Praying to Our Father

Below you'll find live stream video of yesterday's 8:45 and 11:00 AM worship services of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. You can also read the text of the message. Because I presently have a light case of COVID-19, thanks go to Mark and Trish for handling the services. Thanks to Mark for sharing my message. Thanks to Trish for bringing the elements of Holy Communion to our driveway, allowing me to consecrate the elements from a safe distance in our garage.]





Luke 11:1-13

In Romans 8, the apostle Paul says: “...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (Romans 8:26)

We do not know what we ought to pray for. As I grow in my faith, I increasingly understand how true this statement is. I often don’t know how I should pray! What is the right thing to pray for?

Some well-meaning people will say, “Pray from the heart.” The Bible teaches us that “​​The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” (Jeremiah 17:9) Following our hearts, in prayer as well as in anything else, can lead us away from the One we are to follow, Jesus Christ. Others will say, “Just pray what makes sense.” God’s Word also tells us that “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12) Following our thoughts can also lead us far from God.

We don’t know how to pray, but Paul’s words assure us that as we come to God the Father in Jesus’ name, the Holy Spirit turns our vague yearnings into prayer. Any Christian who has come to the end of their rope and been able to only pray, “Help, Lord!” knows that Paul’s right!

But the Holy Spirit can help us pray in another way. It’s the Holy Spirit Who inspired the Gospel writers, including Luke the evangelist, to record a pattern for praying from Jesus Himself, a prayer we can pray when we have no idea how to pray!

Our Gospel lesson for today, Luke 11:1-13, says that after observing Jesus praying, one of the hundred or so disciples with Jesus at the time, asked the Lord to teach them how to pray. According to Matthew’s gospel, Jesus had already taught the form of the Lord’s Prayer that we use on Sunday mornings. But this is a different group and a different occasion. What Jesus gives us is a slightly different version of the prayer. Although it’s brief, it contains every element needed in our praying.

Let’s look at the prayer briefly this morning, with particular emphasis on just one word, the key to understanding the whole thing. The prayer starts with the address, Father. Jesus often spoke of God the Father as, “My Father.” And now, in the Lord’s Prayer, He wants to share His Father with us.

This is a remarkable gift of love! You remember that Jesus once confronted a group of His fellow Jews Who refused to accept Him as God. They tried to be “holier than thou” with Jesus by claiming Abraham, the ancient patriarch of God’s people, as their father. But Jesus told them, “You belong to your father, the devil and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) Jesus is describing us at the moments we are born into this world, born in sin. At birth, God is our creator, but not our Father. We are instead, effectively fatherless, since the devil who lured and lures humanity into sin, death, and destruction, bears no concern or compassion for us.

Jesus came into the world to change that! “[T]he Son of Man,” Jesus says of Himself, “came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10) Jesus has died for your sins and for mine already at the cross. He has risen from the dead to open up eternity to you and me. He calls us now to daily bring our sins to the foot of the cross and follow Him to become heirs of God’s grace. (Luke 9:23) Today, Jesus comes to us in the Gospel Word and in the sacraments to bring us the forgiveness of our sins and the assurance that we are God’s children. As we receive these gifts by faith, we know that God truly is our Father.

Jesus, of course, presents us with an unforgettable picture of what God the Father is like in the parable of the prodigal son. The Father in Jesus’ story gives both of his sons, not just the oldest, as was common in those days, an equal share in the inheritance. And though the youngest son squanders all, the Father welcomes the son home with open arms. Jesus wants us to know that, for those who trust in Him as Lord and God, that is God’s attitude toward us and our prayers.

The petitions of the prayer are simple and flow from knowing God as our Father. We ask first, that God’s name’s–whether Father, Jesus, God, or Lord–will be hallowed or regarded as holy, set apart, special. Martin Luther says in The Small Catechism: “God’s name is indeed holy in itself, but we pray in this petition that it may be kept holy also among us.” “God,” we’re saying in this petition, “You’ve given us the privilege of calling You our Father for prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. Help us to use Your holy name for its intended purposes.”

Jesus says, then pray, “your kingdom come.” Jesus, of course, has come into our world to bring the kingdom of God, the reign of God, into this fallen world. Whenever God’s Word is shared and whenever it comes to us in water or bread and wine, the kingdom has come near to us. Here, we pray that this kingdom will continually come to us and that we will never grow indifferent to God’s Word or its call to trust in Jesus.

Jesus tells us to pray, “Give us each day our daily bread.” Even earthly fathers have compassion on their children. Jesus here urges us to recognize that every need we have–physical as well as spiritual–comes from our Father. The Bible reminds us that, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father…” (James 1:17)

Jesus tells us to pray, “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” We don’t deserve to be children of God. But because of Jesus’ cross and resurrection and our baptism into Jesus, we are forgiven and made new. Jesus frees us then to pray that we will forgive others as we have already been forgiven–and are daily being forgiven–by God.

Jesus tells us then to pray, “And lead us not into temptation.” Luther points out in The Small Catechism that God, of course, tempts no one into sin. But here, we pray that we would avoid the deceptions of the devil, the world, and our sinful selves, avoiding harm to ourselves or others, avoiding hurting the Father Who sent His Son to save us from sin and death.

Life can throw all sorts of circumstances our way. Grief or the prospect of death may come at any time. Recent years with the pandemic, political turmoil, supply chain issues, severe weather, and others things have shown us how vulnerable we all truly are. It can be hard to know what to pray at times. This simple prayer of Jesus encompasses everything we need and everything we could pray for–reverence for God, citizenship in God’s eternal kingdom, daily and ongoing provision for our needs, the forgiveness of our sins, and protection from temptation. Jesus Christ has made all baptized believers children of God and conferred upon us the right to approach God as our Father and to ask for all these things. So ask. Amen

Who's Wise?

In starting my review of Romans 12, which we'll be covering during our weeknight Bible study over on Facebook tonight, one part of one verse really struck me. It comes in verse 16. Paul says: "Never be wise in your own sight."

I think it's probably true that the moment we think we're wise, we're not.

Biblical Christian faith does not value self-sufficiency. God calls us into a community of shalom, of peace with God, with others, and with God's creation born of faith in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

And if we consult with only ourselves over our decisions and attitudes in life, we create a self-confirming feedback loop in which we assure ourselves that what we want to do or believe is right because it's what we want to do or believe. This is a prescription for being unwise.

That's why listening is so important for Christians.

First and foremost, we're to listen to God. Not our hearts. ("The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" says Jeremiah 17:9) Not our thoughts. (There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death," we read in Proverbs 14:12, ESV). Not our preferences. (When Jesus asked God the Father that the cup of suffering He was to "drink" in His suffering and crucifixion, He also prayed, "...not my will, but yours be done." [Luke 22:42]) We need to listen to God, through His Word.

