The Hardest, Most Essential Truth of All!

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

John 6:22-35

In today’s gospel lesson, John 6:22-35, we encounter the single most difficult truth to accept or understand about being a follower of Jesus Christ, a disciple. 

It’s the one thing about being a Christian that has, through the centuries, most often tripped up people of all backgrounds and experiences, sending them down all sorts of rabbit holes and blind alleys to death and life without God. 

It’s the thing about Christianity that most scandalizes the world...and many in the Church today. 

This one thing is, as Martin Luther liked to remind people, is the thing, the truth, “on which the Church stands or falls.” 

And, as I say, this truth so difficult for people to accept is the most important thing you and I can ever know, accept, or accede to, the most important thing you can hear about from this or any other pulpit.

Let’s set the stage. Over the last few Sundays, we’ve considered Mark’s telling of Jesus feeding the 5000 and its immediate aftermath. Mark tells us about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection with a journalist’s economy. Mark, like a modern newsperson, produces a “first draft of history,” with the idea of getting the story of Jesus out to first-century churches, his first audience, as quickly and accurately as possible. 

The other gospel writers take their time, approaching the story of Jesus in different ways. Matthew has been described as “the scribe of the Kingdom.” Luke is a historian obsessed with prayer. John is an artist, a poet, a scholar, a theologian, steeped both in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek philosophers. 

All of the gospel writers tell us the truth that can set us free. But Matthew, Luke, and John often tell us things that Mark leaves out. In today’s lesson, John tells us more than Mark does about what happened the day after Jesus fed a throng of thousands from a few pieces of bread and some fish.

Earlier in John, chapter 6, John says that after Jesus had done this miracle, the crowd wanted to make Jesus a king. But the crowd wanted Jesus to be an earthly sort of king, the kind of king who was ruled by the whims and desires of people, who followed the latest Gallup Poll or the sentiments of his "base." 

People still approach Jesus in this way. They’ll “follow” Him or “believe in” Him, so long as Jesus conforms to their expectations, as long as He acts more like a good luck charm for their wishes rather than the Lord of their lives Who commands us to take up our crosses and follow. In recent years, we’ve seen entire Christian denominations, conservative and liberal, turn from following Jesus when they didn’t like what He had to say about sin, grace, or salvation. 

Because He never bowed to popular sentiment but only to the will of God the Father, Jesus withdrew from the crowd (John 6:15).

You remember what happened next. Jesus went to a quiet place while the apostles climbed into a boat. A storm kicked up on the lake. Jesus walked across the lake, calmed the storm, then rode to the other shore with the twelve. Although they knew nothing about all of this, the crowd wasn’t done with Jesus yet. Realizing that Jesus must have gone to the other side of the lake, they boarded boats that had just come to shore from Tiberias and headed off for Capernaum in order to catch up to Jesus. (John 6:24)

Look at what happens next, beginning in verse 25: “When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, ‘Rabbi, when did you get here?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill…’” (John 6:25-26)
 

The Bible repeatedly affirms that God knows what’s going on inside of us, what’s in our hearts. David says in Psalm 139:1: “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.” Here in these verses from our gospel lesson, we get further confirmation that Jesus isn’t only a real human being, He also is really God. He sees through the motives of the crowd who have chased Him down to Capernaum. He knows their hearts. 

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” 

“You want to use Me for your own purposes,” Jesus is telling them. “But the miracle of the loaves and fishes should have been a sign pointing you to the fact that I’m the God of all creation you’ve been claiming to believe in all your lives. Instead, you want to march to your tune. You want to use Me, not worship Me.”

But, rather than pouring scorn on the crowd, Jesus tells them: “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.’” (John 6:27) 

Food that’s eaten will only give us energy for a little while. Food that’s not eaten might be tossed down a disposal or rot somewhere (like in our refrigerator crispers because we forget it's there). Whatever the case, food doesn’t last forever. So, Jesus tells the crowd, it’s silly to expend the kind of effort they’ve expended in following Him across the lake just to get more food that will either rot or go away. 

What we really need is the “food that endures to eternal life.”

