The Only Hope

Here's both the video of yesterday's online worship from Living Water Lutheran Church and the full transcript of the message, The Only Hope. God bless you this week with faith in Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

A Christian acquaintance recounted a conversation he had online with an African friend this past week. The African friend, a devoted follower of Jesus, said, “I feel so sorry for the Church in America. I’m praying for your country.” To be clear, the African Christian was not going to pray because of some imagined persecution against American Christians. Instead, I think, she feels sorrow for the Church in North America for two reasons.

First, Christians in North America have largely forgotten how to hope.

It seems that many of our fellow Christians have fallen into a kind of despondency, something that Martin Luther scorns when he talks about Christians descending into “despair and other great and shameful sins.”

“The world is such a terrible place,” these hopeless Christians tell each other over private conversations and on social media. They then catalog all the ways in which “the world,” (not them, by the way) has gone wrong.

Folks, the world went wrong a long time ago, back in a garden where  Adam and Eve, fell into sin.

Moral decay and death have been the way of the world ever since.

It existed when, disgusted with the human race, God told Noah to build an ark in which He would save Noah’s family and the animal species of the world but destroy everyone else.

It existed when Jesus, God the Son, perfect and sinless, was rejected by the world for which He came to die and rise.

But the reality of sin, death, and evil, in us and around us, should never cause Christians to forget to hope.

We have hope: Jesus, Who tore open the wall between God and the human race with His sacrificial death, then blazed the trail into eternal life with God for all who both acknowledge that they are “in bondage to sin” and incapable of freeing ourselves, and live and die in the faith in Jesus that God the Holy Spirit builds in those who stand under God’s promises made and kept in Christ.

But the sorrow of that African Christian for we believers in North America probably has a second reason: We too often put our hope in the wrong things.

Those of our congregation who go to Haiti to serve alongside the Church there always return with tales of the joy in Christ and the joy in worship that they see in our Haitian sisters and brothers in Christ. They live in Christian hope despite living in the most poverty-stricken country in the Western Hemisphere. At a rational level, the prospects of their ever living in a country with the kinds of freedoms or opportunities most of us enjoy here are nonexistent to minimal. And from the perspective of this same rationality, the likelihood that they will ever have the kinds of health or life expectancies that we take for granted in North America and Europe is minuscule.

But the Haitian Christians have hope.

And it isn’t rooted in things, or stuff, or presidents, or politics.

In today’s second Bible lesson, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, the apostle Paul writes to the Christian churces in Thessalonica.

Thessalonica, to this day, is a port city of Greece that sets on the Aegean Sea.

Paul had once preached to the Christians there. But, by the time he writes this letter in about 55 AD, some time has passed.

Paul has received word through the young pastor Timothy, who is visiting him, how things are going with the Thessalonian Christians. He’s overjoyed with their faithfulness to Christ.

But Timothy also apparently brought Paul some disturbing news. Some of their number had died and the surviving members were overtaken with despondent grief.

Some scholars believe that this hopelessness was born of their belief that, since the world was so rotten with sin, Jesus’ return was imminent. But, they were sure that since Jesus hadn’t returned before their Christian friends and loved ones died, those friends and loved ones were lost for all eternity.

They’d been putting their hope in how they thought Jesus would do things, replacing the real hope that Jesus gives to those who believe in Him--life with Him by our sides in this world and perfect life with Him beyond the grave--with a false hope: the fantasy that Jesus would come back before being His disciple got harder, the fake hope that Jesus would make the world go the way they wanted it to go right now.

This is why--both compassionately and forcefully--Paul addresses the Thessalonians (and you and me) as he does in our lesson. “Brothers and sisters,” Paul says, “we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14)

Like others, Christians mourn the loss of friends and loved ones. Death is an offense to every human being. We know that God made us to live, not to die.

Yet the wages of sin is still death and all human beings born into the condition of sin remain susceptible to death and all the suffering that goes with it.

But, Paul says, we need not grieve the way those who have no hope grieve.

He then says why: “For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-16)

When Jesus Christ returns to this world, on a timetable established by God the Father, it won’t be a secret. Heaven is going to throw a party on the earth the likes of which we can’t even imagine.

Then, Christ will raise from their graves all who have died believing in Him.

Jesus’ victory over death will belong to all who, by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, have confessed their faith in Jesus Christ: both the living and the formerly dead.

That’s a hope that is ours no matter what!

Then Paul says, “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

Some people read these words too metaphorically, others too literally.

This verse doesn’t mean that Christians are going to fly off to heaven when Jesus comes back. That’s a false teaching that nobody in the history of Christianity ever thought or believed until the nineteenth century when a misinformed Bible teacher named C.I. Scofield propounded the theory.

Here’s what Paul means.

When God met Moses on Mount Sinai, God descended in a bright cloud that surrounded Moses in God’s glory.

When the people of Israel went through the wilderness, they were led by God Who came to them in the pillar of a cloud.

