Forgiving As We've Been Forgiven

[This (except for the final paragraph, which I completely neglected to deliver) was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Genesis 50:15-21
In today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew, Jesus was asked by His disciple Peter, how often he should forgive others, “as many as seven times?” Peter thought that he was being very liberal in couching his question in this way. To forgive someone as many as seven times, Peter felt, was the height of patience and kindness.

But Jesus rocks Peter’s world (and ours) when He says that we're to forgive others not seven times, but “Seventy-seven times” or, as some translations put it, “seventy times seven times” or even “seventy times seventy times.”

Whatever the precise phrasing Jesus used, His meaning is clear. Jesus was telling Peter, “Just as there’s no limit to how much I forgive all who repent and believe in me, there should be no limit to your forgiveness of others.”

This isn’t the only time that Jesus said that those who want the forgiveness and new life He came to give to all who repent and believe in Him must forgive others. pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 554 to find Matthew 6:14-15. There, Jesus says,

For if you forgive [people] their trespasses [their sins against you], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive [others] their trespasses [against you], neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. [New King James Version]

If you’re anything like me (and maybe you’re not), the thought that my unwillingness to forgive others for what they’ve done to me in just the same way Jesus forgives me, is daunting.

And when I consider that Jesus says we actually block His forgiveness and life with Him from our lives by failing to forgive, I feel…uncomfortable.

But Jesus’ command that we forgive is more than a stern dictate. You see, forgiving others is also a gift from God that can set us free for living life to the full.

Our first lesson for this morning, Genesis 50:15-21, shows us how this is so. Please pull out the Celebrate inserts and turn to the first lesson.

You know the story of Joseph well. This Joseph, of course, isn’t the one who, nearly two-thousand years later, would be chosen by God to be the earthly father of God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth. At an early age, this Joseph angered his brothers because their father Jacob so favored Joseph and because Joseph reported dreams God had given to him indicating that one day, he would be an important ruler and his brothers would bow to him.

The brothers’ resentments simmered until it reached a tragic boiling point: They sold Joseph into slavery and convinced Jacob that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.

Joseph’s circumstances seemed to go from bad to worse. He became the slave and eventually the supervisor of all the holdings of Potiphar, one of Egypt’s most powerful generals, only to be falsely accused of attempting to rape Potiphar’s wife, who had been disappointed when Joseph refused to have an affair with her. Joseph long languished in prison.

Eventually, Joseph was delivered from prison and, gifted by God with both the ability to interpret dreams and lead an organization, he led a massive rationing program that saved millions from death by starvation when a famine hit.

You remember how his brothers, not knowing who Joseph was, came to Egypt seeking to buy food and how eventually, Joseph was reunited with his father and how God used Jacob to save God’s people, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, the Jewish people, from extinction.

This, of course, was important for all of us because it was through the Jewish people, specifically through Jesus, that salvation would become possible for all who repent and believe in Him.

But our lesson takes place after Joseph’s reunion with his father. Jacob and all of his sons and their families had lived in Egypt with Joseph for a while when Jacob died.

There are two scenes recounted in the lesson. Scene #1 comes in verse 15. Jacob has died and Joseph’s brothers are in a panic. Now that Jacob is dead the brothers are sure that, at long last, Joseph would have his revenge for the years of agony he had endured because of their sin against him. The brothers ask each other, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?”

Joseph’s brothers were cynical, self-centered men and they couldn’t imagine that Joseph was any different. They projected their own evil ways of thinking and living onto Joseph. People still spend a lot of time projecting their own faults onto others. It's one of the biggest causes of misunderstandings and alienation between people.

So, afraid for their lives, the brothers concoct a phony story to tell Joseph. We read about it and everything that Joseph said and did in response to it in Scene #2 of our lesson, verses 16 through 21. The brothers tell Joseph that, just before he died, their father Jacob had directed them to tell Joseph not to exact vengeance on them for their sins against him.

Our lesson tells us that when Joseph heard his brothers' story, he wept. It reminds me of the day Jesus wept in Bethany many centuries later. That happened right after the death of Jesus' friend, Lazarus. When Jesus arrived in Lazarus' village, he found everyone weeping with despair. I'm sure that one Jesus wept was from grief over the death of His friend. But I feel equally certain that Jesus wept over the utter hopelessness of the whole village of Bethany. Until Jesus called Lazarus back to life, everybody there seemed to think that resurrection was too good to be true.

