The Journey of Here and Now

[This was shared during worship this morning with the members and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Luke 9:51-62

Christian journalist and thinker Philip Yancey has advice for Christians. “We do well to remember that the Bible has far more to say about how to live during the journey [through this life] than about the ultimate destination [beyond this life].”

That’s good advice. Jesus sets those who believe in Him free from sin and death not so that they can wait smugly for the days they die and get to be with Him. He sets us free so that, having the assurance that we belong to God forever, we can live this life differently and so that, through our lives and witness, we can invite others to join us in our journey with Jesus through this life.

In Matthew 24:13, Jesus tells us that the destination of an eternity with God only belongs to those who start living in that eternity through faith in Him today. “[T]he one who stands firm to the end [that means to the end of this life] will be saved [for the next].”

And the apostle Peter makes it clear that we are saved by Jesus not just for eternity and not just for ourselves, but for now and for others. “[Y]ou are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession,” Peter tells disciples of Jesus, “that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” [1 Peter 2:9] Our call in this life, today, right now, is to be and to make disciples out of gratitude for the grace through which God has saved us from ourselves. That’s our path, the journey Christ has marked out for us.

Our gospel lesson for today finds Jesus beginning the decisive final leg on the path, the journey that God the Father has marked for Him. Take a look at it, please, Luke 9:51-62. It begins: “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”

In the Greek in which Luke composed his gospel, that verse more literally says: “Then it came to pass, in the fulfillment of His ascension, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Ascension here doesn’t refer here to the day forty days after Jesus’ resurrection that He ascended to heaven. It refers instead to His overall mission of going to Jerusalem to suffer, be crucified, to rise, and then to ascend to heaven. 

Jesus has set His face to complete the journey that began with His birth at Christmas, to buy sinners out of our slavery to sin, death, and the devil through His death, resurrection, and ascension. 

Yesterday, we saw a re-run of an old Law and Order in which Detective Green, always a straight-shooter, faces a murder rap he doesn't deserve in order to spare someone else prison time. He turns to the prosecuting attorney who has unraveled what was going on and asks, “Why are you doing this?” “Because,” the prosecutor answers, “we thought you were worth saving.” 

You know, sometimes, on rare occasions, God graces us with clear pictures of ourselves. We see, when all self-justification and rationalization are cast aside, how we have marred ourselves and our characters with our sin and selfishness. We may see that we are, in many ways, damaged goods. 

But listen: The God Who made you and all that exists thinks you, along with every other human being without exception, are worth saving. You are worth saving. 

That’s why Jesus set His face to journey to Jerusalem. 

That’s why He calls us to journey with Him today.

But not everyone thinks they need saving. Or if they do think they need saving, they believe that they, or the gods of their choosing, or a particular way of life will save them. Verse 52: “And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.”

The Samaritan villagers didn’t welcome Jesus any more than had Jesus' fellow Jews in Jerusalem had at His birth or would in Holy Week, any more than the Romans would, any more than most people in the world today welcome Him for Who He is--God and King and Savior. Isaiah prophesied well of Jesus in the eighth-century BC: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” [Isaiah 53:3]

But the Samaritan villagers who spurned Jesus weren’t the only ones who didn’t understand Who Jesus is or what the journey of Christian discipleship is about. Verse 54: “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them.”

Luke says much more than that Jesus rebuked James and John. In the original Greek, he quotes Jesus as telling the two that they’re spiritually confused: “Οὐκ οἴδατε οἵου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεῖς”: “You don’t know of what spirit you are!” In other words, Jesus was saying, “If you guys want to torch people I came to save, you’re following the spirits of hell rather than the Holy Spirit.” 

For the person who journeys with Jesus, hatred for or indifference to those who may disagree with us are not options. 

If we insist on hating Muslims or atheists, or those who disagree with the Bible’s teaching on things like sexuality, how can we possibly introduce them to Jesus Christ? How can a Christian being hateful introduce others to the loving God we know in Jesus? 

Our call isn’t to torch others, literally or figuratively, but to touch them with the gospel of Christ, through our prayers, our faithfulness, our love, our witness. 

Though by this time James and John have been with Jesus for some time, they still don’t understand what it means to journey with Him in this life.

They weren’t alone in their lack of understanding about being disciples of Jesus. 

Verse 57: “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’” To follow Jesus means accepting uncertainty. It means accepting that He may be calling us to venture outside our comfort zones so that we may learn to rely on Him alone.

Forty years ago, the last thing I wanted to be was a pastor. I remember telling my boss at the United Way, at a time I was furtively beginning my journey out of atheism to life with Christ, “I have no use for pastors.” That’s what I’d been taught by my grandfather and it was what I still believed. Within three years, I was in seminary, no longer able to resist the path that God seemed to have in mind for me. 

Thank God, not everyone is called to be a pastor, but He calls every Christian to journey away from what makes them comfortable to do what points others to Christ. 

To what uncomfortable place is Jesus calling you today?

