Tough Talk from the Tender Savior

[This was prepared to be shared with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, during worship this morning.]

Matthew 5:21-37
You know, we Lutherans generally follow a plan of Sunday morning Bible readings called the lectionary. It's structured in three-year cycles, so we get the same sets of lessons--Old Testament, New Testament, Psalm, and Gospel readings--every third year. A smart pastor, knowing that Jesus' words, comprising today's Gospel lesson from Matthew, was coming up, would plan their vacation on this Sunday.

But I'm not a smart pastor. I'm preaching on this lesson.

So, as we begin this morning, be warned that we are going to cover some uncomfortable topics--uncomfortable for all of us. Uncomfortable for me. As we do, remember the love and the desire to bring you forgiveness and healing that God bears for you.

Now, please pick up a Bible and turn to Matthew 21:28. We're going to look at a parable told by Jesus that relates to our Gospel lesson for this morning. It says:

[Jesus asks:] "What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' 29 " 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. 30 "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. 31 "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered.”

Jesus told this story to demonstrate that it’s possible for someone to appear to obey God’s commands and yet be far from God. Jesus wants our hearts, minds, bodies, wills, and lives to be aligned with the faith we confess.

Where are your heart, mind, body, will, and life oriented this morning?

I’m not asking if you sinned yesterday or today.

You did.

So did I.

The question is how our lives are oriented today: Are they oriented oward Christ and the new life He gives to those who repent and believe in Him?

Or toward the world or our own preferred behaviors and ways of life?

Despite the sinful detours we may unintentionally take in our daily lives, is it clear to God that our lives are pointed toward Christ and heaven or toward sin and hell?

Every Lutheran Catechism student has been taught that the Ten Commandments, God’s inviolable law for the whole human race for all time, is divisible into two tables.

The first three commandments command us, as Jesus sums it up in the Great Commandment, to love God completely.

Commandments 4 through 10 command us, as Jesus also sums it up in the Great Commandment, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

In our Gospel lesson for last week, Jesus said that He had come into our world not to abolish these commandments, but to fulfill them.

He went on to say that unless our righteousness exceeds that the of the Jewish sect known as Pharisees, none of us will even get a whiff of the kingdom of heaven!

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day, you’ll recall, looked at the commandments and tried to discern what it was they absolutely had to do in order to obey them. They reduced relationship with God to a list of dos and don’ts, effectively putting God on the same level they would put a street vendor with whom they might negotiate prices in the marketplace.

The Pharisees, though claiming to revere and honor God, in effect, thought they that they could force God to bless them as they self-consciously adhered to the strict letter of God’s commands.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus challenges us to move away from Pharisee-like religion to a trust relationship of love with God, our fellow church members, and the world around us. He does this by confronting us with the full implications of God's moral law. And when we see the impossibility of keeping it completely and purely, we are driven to the foot of the cross of the Savior Who fulfilled the law for us, died to take the punishment we deserve for failing to keep it, and then rose from the dead to open up new life and eternity with God to all who repent and believe.

Please turn to our Gospel lesson, Matthew 5:21-37. Jesus starts by saying: "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, ' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

First, we should say something about Jesus mentioning hell here. Someone asked during this past Wednesday night’s Discipleship 101 class why we Lutherans seemed so hesitant to talk about hell. I don’t know why exactly. I suspect it's because we want to make Jesus acceptable to a world bent on doing its own thing.

But Jesus, the One we call God and Lord, certainly didn’t hesitate to warn us about the perils of hell, of eternal separation from God. We shouldn’t obsess about hell, of course. But we also shouldn’t be in denial about it either. According to Jesus, hell is real, a place of eternal sadness and regret.

But to the core point Jesus makes here: We should note that Jesus’ version of the Fifth Commandment is the accurate one. In the original Hebrew, God doesn’t say, “You shall not kill,” but “You shall not murder.”

But if you're issuing a sigh of relief right now, Jesus’ explanation of the commandment hardly gets us off the hook.

Evangelist Billy Graham’s late wife, Ruth, was once asked if, in their long years of marriage, she had ever considered divorcing her husband. Her reply: “Murder yes. Divorce no.”

She understood the reality to which Jesus is pointing us today: Physical murder is only the outward manifestation of a sin that occurs inside of us first. That sin is to be so angry with someone that we want to murder them, to take away a life that is only God’s to give and take.

And, I'm afraid this commandment is violated far more often than we may imagine. I know of parents, for example, who, when their children displease them, give the kids the silent treatment. Until their anger is assuaged, their kids don't exist to them. This is murder and it's wrong. The same can be said of spouses who use the silent treatment.

Don’t be confused by Jesus' words here, though. Anger in itself is something that happens to us. It’s a basic human trait.

I would go so far, that our capacity for anger even reflects the image of God in which every human being is created. Even God gets angry. Remember that Jesus overturned the tables of the extortionists in the Temple, enraged by their exploitation of God’s house of prayer and of God’s people. 

The New Testament book of Ephesians tells us, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.”

In other words, don’t allow your anger to cause you to dehumanize the person at whom you’re mad and always seek reconciliation. Otherwise, we will have committed murder without raising a fist.

Slip down to verse 27 in our Gospel lesson, please. Jesus says: "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

As in the earlier verses, Jesus is telling us to look at more than the letter of God’s commandments, so that we see and understand their intention.

God has created sexual intimacy for one man and one woman in a lifetime covenant known as marriage. Lust, like anger, isn’t a bad thing in itself. In fact,  it’s the mechanism God invented to foster intimacy in marriage. But, irrespective of the popular romantic myths of our world, lust need not be in control of our behavior. No one should be able to say with a straight face, “I couldn’t help myself.”

Jesus says that we are to be in control of our impulses, not the other way around. In this, He echoes the words of God, when he told Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, “Sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Given weak human will and our inborn sinfulness, we know that this is just another way of telling us, place your life under God's control.

Please look now at verse 31 now. Jesus says, "It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”

These are hard words. They were even harder in Jesus’ day. In that society, a man might come home and find a burnt dinner or no dinner and feel justified in divorcing his wife on the spot. Divorce was even more common then than it is today.

But however hard it is for us to hear, here again, Jesus is pointing us to something deeper than the letter of the law.

Ancient Jews thought that a person must be married. God’s kingdom only grew when couples had children. Singleness and barrenness were regarded as curses from God. But Jesus ushered in a more eternal understanding of God’s kingdom. The Church truly grows not through the birth rate, but when people hear Christ’s call to repent and come to believe in Him.

Marriage isn’t a necessity for Christians. But if we do feel called to be married, Jesus says that it’s to be undertaken with seriousness.

Of course, we know of tragic situations in which divorce becomes the only option. Situations of abuse, adultery, or spiritual abandonment come to mind.

And I’ve never known a spiritually healthy person who had been through a divorce who couldn’t also enumerate some things they brought to their former marriage that contributed to its demise, even if what they contributed was little more than being naive.

One of the great errors we've made in the history of the Church is to hold up some sins as more horrible or more worthy of condemnation and censure than others. God doesn't see things that way! God understands and God can forgive our relational sins, just as He understands and can forgive all our sins.

The Bible says that God remembers that we are dust, created beings filled with frailty and sin. But, in this teaching on divorce, as in today’s entire Gospel lesson, Jesus commands us to take the call to love our neighbors—even the neighbors with whom we have shared a marital bed—with utmost seriousness and respect.

Look now to verse 33. Jesus says, "Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all...[please slip down to verse 37] Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

And really, these final verses from our lesson, with their call to unswerving authenticity and openness, will serve as a good summary of everything that Jesus has been telling us today.

Remember that these words come to us as part of his Sermon on the Mount. It was directed not so much to the crowds who thronged around Jesus, but to His disciples, people like us, who seek to follow Jesus.

In it, Jesus is telling us about what it means to live in His kingdom here and now. We are to be authentic in our openness to Him and to others. This sermon explains the radical ethic of a people who know that they cannot keep God’s commands by their own strength or resolve, yet know that God is implacable in His demand that we keep those commands.

But we don’t despair! We come as imperfect sinners to a gracious God committed to healing our every ill and, if we will be honest about who we are and who we are not with Him, will help us to become the people He calls us to be.

