Waiting on the Patient God

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25

The Hour Is Getting Late

Today is the Sixth Sunday of Easter. Below, join the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, for worship. Beneath the video, find the written text of today's message. God bless you!



Acts 17:29-31
The Bob Dylan song, All Along the Watchtower, famously covered by Jimi Hendrix, contains an apocalyptic vision that plays out in the dialog of a joker and a thief. In the second verse, we hear,

“‘No reason to get excited,’ the thief, he kindly spoke 'There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.’”

“The time for having a false view of reality is through,” Dylan’s thief tells the joker. Life isn’t, to paraphrase Jesus, about eating, drinking, and being merry. It’s not about acquiring the most toys before the hearse takes our bodies to the cemetery. Like the thief crucified on the cross next to Jesus, who repented and turned to Jesus in faith, Dylan’s thief insists, “It’s time to get real. The hour is getting late.” That truth has a special urgency for me today. Maybe it does for you too. We all know that the conditions Jesus said were necessary for His return had already been met during His time on the earth: That’s why He said that His return to bring an end to the life of this old, dying universe could come at any time. But these days of the most lethal pandemic to visit the planet in one-hundred years remind us that we are mortal, that this life is fragile, that, whether for us as individuals or as the human race, “the hour is getting late.” And that’s true whether every one of us gathered for worship today survive this dangerous moment and this world continues for another million years or if Jesus returns tomorrow. The promise of God’s Word is, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21, Romans 10:13, Joel 2:32). God’s Word tells us that faith comes when we hear the gospel Word of Jesus, the Christ and, through our hearing of this good news and the faith in Christ this Word from the Holy Spirit creates within us, we are saved from sin, death, and eternal separation from God. But, are we listening? Are we paying heed to this Word from God, the Word about Christ, that can save us? Or are we speaking falsely? Are we among those who treat all talk about God, Jesus, life, death, judgment,  salvation, or the lateness of the hour, like a joke?

Our second lesson for today, Acts 17:16-31, presses these questions on us. Acts, you know, is the New Testament book of the Bible that tells what the Holy Spirit did in the lives of the first believers in Jesus through the first three decades or so after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. In today’s lesson, the apostle Paul enters the city of Athens. Athens was a major center of thought and debate. It was also, as Paul noticed while walking through the city, a place in which people worshiped all sorts of gods, a bit like today, when people have “pick and choose” religion, even when their religion is atheism in which they worship human brains, will power, or cunning. Paul, who believed in God and had encountered the risen Jesus, may have been tempted to lash out at the Athenians for their idolatries. But Paul had bigger fish to fry. He needed to share the good news of new and everlasting life for all who repent--turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ as their God and Savior--with these people.

All of which brings us to the last three verses of Paul’s message for the Athenians, a message for you and me and for the whole world this morning. Take a look, please, at verse 29. After quoting one of the Greeks’ poets who said that human beings were the offspring of a Deity the Greeks themselves didn’t know, Paul says: “Therefore since we are God’s offspring [as we are, since Genesis assures us that you and I are made in the image of God], we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.”

“Let us not speak falsely now,” Paul is saying. Human beings worship false idols like money, security, power, and status. Why? For some, it’s because it’s easier to worship a god you can see--whether it’s a statue erected in the town square or Ben Franklins in our wallets--than to worship the God you can’t see. But the bigger reason that human beings worship idols is our love of control. All of our favorite godlets are things that, if we can acquire them, we think we can control to our own benefit. We’re prone to idolatry because we worship ourselves: our comfort, our freedom, our power. But, Paul says, this is a lie we tell ourselves. We are not in control and the quicker we realize that, the better off we’ll be.

