"When I was drinking hot chocolate today, I thought, 'Man, I wish dad was here. He always gets the lumps out of it.'"
#thingsyour32yearolddaughterwhorememberseverythingsays
Thursday, March 16, 2017
How can we know that the Bible is the Word of God?
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Psalm 1:1-3
In this past Sunday’s gospel lesson, we heard Jesus tell Nicodemus: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)
What Jesus was saying is that when God’s Holy Spirit is on the loose in people, we can neither control the Spirit nor, usually, see what the Spirit has been up to until after He’s completed His work. Like the wind, we can’t see the Holy Spirit, we can only see the evidence of His activity in people’s lives.
This, I think, is a good place to start when examining our question for tonight, how can we know that the Bible is the Word of God?
Now, this question is a bit different from the ones asked and answered in books like Mere Christianity, The Case for Faith, The Case for Christ, or How We Got the Bible. They answer questions like
But it’s possible for us to accept the historical truthfulness of Scripture and what it tells us about God and still not believe in Jesus, the Messiah-God to Whom the Bible points as “the way, and the truth, and the life.”
A man I knew once told his sister, “I believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead. So what?”
That man’s belief was no different from that of the devil’s. The devil absolutely believes that God exists. He knows what God has done. And, as his encounter with Jesus in the wilderness shows, he knows the Bible inside out.
But the devil lacks faith. And so did that man.
Faith is what happens when we pull down our shields--shields like self-sufficiency, egotism, fear of losing control over one’s life--to open ourselves to what God wants to give us and do in us, now and in eternity. Faith is about surrender to the God we meet in Jesus.
Second Timothy 3:16 says: “All Scripture is God-breathed…” Now, both the Old and New Testament words for breath--ruach in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and pneuma in the Greek of the New Testament--can also carry the meanings of wind or spirit.
What Paul was telling young Timothy is that while the Scriptures may look like nothing more than words on a page, they’re actually as infused with the life of God as Adam was when God breathed into dust and made the first human being; they’re as filled with the life or Spirit of God as the first Christian disciples were when, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to them on the rush of a mighty wind.
When we are open to it, the Bible is a tornado that we can’t control, that can blow through our lives, tearing down old ways of thinking and living, and empowering us to have, in a phrase that Paul uses in his letter to the Philippian Christians, “the mind of Christ.”
Fine, you may say, the Bible is Spirit-inspired. How do I know that's all true?
We live in a condo. This past week, workers came to the development to clear away the branches that had blown down from the trees and, in at least one case, clear away an entire tree that had fallen, all because of the high winds we’d had a few days before that. Many of you will remember that particularly windy day. But you remember it not because you saw the wind in the same way that you could have seen rain or snow or a bright sun; what you saw was the evidence of the wind from what it was doing.
And this, I think, can point us to how we can know that the Bible is the Word of God: We can see the changed and changing lives of those who are being exposed to the Bible!
The changes wrought in believers by God’s Word in Scripture may happen slowly in some, or come with hurricane force through many aspects of life in others, or in fits and spurts in still others. But when we let the Bible immerse us in the truth God--as we read it on our own, as we receive it in, with, and under the bread and wine, as we hear it proclaimed or taught, as we place ourselves under it as God’s authoritative and life-giving Word for our lives--we see the evidence for the Bible being the Word of God. The Bible is the Word of God first and foremost, because it changes us.
This Word:
By creating faith in Christ within us. Romans 10:17 tells us: “...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ…”
The Bible can do this because it’s the instrument of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3 says: “Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit’s imprint is on every letter of Scripture to present the Word about Jesus so that people immersed in its truth have and are strengthened in their faith relationship with Jesus.
This underscores why we can say confidently that the Bible is the Word of God. We can do this when we consider what the Bible means when it talks about “the Word of God.”
For the Bible, the Word of God, ultimately is a Person and that Person is Jesus. John 1:1 tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…”
The Word of God then, is Jesus. This is the Word let loose by God over chaos in Genesis 1 to say, “Let there be light” and there was light, “Let there be land” and there was land. “Let there be stars and sun, moons and planets, and human beings made in My image” and all those things and more came into being.
We can speak of the Bible as the Word of God because, from Genesis to Revelation, it points us to Jesus the Word of God.
The Word about Jesus that God so loved the world He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not be condemned for their sin, but live with God eternally, can be imparted in many ways: over coffee with a friend, in a locker room at school, during lunch with a co-worker, from a pulpit, in small groups studying God’s Word together.
And we will know when we’ve heard the Word of God when it conforms to all that God reveals about Himself in the Bible’s sixty-six books and when it challenges us or comforts us or stretches us to be remade by God to look more like Jesus Himself.
We know the Word of God is in the Bible when we see the impact it has on us or others, how it challenges us to turn from sin, how it incites us to trust in Jesus Christ, how it empowers us to pray, to witness, to serve, all because this Word from and about Jesus sets us free to live for the Savior Who lived and died for us.
The Word of God we find in the Bible is a mighty wind blowing away the old and dead and breathing life into the new and eternal.
The Bible is the Word of God. When we let it have its way with us, we won’t need evidence to prove that. The evidence will be found in what that Word does in us, to us, and for us.
Let the Word do its work in you. Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was presented during the midweek Lenten service on Wednesday night.]
Psalm 1:1-3
In this past Sunday’s gospel lesson, we heard Jesus tell Nicodemus: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)
What Jesus was saying is that when God’s Holy Spirit is on the loose in people, we can neither control the Spirit nor, usually, see what the Spirit has been up to until after He’s completed His work. Like the wind, we can’t see the Holy Spirit, we can only see the evidence of His activity in people’s lives.
This, I think, is a good place to start when examining our question for tonight, how can we know that the Bible is the Word of God?
Now, this question is a bit different from the ones asked and answered in books like Mere Christianity, The Case for Faith, The Case for Christ, or How We Got the Bible. They answer questions like
- Who was Jesus?
- How did He understand Himself?
- Is the Bible reliable, is faith logical?
- Did Christ rise from the dead?
But it’s possible for us to accept the historical truthfulness of Scripture and what it tells us about God and still not believe in Jesus, the Messiah-God to Whom the Bible points as “the way, and the truth, and the life.”
A man I knew once told his sister, “I believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead. So what?”
That man’s belief was no different from that of the devil’s. The devil absolutely believes that God exists. He knows what God has done. And, as his encounter with Jesus in the wilderness shows, he knows the Bible inside out.
But the devil lacks faith. And so did that man.
Faith is what happens when we pull down our shields--shields like self-sufficiency, egotism, fear of losing control over one’s life--to open ourselves to what God wants to give us and do in us, now and in eternity. Faith is about surrender to the God we meet in Jesus.
Second Timothy 3:16 says: “All Scripture is God-breathed…” Now, both the Old and New Testament words for breath--ruach in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and pneuma in the Greek of the New Testament--can also carry the meanings of wind or spirit.
What Paul was telling young Timothy is that while the Scriptures may look like nothing more than words on a page, they’re actually as infused with the life of God as Adam was when God breathed into dust and made the first human being; they’re as filled with the life or Spirit of God as the first Christian disciples were when, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to them on the rush of a mighty wind.
When we are open to it, the Bible is a tornado that we can’t control, that can blow through our lives, tearing down old ways of thinking and living, and empowering us to have, in a phrase that Paul uses in his letter to the Philippian Christians, “the mind of Christ.”
Fine, you may say, the Bible is Spirit-inspired. How do I know that's all true?
We live in a condo. This past week, workers came to the development to clear away the branches that had blown down from the trees and, in at least one case, clear away an entire tree that had fallen, all because of the high winds we’d had a few days before that. Many of you will remember that particularly windy day. But you remember it not because you saw the wind in the same way that you could have seen rain or snow or a bright sun; what you saw was the evidence of the wind from what it was doing.
And this, I think, can point us to how we can know that the Bible is the Word of God: We can see the changed and changing lives of those who are being exposed to the Bible!
The changes wrought in believers by God’s Word in Scripture may happen slowly in some, or come with hurricane force through many aspects of life in others, or in fits and spurts in still others. But when we let the Bible immerse us in the truth God--as we read it on our own, as we receive it in, with, and under the bread and wine, as we hear it proclaimed or taught, as we place ourselves under it as God’s authoritative and life-giving Word for our lives--we see the evidence for the Bible being the Word of God. The Bible is the Word of God first and foremost, because it changes us.
This Word:
- assures us of God’s forgiving grace,
- imparts God’s guidance for the living of each day,
- helps us to forgive as we’ve been forgiven,
- empowers us to live with hope and peace, and
- sets us free to live as people confident of their Father’s love and certain of their Lord’s presence with them in the good and in the bad, all the way to eternity.
By creating faith in Christ within us. Romans 10:17 tells us: “...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ…”
The Bible can do this because it’s the instrument of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3 says: “Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit’s imprint is on every letter of Scripture to present the Word about Jesus so that people immersed in its truth have and are strengthened in their faith relationship with Jesus.
This underscores why we can say confidently that the Bible is the Word of God. We can do this when we consider what the Bible means when it talks about “the Word of God.”
For the Bible, the Word of God, ultimately is a Person and that Person is Jesus. John 1:1 tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…”
The Word of God then, is Jesus. This is the Word let loose by God over chaos in Genesis 1 to say, “Let there be light” and there was light, “Let there be land” and there was land. “Let there be stars and sun, moons and planets, and human beings made in My image” and all those things and more came into being.
We can speak of the Bible as the Word of God because, from Genesis to Revelation, it points us to Jesus the Word of God.
The Word about Jesus that God so loved the world He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not be condemned for their sin, but live with God eternally, can be imparted in many ways: over coffee with a friend, in a locker room at school, during lunch with a co-worker, from a pulpit, in small groups studying God’s Word together.
And we will know when we’ve heard the Word of God when it conforms to all that God reveals about Himself in the Bible’s sixty-six books and when it challenges us or comforts us or stretches us to be remade by God to look more like Jesus Himself.
We know the Word of God is in the Bible when we see the impact it has on us or others, how it challenges us to turn from sin, how it incites us to trust in Jesus Christ, how it empowers us to pray, to witness, to serve, all because this Word from and about Jesus sets us free to live for the Savior Who lived and died for us.
The Word of God we find in the Bible is a mighty wind blowing away the old and dead and breathing life into the new and eternal.
The Bible is the Word of God. When we let it have its way with us, we won’t need evidence to prove that. The evidence will be found in what that Word does in us, to us, and for us.
Let the Word do its work in you. Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was presented during the midweek Lenten service on Wednesday night.]
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Let Jesus Deep-Six Your Fear
"There is a lot of fear in the world, we shouldn't make our imagined fears bigger than someone else's real fears."
That's what my son, Pastor Philip Daniels, observed while presenting this video from George Takei over on Facebook.
I couldn't possibly agree with Philip more.
I am especially stunned by the amount of fear that exists in America today. It makes me think of Jesus' words about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. That's because most Americans--at least white Americans who make up the lower middle class, like me--are wealthier, safer, and more secure than any other people in the world, more than any other people in the history of the world.
I can only read the fear that pervades America today as an indication of our poor spiritual health, of how far we have wandered away from the God we meet in Jesus Christ. Because we so value the finite things of this world, our culture and our politics are pervaded by shallow hedonism, indifference to others' humanity, and constant fear.
And this fear exists despite how much safer America is than at any time in the past twenty-five years. When money, pleasure, and personal happiness are your gods, fear takes control.
We are so afraid of losing what we have, that we are in danger of losing the life that only the God we know in Jesus Christ can give to us.
Christ calls us to a life of love for God and neighbor, set free from sin, the inborn condition that leads to things like fear, hedonism, authoritarianism, racism, and terror.
I want the boy in this video who longs to become an inventor and a pastor to be able to see his dreams come true. That can only happen when the leaders and the people of the world let go of fear and act with hope and faith.
This doesn't mean that we dismantle our armies or our missile silos; there are still bad people unwilling to live in relationship with God and neighbor, from whom children and all people need to be protected. It is to provide for such protection, security, and the general welfare that God has established governments on the earth.
But, if we will turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, the prince of peace, our lives will be transformed and we can live in the midst of the dangers and difficulties of this life without fear and instead, with hope, with faith, with peace.
I recognize that we live in a pluralistic nation. I don't believe in an established religion for the United States. I believe that Christianity, in fact, thrives in pluralistic societies because when people can freely consider Christianity in comparison with other ways of approaching life, Christianity will win people's hearts and lives.
But, having experienced life with Jesus Christ for forty years now, I can tell you confidently that He imparts the peace of God to those who trust in him (even as I confess to trusting Him imperfectly) and is, as He Himself has said, "the way, and the truth, and the life." Please consider following Jesus and be empowered to deep-six fear!
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Monday, March 13, 2017
Letting God Be the Star
Genesis 12:1-9
Our first lesson for this morning, Genesis 12:1-9, recounts the pivotal moment when a man named Abram--who would later be known as Abraham--left all that was familiar to him in obedience to God’s call and in response to God’s promise.
On first blush, the central character of the lesson seems to be Abram, the one who picks up stakes and moves to who-knows-where with his wife, his nephew Lot, his possessions, and his servants.
But, in truth, the central character is God. Abram was just a member of the supporting cast.
As his life unfolded, Abram did well and played a critical role in the revelation of God’s purposes in the world--in other words, he was blessed--when he remembered Who was the star and who wasn’t.
Abram made a mess of things--in other words, he was cursed--when he thought that he was the star of his own story.
We would do well to remember this, to trust in God to take the lead and to be good for all of His promises in our lives too. That’s a big part of what the lesson can teach us today.
Let’s take a look at it. Verse 1: “The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you…’”
The first thing to say about this passage and then move on quickly is that, we may think, “Lucky! God gave Abram clear directions.” But not always; one scholar estimates that God spoke to him about once for every twenty-five years of his life.
The truth is that in discerning God’s direction and will for our lives, we have an advantage over Abram.
Through a few minutes of daily Bible-reading, followed by prayer in Jesus’ name that’s powered by the Holy Spirit, you and I can hear more from God than Abram ever did in his whole life time.
