[This was shared during the worship services of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, this morning.]
Luke 21:5-19
We’ve heard it a million times: Don’t judge a book by its cover.
It’s a way of reminding us that looks are deceiving.
Often the people for whom we harbor jealousy because they seem to have it totally together, are the very people whose lives are most unhappy, most out of control.
Unassuming people may harbor a depth of character we can hardly imagine.
We should know better.
When the judge and prophet Samuel was sent to Bethlehem in order to anoint one of the seven sons of Jesse as king of Israel, he was about to choose Eliab. Eliab looked like a king sent from central casing.
But look, please, at 1 Samuel 16:7 (page 196 in the pew Bibles): “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’” Instead, God ordered Samuel to anoint David to become king.
Don’t judge a book by its cover!
It isn’t just people we judge wrongly. We can have a wrong estimation of churches too.
An acquaintance of mine served a megachurch for over a decade. They had all sorts of programs and thousands showed up for worship every Sunday. Their facilities were impressive, state of the art, massive. Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of that. But my acquaintance once told me that there was something missing in that congregation. Everything about the place was big...except the people’s faith in Christ, except their hearts turned cold to God and to others. They believed in their programs, their buildings, their bigness, not in Jesus.
Similarly, I have known congregations that had tiny memberships and remained tiny precisely because their entire congregational lives were built around maintaining their facilities as a stained glass mausoleums.
Buildings, like this school building, can be tools that God gives to congregations to pursue the mission of the Church: loving God, loving neighbor, loving one another, making disciples for Jesus Christ.
But you really can't judge a book by its cover. And there must be more to being Christians, more to being the Church than what a world that doesn’t know God can see.
Take a look at today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 21:5-19 (pages 734-735).
Let’s quickly set the stage. As with last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, we’re in the week between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, when Jesus would die on the cross, and ultimately, Easter Sunday, when He would rise from the dead. He’s teaching in the temple in Jerusalem.
In the passage just before our lesson, Luke tells us how Jesus observed a procession of wealthy people leave their gifts in the temple treasury.
But Jesus wasn’t impressed with them.
He was impressed with a widow who gave a pittance, which also happened to be all she had to live on.
The world might be impressed by external shows. God isn’t.
It’s why God told His people through the prophet Amos that He hated their festivals.
What God wants from those who come into His presence is authenticity.
Authentic repentance.
An authentic desire for deeper faith and servant hearts.
David himself knew this. Look at Psalm 51:17 (page 395), part of his prayer of repentance after committing adultery and murder: “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit [a spirit broken open to God]; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”
Some would look at David and only see a powerful man who abused his power to sin and then publicly repented as a brilliant PR move. That's not how God saw it. God saw a man whose heart was open enough, whose heart was broken enough, to let God in and to let God’s praises erupt from the depths of his wounded soul.
And what did Jesus tell the Samaritan woman at the well, do you remember? She told Jesus that her people thought the worship of God could only happen on the mountain in her country, while Jesus’ people, the Jews, said it only happened in the temple in Jerusalem. Look though, at what Jesus tells her in John 4:21 (page 742): “Woman...believe Me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem...[then in verse 24] God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and truth...”
Not necessarily in candles and organs, not necessarily with guitars and drums, though people can worship God authentically by those means and in many other ways. We always truly worship God in spirit and truth: With broken, open spirits and honesty before God.
Now look at the lesson. “Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 'As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.'"
The disciples haven’t been paying attention to what Jesus was conveying in His commendation of the widow rather than the wealthy. The disciples are wowed by the temple.
It may be hard for us to understand how much freight the temple carried for the people of first century Judea.
For the devout, it was the place where God lived in the Holy of holies and the place where they could make sacrifice for their sins.
For nationalists, it was a symbol--like the Statue of Liberty for us--of their country, a symbol they seemed to especially crave as they lived under the rule of the Romans.
For Herod, the puppet king of Rome who built this third temple on the spot of the previous structures, the temple was a bid to win the loyalty of a people who hated him.
It was an impressive place, encrusted with jewels. Its marble columns were more than forty feet high.
But it’s dangerous to judge a book by its cover. Jesus says that as powerful and impregnable as the temple looked, it would one day be reduced to dust. And in 70 AD, the Romans did destroy it.
This was incomprehensible to some people standing nearby in the temple. In verse 7, we read: “Teacher," they asked, "when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?" This is a control question, the sort of question posed by people who find it hard to trust in God, but what to stay ahead of the curve, have inside information instead of faith in Christ. Today, their number includes Christians who are so obsessed by speculations about the end times that they can't live out simple faith in Jesus.
Next comes the most confusing part of the lesson. Start at verse 8: “He replied: 'Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and, 'The time is near.' Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.' Then he said to them: 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.'”
I found these verses confusing because the question asked of Jesus was about what signs would point to the destruction of the temple and, here and as the chapter unfolds, Jesus seems to be talking about the end of this world.
And He is.
Like the Old Testament prophets or the apocalyptic books, Daniel and Revelation, Jesus is conflating time. He’s talking about the present, immediate future, and the future of the cosmos.
That’s because since Adam and Eve fell into sin until the risen, ascended Jesus returns to judge this world, raise the dead in Christ, and bring about the final consummation of His kingdom, two things have been going on in the created cosmos.
First: Under the burden of sin and death, humanity has suffered and will suffer from natural and human disasters. Each disaster, a sign of our need of new life.
Second: The good news of that new life that only comes from Jesus Christ will conquer the sin and death of believers in Christ and ultimately, make the whole creation new.
Much will happen until then though. That’s what Jesus wants us to know in the next part of our lesson, starting at verse 12: “'But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them.'”
When we entrust our lives to Christ, which is what it means to believe in Him, we can count on the constant possibility of rejection.
Sometimes, people kill Christians for their faith to this day.
Sometimes, they simply cannot comprehend their faith. A woman who used to read my blog once wrote to me: “I can’t understand it. You seem like an intelligent person, a good writer. How can you talk about Jesus as though He were God? It’s such a waste of your life!”
That, friends, is the world in which we are called to be Christ’s witnesses. Jesus doesn’t promise that it will be easy. Yet it’s our call, out of simple gratitude for being saved from sin and death, to be Jesus’ witnesses. In fact, Jesus makes it a non-negotiable of the Christian life. "This will result in your being witnesses to them," is what He says here. In Acts 1:8, Jesus says, "You will be My witnesses."
How can we do that?
Well, not by trying to look good.
Not by memorizing our testimony about Jesus and spouting it like parrots.
Look at what Jesus says starting in verse 14: “...make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.”
In other words, don’t worry about looking Christian or sounding Christian. Simply focus on following Jesus.
Let the Holy Spirit teach you through the study of God’s Word, worship with the Church, receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus.
Then God will teach you what you need to say, not only in the face of hostility, but also in response to people who genuinely want to know what you believe as a Christian.
To be Christ’s witnesses, we don’t need a how-to guide, we simply need to pay heed to what the Holy Spirit is teaching us as we draw close to God the Father in Jesus’ Name and learn to pray the prayer David prayed in that same psalm of confession, Psalm 51:15. Would you go back to that with me? David prayed: “Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.”
In thirty seven years as a Christian and twenty-nine as a pastor, I have seen things I never would have expected. Many segments of American society have moved from indifference to Christian faith to outright hostility.
Ignorantly, intelligent people who know nothing about Jesus, say that Christianity is the source of most of the world’s problems.
And, in other parts of the world, people are killed and persecuted for their faith.
Jesus’ words seem increasingly to have come true.
But the answer is not for us to hunker down or keep the light of Christ hidden under a basket. That would be inauthentic!
The answer is to be open books: In good times and bad, the God Who threw in His lot with us on the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead to give us everlasting life, calls on us to follow Him, to give witness to His greatness and love. Jesus says at the end of our lesson: “All men will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm you will gain life.”
May we stand firm in our faith and so stand with Christ forever. Stand firm! Amen
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
The Church Needs to Get Back to Basics
"While many churches acknowledge that they are in trouble, they too frequently come up with the wrong solutions. Some are chasing fads. Others are asking how to modernize biblical words, worship services, or even our theology so it will be more to the liking of the potential consumers. I believe that in the end, all these solutions will only end up dooming the church to the steady decline it is already on. Don't get me wrong: I am not against using words that people can understand or having music that appeals to a younger crowd. However, whenever we stray from God's Word, we will not have God's blessing, and without that blessing, the forces of hell will prevail against the church (see Matthew 16:18). Jesus said that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church; He did not say any church. If the church is no longer His church, it has no protection from the Enemy. It cannot crash through the walls that protect the lost from the light. Walking away from the church is not an option either, particularly if we want to be a part of the Lord's plan to rescue the world. The church is God's idea, and we must seek to restore it to its purpose and blessing. Rather than swing the pendulum too far, let's get back to basics."
Jim Putman. Real-Life Discipleship: Building Churches That Make Disciples (Kindle Locations 46-51). Kindle Edition.
Jim Putman. Real-Life Discipleship: Building Churches That Make Disciples (Kindle Locations 46-51). Kindle Edition.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
We Can Help the People of the Philippines
See here. Above all, please keep the Philippines in your prayers.
Alive in Christ!
This is the sermon shared during the second morning worship service of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, this past Sunday, November 10, 2013. It's based on Luke 20:27-38.
Tuesday, November 05, 2013
Silence is Golden
In yet another way, according to this brief summary on recent research presented today by the Harvard Business Review's Daily Stat.
In Proverbs 17:28, God revealed this wisdom to Solomon:
In Proverbs 17:28, God revealed this wisdom to Solomon:
Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.I wish that I would remember this more.
God is Neither Terrorist Nor Teddy Bear
I like this quote from Brendan Manning posted by our son last night:
“I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus, who is infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time an awesome, incomprehensible, and unwieldy Mystery. ”
― Brennan Manning
To weep for the death of anyone or anything...
...in the only world we yet know is only right.
We have loved and been loved here. To grieve the loss of that which is lost is to intrinsically understand, whatever faith we profess or do not profess, that deaths and ends were never meant to come to us in this once-perfect Eden.
The New International Version's translation of Ecclesiastes 3:11 contains this line: "...He has also set eternity in the human heart." We, the people we have loved and known, the people we have never met, and the creation in which we live were all made for eternity. But death and endings have invaded this place, invaded us, through human sin.
So, it's right for us to mourn and sorrow over what is lost, even those of us who are assured that by God's grace through faith in Christ, the One Who died and rose again, we will step beyond the portals of death, step into eternal sunshine, where loss never happens, where every greeting is hello and not goodbye. There, God will dry our tears and call us further in and further up into the eternity for which we were made.
I love C.S. Lewis' portrayal of grief and eternity in a scene from my favorite of his Narnia books.
We have loved and been loved here. To grieve the loss of that which is lost is to intrinsically understand, whatever faith we profess or do not profess, that deaths and ends were never meant to come to us in this once-perfect Eden.
The New International Version's translation of Ecclesiastes 3:11 contains this line: "...He has also set eternity in the human heart." We, the people we have loved and known, the people we have never met, and the creation in which we live were all made for eternity. But death and endings have invaded this place, invaded us, through human sin.
So, it's right for us to mourn and sorrow over what is lost, even those of us who are assured that by God's grace through faith in Christ, the One Who died and rose again, we will step beyond the portals of death, step into eternal sunshine, where loss never happens, where every greeting is hello and not goodbye. There, God will dry our tears and call us further in and further up into the eternity for which we were made.
I love C.S. Lewis' portrayal of grief and eternity in a scene from my favorite of his Narnia books.
The Thrill of Moving Forward
Thoughts from a personal letter written by C.S. Lewis. Remember Lot's wife!
Monday, November 04, 2013
The Blessed Life
[This was shared during both worship services of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio.]
Luke 6:20-31
There are many things we Christians believe that seem outrageous to the rest of the world.
They may not seem outrageous to us because you and I are accustomed to our memorized confessions of faith.
We affirm beliefs like the resurrection of the dead, eternal life for those who believe in Jesus, Jesus’ virgin birth and bodily resurrection. All of these teachings seem outrageous to an unbelieving world.
And the truth is, left to our own devices, you and I couldn’t believe these things nor experience the joy of knowing that we have been saved by grace through our faith in the crucified and risen Jesus.
Martin Luther writes in his commentary on Galatians: “Christ’s benefits are so precious that He will dispense them only to those who need them [by which, he means, who know they need them] and really desire them.” Faith, even the shakiest of faith, comes only to those who want to believe. The Christian faith that teaches that we must die to sin and trust in Christ to raise us as the Father raised Him on the first Easter, is a scandal, an outrage to a world that likes to think it’s self-sufficient.
And then, we come to the Gospel lesson appointed for this All Saints’ Sunday.
In it, Jesus seems to move to a deeper level of outrageousness. He talks not about the outrageous things Christians are taught to believe or trust, but the outrageous ways we are to live because we believe.
In the opening verses of our lesson, Jesus talks about the blessed life, the lifestyle of a saint.
A saint, the Bible teaches, is a forgiven sinner fighting the good fight to ignore the temptations of a sinful world, the sinful self, and of the devil, to hold onto Jesus as the only way to God, our only hope in this world and the next, the only Savior Who can free us to be the people we were made to be. This, Jesus is saying in these opening words, the kind of life God blesses.
Knowing this could make us feel uncomfortable. It could even make us feel doomed.
“I can’t possibly live the way Jesus says we’re to live,” we could say, “So, why even try being a Christian?”
But Jesus’ words here are descriptive. They describe the life we can live if we keep turning from our sin and trusting in Him.
His words are not proscriptive. By that I mean, Jesus is not telling us that we have to live this way in order to earn life with God. Jesus isn’t giving a new law, impossible for us to keep. He’s describing the life we can live if we let Him live in us, in every part of our lives.
Let me show you something. Please pull out a Bible and turn to Deuteronomy 11:26-28. (Page 130 in the pew Bibles.) Deuteronomy is a long sermon given by Moses, who was soon to die, to the people of Israel, just before God allowed them to enter the promised land. Moses says: “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse-- the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.” These are proscriptive words. They’re commandments.
Now, turn to our Gospel lesson, Luke 6:20-31. (Page 720 in the pew Bibles.) Jesus says, speaking to His disciples (that is, all who had come to believe in Him): “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.”
See the difference between Moses’ words and those of Jesus? Jesus is not saying, “Do this and you will be blessed.” He’s saying if you are poor, you’re blessed. If you are hungry, you’re blessed. If you are in sorrow, you’re blessed. If people hate you because you believe in Christ, you’re blessed. Jesus is being descriptive.
But, here’s the question Jesus’ words raise for us: Who wants to sign on to be poor, hungry, in mourning, or to be hated?
And how do we react to how Jesus describes the cursed lifestyle?
Look at that description, starting at verse 24. Jesus says: “...woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.”
Now, let’s be clear about what Jesus is saying in these descriptive words.
He isn’t telling us to aspire to poverty, hunger, sorrow, or persecution.
Nor is He telling us that it’s a sin to be rich, well fed, happy, or respected by others.
Instead, Jesus is telling us that whether we have what the world calls success or happiness or not, whether we’re seen as powerful or powerless, important or insignificant, the saint--the forgiven sinner who trusts in Jesus Christ as their only Savior, only God, can live with joy, hope, and peace.
