How many people are too few for a mid-week Advent service? Last week we only had six. Tonight it’s... On a human level one might conclude that there aren’t enough to continue with such services, that this good work should just come to an end, as it seems to be no longer successful. In our culture numbers are important. The more popular something is, the better it is, the more worthwhile it is, the more it’s taken as a sign that God is working through it. And yet, the Scriptures are constantly showing us that God chooses the weak, the small, the insignificant, and the few to do His good work. It was only eight that He saved in the ark. It was only four that He rescued from Sodom and Gomorrah. And Jesus promises that where there are only two or three gathered together in His Name there He is in their midst.
Tonight we are given to rejoice in the fact that God will finish the good work that He started in us, no matter what our numbers might be, no matter how unsuccessful our services might appear, because with God it’s not about how many are saved, but about Him keeping His Word. Yes, God wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth. He is unwilling that any should perish but that all should repent. And yet, only a fraction of mankind will be saved in the end. Jesus tells His disciples that the last days will be like the days of Noah. He even asks this rather ominous rhetorical question, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” Jesus refers to His Church as a “little flock” and teaches His disciples to “enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” All of these references and more inform us that the number of those who will be saved will be few. And yet, no matter how few they might be (even if there were only eight, as in the days of Noah), God will remain faithful to His promises. He will complete the good work that He began in you until the day of Jesus Christ, until His coming, even if you were the last Christians on earth.
God doesn’t give up just because the numbers are low. Even if the number was one, that one is of infinite value and worth to Him, as He purchased that one at the cost of His Son. It was the gift of His Son that was the beginning of His good work for you. We celebrate that good work this time of the year, as we rejoice that God sent His Son in human flesh to be born of a virgin, born under the Law, in order to redeem us who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. His good work continued as Jesus perfectly fulfilled God’s Law, cast out demons, healed the sick, raised the dead, and forgave people their sins during His earthly ministry. His good work culminated on the cross of Calvary, where He gave His life and shed His blood as the perfect sacrifice for your sins. There, regardless of how many or how few would believe in Him, He was the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world. There on the cross God finished His good work of reconciling the world to Himself in Jesus. Christ’s resurrection from the dead was God’s sign to the world that Jesus had indeed become its perfect Savior, having overcome sin, death, and the devil once for all.
But this good work would have been lost and forgotten, had God not made a way for it to be delivered to you. And so He provided for the proclamation of this good work through the office of the holy ministry. He put His Word about our Savior and His good work into the mouths of His Apostles and Pastors, so that they might proclaim to you the forgiveness of your sins through faith in Jesus Christ. It was when this Word, this Gospel, first had its way with you, whether it was by way of your Baptism or through the hearing of it when you were older, that God began His good work of salvation in you. Through Baptism and the Word He began the good work of giving you Jesus and all the benefits of His good work for you, bringing you to faith in Him, forgiving you all your sins, granting you eternal life, adopting you as His child, and giving you His Holy Spirit, just to name a few of the good things God has already delivered to you.
But tonight’s epistle text comforts us with the promise that not only did God begin this good work in you, but that He continues this good work in you today and will bring it about to completion on the day Jesus returns for you. This does not mean that you’re only half saved or nearly saved. God doesn’t do things in fractions. You have eternal life right now. Right now you are a child of God. Right now you are perfectly holy, righteous, and blameless in Jesus. God has saved you in Christ, and there’s nothing that either He or you needs to add to that salvation. But though we are in possession of this salvation by faith now, we don’t yet see it face to face. We have it promised and sealed to us by the Holy Spirit, who is our deposit guaranteeing our inheritance to come, but we still live in this present evil age, an age in which the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh still attack us on a daily basis, in order to try to steal our salvation from us. This requires perseverance and endurance in the faith, holding fast to our Savior and His salvation until He comes for us.
Well, if this were up to us, we wouldn’t stand for a minute. But God doesn’t save you and then sit back to watch you struggle against these adversaries all on your own. He doesn’t begin the good work of your salvation in you, only to let you finish it. Your salvation from beginning to end is all God’s work and none of your own. Through the very means by which He began the good work of saving you - His Word and His Sacraments, He will keep you in the faith and work the perseverance and endurance in you necessary, in order for you to stand firm in the faith until the end. We will not be able to boast in ourselves or anything we did to keep ourselves in the faith when we stand before our Lord on the Last Day. All the glory goes to Him alone. It’s His good work that He began in you and it’s His good work that He will complete in you. As the Apostle Paul writes, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
And that’s what we are doing here today - boasting in the Lord and His good work of saving us in His Son, Jesus Christ. Our boasting may not be that loud, it may not sound very professional, and it may be the boasting of just a few, but it is a boasting that results from the Lord’s good work of salvation in us as He delivers His Son to us. With His promise that He will complete what He began in us, we take comfort in knowing that we are safe in our Father’s hands and that nothing can separate us from His love for us in Jesus Christ. “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.” Amen.