When Jesus was transfigured on the mountaintop, He, Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John were enveloped in a cloud of God’s glory as God told the three disciples, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!”

And so, when Jesus returns, He will envelop His people in His glorious kingdom and they will live in the sinless atmosphere--the air--of His presence.

Our hope as disciples of Jesus Christ is that we who already belong to Him, will one day be enveloped by His perfect, glorious embrace.

Jesus will descend as He once ascended and finally and fully establish His kingdom of which all who confess His name are citizens.

We belong to Jesus forever, whether we live or die, and whatever is happening in this world.

So, when you hear your sisters and brothers in Christ caving into despair or putting their hope in the wrong gods--from politics to possessions, from being healthy to being wealthy, Saint Paul exhorts us, in verse 18, “encourage one another with these words.”

Friends, if you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and God, you have hope, whether you’re rejoicing or you’re grieving.

In Jesus, you have hope.

The only hope.

Amen

An Update on Living Water's Mission Outreach Center

Living Water Lutheran Church of Centerville, Ohio, the congregation I'm privileged to serve as pastor, is building its Mission Outreach Center. The construction is happening even though, at present, we're unable to worship in our sanctuary still, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. These videos were presented on Facebook to give members and others an update on the construction's progress. 

When I say that the new facility will be "enormous," I mean it in relationship to our current sanctuary/multipurpose area which, if everyone squishes together and doesn't breathe too much will allow 120 to be seated. (We generally have two services with an average weekly attendance of 150-170 for both services. At least that was the case before COVID-19.) The Mission Outreach Center will seat about 250 when arranged in tables and about 300 when arranged in rows.

Two videos were necessary because while broadcasting the first one on Facebook Live, I lost connection to the church's WiFi.

Anyway, I'm deeply thankful to God for His grace and provision and to the people of Living Water for their faithfulness to Christ and His Church!

Weeknight Bible Study of Hebrews, Chapter 11:23-40

Weeknight Bible Study of Hebrews, Chapter 11:1-22

Weeknight Bible Study of Hebrews, Chapter 10

Weeknight Bible Study of Hebrews, Chapter 9

Jesus Sets Us Free to Be Conduits of His Work

 I just read remarks by a Christian artist who talked about how a reading of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' teachings recounted in Matthew, chapters 5 to 7, had led him to sorrow and repentance. 

God does that through His Word, of course. But He always does it to lead us back to Him, His grace, and His forgiveness, to dependence on Him and His finished good works--Christ's death and resurrection--done for us. (Always remember, the work of making us right with God--justification--and maturing us in that rightness--sanctification--is God's work, not ours.)

Anyway, I responded to the artist's Facebook post with these comments.

The Sermon on the Mount isn't a new law. It's a description of what the life that is being transformed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ looks like.

Jesus says, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29) When we believe in Jesus, He will be at work doing the Sermon on the Mount through us in ways that we will likely not know (Matthew 25:31-46).

Daily repent and be renewed in His grace, to be sure.

But we can live in the freedom of the Gospel.

I like Paul's words in Ephesians: "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. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Follow Jesus today. He'll do the good works He wants to do through you if you'll just do that. Chill in His grace.

I'm Listening, Lord, Thick Skull and All (Or, Is Adaptability a Fruit of the Spirit?)

God has a way of delivering the message from His Word that you need to hear. That's happened to me today.

Today is the seventh anniversary of my installation as pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church. To say that these years have been eventful would be an understatement.

When I first arrived, our congregation worshiped comfortably in a school building no longer being used by the Springboro school system. We had 38,000 square feet and we used the building for all manner of ministries. It was wonderful.

But there was a leaky roof over one of the gyms, our landlords had no further plans for the use of the facility, and, understandably, no inclination to pay the $1-million it would take to fix the roof. We offered to pay half, but again, understandably, they decided it was time to demolish the place.

A committee of dedicated folks scoured our area for a new place. They prayed a lot while considering more than forty sites. They found a 5000 square-foot facility. "Pastor," said the chair of the team, George, when showing it to me for the first time, "don't just look at what's here. Look at what can be here." We forged ahead on purchasing a building, our members doing refurbishing, adding storage onto the side of the place, and later, building a two-story shed for more storage.

We immediately began discussing the process of adding on, finally agreeing to a three-phase building process. We began that process shortly after Coronavirus hit.

Because our current facility is so small, we haven't been able to worship in person there since March. We've had several outdoor gatherings and before that, we gathered one Sunday morning in a large local banquet and event center.

We're planning on gathering in the center for worship on November 22 and for two services on Christmas Eve. We'll be masked and distanced. People will register to attend and temperatures will be taken. Our hope and prayer are to be able to temporarily use the new multipurpose facility by late March for Sunday services.

We continue with online worship.

Through all these changes and challenges, the congregation has been faithful to Christ and to the mission of the Church: being and making disciples. The people of Living Water have been incredibly adaptable. They've always been faithful. They've always lifted Jesus up before the world. They've proclaimed the Gospel in season and out of season, to borrow a phrase from Saint Paul (2 Timothy 4:2). They've inspired me.