Are you living with that joy, hope, and peace today? You can be!
Even in the midst of a world that counts faith in Christ as an outrage, an absurdity, a curiosity, a weakness.
Please turn to Philippians 4:11-12 (page 820 in the pew Bibles). The apostle Paul writes this to the first century church at Philippi: “...I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Then, in verse 13, he says: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
A saint then, is a person who is blessed whatever the condition of their life.
They walk in confidence, no matter what’s happening to them.
A friend of mine who has been through more than any human being should have to endure, told me recently, “I am blessed.”
When saints like that make the outrageous assertion that, despite what life in this fallen world has done to them or what hurt unbelieving people--even unbelieving people within the fellowship of the Church--have done to them, and despite what temptations dog them or past sins may sometimes haunt them they are blessed, I have to confess I feel ashamed.
Too often, I bellyache and complain about my lot in life. Too often, I forget that the God Who came into this world, experienced this life, suffered and died for sinners like me, and then rose to give those who repent and believe in Christ life with Him despite the death and condemnation I deserve.
Jesus has conquered all the things I bellyache about, all the things that frighten me.
He has overcome sin and death, even my sin and death.
I forget that even when Christians are hungry, they can be filled with Christ’s goodness, grace, and power.
I forget that when Christians are poor, we nonetheless have a rich life with the Creator of the universe that will only be perfected after we have died and risen to be with Him.
When believers mourn, we know that one day, He will wipe away every tear and that even now, living with Him, He can turn our mourning into dancing.
When we are spurned or even persecuted for our outrageous faith in Christ, we can, as Jesus prompts us, “Rejoice...and leap for joy” because we know that through Him, we have a great reward in heaven.
Certain that nothing can separate us from Christ’s gracious love, we can even dare to “love [our] enemies, do good to those who hate [us], bless those who curse [us]...”
When we hold Christ in the grip of faith, we will even find ourselves sometimes capable of doing to others as we would have them do to us.
Despite our sin and disbelief, we, like saints before us, can be filled with the strength to live lives of outrageous faithfulness to Christ.
In Jesus, we follow a Savior and God Who has lived the very life He calls blessed in today’s lesson. Do you remember what Jesus prayed for the crowds who cried for His death and nailed Him to a cross on the first Good Friday? With His dying breath, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Fine, you may say, Jesus was and is God. He knew how His suffering would end. Beyond His cross lay an empty tomb. He could afford to put the most charitable construction on the actions of those who hated and hurt Him. It was easy for Him to live the blessed life, we might think.
But how to explain someone like Stephen, a disciple, the first Christian to be martyred for his faith? Stephen was an ordinary man who believed in Christ, a sinner and a saint. As he was being stoned to death for his refusal to renounce his faith in Christ, Stephen prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Stephen, unlike Jesus, God in human skin, had no power over sin or death. But he knew he belonged to the God Who does and so could pray just as Jesus had on the cross.
Jesus Christ lives in those who trust in Him.
He empowers those who dare to trust in Him to not be caught up in the ways of this world, to become, as Luther puts it, “little Christs.”
This is why the apostle Paul could write: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.”
The saints in Christ know that this world is very important. It's a world God created, then died and rose to set free.
But saints also know that this world is not the end of the story.
No matter what the states of our bodies, our finances, or our relationships, saints know that through Jesus’ resurrection, His life is pulsating within us!
He has us in His mind and in His hands.
By His grace and our enduring faith in Him, our life with Him won’t end here.
And at those moments when we dare to give ourselves totally to Jesus and to God’s purposes for us, we gain the courage to live the outrageous life--the blessed life--that Jesus commends to us this morning.
The funny thing is that the saintly life that Jesus describes is, I believe, precisely how, in our heart of hearts, we all want to live, no matter how outraged we may sometimes feel about this lifestyle that Jesus calls blessed.
Even cynics and the persecutors of Christians want to live as saints, to be people who forgive, people who give, people who treat others as they themselves want to be treated.
By the grace of God in Christ and our openness to Christ, may the Holy Spirit teach us how to live as saints. God bless you all. Amen
Luke 6:20-31
There are many things we Christians believe that seem outrageous to the rest of the world.
They may not seem outrageous to us because you and I are accustomed to our memorized confessions of faith.
We affirm beliefs like the resurrection of the dead, eternal life for those who believe in Jesus, Jesus’ virgin birth and bodily resurrection. All of these teachings seem outrageous to an unbelieving world.
And the truth is, left to our own devices, you and I couldn’t believe these things nor experience the joy of knowing that we have been saved by grace through our faith in the crucified and risen Jesus.
Martin Luther writes in his commentary on Galatians: “Christ’s benefits are so precious that He will dispense them only to those who need them [by which, he means, who know they need them] and really desire them.” Faith, even the shakiest of faith, comes only to those who want to believe. The Christian faith that teaches that we must die to sin and trust in Christ to raise us as the Father raised Him on the first Easter, is a scandal, an outrage to a world that likes to think it’s self-sufficient.
And then, we come to the Gospel lesson appointed for this All Saints’ Sunday.
In it, Jesus seems to move to a deeper level of outrageousness. He talks not about the outrageous things Christians are taught to believe or trust, but the outrageous ways we are to live because we believe.
In the opening verses of our lesson, Jesus talks about the blessed life, the lifestyle of a saint.
A saint, the Bible teaches, is a forgiven sinner fighting the good fight to ignore the temptations of a sinful world, the sinful self, and of the devil, to hold onto Jesus as the only way to God, our only hope in this world and the next, the only Savior Who can free us to be the people we were made to be. This, Jesus is saying in these opening words, the kind of life God blesses.
Knowing this could make us feel uncomfortable. It could even make us feel doomed.
“I can’t possibly live the way Jesus says we’re to live,” we could say, “So, why even try being a Christian?”
But Jesus’ words here are descriptive. They describe the life we can live if we keep turning from our sin and trusting in Him.
His words are not proscriptive. By that I mean, Jesus is not telling us that we have to live this way in order to earn life with God. Jesus isn’t giving a new law, impossible for us to keep. He’s describing the life we can live if we let Him live in us, in every part of our lives.
Let me show you something. Please pull out a Bible and turn to Deuteronomy 11:26-28. (Page 130 in the pew Bibles.) Deuteronomy is a long sermon given by Moses, who was soon to die, to the people of Israel, just before God allowed them to enter the promised land. Moses says: “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse-- the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.” These are proscriptive words. They’re commandments.
Now, turn to our Gospel lesson, Luke 6:20-31. (Page 720 in the pew Bibles.) Jesus says, speaking to His disciples (that is, all who had come to believe in Him): “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.”
See the difference between Moses’ words and those of Jesus? Jesus is not saying, “Do this and you will be blessed.” He’s saying if you are poor, you’re blessed. If you are hungry, you’re blessed. If you are in sorrow, you’re blessed. If people hate you because you believe in Christ, you’re blessed. Jesus is being descriptive.
But, here’s the question Jesus’ words raise for us: Who wants to sign on to be poor, hungry, in mourning, or to be hated?
And how do we react to how Jesus describes the cursed lifestyle?
Look at that description, starting at verse 24. Jesus says: “...woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.”
Now, let’s be clear about what Jesus is saying in these descriptive words.
He isn’t telling us to aspire to poverty, hunger, sorrow, or persecution.
Nor is He telling us that it’s a sin to be rich, well fed, happy, or respected by others.
Instead, Jesus is telling us that whether we have what the world calls success or happiness or not, whether we’re seen as powerful or powerless, important or insignificant, the saint--the forgiven sinner who trusts in Jesus Christ as their only Savior, only God, can live with joy, hope, and peace.
Are you living with that joy, hope, and peace today? You can be!
Even in the midst of a world that counts faith in Christ as an outrage, an absurdity, a curiosity, a weakness.
Please turn to Philippians 4:11-12 (page 820 in the pew Bibles). The apostle Paul writes this to the first century church at Philippi: “...I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Then, in verse 13, he says: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
A saint then, is a person who is blessed whatever the condition of their life.
They walk in confidence, no matter what’s happening to them.
A friend of mine who has been through more than any human being should have to endure, told me recently, “I am blessed.”
When saints like that make the outrageous assertion that, despite what life in this fallen world has done to them or what hurt unbelieving people--even unbelieving people within the fellowship of the Church--have done to them, and despite what temptations dog them or past sins may sometimes haunt them they are blessed, I have to confess I feel ashamed.
Too often, I bellyache and complain about my lot in life. Too often, I forget that the God Who came into this world, experienced this life, suffered and died for sinners like me, and then rose to give those who repent and believe in Christ life with Him despite the death and condemnation I deserve.
Jesus has conquered all the things I bellyache about, all the things that frighten me.
He has overcome sin and death, even my sin and death.
I forget that even when Christians are hungry, they can be filled with Christ’s goodness, grace, and power.
I forget that when Christians are poor, we nonetheless have a rich life with the Creator of the universe that will only be perfected after we have died and risen to be with Him.
When believers mourn, we know that one day, He will wipe away every tear and that even now, living with Him, He can turn our mourning into dancing.
When we are spurned or even persecuted for our outrageous faith in Christ, we can, as Jesus prompts us, “Rejoice...and leap for joy” because we know that through Him, we have a great reward in heaven.
Certain that nothing can separate us from Christ’s gracious love, we can even dare to “love [our] enemies, do good to those who hate [us], bless those who curse [us]...”
When we hold Christ in the grip of faith, we will even find ourselves sometimes capable of doing to others as we would have them do to us.
Despite our sin and disbelief, we, like saints before us, can be filled with the strength to live lives of outrageous faithfulness to Christ.
In Jesus, we follow a Savior and God Who has lived the very life He calls blessed in today’s lesson. Do you remember what Jesus prayed for the crowds who cried for His death and nailed Him to a cross on the first Good Friday? With His dying breath, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Fine, you may say, Jesus was and is God. He knew how His suffering would end. Beyond His cross lay an empty tomb. He could afford to put the most charitable construction on the actions of those who hated and hurt Him. It was easy for Him to live the blessed life, we might think.
But how to explain someone like Stephen, a disciple, the first Christian to be martyred for his faith? Stephen was an ordinary man who believed in Christ, a sinner and a saint. As he was being stoned to death for his refusal to renounce his faith in Christ, Stephen prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Stephen, unlike Jesus, God in human skin, had no power over sin or death. But he knew he belonged to the God Who does and so could pray just as Jesus had on the cross.
Jesus Christ lives in those who trust in Him.
He empowers those who dare to trust in Him to not be caught up in the ways of this world, to become, as Luther puts it, “little Christs.”
This is why the apostle Paul could write: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.”
The saints in Christ know that this world is very important. It's a world God created, then died and rose to set free.
But saints also know that this world is not the end of the story.
No matter what the states of our bodies, our finances, or our relationships, saints know that through Jesus’ resurrection, His life is pulsating within us!
He has us in His mind and in His hands.
By His grace and our enduring faith in Him, our life with Him won’t end here.
And at those moments when we dare to give ourselves totally to Jesus and to God’s purposes for us, we gain the courage to live the outrageous life--the blessed life--that Jesus commends to us this morning.
The funny thing is that the saintly life that Jesus describes is, I believe, precisely how, in our heart of hearts, we all want to live, no matter how outraged we may sometimes feel about this lifestyle that Jesus calls blessed.
Even cynics and the persecutors of Christians want to live as saints, to be people who forgive, people who give, people who treat others as they themselves want to be treated.
By the grace of God in Christ and our openness to Christ, may the Holy Spirit teach us how to live as saints. God bless you all. Amen
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Bryan Price on Managing the Reds
In the first of a two-part interview, new Cincinnati Reds manager talks about his philosophy and vision for the team. This guy is incredibly thoughtful and understands that leadership is about relationships. Looking forward to the 2014 baseball season!
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
The Gutsy Prayer Hard to Offer
A friend recently told me that Psalm 139:23-24, were among her favorite passages in the Psalms.
I can get so accustomed to my favorite sins that I don't want God to point them out.
If I let God do show me and confront me regarding my favorite sins, He'll also call me to repent and change my ways.
I've read about people who stopped praying because they knew that if they really came into God's presence--and not just with pro forma, perfunctory prayers--they might have such an uncomfortable confrontation and with God's call and command to change.
My observation is that even changes we want in our lives are hard. But changing when God wants us to and when the change is the last thing we want to make is downright distasteful.
When a sin takes root in us, it's not just hard to give up the sin. It's hard to want to give up on the sin.
So much of getting spiritually right with God is getting to the point, helpless though we are to save ourselves, that we want Christ more than we want our favorite sins, to the point where we want eternity more than we want our favorite sinful thought patterns.
So, I think Psalm 139:23-24 is amazing. I only pray God will graciously give me the gutsy faith needed to pray it and mean it.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)I love those verses, too. But it takes guts to pray the petitions they contain, lots more than I have most of the time.
I can get so accustomed to my favorite sins that I don't want God to point them out.
If I let God do show me and confront me regarding my favorite sins, He'll also call me to repent and change my ways.
I've read about people who stopped praying because they knew that if they really came into God's presence--and not just with pro forma, perfunctory prayers--they might have such an uncomfortable confrontation and with God's call and command to change.
My observation is that even changes we want in our lives are hard. But changing when God wants us to and when the change is the last thing we want to make is downright distasteful.
When a sin takes root in us, it's not just hard to give up the sin. It's hard to want to give up on the sin.
So much of getting spiritually right with God is getting to the point, helpless though we are to save ourselves, that we want Christ more than we want our favorite sins, to the point where we want eternity more than we want our favorite sinful thought patterns.
So, I think Psalm 139:23-24 is amazing. I only pray God will graciously give me the gutsy faith needed to pray it and mean it.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
What's a Lutheran?
[This was shared during the early worship service of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, this morning.]
John 8:31-36
On this Reformation Sunday, I want to talk with you about a simple and important question: What is a Lutheran?
Lutherans have always seen Christian faith, the faith commended to us in the Bible, as having three key truths:
When the thirty-three year old German monk and priest, Martin Luther, accidentally began the Reformation movement back in 1517, after posting ninety-five theses for academic debate on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, he found himself addressing both a religious elite that no longer cared about the Word of God, choosing to replace it with their own supposed wisdom, and Christian masses whose allegiance to the Church was as an institution and a habit, rather than a fellowship with the living God.
No wonder that the elites hated Luther! No wonder that the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire put Luther under an imperial ban, meaning that any one was authorized to kill Luther on sight!
Luther’s faithful witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and to the authority of the Bible as God’s Word undermined those who wanted to replace Jesus with other lords and the authority of the Bible with traditions and customs that brought them comfort, control, or power.
But the experience of Luther and the other church reformers was nothing new. If you take time to read the Old Testament, you see a recurring pattern in the life of God’s chosen people, the Israelites or Jews. God would call them to repent, trust in Him for life, and follow Him, and the people, feeling weak or vulnerable or afraid, would do so. For a time.
Then, once they got a little food in their bellies, a little tract of land to farm, a bit of wealth or power, they would mostly forget God.
Or, they would make God over into an indulgent Santa Claus who didn’t care if they repented, believed, or followed, so long as they had a good time.
Or, they would tinker with their faith, adding their own rules, intermingling the worship of other deities, maybe ensconcing wealth as a sign of God’s favor and love.