When Jesus says this, the crowd is curious, like the woman at the well to whom Jesus mentioned “living water.” Verse 28: “Then they asked him, ‘What must we do to do the works God requires?’ Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.’” (If you have your Bibles with you, you might want to underline John 6:29.)

That, friends, is the single most difficult truth to accept or understand about being a follower of Jesus Christ. To receive the food that endures to eternal life, the living bread from heaven, the living water, life with God that never gives out and never ends, there’s nothing we can or have to do. 

• We don’t have to strain to be good people, although when we have the food that never gives out, we will want to be good people. 
• We don’t have to memorize fifty Bible verse, though when you recognize that the Bible is God’s living Word, you will want to know it better. 
• We don’t have to intone magic words. 

Our work is simply and only to believe in the One sent by God, to trust in Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord. 

As Jesus famously told Nicodemus (say it with me): “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) 

In other words, we are justified--our right to exist in the sight of God despite our sins--is secured simply and only and exclusively by God's grace through our faith--our belief--in Jesus Christ! 

When we believe in Jesus, God makes us new. God makes us His. “...if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) It’s as simple as that!

But, we may say, wanting to complicate things as we human beings always seem to do, there must be more to Christian discipleship than that? 

No, Jesus says our one and only work is no work at all; it’s simply to believe in Him. 

But, we may object, aren’t we supposed to serve, aren’t we supposed to do good works, to pray? 

If you keep turning from sin and trustingly believing in Jesus, you will serve, you will do good works, you will pray. In fact, your whole life and all of your priorities will be turned upside down. 

You’ll run from your sins and run into the arms of Jesus. 

That’s because the more you turn to Jesus, the more you will believe in Jesus. And the more you believe in Jesus, the more Jesus will rub off on you. 

A high school friend of ours told me several years after I had come to faith in Christ, “You’ve changed, Mark. You seem more centered, focused.” I appreciated his words, but I hadn't thought about any of that before.

People will tell Christians who keep trusting in Jesus things like this all the time: 

“You’ve changed." 

"You’re more loving." 

"You’re calmer." 

"You seem to have more peace in your life." 

"You’re a better listener." 

"You seem more able to handle the tough stuff.” 

As you walk in trust with Jesus and people say things like that to you, you likely won’t know what to say, unaware of the changes that have come to you because you’ve fallen into Jesus’ orbit...simply because you believe in Him. 

As we keep trusting in Jesus Who justifies us, He also sanctifies us. That is, He will transform us from the inside out. He will make us holy. He will set us aside for God’s purposes and we will live with greater confidence. 

Paul describes what happens to those who believe in Jesus in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “...we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

And it’s all rooted in simply believing in Jesus, the most important truth any of us can ever know or grasp hold of. 

Do you find it hard to believe? 

Turn to Jesus and tell Him about it. (He knows already anyway. Just be honest with Him.) Jesus is anxious to turn our availability into faith in Him, the faith we need to live in Him. He will help us believe. 

And, as the Bible reminds us, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame." (Romans 10:11)

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

How Jesus Disciples Live

[This was shared during worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church yesterday morning.]

Mark 1:14-20
In today’s short gospel lesson, Mark 1:14-20, Jesus shows us something of what it is to be His disciple. It boils down to four words:

• Repent 
• Believe 
• Follow 
• Fish.

Our lesson, written in Mark’s rapid-fire style, falls after his narration of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist and Jesus’ time in the wilderness, immediately after John the Baptist's arrest by Herod.

Take a look at verse 14, please: “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.” (Mark 1:14) John’s ministry had been preparation for this moment when Jesus began His ministry. John had worked to get people ready for the coming of Jesus, the King. “After me,” John had said, “comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” (Mark 1:7)

Verse 15: “‘The time has come,’ [Jesus] said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’”

The word translated as “time has come” is, in the Greek in which Mark wrote his gospel, Πεπλήρωται, from the verb πληρόω. It means full up, fully complete. The time was full up, Jesus was saying. Full up for the kingdom of God to be ushered into our world by the King of kings, Jesus!

There may be no more overlooked Biblical concept than the kingdom of God. Yet Jesus talks about it all the time.

When we think of that phrase “kingdom of God,” we might think of something that will happen in the future, beyond our own deaths, after our resurrections.

