Sermon from May 28, 2025

“The Way of Christ for All”

Text: Psalm 67

Psalm for 6th Sunday of Easter

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. (Psalm 19:14)

The text for our meditation for today is the psalm for this past Sunday, Psalm 67. You can follow along with this, as Psalm 67 is printed among the psalms in the front part of your hymnal.

Psalm 67 begins this way: “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us.” These words should sound familiar, as they are a summary of an Old Testament benediction, a blessing that we still use at the end of many of our worship services still today, from Numbers, Chapter Six: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance (His face) upon you and give you peace” (Numbers 6:22-27).

And v. 2 of the psalm tells us that God wants His blessed “Way” to be known among all nations on earth. And v.3 says that He wishes that not just the Jews but that all peoples would praise Him. He repeats this in v. 5, again: “Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You.”

This had actually been the plan of God from the very beginning, when he had called Abram, in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, to be the father of the nation of Israel, the Jews. God also added, in Genesis 12:3, “In you (Abram), all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God made this even clearer in Genesis, Chapter 17, when He changed Abram’s name to Abraham (which means “a father of a multitude”) and said, “I have made you the father of a multitude of nations… I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you” (Genesis 17:14).     

And much later, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah of a Servant who would come from Israel. And the Lord predicted of Him, “It is too light a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will send you as a Light for the nations, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:1,6).

For God cared and cares not only about Israel, but about all nations and peoples. As Psalm 67, verse 5 says, “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You, O God, judge the peoples with equity (with fairness and uprightness), and guide the nations upon the earth.”

And God’s “saving way” and “power” spoken of in verse 2 of Psalm 67, finally came in the person of God’s own Son, our Lord Jesus. Just after Jesus’ birth, Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem, and a man name Simeon was led by the Holy Spirit to come to the temple also and to recognize Who Jesus was and praise God saying, “My eyes have seen Your salvation that You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a Light for revelation to the Gentiles (to the nations) and for the glory of Your people Israel” (Luke 2:25-32). And some years later, John the Baptist was fulfilling Old Testament prophecy in “preparing the Way” of the Lord Jesus, so that through Him (Jesus), “all flesh (all people) could see the salvation of God” through Him (Isaiah 40:3-5 and Luke 3:2-6).

And as we read on in the New Testament, we see that Jesus is that saving Way and Power for all peoples, all nations, as Psalm 67, v.2, says. Jesus Himself said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). And the apostle Peter proclaimed, “Jesus… has become the Cornerstone. And there is no other name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:11-12). And at least six more times, the early Christian believers in the Book of Acts are called “people of the Way” - the Way of Jesus Christ as Savior, through faith in Him alone. Saul was arresting any people “belonging to the Way” until he himself was brought to Jesus as the true Way of salvation (Acts 9:2 and 16:17). A Jewish man, Apollos, was “instructed in the Way of the Lord” and “spoke boldly… “showing by the Scriptures that the Christ (the promised Messiah, the Savior) was Jesus” Acts 18:25-28).

And of course, we also read in the Book of Acts that there were big “disturbances concerning the Way” of Jesus, made by enemies, believers in false gods and goddesses (Acts 19:23-28) and by Jewish leaders in synagogues who “remained in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way” and opposing the Gospel of Christ (Acts 17:13, 18:12, 19:8-9). And there was the Roman Governor, Felix, who had “a rather accurate knowledge of the Way,” because his wife was Jewish, but kept rejecting “faith in Jesus Christ” and hoped that Paul would give him money (probably as a bribe), in order to be set free (Acts 24:22-26). Paul just kept speaking the Truth about Jesus and was finally sent to Rome and kept under house arrest for two years, witnessing to fellow Jews, many of whom “disbelieved” - did not believe in Jesus. And Paul finally said, at the end of the Book of Acts, “Therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles (the non-Jews); they will listen” (Acts 28:23-31). And many did, and Christianity spread.

Paul, in his letters in the Scriptures, also ties us all in, whether Jews or non-Jews, with the promises of God given to Abraham and received simply by faith in the grace and mercy of God. Abraham was “counted righteous” in God’s eyes, by faith in Him, and we are, too, by faith in God’s Son, Jesus, “who was delivered up” to death “for our trespasses, ”to pay the penalty for all of our sins,” and “raised from the dead for our justification” that we might be declared “not guilty” and forgiven by God. Abraham is in this way the father of people from all nations, Jews or non-Jews, who trust in God’s saving plan in Jesus (Romans 4:13-25).

Again, Paul writes, “The Scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, presented the Gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’” So then, those who are of faith (in Jesus) are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:6-9).

This is all fulfillment of the last verse of our text, Psalm 67:7: “God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear Him.” And this does not mean to be in terror of God, but as Luther says in his Small Catechism, to fear (especially to honor and respect) God and love and trust in Him above all other things, and especially to be centered on Christ our Savior and His Word.

And the way of Christ is really for all nations still today. I think that many of you know that I was a campus pastor at Purdue University for about 25 years, and the great majority of our students were U.S. students. But we also had a surprising number of international students coming, too, because the world was coming to Purdue.

While preparing this sermon, I took a quick look back and could identify more than 50 internationals and family members who were baptized or confirmed, not counting U.S. students reached in that way, during that time. They came from about 20 different countries. And there were other internationals who came fairly often to worship or Bible study, from another 10 or more countries, off and on, through those years.

Of course, it is the Holy Spirit, working through the Word of God and the Good News of Christ, who brings people to faith and baptism and confirmation. But He works through people and their witness, and St. James has been important for that, too. For quite a number of years, St. James has sponsored a Thanksgiving Dinner for internationals, and that helped open up opportunities to share about Jesus. Some international children have come to St. James for daycare or pre-school and have heard the Good News of Christ that way. People from St. James have helped with English conversation classes. I remember one member here who is fluent in speaking and reading a foreign language spoken by many at Purdue, who was helpful with that outreach. And another member still has weekly Bible studies with some internationals.

And long before we were hearing much about Ukraine and Russia and Belarus and that part of the world, students were coming from those countries and many others and hearing the Good News of Christ in our church at Purdue.

In short, the prayer that is in Psalm 67 is being answered in Christ our Savior and even in our own community, as we keep praying and witnessing and sharing our Lord and His Word. As we close, we pray, as the prayer of Psalm 67 says: “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us, that His Way in Christ may be known to more and more people on earth and His saving power among all nations. Let all the peoples praise You, O God. Let all the peoples praise You." Amen.