A Place of Refuge

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

Luke 13:31-35
At the end of last Sunday’s gospel lesson, which recounted Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness, we were told, “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time (Luke 4:13).” 

Today’s gospel lesson, Luke 13:31-35, tells about one of the times the devil deemed “opportune” for tempting Jesus away from His mission of saving us. Here, the devil uses at least one human being, a corrupt and murderous king focused on neither God or faith in God, focused instead on fear and evil, to tempt Jesus.

Jesus has been teaching, casting out demons, and healing the sick in Galilee, when Luke tells us, “At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, ‘Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.’” (Luke 13:31)

Students of the New Testament aren’t sure about the motives of this particular group of Pharisees. The Pharisees, as you know, were a sect of Judaism, who believed in a more literal interpretation of the Old Testament, a strict adherence to Old Testament law, and the resurrection of the dead. Although Jesus had run-ins with many of the Pharisees, their views were closer to those Jesus taught than were those of the Sadducees. The Pharisees weren't altogether bad, as they're sometimes stereotyped to be. The apostle Paul, for example, described himself as a Pharisee all his life, though he followed Christ and offended many Pharisees by insisting that human beings cannot make themselves acceptable to God by fulfilling God’s law, but only by entrusting our lives by faith in Jesus (Acts 23:6; Romans 3:21-26). The Pharisees here then, could have wanted to frighten Jesus, maybe even have been working with Herod. Or they may have had genuine concern for Jesus. We don’t know.

But we do know what they tell Jesus: “Herod wants to kill you.” 

Now, this is not the same Herod who was king when Jesus was born. That Herod, Herod the Great, was a thug put on the throne by the Romans who already had conquered the Jews and found it convenient to have local puppets, with some power, to make their rule a bit more acceptable to the conquered people. When Herod the Great died, his “kingdom” was split into smaller areas overseen by Herod’s sons, who were also thugs. (It was a family thing. Can you imagine what Thanksgivings were like with that brood?) 

The Herod in our gospel lesson today ruled over Galilee, the region in which Jesus grew up. Herod kept a palace in Jerusalem, where one of this brothers was the local puppet king, presumably so that he could suck up to the Roman governor, at this time Pilate, and make sure his brothers didn’t get an advantage over him. This is the Herod who beheaded John the Baptist. 

Although he expressed an interest in watching Jesus perform a miracle, he also wouldn’t have hesitated to have Jesus killed if he thought Jesus posed a threat to him. 

The Herods were all murderous goons like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Bashar al-Assad, and Mohammed bin Salman today.

What would we do if we lived in Russia, North Korea, Syria, or Saudi Arabia and learned that the thugs ruling those countries wanted to kill us? Speaking for myself, I would be tempted to save my life by running the other way. 

But, Jesus didn’t come into this world to save Himself; He came into this world to save you and me from sin, death, darkness, and futility by dying on the cross at a day and time of God’s choosing. The preacher in Hebrews says of Jesus, “For the joy set before him [that is, the joy of having us live in God’s eternal kingdom] he endured the cross, scorning its shame...” (Hebrews 12:2) 

The devil was using the Pharisees to tempt Jesus from going to the cross for you and me. “Stay away from Jerusalem,” the devil was telling Jesus through the Pharisees. “Don’t make waves and you won’t get hurt.” But Jesus came to “seek and save” those lost in sin and death (Luke 19:10) and was resolutely headed for Jerusalem and death on a cross for us (Luke 9:51), whether the devil, the Pharisees, or anyone else wanted it to happen or not! Jesus would not be deterred from giving His fulfilling His for you and me! We must not be deterred from following Him!

And so we’re told in verses 32 and 33: “He [Jesus] replied, ‘Go tell that fox, “I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal. In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!”’”

God’s book, the Bible, of course, teaches that God is the one who establishes governments and that Christians are to be respectful of governments and prayerful for leaders. God instituted government because most people will not voluntarily accede to Christ's Lordship over their lives. Without governments, Martin Luther said, Christians would live in this world as lambs among ravenous wolves. 

But the Bible also teaches that we are to stand against anyone, including leaders, when they try to thwart the will of God. 