At another point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says that it will be harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The disciples are befuddled. They think that wealth is a sign of blessing from God. “Who then can enter the kingdom?” they ask. “With people, it’s impossible; but with God all things are possible,” Jesus says.

A committed Christian aspires to live with the kind of inner authenticity and commitment to love of God and of neighbor that Jesus describes in today’s Gospel lesson. But the point is that none of us will ever live like this if, like the Pharisees, we strive to do so in our own power.

Jesus has fulfilled God’s implacable law for us.

Jesus’ call and command is to simply, day in and day out, surrender to Him.

This is what He means when He says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Jesus’ kingdom has come. He died and rose to make it so.

Surrender to Christ honestly and you will do the impossible: You will be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven in the midst of this world.

The love of God will live in you and, even in a world of conflicts and challenges, you will be right with God, right with your neighbor, at peace with yourself, filled with the very life of God Himself. Amen

"Uncle!"

OK. I'm crying, "Uncle!" I tried. But I couldn't do it.

I started, already into the new year, to write posts to help people read the Bible in a year's time. But I've gotten hopelessly behind schedule. Too much going on.

So, keep reading the Bible, little more than three chapters a day. I just won't be writing about it.

Sorry, all!

Something Beautiful by Newsboys

Salt, Light, and Post-Revolutionary Living (AUDIO)

If you're not a linear thinker, you might prefer the audio version of last Sunday's sermon. I promise it's not 57 minutes long!

Salt, Light, and Post-Revolutionary Living

[This was the sermon prepared for worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, this past Sunday, February 9.]

Matthew 5:13-20
Three years ago, we all watched the news with amazement at the beginning of what came to be called The Arab Spring. Peoples long oppressed by dictatorial regimes in places like Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria began to stand up, seeking freedom.

Today, Egypt is an uproar after its popularly elected president was ousted by the military and Syria is immersed in civil war. As happens in the wake of all revolutions, including the one that birthed the United States, a kind of chaos is unleashed. And people are forced to answer questions like, “What now?” “How do we go forward?” 

Last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, taken from the opening verses of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, was a place where Jesus laid down an absolutely revolutionary kind of life, one that puts the world’s standard operating procedures on their heads.

In it, Jesus said things like: Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed when we are persecuted for His Name’s sake.

Jesus, it turns out, wasn’t laying down God’s law in the Beatitudes, but describing a way of life that seeps into the minds, hearts, and wills of those who cultivate daily closeness to Jesus Christ.

Even if we have questions about all that though, because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, because of His resurrection, and because of the new life we know He offers to all who repent and believe in Him, we hear the Beatitudes and we want to sign up for the Kingdom of heaven.

In our heart of hearts, we want to live the lifestyle of the Beatitudes!

But after Jesus, through His death and resurrection, works His revolution of transforming us from the enemies of God we were when we were born into the friends of God we become when we are born from above, we have the same kinds of questions that always arise after revolutions: What now? How do we go forward? Jesus starts to answer those questions in today’s lesson. Please look at today’s Gospel lesson.

As we read the opening verses of the lesson, you’ll have to keep the Beatitudes in mind. In verses 13 and 14, Jesus is saying, “You blessed ones are the salt of the earth. You blessed ones are the light of the world.” With that in mind, look at verse 13, please: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

Most of us love salt, even though some of us have learned to limit our intake of it. Salt enhances the flavor of food. But salt is also a great preservative. Those who walk with Jesus preserve what is true and godly. Without moralizing or judging, true followers of Jesus remind us all of God’s will, God’s love, and God’s ability to express His power through weak people surrendered to Him. As Christians turn back to Jesus each day, they become salt of the earth.

Look at what Jesus says in the next three verses: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Epiphany, you know, is the season of light and throughout these weeks after Christmas, we’ve repeatedly read Bible lessons in which light has been mentioned. 

In the Old Testament lessons, we’re told how God called the people of Israel into being to be a light to the nations, showing the world the one true God of the universe, preparing for the arrival of the Messiah. 

Jesus comes and we’re told in the New Testament that He is the light of the world. 

In today's lesson, Jesus is saying that those who follow Him—you and me—are to give light to the world. His fellow Jews would have found Jesus’ imagery unmistakably clear. The temple in Jerusalem was built on a high mount. From it, God’s people exalted God before the world. It shone forth the power of God’s light for all to see.

Now, we Gentile Christians who, the New Testament says, have been grafted into the people of God by the grace given in Jesus and our faith in Him, are to lift Jesus up before all the world. 

Faith in Jesus Christ is not a private matter. 

Faith in Jesus is a very public thing. 

Jesus commands us to be lights in this darkened world; we’re to let everyone know about the new life that only comes through Jesus. I like the way lyrics written by Steve Taylor for the band, the Newsboys, put it a number of years ago: 
Shine! 
Make ‘em wonder what you got. 
Make ‘em wish that they were not on the outside looking bored.

Though the entrance fee into the Kingdom of God is free (this is what the Bible calls justification), living the Christian life (this is what the Bible calls sanctification) is also free, a gift from God. But it can be awfully hard to take hold of that gift. 

That’s because as we seek to live the Christian life, we constantly face the temptation to blend in with the rest of the world, bland and tasteless, dim and lifeless.

But if we submit to daily repentance and renewal, which is how Lutherans describe the process of sanctification--being made holy or set apart for God--and we let Jesus Christ show us our sins to forgive them and then empower us to live like salt and light, you know that following Christ is never boring.

We may find ourselves doing crazy things that may cause people of the world--even our friends and relatives--to shake their heads. 

Things like feeding the hungry through Saint Vincent de Paul, going on mission trips to the Navajo Reservation, Haiti, and Memphis, spending hours on Upward Sports, washing toilets or picking up trash so that the church building is hospitable for visitors who enter this place all week long, taking time to pray for others and listening to their hurts, forgiving others who have hurt us, seeking God’s direction in our decision making, and, maybe most outrageous of all, obeying God’s commands even when every fiber of our minds and bodies and wills scream that they want to do something different! 

“Don’t keep your relationship with Me hidden,” Jesus is saying today. “Let it inform everything about the way you live. Live your faith out loud! Don’t be afraid to let others see you trusting in Me and so growing in that trust that you live a life others consider outrageous, but I call blessed!”

If we keep our faith in Christ a personal thing, doesn’t Jesus have every right to think that we’re ashamed of Him? 

And friends, Jesus warns us against being ashamed of Him. In Matthew 10:32-33, He says: “"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” 

Our call is to turn to Jesus again each day so that we can say with the apostle Paul, who writes in Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” The more you can subscribe to that statement, the greater your sanctification, the saltier you become, the more of God’s light you exude!

In what Jesus has said so far, we see that we are blessed—saved by the undeserved, unearned grace of God—in order to be blessings to others.

But the blessing of this amazing grace does not bring an end to the commands— laws—of God given in the Old Testament. Read what Jesus says next, starting at verse 17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” 



So, what law is Jesus talking about?



We know that the Old Testament contains dietary laws that God rescinded in the New Testament. 



We know that ritual laws revolving around sacrifices are no longer needed because Jesus is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, once and for all. 



We know that the Old Testament civil laws--those governing people’s everyday interactions like those passed today by our township trustees, city councils, county commissions, state legislatures, and the US Congress--no longer apply because God’s people no longer live in theocracies.


 Surely Jesus isn’t telling us we have to keep all those laws. No, He isn’t. 

Jesus here is referring to the moral laws in the Ten Commandments. These laws are inviolable for all time. 



Want to know the will of God for your wallet, your mouth, your sex life, your soul?



It’s all there in the Ten Commandments and they haven’t changed in 3500 years. 

Jesus says they won’t change until heaven and earth pass away. 

They remain as protective fences meant to steer us always toward life at its best.

But you and I know that we can’t successfully obey these laws. The law can’t save us from sin and death. Only Jesus can do that. 

So why does Jesus still say the law is important? Lutheran Christians have considered this question and said that there are three purposes that the Law still has.

First, the law acts as a curb on the sinful impulses of all people, even before they know Jesus Christ.

