Forgiving As We've Been Forgiven

[This (except for the final paragraph, which I completely neglected to deliver) was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Genesis 50:15-21
In today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew, Jesus was asked by His disciple Peter, how often he should forgive others, “as many as seven times?” Peter thought that he was being very liberal in couching his question in this way. To forgive someone as many as seven times, Peter felt, was the height of patience and kindness.

But Jesus rocks Peter’s world (and ours) when He says that we're to forgive others not seven times, but “Seventy-seven times” or, as some translations put it, “seventy times seven times” or even “seventy times seventy times.”

Whatever the precise phrasing Jesus used, His meaning is clear. Jesus was telling Peter, “Just as there’s no limit to how much I forgive all who repent and believe in me, there should be no limit to your forgiveness of others.”

This isn’t the only time that Jesus said that those who want the forgiveness and new life He came to give to all who repent and believe in Him must forgive others. pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 554 to find Matthew 6:14-15. There, Jesus says,

For if you forgive [people] their trespasses [their sins against you], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive [others] their trespasses [against you], neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. [New King James Version]

If you’re anything like me (and maybe you’re not), the thought that my unwillingness to forgive others for what they’ve done to me in just the same way Jesus forgives me, is daunting.

And when I consider that Jesus says we actually block His forgiveness and life with Him from our lives by failing to forgive, I feel…uncomfortable.

But Jesus’ command that we forgive is more than a stern dictate. You see, forgiving others is also a gift from God that can set us free for living life to the full.

Our first lesson for this morning, Genesis 50:15-21, shows us how this is so. Please pull out the Celebrate inserts and turn to the first lesson.

You know the story of Joseph well. This Joseph, of course, isn’t the one who, nearly two-thousand years later, would be chosen by God to be the earthly father of God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth. At an early age, this Joseph angered his brothers because their father Jacob so favored Joseph and because Joseph reported dreams God had given to him indicating that one day, he would be an important ruler and his brothers would bow to him.

The brothers’ resentments simmered until it reached a tragic boiling point: They sold Joseph into slavery and convinced Jacob that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.

Joseph’s circumstances seemed to go from bad to worse. He became the slave and eventually the supervisor of all the holdings of Potiphar, one of Egypt’s most powerful generals, only to be falsely accused of attempting to rape Potiphar’s wife, who had been disappointed when Joseph refused to have an affair with her. Joseph long languished in prison.

Eventually, Joseph was delivered from prison and, gifted by God with both the ability to interpret dreams and lead an organization, he led a massive rationing program that saved millions from death by starvation when a famine hit.

You remember how his brothers, not knowing who Joseph was, came to Egypt seeking to buy food and how eventually, Joseph was reunited with his father and how God used Jacob to save God’s people, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, the Jewish people, from extinction.

This, of course, was important for all of us because it was through the Jewish people, specifically through Jesus, that salvation would become possible for all who repent and believe in Him.

But our lesson takes place after Joseph’s reunion with his father. Jacob and all of his sons and their families had lived in Egypt with Joseph for a while when Jacob died.

There are two scenes recounted in the lesson. Scene #1 comes in verse 15. Jacob has died and Joseph’s brothers are in a panic. Now that Jacob is dead the brothers are sure that, at long last, Joseph would have his revenge for the years of agony he had endured because of their sin against him. The brothers ask each other, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?”

Joseph’s brothers were cynical, self-centered men and they couldn’t imagine that Joseph was any different. They projected their own evil ways of thinking and living onto Joseph. People still spend a lot of time projecting their own faults onto others. It's one of the biggest causes of misunderstandings and alienation between people.

So, afraid for their lives, the brothers concoct a phony story to tell Joseph. We read about it and everything that Joseph said and did in response to it in Scene #2 of our lesson, verses 16 through 21. The brothers tell Joseph that, just before he died, their father Jacob had directed them to tell Joseph not to exact vengeance on them for their sins against him.

Our lesson tells us that when Joseph heard his brothers' story, he wept. It reminds me of the day Jesus wept in Bethany many centuries later. That happened right after the death of Jesus' friend, Lazarus. When Jesus arrived in Lazarus' village, he found everyone weeping with despair. I'm sure that one Jesus wept was from grief over the death of His friend. But I feel equally certain that Jesus wept over the utter hopelessness of the whole village of Bethany. Until Jesus called Lazarus back to life, everybody there seemed to think that resurrection was too good to be true.

In the same way, Joseph's brothers found it hard to believe that Joseph could possibly forgive them for what they had done. That's why they wept. They clearly didn't know nor understand Joseph.

Look at his response to his brothers in verse 19 (read it aloud with me, please): “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.” Though I’ve read them many times, I always find Joseph’s words here breathtaking!

Please notice several things about what he says.

First: Joseph sees his brothers kneeling before him and, even though this was exactly what the dreams he’d had as a boy told him would happen, he didn’t like it. Only God should be treated like God.

Bowing and scraping to human beings is what slaves of human masters do. Only God deserves such submissiveness.

Joseph insisted that he wouldn’t take God’s place.

You know, when someone hurts us, a reflex response goes off in our brains. A part of us seems to think that it’s only our due that the offending party will, in some way, come crawling to us for forgiveness. Joseph remembered that no matter what sins others perpetrate against us, God is really the One most hurt and offended by human sin.

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay” God says in His Word.*

Though Jesus entrusts the Church with the responsibility of declaring God’s forgiveness to the repentant and the opposite to the unrepentant, we aren’t in the vengeance business.

We must trust God to sort things out. That’s what Joseph did.

The second thing to notice is that Joseph could see God at work even in the midst of his pain. It was his connection with God that allowed him to forgive his brothers.

None of us can forgive others and be free of resentments that can destroy our happiness without God’s help and empowerment.

Essayist Alexander Pope famously said, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” In other words, forgiving those who hurt us is foreign to human nature. The ability to forgive others is a divine attribute, something of which only God is capable.

As Christians though, we confess that God works and lives within us. As Paul puts it in Galatians, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” You can't forgive others their trespasses against you. But Christ in you can!

Christ lives in you because you are a baptized believer in Him. Think of what that means for your everyday life! Even on the cross, Jesus Christ was able to pray for those who were killing Him and crying for His blood, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Five years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, a mere human being who followed Jesus and had Christ living within him, Stephen, could pray as he was being stoned to death for his faith in Christ, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Christ lived in him and even as Stephen died, he gave a witness for the one who had changed his life for eternity.

By the way, Christ living within us can also help us to forgive ourselves. Much of my counseling through the years has been with people who suspect that their sins are too terrible for God to forgive. Remember Jesus’ words to Nicodemus? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son [Jesus] so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Everyone includes you.

The Bible says, “if you confess with your lips and believe with your heart that God has raised [Jesus] from the dead, you will be saved.”

When you believe in the God revealed in Jesus—the God of the Old and New Testaments, you can forgive others because you know that in Jesus, nothing can separate you from God and His love for you. And you can forgive yourself too, for this very same reason.

The most New Testament Greek work for forgive literally means, release. Forgiveness is releasing, letting go of all pretense of being God and instead, trusting God to deal with whatever punishments need to meted out against those who sin against us.

When we forgive others, God releases us to live with Him always.

Holding a grudge is like holding your breath for an extended period of time. As long as you do it, you can’t expel the toxins of bitterness and anxiety and you can’t breathe in the fresh air of God’s Holy Spirit.

If Joseph hadn’t trusted in God to release His grudges and hold onto God through bad and good times, there is no way he could fulfill the good purposes He wanted to fulfill in Joseph’s life.

God can do so much in the lives of people who surrender everything, even their anger and sorrow over the hurts, insults, slights, and horrible injuries others have inflicted on them.

God will do nothing in the lives of people who block His grace by refusing to forgive others.

If you’ve come here this morning holding a grudge against anybody, I invite you to lay it at the foot of Jesus’ cross right now and let God set you free to live the life you were made for!

*In Romans 12:19, Paul paraphrases several different passages of the Old Testament, including Deuteronomy 32:35, Leviticus 19:18, and Psalm 34:1.