In the same way, Joseph's brothers found it hard to believe that Joseph could possibly forgive them for what they had done. That's why they wept. They clearly didn't know nor understand Joseph.

Look at his response to his brothers in verse 19 (read it aloud with me, please): “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.” Though I’ve read them many times, I always find Joseph’s words here breathtaking!

Please notice several things about what he says.

First: Joseph sees his brothers kneeling before him and, even though this was exactly what the dreams he’d had as a boy told him would happen, he didn’t like it. Only God should be treated like God.

Bowing and scraping to human beings is what slaves of human masters do. Only God deserves such submissiveness.

Joseph insisted that he wouldn’t take God’s place.

You know, when someone hurts us, a reflex response goes off in our brains. A part of us seems to think that it’s only our due that the offending party will, in some way, come crawling to us for forgiveness. Joseph remembered that no matter what sins others perpetrate against us, God is really the One most hurt and offended by human sin.

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay” God says in His Word.*

Though Jesus entrusts the Church with the responsibility of declaring God’s forgiveness to the repentant and the opposite to the unrepentant, we aren’t in the vengeance business.

We must trust God to sort things out. That’s what Joseph did.

The second thing to notice is that Joseph could see God at work even in the midst of his pain. It was his connection with God that allowed him to forgive his brothers.

None of us can forgive others and be free of resentments that can destroy our happiness without God’s help and empowerment.

Essayist Alexander Pope famously said, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” In other words, forgiving those who hurt us is foreign to human nature. The ability to forgive others is a divine attribute, something of which only God is capable.

As Christians though, we confess that God works and lives within us. As Paul puts it in Galatians, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” You can't forgive others their trespasses against you. But Christ in you can!

Christ lives in you because you are a baptized believer in Him. Think of what that means for your everyday life! Even on the cross, Jesus Christ was able to pray for those who were killing Him and crying for His blood, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Five years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, a mere human being who followed Jesus and had Christ living within him, Stephen, could pray as he was being stoned to death for his faith in Christ, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Christ lived in him and even as Stephen died, he gave a witness for the one who had changed his life for eternity.

By the way, Christ living within us can also help us to forgive ourselves. Much of my counseling through the years has been with people who suspect that their sins are too terrible for God to forgive. Remember Jesus’ words to Nicodemus? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son [Jesus] so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Everyone includes you.

The Bible says, “if you confess with your lips and believe with your heart that God has raised [Jesus] from the dead, you will be saved.”

When you believe in the God revealed in Jesus—the God of the Old and New Testaments, you can forgive others because you know that in Jesus, nothing can separate you from God and His love for you. And you can forgive yourself too, for this very same reason.

The most New Testament Greek work for forgive literally means, release. Forgiveness is releasing, letting go of all pretense of being God and instead, trusting God to deal with whatever punishments need to meted out against those who sin against us.

When we forgive others, God releases us to live with Him always.

Holding a grudge is like holding your breath for an extended period of time. As long as you do it, you can’t expel the toxins of bitterness and anxiety and you can’t breathe in the fresh air of God’s Holy Spirit.

If Joseph hadn’t trusted in God to release His grudges and hold onto God through bad and good times, there is no way he could fulfill the good purposes He wanted to fulfill in Joseph’s life.

God can do so much in the lives of people who surrender everything, even their anger and sorrow over the hurts, insults, slights, and horrible injuries others have inflicted on them.

God will do nothing in the lives of people who block His grace by refusing to forgive others.

If you’ve come here this morning holding a grudge against anybody, I invite you to lay it at the foot of Jesus’ cross right now and let God set you free to live the life you were made for!

*In Romans 12:19, Paul paraphrases several different passages of the Old Testament, including Deuteronomy 32:35, Leviticus 19:18, and Psalm 34:1.

Keeping Your Gold Medal

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]


Matthew 10:40-42
Imagine for just a second that you’ve turned on your TV to watch the opening ceremonies for the Olympics.

This is always a popular event. Athletes from around the world march into a stadium for the official starts of the games.

