You Get to Love!

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

Matthew 22:34-46
This morning, I want to speak with you about love.

Every Christian knows that “God is love.” And we all know that it was God’s love that caused Him to send God the Son, Jesus, into the world to die and to rise so that all who entrust their lives to Jesus will have eternal life with God.

But what is love?

Jesus gives us the answer to that question today. Please pull out today’s Celebrate bulletin insert and look at the Gospel lesson, Matthew 22:34-46.

Let’s set the scene. It’s the Tuesday after the first Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday, a jubilant crowd had welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem. The crowd was sure that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed king promised by God through the prophets.

This roused the concern and jealousy of religious elites, influential people like the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in a resurrection of the dead; like the Pharisees, who were confident that their own righteousness, superior to that of other people, made them favored by God; and the Scribes, also sometimes called lawyers, scholars who were knowledgeable of all 615 laws laid down by God in the Old Testament.

For three days, these religious leaders had peppered Jesus with questions designed, not to learn anything or to engage in respectful discussion, but to trap Jesus. They wanted Jesus to say something they could use to convince their country’s Roman occupiers that Jesus ought to be executed.

But every question they raised, Jesus answered in ways that were consistent with God’s revealed Word in the Old Testament. Nothing He said gave them the ammo they needed.

They had nearly given up on their efforts when we come to our lesson. A “lawyer” asked Jesus what the greatest of God’s commandments is. The Gospel of Mark suggests that this question was asked in earnest. Matthew seems to say that it was another attempted trap. Whatever the case may be, Jesus’ answer is well known to us. Jesus says that the greatest commandment of all comes in two parts.

• Part 1 comes from the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:5, what Jewish folks call the Shema: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 
• Part 2, which Jesus says is “like” the first, also comes from the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:18, part of the Holiness Code: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

God commands us to love. Does that strike you as a little strange?

I ask that question because if you were to ask the average person on the street, “What is love?,” they’d say something like, “Love is a strong positive feeling you have for somebody.” And if you asked this same average person how we come to love someone else, they might say, “You don’t have control over love. It just happens to you. You fall in love with somebody of the opposite sex, for example. Or, you just love your family because that’s who you live with. Or .you like your friends because their niceness wins you over.”

Love is seen, by most people, as a passive thing you cannot keep yourself from doing. But if love comes so naturally to us, why does God have to command us to do it? 

Maybe it’s because the average person’s definition of love is wrong.

Maybe God has a different definition of love.

In fact, we’d be right to suspect that the love that God commands us to bear for Him and for every human being on earth—even for Moammar Gaddhafi’s and Osama bin-Laden’s—doesn’t come naturally to us.

We see how different Jesus’ idea of love is when we read what He says about the two parts of the Great Commandment in verse 40: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

“The Law and the Prophets” is basically, the phrase that the people in Jesus’ day used for what we call the Old Testament.

Since March, many of us at Saint Matthew have been reading and discussing “the Law and the Prophets” together. Repeatedly, we’ve read about God telling His chosen people Israel some tough things. We’ve read that God had given His people a land that they didn’t deserve, then commanded them to honor Him and His commandments. Instead, they treated foreigners like slaves, worshiped other gods, relied on arms and foreign allies instead of Him, sacrificed their children to foreign deities, and engaged in all sorts of sexual practices outside of God’s will.

And so, through His law and prophets, God reminded His people that He had chosen them not because they were better than others, but because He chose to love them and He wanted them to choose to honor Him in response, by loving Him and loving others.

When Israel fell into sin, God sent His law and prophets to call Israel back to Him. (Just as Jesus would later tell the world, “Repent and believe in the good news” about Him.)

Through the Law and the Prophets, God told the people that if they didn’t turn back to Him the life that only He can give would be lost; their soil wouldn’t produce crops; they would suffer drought and famine; their promised land would be taken from them; they would be taken as slaves by foreign conquerors; and their kings would become eunuchs held as servants in the palaces of foreign kings. These hard words sound nothing like the average person's mushy, involuntary, can't-help-loving-you version of love.

But God insists throughout the Law and the Prophets that in saying such hard things, He was being loving. God was warning His people, as He warns all people today that when we choose disconnection from the only One Who can give us life and meaning to the lives we live, there are inevitable consequences. But if we choose to turn back to God, there are also consequences. Wonderful consequences! God wanted Israel to turn back to Him and live. God wants all people to turn to Jesus, God in the flesh, and live!

Today, the love of God may compel us, like it compelled the prophets before us, to say some very hard things.

• We may have to tell the bigoted neighbor that bigotry has no place in the kingdom of God. 
• We may have to say to the child who engages in sexual intimacy with a boyfriend or girlfriend that while we love them, their behavior, contrary to God’s will that such intimacy only be shared by a man and a woman in marriage, is pushing God out of their lives. 
• We may have to say to the friend who brags about cheating the government out of tax payments that no matter how we may object to government policies, God still expects us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. 
• And we most certainly will need to tell our spiritually disconnected friend that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that forgiveness and eternal life and relationship with God comes only to those who repent for sin and believe in Jesus Christ.

Loving God and loving others involves a lot more than just the things we say, of course. In the Great Commandment, Jesus also demands that we live our lives differently: that we be patient and understanding of others’ faults, that we put the most charitable construction on others’ actions, and always look for what is best in others.

Paul describes the love Jesus commands in 1 Corinthians when he writes, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, bur rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

In other words, loving God and others as the Great Commandment mandates is impossible! Yet, there it is in our Bibles and on our Celebrate inserts in black and white, Matthew 22:37-39, the Great Commandment. And if we can’t obey this impossible commandment, can any of us have the hope of living with God in eternity?

Relax! 

Next in our Gospel lesson, Jesus asks a question of His questioners: “Whose son do you think the Messiah is?” He asks.

The Pharisees and the Scribes say, “The son [or the descendant] of David,” Old Testament Israel’s greatest king.

Now, earlier Matthew’s gospel does say that Jesus is a son of David. But that’s not all of Who Jesus is! That’s why Jesus next asks who King David was talking about when he wrote in Psalm 110:1, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’…” Jesus goes on to say, “If David…calls Him Lord, how can He be [David’s] son?”

You see, Jesus is claiming that He is more than a man raised by descendants of King David; He is also God, the author of love, the one Who, in three days, would do the hardest thing that love has ever done. He would die on a cross which His sinless life did not deserve.

Because Jesus is God, He's able to do the impossible: He can love the unlovable; He can give new life to the dead and the mortal.

You and I are incapable of loving God or loving neighbor as Jesus commands us to do. But Jesus has kept this commandment perfectly for us and gives to all who believe in Him the power to love beyond their own human abilities.

I couldn’t stand one of my seminary professors when I first met him. I thought his lectures were boring. I frittered through his class the entire quarter and failed it. I liked him even less after that. Two years passed. Then, there was a class I had to take to graduate. Guess who was teaching it?

I prayed: “God, I don’t like this guy. But I don’t like this feeling, either. Please, in spite of my feelings for him, love him through me.”

It didn’t happen instantly, but things began to change and I found that gradually, I came to love this man.

If we are serious about keeping Jesus’ greatest commandment, the one that sums up and includes all the others, we need, first of all, to go to God and admit our inability to love either God or neighbor as He commands we do.

“Lord,” we might pray. “I’m upset with You right now. You seem so distant and so uncaring to me at this time. Yet, I know that Jesus died on the cross because of Your love for me. Because of this, I choose to love You. Give me the power to serve you in spite of what I’m feeling right now.”