More importantly, consider who takes the initiative in this verse. God calls Abram to leave behind everything he knows in order to go someplace that God will show Abram.
Imagine how crazy Abram’s decision to leave must have seemed to his family and countrymen. They were all idol-worshipers, their lives spent placating all sorts of gods. The whole notion of there being just one God Who created and cared about His creation would have been foreign to them all. So would the idea of leaving family, friends, and the familiar for parts unknown.
But here’s the deal. If God really is the God of all creation, He has every right to be obeyed when He calls us to do things that may not be easy. Things like putting God first in our lives, or loving even those who hate us, or taking the risk of telling others the good news of new life for who turn from sin and trust in Jesus as their Savior and God. Isaiah 45:9 asks: “Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?'” The creatures--human beings--get in trouble when we start to ignore the Creator Who made us.
We knew some folks who, when their kids were in their teens, moved into an area with a number of Lutheran churches. They finally settled on filled with older people and no youth program. "Why did you do that?" their friends asked. "Why be part of a church that has nothing to offer you?" Our friends explained that, first of all, it wasn't true that the church they decided to join had nothing to offer. But, more than that, they explained, "We were looking for a church where we could serve." That couple understood that God doesn't always call us (or sometimes, command us) to the easy path, only the best path.
Of course, God gives all sorts of commands to the human race, commands that we ignore. Just think of the Ten Commandments. Millions of people push to have the Ten Commandments erected in stone on court house grounds, but only a small number of those millions can actually name more the four of five of them.
We're not good at keeping God's commands either. Abram himself would later show a penchant for ignoring God’s commands.
That penchant for sin has been baked into the human DNA since Adam and Eve fell into sin.
God could bark His commands--His Law--at us from now until Jesus returns and those commands wouldn’t cause us to do what God tells us to do. The most that God's Law can show us is where we fall short as human beings and just how desperately we need God's help and forgiveness.
God’s Law can’t change or move us. But God’s promises can.
And, as we’ll see, when he left his home behind, Abram wasn’t just obeying a command given to him by God; he was also responding to a promise. It was that unlikely promise that compelled Abram to call in the moving vans!
Look, starting at verse 2: [God says:] “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Abram, as we’ll see, was seventy-five years old when God spoke these words to him. His wife Sarai, later renamed Sarah, was ten years younger. Abram’s name, which means exalted father, hung over him like a sick joke because Abram and Sarai were childless. In that culture, in those times, you were thought to be cursed if you didn’t have children.
But this God Who has chosen to introduce Himself to the idol-worshiping Abram says that the childless exalted father is going to become the father of “a great nation.” God promises that Abram is going to be the conduit through whom God will bring His blessings to the whole world. You and I know that it will be among Abram’s descendants that God’s Son will be enfleshed and raised, will die and rise. Abram didn’t know that then, though. He just believed and acted on that belief.
As we said earlier, if Abram shared the reason for his departure with his family members or friends, they would have undoubtedly thought that he was crazy. “Why can’t he just accept that he’s not going to father a single child, let alone a great nation? Is he out of his mind?”
Listen: Jesus calls you and I to be Abrams, too. We’re to act as God’s OB/GYNs, overseeing the rebirth of friends, family, classmates, and co-workers as we share Christ with them. What if Abram had turned a deaf ear to God’s call? Chances are, God would have found someone else to act as the father of nations. But Abram did believe! And he did obey! And because believed and obeyed, you and I are here this morning!
Verse 4: “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him…”
Are you and I going where God tells us to go? Are we doing what God tells us to do?
You and I have the promise of God-enfleshed Jesus, “I am with you always…” And we also have the same command as Abram, to “go and make [children of God, that is] disciples of all nations” [Matthew 28:19-20].
This command isn’t just for spiritual superstars. There was never anything spectacular about Abram, nothing in his idolatrous background to commend him to God. But, whenever Abram was able to get out of God’s way and get over himself, God’s word of promise created the gift of faith within him. And through that obedient faith, God was able to set off His salvation plan for the human race. God wants to make us agents of His salvation plan.
God wants to bring His Word of command and promise to the whole world--and to our little corners of it--in and through you and me. God may not call us to pull up stakes and go somewhere He’ll show us on the way. But how can we share God’s Word about Christ in our familiar haunts, places like Dayton, Centerville, Springboro, Miamisburg, West Carrollton, Kettering, ot Lebanon?
In verses 5 and following, we find Abram in the land of Canaan. God is giving Abram a sneak-peak of the land his descendants will one day inherit. “This isn’t your people’s land yet,” God was saying, “but one day, it will be.” Each time God reiterated His promise to Abram, Abram erected an altar to give God thanks and then moved on.
And here’s what Abram learned: This world is temporary. Each of us is mortal and one day, the universe we know will be burned up. As was true of Abram, God calls us to hold onto this world and this life loosely, to be prepared to move on, to do whatever He calls us to do, to live in obedient faith. First Peter 2:11 says: “I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.”
For whatever sin God calls us to repent, we need to repent today because whatever in this world tempts us to sin is going to die.
For whatever good God would have us to do, we need to do it today, because the clock is running out on this world and because the good we do in Jesus' name will have eternal significance.
And in whatever ways we can encourage each other to lives of obedience and faith, we need to do it today. Hebrews 3:13 tells us to “encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.”
Above all, you and I must avoid getting too comfortable with this world or its ways. Like Abram, who became Abraham, we must be prepared to move on to whatever God calls us to next.
The beauty and the comforts of this world are but a glimmer of the eternal beauty that God has in mind for us when Jesus returns and ushers those who have believed in Him into “a new heaven and a new earth” [Revelation 21:1], the place He has prepared for all who believe in Him [John 14:2-3]. That’s the true homeland that Jesus secured for all who believe in Him and in the power of His death and resurrection.
This past week, John Ylvisaker, the Lutheran composer best known for I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry, passed away.
In the next to last verse of that love song from God to baptized believers in Jesus, we sing:
But, as Ylvisaker’s song reminds us, the greatest surprise of all belongs to those who trust in the God Who revealed Himself to Abram and then ultimately, to all the world through Jesus Christ.
The great surprise is this: Despite our lack of qualifications, despite what we deserve, we are saved by grace through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. To those who believe in Christ, God gives an eternal homeland.
And no matter how long we roam on this earth, God will keep calling us to that homeland.
Let the God you know in Jesus Christ be the central character in your life. Be a cast member in His kingdom. It will be the role of an eternal lifetime!
Let God save you.
Let Him guide you.
Let Him love you.
Let Him free you.
Let Him sustain you with the promise and the certainty of citizenship in His eternal homeland that you received at your baptism.
And keep following Him until that day when you too, awaken to see that God is waiting for you “with just one more surprise.”
Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the message from worship on March 12, 2017.]
Our first lesson for this morning, Genesis 12:1-9, recounts the pivotal moment when a man named Abram--who would later be known as Abraham--left all that was familiar to him in obedience to God’s call and in response to God’s promise.
On first blush, the central character of the lesson seems to be Abram, the one who picks up stakes and moves to who-knows-where with his wife, his nephew Lot, his possessions, and his servants.
But, in truth, the central character is God. Abram was just a member of the supporting cast.
As his life unfolded, Abram did well and played a critical role in the revelation of God’s purposes in the world--in other words, he was blessed--when he remembered Who was the star and who wasn’t.
Abram made a mess of things--in other words, he was cursed--when he thought that he was the star of his own story.
We would do well to remember this, to trust in God to take the lead and to be good for all of His promises in our lives too. That’s a big part of what the lesson can teach us today.
Let’s take a look at it. Verse 1: “The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you…’”
The first thing to say about this passage and then move on quickly is that, we may think, “Lucky! God gave Abram clear directions.” But not always; one scholar estimates that God spoke to him about once for every twenty-five years of his life.
The truth is that in discerning God’s direction and will for our lives, we have an advantage over Abram.
- We have the Bible, God’s Word; Abram didn’t. If we want God speak to us as God spoke to Abram, all we need to do is read His Word.
- We also have the Holy Spirit; Abram didn’t.
Through a few minutes of daily Bible-reading, followed by prayer in Jesus’ name that’s powered by the Holy Spirit, you and I can hear more from God than Abram ever did in his whole life time.
More importantly, consider who takes the initiative in this verse. God calls Abram to leave behind everything he knows in order to go someplace that God will show Abram.
Imagine how crazy Abram’s decision to leave must have seemed to his family and countrymen. They were all idol-worshipers, their lives spent placating all sorts of gods. The whole notion of there being just one God Who created and cared about His creation would have been foreign to them all. So would the idea of leaving family, friends, and the familiar for parts unknown.
But here’s the deal. If God really is the God of all creation, He has every right to be obeyed when He calls us to do things that may not be easy. Things like putting God first in our lives, or loving even those who hate us, or taking the risk of telling others the good news of new life for who turn from sin and trust in Jesus as their Savior and God. Isaiah 45:9 asks: “Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?'” The creatures--human beings--get in trouble when we start to ignore the Creator Who made us.
We knew some folks who, when their kids were in their teens, moved into an area with a number of Lutheran churches. They finally settled on filled with older people and no youth program. "Why did you do that?" their friends asked. "Why be part of a church that has nothing to offer you?" Our friends explained that, first of all, it wasn't true that the church they decided to join had nothing to offer. But, more than that, they explained, "We were looking for a church where we could serve." That couple understood that God doesn't always call us (or sometimes, command us) to the easy path, only the best path.
Of course, God gives all sorts of commands to the human race, commands that we ignore. Just think of the Ten Commandments. Millions of people push to have the Ten Commandments erected in stone on court house grounds, but only a small number of those millions can actually name more the four of five of them.
We're not good at keeping God's commands either. Abram himself would later show a penchant for ignoring God’s commands.
That penchant for sin has been baked into the human DNA since Adam and Eve fell into sin.
God could bark His commands--His Law--at us from now until Jesus returns and those commands wouldn’t cause us to do what God tells us to do. The most that God's Law can show us is where we fall short as human beings and just how desperately we need God's help and forgiveness.
God’s Law can’t change or move us. But God’s promises can.
And, as we’ll see, when he left his home behind, Abram wasn’t just obeying a command given to him by God; he was also responding to a promise. It was that unlikely promise that compelled Abram to call in the moving vans!
Look, starting at verse 2: [God says:] “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Abram, as we’ll see, was seventy-five years old when God spoke these words to him. His wife Sarai, later renamed Sarah, was ten years younger. Abram’s name, which means exalted father, hung over him like a sick joke because Abram and Sarai were childless. In that culture, in those times, you were thought to be cursed if you didn’t have children.
But this God Who has chosen to introduce Himself to the idol-worshiping Abram says that the childless exalted father is going to become the father of “a great nation.” God promises that Abram is going to be the conduit through whom God will bring His blessings to the whole world. You and I know that it will be among Abram’s descendants that God’s Son will be enfleshed and raised, will die and rise. Abram didn’t know that then, though. He just believed and acted on that belief.
As we said earlier, if Abram shared the reason for his departure with his family members or friends, they would have undoubtedly thought that he was crazy. “Why can’t he just accept that he’s not going to father a single child, let alone a great nation? Is he out of his mind?”
Listen: Jesus calls you and I to be Abrams, too. We’re to act as God’s OB/GYNs, overseeing the rebirth of friends, family, classmates, and co-workers as we share Christ with them. What if Abram had turned a deaf ear to God’s call? Chances are, God would have found someone else to act as the father of nations. But Abram did believe! And he did obey! And because believed and obeyed, you and I are here this morning!
Verse 4: “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him…”
Are you and I going where God tells us to go? Are we doing what God tells us to do?
You and I have the promise of God-enfleshed Jesus, “I am with you always…” And we also have the same command as Abram, to “go and make [children of God, that is] disciples of all nations” [Matthew 28:19-20].
This command isn’t just for spiritual superstars. There was never anything spectacular about Abram, nothing in his idolatrous background to commend him to God. But, whenever Abram was able to get out of God’s way and get over himself, God’s word of promise created the gift of faith within him. And through that obedient faith, God was able to set off His salvation plan for the human race. God wants to make us agents of His salvation plan.
God wants to bring His Word of command and promise to the whole world--and to our little corners of it--in and through you and me. God may not call us to pull up stakes and go somewhere He’ll show us on the way. But how can we share God’s Word about Christ in our familiar haunts, places like Dayton, Centerville, Springboro, Miamisburg, West Carrollton, Kettering, ot Lebanon?
In verses 5 and following, we find Abram in the land of Canaan. God is giving Abram a sneak-peak of the land his descendants will one day inherit. “This isn’t your people’s land yet,” God was saying, “but one day, it will be.” Each time God reiterated His promise to Abram, Abram erected an altar to give God thanks and then moved on.
And here’s what Abram learned: This world is temporary. Each of us is mortal and one day, the universe we know will be burned up. As was true of Abram, God calls us to hold onto this world and this life loosely, to be prepared to move on, to do whatever He calls us to do, to live in obedient faith. First Peter 2:11 says: “I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.”
For whatever sin God calls us to repent, we need to repent today because whatever in this world tempts us to sin is going to die.
For whatever good God would have us to do, we need to do it today, because the clock is running out on this world and because the good we do in Jesus' name will have eternal significance.
And in whatever ways we can encourage each other to lives of obedience and faith, we need to do it today. Hebrews 3:13 tells us to “encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.”
Above all, you and I must avoid getting too comfortable with this world or its ways. Like Abram, who became Abraham, we must be prepared to move on to whatever God calls us to next.
The beauty and the comforts of this world are but a glimmer of the eternal beauty that God has in mind for us when Jesus returns and ushers those who have believed in Him into “a new heaven and a new earth” [Revelation 21:1], the place He has prepared for all who believe in Him [John 14:2-3]. That’s the true homeland that Jesus secured for all who believe in Him and in the power of His death and resurrection.
This past week, John Ylvisaker, the Lutheran composer best known for I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry, passed away.