Then today, I was struck by a verse of the Bible that, honestly, I've never noticed before. It recounts an interchange between Jesus and the apostles in the upper room on the night of His betrayal and arrest:

"Then Jesus asked them, 'When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?' 'Nothing,' they answered. He said to them, 'But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.'" (Luke 22:35-36)

The earlier incidents to which Jesus refers here are those occasions when He sent out the twelve and then a group 72 of His disciples to spread the good news that, in Him, the long-promised Kingdom of God was invading our world. Those groups were to call people to repentance and belief in Jesus and to perform signs pointing to Jesus as the Savior of the world.

Those previous incidents are recalled in Luke 9:1-6 and 10:1-20. In the latter account, Jesus tells the 72, "Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road." (Luke 10:4) And in the earlier incident, Jesus told the twelve, "“Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt." (Luke 9:3)

I have often heard sermons and studies and I've often done sermons and studies that emphasized these words of Jesus from Luke 9 and 10. "Don't make extra provisions for yourself. Don't get laden with things or habits that might keep you from moving on at a moment's notice to be faithful to God." One of my seminary professors used to say, "Have so little that you're able to move to where God is calling you to go in twenty-four hours."

All of that's good counsel.

Except when it's not.

Like when Your Lord is about to go to a cross and there's the possibility of a general persecution that will have you on the run, not to respond to the call of God but to save your skin from people who hate you. "I told you that back then. But the situation has changed now," Jesus is saying. "Be sure to take your purse. You're going to need the money. Carry that bag with other possessions you might need."

In another place, Jesus says of Christians, "every...disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old." (Matthew 13:52) The point: Circumstances alter cases. Keep following Jesus, God the Son, Who is "the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).

Following Jesus will always be built around Word and Sacrament, the truth of the Bible, the creeds of the Church, and the fellowship of believers. But the devil and the vicissitudes of a fallen world throw us curveballs. Our call is to follow Jesus always. The way that looks today is not necessarily the way it's going to look tomorrow. Jesus calls us to be adaptable.

Jesus has been schooling me in the ways of being His disciple these past seven years--and in these past eight months, I never realized. Thank You, Lord. Thick-skulled though I am, I'm listening.

Weeknight Bible Study of Hebrews, Chapter 8

Weeknight Bible Study of Hebrews, Chapter 7

Weeknight Bible Study of Hebrews, Chapter 6

Weeknight Bible Study of Hebrews, Chapter 5

When Forgiveness Seems Too God to Be True

I almost always begin my quiet time with God each morning in prayer, starting by confessing my sins.

Today, as I was confessing my sins, asking God to both forgive the wrongs of which I was aware and the ones I'd committed thoughtlessly just because of my sinful nature, my mind turned to sins which I've long since repented in Jesus' name and am sure that God long ago forgave. My guilt seemed to return and I wondered whether God really could have forgiven me.

When that happens, I'm certain either my personal insecurities, my sinful nature, the devil, or all three factors are playing games with me.

Recognizing what was going on, I asked God to assure me again that because of what Jesus has done for us all on the cross and the gifts of repentance and faith in Jesus has given to me by God's Holy Spirit, I can live in the confidence that Jesus has covered me in grace, removed the death sentence for sin I deserve, and given me a place with Him forever.

I was still unsettled though when I turned to the readings for today in 'The One-Year Chronological Bible.' In one verse, God answered my prayer for assurance about the forgiveness, grace, and everlasting life He gives to those who repent and believe in Jesus.

The one verse?

Matthew 21:31.

There, Jesus asks the chief priests and elders who have confronted Him in the temple courts in Jerusalem: "'Which of the two did what his father wanted?' 'The first,' they answered."

Jesus poses the question after telling a parable--a story--about a father and his two sons. The father wants the boys to go out and work in the family vineyard. He tells the first son what he wants the boy to do. "I will not," the son answers. But later, the son thinks better of it and obeys his father. Then the father told the other son to go into the vineyard to work. "I will, sir," he says compliantly, but then went nowhere near the vineyard.

The first son had initially resisted his father's call to obedience, then quietly obeyed. The second son had cheerfully (and hypocritically) affirmed he'd do what his dad wanted, then ran off and did what he wanted to do instead.

Who, Jesus asked His questioners, had done the will of the father? Obviously, it was, despite his words, the first son.

For the Christian, obedience to the will of God is simple. Speaking of Himself as Savior, God, and Messiah, Jesus says: "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”(John 6:29) And in another place, Jesus succinctly summarizes the will of God: "Repent and believe the good news!”--the good news or 'gospel' that all who repent and believe in Him share in the victory over sin and death He won on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The will of God is that we trust in or believe in Jesus.

The old, long-forgiven sins that were troubling me this morning were ones I committed after I'd said yes to God, to repentance and belief in Jesus, to seeking to live God's way. They were sins that sneaked into my life, then became willful habits, and nearly crowded Jesus out of my life. I regretted them bitterly and repented for them with truth before God long ago.

