With My Own Eyes, I Shall See God

Job 19:23-27
[This was shared during a memorial service earlier today.]

It’s no secret to say that the last sixteen years of A’s life have been marked by more than a fair share of chaos and uncertainty. But today, we trust that, A is at peace.

The peace to which the believer in Jesus aspires isn’t just escape from this world. To be eternally dead or eternally condemned for our sin will not bring human beings peace at the ends of their earthly lives.

For believers in Jesus, God grants a different, a better peace.

Christians believe that because they have trusted in Christ, their peace isn’t just rest from this world, but life with God, life as it is meant to be.

Christians believe that the God Who promises never to leave us nor forsake us has something even greater in store for those who trust in Him when we pass from this life.

Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, promises those who believe in Him: “I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:3).

And then Jesus says: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

The rest from the chaos and uncertainty that the God we know in Jesus gives us then, isn’t simply a body decaying in a graveyard, removed from the turmoils of this world, but a new, revitalized life with God: A rest from worry, pain, disease, and conflicts. A life filled with joy and adventure lived out in direct intimacy with the God Who made us, Who brings forgiveness to the repentant and life everlasting to those with faith in Christ.

This has always been the hope of those wrestling with the sin and darkness of this world. In the Old Testament, we read the history of a man named Job. Everyone knew that Job was faithful. Even God bragged about Job’s faithfulness.

But then one day, the chaos, uncertainty, death, and grief of this fallen world were unleashed by Satan on Job in one grievous swoop.

All of his property and holdings were destroyed, his estate trashed.

All of Job’s children were killed.

Then, Job was afflicted with disease, his body covered in open sores.

Job wrestled to trust God in the midst of these experiences. So-called friends came to tell Job that God was punishing Job.

But Job knew better.

He knew that he trusted in the God of all creation and that the bad things that happen to us in this world don’t come to us from God; they come from the evil that’s been in this world since Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3).

He knew that when the world’s chaos and uncertainty engulf us in this world, the pain of that hasn’t come from God, but that it is only God Who can help us, that we need Him even more and we need to trust Him even more.

You need to know that too.

To all who wrestle with the evil of this world, Jesus says, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

In whatever faces you in the days and years ahead, you can depend on God to be your strength, if you will dare to trust this God revealed to us all in Jesus Christ. When we, like Job, turn to God revealed in Jesus as we face life’s challenges, we can say: “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.” (Psalm 28:7)

But we can say much more than that. With Job we can say: “I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand on the earth.”

Jesus, God in the flesh, once crucified, bearing the condemnation you and I deserve for our sin, has bought us out of our slavery to sin, death, and chaos, by dying in our places. And, just as Job had foreseen centuries before Jesus’ birth, Jesus has stood on this earth, alive, after He had died, Jesus rose again!

And, Job knew, Jesus would stand on this earth once again, to bring this fallen universe to an end, to raise the dead and to give eternal life with God to those who have trusted in Him and to grant sin, darkness, and death to those who, by their rejection of Christ, have sought those things.

Job could say, as all believers in Jesus can say: “...after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another.”

This is the rest that God has in mind for us.

Beyond the gates of death in this world, He promises the joy of being totally and perfectly restored in the presence of the God Who loves us to all who believe in Jesus.

With our own eyes, we will see God.

I pray that today, by faith in Jesus, you will be comforted, that you will allow God’s healing to touch you and fill you.

The believer in Jesus knows the God Who stands with them, carries them, and empowers them through the dark passages of this life and the God Who will one day, welcome every believer in Jesus into His kingdom of peace, life, and forgiveness in eternity.

Jesus once said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”

Believe in Jesus today.

Trust that He can forgive your sins and make you new.

May Jesus and His promise to you of an everlasting place with Him be your strength and comfort today and all through your lives. Amen

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

The Trinity: Knowing God

Matthew 28:16-20
This morning, a re-run. I hope you don’t mind.

Today is an often-overlooked day on the Church calendar: Holy Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost.

[This is example of a genre of Christian imagery known as gnadenstuhl. It portrays the Trinity at the moment of Jesus' crucifixion. I thank my son, Pastor Philip Daniels, for sharing this particular image on his Facebook account this past week.]

When I was about eight, I asked my mom for an explanation of the Trinity. How could God be one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Mom told me to ask our pastor, which I did.

“Mark,” he said, “think of water. It can come in the form of a liquid, a solid (in water’s case, ice), or gas (in this case, steam). But whatever form it takes, it’s always water. Three in one.”

That helped somewhat, though it tilts toward a heresy called modalism long ago rejected by the Church.

The problem with the analogy is that as Christians, we don’t believe that God takes on different forms as though God were engaged in some eternal Halloween party, changing His costume from time to time. We confess that God is always one being and that God is always three persons. No analogy is going to exactly explain something as mysterious as the Trinity.

Some people think that the Trinity is an arcane idea best left undiscussed. 



Yet as I’ve gotten to know God better through the pages of Scripture, the fellowship of believers, and the Lord’s Supper, I’ve come to agree with an acquaintance of mine who wrote a few years ago, that there may be nothing more important for us to try to “get” as Christians than the Trinity.

The word “Trinity” is never used in the Bible. But repeatedly, by inference in the Old Testament and in plain words in the New Testament, the Bible affirms that three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are co-equal, co-eternal personalities of the one and only God the universe.

For example, in our first lesson, from Genesis, God the Spirit brings the life of the universe into being (Genesis 1:2).

When God decides to create human beings, He says, "Let us make..." Who's He talking to? I think that pretty clearly, God is talking to Himself (Genesis 1:26).

And, look, please at today’s Gospel lesson. It contains the Great Commission. In verse 19, Jesus says: “...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...” Jesus is putting Himself and the Holy Spirit on the same level as God the Father.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus makes a point of placing Himself on an equal footing with God the Father many times.

• “Before Abraham was, I am [Yahweh],” He says in John 8:58. 
• “I and the Father are one,” He says in John 10:30. 
• “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father,” He claims in John 14:9. 

Yet, Jesus isn’t saying that there are two or three Gods over the universe. Like His fellow Jews, Jesus affirmed the truth of Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

So, without ever using the word trinity, the Bible affirms that God is one God in three persons.

But what has the Trinity God to do with you and me in 2017?

You’ve heard the phrase: “I love humanity. It’s the people I can’t stand.” We find that funny because we know that there is no validity to our claims of being loving people in general if we are unwilling to love particular people.

Love at its most basic level is not about affectionate feelings. Love is a commitment to willing and doing what is best for those we love, even when we disagree, drive each other crazy.

