Truly Welcoming Jesus: The Good Part

[This was prepared to be shared during the Sunday morning worship services of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Luke 10:38-42
God values hospitality.

In our first lesson for this morning, Abraham and Sarah welcome three strangers to their tent. At least one of the strangers is God, although Saint Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, believed that Abraham and Sarah welcomed God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whatever the case may be, their hospitality is a great example of how people of faith should act. With Genesis 18 in mind, the preacher in Hebrews writes, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

It’s no exaggeration to say that salvation comes to us when we welcome Jesus Christ and the good news that all who turn from sin and believe in Him have life in His Name with hospitality. Near the beginning of his gospel, John writes of Jesus, the Word made flesh: “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name...”

Only those willing to welcome Jesus as their God and King know the salvation and new life He came to bring through His death and resurrection.

When hospitality is given for the right reasons, it’s a beautiful expression of faith in Christ.

But there’s more to hospitality than fixing dinner, handing your guest something cold to drink, and ensuring that your guests have a good time.

All of which leads us to today’s gospel lesson. Please open your Bible or your bulletin to it, Luke 10:38-42. It says: “Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house.” Martha, at least at one level, practices hospitality. She welcomes Jesus into her home. That’s good.

But does she really welcome Jesus? Or is Martha like I can sometimes be, welcoming Jesus just enough to claim to know Him, but not allowing His Lordship to permeate my resistance to having someone else in charge of my life? Leave those questions in the back of your mind for now.

Let’s read on. Verse 39: “And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word.” Something that often gets overlooked in this passage is the true meaning of Mary sitting “at Jesus’ feet.”

When we talk today about someone sitting at another person’s feet, we usually mean that they sit dreamy-eyed, devoid of independent thought. But this isn’t what Luke meant when he used the phrase.

Let me explain: The title that almost everyone gave to Jesus while He did His earthly ministry was rabbi, meaning teacher. A rabbi’s students--the formal word is disciples--were always said to sit at the rabbi’s feet. It meant that they were learning from the rabbi so that they too could become rabbis, teachers. Disciples hung on their rabbis’ every word because they knew that they would one day have the responsibility of imparting his teaching to others.

But here’s the thing: In those days, women were never rabbis. Women were never disciples. And knowing God’s Word, sharing God’s Word, wasn’t considered a woman’s place. A woman’s place in that culture was in the kitchen, as we see in Sarah in our first lesson.

But that’s not how things work in the kingdom of God that Jesus ushers into the world. As the apostle Paul puts it in Galatians 3:28, in Jesus’ kingdom: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

In the Church, everyone is called to be a disciple, a scribe of God’s kingdom, a rabbi who teaches the Gospel to others who need to know or be re-acquainted with the crucified and risen Jesus and the good news that all who turn from sin and believe in Him have a life with God that lasts for eternity.

But it was hard for Martha to accept that her sister or even she herself could be a disciple and one day, a rabbi, like the men who followed Jesus.

Look at what happens in verse 40: “But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached [Jesus] and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.’"

Now, let’s be clear: Along with what I've said about Martha being hung up on the idea that women had no place in hearing or teaching the Word of God, Martha also appears to be a workaholic, one of those people who believes that by doing good works, she will receive approval from God or from others or will feel like a worthy person. Her hospitality doesn’t seem to be an expression of faith, but of pride and of a controlling personality.

It’s also true that Martha stands as a warning to all Christians to relax, to rest easy in the grace of God, in the knowledge that we are not saved by what we do but by God’s grace given to all who believe in Jesus Christ.

One of the tragedies of the Church is that so many Christians who could live in the freedom of knowing that Christ gives them a friendship with God and the forgiveness of their sins as free gifts to those who trust their lives to Christ, instead turn their Christianity into a list of do’s and don’ts and religious obligations. Martha traded in a relationship with God through faith in Christ for a religion.

That’s not the life that God intends for us!

God wants us to know that He accepts and loves us just as we are and that as we grow closer to Him, the good things we do will simply be an outgrowth of our friendship with Him--what the Bible calls a “fruit of the Spirit”--and not something we feel that we have to do.

Martha is caught up in what Martin Luther called "works righteousness." She's a slave to staying busy instead of living as a free child of God. Misery loves company, you know. So, Martha wants Mary to submit to the same religious slavery she has chosen for herself. That’s why she lashes out at Mary!

Verses 41 and 42 give Jesus’ response to Martha’s outburst: “And Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.’" So, what’s Jesus saying here? Let everything go to seed? Don’t do anything but listen to sermons and Bible lessons all day long? We all know people who, as I've said before, are so heavenly-minded that they're no earthly good.

Is that how Jesus wants us to be. Hardly!

I believe that we can’t really read what Jesus says here without remembering the passage that came immediately before it, Luke 10:25-37. You’ll remember that right after Jesus told a scribe, an expert in the Bible, the parable of the Good Samaritan, He also told him to go and do the same thing. The Scribe’s problem was that he knew all about the faith, but he didn’t do it, didn’t live it.

In today’s lesson, Martha’s problem is that she’s constantly doing, but she has no interest in the Word of God. Without living under the will and Word of God revealed ultimately in Jesus, she was living in futility, relying on her own goodness and her own power to work, instead of on God’s grace, to save her.

That is a dangerous way to live! People, like Martha, who know who Jesus is, who may even be active members of a church yet rely on their good works to save them from sin and death are as eternally lost as those who have never confessed belief in Jesus as their God and Lord. This is why Jesus told Martha that Mary had chosen the good part.

You see, every Christian needs to be a Mary!

That’s why engaging in the study of Scripture, especially in the company of other Christians, is essential to the Christian life. Reading, hearing, and studying God’s Word reminds us of Who God is and, simply soaking up His Word with faith in Christ, can build faith in us even when we know ourselves to be incapable of believing in God or living in Christian hope. That's because the Word of God is powerful! As the apostle Paul reminds us, faith comes when we hear God's Word!

Jesus knew that by taking in His Word, Mary wouldn’t sit for long! When His Word takes hold and creates faith in Christ within us, we will, not from pride, not to control, but from simple gratitude to the God Who went to the cross and offers life forever with God as a free gift to all who dare to believe in Jesus Christ, do their faith in Jesus. They will live like the people set free from the prison of sin and death that they are. [See Luke 8:15.]

Someone asked me this past week, "If we're saved by God's grace through faith in Christ, why doesn't God just let us die and be resurrected so we don't have to put up with this world any more?" Here, I think, is the big reason: Once we have become certain of our place in eternity with God through our relationship with Christ, God wants us to take as many people to heaven with Him as possible. God gives us time on this earth so that we can fulfill that commission. [See 2 Peter 3:9.]

When you and I take time to sit at Jesus’ feet, the Holy Spirit will then empower us be Jesus’ feet, Jesus’ hands, and Jesus’ voice in the world!

We know that Mary chose the good part because it’s only those who live in utter dependence on Christ and His grace who have the power from God to live and serve in Jesus’ Name long after those who try to be live like Christians without the power of Jesus’ Word working in them have given up!

Every burnt-out Christian I have ever known was one who thought they had to do everything themselves, like Martha.

Every joyful Christian I’ve ever known has been one who knew that they were completely dependent on Christ and that being a Christian is a team activity best lived out in that company of other forgiven sinners called the Church.

And joyful Christians change the world!

I recently heard the true story of Pastor Gil, who served a congregation in a poverty stricken barrio in the Virgin Islands.

Gil wanted to reach out to others with the good news of Jesus Christ, but few responded.

Then, he befriended an alcoholic named Sam. He shared the gospel with Sam and over time, a miracle happened. Sam received Christ as his Savior and was able to enter recovery from his addiction.

Sam, like Pastor Gil, wanted to share Christ with others, but few were interested in coming to worship to hear the gospel.

Then, Sam had an idea: “Pastor, come bless my house. I’ll invite my neighbors and friends. They can have parts in the blessing. You can tell the good news about Jesus and they will want to follow Jesus too.”

The house blessing happened. But no one responded to the gospel. No one came to church.

One night some time later, while working on a sermon, Pastor Gil became aware of a commotion. He looked out his window and saw that something was on fire. Along with others in the community, he ran to the fire to see if he could help.

The building on fire was Sam’s house, the one Gil had blessed. It burned to the ground. Sam’s friends laughed as the last embers were extinguished: “You thought Jesus would protect you.”

Sam pretended not to hear their words of derision. Instead, he fell at Pastor Gil’s feet. “Thank you, pastor,” he said, “for blessing my house. Something woke me up. Had you not offered a blessing, I would have died in the fire.”

Over the next four months, Pastor Gil blessed forty-eight homes and twenty-nine people came to faith in Jesus Christ.

A pastor and a parishioner steeped in the Word of God, like Mary, let their faith lead them to action, and twenty-nine people who might have otherwise remained separated from the new and everlasting life that only Jesus Christ can give, came to faith in Christ and to eternal life!*

My message to you this morning is simple. Be a Mary! Be a Gil! Be a Sam! Welcome Jesus and His Word of grace and power into the center of your life. Then do your faith in Jesus wherever God and your life may take you. You never can tell what God might do in you and through you. Amen!

*This vignette was shared by Bishop John Bradosky during a recent sermon.