Verse 59: “[Jesus] said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But [the man] replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ [In Jewish custom, there was no higher responsibility than taking care of a parent’s burial...preferably after they died.] Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’” The call to follow Jesus is to set our faces toward whatever He may call us to be and do. Sometimes families will understand. But only sometimes. 

Verse 61: “Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” 

All farmers knew in the centuries before air conditioned tractor cabs outfitted with GPS guidance, that if you looked back while sowing or plowing, you’d either have crooked rows or torn up crops. To journey with Jesus is to look to where He’s leading us and not to torment ourselves over the sins and mistakes of our past and not to look back nostalgically on a lost past. 

When we turn to Jesus, we realize again, damaged or goods or not according to the world or our own dark imaginings, that we are children of the King. We belong to the One leading us through our individual journeys of discipleship, now and forever. 

Following Jesus can be uncomfortable and it would be impossible to do if following Jesus didn’t also mean journeying with Jesus by our sides, here and now, every day. 

To Christians on their journey of discipleship, the apostle Paul wrote, “...he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 4:6] Through all the days of this life, with their challenges and joys, tragedies and triumphs, may this be our one certainty as Jesus’ disciples: As we set our faces toward Jesus, He will bring the completion and fulfillment that He has in mind for us. 

And though I sometimes forget it, that’s all we really need to know. Amen

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

The Church: Called and Powered to Say "Yes" to Christ's Command (How to Be the Church, Part 5)

[This was shared during worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church, Springboro, Ohio, this past Sunday.]

Acts 10:34-48
Christian martyrdom is in the news. Over the past several months, with increasing frequency, we have seen reports about the murder, or martyrdom, of believers in Jesus, executed for no other reason than that they believed in the crucified and risen Jesus as their God and Savior.

Some of the Greek words from which we get our English word martyr include the verb martureo, meaning I witness, and the Greek nouns martus, which describes a person who gives witness, and marturia, the word that means, roughly, the witness’ testimony.

None of these words carries any association with persecution or death. The Greek words, in themselves, are completely neutral. In the Greek, a martyr was simply someone who told you about something that had happened.

But a martyr, as we use the term in English, is someone who loses his or her life for their faith.

The reason for the transformation of this benign set of terms--words meaning witness, testimony, and so on--is simple: To be a witness for Jesus Christ--to be a faithful disciple who tells others about Christ, to be a faithful Christian church that proclaims Jesus Christ to be “the way and the truth and the life” and the only way to God--such faithful witnessing will often incur the opposition, even the death sentence, of a sinful, fallen, dying world.

Many witnesses for Christ lose their earthly lives because they confess Jesus as God in the flesh Who forgives the sins of the repentant and gives everlasting life with God to those who surrender their lives and wills to Jesus Christ.

Penn State historian Philip Jenkins has demonstrated, over the past several years, that Christianity is the fastest growing movement of any kind in the world.* That’s encouraging.

But at the same time that this trend of growth has been evidenced, the murder of Christians, the burning of churches, and the depth of hostility toward Christian faith has also been increasing.

This is nothing new. The Church has always experienced its greatest growth in faith and growth in numbers at precisely the moments it has had the greatest number of martyrs.

Last week, our lesson from the book of Acts told us about how disciples like Philip witnessed for Christ in countries foreign to Judea where He, Jesus, and Jesus’ first followers had grown up. Philip witnessed in foreign nations because persecution in Judea and its capital city of Jerusalem had forced Christians like him to flee to other places.

Persecution and martyrdom are always tragedies, but it should never surprise us as Christians when these things happen. In about 60 AD, the apostle Peter told Christians facing persecution in Asia Minor--what is today Turkey--in 1 Peter 4:12-13: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”

The Church is composed of disciples, followers of Jesus Christ.

Followers of Jesus Christ are witnesses of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And being a witness for Christ is a rock-bottom, non-negotiable aspect of the Christian life. In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells His Church: “...you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “If you feel like it, you can be My witnesses.”

He doesn’t say, “If you think you have the gift of evangelism or if you’re confident in your knowledge of the Bible, you can say a good word for Me.”

He doesn’t say, “If it doesn’t entail the risk of being thought weird for standing up for My Lordship or by God’s commandments, you can be My witnesses.”

Jesus says, “You will be My witnesses.” That's a command.

The only question for Christians is whether we will be witnesses for Jesus even when the world hates us for it or will we remain silent and so be silently complicit in the eternal deaths of those who need to hear our witness for Christ?

Fortunately, we don’t have to operate in our own power as Christ’s witnesses. In that same verse, Acts 1:8, Jesus promises Christians: “...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.”

When the Holy Spirit came to Jesus’ followers fifty days after His resurrection, ten days after He had ascended to heaven, on Pentecost, the Church was born and it was empowered by God to be Jesus’ witnesses.

Folks, the Holy Spirit hasn’t gone out of business.

And, if in His power, we dare to witness for Jesus, we will fulfill the one and only mission Jesus has given us as His people: We will make disciples.