Second, the law drives us to Jesus for grace and forgiveness. When we’re honest, we acknowledge that while we understand God’s commands, we don’t keep them. Our inborn sin prevents us from keeping them. Desperate, we turn to Jesus, seeking the same mercy He showed to the repentant thief who hung on a cross next to Jesus and to whom Jesus promised, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.”

For the followers of Jesus, there is a third use of the Law. It’s a guide for us. Having been freed by grace from sin and death, the Ten

Commandments become a road map for us. God told the prophet Jeremiah to tell His people centuries ago: “stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies…[to] walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” God was telling the people to remember His commands for them and so be led back to Him when they wandered. 

When the realization that we can’t keep God’s law and our helplessness drives us to Jesus for forgiveness and new life, the law leads us to the place where life is found, where rightness with God, with our neighbors, and with ourselves is found.

Now, look at the last verse of our lesson. Jesus says, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”


This passage used to trouble me a lot! The Pharisees were scrupulous in keeping God’s law, or at least their version of it. The Pharisees were righteous in their own eyes, but not in God’s. They thought that they were great people who had conquered their own sin. But, in their arrogance, they completely lacked the love for God and neighbor that the Law commands. So, what, I wondered, did Jesus mean by seeming to tell all His followers to try to out-righteous the spiritual snobs He called hypocrites and whitewashed tombs?

Then I realized something: We will be more righteous than the Pharisees—we are more righteous than the Pharisees—when we are humble enough to let the shed blood of Jesus cover our sins and wash us clean. 

We will be righteous, meaning completely right with God, when we rely completely on the God we know in Jesus Christ, and not our own wisdom, not our own pretended goodness. 



For years, I did my taxes using the TurboTax computer program. And every year, I made the same mistake. I’d be working on some part of my return and figure that I knew something the program didn’t. I input data where I thought it should go and totally messed things up. If I could get back all the hours I’ve spent on the unnecessary, grief-inducing side roads I’ve created for myself, rather than simply following the prompts the program gives, I probably could have done something productive with my life.


God’s moral law is still important, impossible though it is to keep perfectly. 

It contains prompts from God, pointing us not only to the right way to live, but also to the One Who wants to lead us into His Kingdom. 



Scripture is clear: Unless we let the law lead us each day to Jesus, it will condemn us. Our hearts won’t lead us to Jesus. Nor are our intellects. Nor our good works.

But if we let God’s moral law point us to our desperate need of the grace of Jesus whenever our lives go off course, we will be right with God, in sync with His purposes for our lives. 



We will be the salt of the earth who preserve what is godly and good. 



We will be the light of the world who show others the way to Jesus.



We will be graced. 



We will be blessed. 



The Kingdom of heaven will be ours. Amen

Friday Song #2: Jealous Guy by John Lennon

I remember the day I bought Imagine, the LP from which this cut comes, back in 1971. I love the whistling. This tune proves that whistling isn't always an expression of happiness or optimism. McCartney and Lennon always were great whistlers. It's kind of a lost Art.

Friday Song #1: Cold Morning Light by Todd Rundgren

Time for a tearjerker, don't you think?

The Mystery of Unanswered Prayer (AUDIO)

Here.

Midweek Melody #7: I Just Wanna Know by Steve Taylor

In honor of the discussion of Psalm 139:23-24 that happened last night at Living Water Lutheran Church.

Midweek Melody #6: Million Pieces by Newsboys

Vintage Newsboys...(with lyrics by the incomparable Steve Taylor)

Midweek Melody #5: In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning by Frank Sinatra

When Frank Sinatra worked with arranger Nelson Riddle in the 1950s, magic happened. This title track from Sinatra's 1955 LP, drips with poignance and longing. The orchestration perfectly complements Sinatra's voice. Sinatra was certainly at the height of his powers as a vocalist. I never tire of this track.

Midweek Melody #4: Rise by Skillet

From the band's latest release...

Midweek Melody #3: You Take My Rights Away by Skillet

Also from 2000...

Midweek Melody #2: Best Kept Secret by Skillet

From 2000...

Midweek Melody #1: Not Gonna Die by Skillet

I first saw Skillet as they toured in support of their 2000 release, Invincible. Led by lead singer and primary composer John Cooper, Skillet is an example of how artists who apply themselves diligently and work hard consistently come up with great work. A friend put me onto this new tune.

Prayer (Part 4: Unanswered Prayer?)

[This was prepared to be shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio on February 2, 2014.]

Luke 11:9-10
Mark 14:34-36
As followers of Jesus Christ, we Christians confess faith in a God of promises.

The Bible, the book we hold to be the perfect Word of God, uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit, is filled with God’s promises, many already fulfilled, many yet to be.

Some of the promises God makes are wonderful.

Some aren’t pleasant.

And some can cause us confusion, even challenging our faith in God.

One promise that may sometimes comfort us, but other times confuse us, an be found in Luke 11:9-10. Jesus makes this promise about prayer: "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

These words of promise seem to come by way of amplifying what Jesus teaches us to pray in the seventh petition of what we call the Lord’s Prayer. In the sixth, you'll remember from last Sunday, Jesus says to pray: “...lead us not into temptation.” And while the New International Version which makes up our pew Bibles, omits it, many of the most reputable translations have decided that the ancient manuscripts are right when they quote Jesus as teaching us the seventh petition: “...but deliver us from the evil one.”

In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes: “We pray in this petition...that our heavenly Father would deliver us from every type of evil--whether it affects our bodies or souls, property or reputation...”

But, this is where it gets confusing.

Generations of faithful believers in Jesus have prayed this prayer, yet evils of all kinds have befallen them and the people for whom they’ve prayed.

In the Name of Jesus, people beg for blessings, but loved ones die, jobs are lost, reputations are subjected to destructive gossip, wars rage.

In telling us to “ask...seek...knock,” has God made a promise He cannot keep or is unwilling to keep?

What are we to think and believe when the things for which we devoutly pray don’t come to pass?

I’ve called this sermon “the mystery of unanswered prayer.” But, in a way, this is a misnomer. Before I preached on this same topic in one of my previous parishes, a man asked me, “Is this the Sunday you’re going to talk about unanswered prayer?” I said it was. He smiled and asked, “Is there such a thing?”

It was a rhetorical question because, of course, for the believer in Jesus who brings her or his petitions to Jesus, there are no unanswered prayers.

But there are answers to prayers we don’t like, that bring pain to us or to those we care about. There are many things that I hope God will make clear to us when we stand before Him after those of us who have believed in Jesus are resurrected from the dead. In the meantime, we have our questions.

One thing that should comfort us when we confront prayers not being answered as we hope they will be is the experience of Jesus Himself. Look please, at Mark 14:34 (page 711 in the pew Bibles). Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, where He’s gone to pray. He tells the disciples: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death...”

Jesus, in a sense, always stood in two worlds. As a human being, Jesus voluntarily experienced all the difficulties that we human beings experience--physical pain, relational rejection, death.

Isaiah 53:3, written at least six centuries before Jesus’ birth had foretold of Jesus that He would be, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” It was essential for our salvation for Jesus to be acquainted with the grief that comes to every human being. It was essential because only the death of a perfect unblemished Savior could be a sacrifice pure enough to free us from the death sentence you and I deserve.

So, one of the worlds in which Jesus lived was this world, the one in which you and I live, the world in which every baby who has ever been born has eventually, died. That’s why, as He faced suffering and death, Jesus was “exceedingly sorrowful.”

After asking His disciples to wait and watch while He went to pray, verse 35 says that Jesus “fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.” “Father,” Jesus is begging, “deliver Me from evil. Deliver me from the cruel intentions of Satan, the evil one.”

Jesus, truly God, truly human, had led a sinless life. He had done everything God the Father had asked Him to do. Certainly, if anyone deserved to have their prayer request to be delivered from evil answered with a Yes, it was Jesus.

But look at what Jesus prays next, in verse 36: "Abba", Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

You see, Jesus lived in another world as well as in this one. He lived also in the kingdom of God.

It’s the kingdom in which, if Jesus would be faithful to His call to die for us, He would rise into and live in for all eternity.