Audio of Today's 'Read the Bible in a Year Discussion (Psalms 111-145)

Here's today's discussion of the week's Bible readings. Tonight's discussion will be recorded too. If there's anything stunningly different from this morning's discussion, I'll post it here.



Read the Bible in a Year

Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio

An Ancient Call to Post-Modern People

[This sermon was shared yesterday morning during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

Ezekiel 33:7-11
God needs lots of Ezekiels today, people like Jon.

Jon is a man I know whose mother died when he was in his early twenties. Jon, his brother, and his sisters were comforted in knowing that their mother had trusted in Jesus Christ. They were confident that because of God’s gracious gift of the crucified and risen Jesus and their mother’s faith in Christ, she was with God for eternity.

But they were all concerned about their father. Though he had been a good husband and father in many ways, he had, years before, wandered from God. As a result of having no relationship with God, Jon’s Dad was shattered and beyond all comfort at the death of the woman he loved.

Christians grieve. But as the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians puts it, Christians need not “grieve as others do without hope.” Jon’s dad was hopeless and, as a result, he was falling into some destructive patterns of behavior—drinking too much, working too much, staying up all hours watching infomercials. Jon decided he needed to have a heart-to-heart talk with his father.

“Dad,” he said, “I love you and I’m concerned about you. Dad, you’re slowly killing yourself. You’re letting your grief over Mom kill you. And you’re killing yourself too, by relying on beer and work to get you through. I know you don’t want to hear this, Dad, but you need to get right with God. You need to lean on Him.”

Jon’s father began to protest at hearing another religious jaw. “Wait a minute, Dad,” Jon said, “think about Mom. She believed in Jesus with all her heart.” Jon’s dad, tears welling in his eyes, admitted that was true. “Dad, she’s with Jesus, don’t you think?” Again, Jon’s dad agreed. “Dad, I not only don’t want you to be separated from God, I don’t want you to be separated from anyone who has believed in Jesus. I want you to be with Mom again in eternity.”

At that moment, Jon’s dad realized how far he had walked from God and God’s people and how he needed to lay everything aside that he’d been using to make it through his days. Jon’s dad turned to Christ and slowly, started to live again with hope and purpose. When I met him five years later, he was a truly happy man, deeply involved with his church, especially in helping feed hungry people. He still missed his wife. But he had hope.

Jon, a heavy machinery salesman by trade, was used by God in that moment as a sentinel—a guard—warning his Dad of the judgment his father was bringing down on himself, but also showing him the new life that could belong to his dad if he would turn from sin and self-absorption and trust in God alone. The life of Jon’s father was saved for eternity because Jon dared to speak a word of truth to him!

Our first Bible lesson for today comes from the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. I can’t delve too far into the history of this remarkable book, but Ezekiel was a prophet and priest who, for years, had warned the people of Judah, the southern grouping of God’s people whose capital city was Jerusalem, that their continuing reliance on things other than God, their unjust and unloving treatment of others, and all their other sins would lead to the destruction of their country unless they repented and turned in faith to God.

These people—God’s people, the descendants of slaves who had been miraculously brought to a land filled with blessings showered on them by God, had turned a deaf ear to Ezekiel’s warnings. As the 33rd. chapter of Ezekiel begins, God calls Ezekiel again. He has more messages He wants Ezekiel to share with His people. God is about to orchestrate the devastation of Judah by foreign conquerors.

But God doesn't intend for that to be the end of the story. God meant the impending destruction and enslavement of his people in Ezekiel's time to lead a different conclusion.

God wanted Ezekiel to carry a new message to His people.

Now, if I had been Ezekiel, I might have thought, “I’ve had enough of the preaching business. No one wants to hear what God has to say anyway. Why should I waste my breath?”

But it was at precisely this moment that God came to Ezekiel again and, in some mysterious way, God told Ezekiel that just as Ezekiel had earlier prophesied destruction, now Ezekiel was to prophesy restoration. God was going to renew His people, give them back their land, allow them to rebuild their temple.

The key to the fulfillment of the promise of restoration was the same as the avoidance of the earlier (and ignored) threat had been: The people must repent for sin (turn away from sin) and trust in God alone. God told Ezekiel that Ezekiel must share this word with His people. Look at how God puts it in verses 8 and 9 of our first lesson: “If I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked ones, you shall surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.”

God called Ezekiel to play for high stakes. He was to tell people to turn to God. If he failed to share that message, the blood of those he feared or hated too much to share it with would be on his hands.

If he shared the message and people still refused to repent and trust in God, their blood would be on their own hands.

Now, folks, this is more than a history lesson. In this history, we see the hand of God and we also see how God still operates to call unrepentant sinners to restored fellowship with Him when they turn from their sin and trust in Him.

We see God operating this way in today's Gospel lesson. There, Jesus lays down a process by which a church member sins against another can be restored to fellowship with God and with the church. If the member at fault refuses to renounce his sin, Jesus says, the Church must excommunicate that person, stripping him of his membership and denying him the privilege of receiving Christ's body and blood. Jesus says that this action must be taken not to bring an end to the story, but to allow the one at fault to understand the full consequences of unrepented sin. When we refuse to acknowledge our guilt, we are separated from God and the life that only God can give. If the one at fault, at the end of the process Jesus lays down in Matthew 18:15-20, will repent, restoration will come. Forgiveness and new life will come.

Jesus lays out this same pattern in his story of the prodigal son. The prodigal was allowed to experience the full consequences of his sin. But when he turned away from his sin and returned to his father, who, of course, represents God, his connection to his family was restored again.

When, six centuries after Ezekiel, God came to the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, He gave the same message to the world which, up to that point, God had given to His chosen people. Today, through Christ, eternal restoration and renewal, the new life that Jon’s father grasped that day Jon and he had a heart-to-heart, is what God offers to all who repent for sin and believe in Jesus. Jesus put it this way according to the Gospel of Mark, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the Good News.”

Also today, the call that God gave to Ezekiel, the prophet and priest, is a call that He gives to every believer in Jesus Christ. A passage that has played a critical role in Lutheran history, the basis for the Lutheran theology of "the priesthood of all believers," underscores this. Please take up a pew Bible and turn to page 703 and find 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 9. Read it aloud with me, if you would:

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 

God calls every believer in Jesus Christ to be an Ezekiel, to be a Jon, who shares the life-changing news that all who turn from sin and trust in Christ live with God for eternity.

When we believe in Jesus Christ, God walks with us through every step of this life, giving us strength and peace we can find nowhere else.

We all know that the message about Jesus Christ isn’t something that most people are clamoring to hear today, no matter how desperately they need it. Words like those God instructed Ezekiel to share with His people sound like antiquated nail scratches on a chalk board to modern ears. Read them in verses 10 to 11 of our first lesson:

…say…’Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?’ Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?’

In an era in which...

• freedom is institutionalized as selfishness and an excuse for greed, 
• drug addiction right here in Hocking County is epidemic, 
• child abuse and a coarse disregard for the humanity of others can be seen everywhere, 
• sexual promiscuity of all sorts is seen as the inevitable result of irresistible biological impulses rather than the choice of a society that worships at the altar of self, and 
• things like racial bigotry, the unjust treatment of women, and a sense of entitlement pervade our culture, 

the call to turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ as the only way to live here and in eternity is not welcome. In sharing the message of new life through Jesus Christ, we run the risk of becoming the guests nobody wants to show up at the party!

But, here's a question we must all address:

Whose approval do we want more, that of a world hurtling toward death in its sins or that of heaven, which awaits repentant sinners with open arms? 

The answer, I think, should be obvious. Speaking for myself, I want to be on the side of the One Who will be standing when Jesus returns to claim His final victory over sin and death! And, if I can help convey the message of new life to people who don't know Jesus Christ, I am more than willing to live with the disdain of some.

God tells Ezekiel that He takes no pleasure when people spurn Him and follow the way of death rather than following Him. God still takes no pleasure in that. He wants to welcome all into relationship with Him.

Jesus, God in the flesh, demonstrated this same sentiment on the Palm Sunday before His arrest and crucifixion. You'll remember that Jesus was given a hero's welcome to Jerusalem. Later on that same day though, knowing all that awaited Him in the week to come, Jesus wept over the city. The days would come, He told this place that housed God's temple, that they would be crushed because they had failed to see that in Him, God had visited them and offered new and everlasting life to all who repent and believe in Him.