This view of God’s kingdom turns this life into nothing but heaven’s waiting room.

Not only is that incredibly boring, it’s built on a false understanding of the kingdom that Jesus came to bring to us.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to petition God, “Thy kingdom come.” When we say that, we’re not asking God to make us part of His reign after we die. We're asking God to reign over our lives right now.

In explaining this petition of the prayer, Martin Luther writes in The Small Catechism: “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit [now], so that by His grace we believe His holy Word [now] and live a godly life now and in eternity.”

Jesus says in John 5:25: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

He says to those who come in contact with Him, “...the kingdom of God is in your midst." (Luke 17:21)

And 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “... if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

So, Jesus comes to bring us into direct relationship with God our King in these days, as we walk on this earth! We become citizens of His kingdom now. We don’t have to wait till we die!

Jesus explains exactly how the kingdom of God comes to us in verse 15 of our gospel lesson too. When Jesus brings God’s kingdom to us--in His Word, in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, in the fellowship of other believers, we enter the kingdom of God and we enter it at deeper and deeper levels of connection and joy when we “repent and believe in the good news.”

Those are the first two aspects of being disciples in the kingdom of God: repenting and believing in the good news.

Let's unpack those two things for a moment.

As you know, a lot of people have the wrong idea about repentance. Repentance does begin with sorrow for sin, with regret over hurting the God Who made us and sent Jesus to die and rise for us. But after sin has been confessed honestly to God, repentance ends with the joy of reconciliation with God. It ends with God telling us we are forgiven. Repentance clears the clutter of sin that otherwise obstructs our relationship with God. His life flows to us again.

To believe in the good news is to believe in Jesus, to trust that when He died on the cross, He died for my sins, to trust that when He rose from the dead, He did so to give me life. That’s good news! “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)

Discipleship begins with repentance and belief. These two things alone are enough to save us. They are gifts God gives to those who are open to Jesus. Repentance and belief in Jesus, both of which only God the Holy Spirit can create within us, are the conduits by which we are saved by grace through faith in Christ.

But we live in a world darkened by sin. And until our own physical deaths, you and I will be dogged by our sin and the temptation to sin. Unless we remain resolutely connected to Christ, we can fall away from God. We can lose our ways.

This is why Jesus told the disciples who wanted to sleep at Gethsemane, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)

So, on top of repenting and believing, the disciple of Jesus will diligently seek to follow Him.

They follow Jesus so that they can be filled with God’s strength and not have to face life or temptations to sin on their own.

In our gospel lesson, Jesus finds Simon and Andrew, two brothers who are fishermen, and tells them, “Come, follow me…” (Mark 1:17). Later, Jesus calls another set of brothers, John and James, to follow and they do (v.20).

But what does it mean for you and me to follow Jesus?

Imagine for a second a couple who get married, then decide, even though they live under the same roof and have jobs in the same city, that they’ll just see each other for one hour every week...unless they have something more interesting or fun to do.

How deep do you think their relationship would be?

How prepared do you think they’d be when adversities hit?

You couldn’t really describe what they had as a marriage, could you?

As ridiculous as that illustration sounds, it precisely describes the manner in which most people who call themselves Christians approach the most important relationship in their lives, their relationship with Jesus.

They set up a time to meet Jesus every week (unless something more interesting or fun comes along) and then forget Him the rest of the week. Weekly worship with fellow believers is essential to the Christian life; I'm not knocking it. But if that’s the only connection you have with Christ over the course of your weeks, how deep can your relationship with Christ really be? How prepared will you be for life’s adversities when Jesus is nothing more than a distant acquaintance?

We need to spend some focused time each day in prayer, in reading God’s Word, in asking Jesus, “What do you have in mind for me to think or do in this passage of Scripture today, Lord?”

I also find myself as I grow older more closely adhering to Paul's admonition to pray without ceasing. Many times over the course of my days, I'll find myself talking with God about one thing or another. I'll be driving along in my car, praying. And I know people who pass by think I'm talking to myself. I don't care what they think! I want to keep praying that God's kingdom will come to people.

