Lord, Don't Let Me Cause Others to Stumble!

[These are reflections from my quiet time with God earlier today.]

Look: “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.’” (Luke 17:1)

Because of our sinful nature, the fallen world, and the incessant meddling of the devil, temptations are inevitable in our lives.

Jesus knew all about this. The great gamble of the Incarnation--God the Son coming into the world as a human being--is that, during His time on earth, Jesus was constantly subjected to the temptation to sin.

Yet, in order to be the effective sacrifice for our sin, Jesus had to be a new human (Paul calls Jesus “the new Adam”), a sinless member of the human race Whose unjustified execution opens salvation to the rest of us by God’s the power of God’s grace to create within us faith in Jesus. Jesus, the Bible says, “has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) “...at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6) I’m grateful that Jesus resisted temptation and won life with God for all who trust in Him.

In Luke, the conqueror of sin over us, warns His disciples--including modern day disciples, those who confess Jesus as Lord--not to put the eternal lives of others at risk by conduct or words that tempt them to sin. Jesus goes on to day in Luke 17:2-3: “It would be better for [disciples who cause others to stumble into sin] to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So [disciples,] watch yourselves.”

Listen: There are so many ways we can be the serpent to others, luring people into sin, even when that’s not what we think we’re doing.

In the New Testament, Paul tells Christians not to eat food offered to idols in the presence of those who are weaker in the faith. It wasn’t, he said, that Christians weren’t allowed to eat such food; all food is clean to the Christian. But those weak in the faith, Paul asserted, might derive the wrong impression from seeing mature Christians eating food offered to idols and be tempted into believing that a Christian could also worship false deities. But there’s only one God, the One definitively revealed to us in Christ.

In my own life, there are people with whom I won’t have a glass of wine because I suspect or know that they have issues with alcohol. I refuse to be an instrument of their temptation even though drinking an occasional glass of wine isn’t forbidden by God.

On the other hand, I must confess that I have sometimes caused people to sin. This has happened when I’ve said things I shouldn’t have or when I’ve become obsessed with my own grievances or desires. When we engage in this kind of behavior, we in effect, give permission to those who witness it to cave into temptation and sin too.

I ran across this quote from Martin Luther the other day: “Christ desires nothing more of us than that we speak of Him.” When we, in loving and appropriate ways, commend Christ to others, there’s no opportunity for me to become the instrument of temptation and sin in others’ lives. When we speak of Christ, it’s gratitude for grace, the peace of knowing Christ, and the call to others to experience saving faith in Christ that comes through.

Respond: Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask You to forgive me the obsession with self, the grievances, and the selfish desires that lead me away from Your will and have caused me to unwittingly tempt others to sin.

Give me Holy Spirit-saturated wits, Lord!

Today, speak of Christ to others through me. Make me an instrument of Your grace and the faith to which You call all of us and not an instrument of temptation or sin.

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

[The illustrated quote from Martin Luther was published this past week by the Institute of Lutheran Theology.]

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church.]

When I doubt that I'm forgiven

[These joyous journal reflections are from my quiet time with God this morning. I hope that you find them helpful in your walk with God...and, more importantly, that they'll incite you, if you don't yet do it, to keep a daily quiet time with God yourself.]

Look: “Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Take off his filthy clothes.’ Then he said to Joshua, ‘See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you...I will remove the sin of this land in a single day. In that day each of you will invite your neighbor to sit under your vine and fig tree,’ declares the Lord Almighty.” (Zechariah 3:3-4, 9-10)

Zechariah was a prophet in late 6th.-century BC Judah. The Persians were allowing God’s people who had formerly been taken into exile by the Babylonians, now vassals of the Persians, to return to their homelands. Zechariah hears from God that the promised land had been wrested from God’s people because of their idolatry and other sins. Now the people were going back and Zechariah encounters the high priest Joshua. (This is not the Joshua who succeeded Moses as the leader of God’s people in the wilderness. This Joshua lived many centuries later.)

Here’s the high priest: In filthy rags, representing the sins of Judah (and presumably his own). But God removes Joshua’s filthy clothes, replacing them with “fine garments.” God’s gracious forgiveness is swift in its impact: He removes the sins of the nation in a single day. And its impact goes beyond those He forgives: Infected by His grace, the forgiven invite their neighbors to sit with them in the shade of their vines and fig trees. God’s forgiveness for us creates within us a humility and a love for others that cannot be contained. I think of the early Christians, the forgiveness of God in Christ, when embraced transforms our lives and our relationships with others, including our unbelieving neighbors.

Listen: This is an awesome passage! Despite being a preacher of the gospel--the good news of forgiveness and new life for all who repent and trust in the God Who comes to us in Jesus Christ, I sometimes cling to my filthy rags. I do this not only in the sense of committing again sins for which I have authentically repented, but also when I allow myself to doubt that God can forgive or has forgiven the sins that I lay at his feet. I give God my filthy sins, lay my sins bare before God, accept the clean garment of forgiven sin, and then cling to the old sins, struggling to believe that God could actually forgive me.

The Gospel of Jesus says that God can forgive all of my sins! So does this passage!

It’s akin to the words of Psalm 103:12: “...as far as the east is from the west, so far has he [God] removed our transgressions from us.”

God calls me to trust that in Jesus Christ, I am forgiven and I am made new. “... if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

No matter how hard it may be for us to accept that God could possibly forgive us, our call is to “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh…” (Romans 13:14). In other words, our repentance is only complete after we accept the forgiveness God freely offers through Jesus to all who repent.

Repentance that stops at regret for sin is no repentance.

Repentance that ends in self-recrimination and doubts that God could possibly forgive me is not repentance.

Repentance is composed of a sorrow for sin, a trusting turn to God through Jesus to confess, and grateful acceptance of the forgiveness of God given, not because I deserve it, but because Jesus has earned it for all who trust in Him, including me.

When the power and truth of God’s forgiveness clothe us in Christ’s righteousness, a humble gratitude takes hold, making it possible for we forgiven to love others as we’ve been loved by God.

Respond: Thank You, Lord, for this reminder of Your forgiving grace. Help me to discard the filthy rags to which I so readily cling. Today, help me to cling to Christ alone. Throughout this day, on the half hour, remind me to thank You for Your forgiveness. In Jesus’ name. Amen

[I think Martin Luther had the right attitude as to how Christians should respond to the temptation, whether from the devil, the world, or our sinful selves, to doubt that God forgives repented sin. He wrote, “So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: ‘I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!’” AMEN!]

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

After Pittsburgh and Pipe Bombs...What?

Racism, xenophobia, antisemitism: convenient lies that people choose to believe in order to “explain” why things aren’t as they “should be” in their lives. They're the sinful cesspool into which people dip their cups to both slake and feed their resentments, fears, and pretensions.