[I am indebted to the scholarship of Fred Craddock and N.T. Wright in helping me to more clearly understand this incident from Jesus' ministry than I had previously.]

No Proud Christians

"There are two words that don't go together: pride and Christian. How can you be a proud Christian? That's an oxymoron. The opposite is true. Becoming a Christian requires humility; humility to say, 'God, I'm a sinner. I don't deserve Heaven. I don't deserve to be loved by You on the basis of my good works, my earnings, my intelligence, or my knowledge. You, in Your rich mercy, have forgiven me, a wretched sinner. God, thank You." (Bob Lenz, in his book, Grace: For Those Who Don't Think They Measure Up)

Changing our focus...

...really can change our living.

Set Free!

I thought of a statement made by Martin Luther, posted a few days ago on Facebook by the Institute of Lutheran Theology, as I read today's installment of Our Daily Bread and the incident from Jesus' ministry on which it's based.

Luther said: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all, subject to all.”

Certain of their eternal futures, Christ sets each of His followers free to live a lives of servanthood unencumbered by the worldly desire to come in first.

Just one more reason that the radical Gospel of Jesus Christ is so scandalous in a dog-eat-dog world of self-promotion and self-seeking. But it's only at those moments when we realize that life isn't about us that we're set free to become the Christ-like people we were made to be.

Great Article on Mariano Rivera

As Mariano Rivera closes an amazing career still at the top of his game, The New York Times ran this terrific article about him on Tuesday.

Rivera was his usual impressive self on the mound in the eighth inning of Tuesday's All Star Game.

Be Careful What You Pray For

[This is another one of the sermons I prepared for worship this morning at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. It and the second one I prepared sort of got blended in the delivery.]

Luke 10:1-20
There’s an old saying: “Be careful what you pray for. You just might get it.”

This past Tuesday, during my morning prayer time, I stopped talking to God for a time and asked instead for God to speak to me in the silence.

“Is there something that You want me to pray about, Lord?” Often, when I pray like that, all I get is silence and that’s OK because just being able to know and speak with God by way of Jesus Christ is wonderful enough for any believer in Christ.

But, this last Tuesday, sitting in silence, a thought crossed my mind, a thought I believe came from God: It had been a while since I had directly and personally shared the Gospel--the good news that God’s passion for all people is so great that He sent His own Son Jesus, so that all who turn from sin and follow Him, who believe in Him, won’t remain in the state of separation from God in which all human beings are born, but will be made right with God and have life with God forever--[It had been a while since I’d shared that good news] with a spiritually disconnected person.

I’d shared the gospel with the people of Saint Matthew, of course.

I’d shared it indirectly with all sorts of people on my blog and my Facebook and Twitter pages.

And I love doing both of those things.

But, I believe that it was God Who reminded me and convicted me in the silence, that it had been awhile since I had lovingly and compassionately looked into the eyes of a person not in relationship with Jesus and shared the Gospel with them.

So, I prayed, “Lord, help me to share the good news with some spiritually disconnected person soon.”

God loves all people. He wants all people to know how much He loves them. He wants all people to have the relationship with Him that only comes through faith in Jesus Christ. He wants all people to know about Jesus’ death and resurrection so that believing in Him, they can have life with God, now and forever. And ordinary people like you and me--and like the seventy Jesus sent out on a mission in today's Gospel lesson--are the "jars of clay" He uses to carry the message of His love to a broken and needy world.

Well, Tuesday passed. Wednesday passed. There were conversations with a number of folks as I connected by phone or in person. But all of those happened basically, within the Christian ghetto. The Fourth of July was spent with mostly family members. I had almost forgotten my prayer when I went for physical therapy for this bicep tendonitis the doctor’s been treating lately.

I arrived at the treatment center with a bottle of water in one hand and a book in the other. I always take a book with me, just in case there’s some delay or a lull during the sessions.

My name was called and I went back for my treatments. The discussion with the therapists started predictably. “How have you been lately?” we asked each other. One of them told me about tackling and conquering a major tidying project, clearing the way for some redecorating.

Then, about twenty minutes into the treatment, one of the therapists, noticing my book, asked, “What are you reading?” “Oh, an Agatha Christie novel,” I said, Murder on the Orient Express. “I thought it was a mystery,” she said. “That’s a little surprising. Usually, I’ve noticed you’ve brought religious books with you.” She was right. But this was what I’d taken that day.

Now, I hadn’t picked up that Agatha Christie paperback with the idea that, “This book will allow me to share the Gospel with someone at the physical therapy center today.” But bizarrely, the fact that, at the last second, that was the book I picked up, led to a conversation about stories, how Jesus told stories, and how this past week at the IMPACT youth gathering, we heard true stories of young people who, after being rejected by their peers and even their own parents, even after violating the will of God, they found the grace, forgiveness, and love God offers to us through Jesus Christ. They learned that we are saved not by what we know, not by obeying religious rules, and not by being good enough, but solely by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, this conversation unfolded over a period of about a half-hour and it wasn’t as one-sided as that summary makes it sound. But this very natural conversation gave me the chance to share the Gospel with a spiritually-disconnected person.

It was only after I got back to my office at home and was praying that I realized, “God just answered that prayer I prayed last Tuesday!”

Somehow, we in the Church have managed to make the simple act of sharing the most important truth anyone can know--the truth that God loves us, sent Jesus to save us from ourselves, and that we can receive that salvation simply by turning from our sinful, self-driven ways and receiving the gift of faith in Jesus Christ--[we’ve turned all that] into something complicated, forbidding, the area of “experts.” But, truly, every Christian has the ability to tell others about the Savior Who has come to save us from hell and to give us heaven with God! Every Christian!

In today’s Gospel lesson from Luke, Jesus calls seventy of His followers to travel two-by-two to cities He intends to visit.

Their message is simple: “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” That makes sense; Jesus is the King of kings Who came to bring the kingdom of God into our world. All who believe in Him are part of that eternal kingdom.

Now, it’s important to remember that earlier in Jesus’ ministry, He sent out the twelve, the apostles, on a similar mission. That’s easy for us to understand. They had become the experts, trained in the world’s most exclusive seminary, three years on the road with Jesus.

But here, in today’s lesson, Jesus sends out non-experts, laypeople, into the world to do the same thing He had earlier sent the apostles to do. They were to share the Good News of the kingdom to which all people can belong by God’s grace through faith in Christ. Our lesson goes on to tell us that the seventy pursued that mission, even casting out demons in Jesus’ Name!

Now, there are three things I want to point out as being  important in this lesson.

First: God wants people to be saved from sin and death. That's why Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead. It’s why He sent the seventy in our lesson and it’s why He sends you and me into the world with a great commission.

So, pray that God will send witnesses  for the crucified and risen Jesus into the world. In verse 2, Jesus says, "The harvest truly is great [the numbers of people in need of the Gospel are enormous], but the laborers [the numbers of people willing to share the Gospel with others] are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

Out of gratitude for the grace of God given to them in Jesus and out of love for others who need Jesus as much as they do, every Christian should make it her or his business to pray that workers--everyday Christians like you and me--will be prompted and empowered to share the Gospel with their spiritually disconnected friends.

But a word of warning: Be careful what you pray for. It’s often been my experience that if we are passionate enough about something to pray about it, God will often answer our prayers by saying, “OK. YOU be the answer to that prayer.”

As you pray for workers to go into the harvest, be prepared to be one of those workers who carries the Good News into the world, into Logan, into your family, into the place where you work or go to school!

Second: Expect opposition when you share the Gospel. Among those who cried for Jesus’ crucifixion, I’m convinced, were people who knew or at least strongly suspected that He was God in the flesh. They hoped that by killing Jesus, they could overthrow the power of God and believe the lie that Satan has been trying to feed the human race since the beginning, the lie that we can (or should be) like God.

Jesus warns us that the opposition that killed Him will also seek to keep us quiet as we strive to share His Good News. In verse 3 of our lesson, Jesus says, “I send you out as lambs among wolves.”

Jesus never promises that if we follow Him, everyone will love us, we’ll have lots of money, and we will never suffer. Elsewhere, Jesus says: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

Like Stephen, the first Christian to be killed for following and sharing Jesus with others, when we face opposition to the Gospel that we share with others, we can join Jesus in the prayer He offered from the cross: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.”

When, by faith, you know you will rise with Jesus, you can take risks to share God’s love, justice, and hope into the world that you would otherwise be terrified to share. You can face life and death knowing that none of God’s promises will ever let go of those who entrust their lives and their eternities to Jesus Christ alone!

Finally: Share your faith in Christ out of simple gratitude for His grace. Grace, you know, is God’s charity for sinners. Christians know that we deserve condemnation and death for our sin. But because of God’s grace and our trust in Christ, the One Who brings God’s grace to us, we’re set free from death.

Romans 8:1 says: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

And Ephesians 2:8 reminds us: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God...”

Life with God is a gift you and I could never earn nor deserve. There is no greater gift than life with God! 

And it has been bought for us by Christ through the shedding of His blood, His suffering, and His death on a cross!

Of course, Christ’s death and resurrection hadn’t yet happened when Jesus sent the seventy out on their mission. So, maybe they can be excused for the triumphalism they display, getting more excited about being able to exorcise demons from people in Jesus’ Name than they were about the gift of everlasting life with God that Christ gives to all who believe in Him.