It’s the kingdom He came to bring to all who will turn from sin, submitting daily to the crucifixion of their old sinful selves, and placing themselves in the hands of Jesus--believing in Him--as trustingly as Jesus placed Himself in the hands of God the Father on the night He prayed in the garden.

And so, in the garden, from the perspective of this world, Jesus prayed, “Deliver us from evil.” But at the same time, as a citizen of the kingdom of God, He prayed, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

You and I are people of this world who live in the kingdom of God by faith in Christ. But we only vaguely understand the grand purposes of God, especially God’s purposes for our own lives. We see, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror.” Other translations say "in a mirror dimly" or "through a glass darkly."

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve prayed that friends and family be delivered from the evils accosting them--marital discord, cancer, job loss, bullying, whatever it might have been--only to see their suffering continue.

It’s only after own resurrections, beyond the gates of death, safely removed from the stranglehold that sin and death have over this world, that we will know God and God’s purposes completely, just as God already knows us completely.

It turns out that God the Father had an answer for Jesus’ prayer for deliverance from the immediate evils He faced that night in the garden. The answer was, “No.”

The reason for this NO is apparent now. Had Jesus been delivered from the threats of the Romans, Herod, Pilate, and the other conspirators that night, the moment God had long ago planned as the precise moment when the Savior would die and rise to give new and everlasting to those who repent for sin and believe in Jesus might have passed.

And having been allowed to cave into His understandable fears of suffering, rejection, and death and moved out of the will of God, Jesus Himself and all of us who depend on His death and resurrection to give us life, would have been delivered not from, but into, the hands of the evil one for all eternity.

In other words, the Father said, "No" to Jesus' prayer for protection from the immediate evils Jesus faced in order to say, "YES!" to protecting Jesus and us from the ultimate evil of eternal separation from God, literally from the fragmentation of God as God the Son separated from the God the Father and God the Spirit.

The people who were around Jesus at the time of His suffering and execution never would have guessed that God would bring good from His suffering and death. And I believe that God often says no to our prayers for protection from the immediate evils we perceive in order to say to yes to giving us protection from eternal evil.

I can’t pretend to know God’s will for our individual lives.

I don’t know why some people seem to suffer more than others.

Or why faithful people die at young ages.

Or others go through undeserved horrors in their personal lives.

But I do take great comfort and encouragement from the God of promise.

I’m strengthened by the promise of the risen Jesus when He says in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”

So, even now, as I try to live in this world and in eternity, too, I know that God is by my side, empowering my choices and decisions, affirming me when I take the hard and narrow path rather than the easy, wide path, helping me to love God and love others, giving me strength and hope!

And I look forward with great anticipation to that moment in eternity when Revelation 21:4 tells us that God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

By the way, earlier I didn’t share all of what Martin Luther said about the seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer, "but deliver us from evil."

He says that we’re to ask in this prayer not only for deliverance from the effects of evil on our bodies, souls, property, and reputations in this life, but also pray that “at last, when our hour of death comes, [our heavenly Father] would grant us a blessed end to our earthly lives, and graciously take us from this world of sorrow to Himself in heaven.” Luther is pointing to the ultimate deliverance from evil we all should crave.

And knowing that, through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, our residence in that world is guaranteed can give us a new passion for fearless living in this world. Unafraid about our ultimate destination, we can be generous in loving and giving and spreading the good news of Jesus and fighting for justice the poor and despised.

After all, death is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian!

But knowing about our ultimate deliverance--resurrection life with God--can also give us a new sense of understanding when our prayers aren’t answered as we want them to be. We know that God has a plan, even though we’re not in on its details.*

This is what Paul is getting at in Romans 8:18: “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.”

This side of the resurrection, God’s answers to our prayers will often baffle us.

They may even make us angry. And that's okay because you don't get angry with a God in Who you don't believe. Even our anger with God is, in a real sense, an expression of faith in God. And God is big enough to take our anger.

But we know that on whatever path God may call us to take in this life, He will be beside us always and that, as the cross and empty tomb of Jesus attest, He is committed to loving us into His kingdom, where, finally...the questions will be answered, the suffering will be ended, the tears will be no more, and we will be delivered from all evil. Amen


*By the way,  I have learned that this fact is a lot easier said than lived. But I pray one day, I will trust God enough to truly and daily submit to His will to such an extent that I really do accept that He has a plan and that I don't need to know the details. As a Christian, I confess, that I'm only a recovering control freak. And my addiction to control--the impulse, the Bible tells us, to "be like God"--rears its ugly head all the time. God help me!

Tuesday Tune #4: Someday by John Legend

The longing of every human heart is that goodbyes will end and hellos will be shared all around. God grants that to all who trust in Christ. At least that's what I'm banking my life on.

Tuesday Tune #3: Soul Man by Sam and Dave

Just for fun!

Tuesday Tune #2: It Was Love by Russ Taff

That's Taff on guitar.

Tueday Tune #1: I Cry by Russ Taff

Digging into the wayback machine for this love song to God. Taff does rock, country, and gospel with equal acumen. This is a nice tune.

"Lead us not into temptation" (AUDIO)

Here.

Sunday Song #3: Live Like That by Sidewalk Prophets

Love this song!

Sunday Song #2: Something So Right by Paul Simon

Yeah, it's a love song.

If you wanted, you could sing it to God, because He is relentless in loving us even when we're evasive.

Sunday Song #1: Shine by Newsboys

"Make 'em wonder what you got." (Lyrics by Steve Taylor)

Prayer (Third in a Series)

[This was the prepared sermon for this morning's services with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio.]

Genesis 3:1-7, 22-24
Over the past several weeks, we’ve been looking at the Lord’s Prayer as a model for all our praying. Today, we’re going to look at the sixth petition of the prayer: “And lead us not into temptation.” This petition raises questions like: What is temptation and why should I resist it?  If God wants me to not sin, why does He even allow the temptation to sin happen?

For some answers, let’s go back to the garden of Eden, where the first human beings were subjected to the first temptation to sin. Please turn to Genesis 3:1-7, 22-24, pages 2 and 3 of the pew Bibles.

Adam and Eve were naive. As created, they were without sin, in sync with God and each other. In Genesis 2:25, we’re told: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” As created, Adam and Eve had desires, like pleasing God, pleasing and loving one another, doing the work God had given them to do. As they would later learn and as we learn when we’re paying attention, sin is nothing but desiring otherwise good things at the wrong times, or in the wrong ways, or for the wrong reasons. The desires of Adam and Eve were altered in destructive and death-dealing ways because of their unwillingness to resist the temptation to sin. The agent who brought temptations to them was the serpent, who we can take as a stand-in for Satan. But the devil didn’t make them do it, any more than the devil or anyone else can make us sin. Caving into temptation is always an inside job. As Jesus notes in Matthew 15:19, it’s from hearts turned from God’s purposes (or corrupted) that that our sins come.

The serpent asks the woman in Genesis 3:1, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman answers truthfully in verses 2-3: "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' " So far, so good. The woman is doing well in this interchange with temptation. Like Jesus, who would be tempted in the wilderness many thousands of years later, Eve is able to resist the serpent because she knows and remembers the Word of God. If you and I are serious about resisting temptation and living lives that express our thanks to God for the gift of new life that belongs to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ, we will take the time to read the Word of God and so know the mind and the will of God. We’ll also pray and ask God to help us resist temptations to sin.

Unless we keep in prayerful contact with God, temptation can make our brains go fuzzy. We become susceptible to having God’s Word twisted and turning us inside out. We find it easy to rationalize away the seriousness of the sins to which we’re being tempted. Look at verses 4 and 5, please. "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Notice what the serpent is doing here. First: He’s trying to drive a wedge between God and the woman. In effect, he’s asking, “Why is God such a spoilsport? What pleasure is he trying to deny you? What right does God have to hold anything back from you?” When you and I are tempted to sin, we might be hounded by similar thoughts: “It’s just a little thing. The company (or the government, or the school, or the church) will never miss it.” Or, “I think I’m entitled to a little pleasure after all these years of living with such an uncaring husband (or wife).” Or, “This isn’t really gossip. I’m just passing on information so that my friend will be better informed and know what to pray about.” Rationalizations like these drive wedges between God and us.