In the next to last verse of that love song from God to baptized believers in Jesus, we sing:
When the evening gently closes inIt no doubt came as an enormous surprise to Abram when God introduced Himself to him, and an even bigger surprise when God told Abram that he would become the father of all who believe in Him.
And you shut your weary eyes
I’ll be there as I have always been
With just one more surprise.
But, as Ylvisaker’s song reminds us, the greatest surprise of all belongs to those who trust in the God Who revealed Himself to Abram and then ultimately, to all the world through Jesus Christ.
The great surprise is this: Despite our lack of qualifications, despite what we deserve, we are saved by grace through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. To those who believe in Christ, God gives an eternal homeland.
And no matter how long we roam on this earth, God will keep calling us to that homeland.
Let the God you know in Jesus Christ be the central character in your life. Be a cast member in His kingdom. It will be the role of an eternal lifetime!
Let God save you.
Let Him guide you.
Let Him love you.
Let Him free you.
Let Him sustain you with the promise and the certainty of citizenship in His eternal homeland that you received at your baptism.
And keep following Him until that day when you too, awaken to see that God is waiting for you “with just one more surprise.”
Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the message from worship on March 12, 2017.]
Friday, March 10, 2017
Learning to Wait on God
As previous readers of the blog know, I try to have a quiet time with God about five days a week. (This message includes an explanation of the four components of my quiet time: Stop. Look. Listen. Respond.)
Here's what I learned from God today as I read Hebrews 6 and focused on one verse to which God seemed to turn my attention:
Here's what I learned from God today as I read Hebrews 6 and focused on one verse to which God seemed to turn my attention:
Look: “And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.” (Hebrews 6:15)[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
This verse struck me because I’ve just re-read Hummel’s Tyranny of the Urgent. There, he looks at how Jesus went off early in the morning to pray (Mark 1:35) and observes: “[Jesus] prayerfully waited for his Father’s instructions.”
What was true of Jesus, God in the flesh, was not always true of Abraham. Twice, the Old Testament says, Abraham lied to foreign kings through whose realms he passed about the identity of his wife, Sarah. Each time, he said that Sarah was his sister rather than his wife, certain that if he fessed up to being married to Sarah, the kings would kill him to have Sarah for themselves. (She must have still been a looker when she was in her old age!)
Another time, Sarah had become impatient for the son that God had promised to Abraham and her. So, she told Abraham to sleep with her servant, Hagar. A son born to Sarah’s servant from Abraham’s seed would have been considered Sarah’s and Abraham’s son. Apparently, Abraham shared in Sarah’s impatience (and may have liked the idea of sleeping with Hagar apart from any consideration of God’s promise) and slept with Sarah’s slave.
Each time Abraham grew impatient, disaster ensued.
But each time he sinned in this way, Abraham returned to God and to trust in God. It was this trust that God rewarded. What was true at the beginning of his relationship with God was true whenever Abraham turned to God in faith: “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).
Listen: Your Word makes it clear, Lord, that I have made by biggest mistakes and committed sin by failing to wait on You. Jesus told the disciples on the night of His arrest: “Until now, you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (John 16:24).
But all too often, I either don’t ask, thinking that I already know the best way forward, or I ask, but fail to wait. I take matters into my own hands. Or I do what I think is the best thing without taking the time to listen for Your direction in Your Word or in the counsel of trusted Christian people.
This has caused me stress and heartache. It’s led me unwittingly into sin and, sometimes, caused me to equally unwittingly, lead others into sin.
On the other hand, when I have waited patiently, when I’ve gone about striving to be faithful and kept on the lookout for where You’re leading me, I’ve often received more than my puny mind can imagine. The good You grant is never what I imagine in my self-centered thoughts. But I need Your grace to help me to accept that what You have in mind for me is always better than what I have in mind for me. In the bargain, when I patiently wait on Your will to be done in my life, You set me free to become the person You made me to be.
This path also promises to remove some of the stress that comes when I allow myself to think that the future of the world or pieces of it rest on my actions. Life and positive change only come from You. So does energy and inspiration for the blessed life Jesus died and rose to give those who believe in Him.
Help me to remember Your promise in Isaiah 40:31: “...those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Respond: Remind me today and tomorrow to spend time with You in Your Word and in prayer and to wait for You to guide me, Lord. In Jesus’ name I pray.
John Ylvisaker: An Appreciation
John Ylvisaker has died. He composed such wonderful worship music as I Was There to Hear Borning Cry, Sweet Release, Amigos de Cristo, Rejoice, several liturgies, and other great tunes.
John's project as a musician was to compose church music that had an immediate familiarity and accessibility for worshipers. In the bargain, he managed to compose some classics that will stand the test of time.
John and I were not friends. I spoke by phone with him several times and on occasion through the years, we exchanged hurried notes. Most of what I knew of John personally came through our mutual acquaintance, the theologian and wonderful preacher, Dick Jensen.
But I did spend several memorable days with John back in the 1980s.
In fact, the most frightening car ride of my life came with John at the wheel. We were heading from Bowling Green, Ohio to the parsonage of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Okolona, Ohio, where I then served as pastor. John was joining us to lead a singalong on Saturday night and then, our music the next morning for worship.
We traveled through a driving rainstorm and, during most of the trip, as John's mind was occupied with our conversation about music, I didn't know if we were going to stay on the road.
At one point, we found ourselves on a bumpy country lane. John kept hearing honking noises. He repeatedly looked around, making the car swerve with every turn of his head, as he tried to find the source of the honking horn. He thought that some impatient driver was telling him to get a move on or to get out of the way. It took John a while to realize that he was the one producing the honks by the loose way he held the wildly vibrating steering wheel on that piece of road. "Oh, it's me," he said and continued to talk.
I've often thought since that drive that the phrase "traveling mercies" had special meaning for John, who traveled to share his music with people across the country and elsewhere; surely, God was merciful to this musician He had called and that we all needed.
We made it to the parsonage in one piece that Saturday afternoon, for which I thanked God. That night, we had the singalong at the church and a rehearsal for church musicians who wanted to play for worship the next morning. The singalong was fantastic and our musicians were well prepared to play the special accompaniment John created on the spot once he saw what instruments and musicians he had to work with. (We had no blank musical staff paper around. So, John took the blank copy paper I handed him, graphed out the bars on the page, and created an arrangement for each musician as I watched.)
John stayed with us at the parsonage that night. He and I talked mostly music and musicians until three in the morning. He also told me some of his theories about composing music for the Church. We talked theology, our faith, the life of the Church, and mutual friends. But we always came back to music.
When, during our marathon conversation, I mentioned Canadian rocker Bruce Cockburn, I found in John someone as mesmerized by Cockburn's talent as I was. "He's got one line," I said. And with just that slim cue, John knew which line I was talking about. We ended up saying it in unison: "Got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight." Then John said, "I would kill to write a line like that!"
The fact is that John wrote many great lines and many wonderful melodies that helped God's people sing praises to God, all in ways to which they could relate AND that were also faithful to Scripture. There was a theological depth and emotional honesty to John's songs that are often missing in today's "praise and worship" music. He was an incredible gift of God to the Church and to the world. We need more of John's ilk in Christ's Church today!
On the Sunday morning that followed that wee-hours conversation, we used not only Ylvisaker songs but Ylvisaker liturgy for our worship. John led us. The congregation was familiar with three of the pieces; there were nine more that they didn't know until that very morning...when John introduced them. Yet no one complained about the lack of familiar music.
In fact, at the end of the service, 300 people stood largely silent and still. It felt to me like the Transfiguration: Nobody wanted to leave this moment behind; John had ushered us into the presence of God with songs the people loved singing. One man told me afterward, "I kept hoping that we could stay a little longer." That was the power of John's music for God!
One of my favorite Ylvisaker pieces is Sweet Release. The title is rooted in the most common word for forgive in Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written by the apostles and evangelists, aphiemi. It's a word that literally means release, as in "When I am forgiven by God through Christ, I'm released from my slavery to sin." The lyrics are Biblically sound and the melody resonates of American folk music, the kind of tune that generations of Americans, no matter what their race, have sung together.
In published versions, the song is made up of three verses. But John also occasionally recorded his songs to introduce them to people. In the recorded version of Sweet Release, he sang a simple bridge he'd composed. I loved Ylvisaker's bass voice singing those reassuring words meant as a prayer to God:
You didn't need a verse or a line as great as Cockburn's, John. In those two lines, focused not on our efforts to bring light to the world, but on God's provision of light and love given by His grace through faith in Christ that we cannot earn, you surpassed Cockburn. You really did.
I look forward to seeing you one day again with all the saints as we exuberantly enjoy eternal life in the presence of God. You can lead us in praising our Savior and King. I know that you'll help us all, even we non-musicians, to keep up.
[My daughter, who was very young when John Ylvisaker stayed with us at the parsonage at Okolona, just reminded me that John liked to put orange juice on his corn flakes. She has a fabulous memory and is right about that, although I'd forgotten it.]
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
John's project as a musician was to compose church music that had an immediate familiarity and accessibility for worshipers. In the bargain, he managed to compose some classics that will stand the test of time.
John and I were not friends. I spoke by phone with him several times and on occasion through the years, we exchanged hurried notes. Most of what I knew of John personally came through our mutual acquaintance, the theologian and wonderful preacher, Dick Jensen.
But I did spend several memorable days with John back in the 1980s.
In fact, the most frightening car ride of my life came with John at the wheel. We were heading from Bowling Green, Ohio to the parsonage of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Okolona, Ohio, where I then served as pastor. John was joining us to lead a singalong on Saturday night and then, our music the next morning for worship.
We traveled through a driving rainstorm and, during most of the trip, as John's mind was occupied with our conversation about music, I didn't know if we were going to stay on the road.
At one point, we found ourselves on a bumpy country lane. John kept hearing honking noises. He repeatedly looked around, making the car swerve with every turn of his head, as he tried to find the source of the honking horn. He thought that some impatient driver was telling him to get a move on or to get out of the way. It took John a while to realize that he was the one producing the honks by the loose way he held the wildly vibrating steering wheel on that piece of road. "Oh, it's me," he said and continued to talk.
I've often thought since that drive that the phrase "traveling mercies" had special meaning for John, who traveled to share his music with people across the country and elsewhere; surely, God was merciful to this musician He had called and that we all needed.
We made it to the parsonage in one piece that Saturday afternoon, for which I thanked God. That night, we had the singalong at the church and a rehearsal for church musicians who wanted to play for worship the next morning. The singalong was fantastic and our musicians were well prepared to play the special accompaniment John created on the spot once he saw what instruments and musicians he had to work with. (We had no blank musical staff paper around. So, John took the blank copy paper I handed him, graphed out the bars on the page, and created an arrangement for each musician as I watched.)
John stayed with us at the parsonage that night. He and I talked mostly music and musicians until three in the morning. He also told me some of his theories about composing music for the Church. We talked theology, our faith, the life of the Church, and mutual friends. But we always came back to music.
When, during our marathon conversation, I mentioned Canadian rocker Bruce Cockburn, I found in John someone as mesmerized by Cockburn's talent as I was. "He's got one line," I said. And with just that slim cue, John knew which line I was talking about. We ended up saying it in unison: "Got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight." Then John said, "I would kill to write a line like that!"
The fact is that John wrote many great lines and many wonderful melodies that helped God's people sing praises to God, all in ways to which they could relate AND that were also faithful to Scripture. There was a theological depth and emotional honesty to John's songs that are often missing in today's "praise and worship" music. He was an incredible gift of God to the Church and to the world. We need more of John's ilk in Christ's Church today!
On the Sunday morning that followed that wee-hours conversation, we used not only Ylvisaker songs but Ylvisaker liturgy for our worship. John led us. The congregation was familiar with three of the pieces; there were nine more that they didn't know until that very morning...when John introduced them. Yet no one complained about the lack of familiar music.
In fact, at the end of the service, 300 people stood largely silent and still. It felt to me like the Transfiguration: Nobody wanted to leave this moment behind; John had ushered us into the presence of God with songs the people loved singing. One man told me afterward, "I kept hoping that we could stay a little longer." That was the power of John's music for God!
One of my favorite Ylvisaker pieces is Sweet Release. The title is rooted in the most common word for forgive in Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written by the apostles and evangelists, aphiemi. It's a word that literally means release, as in "When I am forgiven by God through Christ, I'm released from my slavery to sin." The lyrics are Biblically sound and the melody resonates of American folk music, the kind of tune that generations of Americans, no matter what their race, have sung together.
In published versions, the song is made up of three verses. But John also occasionally recorded his songs to introduce them to people. In the recorded version of Sweet Release, he sang a simple bridge he'd composed. I loved Ylvisaker's bass voice singing those reassuring words meant as a prayer to God:
When I feel afraid, I know just where You'll beThose lines bring tears to my eyes as I remember and sing them now, serving still as a reminder of the grace, forgiveness, and life that God makes available to us through Christ.
Your love is such a tender mystery
You didn't need a verse or a line as great as Cockburn's, John. In those two lines, focused not on our efforts to bring light to the world, but on God's provision of light and love given by His grace through faith in Christ that we cannot earn, you surpassed Cockburn. You really did.
I look forward to seeing you one day again with all the saints as we exuberantly enjoy eternal life in the presence of God. You can lead us in praising our Savior and King. I know that you'll help us all, even we non-musicians, to keep up.
[My daughter, who was very young when John Ylvisaker stayed with us at the parsonage at Okolona, just reminded me that John liked to put orange juice on his corn flakes. She has a fabulous memory and is right about that, although I'd forgotten it.]
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Wednesday, March 08, 2017
Tough Questions: How Do I Help My Grieving Friend?
Proverbs 17:17
Galatians 6:2
During this year’s midweek Lenten services, we’re going to tackle some tough questions. They’ll include:
But without doubt, the question which, in one form or another, Christians ask more than any other is the one we’re addressing tonight: How do I help a grieving friend? Sometimes, the question is posed in this way: What do I say to a friend who has just experienced loss?
As Christians, we know that God commands all people to love God totally and love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
We also know that Jesus gives His followers a new commandment: To love fellow believers with the same life-giving love He gives to us.
