Letting Go and Letting God

[This was shared during the 10:15 worship at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Mark 10:17-31
We have a lot of territory to cover this morning. So, let’s dive right into our gospel lesson, Mark 10:17-31.

It begins: “Now as He [Jesus] was going out on the road...” The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible puts it this way: “As He was setting out on a journey...”

Jesus was setting out on a journey. This was the last trip He would take before His arrival in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Jerusalem was His destination and He knew that His crucifixion lay ahead of Him there.

During this journey, Jesus and the disciples walked from Capernaum, a city at the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee, walked along its western shore south along the Jordan River, crossing from the west to the east side of the Jordan (in order, this time, to avoid going through Samaria), proceeding south until, again, they crossed the Jordan from the east going west, just like Joshua and the people of Israel did 1400 years earlier, then gone through Jericho, the city whose walls God destroyed, allowing the ancient Israelites to gain a foothold in the land, and onto Jerusalem. Jesus’ name in Hebrew is Yeshua, Joshua. Just as Joshua of Old Testament times led God’s people into the promised land, this Joshua--the Jesus of the New Testament, Who is God in the flesh--will lead all who follow Him through the crosses of their own deaths and the deaths of their own sin into the promised land of eternity with God.

[The map above comes from this web site: http://www.ccel.org/bible/phillips/CN160-TRAVELS.htm.]

It’s within the context of this journey, fraught with memories of Old Testament history for both Jesus and the disciples and filled with an awareness of all the torture, rejection, and temptation that await Him in Jerusalem that our lesson takes place.

Go back to the lesson, please: “...one came running before [Jesus] and asked Him, “Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

We may look at the man’s question and think he’s asking, “What do I need to do to get to heaven?” But when pious Jews, like the Pharisees, thought of “eternal life,” they thought of the life that God would bring to those who were raised from the dead and God established a new heaven and a new earth in place of this one.

They believed that for believers to rise from the dead--to go through a resurrection--didn’t mean that they were transported to some wifty world of disembodied souls. (And Jesus would later prove them to be right in that belief! When Jesus rose from the dead, He had a body that could be touched and eat a meal, although He was no longer limited by time or space.)

Jesus’ answer to the man is interesting. Jesus could have lectured the man on how there is nothing we can do to merit eternal life. It is simply the gift of God to those who turn from sin and believe in Him. That's why in the only sermon of Jesus appearing in Mark's Gospel (Mark 1:14-15), Jesus says: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Jesus teaches the same thing here. But He does it in a way that challenges the man (and us) to move beyond thinking of salvation as the result of knowing the right answer (“Repent and believe”), to seeing just how radical, how eternity-changing, how practical for the nuts and bolts of daily living it is to say, “I believe in Jesus Christ!”

Jesus says: “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but one, that is, God.” We’ll come back to these words in a moment, because it’s one of the two keys to understanding today’s entire gospel lesson. For the moment, think of this: Jesus is right. I’m a sinner. You’re sinners. Everyone you see each day is a sinner. No one is truly good but God alone. We may in everyday conversation say that someone we know is a good person. But this man is approaching Jesus like some misinformed unbelievers approach the local parish pastor. Whether he means the word or is just using it to suck up to Jesus, Jesus calls Him to the carpet for it, “Do you go throwing that word, good, around with every rabbi you encounter?” Jesus is asking the man, “Only God is worthy of being called good.” Now, you and I know that Jesus is God. We know it by faith in Christ. But the man in our gospel lesson doesn’t know this about Jesus. He wants to make deals with God and have Jesus, this “good teacher” confirm it for Him.

Then, in verse 18, Jesus says, “You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,‘ ‘Do not murder,‘ ‘Do not steal,‘ ‘Do not bear false witness,‘ ‘Do not defraud,‘ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”

Jesus here, of course, is referring to the Ten Commandments, God’s moral law for the whole human race. But, you’ll notice some interesting omissions and one change in Jesus‘ rendering of the commandments:

• He includes the sixth, fifth, seventh, and eighth; 
• He seems to add another commandment with, ‘Do not defraud,‘ although we could argue that fraud is just another form of stealing; and 
• He doesn’t mention five other commandments. 

The five omitted commandments are:

• ‘You shall have no other gods before Me’ (the First), 
• ‘You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain’ (the Second), 
• ‘Remember the Sabbath day [a time set aside to reverence God and hear God’s Word]’ (the Third), and 
• the Ninth and Tenth commandments in which God tells us not to covet the spouses, possessions, or lives of others. 

Jesus specifically and deliberately avoids mention of the commands that tell us to honor God as our only God, King, and hope and that tell us not spend our days pining for the world’s goods and bling.

Does Jesus do this to avoid telling this man some uncomfortable truths?

We know Jesus better than that.

Jesus defers mention of these five commandments for a simple reason: Everyone of we sinners have what might be called “prevailing sins,” the sins we may love to commit and have grown so cold to God we don’t see them as sins any more or the sins we hate to commit but cannot, by our own power or good intentions, refrain from committing. These are the sins in which you and I specialize, on top of all our other sins.

But unless we follow Jesus every day and give Him control of our whole lives, along with all of our sins, those sins and not the grace of God that comes to those who believe in Him, will have the last words over our lives.

The Greek New Testament word for believe is pisteuo and it carries the meaning not only of believe, but also of surrendering trust. Eternal life with God comes to those who believe in Jesus, who surrender their lives to Jesus.

And that includes surrendering their favorite sins.

Back to the lesson, verse 20: “And he [the man] answered [Jesus], ‘Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.’”

Let’s not be too critical of the man here. He isn’t claiming to be sinless. He’s claiming that he’s “kept” the commandments, meaning that he has revered them and sought to to live in accordance with them, repenting when he has failed to do so. Jesus doesn’t dispute the man’s claim. But Jesus sees into this man’s heart, will, and motivations as surely as He sees into ours.

Verse 21: “Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him [the same way He looks at you even when you are lost and far from Him, wallowing in sin], and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”

Now, we understand why Jesus omitted five of the commandments earlier.

We also see why Jesus reminded him that only God is good.

The man no doubt thought of himself as an upstanding person of faith who kept God’s commandments.

But in addition to his covetousness for more wealth, this man also failed to honor God as God by idolizing the wealth that he had.

These were his prevailing sins, the sins that were walling him from eternal life with God.

This is why Jesus reminded Him that God alone is good. If this man honored the good God of all with his life as well as with his lips, he would understand that God was worthy of total, not partial surrender.

Are we surrendering totally to God each day? Or, are we holding back a little for ourselves? What are we willing to leave behind in order to have God and the life that only God can give to us?

Listen: If a person is diagnosed with cancer, the only way they can live is if the cancer is killed or removed. The only way this man could live was if he willingly laid aside the sin that controlled his life.

Jesus wanted this man to have eternal life with God, just as He wants all people to have eternal life.

By His death and resurrection, Jesus has brought eternal life to us. All we must do to receive it is be willing to lay aside our sins, allow them to be killed (which is what Jesus means by taking up our crosses), and follow Jesus.

Jesus promises in Matthew 24:13 that “the one who endures [in following Him]...will be saved.” What a promise!

But it’s hard to let go of our prevailing sins, hard to let go of the delusion of being in charge of our lives.

After her husband left her, a woman started attending worship at one of our former parishes. Devastated, she took solace in the bottle. She never missed work or worship. But the strong smell of alcohol could be detected by anyone who shared the peace with her on Sunday. The alcohol made her feel more able to deal with the pain.

She was sure she was in control until, one day, a friend happened upon her in her house, about to take her own life.

Thank God for answering the prayers of many for that woman! She went through treatment at a hospital and started going to AA meetings. She let go of her prevailing sins: the desire to be like God, covetousness for the life styles enjoyed by others, and indifference to the willful destruction of the body God gave to her.

She took up these crosses, submitted to the crucifixion of her sins, and followed Jesus. Today, she is healthy, still in recovery, and following Jesus, Whose grace brings eternal life--life with God--to those who surrender to Him.

Verse 22 of our gospel lesson tells us that the man “was sad at this word [from Jesus], and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” Letting go of his little gods was a bigger price than he was willing to pay for the free gift of new life God grants to all who believe in Jesus.

Jesus too was sorrowful because He knew, as He tells the disciples in verse 27, “With men, it is impossible...” That is, the efforts of human beings to keep God’s commandments or to live lives worthy of eternal life with God will always fail. So will the efforts of others, like the man who comes to Jesus in today’s lesson, to have some of the God we know in Christ, but keep back a little for themselves.

But, Jesus says what is impossible to us is more than possible with God. “For with God,” Jesus says, “all things are possible.”

May God give us the power each day to let go of our sins and keep following Jesus. Amen

Agnus Day (the series from which the above comic strip is taken) appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org 

Leave it behind

You've got to leave it behind

All that you fashion, all that you make

All that you build, all that you break

All that you treasure, all that you feel

All this you can leave behind

All that you reason, all that 

you care,

(It's only time and I'll never fill up all my mind)

All that you sense, all that you scheme

All that you dress up, and all that you see

All you create, all that you wreck.