The Holy Spirit had done His work on me, causing me to renounce and turn away from willful disregard of God's good will for my life and, to borrow words from King David's penitential psalm, created a pure heart within me (Psalm 51:10).

Like the first son, I'd said no to God, then changed my mind about my sin and, instead, sought God and His will. (By the way, the most characteristic word for 'repent' in the Greek in which the New Testament was originally written is 'metanoia,' a word literally meaning 'change of mind.')

But, when we consider our sins and God's righteousness, it's sometimes hard to fathom how completely God loves and forgives us. Without a daily return to Christ and His Word, the devil, the world, and our sinful selves can cause us to doubt His grace, His forgiveness, even His existence.

Today though, in the words of Jesus' opponents summarizing Jesus' parable, was God's answer to my insecurities. Because the Holy Spirit, using God's Word, had long ago "changed my mind" about those sins I was rehashing today, I could end my quiet time with thanks and praise to God for His grace and goodness. God was telling me, "Mark, those sins you're rehashing I'd already forgotten."

When the old sins God has forgiven us taunt us, God's Word assures us that "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103:12)

That's good news.

Weeknight Bible Study of Hebrews, Chapter 4

What God's Grace Does to Us

Jesus entered and ate in the house of Zacchaeus, a wealthy tax collector. Zacchaeus was so grateful that Jesus was willing to be seen with and have fellowship with him that he turned away from his former life (only a cheating tax collector could have been as wealthy as Zacchaeus was) and said, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." (Luke 19:8)

That's what happens when we encounter God's Law and Gospel in Jesus Christ.

The Law convicts us of our sin and the Gospel, the good news of new life for all sinners who turn from sin (repent) and believe or trust in Jesus, convinces us to believe that Christ alone can cover our sin, change our lives, make us acceptable to God, and grant us a place in His eternal Kingdom.

Shortly after Jesus ate with Zacchaeus, Jesus took up a cross and, although He never sinned, died on it, offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. Jesus took the condemnation of death and the separation from God that all we Zacchaeuses deserve.

Why?

So that when the Father raised Jesus, God the Son, from the dead, He could pave a way for us to, like Zacchaeus, turn from sin and believe in Christ, gaining a share in His eternity. All who believe in Jesus will one day, be raised with Him.

But faith in Jesus gives us more than a share in eternity, it also changes our present.

When God's charity came to Zacchaeus, God set the tax collector to live differently. God gave him a heart for the poor and the will to make things right with those he cheated.

Notice that Zacchaeus didn't think he needed to do these things to be saved from sin and death. He did them after Jesus embraced him in grace and forgiveness.

We can't earn the love of God that comes to us in the crucified and risen Jesus. But when it does come to us and we are stirred to faith, acts of love, restoration, and justice will surely follow.

Weeknight Bible Study, Hebrews, Chapter 3

Marriage: One Woman, One Man, One Flesh: Thoughts from My Quiet Time with God

From my quiet time with God today.

Jesus was once told by some Pharisees that, through Moses, God had allowed men to divorce their wives.

Mark, the gospel writer, then tells us this: "'It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,' Jesus replied. 'But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Mark 10:5-9)

God allowed for divorce because human beings, by virtue of our sin, can have hard hearts. Hard heartedness can lead some to spouses to commit adultery, perpetrate abuse, get involved in addiction, and so on. Under the circumstances that exist in our fallen world, divorce may become inevitable.

But, Jesus says, God had clear intentions for marriage, a covenant that the Bible often compares to the sacred bond between Jesus and those who trust in Him as Savior and God. From the beginning, Jesus says, marriage was meant to be joining of husband and wife to become "one flesh."

Our marriages don't always meet up to this ideal because, after all, as people born in sin, we can all be hard-hearted.

Marriage, the covenant of wife and husband, can sometimes be a challenge. But marriage is nonetheless, a good and blessed thing.

Our Lutheran tradition's most commonly-used marriage liturgy says: "Because of sin, our age-old rebellion, the gladness of marriage can be overcast and the gift of family can become a burden. But because God, who established marriage, continues to bless it with His abundant and ever-present support, we can be sustained in our weariness and have our joy restored."

Marriage, as God intended it, is taking a beating these days. But when it's done God's way--a wife and a husband joined by God in a covenant of one flesh--marriage can be a blessing even to we who are afflicted (and afflict others) with our hard hearts.

Weeknight Bible Study, Hebrews, Chapter 2

Weeknight Bible Study, Hebrews 1:5-14

Weeknight Bible Study, Hebrews 1:1-4

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 34

Honest with God

[Below is special outdoor worship with the people of Living Water Lutheran Church of Centerville, Ohio, that took place this past Sunday morning. Below the video, you'll also find the printed text of my message.]