And we’re familiar with Biblical injunctions like those of Paul in Galatians 6:2: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
But how do we show or give expression to the love Christ has given to you and me when dealing with our grieving friends?
Many of you could be standing here and offering the wisdom you’ve gained on this subject both through God’s Word and through living out your Christian discipleship. But tonight, I’d like to share what God has taught me about helping our grieving friends.
First, and most importantly, listen to your friend. Frequently, whether it's because of our own discomfort or a penchant for wanting to "fix things," we can go to our grieving friends and shower them with torrents of consoling words. But what grieving people most need is to be listened to. Their unique pain and grief need to be acknowledged.
In the Old Testament book of Job, a man is aggrieved when he loses first, all his sources of wealth and then, all of his children in a natural disaster. Three friends come to visit Job. As we’ve pointed out before, the friends do something very wise at first. They let Job "vent," allowing him to give full expression to his agony, his questions, his anger, even his anger with God. They listen to Job. For seven days.
But then, the friends make a mistake: They open their mouths. My biggest mistakes in life and in trying to help hurting people, have never come from listening. They've always come from talking.
Second, don't try to talk people out of their grief. Grief is something which, over time, follows a more or less natural course. While nobody ever “gets over” their loss, they can reach a point of acceptance. Getting there, sometimes take more time for some people and sometimes less time is required for other people. It depends on the person, their level of faith, and their particular grief. You can't truncate grief with words.
When my grandfather died, a pastor came to the visitation. My grandmother, who had gone into the hospital CCU at the same time as my grandfather was admitted to the ICU, had just been released from the hospital and was at the funeral home in a wheelchair. The pastor, who had never met my grandmother, put his hands on her shoulders and told her, "You're going to be all right. Go home and watch the Bengals game. I predict they're going to win."
Some people think that they need to give the aggrieved person a "pep talk." But such talks are really designed more to make the talker feel they've done a good turn than to do any real good for anyone else. Let your friend grieve no matter how uncomfortable it may make you feel.
Third, don't try to explain what you don't understand. When people grieve over their losses, they wonder, as all of us do, why their loss has happened. Anyone who wants to help the friend who is asking this question must resist the temptation to answer it. In all honesty, your friend doesn't want to have a rational explanation anyway. They simply want to be able to say, "This isn't fair!"
And it isn't fair. Life often isn't fair. At the end of Job's forty-two chapters, we're left with this answer to the question of why grief befalls us: We live in a world where bad things happen. In the New Testament, Jesus tells us that bad things rain on the good and the evil alike. Why that is so, no one living on this planet is wise enough to say. Only God knows the answer to the question of why and you and I don't need to play God by pretending to have that answer.
Fourth, let your friend be angry with God. A deeply faithful Christian man whose grandchild had recently died told me, "Sometimes I get angry with God. I know it's horrible; but it's true." I assured him that what he was feeling wasn't horrible. I reminded him of such people in the Bible as David and Job, who always believed in God, but also got angry with God when dealing with grief or the threat of death. And I told the grieving grandfather, "The fact that you're angry with God proves your faith in God. You would never be angry with someone you didn't think was there."
Maybe you’ve noticed this: Most of the time, when we respond to people's anger with condemnation, it only makes them dig in their heels. Trying to prove to an angry person that their anger is unwarranted is a fool's mission. God says in Proverbs 15:1, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Letting your friend get angry with God will prevent their anger from becoming an ongoing feature in their life.
Fifth, don't avoid talking about your grieving friend's loss. Often, friends fear that if they speak of the loss or the one for whom their friends grieve, they'll make their friends feel sadder. But a grieving friend already is sad and if it seems natural to mention a friend's deceased loved one, for example, or if your friend mentions that person, you should be willing to talk about them as well.
A woman once told me, "My friends avoid speaking of my late husband like a plague. What they don't seem to understand is that when they do that, it makes me feel as though they think he was unimportant or that they want to pretend he was never there." Through the years, I have heard that grieving woman's words echoed by other grieving people. You honor your friend when you're willing to discuss with them the people or circumstances they grieve.
Sixth, pray for your friend. You should pray that God will bring them comfort, for sure. But you also should pray that God will use you as a conduit for the blessings you want your friend to receive. Whenever I visit people who are dealing with grief, I always ask God to fill me with His Holy Spirit, allowing God's love for my friend to flow through me. In John 15:5, Jesus says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus also says that the world will know Him when His love is visible in us. Pray that God will love your friend through you.
Seventh and finally, share your faith in Christ. If God has allowed you to be helpful to your friend in their grief, they may wonder, whether they’re non-Christians or Christians, what allows you to be that helpful friend. You can honestly say that it isn't you who have been helpful, that you have prayed over every step you took with them and that God has guided you. You can tell them that you belong to an eternal God Who has destroyed the power of death and that anyone who trustingly follows Jesus Christ has hope beyond the grave. At the right time, after you've lovingly taken the journey of grief with your friend, that will come as very good news.
I love what Proverbs 17:17 tells us: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” Call upon God in Jesus’ name to help you be that friend who loves at all times and so be a sister or brother to those who go through adversity. In this way, we will love God and love our neighbor. Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the first installment of the church's midweek Lenten series, Tough Questions.]
Galatians 6:2
During this year’s midweek Lenten services, we’re going to tackle some tough questions. They’ll include:
- How can we know that the Bible is God’s Word?
- How can a loving God let people go to hell?
- Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?
- Is the Biblical view of homosexuality unloving?
But without doubt, the question which, in one form or another, Christians ask more than any other is the one we’re addressing tonight: How do I help a grieving friend? Sometimes, the question is posed in this way: What do I say to a friend who has just experienced loss?
As Christians, we know that God commands all people to love God totally and love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
We also know that Jesus gives His followers a new commandment: To love fellow believers with the same life-giving love He gives to us.
And we’re familiar with Biblical injunctions like those of Paul in Galatians 6:2: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
But how do we show or give expression to the love Christ has given to you and me when dealing with our grieving friends?
Many of you could be standing here and offering the wisdom you’ve gained on this subject both through God’s Word and through living out your Christian discipleship. But tonight, I’d like to share what God has taught me about helping our grieving friends.
First, and most importantly, listen to your friend. Frequently, whether it's because of our own discomfort or a penchant for wanting to "fix things," we can go to our grieving friends and shower them with torrents of consoling words. But what grieving people most need is to be listened to. Their unique pain and grief need to be acknowledged.
In the Old Testament book of Job, a man is aggrieved when he loses first, all his sources of wealth and then, all of his children in a natural disaster. Three friends come to visit Job. As we’ve pointed out before, the friends do something very wise at first. They let Job "vent," allowing him to give full expression to his agony, his questions, his anger, even his anger with God. They listen to Job. For seven days.
But then, the friends make a mistake: They open their mouths. My biggest mistakes in life and in trying to help hurting people, have never come from listening. They've always come from talking.
Second, don't try to talk people out of their grief. Grief is something which, over time, follows a more or less natural course. While nobody ever “gets over” their loss, they can reach a point of acceptance. Getting there, sometimes take more time for some people and sometimes less time is required for other people. It depends on the person, their level of faith, and their particular grief. You can't truncate grief with words.
When my grandfather died, a pastor came to the visitation. My grandmother, who had gone into the hospital CCU at the same time as my grandfather was admitted to the ICU, had just been released from the hospital and was at the funeral home in a wheelchair. The pastor, who had never met my grandmother, put his hands on her shoulders and told her, "You're going to be all right. Go home and watch the Bengals game. I predict they're going to win."
Some people think that they need to give the aggrieved person a "pep talk." But such talks are really designed more to make the talker feel they've done a good turn than to do any real good for anyone else. Let your friend grieve no matter how uncomfortable it may make you feel.
Third, don't try to explain what you don't understand. When people grieve over their losses, they wonder, as all of us do, why their loss has happened. Anyone who wants to help the friend who is asking this question must resist the temptation to answer it. In all honesty, your friend doesn't want to have a rational explanation anyway. They simply want to be able to say, "This isn't fair!"
And it isn't fair. Life often isn't fair. At the end of Job's forty-two chapters, we're left with this answer to the question of why grief befalls us: We live in a world where bad things happen. In the New Testament, Jesus tells us that bad things rain on the good and the evil alike. Why that is so, no one living on this planet is wise enough to say. Only God knows the answer to the question of why and you and I don't need to play God by pretending to have that answer.
Fourth, let your friend be angry with God. A deeply faithful Christian man whose grandchild had recently died told me, "Sometimes I get angry with God. I know it's horrible; but it's true." I assured him that what he was feeling wasn't horrible. I reminded him of such people in the Bible as David and Job, who always believed in God, but also got angry with God when dealing with grief or the threat of death. And I told the grieving grandfather, "The fact that you're angry with God proves your faith in God. You would never be angry with someone you didn't think was there."
Maybe you’ve noticed this: Most of the time, when we respond to people's anger with condemnation, it only makes them dig in their heels. Trying to prove to an angry person that their anger is unwarranted is a fool's mission. God says in Proverbs 15:1, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Letting your friend get angry with God will prevent their anger from becoming an ongoing feature in their life.
Fifth, don't avoid talking about your grieving friend's loss. Often, friends fear that if they speak of the loss or the one for whom their friends grieve, they'll make their friends feel sadder. But a grieving friend already is sad and if it seems natural to mention a friend's deceased loved one, for example, or if your friend mentions that person, you should be willing to talk about them as well.
A woman once told me, "My friends avoid speaking of my late husband like a plague. What they don't seem to understand is that when they do that, it makes me feel as though they think he was unimportant or that they want to pretend he was never there." Through the years, I have heard that grieving woman's words echoed by other grieving people. You honor your friend when you're willing to discuss with them the people or circumstances they grieve.
Sixth, pray for your friend. You should pray that God will bring them comfort, for sure. But you also should pray that God will use you as a conduit for the blessings you want your friend to receive. Whenever I visit people who are dealing with grief, I always ask God to fill me with His Holy Spirit, allowing God's love for my friend to flow through me. In John 15:5, Jesus says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus also says that the world will know Him when His love is visible in us. Pray that God will love your friend through you.
Seventh and finally, share your faith in Christ. If God has allowed you to be helpful to your friend in their grief, they may wonder, whether they’re non-Christians or Christians, what allows you to be that helpful friend. You can honestly say that it isn't you who have been helpful, that you have prayed over every step you took with them and that God has guided you. You can tell them that you belong to an eternal God Who has destroyed the power of death and that anyone who trustingly follows Jesus Christ has hope beyond the grave. At the right time, after you've lovingly taken the journey of grief with your friend, that will come as very good news.
I love what Proverbs 17:17 tells us: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” Call upon God in Jesus’ name to help you be that friend who loves at all times and so be a sister or brother to those who go through adversity. In this way, we will love God and love our neighbor. Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the first installment of the church's midweek Lenten series, Tough Questions.]
Monday, March 06, 2017
"Nice hairline"
One of the privileges of being a pastor is interacting with young people, whether in Catechism sessions, First Communion classes, youth groups, or children's sermons.
The funniest line any of the kids hit me with last week? A Catechism student told me, "You have a good hairline, pastor." The student's brother agreed. The boys are both well-coiffed student-athletes.
That absolutely cracked me up. My response, after I recovered: "I never thought about it. But, thanks." Kids are fun!
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
The funniest line any of the kids hit me with last week? A Catechism student told me, "You have a good hairline, pastor." The student's brother agreed. The boys are both well-coiffed student-athletes.
That absolutely cracked me up. My response, after I recovered: "I never thought about it. But, thanks." Kids are fun!
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
"You're from Ohio!"
During a quick run to Kroger on Saturday, I heard a girl complaining to her mom that it was cold. (It was 31 with no wind, bearable.)
Mom said: "Stop it! You're from Ohio; you should be used to it."
Those words were spoken like a true Buckeye, because all Buckeyes know, "If you don't like the weather now, wait a minute...it'll change."
In the meantime, buck up, buttercup.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Mom said: "Stop it! You're from Ohio; you should be used to it."
Those words were spoken like a true Buckeye, because all Buckeyes know, "If you don't like the weather now, wait a minute...it'll change."
In the meantime, buck up, buttercup.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
On Handling the Holy
My mentor and one of my New Testament professors when I was in seminary, Pastor Bruce Schein, used to warn us against becoming too accustomed to handling the holy things of God.
He wanted us to always remember that God is greater than we are and so, to never take His Word, Christ's offering of Himself on the cross, the sacraments, or anything about the God revealed in Jesus for granted.
When we take the things of God for granted, the Church risks losing its way and begins down the pathway of faithlessness toward Christ. The danger of this happening is particularly high among clergy.
People ask me why I bow to the body (the bread) and to the blood (the wine) during the words of institution that come before the sharing of Holy Communion each Sunday. Apart from this being liturgically indicated, I bow to remind the congregation and myself of Who we are about to receive in, with, and under the bread and the wine: Christ Himself and, with Him, God's forgiveness. He deserves to be received with gratitude, solemnity, joy, and faith.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
He wanted us to always remember that God is greater than we are and so, to never take His Word, Christ's offering of Himself on the cross, the sacraments, or anything about the God revealed in Jesus for granted.
When we take the things of God for granted, the Church risks losing its way and begins down the pathway of faithlessness toward Christ. The danger of this happening is particularly high among clergy.
People ask me why I bow to the body (the bread) and to the blood (the wine) during the words of institution that come before the sharing of Holy Communion each Sunday. Apart from this being liturgically indicated, I bow to remind the congregation and myself of Who we are about to receive in, with, and under the bread and the wine: Christ Himself and, with Him, God's forgiveness. He deserves to be received with gratitude, solemnity, joy, and faith.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Decide Beforehand
Matthew 4:1-11
I once heard about a financial adviser who’d been told by a couple consulting with her that they found it impossible to put any money aside for savings or tithe money for the purposes of God. “We have no debt, but also no savings” the husband said. “We start out by trying to keep current with our bills,” the wife added.