Today, there are people in our community—people in your own personal circles of acquaintance—who, right now, at this moment, are condemning themselves to eternal separation from God and who need you to be their sentinels.

They need you to warn them of the destruction to come for those who refuse Jesus’ outstretched hand of grace and forgiveness and of the new life that can be theirs if only they will quit struggling to be self-sufficient, self-contained, and self-driven and surrender to the only love that lasts forever, the love given to all through Jesus Christ.

Fine, you may say, I’m called to share Christ with others; how do I do that?

Well, it isn’t a matter of what you do. It’s a matter of who you are. As I've said before, God made you a human being, not a human doing.

By Baptism, you are already a child of God. Your belief in Jesus confirms that fact.

So, be a child of God. Live out the privilege of that.

Without apology or self-doubt, be the forgiven, free, and hopeful child of God Christ has already made you.

Ezekiel was a believer God used as a conduit for His message: repent and believe. If you and I try to make believers of others by our efforts or with our own messages, we will fail.

I used to be the kind of Christian and preacher who thought I could, by use of a program or a method or clever word games, win converts to Christ.

But the message I shared came from me, not God, and it was about me, not God.

I’ve never won anyone to Christ by being clever. But Christ has won people to Christ through me when I’ve gotten out of the way and let Christ live in me. He can do the same through all believers!

In Psalm 44, the writer remembers how God gave the promised land to His people: “…not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm give them victory; but Your right hand, and Your arm, and the light of Your countenance…”

God needs lots of Ezekiels today, people who will listen to the Word about Jesus Christ and then, in the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting that Christ is living in them (and He lives in all believers!), open their mouths to spread that Word to others.

That’s nothing other than being a Christian. That’s depending on God to be who we were made to be as children of God. That’s who Jon was. That’s who Christ can help us to be, who God made us to be, and who everyone of we know needs us to be: people who listen to God’s Word and then pass it on.

May we all be Ezekiels!

Amen!

The Right Perspective

“When I try, I fail. When I trust, He succeeds.” (Corrie Ten Boom)

The 40-Year Club

Wow!

"Who knows whether you have not come...for such a time as this?"

Esther played her unexpected part in God's project to save people. Maybe God has plans like that for you.

"Where Do We Go When We Die?"

I wrote this piece on that question three years ago. Hope you find it helpful.

Only Radical, Helpless Dependence on Christ Brings Life

Go here. But be sure to read Galatians 2:15-20, linked there, first.

Give Me Your Picks

In the comments below, give me your picks for:

• 2011 World Series winning team
• 2011 College football national champions
• 2012 Super Bowl winning team

And, if you would, give me the rationale for your picks.

"Hurricane Irene and the Death of 'Here'"

That's the title of this interesting slice of life from the Hurricane Irene experience by Annie Gottlieb.

Jesus' Alternative Universe

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]


Matthew 16:21-28
In his book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, Pastor David Platt tells about several people from underground house churches in Asian countries where it’s illegal to worship or witness for Jesus Christ.

• He mentions Jian, a “doctor who has left his successful health clinic and now risks his life and the lives of his wife and two kids in order to provide impoverished villages with medical care while secretly training [a] network of house-church leaders.” 
• There’s Lin, a woman who teaches at a university where it’s illegal to talk about Jesus. She secretly meets with students interested in knowing more about Him though, risking the loss of her job in the process. 

People like these, who embrace living with the risk of suffering or death in order to glorify God and share Christ with others, live in an upside-down world. It’s a world in which living for Jesus, and not for comfort or status or material success, is the highest priority. Death, sacrifice, and risk looms over their lives constantly, yet the people I've met who live like this are more alive and more joyful than 99% of the people you and I know or know about.

Jesus talks about the strange alternative universe—the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God—in which people Jian and Lin live in today’s Gospel lesson.

It’s the world in which He calls us all to live, too. If that scares you, it probably should. It scares me. Yet there is no other place where true life can be found than in Jesus’ kingdom. Let’s learn more about it. Please pull out the Celebrate inserts and turn to the lesson, Matthew 16:21-28.

The lesson actually continues an incident we started looking at two weeks ago. Back then, you may recall, Peter confessed his belief that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

The first verse of today’s lesson follows: “From that time on, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

How did Jesus “show” these things to the disciples, do you suppose? Pull out a pew Bible, please, and turn to page 609, to Luke 24:27. It’s part of Luke’s account of an encounter the risen Jesus had with two disciples on the road to a village called Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday. The disciples, blinded by their inability to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, don’t initially understand that the stranger with whom they’re speaking is Jesus. Then we’re told: “And beginning at Moses [in other words, starting at Genesis, the first of five Old Testament books traditionally attributed to Moses] and the Prophets [people like Isaiah and Jeremiah, whose prophetic ministries are recounted also in the Old Testament], [Jesus] expounded to them in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.”

Jesus always pointed to the God of the Old Testament to explain Who He was and what He was about. Jesus taught that everything that Christians confess about Him—from His virgin birth to His sacrificial death for our sin, from His kingship to His resurrection—was foretold in the Old Testament.

Peter though, wasn’t interested in what Jesus or the Old Testament had to say about the Messiah suffering, dying and rising. Peter wanted Jesus to be an earthly king who could produce results, like freeing him and his countrymen from Roman rule and their oppressive taxes. Peter wanted Jesus to make his life easy.

That’s why, in verse 22, we read: “Peter took [Jesus] aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This [suffering and crucifixion] must never happen to you.’”

Peter wanted to whittle the one he had just confessed to be the Messiah and the Son of the living God down to controllable dimensions. He wanted a king who would do things the way he thought that they should be done. He wanted a God who would wink at his favorite sins. Like Adam and Eve, Peter wanted to “be like God.”


You know, sometimes I go to God in prayer and say, "Now, Lord, what you need to do is thus and so. That will cause such and such a person to do what you and I both know they need to do. Then, I can step in and do this." Do you know what God's reaction to a "prayer" like that is? He laughs. We can't tell God how to do His job! If we do, our speech at that moment might be called many things, but it can't be called prayer.

Peter thought he was going to tell Jesus how to be God and King. Boy, was he wrong! Look at verse 23, for Jesus' reaction to Peter: “But [Jesus] turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Jesus uses the same word for Peter, the word Satan, which means accuser, that He used for the devil when the devil tempted Him in the wilderness. Back then, Satan tried to tempt Jesus to avoid the cross and take the easy way to becoming a king. No suffering. No cross. All Jesus had to do was worship Satan and Jesus could have the world He had come to reclaim for God. Jesus refused to take the easy way.

Like the devil, Peter wanted Jesus to take the easy way. The easy way, the way of going along to get along, is exactly what Jesus warned anyone who wanted to follow Him to avoid when He said, “The gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life.” What path are you and I following in life: the Jesus way or the easy way?

My mentor, Pastor Bruce Schein, used to tell us about counseling parents whose high school or college-age children were addicted to drugs. He told these parents that if they loved their children, they wouldn’t give the kids the money they knew the kids would just use to buy more drugs. “But we can’t stand the thought of our kids hating us and thinking they can’t turn to us for help,” they would say. “It’s too painful.” “How painful will it be,” he would ask them, “if you give them what they want and you lose them forever?”

Peter, like Satan before him, confronted Jesus with the same sort of choice that confronted those parents Pastor Schein counseled. It would have been far easier for Jesus to give people what they wanted, to be a king who led a revolution and tossed out the Romans, while leaving you and me imprisoned to sin and death. Jesus willingly endured the hatred of the whole human race and the punishment for sin we deserve so that He wouldn’t lose us forever, so that on Easter Sunday, when the Father raised Jesus from the dead, He could give new life to all who repent for sin and believe in Him.

It was by the hard way of the cross that Jesus won life for all who trust in Him. God’s saving grace in Christ is free, but we must give up life as it’s usually lived to be free to grab hold of it!