Then Paul says in verse 30 of our lesson: “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” God is compassionate. God is patient with us. But Paul tells the Athenians (and us), “Now that you’ve heard the truth that you’re born in bondage to sin and can only be freed from God the Son Jesus, Who has overcome sin and death, you can’t go on living like you’ve been living.” Paul says it’s time to repent. To repent is to turn to God in sorrow for sin and in recognition of our need of God. When we repent in Jesus’ name, God not only forgives us for our sin, He gives us new and ever-renewing life with Him that never ends. Because of the power of sin and death, The Small Catechism reminds us that we need to live in “daily repentance and sorrow for sin” so that “the new person should come forth every day and rise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

Finally, in verse 31 of our lesson, Paul tells us, “For [God] has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” The phrase translated as with justice is more literally, with righteousness. When Jesus returns, an event which His resurrection from the dead assures is going to happen, He will see two kinds of people. He will judge each person according to the version of righteousness they cling to in this life.

• To those who have clung to the notions of righteousness or right living favored by this world--whether it’s salvation by good works or material wealth or influence or ease, God will give this world and the eternal destruction for which it’s ticketed.
• To those who, like the thief on the cross at the last moment, cling to Christ alone for righteousness, God will give everlasting life in His kingdom.

The times for speaking falsely, for treating life as a joke, for putting Jesus off until some other time, for unrepentant sin, or for keeping Jesus at arm’s length have ended. In the next months--and likely in the next two years, if Jesus still hasn’t returned to judge the living and the dead, our lives, our worship, our church gatherings will look and feel different from what they have. Masks, social distancing, online worship and online small groups: Love for God expressed in love for neighbor and an unwillingness, like Jesus, Who refused to jump off the pinnacle of the temple, to put God to the test, will make precautions like these necessary.

But all of this only makes the call that Paul issued to the Athenians and that he issues to us today all the more urgent. First, we must understand that the God we know in Jesus is a living God not to be ignored. Second, we need each day to turn from sin and turn to the God we meet in Jesus. He alone gives life to those who trust in Him. And third, we need to cling in faith to Jesus. As a gracious gift, He covers us with the perfect righteousness of God so that when it comes our time to be judged, God won’t see us in our sin but will only see the Savior Jesus to Whom we cling. Dear friends, the hour is getting late; today and everyday, cling to Jesus Christ alone. Amen

The Place Where Riffraff Are Welcomed

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Luke 13:22-30

Today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 13:22-30, begins with a question from a member of the crowd squeezing in around Jesus: “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”

We don’t know the motive of the person asking the question. But we can surmise that the crowds--even the disciples--were beginning to feel uneasy by what Jesus was saying and doing. In applauding the repentant faith that He had seen in notorious sinners and outsiders like prostitutes, tax collectors, and Roman soldiers, Jesus seemed was saying that belonging to the kingdom of God He came into the world to bring didn’t come by the things taught by the rabbis, the scribes, and the priests. 

The Jewish religious teachers of Jesus’ day said that if you were Jewish, you were in the club. All Jews were righteous, they thought. All non-Jews, Gentiles, were not righteous. All Jews would therefore be saved, they reasoned. 

The Pharisee sect of Judaism would have said that not all Jews were saved, only the ones who obeyed their interpretation of God’s laws. 

So, Jews were being taught largely that salvation, life in God’s eternal kingdom, came only to those who either were members of the genetic club or who did righteous things.

But Jesus has been saying things in chapters 12 and 13 of Luke that said their confidence about salvation was misplaced. Jesus is teaching that salvation comes only through faith in the God now revealed definitively to the world in Jesus Himself. Jesus’ fellow Jews and all other people needed to follow Jesus, to repent for sin and trust in Jesus, submitting to Jesus’ Lordship, so that His grace could transform them. This upset people. 

It still upsets people. The moment you suggest to people that there's nothing they can do and no way that they can be good enough to earn salvation from God, they offer up a million objections. People want to preserve the illusion of their own intrinsic goodness.

No wonder that the man asked Jesus, “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?” 

Jesus responds in Luke 13:24: “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”

We live in an age when people, if they ever think of God, say that God is such a nice guy that He won’t send anyone to hell. Let’s be clear: Jesus, God in the flesh, did die on the cross for everyone. But He doesn’t force salvation on anyone. He doesn’t force anyone to repent or believe in Him. He gives us the freedom to say no, to move through this life, presuming to be gods unto ourselves until this life ends. The doorway to a life apart from Jesus is wide open to everyone and, by our inborn sinful nature, it's the path, the easy one, that we most want to follow. 

