The Greatest Glory on the Mountaintop

[Below are the live stream videos of this past Sunday's worship services from Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, along with the message prepared for them.]





Matthew 17:1-9

This is the last Sunday of the Epiphany Season. Throughout this season, we’ve looked at incidents and words from Jesus’ earthly ministry that show us the truth that the Man Jesus is also truly God, the Savior of the whole cosmos. This truth is announced to us again today in the Gospel lesson, but maybe not entirely in the way we imagine.

Six days before the incidents recounted in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus foretold it all. Then, Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, told Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16) While Peter didn’t understand all the implications of his confession, he did understand that in calling Jesus the Son of the living God, he wasn’t calling Jesus a descendant of God the Father. When a Jew like Peter used this phrase, he meant what another Jewish believer, the preacher in the New Testament book of Hebrews, meant when he said of Jesus, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word…” (Hebrews 1:3)

Peter said that Jesus was God. But Peter didn’t really understand what that meant. His lack of understanding showed when Peter was shocked as Jesus said that He, God in the flesh, was going to Jerusalem to be rejected by the religious and political leaders and by the people. There He would also suffer, be murdered on a Friday, and be raised by God the Father on a Sunday. Peter rebuked Jesus. Peter couldn’t imagine God suffering or dying. But Jesus called Peter “Satan” for standing in the way of God’s will that God the Son should take the punishment of death for sin that you and I deserve. Jesus said that all who would have life with God need to take up our crosses–that is, confess our sin and our need of God’s forgiveness–and follow Jesus. Then Jesus made this promise: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:28)

Matthew tells us this morning that six days after this exchange between Jesus and Peter, Jesus took the same Peter, along with James and John to the top of a nearby mountain. Why did Jesus take these three guys with Him? Well, they were the inner circle of the inner circle of disciples. But another reason might be this: Peter, James, and John, by outward appearances, seemed to have the hardest time with their sin, wanting to be like God rather than following and worshiping God. Peter had tried to tell Jesus how to be the Messiah, as we’ve seen. And James and John, forgetting that the exorcisms and healings they’d done were the results of Jesus’ power working in them and not of their own power, once asked Jesus if He wanted them to call fire from heaven down on a Samaritan village that hadn’t welcomed Jesus. These men needed to be reminded that Jesus was God, not them. They also needed the forgiveness of God which comes only from Jesus.

In that, Peter, James, and John are no different from you and me. Like them, we can fall to the temptation of thinking that we are essentially good people who deserve the blessings of God. Like them, we can become upset when the plans of God don’t conform to the plans we make for ourselves. Like them, we forget that we have no right to enter the kingdom of heaven; that is a gift God gives to those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ. It is only God in Jesus Christ who makes sinners clean, justifying us, counting us innocent by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

You know what happened at the mount of Transfiguration. Matthew says, “There [Jesus] was transfigured [meaning His appearance was in some way altered] before [Peter, James, and John]. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.” (Matthew 17:2) Soon, Moses, dead and buried centuries before, and Elijah, the prophet once transmitted to heaven by a chariot of fire, are there talking with Jesus. If the light that radiated from Jesus hadn’t reminded Peter, James, and John that Jesus really is God, the fact that these two Old Testament figures who talked with God on mountaintops are now talking with Jesus should have convinced them.

James would be martyred not long after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. So, we don’t have any record of what he thought about the Transfiguration. But John would say in the prologue to his gospel, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) And Peter would write: “...we were eyewitnesses of [Jesus’] majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” (2 Peter 1:16-18)

But Peter and his companions didn’t mainly see the glory of God in Jesus’ transfiguration that day. On seeing Moses and Elijah, Peter in essence asks Jesus for permission to break the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” He wants to build three shelters to honor Jesus, Moses, and Elijah equally, as though the Light of God that day came from anyone other than Jesus, as though Moses and Elijah needed to be worshiped along with Jesus. The moment this seemingly pious suggestion leaves his mouth, God the Father shuts Peter off. “​​This is my Son, whom I love,” the Father says, “with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)

Friends, life with God will not be ours if we worship any god other than the One revealed to us in Jesus Christ. To those inclined to say, “My family is the most important thing,” or personal fulfillment, or health, or happiness, or lower taxes, or leading a good life, God says, “This is My Son…Listen to Him.” We human beings are intrinsically religious creatures. Anthropologists tell us that in every culture ever studied, people have had all sorts of gods they’ve worshiped: sex, fertility, money, possessions, the sun, the moon, the stars, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Our sinful human nature makes us want to worship something, anything that we think will give the god we’re born worshiping from birth–ourselves–what we want when we want it. We’ll glorify anyone and anything that will glorify us, explaining why we make the terrible choices we sometimes make in life, from the cars we buy to the political lies we fall for. 