• The Hebrew midwives refused to obey the Egyptian Pharaoh’s orders that they kill the Hebrew baby boys the moment they were born By refusing to do so, Moses was allowed to be born and God would later use Moses to lead His people to the promised land. (Exodus 1:15-19)
• Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to obey the Persian king’s orders that they worship idols and worshiped God alone (Daniel 6:10-28; Daniel 3). 

If governments or leaders ask us to be part of something we know is against God’s will, it’s our obligation as disciples of Jesus to follow Christ and not the government. 

Paul writes in Romans, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

Jesus refers to Herod as “that fox.” In Jesus’ time, foxes were seen as dangerous and evil, but not very bright. This is how Jesus sees Herod. 

“You tell that fox that I will keep doing my mission no matter if He thinks He can kill me off,” Jesus is saying. 

The phrase “today and tomorrow and on a third day” which Jesus uses here was a common Aramaic expression. It meant that Jesus was going to do what He came to the world to accomplish. But it’s also not hard to see in the words “the third day,” Jesus’ promise that when He was raised from the dead on Easter Sunday, it would be confirmation of the victory for us that He won on Good Friday!

Now, Jesus shifts gears. He thinks of Jerusalem. Verse 34: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”

Jesus’ repetition of, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” was a common way to express sorrow. 

When my great-grandmother lay dying, she looked above her and called the name of a then-deceased brother who had loved Jesus. She then turned her head downward and said the name of a relative who had refused to follow Jesus. “John, John,” she said with sorrow in her voice as she shook her head. 

In our lesson, Jesus is lamenting the fact that because of Jerusalem’s hardness of heart, it had repeatedly refused the protection of God from sin, death, and the devil. Jesus would have gladly protected Jerusalem from the foxes--the devil and his earthly co-conspirators, the Herods--and acted as a mother hen protecting her brood. But Jerusalem and God's people generally, had repeatedly chosen to go their own way (Isaiah 53:6; Acts 1:25).

Listen: Jesus wants to shelter you, your family, our congregation, our nation, and our world from the evil one.

I am convinced that if more Christians would run to take shelter in Jesus, if we would intentionally pray that our families, churches, and nations would come under Jesus’ lordship, and if we were bold and unapologetic in our witness for Christ, we would experience what the Bible calls “the peace of God, which transcends all understandings…” (Philippians 4:7).

That doesn’t mean that all our troubles will disappear. That will have to wait until we, like our Savior Jesus, have been raised from death to live in eternity with Him. But, in the power of Jesus, we can handle all that this world, its Herods, and the devil himself might throw at us. Under Jesus’ protective wings, we are “more than conquerors” and we belong to Him now and forever!

Verse 35: “[Jesus says] ‘Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” 

Here Jesus looks ahead to future events which, as God in the flesh, He sees with clarity. 

• First, He points to 70 AD, some four decades later, when His people will be decisively put down, the Temple destroyed, many people massacred. This would happen because Jesus’ fellow Jews refused to take shelter under His arms and instead took hope in armed rebellion against the Romans, in their own thinking. When we put our hope in anyone or anything other than the God revealed in Jesus Christ, we sow our own eternal destruction. 
• Second, Jesus points to Palm Sunday when He will be welcomed into Jerusalem with the words of Psalm 118:26. Jesus is telling the Pharisees that, unless they want to hang out with Him, He’s going to keep at His mission on earth and they won’t see Him until Palm Sunday when He comes to complete it.

For those of us who are baptized and who confess Jesus as God and Savior, it can be tempting to cave into the temptations to go along and get along: 

• to not speak the name of Jesus to others who don’t know Him and need Him as much as we do, 
• to not give of ourselves without thought of reward or recognition, 
• to not love God to love neighbor as we love ourselves, 
• to not love fellow believers sacrificially, 
• to give into the fear incited in us by the devil and this world’s foxes. 

But we follow a risen Savior Who has conquered everything that causes us fear. 

He was not bowed by Herod or the devil or death. 

And He’s still in business, still alive, still loving us. 