But even if you're not that crazy, having a daily focused time with God is important. If it seems too hard to do for say five days a week, try at first to do it one day a week, then two, and so on. And, if you need help in even getting started on following Jesus in this way, contact one of the members of our Life and Learning Team to ask them for tips.

So, disciples of Jesus repent, believe in the good news, and follow Jesus. And then, they fish. Jesus told Simon and Andrew to follow Him “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Matthew 1:17)

This metaphorical description of every disciple's mission would have resonated with Simon and Andrew. And not just because they were fishermen.

You see, God’s people, the Jews, viewed the sea as a daunting, evil thing. It was a place of death and ferocious sea monsters. They remembered Genesis 1, in which God’s Holy Spirit moved over dark chaos to impose order, bring good from evil, and to create life.

To fish for people is to draw them out of chaos, sin, evil, and darkness.

To fish for people is to bring them to life with God, to the light of God’s goodness.

To fish for people is to make disciples.

I try to go fishing all the time, even though it doesn’t come naturally to me, even though I would rather keep to myself. (Believe it or not...and Ann will vouch for this, I am an introvert. God has had to kick me out of my shell and still has to remind me to move beyond myself all the time!)

So, at Jesus’ behest, I go fishing for people.

Last night, I made a run to a Kroger deli.

Not my usual one.

I was trolling different waters last night.

I happened to be in uniform, my clerical collar. That can be more of a disadvantage than an advantage.

Whatever, I followed my usual pattern of interaction: I struck up a conversation with the clerk who waited on me. “Have you been busy today?” “No need to put paper between every slice of cheese.”

This is the way you start when you go fishing for Jesus:

• You strike up conversations. 
• You ask questions. 
• You show genuine concern. 
• As time goes on and people get to know you, as appropriate, you mention your faith in Jesus. 
• As they share things about themselves, you ask if you can pray for them. 
• You plant the seeds of the good news of the God Who sent His Son Jesus so that all who believe in Him will never die, but have everlasting life with God. You go fishing.

Before you say, “I could never do that,” let me remind you of something. However you came to faith in Jesus--through your parents, through a friend, whatever, it ultimately can be traced back to moments when some Christian disciple went fishing. They cared enough about people swamped by the darkness, chaos, and sin of this world to share Christ with them.

Fishing for people is the greatest expression of love in the world.

Repent. Believe. Follow. Fish.

This is how disciples live.

This is how Christ uses us to make more disciples.

May we always be faithful disciples of Jesus. Amen

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

Joanne Freeman on 'Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Honor'

"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." (Proverbs 22:1)

The Bible acknowledges that a good reputation is a good thing, although when God came into the world in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, He was willing to take on a bad reputation, enduring the form of execution reserved for Rome's worst criminals, in His mission of saving all who repent and believe in Him from eternal separation from God.

For this, Philippians 2:9-11, tells us, Jesus achieved supreme honor, the highest reputation one can have:

...God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Those of us who are only human, and not like Jesus, both human and divine, may attain respect and honor from others, but it won't be any good to us when we face God in eternity.

Then, the only question will be, "Have we emulated Christ and humbled ourselves by trusting in Him and what He achieved for us on the cross and from the empty tomb?"

To look for honor anywhere else but in humble submission to Christ is pointless. "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it," Jesus says, "but whoever loses their life for me will find it." (Matthew 16:25)

All of which helps explain why I listened to Yale historian Joanne Freeman's lecture on Alexander Hamilton's idea of honor so intently. (That and the fact that Freeman is a terrific historian and lecturer.)

Other than Washington, Hamilton is my favorite figure from the American Revolution. But his idea of "honor," shared by many of his contemporaries, is self-driven, futile, and ends in death...physical as well as eternal.

In the end, we can't earn honor. All of us are ordinary sinful human beings. Honor must be conferred on us. It's only conferred on those who did what Hamilton refused to do on the fateful day when Aaron Burr killed him in a duel, surrender.

But our call isn't to surrender to just anyone or anything...it's to Christ alone.

Alexander Hamilton was a good man, in many ways a great man. But his guiding principle in life led him to a tragic, early, and ultimately, stupid death. Hamilton, always the young man in a hurry. While his achievements had already been enormous, his death at age 47 denied the country he loved his services far too early. It all could have been avoided if he had only looked for honor in the right place.