You can imagine how guilty and small Peter (and the others) must have felt at that moment, prostrating in fear in the face of this condemnation of sinful idolatry. But this is the moment when the glory of God was fully revealed to Peter, James, and John. Matthew 17:7 says, “Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’”

That is Jesus’ message for you today too. You and I have been idolaters and sinners. We’ve been prone to go our own way, to ignore god, to glorify the shiny objects this world dangles before us. Our idolatrous natures cause us to metaphorically erect booths to what we deem to be holy things, godly values. But forgiveness of sin, freedom from death, and life with God, the things we most need for this life and the next, come from Jesus Christ alone. It was in seeing Jesus as the forgiving, saving God of all that Peter, James, and John saw the true glory of God at the Transfiguration.

This is the glory of God: Jesus, the way and the truth and the life, through whom we have life with God. He’s the Savior Who overcomes the sin, suffering, and death we all experience in this life to give us everlasting life with God. Along the way, He allows us to be touched by His glory and His glorious love for us. He’s doing it again today in His Word, in the fellowship of the saints, and in the gift of His body and blood. He does it when water is splashed on her head in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. By these means, Jesus assures us that beyond the days of our Lents, the horrors of our Good Fridays, and the griefs of our silent, Holy Saturdays, glory, eternal glory, with God awaits all who daily turn to Christ in repentance and faith. Our Savior Jesus comes to forgive our sins and give us life in God’s glorious kingdom. Dear friends in Christ, you can trust in Him!

Is This the King?

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

Luke 23:27-43
Two things seem, more than others, to show us a lot about who we are and what we believe: how we live and how we die. 

Some people live and die with arrogance or resentment or fear being the prevailing themes of their living and dying. 

A few live and die with the faith, humility, love, and hope they have been given by Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Himself lived and died with faith, humility, love, and hope, of course. But, on this Christ the King Sunday, we also remember that He lived, died, rose, and lives still as the King and Lord, the Savior and God of the universe.

Kings and other power-holders of the world, you know, like to advertise their power, their supposed strength. They have symbols of their power: homes and offices, jets and helicopters, official seals and aides at their constant beck-and-call.

Jesus, in fact, divested Himself of the power and authority that has belonged to Him from all eternity, in order to reclaim His fallen subjects--you and me--so that all who repent and believe in Him will live in His kingdom forever. He didn't look like a king to most of the people who came in contact with Him.

As Luke tells it in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 23:27-43, on the day of Jesus' crucifixion only one person--a κακοῦργος in Luke’s manuscript: a doer of bad or of evil, a criminal--saw that even as He died on a cross, Jesus was and is the King. Only this one man saw that Jesus holds life, death, and eternity in His hands. 

When we look to Jesus on the cross, do we see our King? 

And should we? 

Let’s follow Jesus to His cross today to find the answers to these questions.

Our lesson begins by telling us about the grim procession that followed Jesus to a spot called the Skull, apparently a common site for criminal executions outside Jerusalem’s walls. Women, following after Jesus along with the crowds out to see the spectacle of Jesus’ death, weep. Jesus tells them that one day if Jerusalem and the rest of God’s people continue to reject God and His Messiah, destruction will come. Jesus says that the destruction will be so horrible--and that destruction did come to Jerusalem, Israel’s pretensions to nationhood, and the temple in 70 AD--that Jewish women, who always aspired to motherhood, will be considered blessed for not having brought their children into a world of such pain. Jesus says: “...if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (verse 31). 

In other words, “If the Romans do this to one they pronounce innocent, what will they do to a rebellious city.” Or, “...if God [hasn’t] spared His innocent Son, how much worse will it be when the Romans inflict [God’s] judgment on the city?”*

Even on the brink of the agonies of the cross, Jesus isn’t thinking of Himself, but of others. This is a characteristic of a true King, One Who understands that power is never to be used selfishly, but only for the benefit of others.