Of course, in order to tap into the Holy Spirit’s power and to be witnesses for Christ, God allows us to cheat. In fact He commands it. He commands us to pray.

Philippians 4:6 tells us: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

One of the most lamentable aspects of contemporary Christian life in North America is that we spend so much precious time on having anxious thoughts and engaging in anxious conversation over the state of the world and how nobody in the world is interested in Christ.

Time spent bellyaching is time that could be better spent obeying the command of God’s word by praying to God for the power to fulfill our mission as Christ’s witnesses and then, by the power of the Spirit, actually being Christ’s witnesses. (I'm trying to remember this each day myself.)

We see the power of prayer to tap into the power of the Holy Spirit in our first lesson for this morning, Acts 10:34-48.

These verses tell a portion of the story of the coming together of the apostle Peter and his fellow Christians with the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household.

If you’ve been watching the NBC miniseries, AD, you know that they’ve decided to name Pilate’s second-in-command Cornelius and I suspect that they’re going to make that fictional Cornelius and the Cornelius of our lesson one and the same. That’s a little dramatic license and, I suppose, is harmless.

But what we know of the real Cornelius, as told to us by the Bible, is that he commanded a cohort of Roman soldiers--a cohort being about 480 men--who occupied the city of Caesarea, part of the Roman army which kept the Holy Land under Rome’s conquering thumb. Caesarea, founded by Herod the Great, was a kind of bailiwick of evil and idolatry. (Think Las Vegas without any of its virtues.)

Yet in this city with so much evil, a foreigner who had been taught to worship many gods, had come to believe in the God of the Jews. Cornelius, like the Ethiopian eunuch of last week’s lesson, was a God-fearer, a Gentile who believed that the God of the universe was the one and only God of all creation.

Listen: Faith in God can grow even in the most hostile and unlikely of environments.

God can work the miracle of faith in willing hearts, wherever those hearts may be, from Paris to Springboro, from Riyadh to Centerville.

But God had decided that Cornelius should come to know Him, as can only happen through Jesus Christ. God wanted Cornelius to hear a witness for the Lordship of Jesus and so have the chance to believe in Jesus and receive eternal salvation.

So, as Cornelius prayed, God told him to send for a man who turned out to be the apostle Peter so that Cornelius and his family could repent and believe in Jesus and so have eternal life. At the same time, Peter prayed and God told him to do something no Jew would ever have thought of doing. He was to enter the home of a Gentile. Then he was to give witness for Jesus Christ.

When Peter did give witness for Jesus Cornelius and his family came to saving faith in Christ, they were converted.

But another conversion took place at that moment, the conversion of Peter from a man who thought that Jesus belonged only to the Jews. Look at our first lesson, starting at Acts 10:34: “Then Peter began to speak: ‘I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.’”

And when the Holy Spirit fell on these Gentiles and empowered them to share their newly minted faith in Christ in languages other than their own, we’re told starting in verse 46: “Then Peter said, ‘Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.’ So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”

• To be the Church is to be Christ’s witnesses. 
• To be Christ’s witnesses entails risk. There is no choice for us as the Church or as individual disciples of Christ: If we claim the salvation from sin and death that God freely offers to all who repent and believe in Christ, we will be His witnesses. When we confess Jesus as Lord, we sign on also to be His witnesses. 
• But God doesn’t expect us to be Christ’s witnesses in our own power. He gives us the Holy Spirit and He gives us the words we need to tell others about Jesus. 
• And God lets His Church cheat: He lets us pray and tap into the Spirit’s power again and again. 

Some people in today’s North American churches are pessimistic and defeatist. They think that our world has sunk too far into the morass of sin and death to ever listen to our witness for Christ.

At a time when Israel’s great leader Moses had fallen into such thinking, God asked Moses: “Is the Lord’s arm too short?,” meaning, “Is there any circumstance so dark or horrible that it’s beyond My reach or beyond My capacity to transform.”

If the God we know in Jesus Christ can reach a one-time atheist like me and transform him from an enemy of God to a child of God, from one damned to hell to one saved for eternity, God can use our witness for Christ to bring His salvation to anyone.

The rabid atheist.

The indifferent humanist.

The wounded teenager.

The prodigal daughter or son.

The Roman centurion.

The Isis fighter.

The Muslim.

The Buddhist.

Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead to liberate people like these from their darkness and to usher them into the light of His love and never ending life, through faith in Him alone.

He wants all to hear our witness for Him so that, like Cornelius and his family, they may turn from the sin and death of this world and come to eternal life in Him.

Jesus says to His people, to all of us who confess Him as Lord, “You will be My witnesses.”

And He seeks the Church’s simple reply, “Yes, Lord, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, no matter what dangers or opposition may face us, it is Your witnesses that we want to be and it is Your witnesses that we will be.” Amen

*The two works in which Jenkins demonstrates this are cited in Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God by Paul Copan. Here is a link to Philip Jenkins' Author's Page at Amazon.