“Our Mother”
Rev. Rolf Preus| The Fourth Sunday in Lent| March 15, 2026| Galatians 4:26
“But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.”
We pray to our Father in heaven every day. Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father.” We call God Father because by the merits of his Son Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit we have been made children of God. Only a Christian can call God Father. That’s because only a Christian is a child of God. St. Paul explains. He writes in Galatians 3:26-27, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” One is not born into this world a child of God. One is born in sin, as the Psalmist says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” Psalm 51:5 We were, as St. Paul says in Ephesians 2:3, “children of wrath.” The notion that all people are born children of God is a false teaching. The Bible teaches that we are born under the power of the devil. Listen to the words from the baptism liturgy from our hymnal,
The Word of God also teaches that we are all conceived and born sinful and are under the power of the devil until Christ claims us as His own. We would be lost forever unless delivered from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation. (LSB 268)
One of the reasons we baptize babies is because babies are born sinful and in baptism God forgives us our sins. Jesus teaches us that we are born again through baptism. He told Nicodemus that he had to be born of water and the Spirit to enter the kingdom of God. We are born enslaved to sin and the devil. In baptism, God washes us in the blood of Jesus, we put on Christ, we are forgiven of our sin, filled with the Holy Spirit, and born again.
Sad to say, many churches refuse to baptize babies. Do you know why? If you ask them, they will always begin to answer you by saying, “Babies can’t . . .” Babies can’t. Do you understand what they are saying when they say, “babies can’t?” They’re saying there is something you can do. And they’re wrong. There’s nothing you can do. Denying baptism to babies is one way that people deny that we are saved by God’s grace alone. If babies can’t do it and we can do it, we can do what is necessary to be saved. But the Bible says that you are not saved by doing what you can do. Salvation is by grace alone. Not by works. You aren’t saved by doing what you can do.
Today’s Epistle Lesson makes this crystal clear. The apostle contrasts two opposing religions. They’ve stood in opposition to each other since the beginning of time. They are the religion of works and the religion of faith. The religion of works is the religion of the flesh. The religion of faith is the religion of the Holy Spirit. The religion of the flesh is slavery. The religion of the Holy Spirit is freedom.
You know the story. God promised Abraham a son, but Sarah couldn’t conceive. So, Sarah gave her slave, Hagar, to Abraham so that he could have a son through her. Sarah figured that since Hagar was her slave, Hagar’s child would be hers as well. Hagar conceived and gave birth to Ishmael, giving Abraham his first-born son. Later, God fulfilled his promise to Sarah that she would have a son. Isaac was born. Even though Isaac was the child born of promise, as he grew up, he was persecuted by his older half-brother, Ishmael. Sarah demanded that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away, which he did.
This is history. It’s also an allegory. An illustration. Hagar symbolizes the religion of the flesh. Ishmael was born in a purely natural way. Sarah symbolizes the religion of the Spirit. Isaac was born because of the promise. As you know, Sarah was way past childbearing years. It was biologically impossible for her to conceive. But God’s promise doesn’t care about what’s possible. If God promises it, it will happen regardless of whether it is possible. The religion of the flesh is the religion of works. The flesh does what the flesh can do and all it ever amounts to is flesh. The flesh is impotent to save. It can only die. The works done by those who don’t have the promise and don’t have the Spirit are dead works done by the spiritually dead and they gain nothing but death. We see this today in the religion of Islam, which claims that Ishmael, not Isaac, was Abraham’s legitimate heir. Islam is a religion of dead works that can provide only death.
The Christian religion is the religion of faith, the religion of the Spirit, the religion of the promise. St. Paul illustrates the differences between the religion of the flesh and the religion of the Spirit by saying that the physical Mt. Sinai – which stands for the law – corresponded to the physical Jerusalem of his day, to the religion of the Jews who rejected Jesus. All they have is the law. Like the Muslims, they have only the religion of the flesh. All manmade religions are of the flesh. Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
We are not the children of Mt. Sinai. The law cannot save a single soul. We are not the children of physical Jerusalem. Jerusalem is in bondage to the law. We are the children of heavenly Jerusalem. As Paul wrote, “The Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.” The heavenly Jerusalem is the holy Christian Church. Even as God is our Father, the church is our mother.
It is to the church that Christ promised the Holy Spirit. He breathed on his disciples, gave them the Holy Spirit, and gave them the power of the keys: to forgive and retain sins. It is to the church that he gave the ministry of the Word, to preach the gospel and administer his sacraments. He gave baptism to his church. He gave the Lord’s Supper to his church. He gave the treasures of salvation to his church. The church is our mother because it was from the church that we received these lifegiving gifts from God.
Don’t diss the church! We’re talking about the bride of Christ! Jesus won’t tolerate disrespect against his holy bride. Don’t set aside the church as if you don’t need her. You need her because you need what she has. The Holy Spirit calls you out of depending on the flesh to depending on the promise and by giving you the new birth he makes you a member of the church. When you are baptized, you can call God Father. And whoever has God as Father must also have the church as mother.
