God Loves the Leftovers!

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, on Sunday, September 24.]

Matthew 20:1-16
The title for this morning’s message is God Loves the Leftovers!

From today’s Gospel lesson, we can see that God loves the also-rans, the forgottens, the nobodies, the johnny-come-latelies-to-faith.

And He loves them with the exact same passion and provides them with the exact same eternal salvation with which He loves and provides to those who have believed in Him for as long as they can remember.

This morning, as we consider Jesus’ words, we should be grateful that God loves the leftovers. Because He does, you and I have a place in Jesus’ eternal kingdom.

So do all who turn from their sin and trust in Christ as their God and Savior. That’s good news, gospel!

So, let’s take a look at what Jesus says to us today.

A few verses before the beginning of our gospel lesson, Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus tells the disciples that it will be harder for the wealthy to get into His kingdom than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. Peter, anxious to show that he and the other eleven apostles are worthy of being in the kingdom, reminds Jesus that they’ve given up incomes to follow Him. (As thought Jesus had forgotten that!) Jesus tells Peter and the others: “...everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:29)

In other words, anyone who has sought the kingdom above everything in life, will gain much more than the wealth that this dying world can offer. As Jesus puts it elsewhere: “...seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)

Jesus caps His response off with these words: “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” (Matthew 19:30)

You may have noticed that Jesus says similar words to these at the end of today’s Gospel lesson. That means that everything from Matthew 19:30 to the end of today’s lesson, Matthew 20:16, is about just this: In the kingdom of heaven, Jesus’ kingdom, God the Father’s kingdom, the first will be last, the last will be first.

The leftovers will go to the front of the line and the people who showed up first, who followed Jesus faithfully for years and years, won’t mind sitting in the back; they’ll just be grateful to be in the eternal kingdom God gives to all who trust in Jesus! 

To say that this is foreign to our way of thinking is an understatement. It’s revolutionary, it’s counter-cultural. Some might even call it un-American.

But let’s listen to what Jesus tells us this morning, starting at Matthew 20:1: “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.”

In those days, landowners and employers had total power, the way that God has total power over His kingdom. When it says that the landowner, standing in for God in this parable, “agreed” to pay the workers a denarius, the common wage for a day of labor in those days, it doesn’t mean that there was any negotiation. This was the rate that the landowner decided on: The workers in his vineyard were going to be paid this amount.

Read on, please: “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.” (Matthew 20:3-5)

It’s been several hours since the landowner first went to the marketplace to find people to go into his vineyard. He mentions nothing about the rate of pay to this second group. He just invites anyone who wants to go to his vineyard to do so. They aren't sent to Human Resources. No interviews. No screening. No attempts to learn the qualifications of the workers. If the men milling in the marketplace are willing to trust the landowner and his offer, they go to the vineyard.

How often do church members want to screen out people they don’t think will “fit in”? How often do we keep people from becoming part of Jesus' kingdom because we thoughtlessly neglect to invite them?

True story: A man who had just moved into a community told me about attending a Lutheran church shortly after his move and having a pleasant conversation with one of its members turn unpleasant when the member told him, “You seem like a nice person. But we already have enough members here. Things are just the way we want them to be here. Maybe you should go look for another church.” He did.

That’s not the way it is with the God we meet in Jesus, the God portrayed by Jesus as the landowner in today’s parable. God invites everyone into His kingdom. Anyone willing to leave the square, with its sins and warped values, and instead, enter His vineyard will be richly rewarded in forgiveness of sins, the power to resist evil, the presence of Christ in their lives on earth, and eternity with God and His people.

Read what Jesus says next, please. “[The landowner] went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’” (Matthew 20:5b-7)

“Why aren’t you in my kingdom?” the landowner-stand-in-for-God asks. “Because no one has invited us in.” These are the leftovers, the people nobody else wants. But God does!

The leftovers called by the landowner are like David, at whom the prophet and judge Samuel looked, and saw, not a king, just a scrawny afterthought. But God told Samuel: “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7) Samuel anointed David king.