It was to God’s people in these latter circumstances that God would send prophets to call people back to God.
We see this rejection of God and of God’s Word in the people Jesus confronts in today’s Gospel lesson from John.
Just before our lesson, Jesus once more foretells His crucifixion and resurrection.
Then Jesus lifts up those three distinctives of Biblical faith, three distinctives that would become the three cornerstone principles of Lutheranism.
"Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him,” our lesson begins, “’If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Lutherans don't claim to have a corner on the truth market. But the Lutheran Confessions hold up certain truths which, often it seems, the world would rather forget.
Lutheran Christians believe that we are free from sin, death, and futility in our daily lives, first of all, through God’s grace alone. Jesus didn’t come to us and say, “Perform these religious acts and I will set you free from sin, death, and futile living.” Jesus came to us and offered new and everlasting life as a free gift, an act of charity from God.
Open your Bible to Romans 5:6 and 8, please. Paul writes there: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless [meaning, when we were powerless over our sin and so, ticketed for death or eternal separation from God], Christ died for the ungodly.”
Now slip down to verse 8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The Greek New Testament word that is translated as grace is charitas, from which we get our English word, charity, a gift we cannot earn. We are saved by God’s grace alone.
The apostle John gets at this same reality in his first epistle, where, amazed by God’s grace given through the crucified and risen Jesus, he says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Our relationship with God is not initiated by us. Our relationship with God is initiated by God, a gracious gift we either receive or reject.
The Bible then, teaches that our salvation and hope depend completely on God's grace. Not our works. Nor our feelings. Not our thoughts. Only on God's grace.
A friend of mine has the perfect response for those who ask Lutherans, “When were you saved?” “That’s easy,” my friend says, “on a hill outside Jerusalem two-thousand years ago.”
What is a Lutheran? First of all, someone who believes that their salvation has nothing to do with them, but is a result of God’s grace, given in Christ, alone.
Lutheran Christians also believe we are saved through faith alone. Jesus told His fellow Jews that they would only be free to be the people of God if they persisted in trusting in Him, literally the original Greek says "remain in My Word."
Throughout the Gospel of John, we see Jesus described as the foundational Truth of the universe, God-in-the-flesh Who spoke creation into being. Life outside of a relationship with the God made known in Christ is a lie, disconnected from the only One Who can give us life.
But faith, the gift God gives to those willing to receive it, can overcome what Martin Luther marked as our enemies—the devil, the world, and our sinful selves.
That’s why Jesus says in John 4, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me…”
And it's why He tells Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will live forever.”
What is a Lutheran? It’s someone who believes that God’s grace is taken in hand by those who dare to trust—to have faith in--Jesus Christ alone as their only hope, their only Savior, their only way to a right relationship with God.
Finally, Lutherans believe that we come to know God through the Word alone.
Above all, we know God through “the Word made flesh,” Jesus.
The Bible, the inspired Word of God points us to the life God gives through Jesus.
In Martin Luther’sday, the Church added to or ignored the witness of God about Jesus and the will of God found in the Scriptures.
Luther said that the Church dared not do or say anything contrary to the will of God revealed to us in the Bible.
Belief in the authority of God’s Word in Scripture is at the core of what it means to be a Lutheran. 2 Timothy 3:16, a passage I alluded to last Sunday, teaches us that: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...”
We may want to know much more, but everything you and I need to know about God, about ourselves, about how to live, and about who can be trusted, is found in the Bible.
Knowing this truth will set us free. That’s why the Lutheran Confessions say, “We believe, teach, and confess that the…writings of the Old and New Testaments are the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers alike must be appraised and judged…”
We live in an era in which the Bible is routinely snubbed, dismissed, or misused. People ignore how unique and different the Bible is from all the other books of other religions.
The Bible isn’t the writing of just one person claiming a hotline to God, as is true of the books of Islam or Mormonism.
The Bible doesn’t claim to give us a means by which we can work or claw our way to heaven or a state of spiritual enlightenment, as is the case with eastern religions.
The Bible is a spiritually consistent revelation given by God to many people inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is a library of books that tell us how God reaches out to us, God saves us, God loves us, and how God wants to be reconciled to us.
And thousands of years of living with the Bible’s revelations of God, of Christ, and of the will of God have shown repeatedly that the Bible is more than just a collection of sixty-six ancient books. It’s a book whose words from God have the power to change the lives of those who stand under their authority.
The New Testament book of Hebrews says, “...the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
God saves through grace alone, faith alone, and Word alone.
It was true in 33AD, true in 1517, true today, and true for all eternity.
What is a Lutheran?
At the least, Lutherans are people who stake their eternal lives on these three truths.
And when the world rejects or demeans or tries to tell us to reject the Bible's witness to these three essential truths, we must say with Luther, “"Unless I am convinced by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures or evident reason…I am bound by the Scriptures…and my conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God…I am neither able nor willing to [reject dependence on Scripture]…God help me.”
And may God help us to be true to our Lutheran heritage, not as a commitment to tradition, but as a commitment to the One Who has committed all for us, through the cross and the resurrection.
May we be true to our good confession as Lutherans and so, stay true to Christ. That’s the best way to remember Reformation Sunday, today and always. Amen
John 8:31-36
On this Reformation Sunday, I want to talk with you about a simple and important question: What is a Lutheran?
Lutherans have always seen Christian faith, the faith commended to us in the Bible, as having three key truths:
- Grace alone;
- Faith alone; and
- Scripture alone (or Word alone).
When the thirty-three year old German monk and priest, Martin Luther, accidentally began the Reformation movement back in 1517, after posting ninety-five theses for academic debate on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, he found himself addressing both a religious elite that no longer cared about the Word of God, choosing to replace it with their own supposed wisdom, and Christian masses whose allegiance to the Church was as an institution and a habit, rather than a fellowship with the living God.
No wonder that the elites hated Luther! No wonder that the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire put Luther under an imperial ban, meaning that any one was authorized to kill Luther on sight!
Luther’s faithful witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and to the authority of the Bible as God’s Word undermined those who wanted to replace Jesus with other lords and the authority of the Bible with traditions and customs that brought them comfort, control, or power.
But the experience of Luther and the other church reformers was nothing new. If you take time to read the Old Testament, you see a recurring pattern in the life of God’s chosen people, the Israelites or Jews. God would call them to repent, trust in Him for life, and follow Him, and the people, feeling weak or vulnerable or afraid, would do so. For a time.
Then, once they got a little food in their bellies, a little tract of land to farm, a bit of wealth or power, they would mostly forget God.
Or, they would make God over into an indulgent Santa Claus who didn’t care if they repented, believed, or followed, so long as they had a good time.
Or, they would tinker with their faith, adding their own rules, intermingling the worship of other deities, maybe ensconcing wealth as a sign of God’s favor and love.
It was to God’s people in these latter circumstances that God would send prophets to call people back to God.
We see this rejection of God and of God’s Word in the people Jesus confronts in today’s Gospel lesson from John.
Just before our lesson, Jesus once more foretells His crucifixion and resurrection.
Then Jesus lifts up those three distinctives of Biblical faith, three distinctives that would become the three cornerstone principles of Lutheranism.
"Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him,” our lesson begins, “’If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Lutherans don't claim to have a corner on the truth market. But the Lutheran Confessions hold up certain truths which, often it seems, the world would rather forget.
Lutheran Christians believe that we are free from sin, death, and futility in our daily lives, first of all, through God’s grace alone. Jesus didn’t come to us and say, “Perform these religious acts and I will set you free from sin, death, and futile living.” Jesus came to us and offered new and everlasting life as a free gift, an act of charity from God.
Open your Bible to Romans 5:6 and 8, please. Paul writes there: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless [meaning, when we were powerless over our sin and so, ticketed for death or eternal separation from God], Christ died for the ungodly.”
Now slip down to verse 8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The Greek New Testament word that is translated as grace is charitas, from which we get our English word, charity, a gift we cannot earn. We are saved by God’s grace alone.
The apostle John gets at this same reality in his first epistle, where, amazed by God’s grace given through the crucified and risen Jesus, he says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Our relationship with God is not initiated by us. Our relationship with God is initiated by God, a gracious gift we either receive or reject.
The Bible then, teaches that our salvation and hope depend completely on God's grace. Not our works. Nor our feelings. Not our thoughts. Only on God's grace.
A friend of mine has the perfect response for those who ask Lutherans, “When were you saved?” “That’s easy,” my friend says, “on a hill outside Jerusalem two-thousand years ago.”
What is a Lutheran? First of all, someone who believes that their salvation has nothing to do with them, but is a result of God’s grace, given in Christ, alone.
Lutheran Christians also believe we are saved through faith alone. Jesus told His fellow Jews that they would only be free to be the people of God if they persisted in trusting in Him, literally the original Greek says "remain in My Word."
Throughout the Gospel of John, we see Jesus described as the foundational Truth of the universe, God-in-the-flesh Who spoke creation into being. Life outside of a relationship with the God made known in Christ is a lie, disconnected from the only One Who can give us life.
But faith, the gift God gives to those willing to receive it, can overcome what Martin Luther marked as our enemies—the devil, the world, and our sinful selves.
That’s why Jesus says in John 4, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me…”
And it's why He tells Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will live forever.”
What is a Lutheran? It’s someone who believes that God’s grace is taken in hand by those who dare to trust—to have faith in--Jesus Christ alone as their only hope, their only Savior, their only way to a right relationship with God.
Finally, Lutherans believe that we come to know God through the Word alone.
Above all, we know God through “the Word made flesh,” Jesus.
The Bible, the inspired Word of God points us to the life God gives through Jesus.
In Martin Luther’sday, the Church added to or ignored the witness of God about Jesus and the will of God found in the Scriptures.
Luther said that the Church dared not do or say anything contrary to the will of God revealed to us in the Bible.
Belief in the authority of God’s Word in Scripture is at the core of what it means to be a Lutheran. 2 Timothy 3:16, a passage I alluded to last Sunday, teaches us that: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...”
We may want to know much more, but everything you and I need to know about God, about ourselves, about how to live, and about who can be trusted, is found in the Bible.
Knowing this truth will set us free. That’s why the Lutheran Confessions say, “We believe, teach, and confess that the…writings of the Old and New Testaments are the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers alike must be appraised and judged…”
We live in an era in which the Bible is routinely snubbed, dismissed, or misused. People ignore how unique and different the Bible is from all the other books of other religions.
The Bible isn’t the writing of just one person claiming a hotline to God, as is true of the books of Islam or Mormonism.
The Bible doesn’t claim to give us a means by which we can work or claw our way to heaven or a state of spiritual enlightenment, as is the case with eastern religions.
The Bible is a spiritually consistent revelation given by God to many people inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is a library of books that tell us how God reaches out to us, God saves us, God loves us, and how God wants to be reconciled to us.
And thousands of years of living with the Bible’s revelations of God, of Christ, and of the will of God have shown repeatedly that the Bible is more than just a collection of sixty-six ancient books. It’s a book whose words from God have the power to change the lives of those who stand under their authority.
The New Testament book of Hebrews says, “...the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
God saves through grace alone, faith alone, and Word alone.
It was true in 33AD, true in 1517, true today, and true for all eternity.
What is a Lutheran?
At the least, Lutherans are people who stake their eternal lives on these three truths.
And when the world rejects or demeans or tries to tell us to reject the Bible's witness to these three essential truths, we must say with Luther, “"Unless I am convinced by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures or evident reason…I am bound by the Scriptures…and my conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God…I am neither able nor willing to [reject dependence on Scripture]…God help me.”
And may God help us to be true to our Lutheran heritage, not as a commitment to tradition, but as a commitment to the One Who has committed all for us, through the cross and the resurrection.
May we be true to our good confession as Lutherans and so, stay true to Christ. That’s the best way to remember Reformation Sunday, today and always. Amen
Friday, October 25, 2013
This song is simple and a bit cutesie...
...but I like it and love its message: "Just say Jesus!"
Paul writes in Romans 8:26:
I know that most of the time I don't know how to pray as I ought. I don't know what the best thing to pray for may be in many situations. Sometimes, I have the sense I need to be praying for someone or something, but don't know what the needs may be.
But God's Word assures me that when I pray in Jesus' Name, sometimes doing nothing more than lifting up to heaven "the Name that is above all names," the Holy Spirit turns my incoherent longings and my helpless faith into a prayer that moves God, changes the world, and changes me. By invoking the Name of Jesus, I entrust people and concerns to the One Who knows what needs to be done and will do it.
Just say Jesus!
Paul writes in Romans 8:26:
...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.Jesus tells us to pray in His Name, meaning we're to approach God under His protection, His aegis, and in accordance with His will.
I know that most of the time I don't know how to pray as I ought. I don't know what the best thing to pray for may be in many situations. Sometimes, I have the sense I need to be praying for someone or something, but don't know what the needs may be.
But God's Word assures me that when I pray in Jesus' Name, sometimes doing nothing more than lifting up to heaven "the Name that is above all names," the Holy Spirit turns my incoherent longings and my helpless faith into a prayer that moves God, changes the world, and changes me. By invoking the Name of Jesus, I entrust people and concerns to the One Who knows what needs to be done and will do it.
Just say Jesus!
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Luther on the Function of God's Law
Scripture is clear that God's Law--the commandments--are wonderful and reflective of the loving will of God. (That's why Bob Lenz calls them "the tender commandments," rather than the Ten Commandments.)
But God's Law cannot save us from sin and death. Only the grace of God--the free gifts of relationship with Him, forgiveness of sins, and new life given to all who believe in Jesus Christ--can save us. The Law can only show us of our need of the grace that saves us.
I love this paragraph from Martin Luther's comments on Galatians 3:30, where he explains all of this:
But God's Law cannot save us from sin and death. Only the grace of God--the free gifts of relationship with Him, forgiveness of sins, and new life given to all who believe in Jesus Christ--can save us. The Law can only show us of our need of the grace that saves us.
I love this paragraph from Martin Luther's comments on Galatians 3:30, where he explains all of this:
The proverb has it that Hunger is the best cook. The Law makes afflicted consciences hungry for Christ. Christ tastes good to them. Thirsty souls are what Christ wants. He invites them: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Christ's benefits are so precious that He will dispense them only to those who need them and really desire them.
The Importance of Persistent Prayer
[This message was shared during both worship services at Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio.]
Luke 18:1-18
To begin this morning, I’d like to ask you to pull out one of the pew Bibles and turn to the first two verses of Psalm 13. There, King David writes: “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?”
Have you been there?
Do you go through times in your life--maybe you’re going through such a time right now--when it feels like your prayers aren’t being heard, that they climb as high as the ceiling of the room in which you pray, then come crashing down again?
Do you suspect hat God doesn’t hear?
Or maybe even that God doesn’t care?
That prayer isn’t your thing?
That there’s no point in praying again today about the same things you feel prayed for with no result on the day before, or the month before, or the year before that?
Jesus has important words for you (and for me) today. Please go to our Gospel lesson, Luke 18:1-8. You can find it in the bulletin or in the pew Bibles. (Incidentally, if you need a Bible, feel free to take the one you’ve just grabbed home with you to keep.)
Verse 1: “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”
That word, then, is important. It alerts us to the fact that what’s about to follow in the text is related to what came just before it.