So, we need not fear:

• to speak His name to those who need Him
• to give of ourselves without thought of reward
• to love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves
• to love fellow believers sacrificially
• to take courage in Christ's name by the power of the Holy Spirit in all circumstances.

“As for God,” Psalm 18:30 tells us, “his way is perfect: The LORD's word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him.” 

You can trust in that!

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

THE Hope for Peace

[This message, for the First Sunday of Advent, was shared today with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Recently, a committed Christian, considering the tragedy, violence, and nastiness in the world and the upheaval in his own life, asked me, “Are there times when you wish Jesus would hurry and come back?” 

Yes, there are. 

I want Jesus to return and the dead to be raised. 

I want Jesus to bring an end to this sorry old, death-dealing planet.

I want Him to usher in the new heaven and the new earth in which the eyes of all will be fixed on God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the tears of everyone who has dared to believe in Jesus will be dried and we will live in peace with God, each other, ourselves, for all eternity. 

I want all of that very much!

Even secular, unbelieving people seem to yearn for some version of this new world that we know only Jesus can bring. On his LP released three months ago, Paul McCartney, sings this refrain, “People want peace / A simple release from their suffering / People want peace.”

This yearning isn’t new. 

In 587 BC, the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah sat in a prison in Jerusalem. His crime had been to tell the people of his homeland, the southern remnant of God’s people Israel, that they needed to repent for their sin and trust in God. (The God that all the world can now know in Jesus Christ.) 

The northern kingdom of God’s people, Israel (or Samaria) was already gone, eliminated by a hostile foreign power. 

And, now Judah, which itself had endured decades of domination by foreign powers, faced the same fate. 

Not because Judah hadn’t had a strong army. 

Not because Judah didn’t possess economic power. 

Judah had enjoyed these things. 

But, Jeremiah and other prophets told the people, their land would be taken from them because of their three abiding sins: idolatry, injustice, and materialism. (Does this sound familiar?) 

No people, no nation, no church, can long endure if it spits in the face of God through idolatry and the injustice, and materialism that results. 

Just a short time before Jeremiah committed the verses in our first lesson for today to paper, Judah had been under the dominion of the Assyrian Empire. Then the Egyptians chased the Assyrians out. Then the Egyptian Empire crumbled and for a brief period, Judah had enjoyed independence and freedom. But even then, God’s people refused to turn from their sins and trust in God alone. While Jeremiah wrote down the new word God gave to him in prison, the renewed Babylonian Empire was near Jerusalem’s city gates. Jeremiah could probably hear the din of battle as he received the word of God. 

• Judah was going to be conquered. 
• God’s people would face the consequences of their rebellion against God. 
• Their land would be taken from them. 
• Their nation would die. 

Jeremiah had already warned the people of his homeland that it was naive for them to superstitiously cling to the bricks and mortar of the temple or the worthless words they offered up as "worship" to save them from destruction while refusing to let go of their sins and injustices to take hold of God as their only hope.

But as Jeremiah sat in the darkness of prison, he perceived the light of God bringing hope, not just to Judah, but to all the world. Beyond wars, sin, death, and heartache, God was going to bring something new and never-ending. God would (and will) bring everlasting peace to those who trust in Him. 

The Word given to Jeremiah in that prison cell includes our first lesson for this first Sunday in Advent, a Sunday on which we at Living Water have chosen to remember that even as we await the advent, the coming return, of Jesus to our world, we wait in HOPE. 

So, take a look at our first lesson, Jeremiah 33:14-16. We’re going to read it from the English Standard Version, which gives a better and more literal translation than the New International Version here.

It begins: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” 

All of us know what it’s like to have someone break their promises to us. All of us know, if we’re honest, what it’s like to be the person who breaks promises to others. Promises broken, intentionally or unintentionally, make our relationships with each other painful and difficult. 

But God never forgets a promise. God always does what He sets out to do. 

Sometimes though, as is true of God's promise of sending His Son back into this world to usher in the Kingdom of God in its fullness, we have to wait. 

We can get impatient. 

We can begin to think that God doesn’t care or that maybe God isn’t even there. 

The coming of God on the first Christmas, born to a virgin in Bethlehem, should tell us that we can depend on God keeping His promises. 

