Our Great Reward

[Below you'll find the message shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Also here you'll find live stream video of both our 8:45 AM traditional and 11:00 AM modern worship services. A highlight of the day was welcoming five new members into the fellowship of the church!]

Matthew 10:34-42

At the start of today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells the twelve apostles He’s sending with His Word–and He tells us: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) These are jarring words.

But Jesus goes on to be even more jarring, claiming words from the prophet Micah for himself: “For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’” (Matthew 10:35-36)

These words seem strange to us in two ways, I think.

First, we remember that the angels sang on the night of Jesus’ birth: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:14) Didn’t Jesus, God the Son, come into our world to make peace between God and we sinful human beings?

Second, didn’t God make families fundamental to human life, giving the family first billing in the second table of the ten commandments: “Honor your father and your mother”?

The answer to both of those questions is Yes.

But not everyone wants God’s peace.

As Christians, we know and cherish what Paul talks about in our second lesson, from Romans 7: that by the grace of God given to us in Christ under which we were washed at Holy Baptism, we “died to the [condemnation of the] law [for our sin]” and belong to Jesus, Who will one day raise us up to live with God forever. (Romans 7:4)

God has already done this for us as a gift that we are simply called to receive in faith.

And even the power to believe–to have faith–in Christ is a gift from God, given in His Word. The Bible says, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17)

But sometimes, even members of our own families will resist the Gospel Word about Christ. They will refuse to trust in Christ.

When I was a teenager, already an atheist myself, I watched my aunt break down in tears as one of my cousins told her he didn’t need God. He had heard the Word about Christ many times. He had seen the peace that the adults and even friends in his life had through faith in Jesus. But he wasn’t buying it.

For many people, the Gospel doesn’t make sense.

Some see the hatred, prejudice, injustice, suffering, and death in this world and can’t imagine that there is a loving and omnipotent God Who, they imagine, does nothing to change things. They don’t realize that God has already done everything necessary to change things, to give us life and peace, one person at a time. He’s done this through Jesus, Who says: “​​Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life…” (John 6:40) This isn’t a call to wait for the sweet by-and-by. It’s a declaration from God that as you trust in Christ, you are set free to live life to the full without fear of condemnation, setbacks, or even death! You can even fight things like hatred, prejudices, injustice, suffering, and death without fear of the world because you know you belong to Jesus Christ for all eternity!

Others can make no sense of the Gospel–the good news of new and everlasting life with God through Christ–because they’ve been schooled in the ways of a hard world. They’ve been taught that anything worth having must be bought, earned, stolen, or swindled. They think the project of their lives is to keep themselves–and maybe their kids–as comfortable as possible until they die. That’s it. There is no room or desire for Jesus in such a worldview.

Still others can’t imagine that any of their sins–from gossip to sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage, from petty dishonesty in personal business dealings to using God’s name as a punchline–could possibly concern a holy God they’ve never seen.

For people like these, Jesus’ will sound like nonsense when He says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. [literally, the eternal reign of God is here now in Me and the Gospel Word about Me].” (Matthew 4:17)

They’ll find it hard to believe that Christ is as close as His Word or as close as the water of Holy Baptism or the bread and the wine of Holy Communion.

His emissaries–parents, pastors, friends, family–will tell these folks, “The kingdom of heaven has come near [in Jesus]” and they’ll resist. (Matthew 10:7)

Or turn a deaf ear.

Or maybe lash out.

Or maybe even betray you!

Of course, no Christian filled with Jesus’ compassionate Spirit will be satisfied knowing that we have everlasting life with God and not want to share it with others. We won’t want to let others’ negative reactions to Christ’s Gospel keep us from sharing it!

So, Christians will want to see their children and grandchildren, all the children in their families, baptized. In Baptism, children are covered with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Their spirits are crucified and raised and the Holy Spirit is unleashed in children’s lives that they may come to the point where they confess Jesus as their Lord. “Baptism…” the apostle Peter says, “saves you…It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” (1 Peter 3:21)

Christians will want to let family members see that Christ is their hope and their life. Peter also told Christian women that their disbelieving husbands “may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives…” (1 Peter 3:2)

And Christians will also want to be able to share the hope of Christ’s Gospel with family members when they have the chance. Peter also writes, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Peter 3:15)

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus tells Christians, “Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.” (Matthew 10:41)

Considering just the prophets for a moment: If you’ve ever read the Old Testament, you know that God’s prophets weren’t always rewarded in enjoyable ways. (Neither have those been made righteous by God’s grace in Christ, by the way.)

