Separation of Church and State: Good for Both

A new poll apparently shows that some Christians want America to be officially declared “a Christian nation.”

If this means wanting others to know the grace and new life of God given in Jesus alone, gifts that come to us by faith in Jesus, I’m on board.

If it means making Christianity the country’s official religion, I absolutely oppose the idea. And no Christian should want that either.

People can’t and shouldn’t be coerced into faith in Jesus or into complying with some people's notions of what Christians should look like or do. 

Just because you force people to abide by rules you claim to be Christian doesn’t mean that people are Christian. 

Christians are people who can honestly confess that they are sinners saved, not by being “good people,” which none of us is, but by God’s grace through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

This talk of making America “a Christian nation” sounds less like Christianity than it does like religious legalism, which can never set sinners free from our inborn bondage to sin, death, and darkness.

Not once did Jesus seek to coerce people into “acting right.” The Pharisees of His day did that and Jesus condemned them for it, frequently. (Check out these scorching words from Jesus in Matthew 23:3-5.)

Instead, Jesus calls us all to repent and believe in the good news of new and everlasting life through Him. (Cf., John 3:16-18; Mark 1:15)

Jesus commissions His disciples to make disciples, not to make rules.

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 2

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, Part 1

Living Shrewdly

[Below, you'll find the live stream video from both of the morning worship services of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, as well as the text of the message shared at each service. I hope you find it helpful. Have a good week!]





Luke 16:1-15

The parable that Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson has caused Christians untold confusion through the centuries. So, let’s dispel the confusion right off the top!

Through this piece of fiction created by our Lord, Jesus is NOT approving stealing or dishonesty. God never contradicts Himself. So, Jesus, God the Son, isn’t using this parable to abolish the seventh commandment–”You shall not steal”--or the eighth commandment–”You shall not bear false witness.”

The rich man in Jesus’ parable does NOT compliment the dishonest manager for lying and stealing. The text itself tells us exactly what impressed the rich man in Jesus’ story. Verse 8: “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly…” (Luke 16:8) The word “shrewdly” translates the Greek word Luke uses here, φρονίμως, which can also be translated as wisely or prudently. The rich man praised his manager’s wisdom.

All of this raises a question. What made the dishonest manager in Jesus’ story wise? And, since Jesus told this particular parable to His disciples–believers in Him, like you and me–what does it mean for disciples to be wise?

First, being wise means hearing and understanding the implication of God’s Law. After the rich man fires the manager, he tells the manager that he must give an account of all he had wasted of the manager’s possessions. God’s Law tells us that we, like the dishonest manager, must give God an account of how we have managed or stewarded the gift of life He has given to us.

Folks, every minute we breathe is a gift from God Who formed us in our mothers’ wombs. The average American will live 40,498,088 God-given minutes on this earth. God’s Law demands, as Lutheran theologian Bo Giertz once noted, that we are accountable to God for our “thoughts, words, and deeds…[our] invisible desires and hidden prideful thoughts.” Every adulterous thought, every piece of gossip, every time we have spoken God’s name in vain, any time we’ve craved the possessions, successes, or blessings enjoyed by others, whenever we have been disrespectful of our parents or others in authority, are all instances of you and I squandering and mismanaging the minutes of life God gives to us.

In another of His parables, Jesus tells the story of a rich fool who wastes the minutes of his life by building bigger barns to hold all his wealth so that he can, in complete selfishness, tell himself to eat, drink, and be merry. But, Jesus says, before the fool can finish building his new barns, God steps in and tells him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.” (Luke 12:20)

Only a fool would think that they can live a life of unrepentant sin, misusing the gift of life God has given to each of us, and not have death, the rightful punishment for sin, catch up with us. And for those tempted to think they can manage their lives in a way pleasing to God in their own power and goodness, God’s Law disabuses us of such notions. Jesus says in Matthew 5:20, “I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” And, in Matthew 5:48, he tells us, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

How many perfect people do we have here this morning? I know I’m not one.

Being wise means hearing and understanding the implication of God’s Law.

But being wise also means understanding that there’s a deeper truth God has set loose in the universe. Being wise means receiving this truth with faith acting on the basis of that truth while we still have time.

What do I mean?