Love that isn’t lived out practically isn’t love. You can’t be loving if there is no object of your love.

Now, one of the most famous passages of the New Testament is 1 John 4:8, which says, in part, “God is love.”

It's important to note that John didn't write, "Love is God." That would make God just an idea.

Nor does God’s loving character make Him tolerant of all our behaviors. Much of what we human beings do is sinful and of sin, God is absolutely intolerant, even though He never stops loving us.

In these three words, “God is love,” we aren’t given a license to do whatever we want, irrespective of the will of God.

No, in saying that, "God is love," John is making an eternal statement about an eternal God. Before God created the heavens and the earth, before Jesus died and rose so that all who believe in Him may be freed of their sins, before the Holy Spirit formed the Church, God is, God was, and God will be eternally loving.

"God is love" means that love is at the core of God’s character and being. Love is why and how He acts.

But, that raises a question: Who did God love before the beginning?

The answer, I think, is that in eternity, before there was time, before there was a creation, God was already loving others. God the Father loved God the Son and God the Spirit and God the Son and God the Spirit each loved the other two members of the Trinity, have done so and will do so for all eternity.

Even the existence of this universe in which we live at least suggests that God is one, but is more than one person. Only One Who loves and has always known how to love would have thought of giving such a great gift as this thing called life.

When I was twenty-five, I’d been married for five years and my parents were growing impatient. Where, they wondered, were the grandchildren we were supposed to be coming up with? Then, my dad, father of five kids, decided to have a talk with me, giving me advice for the first and only time that I can remember.

Dad told me that if we were looking for the right time or the right reason for having children, to forget it. There’s never a right time. There’s never a good reason.

And that’s the point. It’s in the very nature of love to forgo convenience to self and to give, to serve, to stand by, to live for, even, if necessary, to die for.

God has always known how to love. He exists in what the theologians call a "triune" relationship of perfect love and doesn’t need more love. He’s always loved perfectly. He's always been loved perfectly. God doesn't need more love. Honestly, He doesn't really need us.

But, because God is infinite and eternal in His love, God loved the universe into being. God the Word, Christ, spoke into the darkness and chaos and God the Spirit wended His Word and life sprang up.

We--every one of us--are the products of God’s love: unnecessary but loved nonetheless, superfluous but cherished.

Today, the Holy Trinity calls us to follow Christ right into the center of His loving fellowship.

He claims us as His own in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at our Baptism, and then calls us into an ever-renewing relationship of love with Him and all that He has made.

Sin and death and isolation from God and from others will be the last word over every human life unless people are washed clean of sin and made new through repentance and faith in Christ. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “...if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

Christ calls us into life abundant and eternal. But there is no life without love. This is no biological observation: the unloved child, abused by her or his parents, isn’t experiencing life; the couple in a loveless marriage aren’t living; the teen subjected to bullying and putdowns is experiencing a love deficit that is, inherently, a life deficit; the visitors ignored when they worship at a church they’ve never been to before are being treated both lovelessly and as though they weren’t even alive.

And this is why the Trinity is such an important reality for us to experience. We live in a fractured, fractious world. People are divided and often hateful. Love of neighbors, including love of our enemies, is a rare thing. It’s so rare that only Jesus and the people who, by faith, draw life from Jesus really live it.

God has created the Church, the fellowship of believers in Christ, to make disciples and to usher believers into a community of love that fills us with the power of God to move toward being the loving people we were made to be and promises us eternal fellowship with God and others.

In the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest, Jesus prayed to God the Father that all who followed Him, “may be one...just as you are in me and I am in you...” (John 17:21). God wants us to live in the same selfless fellowship with others He has always known. That’s what Jesus died and rose to give to those who dare to believe in Him.

If all of this sounds airy and theoretical, removed from the hard realities of your life, consider this: Every time we pray to our Father in heaven in Jesus’ name, we do so at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, Who through God’s Word and the witness of other Christian disciples, helps us to trust that when we come to the Father on the bases of Jesus’ perfect righteousness, our prayers are heard.

More than that, we believe that when we’re confused, afraid, worn out, incapable of putting a coherent thought into words and simply call out to the God we know in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit forms our groans into prayers that, through Jesus, reach the Father. (Romans 8:26-27)

I have never prayed so completely as I have when, wrung out by life, I have asked heaven, “What? What?”

If it weren’t for the Holy Spirit and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus to open our access to God the Father, prayers like that would only bounce off the ceiling.

The Holy Trinity can make a difference in our everyday lives if we will be open to His threefold ministry to us. God in His fullness, Who cares about us even though He doesn’t have to, Who is able to stand with us in every experience, also makes it possible for us to experience fellowship, community, with Him and with His family, the Church.

This is why the Church is so important. Only the Church has been designated to connect people with the Trinity. And in a world filled with the idea of mashing others into oblivion and lifting ourselves to the top, of crushing and being crushed by selfishness and self-will, we need the liberation from self and the connection to God and to others that only the God Who is the Holy Trinity can give us.

We need, truly, more than anything else, love that changes our hearts, our minds, and our eternities. And only the God revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can give it. Amen

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

Note to Self

Note to self: For the glory of God and the love of neighbor, pray more, opine less; share Christ, not my puny thoughts; strive to show God's love, not my alleged smarts.

That's because "...the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight," (1 Corinthians 3:19) including my own supposed wisdom.

The world doesn't need another fool's version of wisdom. It needs Jesus Christ. He is where life and wisdom are found. With the apostle Paul, I've resolved "...to know nothing...except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).

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

Praying for Friends on Tough Anniversaries

Today, I'm praying for a friend and family going through the anniversary of a tough day, the start of a rough period in their lives.

You probably have people in your life who face these dark markers in their lives each year. Pray for them when those days come around, that God will encourage and comfort them. Even if you can't speak with them on those anniversary dates, you can pour God's love and life into their sadness through your prayers to God for them offered in Jesus' name. And God can do infinitely more than any of us can.

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:20-21)

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

Love Alone is Worth the Fight by Switchfoot

A cherished friend gave this CD to me when it was released three years ago. Love this track.

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

Glad to See You by America

This is a track from America's 1974 release, Holiday. George Martin produced the album, as he did other America projects. Martin's arrangement on this and Holiday's other tracks adds depth and beauty.

I've always loved this song despite its misuse of God's name in the chorus. The interesting thing though, is that the composer and lead singer, Dan Peek, later became a Christian and a pioneer in the Christian contemporary music movement of the 70s and 80s.