The second thing the serpent is doing with the woman is telling the truth in a lying way. It was true that the woman wouldn’t die--at least not right away--for her sin. Eve and Adam, who had heretofore, known only good would, to their regret and shame, know about evil after biting into the fruit and that would, eventually, bring their deaths. But the serpent didn't tell the whole truth. When the sin to which we're tempted offers momentary thrills or pleasures or when it makes us feel powerful or exceptional, we become susceptible to listening to such lies. When we're hell-bent on sin, we don't care about the fine print. We get separated from God, from others, from our best selves, from life.

The third thing the serpent is doing is this: Effectively telling the woman that she has a right to be just like god. Listen: Human beings are the pinnacle of creation, the only of God’s species made “in the image of God.” But we are not God and according to the Word of God, we never will be. But all temptation, in a way, tries to feed us this lie. We see what happens when we forget the Word of God and allow temptation to get in the way of our relationship with God in verse 6: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

Because we’re born in sin, self-centeredness is the human default mode. We’re born with a passion for ourselves that has to be taught by the grace given in Christ to make room for God and others. We have to be forcibly displaced from the thrones of our lives so that as we and our inborn selfishness are crucified in repentance, Christ can rise in us and make us new people each day. That’s why we need the Savior Jesus to bridge the gap between us and make it possible for our fellowship with God and with others to be restored through a bond of love borne of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Now, it would be easy for us to say that since we’re born as sinners who want to sin and God loves us so much, it must mean that God approves of our sin. Pastor Erwin Lutzer  once knew a kleptomaniac, a person with a compulsion to steal. He told Lutzer, “I’ve always wanted to steal as far back as I can remember. There’s no question in my mind that it’s genetic.” He may have been right; he may have been genetically predisposed to kleptomania. But even if the klepto was “born that way,” it wouldn’t mean that God gave him the green light to steal. Everyone of us is genetically predisposed to sin and each of us like some sins more than we like others. Yet every one of is told to obey the ten commandments and to repent when we violate them. And all of us are commanded by Jesus to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” And we’re all told to turn from sin and to trust in Christ alone for life with God and for all that we truly need, now and in eternity. The good news is that if we want to resist the temptations to which we feel ourselves subjected, the God we know in Christ can help us resist temptation. In James 4:7-8, we’re told: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” When tempted by sin, move closer to God. The temptation to sin will lessen.

But, if God wants us to stay away from sin, why did God allow temptation to come to Eve and Adam...and to us? Think of things in this way: God intended for you and me to have a special relationship with Him. God could have created robots who, as He loved them, had no choice but to love God back. But God wants a true relationship of love with us. God wants us to choose to love Him. And the only way we can choose to love Him is if we have the option not to love Him, not to obey His will for our lives. Without our having the option to not have faith in the God we know in Christ, our confessions of faith are meaningless. That’s why God allowed (and allows) temptation in this world.

Now here’s the scary thing: Because of the genetic predisposition to sin you and I have inherited from Adam and Eve, we do not have free will when it comes so sinning or not sinning. “We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves,” we say. In Romans 7, the apostle Paul writes about his own bondage to sin: “...what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate [sin], that I do...” He then confesses that it’s sin that dwells within him. Paul would have thrown up his hands in despair, resigned to being forever separated from God, consigned to hell for eternity, except for one thing. He says in Romans 7:24-25 (page 786 in the pew Bibles): “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Whenever we repent for sin--turn away from it, renounce it--and trust in the crucified and risen Jesus as our God, God forgives our sins and gives us the power to resist temptation today and to look forward to eternity with God!

Temptation doesn’t come from God. James 1:13 says: “No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and He Himself tempts no one.” We are tempted instead by the desires that come to us from the devil, from a sinful, fallen world, and from our own corrupted DNA. But, when facing temptation, we have a great promise from God. 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us: “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to [all people]; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”

What temptation are you facing today? It could be the temptation to fudge on your taxes or Medicare forms, to lie about the work you did on the school project, or something else. We can be infinitely creative in finding ways to violate God’s moral law, the ten commandments. Whatever temptation you face, if you’re intent on living a life that thanks God for the cross and empty tomb of Jesus, God will give you a way of escape from both temptation and sin. Keep your eyes on Jesus and He will divert your attention from death to keep you on the pathway to everlasting life with Him.

Pray, “Lead me not into temptation, Lord. In Jesus’ Name and by the Holy Spirit’s power, help me to resist this temptation.” If you’re like me, you probably have to pray that prayer hundreds of times every day. But, I promise that when you pray that prayer sincerely, with a heartfelt desire for God above all else, God will lead you in the right direction. Your relationship with God, the most important relationship you can have, will grow stronger, your character will grow stronger, and you will move closer to being the person God made you to be in eternity. And, as we learn to live in greater dependence on God, we know more of the true joy that Adam and Eve experienced before giving into temptation.

“Lord, lead us not into temptation.” Amen

Read the Bible in a Year (Days 16-21, January 22-27)

Genesis 46-50
Exodus 1-20
Psalms 16-25

1. Genesis 46-47: Joseph brings his family to Egypt, where he functions effectively as the Pharaoh's prime minister. The wisdom of the Pharaoh's decision to make Joseph second-in-command after himself is vindicated when, "the first recorded rationing in history was a hit," saving Egypt and the Egyptian treasury was fattened as people, like Joseph's family, came from throughout the region to buy food stored in Egyptian granaries during the "fat years."

2. Genesis 47-49: Jacob dies in exile, just as generations of his people would. Before dying, he prophesies about his sons and their descendants. He also blesses his family.

3. Genesis 50: This contains one of the most poignant passages in all Scripture. Joseph's brothers obviously find it hard to understand things like forgiveness and grace. Joseph had long before forgiven his brothers. But when Jacob died, they were certain that Joseph, no longer needing to show deference to his father, would act vengefully against them. They even appear to fabricate a lie, telling Joseph that Jacob had instructed them to tell Joseph not to do anything against him after he had died.

Joseph ignores the lie and responds in an extraordinary way.

First, he weeps. It saddens Joseph to know that his brothers have so little faith in the forgiveness he offered because of his trust in God. Thousands of years later, Jesus wept when considering the utter hopelessness of those mourning for his friend Lazarus in Bethany. It saddened Jesus to know that they had so little faith in His power over death and life. ""I am the resurrection and the life," Jesus said there. "He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." (John 11:25-26)

It grieves God and it grieves believers like Joseph when people are so hardened by sin, so resigned to the grim realities of life, that they can't trust in God or in His grace or in His power to help ordinary people--like Joseph--to forgive.

Second, Joseph says that it isn't his place to judge his brothers. "...Joseph said to them, 'Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?'" (Genesis 50:19).

Joseph insisted that while he forgave his brothers, it wasn't his place to judge them for sins. That is God's place.

This is jarring for us. When others hurt us, we feel entitled to judge. In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis talks about how Jesus went around forgiving people for their sins, as though he were the one chiefly offended. The fact is, whenever we sin against another person, whenever we hurt them, it's God Who is chiefly offended. Why? Because He made us. Because He is fully invested in every human life, having lived as one of us in the person of Jesus and having died and risen so that all who throw in their lots with Him have everlasting life. In His great parable of the last judgment (Matthew 25:31-46), Jesus says that whatever we do to "the least of these," we also do unto Him.

Even before God took on flesh, Joseph understood this fact: The One Who breathed His very Spirit into us to give us life, was always the one chiefly offended by sin. 


Third, Joseph saw that God's "unseen hand" had been at work even in the midst of his pain. He's unflinching in acknowledging that his brothers had been the agents of that pain. Forgiving is not the same as forgetting.

But Joseph thought that God even used his brothers' selling him into slavery for God's good purposes because had he not been sold into slavery, he never would have been in a position to save millions, including God's people. Joseph says: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (Genesis 50:20)

Finally, Joseph committed himself to caring for his brothers and their families (Genesis 50:21).

The grace and forgiveness Joseph displayed aren't virtues that come naturally to human beings. Only God can give us the power to live as he lived. Joseph's is a story of faith in the God ultimately revealed to the world in Jesus Christ.