In verse 26, Jesus amplifies this point, when He says in part, “If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

To take up our cross is to acknowledge that our sins put Jesus on the cross. I love what Martin Luther says when, in The Small Catechism, he explains the meaning of Baptism for our daily lives:

[Baptism] signifies that the old Adam in us, together with all sins and evil desires, should be drowned by daily sorrow for sin and repentance and be put to death, and that the new person should come forth every day and rise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

Just as Christ’s crucifixion led to His resurrection, daily taking up our crosses, confessing our sins, and submitting to the death of our sinful impulses and orientations brings us fresh new life every moment we walk with Jesus.

When we live in daily repentance and renewal, we can confess with Jeremiah, writing in the Old Testament book of Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…”

But what does it mean to deny ourselves? It means to dare to trust God’s revealed word and will and not in our own reasoning or experiences. Psalm 118 says that “it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in mortals [that includes ourselves].”

Denying ourselves means admitting that we need God not as we want Him to be, but God as He is, the God Who can only save us from sin and death when we give Him our unconditional surrender and when we sign over control over our lives to Jesus Christ.

There is a joy and a peace to a life like this which, I confess, I have only tasted at times, but which I want more than anything! In the New Testament book of Philippians, the apostle Paul writes, “To me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” (Talk about upside down!)

Peter rebuked Jesus because he was concerned about living and organizing life as he wanted it to be. He was a slave to his desire for personal freedom and control. He wanted God to bend to His plans rather than submitting to whatever God had in mind for him.

One of the reasons I have such an irrational fear of water and have never learned to swim, I’m sure, is because I’m afraid to let go and just…swim. I like the feeling of control I have on dry land. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says that following Jesus is like learning to swim. “If you keep your foot on the bottom of the pool,” he says, “you’ll never work out how to do it.” If we are to follow Jesus into eternity, we’ll have to do something similar. Wright continues, “You have to lose your life to find it. What’s the use of keeping your feet on the bottom when the water gets too deep? You have the choice: swim or drown. Apparent safety, walking on the bottom, isn’t an option any longer.”

True living, whether in this life or in eternity, doesn’t belong to those who play it safe. It belongs to people who give control of their lives to Jesus—to people who deny themselves, who take up their crosses, and who follow Him.

This life, no matter how many years we live here, is just a warm-up lap for the one to come.

Let Jesus take control of your life now. Start living in Jesus’ alternative universe—the kingdom of heaven—today. Let Jesus call the shots. Let Jesus set your priorities. Do everything you can to tell the world about the new life that only those with faith in Jesus have.

You may not win any popularity contests for living in Jesus’ kingdom. You may not gain power or wealth or ease. But you will live in the power of the only one who can give you life, the only One Who will be left standing when sin and death have done their worst to us.

And as you live with Jesus each day, you will, as Jesus promises at the end of our Gospel lesson, “not taste death before [you] see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” You will see the imprint of Jesus on every moment that you breathe. And you will be alive.

Today, right now, this moment: Follow Jesus!

Good Advice vs. Good News

Lutheran Christians have always taught that understanding the Biblical categories of Law and Gospel and the distinction between the two is central to getting what God is all about in His dealings with us.

My colleague, Pastor Dave Mann, who is on the pastoral staff of a congregation here in Ohio, but is deployed in Haiti, recently wrote this on his Facebook page:

During a vacation Sunday this month, I attended a non-Lutheran congregation and heard one of the best sermons rooted in Lutheran theology I've ever heard. Here was one of the points the preacher made.

What's the difference between Good Advice and Good News? Good Advice is advice about what you should do in the future. It may be wise counsel, something you really ought to do, but the burden is then on you to put it into action. News, on the other hand, is an announcement about what has already taken place. It does not depend upon you to make it happen; it's already part of history -- you simply respond. Good News is what Jesus Christ brings to you.

Without ever dropping the name of Luther, Lutheranism, or theology, this preacher made a very clear distinction between Law and Gospel.

Jesus once said that nothing from God's law had been eliminated. The Law--embodied in the Ten Commandments--give expression to God's will for human beings. But we all know that none us can go a single day without violating one or all of the commandments. (In my case, I can't go a day without repeatedly violating the commandments.) The Law is good advice.

The Gospel--the good news that Jesus Christ died and rose to give new life to all who repent and trust in Him--is something that comes to us. All we need to do is respond to it with trust. As Jesus puts it, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes [trusts] in Him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).

The Law points us to our need of someone to save us from ourselves.

The Gospel points us to the Savior Who does just that.

A Book Like No Other

If we prayerfully read the Bible with our wills open to God, God will give us a deepening faith in Christ and will build our characters.

Conversely, when I fail to read God's Word and pray each day, the wheels pop off my life, my priorities are put askew, I more readily fall prey to temptations and sin, my ego gets out of hand, and I panic in the face of life.

The Bible is like no other book. It is, as the New Testament book of 2 Timothy says literally, "God-breathed," inspired by God, filled with the same grace and power God used to call the universe into being and that He used to raise Jesus from the dead.

Enjoy these thoughts on the Bible from today's installment of Our Daily Bread.

Sarah and the Meaning of Life

[This was shared during the funeral for Sarah, a twenty year old member of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

2 Timothy 4:6-8
John 14:1-7
The day after it was determined that Sarah had sustained her fifth relapse with cancer, I walked into her room on J5 at Children’s Hospital in Columbus. What I saw surprised me a little. Sarah was sitting in a chair, looking healthy and strong, eating like a horse! For a moment, I looked at her and said nothing. She looked back and then said, “I know. I’m complicated.”

The fact is that Sarah was not complicated. By that, I don’t mean that she was simple or lacking in sophistication. She was, in fact, wise beyond her years. She had a fantastic, insightful sense of humor. Even on the Sunday before her passing, barely able to talk, she threw out a few pithy remarks that had us chuckling. But she was not complicated.

She was intelligent, gifted, direct, loving toward everyone she met, and faithful to Jesus Christ. With Sarah, except when she didn't want you to know how badly she was feeling, what you saw was who she really was. And who she really was, was one of the most remarkable people I have ever known.

But her life was complicated by a deadly adversary with which she fought for nearly eight years. It brought her pain and difficulties few of us could imagine bearing for moments, let alone years.

Yet I feel safe in saying that the last thing Sarah would want you to remember when you think of her is cancer. Sarah never allowed cancer to define her.

That’s how she kept achieving despite the odds.

That’s how she graduated from high school with honors.

It’s how she kept up with her studies at Denison University and was on track to graduate in four years' time.

It’s how she sang without missing a note at her beloved grandmother’s funeral several years ago.

And it’s how she lit up a room by her mere presence.

And this morning I can tell you that while the cancer that took Sarah’s earthly life is dead forever, Sarah is alive today with God in eternity!

I don’t say that because eternal life with God is a given. It’s not. Jesus, in the passage from John we read a few moments ago, is trying to comfort His first followers. He had told them earlier that He was going to Jerusalem to lay down His life, to be executed on a cross, taking the punishment all of us deserve for our sin: death.

Jesus then tells them—and us—that He is going to prepare places for those who trust in Him in eternity. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says, “Believe in God, believe also in Me.” Later, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me, you will know My Father also.”

Sarah is in eternity because, thanks to the witness of her family at home and the witness of her family here at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, she believed in Jesus Christ. It is as simple and uncomplicated as that. 

And Sarah lived her belief in Christ. When she had her second bone marrow transplant back in 2008, I was shuttling between Children's Hospital, where she was a patient, and The OSU Medical Center where, Dee, another member of our congregation was undergoing another procedure. After looking in on Dee, I went back to see how Sarah was doing. The first thing she asked when I walked into her room was, "How's Dee?"

I heard second-hand this week about a young woman who graduated from high school with Sarah. This young woman said that she was sometimes subjected to ridicule by “the popular kids.” But Sarah, one of the popular kids herself, always made a point of speaking with her and befriending her.

You see, when you’re secure in your relationship with the God Who came to die and rise for you and when you’ve faced down death with that Savior by your side, it changes both the way you live and the way you die. You don’t need to go along with the crowd. You saw that in Sarah.

Of course, none of this banishes our questions this morning. This side of eternity, we cannot know why one so young and so wonderful suffered so much or left us so soon.