When we, like the prophets, speak God’s Word, we must first speak His Law that all people are sinners, deserving of eternal punishment and separation from God, before we speak God’s Word of promise, His Gospel, that our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life with God through Jesus.

These words call us, and all people, to repent–to turn from sin–and to believe in Jesus as our only God and Savior.

The prophets were often slighted, hunted down, condemned, killed.

That was how the world rewarded them for their faithfulness.

It’s how the world today, even the worlds of our families, often reward Christians. Jesus doesn’t sugar coat that truth and neither should we.

But God has another reward for our faithfulness to Christ.

It’s the reward of which the prophet Isaiah spoke seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, pointing to Jesus, God the Son, Himself, Isaiah wrote: “See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” (Isaiah 40:10-11)

Jesus promises us, “the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13)

In Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven, friends. That’s your reward from God.

And in Jesus Christ, you know, intimately and personally, the God of all Creation Who saves you to be His forever. That too is your reward from God.

And in Jesus, you know that God is with you always. He will never abandon you. That also is God’s reward to you.

In the end, Jesus is your reward, friends!

And He is all the reward you and I could ever want or will ever need.

Amen

[I'm grateful for the scholarship of Drs. John Hoyum and Steve Paulson and others in the development of today's message.]

When Evil People Are In Control

These days, I'm reading Proverbs for my daily quiet time with God. (I'm using The One Year Chronological Bible and am once again be reading the Bible over the course of the year.

Today, I was struck by several passages that, despite not being situated together, seem to go together, each successive couplet of two proverbs building on the previous one and forming a more complete picture.

Take a look at them here to see what I mean.

"Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day. Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off." (Proverbs 23:17-18)

Anyone who seeks to humbly follow God and love their neighbor has had those moments when, like Jeremiah, in one way or another, they ask God, "Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?" (Jeremiah 12:1)

We can ask these questions self-righteously, seeing the splinter in our neighbor's eye without acknowledging the log in our own, as Jesus says. (I know that I do anyway.) We wonder why some people seem to "get away with murder," doing cruel things, saying cruel things, and yet enjoying ease and sometimes, the approval of the world.

But what the verses from Proverbs tell us is that we shouldn't fall prey to anger at the evil people in the world for their prosperity or other advantages.

We need to remember that all who daily repent of sin and keep on trusting in the God we now meet in Jesus, God the Son--all who keep pursuing Christ and endure in trusting in Him--have infinitely and eternally more than the arrogant rich and powerful of this world.

The apostle Peter says that believers in Jesus have "an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time." (1 Peter 1:4-5)

To waste our time on envy of the evil people who gobble up more of the dead and dying stuff of a world ticketed for destruction doesn't make sense.

(By the way, as our current Facebook study of 1 John reminds us that some of these evil people we might be tempted to envy claim to be Christians themselves. They're the folks who twist the truth of the Gospel or exploit Christians to get the earthly things they want, like power, wealth, and advantage. John says that people like these are among the "many antichrists" that do evil in these last days [1 John 2:18-29] and who we need to ignore.)

The next couplet of verses from Proverbs that seems to go with the one mentioned above is Proverbs 24:1-2: "Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, for their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble."

While in Proverbs 23:17-18, we're told that it's ridiculous for those who trust in the God now revealed to all in Jesus to be envious of evil people because we know that God stands with those who trust in Him always, here we're told to stay away from the wicked because of the rotten things they say and do.

When we see the wicked exploiting others for big bucks or manipulating people to get or keep power, we may be tempted to befriend them. We may think that we can get some of their money or power for ourselves.

But these aren't good people. They spend their time devising ways to hurt people or stir up chaos to their own advantage. If we associate with people like these, they're likely to exploit us or, even worse, influence us to become like them!

Proverbs warns us to stay away from evil people who view others either as objects they can use or can discard.

We can pray for people given over to evil like Proverbs is talking about, asking that their hearts will be changed.

But we should never envy them.

We shouldn't do business with them.

We shouldn't trust them in any way.

We shouldn't emulate them and we shouldn't even mention their names in public.

And we shouldn't, by entering into their orbits, allow them to take us to hell with them.

The third couplet of verses from Proverbs that seems to go with the previous two is Proverbs 24:19-20: "Fret not yourself because of evildoers, and be not envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out."

