The Journey of Here and Now

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

Luke 9:51-62

Christian journalist and thinker Philip Yancey has advice for Christians. “We do well to remember that the Bible has far more to say about how to live during the journey [through this life] than about the ultimate destination [beyond this life].”

That’s good advice. Jesus sets those who believe in Him free from sin and death not so that they can wait smugly for the days they die and get to be with Him. He sets us free so that, having the assurance that we belong to God forever, we can live this life differently and so that, through our lives and witness, we can invite others to join us in our journey with Jesus through this life.

In Matthew 24:13, Jesus tells us that the destination of an eternity with God only belongs to those who start living in that eternity through faith in Him today. “[T]he one who stands firm to the end [that means to the end of this life] will be saved [for the next].”

And the apostle Peter makes it clear that we are saved by Jesus not just for eternity and not just for ourselves, but for now and for others. “[Y]ou are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession,” Peter tells disciples of Jesus, “that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” [1 Peter 2:9] Our call in this life, today, right now, is to be and to make disciples out of gratitude for the grace through which God has saved us from ourselves. That’s our path, the journey Christ has marked out for us.

Our gospel lesson for today finds Jesus beginning the decisive final leg on the path, the journey that God the Father has marked for Him. Take a look at it, please, Luke 9:51-62. It begins: “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”

In the Greek in which Luke composed his gospel, that verse more literally says: “Then it came to pass, in the fulfillment of His ascension, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Ascension here doesn’t refer here to the day forty days after Jesus’ resurrection that He ascended to heaven. It refers instead to His overall mission of going to Jerusalem to suffer, be crucified, to rise, and then to ascend to heaven. 

Jesus has set His face to complete the journey that began with His birth at Christmas, to buy sinners out of our slavery to sin, death, and the devil through His death, resurrection, and ascension. 

Yesterday, we saw a re-run of an old Law and Order in which Detective Green, always a straight-shooter, faces a murder rap he doesn't deserve in order to spare someone else prison time. He turns to the prosecuting attorney who has unraveled what was going on and asks, “Why are you doing this?” “Because,” the prosecutor answers, “we thought you were worth saving.” 

You know, sometimes, on rare occasions, God graces us with clear pictures of ourselves. We see, when all self-justification and rationalization are cast aside, how we have marred ourselves and our characters with our sin and selfishness. We may see that we are, in many ways, damaged goods. 

But listen: The God Who made you and all that exists thinks you, along with every other human being without exception, are worth saving. You are worth saving. 

That’s why Jesus set His face to journey to Jerusalem. 

That’s why He calls us to journey with Him today.

But not everyone thinks they need saving. Or if they do think they need saving, they believe that they, or the gods of their choosing, or a particular way of life will save them. Verse 52: “And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.”

The Samaritan villagers didn’t welcome Jesus any more than had Jesus' fellow Jews in Jerusalem had at His birth or would in Holy Week, any more than the Romans would, any more than most people in the world today welcome Him for Who He is--God and King and Savior. Isaiah prophesied well of Jesus in the eighth-century BC: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” [Isaiah 53:3]

But the Samaritan villagers who spurned Jesus weren’t the only ones who didn’t understand Who Jesus is or what the journey of Christian discipleship is about. Verse 54: “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them.”

Luke says much more than that Jesus rebuked James and John. In the original Greek, he quotes Jesus as telling the two that they’re spiritually confused: “Οὐκ οἴδατε οἵου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεῖς”: “You don’t know of what spirit you are!” In other words, Jesus was saying, “If you guys want to torch people I came to save, you’re following the spirits of hell rather than the Holy Spirit.” 

For the person who journeys with Jesus, hatred for or indifference to those who may disagree with us are not options. 

If we insist on hating Muslims or atheists, or those who disagree with the Bible’s teaching on things like sexuality, how can we possibly introduce them to Jesus Christ? How can a Christian being hateful introduce others to the loving God we know in Jesus? 

Our call isn’t to torch others, literally or figuratively, but to touch them with the gospel of Christ, through our prayers, our faithfulness, our love, our witness. 

Though by this time James and John have been with Jesus for some time, they still don’t understand what it means to journey with Him in this life.

They weren’t alone in their lack of understanding about being disciples of Jesus. 