But Jesus says that there’s only one way--a narrow way--to life with God. And that narrow way is Jesus. 

“I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me,” Jesus says in John 14:6. If we don’t enter God’s kingdom through Jesus, we can’t get it in, we won’t get in. 

Jesus expands on this theme in the next verses: “Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’” 

There will come a time when the door allowing us to leave lives lived apart from God, the narrow way, will be closed to us. 

Death will come and then it will be too late to enter eternity with God through repentance and faith in Jesus. 

No matter how much people pound at heaven’s door, those who haven’t entrusted their lives to Christ will pound in vain. 

And it won’t dot these people any good to say, “We made big offerings to the Church. We sang hymns and praise songs...even the ones we didn’t like and almost never complained about them. We volunteered for outreaches.” 

To people like this, the owner of the house--Jesus--will say at the Judgment, “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!” Jesus doesn’t truly know-- that is, have a relationship with--those who have no relationship of faith with Him. Christ only knows those who have opened the doors of their own lives and let Him in. Without such humble daily surrender to Christ, we’re just playing at religion; we’re only toying with Jesus.

To a church filled with lukewarm faith mentioned in the book of Revelation, the crucified and risen Jesus said: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” [Revelation 3:20] Jesus offers a relationship of intimacy and trust with Him, not just because it feels good, but because we need this relationship today and in eternity! Without a relationship with Jesus, we are dead now, though we may still be breathing, and we are dead for eternity.

With a relationship with Jesus, we are alive, even in life’s darkest and most difficult times. And one day, all who trust in Christ will be alive in a kingdom of perfection with God for all eternity.

To His fellow Jews, suffering from the delusion that being Jewish or that doing good works was all they needed to be saved--the way some people today think that all you need is to be Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic, or on the church rolls somewhere--Jesus says: “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.” Those who turn from Jesus or who take Him for granted or who keep him removed by an arm’s length in this life, will have an eternity of regret. 

But Jesus doesn’t end His answer at that. He says in verses 29-30: “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed, there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.” I take great comfort from these final words from Jesus. People from the world over, from every background, are already part of God’s kingdom initiated by the crucified and risen Jesus. 

Jesus takes in all we riffraff! When Ann and I were first engaged, her family didn't care for me at all. They raised all sorts of objections and laid down trivial conditions on their support for us getting married. One of Ann's dear friends crystallized things when she told her, "The problem, Ann, is that they're looking for Secretariat. Mark isn't Secretariat." I was no thoroughbred racehorse, only a donkey, riffraff. The blessed thing is that Jesus loves riffraff and will welcome into His kingdom all who turn from sin and turn to Him. 

That's the good news that transforms the life of every person who follows Jesus, Jew or Gentile, the world over! Together, we whose lives are being eternally transformed by the grace of God given to us through Jesus cherish what Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches us: “...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.” I am a wretched sinner whose only boast is that I have been saved from myself by the crucified and risen Jesus.

I belong to God not because I’m good, because, in fact, I’m not. 

Nor do I belong to God because I have the right genes, which, in fact, I don’t. 

I belong to God--I am saved from sin and death, futility and regret--because God is good and by His grace through the faith in Jesus that His Holy Spirit gives to me, He covers me with the goodness of Jesus and the power of His sacrifice over death, accomplished on the cross. 

Those who are saved are simply those who want, more than anything, to know and be with Jesus! They follow the narrow way: Jesus Himself.

The apostle Paul talked about this central desire of those who seek to follow Jesus in Philippians 3:10-11: “I want to know Christ--yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” 

May we seek each day to know Christ, the narrow way, Who opens up life and eternity to all who repent and believe in Him. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Two thugs exult in their thuggery

Two thugs brazenly celebrating the impunity with which they get away with their crimes against humanity. Absent repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, God will bring them to justice in this life and/or the next.

