This morning for my quiet time with God, I read the entry for April 13 from The One Year Chronological Bible. Today, that included 1 Samuel 13:23-14:52 and 1 Chronicles 8:1-9a.
I was struck by words, spoken by Jonathan, the son of Israel's first king, Saul. Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, "Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few." (1 Samuel 14:7)
The context of these words is that Israel's army, under King Saul's command, was faced by a Philistine outpost on the other side of a rocky pass rimmed by cliffs. The Philistines had been harrying God's people. Jonathan proposed to his armor-bearer that the two of them would cross over and enter the Philistine post themselves.
They agreed that they would let the Philistines see them crossing over. If the Philistines told them to stop, that they would come to Jonathan and his companion, the two would stop. But if the Philistines told them to come up to their outpost, they would go, knowing that God--Yahweh, the LORD--was giving their people victory.
Clearly, Jonathan and his armor-bearer had entered what we might call a prayer agreement or covenant with God; they asked God for a sign on how they should proceed and committed themselves to proceed on the basis of what God revealed to them. In the end, the Philistines did tell Jonathan and the armor-bearer to come up to their camp. From that point, God threw the Philistines into a confused panic that resulted in victory for God's people.
But that victory began with Jonathan's simple faith. "Nothing," he'd said, "can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few."
Before I start my quiet times with God, I always ask Him to show me the passage, among those appointed for the day, I need to read, focus on, or act on that day. This is the passage that struck me forcefully today. I underlined it immediately.
Then I asked God, "Why is this passage important for me today?"
The answer, I believe, has two parts.
First, in this grim time of a massive pandemic, on a day when China is reporting a deadly new outbreak and the United States is experiencing a massively disproportionate share of the total global cases and deaths from the coronavirus (the US is about 5% of the world's population, but has about 20% of all COVID19 cases and deaths), God was assuring me: Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving people's lives.
Obviously, this means that governments need to continue stay-at-home orders, mandate social distancing, provide hospitals and individuals with the tools needed (i.e., testing, tracking, ventilators, and eventually, a vaccine). It means that we can save other people's lives by refraining, to the greatest extent possible, from social contact, wearing masks, washing our hands well and frequently, and refraining from group meetings.
If we will use the wisdom our Lord has given to us through dedicated people who have spent lifetimes studying and understanding infectious diseases and epidemiology, nothing can hinder the Lord from saving lives that would otherwise be threatened.
Second, even now in the midst of the restrictions under which we must necessarily live, there is nothing hindering the Lord from saving people from eternal separation from God, nothing preventing us from using all the tools presently available to us (i.e., cell phones, social media, email) to share the good news--the Gospel--that all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ have eternal life with God.
You can do this in your everyday interactions with people, even if you never leave your house.
God can use our witness for the loving, redeeming, saving God we know in the crucified and risen Jesus to save people for life with God for all eternity.
All we have to do--"with gentleness and reverence" as we're told by the apostle Peter--is share what Jesus has done and is doing for us.
He is a living God and "nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or the few."
He can save whoever reads this from sin, death, futility, and hell. He can give you life, purpose, peace, and hope. He can give you a life with God that never ends. In the book of Revelation, John reports that the risen and ascended Jesus says, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me." (Revelation 3:20)
When the Holy Spirit gives us the faith to let Jesus in, He will enter our lives and save us from ourselves: all our darkness, fear, futility, and death. Jesus told his grieving friend Martha, "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." Then he asked her, "Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26)
If we do believe this, if the Holy Spirit has led us to faith in Jesus Christ as we've received the Word about Jesus, we have the very life with God that Jesus told Martha about.
If we believe in this gospel, our call from God, whatever our jobs, is to share Jesus with others, so that they too can be saved from sin, death, and hell, saved for life with God.
God, this day, help me to trust that nothing can hinder You from saving, whether by many or by few. In Jesus' name. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Showing posts with label Revelation 3:20. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Revelation 3:20. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2020
Friday, March 20, 2020
God and Your Neighbor in These Times
Admittedly, Old Testament books like Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus, filled with various arcane laws, the Biblical books I've been reading in recent weeks for my quiet time with God, can be slow-going.
It's important when reading these books to remember that there are three different kinds of laws in the Old Testament, only one type of which remains valid, the moral law.
The civil laws you find there have no standing because the nation to which the laws were given, ancient Israel, no longer exists, no longer is a theocracy under Yahweh.
The need for ritual/sacrificial law, including things purification rites and dietary rules also has ended. That occurred when Jesus became the final, definitive sacrifice for human sin.
The moral law cannot save us from sin, death, and separation from God because none of us is capable of perfectly keeping it. This is why our salvation depends on Jesus, Who offered His sinless life in sacrifice for our sins, taking the condemnation of death we deserve and Who gives us a share in His resurrection victory over all that separates us from God as a gracious gift we receive by faith in Him. Even our capacity to believe, to trust, in Him is a gift. (Trust doesn't come naturally to self-centered, skeptical sinners.)
But even the archaic civil and ritual laws can show us some things about who and what God values in humanity.
For example, during my quiet time with God today, I read and highlighted this passage:
At the bottom of this provision is the notion that God is the maker of everything and that He gives us "our daily bread" not for ourselves alone, but for others as well.
But notice too, that God prohibited the ancient Israelites walking through someone's field to undertake an agricultural harvesting operation: They couldn't put a provision of grapes in their baskets or put a sickle to the grain. Only what they needed at that moment. There likely would be other fields through which they passed along the way and by this method, they would be fed and their benefactors wouldn't be cheated. God likes things like justice and mercy.
This probably has implications for us in these trying times.
The other day, I read about an incident that took place just last week in a grocer's in England. An elderly woman and a teenager were shopping on the same aisle, for the same item. The teen was quicker and grabbed all the remaining items. But looking up, he noticed the elderly woman for the first time and realized she wanted the same item. The young man then handed the items to the woman. "Here, luv," he told her. "You probably need this more than I do." I imagine God smiled when He saw that, as I did when I read about it.