We love watching the Inspector Morse mystery series on the BritBox streaming service. In an episode we watched recently, the assistant headmaster of an all-girls secondary school is killed. Morse pursues his investigation by going to the home of the headmaster, who tells the inspector to ask his questions in front of his wife and their kids. The family came across as open and loving and mutually supportive. It’s only later that you learn that the family’s happy facade conceals a sewer of lies and wrongdoing. The family was a hypocritical show.

Hypocrisy abounds in the real world too. And it’s not just the people you and I so readily classify as “nothing but crooks” who are the hypocrites. The Greek word, hypokritḗs, from which we get our English word hypocrite, means to judge under. A hypocrite is one who appears to be one thing on the outside but is another on the inside.

Have you ever been a hypocrite? 

Do you ever say, “How nice to see you” to the person you’ve spent the previous five minutes trying to escape at the grocery? 

Have you ever told your child, “Try your best” just after you’ve been slacking off at work? 

Have you thoughtlessly and unrepentantly done something wrong just after praying or confessing your faith in Jesus during worship? 

If we’re honest, we must admit that we too, are or can be hypocrites. In fact, I believe it's true what you've often heard me say: The Church is a fellowship of recovering hypocrites.

In today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 22:15-22, Jesus has an encounter with a group of hypocrites. They’re composed of representatives from two different groups of first-century Judean people. 

One is Pharisees. The Pharisees were rigid Jewish religionists who effectively believed that by strict adherence to God’s Law and a bunch of other laws they made up, they could call themselves righteous, worthy of life with God because they were so good. 

The other group was supporters of King Herod, the lying thug who, for political purposes, claimed to be a descendant of Israel’s great King David. These Herodians were the kinds of people that like to befriend the powerful, gaining influence and money. 

All the way back in Matthew 12:14, we’re told that the Pharisees had started plotting a way to kill Jesus. 

And the Herodians, like the Romans, viewed Jesus as a threat to their benefactor’s crown. 

The Pharisees and the Herodians, each for their own reasons, want Jesus dead.

But on this Monday of Holy Week, Jesus’ crucifixion just four days away, they put on an entirely different face to ask Jesus a question. “‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?’” (Matthew 22:16-17) 

Jesus doesn’t fall for their flattery, any more than He falls for it whenever we go through the motions of prayer or confession or loving God and loving neighbor and then thoughtlessly or unrepentantly sin. 

That’s why, fully aware as only God can be, of the thoughts running through their minds, Jesus responds as He does. “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?” (Matthew 22:18)

The word translated here as trap is the same word used of the devil when he tested or tempted Jesus in the wilderness. 

Just as the devil wanted to prevent Jesus from fulfilling His mission of dying as the perfect sacrifice for our sins and being raised from the grave to open eternity to those who believe in Him, the Pharisees and the Herodians want to rob Jesus of His popularity. 

They believe that in making Jesus unpopular, they will reduce Jesus in the eyes of their fellow Jews to the status of just another phony messiah, like the many before Jesus Who were crucified and forgotten.

Their trap is a question that they thought would force Jesus to offend people and get Him into trouble no matter how He answered it. The specific tax they ask Jesus about was one levied by the Romans on the conquered Jewish people called the kḗnsos. This tax had been unpopular since it was first instituted in 6 AD. It was basically what the Romans charged the Jews for the privilege of having been conquered. 

If Jesus said that it was lawful, or OK, according to God’s Law, for the Jews to pay the tax, Jesus would offend the nationalist Zealots. 

If Jesus said it didn’t accord with God’s Law, then He would have the Romans out for His blood.

Now, Jesus had no fear of dying. He came into the world and gone to Jerusalem to do just that. According to Matthew’s gospel, Jesus told the disciples four different times the same basic thing He said in Matthew 17:22-23: “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” 

But Jesus was bound to die on God’s terms, for our salvation and at the time decided by God alone, not by puny human politicians or religious authorities.

Jesus then asks the Pharisees and Herodians for one of the coins used to pay the tax. They were considered blasphemous because they proclaimed Ceasar to be the son of God and a priest and had Caesar's image imprinted on them. But right in God’s temple, these hypocritical holy men confronting Jesus had at least one of these coins in their possession. Jesus points to the image of Caesar on the coin and says, “...give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Matthew 22:21)

Jesus isn’t here talking about taxes or politics, although the Bible elsewhere teaches Christians to pay their taxes and be good citizens.  

Nor is Jesus sidestepping the execution He came to Jerusalem to bear. 

He is confronting the Pharisees and Herodians (and us) with two things: the fatal stupidity of hypocrisy before God and the freeing wisdom of being honest with God. 

God’s Word is clear: “...he knows the secrets of the heart…” (Psalm 44:21) When we play the hypocrite with God, pretending to be perfect and blameless in our relationships with God and with others, other people may be fooled. But God isn’t. Jesus warns us today: Don’t rely on appearing religious or decent or good people in order to gain the favor of God, now or in eternity. The world may call hypocrites righteous, but God knows the truth about each of us.

Instead, Jesus, God the Son, Who lived a sinless life on earth and offered it on the cross so that all who turn to Him in repentance and faith, have everlasting life with God, wants us to come to Him honestly. 

