Being Sheep

[Below is the message shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, yesterday, November 26. You'll also find live stream video of both worship services.]

Matthew 25:31-46

I’m going to do a risky thing as I begin this sermon: I’m going to tell you what it’s all about at the beginning, taking the chance that you’ll just check out and not listen to the whole thing.

The bottom line message Jesus gives in today’s Gospel lesson is summed up in words spoken several decades after Jesus died, rose, and ascended. They were spoken by two early Christian evangelists, the apostle Paul and his colleague, Silas.

Silas and Paul had been thrown into prison because of their faith in Jesus. God caused an earthquake–what someone has called the first “jailhouse rock”--and the prison’s cell doors flew open.

For the jailer this was very bad news. Roman law said that if a jailer lost any of his charges, he would be executed. Fearing that his prisoners would escape, the jailer was about to take his own life, when Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We’re all here.”

The jailer then asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…” (Acts 16:31)

Jesus and the apostles to whom He first entrusted this message shared it over and over: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…”

We need to hear this message because, as Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel lesson, there will come a point when He will return as King of all. He’ll no longer be lowly, demeaned, condemned Jesus, the poor man from Nazareth. This is the One Who, because He humbled Himself to take the death sentence you and I deserve for sin, has now been raised and given “the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9), the One Who, after dying and rising, then ascended to heaven and “sat down at the right hand of God.” (Hebrews 10:12)

When Christ the King comes back to us, He will raise the dead and judge all people. As Jesus says of Himself, “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” (Matthew 25:32-33) Jesus, Christ the King, will judge every human being who has ever lived on this earth.



As one Lutheran preacher has said, there will be no escaping Jesus then. The moment Jesus returns, the old universe will be destroyed. We will stand before Jesus, some set by Jesus to His left, others set by Him to His right. And what is it that will determine the side from which we view Jesus? What will decide if we stand with the goats sent to hell and eternal condemnation or with the sheep in the eternal new heavens and the new earth with Christ the King? It will all depend on where we stand with Jesus in this life.

The question will be, “Have we believed in Him or not?” As the preacher in the New Testament book of Hebrews tells us: “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

It is by faith–belief–in Jesus that we will be able to enter into eternity with God, freed of death, sin, and futility.

This may seem too good to be true. We think that we should certainly have to do something good, be someone good, to gain a place in Christ’s Kingdom.

But when Jesus was once asked point-blank: “What must we do to do the works God requires?,” He said, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent. [That is, to believe in Jesus.]” (John 6:28-29)

So, what do we make of what happens in today’s gospel lesson? Does it seem that King Jesus is welcoming some into His Kingdom because they served Him by serving the hungry, the thirsty, the one needing clothes, the one who was sick, the one who was in prison, while the goats are sent to hell for failing to do these things?

If that’s what Jesus is doing or saying, we all have reason to be frightened.

Can any of us say we have always cared for others in need?

Can any of us claim that we have always kept the Sabbath day and honored God’s Word?

Can we say with a straight face that we have never gossiped or murdered others by our thoughts or words?

Can we say we’ve always been chaste in our words and actions, always honored our parents and others in authority, never stolen or craved what belongs to others?

If none of us can lay claim to these things and our life with Christ depends on lives of perfect love and service, we’re all in trouble. It won’t do any good for us to stand before God on the day of Christ’s return and say, “I was pretty good, Lord.”

God’s Word is clear: “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (James 2:10) Only the righteous will enter eternity.

That’s where Jesus comes in. He gives His righteousness to unrighteous people like you and me, He makes sinners into saints, goats into sheep, when they believe in Him. “Righteousness,” the Word of God says, “is given through faith [belief] in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” (Romans 3:22)

Jesus has told us that “Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.” (Matthew 7:17) Jesus is saying that those made good, righteous, through believing in Him will do righteous things. They will love the unlovable, serve those who cannot repay, clothe and feed those in need, even forgive the unforgivable.

But they will only do these things because, through faith in Christ, He lives within them.

Many of the good things that believing people do, they’re hardly aware of doing or don’t think of them as particularly good deeds. This is why the sheep ask Jesus today, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’” (Matthew 25:37-39)

Effectively, they tell Jesus, “We don’t remember anything good we ever did. We weren’t paying attention to what we were doing. We only remember daily turning from our sin, turning to You for forgiveness and help, and keeping a lookout for You.”

