Trusting God in the In-Between Times

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

Hebrews 11:32-12:2a

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Call to Be a Witness

[This message--or something very like it--was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, yesterday morning.]

Acts 8:26-40

Today, in the fourth installment of our series based on the New Testament book of Acts, Church Lessons, we begin and rather than ending the message with today’s key point: Every disciple in Christ’s Church is a witness for Christ. 

When Jesus met the surviving eleven apostles just before He ascended to heaven, He told them and through them, you and me, “You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). 

For us, the issue is not whether we will be His witnesses. Jesus says that we will be. By our lives and by our words, we who have been baptized and confess Jesus is our Lord will inevitably give witness to whether we truly believe, as Peter and John said of Jesus in our lesson from Acts last week: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). 

Our call as Jesus’ disciples is to tell the world about the freedom from sin and death that God makes available only to those who turn from sin and entrust their lives to Jesus Christ.

But, how do we fulfill that call faithfully? 

Our first Bible lesson for the day, Acts 8:26-40, provides us with good modeling in answer to that question.

But first, some background is needed. The disciple who witnesses for Jesus in our lesson is Philip. This is not Philip the apostle, one of the twelve called and intensively trained by Jesus to be a public leader of the Church. Philip the apostle was sort of like a modern-day pastor. The Philip in today’s lesson from Acts is a layperson. This Philip, let’s call him Philip the Layperson, is worth observing as he shows us how to be faithful witnesses for Jesus.

Verses 26 and 27: “Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ This is a desert place. And he rose and went.”

The first thing that faithful witnesses understand is that God speaks to His people. 

Definitively of course, God speaks to us through His Word. The person steeped in God’s Word, who spends time quietly asking God to speak to them through the Word, who maintains intimacy with God through regular worship with God’s people, mutual accountability in His Church, and open, humble prayer, will find God’s Word almost unavoidable as they go through their daily lives. 

I’m no spiritual superstar, but the other day while I was consciously thinking of something else shortly after I’d been praying, God brought to my attention an item I needed to pray over and act upon. 

God will usually speak to us with such a still, small voice, I believe (1 Kings 19:12, KJV). 

Philip the Layperson had an advantage I’ve never experienced: God sent an angel to this man of God and this angel, this messenger from God, told him what he needed to do. 

What God told Philip he needed to do wasn’t convenient. He was to travel from Jerusalem to Gaza, on foot, a distance of some 43-miles. 

What’s worse, God gives Philip no idea why he’s supposed to do this! 

But Philip went anyway. 

If we want to be faithful witnesses for Jesus, we need to go where God leads us, even to inconvenient places and situations. Even when we don’t know why.

The latter part of verse 27 forward: “And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over and join this chariot.’”

The man in the chariot was a Gentile. He was what the Jews called a “God-fearer,” a Gentile who believed that the God of the Jews was the one true God of the whole earth. He was heading home from Jerusalem, where he had worshiped God. In his soul, Philip could hear the Holy Spirit telling him to go to this man. From Philip, we learn that God calls faithful witnesses to meet people where they are so that they can help those people come to know Jesus. 

Philip literally and physically came alongside the man. We must do the same with the spiritually-disconnected people we encounter each day in our lives. 

God wants us to go to them to establish relationships through which we can give Jesus to them and, following the power of the Holy Spirit, make disciples. 

Sometimes, the people who need to hear from faithful witnesses are members of Christ’s Church. A Pew Poll released this past week shows that 20% of all who say they are Christians don’t believe in the God of the Bible. 

As inconvenient as it is, we need more Philips!

Verse 30 forward: “So Philip ran to him [Philip had to run to catch up with a chariot, when you think about it] and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading? And he said, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And the invited Philip to come up and sit with him.”

I love these verses. After the habit of the day, the Ethiopian was reading out loud. Philip could hear that the Ethiopian was reading from the prophet Isaiah. On hearing this, Philip didn’t talk down to him. “Do you find these verses confusing?” is his basic question of the Ethiopian. 