When we honestly confess our sins and our need of Him, Jesus forgives us. 

He covers us with His righteousness, true righteousness, true rightness with God, that cannot be taken from those who believe in Him. 

Hypocrites pretend to be pious while pursuing their own agendas, consigning themselves to eternal condemnation from God. 

The honest can pray with King David, “a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) 

God showers grace, forgiveness, and new life on those who can say honestly in Jesus’ name, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:13)

In U2’s song, Cedarwood Road, are these lines: “a heart that is broken is a heart that is open.” Our hypocritical selves will never admit to being broken, of being less than righteous, of imperfections or mistakes. 

But when we are honest enough to admit our brokenness, our sin, our need of God, and turn to Jesus, the grace, life, and forgiveness of God are ours for all eternity. 

Be honest with the God you meet in Jesus Christ and let Him love you into the wholeness that worldly hypocrisy can never experience, the righteousness only God can give. Amen

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 33

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 32

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 31

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 30

More Than Chickens or Maseratis

From my morning quiet time with God: [Jesus said:] "For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day...No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them,and I will raise them up at the last day..." (John 6:40, 44)

These are comforting words, originally spoken to a disbelieving crowd who wanted Jesus to be a king who did their bidding, like modern day political candidates pandering for votes. But Jesus wasn't out to win a popularity contest. He was offering all of us more than "a chicken in every pot and a Maserati in every garage."

He was telling the disbelieving crowd--and you and me--the truth: Born with the fatal preexisting condition of sin, we cannot save ourselves from sin, death, and condemnation. Without His help, we may get chicken-filled pots and Maserati-filled garages, but it won't "cure" us. The wages of sin is still death and there's nothing we can do to avoid getting the payment we desrve.

But Jesus came into the world so that all who turn to Him in recognition of their need of saving and of Him as the one Who can save them will be raised from the dead to live with God eternally. Despite what we deserve--condemnation, Jesus covers those who trustingly turn to Him with His goodness, His righteousness.

This good news--what the Bible calls "gospel"--is more than simply a comfort for life beyond the grave. The gospel empowers us for the living of each day on this earth. When eternity spills into our lives, God enables us to live with joy, peace, a sense of purpose, and compassion for our neighbors. When you know that Christ has secured the perfect, eternal sequel to this life, it changes how you approach this "prequel."

As God the Father prompts us by the power of God the Holy Spirit speaking God's Word, we can turn to Jesus and live with God...even today. Thats comforting.

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism, Part 29'

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 28

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 27

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 26

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 25

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 24

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 23

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 22

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 21

Honest with God

My daily quiet time with God for today took me to the four Gospels' accounts of the start of Jesus' ministry on earth. This includes Jesus' encounter with one of His fellow Jews, Nathanael.

When his friend Philip told Nathanael that they had found the Messiah foretold by the Law and the prophets and identified Him as Jesus, Nathanael was skeptical and dismissive. He asked Philip how anything good could possibly come from a backwater Galilean village. Philip invited Nathanael to come and see for himself. As soon as Jesus met Nathanael, He said the skeptic was "true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false." 

We've seen that Nathanael was someone willing to speak his mind. But how, he wondered, did Jesus know about him? When Jesus explained that He had already seen Nathanael before called him, an indication of Jesus' omniscience, Nathanael, the dismissive skeptic who couldn't keep from speaking his mind, was sold. "Rabbi," he told Jesus, "you are the Son of God [confessing Jesus' deity]; you are the King of Israel [confessing Jesus as the anointed royal descendant of David]." (John 1:44-51)

 
Nathanael reminds me of two other prominent figures who appear in John's Gospel.

The first is the Samaritan woman at the well outside the village called Sychar. After meeting and talking with Jesus, she runs into the village and tells people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (John 4:29) As had been true of Nathanael, this woman was willing to entertain the idea that Jesus was the Messiah because He exhibited the ability to know and want to be in relationship with her, despite her sins and world-weary skepticism. 

In fact, I think it's true to say that if Nathanael represents Jews open to receiving Jesus as the Messiah, the woman at the well is the Gentile version of Nathanael. Despite having lived a life that made her believe that nothing good could come, not just from Nazareth, but from anywhere, she met the Word made flesh, God the Son, Who not only knew everything about her but also offered her salvation.

The second person in John's Gospel narrative of Jesus' ministry that seems to be foreshadowed is Thomas. John never calls him "doubting Thomas." He says that the recalcitrant apostle is "unbelieving Thomas." His sinfulness and world-weariness, seen in other places in John's Gospel, also militates against Thomas trusting in--believing in--Jesus. John, chapter 20, says that Thomas rejected the witness of other disciples that they had seen and spoken with Jesus resurrected. Thomas said that unless that he was able to touch the wounds of the risen Jesus, he would not believe any talk of Jesus' resurrection. Like Nathanael, who couldn't believe that anything good could come from Nazareth, Thomas couldn't believe that anything good could come from Jesus' suffering and death.