Beginning in verse 32, we see Jesus being taken to His cross, suspended between two criminals, evildoers.

In ancient times, those who were thought to be righteous or blameless spent their dying breaths cursing those who wronged them or killed them. 

Not Christ the King. 

“Father” Jesus prays, “forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (verse 34) 

And, lest we think that this is the prayer of a defeated idealist, we learn in the book of Acts that Jesus, once crucified and now risen, shares His kingly power over sin, death, and darkness to those who believe in Him. The first martyr of the Christian faith was a Greek-cutured Jew named Stephen. Filled with the Holy Spirit sent by Jesus to His disciples, Stephen prayed for his murderers, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (Acts 7:60) 

I don’t know about you, but I am sure that in my own power, I am incapable of forgiving others as Jesus forgives me. 

This  is why Jesus tells Christians to pray for His power in our living and dying: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Alexander Pope famously said, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” Only King Jesus, God the Son, Who lives in those who have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, can help us to forgive those who have wounded us the way He has forgiven us for the wounds we have inflicted on Him by our sin.

Do you remember that when, at the beginning of Jesus' ministry when He was tempted by the devil, the devil left Jesus vowing to tempt Him again at a more opportune time? Clearly, Satan regarded Jesus' crucifixion as that more opportune time, a time to try to prevent Jesus from fulfilling His mission of dying on the cross for you and me.

At the cross, Jesus is taunted several times at the cross. Each taunt represents a temptation to sin for Jesus, to depart from the will of God the Father. 

Taunt number one: Referring to Jesus’ many miracles, the crowds and the rulers of Jewish religious life say, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” (verse 35) But Christ the King didn’t come to save Himself. He had already been safe and sound in His heavenly Kingdom. Instead, He stripped Himself of His advantages as our King to live as one one of us, although He never sinned, to become the perfect sacrifice for our sins. 

Taunt number two: The soldiers mocked Jesus and, playing the part of a king’s cup-bearer, they offered Jesus wine. Only this wine was bitter, like that drunk by the poorest and weakest. “If you are the king of the Jews,” the soldiers tell Jesus, “save yourself.” (verse 37) “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” Jesus had asked His disciples at the garden of Gethsemane. “But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" (Matthew 26:53-54) Jesus kept His eyes on the prize, saving us from sin and death by dying on the cross on our behalf. He wanted to save you and me for His kingdom. 

Taunt number three: Verse 38: “There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Pilate had said Jesus was innocent. Yet He had so little regard for Jesus’ life that He sent Him to the cross anyway. In those days, the crimes of the executed were posted on signs above their heads. Pilate mocked both Jesus and God’s people by labeling Jesus the King of the Jews. Yet, Jesus Who could have escaped all the taunting and death itself, chose to remain on His cross.

Taunt number four: Verse 39: “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’” Be honest: When you’re shown pictures of yourself with family members or friends, who do you look for first? We are born prisoners of self, sinners. There’s no one that we trust more than ourselves. Yet, dead and dying people, we can’t save ourselves from ourselves. Only the King with the love and self-discipline to forget about Himself can save us. Jesus is that King. Jesus says of Himself that “...the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." (Luke 19:10)

Amid this scene in which the whole world--Jewish and Gentile, religious and secular, rulers and common people--rejects Jesus, one person sees what no one else, not even Jesus’ closest followers, sees. 

He sees how Jesus lives and dies. 

He hears the gentle, powerful Word and witness of Jesus and by it, the Holy Spirit creates within him faith in Jesus. He sees that Christ is the King, the King, Lord of heaven and earth. 

That one person who sees and hears is one of the evil-doers, one of the criminals. 

He confesses his sin as he tells the other criminal, “Don’t you fear God...since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” (Luke 23:40-41) You can’t have Jesus as your Lord and King if you refuse to first own your need of being saved from your sin. 

And then, this man convicted of a capital crime, turns to Jesus and confesses faith: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (verse 42)

Jesus is bloodied, beaten, battered, pierced, on the brink of death. He doesn't look like someone who could save anyone. He doesn't look like the kings or power-holders of this world. 