4. Exodus 1: It doesn't take long to become "yesterday's news." God's people, Israel, once provided for in Egypt, become slaves. They live in that condition for 430 years, to the point that many had given up on God. A hard lesson for the person of faith is that just because God doesn't answer all our prayers, or even most of them, with the immediacy we want, it doesn't mean God hasn't heard or isn't answering. 

5. Exodus 1-12: In these chapters, we're introduced to Moses, a man God saved by extraordinary means, for His purposes. As Christians, we should remember that God saves us from sin and death by His grace through our God-given faith in Christ, but God never saves us just to save us. He saves us so that we become His agents in saving others. 1 Peter 2:9-10 says: "...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."

6. Exodus 3-4: Moses offers one excuse after another for not taking the mission God was giving to Him. They come in 3:11, 13, 4:1, 10, 13. But 4:13 probably best conveys Moses' attitude about doing what God wanted him to do: "...Moses said, 'O Lord, please send someone else to do it.'"

Many of the reasons we Christians give for not taking on ministries we're invited to prayerfully consider is we want someone else to do it. It may be fear. But any time we take on ministries that fulfill our mission as Christian believers or fulfill the promise the lives God gives to us, need not fear. The Holy Spirit will enable us to do God's will. 1 Timothy 1:7 says: "God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."

7. Exodus 3:14: God gives His Name to Moses. "I AM WHO I AM," He says. In Hebrew, the Name is Yahweh. Its exact meaning is mysterious to us, though to me the name suggests that in God, we meet the foundational personality, the Is Who from Whom all existence comes.

The fact that the infinitely powerful and holy God of creation makes Himself accessible to us by revealing His Name is an incredible privilege. Reverence for God explains why many Jews refuse to speak God's entire name or shortening it to avoid presumption, as when only the first syllable of God's Name, Yah, is used. (As in Hallelujah, which means Praise to Yah.) 

We post-modern Christians would do well to adopt a similar reverence for the Name of God, to recognize that it's a privilege of eternal dimensions to be able to address and know the God revealed to the world in Jesus. In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther teaches that God's Name is to be used for three purposes: prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.

Jesus identifies Himself as the God Who spoke to Moses at the burning bush. "Before Abraham was born, I am!" He says in John 8:58.

8. Exodus 5:1-10:29: The succession of plagues from God were designed to demonstrate to the Pharaoh, whose people were taught to regard him as a god, both what real Deity was and to "convince" Pharaoh to relent and set God's people free.

In the meantime though, we're told that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. This could be easily understood. I think that we shouldn't see this as God playing a cat and mouse game with Pharaoh. Rather, because of Pharaoh's arrogance and presumption, God allowed him to live with the consequences of his spurning of God.

9. Exodus 12: The blood of the Passover lamb was the method designated by God as the means to protect His people from the angel of death. Today, the blood and body of Christ give life to God's people.

10. Exodus 15-20: God's people begin their journey to the promised land. What took them so long? The same thing that keeps us from living the life of peace with God that God wants to give to us: Our insistence on doing things our way rather than God's.

11. Exodus 20:1-17: These verses, conveying the ten commandments are the "fine print" of God's great commandment: Love God; love neighbor.  

Saturday Song #3: Unstoppable by TobyMac

Yeah, that's what we are. That's cause we're not from around here any more. We belong to the kingdom come!

By the way, it's required that you crank this up!

Saturday Song #2: For Good (from the Musical 'Wicked')

"Because I knew you, I have been changed for good."

Saturday Song #1: Jenny Wren by Paul McCartney

McCartney's Jenny Wren tells the story of a young woman who saw and understood more than others about the life of the fallen world in which we live, a world in which true love isn't at home. As with all of Macca's tunes, it ends on a hopeful note in the last verse.

I've been blessed to know a few Jenny Wrens, men and women, people who were loving and tough and thoughtful and faithful. Although not perfect, they showed the rest of us the way. Then they went home to be with the Savior Jesus in Whom they believed. They left holes in our hearts and examples to emulate.

Remembering especially today a special saint. By the grace that God bears for grubby old sinners like me who trust in His Son Jesus, I'll see you some day.



Here are the lyrics:

Like so many girls, Jenny Wren could sing
But a broken heart, took her song away

Like the other girls, Jenny Wren took wing
She could see the world, and its foolish ways

How, we, spend our days, casting, love aside
Losing, sight of life, day, by, day

She saw poverty, breaking up her home
Wounded warriors, took her song away

But the day will come, Jenny Wren will sing
When this broken world, mends its foolish ways

Then we, spend our days, catching up on life
All because of you, Jenny Wren

You saw who we are, Jenny Wren

Songwriters
Paul Mc Cartney

Published by
MPL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.

[Read more: Paul McCartney - Jenny Wren Lyrics | MetroLyrics ]

Tuesday Tune #2: Tremble for My Beloved by Collective Soul

Just because I like it.

Tuesday Tune #1: Baby by Lost and Found

I really love this tune from George and Michael of Lost and Found.

When people know they are loved by the God revealed in Jesus Christ, it changes them forever.

Read the Bible in a Year (Days 12-15)

Genesis 34-45
Psalms 12-15

1. Genesis 37-50 recount the history of Joseph and Israel's migration to Egypt. The story of Joseph, next to youngest son of the third great patriarch, Jacob, is among the most poignant and important in Scripture. Not only does it explain how God's people came to live in Egypt--where they would ultimately live in slavery for 430 years, the personal story of Joseph tells us about how God can be faithfully working in the adversities and seemingly purposeless circumstances of faithful people.

2. Genesis 37: This, of course, isn't the first instance of sibling rivalry to show itself in Genesis. Because Cain resented that the offering of his brother Abel was more pleasing to God than his own, Cain killed Abel. Jacob and Esau had titanic sibling struggles. Here, Jacob's preference for Joseph breeds resentment from his older brothers.

The first commandment of the second table of the Ten Commandments (the fourth commandment, "You shall honor your father and mother") shows the important role God assigns to the family. Mothers and fathers and their families are the core building units of human existence. But the condition of sin burdens families, resulting in alienation and sinful actions.

Parents need to work hard to help their children know and submit to Christ, the One Who works reconciliation between God and humanity and among people. Martin Luther said that the family was to be a "little church."

2. Genesis 39: Wherever Joseph went, his special gifts--administration and dreams--brought him, at least at times, special notice and favor. He became the overseer of Potiphar's properties in Egypt. Here though, Joseph becomes the victim of false accusations and ends up in prison.

Later, as we'll see, Joseph will see this horrible experience as part of God's overall plan for his life. I myself often wonder when I go through far less horrible situations than the one Joseph faced, what God is up to. What good is there in it?

Some situations in our fallen and imperfect world are, of course, senseless, the result only of human beings given over to depravity doing horrible things to others. The hand of God can't be seen in things like the Holocaust or in the abuse of children, women, or the elderly--except in the faith-filled and noble ways the victims behave.

But, there are times when God allows us to endure harsh circumstances for His purposes. Joseph will affirm this later in Genesis.

On other occasions, God may use such circumstances to deepen our faith and character. Hebrews 12:4-11, has these difficult words:

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as children? It says, "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his child." Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined--and everyone undergoes discipline--then you are not legitimate children at all. Moreover, we have all had parents who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! Our parents disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. 

3. Genesis 40: How did Joseph keep from becoming bitter? The cup-bearer got his freedom and went on with his life, forgetting how Joseph had interpreted his dream and given him hope, not to mention strong reason to believe in the God of Israel.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that Joseph was sustained by his faith in God. When Potiphar's wife had pressed Joseph to have sex with him, Joseph asked, "How...could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Genesis 39:9) This, from a man who had already been exiled from God's people--His family, a people for whom their relationship with God was so important they were willing to sell their own brother into slaver, even consider murdering Joseph. But Joseph held tightly to God!

Besides, Joseph the dreamer and interpreter of dreams understood that, for him anyway, dreams spoke powerfully of God's will and that the dreams he had when he was young pointed to a purpose and a goal beyond the horrors he endured in the days leading to their fulfillment. Joseph had learned from God at an early age that he was to become a ruler (Genesis 37:5-11). Later, after all that had come to pass, Joseph indicated his belief that the years of his suffering had been for a purpose. He told his brothers, fearful that after Jacob's death, their powerful brother would now get revenge on them for selling him into slavery, "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good...." (Genesis 50:20).

