Lifted Up!

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time." (1 Peter 5:6)

God is teaching me that as I submit myself to Him through Christ, He makes it possible for me to cast, not just my anxieties, but also my grief, hopes, sins, desires, pains, and ambitions on Him. He empowers me to live with confidence, peace, and hope.

Through the crucified and risen Jesus, all of this is daily happening to me, a common, garden (of Eden) variety sinner! I find that only one word, unfortunately, over-used these days for far less reason, that can describe all that Jesus is and does for us: AWESOME!

When I place my whole life under Jesus, He lifts me up to be and do more than I could ever ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21). That's truly awesome!

[I'm an ordinary guy. I serve as pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Jesus Talks Money

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, on October 21.]

Mark 10:23-31
I recently was told that in the Gospels--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--Jesus speaks about money in 288 verses. The number seemed a bit inflated to me because, often when Jesus tells a parable involving money--like the parable of the dishonest steward or the one about the unforgiving servant, He’s only using a story involving money to tell us about other things, like the importance of being wise in our dealings with others or the need to forgive others as God forgives us for Christ’s sake. 

Even last week’s gospel lesson found Jesus speaking about money only as a way of warning us against letting anyone or anything get in the way of trusting Him alone as the way, and the truth, and the life. 

But this week, Jesus takes the subject of money head-on, tackling it for what it can and is for many people in our world, the single-most death-dealing idol of all.

So, let’s take a look at today’s lesson, Mark 10:23-31. Verse 23: “Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!’”

The rich man who had asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life had just walked away, saddened that Jesus told him to sell all that he had, give the proceeds to the poor, and then follow Jesus. It was a stunning moment. Here was Jesus, a powerless, penniless street preacher telling a man whose wealth meant that he was accustomed to getting his way that if he wanted eternal life, he would need to get rid of his favorite god and instead rely entirely on Jesus for forgiveness and eternal life.

The disciples must have viewed this encounter uncomprehendingly. Jesus looks at them and says, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” And then, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” The two statements differ. The first one says that it’s hard for the wealthy to get into the kingdom, to have eternal life. The second one tells us that it’s just hard for anyone to get into the kingdom.

“Wait a minute!” we might say. “I thought that we gained entrance into God’s kingdom as a free gift of undeserved grace (or charity) granted to those who turn from sin (or, repent) and trust, believe in Jesus. Can something be free and difficult at the same time?” 

Of course it can be! The life of Christian discipleship is both free and difficult! The only way we can, day in and day out, take hold of the life and salvation that Jesus offers is to let go of our favorite personal insurance policies: the things we use to validate our worth, prove our significance, make us feel secure. 

Our old selves, with their sinful obsessions, selfishness, and idols have to be crucified so that our new, eternal lives can happen. Truly, if we’re going to live with the God we meet in the crucified and risen Jesus, we must submit to the daily destruction of our safe, ego-centered worlds so that God the Holy Spirit can undertake the construction of our new, never-ending lives. 

Jesus tells us elsewhere, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) 

The gift of new life from Jesus is free, but taking it can involve painful separation from the things, the ways of life we love, as the rich man with whom Jesus had just spoken learned. 

A man once told me about an affair he’d had and the decision he and the woman with whom he’d had the relationship to end it. “We loved each other deeply,” he told me. “It wasn’t physical. She accepted my imperfections and affirmed my worth and potential.” The two of them ended things because they knew continuing would displease God and violate their marriage vows. 

Leaving behind our favorite sins in order to grasp the gift of new life reserved for those who follow Jesus is hard. We can’t keep unrepentantly following our sins if we want to follow Jesus. The gift of life Jesus offers is worth any sacrifice, including the sacrifice of our sinful rebellions against God. “If anyone is in Christ,” the apostle Paul writes, “the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Jesus goes on in verse 25: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 

I’m guessing that Jesus reverts to talking about money because He sees the disciples’ shock at his assertion that money has the potential to drag us into hell, away from God. Their shock is understandable: In first-century Judea, where Jesus lived, wealth was regarded as God’s affirmation of the rich person’s faith. Wealthy people were thought to be more righteous than poor people. 

Such thinking didn’t end in the first century. A friend once told me about going to a couples’ Bible study, most of whose members took it as a given that people were only poor because they weren’t right with God. Yet Proverbs 28:6 tells us, “Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse.”

Wealth in and of itself isn’t the problem, of course. It’s how we view it, whether it controls our decision making and priorities or not. Theologian Richard Foster says that money is a power; either we will control it or it will control us. 

The apostle Paul doesn’t say that money is the root of all evil of course, but he does say that, “...the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Timothy 6:10) 

It is exactly against the grief of separation from God that Jesus warns us today. Jesus asks us to imagine a large camel threading the eye of a needle, then tells us that those who carry their wealth around as their security blanket, their god, cannot possibly make into the kingdom of God. 