But even at this moment, the criminal sees that Jesus is His King: The Word, powered by the Holy Spirit, gives him saving faith in Jesus. He welcomes that Word that tells us--no matter how crazy or painful our lives get--that Jesus is “the Messiah [the Christ, the Anointed King], the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16)

Some who heard the exchange between the criminal and Jesus may have thought, “Everyone else is against Jesus and the only one who believes in Him is this thug. Some king!” But Jesus, the Word of God, had done His life-saving work in the criminal. The criminal clung to the truth that Saint Paul would later experience and write about, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’” (Romans 10:9)

The criminal’s faith in Jesus is rewarded instantly. After his confession of faith, Jesus tells Him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (verse 43) In Jewish thought, Paradise was a garden, like Eden, where God’s people, the subjects of Christ the King, went before their resurrections. And even now, in this moment and in all the moments of this life, as we receive Jesus in faith, we are part of His eternal kingdom. As we confess our faith in Him, Jesus says as He did that day in the house of the repentant sinner Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man [this woman, this child], too, is a son [is a daughter] of Abraham,” a child of God’s promise that “the righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

In John 3:31, the apostle writes: “The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.” Jesus, the One Who comes from heaven is above all. He is Christ the King, the One Who destroys the power of sin, death, and the devil over our lives. 

We can see this is true in how He lived, how He died, how He rose, and how, even today, He comes to us in Word and Sacrament and the life of His Church. 

Turn to Him when He calls you to repentance. Turn to Him when He calls you to faith. Each time you turn to Him, you will live as His subject, His child, His chosen, His friend, now and forever. Amen

*The Lutheran Study Bible

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

Don't Miss the Obvious!

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

Matthew 21:23-32
When I was a kid, I heard a recurring phrase from my dad.

Dad would be working around the house, as he always did--fixing a car, remodeling a room, painting the house, doing a home repair--and I would be doing what I always did, nothing. Dad would tell me to look for something--say, a “⅜ widget-whats-it-majiggie”--and I would be unable to find it. Then, Dad would get out from under the car or climb off the ladder or whatever, then go right to the thing he wanted, then tell me, “Mark, if it was a snake, it would have bitten you.” Dad was right because I seemed to have a knack for not seeing the obvious. (I often still do.)

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus encounters people who either don’t see or refuse to see the obvious.

Let’s take a look at the lesson, Matthew 21:23-32. As we prepare to do so, let’s set the scene. The day before this encounter, Jesus had entered Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday. People hailed Jesus as the Messiah or the Christ, the Hebrew and Greek versions, respectively, for God’s Anointed King, the Savior that Jews had been awaiting for centuries.

On entering Jerusalem, the center of Jewish religious and civic life, Jesus had gone to the temple. There, He overturned the tables of the money-changers who took advantage of the piety of simple Jewish folk, charging them exorbitantly for temple currency and for sheep and doves for temple sacrifices. As one scholar has written, Jesus acted like He owned the place. (Which, of course, as God in the flesh, He did.)

As today’s lesson begins, Jesus is approached by the men who think of themselves as the ones in charge of the temple, as well as of Jewish religious life, and the final judges of what was right or wrong, godly or ungodly. Take a look at the lesson, please.

“Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. ‘By what authority are you doing these things?’ they asked. ‘And who gave you this authority?’” Their question basically, is this: “Who said that You could and say the things You’ve been doing and saying, Jesus?”

In English, the word authority is related to the word author. Authors, of course, are people who, with their words, create worlds, characters, and events. We believe that the God revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the, as Peter says in Acts 3:15, “the Author of life.”

It’s this God Who, with the mere power of His Word, made everything that exists. “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” and “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” and humanity came into being (Genesis 1:3, 26).

We believe, by the power of the Holy Spirit Who makes faith possible, that Jesus was and is the very Word of God, Who took on our human flesh so that He could die for our sin and rise to give eternal life with God to all who see Jesus for Who follow Him.

But the chief priests and the elders of the people, who were experts in God’s Old Testament Word didn’t see Jesus in this way at all. And it’s not as though others weren’t seeing that Jesus was the Author of life. They were!

Remember the Canaanite woman, a foreigner to the Jews, who had called Jesus, “Lord, Son of David” (Matthew 15:22)? She had seen who Jesus was.

And remember how Peter told Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).

And just the day before these “leaders” came to see Jesus, the Palm Sunday crowds had welcomed Him as Messiah.