All that you hate.

 [from Walk On by U2. Composed by Adam Clayton, Dave Evans, Paul Hewson, amd Larry Mullen, Jr.] 

Mary Lincoln Gets a Do-Over, But We Don't

Or a retrial, at least of the mock variety.

As an amateur student of history, I've always been wary any time we impose contemporary moral standards on historical events, even though as a Christian I believe a baseline of moral standards from God has long existed in the Ten Commandments.

But, it seems that even by the standards of her time, Mary Lincoln was subjected to kangaroo justice in her insanity trial. At the behest of her son, Robert, Mary Lincoln was found insane and confined to an asylum for a time. She never forgave Robert.

Catherine Clinton, author of a book on Lincoln's trial, is quoted in the linked article: "Under the laws at the time, Mrs. Lincoln was denied counsel. There is not better illustration of railroading, as the phrase goes.”

News of this mock trial comes the day after I read the cover article in the October issue of Smithsonian magazine, an excerpt from Henry Wiencek's new book, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves. Wiencek is unsparing in his criticism of Jefferson's treatment of slaves and his careful avoidance of any connection with the emancipation movement, even though Jefferson proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that "all men [sic] are created equal."

In the early draft of that document, of course, Jefferson claimed that the "peculiar institution" of slavery was a barbaric invention of Great Britain imposed on in its North American colonies and held this to be one particular justification for breaking away from the mother country.

"So what?" you might say. "Didn't George Washington have slaves?"

Yes, he did. But, Wiencek joins several other authors who have pointed out in recent works that Washington wrestled with the morality of slavery. Jefferson never did.

Furthermore, Washington worked out a way to emancipate his slaves on his death. That was a far more difficult thing for Washington to pull off than it would have been for Jefferson. Wiencek points out that on his death, Tadeus Kosciusko, the Polish soldier who helped the thirteen colonies win their independence, left Jefferson a handsome sum of money to pay for the freedom of Jefferson's slaves (providing Jefferson with reimbursement for the loss of these "assets"), then providing funds for the freed slaves to establish new lives.

Jefferson had even drafted the Pole's will and was its executor. But, Jefferson refused to take the inheritance or free his slaves!

Besides that, according to Wiencek, in spite of attempts by generations of American historians to whitewash the truth, Jefferson was a particularly violent and cruel slaveholder.

Even by the standards of his time, if we accept Wiencek's reckoning, Jefferson, in the eighteen and early nineteenth centuries, was as guilty of injustice as the late-nineteenth century jury that found Mary Lincoln to be insane.

But this set me to thinking: What level of culpability do we who live in the twenty-first century bear at a time when there are more people bound in slavery, much of it involving the sex trafficking of young children, than any time in history?

The Lincoln jury and, before that, Thomas Jefferson were guilty of overt acts of cruel injustice toward largely defenseless persons. Theirs were the sins of commission, by the standards of any time. But what of our sins of omission, of looking the other way when hundreds of thousands are being violated so cruelly?

The Mary Lincoln "do-over" or retrial was presented for enjoyment and education. The same is true of Wiencek's work on Jefferson as a slaveholder. But there really are no do-overs in life. We can be forgiven. We can make restitution. But we can't relive this day. There are no Groundhog Days in real life. We will either stand for justice or stand in its way.

The prophet Micah, speaking on behalf of God in the eighth century BC, wrote:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Tonight, I'm asking for the forgiveness from God offered to us only through Jesus Christ for my sins, including the sins of injustice against my ignored neighbors around the globe.

And I pray that I will be quick to speak and act on behalf of the victims of injustice, whoever they may be.

UPDATE: See here.

Jesus on Marriage and Divorce

[This was shared during the 10:15 worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Mark 10:2-16
In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus points us to God’s intention for human beings when it comes to marriage, divorce, sexuality, and family living.

We may want to run from these words of Jesus. As New Testament scholar N.T. Wright notes, to some people in these times, anyone who dares to publicly read Jesus’ words here “is likely to be called cruel, unfeeling, unforgiving, exclusive...'unchristian'...”

But as we dive into Jesus’ words for us today, it’s important to remember Who is speaking them. This is the God Who loved us enough to take on human flesh, Who was, in the words of Hebrews 4:15, “in every respect tested as we are, yet without sin.” This is the sinless Savior Who took our punishment for sin on the cross, then rose from the dead, to offer the undeserved gift of new and everlasting life to all who willingly repent, daily submitting to the death of their own sins and sinful desires and entrusting their lives to the loving will of the God we know only in Jesus Christ.

Jesus words aren’t those of a closed-minded religious bigot, but of the God Who loves us more than anyone else could!

Jesus says to His followers, including you and me, in John 15, “I no longer call you servants, but friends.” I find that when Ann, who loves me, criticizes for something I’ve said or done, I’m initially defensive. But, after awhile, I remember how much she loves me and I’m ready to listen and learn from what she has to say. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Well meant are the wounds a friend inflicts...” So, let’s listen to what our Friend, God, and Savior Jesus has to tell us today.

Please turn to our gospel lesson, Mark 10:2-16.

In verse 2, a group of Pharisees asks Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

It’s no coincidence that the Pharisees ask this question by the Jordan River out in the Judean wilderness, the same setting in which John the Baptist ran afoul of King Herod not long before.

John, you’ll remember, challenged the legitimacy of Herod’s rule because this Herod, Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great, had married his brother’s wife, Herodias. Herodias had divorced Herod Antipas’ brother in order to marry the king. John claimed that Antipas and Herodias had defiled marriage and the royal throne by their adultery. Herodias, you’ll also remember, took particular offense at John the Baptist calling her husband and her out for their unrepentant sin. That’s why she made sure that John was beheaded.

The Pharisees, already anxious to get rid of Jesus, hope to entrap Jesus into offending the royal couple in the dominion of Antipas in the same way John had offended them.

Notice too, the thrust of the Pharisees' question. They ask, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

But Jesus isn’t interested in talking about whether it’s lawful for a person to divorce their spouse. In Deuteronomy 24, some 1500 years before the birth of Jesus, God revealed through Moses that it’s legal for a person to divorce a  spouse. But as the former Pharisee turned Christian preacher and evangelist, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:12 and 10:23: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are beneficial...’ ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up.’”

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus talks about how adultery can be a legitimate grounds for divorce.

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says that when an unbelieving spouse leaves the believing spouse--what has been called “spiritual abandonment”--the Christian may have grounds for divorce.

And no loving Christian would insist that a spouse remain tied to someone who perpetrates violence against them, since clearly an abuser isn’t interested in being married, but in dominating another human being.

But Jesus wants to move beyond the law to talk about the intention of God, the will of God, for human beings when it comes to marriage and divorce.

Jesus responds to the Pharisees by asking them, in Mark 10:3, “What did Moses command you?” Alluding to Deuteronomy 24, they reply correctly, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her.”

The Pharisees were sticklers for Biblical law. They checked all the right boxes. Warmed a pew? Check. Gave my offerings? Check. Did my time in Catechism? Check. Gave to the poor even though I didn’t want to? Check. But they weren’t interested in surrendering to God so much as getting God to do what they wanted Him to do and to validate what wonderful, worthy, hard-working people they were.

This is what Martin Luther called “works righteousness”: the idea that I can be a good enough person to earn my way into God’s good graces. But it doesn’t work! At birth, you and I are so polluted by the sin we inherit from our fathers and mothers that, in the words of Isaiah, “all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.” Instead, righteousness comes as a gift only to those who surrender to and entrust their whole lives to Jesus Christ. Surrender to and trust in Christ is what the Bible means when it talks about faith. Turn to Romans 3:21-22: “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law [apart from the demands of the little boxes the Pharisees tried to check off] is revealed...the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe...” in Christ.

Back in our gospel lesson, Jesus points to God’s original intention for marriage. Look at what Jesus says, starting at Mark 10:5: “Because of the hardness of your heart [Moses] wrote you this precept.”

God gave people the option of divorce as a concession to their hard-heartedness. But look at what Jesus says next in Mark 10:6-9. He points back to the book of Genesis: “But from the beginning of the creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so then they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man [or woman] separate.”

Even though God makes allowances for human sin, Jesus says it’s God’s will that marriage, the union of a male and a female made one flesh by the grace of God, should be inviolate. Just as war should be a last, dreaded option for nations, to be deferred until every peaceful resolution has been tried, so divorce should be a last, dreaded option for husbands and wives who have become one flesh!

After this time of public teaching on marriage and divorce, verses 10-12 find Jesus sitting with His followers in a house. He uses the time-worn method of hyperbole, exaggeration, to underscore His teaching. Jesus says that whenever a husband or a wife divorces a spouse and the ex-spouse remarries, the ex-spouse is made an adulterer. By expressing things in this way, Jesus is telling His disciples how seriously God takes the marriage vows of husbands and wives. Divorce may be unavoidable, even justifiable at times. But it is always the result of human sin and it always spreads the misery of sin around, even to helpless bystanders.