Or, we could pray, “Lord, I see nothing good in this person. He or she has hurt me. I can’t muster any pleasantness toward them. Yet Jesus died and rose for them too. Despite my feelings, give me the faith to do some tangible acts of caring and service for them. Love them through me!”  

Jesus does command us to love God and to love others. And it is a commandment we cannot keep without inviting Him to control our lives and wills.

But what we learn from the Savior Who is Son of God as well as Son of Man is that love isn’t what we feel. Love isn’t primarily about emotions. Love is often what we do in spite of how we feel. Love is constituted by the acts of service and kindness, the attitude of kind hopes that, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we choose to bear toward God and others and that God brings to life within us!

I've told you before about the seasoned Methodist pastor who once said, "For forty years, I've gotten it wrong. I've preached to people, 'You've got to love.' In fact, what I should have preached is, 'You get to love!'" Jesus gives us permission to ask for His help in loving God and others the way He loves us. You get to love. Don't miss out on the privilege of that.

Let's Look Around the Garden

Today brought a perfect, crisp, clear fall day. So, I went out into the church garden to take this short video. Earlier, a group of kids had congregated there, laughing and talking, while one of their number tried perfecting jumps on her skateboard. Enjoy this slice of a sunny October Saturday!

Two Special Memorials

On November 6, All Saints' Sunday, we'll be dedicating two memorials in honor of two special Saint Matthew members.

One is an oak tree and butterfly bushes, all planted this past week, in honor of Sarah. Sarah was a twenty year old member of the congregation, who died in August after a valiant seven-and-a-half year battle with cancer. Sarah loved butterflies or more accurately, butterflies loved her. The oak tree, projected to live 200 years, is, along with the bushes, a fitting memorial to one who taught us so much about trustingly living for Jesus Christ. (For more about Sarah, see here.)

On the same day, we'll dedicate a brand new sound system at Saint Matthew in memory of Luke, a lifelong member of the congregation who died two years ago at age 87. Active until the end of his life, Luke operated the old sound system every Sunday and for every other service--when not, briefly, away on vacation--for many years. In fact, he commented shortly before he passed that he hadn't missed providing service for a funeral in the Saint Matthew sanctuary in 25 years! Operating the sound system is no small matter at Saint Matthew because it connects the congregation with a radio audience that listens to our Sunday worship every week. Saint Matthew has been on the radio continuously since 1962. Luke did a lot of other unheralded things for the congregation. He would love this new sound system, I think! (For more about Luke, see here.)

Below the new mixer board cabinet is pictured.

[Click on the images to enlarge.]

Goodbye!

I like this post, today's installment from Our Daily Bread. Believers in Jesus Christ do have hope beyond the grave. So, we can take a different view of life and death.

But, not to be picky toward the grandfather mentioned in the Our Daily Bread piece, "Goodbye" is actually an old English contraction for the phrase, "God bless you [ye]."

I try always to make a point of always saying, "God bless" when I end a phone call or a visit. That isn't a final greeting, it's a prayer for continuing blessings.

Goodbye!

By the way, here's a link to the great passage on which the Our Daily Bread post is based.

Read Maria Shriver's Interview with Billy Graham

On her web site, Maria Shriver has an interview with Billy Graham. Graham has written a new book, Nearing Home. He talks about aging with faith, significance, and dignity. I like the interview, especially his discussion of the riotously funny and wise inscription Graham's late wife Ruth wanted inscribed on her tombstone. Read the whole thing.

It Took a Heart Attack

"I had a heart attack because I'm a control freak."

That's what I told some friends yesterday. My wife will tell you that I'm not your stereotype control freak. I don't rant or rave or try to get my way. My "freakiness" has expressed itself in having certain expectations about what I'll get accomplished in the course of a week or a day or my lifetime.

My heart attack, suffered a year and a half ago, has caused me to begin to learn to practice what I've always preached: It's OK to have an agenda, as long as you realize that it may need disrupting.

James writes in the New Testament portion of the Bible: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.' Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring." (James 4:13-14). Money has never motivated me, but I have fooled myself with the idea that I could "plan the work and work the plan." Life, it turns out, is messier and less predictable than that.

Planning is fine. But we need to be flexible about our plans. Some of those things that interrupt your plans may actually be part of God's plan for your day.

Having my agenda interrupted caused me stress and stress, when sustained and unchecked, can lead to heart attacks and other negative physical reactions. Stress, of course, isn't what happens to you. It's what you do in response to what happens to you. Stress is inevitable; how we handle it is optional.

Not to be cute about it, but I'm now learning that when "interruptions" to my agenda come along, instead of being stressed, I can feel blessed. Many interruptions are more than annoying occurrences; They're opportunities God gives us to love Him, love others, and be useful to Him.

I'm learning that it's better for my health, my character, and my daily walk with God to be interruptible. I've preached it for years. It took a heart attack to get me to start living it.

It Might Be a Good Addition to Your Library

Those who have been participating in our 'Read the Bible in a Year' discussion groups know how much I value the Eerdmans Handbook to the Bible, an informative reference book for anyone wanting to read and understand the Bible. You also know that the book is out of print.

But just yesterday, I learned about a new and similar reference book that's been put out by the same publishers. It's called The Eerdmans Companion to the Bible. I haven't read it. But I am familiar with the editors, New Testament scholars I admire. I also know that Eerdmans, the publishers, do a great job with reference works of this kind.

Amazon offers the book for just a little over half the publisher's list price. Through Amazon, it's $20.62, instead of $40.00. Just a thought.

A Church That Doesn't Do Funerals?

I agree with Rick Warren, the pastor of a megachurch in Orange County, California, that "the church that doesn't want to grow is telling people to go to hell."

We have a commission from Christ to "make disciples," helping others to know and follow Jesus into eternity with us. Depending on what the Holy Spirit does in the hearts and wills of those with whom we share Jesus (and a lot of other factors we may never know about), obeying Jesus' commission may bring numerical growth to our individual congregations. And it would be foolish and faithless for congregations to turn away people just because they didn't want the hassle or the grief of growth.

That's why I've never been among those Christians who disdain  megachurches just for being big. That's silly! (As silly as those who attend big churches who disdain smaller churches.)

But, according to one blogger, Richard Hunter, at least one megachurch is more mega than it is church. He writes:

Last week my nephew was in a motorcycle accident that left him brain-dead. My brother and his family had been attending a mega-church known for large, inspiring worship services, great music and autonomy for attendees. The family contacted the church to ask a pastor to come and plan a funeral with them. The church office replied that they did not do weddings and funerals...

I was particularly shocked to learn of a church that refuses to do funerals!

Death is where the rubber hits the road for Christian faith. If our proclamation that Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death and offers resurrection victory to all who repent for sin and believe in Christ isn't true when believers die, then it isn't true.

The truth that Jesus is Lord and is risen from the dead and the comfort it brings needs to be remembered and shared with family members and friends when death hits. The Church, in fact, is never more the Church than it is at funerals in which Christ is confidently and lovingly proclaimed!

Churches that pass on the chance to share the Gospel--the Good News--of Jesus Christ during a funeral are missing out on a tremendous opportunity to be Christ's open arms of love to people who need Christ.

Frankly, I wonder if a church that refuses to do weddings or funerals is really a church any longer. Isn't it just more of an arena where preaching and performances happen than it is a church body in which "if one member suffers, all suffer together...if one member is honored, all rejoice together..." (1 Corinthians 12:25)?