The sheep, believing in Jesus and living in daily repentance and renewal, simply do what good God gives them to do–for their family, friends, neighbors, and strangers–along the way. Those made righteous by faith in Jesus just follow Jesus and Jesus, living in them, does the “good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)

“Fine, pastor,” you say, “we’re saved by believing in Jesus. Every Lutheran knows that. But sometimes, I don’t think I believe.”

Friends, your faith doesn’t depend on your feelings, because our feelings change all the time. Sometimes, Ann feels really good about the guy to whom she’s been married for forty-nine years; other times, like when I’m being a hard head or affecting a condescending tone, not so much.

And faith doesn’t depend on your thoughts. Our thoughts can wander all over the place.

Let’s be clear: Faith isn’t something we do.

You can’t generate belief internally.

Faith is a gift God gives to you from outside yourself by simple means: the Word that is preached and the Word that is given to you in the Sacraments.

So, if your faith is weak, keep receiving His Gospel Word, keep receiving His body and blood, keep confessing your sins and receiving his forgiveness along with His people, even when there’s a pastoral vacancy at your church.

Receive Jesus today and always, even when your faith is weak, even when nothing makes sense.

You have this promise from our Lord, “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” (John 6:37) When you come to Jesus in repentance and whatever faith you have, He will never drive you away!

When you receive this Word Jesus gives to you, He will give you all the faith you need for the day. Faith for each day to those who live in daily repentance and faith is part of what Jesus teaches us to ask for in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

You can trust Jesus’ promise to never drive away those who want Him and know with certainty that you belong to Him now and for all eternity.

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…” Amen

[The insights of Dr. Steve Paulson and of the late Bo Giertz were important in the preparation of this message. I'm grateful.]

The New Testament Book of James, Part 6

[This is the sixth and final installment of our Facebook Live Bible study of the New Testament book of James. It's also the last of these studies I will do as pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. I'm retiring on December 31. I do intend to do more online studies, maybe a podcast or two, in retirement. We'll see what God has in mind. Watch for announcements.]

Ruth and Jonah (Midweek Lenten Worship, Part 2)

[Here's video from the live stream of this evening's midweek Lenten worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Also, you'll find the text of tonight's message.]

Ruth 3-4

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus creates a word picture of the final judgment of humanity. In this parabolic rendering, the goats are those condemned to eternal separation from God. The sheep are those invited to claim their inheritance in God’s Kingdom.

Jesus commends the sheep for all the wonderful things they’ve done. But the sheep spend three verses saying, “We don’t remember doing any of that stuff!” Had the sheep in Jesus’ account of the judgment thought their good works had something to do with their eternal salvation, they wouldn’t say that. They would have been keeping score. In essence though, they ask Jesus,“Good works? What good works?”

Good works are not the ticket to life with God. Jesus says, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29) But something happens in the lives of those who believe in God. When we receive the gift of faith in the God now revealed to everyone in Jesus, faith being a gift that comes to us not by our works but by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God, we become, in a new way, “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10) Even our good works are things God has set up and we just walk in them.

All of which brings us to our Bible lesson for tonight, Ruth 3-4. We ended the message last week with two widows: Ruth and Naomi. Ruth is a Moabite who insists on going with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem, in Israel. Ruth does this both out of devotion to the God of Israel in Whom she has come to believe and to care for her mother-in-law.

In chapter two of Ruth, which we’re skipping tonight, Ruth finds work helping with the barley harvest on the farm of a man named Boaz. Boaz is  a distant relative of Naomi’s late husband, Elimelech. Boaz notices Ruth is a hard-worker and knowing that she’s devoted to God and devoted to Naomi, her mother-in-law, takes care to ensure that Ruth has food she can share with Naomi and that she isn’t harmed while working for him. (More on that in a moment.)

The harvesting of barley involved taking the grain to a threshing floor. A threshing floor sat on top of a hill, composed of an area about thirty-feet wide, the floor made up of soil ground down flat. West winds, the prevailing winds, were strong during the day. But at sunset, the winds, still going, would die down enough to allow for the threshing to begin. The first step was to lead animal-drawn wagons over the grain set on the threshing floor. This would burst the grain open and allow for the second step. In this step, men used shovels to scoop up grain and toss it in the air. The unwanted chaff was blown away, while the usable grain remained. This work went on late into the night. It involved only men, the women being sent away for their safety. And there was a reason for that. Threshing floors were notorious settings of men who took advantage of women. When the crop has been picked, Ruth tells Naomi how well she’s been treated. Naomi is delighted because she knows and respects the older Boaz, an honorable man.