Second, we need to listen to committed disciples of Jesus Who also listen to God and will pray with us and for us.

Third, we need to listen to the wisdom of others, whatever their backgrounds, who have acquired expertise and experience from which we can benefit. All true wisdom originates with God, even when the person imparting it doesn't themselves believe in God. "For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. (Proverbs 2:6)

Above all, we should confidently ask God the Father in Jesus' name for wisdom. James 1:15 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."

The longer I live, the less confident I am in my own wisdom, in my own capacity to discern truth or make the right decisions. But the longer I live in relationship with Christ, the more I tune into God the Father through Jesus, God the Son, the more confident I am of the decisions and attitudes God commends me to adopt. I more deeply appreciate Jesus' words to His disciples (including me) in John 15:5: "I am the vine; you are the branches...apart from me you can do nothing." I gain a deeper confidence knowing that I have asked for God's wisdom through Christ, assured like the apostle Paul that "I can do all this through [Christ] who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:13)

Just a few thoughts.

Loving God and Others (Part 2, The Disciple's Life)

[This was shared during this evening's Lenten devotional worship with the people of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Deuteronomy 10:12
Matthew 22:37-39
Tonight, as we talk about the disciple’s life, we turn to love.

While love is a commonly used word, from a Biblical perspective, I don’t think that we moderns have a good handle on what love is.

An online dictionary defines the noun love as “an intense feeling of deep affection.” It defines the verb love as “[to] feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to (someone),” as in, “I love so-and-so.”

Now, I’m not knocking anyone’s intense feeling of deep affection. Nor am I condemning, in the right circumstances, feelings of "deep romantic or sexual attachment.” What I am saying is that when, for example, in Deuteronomy, God commanded His ancient people the Israelites to love Him, or that when Jesus says in Matthew, that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love our neighbor, He is not telling us “feel affection for God and neighbor.” God does not command affection; God commands love.

Now that I’ve thoroughly confused you, let me try to unpack all of this. Jesus tells us in Matthew’s gospel: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39) Jesus here quotes Deuteronomy 6:5, a portion of Moses’ farewell sermon that pious Jews know as the shema, and Leviticus 19:18, what scholars call “the holiness code,” an explanation of God’s moral code, binding for all time, expressed briefly in the Ten Commandments.

Here, we see Jesus commanding us to love God and our neighbor, with all our hearts, and we panic or rail at the impossibility of it all.

Someone might say, “If you knew my boss, you would know how impossible she is to love.”

Or, “My ex was horrible in the custody proceedings. I can’t summon any warmth for him.”

In statements like these and countless others, we show that we’ve soaked up more of this world’s understanding of love than we have of God’s understanding of love.

When the Bible speaks metaphorically of our hearts, it isn’t talking about the seat of our feelings. It speaks of the seat of our wills, of our wants and desires, the place from which our yen for things like security, happiness, food, drink, and companionship comes.

If that all seems innocent, remember that the heart is also the seat of our sinful desires, things like our desire to get what we want when we want it, to make other people do what we want them to do, to have what we want no matter if it hurts us or hurts others.

And, no matter how much we desire to follow Christ, as long as you and I live this life, our human hearts will be polluted by selfish desires. Jeremiah 17:9 asks, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

His words echo my own after I’ve caught myself doing something I shouldn’t have. “Why did I do that?” I ask myself.

The answer is that my heart has inherited from Adam and Eve a desire to “be like God,” to be my own god, to call my own shots, to be the master of my own universe.

And yet, Jesus commands us to love God and love neighbor. What is a person who seeks to live as a Jesus disciple to do?

Here are several suggestions.

First of all, remind yourself daily that you cannot save yourself from your heart’s inborn penchant for selfishness and sin. If you and I could do anything to save ourselves from sin, Jesus Christ would not have had to die on the cross for us. Jesus resisted the temptation to act selfishly and sinfully, leading a sinless life to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

Second, also remind yourself daily that only Jesus can fill in the chasm that exists between you and me, on the one side, and God in His perfect holiness on the other. Even if this very night, you and I could find a way to always perfectly love God and our neighbors for the rest of our lives, our love would not erase the deficiencies in our love that have existed up until tonight. We must rely on Jesus to bridge the gap between who we are and who God has meant us to be. We must rely on God’s grace given in Christ.

But here’s a third thing. Just because we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone--and we are--doesn’t mean that Jesus’ great commandment goes away. We still are called to love God and love neighbor.

Out of simple gratitude for His saving an unlovable sinner like me, I will want to seek to fulfill this great command.

When I was in elementary school, my father and grandfather spent hours with, drilling me on the multiplication table. I kept at it not because I thought they would throttle me if I didn’t memorize the table or because I wanted to know the multiplication table, but because I saw how hard they were working with me on it our of sheer fatherly love. (I couldn’t have cared less about learning the multiplication table!) But these two men who cared for me wanted me to learn it and because of them, I did. God’s love, which has saved us from sin and death, should also motivate us to try to keep all of His commands and to seek His help when we fail to keep them.

So, how can you love someone you may find hard to love?

One: Ask God to help you love that person. And the more unlovable you find them, the more you’ll need to pray that prayer. Sometimes, I just say, “Lord, please love them through me. It’s beyond my capacity.”

Second: Pray for that person. Ask God to give them every comfort, joy, and success that you might desire for yourself.

Third: Seek ways to do some kindness to that person or to show openness to them. I promise that God honors earnest efforts to be obedient on the part of grateful disciples of Jesus.

Now, a word of caution. If the person you find it hard to love has abused you--emotionally, physically, or otherwise, you are under no obligation to continue to associate with them.

Love doesn’t compel you to subject yourself to unnecessary danger.

When a woman we knew in Cincinnati was physically abused by her husband, I told her that God’s command to love did not obligate her to stay in that home. I joined with others in helping her to get out. If she were to love her husband, it would have to be from afar.

The New Testament word for forgive is aphiemi, which literally means release. When we forgive others, we set people free from their debt to us for the wrongs they’ve committed against us, just as Jesus forgives us the enormous debt we owe to God for our sins against Him and His children.

But when we forgive, we also set someone else free, ourselves.

God wants to set us free to love as we were made to love. At the heart of our difficulty with loving others is an unwillingness to forgive, an unwillingness to let go of the things we hold others, that make us feel superior to them. And so Jesus teaches His disciples to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

In the power of God’s Holy Spirit, disciples who believe in and follow Jesus, seek to love God and to love neighbor.

More on the disciple's life next week.

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

How to really build yourself up

Here are thoughts from my time with God today. To see how I approach this "quiet time," see here.