Jesus once scored the temple authorities, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees as “blind guides” (Matthew 15:14). In their blindness, they challenge Jesus.

Verse 24: “Jesus replied, ‘I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?’” (Matthew 21:24-25).

Jesus is not engaging in any trickery here. He is trying to help these blind guides who, from their study of Scripture, should know where His authority came from because of Who He is, to see.

The question that Jesus asks them is also about authority. Who had given John the authority to call people to repentance and to point others to Jesus, the Messiah of Whom God the Father said in John’s presence, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17)?

Look at what happens next, starting with the second part of verse 25: “[The chief priests and the elders] discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, ‘We don’t know.’ Then he said, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.’” (Matthew 21:25-27)

I suspect that the calculated response of the temple leaders betrays an important fact: They weren’t as blind to the obvious as they claimed to be. They knew that John the Baptist’s authority came from heaven, that is, from God. And they knew that Jesus’ authority came from the same place; they even knew, I think, Who Jesus was.

They had heard or seen that Jesus was raising dead people, curing diseases, casting out demons, calming storms, feeding masses of people, speaking God’s truth.

They saw, but refused to publicly acknowledge that Jesus’ authority came from His being the Author of life.

Their aim in asking the question about authority was to discredit Jesus so that they could get Jesus crucified and be rid of Him. They want Jesus dead and gone to protect their own supposed authority. They’re like the tenants in a parable would tell shortly after this encounter who said to each other, “This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance'” (Matthew 21:38).

It’s after the temple leaders’ refusal to answer Jesus’ question that Jesus tells a parable. A man has two sons. He asked them, not to find a “⅜ widget-whats-it-majiggie,” but to work in his vineyard. The first son refused, but then “changed his mind” and got to work. (The word translated as "changed his mind" in Matthew's original text, written in Greek, is one of the common New Testament words for repented. To repent is to change one's mind about walking away from God and His will and to instead, seek to walk with God and in God's will.) The second son told his father that he would work in the vineyard, but then skipped out. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” Jesus asked those crowded around Him. Obviously, it was the son who changed his mind and did what his father asked of him.

The chief priests and the elders couldn’t have escaped understanding what Jesus was saying. They loved being seen as men of God, people who knew God and followed God. When they saw God face to face in Jesus though, they refused to follow Him. They refused to repent for sin. They refused to put their faith in Jesus and so have the life with God that only Jesus can give.

But when notorious sinners like tax collectors and prostitutes, people who had been saying no to God all their lives, heard John the Baptist’s call to repentance, did repent, heard Jesus’ call to surrendering faith and believed in Him.

Which of these two groups of people did the will of God?

Which of them saw that Jesus was and is “the way, and the truth, and the life”: those who honored Jesus with their mouths or those who gave Jesus their lives?

The answers to those questions are obvious.

But let me tell you the questions this gospel lesson forces me to ask myself.

First: Is there a disconnect between the faith I profess on Sunday mornings and the life I lead the rest of the week?

Second: If I really see Jesus as the Author of my life and the only One Who can give me life with God, life as it was meant to be lived, why do I so often live as though I didn’t see?

Here are some of the reasons I ask these questions:

I worry when I should pray.

I keep sinning when I should repent.

I observe when I should serve.

I lament over others’ sorry spiritual estate when I should be telling them about Jesus.

I watch TV when I should be reading God’s Word.

The chief priests and the elders talked a good game, but in truth, they preferred having authority over their own lives, rather than yielding authority to God. The second son in Jesus’ parable talked obedience, but he lived differently. Sometimes anyway, I can be just like them!

Our commitment to obedience to God is the measure not only of whether we see Jesus rightly, but also whether we will live in God’s kingdom.

If we see and follow Jesus as our Messiah King, we will seek to obey God. 

If we don’t see nor follow Jesus as our Messiah King, we will refuse to obey God, no matter what creeds, prayers, and songs we mouth on Sunday mornings.

A man once told me, “I believe in Jesus. But I have things I want to do that God doesn’t approve of. I’ll get right with God when I’m older.” Really?

When our congregation's friend, Carl, went to bed this past Monday night, he had no idea that he was close to drawing his last breaths on this earth. But, thank God, he went to bed that night believing in Jesus, seeking to follow Him faithfully, seeking to serve faithfully in His name. And the grief of his family is lightened in the knowledge that Carl is with the Lord in Whom he trusted.