The leftovers are like ancient Israel to whom Moses said: “The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you…” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)

The leftovers are like the thief on the cross, a criminal who had wandered in the marketplace, stealing and killing all of his life, but on the brink of death, encountered Jesus, acknowledged His sins, and asked for a place in Jesus’ kingdom. Jesus told him as they both died on their crosses: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43)

The leftovers are like the apostle Paul, who had rejected Christ and yet came to believe and would speak of himself as “the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” yet…”by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:9-10).

I am a leftover, someone who had once rejected the crucified and risen Jesus and His grace. Yet God still kept calling me. Why? Because God loves the leftover people of the world. He wants everyone of them in His kingdom. And He wants His Church to keep calling all people to repentance and new life as long as this brittle, dying world still turns on its axis.

Look at what Jesus says next. “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’”

"The Workers in the Vineyard" by Kazakhstan Artist Nelly Bube. 

 We know, good Lutherans that we are, you and I, that we are sinners only saved by the generous grace of God, brought to us through our faith in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, God has ushered us into His vineyard, His kingdom, and it’s a privilege. We know that we don’t deserve life with God. It’s a free gift which He created for us. The apostle Paul reminds us: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)

But sometimes we forget about grace. Sometimes, we may want to pray like the self-righteous Pharisee in another of Jesus’ parables: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector.” (Luke 18:11) Life in God’s kingdom belongs to all who hear Jesus’ call to follow and like the tax collector in that parable in Luke’s gospel say to God: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:13)

No matter our sins or failures, God wants us in His kingdom.

Whenever we have the guts to acknowledge our sins, turn away from them, and follow Jesus, we are in His eternal kingdom.

It’s true that God loves leftovers. But the deeper truth is that in His kingdom, there are no leftovers.

As Jesus says at the end of today’s Gospel lesson: “...the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:16)

Speaking for myself, as long as I can be in Jesus’ kingdom forever, I’m not particular about the seating arrangements. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Living Water is a congregation of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC).

"You're not the Placater-in-Chief" (Quiet Time reflections)

These are reflections from my morning quiet time with God. (For more on how I spend my quiet time with God, see here.) I had never previously noticed the thematic cohesion in Matthew 20, until today's quiet time. It's amazing how God can keep speaking to us in fresh ways when we take the time to pay attention to His Word.

Look: Matthew 20 begins with Jesus telling a parable about God’s right to give the same level of generous grace to all, no matter when they come to believe in and follow Him. Jesus says that in the kingdom of God, the last will be first and the first will be last and their standing will have nothing to do with how the world sees things.

Later, James, John, and their mother approach Jesus, asking Him to assure them that, when Jesus comes into His kingdom, James and John will be his right- and left-hand men. The mother who voices this request isn’t particular about which one is higher than the other, but she does want the boys to be one and two in Jesus’ kingdom. But Jesus says: “...to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.” (v.23)

Later still, two other men, blind and unaccompanied by their mommies, call out for mercy to Jesus. Jesus had asked James, John, and their mother, “What do you want?” (v.21). Jesus now asks the blind men, “What do you want me to do for you?” (v.32) The blind men ask to be sighted and Matthew writes: “Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.” (v.34)

Listen: While James and John were apostles and would have a special part to play in the kingdom of God, Jesus’ answer to their request (their prayer) was different from the one given to the two blind men.

To James and John, Jesus gave a nuanced no. Jesus tells them that they will, as they so confidently and ignorantly say they can do (v.22), drink the cup that Jesus is about to drink: They would drink of death because, after Jesus’ death, resurrection, ascension, and the arrival of the Holy Spirit, James and John would faithfully exercise their particular callings as apostles, telling others about the way of new life with God through Jesus. They would lose their lives for their faithfulness.

But Jesus told them that only the Father could or would decide where they would be seated in the kingdom of God.

On the other hand, we have no further record of the blind men given sight by Jesus here. They asked for their sight and they followed Jesus. That’s all we know of them.