If you scan the passage just before our Gospel lesson, you’ll see that Jesus was talking about the day of His return, when He will “judge the living and the dead.” It will be a great day for those who have turned from sin and trusted in Him for forgiveness and eternally new lives.
But it's a day that will come without warning. Jesus is saying that we need to be prepared for His return. And we prepare for His return by turning to Him in faith each day, confessing our sins, receiving His forgiveness, and seeking His will.
Jesus says all this for two reasons.
First, to help us to understand the urgency of heeding His call to “repent and believe” that “God so loved the world He gave His only Son [Jesus], that whoever believes in Him may not perish [as all who refuse Jesus’ offer of new life will] but have everlasting life” with God.
And second, to help His Church--you and me--understand how urgent it is for us to be about the great commission He has given to us, to make disciples, to reach into the Church and to reach out to the world to help people know the crucified and risen Jesus!
It’s so easy in this world to lose our urgency about following or sharing Christ.
It isn’t just life’s tragedies that challenge our faith and cause us to give up on prayerful reliance on God.
It’s also the sheer volume of stuff we are called upon to accomplish each week; we get so caught up in minutiae that we give up on praying.
Instead, we take the weight of the world onto our own shoulders.
That, folks, is a prescription for eternal disaster.
We won’t be saved by how much or how often we pray, of course. Salvation from sin and death are gifts from a gracious God to all who believe in Jesus. But if we forget to pray, whether by deliberate decision or by the constant undertow of daily work and daily cares, we will also soon forget Jesus.
We will forget to trust in Him.
We will lose our faith.
That’s why Jesus tells this parable, to encourage us “to always pray and not give up.”
Look at verse 2, please: “[Jesus] said: ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.’”
Jesus' fictional judge was living in a way totally opposed to the will of God.
In one of his most important insights, Martin Luther talked about how God’s Ten Commandments are divided into two tables--two sections. The first three commandments--the first table of God’s Law--address our relationship with God. The fourth through tenth commandments--the second table of the Law--address our relationship with other people. Jesus summarized the two tables once. Quoting from two passages of the Old Testament, Jesus said that God’s will for humanity, His great commandment, is that we love God with all of our heart, mind, and strength and that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
The judge was living deep in sin, out of fellowship with God and with others.
In verse 3, Jesus continues the parable: “And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'”
Widows were at the bottom of the social ladder in first century Judea where Jesus lived. They had no legal rights at all, not even rights to the properties of their dead husbands.
That’s why the widow of this parable is so remarkable!
It was a bold and audacious thing for her to plead her case before a judge.
Since we know that in this parable, Jesus is talking about prayer, let me ask you a question you might want to think about this coming week: How bold, how audacious are you in your prayer life? Are you willing to be incessant in your prayer life?
The thing that’s important here is that this widow did not give up. She was certain that her cause was right, of course. But she was also sure that only this judge had the power to give her justice.
Listen: We never have prayed until we do so knowing the only One Who can render the help we need is God Himself.
My favorite book on prayer, as many of you will come to know, is called Prayer. It was written by the Norwegian Lutheran pastor and theologian of the last century, Ole Hallesby.
Hallesby said that there are two essential elements to prayer. Without these two elements, the words we may call prayer aren’t prayer at all. Those two elements are faith and helplessness. This widow was helpless. That’s why she kept going to the judge. She also trusted that only the judge, despite, his corruption, could give her justice.
When we believe in God and know that we are helpless without Him, then we will pray and not give up in our praying.
Verses 4 and 5: “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'"
The corrupt judge was worn down by this woman’s persistent petitions.
But beware, this is the most dangerous part of the parable. If we ignore what Jesus says next in explanation of the parable, we will miss the whole point.
Verses 6, 7, and the first part of verse 8: “And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”
God will vindicate our trust in Him, by responding to our prayers, sometimes in ways and at times we may not expect.
Now, the takeaway from this parable isn’t that God is just like the unjust judge. You don’t have to keep pounding at the gates of heaven in order to get God’s attention!
He knows the number of hairs on your head. (Or the number of hairs you used to have on your head, anyway.)
He cares about every moment of our lives.
Never doubt that the God Who gave you the gift of life, then took on human flesh so that He could give up His own life on the cross and rise from the tomb to give new and everlasting life to all who believe in Jesus, cares about you.
God does care about you.
God truly is in love with you.
He wants what is best for you.
So, He wants to hear from you.
God will not put you off.
But there will often be times when God will expect us to persist in prayer.
Let me tell you a story from my own experience. Years ago, there was an element in my own life which I was sure was not as it should be. I asked God to change the situation.
I prayed about it, offering the same basic petition night and day, for thirteen years.
Nothing seemed to change.
Still, as I read God’s Word and as I waited for God in silence, I saw no reason to stop praying this same petition.
I had no sense that God was telling me to stop praying about this matter, the way He once told the apostle Paul to stop a particular prayer request he had. In 2 Corinthians, Paul says that after he had prayed three times that a “thorn in the flesh”--some painful circumstance in Paul’s life that he never identifies--be removed from his life, he sensed God telling him, “No, Paul. I won’t remove this harsh reality from your life. My grace, the grace that saves sinners from their sin and from its consequence, death, is sufficient. My grace is all you need.”
I was willing to accept that sort of answer from God. It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I would have accepted it.
But I got no answer. So, I kept praying.
And then, amazingly, after thirteen years, out of the blue, the answer came.
It happened in ways I never could have imagined nor foreseen.
Here’s the lesson I learned from that experience--a lesson I try to remember, but often forget: God delays the answers to many of our prayers so that when the answers come, there will be no doubt about Who answered those prayers.
God wants us to come to the ends of ourselves, the ends of our resourcefulness, of our wills, and realize that, as the New Testament says, “every good and perfect gift” comes from God alone. God calls us to persistence in prayer so that, in the face of life’s challenges, our faith will grow.
Saint Augustine put it this way back in the fourth century: “Faith pours out prayer, and the pouring out of prayer obtains the strengthening of faith...”
I can’t explain why God doesn’t answer some of our prayers--like our prayers for loved ones or friends suffering from some chronic or terminal disease, or our prayers that marriages be saved, or those for a new job or admission to the college of our dreams. I will not be so flippant as to say I understand the mysteries of God. I don’t. (Though I do know that the God Who suffered and died on a cross understands every pain we endure, even the pain of death.)
But I do know this: To live life with any joy or hope or staying power, we need faith in the crucified and risen Jesus. And to have faith in Jesus--the kind of faith that saves us to live with God now and in eternity, we need to practice persistent, dependent prayer.
We lay everything at the feet of Jesus--our sins, our arrogance, our hopes, our past, present, and future, our fears--and through constant prayer, we learn to truly pray and live the hardest petition Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done.”
And so, Jesus says at the end of our lesson: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
Wherever Jesus finds people who pray with persistent faith and persistent helplessness--persistent desperation--for Him and His will, He will find faith. It is in people who pray like this even today that He finds faith.
May He find and keep building that kind of faith in you and me. Amen
Luke 18:1-18
To begin this morning, I’d like to ask you to pull out one of the pew Bibles and turn to the first two verses of Psalm 13. There, King David writes: “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?”
Have you been there?
Do you go through times in your life--maybe you’re going through such a time right now--when it feels like your prayers aren’t being heard, that they climb as high as the ceiling of the room in which you pray, then come crashing down again?
Do you suspect hat God doesn’t hear?
Or maybe even that God doesn’t care?
That prayer isn’t your thing?
That there’s no point in praying again today about the same things you feel prayed for with no result on the day before, or the month before, or the year before that?
Jesus has important words for you (and for me) today. Please go to our Gospel lesson, Luke 18:1-8. You can find it in the bulletin or in the pew Bibles. (Incidentally, if you need a Bible, feel free to take the one you’ve just grabbed home with you to keep.)
Verse 1: “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”
That word, then, is important. It alerts us to the fact that what’s about to follow in the text is related to what came just before it.
If you scan the passage just before our Gospel lesson, you’ll see that Jesus was talking about the day of His return, when He will “judge the living and the dead.” It will be a great day for those who have turned from sin and trusted in Him for forgiveness and eternally new lives.
But it's a day that will come without warning. Jesus is saying that we need to be prepared for His return. And we prepare for His return by turning to Him in faith each day, confessing our sins, receiving His forgiveness, and seeking His will.
Jesus says all this for two reasons.
First, to help us to understand the urgency of heeding His call to “repent and believe” that “God so loved the world He gave His only Son [Jesus], that whoever believes in Him may not perish [as all who refuse Jesus’ offer of new life will] but have everlasting life” with God.
And second, to help His Church--you and me--understand how urgent it is for us to be about the great commission He has given to us, to make disciples, to reach into the Church and to reach out to the world to help people know the crucified and risen Jesus!
It’s so easy in this world to lose our urgency about following or sharing Christ.
It isn’t just life’s tragedies that challenge our faith and cause us to give up on prayerful reliance on God.
It’s also the sheer volume of stuff we are called upon to accomplish each week; we get so caught up in minutiae that we give up on praying.
Instead, we take the weight of the world onto our own shoulders.
That, folks, is a prescription for eternal disaster.
We won’t be saved by how much or how often we pray, of course. Salvation from sin and death are gifts from a gracious God to all who believe in Jesus. But if we forget to pray, whether by deliberate decision or by the constant undertow of daily work and daily cares, we will also soon forget Jesus.
We will forget to trust in Him.
We will lose our faith.
That’s why Jesus tells this parable, to encourage us “to always pray and not give up.”
Look at verse 2, please: “[Jesus] said: ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.’”
Jesus' fictional judge was living in a way totally opposed to the will of God.
In one of his most important insights, Martin Luther talked about how God’s Ten Commandments are divided into two tables--two sections. The first three commandments--the first table of God’s Law--address our relationship with God. The fourth through tenth commandments--the second table of the Law--address our relationship with other people. Jesus summarized the two tables once. Quoting from two passages of the Old Testament, Jesus said that God’s will for humanity, His great commandment, is that we love God with all of our heart, mind, and strength and that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
The judge was living deep in sin, out of fellowship with God and with others.
In verse 3, Jesus continues the parable: “And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'”
Widows were at the bottom of the social ladder in first century Judea where Jesus lived. They had no legal rights at all, not even rights to the properties of their dead husbands.
That’s why the widow of this parable is so remarkable!
It was a bold and audacious thing for her to plead her case before a judge.
Since we know that in this parable, Jesus is talking about prayer, let me ask you a question you might want to think about this coming week: How bold, how audacious are you in your prayer life? Are you willing to be incessant in your prayer life?
The thing that’s important here is that this widow did not give up. She was certain that her cause was right, of course. But she was also sure that only this judge had the power to give her justice.
Listen: We never have prayed until we do so knowing the only One Who can render the help we need is God Himself.
My favorite book on prayer, as many of you will come to know, is called Prayer. It was written by the Norwegian Lutheran pastor and theologian of the last century, Ole Hallesby.
Hallesby said that there are two essential elements to prayer. Without these two elements, the words we may call prayer aren’t prayer at all. Those two elements are faith and helplessness. This widow was helpless. That’s why she kept going to the judge. She also trusted that only the judge, despite, his corruption, could give her justice.
When we believe in God and know that we are helpless without Him, then we will pray and not give up in our praying.
Verses 4 and 5: “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'"
The corrupt judge was worn down by this woman’s persistent petitions.
But beware, this is the most dangerous part of the parable. If we ignore what Jesus says next in explanation of the parable, we will miss the whole point.
Verses 6, 7, and the first part of verse 8: “And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”
God will vindicate our trust in Him, by responding to our prayers, sometimes in ways and at times we may not expect.
Now, the takeaway from this parable isn’t that God is just like the unjust judge. You don’t have to keep pounding at the gates of heaven in order to get God’s attention!
He knows the number of hairs on your head. (Or the number of hairs you used to have on your head, anyway.)
He cares about every moment of our lives.
Never doubt that the God Who gave you the gift of life, then took on human flesh so that He could give up His own life on the cross and rise from the tomb to give new and everlasting life to all who believe in Jesus, cares about you.
God does care about you.
God truly is in love with you.
He wants what is best for you.
So, He wants to hear from you.
God will not put you off.
But there will often be times when God will expect us to persist in prayer.
Let me tell you a story from my own experience. Years ago, there was an element in my own life which I was sure was not as it should be. I asked God to change the situation.
I prayed about it, offering the same basic petition night and day, for thirteen years.
Nothing seemed to change.
Still, as I read God’s Word and as I waited for God in silence, I saw no reason to stop praying this same petition.
I had no sense that God was telling me to stop praying about this matter, the way He once told the apostle Paul to stop a particular prayer request he had. In 2 Corinthians, Paul says that after he had prayed three times that a “thorn in the flesh”--some painful circumstance in Paul’s life that he never identifies--be removed from his life, he sensed God telling him, “No, Paul. I won’t remove this harsh reality from your life. My grace, the grace that saves sinners from their sin and from its consequence, death, is sufficient. My grace is all you need.”
I was willing to accept that sort of answer from God. It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I would have accepted it.
But I got no answer. So, I kept praying.
And then, amazingly, after thirteen years, out of the blue, the answer came.
It happened in ways I never could have imagined nor foreseen.
Here’s the lesson I learned from that experience--a lesson I try to remember, but often forget: God delays the answers to many of our prayers so that when the answers come, there will be no doubt about Who answered those prayers.
God wants us to come to the ends of ourselves, the ends of our resourcefulness, of our wills, and realize that, as the New Testament says, “every good and perfect gift” comes from God alone. God calls us to persistence in prayer so that, in the face of life’s challenges, our faith will grow.
Saint Augustine put it this way back in the fourth century: “Faith pours out prayer, and the pouring out of prayer obtains the strengthening of faith...”
I can’t explain why God doesn’t answer some of our prayers--like our prayers for loved ones or friends suffering from some chronic or terminal disease, or our prayers that marriages be saved, or those for a new job or admission to the college of our dreams. I will not be so flippant as to say I understand the mysteries of God. I don’t. (Though I do know that the God Who suffered and died on a cross understands every pain we endure, even the pain of death.)
But I do know this: To live life with any joy or hope or staying power, we need faith in the crucified and risen Jesus. And to have faith in Jesus--the kind of faith that saves us to live with God now and in eternity, we need to practice persistent, dependent prayer.
We lay everything at the feet of Jesus--our sins, our arrogance, our hopes, our past, present, and future, our fears--and through constant prayer, we learn to truly pray and live the hardest petition Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done.”
And so, Jesus says at the end of our lesson: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
Wherever Jesus finds people who pray with persistent faith and persistent helplessness--persistent desperation--for Him and His will, He will find faith. It is in people who pray like this even today that He finds faith.
May He find and keep building that kind of faith in you and me. Amen
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Joy in the Midst of Sadness
[This was shared during recent funeral services for Helen at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]
Psalm 121
Romans 3:21-27
Psalm 23
John 11:21-26
There is inevitable sadness today. The last thing any of us thought we would be doing this morning is grieving the loss of Helen. While she and her family knew that she had some health issues with which she was dealing and that her week was to bring medical testing, there was no thought that last week would bring her passing. Nor that it would happen so quickly.
But, for all its sadness, this day isn’t untouched by joy either. Helen has been spared a set of treatments that might have been long and hard. It’s easy to believe that God has intervened and taken her to be with Himself.