The chorus and the whole song can, in fact, even be read as a plaintive cry to God, as in:

God, I'm glad to see you
I thought you'd left me far away

I remember in my atheist days writing a song that included the line:

Sometimes, God
I feel like I'm
A million miles from heaven
And I can't find my way back home

In my mind, at a conscious level, I was treating God as a concept, the way politicians who thoughtlessly end their speeches by saying, "God bless America."

But I think that in my subconscious, I sensed the alienation from God and others that goes with thinking that you're a creature without a Creator.

Who knows what may have been going on in Peek's subconscious when he composed the song?

Incidentally, in this period, Peek was dealing with substance abuse issues.

In 2011, he died in his sleep of a rare and poorly understood disease, fibrinous pericarditis.

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

As we grow older, do friends become more important than family?

Research indicates this may be the case.

And I'm inclined to agree. Why? Because as much as people may love their family members, they don't have much (any) choice as to who their family members are. Family members often have diverging interests and, sometimes, unfortunate shared histories.

Friends are different. As the old saying puts it, "Friends are the family we choose."

In my mind, this research also has implications for marriage; I often tell engaged couples that marriage, when it is good, is only friendship plus intimacy. After all, most people choose marriage partners just as they choose their friends.

The research also indicates what I believe to be true: that disruptions in our friendships can often be more stressful than disruptions in relations with one's family.

Of course, as the article points out, people can have strong friendships with family members, too.

Read the whole thing.

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

Quenching Our Thirst for "It" (AUDIO)

Here.

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

Claiming the Place Prepared for Us

John 14:1-6
[This was the message shared today at the funeral of George, a member of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, where I currently serve as pastor. A one-time successful high school football coach, George received several offers to serve on several major college staffs, but turned them down in order to be there for his wife and children. He became a successful business executive. In retirement, he was an integral part of the churches of which he was a part, providing amazing servant-leadership. He will be missed, but we rejoice that he is with his Savior Jesus right now!]

Unlike many of you here today, I have known George only three-and-a-half years, the time since I became pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church.

But I learned early on something of what made George tick.

Before we moved into our condo in Miamisburg, George led a team of Living Water folks to get the place ready for us to move into. Anything that we needed, he saw that it happened.

I had already begun to work here before Ann and our belongings arrived. One night, I arrived at the condo, expecting it to be empty, only to find George doing a little finish work.

We started talking and each of us, tired of standing, ended up plunking ourselves down on the floor of one of the bedrooms before there was a stick of furniture in it, talking for maybe a couple of hours.

In that conversation, I learned that George was a leader and that like all true leaders, he was, above all, a servant.

I learned that he was a man of his word and utterly loyal.

I learned that he loved his wife, his family, his friends, his church, the players on his old Meadowdale football teams.

That night, before he left the condo, George told me, “Pastor, I don’t know you very well. But you seem like an unassuming guy. So, I’m going to tell you something: Don’t be afraid to ask for whatever you want or need.”

The first impressions I formed of George that night on the floor of our condo were, in the subsequent crowded three-and-a-half years, confirmed repeatedly. George was one of the greatest people I ever knew and I count myself blessed to have known him and to know you too, Marilyn. Like hundreds of other people, I loved George. He was truly one in six billion!

I had to say all of that today because George would never have allowed me to say it if he were physically present with us right now.

But there’s something else I need to say to all of you today, something that George and his family definitely want me to tell you. It’s rooted in our Gospel lesson for this morning, John 14:1-6.

These verses are part of Jesus’ words to the disciples on the night of His betrayal, when He was arrested and taken for trial, before going to the cross to offer His life as the perfect sacrifice--the “lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world”--for our sins, yours and mine, opening up forgiveness and eternal life with God to all who turn from sin and trust in Him.

Jesus here knows that He must die. There is no other way that He can tear down the wall of sin that separates us from God than for Him to die.

And He knew with perfect clarity, because Jesus is both truly man and truly God, exactly what suffering awaited Him. Contrary to what some people think, I believe that the perfect clarity with which Jesus could see what awaited Him only made His suffering and His experience of worse than it would have been were He only a man.

If anyone needed comforting, it was Jesus.

Yet, on this night, it was Jesus comforting His disciples.

While they didn’t know exactly what the next twenty-four hours would bring, the disciples did know that the forces of the Jewish religious leadership and the Roman government were arrayed against Jesus, that they wanted Him dead and would have Him dead if they could lay their hands on Him.

The disciples had hoped that Jesus would take the reins of the first-century equivalent of Church and State and bring them justice, vengeance, and ease. But now Jesus seems to be saying that their hopes for an earthly kingdom will not pan out. They needed comforting.

And so, Jesus tells them: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

In the past year or so, many of us have had a recurring conversation with George: He would learn of some setback in his health and we would ask how he was doing with things. We wondered how he felt about it all. And George would say, as he did to me, “I’m OK, pastor. I’ve had a good life. And besides, I know where I’m going.”

George knew where he was going because he believed in Jesus Christ! George knew that Jesus had gone to prepare a place for him long before George was ever born.

And Jesus has prepared a place for you too.

Some people hear talk of the place that Jesus prepares for people in eternity and they think, “There go the Christians again, talking about pie in the sky in the sweet by-and-by.” They think of Christians who, in the old saying, are so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good.

If that’s what you’re inclined to think when we speak of Jesus having prepared places for us in eternity, I invite you to consider the lives of George and Marilyn.

Did you ever know two people more engaged in the living of this life, more committed to each other, to their children and grandchildren, to other people, to work, to helping others, to having fun, to the Church?

In their retirement years, a time when some people sit back and settle into selfish pursuits, George and Marilyn have been servant leaders in the Church. George served as a mentor to high school kids. Marilyn has worked at Hannah’s Closet.

Listen: When you belong to the God we meet in Jesus Christ, it doesn’t drive you into some la-la land separated from reality; it empowers you to move with confidence and hope and courage into the very world that Jesus Christ died and rose for.

You try to make a difference--loving and serving and leading and helping others to know Christ--because you know God already has your back for all eternity.

Nothing can hurt you; so you can help others.

When you know that Jesus Christ has prepared a place for you in eternity, it liberates you to live this life with commitment, love, abandon.

We saw this repeatedly in George. George was never afraid of dying; he was only afraid of failing to live fully in whatever days God gave him on this earth. That’s part of why we loved him so much!

George showed us all how to live as people set free from fear of sin and death!

 He could care about others even when he was not doing well. I’ll never forget talking with George at Marilyn’s birthday party. I wanted to see how he was doing. But he wanted to ask me how my vacation went. “Did you relax?” he asked me. When I assured him that I had, he said, “Good!”