And the most helpless of all bystanders to divorce are children, which leads inevitably to the last verses of our lesson, Mark 10:13-16.

While Jesus sits with His disciples, people bring their children to be touched by Jesus. The disciples, verse 13 says, “rebuked” people for doing this. The disciples were reprimanding parents and grandparents for bringing their children to Jesus for blessing. Jesus says to let the children come to Him. It’s to people who come to Him in childlike trust that God’s kingdom belongs.

At the end of our lesson, in verse 16, we’re told, “And [Jesus] took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them.”

When we were kids, we were taught to sing, “Jesus loves the little children.” He does! But I wonder sometimes how much some parents love their children when they press for divorces from their spouses just because they’re finding life together difficult or challenging.

Unless there’s abuse, adultery, or spiritual abandonment, kids--even grown kids--need their parents to persevere in staying together.

Listen: In twenty-eight years as a pastor, I have seen far more people, whether children or spouses, damaged by divorce than I ever have by marriages in which the husbands and wives have gone through tough times, yet tenaciously prayed, gotten counseling, surrendered each day to Christ, and, in effect, told each other, “No matter how I feel today, by the grace of God given in Christ, I will be with you tomorrow and until death parts us. Period.”

God, I’m convinced, is not calling married people to simply “stay together” while living separate lives. That is NOT what it means for a husband and a wife to become “one flesh.”

But when wives and husbands approach Jesus each day like little children, heeding His commands, trusting in His grace, speaking the truth to one another in love, forgiving each other, praying for one another, and asking God to help them to see the best in each other every day, they will do more than, as some have put it, “divorce-proof” their marriages.

Their marriages will become, in Martin Luther’s phrase, “little churches,” built on the rock of Jesus Christ, where the prayers go up and the blessings come down, and the peace of God that passes all understanding is most intimately and wonderfully known. Amen

Jesus and the 'In' Crowd

[This was shared during the 10:15 worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Mark 9:38-50
The chorus of a song from the ‘60s goes, “I’m in with the ‘in’ crowd/I go where the ‘in’ crowd goes/I’m in with the ‘in’ crowd/And I know what the ‘in’ crowd knows.” We all like feeling that we’re part of an ‘in’ crowd. Everyone wants to feel accepted and valued. But, we human beings are also sinners. And so, our desire to feel accepted and valued by others can (and often is) expressed in sinful ways.

The first followers of Jesus felt valued and accepted as they never had in their lives. The One they confessed to be God’s promised Messiah or Christ, the Anointed King, had called them, taught them, and then, entrusted important work to them. They felt like they were part of the ‘in’ crowd.

And it went to their heads.

Please turn to our gospel lesson, Mark 9:38-50. (Page 580 in the pew Bibles.) It begins with the apostle John opening mouth and inserting his foot. But to understand how badly he does so, we have to consider the events that come right before our lesson.

In Mark 9:1-13, Jesus takes the inner-most group of apostles, Peter, John, and John’s brother, James, to a mountaintop. There, the appearance of Jesus is transformed (or transfigured) and the light of heaven shines from Him. Moses and Elijah from Old Testament times, appear, and a voice from heaven says, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!” The lesson is clear. Moses and Elijah were great servants of God. But Jesus is God, with power over sin and death, the power to give forgiveness and new life. John saw and heard all this.

Beginning in Mark 9:14, we see that the first thing Jesus must deal with after coming from the top of the mountain with Peter, James, and John, is a boy with a demon. The boy’s father had asked for the other disciples’ help when Jesus and the trio of apostles had been on the mountain. But they had been impotent in dealing with the evil, reminiscent of God’s people’s inability to remain faithful to God back when Moses had been on Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments about 1500 years earlier. Jesus casts the demon from the boy and explains that the disciples couldn’t do the same thing because they hadn’t prayed and hadn’t fasted, emptying themselves of any dependence but on God. John saw and heard this too.

According to Mark 9:30-32, Jesus predicted His death and resurrection for the second time. But the disciples, including John, didn’t ask Jesus anything about this. Instead, they fell into an argument among themselves about which one of them would be the greatest person in Jesus’ kingdom. Jesus cuts in and tells them: “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” John saw and heard this too.

But, still intent on drawing bright lines in the sand between Jesus‘ ‘in‘ crowd and the rest of the human riff-raff, John says to Jesus in verse 38: “Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us.”

Jesus might have turned to John and said, “Not following us, John? Don’t you mean not following Me?”

And Jesus would have been right to pose that question. After all, John and the other disciples hadn’t been born of a virgin according to Old Testament prophecy. The disciples hadn’t been affirmed by the Holy Spirit at the Jordan River. And no voice from heaven had affirmed that the disciples were God.

A follower of Jesus, like you and me, might tell our unbelieving friends, “I’m not perfect, but like the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:1, I invite you to ‘imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.’” But no follower of Jesus should ever see themselves as an ‘in’ crowd made of them and their buddy, Jesus. Jesus is our Lord, God, Savior, King, Master, and Friend. But Jesus isn’t our buddy. We aren’t and never will be Jesus’ equal.

Sometimes, I think, we twenty-first century Christians turn Jesus into just another buddy or teacher. That’s a mistake. Jesus has not rescinded the words He spoke to Philip, “[The person] who has seen Me has seen the Father.”

What’s ironic about John’s words to Jesus, is that just a few verses earlier, the disciples had been unable to cast a demon from a boy because they didn’t pray and open themselves to the God they knew in Jesus. They had experienced their own powerlessness and need of Jesus. Yet, when they run across a guy who understands Jesus’ power and is casting out demons in Jesus’ name, they don’t tell him, “Good job!” or, “We wish we had faith like that!” They order him to stop because he’s not part of their group!

In verses 39-41, Jesus tells the disciples to back off from forbidding the stranger to do good in Jesus’ name. No one, Jesus says, who sees Jesus’ power over life and death first-hand in this way will be able for long to resist witnessing to the goodness and lordship of Jesus.

In verse 41, Jesus says, that even people who give cups of cold water to followers of Jesus because of Jesus are demonstrating a saving faith in Jesus that will result in eternal rewards. There will be surprises in heaven: People who, without calling attention to themselves or holding positions of visible leadership in the Church, lived lives of daily repentance and renewal, trusting in Jesus Christ alone for life and hope, will be with Christ.

Our job as members of Christ’s Church then, is to repent for our ‘in’ crowd mentality and to invite others to themselves repent of sin and entrust their lives to Jesus Christ alone. “Join our fellowship of recovering hypocrites,” we should say, “and imitate us as we imitate our Lord Jesus.” You and I are called to not build walls to keep others out, but to build bridges by which they can come to know and follow Jesus.

In the balance of our lesson, Jesus has some tough words for those who think of the Church as an ‘in’ crowd or a community group or a fellowship for “our kind.” That’s why Jesus warns good church-going Christians in verse 42. “Whoever causes one of these little ones [He’s referring to all children of God, no matter what their age] to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea.”

Jesus was telling John and the disciples that if they persisted in their ‘in’ group ways, they would die, losing their connection to Jesus, losing their eternal lives. Folks, it’s a sin to withhold the good news of Jesus Christ from those who need Him as much as you and I do. It’s a form of murder to wall people off from Christ because we never share Him with others. As Rick Warren forcefully puts it: “The church that doesn’t want to grow [that doesn’t want to invite others into Jesus’ kingdom] is telling the world to go to hell.”

Maybe it’s because the very first step for a church to move away from being an ‘in’ crowd toward becoming a bridge to the grace, forgiveness, and new and everlasting life that belongs to all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ, that, starting at verse 43, Jesus gives a series of vivid parables about the need for Christians to get rid of anything in their lives that prevents them from following and trusting in Jesus with complete and joyful dependence.

In verse 43, Jesus says, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better to for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched...” Jesus says similar things in verses 45 and 47 about our hands and feet.

Jesus isn’t literally saying to cut off parts of our body. Our body parts can’t cause us to sin, of course. Jesus says elsewhere that it’s from our hearts that “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, [and] blasphemies” come.

What Jesus is telling us is that if there are habits of thought, life, or associations that readily entice us to sin, we need to get those things out of our lives. Better, for example, to go without the affirmation and the friendship of life’s in crowds than to carry them like millstones around our necks right into the fires of hell, separated from God or well being for eternity!

So, what do we do in response to Jesus’ words to us today?

First, I think, we need to ask God to help us see the church and our relationship with Christ differently. The New Testament words for church is ekklesia, which means, called out ones. By the grace of God given to all who believe in Jesus Christ, we have been called out of a world dying in its sins to live with God, in the words of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, “in righteousness and purity forever.” And the Church is not to be a self-centered in crowd. We who have been called out of the dying world, are commanded by Jesus to be “fishers of people,” calling others to follow Jesus too. “Go, make disciples of all nations...” Jesus commands us.