The last memory I have of Helen before this past Wednesday night, when she was taken to the hospital ER, was of her standing in the church fellowship hall, talking and sharing a quiet laugh with Margaret, probably as they discussed some detail of the Lutheran World Relief soap drive.
In some ways, that moment, observed from a short distance, encapsulates my experience of Helen: a woman with a servant’s heart who served God and others without calling attention to herself, who enjoyed laughing in the fellowship of friends and family, who lived for God’s purposes, and who, as in the job she held for twenty-five years with Halls, undertook her tasks with intelligence and diligence.
Helen was also a person who loved her family dearly, baking cookies for David and the boys to enjoy during their work days even recently. Matthew once told me that in her later years, she took to giving family members hugs and dispensing laughter more liberally, conveying how much she cared for each one of them.
Helen was just a wonderful person, the epitome of the word, lady.
And anybody who knew her for just a short time also knew that Helen trusted in Jesus Christ.
Because of her faith, I am sure that she’s in the company of the Lord and His people right now. I know that comforts you, Linda and David, and your families, this morning.
Today, I’m also sure that there is one message that Helen would want to share with her family and friends above all others.
We see that message reflected in various ways in all of the Bible lessons we just read. But none better distills them than the words of Jesus, spoken to His friend Martha, who was grieving the loss of her brother, Lazarus. Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
We human beings, you know, have two great enemies from the moment of birth. One is sin, that inborn condition of separation from God and the life that only God can give from which we all suffer. King David spoke for us all when he said in Psalm 51, “...I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”
Because sin separates us from the perfect life God has in mind for us, it introduces our second enemy, death and all the things that go with death--relational discord, physical deterioration. “The wages of sin is death,” the New Testament reminds us. And, in another place (Romans 8), God's Word tells us that the whole creation--including you and me--groans under the burden of our separation from God...and, like a woman in childbirth, in anticipation of the new creation God is bringing into being through Christ.
Helen knew and believed that, despite these enemies, though she might die, yet she would still live. Second Corinthians 5:17 contains a promise which can sustain us even in times like these: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! [And all] this is from God Who reconciled Himself [that is, torn down the wall of separation from Him and the life that He gives] through Christ...”
You who grieve Helen’s loss this morning can know that, because she was “in Christ,” because she trusted in Christ, she is with Him, is part of His new creation.
It’s a creation no longer groaning under the burden of sin and death, no longer groaning in anticipation of what God will do in the future.
Helen is living in that future.
There is no cancer.
No Zenker Diverticulum.
No cardiac issues.
No aging or the deterioration that goes with it.
Today, Helen stands in the presence of the living God, whole and healthy and holy, stronger and more filled with life than you and I can imagine.
These great blessings are nothing that Helen or any other of God’s saints--God’s set apart people--could earn. These blessings are gifts God grants to those who trust in Jesus as their only God and their only hope.
Jesus once told an old man named Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world [including everyone in this sanctuary this morning] that He gave His only Son [Jesus Himself], so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Helen, you can be sure, is with the Lord right now because she believed in Jesus.
But, Jesus is more than an insurance policy for us once we have died.
The Bible teaches that, in Jesus Christ, eternity, God’s grace, and the privilege of being God’s children has invaded this world. Even in the midst of grief, suffering, confusion, and tough decisions, the person made new by the love of Christ, can stand strong in knowing that God stands by them always.
Psalm 121, which we read a moment ago, is from the Old Testament’s book of worship, the Psalms. This particular psalm is part of a group of them known as the song of ascents. They were meant to be sung by God’s people as they traveled by foot, on animals, or in wagons on their way up the mount on which God’s temple stood. It begins:
“I will lift up my eyes to the hills-- From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; The Lord is your shade at your right hand.”
You see, the God we know in Jesus Christ isn’t just sitting back in heaven waiting to bless those who trust in Him after they die.
God never sleeps! He never slumbers!
If we dare to stand with Him, He will always stand with us.
And He is standing with you today, comforting you in your grief, offering to you the same hope in Him with which Helen, in her quiet faith, lived each day.
Jesus has promised those who trust in Him, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”
God’s Word assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of God given in Jesus Christ, the Savior Who died, taking the condemnation for sin we deserve, and then rose from the dead to push open the gates of eternity for all who dare to believe in Him.
Helen believed in--she trusted--the God made known in Jesus, “the resurrection and the life.”
It’s that faith that can allow you, even in your grief, to rejoice! Helen is with the Lord in Whom she placed her hope.
And it’s also faith in that same God, a God Who took on our humanity and suffered the worst this world can being, so that He can give you His best--God’s love, God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, an eternity of hope, and the promise that He will never leave you nor forsake you if you will trust in Him as your only God--that can sustain you in the days to come.
Cling to Christ today and always.
You will know, as Helen did, that Christ can always be counted on to strengthen you, give you help, and one day, raise you up to live with Him and the company of saints for all eternity.
God bless you.
Amen
Psalm 121
Romans 3:21-27
Psalm 23
John 11:21-26
There is inevitable sadness today. The last thing any of us thought we would be doing this morning is grieving the loss of Helen. While she and her family knew that she had some health issues with which she was dealing and that her week was to bring medical testing, there was no thought that last week would bring her passing. Nor that it would happen so quickly.
But, for all its sadness, this day isn’t untouched by joy either. Helen has been spared a set of treatments that might have been long and hard. It’s easy to believe that God has intervened and taken her to be with Himself.
The last memory I have of Helen before this past Wednesday night, when she was taken to the hospital ER, was of her standing in the church fellowship hall, talking and sharing a quiet laugh with Margaret, probably as they discussed some detail of the Lutheran World Relief soap drive.
In some ways, that moment, observed from a short distance, encapsulates my experience of Helen: a woman with a servant’s heart who served God and others without calling attention to herself, who enjoyed laughing in the fellowship of friends and family, who lived for God’s purposes, and who, as in the job she held for twenty-five years with Halls, undertook her tasks with intelligence and diligence.
Helen was also a person who loved her family dearly, baking cookies for David and the boys to enjoy during their work days even recently. Matthew once told me that in her later years, she took to giving family members hugs and dispensing laughter more liberally, conveying how much she cared for each one of them.
Helen was just a wonderful person, the epitome of the word, lady.
And anybody who knew her for just a short time also knew that Helen trusted in Jesus Christ.
Because of her faith, I am sure that she’s in the company of the Lord and His people right now. I know that comforts you, Linda and David, and your families, this morning.
Today, I’m also sure that there is one message that Helen would want to share with her family and friends above all others.
We see that message reflected in various ways in all of the Bible lessons we just read. But none better distills them than the words of Jesus, spoken to His friend Martha, who was grieving the loss of her brother, Lazarus. Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
We human beings, you know, have two great enemies from the moment of birth. One is sin, that inborn condition of separation from God and the life that only God can give from which we all suffer. King David spoke for us all when he said in Psalm 51, “...I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”
Because sin separates us from the perfect life God has in mind for us, it introduces our second enemy, death and all the things that go with death--relational discord, physical deterioration. “The wages of sin is death,” the New Testament reminds us. And, in another place (Romans 8), God's Word tells us that the whole creation--including you and me--groans under the burden of our separation from God...and, like a woman in childbirth, in anticipation of the new creation God is bringing into being through Christ.
Helen knew and believed that, despite these enemies, though she might die, yet she would still live. Second Corinthians 5:17 contains a promise which can sustain us even in times like these: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! [And all] this is from God Who reconciled Himself [that is, torn down the wall of separation from Him and the life that He gives] through Christ...”
You who grieve Helen’s loss this morning can know that, because she was “in Christ,” because she trusted in Christ, she is with Him, is part of His new creation.
It’s a creation no longer groaning under the burden of sin and death, no longer groaning in anticipation of what God will do in the future.
Helen is living in that future.
There is no cancer.
No Zenker Diverticulum.
No cardiac issues.
No aging or the deterioration that goes with it.
Today, Helen stands in the presence of the living God, whole and healthy and holy, stronger and more filled with life than you and I can imagine.
These great blessings are nothing that Helen or any other of God’s saints--God’s set apart people--could earn. These blessings are gifts God grants to those who trust in Jesus as their only God and their only hope.
Jesus once told an old man named Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world [including everyone in this sanctuary this morning] that He gave His only Son [Jesus Himself], so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Helen, you can be sure, is with the Lord right now because she believed in Jesus.
But, Jesus is more than an insurance policy for us once we have died.
The Bible teaches that, in Jesus Christ, eternity, God’s grace, and the privilege of being God’s children has invaded this world. Even in the midst of grief, suffering, confusion, and tough decisions, the person made new by the love of Christ, can stand strong in knowing that God stands by them always.
Psalm 121, which we read a moment ago, is from the Old Testament’s book of worship, the Psalms. This particular psalm is part of a group of them known as the song of ascents. They were meant to be sung by God’s people as they traveled by foot, on animals, or in wagons on their way up the mount on which God’s temple stood. It begins:
“I will lift up my eyes to the hills-- From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; The Lord is your shade at your right hand.”
You see, the God we know in Jesus Christ isn’t just sitting back in heaven waiting to bless those who trust in Him after they die.
God never sleeps! He never slumbers!
If we dare to stand with Him, He will always stand with us.
And He is standing with you today, comforting you in your grief, offering to you the same hope in Him with which Helen, in her quiet faith, lived each day.
Jesus has promised those who trust in Him, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”
God’s Word assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of God given in Jesus Christ, the Savior Who died, taking the condemnation for sin we deserve, and then rose from the dead to push open the gates of eternity for all who dare to believe in Him.
Helen believed in--she trusted--the God made known in Jesus, “the resurrection and the life.”
It’s that faith that can allow you, even in your grief, to rejoice! Helen is with the Lord in Whom she placed her hope.
And it’s also faith in that same God, a God Who took on our humanity and suffered the worst this world can being, so that He can give you His best--God’s love, God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, an eternity of hope, and the promise that He will never leave you nor forsake you if you will trust in Him as your only God--that can sustain you in the days to come.
Cling to Christ today and always.
You will know, as Helen did, that Christ can always be counted on to strengthen you, give you help, and one day, raise you up to live with Him and the company of saints for all eternity.
God bless you.
Amen
Who Came First?
He is not "my Christ" because I have decided to follow Jesus. He is "my Christ" because He saved me, wretched sinner though I am, purely out of divine mercy and grace and, overwhelmed by the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the Good News, faith took root in me. He is "my Christ" solely because, though I have no idea why He would want me, first I became His child. All praise and honor and glory go to God alone.
The Faith That Makes Us Well
[This was shared during worship with the people and guests of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio yesterday.]
Luke 17:11-19
Our Gospel lesson for this morning ends with Jesus telling a man Jesus has cured of leprosy, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
Passages of Scripture like this one have often been misconstrued by people. What does Jesus mean by these words? Is He saying that if you and I have enough faith, bad things won’t happen to us?
I hope that the answer to that question is obvious. After all, Jesus Himself, sinless, completely trusting in the other two persons of the Holy Trinity--God the Father and God the Son--nonetheless suffered more than any of us ever has or ever will. Completely innocent of sin, He suffered and died for the sins of the world.
In Matthew 5:45, Jesus says: “[God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust...” You and I have all known faithful people--people who trusted their whole lives to Jesus Christ as their God and Lord--who suffered, some dying at young ages despite their uncompromising belief in Jesus.
And often people encounter suffering--persecution, shunning, and death--because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is no insurance policy against suffering in this imperfect world.
To understand what Jesus means in the final verse of our lesson--”Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”--we need to look at the entire incident recounted in the lesson. As Lutheran Christians, we believe that we can't understand a single passage of Scripture by looking at it in isolation. Martin Luther talked about letting Scripture interpret Scripture, understanding an individual passage in light of what all of Scripture teaches and looking at passages within the contexts in which they appear.
So, please go to our Gospel lesson, Luke 17:11-19. We’re told: “Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off.”
Jesus is heading for Jerusalem. Today's lesson is part of a section of Luke's gospel that scholars call "the great interpolation." It begins at Luke 9:51 and ends at Luke 18:18, opening with Jesus setting His face toward Jerusalem, intent on His mission of dying on the cross as the perfect sacrifice for our sins and rising from the dead to open the gates of eternity to all who turn from sin and trust Him as their only God and Savior. In the midst of rising opposition, Jesus continued in His mission on earth. As His people, we are called to be similarly steadfast, counting on the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen us.
In the midst of this journey, Jesus passes between His native Galilee and the country of Samaria. The Samaritans were a half-breed people hated by the Jews. They had once been a full part of God’s people. But after the split of ancient Israel into two separate nations, the Samaritans mingled with other peoples, worshiping false gods, adulterating their faith in the one true God of creation.
Galilee, the region in which Jesus was raised, was next to Samaria and was regarded by the others in His homeland as "the wrong side of the tracks."
Jesus approaches a Samaritan village. On the outskirts of town, He is encountered by ten lepers. In those days, when people had leprosy, they were forced to live in isolation from family, friends, and neighbors in colonies on the edge of town. No one touched them. They were forbidden to touch anyone else. That’s why the lepers had to call Jesus from afar.
Go to verse 13, please: “And they lifted up their voices and said, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!'"
In desperation, the lepers called out to Jesus. They seek something no one else is giving to them: mercy.
You know, we who have received the undeserved mercy, grace, and forgiveness of God, given only in Jesus Christ, need to be willing to hear the cries of those around us for mercy. That's why things like our involvement with the Inspire Shelter, the CHAP emergency food bank, and Lutheran World Relief is so important. One reason that so many people are turned off to the Christian faith these days is that, unlike Jesus, Christians often fail to give the mercy and compassion that they themselves have received from Christ.
Verse 14: “So when [Jesus] saw them, He said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.” Old Testament law said that once a priest certified that a person had been cleansed of their leprosy, they could return to their homes. Jesus instructs the ten lepers to see priests. Even as they went, their leprosy disappeared. It’s hard to imagine how the ten of them felt at that moment. Their earthly lives had been changed by the compassion of God, given in Jesus Christ.
But look at what happens next. Verses 15 and 16: “And one of them [the cleansed lepers], when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at [Jesus’] feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.”
Not every beneficiary of God’s mercy acknowledges all that God has done for them. They just go on with their lives as though goodness and blessings from God are things to which they’re entitled. Listen: None of us is entitled to anything from God. Life itself is an undeserved gift! Every good thing added to it is gravy. God’s Word says that “every good and perfect gift” you and I have comes from God.
Often though, I’ve seen that people who have been helped by God through extraordinary circumstances, evidence no gratitude to God. It’s as though they can’t admit their vulnerability or their need of God’s help. Maybe this is why only one of the ten cleansed lepers returned to give Jesus thanks. The other nine didn’t want to even think about how weak and helpless they had been.
But the fact is, we are all weak and helpless. We all need God’s help. We all need to acknowledge that. It’s only when we own our helplessness and our weakness that the strength and power of God can flood our lives and help us to live with the confidence and hope God has in mind for us.
To paraphrase what the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians, when we are weak, then we are strong; God’s power is made perfect, complete, in our lives when we let God take control of our lives...and not a moment before. It’s only when we’re weak enough to lean on Christ that God gives us the strength to face and conquer all that keeps us from being the people God made us to be!
Verses 17 and 18: “So Jesus answered and said, 'Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?'"