When these hateful, irrational lies get injected into the mainstream of a culture, sick, deluded people use them to justify violence like shooting up schools, churches, concerts, and synagogues. It becomes thinkable for some to send pipe bombs to people they don’t know, they don't like, and toward whom they harbor bitter feelings. 

I’m sick and disgusted by it all, aren’t you?

We DO need prayers at this time. But they must include more than just petitions for healing for the injured and comfort for the grieving.

We need to pray that all of our leaders of all political persuasions will not add to the stew of resentments, ineffectual policies, and spinelessness before the power of lobbyists waving campaign contributions that have led us to where we are today.

We need to pray that we will become kinder and gentler in our civil discourse. Free speech is and ought to be guaranteed in our country. But when, because of our lack of self-control, violence enters accepted daily speech, we encourage violence.

We need to pray that people will enter authentic relationships with the Prince of Peace and the Author of love, Jesus the Christ. The cheap political moralism "preached” in many Christian pulpits is not of God and not the gospel. The gospel is the good news described by Jesus in John 3:16: “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.” 

Every human being is a sinner in need of the freedom from sin and death that only Jesus has won for us through His sinless life, His sacrificial death, and His resurrection. 

The gospel tells me that I am no better than my neighbor, that we both are loved and valued passionately by God, that we both need to repent, that we both need to entrust our lives to Jesus for a grace that takes me as I am and leads me to become what God will make of me fully in the resurrection. 

And this Gospel incites me, a sinner saved by God’s charitable love (His grace) and not by my "virtue" or "goodness," to love my neighbor as I love myself. 

Prayer that we will live in authentic relationship with Jesus and that God will help all disciples of Jesus to share His gospel with others is the most practical thing we can do personally to address the lies that lead to so much violence in America.

I agree with those who are tired of hollow, idle, meaningless expressions of "thoughts and prayers." If you're going to pray, mean it. And if you pray in Jesus' name, don't be surprised when God makes it clear that you need to be part of a solution, not just a trafficker in sanctimonious cliches.

In the end, to overcome the sickness of hatred and violence that seems to be part of our everyday lives, it's our souls that must be transformed. And that transformation can only happen through the faith in Jesus Christ and His gospel. 

This is our most desperate need at this hour. 

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

Freedom to Build Up, Not to Tear Down

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, this past Sunday.]

1 Corinthians 8:1-13
I once took some youth from a church I was serving on a Group Workcamps mission trip.

Youth and adults from all around the country converged on a site in a small city where, for five days, we worshiped, had group Bible studies, prayed, ate, tried to sleep, fellowshipped, and had a lot of fun. Most of our days were filled with going out with groups of six or eight on various service projects, each group composed of a mixture of youth and adults from various churches. The group of six youth I led spent part of each day at a local nursing home, where we interacted with residents.

Among the residents was a woman in her late eighties we’ll call Doris. She was usually congenial and fun. But on our second day, we discovered that Doris was an Olympic-class grudge-holder and that if anything reminded her of her grudges against, say, some of the nursing home employees, she would slip into a torrent of cursing until you moved her to another subject.

Some boys found it funny to set Doris off whenever they could. I have to confess that I said little to stop them when this happened and I even found Doris’ outbursts a bit funny myself.

But then another pastor told us, “You guys are egging Doris on. You need to stop.”

He was right. The boys were taking advantage of Doris in a way, giving permission to her tirades and taking God’s name in vain.

And I had just stood by. Even if Doris was no longer responsible for her own words, those who prompted her to sin and I who watched were guilty of sin. I repented.

Jesus says that we disciples of Jesus Christ, who have been saved by God’s grace through our faith in Jesus, are under a solemn obligation not to cause others to sin. "Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come,” Jesus says. “It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Luke 17:1-2)

Disciples of Jesus aren’t supposed to be moral vigilantes, telling others what to do and not to do. That was what the Pharisees of Jesus' day did. But no disciple of Jesus should ever want to cause other people to stumble into sin.

In today’s second lesson, 1 Corinthians 1:8-13, Paul shows us that Christians must also avoid tripping fellow Christians, those who may be less mature in the faith than we are, into behavior that, on its face, isn’t sinful. But the behavior may be sinful for that person weaker in the faith who look to us to provide them with a model of how to live as a Jesus-follower in everyday life.

Let me explain.

The first-century city of Corinth was rife with idol worship. People who worshiped false deities offered various foods to their idols.

After the offerings were made, there would be meals made of the food that had been sacrificed. Food prepared in this way was seen as continuing people’s worship of the idols.

Some of the food would end up going to people’s homes to be served in meals there. Even there, a connection to the idols would be retained in the minds of the families and guests who ate the foods brought from the sacrifice. Sometimes Christians would be invited to these meals, both those more mature in the faith and those whose coming to faith was more recent.

As Christians we know that all the little gods and godlets that people worship--from pieces of wood or stone to the forces of nature, from the money that the world bays for to the sex without marriage as ordained by God that many crave, from the accolades of the fickle crowd to lives of pleasure without purpose or accountability--all these idols and more are nothing.

Because the more mature Christians at Corinth knew that the idols worshiped in their town were nothing, they felt no hesitation about eating food that their idol-worshiping neighbors had brought from their places of worship. Food is food. Followers of Christ are free to eat any food that has come from God’s hand. (This does not include Tide detergent pods, which, it's feared, is a culinary rage these days!)

But in exercising their freedom, the Corinthian Christians more advanced in their faith, were confusing less mature Christians sitting at tables with them. These less spiritually mature Christians were converts to Christian faith. Christians teach and believe that there is only one God (one God in three persons). Their Christian mentors in the faith had taught them that, “You shall have no other gods before me” and that faith in Jesus is the only way to connect to the one true God of the whole universe. But these newer Christians wondered as they watched mature Christians eating food offered to idols if the teaching they'd received was true. Was the God they’d come to know through Jesus just one of many gods to be worshiped? It was confusing and risked seeing them fall into the sin of idolatry, carrying them away from God.

When the apostle Paul got wind of things, he was incensed. Look to our second lesson now to see what he wrote to the churches in Corinth, starting at verse 4: “So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that ‘An idol is nothing at all in the world’ and that ‘There is no God but one.’...[then] there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”

If you have your Bibles with you, you might want to underline or highlight the last few words in verse 8: “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”

“You have every right to eat that food,” Paul is saying. “But watch out that when you do it, you don’t cause those weaker in the faith or in willpower back into their old idolatrous habits.”

When Jesus Christ died and rose for us, He set us free from the harsh condemnation of the law, from works righteousness. He gives us the freedom to live.

But our freedom in Christ does not give us license to tempt others to sin, to put their eternal salvation at risk.

Look again at Paul’s words, starting at verse 10: “...if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.”

The principle for us today? We need to avoid doing anything that harms another person's relationship with Jesus Christ or that lures them into sin.

You may say, “I would never do that.” Of course you wouldn’t do it intentionally. But the problem with us as disciples of Jesus is that we’re often unintentional about living out our faith.