A similar concern for the neighbor is seen in another place in my reading for today, Deuteronomy 24:19-22:
[Ruth, one of my heroes, was a foreign widow forced to glean in ancient Israel at one point. She became the great-grandmother of the nation's greatest king, David.]
It's important when reading these books to remember that there are three different kinds of laws in the Old Testament, only one type of which remains valid, the moral law.
The civil laws you find there have no standing because the nation to which the laws were given, ancient Israel, no longer exists, no longer is a theocracy under Yahweh.
The need for ritual/sacrificial law, including things purification rites and dietary rules also has ended. That occurred when Jesus became the final, definitive sacrifice for human sin.
The moral law cannot save us from sin, death, and separation from God because none of us is capable of perfectly keeping it. This is why our salvation depends on Jesus, Who offered His sinless life in sacrifice for our sins, taking the condemnation of death we deserve and Who gives us a share in His resurrection victory over all that separates us from God as a gracious gift we receive by faith in Him. Even our capacity to believe, to trust, in Him is a gift. (Trust doesn't come naturally to self-centered, skeptical sinners.)
But even the archaic civil and ritual laws can show us some things about who and what God values in humanity.
For example, during my quiet time with God today, I read and highlighted this passage:
If you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket. If you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to their standing grain. Deuteronomy 23:24-25In other words, God was telling ancient Israelites, if you're walking somewhere through this country, are hungry, and come across grapes or grain, you're allowed to pick some of the food off the vines and eat. The owner will have no right to get mad at you or prosecute you for things like theft or trespassing.
At the bottom of this provision is the notion that God is the maker of everything and that He gives us "our daily bread" not for ourselves alone, but for others as well.
But notice too, that God prohibited the ancient Israelites walking through someone's field to undertake an agricultural harvesting operation: They couldn't put a provision of grapes in their baskets or put a sickle to the grain. Only what they needed at that moment. There likely would be other fields through which they passed along the way and by this method, they would be fed and their benefactors wouldn't be cheated. God likes things like justice and mercy.
This probably has implications for us in these trying times.
The other day, I read about an incident that took place just last week in a grocer's in England. An elderly woman and a teenager were shopping on the same aisle, for the same item. The teen was quicker and grabbed all the remaining items. But looking up, he noticed the elderly woman for the first time and realized she wanted the same item. The young man then handed the items to the woman. "Here, luv," he told her. "You probably need this more than I do." I imagine God smiled when He saw that, as I did when I read about it.
A similar concern for the neighbor is seen in another place in my reading for today, Deuteronomy 24:19-22:
When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.
Here, God speaks to the owners of the farms and the vineyards through which people like "the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow," people bereft of power or possessions, might pass through. Don't be so efficient in your harvesting, God tells His ancient people, that you don't leave something for those with less. For poor "gleaners," the "leavings" in the fields of the prosperous, could spell the difference between life and death between the harvests.
The provisions in these verses are predicated on the Israelites remembering that, like the foreigners, fatherless, and widows in their midst, their people had once been among the bereft and hurting of the world, slaves in Egypt.
Here, God calls us to empathy, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, to remember that while you may be flush with the world's goods today, it wasn't always so, and to remember that everything, including your capacity to acquire the world's goods, comes to you as a gift from God.
This same God also made your neighbor today.
Your neighbor, just like you, irrespective of their current state, is made in God's image.
And that neighbor, just like you, is one for whom Jesus Christ, God the Son, gave His life on the cross.
With the Coronavirus, we face a global catastrophe like the 1918 flu pandemic that killed between twenty to fifty million people, including 675,000 Americans. Our sinful human impulse is to be selfish, to look out for ourselves. I know that it's my impulse.
I ask that God will remind me again today that I can only be saved from sin, death, and darkness through Jesus.
Deep down, I know that being just and loving to my neighbor is the right thing to do. But I won't be just or loving if I don't, once again today, surrender my whole life to the God I know in Jesus, trusting in Him no matter what, trusting that His perfect obedience has won salvation that I do not deserve but that He gives to me as a matter of grace and love. Jesus must live in me if I am going to love others the way He has loved and still loves me. (See here and here.)
And then, I pray, remembering that, like the ancient Israelites, I have been freed from slavery--chained to sin and death and condemnation--I ask God to teach me, once more today, how to love.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Here, God calls us to empathy, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, to remember that while you may be flush with the world's goods today, it wasn't always so, and to remember that everything, including your capacity to acquire the world's goods, comes to you as a gift from God.
This same God also made your neighbor today.
Your neighbor, just like you, irrespective of their current state, is made in God's image.
And that neighbor, just like you, is one for whom Jesus Christ, God the Son, gave His life on the cross.
With the Coronavirus, we face a global catastrophe like the 1918 flu pandemic that killed between twenty to fifty million people, including 675,000 Americans. Our sinful human impulse is to be selfish, to look out for ourselves. I know that it's my impulse.
I ask that God will remind me again today that I can only be saved from sin, death, and darkness through Jesus.
Deep down, I know that being just and loving to my neighbor is the right thing to do. But I won't be just or loving if I don't, once again today, surrender my whole life to the God I know in Jesus, trusting in Him no matter what, trusting that His perfect obedience has won salvation that I do not deserve but that He gives to me as a matter of grace and love. Jesus must live in me if I am going to love others the way He has loved and still loves me. (See here and here.)
And then, I pray, remembering that, like the ancient Israelites, I have been freed from slavery--chained to sin and death and condemnation--I ask God to teach me, once more today, how to love.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
[Ruth, one of my heroes, was a foreign widow forced to glean in ancient Israel at one point. She became the great-grandmother of the nation's greatest king, David.]
Sunday, August 25, 2019
The Place Where Riffraff Are Welcomed
[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]
Luke 13:22-30
But Jesus doesn’t end His answer at that. He says in verses 29-30: “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed, there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.” I take great comfort from these final words from Jesus. People from the world over, from every background, are already part of God’s kingdom initiated by the crucified and risen Jesus.