I hope that the no-weddings-or-funerals policy isn't widespread among megachurches.

As it turns out, the funeral for Hunter's nephew happened at the Methodist church of which his brother's family had been members for fifteen years. Two pastors from the Methodist congregation worked with the family in planning for the funeral and brought comfort to the grieving. Hunter writes:

Next time you are tempted to give up your local church and go get lost in one of the mega-churches, remember that one day you will need a personal touch...

Read the whole thing.

The Book That Can Change Your Life

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

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Today’s sermon is a rerun and I think I would have preached it whether I’d spent Thursday and part of Friday at the hospital to get my defibrillator. That’s because the topic for today is something about which I am passionate. It’s about the object of an ongoing love affair in my life and it isn’t with Ann. (How’s that for grabbing your attention?)

To start, I'd like to show you a few books from my personal library.

This first one is a paperback version of the New Testament in the Good News translation. It was given to me by my parents’ church in Columbus when I graduated from Ohio State in 1975. This Bible is especially important to me because this was the very one I read when I first fell in love with Jesus Christ!

It was on these pages that I came to learn more about Who Jesus is and the depths of His passion for you and me and everybody in the world.

Acts was the first book of the New Testament I read in this edition. I remember being especially stirred when I read this verse, which comes after an account of how the apostles, the leaders of Jesus' post-resurrection Church had been beaten for their faith in Christ. It says: “The apostles left the Council [that had beaten them and told them to never speak in Jesus' Name again], full of joy that God had considered them worthy to suffer disgrace for the Name of Jesus.”

To this day, I can hardly read that passage without choking up. Imagine it: These followers of Jesus derived joy from having the privilege of suffering for their allegiance to Jesus! By contrast, I sometimes complain about being inconvenienced by people for whom Jesus died and who Jesus has called me to love.

After I left atheism to become a follower of Jesus, my early mentor in the Christian faith, Martha Schneider, got a hardback version of the whole Bible in the Good News translation. As you can see, it's gotten some wear.

When I went to seminary four years after becoming a Christian, I was required, along with all of my classmates, to have a copy of the Oxford edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. It’s no longer in print, but I used this Bible throughout my seminary career and into my early years as a pastor. After it got worn out and had nearly fallen apart, no matter how much Scotch, masking, or duct tape I put on the binding, I bought another one just like it to replace it. As you can see, after awhile, this second came to look like the first one, too.

It was from this edition of the Bible that I read on the night before my family and I headed to the first congregation I served as a pastor twenty-seven years ago. Just before I went to bed, I read Paul’s letter to a young pastor named Timothy. In the book called First Timothy, Paul gave Timothy advice that I felt that I needed as a then-young pastor myself: “Command and teach these things. Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity…attend to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you…Practice these duties, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Take heed to yourself and to your teaching; hold to that, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”

Later, I bought this Study Bible, which I still use sometimes. And later still, I bought this Life Application Bible. Like the others, it’s now showing its age. I’ve had it for about thirteen years and still use it every day.

A few years ago, I added The Message translation to my arsenal of Bibles. And, within the past year, I’ve gotten two wonderful editions: The Orthodox Study Bible, with notes by Greek Orthodox scholars, and The Lutheran Study Bible, from the publishing house of Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Though I have differences on many issues with both of those Christian traditions, these are wonderful study Bibles.

Now, I’m not showing you my Bibles to impress you. My point is this: Since 1976, reading the Bible has been an almost daily part of my life. And if you were to open most of my Bibles, you’d find underlines and notes all over them. You'd find questions in the margins, too, because there are still many things I don’t understand about God.

Some people might find all my markings on the pages of my Bibles offensive. But if the Bible is God’s Word, as I believe it is, then what you would see in those notes and underlines and questions is the record of my ongoing dialog with God, the conversation to which God invites all of us on the pages of the Bible.

This morning, I confess that I sin every day of my life. I do things that are wrong and say things I shouldn’t say. And I think things which, if any of you were mind-readers, would cause you to want to avoid me at all costs. The Bible hasn’t made me perfect. But it has introduced me to the God Who loves imperfect people like me and is committed to helping those who daily surrender to Him.

It's shown me the God Who's committed to changing us into all that God made us to be in the first place.

You see, unlike Lady Gaga, God doesn’t think that we should pursue sinful lifestyles just because we were “born that way.” In the Bible, God teaches us that we’re not to live as the slaves to sin, which is what we all are when we are born; instead, in Christ we are born again and set free to live God’s way!

When we spend time reading God’s Word, it brings changes to our lives, usually in ways we can’t readily articulate.

I love a story about an exchange of letters to the editor that once appeared in a newspaper in England. It started with a disgruntled church member who wrote something like this: “I’ve been in worship virtually every Sunday for the past thirty years and I have recently realized that I can’t remember a single sermon I’ve heard in all that time. Therefore, I’m going to quit going to worship. It’s obviously a waste of time.” Several days later, another letter to the editor appeared. It began: “My wife has always cooked the meals in our family these past thirty years. Recently, I have realized that in scanning my memory, I can’t really remember more than a handful of specific meals she has prepared. Therefore, I’m going to quit eating.”

Daily taking the time to read God’s Word, like weekly worship, is another way God feeds us and nourishes us. I certainly don’t remember every specific conversation I’ve had with God as I’ve read and written on the pages of my Bible these past thirty-five years. But I do know that when I take the time for this daily discipline, I remember that God is with me and that He is waiting to help me that day.

I receive God’s counsel.

I find what displeases God and the things for which I need to repent and receive the power of His Holy Spirit to change.

I see how God provides for me and how God wants to be with me forever.

I’m encouraged in my down times, guided through life’s mysteries, and brought down to earth when my ego is riding high.

I remember that Jesus died and rose for me.

But it takes time spent reading and paying attention to God's Word for all of these things to become apparent in our lives.

I'm a slow-learner when it comes to almost anything in life. That includes learning what it means to follow Jesus and trust in God. The moment God begins forming faith in Christ within us—something we Lutherans believe starts at Baptism—we are part of God’s kingdom.

But growing up in the faith, living in the confidence that God willingly gives His children, being able to face whatever life throws at us, and becoming the high-impact people of faith we’re made to be, that is a process.

It happens bit by bit as we surrender our lives to Christ. It happens through things like regular worship, regular prayer, regular service, regular giving, regularly encouraging others with the love of Christ, regularly inviting others to worship with us, and regularly reading God’s Word.

This is what Paul is talking about in our second lesson for this morning, composed of the opening passages of his first letter to a church in the Greek city of Thessalonica. He begins by saying how thankful he is that the Christians in this Aegean Sea-coastal city are so faithful to Jesus Christ.

He writes: “For the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Acaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known... [And then Paul goes on to write:] For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, so that we have no need to speak about it.”

Do you see what happened? The Thessalonians had daily feasted on the Word of God. It had become integrated into the very marrow of their souls. The results were predictable. People who lived miles away heard about how Jesus Christ was at the center of their lives and how His Word made a huge positive difference in how they lived and faced each day.

When we daily take in God’s Word, each verse becomes like one of those time-released medicine capsules that, at just the right moments, work. God's Word works within us and then bring into being things like joy, compassion, hopefulness, a commitment to justice, and deep faith.

This, in turn, is seen by others and, as was true of the Thessalonians who influenced other people, we will bring God’s Word to those around us. God’s Word enters us and our lives become God’s Word for others, speaking God’s truth and God’s call to repentance and belief in Jesus.

I urge you to make reading the Bible a daily part of your life.

Wear out your Bibles!