Jesus calls us to use our freedom in Him intentionally for the good of others, whether they stand outside the faith or they are Christians.

So, for example, you and I know full well that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with drinking alcohol. (Beer is almost a third sacrament for we Lutherans. That's a joke.) Jesus drank wine and, despite the convoluted reasoning of some teetotaling Christians, we know that what He drank was real wine with a higher alcohol account than you or I would be accustomed to drinking. The Bible does warn against excess in drinking, but that’s it.

Nonetheless, I realized many years ago that although I was free to drink a glass of wine, I shouldn’t do it around people who I suspect or know have trouble with drinking. I don’t want to use my freedom to give license to others to engage in behaviors which would result in the sinful abuse of their bodies. Christ has set me free to love my neighbor, not to drive my neighbor away from Him!

In his essay, On Christian Freedom, Martin Luther writes: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all, subject to all.”

As disciples of Jesus, we are set free from the bondage of sin, the condemnation of the Law, and death.

Confident of God’s grace given to all who trust in Christ and of our place in His kingdom, we’re also set free from thinking about ourselves and our own desires all the time. 

We know that God has us in His loving hands, now and always, whatever happens. So we can think of others.

We can be intentional about sharing our faith with them.

We can be intentional about honoring Christ and loving and giving to others with no thought of being loved or of receiving in return.

And we’re free to think, “What can I do today or what can I avoid today to help a sister or brother in Christ grow strong in their faith? What can I do to draw them closer to Christ? How can be a faithful influencer for Christ in my everyday relationships?”

I invite you to do something this afternoon or tonight--there’s time, the only thing on TV today is the Pro Bowl and who cares about that?--and ask God to show you ways in which, this week, you can be an encouragement to deeper faith to your kids or grandkids or a Christian who’s newer to the faith.

Think of some Bible passage that might encourage them, that you could share with them.

After this reflection, jot some notes down for yourself, then seek out the opportunity to build others up in their discipleship.

This is we call "reaching in" at Living Water, the call to reach in to support and inspire our fellow believers.

It’s one great way we can use our freedom in Christ. Amen

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

The Antichrist (No, Really)

[I try to spend part of most days in quiet time with God. Below, I've journaled my quiet time for today. To see how I approach this time with God, see here.]

Look: “I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.” (2 John 7)

According to the New Testament, there will be all sorts of antichrists roaming the world and in the Church in “the last days.” And the last days are those that fall between Jesus’ first appearance on the earth (at the first Christmas) until He returns to “judge the living and the dead.” The New Testament also teaches that just before Christ returns, there will be one last antichrist, who may even be the devil himself.

The time was ripe for Christ’s return for judgment the second He ascended to heaven (Acts 1:9). That’s why the first Christians were disappointed that Jesus hadn’t yet returned. Because of their disappointment, they had to be encouraged by the apostles to keep trusting in Christ.

But I find John’s words here interesting: any person who seeks to move people away from the Gospel and Christ is “the deceiver and the antichrist.”

He doesn’t say that such persons should be harmed. He says that they shouldn’t be heeded. And he says that the Church shouldn't harbor them or encourage them.

Listen: It can be dangerous to label a person as another antichrist. The label has been applied to people over the centuries, resulting often in murders of innocent people, acts were themselves examples of antichrist behavior.

The danger also attaches to people who self-righteously dismiss others as antichrists.

It may be better to think in terms of antichrist ideas spawned by the era of the antichrist which prevails on the earth from Jesus’ ascension until His return.

The antichrist is expressed in many -isms and ways of living and thinking that reflect the human desire to “be like God.” To name a few: materialism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, prejudices of any kind, slavery, child abuse, sexual abuse, gossip, thievery, covetousness, adultery and fornication, and so on.

All of these things fall under the general heading of sin and each has a single starting point, a single sin: The failure to acknowledge God as God, accompanied by the desire to be our own God. The antichrist and all sin begins with idolatry, from the idolatry of the self, to the idolatries of things, people, lifetsyles, etc.

The spirit of the antichrist is the spirit of narcissism, self-interest, and disregard for God, even when God is supposedly being extolled.

In today’s world there are some preachers and politicians and performers who invoke God’s name for their philosophies and actions but are clearly not of God. 

No human being is perfect of course, we all fall short of God’s intentions for us (Romans 3:23). But these modern day antichrists commend doctrines and policies and lifestyles that brazenly defy the revealed Word of God in Scripture while claiming all along to be righteous, good, and wholesome. 

These preachers and politicians and performers must answer to God and I pray that they will encounter authentic Christians who won’t suck up to them and to whom they will listen, for the sake of their salvation and for the sake of the world they affect each day.

But I must answer to God, too! What is it in my own life that doesn’t reflect the truth about Christ or the truth in His Word?

Before I go removing the speck in someone else’s eye, I had best get the plank out of my own (Matthew 7:5).

It’s good to be forewarned about the false preachers, the antichrists that roam freely in this age before Jesus’ return, especially so that each day I may return to the Lord in repentance and faith, lest I drift away from God and express the spirit of the antichrist in my own life.

The best antidotes to the spirit of the antichrist in me and in the Church are to remain focused on Christ and His Word, to share and consider His gospel, to daily repent, and to be daily renewed in faith and life by the Lord.

The best antidotes to the spirit of the antichrist in the world are to pray (Matthew 6:5-15), to spend time each day with God, praying over His Word, the way God the Son spent time with God the Father each day in (Luke 5:16), to ask God to send workers into the harvest so that more disciples are made and people live in the truth that sets them free (Matthew 9:38; Matthew 28:19-20; John 14:6; John 8:32), and to share the Gospel (Acts 1:8; John 3:16-18).

Respond: Today, Lord, help me to keep You consciously first as I live, speak, decide, and act. In Jesus’ name. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Living Water is a congregation of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC).

How to face temptation

"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13)

One reason we cave into sin, violating God's will as expressed in the Ten Commandments, is that we grow deaf to God when we're tempted. Instead of living in the freedom and dignity of a child of God, we're trapped by slavery to self, the opinions of others, and, to be honest, the devil. It's happened to me. It's happened to you.

The key to resisting temptation, with an aim to living lives that express gratitude to God for the grace and life we only receive from Christ, is to be tuned into what God wills for our lives, again as expressed in the Ten Commandments.

You get tuned into God and an intimate relationship with God when you spend time in His Word each day, not just reading it, but soaking it up, even memorizing it.

For example, this passage from 1 Corinthians 10:13 is one that small groups at Living Water have been memorizing in our Navigators discipleship small groups.

A good example of how God's Word can protect us from making sinful, stupid decisions is found in the experience of Joseph, son of Jacob, in the Old Testament book of Genesis.

Joseph's brothers had sold him into slavery in Egypt. But there, he ended up working for a powerful man named Potiphar, essentially functioning as his chief of staff and administrator.