Sarah told me about a year-and-a-half-ago during an interview for a county youth newsletter, “Sometimes I get angry with God. But I know that He’s always with me. And He helps me focus on the meaning of life.” If any of you feel angry with God today, it’s OK. God is big enough to take your anger and still love you. And, as Becky and I have discussed many times, you don’t get angry with a God you don’t believe is there. But, as was true for Sarah, even now God can help you focus on the meaning of your life.

And the meaning of life is also an uncomplicated thing. We are each meant to love God, love others, trust in Christ, and share Christ with others by our words and our actions so that they too can trust in Christ and have life through Him. These were all touchstones for Sarah’s life.

She wanted more, of course. She wanted to graduate from college. She wanted to counsel young people fighting things like cancer because she would understand their struggles and give them hope. Like you, I prayed often and fervently that God would make Sarah’s aspirations come to pass. It hasn’t turned out the way any of us prayed it would.

But Sarah always understood that was a possibility. Two years ago, from this pulpit, Sarah preached on Easter Sunday morning. At one point, she retold the legend of three trees that her father, Bryan, sometimes read for children’s programs here at Saint Matthew. Each tree had hopes for itself.

One tree hoped that it would become a treasure chest, filled with jewels and precious things. “On the outside,” the first tree said, “I will have intricate designs and everyone will be dazzled by my beauty.”

The second tree wanted to be a ship that carried kings and queens. “Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull,” the second tree said.

The third tree wanted to grow to be the tallest, straightest tree in the forest. “Everyone will look at me on top of the hill, see my branches pointing up to heaven, and think of God,” the third tree said. “I will be the greatest tree of all time and people will always remember me.”

The first tree became, not a treasure chest, but a feeding trough. One night in Bethlehem, it held the greatest treasure the world has ever seen: God-in-the-flesh, Jesus, just after He was born.

The second tree was turned into a fishing boat that plied the Sea of Galilee where, one day, a ferocious storm frightened Jesus’ disciples. From its hull, Jesus, the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords, quieted a storm, inciting the disciples to ask, “Who is this whom even wind and waves obey?”

The third tree was chopped down and turned into lumber. Some of its boards were made into a cross on which Jesus was crucified. For a while, the third tree felt ugly and hateful. Yet on the third day after Jesus’ crucifixion, it felt differently. Jesus had risen from the dead and the empty timbers of His cross pointed then, as it still points today, to heaven. It reminds us that through faith in Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life, God gives to all who turn from sin and believe in Christ eternal life with God.

After recounting that legend in her Easter sermon, Sarah said that the story was “a reminder to me that God has a special path that each of us will journey in our lives.” She continued, “For me on this Easter Day, I remember the past six years of my life. Through those years I knew that my life was and still is in God’s hands and I need to trust in him just as Jesus did when he died on the cross.”

Sarah lived a life filled with meaning, short though it was. And her life pointed to Jesus. It still does.

All this past week, whenever I thought of Sarah, I remembered the words of Saint Paul to the young pastor Timothy, which we read a little while ago. Paul knew he would die soon. But he could say words I can easily hear Sarah saying, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

Sarah’s fight has ended and Christ has won it for her. She is in the presence of God at this moment. Our fight remains before us and it will only be won, as Sarah’s was, by holding on tenaciously to the nail-scarred hands of the Savior Who died and rose for us. I pray desperately that we will all do that!

Bryan, Becky, and Stephen, to you and your extended family: We love you. We stand with you. We pray for you. In the days and years ahead, keep looking to Jesus. He will give your lives meaning. He will sustain you as He has sustained you these past eight years and as He sustained Sarah. And He will hold onto you all the way to an eternity filled with a never-ending reunion with Christ and with all who, like Sarah, have loved His appearing.

What a reunion that will be!

God bless you!

So, You Think You Know the Truth About Marie Antoinette?

1 of 7

First Slide

Previous Slide

According to Juliet Grey, you may not.

It seems that Antoinette was (and remains) the victim of numerous falsehoods noised around in the blogs and the 24-hour news channels...er, in the newspapers...of her time.

Often, it seems, we forget that the public figures we excoriate are, first of all, human beings, and second, that the things we "know" about them may not be true at all.

God's eighth commandment is, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Jesus makes clear that our "neighbor" is any other human being. In his explanation of the eighth commandment in The Small Catechism, Martin Luther says:

We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the kindest way.

Luther himself, of course, would have done well to remember the commandment's meaning when he debated. But it doesn't make his explanation any less valid.

I've probably been as guilty of saying nasty things and asserting unproven "facts" about public figures as The National Tattler.

The law--even God's law--can't clear away our guilt or help us chart new courses when it comes to the eighth commandment, any more than it can with our violation of any of the other commandments.

But God's law, His commands, can point us to the things for which we need to repent, driving us to seek the forgiveness God offers to all through Jesus Christ. The charity (what the Bible calls, grace) we find in Christ brings not only forgiveness, but the presence of God's Holy Spirit in our lives. The Spirit, in turn, can help us grow in God's grace. The Holy Spirit can teach us to defend, speak well of, and explain the actions of others...can cause us even to question the myths we might believe about public figures, historical and contemporary.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize politicians, of course. But it does mean we need to ask for God's help in doing so with civility, charity, and even love. As some prominent contemporary media types could tell you, habitual slander, gossip, or lying about others and the bad reputations they create can sometimes boomerang on us. If we live by the ethic of "where there's smoke, there must be fire," we must not be surprised when others believe the smoke people may blow about us.

And about that dismissive quote, "Let them eat cake," falsely ascribed to Marie Antoinette, I have to admit that I've always liked cake!

The Best Reunion: I Pray It for You

From 2 Timothy 4:6-8, in the New Testament, words from the first century preacher and teacher Paul to a young pastor:

As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation [a drink offering], and the time of my departure [death] has come. ⁷I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

I sometimes let the rush of everyday events and even the love I share with my wife, my family, and my friends, get in the way of the fact that nothing is as important as my relationship with Jesus Christ...and that no reunion is more to be anticipated than the one that will come when, by God's grace through my faith in Christ, I get to see Jesus face to face in eternity.

I pray that timeless, eternal moment for you!

More thoughts here.

Heart Cath Report (Goofball Edition)

The video speaks for itself, I suppose. (No, I'm not referring to how plain it makes it that I'm a goofball.)

I had a heart attack in June, 2010, initially undiagnosed. It damaged 40% of my heart. After the diagnosis was made at Mid-Ohio Cardiology in Columbus, I underwent a heart catheterization at Riverside Methodist Hospital, also in Columbus.

Today's cath procedure was indicated by a stress test I took last week. It indicated a slow flow of blood in the heart. The cath showed no blockages.

However, my heart has not bounced back as fully as the doc would have liked. So, in October, as a precautionary measure, a defibrillator will be implanted in my chest. Should any arrhythmias develop (there have never been any previously), the defib will send electrical impulses to ensure that the heart beats uninterruptedly.

Got home after dinner with Ann at Cosi's. Relieved and happy. Thanks to everyone for their prayers. God bless!

Insecurity and Egotism

“Insecurity results from egotism,” someone wrote on Twitter recently.

That single sentence so jarred me the moment I read it that I neither responded to nor noted the name of the writer. The words have made me think and I’ve concluded that while insecurity may have many sources, personal vanity is definitely one of them.

Taking myself as a test case, I know that many of my insecurities—whether over talking too much, saying the wrong things, getting a sermon or project I’m planning just “right,” meeting new people, wondering whether I’ve worked hard enough each day, or, very specifically, going to my fortieth high school reunion as I did several weeks ago—are born of a desire to make the “right” impressions on people, to be seen as competent and proficient and a “good guy,” to please people, to be esteemed.

How stupid of me!

As a Christian, I believe that, through Christ, we know that God loves us as we are, leaving us with nothing to prove, assured that He gives us His Spirit to help believers in Him to become all that we were meant to be, no matter what other people may think of us.

I know that, in reality, I only play to a gracious audience of One. But too often, my vain desire for affirmation from those whose word about my life ultimately doesn’t matter can cause me to quake in fear instead of living with love and abandon.