Second, we need to regularly repent for how we have seen the church as an in crowd rather than as the body of Christ in this world, each member called to tell others about Jesus in their own ways. The Augsburg Confession reminds us, repentance consists of two parts: “one is contrition...terror smiting the conscience with a knowledge of sin...the other is faith, which is born of the Gospel...[that] believes that sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from terror. Then good works, which are fruits of repentance, are bound to follow.”

Third, we need to make a commitment to being witnesses for Christ to others. When we experience the forgiveness, comfort to conscience, and deliverance from the terrors of hell that come to all who repent and believe in Jesus, our task becomes clear. We will want to share Christ with others. We will want to invite others to follow Christ with us as we worship Him, serve in His Name, and study His Word.

There are people you and I know whose lives are unbearable living hells and who face an eternity of the same all because Christians of their acquaintance haven’t gotten over themselves enough to show them simple compassion or to invite them to know Jesus.

Our world is in a world of hurt. Jesus is the answer and the cure.

As we approach Friend Day on November 11, make it your job to let the hurting people you know that the God we know in Jesus Christ wants to be with them now and forever.

Don’t let a day go by without sharing Jesus with somebody in some way. Amen

Following an Offensive Savior

To suffering and persecuted first century churches in Asia Minor, the apostle Peter wrote, "...if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this Name" (1 Peter 4:16).
 

Peter's argument in the section of 1 Peter from which the verse is taken is basically this: Suffering is inevitable in this world. It's an imperfect, sinful place, after all. Christians may, in fact, experience suffering they wouldn't otherwise undergo because they are Christians. The message that Christians bear, that the suffering Savior Jesus calls all people to surrender to Him because He is the only way to rightness with God, offends most of the people of the world.  

But, Peter says, whatever suffering you may endure, keep glorifying the God Whose Son died and rose for you. Jesus Christ deserves our unreserved allegiance and total devotion!

Check out today's installment of Our Daily Bread.

Deciding How to Live

[This was shared during the 10:15 AM worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, today.]

James 3:13-4:8
Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Road Not Taken, begins:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could. 

Anyone who has ever had to make a decision in life can identify with those lines. We all must make decisions.

Some decisions we make, of course, have more importance than others.

The career path we will follow.

Who we will marry.

How much effort we will choose to put into our relationships.

What to do in caring for elderly parents.

Life is filled with consequential decisions and, as we make them, we feel the need for wisdom.

In today’s second lesson, James, the earthly brother of Jesus and leader of the Christians in Jerusalem, says that there are two kinds of wisdom. And the consequences these two divergent forms of wisdom bring into our lives are dramatically different. Turn please to the lesson, James 3:13-4:8.

James begins with a question:

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him [or her] show by good conduct that his [or her] works are done in the meekness of wisdom.” 

Now, truth be told, we don’t like being told to be meek. We flinch when Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, “the meek will inherit the earth.” But, we don’t want to inherit the earth. We want it now! We’re not into delayed gratification.

And if the rows of self-help books you find in most bookstores are any indication, our idea of wisdom has to do with being shrewd and bold about getting what we want when we want it, no matter who or what gets in the way.

James well describes the shrewd, plotting wisdom that the world usually recommends to us:

"But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly [from the world, not from God in heaven], sensual [it gratifies the parts of us slated for death], demonic [from hell, the place of everlasting punishment and condemnation for those who turn their backs on Jesus Christ]. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there." 

The problem with the wisdom generated by human beings is that it’s me-centered. Buy into the “wisdom” of this world and you may achieve things that the world considers great, but you will not be in alignment with God’s will that we love God and love others as we love ourselves. You will, as Jesus says, "gain the world and lose your life."

This sort of death-dealing wisdom even has been given place in the twenty-first century Church.

For example, some conservative denominations and Christian megachurches wrap Jesus in the American flag to justify everything about American traditions and values, to give them the sheen of holiness. In doing so, they subordinate Jesus to the United States, engaging in an idolatry that appeals to those who are certain that, even if God isn't a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative, liberal, libertarian, or socialist, God is an American. This false wisdom may help churches get along with people who would rather not be confronted with the truth about the flaws of this nation we love, but it will leave the people who accept it far from the true God of the universe we know in Jesus.

Sadly, many embrace other forms of false and worldly wisdom in the so-called "liberal" denominations, like our own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

An official web site of our ELCA, called Living Lutheran, recently published a sermon by Pastor Delmer Chilton, an assistant to the bishop of the ELCA’s Southeastern Synod. His text was Mark 7:24-37, a passage of the Bible that we looked at a few weeks ago. It deals with Jesus’ encounter with a Syrophoenician woman, a Gentile, a non-Jew, whose daughter had a demon.

Jesus, you’ll remember, at first appears to refuse the woman her request. “Let the children [by which Jesus means the children of Israel] be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” “Dogs” was the put-down term Jews used about Gentiles, who they believed could never be saved from sin and death nor be right with God. But we know that Jesus came to die and rise for all people, giving eternal life to all who turn from sin and believe in Him alone as God and authority over their lives.

We also know that Jesus is God the Son: all-knowing, all-powerful. “The Father and I are one,” Jesus tells us [John 10:30].

So, we are momentarily mystified by Jesus’ seeming refusal of this woman’s request.

But as we pointed out a few weeks ago, the word that Jesus uses for dogs is the word for puppies. The Syrophoenician woman immediately picks up on Jesus’ playful phrasing, understanding not only that Jesus is going to grant her request, but that He is using this incident as a memorable sign that His grace can reach and change the life of any person, whatever their nationality or former religious persuasion. As Jesus will put it elsewhere in Mark’s gospel, “The one who believes in Me and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe in Me will be condemned.”

In his ELCA official web site sermon, Delmer Chilton ignores all that Jesus claims about Himself throughout the rest of the gospels and says that Jesus really was going to turn the Syrophoenician woman down until she taught Jesus what it means to be God and Savior of the world. Chilton claims that after this encounter, “Jesus stands corrected...the woman has helped Jesus understand a difficult part of Scripture and a difficult part of his call.”

Folks, this is the cunning, shrewd, self-serving wisdom of the world dressed up as Christianity. It’s the same kind of sin the devil has been enticing proud people into embracing since the garden of Eden.

You see, if you whittle God down to your size, then you, not God, can call the shots. You can tell God how to be God. You can decide what truths in God’s Word you’ll accept as authoritative over your life and what ones you’ll ignore or denigrate. It allows you to remake Christian truth in ways that are more palatable to you.

Operating from the same mindset, the pastor of an ELCA congregation in Santa Fe, New Mexico told another newspaper a few weeks ago that Bible “is not a talking book” [a surprise to anyone who’s been taught that the Bible is the Word of God in which God speaks to us] and then, he asserted, the Bible “doesn’t tell me what to do.”

Turn please, to 2 Timothy 3:16. It says:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof [that means censuring or rebuking for wandering away from God’s will], for correction, for instruction in righteousness...” 

There are things we may not understand in the Bible, but it is the living Word of God, the place we go to find hope, salvation, truth, and God's will for our lives. It records God's definitive disclosure of Himself, first to ancient Israel and ultimately to all the world, through Jesus Christ. This is the God Who will give us wisdom for every decision we may face in life, if will will only ask for it in Jesus' Name. James 1:5 reminds us: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him [or her] ask God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given...”

The kind of wisdom that we need isn’t the wisdom of the world, or of the devil, or even from within ourselves. James describes it in James 3:17: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.”

Life is too big for us to figure it out on our own.

We need the wisdom God gives to those who humbly surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. Look again at our text, at James 4:7-8:

“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

In my own life, whether before I turned from atheism to faith in Christ or in the years since I fell in love with Jesus, I have always gotten into spiritual danger, relational danger, and the danger of forgetting who God made me to be and who Christ, by His cross and resurrection, freed me to be in when I do three different things.

I've gotten into trouble when I have followed my own thoughtful analysis of circumstances, instead of following Jesus. God gave us our brains. So, we are to use them. But if my brain isn't subordinated to the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ, I will inevitably make unwise choices. As Proverbs 14:12 reminds us: “There is a way that seems right to [human beings], but its end is the way of death.”

I've also gotten myself into trouble when I have followed my heart instead of following Jesus. God gave us our emotions and they can bless our lives. But if my heart isn't subordinated to Jesus Christ, I make unwise decisions. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the human heart "is devious above all else; it is perverse..."

I've also gotten myself into trouble when I've followed the crowd or some individual I respect or like, instead of following Christ. Proverbs 11:14 tells us, "Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in abundance of counselors there is safety." It's good to get the advice of other people. But if those other people aren't following Jesus, their advice is, at best, suspect.

I've gotten myself into trouble in life then, when I haven't followed the wisdom of God.