Jesus takes in all we riffraff! When Ann and I were first engaged, her family didn't care for me at all. They raised all sorts of objections and laid down trivial conditions on their support for us getting married. One of Ann's dear friends crystallized things when she told her, "The problem, Ann, is that they're looking for Secretariat. Mark isn't Secretariat." I was no thoroughbred racehorse, only a donkey, riffraff. The blessed thing is that Jesus loves riffraff and will welcome into His kingdom all who turn from sin and turn to Him.
That's the good news that transforms the life of every person who follows Jesus, Jew or Gentile, the world over! Together, we whose lives are being eternally transformed by the grace of God given to us through Jesus cherish what Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches us: “...it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” I am a wretched sinner whose only boast is that I have been saved from myself by the crucified and risen Jesus.
I belong to God not because I’m good, because, in fact, I’m not.
Nor do I belong to God because I have the right genes, which, in fact, I don’t.
I belong to God--I am saved from sin and death, futility and regret--because God is good and by His grace through the faith in Jesus that His Holy Spirit gives to me, He covers me with the goodness of Jesus and the power of His sacrifice over death, accomplished on the cross.
Those who are saved are simply those who want, more than anything, to know and be with Jesus! They follow the narrow way: Jesus Himself.
The apostle Paul talked about this central desire of those who seek to follow Jesus in Philippians 3:10-11: “I want to know Christ--yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
May we seek each day to know Christ, the narrow way, Who opens up life and eternity to all who repent and believe in Him. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Luke 13:22-30
Today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 13:22-30, begins with a question from a member of the crowd squeezing in around Jesus: “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”
We don’t know the motive of the person asking the question. But we can surmise that the crowds--even the disciples--were beginning to feel uneasy by what Jesus was saying and doing. In applauding the repentant faith that He had seen in notorious sinners and outsiders like prostitutes, tax collectors, and Roman soldiers, Jesus seemed was saying that belonging to the kingdom of God He came into the world to bring didn’t come by the things taught by the rabbis, the scribes, and the priests.
We don’t know the motive of the person asking the question. But we can surmise that the crowds--even the disciples--were beginning to feel uneasy by what Jesus was saying and doing. In applauding the repentant faith that He had seen in notorious sinners and outsiders like prostitutes, tax collectors, and Roman soldiers, Jesus seemed was saying that belonging to the kingdom of God He came into the world to bring didn’t come by the things taught by the rabbis, the scribes, and the priests.
The Jewish religious teachers of Jesus’ day said that if you were Jewish, you were in the club. All Jews were righteous, they thought. All non-Jews, Gentiles, were not righteous. All Jews would therefore be saved, they reasoned.
The Pharisee sect of Judaism would have said that not all Jews were saved, only the ones who obeyed their interpretation of God’s laws.
So, Jews were being taught largely that salvation, life in God’s eternal kingdom, came only to those who either were members of the genetic club or who did righteous things.
But Jesus has been saying things in chapters 12 and 13 of Luke that said their confidence about salvation was misplaced. Jesus is teaching that salvation comes only through faith in the God now revealed definitively to the world in Jesus Himself. Jesus’ fellow Jews and all other people needed to follow Jesus, to repent for sin and trust in Jesus, submitting to Jesus’ Lordship, so that His grace could transform them. This upset people.
It still upsets people. The moment you suggest to people that there's nothing they can do and no way that they can be good enough to earn salvation from God, they offer up a million objections. People want to preserve the illusion of their own intrinsic goodness.
No wonder that the man asked Jesus, “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?”
Jesus responds in Luke 13:24: “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”
We live in an age when people, if they ever think of God, say that God is such a nice guy that He won’t send anyone to hell. Let’s be clear: Jesus, God in the flesh, did die on the cross for everyone. But He doesn’t force salvation on anyone. He doesn’t force anyone to repent or believe in Him. He gives us the freedom to say no, to move through this life, presuming to be gods unto ourselves until this life ends. The doorway to a life apart from Jesus is wide open to everyone and, by our inborn sinful nature, it's the path, the easy one, that we most want to follow.
But Jesus says that there’s only one way--a narrow way--to life with God. And that narrow way is Jesus.
“I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me,” Jesus says in John 14:6. If we don’t enter God’s kingdom through Jesus, we can’t get it in, we won’t get in.
Jesus expands on this theme in the next verses: “Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’”
There will come a time when the door allowing us to leave lives lived apart from God, the narrow way, will be closed to us.
Death will come and then it will be too late to enter eternity with God through repentance and faith in Jesus.
No matter how much people pound at heaven’s door, those who haven’t entrusted their lives to Christ will pound in vain.
And it won’t dot these people any good to say, “We made big offerings to the Church. We sang hymns and praise songs...even the ones we didn’t like and almost never complained about them. We volunteered for outreaches.”
To people like this, the owner of the house--Jesus--will say at the Judgment, “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!” Jesus doesn’t truly know-- that is, have a relationship with--those who have no relationship of faith with Him. Christ only knows those who have opened the doors of their own lives and let Him in. Without such humble daily surrender to Christ, we’re just playing at religion; we’re only toying with Jesus.
To a church filled with lukewarm faith mentioned in the book of Revelation, the crucified and risen Jesus said: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” [Revelation 3:20] Jesus offers a relationship of intimacy and trust with Him, not just because it feels good, but because we need this relationship today and in eternity! Without a relationship with Jesus, we are dead now, though we may still be breathing, and we are dead for eternity.
With a relationship with Jesus, we are alive, even in life’s darkest and most difficult times. And one day, all who trust in Christ will be alive in a kingdom of perfection with God for all eternity.