You never can tell who is going to respond to Jesus Christ. Nor can you know when or how they will respond.
That’s why the Church--it’s why Saint Matthew Lutheran Church--must remain resolute in sharing the good news of new, everlasting life for all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
The one and only mission of the Church is the Great Commission. Jesus is quoted giving this mission statement to believers like you and me in five different places in the New Testament. One place we see it is in Acts 1:8, where the risen Jesus, just before His ascension tells us: “...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you [the Holy Spirit Who came upon each of us when we were baptized in the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit]; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Jesus doesn’t say, “You shall be My witnesses as long as people are willing to accept that I am the way, and the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Nor does He say, “You will be My witnesses as long as God and the Bible are popular.”
Nor does He say, "You will be My witnesses as long as it's politically correct."
He says that we are to be His witnesses. Period.
And if nine out of ten people with whom we share the Gospel reject Christ, the Gospel message, and God’s Word in the Bible, so be it.
Our call is to simply keep on sharing Christ, keep making disciples. And we are to fulfill this Great Commission, as Paul puts it, “in season and out of season.” [For help in playing your part in fulfilling this commission given by Christ to every Christian, see here.]
Then, Jesus says to the one thankful man in verse 19, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well."
Now, you and I know that ten people had been made physically well. But Jesus isn’t talking about people being physically well here. Jesus didn’t suddenly revoke the healing He had given the other nine because only one man displayed gratitude. So, here’s the key fact in this passage: All ten were physically healed, but only one was made well.
A person can be physically healed, but still not be well.
And a person can physically or psychologically or emotionally broken down, but still be well!
The New Testament, of course, was written in Greek. And the root verb of the word translated as “has made you well” is, in Greek, sozo. It literally means saved.
The grateful man was well because he had been saved.
The person dying on a hospital gurney can, even as they die, know: “It is well with my soul!” They know that they are just as saved as the healed leper was at the moment Jesus declared that his faith had made him well!
Even at the point of death, it’s possible for us to live in the certainty that nothing can separate us from the love of God given in Jesus Christ. We are saved.
How? How can we know that?
By faith!
By faith, the healed man acknowledged God’s blessing.
By faith, he fell to his feet and worshiped God.
And Jesus declared that, no matter what suffering may await that man through the balance of his life, for there is nothing more certain than suffering and death on this dying planet, the healed man had nonetheless been saved for all eternity because He believed in Jesus Christ!
By God’s grace, he had been saved by his faith in Jesus Christ.
He could live his life on earth in confidence and hope and joy; through Christ, he was saved--eternally saved--for a life with God that never ends.
We can live our lives with the same confidence, hope, and joy as we yield our whole lives in faith in Jesus Christ!
On this Sunday that we end our partnership as congregation and pastor, I urge you to never forget that our hope is built on faith in Jesus Christ alone.
It is Jesus Christ alone Who can save us--not denominational affiliations, not church rituals or traditions, not liturgies, though each of these things can play constructive roles in the lives of God's people.
We cannot be saved by habits, nor political correctness nor political action, not by caving into the warped values of a world out of sync with God, not by our personally preferred interpretations of Scripture, not by love, nor morality, nor being good, nor obeying the rules.
It is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone who saves us from sin, death, and futility. He does that as, in response to His grace, we believe in Him as our only God, Lord, and Savior.
Paul writes in our second lesson for this morning: “If we endure [in faith], we shall also reign with [Christ]. If we deny Him, He also will deny us..”
Stick with Christ.
Refuse to let the lies told to you by the world, the devil, or your sinful self to tear you from Christ, the only Way, the only truth.
Have faith in Christ alone.
And one day, all who trust in Christ, giving their sins, their past and their future to Him, will--despite our faults and sins and backsliding--gather around the throne of God together and hear the words of our Lord: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your Master’s joy!”
And, on hearing those words, all who have been made well by the grace of God given through faith in Jesus Christ will join the celebration with all God’s saints that never ends.
If not before that moment, we will, I am sure, if we remain steadfast in letting Christ love and grace and guide us, see one another then.
And, by the way, you’ll know me when we get there; I’ll be the guy sitting in the last row shaking my head in wonder that, in Christ, God’s grace even saved a wretch like me. Amen
Luke 17:11-19
Our Gospel lesson for this morning ends with Jesus telling a man Jesus has cured of leprosy, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
Passages of Scripture like this one have often been misconstrued by people. What does Jesus mean by these words? Is He saying that if you and I have enough faith, bad things won’t happen to us?
I hope that the answer to that question is obvious. After all, Jesus Himself, sinless, completely trusting in the other two persons of the Holy Trinity--God the Father and God the Son--nonetheless suffered more than any of us ever has or ever will. Completely innocent of sin, He suffered and died for the sins of the world.
In Matthew 5:45, Jesus says: “[God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust...” You and I have all known faithful people--people who trusted their whole lives to Jesus Christ as their God and Lord--who suffered, some dying at young ages despite their uncompromising belief in Jesus.
And often people encounter suffering--persecution, shunning, and death--because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is no insurance policy against suffering in this imperfect world.
To understand what Jesus means in the final verse of our lesson--”Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”--we need to look at the entire incident recounted in the lesson. As Lutheran Christians, we believe that we can't understand a single passage of Scripture by looking at it in isolation. Martin Luther talked about letting Scripture interpret Scripture, understanding an individual passage in light of what all of Scripture teaches and looking at passages within the contexts in which they appear.
So, please go to our Gospel lesson, Luke 17:11-19. We’re told: “Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off.”
Jesus is heading for Jerusalem. Today's lesson is part of a section of Luke's gospel that scholars call "the great interpolation." It begins at Luke 9:51 and ends at Luke 18:18, opening with Jesus setting His face toward Jerusalem, intent on His mission of dying on the cross as the perfect sacrifice for our sins and rising from the dead to open the gates of eternity to all who turn from sin and trust Him as their only God and Savior. In the midst of rising opposition, Jesus continued in His mission on earth. As His people, we are called to be similarly steadfast, counting on the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen us.
In the midst of this journey, Jesus passes between His native Galilee and the country of Samaria. The Samaritans were a half-breed people hated by the Jews. They had once been a full part of God’s people. But after the split of ancient Israel into two separate nations, the Samaritans mingled with other peoples, worshiping false gods, adulterating their faith in the one true God of creation.
Galilee, the region in which Jesus was raised, was next to Samaria and was regarded by the others in His homeland as "the wrong side of the tracks."
Jesus approaches a Samaritan village. On the outskirts of town, He is encountered by ten lepers. In those days, when people had leprosy, they were forced to live in isolation from family, friends, and neighbors in colonies on the edge of town. No one touched them. They were forbidden to touch anyone else. That’s why the lepers had to call Jesus from afar.
Go to verse 13, please: “And they lifted up their voices and said, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!'"
In desperation, the lepers called out to Jesus. They seek something no one else is giving to them: mercy.
You know, we who have received the undeserved mercy, grace, and forgiveness of God, given only in Jesus Christ, need to be willing to hear the cries of those around us for mercy. That's why things like our involvement with the Inspire Shelter, the CHAP emergency food bank, and Lutheran World Relief is so important. One reason that so many people are turned off to the Christian faith these days is that, unlike Jesus, Christians often fail to give the mercy and compassion that they themselves have received from Christ.
Verse 14: “So when [Jesus] saw them, He said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.” Old Testament law said that once a priest certified that a person had been cleansed of their leprosy, they could return to their homes. Jesus instructs the ten lepers to see priests. Even as they went, their leprosy disappeared. It’s hard to imagine how the ten of them felt at that moment. Their earthly lives had been changed by the compassion of God, given in Jesus Christ.
But look at what happens next. Verses 15 and 16: “And one of them [the cleansed lepers], when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at [Jesus’] feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.”
Not every beneficiary of God’s mercy acknowledges all that God has done for them. They just go on with their lives as though goodness and blessings from God are things to which they’re entitled. Listen: None of us is entitled to anything from God. Life itself is an undeserved gift! Every good thing added to it is gravy. God’s Word says that “every good and perfect gift” you and I have comes from God.
Often though, I’ve seen that people who have been helped by God through extraordinary circumstances, evidence no gratitude to God. It’s as though they can’t admit their vulnerability or their need of God’s help. Maybe this is why only one of the ten cleansed lepers returned to give Jesus thanks. The other nine didn’t want to even think about how weak and helpless they had been.
But the fact is, we are all weak and helpless. We all need God’s help. We all need to acknowledge that. It’s only when we own our helplessness and our weakness that the strength and power of God can flood our lives and help us to live with the confidence and hope God has in mind for us.
To paraphrase what the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians, when we are weak, then we are strong; God’s power is made perfect, complete, in our lives when we let God take control of our lives...and not a moment before. It’s only when we’re weak enough to lean on Christ that God gives us the strength to face and conquer all that keeps us from being the people God made us to be!
Verses 17 and 18: “So Jesus answered and said, 'Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?'"
You never can tell who is going to respond to Jesus Christ. Nor can you know when or how they will respond.
That’s why the Church--it’s why Saint Matthew Lutheran Church--must remain resolute in sharing the good news of new, everlasting life for all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
The one and only mission of the Church is the Great Commission. Jesus is quoted giving this mission statement to believers like you and me in five different places in the New Testament. One place we see it is in Acts 1:8, where the risen Jesus, just before His ascension tells us: “...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you [the Holy Spirit Who came upon each of us when we were baptized in the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit]; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Jesus doesn’t say, “You shall be My witnesses as long as people are willing to accept that I am the way, and the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Nor does He say, “You will be My witnesses as long as God and the Bible are popular.”
Nor does He say, "You will be My witnesses as long as it's politically correct."
He says that we are to be His witnesses. Period.
And if nine out of ten people with whom we share the Gospel reject Christ, the Gospel message, and God’s Word in the Bible, so be it.
Our call is to simply keep on sharing Christ, keep making disciples. And we are to fulfill this Great Commission, as Paul puts it, “in season and out of season.” [For help in playing your part in fulfilling this commission given by Christ to every Christian, see here.]
Then, Jesus says to the one thankful man in verse 19, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well."
Now, you and I know that ten people had been made physically well. But Jesus isn’t talking about people being physically well here. Jesus didn’t suddenly revoke the healing He had given the other nine because only one man displayed gratitude. So, here’s the key fact in this passage: All ten were physically healed, but only one was made well.
A person can be physically healed, but still not be well.
And a person can physically or psychologically or emotionally broken down, but still be well!
The New Testament, of course, was written in Greek. And the root verb of the word translated as “has made you well” is, in Greek, sozo. It literally means saved.
The grateful man was well because he had been saved.
The person dying on a hospital gurney can, even as they die, know: “It is well with my soul!” They know that they are just as saved as the healed leper was at the moment Jesus declared that his faith had made him well!
Even at the point of death, it’s possible for us to live in the certainty that nothing can separate us from the love of God given in Jesus Christ. We are saved.
How? How can we know that?
By faith!
By faith, the healed man acknowledged God’s blessing.
By faith, he fell to his feet and worshiped God.
And Jesus declared that, no matter what suffering may await that man through the balance of his life, for there is nothing more certain than suffering and death on this dying planet, the healed man had nonetheless been saved for all eternity because He believed in Jesus Christ!
By God’s grace, he had been saved by his faith in Jesus Christ.
He could live his life on earth in confidence and hope and joy; through Christ, he was saved--eternally saved--for a life with God that never ends.
We can live our lives with the same confidence, hope, and joy as we yield our whole lives in faith in Jesus Christ!
On this Sunday that we end our partnership as congregation and pastor, I urge you to never forget that our hope is built on faith in Jesus Christ alone.
It is Jesus Christ alone Who can save us--not denominational affiliations, not church rituals or traditions, not liturgies, though each of these things can play constructive roles in the lives of God's people.
We cannot be saved by habits, nor political correctness nor political action, not by caving into the warped values of a world out of sync with God, not by our personally preferred interpretations of Scripture, not by love, nor morality, nor being good, nor obeying the rules.
It is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone who saves us from sin, death, and futility. He does that as, in response to His grace, we believe in Him as our only God, Lord, and Savior.
Paul writes in our second lesson for this morning: “If we endure [in faith], we shall also reign with [Christ]. If we deny Him, He also will deny us..”
Stick with Christ.
Refuse to let the lies told to you by the world, the devil, or your sinful self to tear you from Christ, the only Way, the only truth.
Have faith in Christ alone.
And one day, all who trust in Christ, giving their sins, their past and their future to Him, will--despite our faults and sins and backsliding--gather around the throne of God together and hear the words of our Lord: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your Master’s joy!”
And, on hearing those words, all who have been made well by the grace of God given through faith in Jesus Christ will join the celebration with all God’s saints that never ends.
If not before that moment, we will, I am sure, if we remain steadfast in letting Christ love and grace and guide us, see one another then.
And, by the way, you’ll know me when we get there; I’ll be the guy sitting in the last row shaking my head in wonder that, in Christ, God’s grace even saved a wretch like me. Amen
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
"Being authentic [is] far more important than being perfect."
Leaders, we need to take off all our masks. (That includes spiritual leaders, pastors.) Check out the Harvard Business Review blog post in which the following informative video is embedded. I don't think that Peter Fuda, the author of the blog post and narrator of this video is necessarily encouraging disclosing things that only God and you need to know about. But I do think his commendation of being one's self as a leader is important. Great food for thought and prayer here.
What was that Jesus said about, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no"? Here.
UPDATE: Reading this book years ago was a help to me.
What was that Jesus said about, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no"? Here.
UPDATE: Reading this book years ago was a help to me.
Monday, October 07, 2013
Faith...and Obedience
[This was shared during worship with the people and guests of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, yesterday.]
Luke 17:5-10
Through the years, one of the most common things I’ve heard Christians say--or caught myself thinking--is this: “I wish I had more faith.” Many times, this is the expression of a real Christian desire.
But, other times, let’s be honest, those words are an excuse.
“I would forgive X, if I had more faith.”
“I would do more for the poor, if I had more faith.”
“I would love others as God has loved me, if I had more faith.”
“I would share the good news of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus, if I had more faith.”
People who otherwise proudly assert their maturity and competence to live grown-up lives, claim that their faith is too small and too immature to do what God calls every believer in Jesus Christ to do, to live as His disciples.
The unspoken conclusion of our “I wish I had more faith” statements is often really, “And since my faith is too small, I’m going to just ignore God’s will for my life.”
One of the biggest reasons that the Church is not fulfilling the only mission Jesus Christ has given to it--to make disciples--is that we in the Church, who are quick to turn to God when we get into scrapes, in our sinful hearts, don’t want to do what our Lord has commanded us.
Like Adam and Eve, we still would rather be God than obey God.
And, we would rather play Church than be the Church.
But, unwilling to own up to these truths about ourselves, we play the humble card whenever confronted by the things that God calls us to do and blame our disobedience to God, not on our willfulness, but on our lack of faith.
The excuse of small faith is nothing new. Just before the section of Luke’s book that makes up today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus gave the twelve disciples a daunting set of instructions. You can see them in Luke 17:1-4. Jesus says: “It is impossible that no offenses should come [In other words, Christians, because we are saints and sinners, will fall into sin. It’s inevitable.], but woe to him through whom they do come! [When a supposedly more mature Christian, who should know better, is the means Satan uses to tempt a less mature Christian into sin, the mature Christian has done a terrible wrong. Jesus goes on.] It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him."