Maybe they already were followers (disciples) of Jesus when they cried out for mercy. Now, with sightedness, they could physically follow Jesus along with the other disciples. We don’t know.

But several things are clear:

1. The blind men asked for sight, not for power. It’s not just unseemly to ask for power; it's a sin. To crave it. To need it. Jesus asks: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36)

2. Matthew avoids indicating what status in the kingdom of God might belong to the now-sighted men or what their status might later have become. He only tells us that they followed Jesus.

This is important. It’s a dangerous business trying to guess other disciples’ status with God. We can’t know the depths of their prayer life or the breadth of their faithfulness. We can’t know the secret sacrifices they may make to follow the Lord. We can’t know all of the temptations and sins with which other believers may wrestle in order to keep following Jesus. Only God knows and only God sees the true nature of a person’s discipleship or the disciple’s place in His kingdom.

Because of all of this, there's a good chance that any judgment we might make about a believer's status in the kingdom would be wrong. God told Samuel not to anoint young David’s handsome older brother: “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

3. Even if James and John occupied a special, revered office in Christ’s Church on earth, which they did, it doesn’t mean that the blind men don’t enjoy higher status in the kingdom of God. The only One Whose judgment counts when it comes to evaluating our lives is God. He loves all equally. Christ died and rose for all. All who repent and believe in Christ have a share in His kingdom. Status, place, is entirely God’s decision. Period. For each Christian, it should be sufficient knowing that we belong to the God we meet and trust in Jesus. Everything else is self-absorption.

Rather than trying to outguess the sovereignty of God, our call is simply to follow and go where Jesus sends us. I’m a sinner saved only by the grace of God given to those who trust in Jesus.

By grace through faith in Christ I’m granted a place in God’s kingdom. Who am I to argue over the seating arrangements?

Or to concern myself with whether others regard me as a great disciple, faithful, upstanding, wise, smart, important, worthy, exalted, or anything else?

Whatever place I am given in the kingdom of God is more than I deserve and infinitely better than having no place in His kingdom. “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” (Psalm 84:10)

Respond: You take the lead today, Lord. I will follow. Wherever You want to put me, I will accept. I’m not the leader; You are. You’re not the follower; I am. You’re not the caterer to my desires, the Placater-in-Chief; You are my Lord and my God. Today, help me to treat You that way. In Jesus’ name. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Stand Firm!

[This was shared during the worship services of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, this morning.]

Luke 21:5-19
We’ve heard it a million times: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

It’s a way of reminding us that looks are deceiving.

Often the people for whom we harbor jealousy because they seem to have it totally together, are the very people whose lives are most unhappy, most out of control.

Unassuming people may harbor a depth of character we can hardly imagine.

We should know better.

When the judge and prophet Samuel was sent to Bethlehem in order to anoint one of the seven sons of Jesse as king of Israel, he was about to choose Eliab. Eliab looked like a king sent from central casing.

But look, please, at 1 Samuel 16:7 (page 196 in the pew Bibles): “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’” Instead, God ordered Samuel to anoint David to become king.

Don’t judge a book by its cover!

It isn’t just people we judge wrongly. We can have a wrong estimation of churches too.

An acquaintance of mine served a megachurch for over a decade. They had all sorts of programs and thousands showed up for worship every Sunday. Their facilities were impressive, state of the art, massive. Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of that. But my acquaintance once told me that there was something missing in that congregation. Everything about the place was big...except the people’s faith in Christ, except their hearts turned cold to God and to others. They believed in their programs, their buildings, their bigness, not in Jesus.

Similarly, I have known congregations that had tiny memberships and remained tiny precisely because their entire congregational lives were built around maintaining their facilities as a stained glass mausoleums.

Buildings, like this school building, can be tools that God gives to congregations to pursue the mission of the Church: loving God, loving neighbor, loving one another, making disciples for Jesus Christ.

But you really can't judge a book by its cover. And there must be more to being Christians, more to being the Church than what a world that doesn’t know God can see.  

Take a look at today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 21:5-19 (pages 734-735).