To His fellow Jews, suffering from the delusion that being Jewish or that doing good works was all they needed to be saved--the way some people today think that all you need is to be Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic, or on the church rolls somewhere--Jesus says: “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.” Those who turn from Jesus or who take Him for granted or who keep him removed by an arm’s length in this life, will have an eternity of regret.
But Jesus doesn’t end His answer at that. He says in verses 29-30: “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed, there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.” I take great comfort from these final words from Jesus. People from the world over, from every background, are already part of God’s kingdom initiated by the crucified and risen Jesus.
Jesus takes in all we riffraff! When Ann and I were first engaged, her family didn't care for me at all. They raised all sorts of objections and laid down trivial conditions on their support for us getting married. One of Ann's dear friends crystallized things when she told her, "The problem, Ann, is that they're looking for Secretariat. Mark isn't Secretariat." I was no thoroughbred racehorse, only a donkey, riffraff. The blessed thing is that Jesus loves riffraff and will welcome into His kingdom all who turn from sin and turn to Him.
That's the good news that transforms the life of every person who follows Jesus, Jew or Gentile, the world over! Together, we whose lives are being eternally transformed by the grace of God given to us through Jesus cherish what Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches us: “...it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” I am a wretched sinner whose only boast is that I have been saved from myself by the crucified and risen Jesus.
I belong to God not because I’m good, because, in fact, I’m not.
Nor do I belong to God because I have the right genes, which, in fact, I don’t.
I belong to God--I am saved from sin and death, futility and regret--because God is good and by His grace through the faith in Jesus that His Holy Spirit gives to me, He covers me with the goodness of Jesus and the power of His sacrifice over death, accomplished on the cross.
Those who are saved are simply those who want, more than anything, to know and be with Jesus! They follow the narrow way: Jesus Himself.
The apostle Paul talked about this central desire of those who seek to follow Jesus in Philippians 3:10-11: “I want to know Christ--yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
May we seek each day to know Christ, the narrow way, Who opens up life and eternity to all who repent and believe in Him. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Monday, January 21, 2019
Showing Christ (Part 3, 'Bearing Fruit for God's Kingdom')
[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, during worship today.]
Luke 13:6-9
Two weeks ago, we first showed the congregation what we call a “video postcard,” displaying the pathway to the destination of full maturity as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Now, why are we making such a big deal about growing as Christ’s disciples?
In Luke 13:6-9, Jesus tells one of His parables. He says, “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
Here, Jesus paints a picture of a vineyard-owner upset that one of his fig vines hasn’t grown. Impatient, the owner tells the caretaker to cut the tree down. The way he sees it, the tree is just taking up space, using water, nutrients, sun, and life that might more productively be used by a new tree that will actually produce figs. But the caretaker wants to give the fig tree more time to do what fig trees are supposed to do, to show the result of all that’s been put into it. He says that he wants to put more manure on it, water it, and dig some space around it to give it the chance to grow. If, after all of that effort, the tree won’t bear fruit, then it will be time to cut it down.
The point Jesus is making is clear. Through His Word, which we can read and hear proclaimed, as well as taste and see in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, we can know Jesus Christ and the new life that He brings to all who believe in Him; we can grow in Christ, as we mature as followers who daily die to self and rise to the new life God has in mind for us; and we can show that Christ lives in us and so, bear fruit.
Some see the caretaker in Jesus’ parable as being Jesus Himself. Jesus shields us from the condemnation for sin and hard-heartedness that we deserve and keeps pouring His Word into our lives with one aim in mind: that Christ will so fill us that we will show Christ to the world. We will be people who live for Christ, serve in Christ’s name, share the good news of new and everlasting life through faith in Jesus. The people around us will know that we follow Jesus. That’s what it means to show Christ.
Let’s be honest, taken together, most people in the churches of North America and Europe are like the dormant fig tree in Jesus’ parable. Despite being able to freely receive the Word of God, the word of new and everlasting life that when embraced and trusted, fills a person with the very life of God, most church-goers are indistinguishable from the rest of the world. They’re dead stumps. They’re “go through the motion Christians.”
And one day, such lukewarm Christians may be cut down, eternally separated from God, because they refuse to let Jesus take up residence in their lives, refuse to let the Word they repeatedly received from the crucified and risen Jesus fill them and impel them to lives of love, service, and witness to the dying world around them.
In John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” But something miraculous happens to us when we let Jesus, the blazing, luminescent Author of all life, get to us, to enter into us, when we open the door and let Him into the center of our lives.
We become lights that show others Jesus so that He can change their lives the way He’s changing ours. “You are the light of the world,” Jesus says. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.” (Matthew 5:14-15) Are we giving light to the whole house? The whole world? The whole community?
God’s grace given in Christ is not our private possession and faith is not a private matter. We’re to show it, not with arrogance, but humility; not with pride, but with love.
1 Peter 2:9 tells you and me as baptized believers in Jesus, “...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” In other words, God has poured all of this grace and life made available to us through faith in Jesus not just for our own personal assurance, but so that we can let others know and grow in Jesus too. That’s our purpose in life! There is no other!
This message up to this point is apt to engender two main responses.
One is indifference.
The other is an anxious desire to know how we can show Christ, as though showing Christ to others was an item on a holy checklist, the successful completion of which will earn us a place in eternity with God.
Both reactions are human and understandable. And both of them are completely wrong.
Nothing I’ve said today alters the truth that we are saved by God’s charitable grace through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. But what I am saying is that if you have been saved by Christ and your faith in Him, you will want to show others how you, although a sinner worthy of eternal condemnation, have been made a saint in God’s kingdom because of the death of Jesus on a cross and the faith in Jesus created in you by the Holy Spirit. In other words, what we should be asking is, How can we get out of God’s way so that Christ is shown through us? Here are a few thoughts on how that happens.
First: We consciously, daily invite Jesus into every part of our lives. The New Testament book of Revelation begins with the resurrected Jesus interacting with seven ancient Christian congregations, one of them Laodicea, a church filled with people indifferent to Jesus. “Here I am!” Jesus tells them. “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:20) We show Christ to others when we let Jesus in.