The idea here seems to be: Don't spend a moment stewing over the advantages that evil people may have in the world. Fight for justice and fair treatment for your neighbor, by all means. That goes with loving God with our whole being and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

But our call is to get on with lives by trusting in Jesus, Who empowers us to live in love toward God and others and to share the good news of new and eternal life for all who entrust their lives to Jesus.

For us to spend any time being resentful of the evil is a waste.

They're on the losing side of history no matter how much they may think they're winning.

Do what you can to keep these types from hurting your neighbor.

Pray that God will bring them to faith in Christ.

Pray even that you might have the chance to share Christ with them.

Otherwise, give them no thought. And don't be envious of them!

These six verses seem especially appropriate for me to heed today.

Why Pray?

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, yesterday morning.]

Luke 18:1-8
The widow in the parable Jesus tells in today’s gospel lesson is desperate and helpless. She needs vindication. The culture in which Jesus lived during His time on earth gave no legal standing to women. Yet, this widow incessantly seeks vindication anyway: Whatever her standing in society, she knows that she cannot survive or live without a judge vindicating her, justifying her.

The judge is a particularly corrupt and nasty human being. Precisely because widows had no standing in the ancient world in which God raised His people Israel into being, God repeatedly commanded the Jews to care for widows, as well as for orphans, foreigners, and those the world often marginalizes, ignores, or leaves behind. But the judge had no concern about the will of God or the niceties of the law.

The meaning of this parable is underscored in part, by what Jesus has to say just before He tells it. At the end of Luke, chapter 17, Jesus talks about what His disciples, including you and me, are to expect from life in this world until, on the last day, the crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus returns to this world to judge the living and the dead and to make all things right. This world, the world as it is between Jesus' ascension and His return is the one in which you and I have lived our entire lives. As it progresses, we are called to be about God's business: trusting in Christ for life and forgiveness, living in love for God and the world, and in fellowship with His Church.

This is a dangerous time.  

It’s a time in which believers in Christ are subject to the possibility of rejection, even persecution, of course. 

But more certainly, it’s a time in which we may be lulled into thinking that this world and its rewards are all that we need, that there is nothing better that God can offer us than the baubles this world so values. Or that because we endure hardships and grief, God must be absent and His gospel false. 

Listen: The central truth of human history is that despite our sins, God, the lovesick Father Who sent the Son Jesus to die as the perfect sacrifice for our sins and to lift the burden of sin, death, and darkness off of our shoulders for all eternity, then raised Him from death to kick down the door to eternal life with God for all who believe in Jesus, and even now, sends His Holy Spirit to create faith in Jesus when God’s gospel Word comes to us, has never and will never give up on us! He has never given up on you! 

That’s why Jesus preached, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)  

That’s why Jesus also said, in a passage you’ve often heard me cite, “...the one who endures [in faith in Christ] to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13) 

The disciple of Jesus is called to cling to Christ, Who has endured everything you and I have ever or will ever endure, including death, yet rose. We are to cling to Christ, knowing through Him that God will never leave us and never forsake us. 

He will walk with us through all the valleys of the shadow of death we experience in this world and at the end of the ages, He’s going to call out to us in our graves and say, “Rise!” 

And He will tell us, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34) 

All who turn from sin and trust in Jesus as their God and Savior will experience eternal vindication for their faith in Him.

But how are we to live now, in these dangerous times? Jesus tells us how in the parable that makes up today’s gospel lesson, Luke 18:1-18. Take a look at it with me, please. 

Verse 1: “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” 

The word used here for lose heart in the Greek in which Luke wrote his gospel is ἐκκακέω. It’s a compound word literally meaning called out from. A good definition might be to be overcome on the outside--in our actions and thoughts--by the weariness that we feel on the inside. 

Jesus says that we need to avoid allowing ourselves to be so wearied by the things we experience in this world that we stop trusting in Him and in the promises He has guaranteed by His death and resurrection. 

God knows that life in this world can be wearying.

It’s why Jesus tells us, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) 

It’s why we’re told in Isaiah 40:31: “...those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” 

Jesus tells us that we will not grow weary in following Him in these in-between times when we pray.

Verse 2: “[Jesus] said: ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, “Grant me justice against my adversary.” For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!”’ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”

The judge in Jesus’ parable is as unlike God as it’s possible to be. 

• God the Son Jesus, as we see from His cross, divested Himself of His power to become a servant to the human race, selflessly cleansing us of the filth of sin and the rot of death by His innocent blood. This God wants nothing more than to vindicate us, to justify us, simply for trusting in Christ. 
• By contrast, the judge is vain, self-centered, corrupt, and, it would seem, likelier to give justice to the high and mighty than to lowly people like this widow. Yet even this judge, Jesus says, will get around to bringing justice to the widow simply because she will not stop petitioning for vindication and justice.