George faced death fearlessly because of his relationship with Jesus. I know that he and his family want you to know that today.

But here’s something else I know that George would want you to know: The place that Jesus has prepared especially for you in eternity will go unoccupied if you refuse to have anything to do with Jesus.

Jesus says: “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:33)

We can be confident about following Jesus Christ into an eternity with God the Father if we dare to follow Jesus Christ here on earth.

If we fail to trust Jesus here, the grace of forgiven sin, a new way of living on earth, and an eternity with God cannot be ours.

Jesus will never force His love or His lordship on us, here or in eternity. If we want Jesus in eternity, we must claim Him here and now.

Jesus famously tells us in John 3:16-18: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

The comfort and the power for living that Christ offers to every human being, along with an eternity with God, only belong to those who dare to turn from their sin each day and trustingly follow where Christ leads each day.

Jesus gives us what we call the gospel--the good news--that all who repent and believe in what He offers, have what George had, confidence about their eternal destiny, confidence to live each day.

“The time has come,” [Jesus says.] “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Are you trusting that Good News today?

Are you trusting in Jesus today?

This is what Jesus dares all of us to do in the balance of our Gospel lesson. After Jesus told the disciples that they already knew the way He was going, the way of following His Father’s will, the way that take Him to the cross, to the resurrection, to the right hand of the Father, Thomas said to Jesus: “‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”

Some people fault Christians for citing these words of Jesus. To them, they seem closed-minded. “Jesus is the only way to life with God?” they ask. The answer is yes!

Because Jesus loves all people, Jesus wants all people to follow Him in living with God, filled with confidence, hope, peace, and resilience in this life and filled with God’s love and life for all eternity.

But why should Jesus be the only way to life with God? Think of it like this: The Bible says that we are born in sin, a condition of alienation from God, lost in a roiling sea of death that will destroy us unless we grasp the outstretched hands of the Savior Who died and rose for us. If we insist on holding onto our sins or the earthly measures of success or to anything else from this dying world for hope or life, we cannot grasp onto Christ. We must hold onto Christ, and to Christ alone, in order to hold onto God.

Jesus tells us: “...wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Jesus is that small gate and narrow road that leads to life. George found it. May you find it too.

Marilyn, life without George will not be easy for you, we know. He leaves a hole in your life and that of your family that cannot be filled by any other person. And it would be unnatural for you not to grieve. But I pray that knowing that George has gone to the place Jesus prepared for him will comfort you and that you will be comforted too by the fact, guaranteed by Jesus’ resurrection, that one day, all who trust in Christ will be reunited in eternity. That will be an amazing thing! God bless you. Amen

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

Quenching Our Thirst for "It"

John 7:37-39
In The Silver Chair, one of the books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, there’s a scene in which a girl named Jill Pole, who is from this world, is mysteriously transported to an alternative universe called Narnia and there, happens on a lion. He’s sitting by a pool of water from which she desperately wants a drink. But seeing the lion, she simply stands, paralyzed by fear and indecision.

“If you’re thirsty, you may drink,” a voice tells her. It was a voice, as Lewis says, “deeper, wilder...stronger” than any she had ever heard, “a sort of heavy, golden voice.” She wondered where the voice had come from.

Then it said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink.” Now she realized that it was the enormous lion who was speaking to her. Frozen in fear, she said nothing.

“Are you not thirsty?” the lion pressed. “I’m dying of thirst,” she told him. “Then drink,” he said.

After considering matters, Jill thought that she didn’t dare go any nearer the lion or the stream. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream,” she said. And then the lion told her, “There is no other stream.”

In Lewis’ Narnia, Aslan is a figure of Christ, the King of kings, sent by the Emperor Over the Sea, a figure for God the Father. In this scene, Lewis gives us a picture of how God the Son and God the Holy Spirit work in our lives to give us faith and to give us life that can be found nowhere else.

You see, we’re all born with a thirst for God and for the life that only God can give.

That’s true whether we know it or not.

One pastor calls this our human desire for it, that unsettled feeling that tells us that there’s more to life than existing from day to day.

We’re born craving it and sometimes we think we’ve found it in new fidget spinners, new spouses, new friends, new cars, new homes, new jobs, new boats, new hobbies.

There’s nothing wrong with any of these things. Everything in this world, including every human relationship, can be wonderful blessings.

But none of them is it. None fill our thirst for living water.

Saint Augustine, who spent many years searching for it in his study of philosophy and in illicit sexual relations before coming to faith in Christ, spoke of our common search for it in a well-known prayer: “You have made us restless for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in You.”

One of the psalmists speak of the same thing when he writes: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Pslam 42:1-2)

What is it then? What can quench our thirsty souls? 

It’s the very life of God, His breath, His Holy Spirit. 

It was the Spirit Who God the Father breathed into us to first give human beings life: “...the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). The perfect life of God filled the human frame.

Of course, that life became distorted, marred, perverted after humanity fell into sin, bringing deterioration, death, broken relationships and a constant thirst for it.

Many today are so steeped in the sin and death of this world and all the habitual lifestyles we adopt to approximate what we’re looking for that it doesn’t dawn on them that what we’re looking for can’t be found in things filled with the death, sin, and corruption of this fallen universe.

Still, for many, the search continues. Paul told a crowd in Athens that searched for it in all manner of little gods, godlets, and lifestyles: “From one man [Adam] he [God] made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.” (Acts 17:26-27)

Then, Paul revealed to the crowd that He knew about what they were looking for: A relationship with Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, Who died and rose to bring forgiveness and new, everlasting life to all who believed in Him. This Jesus could fill them with the Holy Spirit, with the life human beings lost at Eden, the life that they longed for. Only Jesus could give them it. Only Jesus can give it to you and me.

When, in Lewis’s story, Jill Pole sees the water that could quench the thirst from which she’s dying, she wants it more than anything. But to get to it, she must pass through Aslan. And so she hesitates.

When I was starting a new congregation in the Cincinnati area, I went door to door to introduce the church to the community. One house I stopped at was a large one set on a golf course. A young couple invited me in. They offered me water and I sat in their living room for a visit.

It turned out that they were both preachers’ kids. They were knowledgeable about God and the Bible. They had both been through divorces. I asked them how long they’d been married. They weren’t married.

“I know that’s wrong,” the man told me. I didn’t deny it. “So, how do you feel about God?” I asked them. “I love God,” the man told me, “But He’s just not part of our life right now. I want God in my life. We both do.” I asked him if he would like to do something about that desire, because, I assured them, “God wants you even more than you want Him.” They said, “Not now.”