Second: We spend time in God’s Word so that Christ can take root in our lives. Psalm 1:1-2 uses the term law in the Old Testament sense, meaning God’s Word or the way of life God reveals to His people in His Word when it says, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.” We need to let God’s Word go deeply into our lives each day if Christ will be shown by our lives.
Third: We worship and receive the sacrament every time we can. I’m so happy to be part of a church that offers Holy Communion every Sunday. And to be part of a church that take God’s Word so seriously. We need God and we need God’s people if we’re to bear fruit for the kingdom.
Fourth: We build listening into our prayer lives. It’s a noisy, busy world. If you can, take time to let God speak to you, to assure you of His presence and His love for you, to guide you, and to challenge you each day. Psalm 46:10 famously tells us, “Be still, and know that I am God…”
Fifth: We don't ignore what God tells us. Some people spend their lives wringing their hands, wondering what God wants them to do. But there’s really no need to wonder! God calls those who trust in Jesus to love God, love neighbor, and make disciples. This is God’s will for our lives, which Jesus expressed in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. When we’re not sure what to do in situations in our lives, Martin Luther tells us to “sin boldly,” meaning seek God’s guidance, ask wise Christian friends, and then do what we think shows God’s love or helps us share Christ with others. We can’t show Christ to others if we get mired in what’s been called “the paralysis of analysis.” Think and plan, of course. But “Do not quench the Spirit,” 1 Thessalonians 5:19 tells us. In other words, be bold about sharing Jesus in your family, among your friends, and in the world.
These are steps of faith we can take in order to get out of God’s way to show the world the Savior Jesus we want everyone to know.
At Living Water, we’re committed to creating opportunities for everyone touched by the life of this congregation to know Christ, to grow in Christ, to show Christ and so, bear fruit for God’s kingdom. This is the entire reason for our being. Let’s continue to seek to follow Christ faithfully so that together we can fulfill our purpose as a church. We conclude our series next week.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Luke 13:6-9
Two weeks ago, we first showed the congregation what we call a “video postcard,” displaying the pathway to the destination of full maturity as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Now, why are we making such a big deal about growing as Christ’s disciples?
In Luke 13:6-9, Jesus tells one of His parables. He says, “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
Here, Jesus paints a picture of a vineyard-owner upset that one of his fig vines hasn’t grown. Impatient, the owner tells the caretaker to cut the tree down. The way he sees it, the tree is just taking up space, using water, nutrients, sun, and life that might more productively be used by a new tree that will actually produce figs. But the caretaker wants to give the fig tree more time to do what fig trees are supposed to do, to show the result of all that’s been put into it. He says that he wants to put more manure on it, water it, and dig some space around it to give it the chance to grow. If, after all of that effort, the tree won’t bear fruit, then it will be time to cut it down.
The point Jesus is making is clear. Through His Word, which we can read and hear proclaimed, as well as taste and see in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, we can know Jesus Christ and the new life that He brings to all who believe in Him; we can grow in Christ, as we mature as followers who daily die to self and rise to the new life God has in mind for us; and we can show that Christ lives in us and so, bear fruit.
Some see the caretaker in Jesus’ parable as being Jesus Himself. Jesus shields us from the condemnation for sin and hard-heartedness that we deserve and keeps pouring His Word into our lives with one aim in mind: that Christ will so fill us that we will show Christ to the world. We will be people who live for Christ, serve in Christ’s name, share the good news of new and everlasting life through faith in Jesus. The people around us will know that we follow Jesus. That’s what it means to show Christ.
Let’s be honest, taken together, most people in the churches of North America and Europe are like the dormant fig tree in Jesus’ parable. Despite being able to freely receive the Word of God, the word of new and everlasting life that when embraced and trusted, fills a person with the very life of God, most church-goers are indistinguishable from the rest of the world. They’re dead stumps. They’re “go through the motion Christians.”
And one day, such lukewarm Christians may be cut down, eternally separated from God, because they refuse to let Jesus take up residence in their lives, refuse to let the Word they repeatedly received from the crucified and risen Jesus fill them and impel them to lives of love, service, and witness to the dying world around them.
In John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” But something miraculous happens to us when we let Jesus, the blazing, luminescent Author of all life, get to us, to enter into us, when we open the door and let Him into the center of our lives.
We become lights that show others Jesus so that He can change their lives the way He’s changing ours. “You are the light of the world,” Jesus says. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.” (Matthew 5:14-15) Are we giving light to the whole house? The whole world? The whole community?
God’s grace given in Christ is not our private possession and faith is not a private matter. We’re to show it, not with arrogance, but humility; not with pride, but with love.
1 Peter 2:9 tells you and me as baptized believers in Jesus, “...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” In other words, God has poured all of this grace and life made available to us through faith in Jesus not just for our own personal assurance, but so that we can let others know and grow in Jesus too. That’s our purpose in life! There is no other!
This message up to this point is apt to engender two main responses.
One is indifference.
The other is an anxious desire to know how we can show Christ, as though showing Christ to others was an item on a holy checklist, the successful completion of which will earn us a place in eternity with God.
Both reactions are human and understandable. And both of them are completely wrong.
Nothing I’ve said today alters the truth that we are saved by God’s charitable grace through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. But what I am saying is that if you have been saved by Christ and your faith in Him, you will want to show others how you, although a sinner worthy of eternal condemnation, have been made a saint in God’s kingdom because of the death of Jesus on a cross and the faith in Jesus created in you by the Holy Spirit. In other words, what we should be asking is, How can we get out of God’s way so that Christ is shown through us? Here are a few thoughts on how that happens.
First: We consciously, daily invite Jesus into every part of our lives. The New Testament book of Revelation begins with the resurrected Jesus interacting with seven ancient Christian congregations, one of them Laodicea, a church filled with people indifferent to Jesus. “Here I am!” Jesus tells them. “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:20) We show Christ to others when we let Jesus in.