Faithful witnesses establish non-threatening relationships with people who don’t yet know Jesus. Relationships of love and respect are the conduits God uses to woo spiritually-disconnected people to eternal life with Jesus Christ. 

Faithful witnesses who love the spiritually disconnected are the ones God uses to call those disconnected people to repentance and new life through faith in Jesus. They tell people the sometimes hard truth with love. 

In the face of Philip’s love and concern, the Ethiopian asked Philip to come on board his chariot to explain the Word of God about Jesus to him. As we see from the ensuing verses, Philip was ready to give an account for the hope he had in Jesus (1 Peter 3:15-16) because he had spent time in intimate fellowship with Christ, Christ’s Word, and Christ’s Church. Faithful witnesses are prepared to share their faith in Christ because they are on intimate terms with Christ and Christ’s Church. 

We will never be faithful witnesses for Christ if we wall ourselves off, literally or otherwise, from the tough but life-giving pursuit of being in community with our sisters and brothers in Christ.

After Philip told the eunuch the good news of Jesus, Acts says: “as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?’ And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.” 

During my seminary internship, between Easter services, a young woman from the church, a freshman in college, approached me. “Mark, this is Ann [not my wife, a different Ann], my college roommate. I’ve been sharing Christ with her this year at school. She’s been going to worship with me on Sundays. She knows now that she believes in Jesus. But she’s never been baptized. Could she be now?” 

I ran to the pastor, who was already in line for Easter breakfast in the fellowship hall, and a few minutes later, in the sanctuary, between services, that young woman was baptized. Faithful witnesses, like my internship supervisor, know that the sooner a person is baptized, the better. In Holy Baptism, God claims us as His own and the power of the Holy Spirit to create faith in Christ within us is unleashed in our lives. We need to sic the Holy Spirit on people as soon as possible. That's why we baptize infants!

There wasn’t going to be a church back in Ethiopia where the Ethiopian eunuch could be baptized and at that moment in Gaza, the nearest apostle was 43 miles away; so Philip, the faithful witness, baptized the man. It might make some uncomfortable to think that they could be the ones, like Philip, called by God not just to share Christ with others, but, in some circumstances, to baptize them. But Philip shows us that faithful witnesses who are passionate to see others in the kingdom of God and not eternally damned will be sensitive to heed God’s call on the spur of the moment.

Verse 39 forward: “And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.”

Philip didn’t rest on his laurels. The word translated here as preached from the Greek in which Luke wrote Acts is εὐηγγελίζετο. It doesn’t really refer to preaching. It literally says that Philip “good newsed.” Everywhere Philip went, he good newsed; he shared Christ. 

Acts 21 tells us about a visit the apostle Paul paid on Philip the Layperson at his home in Caesarea Maritima. Philip must have done a lot of good newsing at home because Paul discovered that Philip had four daughters who were prophets, adept at sharing the Word of God. 

Faithful witnesses know that the time to give out the good news, the gospel, of new life for all who believe in Jesus is now, no matter how young or old we may be.

During a physical this past week, my doctor asked me when I was going to retire. I think he asked me partly because we’re the same age and because, like me, he loves his work. I told him that my current plan is to retire at 70, in about five years. But even if I do retire as a pastor in five years or ten years, I will have the same call that I had before I became a pastor, a call as a disciple of Jesus Christ, to be about the business of good newsing, of being a faithful witness. 

This is your call too. It’s the call that all who bear Christ’s name through our baptism and our faith in Jesus share, to be faithful witnesses for the One Who has saved us by grace through faith in Him. No matter what our age or our circumstance may we, like Philip the Layperson, always be faithful to this call. Amen

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

For Christ and the Gospel, the Church and Clergy need to stay out of politics

I tweeted this about an hour ago:

“Now, at long last, will my fellow Christian clergy get out of politics? Instead of playing for worldly power and dirtying the Church’s reputation, let’s do our job: proclaim Christ and make disciples!”

I speak as one who, thirteen years ago, made the mistake of running for public office while serving as a pastor. While I was always quick to say that I was not a “Christian candidate” or that I knew what God’s politics (I don’t believe there is such a thing) was, running was a terrible risk.