That’s one of the most tragic conversations in which I’ve ever been involved. Here was a couple who knew what it was: life from God, life with God, freedom from sin, the power of the Holy Spirit to live in community with God forever, through faith in Jesus Christ. They hesitated. They said they weren’t ready yet. They were too busy with their sin to let God in just then.

Folks, the time to get ready, the time to let Jesus in, the time to drink the living water that Jesus can give to us is always now!

In today’s short Gospel lesson for this Pentecost Sunday, Jesus is speaking to a crowd in Jerusalem during the feast of booths or feast of tabernacles. It occurred each year seven weeks after Passover and was celebrated during the harvest season. During this season, it was common for Jews to erect booths or tabernacles in their fields in remembrance of the temporary shelters their ancestors used during the forty year Old Testament exodus. Jesus is in Jerusalem to teach and to make an amazing promise.

Take a look at the lesson, please. Verse 37: “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.’”

I love the fact that Jesus spoke in a loud voice!

The world wants to turn Jesus into a compliant, namby-pamby dishrag, a weakling who will go along with us and not stand in our ways when we go wrong. But Jesus isn’t putty in our hands!

Revelation 5:5 calls Jesus, “the lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,” Who by His death and resurrection, triumphs over His enemies--our enemies of sin, death, and darkness--to bring us life.

Last week, you’ll remember, Jesus told us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Here, He tells us--in a loud voice--that if we want the life of God, the Holy Spirit bringing us, as we confess each Sunday in the Creed, “the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting,” if we want it, if we want to quench our thirst for what only God can give us, we must come to Jesus Christ. There is no other stream!

We can’t steal this living water from God. We can’t get it by being good people, or by dabbling in religion. All roads don’t lead to God or the life we long for. Jesus is the only road.

That may fill us with fear, betting our whole eternity on surrender to a Savior Who commands us to leave our sins and our most cherished selfish dreams behind.

And yet, we know that Jesus isn’t just the Lion of Judah, He is also “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

If we are thirsty for the life that God only gives through Christ, we must come to Jesus!

Verse 38: “‘Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

Today, six Living Water young people will affirm their desire to live in the covenant of their Baptism. They are saying that, for themselves and not because their parents brought (or dragged) them to church, they believe in Jesus Christ, that they don’t want to seek life anywhere else.

Of course, they haven’t formed these intentions on their own. They’ve been influenced by their families and this congregation.

But more than that, the Holy Spirit, unleashed in their lives when they were baptized, has drawn them to Jesus, filled them with life, caused them to realize that the holes in their souls--and the holes in every human soul--can only be filled by the sinless, crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus Christ.

As Paul reminds us: “...no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3).

And it is this same Holy Spirit Who can sustain them--and all of us--through the ups and downs of this life, quenching our thirsty souls through God’s Word, the witness of the resurrection, and the fellowship of the Church.

It is only when God helps and guides us that we can follow through on our good intentions of following Jesus always.

 Jesus once said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

It’s Jesus’ promise, certified by His death and resurrection, that if we will look only to Him to fill that need for life, peace, hope, and relationship that only He can fill, we will be filled to overflowing.

He will send His Holy Spirit and we will have forgiveness and life, “pressed down, shaken together and running over” (Luke 6:38) as Jesus says.

That’s what He promises all who trust in Him on this Pentecost Sunday and every day we dare to affirm, by word and by living, our total trust in Him. May this be our way of life. Amen

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

Stetzer: Christians Need to Repent for Conspiracy Theories (I agree)

Ed Stetzer is a conservative evangelical Christian and the executive director of the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois. He's an expert on and practitioner of Christian evangelism. He's also no mean theologian and social thinker. I really respect this guy.

Here is a piece he just published in 'Christianity Today' about the need for Christians, in this hyper-mediated and polarized era, to stop spouting conspiracy theories. Stetzer is right, I think, in calling this a violation of what we Lutherans know as the Eighth Commandment: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther explains the meaning of this commandment for a Christian's daily conduct:

We should fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, lie, or gossip about our neighbors, but defend them, speak well of them, and put the most charitable construction on all that they do.

Just because you're suspicious of someone on the right, or the left, or the middle, or somewhere else on the spectrum, doesn't mean that the bad things you hear about them must be true.

Our social compact is being daily eroded by loose ships sharing hot tips, not so much by major news outlets, most of whose journalists and editors work hard to corroborate good and bad news, but by ordinary citizens passing on the latest conspiracy theory on Facebook or Twitter. (I'm especially sensitive about this because my grandfather spouted all sorts of conspiracy theories when I was a kid. Because he was my grandfather, I believed what he said and often re-spouted them at school, only to be acquainted with the documented facts by good teachers.)

As a lifelong student of history, it's my observation that most conspiracies that involve more than four people eventually crack. If the conspiracy was nefarious, somebody talks to the right person, or takes money to betray the other conspirators or to write a tell-all, or to get revenge, or to look like a hero. In short, most "conspiracies" aren't.

Be that as it may, Stetzer is right: We Christians have a lot of repenting to do on this point.

As to counsel for the future, I turn again to Luther, who said that when we hear items of gossip (like conspiracy theories), we should let our ears be their tomb. Bury them; don't spread them.

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

Petition for Our Troubled World

This petition, an adaptation of a petition published by our brothers and sisters in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, will be included in the Prayers of the Church at Living Water tomorrow morning. Please include similar petitions in your own personal prayers tonight and tomorrow:

Lord of all comfort and peace, give to the world that peace which only You can give. Deliver Christians from the hands of persecution, restore peace to lands ravaged by war, grant safety to refugees, and comfort those victimized by war and terrorism, especially we remember the people of Ukraine and Syria daily assaulted by the Russian military and the people of Britain recently attacked by Islamist terrorists. Bring peace to our own nation. In the face of political division and tension, let us find peace in You and Your unchanging promises. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

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

Praying Blessings on the United Kingdom Tonight

Praying blessings on the people in the United Kingdom in the wake of these latest attacks. May God comfort all those who mourn. May He also guide law enforcement and intelligence officials as they bring the perpetrators to justice and prevent potential terror incidents.

This incident underscores two things for me. First, we are blessed in the United States to have the FBI, CIA, NSA, local law enforcement and first responders, and the US military. In this modern world, the possibility of terror will never be entirely eliminated. But these government entities are tremendous assets in the USA in preventing and minimizing individual terror incidents.