Second: We spend time in God’s Word so that Christ can take root in our lives. Psalm 1:1-2 uses the term law in the Old Testament sense, meaning God’s Word or the way of life God reveals to His people in His Word when it says, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.” We need to let God’s Word go deeply into our lives each day if Christ will be shown by our lives.
Third: We worship and receive the sacrament every time we can. I’m so happy to be part of a church that offers Holy Communion every Sunday. And to be part of a church that take God’s Word so seriously. We need God and we need God’s people if we’re to bear fruit for the kingdom.
Fourth: We build listening into our prayer lives. It’s a noisy, busy world. If you can, take time to let God speak to you, to assure you of His presence and His love for you, to guide you, and to challenge you each day. Psalm 46:10 famously tells us, “Be still, and know that I am God…”
Fifth: We don't ignore what God tells us. Some people spend their lives wringing their hands, wondering what God wants them to do. But there’s really no need to wonder! God calls those who trust in Jesus to love God, love neighbor, and make disciples. This is God’s will for our lives, which Jesus expressed in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. When we’re not sure what to do in situations in our lives, Martin Luther tells us to “sin boldly,” meaning seek God’s guidance, ask wise Christian friends, and then do what we think shows God’s love or helps us share Christ with others. We can’t show Christ to others if we get mired in what’s been called “the paralysis of analysis.” Think and plan, of course. But “Do not quench the Spirit,” 1 Thessalonians 5:19 tells us. In other words, be bold about sharing Jesus in your family, among your friends, and in the world.
These are steps of faith we can take in order to get out of God’s way to show the world the Savior Jesus we want everyone to know.
At Living Water, we’re committed to creating opportunities for everyone touched by the life of this congregation to know Christ, to grow in Christ, to show Christ and so, bear fruit for God’s kingdom. This is the entire reason for our being. Let’s continue to seek to follow Christ faithfully so that together we can fulfill our purpose as a church. We conclude our series next week.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Sunday, November 25, 2018
When Your World is Rocked
[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]
Mark 13:24-37
As Lutheran Christians, we follow what’s known as a lectionary, an appointed set of Bible lessons for every Sunday of the Church Year.
We have the freedom to break away from the lectionary, to be sure. But, over the course of a year, it provides a balanced diet of God’s Word for us to grow on as disciples of Jesus.
Oddly enough, the gospel lesson for this Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church Year, is the same one we had for the first Sunday of the Church Year when we kicked off Advent last December 3. Do the scholars and church leaders who put the lectionary think that we’re slow learners?
Well, speaking for myself, that’s probably the case.
But I think that there’s a more important reason for having the same gospel lesson bracket the Church Year.
A lot can happen in our lives over the course of a year. When I consider the twists and turns that our lives--Ann’s and mine--have taken the past twelve months, I have to say that not everything that has happened was expected.
Some things have been good.
Some not so good.
I know the same is even truer for many of you. You’ve experienced joys and successes, grief, loss, good news, encouraging news, bad news.
And now, at the end of one Church Year, on the cusp of a new one, which will start next Sunday, we encounter Jesus at the same place we met Him on the First Sunday of Advent, Mark 13:24-37.
Our lesson falls in the same chapter of Mark that absorbed us last week.
I’m thankful for faithful Christian Bible scholars who agree in upholding the main tenets of our faith. But even they can disagree when it comes to Mark, chapter 13.
It begins, you’ll remember, with Jesus talking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Some scholars say that that’s all that Jesus talks about in Mark 13. Others say that Jesus only talks about the end of this world.
Others say basically, and I agree with them, that Jesus, God incarnate, was capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.
As I read His words in Mark 13, I see Jesus talking about both the destruction of the temple--an event that would happen about four decades after He was crucified and rose from the dead--and the end of the world.
Jesus talks about the end of the temple as a way of telling the early Church, that when those still living four decades later saw the destruction of the temple and all the things He told them that would lead up to it, they would know, if the resurrection wasn't proof enough, to trust what He told them about the coming of His kingdom in its fullness when He returned, bringing an end to this world.
Jesus was also saying that now eternal life and a relationship with God don’t come to human beings through temples made of stone, but solely through faith in Him. In a way, Jesus is here reiterating what He said at the end of last Sunday’s gospel lesson: “...the one who stands firm [in Him] to the end will be saved.” (Mark 13:13)
How firm are you standing today?
Confession: I’m feeling a bit rocky. There are new challenges in our lives. And my dad was hospitalized this past week, coming home with a new friend, an oxygen tank. And there are other things going on in my life, just as there is in yours.
Here’s something God has been working overtime to teach me in the past year: If I try to stand firm in my own power, I will surely fail. I'm learning the truth of Jesus' words, "Without Me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5). And I'm also learning what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote, "I can do all [things] through Him Who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).
As surely as I am saved from sin and death, not by my attempts at being a good person, but solely on the basis of what God has done for me in the crucified and risen Jesus and the faith in Jesus the Holy Spirit has given to me, I am also filled with God’s strength for living by this same gracious God revealed in Jesus.
I’m able to face life’s uncertainties, and grow as a person of faith ONLY because of the faith in Jesus that He keeps pumping into my life by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I can stand firm in this life and be ready for the end of this life or the end of this world because Jesus Christ has taken up residence in my life, just as He did in Your life the day you were baptized.
Through Isaiah 40:31, God promises: “...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.”
This is the essential message Jesus gives to us this morning in the gospel lesson. We’ll focus on the first few verses, then survey the rest of the passage in which Jesus undergirds His message. Take a look at the lesson, Mark 13:24-37. “But in those days [the days Jesus spoke of last week, the days of the world being the world, full of earthquakes, famines, and wars], following that distress, ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’”
Jesus speaks of a world in “distress.” That word in the Greek in which Mark wrote, which is translated as distress is thlipsin. This word originally referred to the pressure people feel when trying to slide their bodies through narrow slits between two rock formations say in a cave. That describes, I think, the pressure we all can feel in the daily uncertainties and challenges of life.