His death for our sin and His resurrection to give us life should tell us that we can depend on God keeping His promises. 

But, in the world in which we live, it can be hard to wait for God to act--hard to wait for answers to our prayers, hard to wait for God to bring loved ones lost to Him back to faith, hard to wait for God to help those who are hurting, hard to wait for God to reconcile our relationships. 

But God has promised us in Jesus, “I am with you always to the close of the age." 

He has promised those who trust in Him, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.” 

He has promised that all who die believing in Him will live eternally with Him. 

And He has promised that not sin, not death, not the powers of this world, not anything can separate us from the God that comes to us through Jesus Christ. 

All of this is true even when God seems to be taking his good, sweet time. 

The apostle Peter says, “...do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:8-9) 

God never fails to keep a promise. 

And, God told Jeremiah--and through Jeremiah, us--that the promise of a peaceable eternal kingdom would come to pass. 

In the meantime, we’re to live in daily repentance and trust that the God we know in Jesus is giving us the time the world needs to come to know and believe in Jesus, the time we disciples need to tell the world about our Savior.

Our lesson continues: “In those days and at that time [we don’t know the days or the time, because as Jesus reminded us last Sunday, “about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32)], I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” 

Shortly after Jeremiah received these words from God, the descendants of David were stripped ot their throne and would never again sit on an earthly throne. But God had long before promised that a “son of David” would be the Messiah--God’s anointed, Savior King. God would make the impossible possible: A Savior born into the Davidic line, as Jesus was, when God the Father placed God the Son in the arms of his adoptive parents--Mary and Joseph, descended from David, would come into our world to make things right between God and sinners. 

When the Word became flesh, that is, when sinless God the Son, Jesus, came into this world, He did so with one purpose: To become the perfect offering for sin that no sinful human being--no ancient Israelite, not you, not me--could be and to win a not guilty verdict for those of us who are mired in sin from death. God makes us right through Jesus and our faith in Him. (Romans 3:23-24)

Back to our lesson, verse 16: “...In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” 

C.S. Lewis said, “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” 

Jeremiah and the other prophets didn’t go to God’s ancient people and say, “You’re bad; try to be good.” 

They said, “Your bad is growing worse because you’ve walked away from God. It's time for you to make it a habit to keep turning back to God so that He can displace your bad with His good! Only God can make you righteous." 

It’s the Lord alone who is righteous and He alone makes righteous those who are bad. It's the God we know in Jesus Who is our righteousness! 

This God revealed in Jesus has even been known to turn renegade atheists into grateful believers...and then make them into reluctant preachers.

We long for the peace that will only come to God’s creation when Jesus returns to this world. But if we rely on our own goodness to prepare for that day, we will regret it eternally. The peace that passes all understanding belongs only to those who trust in the God we meet in Jesus, who have given up on trying to prove themselves, given up on being models of religiosity, because those are sinful, self-worshiping enterprises. 

The peace that passes all understanding belongs, even now in the midst of this fallen, confounding world, only to those who, day by day, let Jesus be their Savior. These are the people who can face the stuff of this world and look for the day of Jesus’ return with hope. 

They hope--we hope--because believers know that it’s Jesus, the Messiah born of the Branch of David, Who IS our peace (Ephesians 2:13-14). 

Amen

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

Contentment and Going for Broke

I spend Quiet Time with God most mornings. (Quiet Time is explained here.) The focus of my time with God today was Genesis 10 and 11 and Psalm 4. God seemed to most speak to me in two verses from the Psalm. (If you would like help in starting your own Quiet Time with God for five days a week, let me know. I'll be glad to point you to resources that will help you do that.) Here's some of what I wrote in my journal today.

Look: The Psalm seems to begin with a plea from David to his people. Some scholars suggest that it was written as “David was asking his enemies to reconsider their support of Absalom” during Absalom’s rebellion against KIng David, his father. [Life Application Bible]

But then, a shift takes place. David talks about his own approach to life and, he can’t seem to help himself. He praises God:

“There are many who pray: ‘Give us more blessings, O Lord. Look on us with kindness!’ But the joy that you have given me is more than they will ever have with all their grain and wine.” (Psalm 4:6-7, Good News Translation)

David seems to be saying that he has learned contentment. He’s not always looking for more; he thanks God for what he has.