But imagine, for just a second, a different kind of opening ceremony this time. On the field are row after row of pedestals, all of equal height. At the appointed time, just as always, all the athletes march into the stadium. But today, all of them stand on a podium and every single one of them, before a single game, quarter, period, match, bout, round, scrimmage, or scrum has happened, receive gold medals.

Every single athlete.

Then imagine the announcer saying, “You’ve already received your medals. You don’t have to play to win them. The goal of these games is to play so that you don’t lose your reward.”

Grace, God’s undeserved favor, God’s charitable action for us to save us from sin and death and to give us life with Him for eternity, is a reward we cannot earn.

It’s a gold medal God wins for us.

The New Testament book of Romans says that “God proves his love for us, in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

Before we even knew we needed a Savior, Christ died and rose for us.

Before most of us were aware of it, we were claimed by God in Baptism as His very own children.

Salvation, eternal life, the promises of Christ to be with us—all these things are ours not because of any good thing we have done, but simply because God has acted for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Life for the Christian is about keeping the prize—the reward—we’ve already been given.

Today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew comes at the end of what scholars call Jesus’ missionary discourse. It takes up all of Matthew 10.

Jesus is sending His disciples throughout their native Judea with “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.”

They’re to proclaim the good news of new life that comes only through Jesus.

Most of Matthew 10 is taken up with Jesus telling the disciples how they’re to conduct themselves while on their mission. But in our verses, Jesus tells them (and all of us who follow Christ) what’s at stake for those who have the choice of receiving or rejecting the people like us who share Christ with them. Nothing less than the gold medal of God’s grace is at stake.

Please pull out the Celebrate inserts from the bulletin and turn to today’s Gospel lesson. It’s short. You can read along with me as I read it again:

[Jesus says,] “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

If the Olympic athletes in our imagined opening ceremonies don’t stand on the podium, they can’t receive the gold medal. They have to be positioned to receive the reward they don’t deserve.

The only way we can receive the gold medal of God’s grace is to position ourselves in a faith relationship with Jesus Christ.

The rewards of eternal life with God come to those with faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus famously told Nicodemus, ““For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Now, it’s precisely here that we Lutheran Christians often get ourselves into trouble. We turn faith into some proposition we agree to, no different from saying things like, “I believe that rainbows are pretty,” or, “I believe that LeBron James is the greatest basketball player since Michael Jordan.” In other words, we turn belief in Christ into nothing more than intellectual assent.

But, as I’ve pointed out before, even the devil believes that Jesus is the Savior of the world. Jesus says the true believers in Him will be known by their fruits. The seed of true faith in Christ won’t sprout as sinful actions, even though on this side of the grave, you and I will never shake ourselves of our inborn human orientation to sin.

Yet, as the New Testament book of James reminds us, “Faith without works [faith without evidence of the lordship of Jesus in your life] is dead.”

To believe in Jesus—to have faith in Jesus—is to trust in Him and when we trust in Jesus, it will show up in how we live our lives.

It’ll show up in the decisions we make.

It’ll show up in the service we render in His Name and in our willingness to give a witness for Him, even in something as simple and fun as our “This meal’s on us!” kindness outreach cards.

Faith in Jesus is active reliance on Him in our lives.

I once heard what this means illustrated by the picture of a canyon across which a tightrope is strung. Born sinners, we start out lives on one side of the canyon while on the other is God and the life God wants to give to us—His presence with us today and His promise of eternity for tomorrow. There’s a shuttle that crosses the canyon. It's a man on a unicyle who tells each of us, “Climb on my back. I’ve never lost a single person. Not one. But you’ve got to trust me to get you across. I’m the only way.”

Of course, in this homely illustration, Jesus is the unicyclist and faith is our dependence on Him to take us through the often scary, tragic, hard, and unknown places of our lives, beyond death and to a resurrected life with God.

When Jesus sent the disciples out in Matthew 10, they had no idea what following Him might entail. He was inviting them to climb on His back across all the canyons of life.

They found that the life to which Jesus called them wasn’t easy. Judas, of course, bugged out and betrayed Jesus before Jesus went to the cross. Of the remaining eleven, only John lived to an old age. The rest of them lost their earthly lives taking the good news of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus into the world. They didn’t always get this discipleship thing right. But there was a direction in their lives, a purpose. Their faith was more than something they said on a Sunday morning. It was the way they lived their lives. Christ gave them the rewards of His grace before they set out on their lifelong mission of faithfulness to Christ. And by their faithful reliance on Christ, they did not lose their reward!

