking that Word of Christ upon your lips, even as you treasure it in your heart and mind, not only are you strengthening your neighbor, but you are likewise strengthened in the one true faith — and you are armored against the devil.
In St. Paul’s Letter to the Church at Ephesus, he admonishes you and all Christians to put on the full Armor of God and to take up the Sword of the Spirit by praying and confessing the Word of the Lord. The Creed and the Our Father are surely a great place to do both of those things.
When you call on the Name of the Lord and when you speak His Word, you resist the devil and chase him away from your heart, mind, and life, because the devil cannot stand before the Word of Christ Jesus. That “one little Word” still defeats that old evil foe. That Word strengthens your faith and sustains your life against the assaults and accusations of Satan. For the Word of Christ Jesus drowns out the devil’s Big Lie. It drowns out the false word of wickedness with the true Word of Wisdom, for the Word of Christ is Spirit, Truth, and Life; it is both living and Life-giving.
This is something you can and should do as a Christian, because you are baptized and catechized in the Name of the Lord, you are a disciple of Jesus. And it is enough for you, as a disciple, to be like your Master, to speak as He has spoken. That is something you can and should do. But it is not your own work. It is not by your own reason, wisdom, or strength. It is the gift of God, and it is His Logic, His Righteousness and Peace, which are given to you by His speaking of His Word to you — that Word in which you rest — that Word by which you live in Christ Jesus.
It is by and with and in that Word of Christ that the Lord is ever near you and abides with you even to the end. It is by His Word that He foils the tempter’s power. It is by His Word that He guides you and guards you and keeps you, as your Staff and Stay. It is by His Word that He is kind to you, gentle, and good. It is by His Word that He heals you of all infirmities and all iniquity.
It is by His Word that He sets His Cross before your eyes, in order to bless you by the forgiveness of that Cross and to uphold you in the one true faith, in life, in death, even unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul. So, too, He opens up your ears to hear, He opens up your heart and mind to believe and comprehend the hope and promise of the Gospel, and He opens up your lips and your mouth to declare His praise and to glorify His holy Name by the prayer and confession of His Word
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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