That’s easy enough for a king to say, I suppose. And given that David’s son, Absalom, is appealing to the people’s sense that David isn’t sharing enough, this statement by David may have landed like a lead balloon in the eyes of his opponents. Didn’t David understand their grievances? Probably. David probably also understood that this was a rebellion of elitists, of people like Henry Ford, who, when asked how much a man needed to live on, answered, “Just a little more.”

David is saying that what God has given to him, much of which could not be measured in material things, but in joy, is more than any of the craving rebels will ever have. You can have stuff, power, and success and still not be content, not have joy. Joy seems to not be happiness, but contentment that I have because I live in peace with God, a peace that passes understanding and a peace that never ends. My sins are forgiven. I have been made new (2 Corinthians 5:17). And God is walking with me through everything I experience in life (Psalm 23; Romans 8:31-39; Matthew 28:20).

Paul writes to believers in the New Testament: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7)

The risen Jesus tells His followers in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

It is this peace that I think David is talking about, a peace not dependent on outward circumstances, but on God alone.

Paul had that contentment, though, unlike David, he was far from wealthy or powerful: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” (Philippians 4:11)

Paul isn’t saying that he’s content with the circumstances he’s in (he was imprisoned at the time he wrote them), but that he’s content in the midst of whatever circumstances.

There’s a difference.

I think that David’s sentiments here in Psalm 4:6-7 are compatible with Paul’s from Philippians 4:11. David is trying to convince the rebels to lay down their arms. There is nothing wrong with followers of the God we know in Jesus wanting things: outcomes, situations, etc. But they view everything through the perspective of faith. What they want will not stop them from thanking God for the eternal relationship with Him they already have through faith in Christ. And not getting what they want will not destroy their faith.

Listen: Lord, I swing between wanting outrageous things that are clearly not in Your will, on the one hand, and giving up on asking You for anything, on the other.

Neither is faith: one is covetousness; the other is resignation. Both are sins, failures to trust in God as God.

I allow my thoughts and feelings to shape my faith and moods at any given time, rather than allowing myself to be shaped by what You teach in Your Word.

In John 16:24, Jesus says, “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”

To ask in Jesus’ name, as I have reminded people over the years (and which I need to constantly remind myself), doesn’t mean that Jesus’ name is a good luck charm that makes the request acceptable to God. That would be superstition and attempted manipulation of God.

John, who records Jesus words there, helps to clarify their meaning in his first letter: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” (1 John 5:14)

So, to pray in Jesus’ name is to ask God to grant our prayer request only if their consistent with the will, the character, and the intentions of the God we know in Jesus.

I take this as a license to go for broke: to ask for anything. But I also take it to mean that, when we sense from God’s Word or the promptings of His Spirit that the things we’re asking for aren’t in His plan, for whatever reason, that we will change our prayers.

Even when God says, “No,” that’s an answer to prayer.

And, as David reminds in this passage from Psalm 4, the joy God has given us by allowing us to be in relationship with Him is greater than all the good stuff this world has to offer.

And in Christ, we know that an eternity of perfection is in store for those who remain faithful in following Christ. Paul talks about this in 2 Timothy 4:8: “Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

There are some prayers though that we may pray for long years and even if there is no hint of improvement, we must keep praying them because we know that they are consistent with the will of God. This includes prayers like those in which we ask that God will send workers into the harvest so that new millions will come to faith in Christ (Matthew 9:38); that God will orchestrate the coming to faith of some prodigal we may know (Luke 15:11-32); and that God’s justice and mercy will come to all people (Micah 6:8), to name just a few. These are big prayers and there’s a lot of sin and bad habits and demonic opposition to the fulfillment of any of them. But when I know that something we pray for is in the will of God, I must not stop. Such persistence in praying--driven by love and not by selfishness--is one way I acknowledge the joy that God has given to me through Christ and that I want all people to experience.