Potiphar's wife was attracted to Joseph and tried repeatedly to get Joseph to go to bed with her. Joseph explained that he couldn't sin against God nor his master in this way.

But Potiphar's wife wouldn't take no for an answer. One day, she grabbed Joseph's tunic, saying, "Lie with me!" Joseph ran. When he did, the tunic slipped off of Joseph and he found himself running from Potiphar's wife naked. Enraged, she accused him of trying to rape her. Her possession of Joseph's cloak implicated him. Potiphar had Joseph slapped into prison.

Some might hear or read that story and think that the moral is that Joseph could have spared himself imprisonment if he'd only gone along with Potiphar's wife.

Nope!

The moral is that Joseph ran from temptation and chose to walk with God, even when that meant being falsely accused and imprisoned for some time. He maintained his faith, his integrity, and his usefulness to the purposes of God for our lives. And Joseph was able to make the decision to run because He knew God through being steeped in God's Word.

Ultimately, of course, it was precisely because Joseph was imprisoned that he came to the attention of the Pharaoh. And because of Joseph's faithfulness to God and his faithful stewardship of gifts God had given to him, including the gift of administration, he was able to save his own people--God's people, Israel--from extinction. It was to be from the people of Israel that God's plan for salvation from sin and death was to be opened to all humanity through Jesus Christ. So, Joseph's decision to run from sin rather than to acquiesce to it is of eternal significance.

Truth be told, every time we face the temptation to sin, the stakes are higher than we may realize or imagine. Not only is our eternal salvation in play, so, potentially, is the salvation of every person whose life is impacted by our decision, whether we decide to cave or run.

Running from the temptation to sin can be painful. The things that tempt us hold out the real promise of pleasure. At least, they do for the short term. The fruit that Adam and Eve ate tasted good, but it also brought the burden of sin, of knowing not just good and righteousness, but also knowing evil and death.

It's better to run from sin and into the arms of the God we know in the crucified and risen Jesus. When we do that, we literally run from death to life.

Of course, when we cave into sin, that need not be the end of our life story. It need not be the end of our connection with the God of grace we know in Jesus Christ. It needn't be the end of a useful life. Jesus came to ensure that sin and death need not be the last word over our lives. It's a matter of trusting God with our sins, our past, our present, our future, our whole lives. It's a matter of running to Him. 1 John 1:9, another of our Navigators verses, reminds us: "If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9)

Deep down, we probably all want to run from sin. We want God, whether we know much about Him or not. God wants to help us enjoy the life Christ died and rose to make possible. Soak up God's Word each day and He will help you stand where you should stand and run when you need to run.

Just some thoughts on this Wednesday.

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

Where temptation comes from

These are some recent reflections on my quiet time with God. For details on what's involved in quiet time, see here.

Look: “...each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed” (James 1:14).

Just before this, James says that we shouldn’t blame God when we’re tempted by sin. God isn’t in the tempting business.

I know that there have been times when I’ve blamed God for the sins that tempt me. Or I blame him for the sins to which I’ve caved. Whether I blame God overtly or subliminally, it’s all the same: Somehow, God is at fault for my feeling tempted. At other times, I may doubt God’s sovereignty. But I can be very devout in upholding the notion of God in being in control when temptations come or when I sin. “If God hadn’t allowed such and such to happen…” “If God hadn’t brought so and so into my life…” “If God hadn’t allowed such and such a thought to come into my brain…”

These thoughts echo the words of Adam and Eve after God confronted them with their sin. “The woman you [God] put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it,” Adam says (Genesis 3:12). “The serpent deceived me, and I ate,” Eve says (Genesis 3:13). Somehow, we want to blame God or the circumstances of our lives for our sin. I do, for sure.

But the real reason I find temptation so enticing isn’t with God. Adam was with Eve when they both were being dogged by temptation (Genesis 3:6). And this is what tempted them: “...the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6).

As James puts it, they were “dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.”

Listen: My temptations, sins, and inclinations to sin don’t come from You, Lord! I can’t blame You for them. You don’t create our temptations (James 1:13). They are entirely inside jobs, the result slowly of those particular aspects of my personality and character that most entice me.

But I’ve recently been memorizing this promise from Your Word:

“No sin has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. But God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out, so that you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

We can only be tempted when we allow our desires to be controlled by our sinful impulses. And the devil, the sinful world, and our sinful selves are very good at tempting us to make use of good things or even good people in the wrong ways, at the wrong times, for the wrong reasons. 

Respond: God, Your Word says, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). Help me to delight in You and so, desire what You want for me, which is always for my eternal good. When I am tempted, as I will be, since even Jesus was tempted and it’s an inevitable part of human life, help me to turn to You, trusting that You will provide a way out, allowing me to endure for the greater joy of life with You (Matthew 24:13). In Jesus’ name.

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

Decide Beforehand (AUDIO)

Here.

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

Jesus Means Freedom

Matthew 4:12-25
Last week, I mentioned a dialog I had with a group of atheists on Twitter. I didn't mention the comment of one tweeter that particularly caught my attention. The person said: “Christianity requires faith in an absurd dictatorial system that defies all sense.”

What interests me about that comment is that it has nothing to do with whether God exists or not. The person who wrote it was saying, “I’m not interested in Christianity because to be a Christian means submitting to the lordship of Jesus Christ.” In essence, the person was writing, “I don’t want anyone bigger than me telling me what to do.”

Well, neither do I!

The fact is that you don’t have to be an atheist to feel that way.

It’s what the devil felt and why he’s been in rebellion against God all these millennia.

It’s what Adam and Eve felt, wanting to “be like God.”

It’s what we all feel, believers and unbelievers alike, when we’re tempted by sin or rationalize our ways to committing sin despite the witness of God’s law written on our hearts [Romans 2:15].

The truth is that none of us wants anyone bigger than us telling us what to do. We want freedom. (Or at least what we call freedom.) We want to be our own bosses.

So, why would anyone follow Jesus?

The answer to this question is as mysterious and wonderful and, ultimately, as plain and compelling as Jesus Himself, I think.

We see some of that answer in today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 4:12-25. The events it recounts occurred immediately after Jesus had been tempted in the wilderness. At the outset of our lesson, we’re told that after John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus went to the region of Galilee, then left Nazareth, the town in which He was raised, and settled in another Galilean town, Capernaum. Capernaum was a seaside place, now known as Tel Hum. The entire region is part of the inheritance of two of ancient Israel’s tribes, Zebulun and Naphtali, from which the Old Testament prophet Isaiah said “the light of the world” would dawn on the world.

It’s interesting that God decided that the light of the Messiah should initially be revealed there. It was looked down upon by the good religious folks of Judea because its residents came in frequent contact with Gentiles, non-Jews. But by beginning here, God was signaling that the Son of God, Jesus, hadn’t come just for Jews. He came for all people, including you and me.

In verse 17 of our lesson, Matthew gives a summary of what Jesus was about: “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”

That was the message. It still is.