In Jesus’ parable, the manager was fired one day and told by the master that he needed to bring the books to the rich man the next. What he did was not in itself commendable: He called in his master’s debtors and forgave them massively. Of the two debtors Jesus mentions in the parable, the manager took it upon himself to forgive each of these men who probably farmed on the rich man’s land, an amount equal to more than 500-days wages a piece! The manager was using his boss’ wealth to win welcoming friends for himself.

Now, this would seem to be a risky ploy by the manager! If the rich man gets wind of this scheme, he could end up not just fired, but in prison!

Of course, it turns out that the rich man does find out. And this brings the unexpected plot twist of Jesus’ story. The rich man overlooks the dishonest manager’s crimes. That’s because, even if the manager is being unscrupulous, he’s finally, maybe for the first time since the rich man hired him, actually managing the rich man’s possessions. 

There appears to be a good reason the manager knew he could take such a chance. It’s this: The manager knew the heart, the character, and the kindness of his master.

Just like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) in the parable Jesus tells just before this one in Luke’s gospel, the manager knew that his master, like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, wanted to forgive him.

And, friends, the crucified and risen Jesus, God the Son, Who died and rose for our sins, demonstrates how much God wants to forgive us our sins and give us life with God as free and gracious gifts for all who believe in Jesus! God wants to do that for us even though none of us has ever consistently managed the gift of life God has granted to us with faithfulness or wisdom.

Jesus isn’t telling us that if we lie and steal, we’ll be acting wisely. He IS telling us to wise up and understand that, even more than was true of the manager in today’s parable, we can trust in the kindness and grace of the God we meet in Jesus Himself to cover our sins! The God revealed to us in Jesus is effectively telling us again today: “The time has come…The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)

The good news, or the gospel, tells us that while we have all failed to be good or sinless managers of our lives, God sent Jesus into the world and, according 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus bears the weight of our sin so that we can receive His righteousness!

In light of such love and grace and in light of our failure to measure up to the righteousness of God, the only action that makes any sense for us is to turn in repentance and faith to Jesus each day, to trust in Jesus for God’s charitable forgiveness of our sin, that is, for grace, and for life with God that begins now in this crumbling universe and continues into eternal perfection that death cannot destroy!

Those made wise by God’s Word know that when we daily–even moment by moment–throw ourselves on the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, all our misuse of this life is forgiven and we are made eternally clean and new!

God’s Word tells us: “..all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [but] all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)

The one who daily turns to Jesus in trust is leading a life of God-given wisdom. Amen!

The God Who Finds Us

[Below, you'll find live stream videos of both worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, yesterday. Also, you'll find the text of the message. It was a blessed day for our congregation, as we welcomed a total of 11 new members to our congregational family: 1 at the first service and 10 at the second. If you live in the Dayton area and don't have a church home, please consider worshiping with us on some Sunday in the future!]





Luke 15:1-10

In the chapters of Luke’s gospel leading up to today’s lesson, Luke 15:1-10, Jesus repeatedly makes the point that in the Kingdom of God He has come to usher into the world, everything gets turned upside down. “Indeed,” Jesus says, “there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.” (Luke 13:30)

Here, Jesus is sounding one of the great themes of His Gospel on which Luke repeatedly focuses. Bible scholars call it the great reversal.

This theme can be heard in Mary’s song, the Magnificat, in Luke 1, when she says of what God is going to do in Jesus, “He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53)

This, in fact, was a theme in the Old Testament as well. While pride may be applauded in our world, there is no place for it in God’s Kingdom! Proverbs 16:5 says: “The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.”

Jesus underscores heaven’s condemnation of pride when He says in Luke 14:11, our Bible verse from last month: “...all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Pride, exalting ourselves, is a violation of the first table of the ten commandments, because the proud, no matter how pious and godly they may think themselves to be, have another god besides the one true God of the cosmos: themselves.

Pride too, is a violation of the second table of the ten commandments, because the proud do not love others as they love themselves.

Pride then is a violation of God’s command that we love.

And, as James tells us, “...whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (James 2:10)

This is uncomfortable, to say the least! Like the apostle Paul, honesty may cause us to confess, “...I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” (Romans 7:17) Speaking personally, I want to avoid the sin of pride, but I seem to fall into it all the time!