But all too often, Christians give Jesus a bad name by looking down their noses on others, acting as though they’re superior because they’re Christians. We must never fall into this trap!

No Christian can ever claim to be superior to any other human being, even if those other human beings are Osama bin-Laden or Adolf Hitler.

We followers of Jesus know that we are undeserving sinners saved only by the wonderful grace God gives through Jesus. That’s why someone has said, “Evangelism--sharing the Good News of Jesus--is nothing more than one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread.”

Jesus is the bread of life Who gave Himself so that all who turn to Him will live.

May it always be our prayer that there will  be workers for Christ willing to share His Good News with the spiritually disconnected in our world and in our community.

But watch out when you pray that way: Jesus may appoint you to be the answer to that prayer! Amen

The Real Joy!

[I prepared two different sermons to share during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio this morning. I ended up giving neither one, but a version that sort of combined both. Here's one of them.]

Luke 10:1-20
Abraham Lincoln once told the story of a man who was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. The man was asked how it felt. According to Lincoln, the man said that if it weren’t for the honor of the thing, he would just as soon as have walked.

The seventy people Jesus called to carry the Gospel into communities Jesus planned on visiting may have felt that way as they listened to the instructions Jesus gave after calling them. We may feel that way too: There is no greater joy or thrill than knowing that we have been saved from sin and death by God's grace through our faith in Jesus Christ. But the joy of that free gift only comes to those willing to follow and confess Jesus in a world that often makes following Him and confessing Him difficult.

Last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, on which Jim Kalklosch preached, begins a section of Luke’s Gospel known as the greater interpolation, running from chapter 9 through chapter 19, that details Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, toward His crucifixion and resurrection.

Luke makes clear that Jesus is intent on fulfilling this calling. Luke 9:51 says that Jesus “set His face to go to Jerusalem.” No matter what pain was to engulf Him--and Jesus, as God, knew perfectly in advance all that He would have to endure as a human being in Jerusalem--Jesus wouldn’t allow anything or anyone to stop Him from offering His life on the cross to free from sin and death all who turn from sin and believe in Him. This was His mission on earth.

As I said, as today’s Gospel lesson begins, Jesus anticipates the places He will visit on the way to Jerusalem. We’re told: “After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.”

Earlier in Jesus’ ministry, He had sent the twelve apostles into villages He was to visit. The apostles were the ones who were to spend three years in the greatest seminary that ever existed, following, living with, and learning from Jesus day to day.

But now, Jesus was sending ordinary believers, people like you and me on a similar mission. In Christ’s Church, everyone has a ministry and everyone is called to share the Good News of new life for all who repent and believe in the crucified and risen Jesus.

Look, beginning at verse 3: “Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves.” “Listen,” Jesus is saying, “the life I offer you with God is a free gift of grace. It’s offered to all sinners who recognize their need of forgiveness and a fresh start and who entrust their lives to Me. But following Me in this world will not be easy. Don’t expect the world to throw you a party when you call them, in My Name, to repent and believe in Jesus Christ alone.” If even the Word made flesh encountered hatred, opposition, and rejection, we who follow Him can expect no less.

Look at verse 4, please: “Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road.” Followers of Jesus are to be as intent on following Him as Jesus was on going to Jerusalem.

In a world filled with all sorts of opportunities and distractions, at least for people like us in middle class America, it’s easy to lose our focus on following Jesus.

But when we veer off course, the God we know in Jesus is anxious to help us to move from sin and move back toward Jesus. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to [the human race]. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” Stay focused on following Jesus and when your focus gets blurry, turn to the God Who loves you and wants what’s best for you to set things right between You and Him!

What Jesus says next is more specifically geared to the seventy He’s sending out, but it has application to us too. He says: “But whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house.' And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. And heal the sick there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'”

There are people who will welcome you and your witness for Jesus. They may not understand it at first. But as long as they show no hostility to you when you share your faith with them, you shouldn’t stop. The apostle Peter writes: “...do not be frightened. But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.”

As Christians, our aim, like the seventy Jesus sends in today’s Gospel lesson, is to share Christ--we tell them that His kingdom is as near as their openness to the Word about Jesus that can create faith and give new life to those who hear it.

Like them, we also aim to bring God’s healing to the world. This past week, during the IMPACT youth gathering, the 350 youth and adults there packed over 21,000 meals, meaning that 58 children in Haiti can be fed for a year.

In addition, 25 children were sponsored through Compassion International.

Saint Matthew will seek to share Christ with our community through our Vacation Bible School, August 12 through 16.

And we’ll seek to bring Jesus’ healing to others with the community dinner we’re having on Saturday, July 20 to raise money for the Hocking Hills Inspire Shelter.

The women of the church are this year leading us in contributing bars of soap to be used in this year’s Lutheran World Relief project.

As the body of Christ, the Church is the hands and feet of God! Jesus sent the seventy out to be His hands and feet. He sends us out with the same mission.

Then, starting at verse 8, Jesus makes clear that He gives all of us who follow Him the great commission to make disciples: “But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, 'The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.' But I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that Day for Sodom than for that city. "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades.”

As followers of Jesus, with our focus on Him, we can’t get hung up on those who oppose or hate us when we follow Him or share Him. If people are unwilling to receive the peace or good news of Jesus which He empowers us and commands us to share with others, we’re to know that His peace and favor is still with us and simply move on. We're to be people with tender hearts and thick skins!

In these verses, Jesus mentions several Gallilean communities, including His adopted hometown of Capernaum as places on which His judgment will fall because they have rejected His Lordship. He says that two Gentile cities notorious for their sin--Tyre and Sidon--will be better off on the day of judgment than these Jewish cities smug in their self-righteousness, certain of their place in God's kingdom even as they reject the King of kings.

Then, Jesus says in verse 16: “He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.’"

When you and I speak, live, or act in the Name of the One Who died and rose for us, we do so in the Name and the power of God the Father. We speak the message of God Himself.

That’s not a thing to be taken lightly. And we’re to be very sure that we never put our words or thoughts into the mind or mouth of God.

But when we have acquainted ourselves with God’s Word, we surrender our every moment to Him, and we know the truth of God that might help another person, we shouldn’t be shy about sharing that Word. We have God’s permission to do so. In fact, we have His command to do it. 1 Timothy 1:7 reminds followers of Jesus: “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”

Verse 17: “Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.’ And He said to them, 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.'”

The seventy came back to Jesus in a triumphant mood. Jesus hadn’t even told them that they would be exorcising demons in His Name and they found that they could do it!

But this was a dangerous time for the seventy, a moment of great spiritual vulnerability, a time when the very evil they were so excited about overcoming could, if they weren’t careful overcome them.

Every now and then, I preach a sermon that really seems to "click." People tell me, “That was a great sermon.” (Even Ann!) Now, folks, I know that when a sermon “works,” it’s not because of me. It’s because I’ve gotten out of the way and let God speak from the pulpit that day.

But do you know what happens? The next day, as I start to work on my sermon for the following Sunday, I subconsciously think, “I’ve got to write a sermon as good as last week’s.” Listen: When we think that our good sermons, good deeds, good parenting, good advice, or good anything comes from us, we’re in trouble. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.”

If VBS goes well, if the dinner for the Inspire Shelter goes well, if any good thing we seek to do as followers of Jesus goes well, we can be grateful. But things going well is not what we should most celebrate in life. That’s why Jesus says in the final verse of our Gospel lesson: “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven."

The most precious possession any human being can have is a right relationship with God. It’s a possession that can sustain us through anything that might happen to us in this world, that assures us that we belong to God forever.

But we can’t work for it, earn it, or deserve it. It’s a gift. It belongs to those in whom God’s Word and God’s Holy Spirit has planted the gift of faith. It belongs to those who trust in Jesus Christ, Who died and rose for them.

Ephesians 2 reminds us: “For by grace [God’s charity] you have been saved through faith [in Christ], and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God...” 

When, by grace, we come to believe in, trust in, surrender to Jesus Christ as our only God and King and Savior, our names are written in heaven. Knowing that is the great thrill and joy of being a Christian!

When you know that your name is, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, written in heaven, every good thing that comes your way is gravy. 

Every bad thing can be endured with confidence and hope. 

And, like the seventy Jesus called in today’s lesson, you can dare to share His good news and His healing love with confidence and passion! Amen

5 Reasons to Make Walking Your Way of Getting in Shape

That's the title of a piece I wrote two years ago for Yahoo Voices. Tell me what you think/

What Monarch Butterflies Hint

Today's installment of Our Daily Bread asserts that the design of the Monarch Butterfly, along with that of all of God's creation, points to the One Who designed them all.

Of course, nobody can "prove" God's existence, much less His grace and the new and everlasting Life God offers us all in Jesus Christ: These things God has had to reveal to us, ultimately, through Christ's death and resurrection.

But when you consider that anything made must have a maker, the universe, at the least, points us to the possibility that there has been an extraordinary maker at work!

[Also: Check out Psalm 104:10-24.]

Power Over Evil: Jesus Brings Freedom!

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

Luke 8:26-39
Someone has said that in our Gospel lesson for today, with its account of Jesus casting a legion of demons into a herd of pigs, we have the first recorded instance of deviled ham.*

Corny joke aside, this is an important text for us to explore. So, let’s do so right now. Please pull out a pew Bible and turn to Luke 8:26-39.