Second, this incident underscores how important intelligence-sharing particularly through FVEY (Five Eyes) and NATO, through which the democratic West mounts a common defense against not just existential threats like Russia and China, but also against Islamist terrorists, really is.

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

Welcome to America by Lecrae

I've posted this song before. But, man, it's good.



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

Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol

This was playing in the restaurant I ate at a few hours ago. I forget about this song. But I love the simplicity of the lyrics and melody.

I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things
Will never change for us at all

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

Memorial Day Prayers, Blessings, and Charges

Today's Centerville Memorial Day Service was a meaningful remembrance of those American service members who gave their lives for our country.

Colonel Bradley McDonald, Installation and 88th Air Base Wing Commander at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, challenged us all to remember, revere, and respond to the sacrifices made by members of the armed forces.

Mayor Brooks Compton also spoke movingly about the significance of the day.

Local high school students sang, read a self-written essay, and presented the moving The America We Love, written by former President Barack Obama.

The Centerville Community Band played Goin' Home, as well as Beautiful Savior and the National Anthem.

Local boy and girl scouts led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Greg Martin piped Amazing Grace and Tom Voss played Taps.

I shared the Invocation and the Benediction for today's gathering. Both are presented below.

We gather in the name of God the Father, God the Son, Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen 

Father, we come together today to remember those Americans who have given their lives in the cause of freedom. We thank You for their sacrifice and we pray that we, the living, will be worthy of the great cost that they have expended for us. As they were diligent in doing their duty for America, help us to do our duty: to understand the founding principles of this unique and special land--freedom ensured by mutual accountability--and to keep them in mind when we speak and vote and form our opinions; to be informed as citizens; to be good neighbors who understand that, while we may sometimes disagree, we and our fellow citizens all love America. As we remember and celebrate the sacrifices of the fallen, fill us with new resolve to be Americans: committed to our neighbor’s freedom, fighting for others’ well-being as the fallen have done for us, seeking to extend the blessings of the great American constitutional experiment to all of our citizens, and maintaining this unique and blessed land for future generations. Help us in these ways to honor those we remember today. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen

***********************************************************************
It was the height of the Vietnam War and I was in high school. Several of my classmates would go on to fight in that war. An admiral came to speak at an assembly. It was a time when people were saying, "My country, right or wrong." But the admiral said that he didn't subscribe to that view. Instead, he believed, "My country: When right to keep it right, when wrong to make it right." In honor of those who have fallen, we can do no less than to seek, with God's help, to take a similar approach. 

And now, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace. Amen

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

The Open Book

John 17:1-11
Take a look at today’s Gospel lesson, John 17:1-11. Here, Jesus does an extraordinary thing: He lets us listen in on His personal prayer to God the Father.

When I’m talking with God in prayer, I don't particularly want anybody listening in. I have sins, desires, and apprehensions that I'd rather most of the world know nothing about.

But Jesus, true God and true man, has no secrets. He’s an open book. The entire Bible, in fact, reveals that God has always been an open book. Romans 1:19 reminds us that, “what may be known about God is plain...because God has made it plain…”

We see God's openness in many ways.

The Bible affirms, for example, that God’s law—His will and His commands for humanity—is written on our hearts, giving all of us a strong hint, long before we even hear the Name of Jesus, that there is a God Who made and cares about us. (Romans 2:15)

But more than that, God has taken the time and effort to sacrifice Himself on the cross out of His love for us and make it possible for all to believe in Him to have a life with God that starts now in this tough, imperfect world and is brought to perfection in eternity.

In Jesus, we see that God lives His love for us out loud for all the world to see and experience!

In the prologue to his account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, John the Evangelist says, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (John 1:18).

Jesus has no secrets. Jesus is in the disclosing business. So, what exactly does He disclose to us in today’s Gospel lesson as He prays to His Father?

First: He discloses a heart filled with celebration. This is the time of year for graduation parties. The unspoken theme of all such parties is: Mission accomplished! In His prayer in today's Gospel lesson, before heading to the cross which He is intent on taking up for our sakes, Jesus takes a victory lap. He exults in His accomplishment on earth even before He goes to the cross or is raised from the dead.

Jesus can exult even in the face of His impending suffering because He knows that nothing is going to prevent Him from accomplishing what He knew He came to earth to accomplish. “For the joy set before him,” Hebrews 12:2 tells us, referring to the joy of opening up new life to all who believe in Him, “[Jesus] endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

In our Gospel lesson, notice what Jesus says that He has already accomplished at the moment He utters His prayer.

• In verse 6: “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world.” 
• In verse 7: “Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you...” 
• In verse 8: “For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you…” 

In the pursuit of His earthly mission, Jesus came to make God known, so that we could believe in Him and live!

In this prayer, Jesus rejoices in the strength that God the Father and God the Holy Spirit had given Him to accomplish that mission.

As He prays, Jesus knows, of course, that He has one thing left to do on this earth, one more definitive act disclosing Who He is. He must die. He must go to the cross. This is the place of ultimate self-disclosure of God to all who are open to the truth.

Martin Luther said that if we want to know what God is like, we only need to look to Jesus on the cross. On the cross, Jesus discloses and lives and dies out of the infiniteness of God’s love for you and me.

Jesus took our sins onto Himself--all our greed, envy, lust, thievery, murderousness, gossiping, idolatry--absorbing the punishment we deserve for it all into His own body so that its power over us could be killed off in the death of a perfect Savior.

And that’s why Jesus calls out to the Father as He dies on the cross and says: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Jesus’ mission was accomplished!

The Father wouldn’t let this be the end for Jesus, though. He had to be raised up so that all people would know of their chance to turn to Him (turning away from their sin), entrust their lives to Him, and live with God eternally. So, in this prayer, Jesus celebrates what He accomplishes for the glory of the Father and for our eternal good.

And then: Jesus discloses a request to the Father. In verse 5, Jesus asks, “Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began…” The glory of God was displayed in Jesus in many ways. Most notably maybe, when at the waters of the Jordan River, where He was baptized, and on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Voice from heaven said, "This is My Son; listen to Him!"

And yet the glory of God disclosed in Jesus during His earthly life were only hints, dim reflections, brief tastes of the glory Jesus once enjoyed as God the Son in the halls of heaven before the creation of this world!

When the Father raised Jesus from the dead, His glory was on display for all the world to see, though some still didn't.

And one day, when the risen and ascended Jesus returns to the world, all the world, both those who believe in Him and those who don’t believe in Him, will see His glory with certainty (Matthew 25:31-46).