Look: “But you, my friends, keep on building yourselves up on your most sacred faith. Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and keep yourselves in the love of God, as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ in his mercy to give you eternal life.” (Jude 20-21, Good News Translation)

It seems that Jude, the brother of James, had wanted to talk about the Gospel alone as he wrote to his correspondents. But false teachers had arisen among the Christians in the community where the recipients of this letter lived. Jude felt the need to warn them to stay away from their false and sinful teaching (v.3).

Here, Jude talks about what needs to happen as we wait to see Jesus. Jude had in mind the return of Jesus, seeming to assume that it would happen in his and his first readers’ lifetimes. But, of course, we all are going to meet Jesus when He returns to the world, whether we’ve been long dead or are still living on earth when it happens..

So, the question Jude answers is how are we supposed to live our lives until we meet Jesus?

Listen: First, Jude says, we need to build ourselves up in the faith.

This has several elements, I think. One is that we need to read and become conversant in God’s Word. From experience I know that there have been many times when I would have best avoided sin and saved myself a lot of heartaches if I had kept reading God’s Word, instead of following my own evil desires (v.16). A lot of times, we don’t even recognize our desires as evil; they seem so beautiful and unobjectionable. That makes us just like Eve when she wrestled with the serpent’s sales job (temptations) regarding the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom…” (Genesis 3:6)

Our brains get muddled by our evil desires, which is why we need to steep ourselves in God’s Word. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Another way we build up our faith is by living in vital, accountable connection with the Church. Our faith will die without a connection to the Church, Christ’s body. This is why the preacher in Hebrews says. “...let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Our faith is also built up when we regularly receive the body and blood of Jesus, the Word imparted in, with, and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion. In this sacrament, Jesus promises to meet us, to forgive us our sins, and to to give us His very good and perfect life. In it, we are “remembered” to Jesus in the company of the congregation in which we receive it and in company with all the saints of every time and every place, in eternity and on earth.

Second, Jude says, we need to “pray in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

I’m convinced that most of the “praying” I’ve done and, sadly, still do, is offered in the power of my spirit instead of the power of the Holy Spirit. By that I mean that I try to tell God exactly how He should answer my prayers. Or, I pray, all the while scheming out how I would or will answer the prayer. When I’ve done these things, I likely haven’t been praying at all.

To pray by the power of the Holy Spirit is to pray with complete submission, an acknowledgement my powerlessness and that God knows best how to address whatever it is that I bring to Him. You say, “Your will be done” and mean it.

Ole Hallesby teaches about prayer in his book, Prayer. Authentic prayer is composed of two elements: faith and helplessness.

If I’m not helpless when I pray, then I’m getting in the way of God working. I harbor the secret belief that I know what’s best and God is only a backup insurance policy.

But I must own my weakness and let God’s strength take over: “...when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Paul describes praying in the power of the Holy Spirit: “...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)

These are the two ways we can prepare to meet Jesus identified by Jude: (1) Growing in our faith; (2) Praying in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Respond: Lord, I try to do too much, think too much, be too much in my own power. I try to think my way through, feel my way through. All of this is the wrong path to my meeting with Jesus. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Proverbs 14:12, English Standard Version). “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure...” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Help me to be ready to meet you each day (Matthew 25:31-36) and at the judgment by growing in faith and praying--humbly, openly, submissively--in the power of Your Holy Spirit and not in my own mortal, sinful power.

Today, help me to accept Your will.

In Jesus’ name. Amen

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

Listen!

Matthew 17:1-9
Transfiguration Sunday
The key verse in today’s Gospel lesson is Matthew 17:5 in which the voice God the Father calls out from heaven to Peter, John, and James with a message about Jesus: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

Why did the three apostles who accompanied Jesus to the top of a mountain need this message?

And why do you and I still need to be reminded to listen to Jesus?

In a way, these words from the Father come as a direct rebuke to Peter. Back in Matthew 16, Jesus had asked the apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter gave the right answer, one that Jesus said came not from Peter’s good sense and insight, but from Peter’s openness to the Holy Spirit’s witness about Jesus. Peter said: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” [Matthew 16:15-19] But then Jesus explained that He as the Messiah, God in the flesh, was going to Jerusalem to be rejected by the Jewish religious authorities, the Roman government, and the people, suffer death on a cross, and rise from the dead.

Peter was horrified! Peter thought that the Messiah would come into political power, vanquish the Romans, and establish a trouble-free reign of prosperity for God’s people. Jesus’ words didn’t compute for Peter. Crucifixion for the Messiah? “Never, Lord!” [Peter] said. “This shall never happen to you!” [Matthew 16:22]

At this, Jesus let Peter have it with both barrels: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

It was Satan, you’ll remember, who tried to tempt Jesus into avoiding the mission of His life on earth, the mission of offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. Now, Jesus was saying that Peter, who had just confessed that Jesus was Messiah and the Son of God, God in the flesh, was acting just like Satan. “Peter, be quiet,” Jesus was saying. “Knock off your religious-sounding talk. Wait to speak until after you understand Who I am.”

Six days later, our Gospel lesson for today shows, Peter still had some learning to do.

As members of the inner circle of Jesus’ first followers, Peter, John, and James were terrified to see Jesus appearance “transfigured,” or “transformed.” A cloud came down from heaven filled with the blazing light of God and there Jesus stood talking with Moses, the giver of God’s Law in the Old Testament, and Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet.

Imagine how overwhelming this all must have been for these three fishermen from Galilee!

But Peter, it seems, was never at a loss for words. Even when he should have been. Matthew 17:4 tells us: “Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’”

On the face of it, this is a religious-sounding thing for Peter to say. But it demonstrates that he just doesn’t quite get it. Peter has called Jesus the Son of God, yet he wants to build shrines of apparently equal importance for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.

Back in chapter 16, when Peter tried to educate Jesus on Jesus’ job as Messiah and Son of God, it was Jesus Who set Peter straight. Now, on the Mount of Transfiguration, it’s God the Father’s turn to thunder!

In effect, the Father, in verse 5 of our Gospel lesson is telling Peter: “Peter, put a muzzle on it, man! Listen to My Son. Moses and Elijah, great though they were, are Jesus’ inferior. You won’t find life and salvation in Moses or Elijah. (Or in Buddha, Allah, or a big fat bank account, for that matter)’ Life and salvation can only be found in Jesus. So, button it up and pay heed to Jesus only!” “Peter, this is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

Poor Peter, always trying so hard to say and do the right thing. But that’s the problem. He’s trying way too hard. He thinks he’s being faithful by spouting religious talk.

But, in talking about building these shelters, he shows that he isn’t really listening to Jesus or to His Word.

Christ’s Church today is filled with a lot of well-meaning Peters. I can be among them. We say things that sound religious, but show that we really haven’t been listening to God’s Word or to Jesus.