How do we stay faithful to Jesus in a world that largely ignores Him? 

How do we stay faithful when we experience stress and challenges, the monotonous demands of everyday life, the drudgery of inglorious tasks, the pain of suffering, grief, rejection, conflict, uncertainty, and death? 

Like the widow, desperate and helpless, we turn to the Judge, not a corrupt judge like the one in Jesus' parable, but to God, the Lord of all creation. 

We pray to the God in Jesus’ name. We find in this God we meet in Jesus a Father who will not delay in vindicating our faith--even in the midst of the in-between world in which we live. 

As we meet Him in prayer in Jesus’ name--as well as in His Word and in the sacraments we share in the fellowship of believers--the righteous Judge of all will assure us once again, as His Word promises, that nothing can separate us from the love of God given to us in Christ Jesus. “I know that Jesus is right here with me” is a message I have heard from more than one dying Christian over the years.

When I was young and strong, I deluded myself with the idea that I was strong enough to take on any challenge...before breakfast. 

I thought that I was, “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” 

I thought that I was virtuous and deserving. 

I believed these things deep down even after I had come to faith in Christ and had been ordained as a pastor and should have known better. 

I didn’t realize I thought those things, but they were there and still remain as part of my sinful nature from which I will only be finally free after I have died and rise with Christ on the last day. 

I am older and weaker now. And, if I live into the future on this earth, I will be older and weaker still. It has become untenable for me to pretend to be Superman or that I’m self-sufficient, or virtuous or deserving. 

I am none of these things. 

I am an undeserving sinner made a saint only by the grace God gives to those who acknowledge their sin, their weakness, and their desperation and fall in faith into the arms of the One Who died and rose for people like me. 

It is only sinners who turn to Christ, like the helpless widow, who are vindicated by the God of all creation Who is anxious to grace us with His forgiveness, His love, His life.

So when you feel defeated, pray that God will lift you up. 

When you feel victorious, pray that God will keep you honest about who and what you are. 

When you feel accosted by temptation, pray to God to confess that you are too weak to resist the sin that would otherwise drag you into hell. 

When you sin, pray to God in the name of the Son Who died for sinners like you and me and you will be forgiven. 

When you face decisions or are called to do things beyond your capacity, pray and God will guide you and do through you what you cannot do in your own power. (I know this to be true because I’ve been doing a job I am incapable of doing for thirty-five years now.) 

Whatever your circumstance, when you go to the Father in prayer in Jesus’ name, He will always vindicate you. Even after you have died, the God Who died and rose for you will vindicate your trust in Jesus and welcome you into His eternal embrace.

At the end of our lesson today, Jesus asks, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” 

We are saved from sin and death not by anything we do. 

We are saved by a faith given to us by God the Holy Spirit that recognizes the helplessness and desperation of our human condition and, by the powerful Word of God, empowers us to believe that as we call out to Jesus, we are saved. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” God’s Word tells us. 

So, keep calling on the Lord. 

Pray in Jesus’ name. 

Whether now or in eternity or both, Your faith in Christ will be vindicated. Amen

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

Trusting God in the In-Between Times

[This was shared yesterday afternoon as Pastor Tom Brodbeck was installed as senior pastor of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Springfield, Ohio.]

Hebrews 11:32-12:2a

We live in an in-between time. For Christians, this is the time between Jesus’ ascension in the past and His return at an unknown point in the future. Life for disciples of Jesus is always a time of waiting and watching...and sometimes, of impatience.

The preacher of Hebrews, from which our second Bible lesson comes this afternoon, was addressing a group of people who felt the burden of life in that in-between time. 

They were Jews--Hebrews--who had come to faith in Jesus. 

By faith, they trusted that Jesus is the Savior Who frees from sin, death, and futility all who trust in Him. 

By faith, they were certain too, that one day, Jesus would return and make all things in this fallen world right, judging the living and the dead and raising up all who persevere in turning away from sin and death and turning to Him for life.

These Jewish Christians also likely knew about the things that Jesus said would precede His return and likely thought something like, “Earthquakes. Check. Famines. Check. Wars and rumors of wars. Check” and asked, “What’s taking Jesus so long? Why is He making us live in this in-between time?” After the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton in the past twenty-four hours, we may be wondering the same thing: “What’s taking Jesus so long?”