Make notes in the margins!

Memorize verses that are meaningful to you!

Ask God to explain passages that you don’t understand.

Ask God to help you apply the things that you do understand.

Consider joining in with the remaining readings and weekly discussions as we read the Bible together in a year.

And ask God too, to set off the power for living with joy, peace, and hope that comes to all who let God’s Word act as their guide through life. Amen

Audio of Today's 'Read the Bible in a Year' Discussion (Isaiah 34-54)

At Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, we're reading the Bible together over the course of a year. Each Wednesday, we have two get-togethers, one in the morning and one in the evening, to discuss the readings for the week.

Today, we discussed Isaiah, chapters 34 to 54. Isaiah is an important book for Jews and Christians. Chapters 52 and 53 figure large in the latter part of the discussion.

Along the way, we also make connections to the Biblical texts to Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism, David Brooks' The Social Animal, Bette Midler, Jimmy Carter, dysfunctional families, the work of prophets, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, name-it-and-claim-it preachers, and most importantly, the redemption and hope that come only through the God revealed through Jesus Christ and foretold by the prophet Isaiah.

In last week's discussions, I pointed out that there are a variety of theories on the authorship of Isaiah. But I am persuaded that the entire scroll was authored by the sixth century prophet to whom the first thirty-nine chapters of the book are attributed without dispute.

And remember that if you're going to be a prophet, you'll never reap a profit. But God will be with you now and in eternity!

God Says, "Come to the Party!"

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

Matthew 22:1-14
Christians--especially I think, we Lutheran Christians--cherish the grace of God.

And we should cherish it!

Grace is God’s charitable regard for you and me and every human being. In fact, in the original Greek in which the New Testament portion of the Bible was written, the word we translate as grace is charitas, which we’ve carried over into English as charity.

This tells a lot about grace. Like charity, you can’t earn God's grace. It can be given. It can be received. It can be rejected. It can be wasted. But grace, like charity, cannot be earned.

It was because of God’s grace that God came into the world in the Person of Jesus Christ and died and rose so that all who believe in Him will not die, but have life with God, now and in eternity. No wonder we sing about God’s “amazing grace.”

But grace is not and never has been everything you and I need to know about God! The Bible teaches that God’s grace is offered to us as a free gift. But we have the freedom to reject it.

In chapter 2 of the New Testament book of Ephesians, there’s a celebration of “the immeasurable riches of [God’s] grace,” expressed as God’s “kindness toward us in Jesus Christ.” Then it says “by grace you have been saved through faith.”

Grace brings God's gift of new life to all with faith in Jesus Christ.

And faith in Jesus Christ entails trusting Him enough to turn from our sins—that is, to repent—and to turn to Him alone for life.

If you’re going to take up God’s grace, you need to be committed day-in and day-out to laying aside your sin and trusting your whole life to Christ.

The grace of God’s forgiveness, acceptance, and new life is a blank check available to everybody. But you can only cash it through repentance and belief in Him.

You can accept God’s invitation to His heavenly party that never ends or you can turn it down.

This is what Jesus is talking about today in the Gospel lesson. Please pull out the Celebrate insert from your bulletin, go to the Gospel lesson, and let’s consider it verse-by-verse.

Once again, Jesus is telling a parable. The word, parabolos, the Greek New Testament word from which we get our word, parable, literally means to throw or roll along side. In His parables, Jesus told stories. But rolling alongside the stories were other stories, of deeper significance.

The first people to hear this parable from Jesus, particularly the religious elites of first century Judea, were like many Christian denominations and leaders today: They had replaced the revealed Word and will of God with their own notions about how God should work.

In this parable, like others that Jesus tells, He describes what the kingdom of God, the reign of God, is like.

Jesus says in verses 1 and 2 that a king, clearly a stand-in for God the Father, decided to throw a party for his son, who was getting married. In the parable, Jesus is the bridegroom and the banquet is the Kingdom of God.

Then in verse 3, Jesus says, the king sent slaves to tell the already-invited guests that the party had begun and that he was waiting for them to join the celebration. Jesus’ first hearers would have understood themselves as being on that invited guest list. They were, after all, the religious leaders of God’s chosen (or invited) people, Israel.

In casting Himself as the bridegroom, Jesus was laying His claim to be the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed king, the Son of God, Who the Old Testament prophets had said God would send into the world to set up His kingdom, overcome the power of sin and death, and bring God’s grace to the nations.

You'll remember that God the Father had already confirmed Who Jesus was. At Jesus’ Baptism in Matthew 3, for example, a voice from heaven said of Jesus, “This is My Son, the beloved…” Later, you'll also recall, when Jesus was transfigured in His appearance, the voice from heaven spoke again, this time saying, "This is My Son, the beloved; with Him I am well pleased; listen to Him."

But the leaders of God’s people wanted nothing to do with Jesus. That would mean signing over their power and influence to God. But they had a good gig going: lording it over other people, having people’s respect, wielding political clout. That’s why the invitees in Jesus’ parable, in verse 3, “would not come” to the marriage banquet. They turned the invitation down just as Jerusalem would turn Jesus down on the night of His trial before His crucifixion.

But the king, like God, was gracious. He wanted these arrogant, selfish people to be part of the banquet for his son. For centuries, God had used His prophets to call people—including people from outside of Israel—to repent and believe in Him.

God has always wanted all people to be part of His everlasting kingdom. But the prophets and messengers God has sent to issue His invitation to people, in Old Testament times and today, have often been ignored and worse.

In verse 4, the king in Jesus’ parable sent out servants who told his invited guests to come to the party. Everything was ready!

Look at verse 5, though. Some of the invited guests, it says, “made light” of the invitation. The phrase, made light of, translates the Biblical Greek word, amaleo, which means to treat with apathy or indifference. These invitees didn’t care about the invitation.

People can be that way toward the invitation of God to follow Jesus today. They feel they don’t need God. “What has God ever done for me?” they ask. “I’m the one who busts my chops to make a living each day.”

This isn't a new attitude. But God's Word repeatedly warns us against this arrogance. In Deuteronomy, Moses told the people of Israel: “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth…”

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that:“[God] makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

In another place in the Bible, the apostle Paul, while preaching in Athens, Greece, quoted one of the Greek poets to point out that in God, “we live and move and have our being.”

Everybody needs God, whether they know it or not.

Of course, the invitation we receive from Jesus isn’t for a private party. The Christian doesn’t think in terms of “Jesus and me,” but “Jesus and we.” In Jesus, God invites us to a banquet, an eternal kingdom in which we keep company not only with God, but also with everyone who repents for sin, believes in Jesus, and gladly receives God's pure Word of truth and the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

We will need each other to be whole in eternity.

And, as we go through our lives on earth, we need one another as we worship together, seek forgiveness together, and receive grace together. In the New Testament book of Hebrews, we’re told not to neglect meeting together to worship regularly because when we do so, we encourage one another. I bet that one reason many of you are here this morning, is that you need the encouragement that comes from knowing God loves you and that you are not alone in trying to follow Jesus every day!

In verse 6, we’re told that some invited to the banquet went beyond ridiculing the slaves as they turned down their invitations. They seized, mistreated, and killed the slaves.

Verse 7 says that the king was “enraged” by this behavior. He sent soldiers to destroy that city that had chosen to ignore His invitation.

You know, God allows us to turn down the invitation to join Him in the kingdom. And that means God will also let us live eternally with the consequences of our decision. In the Gospel of John, Jesus told Nicodemus, you’ll remember, that if people choose the darkness of life without His grace, they will live with their choice for eternity. God doesn’t want us to make that choice. He wants us to come to the party!

