Sermon for The Tenth Sunday after Trinity, August 9, 2026.
In the words of Toby Keith, “I’m oilfield trash, and proud as I can be.”
It’s true. I am. And when I worked in the oilfield, there was a phrase my boss said all the time. We worked long, hard hours. He encouraged us to remember what we were working for. I’m sure some of you have heard the phrase a lot, and some of you have probably said it yourself.
“Work hard. Play hard.”
But if you stop and think about it, it’s a horribly shallow lifestyle slogan.
Work hard. Make money. The harder the work, the more money you make.
Play hard. Spend the money you worked hard to make on what makes you happy.
This isn’t a good motto to live by.
It’s the worldview of short-sighted people who will, unless they change their perspective, spend eternity in the fires of hell, to be frank.
Why?
What’s missing from a life that’s defined by “work hard, play hard”?
Christ. Christianity. There’s no room left for faith in the crucifixion of the Son of God.
If all you do is work and play, when do you listen to the Word of God?
In Luke 10, Martha was working hard while her sister, Mary, sat, listening to Jesus. Martha tried to get Jesus to tell her sister to get up and get to work, but He didn’t. Instead, He commended Mary for having the one thing needful: the Word of life.
If you work to play, when do you receive Christ’s absolution for your sins? When do you have time to kneel at His altar and receive the fruit of His hard work, His Body and Blood given and shed for you?
If your life moves from the work week to weekend playtime, something inevitably gets left out of the rhythm of your life.
The most important thing, the one thing that you actually need if you are to live forever: Jesus Christ crucified, sacrificed for you.
Not just hearing about Jesus’ death and resurrection, not mentally acknowledging it as a concept, or an historical fact, but actually receiving the grace of God through the means that He established—the proclamation of His Word, Holy Baptism, and the Lord’s Sacrament of the Altar.
The readings today point out something that goes along with the modern “work hard, play hard” idea, or any other lifestyle that makes little-to-no room for Christ.
In the Luke 19 reading, Jesus wept over Jerusalem because even though it was God’s city, the people didn’t know the things that make for peace; that is, they didn’t know that Jesus is God, the Savior, come to redeem His people.
The people were hypocrites.
They said they knew God, but when He showed up, they didn’t recognize Him. Instead, they rejected Him. They killed Him.
Being a Christian is more than just saying you’re a Christian. There’s truth and substance to the Christian identity. Jerusalem rejected Jesus, and so God allowed her enemies to destroy her.
This will be the fate of everyone who says he’s a Christian, but in fact, is not—the people who spend their lives chasing money and fun. Which is another way of saying the people who don’t have time for Jesus, for gathering where He promised to be present with us…. Church.
In our Jeremiah reading, the Lord asks, “Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return,” (Jer. 8:5).
The people weren’t speaking rightly. No one was relenting of his evil, and everyone was turning to his own course, just doing his own thing.
Sounds like today, doesn’t it?
Even those who call themselves Christian sin without remorse. They don’t repent but refuse to return to the Lord. They just do their own thing, living in the false sense of security that they’re all good, because of Jesus.
The third Commandment is to honor the sabbath day by keeping it holy, yet how many of us use this Holy Day as a day for self-serving pleasure, doing what we want with it?
It’s sinful to not be in Church when you could be. To put something else, anything else before God.
I think about how so many modern American Christians grumble about going to church; how many of us would rather do anything else?
I think about the amount of effort it takes some of you to get your spouses and kids to come with you to be in the presence of Christ, to receive His Word and Sacrament, and I shudder. What does it reveal about their hearts? That they despise God. That’s the truth.
Like last week’s unrighteous steward, we’ve turned mammon into our idol, working hard so we can play hard, so we can buy all our toys and go on all our trips. We’re adult children. Self-serving. Living life simply to feed our desires, to get what we want. We’re a society of preschoolers.
We’re supposed to be wise. We’re supposed to know better than the world. So how come we always want to live like the sinful world?
We’re supposed to teach our children how to live well, not according to the world, but according to Christ. Do we do that? Or do we teach them to be just like the unrepentant sinners that actually shape our lives?
The older the Christian, the wiser we ought to expect him to be. Are we wise?
“How can you say, ‘We are wise” when our wisdom amounts to work hard, play hard?
Jeremiah 8 says, “The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what wisdom is in them?”
Have we learned nothing from the Biblical record? From God’s Word? Do we actually live by God’s Word, or do we just give it lip service?
How many of you are hypocrites? I don’t know. I can’t see your heart. God allows the wheat and the weeds to grow together until Judgment Day.
Who among us today will be cast into the fire when Christ returns?
For decades, if not an entire century, the church has adopted and accepted the false gospel of complacency and niceness.
Pastors after World War II didn’t want to speak too harshly to people. What if the frank Word of God drove people away? The church was relocated to a social hall full of smiles and sweet nothings. It became an effeminate shell of Biblical Christianity.
Our pastors turned into the prophets and priests described in Jeremiah 8, “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, [that is to say, not properly. They put a band-aid on a mortal wound] saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”
In Romans 10, Paul describes the heart condition that plagues too many who call themselves Christian: “For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness” (Rom. 10:3).
“I’m a Christian. I work hard to play hard, and in both I neglect my Lord Jesus Christ. But you know, I still call myself a Christian, so it’s all good.”
“Peace, peace…” but friend, there is no peace in that. Not in self-deception. Not in the ways of the world.
So, repent of being Christian in name only. Of putting work and play before the one thing needful, Jesus Christ.
Christian, in Him you will find true peace, rich and restful. Substantive. Jesus forgives you, friend, not so you can use your freedom for evil, but because He loves you.
“For Christ is the… righteousness to everyone who believes.”
If you’re like me, you’re a sinner. You’ve failed to keep God’s Law. This is why Christ is our righteousness. He is the end of the Law. It’s fulfillment. He is your righteousness by faith.
Not because you do everything perfectly. Not because you succeed in always doing what is right in God’s eyes—we don’t.
This is why Jesus died. He knows exactly what makes for peace. His perfect life under the Law of God. His gracious death on the cross as our propitiation. His forgiving Word of mercy proclaimed right now and every time you come to church. Baptism into His life, death, and resurrection, and the delicious distribution of His death-defying body and soul-saving blood in the supper of His Sacrament of the Altar.
Christian, Jesus is your righteousness.
He is the one thing needful, and you have Him.
Peace is yours in Christ Jesus. He has lived for you, died for you, and was raised for you.
We have no choice but to live in this world and with the world. It’s true.
“But we are not to deteriorate along with the world, nor are we to participate in its evil activities.” (Rev. C.F.W. Walther)
We participate in the life of Jesus Christ. We’re Christians. He has given us His name. He has baptized us into that name, and having died for you, He gives you His crucified Body and Blood to eat and drink, that you would be united with Him. It’s true. You are.
God be praised. He has made you His own. He has forgiven you your sins!
Amen!
Rev. Tyrel Bramwell 
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