Let’s quickly set the stage. As with last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, we’re in the week between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, when Jesus would die on the cross, and ultimately, Easter Sunday, when He would rise from the dead. He’s teaching in the temple in Jerusalem.

In the passage just before our lesson, Luke tells us how Jesus observed a procession of wealthy people leave their gifts in the temple treasury.

But Jesus wasn’t impressed with them.

He was impressed with a widow who gave a pittance, which also happened to be all she had to live on.

The world might be impressed by external shows. God isn’t.

It’s why God told His people through the prophet Amos that He hated their festivals.

What God wants from those who come into His presence is authenticity.

Authentic repentance.

An authentic desire for deeper faith and servant hearts.

David himself knew this. Look at Psalm 51:17 (page 395), part of his prayer of repentance after committing adultery and murder: “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit [a spirit broken open to God]; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”

Some would look at David and only see a powerful man who abused his power to sin and then publicly repented as a brilliant PR move. That's not how God saw it. God saw a man whose heart was open enough, whose heart was broken enough, to let God in and to let God’s praises erupt from the depths of his wounded soul.

And what did Jesus tell the Samaritan woman at the well, do you remember? She told Jesus that her people thought the worship of God could only happen on the mountain in her country, while Jesus’ people, the Jews, said it only happened in the temple in Jerusalem. Look though, at what Jesus tells her in John 4:21 (page 742): “Woman...believe Me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem...[then in verse 24] God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and truth...”

Not necessarily in candles and organs, not necessarily with guitars and drums, though people can worship God authentically by those means and in many other ways. We always truly worship God in spirit and truth: With broken, open spirits and honesty before God.

Now look at the lesson. “Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 'As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.'"

The disciples haven’t been paying attention to what Jesus was conveying in His commendation of the widow rather than the wealthy. The disciples are wowed by the temple.

It may be hard for us to understand how much freight the temple carried for the people of first century Judea.

For the devout, it was the place where God lived in the Holy of holies and the place where they could make sacrifice for their sins.

For nationalists, it was a symbol--like the Statue of Liberty for us--of their country, a symbol they seemed to especially crave as they lived under the rule of the Romans.

For Herod, the puppet king of Rome who built this third temple on the spot of the previous structures, the temple was a bid to win the loyalty of a people who hated him.

It was an impressive place, encrusted with jewels. Its marble columns were more than forty feet high.

But it’s dangerous to judge a book by its cover. Jesus says that as powerful and impregnable as the temple looked, it would one day be reduced to dust. And in 70 AD, the Romans did destroy it.

This was incomprehensible to some people standing nearby in the temple. In verse 7, we read: “Teacher," they asked, "when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?" This is a control question, the sort of question posed by people who find it hard to trust in God, but what to stay ahead of the curve, have inside information instead of faith in Christ. Today, their number includes Christians who are so obsessed by speculations about the end times that they can't live out simple faith in Jesus.

Next comes the most confusing part of the lesson. Start at verse 8: “He replied: 'Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and, 'The time is near.' Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.' Then he said to them: 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.'”

I found these verses confusing because the question asked of Jesus was about what signs would point to the destruction of the temple and, here and as the chapter unfolds, Jesus seems to be talking about the end of this world.

And He is.

Like the Old Testament prophets or the apocalyptic books, Daniel and Revelation, Jesus is conflating time. He’s talking about the present, immediate future, and the future of the cosmos.

That’s because since Adam and Eve fell into sin until the risen, ascended Jesus returns to judge this world, raise the dead in Christ, and bring about the final consummation of His kingdom, two things have been going on in the created cosmos.

First: Under the burden of sin and death, humanity has suffered and will suffer from natural and human disasters. Each disaster, a sign of our need of new life.

Second: The good news of that new life that only comes from Jesus Christ will conquer the sin and death of believers in Christ and ultimately, make the whole creation new.

Much will happen until then though. That’s what Jesus wants us to know in the next part of our lesson, starting at verse 12: “'But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them.'”