The same can be true for all of us, whatever our professions or social status or age.

Earlier in Matthew 10, Jesus warned the disciples that not everybody would welcome them when they lived out their faith in Him. Some would reject them. Some would persecute them. Some would kill them. Yet, He told them to persevere in their trust in Him anyway.

He tells us to do the same, even when it would be easier not to persevere in following Him.

In one of my former congregations, I was approached by a church member, a really good man, who said that he needed prayer. Competent and thorough in everything he did, he said that he’d reached a crossroads in his professional life. “Every day, Mark,” he told me, “I’m asked to do things that are shady or unethical. It’s made very clear that if I don’t do them, I not only won’t advance, I probably won’t even have a job. I’ve got a lot of years in this profession. I’ve always gotten good reviews. But I think that if I left my current position over qualms about what’s right and wrong from a faith standpoint, I wouldn’t even get a good reference. Would you pray for me?”

That man was being called by Christ to choose between the rewards offered by his career—financial security, chief among them—and the rewards of life with God already given to him at Baptism. To take Christ or kick Him away, that was his choice. That was a tough call.

If we're truly living for Christ though, we will face those kinds of tough calls often, too. Following Jesus isn’t easy. Steve Taylor, a Christian poet-musician, wrote some years back, “It’s harder to believe than not to.”

To trust in the rewards of a Savior you’ve never seen more than you trust in the rewards of things you can see, like financial security, comfort, or popularity, isn’t an easy or obvious choice. But when we come to the end of our lives and we stand before Jesus, the wisdom of living a life of holding onto the gold medal of Christ’s grace will shine through. Our Lord will look at us and say, “Well done, good and faithful slave. Inherit the kingdom God has prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” We'll know for certain then that all the things we've worked and slaved for in this life die, rot, and decay; only those filled with the new life that comes from Jesus Christ will last.

Jim Elliot was a missionary who was killed by the Waodoni people in Equador to whom he had gone to share Christ. It was only years after his death that most of the people in the place where he was martyred, including people who had murdered him, came to faith in Christ. Some would say that Elliot’s death was a waste. But he wouldn’t see it that way. Elliot’s aim was always to honor the God revealed in Jesus Christ for the reward of eternal life that comes to all with faith in Christ. He knew that those who spend their lives trying to earn the rewards (and the regard) of this world are the ones wasting their lives. As he once said of his call to live for and share Christ with others, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

You can throw away Christ’s grace by failing to trust in Him to help you live for Him every day of your life.

Or you can hold onto Him.

If we will hold onto Christ and follow Him in every part of our lives, we’ll experience real purpose in our lives.

If we’ll turn back to Him for forgiveness and new life every time we become aware of our sin, He will give us a lifetime of fresh starts.

And if we will devote ourselves to truly believing in and following Jesus, we will never lose our reward.

We will never lose our gold medals. Amen

Fight the Good Fight!

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
At a meeting this past week, a Lutheran clergy colleague told a group of us his theory on communicating information to people. “Just about the time you’re sick of hearing yourself say it,” he said, “is probably the same time that some people are beginning to hear what you’re saying.”

As we come to our second Bible lesson for today, we may suspect that the apostle Paul had a similar theory about communication.

• In 1 Timothy, the first letter he sent to the young pastor, Timothy, Paul wrote, “I am giving you these instructions, Timothy…in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight…” (1 Timothy 1:18). 
• Later in that first letter, Paul wrote, “Fight the good fight of the faith…” (1 Timothy 6:12)
• And in today’s lesson, without regret, Paul encourages Timothy to learn from Paul’s life, telling Timothy, even as Paul faced what he regarded as the certainty of execution for his faith in Christ, “I have fought the good fight…” (2 Timothy 4:7)

For those of us who have grown sleepy with an unchristian sentimentality over the Bible’s description of Jesus as “the Prince of peace,” all of Paul’s talk about living out faith in Christ as a “fight,” may be a bit jarring.

Don’t misunderstand! Jesus is the Prince of peace. Paul himself wrote a lot about how, in Christ, God made peace with the human race and offered us the incredible peace of knowing that all who trust in Christ belong to God forever. “All this,” Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, for example, “is from God, Who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ…” And in Ephesians, it’s written of Christ, “He is our peace.” Through Christ, we can have peace with God, with others, and even with ourselves.