Last night, I jotted down three things that I hear well-meaning Christians say, but that, according to God’s Word, just aren’t true.

One thing well-meaning Christians say is, “Follow your heart.” Wrong!

Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” So, if my heart is going to deceive me and lead me into a deceitful life, a life apart from God, why would I follow my heart?

Jesus never says, “Follow your heart.” Instead, Jesus says, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” [Matthew 16:24] Follow Jesus: Turn from sin and trust in Him to save you for all eternity and to guide you always. Keep following Jesus.

Another false thing said by well-meaning Christians is, “God helps those who help themselves.” This is a whopper!

The Bible actually says that God helps those who cannot help themselves. And that’s all of us! Romans 5:6 tells us: “...at just the right time, when we were still powerless [or, helpless], Christ died for the ungodly [those of us born in sin...and that's all of us].” God helps those who recognize that they need Jesus as our King and Savior.

A third common falsehood uttered by Christians is, “Everything happens for a reason.” That’s another big fib!

I once heard a woman at a funeral visitation tell a father that his young son had died because God needed another angel in heaven. It would have been better for that woman to have shut her mouth than utter such unbiblical rot. When believers die, they don’t become angels. Humans are made in God’s image, angels aren’t! Human beings are of higher importance to God than angels are! Christ didn’t die and rise for angels; He died and rose for people!

Besides, the very notion that God would decide to take a boy’s life to sate His desire for more angels turns God into a monster, unrecognizable from the God we meet in Jesus!

The tragedies that happen in this world can’t be explained away as part of some master plan by God. Bad things happen to faithful people because we live in a fallen world in which sin, death, and darkness are on the loose. It was these things that Jesus came to conquer for us. That’s why Jesus says in John 16:33: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Death and tragedy don’t have the final word over the lives of those who entrust their lives to Jesus; it’s the resurrection Jesus has won for us that will have the final, eternal say over our lives!

If Peter had listened to God’s Word in the Old Testament or if he had listened to Jesus, he wouldn’t have said foolish things like He did at the Transfiguration.

If Christians today listened to God’s Word--not just on Sunday mornings, but everyday of their lives--they wouldn’t say untrue things like the three I just mentioned.

More importantly, when we listen to God’s Word, meet the God we know in Jesus in His Word each day, we will know God intimately.

As Jesus promises, the Holy Spirit will lead us into all of God’s truth [John 16:13]. When we listen to Jesus, we experience the amazing promise He makes in John 15:5: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” That’s a stunning promise!

To be friends with Jesus, God in the flesh, means that we trust in Him, we trust in the power of what He accomplished for us on the cross, we trust that He can bring us God’s forgiveness, we trust that He can give us life with God, however blurry this world may sometimes make it, and life with God in perfection in eternity.

When we are friends with Jesus, we live in the assurance that, as He promises to all who follow Him in Matthew 28:20, He is with us always!

All of this comes to us when we listen to Jesus. Paul summarizes the power of what happens when we listen to Jesus and the Word about Jesus in this way: “...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” [Romans 10:17]

So, how can we listen to Jesus? You might want to pull out a pen or your smart phones right now and note a simple method for listening to Jesus each day--one I've learned from our friends at Navigators, as I've mentioned before, and a way of listening to Jesus that I have found to be powerful. Here’s how to listen to Jesus each day.

First, stop. Find a quiet place, away from the laptop and the iPad, away from the TV or the PlayStation. Ask Jesus to meet you as you read a chapter from a Biblical book like Matthew or John.

Second, look. Read that Word and ask Jesus what He wants to tell you that day.

Third, listen. Consider what Jesus has told you and what truth He wants you to grasp from Him that can guide you that day or the next day.

Fourth, respond. If there’s some sin for which you need to repent or a sinful habit you need to jettison, lay it honestly before Jesus, asking for His forgiveness and help with living differently that day or the next. If there’s some act of love you feel compelled to undertake, ask Jesus for the Holy Spirit’s power to do it. Give Jesus glory for His death and resurrection for you; ask Him to guide you in the next twenty-four hours; pray for those who need God’s help; ask God to fill you with His wisdom; and ask God to help you be part of His mission of making disciples that day.

I want to underscore how freeing and important it is to listen to God each day and to help you with that day. How many times have we realized some sin or deficiency in our character, some bad habit we'd fallen into, and said something like, "From now on, Lord, until the end of my days, I will...so and so." How has that worked for you?

Let me put the question in another way: Do you remember what your New Year's resolutions were for this year? 

You know, the power of the Twelve Step program is that it calls people to recognize their need and get help for that day alone. It's easier to trust in Jesus one day at a time after we've spent time in His Word and then spend time with Him again the next day and the next, than it is to trust Him without ever listening to Him again. This is why it's important to spend daily time with God in addition to the time we spend together once a week in worship.

From the cloud that overshadowed the mountain somewhere in Caesarea Philippi, God’s voice commanded Peter and the other disciples, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

That's our command today. May we obey it. May we listen to Jesus and so, live under the grace and forgiveness, power, wisdom, guidance, and love of God all of our lives. Amen!

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the message that was shared this morning during worship.]

3 reasons you don't need to be afraid

A friend posted this quote on Facebook: "What is needed, now more than ever, is leadership that steers us away from fear and fosters greater confidence in the inherent goodness and ingenuity of humanity."

The speaker is former president, Jimmy Carter, someone I admire.

And I agree with him that we need leaders who refuse to be afraid or nurture fear among those they are called to lead.

But I disagree with the notion that we can have confidence in the "inherent goodness" of the human race.

The Bible teaches that human beings, while certainly capable of great ingenuity (something I talked about yesterday), the human race does not possess an "inherent goodness." The Bible teaches that we are all born in sin. In other words, we come equipped with an orientation for not loving God or loving neighbor, unless it suits us. Sin--looking out for number one--is our default mode.

You don't have to look far to confirm this truth. We have, as C.S. Lewis wrote, "inside information" on the reality of our sin condition. We need only do an honest self-assessment to see that if we rely on our own "inherent goodness," let alone the "inherent goodness" of the whole human race, we would be in trouble.

But in what I described yesterday as "this fearful and apprehensive" age, we need not fear.

I think that there are three reasons to flush fear from our lives.

First, despite all the insanity and evil in our world, the God we know in Jesus Christ is still in control. 

"In this world you will have trouble," Jesus says. "But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) The world will do its worst, but sin and death will not have the last say. Jesus has come into the world so that all who will turn from sin (repent) and trust in Him as their only hope, will belong to God through all the turmoil of this world and, in total perfection, in eternity. Jesus has conquered every trouble and every fear that this world can throw at us.