Joseph would fully understood the words of Saint Paul written nineteen centuries later: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). Joseph trusted God and that pulled him through.

4. As to his dreams, it's important to remember that Joseph had faith in God, not in his dreams. They were simply signs he had learned could point to God.

Not every dream does that, of course. 

And not every person is granted the spiritual gift of understanding and interpreting dreams that Joseph possessed. 

But it is very true, I think, that God is reaching out to us and communicating to all of us far more often than we realize. When we cultivate a close relationship with God, there is no limit to the ways in which He might communicate with us. But always keep in mind that God will never communicate anything to us that is inconsistent with what He has revealed of His will and His character in the Old and New Testaments. 

There's a book I'd like to recommend to you along these lines: Dreams: A Way to Listen to God by Morton Kelsey. I don't agree with everything Kelsey asserts. But this is really good. 

Those Super Bowl Ads?

They're a waste of the advertisers' money.

A Different Point of View

Here.

R.I. P. Russell Johnson

Russel Johnson was, of course, best known for his three year gig as the Professor on 'Gilligan's Island.' 

He also starred in my absolute all-time favorite episode of 'The Twilight Zone,' 'Back There.' (By the way, just for fun, count the obelisks.)

Read the Bible in a Year (Days 4-11)

Genesis 10-33 (January 10-17)
Psalms 4-11

1. Genesis 11 tells the story of the tower of Babel. This is a tale of the hubris and pretense of human self-sufficiency that results from sin. As was true of Adam and Eve when they were banished from the garden in which they could eat the fruit from the tree of life, God's dispersal of the builders of the tower is an act of grace. When we human beings get our ways in acting like God, our souls are endangered and the happiness of those who become our victims is harmed.

2. Genesis 12 begins the narrative of Israel's patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

After the disasters of Eden, the flood, and Babel, Abraham and the patriarchs represent a fresh start for the world. As Jesus pointed out to the Samaritan woman at the well, salvation is from the Jews. The Jews--Israel, Hebrews--were called to be God's people and, in the course of time, become the nursery into which the Savior of the world, Jesus was to be born.


3. The patriarchs obviously weren't chosen by God for His purposes for their virtue, strength, or power, but solely by virtue of God's grace. Abraham's trust in God brings him righteousness (Genesis 15:6). This has always been God's MO. God ultimately revealed Himself to all the world in Christ. All who believe in Him, God in the flesh, have forgiven sin, reconciliation with God, and eternal life with God. Ephesians 2:8-9 says: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast."

4. Genesis 18 begins with the narrative of God's visit to Abraham and Sarah. Saint Augustine believed that the three persons who visited them were the one God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Buttressing this notion is the Old Testament's tendency to speak of the "angel of the Lord" (literally messenger of the Lord) in ways that seem to make God Himself the messenger. In any case, it is clear that Abraham is visited by God.

5. It's this incident in Genesis 18, that gives rises to the words of the preacher in the New Testament book of Hebrews: "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." (Hebrews 13:2) And Jesus says in Matthew 25:31-46, that when we serve the "least" of the world, we really are serving Him. In the great commandment, Jesus says that loving others is on a par with loving God Himself. So, when we show hospitality, as Abraham did to the three strangers to his tent, he was welcoming God...and would have been even if none of the strangers was God.

This is how invested God is in every human life. However marred by sin, every human being bears the image of God.

What if we took this attitude toward every person we encountered?

What if our churches displayed this attitude of reverence and welcome for every person--those known to us and those not known--who worshiped with us on Sundays?

What if Christians took this attitude? How many more people would be open to receiving the good news of new and eternal life for all who turn from sin and trust in Christ if this was our attitude?

6. At the end of Genesis 18, God prevails upon God, ultimately for the sake of just 10 righteous people who might be found in Sodom, to spare the city. God delights in co-conspiring with those who, with faith and helplessness, prevail upon his mercy in prayer. But God will not go where God is uninvited. The real tragedy of Sodom may be that Abraham was so limited in his praying. What might have happened had he prayed that God simply spare Sodom and help the people repent for sin and trust in God's grace? We'll never know.

Never be afraid to ask God for the whole enchilada. He may say no, maybe, wait, or yes. Those answers are within His power. But never be fearful about approaching God with what may seem like big prayers.

7. In Genesis 20, Abraham repeats the same sin he committed earlier, lying, telling people that Sarah was his wife in order to save his skin. For me, this is a great comfort. Abraham exhibits here what some people call an "abiding sin," a sin to which we may be particularly prone.

We're all sinners and prone to sin as a result. But for us as individuals, there seem to be sins to which we're especially prone, ones we find especially enticing. Abraham's lack of trust in God drove him to this sin of lying to men of power and throwing his wife under the bus, so to speak. Yet, Abraham appears to have continued in the general direction of following God. 

We all sin. But if we will keep following Jesus, living in what Luther called "daily repentance and renewal," the direction of our lives will remain firm. God will forgive our sins for the sake of Jesus' self-sacrifice on the cross and send His Spirit to help us resist committing the same sins repeatedly. 

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:13, in the New Testament: "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." That's a great promise!

And another great promise is found 1 John 2:1. There, John is encouraging believers to avoid sinning against God or others. Then he writes: "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." 

8. Genesis 20: God strictly forbids child sacrifice. This makes God's command of Abraham to sacrifice Isaac almost incomprehensible. But one of the lessons this strange and disturbing incident seems to convey is that the promise of God doesn't depend on human beings; God is the provider. And, in the end of course, God provides Abraham with a ram to sacrifice in his son's place.

(Centuries later, God would disdain the sacrifice of unblemished lambs for His people's sins, offered annually. Instead, He would offer His own Son to pay the price for our sins forever, so that all who turn from sin and trust in Christ, have forgiveness and everlasting life.)

For more, you might want to read this, Does God Punish Parents Through the Suffering of Their Children? NO!

9. Genesis 24: The narrative of Isaac's marriage to Rebekah is one of pure romantic delight. In that era of arranged marriages, here were two people who fell in love despite the context.

10. Genesis 25-27: Despite the love that Isaac and Rebekah shared, their household was less than functional. Mom favored Jacob. Dad favored Esau. In the midst of these negative family dynamics, God was still working. God was still gracing this family. And God still intended that this line, centuries later, would be the family into which the Savior Jesus would be born.

Your family may not be perfect. (No such animal exists.) But God can still bless and use you and your family.

11. Genesis 27: Blessings had meaning to the ancient Israelites. And we must acknowledge to this day, that words have power.

12. Genesis 28-31: Jacob gets a few comeuppances in these chapters. First, he becomes a fugitive from his brother, Esau, after he had cheated Esau. Second, Laban, even more of a schemer than Jacob, tricks him into long years of labor so that Jacob can finally have Rachel as his wife. (Poor Leah!)

13. Genesis 32: Jacob wrestles with God. Jacob seeks a blessing from God. God does bless Jacob, but at the cost of a lifelong limp. The limp would serve as a lifelong reminder to Jacob of his vulnerability.

God blesses those vulnerable enough to admit their need of God. But if they're fortunate, God will leave a mark vulnerability on their lives so that they never forget Who is in control or the grace He bears on those who are faithfully dependent on Him.

14. Genesis 33: Jacob's worries about his brother prove ill-founded. Worry about the futures we can't control is endemic to humanity, an outgrowth of of our desire to be in control, to "be like God." But worry does little for us and it gets in the way of faith. (I am an experienced worrier, by the way!)

You might want to check out this post, DO NOT WORRY!

Prayer, Part 1

[This was prepared to share with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, this past Sunday, January 12.]

Luke 11:1-4
No subject causes more confusion, insecurity, and, at times, even doubt among Christians than prayer.

People ask, “What am I allowed to pray to God about? Will God be mad at me if I ask for the wrong things? What am I supposed to say?”

On top of basic questions like these, there are times when almost every Christian feels that God has turned a deaf ear to their desperate prayers.