How important is money in our lives? One way to determine that is to see how generous we are, not just to the church and other not-for-profit entities, but in our everyday lives. Speaking personally, I pray to be more generous, less concerned with getting or keeping and more concerned with giving away. 

Jesus says: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48) That applies to us all, whatever our incomes.

Verse 26: “The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.’” 

“If a rich man can’t be saved,” the disciples ask, “what hope is there for anyone to enter God’s kingdom?” 

Life with God is only possible because of God’s grace given to us in Jesus. Wealth may allow us to get more medical care and buy better food before we all eventually die, Jesus is saying, but it’s impossible to buy life with God. 

Yet God makes it possible for anyone to be saved from sin and death, saved for life in God’s kingdom: By entrusting our entire lives to Jesus the Christ. 

As the Bible reminds us: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

Verse 28: “Then Peter spoke up, ‘We have left everything to follow you!’” 

Despite common folklore, Peter and the other fishermen were probably themselves wealthy people. Franchises to fish the waters of Galilee were rare and expensive in the first place and those who did have those franchises made lots of money. We know from the Gospel of John that two of the twelve, James and John, were part of a family fishing business that employed others. So, Peter’s question is more than a disinterested theological inquiry. He’s like the overachiever looking for extra credit. “We’re OK, right? We left everything behind to follow You, Jesus.”

Jesus doesn’t answer Peter’s question directly. Instead, Jesus points the disciples--including you and me--back to faith, back to turning away from the love of wealth that will keep us from claiming the gift of eternal life through Jesus. 

Verse 29: “‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—[free and difficult] and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.’”

The God we meet in Jesus, crucified for our sins, risen for our eternal salvation, offers infinitely more to those who worship Him and Him alone than all the wealth of this dying world possibly can. 

It’s out of consideration for the overwhelming grace of God in Christ, offered to rich and poor alike, that Paul wrote to the first century church in Ephesus: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)

The world may put those who dare to be Jesus’ disciples on its bottom rungs, but we know that in the upside-down kingdom of God, the “first will be last, and the last first.” If last place is where we can be with Christ, now and in eternity, that’s exactly where we should always want to be. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Learning to Be Like Jesus

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

Matthew 14:13-21

I knew a man named George who served in the army during World War 2.

After VE Day, George was part of the occupying force in Germany. Every day, he encountered families and many orphans who had no food, no place to bathe, and no habitable place to live. It broke his heart and he never forgot it.

This experience became the subject of a promise George made to God. Wherever he found hungry people, George vowed, he would do what he could to feed them.

He lived that promise. For the rest of his life, George would find out about people who needed help and somehow get groceries to them. Fellow members of the Lutheran congregation of which he was  a part got wind of what he was doing and asked how they could help. Eventually, George’s efforts became part of the congregation’s ministries and budgets. Well into his eighties, George was still taking food to people in need. And, whenever his personal resources or those of his church were skimpy, he would call area pastors and ask if they or their churches could help someone whose needs they couldn’t address.

When he died, people were asked to forget about sending flowers and instead, provide money for his church’s ministry to the poor. Thousands of dollars were raised.

George’s life is a story of Christian discipleship.

The word disciple—mathetes in the Greek language in which the New Testament was written—means student.

This doesn’t mean that the follower of Jesus is someone who compiles a lot of religious information, as if Judgment Day were going to be like a final exam deciding whether we get a “passing grade.” To be a student (or disciple) of Jesus means that, by the way we live, we’re learning each day to be more like Jesus.

And being like Jesus is the ultimate goal of every believer. This is mentioned often in the New Testament.

• 1 John, for example, says that when Jesus returns to the earth, “we will be like Him.” 
• 2 Corinthians says that as we follow Jesus, we “are being transformed into” His image. 
• Romans says that followers of Jesus are being “conformed to the image of His Son.” 

All of this is the work of God’s Holy Spirit, of course. We can’t make ourselves more like Jesus. But you and I can make the decision, each and every day, through a life style of "daily repentance and renewal" about whether we will be open to the work of the Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ.

This is why in one of the greatest passages in the New Testament, the apostle Paul says, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” In other words, confident in God’s love and grace for you, take the attitude of a servant. Let the Spirit work through your open heart and will to make you more like Jesus. Being like Jesus must mean, as it did in George’s case, being compassionately moved by the same things that compassionately move Jesus.

Our English word, compassion, is a compound meaning to suffer with. In the New Testament's original Greek, a common word for compassion reflects ancient people's belief that our emotions weren't centered in the heart, but in the gut. Compassion is that stirring of the gut that happens when our sympathies are aroused.

• It's what makes you want to pray or send a check to Lutheran World Relief when you see pictures of starving children in Somalia.
• It's what makes you want to intervene and pray when you're at the store and see children being neglected either by parents who fail to discipline them or by treating them unkindly.
• It's what makes you so concerned about the eternal destiny of a classmate or coworker that you want to share Jesus with them.