But, how can we operate from God’s wisdom, rather than the wisdom of the world?

For me, one passage of Scripture seems to best summarize God’s counsel and command for those who want to live in the wisdom of God every day of their lives.

Please turn to Romans 12:1-2.

It says:

“I beseech you therefore, [brothers and sisters], by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Wisdom--as well as life, hope, and joy--comes to those who give their all to the God Who gave His all to us in Jesus Christ. Wisdom comes to those who surrender to Christ! 

Jesus says, “...wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction [that is, to hell and separation from God], and there are many who [take this route]...[But] narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

We all have decisions to make in life. Surrender to Jesus Christ and God will guide you to make wise choices.

Sometimes those choices will lead you through pain and growth and maturity you’d just as soon not acquire.

But when you choose to follow Jesus Christ, you will always be living wisely.

You will always be on the way that leads to life. Amen

Seeing Christ

Despite our imperfections, as we follow Christ, others can see Him at work in and through us. See here.

The Closer You Grow to Christ, the More Desperate Your Need of Christ!

It shouldn't come as a surprise to Christians.

But it nearly always does.

In fact, one can describe it as a predictable element of the Christian life.

What is it? Being tempted to intentionally sin against the will of God as revealed in Scripture despite a fervent faith and a heartfelt desire to live according to God's will.

As R.T. Kendall writes in God Gives Second Chances: How to Get Up, Dust Off and Be Used Again By God When You Fall:

You should know that if you are a chosen vessel, you also are a target of Satan. Jonathan Edwards said that when the church is revived, so is the devil. The closer you get to God, the more devil will be aware of you. [italics added by me]

That's why prayerful reliance on and surrender to Jesus becomes more important as you grow closer to Christ!

The closer you grow to Christ and, God forbid, the more self-confidence you have in feeling that you know what you need to do each day in order to maintain your closeness to Christ and to avoid the temptation to sin, the greater the danger you are in.

This is why, in The Small Catechism, Martin Luther says that we should remember our baptism--the moment when God crucified our old selves in order to let our new selves to come to life (John 3:3-8)--through repentance and renewal in Christ's Name every single day. Luther writes that baptism signifies that:

"the old Adam [our old sinful selves], together with all sins and evil desires, should be drowned by daily sorrow for sin and repentance and be put to death and that the new person should come forth every day and rise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever."

Don't ever get smug or self-satisfied about your spiritual progress!

Belonging to the "Christian club" is not going to save us from sin, death, or temptation.

We are saved from these things only by God's grace, given to those with faith in Jesus Christ, to be sure, but only "provided you continue in [God's kindness, given through Christ]; otherwise you will be cut off [from God]..." (Romans 11:22) Jesus says: "the one who endures to the end will be saved" (Matthew 24:13).

Jesus' words to the disciples who fell asleep in the face of temptations to betray and abandon Him, apply as much to us in our everyday lives, filled with similar temptations to turn our backs on Christ: "Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41).

Peter was one of the disciples who fell asleep, didn't pray, and so, turned His back on Jesus on the night of Jesus' arrest, on the day before Jesus' execution. It may have been with this bitter experience in mind that Peter later wrote to the churches in Asia Minor: "Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8).

As long as Christians are living in this world, the devil, the world, and our sinful selves will hound us, striving to separate us from the new life all who believe in Jesus have. Don't ever think you can fight off those temptations your own! We can "resist" the devil, as Peter puts it (1 Peter 5:9) through daily submission to Christ. We then let Christ fight for us.

Luther in his hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God:

No strength of ours can match his might [the might of the devil]
We would be lost, rejected.
But now a champion comes to fight
Whom God Himself elected.
You ask Who this may be?
The Lord of hosts is He!
Christ Jesus, mighty Lord,
God's only Son, adored.
He holds the field victorious.

Christ fights for those who surrender to Him. We need to rely on Christ's grace and God's forgiveness as much each day we age in Christ as we did "the hour [we] first believed"!

'Robin Hood Obama?'

One day after the revelation of a videotape in which Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said that the 47% of US taxpayers who did not pay income tax were dependent people who would not vote for him, an audiotape of President Barack Obama applauding "redistribution...at least at a certain level," has surfaced.

The tape is from an event that took place at Loyola University nearly fourteen years ago. Obama, careful in his phrasing, doesn't advocate a wholesale confiscatory redistribution of tax dollars. Nor is it clear that he's even talking about federal monies, as the other references are to local government agencies, which have separate taxing authority.

But the suspicions of many are bound to be aroused by any talk of redistribution of wealth, conjuring up images of Robin Hood taking from the rich to give to the poor.

And while that conversation will happen as a result of this audio's disclosure, I'm more interested in the underlying assumption behind most talk of redistribution.

While I've often addressed the dangers of materialism and consumerism (sinfully caught up in them as I may be as an American). But there is a school of thought that says that continuing economic growth, even if it allows more of the have-nots to enter the ranks of the haves, is both negative and unrealistic: Negative, because growth inevitably leads to environmental degradation, this school of thought says, and unrealistic, because the pie is only so big.

It's on this latter point that most talks of use of the tax code for resource redistribution often hinges: The belief that growth is inherently limited and that consequently, the job of government is to redistribute wealth.

In an article in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs, Danish scholar Bjorn Lomborg shows that assumptions of the finitude of potential economic growth, first posited some forty years ago, are inaccurate. Human beings are very creative in expanding the overall economic pie, with new technologies, some of them both economically and environmentally friendly

Does Barack Obama believe in wealth redistribution through the tax code? What does he mean by that, if he does? And on what economic assumptions does he build if he does think the federal government should play Robin Hood?

These are all questions raised by the audio.

David Brooks on "Thurston Howell Romney"

After an extensive overview of how many Americans, of every class, receive federal support or subsidies in various ways and how Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney could talk about that fact in more sensitive ways, conservative columnist David Brooks concludes:

Personally, I think [Romney's] a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?

Every Parent Should Read Gladwell's Article on Jerry Sandusky: Be Your Child's Advocate!

Malcolm Gladwell dissects the sexual molestation horrors perpetrated by Jerry Sandusky and his ilk here. It's astounding the degree of patient planning and trust-building to which these monsters devote themselves to gain the trust of their victims and their parents.

I am convinced this is not an isolated phenomenon. During her public school career, our daughter had two male PhysEd teachers who "creeped her out" with what she felt like inappropriate language and advances.

In each case, the perps claimed mystification at our daughter's reactions to their cleverly ambiguous attacks.

Nonetheless, we stuck to accepting our daughter's judgment in each case and I said that she had to be transferred out of their classes.

Subsequent events demonstrated that her wariness of the two teachers was warranted. Both eventually got caught up in scandals and were convicted of criminal charges for having sexual relations with underage students.

Reprehensible as these teachers were, the victims of their predatory behavior were not the kinds of kids Sandusky picked on. He liked boys, for one thing. He also tended to psychologically manipulate what, at one time, would have been called "at risk" youngsters.

But as Gladwell shows, while the MO of these sexual predators is similar, they all work assiduously at establishing the trust of their communities and good "youth advocates and friends" before starting to force themselves sexually on their prey.

Nonetheless, the moral of all these stories should be plain: If your child feels uncomfortable around an adult authority figure who seems to be making sexual advances, do not quickly dismiss your child's allegations. Believe them first. Few children are going to make up such personally-humiliating stories. Be your child's advocate! Presume that they are innocent and not gratuitous liars or participants in "mass hysteria."

Thanks to Samantha Ettus for tweeting about this piece and to two friends mentioning it as well.

Who's in Charge: God or Your Tongue?

[This was shared during the 10:15 worship service at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

James 3:1-12
The book of James, from which our second lesson for today comes, is a practical handbook for Christian living.

We might wonder why we need such a thing. After all, we’re Lutherans: We know that all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ are saved from sin and death and have life with God that begins now and will be lived in perfection in eternity. “‘Nuff said, preacher, the Browns/Bengals game is on at 1.” Who needs a handbook?

Thank God, salvation, life with God, and the comfort and power of the Holy Spirit’s presence are all free gifts given to all with surrendering trust in Jesus Christ!

But, according to the Bible, even after we’ve been baptized, affirmed our belief in Christ, and become part of God’s kingdom, we still live in this world until either Christ returns or we die and rise into eternity with God.

And as long as we draw breath here, the old Adam (or the old Eve) in us must, as Martin Luther writes in The Small Catechism, “be drowned by daily sorrow for sin and repentance and be put to death.”

It’s only then, Luther says, “that the new person [can] come forth every day and rise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

As was true of Jesus in the wilderness, even after we're baptized, the devil works on us everyday to push us away from God. So does the sin within us and around us.

So, unless we stay open to God’s grace and guidance and remain submitted to the God we know in Jesus Christ as the final authority over our lives, the temptations to take God’s grace for granted and to take up any sin that pleases us can overrun us and steer us, bit by bit, away from an eternity with God to an eternity in hell.