When we entrust our lives to Christ, which is what it means to believe in Him, we can count on the constant possibility of rejection.

Sometimes, people kill Christians for their faith to this day.

Sometimes, they simply cannot comprehend their faith. A woman who used to read my blog once wrote to me: “I can’t understand it. You seem like an intelligent person, a good writer. How can you talk about Jesus as though He were God? It’s such a waste of your life!”

That, friends, is the world in which we are called to be Christ’s witnesses. Jesus doesn’t promise that it will be easy. Yet it’s our call, out of simple gratitude for being saved from sin and death, to be Jesus’ witnesses. In fact, Jesus makes it a non-negotiable of the Christian life. "This will result in your being witnesses to them," is what He says here. In Acts 1:8, Jesus says, "You will be My witnesses."

How can we do that?

Well, not by trying to look good.

Not by memorizing our testimony about Jesus and spouting it like parrots.

Look at what Jesus says starting in verse 14: “...make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.”

In other words, don’t worry about looking Christian or sounding Christian. Simply focus on following Jesus.

Let the Holy Spirit teach you through the study of God’s Word, worship with the Church, receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus.

Then God will teach you what you need to say, not only in the face of hostility, but also in response to people who genuinely want to know what you believe as a Christian.

To be Christ’s witnesses, we don’t need a how-to guide, we simply need to pay heed to what the Holy Spirit is teaching us as we draw close to God the Father in Jesus’ Name and learn to pray the prayer David prayed in that same psalm of confession, Psalm 51:15. Would you go back to that with me? David prayed: “Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.”

In thirty seven years as a Christian and twenty-nine as a pastor, I have seen things I never would have expected. Many segments of American society have moved from indifference to Christian faith to outright hostility.

Ignorantly, intelligent people who know nothing about Jesus, say that Christianity is the source of most of the world’s problems.

And, in other parts of the world, people are killed and persecuted for their faith.

Jesus’ words seem increasingly to have come true.

But the answer is not for us to hunker down or keep the light of Christ hidden under a basket. That would be inauthentic!

The answer is to be open books: In good times and bad, the God Who threw in His lot with us on the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead to give us everlasting life, calls on us to follow Him, to give witness to His greatness and love. Jesus says at the end of our lesson: “All men will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm you will gain life.”

May we stand firm in our faith and so stand with Christ forever. Stand firm! Amen

Reputation versus Character

I've been hearing a lot lately about an outfit called Reputation.com. It's in the business of "reputation management," which their web site describes as "the practice of making people and businesses look their best on the Internet."

There must be a place for such a business these days, I'm sure. Anyone who's ever found themselves the focal point of gossip or unfair misconstructions of their actions or beliefs, can understand how, with the Internet, which allows lies to fly a million times faster than the truth, will know this.

But sometimes managing a reputation in itself often entails a little misconstruction, a little fudging of the truth, doesn't it? It seems that many today are more concerned about looking good than they are about being good.

None of us is perfect, least of all me! I am a sinner saved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. I wrestle with temptation and sin every day of my life. I am quite conscious of my faults and sins and occasionally reference them in my preaching and teaching. (By the way, I wouldn't be wrestling with temptation and sin if I weren't a Christian. The closer we seek to follow Christ, the more conscious we are of the evil that resides within us and the evil that lures us. Christians who claim they don't wrestle with their own sins and temptations are either liars or deluded.)

But what all of us need more than someone to make us look our best--a reputation makeover--is someone to help us be our best, to help us boost our characters after we've fallen into evil or when we allow ourselves to be lured by it.

So, out of curiosity, I did a Google search. I looked for a Character.com and found that such an outfit actually exists! It sells kids' clothes that have the logos and images of fictional characters like boy bands, wrestlers, and movie and comic book heroes. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I had something different in mind.

Fact is, I already know a character-builder. (You knew I'd get to that, didn't you?) His Name is Jesus and He has shown a facility for rebuilding the characters of the most unsavory characters you can imagine.