If that personal confession goes for you too, we’re not alone. We’ll see that in our gospel lesson for this morning. It begins: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1-2)

Luke’s description of those straining to hear Jesus isn’t complimentary. They’re “tax collectors and sinners.”

Tax collectors in those days were extortionists. They held franchises to collect Roman taxes in a given area and were allowed to take some of the revenue for themselves as they did so. But the Romans didn’t mind how much money beyond the tax rates the tax collectors took. The tax collectors were then, by and large, unscrupulous fat cats.

As is true today, these particular unscrupulous fat cats tended to keep company with others as unscrupulous as themselves: prostitutes, pimps, and other thieves.

When Luke describes this crowd as “sinners,” he doesn’t mean ordinary sinners like you and me, people who, according to the Bible, are sinful from conception. These were unrepentant, brazen sinners who flouted any notion of right and wrong. Even Jesus, in other places in Luke’s gospel, described people like these as “tax collectors and sinners.”

Yet, as our Gospel lesson begins, these are the very people who want to hear Jesus. They want to hear His Word. In doing so, they keep God’s Third Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther reminds us that this commandment isn’t about a day of the week; it’s about our desire and willingness to hear God’s Word. “We should fear and love God,” Luther writes, “so that we do not despise His Word and the preaching of it, but acknowledge it as holy and gladly hear and learn it.”

Standing on the periphery as Jesus taught and interacted with these notorious sinners were Pharisees and scribes, teachers of God’s Law. They believed, as you know, that they could perfectly obey God’s Law and were sure that their obedience was the means by which they would be welcomed into God’s eternal kingdom. They didn’t need God’s forgiveness or grace; they were good people and God would have to let them into heaven. They were proud of their righteousness, even though you can’t be both proud and righteous.

Righteousness, acceptability to God, has always been God’s gift to sinful human beings! Righteousness isn’t a state that we can attain through our efforts or goodness!

Not even Abram, later to be called Abraham, the patriarch of Biblical faith was capable of a perfect obedience to God’s law that could make him righteous. Genesis says of him: “Abram believed the LORD, and [God] credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)

Today, God has come to us in Jesus Christ, God the Son, crucified and risen. We can only be made righteous and be saved from sin and the death sentence that our sin warrants, by God’s grace–His charity–through the faith in Jesus given to us by the Holy Spirit through God’s Word.

We believe in the Savior Jesus for whom God’s people had long looked and by that God-given faith, God credits Christ’s righteousness to us!

This is the very gracious Word and promise that the tax collectors and sinners craved as Jesus moved among them! It was good news and they knew it. Do we know that it’s good news for us as well?

Aware of the derision of the proud religious folks who thought Jesus couldn’t be of God if He shared the Gospel Word with sinners, Jesus told two parables for all, like us, prone to the sin of pride.

The first is about a shepherd who loses one of his one-hundred sheep. He leaves ninety-nine sheep “in the wilderness” in order to go find the lost one. While in Old Testament times, shepherds were valued by God’s people, by Jesus’ day, people like the Pharisees and teachers of the law viewed shepherds as low-lifes. They even had a list of dirty, contemptible professions, and shepherds were on it.

Yet, in Jesus’ parable, the shepherd is a stand-in for God Who so loves every single human being, that He sent His Son to seek and save everyone who would otherwise be eternally lost in sin and death.

Jesus sought and still seeks you and me in the very depths of our sin and death, bearing our sin in His sinless body and enduring death on the cross so that He could give His righteous perfection and life with God as we turn from sin and trust in Him.

When, in Jesus’ parable, the shepherd finds the lost sheep, he carries it back to the wilderness with other ninety-nine sheep, but to his home. He then invites his friends to a party.

Jesus says that, just so, there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner who turns to Him than over ninety-nine proud people, like the Pharisees and scribes, who trust in themselves and don’t think they need to repent or trust in God.

Notice too, what the lost sheep has to do in order to be saved by the shepherd: nothing.

Repentance and faith in Jesus consist in just this: being found by Jesus, our good shepherd.

If we will not stand apart from Jesus, as the Pharisees and scribes did, His Word can find us and bring us saving faith!

Jesus tells a second parable about a woman who loses and then seeks to find one of her ten coins.

Like the lost sheep, the lost coin does nothing to find itself, any more than we can find ourselves or save ourselves or overcome our sins or avoid dying.