James’ guidebook for Christians isn’t a “how to get salvation” book. It’s more like a mirror that we can hold up to our lives and, first, see our need of Christ’s forgiveness and, second, see our need of the Holy Spirit’s help in living a life in response to God's gracious love.

In the Bible lesson from James we looked at last week, we were encouraged to turn from the sin of partiality to some people over others. In today's lesson, the issue is controlling our tongues, the words that we speak.

This may not seem like a big deal to us. But it is to God.

Turn to our lesson, James 3:1-12, please.

In verses 2 and 3, James anticipates our dismissal of our words as being “no big deal,” as something that could possibly stand in the way between God and us. He says that little things--like small bits in the mouths of horses or tiny rudders on the backs of giant ships--can exercise great control over and have a huge impact on big things.

Then, look at what we’re told next, starting in verse 5: “...the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest it kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity [that means immoral or grossly unfair living]. The tongue...defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell...”

James goes on to say that we know how to tame wild animals, but no human being, no human effort can tame the tongue or the damage it can do.

In verses 9 and 10, he hands out his most severe indictment of the damage done by our mouths, in effect, repeating it twice in different ways just to make sure we get the message:

“With [the tongue] we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the [likeness] of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.”

Our words are powerful. I think the reason for this is simple. We are the only ones of God’s creatures “made in the image” of the God Who spoke and brought the whole universe into being.

It’s no coincidence then, that one of the first ways in which the Old Testament book of Genesis says that Adam, the first human being, expressed human dominion over creation was to give names--to speak descriptive words--over every other creature. This power--the power to give names or labels to people or things--reflects the image of God within every human being.

But after the fall into sin, we sinners naturally began misusing this gift of speech. In fact, James says, because sin has filled us, our tongues have taken control of us to the point that sometimes we speak without thinking or speak on the basis of malicious thinking, bringing harm to others and to ourselves.

And this is very serious business! Turn to Matthew 24:36-37. Jesus says:

“I say to you that for every idle word [every thoughtless meaningless word] [people] may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned.” 

If those words of Jesus, God in the flesh, don’t make you squirm a little, you probably weren’t listening!

The failure to control our mouths is a sin issue.

Careless words, whether spoken in judgment of others, to criticize others without loving them, or to pass along the latest gossip, are not harmless things.

Unrepented, careless words put our eternal relationship with God at risk.

It turns out that God has not rescinded the Eighth Commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

We “bear false witness” not just when we tell outright lies about others. Martin Luther writes of this commandment: “We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, lie, or gossip about our neighbors, but speak well of them, and put the most charitable construction on all that they do.”

But, there is good news.

Our intemperate tongues (and all our other sins) don’t need to control us or our eternal destinies.

We can live differently.

We can move closer to God and not continually drive a wedge between God and us through our careless words.

In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus tells those who would follow Him into eternity: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him [or her] deny [themselves] and take up [their] cross and follow Me.”

The indispensable step in getting free of the sins of our mouths is to bring those sins to Jesus, to confess them to God, to admit that we have used our words to curse others, gossip about others and tear them down.

Drawing on the covenant God has made with us in our baptism, we need to drown our old sinful selves and allow, through the grace God bears for all who believe in the crucified and risen Jesus, our new selves to “rise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

Back in Old Testament times, God’s people sang to God, “There is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered” (Psalm 130:4). That’s no less true today for us when we take up our crosses, confess our sins, follow Jesus, and receive God’s grace!

If, as you’ve been listening to this sermon, God has brought to mind ways in which you have misused the gift of speech, you can take this step right now. “God,” you can pray, “for the sake of Jesus, forgive me for using my words to bring pain to others or dishonor to You.”

Whenever we confess our sins to God in the Name of Jesus, there is forgiveness in God! As long as we are living on this earth, we can take advantage of the Bible’s promise that all who call on the Name of Jesus Christ will be saved!

But what then? What do we do next? How do we let God’s Holy Spirit guide us so that we don’t engage in careless or harmful talk?

Here are few suggestions.

First: We surrender our brains and our mouths to God, along with the rest of our lives. A good prayer to offer each day might be the one in Psalm 119:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Second: Before we open our mouths to share something critical of another human being, we should ask ourselves, “Does this help anything?” In Ephesians 4:29, we read these words: “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”

Third: We ask ourselves another question: Would we say these words to Jesus Christ? In a very real way, whether our words build others up or tear them down, Christ hears every one of them. As Jesus once said, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known” (Luke 12:2). Jesus also say that when we encounter others, we really meet Him (Matthew 25:31-46). Do we think that Jesus wants to hear what we have to say?

Fourth: If our words have harmed another person, it can be appropriate to apologize to them. They may not forgive you. But at least, you will have the satisfaction of making an effort.

Finally: Whether in conversation with others or in conversation with God, try silence. (This is really hard for me!) Proverbs 17:28 says that, “Even fools who keep silence are considered wise.”

But isn’t just to impress others that we should keep silence. James 1:19 says that we Christians should be “swift to hear, slow to speak.” God, after all, gave us two ears and one mouth and our communication probably ought to be in that proportion. When we remain silent and truly listen to others, we come to understand them more and judge them less.

Silence also can be a great way to build up our relationship with God. Through the prophet Isaiah, God said, “Listen to me in silence, O coastlands” (Isaiah 41:1). Sometimes, in our praying, we can get so busy speaking, often even telling God how to do His job, that we forget to let God be God. Silence before God can be a conduit by which God brings us comfort, hope, and guidance. In Psalm 46:10, we're told: “Be still and know that I am God.” Practicing silence is a good way to love God and love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Before closing, let me add that controlling my mouth is a huge issue in my life. I like to talk.

So, each day, I ask God to crucify the old Adam in me, so inclined to fill the air with useless, self-referential words and instead, help me to honor Christ with my words and my life.

As some of you know, one of my most frequent prayer requests to God is: “Give me the right words and the right silences.” I want to honor the God Who gave His only Son so that all who believe in Him may have life forever. I don’t want my mouth to get in the way of God’s grace.

Even if you’re only a fraction as mouthy as I can be, you may be able to say the same thing. May we all seek God’s help in guiding and guarding the things we say and so, honoring Him with our whole lives. Amen

Seeing and Serving the "Invisible" People

[This was shared during the 10:15 worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

James 2:1-17
Through the centuries, the New Testament book of James, from which our second Bible lesson for today is drawn, hasn’t enjoyed much appreciation by we Lutheran Christians. Martin Luther himself called it an “epistle of straw,” worthy of being burned.

Yet Luther also said that this New Testament letter had important wisdom for those who already believe in the gospel.

And that’s why I believe the book of James is, as much as any other book of the Bible, the Word of God: It’s a word from God about how to live as though Jesus Christ really is the Savior and God we confess Him to be.

The Church, as I’ve said before, is Christ’s hospital for recovering hypocrites. It’s in the fellowship of the Church that we are confronted by the reality of our sin and hypocrisy, face the reality that death is sin’s natural consequence, and that only those who believe in the crucified and risen Jesus are set free  from sin and death.

But it’s also in the fellowship of the Church, gathered around God’s Word in Jesus’ Name, that God affects those mid-course corrections that we imperfect hypocrites need as we travel through life toward the moment we meet Christ face to face.

In today’s lesson, James addresses one of the most common ways we can go off course in our faith: Showing partiality to some people over others.

Please turn to the lesson, James 2:1-17. James begins:

My brethren [sisters, too], do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ and say to the poor man, ‘You stand there,’ or, ‘Sit here at my footstool,’ have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?’

The churches to which James wrote were themselves largely composed of poor people. Yet, James says, they fell all over themselves in welcoming rich people to their worship gatherings.

This may have been something they did out of habit; the poor of ancient cultures were taught to be completely subservient to the rich and were also taught that wealth was a sign of God’s favor.

On the other hand, they may have treated poor visitors to their worship the way they did either because it made them feel good to be superior to somebody else for once or because they had been taught that poverty was God’s curse for sin.

Whatever the reasons for their partiality, James was saying it was always wrong! It still is.

And you know what? Partiality of any kind is always wrong.

In a sermon on this passage from James, Pastor Maxie Dunham tells the true story of a woman, Dr. Ridenour, who, in her mid-forties, suffered from a stroke that rendered her partially paralyzed for some time.

“The paralysis,” Dunnam writes, “was an embarrassment, creating a kind of vulnerability and nakedness, a sadness, and an infinite kind of loneliness.” People didn’t know how to relate to her and so, hung up on their own discomfort, they ignored Jesus’ command to love others as we love ourselves and ignored Dr. Ridenour. She became invisible.

Who do we avoid--who do we render invisible--by ignoring them?

“Did you meet the visitors in worship last Sunday?” I’ve routinely asked the members of the three congregations I’ve served as pastor over the years. Inevitably, it seems, someone will say, “No. I didn’t meet them because I never met them before.”

