Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.

Direct us now, O gracious Lord, to hear aright your Holy Word.
Assist your minister to preach, and let the Holy Spirit teach.
Let eternal life be found by all who hear the Gospel sound.  Amen.

There is something about having a child that changes your perspective on the world.  Before we had our first son, Isaiah, I drove in the cities.  I didn’t have any problems with traffic.  But that first night home from the hospital, it was white knuckle driving with my son in the back seat.  I realized I wasn’t just driving for me or for me and my wife but now there was this precious child in the back.  I was not just here for me, but now I was here for them.

I also learned that lesson later on that week.  I’m embarrassed to say this but when we were first married, we had that child, I thought I could say to my wife, “You know, that diaper changing thing?  That’s your department.”  Of course I didn’t say it that way and of course it was coming from a heart that was saying “My stomach is really kind of squeamish.  I don’t think I could take it.”  Anyway, I said that to her and she was awesome and said “Okay” and she did it and I watched her take care of our son.  I watched her when tired and worn out from her hospital stay and giving birth to this child.  I watched her get up.  I felt her get up in the middle of the night.  And I think it was the second night when we were home that she gave me the elbow and said “Could you please change him?”  So I got up, because I recognized how much she had gone through.  I got up and I put my son on a changing table and it was the worst diaper I have ever seen.  And then suddenly I thought “Okay, I can do this.  I can change his diaper.”  Again, you learn you’re not made for you.  You are made for them.  You are their parent now.  That’s what you’re there for.  You are there to care for them, not just physically but also spiritually as you share God’s Word.

If you’ve gone through the Book Club on Sunday night, looking through the book Vocation, if you read that book, if you’ve thought about this concept of vocation, you recognize that God puts you on this earth for others.  In all of the vocations and callings, it’s not just for you.  It’s for them.  Like a farmer plants seed and produces a crop or produces a product of milk, it’s not just for them individually but for the world.  Police officers, nurses, doctors, not just for them, it’s for you.  It’s for others.  

The same is true when it comes to the Word of God.  The Word of God isn’t just for you.  It’s also for them.  In fact, God made you to speak His Word to them.  That’s the unexpected truth that we have today.  

Ezekiel was living in Babylon during the time that the people of Judah were carried off into Babylon into exile.  He was a priest.  He was a man, assumingly without a vocation.  He didn’t have a temple servant but God called him and says “I am making you a watchman.”  A watchman in the Old Testament was someone who was standing there and was part of the communication process.  If there was news to be shared with the city, the watchman was the one who was part of that communication process.  The messenger was coming, running from far away, saying “The enemy is coming!  The enemy is coming!  Get ready!   Get ready!”  The watchman has to go and warn the rest of the city and say “The enemy is coming!  Get ready!  Get ready!”  Or if there was good news, “The battle has been won!” or “Victorious!” and then he announces that also to the city as he is part of the communication process.

Ezekiel was called to do that and in our text for today, it is right after the fall of Jerusalem.  The temple where Ezekiel wanted to serve was destroyed.  And God comes to Ezekiel and says, “I need you, a watchman for the people of Israel.”  He re-establishes, resets Ezekiel and says “Nope.  You’re still going to be my watchman.  You still have this job of speaking my Word to others.”  

Do you ever wonder why God doesn’t speak from Mount Saini?  Why He doesn’t just thunder all the time?  Why doesn’t He just speak to us directly?  Why does He send us other people to share God’s Word with us?  Do you ever consider that God speaking from Mount Saini or speaking directly is a very rare thing?  Throughout all of history, God has had this vocation, not just of prophets but of people speaking the Word to others.  The Word isn’t just for you.  It’s also for them.  

As you consider the vocations that God has placed you in, parent, child, employer, employee, so on and so forth, you are called to serve others.  You are God’s hands in this world and in this society, but you are also God’s voice.  It isn’t just the pastor’s job to share God’s Word, to warn and to comfort.  It isn’t just the teacher’s job to share God’s Word, to warn and to comfort.  It isn’t the Sunday school teacher’s job to share Gods Word, to warn and to comfort.  We have His Word to share and to comfort.  