That brings us to chapter three. “My daughter,” Naomi tells her daughter-in-law, Ruth, “I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for.” (Ruth 3:1)

Under God’s Law, Ruth was under no obligation to play the matchmaker for Ruth or to concern herself with Ruth’s future. No more than Ruth was obligated under God’s Law to commit herself to following the God of Israel, Yahweh, or caring for Naomi. But when God has gifted you with faith and, by grace, made you one of his saints, the question is no longer, “What do I have to do to please God?” but “What do I get to do as I interact each day with my neighbors, including the neighbors under my own roof?” According to Saint Paul, we can have the same mind in us that Christ Jesus had. Although He was God, Jesus didn’t exploit His deity, but became a servant for our good. When, through faith, we know we belong to God forever, we can make the business of others–their needs and interests–our business. I love what Martin Luther says: “God doesn’t need your good works. But your neighbor does.”

So, Naomi concocts a plan, drawing on two interrelated civil laws of the Jews.

One is that of the guardian-redeemer. When a man died without heirs, the nearest male relative could act as guardian-redeemer, ensuring that the deceased man’s birthright will remain with the extended family and tribe as originally assigned by God.

The other law was levirate marriage. This required that the next available bachelor son marry his brother’s widow and that the first son born to that union would become heir to the dead man’s property.

Naomi has Ruth bathe, perfume, and clothe herself like a woman no longer in mourning, like one, in fact, dressed as a bride. Ruth is to go silently to the threshing floor, waiting for Boaz to complete the harvesting and have his dinner and then, entering after all the men have gone to sleep, uncover his feet so that the by-now gentle breeze of the night would soon wake him. In the meantime, Ruth is to lie down at his feet, dressed as a bride.

If this all sounds a little racy, you should know that, in the original Hebrew, this chapter of Ruth is filled with innuendo and double-entendres. That’s because threshing floors, where men spent the night working, many got drunk, and all fell asleep to guard the crops from theft, were notorious for seduction and rape. But here, we’re to compare and contrast because Ruth and Boaz, despite all of the opportunities, behave honorably.

So Ruth follows Naomi’s instructions and when the startled Boaz awakens, she says, “I am your servant Ruth. Spread the corner of your garment over me [a phrase that means, ‘Be my husband.’], since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.” (Ruth 3:9) Ruth is asking Boaz both to be her husband (which is pretty forward in that culture) and to act as guardian-deemer to care for Naomi. Like Ruth and Naomi, Boaz didn’t have to do what he does next; but he too, is a person of faith, for whom the love of others isn’t odious.

Boaz goes to the village gate, where judicial and civil proceedings are hammered out by the men of the community, establishing that the next-in-line male who had first-dibs on redeeming Elimelech’s property isn’t interested in buying the property if it means he also has to marry Ruth. He’s, afraid that his property would go to Elimelech’s heir if he marries Ruth. You know how the story ends. Boaz marries Ruth and takes care of Naomi. Later, Ruth and Boaz have their first child, Obed, the father of Jesse, and the grandfather of David, Israel’s greatest king. It’s into David’s family line that eleven centuries later, according to the plan and the promise of God, the Savior of the world, Jesus is born in Bethlehem.

From the beginning, God has had a plan and He uses grief-stricken people, imperfect people, people just looking ahead to the next step, to do His work in the world.

There are three main things to mention about what we see in this remarkable book.

First, of course, is that Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz do way more than God or anyone would require of them. They act with what the Hebrew of the Old Testament calls hesed, a word is often translated as mercy or covenantal steadfastness. But it might better be rendered as merciful fidelity. God is the initiator of His merciful covenants with Israel and the Church and believers and that same attitude of merciful fidelity is played out in the lives of those who trust in Him. Faithful to God, living in His grace, Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz are set free to love God as they know God has loved them. They knew that by God’s grace through faith, they were part of God’s people and were free to live lives of unstinting love. “​​This is love,” the New Testament teaches, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

The second thing to mention is that God welcomes outsiders into His kingdom. He even uses outsiders to accomplish His purposes. Boaz was the son of Salmon and Rahab. Rahab, you’ll remember, was the Canaanite prostitute from Jericho, who, like Ruth, came to believe in the God of the ancient Israelites and helped them take that city when God gave them the land. Ruth was a descendant of Lot and his daughters who got their father drunk and tricked him into getting them pregnant. It was into the family descending from these two imperfect “foreigners” that the King of the Jews and the Savior of the world was born. If Jesus could be entrusted to such an unpromising lineage, He can also give us the gift of saving faith in God the Son, Jesus. No matter how far we have wandered from God. No matter how imperfect we are. No matter how much we may feel like an outsider.