Why was it a risk?

Because it risked alienating people from Christ, the Gospel, and the Church when people heard a pastor advocating particular political ideas.

No political idea is worth losing the chance to commend Christ’s saving gospel, which is the only way to forgiveness of sins and life with God. Nothing is important as that.

If I’m going to offend people, I want to do it by lovingly lifting up Christ, “the way, and the life, and the truth” (John 14:6).

I've written before that there are exceptional circumstances when the Church and its clergy will feel called to speak up about political issues. This applies especially when one feels that injustices are being committed. But such speaking should never be done in the service a political party or candidate, so as to avoid subordinating the gospel message to a human message or a human being.

To subordinate anyone or anything to Christ and His gospel is to engage in idolatry, a violation of God's First Commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me."

I pray fellow clergy and church bodies, both politically right and left, will stop playing politics and instead proclaim Jesus Christ!

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

What Now?

Matthew 9:35-10:8
Today is the second Sunday after Pentecost. It begins the longest season of the Church Year.

To the outside observer, the Sundays after Pentecost don't constitute the most exciting or compelling part of the church calendar. There’s no Christmas, Easter, or Pentecost to enliven it.

Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers and other fellow Christians don’t speak of the season as “the Sundays after Pentecost,” but lump it in with what they call “Ordinary Time.” That’s how most people will see this season of the Church Year, just ordinary.

It is in some ways. I think of it as the Season of Getting Down to Brass Tacks.

The question that our Bible lessons throughout this season ask and help us answer is a simple one: After God has entered our world in Jesus, died on the cross for our sins, risen from death to open life with God to all who repent and believe in Him, filled us with the Holy Spirit to empower us to believe and share the Gospel news of new life through faith in Jesus, what now? While we await our personal encounters with Jesus, either at our deaths or when He returns to this world, how do we live? What now?

That question takes center stage in our gospel lesson for this morning.

It comes at a transitional spot in Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

After the exciting beginning of Jesus’ ministry and following the incredible time of teaching we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus begins what may seem like a fairly routine portion of His ministry. (If anything about Jesus’ time on earth can be called routine!)

Our lesson finds Jesus at what we might call a hinge of His earthly ministry, one on which a door is closed on one phase and is opened to a brand new one.

Here’s what I mean: Up to this point, Jesus has been the One doing all the ministering. Jesus has been the Actor, His disciples the audience.

But in our lesson, things change. Here, Jesus calls and empowers His followers to enter into the same ministry with the same power--the same authority--He possesses as God the Son.

There will be another hinge in Jesus’ ministry, coming after He dies, rises, and ascends into heaven, when all who follow Him will be unleashed not just onto the small land of Judea to share Him with others, but when all of His disciples--everyone who bears the name of Jesus--will be sent into the whole world to share and live out the Gospel so that their neighbors of all colors, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds can come to know and follow Jesus.

We, in the Church, live on the other side of that doorway.

But today, let’s take a look at what we can learn about living in this green season, this ordinary time, from what Jesus says and does in today’s gospel lesson.

Matthew 9:35: “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.”

This was Jesus’ ministry before His death, resurrection, and ascension summarized: He taught, he shared the Gospel of new life with God for all who repented and believed in Him, He brought God’s healing to people’s lives.

But that ministry was about to expand beyond Jesus, motivated by the loving compassion of God for all people.

Read on, please: “When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed [The word that Jesus uses here, in the Greek in which Matthew wrote his gospel, means more literally, troubled] and helpless [This word in the Greek carries the meaning of cast away, thrown away], like sheep without a shepherd. [The people were lost, set adrift in the world without hope, untethered from God by their inborn sin.] Then he [Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’”

Don’t miss out on the importance of that last sentence. These sheep--lost in sin, lost to death, losing out on purpose for their lives--are troubled. They’re the world’s throw-aways. But, unlike the world, Jesus has compassion on them all...on all of us. They, like us, need a shepherd, someone to lead them to life and peace with God.