Famously, of course, the risen Jesus appeared to Thomas and Thomas made a confession like that of Nathanael, "My Lord and my God," he said (John 20:28).

When Nathanael confesses his faith in Jesus in chapter 1 of John's narrative, Jesus says, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that...Very truly I tell you,  you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.” (John 20:50-51)

When Thomas confesses his faith to Jesus then risen from the dead, Jesus says, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

So, what do I take away from all of this?

First, I take away that despite my skepticism, sin, and inability to talk myself into trusting in Him, the God I know in Jesus knows all about me and wants me anyway. 

Second, I think that it was because of their willingess to own the difficulty they found in believing in Jesus and the new life He brings to all who repent and believe, that Nathanael, the woman at the well, and Thomas were able to believe. None of them were lukewarm about anything. They were honest. When they thought something was hooey, they said so. When they believed, they were all in. 

God can create and sustain faith in those who are honest with Him. As David tells God in his great psalm of repentance and belief, "Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart." (Psalm 51:6) This means that we must be willing to listen both God's Word of Law that condemns our sin and shows our need for repentance and God's Word of Gospel about the crucified and risen Jesus, which saves us from sin and death and creates in us faith in Christ that gives us eternity with God.

I emerge from my quiet time with God today with a renewed conviction that I need to be honest with Him. This is how He can wield His scalpel and administer His healing in my life.

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 20

What About Jephthah?

One of the most disturbing incidents in the Bible involves a man named Jephthah offering his daughter as a sacrifice to God after leading Israel to military victory.

A bit of background is in order. Jephthah was one of those Old Testament figures known as judges. They were leaders or champions of God's ancient people Israel. The judges were used sometimes by God to call the people to repentance when they fell into sin, including idolatry and its usual concomitant, injustice. 

At other times, the judges were used by God to deliver Israel from enemies God had allowed to conquer tHis people for their sin; once they repented, turning back to God in faith, God would send a judge to free them from their conquerors. 

Jephthah was one of these judges. He lived in the twelfth-century BC. Empowered by the Spirit of God, Jephthah led Israel to a military victory over their enemies, the Ammonites. 

But as he faced battle, Jephthah made a rash vow to God. “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” (Judges 11:30-31)

Jephthah should have known better than to have made such a vow for two main reasons.

First, God has never conditioned His acts of mercy, grace, or help on human performance. God acts with mercy, grace, and love because that's Who He is and how He operates. All He asks us to do is trust in Him.

God called Israel into being through the elderly Abraham and his post-menopausal wife, Sarah, building a people that would be a light to the nations from this unlikely seed. 

In his personal farewell address to the people of Israel, Moses told God's people three centuries before Jephthah was born, "The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples." (Deuteronomy 7:7) There was nothing that Abraham, Sarah, or the people of Israel did to earn God's favor. God acts for us out of fatherly goodness and grace that we can neither earn nor deserve.

No "religious act," including the barbarism of offering a human sacrifice, would cause God to look favorably on a prayer request or a vow like the one that Jephthah made in Judges 11. Jephthah presumably would have known that.

The second reason Jephthah should have known not to make such a vow is that God had specifically forbidden His people from engaging in the practice. In Leviticus 18 and 20, chapters that are part of the holiness code that explicates God's enduring moral code for the human race, the sacrifice of human beings was forbidden.

“‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek [a foreign deity, the worship of which demanded child sacrifice], for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord." (Leviticus 18:21)

"The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him. I myself will set my face against him and will cut him off from his people; for by sacrificing his children to Molek, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Molek and if they fail to put him to death, I myself will set my face against him and his family and will cut them off from their people together with all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molek." (Leviticus 20:15)

Besides all of which, this specific prohibition was nothing more than an explication of what we know in my Christian tradition as the Fifth Commandment. That commandment is often rendered as, "You shall not kill," but is more aptly translated as, "You shall not murder," the word in the original Hebrew being 

,תִּֿרְצָֽ֖ח׃, meaning murder or slay. Murder is a distinct act, different from the killing that may happen when one is defending one's family or country. From this commandment, God's intention is clear though: We aren't to take the life of those who act innocently. In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther explains how significant and encompassing this commandment is, saying that it tells us: "We should fear and love God so that we do our neighbors no bodily harm nor cause them any suffering, but help and befriend them in every need."

So, Jephthah, a man of God who had been blessed by God, did an ungodly thing condemned by God when he made his vow, one that probably reflected the influence of the human-sacrificing cultures among which he and his people lived. Disturbing though the passage is to read and consider, God isn't, as some might say, to blame. Even saints are sinners who do sinful things, as Jephthah did. But God "didn't make him do it."

What, some ask though, what about the incident in which God told Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son, Isaac? 

Abraham and Sarah had waited a long time for this child promised to them by God, a child on whose survival God's promise of a whole people were to become the conduits by which salvation was to come to the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Does God's command that Abraham kill his son show that the God worshiped today by Christians is sick? Does Abraham's willing obedience to the command show that he too was sick?