It’s a message that Jesus delivered in more than just words. It still must be.

Jesus came to call the world to turn from sin so that they could be part of the kingdom of heaven He brings to those who trust in Him...

• Trust in Him more than they trust in their own judgment.
• Trust in Him more than they trust in their own feelings.
• Trust in Him more than they trust in anyone or anything else.

So, my atheist correspondent was right in one sense: To trust in Jesus is to submit to a King Who is bigger than us.

This may not seem like such a compelling offer. Yet, as we’ll see, there were people--seemingly self-sufficient, enterprising, successful people--willing to turn from their sins and turn away from whatever else they were doing in life in order to follow Jesus.

Verse 18: “As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

Please, just because you’ve read or heard these verses a million times, don’t overlook the enormity of what’s recounted. Here are Simon and Andrew, working at the family fishing business. Fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were guaranteed a steady income. The constant stream of Gentiles traveling along the international trade route that passed through their territory would always be looking for fish to cook, as would the natives of Galilee, for whom fish was a diet staple. Why on earth would Simon and Andrew leave such a sure thing to follow Jesus to God-knows-where? And then there are James and John, two fishermen so well off that the Gospel of John tells us that they had servants. But when Jesus called them, “immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

There is no way that Simon, Andrew, James, or John could know what awaited them.

They didn’t know that this Man Who called them was God-in-the-flesh.

They didn’t know that He would be crucified.

They didn’t know that they would be crucified or executed for their faith in Jesus.

Nor could they see the glory and eternal life that awaits all who trust Jesus with their sins and their lives.

And they couldn’t see all that they would end up doing to tell others that, in Jesus Christ, “the kingdom of heaven” had drawn near to all people and that all they needed to do to become part of it was repent and believe in Christ.

They just followed. But why?

Verse 23: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.”

Matthew records that as time went on, Jesus performed fewer miracles and focused more on speaking His message. But at the beginning of His ministry He performed many miracles. And all of them--the healings, driving out demons, relieving people of pain, removing paralysis from dead limbs--were also part of His message.

And the message was simple: This Jesus had absolute control over life, death, and the elements of the universe; this Jesus was and is God and because He is God, He can give what only God can give, new life.

Undoubtedly, as they saw these miracles, many people asked each other questions similar to the one that the disciples would later ask after they’d watched Jesus calm a storm that threatened to kill them: “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!" (Matthew 8:27)

What kind of man is this who can send demons packing?

What sort of person is this who can erase pain, remove death, destroy leprosy?

Those who came to follow Jesus did so because, by His words, His actions, His life, and ultimately, His death and resurrection, came to know that He was more than a man. As Simon Peter would later say to Jesus: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)

When Simon, Andrew, James, and John first followed, they didn’t know what that might entail for their lives, but they did know that they wanted Jesus, they wanted life with Him.

Most people in first century Judea didn’t want Jesus as their Lord, of course. That’s why they crucified Him.

But even then, the power of God over life and death and the universe are such that Jesus could not be kept dead. As Peter would later say: “it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” (Acts 2:24) He rose on Easter, demonstrating that faith in Him is not in vain, that God will have the last word, and that all who repent and trust in Christ will live with Him forever.

But what about our freedom? When Simon, Andrew, James, and John followed Jesus, did they give up their freedom forever? Yes. And no.

They gave up the freedom to do whatever their sinful natures dictated to them, to shaft whoever they wanted to shaft, to desecrate themselves and their worlds in the selfish pursuit of worldly happiness...and all worldly happiness has an expiration date on it that will come at the grave, usually before.

But they also gained a greater freedom. In following Jesus, we are set free from sin, death, and pointless lives.

We are set free to live life with the love, abandon, fearlessness, hope, and purpose, now and in eternity, for which we were made.

In Jesus, the God Who made us in His image, frees us to move toward lives that reflect the specifications and purposes for which He made us.

He sets us free to be human: to live, to think, to love, and to be all that God created us to be.

Martin Luther put it like this in his famous essay on Christian freedom: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all, subject to all.”

When, some time ago, our own Georgeann sensed God telling her that she needed to begin planning a weekend retreat for the women of Living Water and their friends, she thought of all sorts of reasons for not doing it. But God kept insisting.

Was Georgeann exercising freedom when she said yes to God’s call? Absolutely!

You see, when God gets His way with us, it isn’t to enslave us, it’s to set us free to do and be exactly what, deep in our hearts and souls, we know we are meant to do and be and long to do and be. The German Lutheran theologian, Ernst Kasemann, summed up the truth simply. “Jesus," he said, "means freedom.”

This is why people followed Jesus in Galilee.

It’s why we follow Him still.

It’s why we are Christ’s disciples today.

In following Jesus, disciples do give up control of their lives.

But unlike the other things to which we might give our lives in this world, Jesus gives us life back: a life filled with God’s love, God’s power, God’s promise, and the freedom to become exactly what God intended for us to be when He formed us in our mothers’ wombs.

May we grow in our discipleship as we live in the freedom of Christ’s lordship over our lives. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was shared during worship this morning.]

Ego by Gungor

This seems to fairly well summarize the plight of the human race and of western culture.



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

How losing weight and eating healthfully are going

I've written here and here about my quest to lose weight and eat more healthfully after I tipped my doctor's scales at a gargantuan 189.7-pounds. That weigh-in occurred on June 13. On June 14, I began to cut my daily calorie intake.

In the first linked post, I talked about what I'd learned after about a month of more sensible eating. In the second linked post, I gave a progress report; at that point I weighed in at 176.5 pounds.

Yesterday, I went to the local Little Clinic because of a cough and cold. The examination room had scales in it and since I'd not weighed myself since September 1, I decided to bite the bullet.

I wasn't hopeful. I'd fallen off the calorie wagon several times over the past few weeks. On the other side of the ledger though, I had, a few days before, bought a new pair of jeans with a size 34 waist and felt comfortable in them. But when I put my hands on my belly, I could tell that it wasn't shrinking as dramatically as it did when I first began the process or when I'd been more consistently disciplined. (Many people have commented to me how weight comes off readily initially, but gets tougher as time goes on.)

I climbed on the scales. I couldn't believe it! I had lost more weight. I was now at 173 pounds. Not a dramatic reduction, of course, but I had half expected a gain.

In addition to all the lessons this process is teaching me, which I mentioned here, I guess I would point to another one: Maintaining a daily positive discipline isn't easy. (I know that's obvious. But I think it's worth noting.)

Whether, we're establishing disciplines to lose weight, get fit, be financially responsible, serve others, inform ourselves as voting citizens, or keep a daily quiet time with God, all positive things, there will always be some urgent or more compelling thing that keeps us from being disciplined. The hardest thing in the world to do is the right thing.

I've learned that truth more from my failures--including my failures at eating more healthfully--than I have from my successes.