Respond: Today, let me be intentional in thanking You for all Your blessings, most especially for Jesus. Help me pray for workers in the harvest; for justice for the oppressed--for blacks, the unborn, refugees, women, minorities around the world; for the return of prodigals who have left You; and for me to be a disciple-maker. In Jesus’ name.

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

Set Apart

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

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Advent is a season of anticipation. 

It recalls the centuries when God’s people anticipated the birth of the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Anointed One. 

In Advent, we also anticipate the coming of Christmas day. (Especially if you're about six or seven years old.)

But more than anything, Advent is a season in which we remind ourselves that we need to live each day in eager anticipation of Jesus’ return. 

One of the most ancient liturgical confessions of the Church is simply: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

Over the past two Sundays, the first two Sundays in Advent, we’ve talked about how to anticipate, how to wait, for the return of Jesus, how to get ready to meet Jesus, either at the ends of our own earthly lives or at the end of this world, when He will, as we confess each Sunday, “judge the living and the dead.” We’ve talked about preparing through daily repentance and daily renewal through the forgiveness God gives to those who trust in Christ as their only God and King.

But in today’s second lesson, the apostle Paul gives us a different way of looking at how to anticipate the coming of Jesus. It’s one I like a lot and it can all be summarized by a single word: sanctification. 

The word sanctification is rooted in a Latin word, sanctus, which means holy. The part of the traditional liturgy in which we sing, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God power and might, heaven and earth are full of Your glory…” is called the sanctus. 

The word holy means set apart, special, different. It could even be translated as weird, odd, not like other things.

This book is called the Holy Bible or Holy Book, because out of all the books in the world, this one is set apart. It is the Word of God. No other book can make that claim. 

Holy Baptism is set apart and different from any other baptism, including John the Baptist’s baptism, because Holy Baptism is set apart, the only baptism in which God’s Holy Spirit comes to live in the baptized. 

Holy Communion is unlike any other meal in which people have community with each other because in Holy Communion, we have communion with God, we receive the very body and blood of Jesus, and through it, God's forgiveness and life pulsing within us. 

Now, we’ve mentioned before what the Bible scholars call inclusios or inclusions. An important theme of a particular section of Scripture is underscored when a particular word or idea appears at its beginning and at its conclusion. That signals the reader that everything in between those two markers is about a single idea. These bookends form what they call “inclusions.” 

Pull out a sanctuary Bible, please, and turn to page 825 and then look at 1 Thessalonians 4:3. We’re not going to look at the whole verse right now, just the pertinent start of it. It says, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified…” 

Now, turn the page and look at a line that comes almost at the end of our second lesson for this morning, to chapter 5, verses 23. It says, in part, “May the God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through…”” 

So, the theme of this section of Paul’s first century letter to the Christians in the city of Thessalonica, including today’s second lesson is let God set you apart. 

Give God access to your heart, mind, and will so that He can make you over in Christ’s image. 

That’s God’s will for our lives, to make us more like the One Who died and rose to set us free from sin and death, set us free to be the people God had in mind when He formed us in our mothers’ wombs. 

We’re not supposed to look, act, sound like, or be like the rest of the world. We’re supposed to be set apart, different. 

In 1 Peter 2:11, we’re told, “...as foreigners and exiles...abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.” 

And in Romans 12:1-2, we’re told: “...in view of God’s mercy...offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

It turns out that being open to the process by which God sets us apart from the world and makes us over into Christ’s image is precisely the way we prepare to meet Jesus. 

But what does that process look like? 

Please take a look at our lesson, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 (page 826 in the sanctuary Bibles). Paul writes: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 

Can you imagine anything harder than fulfilling the three imperatives that Paul gives in this one verse? 

"Rejoice always"? 

Even when the gift I’ve been unable to find at the first five stores also isn’t at the sixth? 

Even when my child is in the intensive care unit, his life hanging in the balance? 

Even when I’ve lost my wife or my husband? 

I think that we react in this way often because we don’t understand the difference between joy and happiness. (I know this is hard for me to remember!) 

Happiness is about the things that happen to us: We laugh at a joke, win the lottery, meet a friend. 

Joy is that deep in the bone sense of contentment that comes from knowing that because Jesus Christ died and rose and still lives and because I believe in Him, I have the forgiveness of my sins and life with God forever. 