This happened today at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires.

The two thugs whose tenures have been marked by multiple murders of exiles from their countries on other nations' soil, the invasion of other nations, persecution of those who challenge their oppression, and attacks on children, non-combatants, medical facilities, and orphanages, are (l. Muhammed bin Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and r. Vladimir Putin, president [read: dictator] of Russia.

The Call to Recklessness

[This was shared during the worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, today.]

Mark 4:26-34

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells two parables or stories about “the kingdom of God.” We’re going to focus today just on the first of these two parables of the kingdom.

The kingdom of God exists wherever the Holy Spirit empowers a person to believe in Jesus Christ as the only way to life with God and so, repents of sin and surrenders their whole life to Christ.

But we live in a fallen, sinful world. Sin exists within us and around us, which is why it’s so important for Christians to confess our sins, ask God’s help to resist the temptation to sin, and put our lives in the hands of Jesus every day. People tell me, “I don’t know if I’m good enough to go to heaven.” “That’s not the issue,” I tell them. “Jesus is good enough to get you and me and everyone who believes in Him into heaven.” 

And He’s good enough, perfect enough, sinless enough, to get us into His kingdom not just when we die, but right now as we trust in Him. 

Yet, given that sin has our world and often we ourselves by the throat, we may sometimes question whether the kingdom of God is present or if the world hasn't been completely overrun by evil.

In both parables today, Jesus encourages us not to give in to despair! 

The citizen of God’s kingdom has an eternity of hope. Evil is rampant in our world. Disrespect for God’s Name, thievery and murder of all kinds, injustice to the poor, sexual intimacy outside of marriage, reputation-damaging gossip, materialism, and all sorts of other sins fill our world, even the Church. Yet, the kingdom of God is still among us, still growing, and still able to usher into eternity with God anyone who dares to break with the world, repent of sin, and surrender to Jesus Christ.

Look please at Mark 4:26-29. Jesus says: “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” 

Here, Jesus introduces us to a reckless farmer. He scatters seed. He doesn’t bother with things like watering, hoeing to remove weeds, or laying on manure. He scatters the seed and goes through his daily life. This man’s only job, apparently, is to scatter the seed and wait and presumably, pray.

Folks, that’s our job as Christians, too. 

The seed of God’s kingdom in this particular parable is our word--our witness--about the gospel. The gospel is God’s good news, which Jesus talks about in John 3:16: “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.” That’s the Gospel! 

Every person born to life on this planet is ticketed for separation from God and for hell. But because God loves us so much and wants us so much, He gave Jesus up to death on the cross. Everyone who believes in Him--everyone who trustingly gives their sins over to Jesus and entrusts their lives to Him--has what every human being was made for, eternal life with God. This happens through Jesus and only through Jesus. That is the good news of God’s kingdom. That’s the Gospel!

Today, Jesus scatters this good news through you and me, the people of His Church. We Christians are the farmers whose job it is to scatter the seed, telling others the good news about Jesus. 

Yet it seems that as we Christians interact with our spiritually-disconnected friends or fellow believers, we find it easier to scatter anything and everything but the gospel. 

That has tragic consequences. As we Christians fail to tell others the good news about Jesus, the world is walking away from God. 

And as we ourselves root our lives in money, status, and the pursuit of pleasure, much of the Church is walking away from God.

In Acts 1:8, the crucified and risen Jesus, just before He ascended into heaven, told His Church, you and me: “...you will be my witnesses...” 

If you’re a baptized believer in Jesus Christ, you are one of His witnesses, called to scatter the seed of the Gospel. 

But what if we fail to ever tell others about the Gospel? 

Imagine for a second that you’re a spectator at a murder trial, anxious to hear testimony and form your own opinion of the case based on the testimony of witnesses. What would happen if all the witnesses who could be enlightening or helpful, instead talked about the weather, their vacations, how desperately the Reds need pitching, or what they saw on Fox or MSNBC the night before, but never said a word about the case at hand. This is what would happen: You would be unable to make an informed decision. 