The incident that comprises today’s lesson is the middle one of three in which Jesus demonstrates that He is more than just a good man or a great teacher.

In Luke 8:22-25, just before our lesson, Jesus imposes His power on a raging sea to bring calm to it.

In Luke 8:40-56, Jesus gives life to a little girl who has died and healing to a woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, demonstrating Jesus’ power over death and disease.

These are signs that Jesus has the same power as God and is God. As He says in John’s Gospel, “I and the Father are one.”

In the middle of those passages comes today’s lesson.

Verse 26 says: “Then they [Jesus and the disciples] sailed to the country of the Gadarenes, which is opposite Galilee.”

There’s some dispute among Bible scholars over exactly where Jesus and the disciples landed here. But there’s no dispute over two things.

First, they sailed to this place after Jesus calmed a raging sea, prompting the disciples to ask, “Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him?” The answer might have been clear to the disciples even as they asked this question.

There's a reason I say that. Turn to Genesis 1:1-2, please. The start of the first of two creation accounts given at the opening of Genesis says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” God then imposed peace and order on the waters of chaos, just as Jesus did that during that storm on the Sea of Galilee. Life, the whole universe, came into being when God calmed the waters in Genesis.

So, as their boat lands on the shores of the Gadarenes, it’s beginning to dawn on the disciples that their rabbi is God in the flesh. 

The second thing about which there’s no dispute among students of the New Testament is that, wherever the “country of the Gadarenes” was, it was Gentile territory, populated mostly by non-Jews. That’s important later in the text.

Verses 27 to 29 say: “And when [Jesus] stepped out on the land, there met Him a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time. And he wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before Him, and with a loud voice said, ‘What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me!’ For [Jesus] had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had often seized him, and he was kept under guard, bound with chains and shackles; and he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the wilderness.”

Sin, you know, is a condition of isolation from God and isolation from others. It’s a turning in on oneself that leads to hopelessness.

When Adam and Eve fell into sin, they first tried to isolate themselves from God and then isolated themselves from each other by blaming one another for turning away from God and away from God’s will.

This man in the Gadarene tombs was in the grips of evil so badly that, even though he had a home and a family in the city, the demon that had control of him drove him to live in the tombs, among the silent dead, isolated. That’s what sin and evil can cause to happen in people’s lives. Their personalities are infected by a rage from hell itself.

One of the few times I have ever feared for my life came when I was in the presence of a person who had been subjected to physical and sexual abuse as a child and suffered from multiple addictions. In his adult years, his entire family became dependent on him in ways that were entirely unfair. In time, the hopelessness of his circumstances, along with having no real understanding of or relationship with Jesus Christ, had given an opening to the demonic in his life.

Once, at about 2:00 in the morning, I was called to the hospital ER where this man had been taken after sharing very specific suicidal fantasies with family and friends. Six of us were with him when the attending physician announced that would have to be kept overnight for observation. This man was slight of build and I was younger than I am today. Under ordinary circumstances, I'm sure that I could have taken him. But when the raging evil inside this basically sensitive man was detonated by that doctor's announcement, I was uncertain whether all six of us could subdue him. When he was in a rage, he was terrifying, not human!

Sin is isolating and when a spiritually defenseless person--a person who doesn't trust in Jesus Christ--allows it take root in their lives, it fills them with a life-negating, love-denying rage.

The demon (we’ll soon find out demons) in the man Jesus encounters on the shores of Galilee immediately recognizes his enemy: The One Who had gone toe to toe and defeated Satan in the wilderness,  Jesus. The demon calls Jesus “Son of the Most High God,” meaning the very embodiment of God, God in human flesh.

Now look at verse 30, please. “Jesus asked him, saying, ‘What is your name?’” The demon says its name is Legion, “because many demons had entered him.” Legion, of course, was the name for a unit of the Roman army consisting of 6000 soldiers.

This name not only tells us that this  possessed man was shackled by an army of evil, but also that human beings are the spoils of war that Satan tries to steal from God.

You see, Satan knows how much God loves us. (If Satan ever wondered how desperately God loves us, this doubts were eternally erased by the cross on which God the Son was sacrificed for our sins and by the empty tomb through which He opens eternity to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus as their only Savior and Lord!) So, the devil wants to take us from God. He knows how much it hurts God when human beings walk away from Him and His will for our lives. But Jesus has come into this world so that all who believe in Him are out of the reach of Satan. As Jesus says of those who believe in Him in John 10:28: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” 

When they saw Jesus, the demons begged Jesus not to send them back to the abyss, the place of eternal death. Look at verse 32: “Now a herd of many swine was feeding there on the mountain. So [the demons] begged [Jesus] that He would permit them to enter [the swine].”

You know pigs aren’t kosher. Jews considered pigs to be unclean. Jesus is here clearly among Gentiles.

But even in this wilderness, Jesus has as much control over evil as He had when He confronted Satan’s temptations in the wilderness of Judea.

And even Gentiles, like you and me, can receive His grace and know God. Jesus permitted the demons to enter the swine herd and then, verse 33 says, the herd stampeded to their deaths in the sea below. The swineherds saw what happened and ran into town to tell others.

It’s probably not reading too much into the text to guess that they were mad. They (or the people they may have worked for) had money invested in these pigs. Now they were all dead.

Soon, the folks from town show up. Verse 35 says, they “found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus [the posture of a disciple learning from his new teacher], clothed and in his right mind.”

You’d expect them to be happy, wouldn’t you? They knew this trouble-making man and the problems he had caused. He wouldn't be causing trouble any more. But verse 35 says, “they were afraid.”

Should that surprise us? No. There are many people who would like to trust in Christ, to have a warm personal relationship with Him, to have His help and guidance in their lives, to live in the freedom of forgiven sin and in the hope of eternity with God. But they’re afraid that if they give Jesus an inch of their lives, He’ll take it over completely. And they’re right! The Lord Who gave His all on the cross and rose bodily from the dead, wants to save us body, soul, mind, and spirit. But if we aren’t willing to give our whole selves to Christ, our whole selves will die apart from Christ.

The townspeople were afraid that if Jesus could change the life of a man possessed by multiple demons, He could change their lives as well...and they preferred their favorite sins to living for Jesus. In honesty, aren’t there times when you and I feel the same way?

Verse 36 says that the crowds knew that Jesus had been the means by which the man had been “healed.” The word translated as healed is, in the original Greek in which Luke wrote, esothe, coming from the verb sozo, also meaning saved. The man wasn’t just healed, he was saved by Jesus, saved, as The Small Catechism puts it “from sin, death, and the devil.” Saving people, setting them free from sin and its consequences, is what Jesus said He came into the world to do when He read the words from Isaiah in his hometown synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord...has anointed Me...to proclaim liberty to the captives..to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”

Folks, whatever oppresses you today--sins, anxious thoughts, tenacious temptations, grudge-holding resentments, horrible grief, or doubts about God’s grace, Jesus Christ can set you free of them.

If He can cast a legion of demons from a man and give him back his right mind, He can free you and let you live with a mind filled with joy and thankfulness!

The Gadarenes asked Jesus to leave. But when we pray, like children, that Jesus will come into our hearts, He will do so and remain there as we continue to turn to Him each day for life, forgiveness, and help.

Our lesson ends strangely. After the Gadarenes asked Jesus to leave, He got into a boat to do just that. Jesus will not stay where He isn’t welcome. That's as true today as it was when He walked on the earth.

But when the man from whom He had cast out the demons begged Jesus to let him go with Jesus, Jesus “sent him away.” Jesus says (verse 39): “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you.”

Following Jesus can sometimes mean that we’re to go to unknown places among unknown people to share the Gospel.

But for most Christians most of the time, following Jesus means staying right where we are among people we already know and sharing the truth of new life for all who repent and believe in the crucified Jesus Christ.

And following Jesus in the town in which we were raised, among people who have known us for a long time, is probably harder than going somewhere we think we’ll be safe with Jesus. Every time the man freed from demons started to talk about what Jesus had done for him, there would have been someone who could say, “I knew you when...”

But if and when that happened, the man would have a ready defense: “I’m not talking about how great or good I am. I’m nothing. I was once so spiritually vacant that a legion of demons filled me. I’m talking about Jesus, the One Who cast out those demons and saved me to live with God forever.”

That’s why after Jesus told him to stay, verse 39 says of the man, “And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus [the One he knew was God] had done for him.”

You know what? We never learn this man’s real name. And it doesn’t matter because far more important than knowing his name is learning and taking to heart his life’s story:

• Knowing that Christ can save anyone, no matter how deeply given over to evil and sin they may be.
• And knowing that once Christ has saved us, whatever our jobs or stations in life may be, we all have a single mission, to tell others what great things God has done for us through the Savior Jesus Who died and rose to set us free to live with God for all eternity.

Through this one man, Jesus began the Church among the Gentiles. What might Jesus do through us when we tell others the great things He’s done for us?

*You can blame this groaner on Pastor Brian Stoffregen. Ann urged its inclusion. But I alone can be blamed for the decision to share it.

"Called to be a banker..."

Read this short interview with a banker who attempts to live out his faith in Christ at the office.