But even that phrase "my successes" makes me laugh. The reason is simple: The reason that I've lost more than 16-pounds since June 14, a paltry amount if the diet technique commercials are to be believed, is not because of my will power. My will is to eat what I want, do what I want, spend as I want, look out for myself with no regard to others as I want.

But God is in the process of taming this rebel sinner. Each day, often many times a day, I turn to the God I know in Jesus Christ and ask Him, despite my self-will and stubbornness, to bring me under His control, to meet my willing but weak spirit and create and deepen faith in Christ within me, to create and deepen my dependence on Christ. And, I also pray that as Christ does this, He will cultivate in me the habits that will cause me to daily welcome Christ as Lord over my whole being.

The old Mark--sinful, selfish, willful--my default mode is always trying to steer me away from letting Christ have charge of my whole life. My only defense is the disciplines of Christian life, the means by which Christ comes to us and strengthens us to be who we know, through Christ, we can be:

• God's Word, the Bible;
• worship with fellow believers;
• the sacrament of Holy Communion, the true body and blood of Jesus;
• prayer;
• the fellowship of other believers;
• serving in Christ's name. 

As I indicated here, I regard this movement toward more healthy eating and a lower weight as a spiritual battle. There is nothing that the devil, the world, and our sinful selves (our old selves) like more than for us to be on "cruise control": self-satisfied, resigned to being who we are, unconcerned with others, unconcerned with taking care of the bodies that God has given to us.

When we follow these ordinary pathways of the world, we take ourselves out of the game in which God enlists us at our Baptism--and in which God wants to enlist all people: to love God, to love our neighbor, to surrender to the life-changing grace of God given only in Jesus, to make disciples.

I want to be in God's game until the moment I draw my last breath on earth. That's why I'm trying to eat healthfully and get to a good weight. Despite all the roadblocks I put in God's way, I keep turning back to Him to help me to make this new life style stick.

He can do the same thing for you.

Truth

Love this quote from the late Dallas Willard: "The average church-going Christian has a headful of vital truths about God and a body unable to fend off sin."

True...and virtually the same as Jesus said of His disciples: "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

All the more reason for we who confess Christ as God and Savior to pray, "Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil."

Responding to Our Own Sin: Godly Grief v. Worldly Grief

During my quiet time this morning, I read 2 Corinthians 7. Before reading, I asked God to impress on me what verses and what truth He wanted to impress on me today. I was struck by verses 9 and 10:

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Scholars tell us that 2 Corinthians may be a mashup of different letters the apostle Paul sent to the first century Christians in Corinth. So, we can't be entirely certain of the specifics (which probably don't matter), but we do know that Paul had confronted the Corinthian Christians for a sin. And we also can understand from Paul that his previous sharp words had brought to the Corinthians a sense of grief.

In the chapter, Paul lets his readers know that he hated that his words had hurt the Corinthians. (Although he also didn't regret saying or writing to them in the way he had.) Here, in verses 9 and 10, Paul expresses joy over the impact of the Corinthians' grief. It led them to authentic repentance, which combines genuine, God-induced sorrow for sin and a genuine, God-induced turning to Christ that lets the repentant know that their sin is forgiven, their relationship with God restored. (Biblical repentance always involves these two elements.)

Paul says that what the Corinthian Christians experienced was "godly grief" for their sin. He contrasts that with "worldly grief." The distinction between the two is worth considering.

As I read these verses, I thought of Judas, chosen by Christ to be an apostle, but who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. With this act of betrayal, Judas found himself to be revealed to "important" people--the Sanhedrin, religious leaders of his and Jesus' fellow Jews--as a duplicitous, money-grubbing traitor. Exposed for what he really was, Judas returned the thirty pieces of silver, then killed himself.

This is how "worldly grief" for sin acts: It may have genuine regret for the sinful act. But that regret doesn't account for God being the one Who, in C.S. Lewis' phrase, "chiefly offended" by our sin.

Worldly grief is self-driven and self-referential: It lets self or other people be the judge and jury of our souls (and these judges and juries always hang the defendants); or, it lets the opinions of the world (vox populi)--fickle, self-serving, uncaring, to embarrass, humiliate, rationalize away, or otherwise kill the grieving person. It stews more about the reactions of others than about the Word and will of God.

Godly grief will listen to authentic people of God who lovingly condemn us or call us to account for our sin. But godly grief will only listen to others' condemnation as they speak the truth of God, as revealed definitively in God's Word, the Bible.

Godly grief comes from measuring ourselves by God's Law and being aggrieved at how our sins hurt God. But, unlike worldly grief, godly grief doesn't leave us hopeless or dead, spiritually and physically.

Repentance, the gift God grants to those who experience godly grief, as Martin Luther pointed out, drives us to the cross, where the Gospel--the good news--is found: The Gospel that God loves sinners and because of that love, took on flesh in order to bear the deserved and fatal condemnation for our sin, then sets free those who take that same cross for themselves, surrendering them to death, so that the forgiveness Christ died to give to us when He went to the cross, will be ours. This is what happens when we heed godly grief for our sin.

Last week, I told a friend that if Christians lose their salvation, it won't be because of God. It will be because they either drifted lazily or willfully into lifestyles of no repentance: no regret for sin, no joyful restoration to God because there is neither repentance or faith.

When this happens, there may be worldly grief over sin--the "Oops! I got caught" or the "Oops! Oh, well, everyone else is doing it" or the "Oh, no! I'm a sinner and that's just the way I am and nothing will ever change and I'm going to hell" or the "There is no God, no hell, and it doesn't matter. I'll try to do better next time"--kinds of grief. But all such worldly grief ends in death and separation from God.

Godly grief leads to the cross and to restoration. That's what I'm banking my life on.

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

So You Believe Jesus is Lord...Now What?

Colossians 3:1-11
As some of you know, on June 14, I began reducing the calories I take in each day. I’m starting to lose a little weight and, in doing so, learning the truth of what a friend said one day when we went to an ice cream parlor. “I’ll take two scoops of mint chocolate chip,” he said, “one for each thigh.”

Well, ice cream has never been a craving of mine and my food seems to not land on my thighs, but on my waistline. But it is true that what we put into us is going to show up in us.

That’s equally the case when it comes to our spiritual lives.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been exploring the apostle Paul’s letter to the fledgling Asia Minor church in Colossae. In response to the preaching and teaching of one of Paul’s associates, people had come to repentance for sin and faith in Jesus as their God and Savior. But shortly after that, the Colossian Christians were abandoning Jesus as “the way and the truth and the life” for a kind of “ice cream parlor faith”: one scoop from mysticism, one from Judaism, one from angel worship, all with a small Jesus topping.

Jesus is clear when He says that “no one comes to [God] the Father” except through Him. His forgiving, eternity transforming grace is free. But when we turn to earthly thinking for spiritual nourishment, we turn away from Christ and eternity. We are either, in Paul's terminology in Colossians, "of the flesh," facing eternal separation from the God we meet in Christ, or we are "of the Spirit," filled with God’s life forever.