For example: A man named Saul, a persecutor of Christians who approved and facilitated their punishment and murder, became Paul, a name meaning small or humble in Latin. The change in name wasn't about image. (In fact, in an era that valued arrogance, Saul/Paul's name change was bound to cause most people to look down on him, not look up to him.) The name chance was about a change God was making on him from the inside out. From being a guy who was certain of his own righteousness, he became a guy certain of his own faults and sins, but more certain still that the God he came to know in Jesus had died to atone for Paul's faults and rose to give Paul an eternity with God he didn't deserve. By His forgiving love, Jesus transformed Saul/Paul's character.

A woman who slept around and was shunned by others met Jesus and became an evangelist, spreading the news of the forgiveness and new life He brings to those who repent and believe in Him. By His forgiving love, Jesus transformed the woman's character and her daily life.

A thief on a cross saw Jesus being crucified next to Him, understood Jesus was faultless, and asked, in repentance and faith, that Jesus would remember Him in His kingdom. Jesus told the thief that that day, when he died, he would be with Jesus in paradise. Jesus used that man's repentance and belief to change his character, even if the man's reputation as a ne'er do well remained intact for the crowds watching his execution.

In the Old Testament, we're told about how God sent the prophet and priest Samuel to anoint a new king for Israel. God had revealed to Samuel that the new king would come from the family of a man named Jesse. When Samuel caught sight of Eliab, one of Jesse's older sons, Samuel thought to himself, "This must be the guy!" Eliab looked like a king.

But Samuel sensed God telling him, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

Reputation--how others see us--can be built up, torn down, and even built back up again by us, by other human beings.

But character--who we are on the inside--is something altogether different. We can tear it down ourselves readily: by our thoughts, words, and actions, by the company we keep, by the thoughts we allow to govern us, by the gods and godlets we choose to give dominion over our lives. But only God can build up our characters. Only God can help us be our better selves. God gave Jesus Christ as "the way, and the truth, and the life," to amend, rebuild, and make new our characters. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation," Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Let the God we meet in Jesus Christ go to work on your character. No one else may notice it. But as you follow Christ, you'll be set free from the opinions of others, from the norms of society.

A good reputation is a good thing. Proverbs 22:1 in the Old Testament says: "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold." But reputation purchased at the expense of our character is worthless, even if it lines our wallets with cash. Jesus asks, "For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" (Mark 8:36).

In the end, there's a bigger, eternal payout for focusing on character--daily submission to the forgiving God we see in Jesus--than there is for looking good to a world that is lost and rudderless anyway.

Jesus is the only real character.com. 

Free Will? (Part 14, The Augsburg Confession)

[This was shared during both worship services with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio this morning.]

John 15:1-5
Do human beings have free wills?

Most people, when asked that question, would probably say, “Yes.” So, when they try to explain why two brothers from Chechnya allegedly perpetrated the Boston Patriots’ Day bombings and killed an MIT police officer, most people would likely say that their behavior was an exercise of their free will.

But under other circumstances, these same people may defend their own poor choices by saying that, in a moment, their free will was overridden by forces beyond our control.

“I know it was wrong for me to say all those cutting things,” they will explain. “But I was having a bad day.”

“I know it’s wrong to have sex outside of marriage,” others might say. “But I just got swept away by the moment.”

So, do we have free wills then?

Are we born with the ability to make the right choices in our lives?

Can we choose to walk with God and according to His will? 

Article 18 of The Augsburg Confession, one of the basic confessional documents of Lutheran Christianity, summarizes Lutherans’ understanding of what God reveals in the Bible about the human will. The first paragraph says:

Our [Lutheran] churches teach that a person’s will has some freedom to choose civil righteousness and to do such things subject to reason. It has no power, without the Holy Spirit, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness. For [quoting 1 Corinthians 2:14 in the New Testament] the natural person [that is the person born equipped with original sin without a saving relationship with the crucified and risen Jesus Christ] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God...This righteousness is worked in the heart when the Holy Spirit is received through the Word...”