“I’m not very good at this.  I’m not very good at sitting my family around the table.  I’m scared to open the Bible and read it with my kids or to pray in front of my children.  Why don’t you send someone else?”  God says to you and to me, “I made you for them.  I will give you the words to speak.”  And He does.  

The last two weeks or so now, my mom’s health went down fast.  She passed away last Tuesday.  Her funeral was yesterday.  So there were a lot of opportunities for me to be a receiving organ as people shared His Words with me.  I think I’m one of the minority of pastors who actually appreciates sitting in the pew and listening to another pastor preach, not because I’m sitting there judging whether I like their style or not or whether I would have made that point that they made, but I like to sit in the pew because I know for that moment, whether I like how they are saying it or whether I’m critiquing all the little ticks that they are doing, I know that God, in that moment, has that person there to speak His Word to me.  And after the last two weeks of hearing people speak God’s Word to me, let me tell you, it’s awesome because you know a lot of the things that they are saying but you recognize God has called them to speak this Word to you.  God made them for you, to share, to be a part of this communication process, to share with you the comfort that comes from His Word.  And God uses that.  Awkward as it might be, He uses that to create and strengthen faith because at the end of the day, God cares.  

God cares.  You see that in our text when He gives that warning.  He says “If there is somebody and you don’t warn them, Ezekiel, I’m going to hold you accountable.  They are going to die for their sin, but I’m holding you accountable.”  Why does God say that?  Why is God being so scorched earth and saying He’s willing to take out the people in the communication process?  It’s because He cares.  It’s not about the warning, it’s about the comfort that comes after the warning—the good news of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, of forgiveness that comes through Him.  God wants to share this with the world, so He doesn’t care if you’re one of the 99.  He is going after the 1.  He cares about wicked people.  He cares about you.  He cares about me.  So He will bring people into their lives to share His Word.  Warnings, yes, but also comfort.  

I think there’s a lesson there for us to learn because sometimes we think of God’s Word as some sort of academic exercise.  “If people just knew the Word, if they were smart like me, they would do the things that I do.  They would come to church.  They would receive the Lord’s Supper.  If they just knew that information, otherwise they are just plain stupid!”  God cares and He is using His Word, and His Word works through clay vessels like you and me.

His Word works to work faith and strengthen faith.  Our problem is oftentimes we just don’t care.  We are not patient.  We don’t really want the wicked people to be saved.  We just want to be right.  

God cares.  That’s why He says to Ezekiel, “Go to these Israelites.  Go to these wicked people.  You have to warn them.”  But He’s telling Ezekiel, “This is exactly how they are feeling in their hearts.  11Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.  Turn!  Turn from your evil ways!  Why will you die, people of Israel?’”  You see and hear a God who is dependent on His Word to turn them.  He’s not dependent on His intelligence.  He’s not dependent on His power.  He is dependent on His Word.  “Turn!  Turn from your evil ways!”  There is a God who has trust that His Word will work when it comes from people who care, who share His Word with others.  God made you for them.

We can’t talk about this without talking about Jesus because Jesus, in His incarnation as a little baby in Bethlehem, and the 33-year-old who is standing there at the Jordan River, God says to that 33-year-old, “I made you for them:  that you would live a perfect life, that you would speak my Word, that you would die for the wicked, and that your death would pay for all of their sins.”  God made Christ for them and for us because we are sinners who think it is somebody else’s job and who don’t really truly care.  And He died for us to take our sins away and create a new heart inside of us that does care, because it isn’t our heart.  It is the heart of Christ who is still calling out in 2026, “Turn!  Turn from your evil ways!  I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked…”  God still makes people for other people.  He still is creating that communication chain so that God’s Word would be spoken to you and that you would also speak it to others.  God made us for each other.  God made us for them.  Amen.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7) Amen.