It was to Christians with questions like these that the apostle Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Disciples of Jesus living in the time before Jesus’ return aren’t meant to obsess over God’s timeline. We’re meant to fulfill Christ’s calling on our lives, on the life of the Church. We’re to be and to make disciples. God means for that to be our singular obsession!

But, we can get impatient watching and waiting for Jesus to return. And our impatience will likely grow if we get pressured by others to turn from Christ. Many scholars believe that the Jewish Christians to whom the book of Hebrews is addressed were facing pressure from the Roman Empire to renounce Christ and return to Judaism. The Romans viewed the Christian proclamation of Jesus as the Lord and the Son of God as a threat to the emperor who they also called “Lord” and the “Son of God.” 

The preacher in Hebrews encourages the Jewish Christians to stand fast, to cling to Christ and not be intimidated by the Romans. The Romans could take away their lives on earth; but only Christ could give them life with God that never ends, making Roman threats irrelevant. “So do not throw away your confidence,” the preacher says in Hebrews 10:35, referring to faith in Christ. “it will be richly rewarded.” These words echo those of Jesus Himself, in Matthew 24:13: “...the one who endures [in faith] to the end will be saved.”

To encourage the Jewish Christians he was addressing, the preacher asks them to remember all those who, starting in Old Testament times, had persevered in trusting in the God Who promised the world a Savior centuries before that Savior appeared in Bethlehem. 

He mentions leaders like David and Samuel who “through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised [by God]; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.” 

He mentions a long train of nameless Old Testament and intertestmental saints who experienced persecution, flogging, stoning, chains and imprisonment, and death, who endured poverty, disdain, and hardship. 

He mentions those who, for their faith in the God Who would later send Jesus, were forced into hiding, forced to scavenge and live off the land. 

The preacher says, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised [they didn’t receive what you and I too often take for granted: Jesus and life in His name], since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” 

Think of it: Only together with us, believers in Jesus who live in this time between Jesus’ ascension and return to the world, would those old believers be made whole, complete, through what Jesus has accomplished on the cross, enduring the tests and temptations of this life sinlessly, so that He can give all who believe in Him everlasting life with God! 

Those of us who live in this in-between time should never be discouraged: Can there be any doubt after Jesus’ death and resurrection that following Him is the way to life, even life beyond the grave?

After recounting all those believers who endured in faith in anticipation of the Savior Jesus, the preacher says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses [all those believers before Christ, watching us today in the arena of this in-between world], let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

People of Grace Lutheran Church, you have called Pastor Tom Brodbeck to be your senior pastor. In that role, God will daily call him to remind you, through the ministry of Word and Sacrament, to throw off every distraction and sin that might keep you from following Jesus, to persevere in running the race of faith in Jesus Christ in this time, and to fix your eyes on Jesus without impatience or fear. You could not have chosen a better senior pastor to serve and lead you. In fact, God chose him and, through prayer, you discerned and issued God’s call to Pastor Brodbeck. Kudos to you for listening to God!

Knowing him as I do, I know that Pastor Brodbeck will, like the preacher in Hebrews, encourage you to keep trusting in Jesus, because it’s not only through faith in Jesus Christ alone that we are saved, it’s also through faith in Jesus Christ alone that we persevere or even want to persevere as His people called to be obsessed with being and making disciples in this in-between time.

Just as today I charge my cherished colleagye Tom to take up the baton passed onto him by my equally cherished colleague Dan Powell and run the race Christ sets before him with perseverance, I also charge you, people of Grace Lutheran Church, to run that same race of faith and to encourage your leader along the way. 

This is a congregation with a rich heritage. A cloud of witnesses who have been part of this church’s life and history are, along with the God we know in Jesus Christ, looking on today as you begin another leg of your race of faith. Know that there is nowhere you may go as a congregation, that, if you live in fellowship with Christ and with each other as people and pastor, Christ hasn’t already been. The “pioneer and perfecter of [our] faith,” as the preacher calls Jesus, is already blazing the trail for those who faithfully follow Him here at Grace Lutheran Church!

None of us knows when Jesus will return to close the curtain on this in-between time and bring His kingdom to final, eternal perfection. But I am sure of this: If together, people of Grace Lutheran Church and Pastor Tom Brodbeck, you keep following Jesus in this point in history, Jesus will take you exactly where He wants you to be. You can believe that! Amen! 

[Pictured above are Pastor Bruce Kramer, Pastor Tom Brodbeck, and me, after yesterday's Service of Installation. It was a celebratory event.]

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