Jesus was, while on earth, a shepherd to many people.

But, for the sake of being the perfect human sacrifice for all of our sins, Jesus had voluntarily accepted the limitation of living one human life while on earth, able to reach, touch, and speak to only so many people.

It’s possible that He could have talked to all the residents on Planet Earth at a single time (and Scripture says He will do just that when He returns one day), but it is in the nature of our loving God to want to meet us and offer us new life intimately, one to one.

By accepting that limitation, Jesus fulfilled the desire of the little boy I’ve mentioned before who couldn’t get to sleep, afraid in his bedroom by himself. His dad pointed out that he and mom were just down the hall and that besides, “God is right here.” “I know that God is right here,” the little boy says, “but I want someone with skin on them.”

Jesus was God with skin on Him.

But it’s Jesus’ intent that we should all meet God through people with skin on them, through people who believe in Jesus Christ and whose lives have been changed for all eternity by Him. It's people who know, follow, and love Jesus who can bring the God we know in Jesus close to others.

So, switching metaphors from sheep to crops ready for harvest, ready for eternity-changing good news, ready to be brought into the shelter of God’s kingdom, Jesus commands His disciples, including you and me, to pray for workers to move into that harvest.

I can think of no other command we have received from Jesus that is more ignored by His Church. We're even more obedient to Jesus' great commission command to make disciples, to evangelize, than we are to this one.

We Christians often lament the sorry state of the world. It bothers us to consider how many people go through their lives without ever knowing Jesus Christ, the only One Who can save them from sin, the only One Who can give them the life with God that they yearn for even of they don’t know it.

But we fail to do what Jesus tells us to do in our gospel lesson this morning: To pray that God will send disciples with skin on them into the lives of all people in order, by the power of the Holy Spirit Who lives in every Christian, to duplicate the ministry of Jesus--the ministry of teaching, proclaiming the good news, being agents of God’s healing--to the harassed and helpless who need Jesus as much as you and I do!

Praying that God will send workers into all of the harvests of the world should be something that we as Christians do every single day!

We need to pray that God will send workers to bring in the harvest of the lost among the elderly, baby boomers, GenXers, and millennials, to bring in the harvest of those presently lost in Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, atheism, to bring in the harvest from all who do not yet know Jesus.

But be careful what you pray for! When we pray in this way, we must also be prepared to be the workers that Jesus sends into these harvests.

We may be the disciples with skin on them that Jesus sends out.

Consider what happened to the Twelve that to whom Jesus first commanded this prayer. He called them to be workers in the harvest. He sent them out to do exactly what He was doing, at first only in Judea. Later, He would send His whole Church with the mission to go to the whole world to make disciples. That’s our call--yours and mine--today.

It is a daunting mission. But it’s one we take seriously at Living Water.

When we revised our congregation’s constitution a few years ago, we knew that we had to adopt a new mission statement. The old one was more of an observation than a statement of our mission.

But we became convinced that we didn’t need to formulate some snappy new wording. We didn’t need months of input or study.

That's because the risen Jesus gave His Church its mission just before He ascended to heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand: “...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

This is Jesus’ answer to our question, “What now?”

• We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, what now? 
• We’re given the Holy Spirit at Baptism, what now? 
• We are told to pray in Jesus’ name, what now? 

The answer: Do the mission Jesus has given to us; be and make disciples. We’re to keep being and making disciples until Jesus returns. As we do it, Jesus promises that He will be with us always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

On Tuesday night, we’ll have an open house, allowing you to ask questions about our proposed three-phase building project.

I must tell you that, as a pastor who has been through two previous building projects, I face this one with some apprehension.

I’m not concerned about arguments over the bricks and mortar; the plan reflects the prayers for God’s will and the extensive input of our members.

I’m not concerned about leadership or financing.

The thing I pray about as your shepherd is that, in the excitement over putting up the first phase of this project, we forget about our mission of being and making disciples.

Listen: If we see any building we erect as anything other than a tool for being and making disciples, we shouldn’t bother building at all.