Thanks to Mark Roberts for linking and leading me to the interview.

"If you cannot be happy..."

"be cheerful." Great thoughts!

Wonder If Child Sponsorship Works?

These economists say that sponsorship does change the lives of children and their communities.

Those Crucified with Christ, By Faith in Christ, Rise with Christ

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

Galatians 2:15-21
Our second lesson for this morning, Galatians 2:15-21, is difficult, maybe too much so to tackle in a sermon on a Sunday in June. But I think it’s worth the effort.

To help understand this whole passage, it might make sense to first look at its conclusion. So, please turn to the next to last verse in our lesson, Galatians 2:20. Paul writes:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

All who submit to Jesus Christ as their Savior and God submit to the crucifixion of their old sinful selves, so that we can rise with Jesus and live with God. No one, apart from Jesus living in their lives, can rise from the dead. And it’s only when we die with Jesus, dying to sin, dying to the selfish, self-concerned values of a world that is doomed for destruction, that we can rise with Jesus to a new life with God. That’s why Jesus says elsewhere, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Fact is, we have no hope for this life or the one to come if we don’t submit to the death of our old selves and let Jesus Christ free us to be our true and best selves by taking up residence in our lives. That happens, Paul says, “by faith in the Son of God,” the One Who “loved me”--loves you--”and gave Himself for me”--and for you.

Is that Christianity 101?

Sure. But in what Paul writes in the rest of our lesson, he shows us just how deep and eternity-changing this truth is.

Go back to the beginning the lesson, Galatians 2:15. It helps us to understand this passage if we remember a few things.

First: After Paul founded the churches in Galatia and moved on to preach the Good News of new life for all who repent of sin and believe in the crucified and risen Jesus in other places, new preachers came in, teaching what Paul called a “false gospel.” Believing in Jesus is nice, they tell the non-Jews who make up the Galatian churches, but if they really wanted to be right with God, they needed to also become Jews and keep all the Old Testament ceremonial and dietary laws.

Now, as good confessional Lutherans, you know that there were three kinds of law in the Old Testament.

There was civil law, like the laws we pass at city hall or Congress. God laid down civil law in the Old Testament because ancient Israel was meant to be ruled directly by God. But the civil law of that old kingdom is no longer necessary; Jesus has established the kingdom of God, which we enter by His grace through faith in Him.

A second kind of Old Testament law was sacrificial, ceremonial law. These laws governed everything from the types of sacrifice made at the temple in Jerusalem to how people wore their hair. But Jesus has rendered this type of law unnecessary too, because He is the one and only sacrifice for sin. We trust in Him alone for freedom from sin, death, and the devil. John the Baptist recognized that Jesus spelled the end of sacrificial, ceremonial laws when he said of Jesus, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

The third kind of Old Testament law is the one that remains valid to this day, the moral law, the ten commandments and the laws that flow from them. Jesus summarized this law with the great commandment: love God with your whole selves, love your neighbor as you love yourselves.

The moral law, which God has written on every human heart, can act as a bridle on the inborn sinful impulse of human beings to do whatever we want, no matter how we may hurt God or may hurt other people.

It can also be used by the Holy Spirit to drive us to repent and believe in Jesus as we come to understand that the demands of God’s moral law cannot be kept perfectly by any of us. This is our dilemma: The Ten Commandments remain in force. But we can’t keep them.

It’s when we realize this truth that we’re open to the Good News that the God we meet in Jesus Christ is willing to take us in, willing to cover our sin with His forgiveness, willing to grant us life with God, and willing to give us the power of the Holy Spirit to resist sin.

We are saved by God’s grace through our faith in the God we know in Jesus Christ, not by being “good” people, which not a single one of us can be anyway. As Jesus told a man who tried to suck up to Him one day: “No one is good but God alone.”

The teachers of the false gospel didn’t understand this. Paul writes to remind the Galatians (and us) of the true Gospel.

A second thing to remember when looking at this passage is that in the verses right before it, Paul talks about a run-in he’d had with Cephas, that is, Peter, in Antioch. When Peter first arrived in that city, he’d sat down for dinner with Gentile Christians, something the old ceremonial law had forbidden a Jew like him to do. Then, Peter stopped doing it, reverting to eating with only Jewish Christians for the rest of his stay in Antioch. There’s a lot of dispute about Peter’s motives for this. But whatever Peter’s reasons, Paul would have none of it. We are saved by grace through faith in the God we know in Christ alone, Paul told Peter, and you shouldn’t be shy about violating those parts of God’s Old Testament law that are no longer valid by eating with the Gentile Christians!

This is where our second lesson picks up. Paul writes, speaking for both he and Peter as Jews, starting at verse 15: “We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.”

Even we Jews have been made right with God--justified--not by being good Jews, Paul says, but by surrendering faith in Jesus Christ.

So, how, Paul asks, could we, these false preachers, or, as he put it in our lesson from last Sunday, even an angel from heaven (Galatians 1:8), dare to lay new religious laws on the Gentiles?

Christ has done all that is necessary for a person to be right with God. A right relationship with God is ours when we acknowledge our sin and helplessness over it and trust in Christ to place us in the arms of God the Father!

Paul then speaks to those who might recoil at the notion of a God Who cares so much about sinners. He asks: “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not!” I like the way The Message translation of the Bible puts this verse: “Have some of you noticed that we [followers of Jesus] are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous.”

You sometimes hear people say, “I won’t go to church because all those people are hypocrites and sinners.” Because Christians aren’t perfect, they insinuate that Christ or the faith we confess in Christ is imperfect. But the only person who can be a Christian is the person who acknowledges that she or he is far from perfect and needs Christ to be made right with God. As the old hymn puts it: “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me.”

Paul then warns the Church against turning the relationship with God they enjoy by faith in Christ into a religion. As a preacher of the Gospel, Paul was in the business of dismantling the religions of the world that tell us we have to behave in certain ways in order to achieve whatever blessings that stingy deities or a stingy universe might otherwise withhold from us.

The God we meet in Jesus doesn’t want our religion. He wants a relationship with us that lasts for eternity. So, Paul writes in verse 18: “For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.”

Religion is about being nice, being kind, being virtuous, or being good...or else. That's not Christianity at all!

Why would I want to go back to that crumbling edifice of human-centered religion when Jesus Christ  sets me free from sin and death simply when I trustingly take His outstretched hand and let Him lead me through this life and the next? 

It’s stunning to me the amount of suffering people cause themselves when they hold onto religion rather than holding onto Jesus! You’ve heard me tell before about the woman in her eighties who repeatedly refused to take Holy Communion when we offered it at a nursing home because of a sin she’d committed as a seventeen year old. She was clinging to the wreckage of a religion that insisted that she wasn’t good enough for God when all she had to do was take Christ’s offered grace. She insisted on being a a self-accused and self-convicted transgressor rather than a sinner set free from her sin by Jesus.

In verse 19, Paul says that something very different happens in the life of the person who lets faith in Christ lead them: “For I through the law died to the law that I might live with God.”

The law showed me I am a sinner, Paul is saying. It killed me. And now that my old self has been destroyed, I’ve been set free to rise with Christ and live with God forever. This happens in the lives of believers not by obeying God’s laws, but by the power that resides in God’s charity--His grace--for sinners like you and me.

If we dare to trust in our own goodness or our own religion to save us from sin, death, the devil, and hopelessness, our sins remain, along with hopelessness and separation from God. That’s why Paul writes in verse 21: “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."

Jesus Christ did not die in vain. Jesus Christ died for a reason. He died to set you free to be the very person God made you to be, for all eternity.

He died to give you grace. It’s the grace that wants the best for us and caused Jesus to cry from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Now, I feel that Jesus must have had me in mind when He prayed this prayer. I'm quite sure that 90% of the time in my life, I have no idea what I’m doing. And the older I get--I'll be sixty later this year, the more I realize all that I don’t know.

But I do know this: All the efforts we may put into being better people, more loving or understanding people, wiser people, will inevitably fail. Sinners cannot make themselves saints.

Now, we may be willing to accept that fact about ourselves if it weren’t for the haunting truth that only saints can live with God today or in eternity. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,” Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

You and I would be totally out of hope if it weren’t for the truth about God that trumps all other truth: Christ died and rose to make sinners like us into saints and He does it for those with faith in Christ by His grace alone.

There will be times each day when, if we have any sensitivity to God and other human beings, we will recognize our sinfulness, our distance from God. And the closer we grow to Jesus Christ, the more sensitive to these realities will become.

But don’t let Satan use this realization to make you hopeless.

Turn instead to Christ.

Give your sins to Him.

Give your life to Him.

Let your old self be crucified and let your new self rise.

Jesus says in Revelation: “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”

Let Jesus in.

Let His grace fill you.

Let Him claim you as His child every moment of every day.

Let Jesus in.

Amen

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

UPDATE: Steve Martin, I think, did a nice job in tackling this text in his sermon for June 16. Check it out!

Closed Captioning Bloopers?

Tonight, while I did my walk, I watched Tavis Smiley interview foreign policy guru Richard Haas about his new book. The TV was on mute so that I could listen to music at the same time.

At one point, the closed captioning crawl on the bottom of the screen quoted Haas as saying that he didn't advocate "American in a lateral is him."