The financial adviser nodded knowingly. “That’s the problem,” she said. “You should pay your bills, of course. But you haven’t adopted the ‘decide beforehand’ method.” She explained that instead of starting with paying their bills, then deciding how much money they had to save or give to God, they needed to “decide beforehand” how much they were going to save and give. Then they could pay their bills and adjust their spending habits accordingly.
She said: “The best way to deal with the unexpected storms that come along is to make your decision before the storms hit.”
Today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 4:1-11, finds Jesus facing a storm of temptation and testing from the devil. If Jesus hadn’t adopted the decide beforehand method when it came to His relationship with God the Father, He never would have stood the storm, He would have caved into sin, and you and I would still be condemned for our sin, lost to God forever. So, we can say that if Jesus hadn't decided beforehand how He was going to deal with situations like He faced in the wilderness, salvation would have become a lost cause.
Before looking at Jesus in the wilderness, we need to set the stage. In Matthew 3:13-17, which recounts an incident that happened just before the events in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus undergoes John the Baptizer’s baptism of repentance. True, Jesus had no sin for which He needed to repent, but Jesus was intent on connecting Himself fully to the sinful humanity--including you and me--who He came into this world to save. John told Jesus that it was he who should have been baptized by Jesus, not the other way around. But as Jesus explained to the reluctant John: “Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires.” [Matthew 3:15, Good News Translation] Having undergone the baptism that His Father required, God the Holy Spirit descended to Jesus as a dove and God the Father called from heaven to say of Jesus: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” [Matthew 3:17] It was a spectacular moment!
Like the spectacular events that happened some time later on the Mount of Transfiguration, it could have been tempting for Jesus to just stay there on the banks of the Jordan savoring the moment. But Jesus had work to do. And before He did that work, He had to get ready for it.
Turn to our Gospel lesson, please. (You’ll find it starting on page 676 of the sanctuary Bibles.) Verse 1: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”
Why did the Holy Spirit do this? If Jesus had come into the world to offer His sinless life on a cross, wasn’t the Holy Spirit putting that entire mission in jeopardy by subjecting Jesus to these temptations to sin? What if Jesus sinned in the wilderness, caving into His hunger and the taunting of the devil? Why wouldn’t the Spirit just carry Jesus from the Jordan, where He was baptized, and onto Jerusalem for the cross and the resurrection?
As a quick aside, let me give you three quick reasons why Jesus had to undergo temptation. First, as we see from His words to John the Baptist, Jesus had to undergo the same stuff you and I undergo. [Matthew 3:15] All that God required had to happen. If Jesus was never subjected to severe temptation to sin, He couldn’t be said to be sinless. Second, Jesus had to be sensitized to how hard it is for we human beings to resist sin. That way, when we come to our Father in Jesus’ name, He can be an advocate Who understands you and me from the inside out. Hebrews 4:15 says that in Jesus: “...we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” Third, Jesus had to be refined for His mission. The verb, πειρασθῆναι, translated as tempted in our lesson can also be translated as tested.
The devil probably thought that he was in the driver’s seat with Jesus when Jesus arrived in the wilderness. But, in fact, Jesus was there because the Holy Spirit sent Him to be tested, refined. Here, we see that God can use the same events for His purposes that the devil tries to use for his ends.
It's not unprecedented. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph, the dreamer who had saved Egypt and his own people, forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery, telling them, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good…” The brothers acted from evil intentions, but God used what they did to bring good things about, including the refinement of Joseph for his mission of saving a whole region from famine.
The temptations to sin that come to us can be used by God as tests to refine and strengthen our faith and our characters. In 1 Corinthians 10:13, we’re told: “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.”
In the wilderness, facing temptations that were tests, Jesus learned to rely on His Father to the full extent He needed to rely on Him to fulfill His mission.
If you and I are going to fulfill our missions, fulfill the promise of our lives, and live with God for eternity, we too must learn to rely fully on God when we’re tested or tempted.
So, how did Jesus do this?
He decided beforehand how He would face temptation and He learned to use the most powerful weapon in the universe to do so.
We see this in all three of the exchanges between the devil and Jesus in today’s gospel lesson. But look at just the first one to see what I mean: “The tempter came to him [Jesus] and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” [Matthew 4:3-4]
Every time Jesus was tempted, He responded with God’s Word.
He did that because He had decided beforehand exactly how He would face life’s tests and the devil’s temptations.
Way before He faced off with the the devil, Jesus had stored the Word of God in His heart. He was ready for whatever the devil or the world threw His way, because He had taken time to learn--even memorize--God’s Word.
And even when the devil recited Scripture back to Jesus, distorting it to try to convince Jesus to pull stunts to make God prove Himself, Jesus was ready.
That’s because through His study of God’s Word, Jesus not only knew the Word, He knew His Father.
Jesus was able to resist temptation, face the world’s tests, and fulfill His mission on earth for two reasons: He knew God and He knew God’s Word.
He had decided beforehand that no matter what, He would stick with God and with God’s Word.
The best time to learn how to face tests and temptations is before they happen, not just as they’re threatening to swamp you. Jesus decided before the storm hit to know God the Father and to know God’s Word.
Listen: This is a great Christian congregation.
No church I know has a deeper commitment to mission.
No church I know has a higher percentage of its members who seek after God and take prayer so seriously.
No other church I know would have payed for the salary and benefits of a staffer working at another church, which this congregation did last year.
Living Water has been tested by adversity and tempted to walk away from doing things God’s way. It has chosen God’s way, always, every time.
But we’re in our own building now. We’re growing. We’re comfortable. We feel vindicated in our faith. That’s why this is a spiritually dangerous time for our congregation.
We can expect the devil to attack Living Water. Not a frontal assault (he’s too clever for that), but a nibbling on the edges. He might incite a little gossip here, attack relationships there, create spiritual indifference, cause little disagreements over completely unimportant things. Nothing big. Just a bunch of little things which that jerk named Satan loves to turn into big things.
This is a faithful church and, other than God Himself, the thing the devil hates the most is a faithful church! This is why each of us must internalize the gospel lesson’s call to decide beforehand what we will do when storms hit, when we’re tempted, when we’re tested.
And temptations and tests are bound to come. If the Son of God, God in the flesh, Jesus, was not immune to this reality while on earth, we surely can’t expect to be immune. But even our testing can being God glory. 1 Peter 1:6-7 tells us: “In all this [that is, in your salvation and your relationship with God secured for you through Christ’s cross and empty tomb] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed [that is, the day Jesus returns].”
If we are to be all that God made us to be and if we are to have life with God, we must know God and we must know God’s Word.
I’m going to repeat that (and know that I’m talking to you, whoever you are): If we are to be all that God made us to be and if we are to have life with God, we must know God and we must know God’s Word.
This is urgent business! You never can tell when life will hit you with another storm. Decide beforehand to be ready.
Decide that no matter what it costs you, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word.
No matter what sins God demands you leave behind, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word.
No matter the effort, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word. If you’re not in a Bible study yet, join one now.
If you’re not spending time in God’s Word on your own a few minutes each day, start now. Start with the gospels of Matthew or John, a chapter a day.
And I invite you to do what I’m starting to do these days, memorize Scripture.
Store up God’s Word in your heart and get to know your Father in heaven with the intimacy that Jesus died and rose to give you. Get to know this Lord Who sent His Son so that all who turn from sin and follow Him are and will be filled with the new and everlasting life of God for all eternity.
Know God.
Know God’s Word.
Then, you’ll be ready for anything.
Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
I once heard about a financial adviser who’d been told by a couple consulting with her that they found it impossible to put any money aside for savings or tithe money for the purposes of God. “We have no debt, but also no savings” the husband said. “We start out by trying to keep current with our bills,” the wife added.
The financial adviser nodded knowingly. “That’s the problem,” she said. “You should pay your bills, of course. But you haven’t adopted the ‘decide beforehand’ method.” She explained that instead of starting with paying their bills, then deciding how much money they had to save or give to God, they needed to “decide beforehand” how much they were going to save and give. Then they could pay their bills and adjust their spending habits accordingly.
She said: “The best way to deal with the unexpected storms that come along is to make your decision before the storms hit.”
Today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 4:1-11, finds Jesus facing a storm of temptation and testing from the devil. If Jesus hadn’t adopted the decide beforehand method when it came to His relationship with God the Father, He never would have stood the storm, He would have caved into sin, and you and I would still be condemned for our sin, lost to God forever. So, we can say that if Jesus hadn't decided beforehand how He was going to deal with situations like He faced in the wilderness, salvation would have become a lost cause.
Before looking at Jesus in the wilderness, we need to set the stage. In Matthew 3:13-17, which recounts an incident that happened just before the events in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus undergoes John the Baptizer’s baptism of repentance. True, Jesus had no sin for which He needed to repent, but Jesus was intent on connecting Himself fully to the sinful humanity--including you and me--who He came into this world to save. John told Jesus that it was he who should have been baptized by Jesus, not the other way around. But as Jesus explained to the reluctant John: “Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires.” [Matthew 3:15, Good News Translation] Having undergone the baptism that His Father required, God the Holy Spirit descended to Jesus as a dove and God the Father called from heaven to say of Jesus: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” [Matthew 3:17] It was a spectacular moment!
Like the spectacular events that happened some time later on the Mount of Transfiguration, it could have been tempting for Jesus to just stay there on the banks of the Jordan savoring the moment. But Jesus had work to do. And before He did that work, He had to get ready for it.
Turn to our Gospel lesson, please. (You’ll find it starting on page 676 of the sanctuary Bibles.) Verse 1: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”
Why did the Holy Spirit do this? If Jesus had come into the world to offer His sinless life on a cross, wasn’t the Holy Spirit putting that entire mission in jeopardy by subjecting Jesus to these temptations to sin? What if Jesus sinned in the wilderness, caving into His hunger and the taunting of the devil? Why wouldn’t the Spirit just carry Jesus from the Jordan, where He was baptized, and onto Jerusalem for the cross and the resurrection?
As a quick aside, let me give you three quick reasons why Jesus had to undergo temptation. First, as we see from His words to John the Baptist, Jesus had to undergo the same stuff you and I undergo. [Matthew 3:15] All that God required had to happen. If Jesus was never subjected to severe temptation to sin, He couldn’t be said to be sinless. Second, Jesus had to be sensitized to how hard it is for we human beings to resist sin. That way, when we come to our Father in Jesus’ name, He can be an advocate Who understands you and me from the inside out. Hebrews 4:15 says that in Jesus: “...we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” Third, Jesus had to be refined for His mission. The verb, πειρασθῆναι, translated as tempted in our lesson can also be translated as tested.
The devil probably thought that he was in the driver’s seat with Jesus when Jesus arrived in the wilderness. But, in fact, Jesus was there because the Holy Spirit sent Him to be tested, refined. Here, we see that God can use the same events for His purposes that the devil tries to use for his ends.
It's not unprecedented. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph, the dreamer who had saved Egypt and his own people, forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery, telling them, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good…” The brothers acted from evil intentions, but God used what they did to bring good things about, including the refinement of Joseph for his mission of saving a whole region from famine.
The temptations to sin that come to us can be used by God as tests to refine and strengthen our faith and our characters. In 1 Corinthians 10:13, we’re told: “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.”
In the wilderness, facing temptations that were tests, Jesus learned to rely on His Father to the full extent He needed to rely on Him to fulfill His mission.
If you and I are going to fulfill our missions, fulfill the promise of our lives, and live with God for eternity, we too must learn to rely fully on God when we’re tested or tempted.
So, how did Jesus do this?
He decided beforehand how He would face temptation and He learned to use the most powerful weapon in the universe to do so.
We see this in all three of the exchanges between the devil and Jesus in today’s gospel lesson. But look at just the first one to see what I mean: “The tempter came to him [Jesus] and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” [Matthew 4:3-4]
Every time Jesus was tempted, He responded with God’s Word.
He did that because He had decided beforehand exactly how He would face life’s tests and the devil’s temptations.
Way before He faced off with the the devil, Jesus had stored the Word of God in His heart. He was ready for whatever the devil or the world threw His way, because He had taken time to learn--even memorize--God’s Word.
And even when the devil recited Scripture back to Jesus, distorting it to try to convince Jesus to pull stunts to make God prove Himself, Jesus was ready.
That’s because through His study of God’s Word, Jesus not only knew the Word, He knew His Father.
Jesus was able to resist temptation, face the world’s tests, and fulfill His mission on earth for two reasons: He knew God and He knew God’s Word.
He had decided beforehand that no matter what, He would stick with God and with God’s Word.
The best time to learn how to face tests and temptations is before they happen, not just as they’re threatening to swamp you. Jesus decided before the storm hit to know God the Father and to know God’s Word.
Listen: This is a great Christian congregation.
No church I know has a deeper commitment to mission.
No church I know has a higher percentage of its members who seek after God and take prayer so seriously.
No other church I know would have payed for the salary and benefits of a staffer working at another church, which this congregation did last year.
Living Water has been tested by adversity and tempted to walk away from doing things God’s way. It has chosen God’s way, always, every time.
But we’re in our own building now. We’re growing. We’re comfortable. We feel vindicated in our faith. That’s why this is a spiritually dangerous time for our congregation.
We can expect the devil to attack Living Water. Not a frontal assault (he’s too clever for that), but a nibbling on the edges. He might incite a little gossip here, attack relationships there, create spiritual indifference, cause little disagreements over completely unimportant things. Nothing big. Just a bunch of little things which that jerk named Satan loves to turn into big things.
This is a faithful church and, other than God Himself, the thing the devil hates the most is a faithful church! This is why each of us must internalize the gospel lesson’s call to decide beforehand what we will do when storms hit, when we’re tempted, when we’re tested.
And temptations and tests are bound to come. If the Son of God, God in the flesh, Jesus, was not immune to this reality while on earth, we surely can’t expect to be immune. But even our testing can being God glory. 1 Peter 1:6-7 tells us: “In all this [that is, in your salvation and your relationship with God secured for you through Christ’s cross and empty tomb] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed [that is, the day Jesus returns].”