That will be a moment of jubilation for all who have surrendered to Christ, giving Him glory, and a moment of infinite regret for those who have ignored Him.

One of the things that Christ’s Church needs more than anything today, is a renewed sense of the glory of God! We keep trying to whittle Jesus down to manageable size, pulling Him out of a box (maybe) on Sunday mornings and then putting Him back into the box the rest of the week. (This ignores the fact that the last time people stuffed Jesus into a confined space, He couldn't be contained!)

Jesus, God in the flesh, is our Lord, our King, our Savior, and even our best friend. But Jesus is not our buddy, our rabbit’s foot, our ATM, our good luck charm, or a chump-Savior Who winks at our sin. Jesus will be there to judge us at the end of history. Jesus is God almighty.

The God we know in Jesus deserves all our allegiance, honor, loyalty, and thankfulness because, through His “amazing grace,” He saves all who trust in Him from sin and its consequence, death.

We must understand that the God disclosed in Jesus Christ is not a salesperson with whom we can negotiate a better price, but the Lord of the universe and that to have Him and the eternity only He can give, we must surrender to Him.

It's when we understand our need for daily surrender to Christ that we’ll be on the road to the wisdom that leads to life. The awe-filled fear and reverence of the God we meet in Jesus is the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of understanding that we aren't gods who can make Jesus over in our image. (Proverbs 9:10)

In this prayer in today's Gospel lesson then, Jesus, Who laid His glory by for His time on earth, is reclaiming that glory.

But here’s the astounding thing: It’s a theme of the New Testament that the life of Jesus is replicated, reenacted, in baptized believers in Him. All who are baptized and live in daily repentance and renewal can say with the New Testament, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

It was because of Christ living in him, that the first century preacher Paul, before his death, could write to the young pastor Timothy with the same sense of fulfillment and jubilation we see in Jesus’ prayer in our Gospel lesson on the brink of His death. Listen closely to Paul’s words (this is from The Message translation): “I’m about to die, my life an offering on God’s altar. This is the only race worth running. I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way. All that’s left now is the shouting—God’s applause! Depend on it, [God is] an honest judge. He’ll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for His coming.”

In his wonderful book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, Pastor David Platt talks about how many American Christians think that Jesus’ call and command for radical discipleship, including the call to love all the world and to carry the good news of Jesus to all the nations applies to other people, not us.

In taking this attitude, millions of Christians turn a deaf ear to the needs of 4.5 billion people who may die today without ever hearing the Good News of new life through faith in Jesus Christ.

And in thinking that Jesus’ call only applies to some spiritual elites, we also deny ourselves the very sense of fulfillment and the enjoyment of God’s glory that Jesus exults in in today’s Gospel lesson and that He wants us to have!

We, each of us, need to consider how we can restructure our daily lives to fulfill the mission Christ has given to each of us, so that we too can exult in the sense of fulfillment from a life spent in giving God glory. And I tell you that I am preaching to myself as much as anyone else in this sanctuary today. This morning, as I was getting ready, I started praying and was convicted by my sins and failings--my self-indulgence, my abuse of this body God has given to me, my failure to tell others about Christ--and, as I stood in the shower, I asked, "God, why do You put up with me?" The only answer to that question, of course, is grace, God's amazing grace. And so I asked God once again today, "Lord, help me to live my life in such a way that you will be glorified on this day."

We may not be able to go to foreign countries in pursuing God’s intentions for our lives. But each of us is called to fulfill the whole mission of Christ’s Church in our own individual lives.

And Living Water, which designates 23% of its annual budget to mission, offers all of us both plenty of chances to work together to fulfill God’s mission for us and plenty of support in finding how we can make our world our mission field.

We need to encourage one another in living out our Christ-given mission to the whole world, to start our days in reading God’s Word and prayer and getting God’s marching orders for the day. It’s to help us fulfill our mission that Jesus prays in verse 11: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” Jesus prayed that prayer for you, believers in Christ!

When I come to the end of this life, I want to be able to pray with the same sense of jubilation and fulfillment we see in Jesus in our Gospel lesson. I want to be able to look back on a life in which I loved God, loved the world, and took my part in making some disciples of the world’s 4.5-billion unreached people. (Even at the Kroger deli counter.) I want to be able to say, “Mission accomplished.” How about you?

If it’s your desire to fulfill God’s purposes for your life, surrender to Christ each day, letting Him live fully in you each day…and then going wherever He leads you. Amen

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

America's Drunkest Cities

A lot of them are in Wisconsin. Green Bay is the drunkest. Read the whole thing.

Athens, Ohio, home of the well-known Halloween drunkfest, didn't make the list.

Today's Hunger for God's Word Isn't Surprising

Thirty years ago, my guess is that if you asked the average churchgoer what one thing attracted them to or kept them attending a particular congregation, the answer would have been music. Music can be important in helping us to worship God, of course. As musician Toby Mac has said, music goes to places that words alone can't.

But, according to this poll from Gallup, sermons or talks that teach more about Scripture is the top reason that people go to worship.

I have seen this in my own ministry. Today, there is wide acceptance among churchgoers of varied worship and musical styles. The worship music wars are over in North American churches, in part I think, because we all are exposed to so many different musical styles that for us to hear such variety in worship isn't jarring.

Today, people care less about packaging--worship form--than they do about what's inside--the message proclaimed. People want to know what God says in His Word, what He calls us to believe and why.

In thirty-two years as a pastor, I've never seen a greater hunger for God's Word than I see today.

This dovetails with my own journey as a preacher. In days past, I looked for great stories to fill my sermons. A good story that helps people to understand the Bible text before them is fine. But too often, I think, I tried to be "cute."

When my former denomination began taking a path away from the authority of Scripture as God's Word and the norm for our life, faith, and practice, I decided that the time for cute was through. If so many people in my former denomination could be hoodwinked into walking away from the authority of God's Word, a central tenet of the Lutheran confessions, I had to quit assuming that everyone knew what the Bible said. I needed to unfold the Scripture again and again.

I know that in my own life, in the craziness of daily living, I can easily lose sight of God's Word, His revealed will for me as a human being, and the center of history, God enfleshed, Jesus, Who died with humanity and rose from death in order to open up eternal life with God to all who believe in HIm. If I as a pastor, won't help people to hear and see what God is saying to them, I let them down.

There are fewer stories in my sermons these days. And the stories are usually shorter. Always, I pray, they're tied to the Biblical text on which I'm preaching on that day.