When one of my sisters called to say that my dad had been taken to a hospital ER, I didn’t know what to say. I'd just had dinner with him a few days before and he'd eaten like a horse. I wasn't prepared for him to be so sick. I was taken by surprise and felt the pressure of uncertainty. So much so that my sister asked me at one point, “Are you OK?” Here's the deal: I am OK not because I’m OK, but because of Jesus living in me.
Jesus borrows Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah to talk about the judgment God is going to bring on the unrepentant after the pressure of this uncertain world has been felt by those who trust in Him. The stars will fall from the skies. And, as one commentary puts it, “those great unseen forces of nature by which the universe is now held in equipoise” will be shaken. Jesus says that life in this world can sometimes be confusing and scary. Have you noticed that to be true?
But we have Jesus’ promise that God will never cease to act in and on the lives of those who turn to Him. He won’t let chaos, confusion, or uncertainty have the final say over our lives.
Verse 26: “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”
Jesus, the Son of Man, will return and bring an end to sin, death, futility, and uncertainty and to finally establish His eternal kingdom to all who have trusted in Him.
“Great,” we may think. “Someday, Jesus will make everything right. What are we supposed to do in the meantime? And what’s He going to do for me until then?”
At this point, the preachers of religion would tell us that now it’s up to us, that we need to get busy, do good, be good. That, in some form, is what every religion of the world will tell you, from Scientology to Islam, from Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witness to Hinduism and Shintoism. “Work hard,” they all say, “to please God, to please your ancestors, to please the forces of the world.” And, I have it on the authority of God's Word that all of these preachers of religion are dead wrong!
The preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (and the disciples of Jesus Christ) will tell you, “Stop trying to be good. Let Jesus live in you. Let Him enter your life, trust in Him, and He will work good in and through you.”
“The work of God is this,” says Jesus, “to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29)
Even more radically, the preachers of the Gospel say that even our faith isn’t something we do, even our faith is a gift from God. It’s a simple matter of daily letting Jesus into our lives. “Here I am!” Jesus says in Revelation 3:20, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
Disciples know that when the goodness and grace of God given in Christ go to work in us, God will accomplish things in and through us that we can’t accomplish on our own.
As my colleague Pastor Steve King writes in the latest issue of Connections magazine, “The hammer does not pay back the carpenter by doing its own work, apart from the carpenter's hand; the hammer is used by the carpenter to do his work. In the same way, we are simply a tool in the Carpenter's hand…”
God isn’t looking for us to do good works to pay Him back for the gift of His Son Jesus. And He isn't looking for you to undertake good works to be ready for Jesus' return.
He’s looking for access to our hearts, minds, wills, and lives. He wants to take up residence in our lives to daily re-form us in Christ’s image, to ready us for eternity, and to bring His gospel to the world through us. He wants us to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10). He wants to daily love us into a life of being made ever new by His grace.
This really is the crux of Jesus’ message for us today, a message I need as much at the end of this Church Year as I did at its beginning.
When Jesus tells us to, “Be on guard! Be alert!” and “...keep watch” and “...do not let him find you sleeping” and “Watch,” what He’s really telling us is this: Don’t let the pressures or the pleasures of this world, don’t let anything, prevent you from turning to Him for the strength, the peace, and the life only He can deliver and that we need to live each day.
Don’t let the guilt you may feel for past sins keep you from turning to Him.
Don’t let the pride that may lull you into self-sufficiency keep you from turning to Him.
Don’t let life’s uncertainties frighten you so much that you forget that you can always turn to Him.
Don’t let the disapproval of others keep you from turning to Him.
Whatever the coming twelve months may bring, turn to Jesus, God the Son, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.
Moses confessed, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2).
This is the God Who, in Christ, claimed you as His child in your baptism and Who wants to be with you now and forever. Let His love and strength fill you each day. Let Him in and keep watching for Him. He will always show up and He will never let you go. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Mark 13:24-37
As Lutheran Christians, we follow what’s known as a lectionary, an appointed set of Bible lessons for every Sunday of the Church Year.
We have the freedom to break away from the lectionary, to be sure. But, over the course of a year, it provides a balanced diet of God’s Word for us to grow on as disciples of Jesus.
Oddly enough, the gospel lesson for this Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church Year, is the same one we had for the first Sunday of the Church Year when we kicked off Advent last December 3. Do the scholars and church leaders who put the lectionary think that we’re slow learners?
Well, speaking for myself, that’s probably the case.
But I think that there’s a more important reason for having the same gospel lesson bracket the Church Year.
A lot can happen in our lives over the course of a year. When I consider the twists and turns that our lives--Ann’s and mine--have taken the past twelve months, I have to say that not everything that has happened was expected.
Some things have been good.
Some not so good.
I know the same is even truer for many of you. You’ve experienced joys and successes, grief, loss, good news, encouraging news, bad news.
And now, at the end of one Church Year, on the cusp of a new one, which will start next Sunday, we encounter Jesus at the same place we met Him on the First Sunday of Advent, Mark 13:24-37.
Our lesson falls in the same chapter of Mark that absorbed us last week.
I’m thankful for faithful Christian Bible scholars who agree in upholding the main tenets of our faith. But even they can disagree when it comes to Mark, chapter 13.
It begins, you’ll remember, with Jesus talking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Some scholars say that that’s all that Jesus talks about in Mark 13. Others say that Jesus only talks about the end of this world.
Others say basically, and I agree with them, that Jesus, God incarnate, was capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.
As I read His words in Mark 13, I see Jesus talking about both the destruction of the temple--an event that would happen about four decades after He was crucified and rose from the dead--and the end of the world.
Jesus talks about the end of the temple as a way of telling the early Church, that when those still living four decades later saw the destruction of the temple and all the things He told them that would lead up to it, they would know, if the resurrection wasn't proof enough, to trust what He told them about the coming of His kingdom in its fullness when He returned, bringing an end to this world.