Second, the God we know in Jesus promises to be with those who follow Him, always. 

"I am with you until the close of the age," Jesus says to those who follow Him in Matthew 28:20. "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you,” we're promised by God in both Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13:5. And in Psalm 27:1, King David asks rhetorically: "The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?"

Third, the thing that our sinful natures fear the most is our own deaths; for those who repent and believe in Christ, that fear has been taken off the table. 

Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;  and whoever lives by believing in me will never die" (John 11:25-26). And these words are backed up not only by the miraculous signs of Jesus capacity to make on good on this promise when he brought the dead back to life, but by his own resurrection, an event confirmed by more than 500 people. 

It is, maybe, this last point that gives us the greatest courage in facing our fears. Belonging to the God we know in Christ, Who has conquered my sin and the sins of the world, Who has conquered death for all who believe, sets me free to live without fear. We can pray without fear. Worship without fear. Love without fear. Change the world without fear. Stand up to injustice and bullies without fear.

We can do all of that because, even if we get killed by the things that others fear, we know that we belong to Jesus for all eternity. 

"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes," Psalm 118:9 says. Don't rely on leaders to take away your fears. Civil leaders have an important role in securing safety and justice for a country's citizens, but none can erase all fears. No one can be relied on to take our fears away.

And we can't rely on human goodness or ingenuity either. Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" Our inborn sin is too quick to offer us reasons for being afraid and faulty solutions for overcoming our fears. Proverbs 3:5 warns us: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not on your own understanding."

We don't have to be afraid for three big reasons: 1. The God we know in Christ is in control. 2. The God we know in Christ promises to always be with us. 3. The God we know in Christ has taken our number one reason for fear, death, off the table.

Lean on Christ.

Are You Free?

Galatians 1:1-12
Freedom...Liberty.

These are words that get thrown around a lot on national holiday weekends like Memorial Day, when we honor those who have died in defense of our country. They get thrown around a lot during political campaigns too.

Ask the average American about the meaning of freedom or liberty and they might say something, “Freedom means doing or being whatever I want to do or be.”

But the Christian understanding is very different from the idea that freedom is doing whatever I want to do.

And the reason it's so different is this: If I am born in slavery to sin, then every action that comes from “doing whatever I want to do,” will be born not of any freedom I have, but from my slavery to sin.

Even my most altruistic actions can be tinged by thoughts like “I’m really a good person,” or “What’s in it for me?,” or “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

In other words, people who do whatever they want to do may not be free at all.

Don't believe me?

Ask the drug addict, or the alcoholic, or the person addicted to gambling, food, or pornography, when they're being honest, if they’re really free.

At a moment of weakeness and truth-telling, ask the person who steals, gossips, or commits adultery of their actions were born of a free will or if, instead, they're not born of a will that “is in bondage to sin” and cannot free itself.

I feel blessed and thankful to live in the United States of America. But even if I’m able to exercise every single freedom guaranteed by our system of government, I still won’t be free in the eyes of God or from the perspective of Christ. Even if I’m free to do anything I want to do, my actions will be dictated by sin.

And, as we all know, “the wages of sin is death” [Romans 6:23].

So, freedom doesn’t mean doing what we want. To we human beings, Proverbs 16:25 says, “there is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”

And freedom doesn’t mean doing what we feel like doing. The worst advice we can give someone is to follow their heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us.

Defining freedom as doing what we want to do is a dead end that leads us away from God, away from life, away from eternity, away from true kinship with other people. It leads to destruction, the devil, and to hell.

But there’s another definition of freedom.

It’s real freedom.

It’s not the freedom to do what the sin that shackles us tells us to do.

It’s the freedom that belongs to those who are moving toward becoming the people that our Creator made us to be.

In the Old Testament, King David confesses to God: “...you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb...My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place...Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” [Psalm 139:13-17]

The God Who made us can set us free to be all we were made to be because, as our Maker, He knows exactly all that we can be.

This is freedom.

I once heard the true story of a man who used the freedom that many American citizens enjoy. He leveraged his intelligence, training, contacts, and mental, emotional, and physical stamina to become hugely successful. He had a large business in Michigan. On the way to his success, he lost his wife, his kids, and his soul. He was throwing a business-related party at the building from which he ruled his empire. “When you look at all of this,” a guest said to him, “you must feel proud.” “Actually,” the man replied in a rare moment of honesty, “when I look at all of this, it makes me sick.”

Some people might say that that man had lived in complete freedom--no bosses, no accountability, nothing to tie him down. It’s pretty clear when you read God’s Word that that wouldn’t be God’s assessment. Nor, apparently was it the ultimate assessment of that successful man.

The New Testament book of Galatians, which we’ll be delving into over the next few weeks is all about the freedom God can give to us, the freedom to be all that we were made to be. Galatians calls this “freedom in Christ.”

And it’s as relevant today as it was when Saint Paul first wrote the book to Christians in Galatia in about 49 AD. Most experts think that Galatia was a region in part of what we today call Turkey. Paul had founded churches in this region on an earlier mission trip.

But the letter, meant to be circulated among the Christians who worshiped and studied God’s Word together in small house churches, was prompted by a problem in those churches. The issue was freedom.

Please turn to our second lesson for today, Galatians 1:1-12. Take a look at verse 1: “Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—and all the brothers and sisters with me, To the churches in Galatia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Paul begins the letter in a way common to those times. When you and I write an email to someone today, we might say, “Dear Joe” or “Joe.” But in Paul’s day, you’d start out a letter to Joe by telling Joe who was sending the letter first. The opening greetings of letters those days were more like the tags we attach to Christmas gifts today: “From: Paul; To: Joe.”

In this opening though, Paul also moves quickly to establish that he isn’t just another guy writing to them. Paul points that he’s an “apostle,” a word that literally means “sent one.” Paul asserts that he was sent not by just anyone. I was “sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father,” the latter of whom raised Jesus from the dead. By everything Paul writes in the simple opening words of this letter in five verses, he’s saying, “Look, Galatians, what you’re about to read isn’t from me, it’s from God! So, pay attention!”

Are you confident enough in your relationship with Jesus Christ to be able to talk to fellow Christians you love in that way?

Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not.

But part of being free in Christ is being free to speak with others honestly and lovingly about the truth of God.

And, as followers of Jesus who accept the Bible as God's Word's, we possess the most important truth in the universe!

You’ve heard me quote Jesus’ words from John 14:6 before, but here they are again. Jesus says: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

If you had your Bibles with you and you were turned to John 14:6, I’d ask you to underline the word the in Jesus’ words: He is the way, the truth, and the life. And Jesus is the only way to a relationship with God the Father. “You can’t know God except through Me,” Jesus is telling us. “You can’t have the freedom for which you were made unless you follow Me.”