Clearly, while it's come a long way, voice recognition technology is less than perfect.

But it made me wonder if Amazon carried books containing closed captioning "bloopers." It seemed like an irresistible topic for some enterprising publisher looking to make a fast buck. But, in fact, after trying several different search phrases, I found nothing.

My faith in the publishing world is restored. Sort of.

There also aren't any DVDs of closed captioning mistakes, proving that Dick Clark really is gone.

Desperate by Lecrae

We've all been in the place Lecrae, with help from Cam, describes in this great track: Desperate for a sense of God's forgiveness after we've repented in Christ's Name, but the voices of the devil, the sinful world, and our sinful selves insist on convicting us.

This experience, shared by people who believe in the God ultimately revealed in Jesus, is exactly what King David felt, as chronicled in Psalm 32, the psalm appointed for this coming Sunday. Lecrae also draws on Psalm 51, another of David's hymns, for this rap.

May God give to all who repent and trust in Christ, a sense of God's grace!

Good Thoughts to Ponder

Here.

Never Be Afraid, Trust in Christ!

[This was shared during both worship services of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Galatians 1:11-24
Robert F. Kennedy once told the story of an out-of-power general who looked on a public demonstration against the government in power unfolding in the street below his apartments. His personal ambition was fired, looking on this as a chance to ride the waves of public opinion back into power. As he saw the angry protesters approaching the gates of the president’s palace, he turned to his valet and said, “Get my uniform! I must follow my people so I can lead them."*

Kennedy’s point was clear: Unlike that general, leaders do not follow.

And: People of deep beliefs do not alter their beliefs to suit the crowds or gain acceptance.

In the verse that immediately precedes the words of our second lesson for today, the apostle Paul tells the Galatian Christians (I’m reading from the English Standard Version): “If I were still trying to please [human beings], I would not be a servant of Christ.” 

A question that confronts every generation of Christians is this: Are we going to strive to please God or are we going to try to please human beings?

For the apostle Paul, writing to Christians tempted to alter the message of the gospel--the good news that God the Son died and rose to set sinners who repent for sin and believe in Him free from sin and death--the answer to that question is clear. Let’s take a look at what he writes in our second lesson, Galatians 1:11-24.

The first thing Paul underscores is that the gospel message and the Word of God, the Bible, that gives witness to it, are not human inventions. Look at what he says in verse 11: “But I make known to you, brethren [and sisters], that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.”

In other words, the gospel about Jesus Christ is a truth from God, not something that a bunch of delusional people made up. Jesus of Nazareth was a real human being Who claimed also to be God and, according to those who followed Him, performed miracles, died on a cross, and rose from the dead.

If the first followers of Jesus Christ wanted to pull a fast one on people, they would have made up a different religion from Christianity.

They would have created a religious system that appealed to people’s egos, assured them that if they took certain steps they could get things like their own planets. (Like Joseph Smith and the Mormon religion he created.)

Or they would have promised people if they followed a proscribed set of religious acts, they would live in paradise. (This is the legalistic path commended by Islam.)

Or they might have been like L. Ron Hubbard, who created Scientology as a money-making scheme.   

If they’d wanted a religion that could bring them money or power or popularity, they wouldn’t have made up the gospel. There was absolutely nothing to be gained by the first Christians by insisting that all human beings were sinners alienated from God--a message certainly not designed to win friends and influence people--whose only hope for forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and a life with God that begins now and is perfected in the life to come, was to repent and believe in Jesus Christ alone.

That’s why the first Christians were persecuted, martyred, and marginalized. (That's also why many Christians in the world today are persecuted, martyred, and marginalized.)

The first Christians didn’t follow the crowds, but willingly gave their lives because they believed that Jesus Christ is, as He Himself claimed to be, the only way to life with God.

Paul goes on: “For I neither received [the gospel] from [human beings], nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Paul, like the other apostles and first Christians, came to receive the gospel through the direct intervention of Jesus Christ. And that's true of everyone who believes in Jesus Christ. Faith comes when we move beyond just hearing the gospel about Jesus and, in one way or another, Jesus encounters us and we willingly receive Him.

Now, in speaking of his encounter with Jesus, when Christ was revealed to him, Paul shouldn’t be lumped with people Joseph Smith, the inventor of Mormonism and claimed that it had come to him straight from God. Paul didn’t make up the gospel about Jesus. There were already people who believed in it; they were the people Paul was chasing down in Damascus, holding authority to bring Jews who believed in the gospel about Jesus back to Jerusalem, where they could be excommunicated from Jewish life and maybe face worse. (Like the first Christian martyr, Stephen.)

Paul knew the gospel before he went to Damascus. He knew it at an intellectual level, just as many people who occupy church pews know it. They can recite The Apostles’ Creed and John 3:16 by heart. They’ve heard the gospel many times. But they haven’t received it.

Years ago, I got a phone call from a man who said he was dying. He could no longer leave his house. But as he sat in his home, he remembered hearing the gospel about Jesus when he was a child. He wanted to repent and be assured of the forgiveness of sins. He wanted to receive the good news of Jesus. He wanted to know Jesus, to have a revelation of Jesus. So, he asked if I would come to his home and teach him more about Jesus. We met several times in a short period of time, because we knew he likely would be dying soon. On about our third visit, he asked me, “Could I be baptized?” After more than seventy years of hearing the gospel and knowing what it was, he finally received Jesus. With childlike faith, knowing that he wouldn’t survive the disease that was ravaging his body, he believed in the gospel that had been revealed in Jesus Christ and doesn’t come from human beings.

In our lesson, Paul goes on to explain how the gospel about Jesus turned his life upside down. Rarely does Paul present so much autobiographical information. His focus is on sharing Christ so that believing in Him, people can have eternal life with God. But he tells some of his own story here in order to show how the gospel of God’s grace changes enemies of God, which all of us are at birth, to children of God. Paul writes:

For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

Paul had been a young man on the ladder of success within Judaism. He was learned, zealous, able. But God upset whatever plans Paul may have had for his life. God, in fact, already had made plans for Paul when he was in his mother’s womb: to preach the Gospel to non-Jews, Gentiles, people he had been taught to disdain, maybe even hate. But when the risen and ascended Jesus revealed Himself to Paul, Paul says he didn’t confer with human beings about it. He simply believed and followed and obeyed.

As you know if you remember Luke’s account of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus which he presents in the book of Acts, Paul did go to Ananias on a street called Straight in Damascus, where Paul was baptized, given sight again, and his call to preach was confirmed. But, according to Paul, while he already knew the gospel before he went to Damascus, now he believed in it. He received the gift of new life by faith in Jesus Christ.

And, Paul says, he didn’t dilly-dally. He did what God called him to do: preach the good news of Jesus. There has been some speculation that when Paul when to “Arabia,” he was on a retreat, spending time alone with God in preparation for his ministry. Martin Luther didn’t believe that for a second. In his Lectures on Galatians, Luther says: “What else was [Paul] to do but preach Christ?” Paul, because of his faith in Christ, set out immediately to do what Christ had called and commanded him to do!

Not all of us who claim faith in Jesus Christ are called to be apostles to the Gentiles like Paul, but we are all called to be witnesses for Christ. “You will be My witnesses,” Jesus tells us.

Many times through the years, Christians have told me that they feel completely inadequate to witnessing for Christ. They say they don’t have the training for it.

But here’s the thing: You don’t need training to tell others about the most important Person in your life! You don't need training to be a witness for Christ if you have received the gift of faith in Him, any more than you need training to tell people about your favorite restaurant, baseball team, or TV show.

If Christ has revealed Himself to you as your loving God and Savior and you believe in Him, the Holy Spirit will give you the words you need to say and the actions you need to do to live out your call as His witness. In another place, Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.”

When Martin Luther challenged the hierarchies of Church and State with the pure gospel of Jesus Christ, he was asked, "Who are you, Luther?" He said that he was only Luther, but he spoke with the authority of the gospel behind what he said and it was up to the hierarchies to prove that he didn't.

Luther also said that a simple peasant armed with the Word of God had more authority than any pope, bishop, cardinal, or priest without the Word of God.

You have that same authority when you know Christ as your God and Savior. You have the same authority to share the gospel that brings life with God to all who believe it that Paul had! We can say with Paul, writing in Romans: “I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation...”

In verses 18 to 23, Paul underscores that the gospel and his authority to preach it and teach it had not come from human beings, but from God. He went to Jerusalem not to get the approval of the first Christians there; Paul was confident that he already had God’s approval for the gospel he preached. He went to seek unity for the Church and to assure himself that the Church in Jerusalem was actually preaching and teaching the gospel, the good news that sinful human beings are saved by God’s grace through our faith in Jesus.

When Paul got to Jerusalem, he learned that Christians there who had never seen him, knew about him. They knew that God had taken a man who had been a religious terrorist and through God’s grace, turned him into not just a believer, but a preacher of God’s truth. Paul writes in the last verse: “And they glorified God in me.”

Now, Paul wrote these verses near the beginning of Galatians to underscore that, while he was nothing in Himself, the gospel had given him authority. When we believe in Christ, we have authority too, an authority that comes from the crucified and risen Jesus to live with confidence and hope as people of God.