The third thing to notice is that Boaz, the guardian-redeemer, foreshadows the guardian-redeemer God provides to all of us born with no claim on life with God. Like Boaz, who took Ruth as His bride, Jesus has come into this world to take His Church, the fellowship of repentant believers in Him, as His bride. Jesus died and rose to make us heirs of His grace. Infinitely and eternally more than Boaz, Jesus redeems us, not with money, but with His own sinless life offered on a cross. The faith and lives of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz, empowered to love by the God of love, help us see what kind of God we worship. But, if we want to know where their love came from, we look to Jesus, God the Son, the God Who empowers us to live, confident in His grace and forgiveness, and to love others as God loved us when He went to the cross. Amen

Freed from Greed

[This message was shared yesterday morning with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Luke 12:13-21

A few years ago, I watched an interview conducted by a talk show host with a musician. “I’ve never understood what was so bad about greed,” the musician said. “Neither have I,” the talk show host agreed. The talk show host agreed with greed.

I think that most people would do the same. They may not feel comfortable with overt expressions of greed, like the character in the old movie Wall Street, who said, “Greed is good.” But their behaviors and attitudes speak volumes. 

A woman I knew was dying. Her daughter sat down beside her deathbed and said, in what was to be their final conversation on this earth, “Mom, if you’ve got any money hidden, you’d better tell us where it is now.” (Isn’t that heartwarming? A real Hallmark moment.)

You’re familiar with the old quote, sometimes attributed to Henry Ford, other times to John D. Rockefeller, who was supposedly asked, “How much money does the average person need to get by these days?” The reply: “Just a little more.”

In today’s gospel lesson, Luke 12:13-21, Jesus underscores how destructive, how fatal greed is. 

Greed, the constant desire for “just a little more,” is a violation of the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods.” 

Jesus and God’s written Word don’t tell us to refrain from having ambitions in life. Christians are allowed ambitions. 

Paul’s ambition was to plant the gospel throughout the Gentile world. 

Martin Luther’s ambition was to reform the Church and set people free from sin and darkness with the gospel word about Jesus. 

The ambition of Gregor Mendel, a monk, was to understand how God engineered life, becoming the father of modern genetics. 

William Wilberforce set out to see slavery outlawed in the British Empire and it happened, thirty years before it happened in America and without a Civil War. 

Mother Teresa’s ambition was to serve the dying in Calcutta. 

There’s nothing wrong with the ambition to maximize the talents and gifts God has given to us. 

And there's nothing wrong with the ambition to take care of our families. 

These are all holy, God-blessed, and I would say, God-prompted, ambitions.
And, it should be said that human beings are ambitious by nature. It’s part of how God made us. 

“Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it,” God told the human race at our creation. “Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 

God made us co-conspirators with Him in nurturing and, where needed, making better the life of the world, in the power of His love and grace. That is an ambitious undertaking! 

But when our ambitions revolve around self-worship or the worship of the things of this dying world, they become expressions of greed, false gods, tickets to hell. 

Greed is rooted in fear. 

Fear that the God Who provides daily bread won’t provide it for us. 

Fear that the Christian message that this world isn’t all there is to life is untrue. 

Fear that the God Who promises to be with us always will abandon us. 

Fear that the God Who promises an eternal world to those who trust in Jesus won’t come through and that we need to grab for the good things we can enjoy in this world.

Greed is rooted in fear. Jesus warns us against in today’s gospel lesson. 

Let’s take a look at it, starting at verse 13: “Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’”

Jesus has been teaching the crowd about the Kingdom of God, the eternal kingdom that belongs to all baptized believers in the crucified and risen Jesus. In the previous twelve verses of Luke, chapter 12, Luke tells us that Jesus: 

• warned the disciples about the false teachings of the Pharisees;
• encouraged them to live without fear, knowing that every human life is precious in God’s eyes, so valuable that Christ came to die and rise to set all who trust in Him free of sin and death;and 
• told them--and us--that we must fearlessly and publicly follow Him, Jesus, as our Savior, and not keep our faith hidden from the world.