Human beings, like say, my imaginary friend Ted, have wills that are free to choose what the Confession calls civil righteousness, the kind of righteousness that causes the world to say that Ted’s a nice guy.

You see, Ted pays his taxes, holds a steady job, has never gotten a traffic ticket or been arrested, takes his family out to dinner once a week, coaches his kids’ baseball and basketball teams, shovels snow and rakes leaves for his neighbors, and gives a generous offering to the church every Sunday. When Ted dies and family and friends gather at the funeral home for the visitation, someone will likely say, “Ted was such a good man. He surely must be in heaven.”

But the people apt to say such things could well be told, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged." Ted’s well-meaning friends would be guilty of judging Ted worthy of eternity because of the outward acts he chose to do. The Bible teaches that you and I are capable of choosing to do those things that elicit the applause of the world, that look good on the outside. But that’s not how God judges us!

As God told Samuel in the Old Testament: “...the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” God judges us fit for eternity not on the externals that may wow the world, but on what goes on inside of us: in our hearts, our wills, our minds. And it’s precisely inside of us that we are incapable of fearing God, believing in God, trusting in His grace, or doing what God wills.

We can decide to live with civil righteousness, worldly righteousness. But we cannot decide to live in spiritual righteousness. We are incapable of freely deciding to live as Christians. We are incapable of freely deciding to live according to the will of God.

Saint Paul puts it this way in Romans 7: “For we know that the law [of God] is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin...nothing good dwells within me...I can will what is right [that is, I can want to joyously and happily do the right thing because I want to do the right thing], but I cannot do it...”

And the prophet Isaiah spoke for the whole human race, even exemplary guys like Ted, when he wrote: “...we are all like an unclean thing, and our righteousnesses are like filthy rags...our iniquities [our sins] have taken us away.”

It’s this reality that we can only choose an external, worldly righteousness, but are incapable of choosing, much less living, with a spiritual, internal, eternal righteousness that causes you and me as Lutherans to confess each Sunday, “We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves."

So, what hope do we have?

Please turn to John 15:1-5. Jesus is speaking to the disciples in the upper room on the night of His arrest. He begins: “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.”

These words come a few short verses after Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

And after He says in John 10:30, “I and My Father are one.”

Here, in John 15:1, Jesus is expanding on the claims He has made about Himself earlier: He is God. He is one Person of the Trinity. And He is the vine, the new life of God invading a world dying in its sin. God the Father is the vinedresser, the One Who tends and nurtures this vine, which is the body of Christ in the world.

Look at John 15:2. Jesus says: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He [the Father] takes away and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear fruit.”

This is an amazing verse! Consider three things it tells us.

First: Everyone who believes that Jesus has died and risen to give forgiveness of sins and everlasting life to them is a branch of Christ, drawing new life and forgiveness of sins from Christ.

When we are connected to Jesus, God does the works of true spiritual righteousness through us, not because, like Ted, we’re good guys or good women, but because the goodness and life of Christ surges through the lives of those who humbly submit to Christ as their God and Savior.

Usually this will happen without our being aware of it or self-conscious about it. Many of you as followers of Jesus can probably remember times when someone has told you that that thing you did or that thing you said, something you don’t even remember doing or saying, was what shored up their faith in Christ or brought the truth of Christ to them clearly for the first time.

Many of you have heard me talk about my friend Sig, a committed Lutheran Christian man who, along with his wife, was involved in Christ Renews His Parish and marriage enrichment weekends, helping people to bring their lives and marriages under the renewing grace and love of Christ. Sig worked for a major company in the Cincinnati area. So was a man I’ll call Bob, who joined my former parish shortly after it got off the ground. During a conversation with Bob, I just happened to mention Sig and Bob told me, “Sig was a huge influence on me. I wanted to have Christ in my life the way I saw Sig did.” Though they worked for the same company, they were at different facilities, and they had only met a few times years before. Yet Sig's faith had made an indelible imprint on Bob. The next time I saw Sig, I mentioned what Bob had said. Sig was puzzled: He could barely remember meeting Bob and told me that he had no idea what he might have done to influence Bob for Christ so positively.