If we are to be all that God made us to be and if we are to have life with God, we must know God and we must know God’s Word.
I’m going to repeat that (and know that I’m talking to you, whoever you are): If we are to be all that God made us to be and if we are to have life with God, we must know God and we must know God’s Word.
This is urgent business! You never can tell when life will hit you with another storm. Decide beforehand to be ready.
Decide that no matter what it costs you, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word.
No matter what sins God demands you leave behind, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word.
No matter the effort, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word. If you’re not in a Bible study yet, join one now.
If you’re not spending time in God’s Word on your own a few minutes each day, start now. Start with the gospels of Matthew or John, a chapter a day.
And I invite you to do what I’m starting to do these days, memorize Scripture.
Store up God’s Word in your heart and get to know your Father in heaven with the intimacy that Jesus died and rose to give you. Get to know this Lord Who sent His Son so that all who turn from sin and follow Him are and will be filled with the new and everlasting life of God for all eternity.
Know God.
Know God’s Word.
Then, you’ll be ready for anything.
Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Saturday, March 04, 2017
Blackbird (Rehearsal Take, 1968) by Paul McCartney
Blackbird appeared on The Beatles, known popularly as "the white album."
It's interesting to listen to McCartney play with the song as he figures out how to complete it.
Inspired by the US Civil Rights struggle, Blackbird was Macca's attempt to say something to encourage African-Americans. In it, he imagined himself singing to a "black bird," bird being a common English slang at the time for a young woman.
But, of course, as is often true of McCartney's songs, the lack of specificity in the lyrics gives the song a more universal application. It's a bit of encouragement to anyone. And the melody is gorgeous.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
It's interesting to listen to McCartney play with the song as he figures out how to complete it.
Inspired by the US Civil Rights struggle, Blackbird was Macca's attempt to say something to encourage African-Americans. In it, he imagined himself singing to a "black bird," bird being a common English slang at the time for a young woman.
But, of course, as is often true of McCartney's songs, the lack of specificity in the lyrics gives the song a more universal application. It's a bit of encouragement to anyone. And the melody is gorgeous.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Renewed in Thankfulness and Awe
God amazed and humbled me as I spent my quiet time with Him again this morning. (I explain quiet time here and here.) To consider God marshaling His majesty and power to take the form of a servant and make purification for my sins on a cross, when I take time to consider it, overwhelms me.
When coupled with an amazingly answered prayer from yesterday, one answered in the most unlikely of ways, I'm looking at God with renewed awe and thankfulness this morning.
From my journal, here's what God told me today as I read Hebrews 1 and found my attention drawn to Hebrews 1:3. (The parenthesis show verses of Scripture to which God led me today.):
When coupled with an amazingly answered prayer from yesterday, one answered in the most unlikely of ways, I'm looking at God with renewed awe and thankfulness this morning.
From my journal, here's what God told me today as I read Hebrews 1 and found my attention drawn to Hebrews 1:3. (The parenthesis show verses of Scripture to which God led me today.):
Look: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” (Hebrews 1:3)
This verse tells me everything I need to know about Jesus in order to be reconciled to God and saved from sin and death.
Jesus is God, reflecting the radiance of God that shone on Moses’ face after he met God and the holy fire that so intimidated the people of Old Testament days.
The whole world exists and continues to exist because of “his powerful word.” Jesus is the Word uttered by God in Genesis (John 1:1-14; Genesis 1-2). He speaks and life happens.
If Jesus weren’t still speaking, “Live!” the universe would cease to exist.
And one day, when the Father gives the signal, He will bring an end to speaking this world to life and He will usher in a new heaven and a new earth for all who believe (Matthew 24:36; Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:1).
This will come to all who have believed the Word about Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 3:16-18; John 10:30; John 14:6).[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Paul says in Romans 1:16-17: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”
The Word shared about the Word Who sustains the universe and Who “provided purification for [our] sins” creates new life for those who believe (2 Corinthians 5:17). Simply put, speaking the message about Him makes faith and new life happen: “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17)
Wow!
And now, in consequence of the victory He’s won for us, Jesus sits “at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” From there, He can bring the prayers who are empowered to speak to God by the grace Christ gives to sinners who repent and believe, to the Father. Jesus speaks His Word of forgiveness over us (Acts 10:43) and we can then approach God in intimacy and boldness that the ancient Israelites chose to delegate to Moses (Hebrews 4:16; Exodus 20:19).
It remains “a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Were we to do so uncovered by the grace of God given in Christ, we would stand naked in our sin, condemned, and ticketed for death. But when the Word of Jesus has been spoken over us and we believe, we can come before God as children, just as Jesus has taught us to come to Him (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:16; Luke 11:2).
Listen: In this verse, I see God as, in Tillich’s phrase, “wholly Other,” infinitely different from me, infinitely greater than me, infinitely purer, infinitely more self-giving. I see Him as the One Whose word brought the universe into being and Who continues to speak it into being even as it dies in its sin (Colossians 1:16-17).
I also see Him as the God Whose love for me and all sinners is so infinite that He chose the path of submission to a cross in order to provide purification for my sins.
How can I callously disregard all that God has done and is doing for me by sinning against His revealed will?
And when I do sin, how can I callously refuse to repent and once more trust in the One Who has done all of this for me?
When I do, the One Who did all of this speaks promises through His Word given to the apostle John: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-9)
Respond: Lord, help me today to hear and heed Your Word, to trust and live: “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) In Jesus’ name. Amen!
Wednesday, March 01, 2017
The Call to Repentance
Psalm 51:1-17; 2 Samuel 12:1-14
Ash Wednesday
Sometimes we forget that the Word of God in the Bible arose from specific historical circumstances or specific encounters between God and real life human beings, like you and me.
Psalm 51, which we read responsively a short time ago, was written by Israel’s King David, later in his reign, sometime after 1003 BC. And it arose from a specific situation.
Open one of the sanctuary Bibles to 2 Samuel 12, which you’ll find on page 215, please. David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his most loyal soldiers, Uriah. Bathsheba became pregnant. David tried to make it look as though Uriah was the father. But that didn't work. So, David made arrangements for Uriah to get isolated and exposed to enemy fire and killed in battle. The king God refers to as “a man after [My] own heart” [1 Samuel 13:14] was guilty of adultery and murder and a cover-up!
In 2 Samuel, God sends the prophet Nathan to confront David for his sins. Nathan does it by telling David the story of a poor man who owned a ewe lamb. This ewe lamb was so beloved that both the poor man and his family see the lamb as another one of the children. When a rich man down the road has visitors, he decides that as a good host, he has to throw a big dinner for them. But he doesn’t want to use any of his own flock for the main course. So, he steals the poor man’s ewe lamb and serves it up at dinner.
Look at David’s reaction in 2 Samuel 12:5-6. “David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.’”
The king had spoken and rendered his verdict. But there was a question: Who was the man who had done this awful thing? Nathan gives the answer in verse 7, telling King David: “You are the man!"
He goes on: "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own.’”
Through Nathan, God was telling David, “I gave you blessings you never could have earned nor deserved. I did these things for you out of pure divine and fatherly love and mercy. But instead of gratitude, instead of trying to follow the way of life I revealed long ago in the Ten Commandments, you decided to go your own way. Why?”
You know, every time a Christian deliberately flouts the will of God, I wonder if God asks the same question: “I went to the cross for you, endured the beating, the punches, the spitting, the insults, the nails, the thorns plaited into a mocking crown, and a slow agonizing death...all for you. I took the punishment for sin you deserved. I rose from death to open eternity up to you. I did all these things to give you a new life freed from the power of sin and death. I set you free to become the person I made you to be. And I want to spend eternity showering blessings on you. So, why would you block Me from your life by deliberately doing anything that I have shown you is the way of death? Why?"
Having been confronted for his sins, David might have reacted in a number of ways.
As king, he could have simply ordered Nathan’s death. It wouldn't have been the first time David had ordered the murder of an innocent man, after all. But David didn’t do that.
Or, he might have made excuses. But David didn’t make excuses either.
Or, after hearing Nathan out, David might have set up a commission to discern, given the ways the world had changed and grown more complex since God gave the Ten Commandments, whether sin and murder might not be sins any more. “If our consciences are bound to different ideas, not bound by a relationship with God,” David might have said, “it could be that now, when we know so much more than God did hundreds of years ago, adultery and murder are OK.” But David didn’t lash out at Nathan, didn’t make excuses, or appoint a commission to cover the truth with lies.
Look at how David did react, in verse 13: “I have sinned against the Lord." That's it. Here, David is exemplifying what the Bible--both the Old and the New Testament in their different languages--calls repentance. In the Greek of the New Testament, the most common word for repent is metanoia. It means to have a change of mind.
The person who repents--or lives the lifestyle Martin Luther called, “daily repentance and renewal”--is saying, “I got off track. I was thinking my way. I was following my own sinful nature. But now, aware of the sins I’ve committed, I’m asking God to change my mind, to change the way I’ve been thinking. I’m asking God to help me think His way, not mine.”
This is what Paul is talking about in Philippians 2:5 when he exhorts followers of Jesus: “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus...” God wants us to take on the mind of Jesus: a mind that wants what God wants, even when what God wants isn’t pleasant for us. Even when it means turning away from the things we most desperately want.
As I’ve said before, to repent is to confess that when God and I disagree about anything, God is always right and I am always wrong. This can be a bitter pill to swallow when it conflicts with the inborn cravings and impulses for sin with which we all are born.
After David said plainly, “I have sinned against the Lord,” Nathan told David, “The Lord has taken away your sin...” This all reminds me of what Paul says in Romans 6:23: “...the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Only the God we meet in the crucified and risen Jesus can set us free from death--separation from God--and hell. And that can only happen when we repent and trust in Christ, relying on Christ alone to give our lives meaning.
On this Ash Wednesday, as we remember that we are creatures of God formed from the dust and that we will return to dust again [Genesis 3:19], we also remember this: If we will change our minds, turning to Christ and to the way of God, rather than to the ways we prefer, this dust will rise again!
And we can live each day in the knowledge that when we live in daily repentance and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, nothing will ever separate us from God [Romans 8:31-39].
Had David steeped himself in God’s Word, remained in fellowship with other believers, or been praying instead of ogling on the day he first set eyes on Bathsheba--in other words, if he had allowed God to reign over his thoughts--the terrible chain of events that followed never would have taken place. That’s one lesson we can learn from David’s experience: Life with God belongs to those who seek live life God's way and not our own.
But there’s another lesson, a lesson about God’s grace and goodness: If, when we have sinned, we can forgo our tendency to block out the truths of God we don’t like and instead, let God change our minds, then acknowledge our sins and trust in God to help us to do the right thing--even when it means consequences we don’t like--our relationship with God can be restored.
Life with God belongs to all who repent for sin and trust in Christ. May repentance and renewal be our way of life not just on Ash Wednesday or during Lent, but every day we live on earth. Amen.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message for tonight's Ash Wednesday worship.]
Ash Wednesday
Sometimes we forget that the Word of God in the Bible arose from specific historical circumstances or specific encounters between God and real life human beings, like you and me.
Psalm 51, which we read responsively a short time ago, was written by Israel’s King David, later in his reign, sometime after 1003 BC. And it arose from a specific situation.
Open one of the sanctuary Bibles to 2 Samuel 12, which you’ll find on page 215, please. David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his most loyal soldiers, Uriah. Bathsheba became pregnant. David tried to make it look as though Uriah was the father. But that didn't work. So, David made arrangements for Uriah to get isolated and exposed to enemy fire and killed in battle. The king God refers to as “a man after [My] own heart” [1 Samuel 13:14] was guilty of adultery and murder and a cover-up!
In 2 Samuel, God sends the prophet Nathan to confront David for his sins. Nathan does it by telling David the story of a poor man who owned a ewe lamb. This ewe lamb was so beloved that both the poor man and his family see the lamb as another one of the children. When a rich man down the road has visitors, he decides that as a good host, he has to throw a big dinner for them. But he doesn’t want to use any of his own flock for the main course. So, he steals the poor man’s ewe lamb and serves it up at dinner.
Look at David’s reaction in 2 Samuel 12:5-6. “David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.’”
The king had spoken and rendered his verdict. But there was a question: Who was the man who had done this awful thing? Nathan gives the answer in verse 7, telling King David: “You are the man!"
He goes on: "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own.’”
Through Nathan, God was telling David, “I gave you blessings you never could have earned nor deserved. I did these things for you out of pure divine and fatherly love and mercy. But instead of gratitude, instead of trying to follow the way of life I revealed long ago in the Ten Commandments, you decided to go your own way. Why?”
You know, every time a Christian deliberately flouts the will of God, I wonder if God asks the same question: “I went to the cross for you, endured the beating, the punches, the spitting, the insults, the nails, the thorns plaited into a mocking crown, and a slow agonizing death...all for you. I took the punishment for sin you deserved. I rose from death to open eternity up to you. I did all these things to give you a new life freed from the power of sin and death. I set you free to become the person I made you to be. And I want to spend eternity showering blessings on you. So, why would you block Me from your life by deliberately doing anything that I have shown you is the way of death? Why?"
Having been confronted for his sins, David might have reacted in a number of ways.
As king, he could have simply ordered Nathan’s death. It wouldn't have been the first time David had ordered the murder of an innocent man, after all. But David didn’t do that.
Or, he might have made excuses. But David didn’t make excuses either.
Or, after hearing Nathan out, David might have set up a commission to discern, given the ways the world had changed and grown more complex since God gave the Ten Commandments, whether sin and murder might not be sins any more. “If our consciences are bound to different ideas, not bound by a relationship with God,” David might have said, “it could be that now, when we know so much more than God did hundreds of years ago, adultery and murder are OK.” But David didn’t lash out at Nathan, didn’t make excuses, or appoint a commission to cover the truth with lies.
Look at how David did react, in verse 13: “I have sinned against the Lord." That's it. Here, David is exemplifying what the Bible--both the Old and the New Testament in their different languages--calls repentance. In the Greek of the New Testament, the most common word for repent is metanoia. It means to have a change of mind.