But that doesn’t mean that following Jesus Christ in this world will be without its struggles.

Sometimes, those struggles will be within us, as we battle to stay faithful in the midst of experiences we can’t explain and, that we fear, are beyond our endurance.

But often those struggles will be with other people. Hold onto Jesus and you will sometimes be in conflict with others, sometimes with people you once thought were close to you.

“Do not think,” Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, “that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:34-38).

Each week here at Saint Matthew, through the words of either the Apostles' or Nicene Creeds, we confess that the God we know in Jesus Christ is the only rightful Lord and King of the universe. We confess that only Jesus is worthy of our ultimate allegiance. And we also confess that it is only through faith in Jesus Christ and repentance for sin in His Name that humanity can find joy, healing, hope, forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with our Maker Who we push our of our lives when we sin, and everlasting life.

Make confessions like these, both Jesus and Paul tell us, and you will have a fight on your hands!

And that's especially true if your faith in Jesus Christ is more than just words recited in this sanctuary on Sunday mornings.

When we dare to carry Jesus beyond these walls, we may find ourselves in a fight or two.

When we dare to love the unlovable or forgive the unpardonable, we will offend people and get a fight. But even in the face of resistance, we must ask God for strength to keep fighting the good fight: to keep making disciples by telling others about Jesus, to keep letting Christ show in our lives as we love God completely and love our neighbors as we love ourselves, to keep serving in Jesus’ Name, to keep giving to the cause of Christ in the world, to continue to offer prayers in Jesus’ Name, even for those who hate us, to keep fighting to tell the truth about God's Word and God's will.

In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis observes, “Christianity is a fighting religion.”

God fought for us all the way to the cross and then, after Jesus’ crucifixion had seemingly signaled that nothing about us could be made right, the Father pulled the Son up from the grave and gave Him life again, a life that He shares with all who turn from sin and trust in Him. This good news has changed our lives forever!

Today, it’s our task, no matter how we may be buffeted, rejected, ignored, or scoffed at, to fight the good fight to communicate over and over, however many times we may need to repeat it in words and actions, that God really did so love the world that He gave His only Son so that all who believe in Him will not be separated from God, but live with God forever. Sharing and living that message is the good fight of faith.

It’s this message that Paul felt it worthwhile repeating again and again. And so do I.

When life throws you a bad break, fight the good fight; hold onto Jesus.

When you find yourself disagreeing with God about what constitutes a sin, fight the good fight; repent and ask God to help you to live according to God’s will, not your own.

When a friend loses a loved one, don’t make yourself scarce, afraid of saying the wrong thing; pray God to give you the right words and the right listening silences, and go to that friend. That’s fighting the good fight, too.

When you see a classmate mistreated or a co-worker shafted, fight the good fight; go to them and be the loving presence of Christ.

When you see someone struggling with life without a clue, fight the good fight; go to them, pray with them, and tell them about the hope you have in Jesus Christ.

George Hartman, a former missionary, was the senior pastor of Saint John Lutheran Church in Grove City for many years. I first got to know George when I was the twenty-five year old Elder of our home church on the west side of Columbus and Saint John was part of the same cluster of Lutheran congregations. I came to know George better when Saint John was a mission partner to my former congregation, Friendship in Cincinnati.

George Hartman was absolutely sold-out, no turning back, no-doubt-about-it in love with Jesus Christ! He wanted people to be saved from sin and death by becoming Jesus’ disciples.

I’ll never forget one Sunday afternoon some twenty years ago. The people of Friendship were invited to Saint John for a joint worship service celebrating and praying for our partnership. (At that time, Friendship had grown to a whole 20 members, including Ann, our two kids, and me!) I preached. Sitting in the front row was George Hartman. I explained that though Friendship was small, already our evangelistic efforts were paying off:  We had seen several adults come to faith in Jesus Christ. 

“Thanks to you, your prayers, and your gifts” I told the people of Saint John, “there are people you will meet one day in heaven, even if you never meet them here, who, without your commitment to Jesus, wouldn’t be in heaven.”