Jesus was also saying that now eternal life and a relationship with God don’t come to human beings through temples made of stone, but solely through faith in Him. In a way, Jesus is here reiterating what He said at the end of last Sunday’s gospel lesson: “...the one who stands firm [in Him] to the end will be saved.” (Mark 13:13)
How firm are you standing today?
Confession: I’m feeling a bit rocky. There are new challenges in our lives. And my dad was hospitalized this past week, coming home with a new friend, an oxygen tank. And there are other things going on in my life, just as there is in yours.
Here’s something God has been working overtime to teach me in the past year: If I try to stand firm in my own power, I will surely fail. I'm learning the truth of Jesus' words, "Without Me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5). And I'm also learning what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote, "I can do all [things] through Him Who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).
As surely as I am saved from sin and death, not by my attempts at being a good person, but solely on the basis of what God has done for me in the crucified and risen Jesus and the faith in Jesus the Holy Spirit has given to me, I am also filled with God’s strength for living by this same gracious God revealed in Jesus.
I’m able to face life’s uncertainties, and grow as a person of faith ONLY because of the faith in Jesus that He keeps pumping into my life by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I can stand firm in this life and be ready for the end of this life or the end of this world because Jesus Christ has taken up residence in my life, just as He did in Your life the day you were baptized.
Through Isaiah 40:31, God promises: “...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.”
This is the essential message Jesus gives to us this morning in the gospel lesson. We’ll focus on the first few verses, then survey the rest of the passage in which Jesus undergirds His message. Take a look at the lesson, Mark 13:24-37. “But in those days [the days Jesus spoke of last week, the days of the world being the world, full of earthquakes, famines, and wars], following that distress, ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’”
Jesus speaks of a world in “distress.” That word in the Greek in which Mark wrote, which is translated as distress is thlipsin. This word originally referred to the pressure people feel when trying to slide their bodies through narrow slits between two rock formations say in a cave. That describes, I think, the pressure we all can feel in the daily uncertainties and challenges of life.
When one of my sisters called to say that my dad had been taken to a hospital ER, I didn’t know what to say. I'd just had dinner with him a few days before and he'd eaten like a horse. I wasn't prepared for him to be so sick. I was taken by surprise and felt the pressure of uncertainty. So much so that my sister asked me at one point, “Are you OK?” Here's the deal: I am OK not because I’m OK, but because of Jesus living in me.
Jesus borrows Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah to talk about the judgment God is going to bring on the unrepentant after the pressure of this uncertain world has been felt by those who trust in Him. The stars will fall from the skies. And, as one commentary puts it, “those great unseen forces of nature by which the universe is now held in equipoise” will be shaken. Jesus says that life in this world can sometimes be confusing and scary. Have you noticed that to be true?
But we have Jesus’ promise that God will never cease to act in and on the lives of those who turn to Him. He won’t let chaos, confusion, or uncertainty have the final say over our lives.
Verse 26: “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”
Jesus, the Son of Man, will return and bring an end to sin, death, futility, and uncertainty and to finally establish His eternal kingdom to all who have trusted in Him.
“Great,” we may think. “Someday, Jesus will make everything right. What are we supposed to do in the meantime? And what’s He going to do for me until then?”
At this point, the preachers of religion would tell us that now it’s up to us, that we need to get busy, do good, be good. That, in some form, is what every religion of the world will tell you, from Scientology to Islam, from Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witness to Hinduism and Shintoism. “Work hard,” they all say, “to please God, to please your ancestors, to please the forces of the world.” And, I have it on the authority of God's Word that all of these preachers of religion are dead wrong!
The preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (and the disciples of Jesus Christ) will tell you, “Stop trying to be good. Let Jesus live in you. Let Him enter your life, trust in Him, and He will work good in and through you.”
“The work of God is this,” says Jesus, “to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29)
Even more radically, the preachers of the Gospel say that even our faith isn’t something we do, even our faith is a gift from God. It’s a simple matter of daily letting Jesus into our lives. “Here I am!” Jesus says in Revelation 3:20, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
Disciples know that when the goodness and grace of God given in Christ go to work in us, God will accomplish things in and through us that we can’t accomplish on our own.
As my colleague Pastor Steve King writes in the latest issue of Connections magazine, “The hammer does not pay back the carpenter by doing its own work, apart from the carpenter's hand; the hammer is used by the carpenter to do his work. In the same way, we are simply a tool in the Carpenter's hand…”
God isn’t looking for us to do good works to pay Him back for the gift of His Son Jesus. And He isn't looking for you to undertake good works to be ready for Jesus' return.
He’s looking for access to our hearts, minds, wills, and lives. He wants to take up residence in our lives to daily re-form us in Christ’s image, to ready us for eternity, and to bring His gospel to the world through us. He wants us to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10). He wants to daily love us into a life of being made ever new by His grace.
This really is the crux of Jesus’ message for us today, a message I need as much at the end of this Church Year as I did at its beginning.
When Jesus tells us to, “Be on guard! Be alert!” and “...keep watch” and “...do not let him find you sleeping” and “Watch,” what He’s really telling us is this: Don’t let the pressures or the pleasures of this world, don’t let anything, prevent you from turning to Him for the strength, the peace, and the life only He can deliver and that we need to live each day.
Don’t let the guilt you may feel for past sins keep you from turning to Him.
Don’t let the pride that may lull you into self-sufficiency keep you from turning to Him.
Don’t let life’s uncertainties frighten you so much that you forget that you can always turn to Him.
Don’t let the disapproval of others keep you from turning to Him.
Whatever the coming twelve months may bring, turn to Jesus, God the Son, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.
Moses confessed, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2).
This is the God Who, in Christ, claimed you as His child in your baptism and Who wants to be with you now and forever. Let His love and strength fill you each day. Let Him in and keep watching for Him. He will always show up and He will never let you go. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
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