The person who repents--or lives the lifestyle Martin Luther called, “daily repentance and renewal”--is saying, “I got off track. I was thinking my way. I was following my own sinful nature. But now, aware of the sins I’ve committed, I’m asking God to change my mind, to change the way I’ve been thinking. I’m asking God to help me think His way, not mine.”
This is what Paul is talking about in Philippians 2:5 when he exhorts followers of Jesus: “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus...” God wants us to take on the mind of Jesus: a mind that wants what God wants, even when what God wants isn’t pleasant for us. Even when it means turning away from the things we most desperately want.
As I’ve said before, to repent is to confess that when God and I disagree about anything, God is always right and I am always wrong. This can be a bitter pill to swallow when it conflicts with the inborn cravings and impulses for sin with which we all are born.
After David said plainly, “I have sinned against the Lord,” Nathan told David, “The Lord has taken away your sin...” This all reminds me of what Paul says in Romans 6:23: “...the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Only the God we meet in the crucified and risen Jesus can set us free from death--separation from God--and hell. And that can only happen when we repent and trust in Christ, relying on Christ alone to give our lives meaning.
On this Ash Wednesday, as we remember that we are creatures of God formed from the dust and that we will return to dust again [Genesis 3:19], we also remember this: If we will change our minds, turning to Christ and to the way of God, rather than to the ways we prefer, this dust will rise again!
And we can live each day in the knowledge that when we live in daily repentance and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, nothing will ever separate us from God [Romans 8:31-39].
Had David steeped himself in God’s Word, remained in fellowship with other believers, or been praying instead of ogling on the day he first set eyes on Bathsheba--in other words, if he had allowed God to reign over his thoughts--the terrible chain of events that followed never would have taken place. That’s one lesson we can learn from David’s experience: Life with God belongs to those who seek live life God's way and not our own.
But there’s another lesson, a lesson about God’s grace and goodness: If, when we have sinned, we can forgo our tendency to block out the truths of God we don’t like and instead, let God change our minds, then acknowledge our sins and trust in God to help us to do the right thing--even when it means consequences we don’t like--our relationship with God can be restored.
Life with God belongs to all who repent for sin and trust in Christ. May repentance and renewal be our way of life not just on Ash Wednesday or during Lent, but every day we live on earth. Amen.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message for tonight's Ash Wednesday worship.]
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Listen!
Matthew 17:1-9
Transfiguration Sunday
The key verse in today’s Gospel lesson is Matthew 17:5 in which the voice God the Father calls out from heaven to Peter, John, and James with a message about Jesus: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
Why did the three apostles who accompanied Jesus to the top of a mountain need this message?
And why do you and I still need to be reminded to listen to Jesus?
In a way, these words from the Father come as a direct rebuke to Peter. Back in Matthew 16, Jesus had asked the apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter gave the right answer, one that Jesus said came not from Peter’s good sense and insight, but from Peter’s openness to the Holy Spirit’s witness about Jesus. Peter said: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” [Matthew 16:15-19] But then Jesus explained that He as the Messiah, God in the flesh, was going to Jerusalem to be rejected by the Jewish religious authorities, the Roman government, and the people, suffer death on a cross, and rise from the dead.
Peter was horrified! Peter thought that the Messiah would come into political power, vanquish the Romans, and establish a trouble-free reign of prosperity for God’s people. Jesus’ words didn’t compute for Peter. Crucifixion for the Messiah? “Never, Lord!” [Peter] said. “This shall never happen to you!” [Matthew 16:22]
At this, Jesus let Peter have it with both barrels: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
It was Satan, you’ll remember, who tried to tempt Jesus into avoiding the mission of His life on earth, the mission of offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. Now, Jesus was saying that Peter, who had just confessed that Jesus was Messiah and the Son of God, God in the flesh, was acting just like Satan. “Peter, be quiet,” Jesus was saying. “Knock off your religious-sounding talk. Wait to speak until after you understand Who I am.”
Six days later, our Gospel lesson for today shows, Peter still had some learning to do.
As members of the inner circle of Jesus’ first followers, Peter, John, and James were terrified to see Jesus appearance “transfigured,” or “transformed.” A cloud came down from heaven filled with the blazing light of God and there Jesus stood talking with Moses, the giver of God’s Law in the Old Testament, and Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet.
Imagine how overwhelming this all must have been for these three fishermen from Galilee!
But Peter, it seems, was never at a loss for words. Even when he should have been. Matthew 17:4 tells us: “Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’”
On the face of it, this is a religious-sounding thing for Peter to say. But it demonstrates that he just doesn’t quite get it. Peter has called Jesus the Son of God, yet he wants to build shrines of apparently equal importance for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.
Back in chapter 16, when Peter tried to educate Jesus on Jesus’ job as Messiah and Son of God, it was Jesus Who set Peter straight. Now, on the Mount of Transfiguration, it’s God the Father’s turn to thunder!
In effect, the Father, in verse 5 of our Gospel lesson is telling Peter: “Peter, put a muzzle on it, man! Listen to My Son. Moses and Elijah, great though they were, are Jesus’ inferior. You won’t find life and salvation in Moses or Elijah. (Or in Buddha, Allah, or a big fat bank account, for that matter)’ Life and salvation can only be found in Jesus. So, button it up and pay heed to Jesus only!” “Peter, this is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
Poor Peter, always trying so hard to say and do the right thing. But that’s the problem. He’s trying way too hard. He thinks he’s being faithful by spouting religious talk.
But, in talking about building these shelters, he shows that he isn’t really listening to Jesus or to His Word.
Christ’s Church today is filled with a lot of well-meaning Peters. I can be among them. We say things that sound religious, but show that we really haven’t been listening to God’s Word or to Jesus.
Last night, I jotted down three things that I hear well-meaning Christians say, but that, according to God’s Word, just aren’t true.
One thing well-meaning Christians say is, “Follow your heart.” Wrong!
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” So, if my heart is going to deceive me and lead me into a deceitful life, a life apart from God, why would I follow my heart?
Jesus never says, “Follow your heart.” Instead, Jesus says, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” [Matthew 16:24] Follow Jesus: Turn from sin and trust in Him to save you for all eternity and to guide you always. Keep following Jesus.
Another false thing said by well-meaning Christians is, “God helps those who help themselves.” This is a whopper!
The Bible actually says that God helps those who cannot help themselves. And that’s all of us! Romans 5:6 tells us: “...at just the right time, when we were still powerless [or, helpless], Christ died for the ungodly [those of us born in sin...and that's all of us].” God helps those who recognize that they need Jesus as our King and Savior.
A third common falsehood uttered by Christians is, “Everything happens for a reason.” That’s another big fib!
I once heard a woman at a funeral visitation tell a father that his young son had died because God needed another angel in heaven. It would have been better for that woman to have shut her mouth than utter such unbiblical rot. When believers die, they don’t become angels. Humans are made in God’s image, angels aren’t! Human beings are of higher importance to God than angels are! Christ didn’t die and rise for angels; He died and rose for people!
Besides, the very notion that God would decide to take a boy’s life to sate His desire for more angels turns God into a monster, unrecognizable from the God we meet in Jesus!
The tragedies that happen in this world can’t be explained away as part of some master plan by God. Bad things happen to faithful people because we live in a fallen world in which sin, death, and darkness are on the loose. It was these things that Jesus came to conquer for us. That’s why Jesus says in John 16:33: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Death and tragedy don’t have the final word over the lives of those who entrust their lives to Jesus; it’s the resurrection Jesus has won for us that will have the final, eternal say over our lives!
If Peter had listened to God’s Word in the Old Testament or if he had listened to Jesus, he wouldn’t have said foolish things like He did at the Transfiguration.
If Christians today listened to God’s Word--not just on Sunday mornings, but everyday of their lives--they wouldn’t say untrue things like the three I just mentioned.
More importantly, when we listen to God’s Word, meet the God we know in Jesus in His Word each day, we will know God intimately.
As Jesus promises, the Holy Spirit will lead us into all of God’s truth [John 16:13]. When we listen to Jesus, we experience the amazing promise He makes in John 15:5: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” That’s a stunning promise!
To be friends with Jesus, God in the flesh, means that we trust in Him, we trust in the power of what He accomplished for us on the cross, we trust that He can bring us God’s forgiveness, we trust that He can give us life with God, however blurry this world may sometimes make it, and life with God in perfection in eternity.
When we are friends with Jesus, we live in the assurance that, as He promises to all who follow Him in Matthew 28:20, He is with us always!
All of this comes to us when we listen to Jesus. Paul summarizes the power of what happens when we listen to Jesus and the Word about Jesus in this way: “...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” [Romans 10:17]
So, how can we listen to Jesus? You might want to pull out a pen or your smart phones right now and note a simple method for listening to Jesus each day--one I've learned from our friends at Navigators, as I've mentioned before, and a way of listening to Jesus that I have found to be powerful. Here’s how to listen to Jesus each day.
First, stop. Find a quiet place, away from the laptop and the iPad, away from the TV or the PlayStation. Ask Jesus to meet you as you read a chapter from a Biblical book like Matthew or John.
Second, look. Read that Word and ask Jesus what He wants to tell you that day.
Third, listen. Consider what Jesus has told you and what truth He wants you to grasp from Him that can guide you that day or the next day.
Fourth, respond. If there’s some sin for which you need to repent or a sinful habit you need to jettison, lay it honestly before Jesus, asking for His forgiveness and help with living differently that day or the next. If there’s some act of love you feel compelled to undertake, ask Jesus for the Holy Spirit’s power to do it. Give Jesus glory for His death and resurrection for you; ask Him to guide you in the next twenty-four hours; pray for those who need God’s help; ask God to fill you with His wisdom; and ask God to help you be part of His mission of making disciples that day.
I want to underscore how freeing and important it is to listen to God each day and to help you with that day. How many times have we realized some sin or deficiency in our character, some bad habit we'd fallen into, and said something like, "From now on, Lord, until the end of my days, I will...so and so." How has that worked for you?
Let me put the question in another way: Do you remember what your New Year's resolutions were for this year?
You know, the power of the Twelve Step program is that it calls people to recognize their need and get help for that day alone. It's easier to trust in Jesus one day at a time after we've spent time in His Word and then spend time with Him again the next day and the next, than it is to trust Him without ever listening to Him again. This is why it's important to spend daily time with God in addition to the time we spend together once a week in worship.
From the cloud that overshadowed the mountain somewhere in Caesarea Philippi, God’s voice commanded Peter and the other disciples, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
That's our command today. May we obey it. May we listen to Jesus and so, live under the grace and forgiveness, power, wisdom, guidance, and love of God all of our lives. Amen!
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the message that was shared this morning during worship.]
Transfiguration Sunday
The key verse in today’s Gospel lesson is Matthew 17:5 in which the voice God the Father calls out from heaven to Peter, John, and James with a message about Jesus: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
Why did the three apostles who accompanied Jesus to the top of a mountain need this message?
And why do you and I still need to be reminded to listen to Jesus?
In a way, these words from the Father come as a direct rebuke to Peter. Back in Matthew 16, Jesus had asked the apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter gave the right answer, one that Jesus said came not from Peter’s good sense and insight, but from Peter’s openness to the Holy Spirit’s witness about Jesus. Peter said: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” [Matthew 16:15-19] But then Jesus explained that He as the Messiah, God in the flesh, was going to Jerusalem to be rejected by the Jewish religious authorities, the Roman government, and the people, suffer death on a cross, and rise from the dead.
Peter was horrified! Peter thought that the Messiah would come into political power, vanquish the Romans, and establish a trouble-free reign of prosperity for God’s people. Jesus’ words didn’t compute for Peter. Crucifixion for the Messiah? “Never, Lord!” [Peter] said. “This shall never happen to you!” [Matthew 16:22]
At this, Jesus let Peter have it with both barrels: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
It was Satan, you’ll remember, who tried to tempt Jesus into avoiding the mission of His life on earth, the mission of offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. Now, Jesus was saying that Peter, who had just confessed that Jesus was Messiah and the Son of God, God in the flesh, was acting just like Satan. “Peter, be quiet,” Jesus was saying. “Knock off your religious-sounding talk. Wait to speak until after you understand Who I am.”
Six days later, our Gospel lesson for today shows, Peter still had some learning to do.
As members of the inner circle of Jesus’ first followers, Peter, John, and James were terrified to see Jesus appearance “transfigured,” or “transformed.” A cloud came down from heaven filled with the blazing light of God and there Jesus stood talking with Moses, the giver of God’s Law in the Old Testament, and Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet.
Imagine how overwhelming this all must have been for these three fishermen from Galilee!
But Peter, it seems, was never at a loss for words. Even when he should have been. Matthew 17:4 tells us: “Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’”
On the face of it, this is a religious-sounding thing for Peter to say. But it demonstrates that he just doesn’t quite get it. Peter has called Jesus the Son of God, yet he wants to build shrines of apparently equal importance for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.
Back in chapter 16, when Peter tried to educate Jesus on Jesus’ job as Messiah and Son of God, it was Jesus Who set Peter straight. Now, on the Mount of Transfiguration, it’s God the Father’s turn to thunder!
In effect, the Father, in verse 5 of our Gospel lesson is telling Peter: “Peter, put a muzzle on it, man! Listen to My Son. Moses and Elijah, great though they were, are Jesus’ inferior. You won’t find life and salvation in Moses or Elijah. (Or in Buddha, Allah, or a big fat bank account, for that matter)’ Life and salvation can only be found in Jesus. So, button it up and pay heed to Jesus only!” “Peter, this is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
Poor Peter, always trying so hard to say and do the right thing. But that’s the problem. He’s trying way too hard. He thinks he’s being faithful by spouting religious talk.
But, in talking about building these shelters, he shows that he isn’t really listening to Jesus or to His Word.
Christ’s Church today is filled with a lot of well-meaning Peters. I can be among them. We say things that sound religious, but show that we really haven’t been listening to God’s Word or to Jesus.
Last night, I jotted down three things that I hear well-meaning Christians say, but that, according to God’s Word, just aren’t true.