In verses 8 and 9, Jesus says that the king in His parable does a stunning thing. He sends more slaves into the streets to “invite everyone to the wedding banquet.” He wanted to invite everyone, people who had never been invited before! Jesus was saying that through Him, God is now inviting all the riff-raff of the world—all the prostitutes and tax collectors, all the Jews and Gentiles, all the Cardinal fans and Brewer fans, all the Buckeyes and Wolverines and Cornhuskers—everybody is to be invited to be part of His kingdom.

For Jesus’ original hearers, arrogant in their spiritual pride, these words would have been scandalous! Jesus said something similar, though, when He told Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

God invites everyone to His kingdom. God wants everyone to experience His grace. Everyone. No exceptions.

Our commission as Christians and church members is to share God’s incredible invitation to His kingdom with everyone so that they can be part of God’s kingdom too. That’s why I can’t wait to get started on some more kindness outreaches after my defibrillator is implanted this week!

But the last part of Jesus’ parable, beginning at verse 11, is written especially for those of us who are part of His Church today.

The king in Jesus’ parable sees a man at the wedding banquet not dressed in a wedding. The king is offended. Now, Jesus isn’t saying that we’ve got to wear our Sunday best to be in His kingdom. He’s telling people not to pretend to be part of God’s kingdom if they haven’t been clothed in His grace, if they haven’t repented for sin and believed only in Him.

The man in Jesus’ parable not clothed in his wedding garb was thrown “into the outer darkness, where there [was] weeping and gnashing of teeth.” A similar horrible fate awaits those who think they deserve to be in God’s kingdom just for showing up, sitting in a church pew, making an offering, or having their name in a church directory. Hell is the fate of all who reject the grace of God in Christ by refusing to turn from their sins and believe in Jesus Christ.

Those dressed in the robes of repentance and faith in Christ have grasped hold of God's grace. They are in the kingdom of God.

Think of it this way: You can only watch your favorite TV show when your TV set is on and tuned to the right channel. You cannot claim God’s grace if you refuse to repent for your favorite sins and if you think you can follow other “saviors” besides Jesus. If anything but Jesus is our Savior, we shut off the flow of God’s grace into our lives. Turn to Jesus though, and grace will spill all over your life, even in the most trying of circumstances!

Please pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 701. Look at James, chapter 4, verse 10. It says:

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

God’s grace offered through Jesus Christ is a free gift. It comes to those humble enough to confess their sin and to surrender themselves to Christ. As the great hymn reminds us, God’s grace is amazing!

Let it soak into every part of your life, let it usher you into God’s kingdom every single day. Repent and believe in Christ and grace will fill your life, now and in eternity. Amen

It's Fall in the Beautiful Hocking Hills

People come from far and wide to spend time in the Hocking Hills here in Ohio during the autumn months. You can see why in this video I took tonight when my wife and I walked the track at the Hocking County Fairgrounds here in Logan. The leaf colors were gorgeous on perfectly clear night.

A Beautiful Night at Rock Mill Park

We've had tremendous weather here in Ohio: sunny and warm with no humidity. So, last night, we headed to Rock Mill Park in rural Fairfield County, near Lancaster. The site is being developed by the Fairfield park system and is unique for having both a nineteenth century grist mill and covered bridge of similar vintage. The water power for the mill was provided by the Hocking River, at a point where it's particularly narrow.

While we were there, a photographer was snapping pictures of a young woman who wandered barefooted in the shallow water. They'll probably be part of her portfolio of high school senior pictures.

Remembering Fred Shuttlesworth

Sadly, news of the death of the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth has been overshadowed by the death of Steve Jobs. Jobs was a genius, of course, whose life is worth remembering and appreciating. But the courageous Shuttlesworth deserves eulogizing, too. Check out this New York Times piece.


[This photograph by the Associated Press' Dave Martin appears with the article.]

Wonderful Promise!

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).

The Lutheran Confessions on the Bible

"Holy Scripture remains the only judge, rule, and norm according to which as the only touchstone all doctrines should and must be understood and judged as good or evil, right or wrong." (The Formula of Concord, one of the Lutheran confessions)

"The Greatest Form of Evangelism?"

In the thirty-plus years in which evangelism--sharing the Good News about Jesus--has been an obsession of mine, both as a layperson and as a pastor, I have seen lots of evangelism programs come and go.

Each one has promised to revolutionize individual congregations and lead to great spiritual and numerical growth in Christ's Church. I've had it up to my gills with church programs!

I'm not alone. Rice Broocks writes convincingly about the greatest form of evangelism.

By the way, preaching or telling others about Jesus is too important to be left up to preachers only and certainly shouldn't be confined to the pulpit. Every Christian needs to get into the act.

"Hats Off to Steve Jobs"

That's the title of this short post on Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs from my buddy, Steve Sjogren. Worth the one minute it will take you to read.

The Partnership

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

Matthew 21:33-46
You’ve probably heard the story about a day when the pastor visited a church member who was a farmer. The farmer had been incredibly successful, against all odds turning his farm into a money-making machine. The pastor was impressed. “God has really been good to you,” he said. “Yes, pastor,” the farmer answered, “I suppose you’re right. But you should have seen how bad off this place was back when God was running it by Himself.”

Among the unique qualities of being human is that we, unlike any of God’s other creatures, have been made in the image of God. None of God’s creatures are closer to God or more like God than human beings. With that privileged position goes the responsibility of faithfully and creatively using all the gifts that God gives to us. After creating our first parents, Adam and Eve, the Old Testament book of Genesis says that God told them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Later in Genesis, we’re told that God put the first humans in the Garden of Eden “to till it and keep it.”

God never planned on running this universe without our involvement. He always planned on showering the human race with all we needed to play our role in the universe and we were always meant to respond to His blessings with lives of faithfulness to His ways and His will.

But the human role in God’s plans—our partnership with God—became impossible to fulfill faithfully or fully when the condition of sin entered the human gene pool. The condition of sin is more than just doing bad things. It is, as one Lutheran pastor points out, “the attitude of selfishness [that thinks it] needs no God.”

The condition of sin introduced all sorts of things into life in this world that God never intended for human beings to experience. Things like suffering, aging, and death, for example. And the futility that makes it hard for us to do jobs well or on time; that make relationships challenging; and that subjects all of us to decay and illness. The Bible teaches that because of the condition of sin that has infected God’s most important creatures, the entire creation for which God has made us responsible has been “subjected to futility” and “in…bondage to decay” as the apostle Paul puts it in the New Testament book of Romans. It’s not a pretty picture.

Yet, God has refused to give up on you, the human race, or His creation! 

That’s why He has personally come into this world to plant the Kingdom of God, a new and eternal creation in which there is no more sin, death, or futility. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, told people, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of has come near, repent, and believe in the Good News.”

Followers of Jesus believe that while this world will inevitably do its worst to us, that because we live in this world,we will die, that doesn’t have to be the end of our stories.

As Jesus put it when speaking with a grieving friend, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

The New Testament book of Second Corinthians promises: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.”

Through His death and resurrection, Jesus makes it possible for all who repent for sin and believe in Him to live in fellowship with God now and in eternity. God grants those who follow Christ an eternal do-over! And it will be a do-better, infinitely better!

In the Garden of Eden, God asked Adam and Eve to respond to Him with trusting faith. He had given them everything already; all they needed to do was trust in Him. Those who have been reached by the Kingdom of God through Jesus are asked to daily turn our backs on the old ways of selfishness and sin and in trust to Christ.