God, help me to get over myself and get out of the way as Christ lives in me.

[By the way, my reunion was a blast!]

Why God Doesn't Overwhelm Us

Why does God veil His glory in a crucified Savior? Why doesn’t He just come on strong and overwhelm us like a Super Bowl halftime show?

The simple truth is that we couldn’t handle that kind of revelation of God. Exodus 20, in the Old Testament recounts God giving the Ten Commandments to His people Israel through Moses. It was an event accompanied by stunning signs of God's presence. Just after the giving of the commandments, Exodus says:

When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die." (Exodus 20:18-19)

Human beings in the unveiled presence of God see their distance from God’s holiness, perfection, and power. Instead of overwhelming us, God comes to us in the God-Man Jesus, bringing forgiveness and peace with God to all who believe in Him. It’s Jesus Who makes it possible for us to approach God as our Father and it’s in Jesus’ Name—and not in our own merit or power—that we can come to God in prayer.

Even in Jesus, the suffering servant, though, Peter and others who spent time with Him, saw the almighty, perfect God and their distance from Him. Once, Jesus performed a miraculous sign. Peter was overwhelmed and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

But Jesus never goes away from those who honestly submit to and trust in Him. God is holy and infinitely powerful. But God also loves us. That's why He brings salvation "from below," coming to us as a Servant, rather than from above as a conqueror. It was only as a servant Who dies on a cross that He could take our punishment for sin, conquering sin and death through His servanthood.

Chestnut Ridge Park

My wife and I were feeling bummed on Monday night because a heart catheterization I must undergo will prevent us from taking a long-planned vacation. (Ann took responsibility for the planning, arranging for us to visit friends Michigan and Minnesota and a crossing of Lake Michigan via car ferry from Ludington, Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

But a recent nuclear stress test showed that there is a minor issue affecting blood flow to the heart at the site of a stent implanted in my heart after I suffered a heart attack last year.

The catheterization is a precautionary measure. The cardiologist's assistant says that absent my heart attack, the issue at hand wouldn't warrant a heart cath.

But my cardiologist is very thorough. Despite our disappointment over the scrubbed vacation, we appreciate the doctor's thoroughness.

So, on Monday evening, we went to Chestnut Ridge Park near Carroll, Ohio, one of the great parks in the Columbus Metropolitan system. With temps in the 70s at the time, there was a breeze that held the promise of autumn. We briefly walked a trail, then settled on a deck next to a large pond. It was beautiful to look at and wonderful to listen to the silence. I also enjoyed watching the many fish swimming just below the pond surface. (Only those under 15 and those over 60 can fish there.)

It reminded me again of what beautiful world God created.

It was perfect.

Your prayers for my health would be appreciated, especially if it's determined that a new stent will have to be implanted.

(By the way, the close-up at the beginning of the video is my attempt to show all those fish. If you look closely, you can sort of make them out.)

Question

Who do you think will represent the National and American Leagues in this year's World Series?

The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 6)

A group of Saint Matthew folks went out again today for a Saturday morning Kindness Outreach. Once more today, we gave away 210 bottles of cold water to folks in cars stopped at traffic lights, walkers, a fellow trimming hedges at a nearby house, and one dog. (More on the dog later.)

The writer of the New Testament book of Ephesians reminds followers of Jesus Christ that their relationship with Christ and the eternity with God that Jesus offers comes not because we're good or virtuous people nor for any good things we might do. "For by grace [that is, God's charity] you have been saved [from sin, death, and hell] through faith" (Ephesians 2:8). We are saved by God's grace, which we claim as our own when we dare to trust Jesus' promise to erase the death-dealing power of sin over our lives AND that He will give us new lives with God.

Kindness Outreaches present a great picture of how "grace through faith" works. We saw it again today.

The water we give is free. All people need to do is trust us enough to take it.

But some don't. Of course, we don't force the water on them any more than Christ forces Himself or His grace on anyone. Until the light turns green, when handing out water would entail stopping traffic, something we don't do, people can change their minds. Similarly, as long as we draw breath or until Jesus comes back, we can--like the thief on the cross who knew his sin, but turned to Jesus for forgiveness and the promise of paradise with God--we can turn to Christ and live. But why wait? The blessing of being sustained and accompanied, actually being dwelt in, by Jesus in this life are too good to pass up!

Few of the people who receive or reject the bottled water we offer them on Saturdays will ever think of themselves as participants in a living parable about how salvation works. But we do hope that the water and the little cards that accompany each bottle will help them think, "I wonder why people who believe in Jesus are out giving away something for free on a Saturday morning?"

If they are spiritually disconnected people, asking that question could lead them on a road to Christ. That's what we pray will happen because it's only through Jesus that the free gifts of forgiveness and life with God can come to a person. As Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).

So, what happened today?

• A woman was walking with her dog. She said that she wasn't thirsty, but that her dog was and loved to catch water from a bottle as she poured it. My wife Ann said, "Mark, you've got to get a picture of this!" I did. It's below. After Ann and Fran had a conversation with the woman, Ann told her, "Here's a bottle for you." She took it and said goodbye to us all as she walked on.
• Jesse, a college sophomore from our congregation, took water to the occupants of a stopped vehicle. A little kid offered the entire allowance he had just received in exchange. Even kids find it hard to fathom getting something for nothing...which is why the good news about Jesus is so hard to accept and so fantastic to receive!
• A woman stopped at a light on Hunter Street, her windows rolled down, had initially turned down my offer of water. But I persisted. "Really?" I asked. "It's cold and wet and free!" She laughed and said, "All right." She took the bottle and thanked me.
• A woman in her sixties wasn't going to take a bottle. "You're not going to get thirsty?" I asked her. "OK," she said, "but just one."
• Another woman was skeptical. "What's the catch?" she asked. "Nothing," I told her, handing a bottle to her and telling her, "Have a good day."
• A woman told Fran and Ann that she didn't need water, but wondered if she could make a donation to our work. They said, "No, thank you." We never take money. 
• A young mom happily accepted water and told us, "This will get me through the drive home!" 
• Three guys involved in lawn care were bunched together in the cab of their truck, the first vehicle in a line at the red light. At first, they refused our offer. But as they saw us giving away water to people behind them, they evidently thought better of it. "Hey!" the guy riding shotgun called out, "Could we have some of that water?" Sometimes all we need to take the leap of faith or trust is the example of others living with faith or trust.

Like I say, Kindness Outreaches present living pictures how "salvation by grace through faith" works.

No Kindness Outreach next Saturday. But we'll do another one on Saturday, August 27.

On Making Plans

"Plans are the prerogative of God; obedience is the privilege of His children." (Luis Palau, The Moment to Shout: God's Way to Face Walls)

A Few Thoughts on the Psalms

[This week, as we together read the Bible in a year here at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, we're moving into the Psalms. Below is the text of what will be both a handout for the discussion groups on Wednesday and an insert in this coming Sunday's bulletin.]

The Psalms are sometimes referred to as “liturgical poetry.” Leitourgia, the word that is transliterated into English as liturgy, literally means “work of the people.” To worship God for all His goodness, grace, and power is the work of God’s people and it’s something we’re to do 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But there are special times when God’s people come together to worship God. The Psalms, compiled over many centuries, are words that the Jews of ancient times and of today, have used for their public worship for centuries. As people who have, through Jesus Christ and our faith in Him, been made part of God’s family, the Psalms are for us, too.

Traditionally, the largest share of the Psalms has been attributed to David, Israel’s second king. Others are said to be written by people like Moses and Asaph. Some are ascribed to nobody in particular.

Who wrote the 150 psalms in this book isn’t as important as what each of them does. Basically, they function to help us have an honest conversation with God, no matter what our circumstances, feelings, or needs.

According to one prominent scholar, Claus Westermann, there are ten types of psalms:
•    The Community Psalm of Lament
•    The Community Psalm of Narrative Praise
•    The Individual Psalm of Lament
•    The Individual Psalm of Narrative Praise
•    The Psalm of Descriptive Praise or Hymn
•    Creation Psalms
•    Liturgical Psalms
•    Royal Psalms
•    Enthronement Psalms
•    Wisdom Psalms

In general terms, lament psalms give voice to feelings we have in times of trouble. They could arise from personal suffering and grief or national calamities. Examples of community lament include Psalms 44, 74, and 79. Examples of individual lament are Psalms 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and many others.