God comes to us in His Word and in the Sacraments, bringing us the salvation Jesus has earned through His death on the cross for us. When that Word finds us and when, by God’s grace, faith takes hold in us, we are saved from sin and death.

At that, God and all the angels in heaven rejoice. This partying happens every time we encounter God’s Word and the Spirit incites us to gladly hear, learn, and believe it. The righteousness of Jesus covers all our unrighteousness.

Jesus humbly offered Himself on the cross to overcome all our sins, even our pride. The God Who searches for us in God the Word, Jesus, brings us saving faith in Jesus and we who are born lost and needy are found.

Whether because of pride or some other sin that tempts us daily, you and I are prone to wander from the God Who searches for us in love. We get lost.

May we then each day lay aside our pride, asking God to crucify it and our whole sinful selves, knowing that without Jesus’ grace, forgiveness, and righteousness, we are lost.

So, let this be our prayer as we turn to God In Jesus’ name each day: “Lord, find me again today. Find me every day. Then carry me into the kingdom You have won for all who trust in You alone.” Amen

The Cost of Following Jesus

[Below is the message shared yesterday during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, as well as the live stream video of our two worship services. Have a blessed week!]

Luke 14:25-35

Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 14:25-35, are hard to hear.

If we’re to follow Jesus–in other words, if we’re going to receive forgiveness of sin and everlasting life with God, is Jesus telling us we have to hate our parents, spouses, kids, siblings, and our very own lives?

Is He abrogating the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother”? (Exodus 20:12)

Is He telling us that He was only kidding when He summarized God’s Law–”Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…[and] Love your neighbor as yourself”? (Matthew 22:37, 39)

Or, is the God we know in Jesus Christ spouting one of those alleged inconsistencies that the uninformed and disbelieving claim to detect in Scripture?

As to this last question, let’s be clear. Both the Old and New Testaments say that God is consistent and unchangeable. God is the one, Psalm 55:19 affirms, “...with Whom there is no change.” And in the book of James in the New Testament, we’re told that in God, “...there is no variation or shifting shadow…” (James 1:17) So, when we encounter what we think is an inconsistency from God, shrugging our shoulders or deciding to follow the God of our imaginative preferences or give up on God altogether are not options.

Assuming it’s our desire to follow Jesus, let’s unflinchingly consider what He tells us this morning.

The context in which Jesus speaks His words is, as always, important. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem. He knows that this journey He’s taking to Jerusalem won’t be a walk in the park. Jesus didn’t come to bring the human race a Hallmark Channel coziness that, at most, can keep us comfortable until we die. The wages of sin is still death and our sin–yours and mine–must be dealt with if we’re to be the people God intends for us to be or if we are to have eternity with God. (Romans 6:23) That’s what Jesus has come to do. The crowd, like us maybe, sees Jesus as a messianic hero, someone who can make hard lives easy. But Jesus wants much more for us than to make us happy in this condemned universe. Jesus has come “to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10) He’s come to find and eternally restore to God, lost people who are in bondage to sin and incapable of freeing themselves. To save us, Jesus’ journey will lead Him to a cross. There, Jesus, sinless and pure, will take the punishment of death we deserve.

Just before today’s lesson, Jesus told His parable of the great banquet. In it, He said that God invites all people, even those deemed unworthy by the world, to come to His banquet. (Luke 14:12-24) God wants everyone to hear and believe the good news that through Jesus, anyone who repents of sin and believes in Jesus will have everlasting life with God.

And right after speaking the words in our lesson, Jesus tells three parables about God seeking and saving the lost: the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost (or prodigal) son. (Luke 15:1-32) God loves and wants to save all people. And at the cross, Jesus will do everything necessary to save us from sin, death, and condemnation.

But now, in today’s lesson, Jesus speaks hard truths. He says: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27)

It’s important to understand that the word translated here as hate is, in the original Greek in which Luke wrote his gospel, μισεῖ (misei). It’s a comparative term reflective of the Aramaic and Hebrew languages native to Jesus and His fellow first century Jews. It means, “love less, esteem less, value less.”

Jesus is not saying that we should dishonor our parents, be contemptuous of our families, or mistreat the bodies He’s given to us.