The Bible teaches that when we repent and trust in Christ, our lives are re-oriented away from sin and self and out toward God and neighbor. We become part of the Kingdom of God and our lives are imbued with new purpose. We want to live and work with God and for God’s aims.

This is what Jesus calls “bearing fruit.”

Each day we live trusting Christ, our lives are being transformed from deserts of futility to gardens burgeoning with the life of God.

Some find this hard to understand. In 1809, the same year that Abraham Lincoln was born, a Scotsman named Robert Morrison headed for China as a missionary. While on the way, the captain of the ship was skeptical of Morrison’s dream of carrying the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Chinese. The captain derided Morrison. “I suppose,” he said, “you think you’re going to make an impression on China.” Morrison replied, “No, sir. I believe God will.”

Morrison was in partnership with God. Are you?

It’s to exactly this kind of partnership that Jesus calls us in today’s Gospel lesson. Pull out the Celebrate inserts and turn to the Gospel for the day, Matthew 21:33-46. The lesson incorporates one of a string of parables (or stories) that Jesus tells in this section of Matthew’s gospel.

You know the story: A landowner planted a vineyard. He went all out. He fenced the vineyard in, dug a wine press, and erected a watchtower. He created a perfect place--an Eden--for the tenants to whom he leased it to work, make a living, and raise their families. After that, the landowner went to another country. Time passed and the landowner sent slaves to collect his share of the vineyard’s produce. This was only right because it was his land, his vines, his wine press, his watchtower.

But the tenants didn’t want to fulfill their responsibility to the landowner. They wanted to keep everything for themselves. So, they either beat, stoned, or killed,  the landowners’ slaves, on two different occasions. 

So, the landowner decided to send his son. He was certain that the tenants would respect him. But, Jesus said, the tenants killed him too.

When Jesus asked His original listeners—members of the religious elite, priests and Pharisees—what should happen to the tenants, they were clear what the rightful punishment for the tenants would be. Each, they said, should be given miserable deaths and other tenants should be given their land and produce.

I believe that Jesus told this parable for several reasons.

First, He was telling the religious elites of first-century Judea that they were just like the religious elites of previous centuries who had killed prophets who, in the Name of God, had called people to respond to God’s love by turning from sin and trusting in God. Jesus knew that in a short time, these very elites would arrange for Him—the Son of God, the Creator of the universe—to be killed, too.

But Jesus also told this parable for you and me. It’s so easy and so tempting for us to get caught up in living and measuring our lives by the standards of this world, so easy to forget that through our Baptisms, God has made us part of an eternal kingdom, so easy to think that the God Who seems to live in “another country” is impotent in the face of all that troubles us in this country.

In fact, I think that it’s sadly true that many Christians most of the time live as functional atheists. I once heard Pastor Paul Cedar tell the story of conducting a Bible study with the leaders of the congregation he served, passionately imploring them to make prayer a regular part of their lives. He was shocked when one council member told him he didn’t have time to pray because, he said, “Prayer doesn’t work.”

Whether from cynicism or despair, we all may be tempted to feel that way sometimes. The sin of this world may tempt us to believe that nothing about our faith is true. I know that was especially true for me back when I was locked in the despair of atheism. In those days, I wrote songs and for me, God wasn't the living Maker and Redeemer of the universe, but a symbol for all that was wrong with the world. In one of my songs, I found myself singing, "Sometimes God, I feel like I'm a million miles from heaven and I can't find my way back home."

There are times, I have seen, when even the most committed Christian may feel like this. Those are good times for us to remember a few things. When our prayers aren’t answered or we’re accosted by grief or heartache, we remember that God knows our grief and heartache first hand; He understands and cares.

We remember that He died for us, a death He didn’t deserve and we remember that He did it to take a punishment that, because of our sin, you and I do deserve.

We remember that He rose from the dead so that all who believe in Christ will one day awaken to an eternal day with Him and all the saints.

When we remember the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, God will awaken faithfulness in us and we will, as Jesus puts it, “bear fruit,” living lives of dependence on God’s grace and power.

When Jesus is in our lives, we live less like the victims of sin and more like the conquerors of death Christ makes of those who trust in Him!

Jesus has brought His kingdom to you and me and He wants to forge a partnership with us that lasts for eternity. It’s a partnership He wants to have with us even now in this imperfect world.

Some of you may know that when our friend Karen Hendrickson was dying of cancer, she called me up and said, “I understand that our church council vice president has resigned. I would like to be appointed to that position.” “Karen,” I said, “are you sure you want to do that?” “Mark, I’ve decided that whatever time I have left on earth, I want to give it to God.” We appointed Karen to council and she served there effectively almost until the end of her life.

Karen bore the fruit of God’s kingdom even as her earthly body was being ravaged. Assured of eternity with Christ, she decided that she didn’t want to waste any time living the way this world says we ought to live—looking out for ourselves or those we decide to care about—and she decided instead, to live and work with God in building up the Kingdom that will live long after this universe has burned up and burned out.

Jesus wants to be a partner with you in building and enjoying the Kingdom of God with Him for all eternity. Turn from sin, trust in Him, seek to live in sync with God’s will and bear good fruit. Let Jesus be your partner in all of your life. Amen

It's Not ABOUT Us...the Gospel is FOR Us

Donavon Riley shares these thoughts from R. Scott Clark: 

The heart of the Gospel isn't about us. The heart of the Gospel is Christ for us (Christus pro nobis). This was the essence of Paul’s message: that Christ came for us, to do for us what we couldn't & wouldn't do. He obeyed. He was crucified. He was raised. He is ascended. He is returning. The medieval church turned the Gospel into a message about what Christ is doing in us, by grace, in sanctification & about what we must do to do our part in order to benefit: cooperate w/grace. The good news is that we have no part, not in this story. We’re recipient. We’re beggars; we’re not contributors to the story.

Song of Songs

Reading Song of Songs (or, Song of Solomon) with folks from Saint Matthew this past week, it struck me how repeatedly the Bible conveys the beauty of sexual intimacy in a marriage between a man and a woman. 

Such oneness in the flesh is seen in the Bible as a gift from God to  husbands and wives. Even Jesus sees marriage between husband and wife as the only, appropriate, and beautiful place for the gift of sexual intimacy to happen. 

Yet some church bodies, including my own, seem to think that they know better than God about when and with whom people should have sexual intimacy. It's sad and ridiculous.

Of course, such presumption on the part of believers who should know better is nothing new. Solomon, traditionally thought to be the author of Song of Songs, himself violated God's will for human sexuality which God had revealed to him. This only goes to show how important is for people of faith to not be harshly judgmental, but constantly pursuing a life style of "daily repentance and renewal," turning each day to God for the help to live faithfully.

People Like Daniel

Today, I went to Columbus to visit Janice, a member of our Saint Matthew congregation who suffered a stroke on Monday night. She is doing remarkably well and may be discharged soon. Fantastic care at the hospital in Columbus, buttressed by the prayers offered by many people, no doubt explain Janice's progress. We said a prayer that included thanks to God during my visit today.

I've been feeling sort of "flu-ish" over the past several days. So, I decided that while in Columbus, I would see my own doctor. He diagnosed a sinus infection and prescribed an antibiotic. Knowing that I was planning on visiting Janice, he asked if I would like for him to send the scrip to the hospital pharmacy. That's how I found myself sitting in the hospital pharmacy when Daniel walked in today.