People need to know this truth!

People you know need to know this truth!

So, we should be as bold and loving in sharing it as Paul was. We shouldn't keep it to ourselves!

If people don’t know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life--not just as head knowledge, but as the announcement of the only way to life, they will be enslaved to sin and separated from God forever. 

Think of it: If by some happenstance, you came upon the cure for pancreatic cancer or AIDs, but thought, “I’d better not say anything. I don’t want to force a chance for new life on people,” you would be rightly regarded as monstrous.

If you have life and freedom from slavery through Christ to share with others, you have to share it. It would be monstrous to keep it to yourself, wouldn’t it?

We have begun the process of building a discipleship culture at Living Water. This is part of what Bishop John and our North American Lutheran Church are calling us to do, of course.

But, more importantly, Jesus calls us to be a congregation that makes disciples, not through programs, not through events, but through each us of sharing Christ’s truth boldly, lovingly, unapologetically, and relationally with the people in our lives, then inviting them to let us as individuals help them to know Jesus personally.

We need to ensure that every single disciple in Living Water who is willing to be used by God will be empowered by God’s Word to make other disciples, to speak the truth in love, to be accountable to other Christian sisters or brothers in our congregation, to live in the freedom that Jesus Christ died and rose to give us.

We need to stop worrying about what others say and just live in the freedom we have in Jesus Christ!

It was from this perspective of freedom that Paul wrote to the churches at Galatia.

Verse 6: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!”

Just as there is only one truth, God’s truth, and just as there’s only one way to life with God, Jesus, there’s also, Paul is saying, one Gospel.

Our word Gospel translates a word Paul and the other writers used in the New Testament Greek in which they wrote, euangelion. It means good news.

You all know the good news. It’s in John 3:16-18. Jesus gave the good news to a man named Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

We can turn down the offer of new and everlasting life--the freedom that comes with being a child of God--by refusing to surrender to or believe in Jesus. People enslaved to sin are intrinsically inclined to make that choice of refusing to believe in Jesus.

But the good news is that we can be set free from sin, death, and the self-focus that leads to hell when we take the offer of grace and freedom given to us by the crucified and risen Jesus. Jesus sets us free to live different lives, free lives, with Him for eternity, starting now, today.

In 49 AD, the churches in Galatia were turning their backs on Jesus and freedom from Him. A group of Jewish Christians had come to them and basically said, “What Jesus did on the cross and from the tomb is cool, but if you want life with God, you need to do all the ritual and sacrificial law. You have to get circumcised and be observant Jews if you want Jesus to save you.”

Ever since Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit, human beings have tried to turn their relationship with God into a business transaction: If they were good enough...if they showed up for worship enough...if they plunked enough money in the offerings, they could bargain with God. God would have to hold up His end of the bargain and these outwardly religious people felt, like Americans, free to do whatever they wanted to do.

Jesus scorned the thinking of people like these. He scorns it still. People who buy into this kind of religious thinking were, He once said, like “whitewashed tombs,” righteous looking on the outside who felt free to shaft their parents, neighbors, the poor, and others [Matthew 23:27].

“Deal-making righteousness” (which is no righteousness at all) appeals to our human ego. It makes us feel like we're in control. It makes us feel free. But it really makes us slaves to the things of this world, things that are bound to die.

Paul was concerned that the Galatians were turning away from their freedom in Christ, back to the false freedom of religious bravado and pride, a false freedom that leads to death.

Paul tells them--and us, whenever the world’s idea of freedom tempts us to do things our way rather than Christ’s way--to settle in. He’s about to remind them (and us) of the true Gospel message, the message of true freedom that no human being invented, but comes to us only “through a revelation of Jesus Christ” [verse 12].

And it’s to Paul that we’ll be listening over the next several weeks so that we too, can know the freedom Jesus died and rose to give to those who follow Him. Amen

Comfort, Hope, Joy (Maundy Thursday, 2013)

[This was shared during worship Maundy Thursday worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church and our guests on March 28, 2013.]

John 13:1-17, 31b-35
On the first Maundy Thursday, in an upper room, Jesus enjoyed the last few uninterrupted moments He would have with the twelve apostles before His crucifixion. He had a message for them, something it was essential for Jesus to convey to them. Otherwise, everything about to take place--His arrest later that night, His trial before an illegal court, His death on a cross on Good Friday, and even His bodily resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday--would make no sense to them.

The twelve, along with the rest of Jesus’ hundreds of disciples, were about to be immersed in a chaos of events. Jesus wanted them to know, even when they experienced the first day, Good Friday, when He was executed; the second day, Holy Saturday, when His body lay in the tomb; and the third day, Easter Sunday, when Jesus, God in the flesh, rose from death, that He had been in control all along.

In the chaotic events of our lives, we need to know the same thing! Jesus is still in control.

Often, when Jesus wanted to make teaching points, He told parables. But here, in the upper room, Jesus acts out His message, as the Old Testament prophets sometimes did. We’re told by John, was in the upper room that night, that Jesus “got up from the table, took off His outer robe, and tied a towel around Himself. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet.”

You’ve probably all heard enough Maundy Thursday sermons to know that washing the feet of dinner guests was the job of a household slave and not of a host.

You know that Jesus is demonstrating, as He said elsewhere, that He came into the world--God in flesh appearing--to serve.

You know about what Jesus says after He has finished washing the disciples’ feet: “You call me Teacher and Lord [that is, your master, maker, I AM, God Himself] and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

Later on Jesus says that all of this points to a new commandment He gives gives to all who believe in Him, that just as He has loved us, we who are part of His body on earth are to love one another.

It’s this commandment that’s behind name of this day, Maundy Thursday. That word maundy comes to us from the French word, mandé, meaning something that has been commanded and goes back to the Latin translation of Jesus words in John 13:34. I don’t know Latin, but the words are, “Mandātum novum dō vōbīs,” or “I give to you a new commandment.”

That commandment to love our fellow believers is essential. We who belong to Jesus Christ are to love one another.

Love, of course, doesn’t mean approval. If, as a parent, your child is doing something that is dangerous to them, love will compel you to confront them or discipline them.

Christ has given the responsibility to proclaim the forgiveness of sin to the repentant and the condemnation for sin to the unrepentant. That’s called the Office of the Keys [see Matthew 16:19; John 20:19-23].

But love must always be the reason for exercising that responsibility.

Christ loves sinners and hates our sins, even yours and mine.

We are to love as we have been loved.

We are to humbly serve one another, just as the Lord of all creation has served us.

And we are, in the words of Ephesians, to speak God’s truth in love to one another, even when we would rather not. That’s part of love too.

But there is a deeper significance even than Jesus’ command to love one another in Jesus’ enacted lesson in the upper room.