If we Christians, who have been called to be witnesses for Christ, fail to tell others about Christ, they are unable to make a judgment about whether to receive the new life in God’s kingdom that Jesus offers.

The stakes are high! Heaven or hell for all the people we may interact with in our lives depends on whether we Christians will be faithful witnesses for Christ or not! 

Look at what Jesus says in Mark 4:29, at the end of the first parable: “As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” 

The “He” here is not the farmer who scatters the seed in the first few verses of the parable. Look, please, at Joel 3:13. The words from this Old Testament prophet’s book lay behind Jesus’ words to us today. It says: “Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow—so great is their wickedness!” 

Both this passage from Joel and the words of Jesus in Mark 4:29, are about the ultimate judgment that will come to this world. The world will hurtle along from one evil day to the next. Those who refuse to repent and believe in Jesus will keep on sinning unrepentantly and never blink an eye. According to Jesus, there will even be unrepentant sinners in the Church, people who tell themselves and those who love them and challenge them, “I’m a good person. I do my best each day.” 

Listen: Our best won’t save us from ourselves and our sins. Only Jesus can do that. Suddenly, Jesus says, the days of the world moving from one evil day to the next will end. Then God will wield His sickle. Only the seeds that have borne grain--only those who believe in Jesus Christ--will rise again. This is why you and I, if we have compassion for other human beings, must get over our fears and ask the Holy Spirit to daily present us with opportunities to scatter the seed of the gospel.

But how do we find ways to scatter the seed of the gospel so that others can come to eternal life with God? Here are a few steps you can take toward being a faithful witness for Christ.

First: Maintain intimacy with Christ. Use what we Lutherans call "the means of grace," the routes God takes to fill us with faith, to give you a closer walk with Jesus Christ. These include worship, Holy Communion, and God's Word, in which we need to immerse ourselves. They also include quiet time spent in prayer, conversation with the Lord rooted in His Word. A Living Water disciple told me recently, “Quiet time has become a wonderful part of my life.” Through each of these means, Christ draws us closer to Himself and fills us with Himself! We can’t share what we don’t have. We can’t share a relationship with Christ unless we ourselves have it to give. As we cultivate intimacy with Christ, we will have good news to share with others!

Second: Live in daily repentance and renewal. Repentance is changing our minds about our sins and turning to God for the forgiveness He offers through Christ. When others see the evidence that we are imperfect people who seek each day to orient our lives to the will of God, it will enhance the credibility of our witness for Christ. People will want the Savior we follow.

Third: Be intentional about forming friendships with spiritually-disconnected people. Jesus was always reaching out to unbelieving people. Be sure as you form such friendships, you maintain strong friendships with God and with fellow believers with whom you study Scripture, pray, and maintain accountability. Without this anchor of faith and love, you could be lured away from Christ yourself.

Fourth: Remember your own story. It’s the true story of how Christ daily impacts your life that will give you the “street cred” to scatter the seeds of the gospel among the people you know and meet.

Fifth: Be kind. Romans 2:4 says that the kindness of God is given in order to lead us (and others) to repentance. Start with kindness. God has been kind to us! Although we deserve death and condemnation, He has patiently given us time to become acquainted with His Son, repent for our sins, and believe in Jesus. I’ve never understood how people who know that they have been saved by God through faith in Christ, and not by their own goodness, could dare to be unkind to others. Being kind means being kind to people we don’t know and patient with our disbelieving friends. We need to give them the time and space to experience God's love so that God can give growth and maturity to the seeds we scatter, so that they can believe in Jesus and grow as His children too.

When the kingdom of God that Jesus came into the world to bring takes hold in a person’s life, it brings comfort, hope, and peace in the midst of even the most difficult moments in this life and unfettered peace in eternity after we, like our Lord Jesus, have risen from the dead and are in the presence of our Father. May God use us to share His kingdom--to recklessly scatter the seeds of the Gospel--with everyone we know. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]