Isn’t that answer a way of saying, “I didn’t meet them because I don’t want to meet them”?

It’s really a handy way to foil God’s purpose for our lives. And what are God's purposes for us?

Take a look, please, at 2 Corinthians 5:20. It says:

“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For [God] made [Christ] Who knew no sin to be sin for us [Christ, though sinless, bore our sin on the cross], that we might become the righteousness of God in [Christ].” 

Through our faith in Christ, God has made us right with God [that’s a big part of what righteousness means for us, being right with God] and we in turn are to be ambassadors for Christ and His kingdom to other people.

But, if we make other people invisible, we won’t have to be ambassadors. We won't see anybody who needs the gospel.

 “I didn’t see that visitor to worship,” we say.

“I didn’t know there were hungry people in Hocking County."

"I didn’t know that my neighbor was unemployed or having health issues."

"I didn’t know about their grief.”

This is no different from those Jesus condemns in His parable of the last judgment. Take a look at Matthew 25:44-45. “Lord,” the condemned ask plaintively, “when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” You can’t see people you’ve willfully made invisible, of no account, unworthy of your consideration, concern, or even a simple greeting.

In Matthew 5:46, Jesus says that, at the final judgment, he will say to those who have condemned themselves by ignoring Him and others, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”

Now, don’t get confused!

You will not be saved from sin and death and purposeless living by doing good works.

In Jesus Christ, God has already done all the work needed to save us so that we can live this life with purpose and look forward to living with God for eternity.

Jesus didn’t lead a sinless life, die on a cross, and rise from the dead just to turn you into a neurotic who thinks you have to work hard at doing enough good things to earn God’s love or grace!

God already loves you. That’s why He sent God the Son to die and rise for you.

Turn please to Ephesians 2:8-9. It says:

“For by grace [that is, God’s charity] you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves [you didn’t earn your salvation]; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” 

We are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Period.

For God’s “amazing grace,” we should give glory to God every single day!

But faith in Jesus Christ is more than the acceptance of an intellectual proposition. James puts it this way back in our lesson, at James 2:17: “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

Faith is a trust in Jesus that will so free us from concern about ourselves that, if we let it, God will open our eyes to see others.

We’ll see the visitor to worship, the hungry, the jobless, the grieving.

The still small voice of God will tell our spirits, “Now that you have eternity with Me, what have you got to lose from reaching out to others? Not even death itself can separate you from Me. So, go for it!”

A man I know, a Christian, hesitated to call on a friend whose wife had just left him. He didn’t want to butt in and he was sure others were reaching out to his friend.

Besides, the very idea of calling his friend made him feel uncomfortable.

What would he say?

How could he handle those awkward silences?

But when he told a wise friend about his hesitation, the friend told him, as gently as he could, “Get over yourself. Your discomfort is not the issue at hand. The issue is that, right now, is that your friend feels alone, isolated from others and from God. You need to call your friend.”

He did and you know what? He learned that he was the first person to have called that hurting man in weeks. He was so glad he’d taken his friend’s advice!

First Corinthians 12:27 says that we Christians, members of Christ’s eternal Church, are part of the “body of Christ.” That means that we are Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

What does that mean exactly?

Well, for one thing, it means that no one should be invisible to us. Jesus, God the Son, could have stayed safely enthroned in heaven, listening to the praises of the angels, acting as though you and I didn’t exist, ignoring the fact that without His intervention, we would live this life without His help, die in our sins, and spend eternity in hell.

But the God of love was unwilling to give up on us so easily. We weren’t invisible to God!

That’s why we’re told that Jesus “became flesh and dwelt among us.”

And when Jesus walked on this earth, He reached out to and loved all sorts of people: the rich, the poor, the religious, the unrepentant sinners, the blind, the lame, the grieving, the in-crowd, and the forgotten.

Jesus could do that because He operated in the certainty that, as He trusted in God the Father, nothing could separate Jesus from Him: not the hatred of the crowds, not the condemnation of religious or government authorities, not the torture or execution or death on the cross He would undergo.

As believers in Jesus, we can live in the same assurance.

So, this week, I want to ask you to go to God in prayer and make a simple request.

“God,” we can pray, “this week let me put my faith into action. Reveal to me one person who would otherwise be invisible to me. It might be someone I have tried to forget or it may be a stranger I’ve never met. Help me to see them as you see them, as children in need of Your grace and help me to reach out to them in Your love in some way.”

I’m going to be offering the same prayer myself.

May God help us to put away partiality.

May God help us to love as He has loved us.

Faith without works is dead. May our faith in Christ be alive every day!

Moving from Belief to Action

Bob Logan tells about a church where each member is encouraged to spend one hour in service outside of the church for every hour spent in the church, presumably in worship, study, small groups, fellowship, and meetings. The idea seems to be: Breathe in God, breathe out God.

What a simple and exciting way for Christians to hold ourselves accountable to Christ for being more than hearers of the Word, but doers of the Word!

Putting my faith into practical action is definitely something I need to do more of, because, as the apostle James reminds us in the second Bible lesson many of us will be considering this coming Sunday, "faith without works is dead."

Our works cannot save us from sin and death. Only the crucified and risen Jesus Christ can do that. But works of service in Christ's Name are a sure sign of actual faith and not just intellectual (or cultural) assent on our parts.

"I wonder what would happen if the church sought to be culturally distinct rather than culturally compliant?"

See here.

A Ride Like No Other

We Christians pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

But it's doubtful that any of us (especially, I think, I) have any notion of what we're asking for.

I am convinced though, that when God's kingdom comes to us in our every day lives and when it comes to us finally, fully, definitively, on the day of judgment when Jesus returns to this world, it won't look much like the visions of the kingdom spouted either by the Christian Right or by Liberal Protestantism.

Any time we try stuffing the God we know in Jesus Christ into our little ideological boxes or preferred paradigms the way these folks do, we end up engaging in idolatry, worshiping a false Jesus or ourselves.

God defines His kingdom. Our job as Christians isn't to define the Kingdom of God for God or others, but to be so totally surrendered to Jesus Christ, that the kingdom flows to us and from us to the rest of the world in all its richness and wonder.

People who think they can control God are delusional. You can't control a hurricane, even less God. The best we can do is surrender daily to Christ, let God's Spirit take control of us and then, go along for the ride.

That's how the wild, mighty, uncontrollable God of the universe does His will and brings His kingdom to us and through us, to others. His kingdom comes only to those who let go and let Christ be in charge.

It boils down to this: Do you want to drive, knowing that ends in death and separation from God? Or do you want to be God's passenger, knowing that it ends in the full, rich, scary, fulfilling, everlasting life for which you were made?

Who wants to go along for the ride?

The Call of Rainbows

 I was able to get this video of the lower part of a rainbow on Labor Day. (My wife was driving and I was sitting in the passenger seat, by the way.) We were driving on Route 32 in Pike County, Ohio.

I love rainbows. They always remind me of the covenant God made with Noah and all his descendants, including you and me, after the great flood which had decimated all but eight members of the human race, those who had remained faithful in living in what Martin Luther called the "daily repentance and renewal" that God gives those who believe in Him.

Genesis 9:8-17 says:

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” 

Of course, I understand (sort of) the scientific explanation of what rainbows are and how they are formed. But, Genesis tells us of Who forms rainbows and why.

Whenever I look at a rainbow, I'm also reminded of God's never-ending love for the human race. In their way then, rainbows also point to the ultimate expression of God's love for us, when God the Son, Jesus, Who, gave Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sin so that all who repent for sin and entrust their lives to Him will, like Him, rise and live with God forever.

Rainbows call us to repentance and belief in the God Who makes every single one of them.

The Lone Eagle

My wife and I have "car books."

When we go places, she drives and I read. The books we share are our car books.

We just finished A. Scott Berg's biography of Charles Lindbergh. We both loved it!

Lindbergh was a complicated man whose accomplishments extended well beyond piloting The Spirit of Saint Louis from New York to Paris in 1927, a feat that brought him a fame unprecedented before that time and unmatched since.

The Lone Eagle forever stained--or put an asterisk next to--his status as hero by his involvement with the America First movement prior to World War II. As the movement's most prominent speaker, seeking to avert US involvement in the war, Lindbergh appeared less than concerned about the menace of Nazi Germany or its persecution of Jews.

Years earlier, as an eighteen year old, Lindbergh left the University of Wisconsin after being a student there for only a year, receiving low marks. Yet he was undeniably brilliant. Within a few years of his 1927 flight, he developed a technology that became an essential element of organ transplants.

He remained active in commercial aviation until just a few years before his death, was an early voice in the environmental movement, provided invaluable service to the US during World War II, did great work in the fields of geography and anthropology, and was an amazing writer.

As we read Berg's book, my wife and I found ourselves drawn to Lindbergh in so many ways. His achievements and intrepidity are amazing.