When someone says to you, “Isn’t there room for Buddha or Mohammad or atheists in the gospel? Isn’t there room for the ways people think and live today in the gospel?,” you can say, “The God made flesh in Jesus Christ loves Buddhists and Muslims, He loved Buddha and Mohammad, and He loves the people He made who show contempt for Him by willfully going their own ways rather than seeking to follow God’s way. The gospel says that Jesus alone is the way, and the truth, and the life. It says that He died for the sins of the whole world and offers new life to all who will submit to the crucifixion of their old selves and rely on Christ alone to raise them to be who God made them to be. There is room for everyone in the gospel of Christ. But there’s no room for Christ in the life of anyone who won’t let the gospel take hold of them and make them children of God.”

When we share our faith in Christ with others without boastfulness or unkindness or arrogance, we need not hang our heads in shame or be embarrassed. Even if the world rejects faith in Christ as passe, we know better. We belong to the Alpha and the Omega, the master of time and eternity, the Lord of heaven and earth, the author of life and the conqueror of death! We belong to the King of kings Who died for our sins and rose from the dead to tear open eternity for all who will follow Him.

Never be afraid.

Never be afraid!

Never be ashamed!

Never be embarrassed to lift up Christ, the Name above all names, the only name given to us by which anyone can be saved!

You may not please everyone when you follow Christ, but you will please the only one Whose opinion matters, the God we know in Jesus Christ. Amen

*I told this story from memory. I believed that Kennedy recounted it in the memorial edition of President John F. Kennedy's book, Profiles in Courage. But when I checked my copy, I didn't find it. I now believe that Robert Kennedy told the story in the preface to Thirteen Days, his memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Since I no longer own a copy of that book, I couldn't check on it. But the story, conveyed here in its essence, is one that has stuck with me since I first read it in 1969, one year after RFK's death.

Want Faith? Let Yourself Catch Grace

The Bible teaches that we come to a saving faith in the God revealed through Jesus Christ only by the power of the Holy Spirit. "No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit," Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:3.

Faith in anyone but ourselves or in what we can control is foreign to human nature. And belief in the witness given by the apostles and other first Christians that, despite their own doubts, they could vouch with their lives that Jesus Christ, sinless God-in-the-flesh, not only died an undeserved death on a cross, but also rose from the dead, is also foreign to our natures.

Unless we're open to the ministry of the Holy Spirit--Who uses the witnesses of ordinary human beings to convict us of sin and convince us of the grace available to all sinners who turn from sin and believe in Christ as their only God and hope--the Spirit cannot create faith within us.

The refusal to even be willing in our imperfect human ways to believe in the Holy Spirit's proclamation of the God Who made us, Who hates sin, and Who, because He loves sinners, gives us a way to escape the consequences of sin--death and eternal separation from God--is epidemic in the Church and in society.

Bishop John Bradosky of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) recently wrote insightfully:

In the Atlantic Monthly, columnist Jonathan Rauch writes that America has made “a major civilization advance” in recent years. Rauch, an atheist, is thrilled about a phenomenon he calls apatheism (“apathetic theism”). “It’s not that people don’t believe in God anymore,” Rauch writes, “the majority will still say they believe. ... The faithful in America haven’t been putting much thought or effort into their faith. They’re looking for comfort and reassurance, not for a God who asks anything of them. Apathetic theists don’t care about their own religion and care even less about the faith of others.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks noticed a trend a few years ago and coined the term flexidoxy (“flexible beliefs”).

“Flexidoxy describes the form of religion practiced by many educated young Americans, as opposed to orthodoxy. Basically, it means that people have become flexible in their belief system and look at religion as a giant smorgasbord from which they can pick and choose the beliefs that most suit them. They become the center of their own faith and adapt it to what they see as important.”

Both apathetic theism and flexidoxy may well be the consequence and by-product of the church when it avoids the Holy Spirit, on one hand, or abuses it on the other. Apathetic theism and flexidoxy are grounded in the power of popularity and political correctness but not the power of the Holy Spirit.

Into this world, the Church must bring to bear what it alone possesses and is called to proclaim, the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the power and work of the Holy Spirit.

Nobody can "prove" the truth of the Christian proclamation: 

• the truth that human beings are born in a condition of separation from God called sin; 
• the truth that, imprisoned by this condition, we inevitably commit sins and just as inevitably, even what seems like altruistic acts on our parts are tinged with selfishness and self-will; 
• the truth that God is unwilling to let us to go to hell, the fate we deserve, without a fight; 
• the truth that because of God's love for us, He sent Jesus into the world; 
• the truth that Jesus died, taking our punishment for sin, and rose from the dead to offer new life that begins here and now even as we remain imperfect and extends into eternity where we will live in perfect fellowship with God and others saved by the grace given to all who believe in Christ.

No argument for these truths will convince anyone. But when we leave ourselves open to the witness the Bible offers about God and what God has done in Jesus Christ, something happens to us that subordinates (but does not eliminate) our intellects, our wills, and our emotions.

Put simply, we come to believe in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11:1, in the New Testament, says: "...Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen

I once was an atheist. I thought the Bible was a book written by human beings with their ideas about God, not, as I've come to believe that the Bible was inspired by God presented to human beings to save us. I thought that faith in Christ was for the pathetic. I thought that the message about Jesus, the gospel, was implausible.

But when I allowed myself to be open to Christ and to the ministry of the Holy Spirit operating in the Bible, in the fellowship of the Church, in the sermons of pastors, in the writings of Christians over the past twenty centuries, and in Holy Communion, even though I couldn't understand how Jesus' body and blood could be present in the bread and the wine or how a sinner like me could be forgiven by Christ, something happened to me. I came to believe in Jesus.

In the intervening thirty-seven years, my faith has been strong some times, weak at others. But the Holy Spirit has used means like those I mentioned above to shore up my faith, convict me of sins and so, convict me of my need for Christ, to convince me that Christ's death and resurrection were done for all sinners, including me, and that through Jesus, I really am forgiven and saved to live with and to live for God for eternity. 

Whether you're an atheist who stands outside the Church, as I once did, or a non-believing churchgoer like so many are today, if you want to have a faith that can change and shape your life and if you want the capacity to leave behind the delusion that you as a created being don't need your creator, I can assure you that you can have faith that changes this life and the one to come!

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you:

• In the Bible
• In the fellowship of Christians who honestly admit their own imperfections and relish the perfection and grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ
• In the prayers you offer to God in Jesus' Name, prayers in which you should honestly share your doubts, but also your desire to believe
• In listening to the preached Word
• In joining convicted and convinced Christians in serving others in Jesus' Name
• In being connected with a Church whose pastor (or pastors) and members evidence true belief in the God of the Bible, who reverence the Bible as God's perfect, inspired Word for the human race
• In the Sacrament of Holy Communion, during the receiving of which you earnestly pray, "I don't know how Your body and blood and Your forgiveness can be in bread and wine, Lord, but I ask you to help me to trust that that is so"

None of the items in that list are good religious works. They will not earn salvation for you. And if you approach them as though they will, you will miss their point and miss out on faith. They are what the Reformation theologians called "means of grace," holes through which eternity bursts through to us, openings through which the arms of God can enfold you.

I've used the analogy before, but they're like a batted ball to which an outfielder goes to make a catch. The fielder has no control over the speed of the pitch made by the person on the mound. The fielder can't control what kind of charge the hitter puts into the ball once he's swung. All the fielder can do is position herself or himself to make the catch. 

God is using these means to "bat" faith our way. The question is are we willing to be where we need to be to "catch" the faith the Holy Spirit wants to hit our way?

The faith you catch won't make sense to you at first. There's so much about the Christian Gospel that doesn't make sense. That may, in your mind, make a case against surrendering faith in Christ at first. But, as C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, isn't also characteristic of the biggest facts in life to be not what you'd have anticipated at all? 

I met an elderly woman at a church where I was preaching one Sunday. She was matronly, having spent years as an elementary teacher and being something of a second mother to her students. This doughty little woman, I learned, had one something like $50-million dollars in the Ohio Lottery just the day before. I couldn't believe it. But it was true. The truest truths are often like that, beyond your capacity to imagine. That's the way it is with the message of the Bible about Jesus.

No matter how hard it is to believe in Jesus, it is absolutely true and it becomes more plausible as you allow yourself each day to more and more walk in Christ's orbit. And before you know it, if you're not careful, the Holy Spirit will have you saying and meaning things like this:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
  
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.  He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.  He descended into hell.  On the third day He rose again.  He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.  He will come again to judge the living and the dead. 
 
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  Amen.

Are you willing to have faith like that expressed in the Apostles' Creed? 

If so, position yourself for it. Go to the places where the Holy Spirit can be counted on to be present. Then just tell God, "I'm willing to believe in Christ, Lord. I'm willing to doubt by doubts and worship You as my only God. Work the miracle of faith in me."

Guess what? I've seen that miracle take hold in the lives of hundreds of people during my twenty-nine years as a pastor and during thirty seven years as a Christian, including in my own life.

What have you got to lose? Shall I name what you've go to lose? You can lose sin and death and the hounding of the devil. Those are great things to lose!

Turn to Christ. Let the Spirit have access to your will and your life.

Then let the Spirit give you a faith in Christ that is more than Sunday morning propriety, but week-in and week-out trust in Christ that's so big you don't care who thinks you're crazy.