Tomorrow on this earth is promised to nobody. The time to follow Jesus is now!

Jesus is calling us to hold nothing back from His lordship.

If we think that God’s rules for our marriage and sexual lives, our finances, our attitudes toward those who are different from us, or the ways we use God’s name apply to others, but not to us, we walk away from God. 

If we think that Jesus has only set super-saints free to believe in Him, love their neighbors, move mountains with mustard seed prayers, or fight for justice, then we really don’t see Jesus as our God and Messiah.

Faith is seen in our willingness to obey when Jesus says to repent and to obey too, when Jesus says to believe in Him and trust in His grace.

In this life, our obedience will never be perfect. That's why it's so important to live in a relationship of daily repentance and renewal with the God revealed in Jesus. We don't want to wander from Him, allowing sin to capture us and drive a wedge between our saving God and us. We want to have His forgiveness, grace, and power working in our lives today. We want to be ready to face eternity and live in His kingdom always.

I was struck this past week during my quiet time by 1 John 2:3-5: “We know that we have come to know [God] if we keep his commands. Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them…”

Let’s not lose sight of the obvious: That the Lord Who died and rose from the grave can give us new and everlasting lives and He alone deserves to have full authority over our lives.

May our lives be marked by faith in and obedience to the God we know in Jesus. 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).

Jesus Means Freedom

Matthew 4:12-25
Last week, I mentioned a dialog I had with a group of atheists on Twitter. I didn't mention the comment of one tweeter that particularly caught my attention. The person said: “Christianity requires faith in an absurd dictatorial system that defies all sense.”

What interests me about that comment is that it has nothing to do with whether God exists or not. The person who wrote it was saying, “I’m not interested in Christianity because to be a Christian means submitting to the lordship of Jesus Christ.” In essence, the person was writing, “I don’t want anyone bigger than me telling me what to do.”

Well, neither do I!

The fact is that you don’t have to be an atheist to feel that way.

It’s what the devil felt and why he’s been in rebellion against God all these millennia.

It’s what Adam and Eve felt, wanting to “be like God.”

It’s what we all feel, believers and unbelievers alike, when we’re tempted by sin or rationalize our ways to committing sin despite the witness of God’s law written on our hearts [Romans 2:15].

The truth is that none of us wants anyone bigger than us telling us what to do. We want freedom. (Or at least what we call freedom.) We want to be our own bosses.

So, why would anyone follow Jesus?

The answer to this question is as mysterious and wonderful and, ultimately, as plain and compelling as Jesus Himself, I think.

We see some of that answer in today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 4:12-25. The events it recounts occurred immediately after Jesus had been tempted in the wilderness. At the outset of our lesson, we’re told that after John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus went to the region of Galilee, then left Nazareth, the town in which He was raised, and settled in another Galilean town, Capernaum. Capernaum was a seaside place, now known as Tel Hum. The entire region is part of the inheritance of two of ancient Israel’s tribes, Zebulun and Naphtali, from which the Old Testament prophet Isaiah said “the light of the world” would dawn on the world.

It’s interesting that God decided that the light of the Messiah should initially be revealed there. It was looked down upon by the good religious folks of Judea because its residents came in frequent contact with Gentiles, non-Jews. But by beginning here, God was signaling that the Son of God, Jesus, hadn’t come just for Jews. He came for all people, including you and me.

In verse 17 of our lesson, Matthew gives a summary of what Jesus was about: “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”

That was the message. It still is.

It’s a message that Jesus delivered in more than just words. It still must be.

Jesus came to call the world to turn from sin so that they could be part of the kingdom of heaven He brings to those who trust in Him...

• Trust in Him more than they trust in their own judgment.
• Trust in Him more than they trust in their own feelings.
• Trust in Him more than they trust in anyone or anything else.

So, my atheist correspondent was right in one sense: To trust in Jesus is to submit to a King Who is bigger than us.

This may not seem like such a compelling offer. Yet, as we’ll see, there were people--seemingly self-sufficient, enterprising, successful people--willing to turn from their sins and turn away from whatever else they were doing in life in order to follow Jesus.