Near the beginning of John's account of Maundy Thursday, there's a chilling passage. “Having loved His own who were in the world [the disciples], [Jesus] loved them to the end.” And then: “The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray [Jesus].”

Imagine this moment: Jesus loves everyone around that table. Jesus washes the feet of all around that table. Though John makes no mention of it, Jesus will also give Holy Communion to everyone at that table. But on Judas, all this service, all this love, all this grace, was of no avail. The devil had already entered Judas’ heart.

How does something like that happen?

Judas had spent time with Jesus as an intimate, an apostle. He had heard Jesus preach and teach. He saw Jesus turn water into wine, give sight to a blind man, feed the 5000, raise Lazarus from the dead. He had received the Word of God from the One Who, John says, is the Word of God, the creator of the universe. It seems that His heart should have been filled to overflowing with faith.

But, as Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us, “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse, who can understand it?”

The New Testament teaches that faith in Jesus Christ is a gift from God. And we know that, by God's grace, it is faith in Christ that saves us from sin and death.

And blessedly, we know too, that God doesn’t command that we have faith of a certain magnitude. Just faith.

One of my favorite prayers in the Bible is still that of the father who asked that Jesus would cast a demon from the boy, if Jesus were able to do it. His initial prayer to Jesus was, “If you are able.” Jesus responds with the man’s own words, “If you are able--All things can be done for the one who believes. Immediately the father cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

Once I heard a pastor recount how people, knowing that salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Christ alone, would ask him, “How do I know I’m not going to hell?” His response: “The fact that you don’t want to go to hell is evidence of your faith.”

It’s similar to what I tell people when they confess that they’ve gotten mad at God, afraid that such emotions indicate no faith in God. I tell them: “If you didn’t believe in God, you wouldn’t get mad at Him. You only get mad at a God you believe is there!”

The problem with Judas was that His heart was closed to God. A heart closed to God is wide open to the devil.

That’s how, despite a constant exposure to the Word of God the Holy Spirit wanted to turn into faith, Judas turned down the gift. He turned down Christ. He wanted thirty pieces of silver more than he wanted Jesus.

He wasn’t the last person to choose the dying things of earth over the life that only Jesus Christ has to give.

But just as Jesus never gave up on offering faith to Judas, we in the Church must never give up on those in need of faith in Christ around us!

John says that Jesus, back in the upper room, confident that He and the Father were one and that He was returning to the Father, did this extraordinary thing. He took off His outer robe. Half naked, He wrapped a towel around Himself and did the work of a servant. No one made Jesus do this. It was a voluntary act. He chose to love His disciples in this way. He chose to lay aside His clothes and His dignity in a culture that regarded personal dignity as important. Later, after having done the work of a servant, Jesus put His outer garment back on and resumed His place at the head of the table, their Lord and Teacher.

Here’s what Jesus was telling the twelve. In a few short hours, temple police would arrest Him. Roman guards would strip Him of His clothing. They would mock Him, spit on Him, beat Him, whip Him, and then nail Him to a cross, naked to the elements, to die. Jewish and Gentile leaders, powers equivalent to the modern Church and State, and the opinions of the mass of humanity all would conspire against Jesus. And people would think, “He’s not such a big deal after all. We showed Him. He’s not God. We are. We’re the decision makers around here.”

In the rush of horrible events surrounding Good Friday, the disciples were in no shape emotionally, mentally, or spiritually to remember the lesson of Maundy Thursday. But later, they would remember Jesus saying of His life on earth, “I lay down my life in order to take up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.”

No one took Jesus’ life from Him. He gave it up willingly. And He died at the moment He decided it was time, for only God has the right to give and take life away. “It is finished,” Jesus said. And He breathed His last. On Easter Sunday morning, Jesus took His up life again and He did it, as a servant, for us, for our needs for forgiveness, new life, fellowship with God, and a purpose for living.

After Easter, the disciples must have looked back on the events of Maundy Thursday and thought, “Of course! Of course the Lord of creation laid down His life in service and love for all sinners, hoping even to reach those in whose hearts the devil had entered, so that they might embrace the gift of faith. Of course, it was in Jesus’ power to lay down His life and take it back up again. Hadn’t he told Martha that day in Bethany, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die’? And then they would remember that Jesus asked Martha, ‘Do you believe this?’”

Jesus asks the same question of you and me tonight: “Do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life? Do you believe that I am the only way and the only truth on whom a life can safely be built? Do you believe I am the only way to eternity?”

A few weeks ago, the pilot light on our furnace went out. We decided to put more blankets on the bed and call someone in the morning. When we hit the sack that night, the house was about 51-degrees. When we woke up the next morning, the thermometer was at 41-degrees. The absence of a tiny pilot light left a vacuum for the colder air to move in and take over where once there had been warmth.

Our faith may be small, like that pilot light. Our faith may only be our desire to have Jesus in our lives. I know that my faith goes small and dim sometimes. But then I think of Jesus laying down His dignity and His life, as He did symbolically on Maundy Thursday, and as He did really on Good Friday. I think of how Jesus took His authority and power back up when He went back to the head of the table on Maundy Thursday and how He took back power over the destiny of the whole cosmos when He rose from death on Easter Sunday. I’m amazed and overwhelmed when I think that He did that for me, a sinner who can sometimes be a Judas who betrays Jesus, a Peter who denies him, or a disciple who runs for cover when it comes time for me to stand up for Jesus and my faith in Him.

Maundy Thursday assures us that if we want Jesus and His Lordship over our lives, however dim our faith, He is glad to have us as His own.

In the chaos and the glad times of this life, may knowing and trusting that Jesus loves us enough to give the repentant freedom from sin and the believing eternal life, bring us comfort, hope, and joy. Amen

Deciding How to Live

[This was shared during the 10:15 AM worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, today.]

James 3:13-4:8
Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Road Not Taken, begins:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could. 

Anyone who has ever had to make a decision in life can identify with those lines. We all must make decisions.

Some decisions we make, of course, have more importance than others.

The career path we will follow.

Who we will marry.

How much effort we will choose to put into our relationships.

What to do in caring for elderly parents.

Life is filled with consequential decisions and, as we make them, we feel the need for wisdom.

In today’s second lesson, James, the earthly brother of Jesus and leader of the Christians in Jerusalem, says that there are two kinds of wisdom. And the consequences these two divergent forms of wisdom bring into our lives are dramatically different. Turn please to the lesson, James 3:13-4:8.

James begins with a question:

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him [or her] show by good conduct that his [or her] works are done in the meekness of wisdom.” 

Now, truth be told, we don’t like being told to be meek. We flinch when Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, “the meek will inherit the earth.” But, we don’t want to inherit the earth. We want it now! We’re not into delayed gratification.