Verse 57: “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’” To follow Jesus means accepting uncertainty. It means accepting that He may be calling us to venture outside our comfort zones so that we may learn to rely on Him alone.

Forty years ago, the last thing I wanted to be was a pastor. I remember telling my boss at the United Way, at a time I was furtively beginning my journey out of atheism to life with Christ, “I have no use for pastors.” That’s what I’d been taught by my grandfather and it was what I still believed. Within three years, I was in seminary, no longer able to resist the path that God seemed to have in mind for me. 

Thank God, not everyone is called to be a pastor, but He calls every Christian to journey away from what makes them comfortable to do what points others to Christ. 

To what uncomfortable place is Jesus calling you today?

Verse 59: “[Jesus] said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But [the man] replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ [In Jewish custom, there was no higher responsibility than taking care of a parent’s burial...preferably after they died.] Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’” The call to follow Jesus is to set our faces toward whatever He may call us to be and do. Sometimes families will understand. But only sometimes. 

Verse 61: “Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” 

All farmers knew in the centuries before air conditioned tractor cabs outfitted with GPS guidance, that if you looked back while sowing or plowing, you’d either have crooked rows or torn up crops. To journey with Jesus is to look to where He’s leading us and not to torment ourselves over the sins and mistakes of our past and not to look back nostalgically on a lost past. 

When we turn to Jesus, we realize again, damaged or goods or not according to the world or our own dark imaginings, that we are children of the King. We belong to the One leading us through our individual journeys of discipleship, now and forever. 

Following Jesus can be uncomfortable and it would be impossible to do if following Jesus didn’t also mean journeying with Jesus by our sides, here and now, every day. 

To Christians on their journey of discipleship, the apostle Paul wrote, “...he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 4:6] Through all the days of this life, with their challenges and joys, tragedies and triumphs, may this be our one certainty as Jesus’ disciples: As we set our faces toward Jesus, He will bring the completion and fulfillment that He has in mind for us. 

And though I sometimes forget it, that’s all we really need to know. Amen

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

My Great Grandmother's Continuing Influence on My Life

Many have heard me speak of my great-grandmother. I adored her.

When I was a little guy, growing up in Columbus, she lived across the street from us. She always spoke to me as though I was a grown-up and helped to spark my interest in history and politics, among other things. 

She was a devoted follower of Jesus and often when I barged in on her unannounced, she would be reading the Bible, which she read through completely thirteen times in the course of her life. She often spoke with me about Christ and her faith. She spent hours and hours with me, which is fairly remarkable when you think about it, remarkable that she had such patience, remarkable that I so loved our time together.

When she was hospitalized after suffering several strokes, she asked if I could come to see her. That was when children under 15 weren’t allowed to visit the hospitalized. But the doctor gave the go-ahead and I was happy to see her.

She lived for only a short time after that. (My grandparents brought her to be with them before she passed and I got to see her the night before her death, though the strokes had robbed her of her memory of me.) I was comforted on the morning after her death when my mom told me that grandma was then walking the streets of gold in eternity. She died when I was eight and, without doubt, she remains one of the most influential people in my life.

Her influence goes beyond the interactions I had with her when I was a little boy, though. Unbeknownst to me, my great-grandmother called me her “little preacher.” She was a woman of prayer and I’m sure that she included me in her praying.

I became an atheist in my teen years and remained so into my early twenties. But then, through the witness of a church family and another elderly woman who took me under her wing and showed me what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, I came to faith. After that, I sensed God’s call to pastoral ministry.

I am certain that the prayers of my great-grandmother, long gone by the time I came to faith or became a pastor, remained lodged in the heart of God, Who is eternal. He heard her prayers and eventually, through my hearing of God’s Word which loved me to faith, they were answered. 

Never give up on prayer in Jesus’ name because He never gives up on us and He never forgets our prayers!

I’m thankful for the life, witness, and prayers of my great-grandmother. She wasn’t perfect, but she was faithful and she’s one of the people God used to bring me to life through Jesus Christ. 

This picture shows her just as I remember her, obviously taken shortly before her death at age 76 in 1962. My dad gave this picture of her to me yesterday.

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

My protection

[This is the journal entry for my quiet time with God today. I hope that you'll find it helpful and encourage you to spend your own quiet time with God each day. Here, I explain how I approach this time with God.]