Or, they feel that the path that seems so clear and right to them is being blocked by God.

In circumstances like these, we may wonder where God is, if God is, or, if God is there, why He isn’t responding as we devoutly beg him to respond.

Today, we begin a four-part series on prayer. Three weeks from today, we’ll consider the mystery of unanswered prayer.

But today and over the next two Sundays, we’ll consider how to pray and, along the way, why.

This morning, I ask you to turn to Luke 11:1-4 (page 725 in the pew Bibles). There, Jesus is seen by His disciples doing what He often did. He’s praying.

Jesus‘ disciples were taken with the fact that, at every opportunity He had, Jesus prayed to His Father. Seeing how important prayer was to Jesus and remembering that John the Baptist had taken time to teach his disciples how to pray, the disciples make a simple request. “Lord,” they say to Jesus, “teach us to pray.”

In response to their request, Jesus proceeded to share with them what we call the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew has a slightly different version of the same prayer.

And the version we use during worship is sort of a mashup of the Matthew and Luke versions, along with the addition of a doxology--”For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever and ever”--that the Church has been adding to the prayer ever since the late first century. (Doxology is a compound of Greek words and it means word of glory.)

Nonetheless, when Jesus was asked how to pray, He shared this prayer.

That doesn’t mean that all our praying should parrot the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus warns us against prayer that’s mere repetition. In Matthew 6:7 (page 678), Jesus says: “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”

Vain repetition  isn’t prayer!

Nor is long winded praying.

But in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us much of what we need to know about how to pray. So, what exactly does He teach us?

Back to Luke 11:2, please. Jesus begins the prayer with, “Father.” Other translations insist on what we have traditionally been taught: “Our Father in heaven.”

In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther calls this the introduction to the prayer. And, though only four words in length--Our Father in heaven, it is amazing: Through Jesus Christ, we are given the privilege of an intimate relationship with the Creator of the entire universe!

As many of you know, the word translated as Father is, in the Aramaic language in which Jesus daily spoke and first taught this prayer, Abba, is a word used by small children of their daddies.

Galatians 3:26 in the New Testament says that “in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” That’s why we’re privileged to call the first Person of the Triune God our Father!

In teaching us to address God the Father so intimately, Jesus is telling us that God is never too busy to hear from those who follow Jesus Christ or are open to knowing God the only way you can, through Christ. 

Jesus once told the story of a widow who had been swindled and who sought justice from a corrupt judge, a judge who only found in favor of plaintiffs who paid him bribes. Initially, the judge wouldn’t hear the poor widow out. But she wouldn’t stop nagging the judge. She petitioned him constantly. In Luke 18:4-5, the corrupt judge in Jesus' parable caves. He says: “Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually come and attack me!”

Now, don't misunderstand! Jesus is not saying that our Father in heaven is like that unjust judge. Jesus says that if an unjust judge who has no respect for God or people can eventually be forced into listening to a poor widow’s pleas, how much more will the pure and incorruptible God Who sent His only Son so that all who believe in Him will have everlasting life be quick to hear us when we call to Him?

The God Who, through Jesus, we know is our Father, wants to hear from His children and we need never hesitate to call out to Him.

The late Lutheran writer R.A. Dell, whose Senior Catechism taught generations of young Lutherans what the Christian faith is about, pointed out that in Luke 18:1, Jesus says that believers “should always pray.” In other words, prayer isn’t an add-on to the Christian life. It’s central to it. Jesus commands Christians to pray.

But Dell also puts his finger on why Jesus makes this command when he says, “Prayer is a communion with God, in which we bring all our joys and sorrows to Him as our dear Friend.”

We call God our Father because prayer is the intimate conversation that God our Father and our best friend wants to have with us! Knowing this is key to knowing how to pray.

Prayer isn’t a skill to be learned, but the conduit for a relationship to be savored.

But we dare not forget that prayer is also an encounter with the Lord of the universe Who is infinitely greater than us in power and goodness!

God is the friend of believers in Christ. But He is not our buddy!

When we come before Him, we should be ever mindful of God's holiness and power.

Go back to Luke 11:2, please, and read the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer, the first thing Jesus teaches us to ask from God in prayer: “Hallowed be Your Name.”

Jesus teaches us that when we come to God in prayer, we need to acknowledge that God is the King and Creator of all, Who deserves to be loved, feared, honored, respected, and surrendered to.

The hardest lesson a parent must teach her or his child is that the child isn’t the center of the universe. It's a hard lesson to teach and it's a hard lesson to learn! You and I are born in sin, meaning that Adam and Eve have passed onto you and me a desire to “be like God.” None of us is the center of the universe!

But when each of us places our own desires and impulses first in our priorities, our lives and the life of the world gets out of whack.

Everything that is wrong with our world--everything that is wrong with me, I confess--is the result of this kind of sinful me-first thinking.

When we pray that God’s Name and God’s will be hallowed--respected, revered, held in awe--we are saying, “God, I bow my knee to You and I beg You to put the world and me right by ensuring that You and Your good will are of first importance!”  

This petition that God’s Name will be hallowed and respected and praised by us and by the world bears a relationship to the second commandment. There, God tells us, “You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless those who take His Name in vain.” To do anything vainly is to do it for no good purpose, uselessly.

When we use God’s Name as a swear word, or as a witty punctuation, as often happens on sitcoms, we are violating the holiness of God’s Name.

It’s a privilege to be given access to God by knowing Him and His Name. That’s why Luther says that “we should fear and love God so that we do not use His Name superstitiously or to curse, swear, lie, or deceive, but call upon Him in every time of need, and worship Him with prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.”

When we ask that God’s Name be hallowed, we’re asking that He would give us the faith to use His Name only to petition Him in Jesus’ Name, to praise Him for His goodness and grace, and to thank Him for His blessings.

By praying that God's Name will be hallowed, we militate against our inborn selfishness and re-orient our hearts, minds, and wills toward pleasing God the creator, not his creatures.

Back to Luke 11:2. The second petition Jesus teaches us to pray is, “Your kingdom come.” Notice that we’re at the second petition of this prayer and Jesus still doesn't want us to pray for what we want.

In the second petition, we’re still praying that God will help us put God’s priorities first. In this case, we pray that His kingdom will come.

God’s kingdom is God’s reign. God’s kingdom exists when and where people voluntarily submit to the rule of the Lord we know in Jesus Christ, where people take up their crosses (that is, acknowledge their sin), repent, and believe in Jesus Christ as their only God and Lord, and so, have the assurance of life with God, now and in eternity.

As Luther says, “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we [are able to] believe His holy Word and live a godly life now and in eternity.”

King David was encouraging the people of ancient Israel (and Christians who, through Jesus, have come to believe in Israel’s God), to live under the reign of God when he sang in Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God! I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

I am convinced that, in these times, there is no more important prayer for us to pray than that God’s kingdom will come, that Christ will rule as King over us all.

The world needs a new awakening to the goodness of God and to our need of the new life that only comes from the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

And we Christians need to realize that being a follower of Jesus Christ isn’t about being a nice person or keeping our mouths shut in the face of evil.

Those who live in the kingdom of God love all their fellow sinners while hating all sin, whether it's the sin inside themselves or the sin enslaving the world to Satan and hell.

They are intentional about sharing Christ in loving ways with the people in their lives who don’t know Christ.

We need for God to come and reign over us, to turn our lives and the lives of our churches, our countries, and our world to Jesus Christ. But this will not happen if we Christians are not intentional about regularly, in our own ways, praying that God’s kingdom will come to our churches, our friends and neighbors, our homes, and our world. When we ask for God’s kingdom to come to us and to our relationships and our world, God goes to work.  

So, how do we pray?

• First, believing in Christ, we come to God our Father, authentically and helplessly as children who need Him for life and guidance, forgiveness and hope.
• Second, we pray that His Name will be respected and honored, first by us and also by the world.
• And third, we pray that His kingdom, which comes without our help but which we can only receive through faith in Christ, will come to us afresh each day, finding us truly submissive to Jesus, tapping into the power of the Holy Spirit to live lives of devotion and holiness.

These, Jesus says, are the starting points of true prayer. More next Sunday. Amen