If you want to be my friend, you’re going to show respect to my wife. If you want to be a friend of Jesus, you’re going to show respect to his church. I belong to my wife. Jesus belongs to his church. Everything I own belongs to my wife. Everything Jesus owns belongs to his church.
It is either the law or the promise. It is either the flesh or the Spirit. It is either slavery or freedom. Christ’s church has the promise, the Spirit, and true freedom. Outside of the church there is only law, no gospel, only the flesh, no Spirit, only slavery, no freedom. Outside the church there is no salvation because those treasures by which the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies his people are given to the church and to the church alone. These treasures belong to Christ’s bride, our mother, the church. They do not belong to the civic organization, the lodge, the civil government, or any other human institution. The Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother.
The heavenly Jerusalem is here on earth. Where is she? How can we know that we have found her and are a part of her? How does God call you to faith? The Holy Spirit calls you to faith. Where is the Holy Spirit? He is where God’s promise is proclaimed. And where is God’s promise proclaimed? Where the gospel is preached purely and the sacraments are administered according to the gospel. “My sheep hear my voice,” Jesus said. And so, we Lutherans confess in the Smalcald Articles, “Thank God, today a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd.” SA III XII
We don’t look for the church to find the gospel. We look for the gospel to find the church. Where is God’s Word taught in its truth and purity? That’s the church. The church is where the Holy Spirit exposes the false religion of the flesh that depends on the law for salvation and is spiritual slavery and reveals the true religion of the promise of forgiveness of sins that gives freedom. To depend on the law for your salvation is to ask God to curse you. It is to embrace slavery. St. Paul warns the Galatians (5:1) to “stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Those who trust in the law are slaves. Those who trust in the gospel are free. Through faith in the gospel God justifies you. He reckons you to be righteous for Christ’s sake. This sets you free. Your conscience is at peace. You’re free to obey God, not by threat, but from a sincere heart. Where this promise is proclaimed, there is the Holy Spirit, the true faith, and the one holy, Christian, and apostolic church.
The church is here, brothers and sisters. It is here because we have the pure gospel and we have the true sacraments of Christ and these are the means through which the Holy Spirit gives us the new birth and sustains us in the true faith. The church is here at St. John’s/Trinity Lutheran Church. Not because we are so pious, or good, or obedient, or spiritually attractive. But because here the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies his church on earth.
We must not confuse the church with a political structure. While the church will be associated with denominations with constitutions, rules, procedures, structures, and such, the church mustn’t be confused with such things. The church doesn’t live by humanly devised structures. It lives on God’s Word, which is the voice of the Holy Spirit. The Christian church that is the mother of all Christians is not any visible religious denomination. Not the Roman Catholic Church, not the Eastern Orthodox Church, not any Protestant church, not the Lutheran Church, and not even the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. The church is the assembly of the saints, as we confess in the Creed, “I believe in the holy Christian church, the communion of saints.” It is all those and only those who have been delivered from the religion of relying on the law for salvation and have been born from above by the power of the Holy Spirit to trust in the promise of eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the Savior. These people make up the church. It is faith alone that makes one a member of Christ’s church. Since God alone can see faith, we sometimes call the church invisible. Only God knows exactly who belongs to his church.
But the fact that we cannot see faith does not mean that we cannot know where the Holy Spirit is calling people to faith and keeping them in the faith. It is where his gospel is purely preached and where his sacraments are rightly administered. This is how we know that the church is here.
Some folks think they can hold onto their faith while refusing to attend church services. Maybe. For a while. But sooner or later the old sinful flesh that trusts in its own sinful deeds instead of the blood and righteousness of Jesus will take over the heart of those who neglect hearing God’s Word and receiving Christ’s sacraments. The freedom we Christians enjoy has a price. We don’t pay it. Christ did. It’s the price of his holy obedience. It’s the price of his agony, bloody sweat, and suffering for the sin of the world. Jesus took on the form of a slave to pay the price for our freedom. Through the Holy Spirit, he promises us freedom from our sin. That gospel is preached in the church. That’s why we go to church.
Others think that it doesn’t matter what church they attend because all churches are the same. That’s not true. Many churches say little if anything about what Jesus did to save us. If they don’t preach this, what do they preach? The church is not a building. It is not a label. It is not a human organization formed by religious people of goodwill. The church is our mother! She has the treasures of Christ. And any gathering of religious people that does not give to those who attend the treasures of Christ is not a church at all.
Thank God for preserving for us here in this place this Christian congregation. Ignored, battered, scorned, she is beautiful in God’s sight. For here he has called us out of darkness. He has enabled us to repudiate our flesh and the religion of trusting in our works, and has sparked in our hearts faith in the gospel of the forgiveness of all our sins for the sake of Christ’s obedience and suffering. Here the Spirit of Christ has set us free. He has justified us by Christ’s blood. Here is our home, with our true mother and our true Father.
Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine!
Never was love, dear King, never was grief like Thine.
This is my friend, in whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend. Amen