Happiness happens to us because of our circumstances; joy is ours in spite of our circumstances. 

Joy can’t be taken from us even when we’re unhappy. (I have often found that an important truth to hold onto.)

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, for example, Paul talks about the difference between the grief of those who follow Christ and those who don’t: Those without Christ grieve with no hope; those who trust in Christ still grieve. It would be unnatural not to. But they have an eternity of hope. They have joy.

Back in our lesson, Paul says, to “pray continually.” (Some translations put it, "pray without ceasing.") 

I’d guess that in my years as a pastor, this is the passage about which I've gotten the second greatest number of questions. “‘Pray continually’ or ‘Pray without ceasing,’” someone will ask. “How on earth am I supposed to do that? Don’t I have other things to do in life?” 

Yes, you do. 

And so did Jesus. 

And it’s from Him that we can learn what this means. 

Jesus had intense times when He went off by Himself to pray, of course. 

He also prayed publicly with other people. 

But Jesus was also in continual fellowship with God the Father. In John 5:19, Jesus says of Himself, “...Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

Jesus remained prayerfully connected to God the Father all through His day. And if Jesus needed to pray constantly like this, how much more do we need to do the same thing? 

Trying to live the Christian life without the power God gives to us through prayer in Jesus’ Name is like trying to drive our cars without gas in the tank. It doesn’t work. 

The prayerless person simply isn’t prepared for the inevitable tough times of this life...or for the coming of Jesus. 

I once saw evangelist Billy Graham on a late night talk show. He amazed the host by saying that the whole time he was being interviewed, he was praying, asking God to help him say the right thing, to glorify God even in this interchange. That’s praying continually, even while hard at work.

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” This passage has been the subject of maybe the greatest number of questions I've gotten as a pastor. 

It’s important to note that Paul says to pray in all circumstances, not for all circumstances. Not all circumstances that come into our lives are blessings, you know. Evil things come from the devil, the world, and our sinful selves. Jesus makes clear that all disease is ultimately attributable to the devil. But even in the midst of life's difficulties, even horrors, we have reason to be thankful to a God Who understands us and has conquered for all eternity our enemies, sin and death.

An elderly man, deeply shaken by the death of his wife, told me that every night, amid tears of grief, he fell to his knees and thanked God for the years they’d had together and for the hope of eternity through Jesus Christ that they’d shared. Even in sadness, he was thankful and had God’s peace, what Paul calls elsewhere in the New Testament, a “peace which surpasses all understanding.”

Starting at verse 19 of our lesson, Paul continues: “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all;hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.” 

We live in a cynical time, a time too, in which people doubt the notion that there are any hard and fast truths. So, when people--even Christian people--hear others speaking in the Name of Jesus, claiming that what they say has the backing of God’s Word in Scripture, we tend to be cynical. We tend toward skepticism in the face of witnesses for Christ who display what one Bible scholar identifies as the key characteristics of John the Baptist: “public, certain, and humble.”

Part of our skepticism may be that we don’t know God’s Word well enough to know what “prophecies” spoken in Christ’s Name are true or false. 

A knowledge of God’s Word is just as important as prayer in helping us get through our days, living in hope, or anticipating the coming of Jesus. 

In fact, if prayer is conversation with God, reading and digesting God’s Word is essential to prayer. 

Our words of prayer to God are mere responses to the Word from God. 

We respond to its call to repent, to believe, to trust, to live in the assurance of His love, grace, and provision, to call on God and be saved, and to call on God in every time of need. 

When we know God’s Word, we grow up, no longer, in the words of Ephesians 4:14, “...infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” This is one reason why I hope that you’ll join the journey through the Bible in 2015.

Paul’s words for this morning end in a prayer. Verse 23: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” 

May God grant these things to us as well. 

As we submit to God, allowing Him to set us apart and sanctify us, worship with His people, soak in His Word, thank Him in all circumstances, pray continually, and receive His body and blood, may you and I be ready to truly celebrate Christmas, be ready to meet our Lord face to face, be ready to face life and death and eternity. Amen