Psalms of narrative praise speak of God’s greatness through the narration of specific events. Examples of community praise include Psalms 106, 124, and 129. Examples of individual praise are Psalms 9, 18, 30, and many others.

Psalms of descriptive praise give honor to God while describing His blessings. They had a special place in ancient Jewish worship. Some in this category include Psalms 29, 33, 65, and 145-150, among many others.

Creation psalms speak of God as the Sovereign Who created and rules over His creation. They praise God as Creator. Psalms 8, 104, and 139 fall into this category.

As to liturgical psalms, Westermann says that those psalms referred to as “liturgies…are clearly shaped by…a combination of liturgical speech with liturgical actions.” Most commonly, this involves what we call antiphonies, when a worship leader or one group issues a call and all in the congregation or portions of the congregation respond. Good examples are Psalms 66 and 107. There are subcategories in this grouping like Pilgrimage Songs, sung by people as they processed or traveled to the temple in Jerusalem; Songs of Zion, which were probably Pilgrimage Songs specifically asking God to protect Jerusalem from attack; Psalms of Blessing, special benedictions for those who had worshiped in Jerusalem during a festival and were returning to their homes; and Entrance Instructions, dealing with entering the sanctuary during a festival.

Royal psalms have to do with the rulers of the nation, while enthronement psalms hail God as the one and only true King!

Wisdom psalms are liturgical poetry that present wisdom from God, akin to the book of Proverbs. Examples include Psalms 37, 49, and 112.

The word psalm refers to a sacred song or hymn. There are psalms in other books of the Old Testament and the categories into which scholars sometimes divide the book of Psalms can overlap.

But hopefully, this overview is helpful.

Does God Still Speak to His People?

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

1 Kings 19:9-18
In his fantastic book, The Power of a Whisper, Pastor Bill Hybels, tells what happened to him one day after he prayed this prayer: “God, if there is something you would like me to do…then please say so. It doesn’t matter what it is; I’ll do it.”

He had no idea how God might answer that prayer. But in a few days, Hybels and his wife Lynne were leaving the funeral of his aunt and getting into their car when he “spotted a frail, elderly woman pulling into [a] nearby apartment complex.” He saw the woman park her car, then “slowly and laboriously pull grocery bags out of her trunk.” Hybels sensed God’s Holy Spirit telling him, “How about helping that woman with her groceries?”

Initially, Hybels says, he tried to brush past this holy whisper. It seemed so mundane. But he remembered his prayer.

He approached the elderly woman, asking if he could help her. Relieved, she said, “Oh, yes! Thank you!”

As Hybels tells it: “The driveway leading back to her apartment recently had been seal-coated and was roped off, meaning residents had to walk a few hundred yards just to get from their cars to their homes.” Hybels knew he was helping to fill a real need, especially when the woman handed him a thirty-pound bag of peaches even he found a little hard to handle.

As Hybels tells it, the woman led him “through backyards that had become swamps due to recent rains…” She was “extremely arthritic and slow-moving.” It took thirty minutes for them just to make their way to the woman’s apartment!

After he had helped her to empty the sacks, she reached her hand out to Hybels and said, “I will believe to my dying day that God sent you to help me just now.” As inglorious as it all seemed, Hybels was sure she was right.

Our first Bible lesson for today recounts a conversation between God and the prophet Elijah. It raises an important question: Does God still speak to believers in 2011, the way He spoke to his prophet in the ninth-century BC or was Hybels’ direct message from God a figment of an overly spiritual imagination? What does the Bible say?

Pull out the pew Bibles for a moment, please, and turn to 1 Samuel 3:1, on page 158. The verse tells about when God called a young boy named Samuel to be a priest, judge, and prophet. It says: “Now the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. [And this is the part to which I want to call particular attention:] And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” That last sentence has always interested me because of is its unspoken assumption that, throughout much of ancient Israel’s history, God commonly spoke to His especially called people, like prophets. The era before Samuel’s call apparently, was a rare time when the connection between God and His people grew spotty.

Centuries after Samuel, after God came into the world in the person of Jesus and after Jesus died and rose and sent the Holy Spirit to believers in the Church, it wasn’t just to prophets and priests that God spoke. It was to all believers. In the pew Bibles, take a look at Acts, chapter 2, starting at verse 17, on page 627. On Pentecost, Peter is explaining how ordinary people who believed in Jesus were telling others about God’s mighty works. He explained how such a thing was possible by remembering the ancient words of the prophet Joel: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh…”

In fact, throughout the book of Acts, which tells the story of the early Church, we’re told how God’s people prayed and God directed them. The Bible assumes that it’s normal for God to speak to believers who are dialed into God.

But how does God speak to us?

Please pull out the Celebrate inserts and look at the first lesson, 2 Kings 19:9-18.

Let’s set the stage: It’s the ninth century BC. About fifty years earlier, the nation of Israel had split in two. The southern kingdom, known as Judah, retained its worship life in Jerusalem and struggled to retain its faith in the God of the Bible, Who they knew as Yahweh, the LORD. The northern kingdom, with its capital of Samaria, called itself Israel.

According to the Bible, the northern kingdom never had a king who was faithful to Yahweh or just in his actions. The worst of its rulers was Ahab, who worshiped Baal, a false deity of rain, fertility, and agriculture.

Despite the LORD’s first commandment that no other god should be worshiped, Ahab and his wife Jezebel encouraged the people to turn their back on God.

God made Elijah a prophet in order to call the king and the nation to repent for their sins and to trust in God alone.

A contest was held at Mount Carmel involving Elijah on one side and 400 prophets of Baal on the other. No matter what the prophets of Baal did, they couldn't cause their idol to do anything to prove its existence. (In fact, one of the funniest passages in Scripture is part of this incident. As the Baal worshipers went through their conniptions, Elijah taunted them, at one point suggesting that Baal has wandered away. But actually, that dainty translation in most of our English versions of the Bible don't get it right. Elijah literally told them that maybe Baal had to take a pit stop to go to the bath room!)

At Mount Carmel, God was shown to be faithful and powerful, while Baal was shown to be a man-made fiction.

Right after this contest, it seemed that the northern kingdom would return to God. King Ahab got rid of the prophets of Baal as God, through Elijah, directed him.

Later though, Ahab told his wife Jezebel about all that happened and she sent a message to Elijah, telling him that within a day’s time, she would see that Elijah was a dead man. First Kings, chapter 19, verse 3, says that when Elijah received that message, “he was afraid” and he ran. Like Peter, in our Gospel lesson, Elijah allowed his fears to veto his faith in God. He panicked.

Our lesson finds Elijah at Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai, the place where, six centuries before Elijah’s time, God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. Twice in our lesson, God asks Elijah why he has run. Twice, Elijah says, as he does in verse 10, you see: “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant [the covenant God had made with Israel on that very mountain], thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

Have you ever known fear like that, a fear that leaves you feeling alone and without hope? The doctor tells you about a poor prognosis or a loved one dies and you wonder how you can possibly function. The stock market moves further into negative territory and you fear that you’ll have no retirement income.

It’s at times like these that God wants to tell us, in the words of Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.”

God wants to tell all who believe in Jesus Christ, as 1 John 4:4 puts it: “Little children…the one who is in you [the Bible teaches that Christ lives in His people] is greater than the one who is in the world.”

God is bigger than anything we may fear and, as Romans 8 reminds us, those who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ, live in the certainty that nothing can separate us from the love of God given to us through Christ!

Sometimes though, we may need special guidance or assurance. Elijah did.

Look at verse 11 of our first lesson. God told Elijah to stand on the mountain, “for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then, we’re told, “Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind, an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire, and after the fire the sound of sheer silence.”

It was there in the silence, that somewhere in his own spirit, Elijah heard God speak to him. (The older translations says that God spoke to Elijah in “a still, small voice,” but even that may suggest something too noisy.)

God then ordered Elijah to move past his fears, giving him three specific tasks.