We give water away during our Kindness Outreaches out of compassion. Those who receive these acts of kindness may not need the water, but they do need the One Who sends us.

Compassion looks at the needs of others and is stirred to sympathetic action.

Compassion is the openness of heart toward others that comes to those whose wills and lives are open to the God we know in Jesus Christ.

In that connection, please pull out the Celebrate inserts and look at today’s Gospel lesson. It begins with Jesus learning that John the Baptist, has been executed. Jesus goes by boat to a spot where nobody lived, no doubt to pray and to consider how John’s execution foretold His own. He needed to process His feelings. But crowds sought Jesus out. We’re told in verse 14: “When He went ashore, He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion for them…”

This isn’t the first place we’re told of Jesus’ compassion for crowds. Another is at Matthew 9:36. Please turn to it in the pew Bibles, page 556. It says: “But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.”

What aroused Jesus’ compassion for the crowds in these two passages represent the full breadth of God’s concern for all of us. In the Matthew 9 instance, Jesus has compassion for the crowds because of their spiritual condition. They’re disconnected from God, unaware of their need to turn from sin and to believe in Jesus to gain eternal life with God. All they know is that they have a hunger to be with Jesus.

In Matthew 14, in our gospel lesson, Jesus looks at another crowd and sees all that was wrong in their physical condition, their need for healing. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, shows us that God cares for our whole beings.

As disciples of Jesus, people intent on learning to live like Jesus, our call is to have the same compassion for people that Jesus has. Bob Pierce, the missionary who founded both Samaritan’s Purse and World Vision, often prayed, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”

And it’s exactly here that, until this past week, I had always faulted the disciples as they’re portrayed in today’s gospel lesson. Look at verse 15. The disciples tell Jesus that they’re in a remote place and that he should send the crowds away so that they can get food.

I had always thought that the disciples were being selfish here, that they wanted Jesus to themselves, and that they didn’t care about the crowd. Some of that may be true. But one New Testament scholar has convincingly written that like the Savior they followed, the disciples felt the crowd’s need for food.

But they didn’t have food to give to the crowd, or very little of it. So, rather than having this whole throng in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat, the disciples thought that the compassionate thing was to send them away to find food where it could be found, in the nearby towns. Their suggestion wasn’t a failure of compassion, but a failure of faith.

In verse 16, we come to the centrally important part of this entire incident. Jesus tells the disciples that the crowds needn’t go away. “You give them something to eat.” “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish,” they say.

Now, we’ve all heard or read about the feeding of the 5000 many times. But have you ever considered this: What if the disciples hadn’t told Jesus about the five loaves and the two fish?

What if they had pretended, as maybe all of us have when approached by someone asking for money, that they didn’t have anything "on them"?

The disciples felt compassion for the hungry crowd, but this was all they had…a few scraps of bread and two measly fish. What was so little in the face of so great a need?

We know what happened. Jesus took the bread and fish and fed the whole crowd, one composed, Matthew says, of five thousand men plus women and children. A conservative estimate of the entire crowd would be about 15,000 people.

But the feeding of all those people may really be the second miracle in this incident.

The first miracle may be that the disciples were willing to disclose to Jesus (and then give to Jesus) all that they had. The grace of God in Jesus had broken down any selfishness they might have felt and filled them with compassion for others!

How much of ourselves are we willing to give to Jesus?

On the cross, Jesus spent His whole life to buy your freedom from sin, death, and eternal separation from God. Jesus died and rose so that all who surrender to Him can have life forever with God.

The more we yield to Jesus—the more of ourselves we give to Him—the more He will do in our lives and the more He can do through us.

That’s what the first disciples learned the day Jesus fed the 5000. It’s the lesson that my friend George’s life teaches.

It’s a lesson we all can learn as we give ourselves to Jesus every day.

Recently, Ann and I heard from a dear friend. She was excited about exciting new developments in her life, a shot of unexpected joy, possibilities, and purpose. But then, she told us, it shouldn’t really be that surprising. “Not long ago,” she explained, “I did something I’d never done. In the past, I bargained with God. I’d tell God: ‘If you do this, I’ll do this.’ But not this time. I told God, ‘I’m wide open. Whatever you want!’” In the book of Ephesians, we’re called to give glory to the God Who “is able to accomplish abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine.” Our friend is learning that truth.

We all know that bad things happen to faithful people and that we live in a fallen, imperfect world. The mystery of prayers not answered as we expect them to be will be with us for as long as this present world exists. But what Jesus showed when He miraculously fed a huge crowd with the food offered by the disciples is that if we will offer our whole selves to Him, we can become conduits for the blessings of God on a world of great spiritual and physical need.

And as we give ourselves to Jesus, God’s Spirit will move us closer to the goal of being like the One Who died and rose for us. That’s God’s aim for our lives and for the life of Saint Matthew. May it be our aim for our lives and for Saint Matthew too. Amen