Verse 18: “As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

Please, just because you’ve read or heard these verses a million times, don’t overlook the enormity of what’s recounted. Here are Simon and Andrew, working at the family fishing business. Fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were guaranteed a steady income. The constant stream of Gentiles traveling along the international trade route that passed through their territory would always be looking for fish to cook, as would the natives of Galilee, for whom fish was a diet staple. Why on earth would Simon and Andrew leave such a sure thing to follow Jesus to God-knows-where? And then there are James and John, two fishermen so well off that the Gospel of John tells us that they had servants. But when Jesus called them, “immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

There is no way that Simon, Andrew, James, or John could know what awaited them.

They didn’t know that this Man Who called them was God-in-the-flesh.

They didn’t know that He would be crucified.

They didn’t know that they would be crucified or executed for their faith in Jesus.

Nor could they see the glory and eternal life that awaits all who trust Jesus with their sins and their lives.

And they couldn’t see all that they would end up doing to tell others that, in Jesus Christ, “the kingdom of heaven” had drawn near to all people and that all they needed to do to become part of it was repent and believe in Christ.

They just followed. But why?

Verse 23: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.”

Matthew records that as time went on, Jesus performed fewer miracles and focused more on speaking His message. But at the beginning of His ministry He performed many miracles. And all of them--the healings, driving out demons, relieving people of pain, removing paralysis from dead limbs--were also part of His message.

And the message was simple: This Jesus had absolute control over life, death, and the elements of the universe; this Jesus was and is God and because He is God, He can give what only God can give, new life.

Undoubtedly, as they saw these miracles, many people asked each other questions similar to the one that the disciples would later ask after they’d watched Jesus calm a storm that threatened to kill them: “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!" (Matthew 8:27)

What kind of man is this who can send demons packing?

What sort of person is this who can erase pain, remove death, destroy leprosy?

Those who came to follow Jesus did so because, by His words, His actions, His life, and ultimately, His death and resurrection, came to know that He was more than a man. As Simon Peter would later say to Jesus: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)

When Simon, Andrew, James, and John first followed, they didn’t know what that might entail for their lives, but they did know that they wanted Jesus, they wanted life with Him.

Most people in first century Judea didn’t want Jesus as their Lord, of course. That’s why they crucified Him.

But even then, the power of God over life and death and the universe are such that Jesus could not be kept dead. As Peter would later say: “it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” (Acts 2:24) He rose on Easter, demonstrating that faith in Him is not in vain, that God will have the last word, and that all who repent and trust in Christ will live with Him forever.

But what about our freedom? When Simon, Andrew, James, and John followed Jesus, did they give up their freedom forever? Yes. And no.

They gave up the freedom to do whatever their sinful natures dictated to them, to shaft whoever they wanted to shaft, to desecrate themselves and their worlds in the selfish pursuit of worldly happiness...and all worldly happiness has an expiration date on it that will come at the grave, usually before.

But they also gained a greater freedom. In following Jesus, we are set free from sin, death, and pointless lives.

We are set free to live life with the love, abandon, fearlessness, hope, and purpose, now and in eternity, for which we were made.

In Jesus, the God Who made us in His image, frees us to move toward lives that reflect the specifications and purposes for which He made us.

He sets us free to be human: to live, to think, to love, and to be all that God created us to be.

Martin Luther put it like this in his famous essay on Christian freedom: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all, subject to all.”

When, some time ago, our own Georgeann sensed God telling her that she needed to begin planning a weekend retreat for the women of Living Water and their friends, she thought of all sorts of reasons for not doing it. But God kept insisting.

Was Georgeann exercising freedom when she said yes to God’s call? Absolutely!

You see, when God gets His way with us, it isn’t to enslave us, it’s to set us free to do and be exactly what, deep in our hearts and souls, we know we are meant to do and be and long to do and be. The German Lutheran theologian, Ernst Kasemann, summed up the truth simply. “Jesus," he said, "means freedom.”

This is why people followed Jesus in Galilee.

It’s why we follow Him still.

It’s why we are Christ’s disciples today.

In following Jesus, disciples do give up control of their lives.

But unlike the other things to which we might give our lives in this world, Jesus gives us life back: a life filled with God’s love, God’s power, God’s promise, and the freedom to become exactly what God intended for us to be when He formed us in our mothers’ wombs.

May we grow in our discipleship as we live in the freedom of Christ’s lordship over our lives. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was shared during worship this morning.]