But there’s a guy in the crowd who clearly isn’t interested in learning about being part of God’s eternal kingdom. He has something that he considers to be “more important,” "more practical," than having a life with God. He wants Jesus to be the mediator between his brother and himself in a family squabble over their father’s will. The man in the crowd wants Jesus to use His authority in the best way the man can imagine, to line the man's pockets. 

Greed, you see, makes us forget what’s important. It makes us chase the things that are here today and gone tomorrow, rather than following Jesus for life with God that never ends.

Verse 14: “Jesus replied, ‘Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you? Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’” (Luke 12:14-15)

Jesus' response here is ironic. 

We know, of course, that Jesus is the judge of the world. 

That’s the point of His portrayal, in Matthew 25:31-46, of the final judgment in which Jesus the King separates the sheep from the goats. 

And we’re told in 1 Timothy 2:5, “...there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus…” 

Jesus Christ is the judge and mediator of the universe. But the man in the crowd in our lesson is only interested in using Jesus to get what he wants. If we were to boil his request of Jesus down to a prayer petition, it would be something like, “Lord, my will be done.” 

But Jesus tells him and the crowd that life, the gift of God to those who believe, doesn’t come to those who set their ultimate ambitions on the things of this world. “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” 

Jesus' words echo those He spoke to Martha, the anxious hostess greedy not for money but for attention, affirmation, and compliments, resentful of the different role to which God was calling her sister Mary. “‘Martha, Martha,’ [Jesus told her], “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42) 

In today's gospel lesson, Jesus effectively tells yet another resentful sibling, “Choose life over death. Choose life with God over death by things.”

To undergird His point, Jesus then tells one of His parables. 

You know it well. A man is blessed with a particularly fertile piece of land. It grows so abundant a harvest that the farmer has no idea where he’s going to store all of it. (This was obviously in the days before those sprawling self-storage units you see everywhere today.) The farmer decides to build bigger grain silos to store it all, take care of himself for life, and then just chill, happily self-sufficient, happily heedless of the will of God or the needs of others. “But God said to him, [Jesus tells us] ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’” (Luke 12:20) Someone was paraphrasing Jesus here when she or he famously said, “There won’t be a U-Haul trailer hitched to the hearse when they take your earthly remains to the cemetery.”

The things of this world, including money and stuff, will not bring us life. And when the call of greed takes hold in our lives, nothing we do, nothing we own, nothing in our investment portfolios or bank accounts, will ever be enough. Greed will compel us to want “just a little more.” God, the life He offers through Christ, and other people will be crowded out of our lives and our concerns. Jesus says: “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:21) 

Greed is a killer, a creation of Satan designed to make us think that the God we know in Jesus Christ isn’t enough. That is a lie.

There is a better way to live. God has created it for us in Jesus Christ. It’s the life of certainty and security in God’s love and provision, the life of freedom to love God and love neighbor and to share with one another, the life that Jesus makes possible for those who trust in Him, for those who daily fall into His arms and seek God’s will for our lives. 

We can live in the kingdom of God, no longer viewing life as a zero-sum game where if someone else gets more, I get less. 

In the kingdom of God, we know that in the God we meet in the crucified Jesus, there will always be “daily bread” and there will be more grace, love, and security than we can imagine, in Jesus’ words, “good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over” (Luke 6:38). 

Jesus gives those who trust in Him so much of Himself that their lives can be spent in finding ways to share our blessings, not hoarding them!

As God’s ancient Hebrew people were about to enter the land He had promised them, God told the people: “...This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life…” (Deuteronomy 30:19). 

Each day, as we come to God in repentance and faith in Jesus, we choose life. We choose God’s kingdom over our greed and over all of our sins. We choose to rest in God’s grace rather than stewing in the anxiety and futility of self-worship.

One New Testament scholar says this of Jesus’ words to us today, “The kingdom of God is, at its heart, about God’s sovereignty sweeping the world with love and power, so that human beings, each made in God’s image and each one loved dearly, may relax in the knowledge that God is in control.” 

That’s Jesus’ message for us today: Relax and live in His grace. Amen


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