Listen! When you’re afraid or lonely or need guidance or you simply want to offer yourself to the God Who offered Himself for you on the cross, you can hear from God.

The most reliable place to hear God is on the pages of the Bible. That’s where God’s Word can always be found.

I got to know a Pentecostal pastor named Howard back in Cincinnati. Loved that man! We were having a heart to heart one night when he said, “You know, so many Pentecostals want to hear ‘a special word from God.’ But all they really need to do is look at the Bible to find God’s Word for their lives.” I smiled and said, "Howard, you sound like a Lutheran!"

Howard was right! We’ve all read about people who have done horrible things because, they claimed, some voice had told them to do so. If you feel prompted to do something, look in the Book. Find out what God’s Word says. Talk to a trusted Christian friend who knows God’s Book. God will never tell us to do anything that runs contrary to His revealed will in the Bible. Never.

But when, in the silence of your soul, you sense God prompting you, go for it!

Jim and Sheila, from our congregation, went to Bob Evans for lunch on Friday. Across the way from them sat an older man eating by himself. Sheila observed his conversation with the waitress, indicating he might be a “regular” there. She thought she heard him use the word, “radiation.”

That’s when I think God spoke to Sheila. “I felt,” she wrote to me in an email on Friday, “like I wanted to make this man’s day.”

In order to not be heard by the man, she wrote a note asking the waitress to bring the man’s check to Jim and her. She handed one of our “The Meal’s on Us!” cards to the waitress to give to the man. Later, the waitress brought a box to the man as he’d requested and told him that his meal had been taken care of. “Who?” he asked. The waitress shrugged. The man teared up, read the card twice, then tucked it into his pocket. Sheila says, “My heart felt warm all over.”

[The front of one of our "This meal's on us!" card.]

[The back side of our "This meal's on us!" card.]

Does God still speak to His people today? Yes, most reliably in His Word, the Bible.

But there are also times when God may speak to us in the silence of our hearts and minds, when God will order our steps directly. God will teach us, as He taught Elijah (and as he taught Peter in our Gospel lesson), to live "by faith and not by sight.”

And when we live by faith in Christ, then we are  truly living!

The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 5)

This morning's Saint Matthew Kindness Outreach was a fantastic experience!

Ten Saint Matt folks participated as we once again gave away cold bottled water at a heavily-trafficked intersection here in Logan. While the traffic lights were red, we were able to give away 210 bottles of water in under an hour. That means that in the four outreaches we've done so far, we've given away 770 bottles of water.

Some vignettes that stand out from today...

• As Dick gave water to one woman, she told him about her seven-day old niece who had suffered a stroke. Doctors had given her little chance. But the little one has shown improvements which the doctors say they can't explain. The family feels they can explain, that God is answering their prayers in inexplicable ways. By this time, I was involved in the discussion and Dick and I promised to pray for the child. She drove off saying, "I love you guys!" When the light turned green, Dick, Isaac, and I formed a circle and prayed for the baby and her family.
• Isaac offered water to two fellows in a pick-up truck. They refused the offer. But Isaac didn't give up. "Come on," he said, "it's free!" The driver held up a cup indicating that he already had something to drink. Undeterred, Isaac asked, "What about your friend?" The power window on the passenger side slid down. Isaac handed a water to the guy riding shotgun and then handed in another water, this one for the driver. "You have one too," he said.
• A woman in one car was incredulous. "Free? I can't believe it!" Dick handed her a bottle of water and said, "Well, believe this!"
• A young man in his twenties was going to refuse my offered water. But I said, "Hey, look it's wet, it's cold, and it's free." "Free?" he asked, then laughed, and said, "I'll take it." We both laughed when I told him, "Free is the operative word."

Of course, we do these outreaches to demonstrate what God's grace is like. God loves us, no strings attached. He simply asks us to repent (acknowledge our need for Him and His forgiveness) and believe (that is, trust) in Christ.

In doing the Kindness Outreaches, we also negate an old stereotype that says that all churches want is people's money.

But the outreaches have a great impact on those of us privileged to serve our neighbors in Jesus' Name in this way, too.

• During today's outreach, young Isaac turned to me and, running back to a cooler to restock on water for the next wave of cars, said to me, "This is a joy!"
• And Fran said that she'd had the feeling this morning that we might have too many Saint Matt folks and wondered if she should participate, but then thought to herself, "I don't care. It's too much fun!"

And it is! In fact, the secret we Lutheran Christians have been keeping from ourselves for far too long is that reaching out to our neighbors with the love of Christ is fun. And this summer, the Lutherans at Saint Matthew are having a blast being Jesus' hands and feet in Logan through these Kindness Outreaches!

What's the Best Book You've Read in the Past Six to Twelve Months?

Let me know in the comments section. I'm always on the prowl for good books, of all kinds and descriptions.

No Matter What the Economic News

"God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7). This is a fact for all who entrust themselves to Christ, even when S&P downgrades the country's credit rating.

Tonight's Discussion of Job

Different Saint Matthew folks got together today in the morning and the evening to discuss this past week's Read the Bible in a Year chapters, Job 4-24.

In these chapters of what scholars believe is the Bible's oldest book, the increasingly contentious dialog of Job, a man who has suffered incredible grief, pain, and loss, and his three friends--Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar--are presented.

A good outline of Job can help us understand it more readily. One outline comes from The Message of Job (Augsburg Old Testament Studies) by Daniel J. Simundson (chapter numbers on the left):

1-2                   Prolog
3                      Job's passionate outburst
4-27                Three cycles of speeches of three visitors and responses from Job
28                   A poem about the inaccessibility of wisdom
29-31              Job's concluding statement-longing for old days and oath of innocence
32-37              Elihu's speech
38-41              Two speeches by God
40:3-5             Job's reply to God's first speech
42:1-6             Job's response to God's second speech
42:7-17           Epilog

Below is a recording of the evening session. Both sessions today got interrupted by "critters." In the morning, we had a bug of some kind. In the evening, we spied a bat in the church fellowship hall and decided to open a door in the hope that it would find its way out the building.

Reflections on Job and the Suffering of the Innocent

Along with members of Saint Matthew who are reading the Bible in a year, I'm wrestling with the Old Testament book of Job these days.

Job is no theoretical essay on the question of why faithful or innocent people suffer. (What the theologians call theodicy.) It's the story of the experiences and feelings of one faithful man who undergoes multiple tragedies. It also recounts the ensuing arguments he has with "friends" in trying to explain it all.

Despite their bitter disagreements, through much of the book, Job and his friends all believe in "retributive justice," the idea that when we suffer, it's punishment from God for sin.

It's a tempting argument. So much of life evidences "the law of cause and effect." And the Bible does teach that, in an ultimate sense, suffering is rooted in the human condition of sin, our inborn alienation from God, Who is the source of life. Ultimately too, the Bible teaches that those who refuse to turn from sin and turn to the God revealed in Christ for forgiveness and new life, will suffer eternal alienation from God.

But the Bible--including the book of Job--also affirms two disturbing facts about life in this world:

• The innocent sometimes suffer.
• The unrepentant sometimes thrive.

The book of Job is a warning from God against any simplistic thinking about human suffering. Anyone who, like Job's misguided friends, think they have figured out why people suffer would be well advised to read Job and then, clam up.

Both as a human being and as someone who's counseled people for almost thirty years, I believe (I know) that ultimately, no intellectual explanation of suffering will help people when they suffer or grieve.

That may be why the book of Job ends without an explanation, but a call for continuing reliance on God.

Today, heeding that call may be easier than it would have been for Job. The New Testament records how God came into the world in the person of Jesus and bore both the weight of human suffering and our debt for sin, then rose from the dead. For people who dare to hand over their sins and their lives to Christ, suffering and all its painful questions are not the last word. We have two incredible comforts:

• The presence of Christ with us, "to the close of the age."
• The promise of a new life, free of suffering, with God for eternity.

There are lots of things in the book of Job that disturb me and that I can't explain. And there are many things in this life that disturb me, driving me to fervent prayer. But, I ask God to help me be more like Job, who believed even when he got angry with God. I ask God to help me to keep holding onto Jesus whatever life brings.