[Here's a sampling of Alexander Hamilton blogging I've done here.]

How Can You Believe in Jesus Christ?

There are people who want to believe in Jesus Christ, but find it difficult to do so.

The fact is that none of us can ever know the truth about Jesus Christ, God made flesh, the Savior Who came to die and rise and offer everlasting life to all who believe in Him, until we dare to experience Him.

The great Norwegian Lutheran theologian Ole Hallesby, in his book Why I Am a Christian, gives us five things that we can do to experience Jesus.

First, read the New Testament. Contrary to some of the psuedo-scholarship referred to in the novel, The DaVinci Code, the New Testament is accurate in its portrayal of Jesus inspired by God that has withstood the challenge and scrutiny of many skeptics. By reading the New Testament, you will get to know Jesus. Don’t worry about what you don’t understand. Instead, savor and apply what you do understand.

Next, Hallesby suggests, that we begin to pray. Talk with God honestly about your doubts, fears, hopes, and joys. Make yourself vulnerable to God and open to His guidance.

Third, while praying, should make an honest inventory of yourself , asking God to show you what you need to do to live life as He designed it to be lived. You will find God orchestrating events, encounters, and thought processes in your life that will move you increasingly into Christ's orbit and give you greater confidence about the faith you desire to have.

Fourth, participate in Holy Communion when it’s offered. We Lutheran Christians, for example, believe that in the bread and wine, Jesus offers Himself body and blood and embodies His forgiving love to us. In Communion, God takes on flesh and lives among us again. How that works, I don't know. Holy Communion is a deep mystery. I only know that, in ways I cannot explain, it works: it connects me intimately to Jesus, connects me to His eternal Church, and brings me the forgiveness of my sins, among other blessings.

Even if we don't understand how the bread and wine of Holy Communion are also Jesus' body and blood, we have His word on it. In recalling the night when Jesus first instituted Holy Communion, the apostle Paul writes:

...the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)

Notice Jesus' use of the verb is. For Jesus, there is no question as to what the definition of the word is is. Nor should there be for us, even if we can't understand or explain it: When we receive the bread and wine of the Sacrament, we also receive Christ's body and blood in an intimate act of sharing by God that is one of the greatest blessings a human being can enjoy!

Finally, Hallesby says, we should fellowship with people who are wholeheartedly convinced that Jesus is the real deal, the Word, the Savior Who lights our ways.

The nineteenth century English preacher Charles Spurgeon was once asked to explain why so many people flocked to his church on Sunday mornings to hear him preach the Gospel. Spurgeon said that he spent the week setting himself on fire with the Word of God and people came on Sundays to watch him burn. When we spend time in the fellowship of believers in Christ, our faith will be ignited.

When we allow ourselves to experience Jesus Christ, He will light our way through even the darkest of passages of life, enabling us to cope and inspiring us to love our neighbors--even those across the ocean--so that they too can be given light in their darkness and hope for their futures.

How to Have Faith

"I wish I had a faith like yours," a man told me one Sunday. "It makes me feel guilty that I don't."

"Don't ever wish you were someone else, especially not me," I answered. "I believe in Jesus, for sure, and I'm grateful that He went to the cross and rose from the dead for people like me.

"But I'm just a forgiven sinner. And every day I still do, say, and think sinful things, things that don't show love for God or love for others. I have to go back to God every single day, asking Him for forgiveness and for help in living like a Christian."

The man said that he understood all that. What he wanted was a stronger faith. He wanted to be more sure about Jesus.

With a clearer grasp of what the man was getting at, I then shared with him one of the most important truths I've learned on how to appropriate faith in Christ, as well as on how to enjoy a deepening relationship with Christ.

"Here's what I've found," I told him. "You have to live into faith. No amount of praying, reading, or thinking will get you there, as important as those things are. Faith in Christ is a gift from God. All you have to do is grab hold of it. And you can grab hold of it when you live your way into it."