In these four short verses, Jesus tells those of us who follow Him that we are to avoid causing others (or ourselves) to be tempted into sin; we are to have the courage to rebuke fellow believers when they have fallen into sin and have refused to repent; and we are to declare God’s forgiveness to repentant fellow believers, even if they commit the same sin repeatedly and repent repeatedly...even when their sin has been against us.
This is tough stuff! No person in their own power can possibly fulfill these commands of Jesus.
That’s why the reaction of the apostles--the twelve disciples who Jesus was preparing to take leadership of the Church in the first years after His death, resurrection, and ascension--is predictable. Look at verse 5 of our Gospel lesson: “And the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’"
“How on earth are we going to manage to do those things?” the disciples seem to be asking Jesus. “We’re going to need a lot bigger faith than what we’ve got right now.” Whether the disciples are giving humble expression to a real desire for greater faith or making an excuse for disobedience to Jesus' hard commands, we don't know.
Whatever the case, Jesus will have none of their protests. Look at what He says in verse 6. “So the Lord said, ‘If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, “Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.’”
The problem with the apostles isn’t that their faith is too small. A mustard seed is notoriously tiny. Yet, Jesus says that even faith the size of a mustard seed has the power to move a circumstance or a problem which, by comparison to the seed, is the size of a mulberry tree.
As I’ve said before, “A little faith in a big God is all we need.”
A little faith in the God Who created the universe, Who took on human flesh, bore our sins on the cross, and rose from the dead, Who promises His presence with us always and promises that all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus, God the Son, will have eternal life with God, is all we need to know our sins are forgiven, to deal with the tough realities of this life, to obey God’s will for our lives, to have the strength to resist temptation, to have the character to confess our sin to God.
Anyone who can say truthfully that they believe Jesus Christ is Lord and that He has conquered sin and death, even if their rational mind may sometimes doubt, has faith.
It may be a small faith, like the faith of the man who implored Jesus to cast demons from his son and confessed to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief.” But it’s faith! And faith does things!
Our faith may be as small as that of Naaman, the Syrian commander whose true story is told in 2 Kings, chapter 5, in the Old Testament. Naaman had been stricken with leprosy. A Hebrew slave girl told him that the prophet Elisha, in Israel, could speak with God and remove Naaman’s leprosy. When Naaman, a man accustomed to commanding armies and having people defer to him, wasn’t even met by Elisha, but by Elisha’s servant, with a message from Elisha that he should dip himself seven times in the insignificant Jordan River to be healed by God, Naaman was skeptical, to say the least. His faith in Israel’s God was tiny. But desperate, armed with only his tiny faith, Naaman obeyed and he was healed. Faith does things!
The problem for the apostles in facing Jesus’ call to keep from causing others to sin, to correct fellow believers when they fell into sin, to forgive the repentant, or any of the other things Jesus was preparing them to do as His followers, wasn’t the size of their faith. It wasn't the magnitude of their trust in the God we know in Jesus Christ that was the disciples' problem. Their problem was their unwillingness to obey the Lord in Whom they claimed to believe.
The problem for us in doing the things our Lord calls us to do--love God completely, love neighbors as we love ourselves, spread the good news about Jesus, feed the hungry, help the poor, work for justice in our world, forgive as we’ve been forgiven, obey the Ten Commandments, live under the Lordship of Jesus and the authority of God’s Word in the Bible--is not the size of our faith, but our inborn, sinful unwillingness to obey the Lord in Whom we claim to believe.
Jesus hammers this point home in verses 7 to 9 of our Gospel lesson. He says: “‘And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, “Come at once and sit down to eat”? But will he not rather say to him, “Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink”? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.’”
Faith, real faith, big or small, comes down to this: a willingness to obey the call of the God Who was willing to give His all, even His life on the cross, for us.
When God’s Spirit convicts of sin, faith obediently repents and prays for the power of the Holy Spirit to help us from committing the same sins again.
When God’s Word commands us to love God, love neighbor, make disciples, we seek God’s help to obey.
Maybe you and I will never have the faith of a Mother Teresa who, despite her doubts, went to extraordinary lengths and made extraordinary sacrifices to obey the command Jesus issues to every disciple to be His ambassadors in this world. But God will never hold us accountable for the faith we lack. God only expects us to exercise the faith we have.
He calls each of us to manifest His grace in our lives by obeying His call to us.
DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND: We are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. We cannot be saved by our works. But the one who is grateful for God’s eternal salvation in Christ will be ready to obey God’s call. Jesus’ earthly brother, James, writes, “Faith without works is dead.”
In verse 10 of our lesson, Jesus says that, like the servants in a first-century Judean household, “...when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.'"
People of faith, big or small, don’t obey Christ’s commands, to get credit or bragging rights.
The apostle Paul writes in Romans: “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded...For we hold that one is justified [made right with God] by faith apart from works of the law.”
The one with faith in Christ seeks to obey Christ even if their faith is small. And the one with faith in Christ seeks to obey Christ because it’s only right for a servant of the God Who died and rose to give forgiveness and new life to undeserving sinners, to obey His call.
A few months ago, I publicly thanked a member of this congregation for doing a ministry others might not have so willingly done in service to Christ and His Church. Later, that person approached me and said: “Don’t ever thank me like that again. I don’t need thanked.” This person is a servant who, because of faith in Christ, seeks to obey Christ’s call, not to be noticed, not to get brownie points with God.
The next time you’re confronted with God’s call to do something that may seem beyond your ability to perform or beyond what others might expect of you, don’t ask for more faith. Ask only that God will help you to obey Him and His will. Simple obedience is what the grateful follower of Jesus owes to Him, not as a means of securing a place in His kingdom, but as a means of thanking Him that by His shed blood and self-sacrificed body on the cross, Jesus Christ has already won a place for them in His kingdom.
Here’s what I believe: God gives us precisely the faith we need to do anything He calls us to do. And so, what every Christian needs more than increased faith is increased obedience to God, His will, and His commands. The reason for this is simple: Our faith increases every time we dare to ignore our own desires and impulses or the temptations of the world or of Satan, and instead obey God, surrendering our lives and wills to Jesus Christ alone.
Obedience, not as an obligation, but as a grateful response to God’s amazing grace, is the life to which you and I are called. This side of our own resurrections, we will never obey God perfectly. But it is only the person who seeks to live obediently to the Savior Jesus who lives their faith.
May our prayer always be not just, "Lord, increase our faith." But, "Lord, increase our obedience.” Amen
Luke 17:5-10
Through the years, one of the most common things I’ve heard Christians say--or caught myself thinking--is this: “I wish I had more faith.” Many times, this is the expression of a real Christian desire.
But, other times, let’s be honest, those words are an excuse.
“I would forgive X, if I had more faith.”
“I would do more for the poor, if I had more faith.”
“I would love others as God has loved me, if I had more faith.”
“I would share the good news of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus, if I had more faith.”
People who otherwise proudly assert their maturity and competence to live grown-up lives, claim that their faith is too small and too immature to do what God calls every believer in Jesus Christ to do, to live as His disciples.
The unspoken conclusion of our “I wish I had more faith” statements is often really, “And since my faith is too small, I’m going to just ignore God’s will for my life.”
One of the biggest reasons that the Church is not fulfilling the only mission Jesus Christ has given to it--to make disciples--is that we in the Church, who are quick to turn to God when we get into scrapes, in our sinful hearts, don’t want to do what our Lord has commanded us.
Like Adam and Eve, we still would rather be God than obey God.
And, we would rather play Church than be the Church.
But, unwilling to own up to these truths about ourselves, we play the humble card whenever confronted by the things that God calls us to do and blame our disobedience to God, not on our willfulness, but on our lack of faith.
The excuse of small faith is nothing new. Just before the section of Luke’s book that makes up today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus gave the twelve disciples a daunting set of instructions. You can see them in Luke 17:1-4. Jesus says: “It is impossible that no offenses should come [In other words, Christians, because we are saints and sinners, will fall into sin. It’s inevitable.], but woe to him through whom they do come! [When a supposedly more mature Christian, who should know better, is the means Satan uses to tempt a less mature Christian into sin, the mature Christian has done a terrible wrong. Jesus goes on.] It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him."
In these four short verses, Jesus tells those of us who follow Him that we are to avoid causing others (or ourselves) to be tempted into sin; we are to have the courage to rebuke fellow believers when they have fallen into sin and have refused to repent; and we are to declare God’s forgiveness to repentant fellow believers, even if they commit the same sin repeatedly and repent repeatedly...even when their sin has been against us.
This is tough stuff! No person in their own power can possibly fulfill these commands of Jesus.
That’s why the reaction of the apostles--the twelve disciples who Jesus was preparing to take leadership of the Church in the first years after His death, resurrection, and ascension--is predictable. Look at verse 5 of our Gospel lesson: “And the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’"
“How on earth are we going to manage to do those things?” the disciples seem to be asking Jesus. “We’re going to need a lot bigger faith than what we’ve got right now.” Whether the disciples are giving humble expression to a real desire for greater faith or making an excuse for disobedience to Jesus' hard commands, we don't know.
Whatever the case, Jesus will have none of their protests. Look at what He says in verse 6. “So the Lord said, ‘If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, “Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.’”
The problem with the apostles isn’t that their faith is too small. A mustard seed is notoriously tiny. Yet, Jesus says that even faith the size of a mustard seed has the power to move a circumstance or a problem which, by comparison to the seed, is the size of a mulberry tree.
As I’ve said before, “A little faith in a big God is all we need.”
A little faith in the God Who created the universe, Who took on human flesh, bore our sins on the cross, and rose from the dead, Who promises His presence with us always and promises that all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus, God the Son, will have eternal life with God, is all we need to know our sins are forgiven, to deal with the tough realities of this life, to obey God’s will for our lives, to have the strength to resist temptation, to have the character to confess our sin to God.
Anyone who can say truthfully that they believe Jesus Christ is Lord and that He has conquered sin and death, even if their rational mind may sometimes doubt, has faith.
It may be a small faith, like the faith of the man who implored Jesus to cast demons from his son and confessed to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief.” But it’s faith! And faith does things!
Our faith may be as small as that of Naaman, the Syrian commander whose true story is told in 2 Kings, chapter 5, in the Old Testament. Naaman had been stricken with leprosy. A Hebrew slave girl told him that the prophet Elisha, in Israel, could speak with God and remove Naaman’s leprosy. When Naaman, a man accustomed to commanding armies and having people defer to him, wasn’t even met by Elisha, but by Elisha’s servant, with a message from Elisha that he should dip himself seven times in the insignificant Jordan River to be healed by God, Naaman was skeptical, to say the least. His faith in Israel’s God was tiny. But desperate, armed with only his tiny faith, Naaman obeyed and he was healed. Faith does things!
The problem for the apostles in facing Jesus’ call to keep from causing others to sin, to correct fellow believers when they fell into sin, to forgive the repentant, or any of the other things Jesus was preparing them to do as His followers, wasn’t the size of their faith. It wasn't the magnitude of their trust in the God we know in Jesus Christ that was the disciples' problem. Their problem was their unwillingness to obey the Lord in Whom they claimed to believe.
The problem for us in doing the things our Lord calls us to do--love God completely, love neighbors as we love ourselves, spread the good news about Jesus, feed the hungry, help the poor, work for justice in our world, forgive as we’ve been forgiven, obey the Ten Commandments, live under the Lordship of Jesus and the authority of God’s Word in the Bible--is not the size of our faith, but our inborn, sinful unwillingness to obey the Lord in Whom we claim to believe.
Jesus hammers this point home in verses 7 to 9 of our Gospel lesson. He says: “‘And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, “Come at once and sit down to eat”? But will he not rather say to him, “Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink”? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.’”
Faith, real faith, big or small, comes down to this: a willingness to obey the call of the God Who was willing to give His all, even His life on the cross, for us.
When God’s Spirit convicts of sin, faith obediently repents and prays for the power of the Holy Spirit to help us from committing the same sins again.
When God’s Word commands us to love God, love neighbor, make disciples, we seek God’s help to obey.
Maybe you and I will never have the faith of a Mother Teresa who, despite her doubts, went to extraordinary lengths and made extraordinary sacrifices to obey the command Jesus issues to every disciple to be His ambassadors in this world. But God will never hold us accountable for the faith we lack. God only expects us to exercise the faith we have.
He calls each of us to manifest His grace in our lives by obeying His call to us.
DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND: We are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. We cannot be saved by our works. But the one who is grateful for God’s eternal salvation in Christ will be ready to obey God’s call. Jesus’ earthly brother, James, writes, “Faith without works is dead.”
In verse 10 of our lesson, Jesus says that, like the servants in a first-century Judean household, “...when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.'"
People of faith, big or small, don’t obey Christ’s commands, to get credit or bragging rights.
The apostle Paul writes in Romans: “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded...For we hold that one is justified [made right with God] by faith apart from works of the law.”
The one with faith in Christ seeks to obey Christ even if their faith is small. And the one with faith in Christ seeks to obey Christ because it’s only right for a servant of the God Who died and rose to give forgiveness and new life to undeserving sinners, to obey His call.
A few months ago, I publicly thanked a member of this congregation for doing a ministry others might not have so willingly done in service to Christ and His Church. Later, that person approached me and said: “Don’t ever thank me like that again. I don’t need thanked.” This person is a servant who, because of faith in Christ, seeks to obey Christ’s call, not to be noticed, not to get brownie points with God.
The next time you’re confronted with God’s call to do something that may seem beyond your ability to perform or beyond what others might expect of you, don’t ask for more faith. Ask only that God will help you to obey Him and His will. Simple obedience is what the grateful follower of Jesus owes to Him, not as a means of securing a place in His kingdom, but as a means of thanking Him that by His shed blood and self-sacrificed body on the cross, Jesus Christ has already won a place for them in His kingdom.
Here’s what I believe: God gives us precisely the faith we need to do anything He calls us to do. And so, what every Christian needs more than increased faith is increased obedience to God, His will, and His commands. The reason for this is simple: Our faith increases every time we dare to ignore our own desires and impulses or the temptations of the world or of Satan, and instead obey God, surrendering our lives and wills to Jesus Christ alone.
Obedience, not as an obligation, but as a grateful response to God’s amazing grace, is the life to which you and I are called. This side of our own resurrections, we will never obey God perfectly. But it is only the person who seeks to live obediently to the Savior Jesus who lives their faith.
May our prayer always be not just, "Lord, increase our faith." But, "Lord, increase our obedience.” Amen
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
A Look Back on the Reds 2013 Season
These are some off-the-cuff thoughts I had about the Cincinnati Reds' 2013 season. They came after the Reds lost the one game Wild Card play-in last night to the Pittsburgh Pirates. I posted them on a Facebook site I've enjoyed during the latter part of this season, Reds Nation #4192. Tell me what you think.
Some members of the site thought that Reds manager Dusty Baker should be fired. A few thought that the Reds players weren't really trying last night. That's why the post starts as it does.
Some members of the site thought that Reds manager Dusty Baker should be fired. A few thought that the Reds players weren't really trying last night. That's why the post starts as it does.