Daniel works at the hospital as a custodian. I'm sure that the table next to me needed dusted and polished. But I'm also sure God sent Daniel at that particular moment to teach me a lesson.

"Hi," I said. Daniel, who up to that point, had looked intent on being unobtrusive, stood erectly and smiled at me while returning my greeting.

He saw my clerical collar. "Are you a priest or a pastor?" he asked. I explained that I was a Lutheran pastor.

He told me that, at the hospital, he had a ministry. Every day during his breaks, he and his supervisor go to the chapel and pray for the intensive care patients and for anyone else, aware of their ministry, who asks for prayer. (Often, I take breaks, all I do is stuff my face and scan a magazine. Daniel prays for people!)

As our conversation progressed, he told me that he and his wife were from Ethiopia. Both worked at the hospital, taking different shifts so that they could take turns caring for their son. They had just flipped shifts.

He went on to explain that under Ethiopia's previous regime, life was difficult for Ethiopian Christians. It still can be. I told him that both Saint Matthew and I personally had been praying for the oldest Protestant body in Ethiopia, the Mekane Yesus Church, which is a Lutheran denomination. In recent months, more than 50 congregational buildings of the Mekane Yesus Church, which is larger than the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America of which I'm a part, have been burned by radical Islamists.

In Ethiopia, it turns out, Daniel had worked for a Bible society which distributed audiotapes of the Bible, part of a program called, Faith Comes Through Hearing. At many Ethiopian churches, believers and those seeking to know the God of the Bible, ultimately revealed in Jesus, gather to listen to segments of the Bible on tape, then discuss what they've heard. It's one means by which faith in Christ is growing in depth and in numbers in Ethiopia.*

Daniel told me about the day he went to visit one of the churches that was using the Bible on audiotape. The church's building had been attacked by radical Islamists. That was difficult enough for the church's pastor and for Daniel to accept. But Daniel told me that he and the pastor wept when, going through the ash and rubble, they found the case in which the Bible tapes were kept, burnt. "Look, Daniel," the pastor said, "they even burned the Word of God." Daniel told me that on seeing this, both he and the pastor wept.

Two years ago, Daniel and his family came to America. Because of persecution, they had been praying for the chance to leave Ethiopia. "Then," Daniel told me, "God let us come here."

Today, Daniel and his family are involved with an Ethiopian immigrant church in Columbus where 300 believers regularly gather on Sundays. His smiling face betrayed none of his past pain.

My guess is that Daniel would like one day to return to Ethiopia. But I know that wherever he goes, he will have a ministry. He will carry Jesus with him everywhere.

I also know this: All who believe in Jesus Christ can live in the confidence that through our crucified and risen Savior, nothing can separate us from God. When I think of all the bellyaching I can do over minor inconveniences and setbacks, it makes me feel ashamed. That's especially true when I meet joyful Christians with servant hearts, people like Daniel.

People like Daniel inspire renewed confidence in the Lord Who promises to be with His people always, Who promises to meet them even in eternity, where He has prepared places for all who turn from sin and believe in Him.

Thank You, God, for sending Daniel to dust that table and to teach me to trust in You.

*The Mekane Yesuse Church, for example, grew by 300,000 members from 2009 to 2010!

Why We Worship

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

Philippians 2:1-13
True story of a boy named Chad: One day Chad came home from school and told his mother that he wanted to make Valentine’s Day cards for his classmates. His mother wished that she could convince him to forget the idea. Chad’s classmates were always putting him down, picking him last for baseball at recess, and laughing at him. But Chad was insistent; he wanted to make those Valentine’s cards for his classmates. So, Chad’s mom bought the construction paper and the crayons and for three nights he worked hard on making the cards: Thirty five cards, one for each classmate!

On Valentine’s Day, Chad was excited! He carefully picked up the cards, put them in a bag, and ran out the door. Certain that he would be disappointed that his classmates hadn’t remembered him with Valentine’s Day cards, Chad’s mother baked his favorite cookies and had them waiting for the moment he got home from school.

At the usual time, she heard the other children laughing and talking as they walked toward their houses. Behind them all, walking by himself was Chad. It broke her heart to see him. But when he came through the door, there was a spring in his step, even though she could see that, unlike the other kids, Chad wasn’t holding a bag full of Valentine’s cards. Choking back tears, she announced that she had his favorite cookies and some milk for him. But Chad didn't seem to hear. His face was glowing and all he could say was, “Not a one...not a one.” Now, his mother thought she would cry. But then Chad told her, “I didn’t forget a one...not a single one!”

Today, I want to talk with you about worship.

By worship, I don’t mean just what we do on Sunday mornings. Worship is something that we do with our whole lives. And it begins not with our words or our songs or our offerings.

It begins with our attitudes, with the thoughts, actions, and feelings that we allow to be the controlling motifs of our lives. Chad could have been resentful. After all, once again, he had been overlooked and undervalued. Instead, he took a different attitude, the attitude of a servant who isn’t looking out for himself, but for others.

This is the very attitude that the first-century preacher and evangelist Paul commends in our second Bible lesson for today. Take a look at it in our Celebrate insert. Quoting from what had by that early point in the Church’s history, already become a valued worship song, Paul tells the followers of Jesus in the Greek city of Philippi:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. [And then Paul points out that this reflects an attitude, the very attitude Jesus had while living here on earth:] Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, ...though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Worship, real worship, is something that the Christian is called to offer every moment of every day. Worship is a life lived in gratitude for the new life God gives to all with faith in Jesus Christ. In our worship, we constantly express thanks for the new life that Jesus has gained through His death and resurrection for all who repent for sin and entrust their lives to Him.

The word worship, is the descendant of a compound word from Old English, worth-ship. Lives of worship convey the worthiness of Jesus Christ. People who worship God in Jesus Christ say, “This Jesus is the most important Person, presence, power, and force in my life! I give every part of me to Him, because He has given His whole self for me.”

When we gather for community worship on Sunday mornings, we do so for several important reasons.

First and foremost, we worship together because the God we know through Jesus is really worthy of being honored and praised by His people. But we need to be reminded of how much we have to be grateful for.

It’s so easy to fall into ingratitude because we tend to take things for granted. When I was about six years old, my grandparents bought a wooden table and chair set for my sister, Betsy. She used to have tea parties for her dolls with it.

One day, I got the idea that a friend and I could put the table and chairs to better use! I decided to take them to my buddy’s house down the street. So, I found some rope in the garage and, keeping the table upright, I tied two of the legs to the back of my tricycle. With the extra rope, I tied the wooden chairs to the top of the table. My cargo safely secured, I pulled my trike out into the middle of the street and headed for my friend’s house.

Until that point, my mother had no idea what I’d been up to. But with the legs of the table scratching, dragging, and bumping on the pavement, she heard the noise and ran to the door. Then I heard a noise. It was my mother’s voice. “Mark James Daniels, stop this minute!”

After forcing me to help her carry the table and chairs back to our house and before meting out my punishment, my mother asked me what on earth I had been thinking. “Your grandparents spent good money to give this gift to your sister! What made you think you had the right to do that?”

Those words reminded me to never take gifts for granted, especially gifts that resulted from others’ sacrifices. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, sacrificed Himself on the cross and was raised from death by God that Father. Jesus did that for you! This, the most incredible act of self-giving love imaginable, was done for us, not because we deserved anything good, but so that all of us who deserve death for our sins can, if we repent and believe in Jesus, have life with God for eternity!