As many who have read this blog or heard me preach know, I was an atheist when my wife and I first married. Marrying an atheist wasn't the smartest thing Ann could have done. She was a Lutheran Christian and it would be hard for her to build a strong marriage with a husband moving in a different direction from the one in which she moved.

But early in our marriage, mostly to get Ann off my back for sleeping in late on Sundays, I started going to worship with her at the Lutheran congregation of which she was a member.

I liked what I saw and experienced there. The members were real, down to earth people who dealt with real issues in their lives and also had real faults. What I learned from them, as I've told others, is that the church--any church--is a hospital for hypocrites, a place for sinners to come and be nudged toward a new way of life by the God we meet there.

I found that whatever tough times or personal flaws of character the members of Ann's home church dealt with in their lives, they kept coming back to Jesus. They kept seeking healing and the power for living morally better lives in the hospital for hypocrites, the church.

In worship, they confessed their sins, heard God's Word of forgiveness and new life through Christ, and tried to follow Jesus in their everyday lives.

In spite of myself, I found that I wanted to be like these people. I wanted to have faith in Jesus. But I really didn't know how to get it. (I was also too embarrassed to tell even my wife that this was what I wanted. I guess I didn't want to appear either weak or ignorant.)

Then, without knowing that this desire to have the faith was percolating in me, the pastor of Ann's church stopped by our apartment one evening. "Would the two of you take over as leaders of the junior high youth group?" he asked.

I had never admitted to the pastor that I was an atheist. But I was still on the roll of a Methodist church in which I'd been confirmed. So, I tried to use that as a an excuse to say, "You know," I told him, "I'm not even a Lutheran." He wasn't buying it. "We won't hold that against you," he said with a smile. Left out of defenses against taking on this task, I retreated, certain that Ann would put a stop to the whole thing. "Ann just told him, "We'll do it." "Well, if Ann wants to do it," I told him, "I guess I could try to help her."

This was a turning point in my road to faith. My wife and I were suddenly supposed to provide some spiritual leadership to young people. That entailed getting to know the kids and providing them with an environment in which it was safe for them to talk with God and interact with others in their own unique Christian way.

I started doing things that were needed for me to play my role with some sort of authenticity and effectiveness. I...

• showed up for the evening youth group gatherings
• hung out with the kids
• listened to what was happening in their lives
• helped plan activities
• listened to their Bible devotions
• tried to pray, though at first seemed a little weird to me.

Later, I began to more seriously do things that would help me understand what I was doing alongside my wife when we hung out with the youth. Among other things, I...

• attended worship regularly
• began to read the Bible (I couldn't believe I was doing this. But I was...and enjoying it!)
• started attending adult Sunday School class and adult Bible studies

Notice the progression: I moved from activity to appropriation of the faith; from living the Christian faith to actually believing it.

If you want Christ in your life or if you want to enjoy a deepening faith relationship with Christ, I recommend following this pattern. If you're not a Christian, find a church and, without expecting to be a leader (in fact, always expect and aspire to be a servant), volunteer to be involved in some ministry the congregation does. It might be...

• helping collect food for area needy
• corresponding with a child sponsored by the congregation through organizations like World Vision or Compassion International
• driving an elderly person or a family with young children to church or to doctor appointments
• joining in whenever the congregation does a community kindness outreach
• if you're a musician, offering to play your instrument (it could be brass or woodwind, strings or piano, guitar or bass, harmonica or bongo drums, whatever) for worship or for other gatherings 
• volunteering to go on a church mission trip, whether it's in town or to impoverished Third World locations
• helping the homeless

It could be a million other things like these.

But whatever it is, if you want faith or you want a deeper faith, find a worthy Christian ministry and get involved.

Live into your faith and the living Jesus will live in you in ways that bring you confidence, hope, and...a deeper faith.
As long as you haven't landed at a church filled with institutional gatekeepers or where your particular talents are wildly out of sync, I believe something incredible will happen to you. As you live as a believer in Jesus, God will turn you into a believer in Jesus.

If you're a member of a congregation, this will entail getting off your tail. It will mean getting in the game. Suddenly, I think you'll find, that a faith you once found boring or meaningless will come alive. Jesus will come alive to you.