I wasn’t going for sentimentality, just stating the facts: God uses our witness for Christ to bring eternal life to others. But just as I said that, I caught sight of George. There were tears streaming down his face as he thought about the people he would one day see in heaven. Folks, those were the joyful tears of a follower of Jesus committed to fighting the good fight of faith!

Among our neighbors, family members, co-workers, and classmates, there are people we know who face each day without Christ and without the help that only He can bring.

There are people we know facing an eternity without Jesus Christ.

There are people we know who need Jesus Christ.

Doesn’t that make you fighting mad at sin, death, and the devil? Don't you want to fight for the well being of such people?

Please, in Jesus’ Name, I beg you to pray for the spiritually-disconnected people in your lives. Serve them in Jesus’ Name. Above all, invite them to know Jesus. Our Lord is counting on you and me, as much as he did on Timothy and Paul, to fight the good fight of faith.

Fight for the eternal lives of all those who, just like you and me, need Jesus in their lives. Fight the good fight of faith in Christ and never, ever, ever back down! Amen

A Look at the Bible Lessons for This Coming Sunday (May 3, 2009)

[These "looks" are something I write every week, mainly with the idea of helping members of the congregation I serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, to get ready for worship. But since our congregation uses a lectionary (a plan of Bible lessons) rooted on the Church Year shared by most Christians throughout the world, I hope that others find these pieces helpful, too.]

Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 4, 2009

The Bible Lessons:
Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

The Prayer of the Day:
O Lord Christ, good shepherd of the sheep, you seek the lost and guide us into your fold. Feed us, and we shall be satisfied; heal us, and we shall be whole. Make us one with you, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

General Themes:
1. In the Gospel lesson, Jesus identifies Himself with the Lord (Yahweh) Who is Shepherd from the Old Testament. In Near-East culture, shepherd imagery was often associated both with protectors and royalty.

2. The God of Israel, ultimately revealed in Jesus Christ, is the Lord of all creation. Through Christ, God wants to save all people, which means coming to faith in Christ, because, as Peter puts it, "There is salvation in no one else; for there is not other name given among mortals by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Acts 4:5-12
(I'm probably going to preach on this text. So, a few thoughts.)

A coalition of unlikely allies, including the religious elites which rejects the whole idea of resurrection and the religious mass movement (Pharisees) who believe in resurrection, are amassed against the early Christians, represented by Peter and John. They're introduced in Acts 4:1-4, and include Annas and Caiaphas, who are mentioned in John 18:13-14, as among those who stood in judgment over Jesus. To stand with Jesus is to incur the same rejection He endured.

This "coalition" is alarmed by a healing performed by Peter and John in Jesus' Name. In Jesus' Name, a crippled beggar now walks. The coalition has the two disciples arrested.

The question posed by the officials in v. 7 gets at the nub of what they don't want to hear. They thought that they had successfully wiped out the Jesus' movement by crucifying Jesus. It should be pointed out that there had been and would be others who claimed the mantle of messiahship, some gaining large followings. But their movements were successfully snuffed out when the would-be messiahs were executed. The Jesus movement endures.

In v. 8, Peter doesn't answer the question in his own power, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told His followers (Luke 12:11-12) not to be concerned about what to say when powerful people challenged them to explain their faith. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, would give them the words they needed at the moments they needed them.

I love the way Peter characterizes the action for which he and John were arrested, "a good deed." And it's true, they've been arrested because they healed a crippled beggar.

Peter makes no bones about confessing Jesus. Nor does he spare his accusers of blame for rejecting Jesus, in spite of Jesus being the Foundation of the creation.

Peter ends with a ringing affirmation of Jesus' teaching that it is only through Him that humanity is saved from sin and death.

Goal-Setting, A Christian Approach, Part 5

In this final installment on goal-setting from a Christian perspective, I have a simple bit of advice: Sin boldly.

The words are from Christian reformer, Martin Luther (1483-1546). Luther offered them as advice to those wrestling with decisions.

The advice will make no sense unless one is a follower of Jesus Christ. That's because Luther's not really commending doing things contrary to God's will. Instead, it's tongue-in-cheek counsel to those grateful for the free gift of forgiveness and life that comes to all who believe in Jesus.

Basically, the Christian who "sins boldly" in establishing their goals in life goes through the following steps:

(1) Puts a relationship with Christ first in their life.