The first disciples of Jesus followed Jesus, taught others about Him, proclaimed the good news of new life through repentance and belief in Jesus, and brought Jesus’ healing to others without having sanctuaries, fellowship halls, offices, kitchens, or classrooms. And history shows that they did pretty well at the mission of being and making disciples Jesus gives to His Church. The first permanent church structure wasn't even built until the fourth century.

I believe that the first phase the Vision Forward team and the Church Council is proposing can help us with the mission that Jesus has given to us. So, can the subsequent phases...but only if we refuse to see our buildings as ends in themselves.

We must not see any building project as a destination, only a route by which we get to our destination. The destination, the constant journey of the Church, is to fulfill Christ’s great commission, to make disciples. And Jesus even tells us to cheat in pursuing it; we’re to pray the power of God’s Holy Spirit on all those disciples with skin on them who have been sent by Jesus Christ to turn the world upside down--one person at a time--with the life-altering good news of Jesus Christ. Whatever we do, we must always remember and pursue our one and only mission!

For the Church, that’s always the answer to the question, “What now?” Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message prepared for worship today.]

1 Pastor's Response to Yesterday's Executive Order

Yesterday, over on Facebook, I posted this reaction to an executive order signed yesterday that promotes and legitimizes the exercise of political influence by churches and other religious entities.

As a Christian and a pastor, not to mention as an American, I am deeply disturbed by the executive order signed today. 

The Church is not a political institution, nor can one draw a straight line from Jesus and a set of political convictions. 

To push a political agenda in the name of the God revealed in Jesus Christ is to take God's name in vain. 

The mission of the Church is to make disciples, bringing transformation and new life to all who believe. 

Churches that seek votes rather than pursuing Christ's great commission are faithless.
Church political engagement is also ineffectual because transformed lives can't be legislated or coerced. 

People and societies can only be transformed as a result of the work of God in the lives of people who voluntarily believe in and follow Christ. 

This is not a political statement. It's a plea for the Church to refrain from dishonoring Christ through political activity. 

This executive order is bad for the Church and bad for America.

I later added these comments to the post, as it appeared on a page frequented by colleagues:

We [as Christians] know that the world finds the gospel of Christ offensive.

But political activism by the Church makes Christianity odious to non-believers for the wrong reasons.

This order will encourage those who undertake political activity in Jesus' name to extend their activities, harming the spread of the gospel.

Any time the Church receives special treatment from the State, the Church's proclamation of Christ is hurt.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

For the Whole Church (including me): Make Disciples, Not Excuses!

This is a message meant for all Christians, including the one I see every time I look into the mirror.

The Church must stop blaming culture for its failure to be and make disciples of Christ. The Roman culture into which the ascended Jesus first sent His Church was far more secular and overtly hostile to belief in the one God revealed in Jesus than is true of North American culture today.

The time for bellyaching and blaming others for our failure to be the Church that Jesus has commissioned us to be has past.

Our call is clear: Do the Great Commission. Our authority to do so is clear: Jesus Himself gave it. (Matthew 28:19-20) Let's resolve together, Christians: No more excuses!

Pray, just as Jesus commanded us, for God to send workers into the harvest, Christians to share the good news of new and everlasting life for all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus with the whole needy, disbelieving world. (Matthew 9:38)

Pray that God will help you grow as a disciple each day through daily quiet time in the Bible, through regular involvement in groups of laypeople who meet and pray together and stand under God's Word and are accountable to each other, through regular worship of God with God's people in the Church. (More than 1.3 times per month, the current pathetic average among church members in the US these days.)

Ask God to bring unbelieving people into your life who you can befriend, serve, share Christ with, and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, make disciples.

I'm tired of excusing my failures as a Christian called to make disciples by blaming our secular culture. The underground and non-State-sponsored churches in nations like China and Russia are making disciples despite government hostility and cultural opposition. The risen Jesus is bigger than any culture.