Any team can lose a single game. So, while I'm definitely disappointed that the Reds' season came to an end tonight, I have no particular qualms with how any player played or how Dusty Baker managed in this particular game. I'm not knowledgeable enough to have an opinion about the management of the game. And I certainly can't psychoanalyze players' motives or desire to win.
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Giving From What We've Been Given
[This was shared during worship with the people (and guests) of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Luke 16:19-31
The parable that makes up today’s Gospel lesson was told by Jesus in the face of mockery directed at Him by Pharisees after He told the parable on which we focused last Sunday. At the end of that parable, Jesus said that it is impossible for us to serve two masters. Money cannot be our ultimate loyalty; that place must be reserved for God alone.
The Pharisees mocked Jesus because, Luke tells us, they were “lovers of money.” The Pharisees spiritualized their greed, employing a few proof texts from the Old Testament to support their idea that God gives good people (like themselves, the Pharisees would say) money.
You can hear the echoes of this notion even today. A friend told me about attending a small group Bible study one night at which six of the eight attendees insisted that they had their nice homes in suburbia because they obeyed God’s rules. Like the Pharisees, the people at this small group Bible study also insisted that poor people were poor because they were sinners.
Yet the Bible--in both the Old and New Testaments--is filled with examples of people rich and poor, who were right with God, not because of their goodness, but because they trusted in the God ultimately revealed to the world in Jesus Christ.
People who think that their wealth or success in this life prove their worthiness of God’s favor, ignore certain fundamental truths.
One of those truths is that none of us is worthy of God’s favor. We are all born in sin and deserve nothing but condemnation and death.
The other is that God loves us any way and sent Jesus to die for our sins and rise from the dead so that all who believe in Him may live eternally with God.
Pastor Dale Galloway once wrote memorably, “Jesus never met an unimportant person.” He might have added, “And He always punctured the egos of those who thought themselves more important than others.” You can see Jesus elevating those considered unimportant by the world while puncturing the egos of the proud in today's lesson.
Please go to it, Luke 16:19-31. Jesus begins: “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.”
In Biblical times, tyrian purple was the color of royalty. That’s because it was prohibitively expensive due to the rarity of the dye. It was made from the secretion of a particular specie of sea snail, hard to find. So, Jesus is conveying that this rich man was really rich, like a king.
Our impulse at this point is to check out, thinking this is a parable directed at money grubbing rich people, not at people of our financial station. Do you want to hear something daunting? The other night, I found a web site called Global Rich List. It allows you to type in a level of yearly income and see where it stacks up with the rest of the world. I typed in $23,000. I did this because the Department of Health and Human Services says that in the US, a family of four making less than $23,550, is living in poverty. I don’t doubt that’s true. But the Global Rich List says that an American making $23,000 a year is wealthier than 97.75% of the global population! The point is that by global standards, most of us in this sanctuary this morning are among the wealthiest people in the world. We can’t dodge Jesus‘ parable so easily. We--you and I--are among the world’s haves, like the rich man in Jesus’ parable. Please read on.
“But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.”
This Lazarus is not the friend of Jesus who Jesus raised from the dead. This is a fictional character, the only time Jesus ever gave a name to such a character in a parable.
By doing giving this character a name, Jesus is turning the world’s usual way of doing things on its head. The poor, after all, are often a mass of faceless, nameless people in the eyes of the world, people passed by at freeway off-ramps or in walks through usually rough neighborhoods after concerts or ballgames. But by naming the beggar in His parable, Jesus is telling us that the poor among us, are real human beings, with thoughts and feelings and needs no less important than ours.
That’s why donating food to the CHAP emergency food bank, helping with the upcoming community dinners Saint Matthew will be doing with Trinity Lutheran Church, or donating health kit items to Lutheran World Relief, as coordinated by the Women of Saint Matthew, are so important. The poor may be invisible to the eyes of the world. But God sees them and God calls His people to see them and to serve them, just as God has seen and served us in Jesus Christ!
The Lazarus of Jesus’ parable is in a pitiable state. He is full of sores, presumably due to being malnourished. Our text says that he was laid at the gate to the rich man’s estate. But this is a dainty translation. The verb translated as laid is more literally rendered as thrown. Who threw Lazarus away, we don’t know. But Jesus says that Lazarus, this thrown-away man, would have been satisfied with the scraps from the rich man’s table, that he was so weak that dogs, not domesticated house pets in first century Judea, but wild animals, licked his open sores and Lazarus was unable to fend them off. It’s not a pretty picture. Please read on.
“So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.”
Lazarus was carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom. Abraham, the Old Testament figure whose descendants became the nation of Israel, “believed in God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Despite the torments and poverty of his earthly life, Lazarus also believed in God. Because of his faith, he, like Abraham, was counted righteous, worthy of being at the heavenly banquet with God.
Please look at what happens next. “And being in torments in Hades, [the rich man] lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.'”
The rich man was, like Lazarus, a descendant of Abraham. But, unlike Abraham, he had not put his trust in God. Clearly, his trust had been in his money bag. Had he trusted God and not mammon, the beggar outside his gate, Lazarus, might not have starved to death. A good work done for Lazarus would not have saved the rich man, of course. Only the God we know in Jesus Christ can save us from sin and death as we trust our whole lives to Him. But the clear implication of Jesus’ parable is that if the rich man had truly believed in God--trusted God--rather than his wallet, he would have found it easier to part with some of his money to help people like Lazarus.
The Bible teaches that one of the reasons God gives us money is precisely to help the helpless people of the world like Lazarus. In Ephesians 4:28, those who once made their income by stealing but had come to faith in Christ are told: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” In torment in Hades, the place of the dead, the rich man calls out to Father Abraham in heaven for help.
Verses 25 and 26: “But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.'”
Abraham could offer no help to the rich man. Nor could Lazarus. The rich man’s time on earth was done. His wealth, stubbornly held onto, had not made him acceptable in the eyes of God. Nor did his wealth prove that he was better than anyone else, not even a poor man who had been thrown at his gate. Having refused to trust in God while on earth, he was now separated from God’s eternal feast. Habakkuk 2:4 reminds us that we are right with God not because we have fat paychecks or even because we do good works. “Behold the proud,” it says, “his soul is not upright in him. But the just shall live by faith.”
Now, the rich man becomes a beggar. Verse 27: “Then [the rich man] said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.' Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.'"
One of the key themes that Luke hammers away at in his telling of his gospel’s story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and in Acts, his history of the early Church, is this: The God of the Old Testament is the same God we meet in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. In both Testaments, God hates sin and injustice, calls people to faith in Him alone, promising forgiveness and life to those who believe in Him, and warning of condemnation--self-condemnation, really--for those who turn their backs on the life only God can give.
In Jesus’ parable, Abraham tells the rich man that if the rich man’s brothers didn’t pay heed to the will of God to trust in God, to love God, and to love neighbor when they heard and read about it in “the law and the prophets,” that is, in what you and I know as the Old Testament, neither would they pay attention to God or repent for their sins and trust in God alone for life and hope, if someone who had been dead should rise from death and appear to them.
Some Christians, in a Pharisaic mood, may see Jesus’ words as applying to Jews who refuse to trust in the crucified and risen Christ. But if they do so, they miss Jesus’ point.
The God disclosed to all the world in Jesus Christ has given His witness to Jew and Gentile alike. As tempting as it is to put our trust in things we can see--things like money and possessions--our call is to trust in God alone and then, from hearts brimming over with gratitude for the freedom from sin and death we enjoy as the gift of God to all who live the trust in Jesus Christ, live the faith we confess here on Sunday mornings.
God’s earth produces more than enough to provide for every person’s need for daily bread. We live our faith when we dare to share what God has given to us with those in need.
And we needn’t be afraid that we’ll have less of what we need if we give to others. There is no limit to the bounties of God’s grace or goodness. The God Who loves to give will also empower us to give to others from hearts filled with God's infinite storehouse of love. Amen
[This sermon is really a companion to the one given last Sunday. You might want to check it out here.]
Luke 16:19-31
The parable that makes up today’s Gospel lesson was told by Jesus in the face of mockery directed at Him by Pharisees after He told the parable on which we focused last Sunday. At the end of that parable, Jesus said that it is impossible for us to serve two masters. Money cannot be our ultimate loyalty; that place must be reserved for God alone.
The Pharisees mocked Jesus because, Luke tells us, they were “lovers of money.” The Pharisees spiritualized their greed, employing a few proof texts from the Old Testament to support their idea that God gives good people (like themselves, the Pharisees would say) money.
You can hear the echoes of this notion even today. A friend told me about attending a small group Bible study one night at which six of the eight attendees insisted that they had their nice homes in suburbia because they obeyed God’s rules. Like the Pharisees, the people at this small group Bible study also insisted that poor people were poor because they were sinners.
Yet the Bible--in both the Old and New Testaments--is filled with examples of people rich and poor, who were right with God, not because of their goodness, but because they trusted in the God ultimately revealed to the world in Jesus Christ.
People who think that their wealth or success in this life prove their worthiness of God’s favor, ignore certain fundamental truths.
One of those truths is that none of us is worthy of God’s favor. We are all born in sin and deserve nothing but condemnation and death.
The other is that God loves us any way and sent Jesus to die for our sins and rise from the dead so that all who believe in Him may live eternally with God.
Pastor Dale Galloway once wrote memorably, “Jesus never met an unimportant person.” He might have added, “And He always punctured the egos of those who thought themselves more important than others.” You can see Jesus elevating those considered unimportant by the world while puncturing the egos of the proud in today's lesson.
Please go to it, Luke 16:19-31. Jesus begins: “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.”
In Biblical times, tyrian purple was the color of royalty. That’s because it was prohibitively expensive due to the rarity of the dye. It was made from the secretion of a particular specie of sea snail, hard to find. So, Jesus is conveying that this rich man was really rich, like a king.
Our impulse at this point is to check out, thinking this is a parable directed at money grubbing rich people, not at people of our financial station. Do you want to hear something daunting? The other night, I found a web site called Global Rich List. It allows you to type in a level of yearly income and see where it stacks up with the rest of the world. I typed in $23,000. I did this because the Department of Health and Human Services says that in the US, a family of four making less than $23,550, is living in poverty. I don’t doubt that’s true. But the Global Rich List says that an American making $23,000 a year is wealthier than 97.75% of the global population! The point is that by global standards, most of us in this sanctuary this morning are among the wealthiest people in the world. We can’t dodge Jesus‘ parable so easily. We--you and I--are among the world’s haves, like the rich man in Jesus’ parable. Please read on.
“But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.”
This Lazarus is not the friend of Jesus who Jesus raised from the dead. This is a fictional character, the only time Jesus ever gave a name to such a character in a parable.
By doing giving this character a name, Jesus is turning the world’s usual way of doing things on its head. The poor, after all, are often a mass of faceless, nameless people in the eyes of the world, people passed by at freeway off-ramps or in walks through usually rough neighborhoods after concerts or ballgames. But by naming the beggar in His parable, Jesus is telling us that the poor among us, are real human beings, with thoughts and feelings and needs no less important than ours.
That’s why donating food to the CHAP emergency food bank, helping with the upcoming community dinners Saint Matthew will be doing with Trinity Lutheran Church, or donating health kit items to Lutheran World Relief, as coordinated by the Women of Saint Matthew, are so important. The poor may be invisible to the eyes of the world. But God sees them and God calls His people to see them and to serve them, just as God has seen and served us in Jesus Christ!
The Lazarus of Jesus’ parable is in a pitiable state. He is full of sores, presumably due to being malnourished. Our text says that he was laid at the gate to the rich man’s estate. But this is a dainty translation. The verb translated as laid is more literally rendered as thrown. Who threw Lazarus away, we don’t know. But Jesus says that Lazarus, this thrown-away man, would have been satisfied with the scraps from the rich man’s table, that he was so weak that dogs, not domesticated house pets in first century Judea, but wild animals, licked his open sores and Lazarus was unable to fend them off. It’s not a pretty picture. Please read on.
“So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.”
Lazarus was carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom. Abraham, the Old Testament figure whose descendants became the nation of Israel, “believed in God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Despite the torments and poverty of his earthly life, Lazarus also believed in God. Because of his faith, he, like Abraham, was counted righteous, worthy of being at the heavenly banquet with God.
Please look at what happens next. “And being in torments in Hades, [the rich man] lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.'”
The rich man was, like Lazarus, a descendant of Abraham. But, unlike Abraham, he had not put his trust in God. Clearly, his trust had been in his money bag. Had he trusted God and not mammon, the beggar outside his gate, Lazarus, might not have starved to death. A good work done for Lazarus would not have saved the rich man, of course. Only the God we know in Jesus Christ can save us from sin and death as we trust our whole lives to Him. But the clear implication of Jesus’ parable is that if the rich man had truly believed in God--trusted God--rather than his wallet, he would have found it easier to part with some of his money to help people like Lazarus.
The Bible teaches that one of the reasons God gives us money is precisely to help the helpless people of the world like Lazarus. In Ephesians 4:28, those who once made their income by stealing but had come to faith in Christ are told: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” In torment in Hades, the place of the dead, the rich man calls out to Father Abraham in heaven for help.
Verses 25 and 26: “But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.'”
Abraham could offer no help to the rich man. Nor could Lazarus. The rich man’s time on earth was done. His wealth, stubbornly held onto, had not made him acceptable in the eyes of God. Nor did his wealth prove that he was better than anyone else, not even a poor man who had been thrown at his gate. Having refused to trust in God while on earth, he was now separated from God’s eternal feast. Habakkuk 2:4 reminds us that we are right with God not because we have fat paychecks or even because we do good works. “Behold the proud,” it says, “his soul is not upright in him. But the just shall live by faith.”
Now, the rich man becomes a beggar. Verse 27: “Then [the rich man] said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.' Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.'"
One of the key themes that Luke hammers away at in his telling of his gospel’s story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and in Acts, his history of the early Church, is this: The God of the Old Testament is the same God we meet in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. In both Testaments, God hates sin and injustice, calls people to faith in Him alone, promising forgiveness and life to those who believe in Him, and warning of condemnation--self-condemnation, really--for those who turn their backs on the life only God can give.
In Jesus’ parable, Abraham tells the rich man that if the rich man’s brothers didn’t pay heed to the will of God to trust in God, to love God, and to love neighbor when they heard and read about it in “the law and the prophets,” that is, in what you and I know as the Old Testament, neither would they pay attention to God or repent for their sins and trust in God alone for life and hope, if someone who had been dead should rise from death and appear to them.
Some Christians, in a Pharisaic mood, may see Jesus’ words as applying to Jews who refuse to trust in the crucified and risen Christ. But if they do so, they miss Jesus’ point.
The God disclosed to all the world in Jesus Christ has given His witness to Jew and Gentile alike. As tempting as it is to put our trust in things we can see--things like money and possessions--our call is to trust in God alone and then, from hearts brimming over with gratitude for the freedom from sin and death we enjoy as the gift of God to all who live the trust in Jesus Christ, live the faith we confess here on Sunday mornings.
God’s earth produces more than enough to provide for every person’s need for daily bread. We live our faith when we dare to share what God has given to us with those in need.
And we needn’t be afraid that we’ll have less of what we need if we give to others. There is no limit to the bounties of God’s grace or goodness. The God Who loves to give will also empower us to give to others from hearts filled with God's infinite storehouse of love. Amen
[This sermon is really a companion to the one given last Sunday. You might want to check it out here.]
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