He’s telling us that we cannot let the love that we have for our spouses, families, children, or our own well being prevent us from doing what He told us to do earlier in Luke’s gospel: deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him. (Luke 9:23)

Now, knowing that the word translated as hate is comparative doesn’t make what Jesus says any less challenging! And what He says is far more practical than we may realize.

There are people in marriages to spouses who want to go out to brunch on Sunday mornings rather than worship God.

There are parents who daily face the easy path of submitting to the culture and the demands of sports and music and activities rather than seeing that their children are in worship, Sunday School, or Catechism whenever possible.

There are family members who tell us that if we don’t endorse their sinful lifestyle, they don’t want to have anything to do with us anymore.

Now, believe me, I am not insulting anyone here. Nor am I making light of the challenges people face. I’ve faced some of these same challenges in my own life.

I’m simply pointing out that our daily lives can bring home the issue Jesus addresses this morning. Daily, we’re confronted with life and death questions. Like, who do we value most: Jesus or our spouses? Jesus or our significant others? Jesus or our kids? Jesus or our parents? Jesus or our comfort? Jesus or our careers? Jesus or our acceptance by others? Jesus or our lives?

Friends, I confess that when I read Jesus’ words, I am convicted. I look into the mirror of God’s Law and I see that while I have never been guilty of hating Jesus, I have been guilty of putting other things ahead of Him and His will for my life. Usually without noticing it. God, forgive me!

“When Christ calls a man,” Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted, “He bids Him come and die.” If we are to rise with Jesus and live with God eternally, we must also die to ourselves and turn to Jesus: our only hope, our only Lord.

Now let’s be clear. Jesus offers us the free gift of God’s forgiveness of our sin and eternal life with God. There is nothing we must do and nothing we can do to earn this gift.

Jesus has already earned it at the cross.

He’s already destroyed the devil’s dominion over God’s creation, already conquered the power of sin to condemn us to life without God, already torn down the dividing wall between God and us, already earned the righteousness–the rightness with God–necessary for us to be acceptable to heaven. Jesus already has done everything necessary to save the lost and bring them–to bring us–into God’s everlasting kingdom.

In Jesus Christ, we really are free from all condemnation! “There is nothing for me to do,” notes one Lutheran theologian, “but to appropriate this [victory won by Jesus] to myself.”

This appropriation is what Jesus means when He tells us to believe in Him. And the Bible says that even our belief, our faith, in Jesus comes to us as a free gift of the Holy Spirit working in the Word and Sacraments. 

So, Jesus is telling us today to listen for His voice when the devil, the world, our sinful selves, and even the people we love, may seek to drown Him out.

Listen when Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:2)

Listen when He says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” (John 3:36)

Listen when His Word tells you, “[baptism] saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” (1 Peter 3:21)

Listen when Jesus says, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me…This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:20)

By these and all the words of God we have in Scripture, God empowers us to appropriate–to receive and to believe–all that Jesus has earned for us and all Jesus has promised to us through His cross and resurrection!

An old saying tells us, “Buyer, beware.” Jesus isn’t selling us anything, of course. He’s come to give us life with God freely.

But today, He is telling us, “Believers and prospective believers, beware.” That’s what He means by His parables telling us to count the cost of being His disciple.

Jesus hasn’t come to accessorize your life. He’s not like a new haircut, handbag, car, grill, or, for that matter, political philosophy.

He’s come to be your life. That’s what He means when He says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) There is no such thing as life or eternal life apart from Jesus. Without Jesus, we’re eternally dead. Jesus has come to give you a whole new and different life, a life that will not end.

And that will entail killing off your old sinful self. He starts doing that at the moment you are baptized. And, as He calls you to daily repentance and renewal, He’ll keep doing it until the day you leave this earth. He will kill off your old self so that your new self, the person God made you to be, can daily rise until that day, this old creation’s last day, when, Jesus says, “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live…” (John 5:25)

There’s a cost to life with Jesus. It means accepting the conviction and death of our old selves, our old ways, our sinful nature.

But to those who listen and follow, it will also mean life and resurrection with God!

This past Tuesday, at Donna’s funeral, we remembered the words of Jesus to the grieving Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

Whatever the cost to our egos, our comfort, or our relationships, may we daily hear and trust in Jesus and so live with Him forever. Amen