I have seen this work in countless people. But how? The answer, I think, is that Christian faith is not about us. It's what God has done for us in Jesus. And it's about sharing forgiveness, hope, and new life that comes from God with others. Living into Christian faith--serving others in Christ's Name before we fully understand what that means--gets our minds off of ourselves, cultivating the belief that, no matter what, God is with us.

Freed from the slavery to ourselves, God's Spirit empowers us to trust in Christ and to get on with the business of living.

When that happens, the Spirit has an open will on which to imprint new ways of living and thinking.

Live into Christian faith and it will grow inside of you.

Making Sense of the World

Ambrosiaster, the designation given by Erasmus to an unidentified Church Father active sometime between 366 and 384AD, is considered by many to be the most insightful, accurate commentator on Paul's writings in the New Testament before the commentaries of Martin Luther (1483-1546) and other sixteenth-century reforming Biblical scholars came along.

Ambrosiaster is cited in an entry for this coming Sunday's second Bible lesson, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18, in Ancient Christian Devotional: A Year of Weekly Readings, Lectionary Cycle A.

I wish that contemporary Christians would all read these words, an encouragement to those who adhere to a reverential view of the Bible and a correction to those who regard the central teachings of Scripture (and the confessions of the Church) as optional.

Ambrosiaster also affirms the power of the Biblical witness without additions or subtractions on the parts of those trying to make the Gospel more palatable to unbelieving or skeptical people.

This is Ambrosiaster's take on why Jesus called fishers to preach His Word:

It was because Christian preaching does not need elaborate refinement of verbal expression that fishers, who were uneducated, were chosen to preach the gospel. In that way the truth of the message would be its own recommendation, and it would not depend on the cleverness or ingenuity of human wisdom. The false apostles were doing just that, and moreover they were omitting the things which the world does not believe, like the virgin birth of Christ and his resurrection from the dead.

Our call as Christians is, on the one hand, to lower those cultural barriers that might prevent others from knowing and following Jesus Christ. That's why the use of contemporary music and language in worship are good things. Doing so makes Christ accessible to those who don't know Him. (And that, for we Lutheran Christians, is a central component of the ongoing Reformation project begun by Luther.)

On the other hand, we have no authority from Christ to change the content of the Bible's teaching. As Rick Warren has memorably said of the Church's relation to the Biblical message it's called to proclaim: "The package must always change. The content of the package must never change."*

Recently, my wife Ann was asked by a friend about what is going on in Haiti, where our son, along with his girlfriend and others from the congregation of which they're a part, plan to go to work with children at a vacation Bible school this coming summer. "Why do you suppose that country can't get things together in spite of all the help they're getting?" Ann was asked. Massive poverty, massive destruction after last year's earthquake, and a long history of political corruption and despotism were all reasons Ann cited. And, she added, that one can't discount one legacy of Voodooism in the country's troubles: demon possession.

"You don't believe that?" the other person asked Ann. "Of course I do," she said.

The fact that the Bible teaches about the existence of demon-possession and that Christ, Who cast out demons, believed in this phenomenon, should be enough to convince any Christian that demons do wreak havoc in our world.

But so should experience. As a young pastor, I participated in a weekly study with a group of pastors that included Mennonites and Lutherans. One Lutheran clergy about a decade older than me said that he had never believed in angels or especially, in their fallen counterparts, demons. An older Lutheran colleague, who was far from being a Biblical fundamentalist, shocked the first pastor by saying, "If you don't believe that there are demons, you either haven't been paying attention or you're naive."

Ambrosiaster's comments indicate that the teachings of the Bible have always aroused skepticism. There's nothing new or sophisticated about the doubts we may have when the Bible speaks of angels, demons, the virgin birth of Jesus, Jesus' resurrection, and other teachings. Faith doesn't come naturally to us. It's a supernatural phenomenon created by God in believers. (That's why believers can never see themselves as being superior to unbelievers in any way.)

But if we approach the Bible and Christian faith with a willingness to believe, a willingness to trust in God and in God's Word, we might find God not only constructing faith in our lives. We might well conclude that faith in the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the only thing that allows us to make sense of our world or ourselves.

All that and heaven too. What a deal!

*My paraphrase from memory.