But the same dogged determination, rationalism, and willingness to stand alone that put Lindbergh in the cockpit of The Spirit of Saint Louis also could make him a tyrant with his children and a verbal brute with his wife.

It also gave him a confidence in his ability to control things that, in the end, seems to have vetoed any thought of a surrendering faith in God.

And so, toward the end of Berg's book, when he describes Lindbergh's determination, in the final days of his life, to fly from New York, where he was hospitalized, to Maui, where he intended to die, I found my throat thickening as I read of the commercial pilots in Hawaii who took off their caps in respect for the pioneer being carried on a stretcher across the airport tarmac.

But I also felt sadness as I read of Lindbergh's passing, uncovered by the grace offered by Jesus Christ that we all will need when we come face to face with God.

Called to Be Readers and Doers of God's Word

[This sermon was prepared to be shared during 10:15 worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Mark 7:1-23
Please go to the end of today’s gospel lesson, to Mark 7:20-23. Jesus says:

“What comes out of a [person], that [is what] defiles a [person]. For from within, out of the heart of [people], proceed evil thoughts, adulteries [tha'st sexual intimacy outside of marriage by people already married], fornications [that’s sexual intimacy outside of marriage, something that is always wrong], murders, thefts, covetousness [that’s craving the possessions, status, or relationships of other people], wickedness [this is maliciousness or cruelty], deceit, lewdness, an evil eye [looking upon anyone with hate], blasphemy [dishonoring God], pride [arrogance], foolishness [acting apart from the revealed wisdom of God].” Now look where Jesus says all of these human behaviors and attitudes start: “All these things come from within and defile a [person].” 



This is the conclusion to which Jesus drives in today’s long gospel lesson. It’s true to say, as Martin Luther teaches in The Small Catechism, that evil comes from “the devil, the world, and our sinful selves.” But no one can force us to sin. Only we can defile ourselves.

We perpetrate sin when, after flirting with sin, we allow it to take charge of our thoughts and actions. Sin is an inside job!

The devil doesn't make us sin.

And we can’t claim that we sin because we’re following orders or because we need to go along to get along with others.

Nor can we say that we sin because we are the hapless victims of our own inborn sinful impulses and inclinations.

Nobody and nothing that pushes us from outside ourselves can make us sin. Any sin that ever defiles us starts within us.

If you are mired in some sin this morning, you will only get free when you can admit, "I am the only one to blame for this" and then turn to the crucified and risen Christ to seek forgiveness and the strength to live a clean life with Him at the center of it all.

Jesus happens to teach this lesson that it’s what comes from inside of us that dirties our lives and souls because of a confrontation He has with the Pharisees. The Pharisees thought that if they kept certain religious rules and traditions, external actions, they would make themselves holy and clean.

They thought, for example, that if people washed their hands before eating, it would mark them as people of faith and goodness. They were horrified that Jesus’ disciples didn’t engage in their religious washing ceremony before dinner. Today, of course, we know that washing or sanitizing our hands is a good way to prevent disease. But the Pharisees knew nothing about hygiene. Jesus says that no matter how many times a day we wash our hands, we won’t be clean on the inside apart from repentance and faith in Him.

The Pharisees who confronted Jesus also believed in something called Corban. Corban was a religious creation. God’s law says that we are to honor our fathers and mothers. That may mean providing for their needs when they are no longer able to do so. Under the Pharisees’ law of Corban, they could piously tell their parents, “The money I was going to use to help you, I’m going to give to God instead.” Giving to the cause of the God we know in Christ through our church is an essential part of the Christian life. But if we ignore God’s will for our lives just to impress God, we’re not only disrespecting those we have been commanded to care for, we’re sinning against God. God cannot be bought off!



We inevitably will sin against God any time we replace God’s Word and God’s will with our traditions, our reasoning, our wisdom, our feelings, our preferences. A young woman once told me, "It can't be wrong that my boyfriend and I are having sex. We love each other so much." She and her boyfriend were replacing the revealed will of God with their own supposed wisdom!

Whenever we trust our hearts more than we trust what God teaches us in His Word, we defile ourselves and wander from God.

So, how do we avoid going down the path of the Pharisees encountered by Jesus in today’s gospel lesson? How do we ensure the things going on inside of us--the attitudes that lead to our behaviors--are godly and clean? 
 


We must stay open to maintaining a strong personal relationship with the God we know in Jesus Christ. A relationship with God is a gift of grace given to us through Jesus Christ. All who repent and believe in Christ have life with God. But it can be a huge challenge to de-clutter lives of ways of thinking and seemingly pious traditions that prevent the crucified and risen Jesus from calling the shots in our lives!

I believe that this de-cluttering begins and is built on regularly spending time in God’s Word, the Bible. The Bible is no ordinary book. It gives life. Hebrews 4:12 says: “...the word of God is living and powerful...”

The Bible, unlike any other book, also is incorruptible, meaning that, unlike the things of this world, it cannot die and fills with incorruptible life to all who believe in the God it reveals. First Peter 1:23 says that Christians born from above through water and the Word at Baptism, are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the Word which lives and abides forever.”



The Bible also claims to be God’s gift of milk, bread, solid food, and even dessert for His people. The apostle Peter tells us to “crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.” God wants us to grow up in our faith by feeding us on His Word. Most people in America own Bibles. But most never crack them open. Consequently, they never experience the joy and assurance of living day to day with God’s gracious guidance in their lives. They’re like people starving to death even though they have refrigerators full of food.*



God gives us His Word because He wants us to know Jesus Christ as the only way to forgiveness for sin, a right relationship with God, and everlasting life.

He also wants us to be able help us grow up and thrive as believers in Christ.

When we fill up on God’s Word, it crowds out the attitudes and behaviors that otherwise will defile our lives and separate us from God. It sets our lives moving in God’s direction.

And when we stock our minds with the truths of the Bible, we won’t mistake our human ways of thinking or our pious traditions for the will of the God Who made us.

You may say, “But, pastor, the Bible is hard to understand.” It can be and, in this lifetime, you and I will never understand everything about the Bible. But I guarantee that we will never understand anything about the Bible if we never read it. There are also great translations of the Bible that are easier to understand. Ask me about them and I’ll help you find the one that’s right for you.

You can also understand the Bible better if you read and discuss it with other Christians. That’s why our Sunday School classes and Read the New Testament in a Year discussion groups are so important. If you’re not involved in a study like this, I urge you to get involved. If the studies we have are at times inconvenient for you, get with me and I’ll help you get a group organized that is at a better time for you and, maybe for others as well.

You may also say, “Pastor, I don’t have the time to read the Bible and get involved with a discussion group.” Let me tell you something: A man I know of had to have heart bypass surgery. Before his surgery, he exercised only sporadically. He said that he didn’t have the time. After the surgery, he remarked, “It’s amazing the amount of time I could find for exercise when I realized that without it, I was hastening the end of my life.” He’s now approaching age 80, healthy, and still exercising every day. 



When we don’t exercise our spiritual muscles through regular reading and group study of God’s Word, along with prayer, intentional service in Christ’s Name, regularly worshiping and receiving Christ’s body and blood, and regularly telling others the good news of Jesus Christ, we grow flabby in our faith.

We also create holes in our souls which will give room for evil thoughts and sinful behaviors. Ephesians 4:27 tells us, “do not make room for the devil."

When instead, we make room for God’s Word, worship, service in Christ's Name, and so on, our inner life changes. We have peace with God and we can live our lives in that peace, no matter what the world may think of us, do to us, or say about us. 


Of course, it’s not enough to simply know about or be able to talk about the Bible. I’ve always loved learning, stockpiling facts. Because of this trait, I confess that sometimes I’m satisfied to just add to what I know about the Bible, failing to translate the faith I know about into tangible everyday living. But, in places like James 1:22, part of our second lesson for today, God’s Word tells us to “be doers of the Word, and not hearers only.”

That’s why I love this suggestion from Pastor Rick Warren: After you’ve read or discussed a passage of Scripture and prayed about it, asking God to tell you what He wants you to do based on what He’s taught you in the passage, write down, on a piece of paper or type into your computer or smart phone, the “action step” you’re going to take based on God’s Word.

“This action step should,” writes Warren, “be personal (involving you), practical (something you can do), and provable (with a deadline to do it).”

I’m asking God to help me define action steps every time I read the Bible. I want to more faithfully live the faith in Jesus I confess. I hope you’ll join me in adopting this habit. Read the Bible, then plan to tangibly live what God tells you in it.

It’s time for we Lutherans who claim that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God to knock off our excuses and actually start reading and standing under the authority of the Bible again!

It’s time to put our faith into action!

Let God’s Word be the final authority over your life.

Let its truth fill you so that, as you yield control of your life to Christ, what you say and do and feel comes from your God and not from your sin.

Let God's Word fill you with its power and life today and every day. Amen

*I'm grateful for the insights of Pastor Rick Warren, in his book The Purpose Driven Life, for the preceding two paragraphs.