One thing well-meaning Christians say is, “Follow your heart.” Wrong!
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” So, if my heart is going to deceive me and lead me into a deceitful life, a life apart from God, why would I follow my heart?
Jesus never says, “Follow your heart.” Instead, Jesus says, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” [Matthew 16:24] Follow Jesus: Turn from sin and trust in Him to save you for all eternity and to guide you always. Keep following Jesus.
Another false thing said by well-meaning Christians is, “God helps those who help themselves.” This is a whopper!
The Bible actually says that God helps those who cannot help themselves. And that’s all of us! Romans 5:6 tells us: “...at just the right time, when we were still powerless [or, helpless], Christ died for the ungodly [those of us born in sin...and that's all of us].” God helps those who recognize that they need Jesus as our King and Savior.
A third common falsehood uttered by Christians is, “Everything happens for a reason.” That’s another big fib!
I once heard a woman at a funeral visitation tell a father that his young son had died because God needed another angel in heaven. It would have been better for that woman to have shut her mouth than utter such unbiblical rot. When believers die, they don’t become angels. Humans are made in God’s image, angels aren’t! Human beings are of higher importance to God than angels are! Christ didn’t die and rise for angels; He died and rose for people!
Besides, the very notion that God would decide to take a boy’s life to sate His desire for more angels turns God into a monster, unrecognizable from the God we meet in Jesus!
The tragedies that happen in this world can’t be explained away as part of some master plan by God. Bad things happen to faithful people because we live in a fallen world in which sin, death, and darkness are on the loose. It was these things that Jesus came to conquer for us. That’s why Jesus says in John 16:33: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Death and tragedy don’t have the final word over the lives of those who entrust their lives to Jesus; it’s the resurrection Jesus has won for us that will have the final, eternal say over our lives!
If Peter had listened to God’s Word in the Old Testament or if he had listened to Jesus, he wouldn’t have said foolish things like He did at the Transfiguration.
If Christians today listened to God’s Word--not just on Sunday mornings, but everyday of their lives--they wouldn’t say untrue things like the three I just mentioned.
More importantly, when we listen to God’s Word, meet the God we know in Jesus in His Word each day, we will know God intimately.
As Jesus promises, the Holy Spirit will lead us into all of God’s truth [John 16:13]. When we listen to Jesus, we experience the amazing promise He makes in John 15:5: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” That’s a stunning promise!
To be friends with Jesus, God in the flesh, means that we trust in Him, we trust in the power of what He accomplished for us on the cross, we trust that He can bring us God’s forgiveness, we trust that He can give us life with God, however blurry this world may sometimes make it, and life with God in perfection in eternity.
When we are friends with Jesus, we live in the assurance that, as He promises to all who follow Him in Matthew 28:20, He is with us always!
All of this comes to us when we listen to Jesus. Paul summarizes the power of what happens when we listen to Jesus and the Word about Jesus in this way: “...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” [Romans 10:17]
So, how can we listen to Jesus? You might want to pull out a pen or your smart phones right now and note a simple method for listening to Jesus each day--one I've learned from our friends at Navigators, as I've mentioned before, and a way of listening to Jesus that I have found to be powerful. Here’s how to listen to Jesus each day.
First, stop. Find a quiet place, away from the laptop and the iPad, away from the TV or the PlayStation. Ask Jesus to meet you as you read a chapter from a Biblical book like Matthew or John.
Second, look. Read that Word and ask Jesus what He wants to tell you that day.
Third, listen. Consider what Jesus has told you and what truth He wants you to grasp from Him that can guide you that day or the next day.
Fourth, respond. If there’s some sin for which you need to repent or a sinful habit you need to jettison, lay it honestly before Jesus, asking for His forgiveness and help with living differently that day or the next. If there’s some act of love you feel compelled to undertake, ask Jesus for the Holy Spirit’s power to do it. Give Jesus glory for His death and resurrection for you; ask Him to guide you in the next twenty-four hours; pray for those who need God’s help; ask God to fill you with His wisdom; and ask God to help you be part of His mission of making disciples that day.
I want to underscore how freeing and important it is to listen to God each day and to help you with that day. How many times have we realized some sin or deficiency in our character, some bad habit we'd fallen into, and said something like, "From now on, Lord, until the end of my days, I will...so and so." How has that worked for you?
Let me put the question in another way: Do you remember what your New Year's resolutions were for this year?
You know, the power of the Twelve Step program is that it calls people to recognize their need and get help for that day alone. It's easier to trust in Jesus one day at a time after we've spent time in His Word and then spend time with Him again the next day and the next, than it is to trust Him without ever listening to Him again. This is why it's important to spend daily time with God in addition to the time we spend together once a week in worship.
From the cloud that overshadowed the mountain somewhere in Caesarea Philippi, God’s voice commanded Peter and the other disciples, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
That's our command today. May we obey it. May we listen to Jesus and so, live under the grace and forgiveness, power, wisdom, guidance, and love of God all of our lives. Amen!
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the message that was shared this morning during worship.]
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Perfect Though Imperfect? (#AUDIO)
Here.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the message from yesterday's worship. A few seconds got cut off from the beginning of the message.]
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the message from yesterday's worship. A few seconds got cut off from the beginning of the message.]
Monday, February 20, 2017
Resurrection Hope
John 11:21-27
[This was a message presented during a memorial service today.]
As I learned a little bit about Ella last week, I got the idea she was someone I would have liked knowing. It seems she tried her hand at everything. She was an adventurous traveler, a musician, an avid listener of music, a seamstress, a history buff, and a nurse. And I’m sure that had I gotten to know her, she would have opened my eyes to a whole culture I know nothing about, the world of QVC.
As you gather to honor a mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and friend today, it’s good to laugh together as well as to grieve together. It’s wonderful to draw on happy memories in the midst of grief.
But, of course, our laughter and smiles would amount to nothing more than whistling in the dark were it not for Jesus Christ. Jesus is God in human flesh, Who led a sinless life and sacrificed Himself on the cross He didn’t deserve so that all who daily turn from sin and daily entrust their lives to Him have life with God today and, beyond the gates of our own death, in eternity, a place where death and grief will no longer afflict us. As Jesus told a man named Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]
In the midst of your grief for one you loved and the inevitable reminder of your own mortality your loss brings, it’s good to remember that we have not only Jesus’ own resurrection to remind us of His power over death and life. He displayed this power on more than a few occasions, in the presence of many hundreds of witnesses. In fact, just a few verses beyond our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus is seen displaying this power again in raising yet another person from the dead.
In our lesson, John 11:21-27, Jesus’ friend Lazarus has died. Jesus had known that Lazarus was dying several days earlier and had deliberately waited for Lazarus’ death before journeying to the village of Bethany with the twelve apostles. His intention was to demonstrate the power of God to bring new life to the dead, a sign of Who He was and is. He would raise Lazarus from the dead.
But, of course, nobody else knew that. When Jesus arrives in Bethany, Martha initially speaks to Jesus almost reproachfully.
Yet, even her words of reproach are tinged with an understanding of just Who Jesus is and what He can do for those who trust in Him. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Even now, in the midst of my grief, Martha was saying, I know Your connection to God the Father. Even now, I understand that You are more than just a man, more than a great teacher or a good guy. And even now, I know that you have the power to reverse the impact that sin, death, and darkness have on human life. You can change everything.
Martha, in a way, had no idea what she was saying. All she knew was that she trusted--she believed in--Jesus. And you can too. Even in the midst of your grief.
Jesus assured Martha that her brother would rise again. Pious Jews, especially those who belonged to the sect of Judaism known as Pharisees, believed that those who trusted in God would rise from the dead, that the grave was not the end of life for those who lived a lifestyle of repentance and belief. And so, Martha says of her brother: “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
'Wait a moment,' Jesus seems to say next, 'you miss my point, Martha. I’m not saying that God has control over life and death just in the sweet by-and-by. God controls life and death and eternity here and now!'
Eternity in the presence of God can invade the earthly lives of anyone who trusts in Christ. That’s true right now, even in the midst of griefs and challenges. And so Jesus tells Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
For the believer in the God we meet and know in Jesus, the resurrection of the dead isn’t some theological abstraction, a phrase in a dusty creed. Resurrected life happens in Him. Life beyond the grave and life beyond the fear of death, the fear of a meaningless life, happens in Jesus and in Jesus alone.
This is why Jesus says elsewhere: “I and the Father are one” and “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Jesus is the way to life. He’s the source of all life and the source of all life beyond the grave. Only Jesus can comfort us in our sorrow, give meaning to our lives, and save us from sin and death.
That's why the first Christians said: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4:12]
This is exactly what Jesus told Martha as she grieved for her brother. It’s what He tells you and me today. And He promises Martha, and you, and me, and all who grieve or who face death themselves: “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”
Then Jesus asked the most important question any of us will ever be asked, the question on which the fate of our eternal existences hinges, and the question which, I am told, Ella answered in the affirmative: “Do you believe this?”
Do you believe this?
Do you believe that Jesus Himself rose from the dead, a fact that more than 500 witnesses insisted on despite facing certain persecution and possible death for sticking to their witness?
Do you believe that Jesus has the power to give life beyond the grave?
Do you believe that Jesus has the power to give you life, strength, joy, comfort, peace, and purpose even now?
When Martha was asked if she believed, her response was clear: “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
None of us knows what our tomorrows in this world may bring. But we do know that everything--past, present, future, and eternity--belongs to the God we meet in Jesus Christ.
That was the faith of Martha.
It was Ella’s faith.
It's the faith of Christ's Church.
And it can be our faith too.
Jesus is the resurrection, the God Who makes all things new. As you grieve and look to your future, trust in Him to be your resurrection and your life. He will never let you down. Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
[This was a message presented during a memorial service today.]
As I learned a little bit about Ella last week, I got the idea she was someone I would have liked knowing. It seems she tried her hand at everything. She was an adventurous traveler, a musician, an avid listener of music, a seamstress, a history buff, and a nurse. And I’m sure that had I gotten to know her, she would have opened my eyes to a whole culture I know nothing about, the world of QVC.
As you gather to honor a mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and friend today, it’s good to laugh together as well as to grieve together. It’s wonderful to draw on happy memories in the midst of grief.
But, of course, our laughter and smiles would amount to nothing more than whistling in the dark were it not for Jesus Christ. Jesus is God in human flesh, Who led a sinless life and sacrificed Himself on the cross He didn’t deserve so that all who daily turn from sin and daily entrust their lives to Him have life with God today and, beyond the gates of our own death, in eternity, a place where death and grief will no longer afflict us. As Jesus told a man named Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]
In the midst of your grief for one you loved and the inevitable reminder of your own mortality your loss brings, it’s good to remember that we have not only Jesus’ own resurrection to remind us of His power over death and life. He displayed this power on more than a few occasions, in the presence of many hundreds of witnesses. In fact, just a few verses beyond our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus is seen displaying this power again in raising yet another person from the dead.
In our lesson, John 11:21-27, Jesus’ friend Lazarus has died. Jesus had known that Lazarus was dying several days earlier and had deliberately waited for Lazarus’ death before journeying to the village of Bethany with the twelve apostles. His intention was to demonstrate the power of God to bring new life to the dead, a sign of Who He was and is. He would raise Lazarus from the dead.
But, of course, nobody else knew that. When Jesus arrives in Bethany, Martha initially speaks to Jesus almost reproachfully.
Yet, even her words of reproach are tinged with an understanding of just Who Jesus is and what He can do for those who trust in Him. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Even now, in the midst of my grief, Martha was saying, I know Your connection to God the Father. Even now, I understand that You are more than just a man, more than a great teacher or a good guy. And even now, I know that you have the power to reverse the impact that sin, death, and darkness have on human life. You can change everything.
Martha, in a way, had no idea what she was saying. All she knew was that she trusted--she believed in--Jesus. And you can too. Even in the midst of your grief.
Jesus assured Martha that her brother would rise again. Pious Jews, especially those who belonged to the sect of Judaism known as Pharisees, believed that those who trusted in God would rise from the dead, that the grave was not the end of life for those who lived a lifestyle of repentance and belief. And so, Martha says of her brother: “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
'Wait a moment,' Jesus seems to say next, 'you miss my point, Martha. I’m not saying that God has control over life and death just in the sweet by-and-by. God controls life and death and eternity here and now!'
Eternity in the presence of God can invade the earthly lives of anyone who trusts in Christ. That’s true right now, even in the midst of griefs and challenges. And so Jesus tells Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
For the believer in the God we meet and know in Jesus, the resurrection of the dead isn’t some theological abstraction, a phrase in a dusty creed. Resurrected life happens in Him. Life beyond the grave and life beyond the fear of death, the fear of a meaningless life, happens in Jesus and in Jesus alone.
This is why Jesus says elsewhere: “I and the Father are one” and “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Jesus is the way to life. He’s the source of all life and the source of all life beyond the grave. Only Jesus can comfort us in our sorrow, give meaning to our lives, and save us from sin and death.
That's why the first Christians said: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4:12]
This is exactly what Jesus told Martha as she grieved for her brother. It’s what He tells you and me today. And He promises Martha, and you, and me, and all who grieve or who face death themselves: “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”
Then Jesus asked the most important question any of us will ever be asked, the question on which the fate of our eternal existences hinges, and the question which, I am told, Ella answered in the affirmative: “Do you believe this?”
Do you believe this?
Do you believe that Jesus Himself rose from the dead, a fact that more than 500 witnesses insisted on despite facing certain persecution and possible death for sticking to their witness?
Do you believe that Jesus has the power to give life beyond the grave?
Do you believe that Jesus has the power to give you life, strength, joy, comfort, peace, and purpose even now?
When Martha was asked if she believed, her response was clear: “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
None of us knows what our tomorrows in this world may bring. But we do know that everything--past, present, future, and eternity--belongs to the God we meet in Jesus Christ.
That was the faith of Martha.
It was Ella’s faith.
It's the faith of Christ's Church.
And it can be our faith too.
Jesus is the resurrection, the God Who makes all things new. As you grieve and look to your future, trust in Him to be your resurrection and your life. He will never let you down. Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
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