Instead of whimpering in our holy huddles, feeding on the deadly diet of self-righteousness, as so often happens with Christ's Church these days, let's move into the world with the boldness that comes from knowing we belong to the living God Who has conquered the world through Christ's cross and with the humility of those who know that we have been saved by grace through faith in Christ.

Let's live believing the revealed truth that Jesus is the only way to life with God (John 14:6; Acts 4:12) and, moved with compassion for all of our neighbors everywhere, make disciples.

Let's make disciples, not excuses.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Christians: I choose making disciples for Jesus over electioneering

Let's be honest. This election campaign, which began sixteen months ago, has been, no matter what your party or philosophy, depressing.

The ugliness exhibited not just by candidates, but by voters, has made the whole thing a wretched exercise. There have been media reports of a significant number of Americans ending their friendships over this campaign.

My Facebook and Twitter feeds fairly explode with attacks not just on other candidates, but on "friends" who support other candidates. One person I know has decided, because it's all become so hateful, to just stop looking at Facebook until after the election.

I'd like to say just a few things. And they're directed at my fellow Christians.

First, I've personally made it a habit for some years now not to make any comments about my preferred politician or party.* Not even my family knows for sure how I will vote on November 8.

Both as a Christian and as a pastor, I have bigger fish to fry than to tell you who my (probably inadequate) judgment tells me to vote for.

Back in the mid-first century, the apostle Paul told the Christians at Corinth: "...I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).

The mission of every Christian--not just pastors--is to make disciples of the God Who lived a perfect human life and bore our sins on a cross to set us free from sin, death, and darkness.

Personally, I don't want to dilute or diminish the message of new and everlasting life through Jesus by self-indulgently peppering you with my political opinions.

If I have to choose between electioneering, on the one hand, and making disciples of Jesus Christ, on the other, I will choose discipling every single time. No contest. No second thoughts. Who wins an election is far less important than sharing Jesus so that people can know Him, follow Him, receive His grace, get His power for living, be filled with the hope that only He can give! I'd rather seek to make disciples than get someone to vote for one political candidate or another.

This isn't to say that that's the right course for you. But, I can tell you that it works for me.

Second, no candidate--not Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, not Gary Johnson, not Jill Stein, not Evan McMullin--is worth destroying any Christian's witness for Christ or decimating our friendships.

Candidates, presidents, prime ministers, kings, and dictators will come and go. But God and the life that He offers to all of us through Jesus Christ, endures forever.

With the psalmist, I can say of this God revealed in Jesus: "Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God" (Psalm 90:2).

Besides, candidates and presidents are only mortal people like you and me: "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes" (Psalm 118:8-9). Princes and other people, generally, will let us down. (I let people down.) To expect people to be some kind of foundation on which we can build our lives is absolute foolishness.

Third, if we feel we have to speak up politically, as I frequently do with members of my family, we who seek to follow Jesus need to do it with civility.

Proverbs 15:1 makes the common sense observation: "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."

The simple fact of the matter is that if we press our views with harshness, insisting on stereotyping our opponents as "devils" or "deplorables"--to cite terms used by Trump and Clinton, respectively--we aren't going to win anybody over.

Fourth, after this election is over, we will have a new President-Elect. Whether we voted for the winning candidate or not, that person will be the president of all Americans.

Opposing presidents' programs is fine. But the same need for civility that is so apparent during this campaign will be needed after the new president's inauguration on January 20.

So will our prayers. Writing to the young pastor Timothy in the midst of both shunning and persecution of Christians by governmental authorities, the apostle Paul gave this directive: "I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior..." (1 Timothy 2:1-3).

Of course, there are times when Christians must speak up: when lives are threatened, when injustices are done. But even then, our witness should be civil and loving. I daily pray that God will help me to get out of His way so that I can exhibit these traits, so foreign to my nature.

*What about that post from yesterday? That was about what how a Christian pastor mischaracterized and effectively excused the sinful objectification of women, not about politics. I acknowledged in the post that Donald Trump had apologized for his 2005 comments and that it was up to God and to voters to decide whether it was genuine. I refuse to give a public opinion on that question.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]