For those who haven't read the Bible's account of the incident, it should be pointed out that, in the end, Abraham did not sacrifice Isaac. Genesis 22 tells us that Abraham, in obedience to God, had bound Isaac and was about to sacrifice him when "the angel of the Lord," a phrase often used in the Old Testament to describe God Himself communicating with believers, said:

“Don't hurt the boy or do anything to him,” he said. “Now I know that you honor and obey God, because you have not kept back your only son from him.” (Genesis 22:12)

At that moment, Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket of thorns, and sacrificed it to God instead. Abraham called the place where this happened, the Lord will provide, because at the right moment, God had provided the appropriate sacrifice for Abraham to offer.

I can't claim to be able to penetrate the mind of God, but this strange story seems to have several points.

The first is that God was dead-set against human sacrifice, a stark contrast to the practcies of ancient Israel's surrounding cultures. He was emphatically underscoring His will for human beings as He interacted with Abraham even as He strengthened Abraham's faith.

The second is that God would be the one to provide whatever sacrifices Israel's eventual sacrificial system would require as symbol of the people's repentance and faith in God. In later centuries, the sacrificed species would include grains, doves or pigeons, and sheep, for example. In New Testament times, with the coming of Jesus, God would provide another sacrifice.

The first Christians discerned that ultimately, all of Scripture, including the Old Testament, points to Jesus. So, it's not a stretch to see in this passage that in the incident with Abraham and Isaac. God was anticipating that time when He would provide the ultimate, definitive sacrifice for our sins, "the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), God's only Son (John 3:16-18), Whose call to us is to repent and trust in Him for life with God that never ends: Jesus Himself. Jesus is the sacrifice and the Savior God provides to all the world. 

I don't understand and can't explain everything about God or the Scriptures. But as I read the Bible through Jesus-colored glasses, I see the God Who loves me and provides for me despite what I deserve. I'm grateful!

 [The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio]

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 19

Progress Report on Our Ministry Activities Center

Living Water Lutheran Church's 'Reach Forward' initiative is now in high gear!

After the basic foundational, plumbing, and electrical work was completed, contractors were able to pour concrete for our new Ministry Activities Center.

This multipurpose facility will allow us to do a variety of things: community outreach events, youth sports, Bible studies, artistic presentations of the Gospel, luncheons and dinners, and, in a pinch, worship services.

The pictures here, taken several days ago, show the concrete foundation and the new bricked-in area for refuse.

Please pray that God will continue to bless the construction process with safe conditions and good weather. PS: The preacher for the dedication service has already said yes.

The Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 18

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 17

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 16

3 Things I'm Praying for Today, September 24, 2020

I pray for many things. But here are three things I'm praying for today. I offer my prayers to God the Father in Jesus' name, as Jesus teaches His disciples to do.

1. I'm praying that God will send workers into the harvest. This means I'm asking God to send disciples of Jesus, whether in person or among their contacts on the Internet, with the good news of new and everlasting life with God for all who turn from sin (repent) and trust or believe in Jesus. People need Jesus more than ever, especially, it seems, in the Church, where Christians have become beguiled by politics and entertainment rather than drawing hope from its only source, the God revealed in the crucified and risen Jesus. (I offer this petition every day, by the way.)

2. I'm praying that governments all over the world will treat all people with justice and mercy. God identifies with and calls believers to care for the marginalized, the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the different, the "other," and the despised. I pray that call be heeded by governments charged by God to act justly.

3. I'm praying that all government leaders will have God's wisdom and the courage to act on that wisdom. With this, I pray that those leaders who refuse to hear or heed God's wisdom will be peacefully removed  by God from their positions of power.

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 15

Putting COVID-19 Death Numbers in Perspective

On the occasion of the 200,000th. American death from COVID-19, the Associated Press notes: “The number of dead is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days.” That helps to put the impact of this pandemic in perspective. 

So do other facts.

Consider that 58,318 members of our US Armed Forces were killed in Vietnam from 1955, when American military advisers arrived in South Vietnam, until the end of the war. Remember, those of you who were living at the time, the impact that war had on our nation. Then compare that with the number of US COVID deaths in just seven months: 200,000 versus 58,318, in twenty-one years.

Skeptical of those numbers? Consider that the past five months have seen more deaths than in any other five-month period of US history. So, even if you think deaths attributed to COVID were not solely caused by the virus but by other factors as well, COVID appears to be the animating factor in this alarming increase in deaths. Unless you think that it's simply coincidence, a massive COVID coincidence.

Pray that the grieving will be comforted, that scientists will find safe and effective vaccines, and that God will teach us to love our neighbor.

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 14

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Biblical Background of 'The Small Catechism,' Part 13

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study, The Biblical Background of The Small Catechism, Part 12

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Biblical Background of The Small Catechism, Part 11

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study, The Biblical Background of The Small Catechism, Part 10

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study, The Biblical Background of The Small Catechism, Part 9