Look: “I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, ‘The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.’” (Ezra 8:22)

Ezra was part of the Jewish diaspora who had been deported to Babylon when it conquered God’s people. It was Persian policy to allow peoples they’d conquered to worship their own “gods” and to return to their homelands. A group had gone back to Judah during the reign of the Persian king Cyrus. But they had neglected the worship of God and the observance of their faith. When Ezra, still in exile, learned of this, he was aggrieved. Ultimately, he received authorization from King Darius (who reigned from 522 to 486 BC) to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.

Ezra’s concern in this verse is the authenticity of his faith and his witness to the Persians. He had assured King Darius that he and his group would need none of the king’s offered protection of armies on their return to the promised land; God would protect His people. Ezra had prayerfully asked for God’s protection, yet must have still been daunted by the dangerous journey ahead. (It’s comforting to know how human this man of God was!) Because of his confession of faith in God, Ezra says that he was ashamed to ask for protection.

So, in the next verse Ezra tells us, “...we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.” (Ezra 8:23)

Instead of petitioning the king for protection, Ezra and the Jewish believers who were taking a dangerous trip to go back to their homelands, “fasted and petitioned our God about this.” They chose wisely.

Listen: This is no “name-it-and-claim-it” text. For Ezra, the decision not to accept the offered help of an army was a matter of faith. Nations and armies can’t protect believers. Neither can money or possessions, reputation or human affection, having the “right” argument or being “strong” and intimidating in numbers. Only God can protect us.

And that would have been so even if Ezra and his contingent had been slaughtered on the way to their homeland.

Today, believers in Jesus join the ancient Israelites in knowing that “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” (Romans 14:8)

The God revealed first to ancient Israel and now to all the world in Jesus, will protect all who trust in Christ from humanity’s greatest enemies--sin, eternal death, futility, and darkness--whether we have long, short, easy, or hard, poor or wealthy lives on this earth. That’s because the “gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him.”   

Ezra wanted to live in faithfulness to that confession. It would have been a defection from God to seek protection from a foreign army when he confessed that his “help is the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 24:8). He also would have been ashamed to give a “splintered witness” by taking help from Darius when he’d already declared his certainty of God’s help.

Respond: Today, Lord, I seek to be more “all in” with You. I need to spend more time praying to You in Jesus’ name and less time consorting with and listening to my fears. Forgive me all my sins for Jesus’ sake and I ask You to protect me, my family, and my congregation from everything that would endanger us, especially temptations and sins that could do eternal damage to us. And grant that today, I will not give a “splintered witness,” relying completely on You. Forgive me, I pray, for all of the ways I have failed to completely rely on You, for relying too often on my own “cleverness” (I know You’re laughing at that, Lord), shrewdness, or perception. Forgive me for replacing You with my own thoughts or my own feelings or my own desires. Today, protect me, above all, Lord, from myself and help me to listen to You, follow You, honor You, and share You. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen  

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

In the Face of Barbarities, Praying

Praying today for the 150 people--Christian men, women, and children abducted by Isis yesterday--that God will sustain, encourage, and provide for them and bring them to safety.

Praying also that the Holy Spirit will empower them, like the 21 martyred by Isis in Egypt last week, to endure in making the good confession for the God Who can save from sin, death, and themselves, any sinner who repents and believes in the crucified and risen Jesus, God in human flesh.

Through faithful, steadfast Christian witness, God can save and transform even the most murderous enemies of Christ and His Church. (Those conversant with the Bible will think of Saint Paul, who murderously terrorized Christians only to be changed for eternity by the grace of God in Christ!)

Praying also that the Church everywhere will be emboldened to spread the good news about Jesus so that, reconciled with God through Jesus, they will seek to understand and work with their neighbors, not hate or kill them. This is needed in every nation of the world, the United States as well as Syria, France as well as Iraq!

Praying also that God will guide the leaders of the world in punishing and bringing to justice those perpetrating these barbarities. The Bible is clear that God has instituted governments to hold in check those unwilling to voluntarily yield to the rule of God--and His call to love God and to love others--in this imperfect world. May God empower all governments to do their duty in destroying the forces of chaos, violence, and nihilism in our world.

And praying that God will undertake to do whatever He deems needed, knowing that my wisdom about all that needs to happen is minuscule, in these circumstances. Paul says in Romans 8:26-27 that God's "Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God."