(2) Remembers the five basic purposes for all of our lives, as revealed in the Bible and summarized in Rick Warrren's book, The Purpose Driven Life:

• to worship God with our whole lives (this begins with a relationship with Christ)
• to fellowship with other believers in Jesus Christ
• to grow into becoming more like Christ
• to serve others in Christ's Name (at home, at work, at play, in the community, and even in church)
• to pass on the Good News of God's free gifts of forgiveness and eternal life for all with faith in Jesus Christ

(3) Fulfills duties to family members, employers, clients, friends, and neighbors.

(4) Looks for ways to best use talents and abilities to pursue the five purposes.

(5) Becomes familiar with God's Word to better know the mind of the One Who designed us in the first place and Who therefore, knows how our lives can function optimally.

(6) Prays

(7) Seeks the counsel of wise believers who both know God and the person seeking counsel.

(8) Finally, Luther would say, if our intentions are to do God's will and we still aren't sure what the right thing might be, we should do the next thing that seems needing to be done. If our intentions are right, Luther suggests, God is loving and gracious. He will make the most of the decisions and goals we adopt even if, as imperfect people, we might take the wrong step.

The Christian is both the freest person on the planet and the greatest servant. We are called by Jesus to be servants of God and neighbor, as the One we know as God and Savior has served us. [Luke 9:46-48; John 13:12-17] We live in voluntary submission to the purposes of God knowing that He has designed us and has good plans for us. [Jeremiah 29:11] We feel completely free to adopt the lifestyle of loving servants of God and others because we know we belong to God forever.

The thing I notice about Christians--and here I'm talking about the absolutely radically committed Christians--is how free they feel to be utterly idiosyncratic. Their relationship with the God they know through Jesus causes them to be fearless about trying their hands at a million different things.

Business consultant Laurie Beth Jones, in her book, Jesus, Life Coach, writes:

I don't know how anyone attempting to follow Jesus could ever be bored. As author Annie Dillard says, if we truly knew who we were worshiping, we'd all be wearing hard hats in church.

Jesus came not to reinforce your comfort zone, but to set your old small-minded ways on fire.

No grouping of people I know of feels as much personal security about being themselves as Christians on fire for Christ:

• Desmond Tutu has fearlessly spoken out for human rights in a clerical collar while dancing the traditional dances of his black African people.
• Jimmy Carter witnesses for Christ at a summit meeting with Leonid Brezhnev and after losing his re-election bid, becomes the most unique ex-President in US history.
• The members of MXPX and POD festoon their bodies with tattoos, play thrashing music that makes its way onto mainstream music charts, and still maintain their Christian integrity, even when featured on MTV.
• Bono may be an "unchurched Christian," but he is in closer community with people from around the world, including the destitute poor and innocent victims of AIDS of Africa, acting as their advocates even in the counsel of prime ministers and presidents.
• The late Mother Teresa and the millions she's inspired feel free to not worry about where their next pennies may come from and have simply taken care of the dying others pass by.

I have witnessed this fearless weirdness not just in the famous, but in the everyday people who populate my world. They are unabashed about carrying their faith, witness for Christ, and Christian sensibilities into their daily lives, having decided to end the bifurcation of their lives between "sacred" and "secular." (For a great discussion of integrating Christian faith into daily living, read D. Michael Bennethum's little book, Listen! God is Calling!: Luther Speaks of Vocation, Faith, and Work.)

Christians feel free to sin boldly and risk getting it wrong because they believe--I believe--the words of the New Testament, where it says:

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. [Romans 8:28]

God wants you to have a fantastic life of significance and meaning. In order to enjoy that life, I invite you to:

Turn from sin and ask God for forgiveness. Sin is the thing that prevents us from enjoying life as God meant for us to live it. Sin is the condition of heart, mind, and will that rebels against God, the One Who designed us in the first place. (Mark 1:15)

Trust (or believe) in Jesus, God the Son, Who took our punishment for sin on a cross and rose again in order to open up eternity with God to us. (John 3:16; Romans 6:23)

Ask God to guide you through your life, including being part of a faith community where you'll be supported, encouraged, and challenged in living faithfully and authentically. (Luke 11:9-10; Romans 12:12-26)

Sin boldly, knowing that God will make the most of your best efforts to live life His way! [Romans 8:28]