You'll want the whole world to know that the crucified and risen Jesus is alive and ready to change anyone's life. By your words and your life of (however imperfect) commitment to Christ, you'll unleash the Spirit that's changing you to change others. 

Changing may scare you. You may feel quite comfortable in your favorite sins or in your letting God do His thing while you do yours. But Jesus says, "Everyone...who acknowledges Me before others, I also will acknowledge before My Father in heaven; but whoever denies Me before others, I also will deny before My Father in heaven" (Matthew 10:32).

The Holy Spirit stands ready to help you get to know the truth about Jesus Christ and to learn how to publically acknowledge Jesus every day. 

Are you ready to let Him? Even if your answer is only, "Maybe," charge ahead! Position yourself to receive God's grace and the Lord Jesus at the center of your life!

Do What You Fear

Good thoughts from Geoff Talbot.

The Centurion and What Amazes Jesus

[This was written to be shared with the people and guests of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio during Sunday worship today.]

Luke 7:1-10
Jesus did things that amazed a lot of people during His time on earth: turning water into wine, raising dead people to life, casting out demons, dying a death on the cross He didn’t deserve to pay the price for our sins, rising from the dead to give eternal life to all who repent for sin and surrender to Him. To this day, Jesus amazes: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch--undeserving, imperfect, sinful old bag of wind--like me.” That’s amazing!

But have you ever thought about what it would take to amaze Jesus?

Jesus is God in the flesh. He’s the author of amazing. The Bible says that in Jesus, “all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible...all things have been created through Him and for Him...[and] in Him all things hold together.” So, what would it take to amaze Jesus?

Interestingly, the Gospels, the Bible’s authoritative accounts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, tell us that Jesus was amazed two times during His earthly ministry.

The first time is recorded by two of the gospel writers, Matthew and Mark. Let’s take a look at Mark’s version of things, found in Mark 6:5-6. After beginning His public ministry--teaching and preaching, calling people to repent and believe the good news that He has come to bring God’s kingdom into our fallen world, and performing miracles, Jesus goes home to Nazareth. But Jesus’ fellow Nazarenes refused to trust in Him. “Hey,” they told each other, “we know this kid. He’s Mary’s boy. We know His brothers and sisters.”

Familiarity, you know, breeds contempt. The people of Nazareth thought they knew Jesus. But they clearly hadn’t gotten to know Jesus.

If they’d known Jesus, they would have known about His uniqueness. He had never been in trouble. He had never hurt anyone. He had never misused God’s Name, never gotten involved in sexual shenanigans, never had any shady business dealings. Jesus was sinless and had they reflected on that, they would have understood why their fellow Nazarene was out in the world  pronouncing and demonstrating the arrival of the Kingdom of God.

When Jesus returned to Nazareth though, He didn’t find faith, but contempt. Look, please at what verses 5 and 6 tell us: “Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled [Jesus was amazed!] because of their unbelief...”

I wonder if today, Jesus were to walk into this sanctuary, whether He would have cause to be amazed by our unbelief? Over our lifetimes, we’ve gotten to know Jesus. But is our knowledge of Jesus something that fires and inspires our faith in Him, our trust in Him, our dependence on Him, our love for Him, our acts of sacrifice and service in His Name? Or has it bred something like contempt?

I know that speaking for myself, I sometimes pray, giving my concerns to God, and then, as I rise from my knees, take them right back onto my own shoulders. Don’t I trust Jesus? Don’t I believe it when I pray, “Thy will be done”? Would Jesus marvel at my unbelief? This is why I turn to Christ again and again each day: Moved by His loving grace, anxious to let Him crucify the old Mark and give life to the Mark who will live with Him in eternity, I repent and grasp hold of Christ’s grace any time I can!

There is also unbelief, a functional atheism, among some Christians today who comfortably sit in their pews on Sunday mornings and go through the motions of faith, but never repent for sin, never trust Christ with their lives, never ask that His will be done except in rote prayer, never appreciate what Christ has done to bring them forgiveness and everlasting life, and who, when they run into the inevitable pain and difficulties that are part of life in this fallen, sinful, imperfect world, complain that God isn’t dancing to their tunes, making things easy for them, or approving their favorite sins of choice. That, I’m sure, amazes Jesus.

Our Gospel lesson for this morning records the other time in His earthly ministry that Jesus was amazed. Please turn to it, Luke 7:1-10.

Jesus has just concluded what scholars call His Sermon on the Plain. He goes to Capernaum, a city that sets at the northeast tip of the Sea of Galilee.

Verse 2 says: “And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die.” A centurion, of course, was an officer of the Roman army, who commanded a maximum of 100 soldiers--a century of soldiers. The Romans occupied Judea and Galilee and were resented. But already in this verse, we’re alerted to there being something different about this centurion. He is a what was called a God-fearer, a Gentile who believes in the God of the Jews.

His servant, the verse tells us, was “dear” to him. The word translated as dear is a compound word: entimos. It means honored, respected, distinguished and related to a word for precious, valuable, worthy of honor. This centurion esteems the servant and cares about what happens to him.

The centurion hears that Jesus is in town and he asks the local Jewish elders, the officials of the synagogue, to go ask Jesus to heal his servant.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the centurion does this instead of approaching Jesus himself. Gentiles were considered “outsiders” by the Jews, damned with no chance of knowing God. That may be one reason for the centurion not going to Jesus with His request.

But I think there’s a deeper reason for it: He is aware of his own faults, deficiencies, unworthiness, and sin. The believer in Jesus Christ should feel no hesitation at all about approaching the God we know in Christ in prayer. That’s why Hebrews 4:16, in light of the fact that Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross makes those who believe in Him worthy of coming to God in prayer, says: “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

But if we ever approach God in prayer with the notion that what we ask for are things we deserve, we approach God with the wrong heart and the wrong attitude.

The great 20th-century Lutheran theologian and author Ole Hallesby, in his book Why I Am a Christian writes: “...there is no other way of becoming personally assured of Christ and of the Christian faith than...the way of the sinner, the way which leads through complete despair of self.”

Until we know how desperately we need Christ and His blessings and how desperately unworthy we are of them, we will never ask Him for anything rightly!

The centurion sees two things clearly: his own unworthiness and Christ’s mercy and grace. And so, aware of his own deficiencies, he asks friends to bring his request--not for himself, but for his servant--before the Lord Jesus, Who has no deficiencies. He believes that, in Christ, God can give grace, undeserved favor.

His Jewish friends don’t have that kind of faith. They think that a human being can be worthy of God’s favor. They think that to get God’s blessings and favor, you make deals with God. That’s why in verse 5, they try to build a case for the centurion. They talk about the centurion’s works. “He loves our nation,” they tell Jesus, “He built our synagogue.”

They don’t get it. Neither do we if we think that we can earn God’s favor.

We know that the ratio of births to deaths in this world remains 1 to 1. Not everyone who is ill for whom we pray will be healed. But we do know that everyone--Jew, Gentile, sick, healthy--who calls on the Name of Jesus Christ, repenting for sin and trusting in Him for forgiveness and new life, will be saved from sin, death, and the devil.

And that won’t happen because of their virtues. It will only happen because of the love, mercy, and grace of the Savior on Whom they call, we call. We are saved by God’s grace in Christ and our faith in the grace-giver, not by our non-existent goodness or good deeds.

As Jesus approaches the centurion’s house, the centurion sends a few more friends to Jesus with a new message. Verse 6: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof. Therefore I did not even think myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed.” He explains that as a soldier, he understands authority. He understands that if the Lord of all creation commands the disease that afflicts his servant to be gone, it will be gone.

Verse 9 tells us: “When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him [Jesus was amazed by the centurion!], and turned and said to the crowd that followed Him, ‘I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!” When the centurion’s friends returned to his house, they found that the servant had been made well.

Folks: If you turn from sin and trust in Christ, you can know you belong to Him no matter!

If you seek it, Jesus Christ will prevent Satan from reminding you of the sin for which you long ago repented and you can know that Satan will be constrained.

If you need help to resist temptation, Christ can give you that power.

If you need the strength to bear hard circumstances, Christ can give you the strength you need.

Jesus Christ, Who died and rose and sent His Holy Spirit to those who believe in Him, can give you a trust that no matter what happens to you in this world, you belong to Christ for eternity. Nothing can snatch you from Christ’s hands!

The centurion knew the extent, the height, the eternal depths, and the power of Jesus‘ authority.

If there is one thing we need in Christ’s Church today, one thing that we who call ourselves Christians need more than anything, it’s a renewed understanding of Jesus‘ authority, a renewed commitment to living under Jesus‘ authority and grace alone! 

We need to learn again what the witnesses of His resurrection told us: Jesus Christ is Lord of everything!

Faith informed by an understanding that only Christ has authority over life, death, and sin gives us peace and hope and joy even in the midst of life’s difficulties.

And that’s the faith that amazed Jesus when He saw it in the centurion!

May our prayer be, “Lord, build faith that rejoices in Christ’s grace AND respects Christ’s authority within me. Help me to trust in Jesus Christ and His Word alone!”

May Christ give us a faith in Him and Him alone that amazes Him, a faith that no longer seeks to assert our authority or power or selfish ends, but seeks only to honor and glorify the One Who died and rose to give us life with God! Amen