Sometimes we take Christ and our salvation for granted. In weekly worship, we remind each other of how great and awesome God’s gifts to us really are. We remind each other that a sacrifice of such infinite grace is worthy of the surrender of our whole selves to the God we know in Jesus.

Second, we worship to help us hold onto the God of the Bible alone. Life and a bad-news world seems intent on tearing us away from God.

But the confessions of the Lutheran movement, the constituting documents of our own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the constitution of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church all confess that the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments are to be the yardstick against which all our decisions and actions are to measured.

While we don’t always practice what we preach, we Lutherans believe in the Bible not because the Bible is magical. We believe in the Bible because the Holy Spirit has taught us there is something God-inspired, God-breathed about the Bible. God is invested in these words He gave to finite, imperfect human beings. For over five-hundred years, we Lutherans have believed that the Bible is like no other book because of its unique and life-changing witness, from Genesis to Revelation, of the God of justice and grace we meet in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

We engage in public worship on Sunday mornings and at other times to hear God’s Word and to help us all to hold onto the God of the Bible, the God we meet in Jesus, for all our hope, inspiration, and encouragement.

Finally, we worship together to stir each other to live like Jesus, lives not lived for ourselves, but for others. That kind of life doesn’t make sense to many people you may meet. But you and I know differently.

Think of it like this. If you were billionaire Warren Buffet, how giving could you afford to be? The answer: Very giving! The fact is that is no matter what we may go through in this life, no matter how much of a success or a failure this world may see us as being, the baptized believer in Jesus Christ who repents and trusts in Christ is wealthy beyond all reckoning.

Believers in Jesus have an eternity of riches. Like Paul, writing in the New Testament book of Romans, we can say, “[God] who did not withhold His Son, but gave Him for all of us [on the cross], will He not with Him also give us everything else?”

How generous, how loving, how compassionate can we be toward others when we know that nothing can separate us from the love of the God we meet in the crucified and risen Jesus? Very generous. Very loving. Very compassionate. When we worship together, we’re reminded how much we’re loved…and how much we can love others as a result.

Worship is to be the Christian’s way of life. We worship together each Sunday because we know how worthy God is of our honor and praise. We worship to help us to hold onto the Good News of the God Who is for us even in the midst of a world that never seems to tire of feeding us bad news. And we worship God to inspire one another to live not for ourselves, but for the purposes of God, for the good of others who need the eternity of blessings that we followers of Jesus already have!

Worship is the work of God’s servants who, certain that they belong to God for all eternity, can give themselves utterly to the love of God and love of neighbor. As we worship God together and apart, may God help us to be faithful servants of our loving God. Amen

The story of Chad, originally told by Pastor Dale Galloway, is recounted by Chuck Swindoll, in his book, Improving Your Serve.

Choose the Right Path, Not the Easy One

From Julie Ackerman Link:

Whenever we set out to do something good, even when we’re certain that God wants us to do it, we shouldn’t be surprised when the situation gets worse before it gets better. This doesn’t prove that we’re doing the wrong thing; it just reminds us that we need God to accomplish everything. [emphasis mine]

[See here.]

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

One of my nieces posted this on Facebook recently and I re-posted it. It contains a great anti-bullying message and apparently was circulated in connection with suicide prevention: 

The girl you just called fat? She is overdosing on diet pills. 

The girl you just called ugly? She spends hours putting makeup on hoping people will like her. 

The boy you just tripped? He is abused enough at home. 

See that man with the ugly scars? He fought for our country. 

That guy you just made fun of… for crying? His mother is dying.

Put on Christ (Wedding of Katelyn and Noah)

[This was share during the wedding our niece, Katelyn, and her new husband, Noah. God bless you both!]

Romans 13:14
Noah, you surely know by now that Katelyn loves to accessorize!

I’ll never forget the day that Katelyn showed us some of the contents of her bag. Inside were other bags. Inside them were purses and holders of all kinds. Accessories inside of accessories, purses inside of purses, sort of like those Russian babushka dolls, each one concealing smaller dolls inside, until you get to a tiny one in the middle.

Today, as you begin your married life together, I want to talk with you about the essential accessory you will need for both your marriage and your lives. This accessory and what we need to do with it is described in Romans chapter 13, verse 14. It says, “Put on Christ.”

That phrasing may seem odd at first, but it’s deliberate and precise in describing what it means to be a follower of Christ. Each of us knows that, as the Bible tells us that love, the love we need to power our marriages and our relationships, “is patient…kind…not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.” We know that it doesn’t “insist on its own way…is not irritable or resentful…does not rejoice in wrongdoing…bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Some couples hear that description of love, smile smugly, casting knowing looks at one another and seem to believe, “That’s us. We know how to love.” Sigh.

Let me share a bit of wisdom with you, as your uncle, as a pastor, and as someone who’s been around the block a time or two. No couple—no matter how much they love each other, no matter how well intentioned they are—no couple can muster the kind of love we all know that it takes for a lifetime marital partnership to work.

Only the God we meet in Jesus Christ, the God Who took on human flesh, Who offered His life as the perfect sacrifice for our sin, taking the death sentence we all deserve, Who was raised to life again by God the Father so that all who turn from sin and trust in Christ have everlasting life with God, and Who sends the Holy Spiirit to stand by us, guide us, give us wisdom, and pump us full of hope when it can’t be found anywhere else—only this God can fill you with the love, the forgiveness, the charity, and the understanding you will need to have a marriage more filled with love fifty years from now than it is today.

That’s why you need to “put on Christ,” you need to clothe yourselves in Christ, entrust yourselves to Christ each day. You need to import His tough love, wear it as the essential accessory for living life to the full!

Now, don’t get the wrong idea, the only “happily ever afters” Jesus promises come in eternity. In fact, Jesus once made a strange promise to those Who follow Him. “In this world,” He said, “you will have trouble.” But, He goes on to tell us to take heart because, through His death and resurrection, Jesus also says, “I have overcome this world.” Life can do its worst to us, yet through Christ, we can know that nothing will separate us from the love of God!

Putting on Christ—having faith in Christ—does not come naturally to us. We like to think that we can make it through life on the strength of our own love, or own wills, or our own resolution. But Jesus is emphatic when He says that apart from Him, we can do nothing. The love and help of Christ can be hard to accept; it seems too good to be true that a Savior we can’t see can possibly help us.

But He can, no matter how puny our surrender to Him may sometimes be. A man once approached Jesus. He needed a miracle for his child. “If You are able” to help my son, the man pleaded with Jesus, “would you?” “If?” Jesus asked Him. Anything can be done for the person who believes, Jesus said. “I do believe,” the man responded, “help my unbelief.” It may be hard for us to believe or trust in Jesus—and by the way, harder by far to believe in Jesus when things are going well than when things are going poorly. But if, like that father going to Jesus on behalf of his son, you’re willing to trust Jesus, if you’re willing to put Him on your life and fill you with love and power, you will be amazed at what God does.

Put on Christ! And to reinforce your relationship with Him, be involved with a church family, pray, study God’s Word, serve others in Jesus’ Name, daily repent for sin and trust in Jesus, forgive as you’ve been forgiven.

As you put Christ on day by day, your marriage and your faith will grow stronger. And Jesus will no longer be a mere accessory. He will be, as He has been for Aunt Ann and me these thirty-seven years, “the way, and the truth, and the life,” the third member of your marriage, the One Who helps you confidently to say that while you may be able to do nothing without Christ, you can, as the Bible puts it, “do all things through [Christ] Who strengthens” you.

God bless you both. I love you. Amen