I don't know exactly what to pray for; but I know Who to pray to.

So, in my ignorance and faulty wisdom, I ask that God's kingdom come and that God's will be done on earth just as it is in heaven.

Very True

“Every Christian is either a missionary or an impostor.” (Charles Spurgeon)

Reluctant Witnesses

Today's installment of Our Daily Bread is based on Jonah 1:1-2:2. It's good and I recommend reading and thinking and praying it over.

Jonah, whose story is told in the Old Testament, is the means by which God conveys lots of truths. Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh (situated in what is these days, Iraq) to be God's witness.

He hated the people in that city and, as he tells God later in the short book that bears his name, he was afraid that if he told the Ninevites that God was angry with them, they would repent, God would forgive them, and they would walk with God.

Jonah didn't want that. He was, to say the least, a reluctant witness.

Jonah was a bigoted believer. That shouldn't shock us. All believers are recovering sinners, helpless beggars wanting to be free of their sin, who find it difficult to daily subject their sins to the crucifixions God uses to build our characters and prepare us for eternity. One of Jonah's prominent sins, clearly, was bigotry.

But it isn't just bigoted believers who show reluctance to be witnesses for the God ultimately revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ. Other sins can cause this reluctance.

One may be a fear of others and their reactions to our witness that's greater than our fear--our holy awe and respect--of God. This can leave believers cowering in the shadows, unwilling to share words of life, love, and counsel from God that may help the people they're with to have a close relationship with God. Fear has the been the greatest source of reluctance on my part and I have to pray all the time that God will help me to "be prepared at all times to give an account for the hope that is in" me and that I'll do so with boldness and humility.

When we fear others more than we fear God, we violate the first commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me." We allow others to have more power over our lives than we give to God. They become our gods.

Another source for reluctance may be personal insecurity. We may think that we're not good enough or knowledgeable enough. But Jesus once made a blanket statement about all believers, no matter their age, their knowledge, or how long they've been believers: "You will be My witnesses" (Acts 1:8). (This is said of believers who receive the power of God's Spirit in their lives, which is exactly what happens in Holy Baptism. See John 3:5-8.)

God will never make witnesses accountable for how little they know, only for whether they trust Him enough to share what they do know of Him and His grace and love in their lives.

In John 4, we're told about a woman, a notorious sinner, who is so moved by her encounter with Jesus and His grace for her despite her sins that she runs into the village that had long ostracized her to tell them about Jesus. She told people just what she knew about Jesus: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did," she told everyone she could find. "Could this be the Messiah?” (John 4:1-42)

That's it. On the strength of the witness of this seemingly disqualified, questionable person, the entire village came to learn about Jesus for themselves. And they came to faith in Him.

You may deem your faith in Christ and your knowledge about God negligible. But no matter how small your faith and your knowledge base, God can use you and your understanding of Him to help others experience repentance and forgiveness and new and everlasting life in Jesus' Name.

Another name for reluctance born of personal insecurity is sin. That's because it evidences a secret belief that God isn't bigger than your ignorance or that you are the only person in the world that God can't use. (I know what I'm talking about. Personal insecurity has been a source of my failure to be a witness sometimes. And I repent for it almost daily.)

Having said all of that, there's one more point to be made on this subject: Reluctant witnesses may be the most authentic and effective witnesses that God has.

Another person like Jonah, for example, who hated the Ninevites, might have relished doing what God wanted Jonah to do in Nineveh. He was to announce that God was about to destroy the city and the people for their sinfulness. A hater might really want to speak a word like that to some people, lording things over people, acting arrogantly, enjoying the prospect of God condemning people. 

A person with no fear of God might also want to be a "witness" in a bid to steal the authority and respect owed to God alone for themselves. Many cult leaders and pastors and laypeople have done just that.

And a person with big insecurities might want to be a "witness" for God to make themselves feel more important.

There may be lots of reasons for believers being reluctant to give witness for the God they know in Christ. But often it's the reluctant witnesses who tell the truest stories and touch the most hearts.

If you're a reluctant witness, ask God to help you give your witness for Christ in your own way, at the places and times He creates for you. You don't have to be someone you're not, just the child of God you are when you trust in Christ.

'4 Reasons Christians Must Reject Islamophobia'

It's for the sake of love of God and neighbor and the mission of the Church. Read the whole thing.