And if the rows of self-help books you find in most bookstores are any indication, our idea of wisdom has to do with being shrewd and bold about getting what we want when we want it, no matter who or what gets in the way.

James well describes the shrewd, plotting wisdom that the world usually recommends to us:

"But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly [from the world, not from God in heaven], sensual [it gratifies the parts of us slated for death], demonic [from hell, the place of everlasting punishment and condemnation for those who turn their backs on Jesus Christ]. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there." 

The problem with the wisdom generated by human beings is that it’s me-centered. Buy into the “wisdom” of this world and you may achieve things that the world considers great, but you will not be in alignment with God’s will that we love God and love others as we love ourselves. You will, as Jesus says, "gain the world and lose your life."

This sort of death-dealing wisdom even has been given place in the twenty-first century Church.

For example, some conservative denominations and Christian megachurches wrap Jesus in the American flag to justify everything about American traditions and values, to give them the sheen of holiness. In doing so, they subordinate Jesus to the United States, engaging in an idolatry that appeals to those who are certain that, even if God isn't a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative, liberal, libertarian, or socialist, God is an American. This false wisdom may help churches get along with people who would rather not be confronted with the truth about the flaws of this nation we love, but it will leave the people who accept it far from the true God of the universe we know in Jesus.

Sadly, many embrace other forms of false and worldly wisdom in the so-called "liberal" denominations, like our own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

An official web site of our ELCA, called Living Lutheran, recently published a sermon by Pastor Delmer Chilton, an assistant to the bishop of the ELCA’s Southeastern Synod. His text was Mark 7:24-37, a passage of the Bible that we looked at a few weeks ago. It deals with Jesus’ encounter with a Syrophoenician woman, a Gentile, a non-Jew, whose daughter had a demon.

Jesus, you’ll remember, at first appears to refuse the woman her request. “Let the children [by which Jesus means the children of Israel] be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” “Dogs” was the put-down term Jews used about Gentiles, who they believed could never be saved from sin and death nor be right with God. But we know that Jesus came to die and rise for all people, giving eternal life to all who turn from sin and believe in Him alone as God and authority over their lives.

We also know that Jesus is God the Son: all-knowing, all-powerful. “The Father and I are one,” Jesus tells us [John 10:30].

So, we are momentarily mystified by Jesus’ seeming refusal of this woman’s request.

But as we pointed out a few weeks ago, the word that Jesus uses for dogs is the word for puppies. The Syrophoenician woman immediately picks up on Jesus’ playful phrasing, understanding not only that Jesus is going to grant her request, but that He is using this incident as a memorable sign that His grace can reach and change the life of any person, whatever their nationality or former religious persuasion. As Jesus will put it elsewhere in Mark’s gospel, “The one who believes in Me and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe in Me will be condemned.”

In his ELCA official web site sermon, Delmer Chilton ignores all that Jesus claims about Himself throughout the rest of the gospels and says that Jesus really was going to turn the Syrophoenician woman down until she taught Jesus what it means to be God and Savior of the world. Chilton claims that after this encounter, “Jesus stands corrected...the woman has helped Jesus understand a difficult part of Scripture and a difficult part of his call.”

Folks, this is the cunning, shrewd, self-serving wisdom of the world dressed up as Christianity. It’s the same kind of sin the devil has been enticing proud people into embracing since the garden of Eden.

You see, if you whittle God down to your size, then you, not God, can call the shots. You can tell God how to be God. You can decide what truths in God’s Word you’ll accept as authoritative over your life and what ones you’ll ignore or denigrate. It allows you to remake Christian truth in ways that are more palatable to you.

Operating from the same mindset, the pastor of an ELCA congregation in Santa Fe, New Mexico told another newspaper a few weeks ago that Bible “is not a talking book” [a surprise to anyone who’s been taught that the Bible is the Word of God in which God speaks to us] and then, he asserted, the Bible “doesn’t tell me what to do.”

Turn please, to 2 Timothy 3:16. It says:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof [that means censuring or rebuking for wandering away from God’s will], for correction, for instruction in righteousness...” 

There are things we may not understand in the Bible, but it is the living Word of God, the place we go to find hope, salvation, truth, and God's will for our lives. It records God's definitive disclosure of Himself, first to ancient Israel and ultimately to all the world, through Jesus Christ. This is the God Who will give us wisdom for every decision we may face in life, if will will only ask for it in Jesus' Name. James 1:5 reminds us: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him [or her] ask God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given...”

The kind of wisdom that we need isn’t the wisdom of the world, or of the devil, or even from within ourselves. James describes it in James 3:17: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.”

Life is too big for us to figure it out on our own.

We need the wisdom God gives to those who humbly surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. Look again at our text, at James 4:7-8:

“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

In my own life, whether before I turned from atheism to faith in Christ or in the years since I fell in love with Jesus, I have always gotten into spiritual danger, relational danger, and the danger of forgetting who God made me to be and who Christ, by His cross and resurrection, freed me to be in when I do three different things.

I've gotten into trouble when I have followed my own thoughtful analysis of circumstances, instead of following Jesus. God gave us our brains. So, we are to use them. But if my brain isn't subordinated to the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ, I will inevitably make unwise choices. As Proverbs 14:12 reminds us: “There is a way that seems right to [human beings], but its end is the way of death.”

I've also gotten myself into trouble when I have followed my heart instead of following Jesus. God gave us our emotions and they can bless our lives. But if my heart isn't subordinated to Jesus Christ, I make unwise decisions. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the human heart "is devious above all else; it is perverse..."

I've also gotten myself into trouble when I've followed the crowd or some individual I respect or like, instead of following Christ. Proverbs 11:14 tells us, "Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in abundance of counselors there is safety." It's good to get the advice of other people. But if those other people aren't following Jesus, their advice is, at best, suspect.

I've gotten myself into trouble in life then, when I haven't followed the wisdom of God.

But, how can we operate from God’s wisdom, rather than the wisdom of the world?

For me, one passage of Scripture seems to best summarize God’s counsel and command for those who want to live in the wisdom of God every day of their lives.

Please turn to Romans 12:1-2.

It says:

“I beseech you therefore, [brothers and sisters], by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Wisdom--as well as life, hope, and joy--comes to those who give their all to the God Who gave His all to us in Jesus Christ. Wisdom comes to those who surrender to Christ! 

Jesus says, “...wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction [that is, to hell and separation from God], and there are many who [take this route]...[But] narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

We all have decisions to make in life. Surrender to Jesus Christ and God will guide you to make wise choices.

Sometimes those choices will lead you through pain and growth and maturity you’d just as soon not acquire.

But when you choose to follow Jesus Christ, you will always be living wisely.

You will always be on the way that leads to life. Amen