When you’re connected to the vine, you don’t usually think about the righteous things you do or even that what you do is righteous. Those deeds will be the simple, wonderful byproducts of staying connected to Jesus.

Second in John 15:2, Jesus says that, as we remain connected to Him, God will sometimes prune us. I don't know about you, but getting pruned is not something I particularly want God to do to me. The word in the original Greek in which John wrote his Gospel, katharizo, literally means cleanse. It's the root word for English ones, catharsis and cathartic, words often used of experiences, confessions, or conversations that cleanse our emotions or our psyches. Jesus is telling us that as we daily repent for our sin and surrender again to Christ, God cleanses us of sins committed, clarifies our thinking, purifies our living.

Sometimes, this will be extremely painful as God incites and empowers us to turn our backs on things we want to do. God replaces our corrupted, enslaved will with the will of a child of God living under the will and in the freedom of His grace! A man I know, an alcoholic, once told me of how painful it was for him to realize that he would have to give up beer for the rest of his life. There’s nothing inherently wrong with beer, of course. But as a person who suffered from an addiction, he knew that he would be ceding control of his life to the devil, the world, and his sinful self if he ever took another drink. Daily, he had to seek the power of God to make the right or righteous choice he could not make on his own. He had to submit to God’s pruning in order to stay connected to Jesus.

Finally, in John 15:2, Jesus says that God will lop off those branches that have given up on their connection to Christ. Those who refuse God’s grace won’t have God’s grace forced on them.

Now look at John 15:3. Here, Jesus, speaking to believers in Him, like you and me, says: “You already are clean [the word here is katharoi, the adjective form of that word that can be translated also as pruned] because of the word which I have spoken to you.”

The Word about Jesus, God-enfleshed Who loves sinners so much that He shared the death for sin they deserve (that we deserve) and rose from the dead as a sign that He conquers sin, death, and the devil for all who believe in Him, this Word, creates faith in those who listen. As Romans 10:17 puts it: “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.”

We can’t be saved by good works, by exercising that part of our will that’s free to do works that are pleasing to the world.

But we can be saved as we welcome into our lives God’s Word and the truth of God’s decision to die for us, to rise for us, and to count our faith in Him as righteousness, cleanses us from sin and makes us new!

Folks, that is very good news!

Our salvation and our eternal relationship with God does not depend on the good works we decide to do. These things depend entirely on the grace of God given in Jesus Christ and on the faith in Christ that the Holy Spirit creates in the lives of those willing to receive and abide in Jesus Christ, the true vine!

That’s why Jesus says what He does next in John 15:4-5: “Abide in Me [stay connected to Me, keep listening to Me, keep reading My Word, keep receiving My Sacraments, keep worshiping with like-minded believers in Christ, keep praying] and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”

Do human beings--you and I--have free wills?

The Bible and the Lutheran Confessions say we have free will when it comes to the decisions we make that relate to the kingdoms of this world--to pay our taxes, to be polite, to obey the speed laws, to obey our parents.

But we are completely lacking in free will when it comes to things of God’s kingdom.

Only God can cause us to willingly be sacrificial in loving others, joyful in giving to others, focused on God and not ourselves.

We can clean up our acts, but we can’t clean up our minds and hearts and wills, the places where sin starts, the places that God judges.

Only Christ and the Word about His death and resurrection and the new life He offers to those who believe in Him, can truly clean us up, from the inside out.

That’s why, like David in Psalm 51, we might well pray each day: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

God has come into the world in Jesus Christ so that whenever anyone who humbly trusts in Christ prays that prayer, God will answer it positively.

You see it’s God’s delight and it's God's will to give forgiveness, a purposeful life, and eternity with Him to all who humbly confess their inability to make themselves clean and ask that instead, their lives, their decisions, their wills are washed in the blood of the Lamb, Jesus, Who takes away sin.

God loves to answer that prayer, day after day till we see Him face to face! Amen