It was to warn the Colossian Christians of the dangerous ground on which they were building their lives by turning to the world’s faulty wisdom and dead idols, that Paul wrote to them.

In the first two chapters of Colossians, Paul makes an extensive confession of Who Jesus is: God in the flesh come to earth to die and rise and share His victory with believers. All who believe and are baptized are Christ’s resurrection people.

Now, in chapter three though, from which our second lesson is taken, Paul turns to a question that’s central to anyone who confesses Jesus as their Lord and God: Now what? Jesus hasn’t come back yet nor have we died and come face to face with Jesus yet, so how do we live today?

Paul talks about several things we need to do today and every day in order to stay close to God.

Take a look at the beginning of our second lesson, Colossians 3: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ [Remember last Sunday, we pointed out that in Holy Baptism, our old self is drowned and our new selves rise? Since you’ve been raised with Christ, Paul says], set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. [In other words, when Christ returns, you and I who believe in Him will rise again.]”

The first thing we need to do in response to how God has changed His relationship with Him through Christ and our faith in Christ, is set our hearts and set our minds not on what the world says is important, but on the things of God.

How can we do that?

Above all, we need to read God’s Word regularly. Aim for reading the Bible five days a week.

Many studies have been done about the impact that gratuitous violence in media--movies, games, and books--has not only on kids, but also on adults. It makes them less social, less sociable, more impolite, sometimes violent.

Other studies have shown--and experience bears this out, I think--that a steady diet of cable news, whatever the netwoek, will make people pessimistic, cynical, angry, and fearful.

Garbage in, garbage out. The things of this world in, the things of this world out.

Conversely, if we fill up on the Word of God, in bite size chunks on which we prayerfully reflect and seek to apply, Christ and eternity invades the ways we think and live.

Setting our hearts and minds on heavenly things will also mean bringing everything--our sins, our hopes, our fears, our cynicism, our families, our church, the people around us--to God through prayer in Jesus’ name.

A man once told me, “You know how you always talk about praying? Well, I’ve been trying it and it really seems to be helping me to deal with things each day.” He reported that he’d been able to better deal with his grumpy wife and that, since he’d started praying everyday, she seemed a bit less grumpy.

Setting our hearts and minds on Christ also happens when we worship regularly, receive the sacrament regularly, fellowship with other believers regularly, reach out and serve others in Jesus' name regularly.

After setting our hearts and minds on heavenly things, Paul says, there’s something else we need to do in response to Christ’s grace everyday. Colossians 3:5-7: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.”

A big area of our lives most of us must deal with and keep dealing with as Christians, is our sexuality.

Sex is God’s invention, part of His creation. But turn on your computer or your TV, watch Hulu or Netflix, and you’ll immediately notice something: Most of the world can’t handle sex.

We have an inborn human tendency to misuse sex, misappropriate it, overestimate its importance, or underestimate its power.

Theologian Richard Foster compares sex to a river, beautiful and useful when kept within its banks, but deadly when it floods past them.

Paul warns the Colossian Christians that their earthly rather than heavenly orientation leaves them open to the misuse of sex. In fact, he says that we are to put to death--to crucify through repentance--all of our misuses of sex, from pornography to lust, from adultery to exploitation, from unclean talk and sexual intimacy outside of marriage to making sex an idol. He says that one day, God’s wrath will burn hot against these and other sins.

Blessedly, no sin is beyond forgiveness.* And God blesses and helps anyone who wrestles with a sin, bringing it daily to the foot of Jesus Christ to be crucified and overcome. That includes sexual sins.

Then, starting at verse 8, Paul deals with another set of sins to which we’re prone when we orient ourselves to the world, the sins that emanate from our minds and our mouths. “But now,” Paul writes, “you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

Get rid of--daily crucify--Paul is saying all your anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, and lies. That’s the third thing we need to do every day in response to God’s grace.

When we think about that list of Paul’s and get really honest, it's clear that getting rid of all of these things from our lives might mean that you and I would say a lot fewer words than we do each day. And think a lot less sinful, hurtful, destructive things.

I know that a lot of campaign ads and campaign rhetoric would go away.

This past week, we finished Jon Meacham’s biography of our forty-first president, George H.W. Bush. It's a portrait of a complicated yet essentially decent man.

Meacham recounts that in 1988, Bush won a hard-fought campaign for the presidency. One of the most important figures in that campaign was a guy named Lee Atwater.

Bush unleashed Atwater, man of hard edges, sharp elbows, and few scruples, to throw everything at Bush’s opponent, Michael Dukakis.

Atwater felt no hesitation about creating a false picture of Dukakis: questioning Dukakis’ patriotism, painting him as dangerously out of touch with people, and soft on crime to the point of favoring murderers over ordinary people.

Several years after the election, which Bush won, Atwater learned that he had brain cancer. Near his death, Atwater surveyed his life, repented for his sins, and received Christ. In response to Christ, Atwater apologized for lying about Dukakis and misconstruing his record in the 1988 campaign.

Atwater saw the need for crucifying his sins and doing something else. That “something else” is something you and I need to do each day as followers of Jesus Christ.

And that’s put off the old self--the sinner who tries to live a life independent of God, who wants to misuse God’s gifts for our own short-sighted pleasure, who wants to conquer others rather than love them as fellow children of God. We need to put off the old self and, Paul says, put on the new self, the new person God is making of everyone who repents and entrusts their lives to Jesus.

This new self is, as we set our minds and hearts on heaven and put away the sins of this world, going to look increasingly like Jesus, God in the flesh, Who gave His life in order to give us life. Paul explains it all in this way in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we all...are being transformed into his [Christ’s] image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

Jesus Christ died and rose to make it possible for you and me to have an eternal relationship with God. It’s a relationship we can’t earn or perform our way to; it’s a gift for all who turn from sin and trust in Christ.

And how are we to live until the days we die or the day Christ returns? Paul puts it simply for us today:

• Set your heart and mind on Christ and heaven where He reigns.
• Put off sins, including the earthiest of sins, the misuse of sex and the misuse of our thoughts and words.
• And put on Christ each day. Read God’s Word. Pray. Worship. Receive the Sacrament. Live in accountable community with Christ’s Church.

When we trust in Christ to live with the holy habits associated with putting on Christ as our daily touch-points, Christ will live in us and we will live with Christ forever.

It’s a simple proposition. Garbage in, garbage out. Christ into our lives and Christ will show out from everything about us. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was prepared this morning during the morning worship services of Living Water.]

*Of course, Jesus does speak of one sin that cannot be forgiven, the sin against the Holy Spirit. Jesus mentions this in Mark 10:28-30. The sin against the Spirit is the refusal to heed it when God's Holy Spirit points out our sins to us. It's not so much a specific sin as it is an unwillingness to accept God's definition of what constitutes a sin or our violation of it.

Freedom Through Christ's Indispensable Family

Galatians 6:1-10, 14-18
One of the most commonly overlooked aspects of Christian life today in North America and western Europe is this: Whenever and how we profess our faith in Christ, we are saying, “I am not in this alone. I’m part of the Church. I care about other believers. I’m accountable to other believers. I need other believers to live in the freedom Christ died to give me.”

We chafe under this kind of thinking as Americans. We like to think we’re self-sufficient.

But the fact is, we’re all dependent on countless other people. They produce the food we eat and guarantee its safety,  give us running water and electricity, make the cars we drive and the computers we use, and provide the medical care we need, and so on.

The notion that any of us is self-sufficient is a dangerous lie, dangerous because it makes us think that we don’t need God, when in fact, everything--even safe food, running water, cars and computers and medical care--ultimately comes from God.

The lie of self-sufficiency is even more dangerous within the Church. In fact, it’s demonic.

Romans 6:19-20 reminds believers that we are totally dependent on God for our lives and for the eternal life Christ gives to those who repent and believe in Him: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. [A purchase Jesus made on the cross where He spent His life to save us.] Therefore honor God with your bodies.” (That means with our whole selves!)

And Jesus tells believers in John 15:5: “apart from Me, you can do nothing.”

We need the God revealed to us and the rest of the world in Jesus Christ.

But we also need and are called to sacrificially love those who make up Christ’s Church.

Jesus says to His Church: “ A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” And then, Jesus says: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” [John 13:34-35] The credibility of Jesus and the Church’s message about new life for all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ depends on whether Christ’s Church sees itself, collectively and individually, as mutually-dependent, mutually-accountable sisters and brothers of faith in Jesus.

Romans 12:4-5, drives home the call to mutual dependency, telling the Church: “...just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

The New Testament repeatedly refers to the Church as “the bride of Christ.” One truth we see from this metaphor is that the believer’s relationship to Christ and His Church is more important than the relationship of a husband and wife. Marriages end at the grave. But the Church endures for all eternity!

We Christians need each other and we are commanded to live in love with each other and in accountability to each other for the sake of Christ’s mission in the world.

But let's be honest: Whether among husband and wife, friends, family members, or the disciples who make up a Christian congregation, conflict happens.

And conflict isn’t inherently bad. Conflict can be creative and lead to new ways of people looking at things and relating to each other, if the parties are healthy, loving, and Christian toward one another.

Over the past several weeks, in this series called Freedom in Christ, we’ve been looking at the words the apostle Paul wrote to Christians in Galatia in about 49 AD. Paul wrote to correct a dangerous heresy, a false belief, that had taken root among some of the Galatian Christians. They believed, in effect, that Jesus’ death on the cross was insufficient to give those who repent and believe in Jesus life with God, that the men had to be circumcised and that all believers also had to add to it good works proscribed by Old Testament law.

There was a conflict in the churches at Galatia between those who believed what Jesus taught--that all who turn from sin and believe in Him are saved and have new, everlasting life--and those who believed that what they did was what saved them. Paul called one the life of the flesh and other, the life of the Spirit. Clearly, the two perspectives contradicted each other. There could be no compromise between them: one was of God and the other wasn’t. It was to correct those who had strayed from God’s truth that Paul had written this letter.

In today’s second, Galatians 6:1-10, 14-18, probably praying that the first sections of his letter had reminded those who had strayed what God’s truth and the way to life really were, Paul wrote to encourage all the Galatian Christians to repent, reconcile, and move on with their life as Christ’s people in the world.

Take a look at our lesson, please. Paul writes: “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves.”

Unrepentant sin on the part of just one Christian disciple in Christ’s Church has an impact on the whole Church. There may be times, then, when it becomes the responsibility of another member of the Church to approach the person engaging in unrepentant sin.

It isn’t easy. I’ve told before about the Christian I knew and respected who used God’s name to make exclamations or punctuate sentences. Finally, I asked, “Why do you use God’s name like that?” “I’m not cussing,” he said defensively. “No, you’re not cussing. But you are using God’s name for something other than prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. That disses His holiness.” The man thought for a moment and said, “You’re right.”

Now, listen: I didn't tell that story to paint myself a hero. (If you knew how much my knees were knocking when I confronted that brother in Christ, you'd know that I'm no hero!) But, hers my point in telling you that story: It was at the moment that I helped that man see the need for repentance for taking God’s name in vain though, that I was in the most danger as a Christian. Do you hear what I'm saying?

It was right for me to be concerned--in Paul’s words “to carry that fellow believer’s burdens”--about unrepented sin. Lovingly confronting him was a way to fulfill Christ’s law that I love others.

But had that little confrontation become an occasion for me to cave into self-righteous crowing, even within my own mind, I would have fallen into sin myself.

We’re to speak the truth in love to help our fellow believers hold onto Christ, not to make ourselves look or feel better than others.

Let’s slide down a few verses now, to verse 7, to see Paul’s warning against self-righteousness in dealing with conflicts and disagreements: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Earlier in Galatians, you’ll remember, Paul spent some time distinguishing between life in the Spirit and life in the flesh.

Life in the Spirit is life lived with the freedom of knowing that while I’m not perfect, as I trustingly turn my sins to Jesus and seek to follow Him obediently each day, the life of faith, I am being saved from sin and death.

The life of the flesh is life lived according to the beliefs of this world. Whether their belief system is religious or secular, people who live life in the flesh look at themselves and pronounce, “I’m good enough to pass muster with God and the universe.”

The Galatian Christians who got circumcised and claimed that their good works would save them were living life in the flesh.

But, Paul was warning, any time we rationalize or forget our own sins while looking down our noses on fellow Christians or other people because we think they’re not as good as we are, we’re sowing our own eternal destruction.

If we want to live in the grace of Christ, we need to extend the grace of Christ to others. Jesus says bluntly in Matthew 6:15: “...if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

In the Church, Paul is saying here in our second lesson, “You must call each other to account. You must call each other to live in the freedom of forgiven sin, helping each other out of the traps of sin and death with which life this life is littered. But you must also forgive. Otherwise, you’ll fall into death too, via the sin of self-righteousness.”

Finally, Paul writes to anyone who may be inclined to say, “Who is this Paul character to tell us how to live out our faith in Christ?” Verse 14: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.”

“My only brag,” Paul is saying, “is in the power of Jesus’ cross to crucify the old sinner in me and in all of us, so that the new self can live in the freedom of forgiven sin, new life, and holy purpose."

Folks, nothing else matters! Only faith in Jesus Christ sets us free to live as we were made to live by God. Only faith in Jesus Christ sets us free to live as a vibrant church.

The cross of Christ is our only brag too.

The cross is where freedom comes from, both for individual disciples and for Christ’s Church.

Our common confession is that in order to live in the freedom to be all God made us to be, to claim the victory over sin and death that Jesus won on the cross, we need Jesus Christ and we need His eternal family, the Church. Amen

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