Christian faith is life and death business. People who come to worship with us who have no faith need to hear God's Word...without me, my stories, or attempts to be entertaining, relevant, or cute getting in the way. People who come to worship and believe, yet need encouragement, help, counsel, strength, reproach, or liberation, aren't helped when sermons are autobiographical and cute.

People need Christ. And they need the Word about Christ, which is found in every word of the Old and New Testament. People don't seem to mind that I don't entertain them. Or wow them.

Hellenistic Jews once approached Philip, another Hellenistic Jew and a follower of Jesus. They told Philip: "Sir, we would like to see Jesus" (John 12:21).

Whether the people who go to Christian worship on Sunday mornings know it or not, they're seeking the same thing. When, in Christian preaching, as well as Christian fellowship, Christian worship, and Christian service, they do see Jesus, they'll be back for more.

The Word of God, when read, pondered, or proclaimed has power! In the New Testament, Paul says, "...faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17). And God assures us in the Old Testament that when His Word is spoken:

...as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

The Gallup findings are not surprising to me, then. When people hear God's Word faithfully read and explicated, they know they've heard from the One Who made them, redeemed them on the cross and rose from the dead to give them life, and still lives with them through His Holy Spirit. They've come into contact with the Life-Giver and the Life-Changer. And they want more!

And they begin to feel like the apostle Paul:

...I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:8-11)

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

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by U2

Where the Streets Have No Name by U2

The first U2 LP I owned...like lots of other people, I'm sure.

Blackbird by Paul McCartney

I Want to Hold Your Hand by the Beatles

God is On the Move by 7eventh Time Down

If you're paying attention, you know it's so.



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

You don't have to love. You get to love! (AUDIO)

Here.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the message from this morning's worship services.]

You don't have to love. You get to love!

John 14:15-21
A renowned theologian made a confession to a group of people who were celebrating his career. “For forty years,” he said, “I’ve told people, ‘You’ve got to love.’ Now I realize that I’ve had it wrong. The message of Jesus is, ‘You get to love.’”

It’s so easy for us to get the message of Jesus wrong.

It’s so easy to become Christian Pharisees, turning Jesus into a law-giver, and boiling our faith down to being obedient to His command (and the entire Bible’s command) that we love God and love neighbor.

But how confident are we of our ability to be perfectly obedient to God’s law of love? I hope not very confident.

Otherwise, the confession of sin we offered to God together at the beginning of worship today was a meaningless exercise.

Even more seriously, if you and I are confident in our ability to obey God’s law of love, we’re placing our trust in ourselves and not in God.

“Wait a minute,” you might say, “I’m not such a bad person. I do a fair job of loving God and loving my neighbor...to a point.”

To those who may be inclined to offer such a hedged defense, may I remind you of what’s involved in God’s law of love, as summarized in the Ten Commandments?

• You shall have no other gods before God. 
• You shall not take the name of God in vain. 
• Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. 
• Honor your father and your mother. 
• You shall not murder. 
• You shall not commit adultery. 
• You shall not steal. 
• You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 
• You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. 
• You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his workers, his livestock, or anything that else that is your neighbor’s.

“I’m good at nine out of ten of them,” some might think. Or, "I obey most of them."

But James reminds us: “...whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10).

And Jesus tells us that even to think of committing these sins is the same as committing them. “The things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart,” Jesus says in Matthew 15:18-20, “and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person…”

Considering these facts, the conclusion reached by the apostle Paul is unavoidable: “...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (Romans 3:23).

And since “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), Paul’s question for himself in Romans 7:24 is one that every member of the human race should be asking themselves: “Wretched man [or woman] that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (ESV)

This, of course, is where Jesus comes in.

God looks on the children He created in His image with compassion, even though we are sinners who fail to abide by His law of love. It saddens Him because He doesn’t want us to condemn ourselves by remaining enslaved to sin, putting our trust in our own “pretty good” behavior. Every baby born into the world today is destined for death and condemnation for sin unless God acts to saves them.

That’s why He sent Jesus to bear the condemnation for sin we deserve and to rise to become our trailblazer to eternity. 

And that’s why He sends the Holy Spirit to teach us and to remind us to turn to Christ and be forgiven, turn to Him and live, turn to Him and be given new, eternal lives.

Today’s gospel lesson finds Jesus not laying down laws that will earn us salvation. No such laws exist.

You and I can never be good enough to be saved.

Instead, Jesus describes the life that He, by His death and resurrection, makes possible for those who trust in Him. 

He isn’t telling us, “You have to love,” but, “You get to love.” 

And, He tells us that we get so much more by the power of His grace and deity. 

Let’s take a look at what He says this morning in John 14:15-21.

Verse 15: “If you love me, keep my commands.” Already, Jesus has promised the disciples (including you and me):

• that all who follow Him have an eternal place in His kingdom prepared by Him (John 14:1-4); 
• that He is the way to life with God (John 14:6-7); and 
• answers to prayers to the Father offered in Jesus’ name (John 4:13-14),

for all who believe in Him.

Now, let me ask you something: Knowing that God has loved you so much that He does all of this for you as a gift to the one with faith in Jesus, what is the only appropriate response from you (or me)? 

Love. Trusting, grateful love!

We love God, as the apostle John writes elsewhere, because God loved us first (1 John 4:19). 

Once trust in Christ and gratitude for God’s grace infects a soul, love is the response.

And so, Jesus offers here not so much a command, but an observation. When, by faith, you have come to love God and God resides in you, you will do what God commands.

Not perfectly. Our old sinful selves get in the way.

But as we live in daily repentance and renewal, daily surrender to Jesus, the great arc of our lives will bend increasingly toward Jesus and His loving way of life.

You’ll do that as an almost automatic, involuntary response to the relationship of love with God into which Christ brings you.

After my mother died, I thanked my dad for all the many years he spent caring for her. He said, matter-of-factly, “Well, what else was I going to do?”

What else was I going to do? That’s the question of love.

When, in the words of a great song by B.B. King and U2, “love comes to town,” when it comes to save you and when it comes to take residence in your life, what else are you going to do? Love becomes not a command, but a way of life.

Jesus shows this in His great parable about the last judgment when He says He will say to His sheep: "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me..." And the sheep will ask Jesus, "When did we do any of that? We don't remember doing any of that!" Jesus says that His sheep are the ones who respond to His love with love for God and love for neighbor, simply living without a thought of getting credit or keeping score! (Matthew 25:31-46)

But how will we love? After all, “love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

These verses from the Bible's "love chapter," of course, are often read at weddings. When I read them at weddings, I will often look up at the couples standing before me as they smile smugly, their expressions saying, "Yes, that's our love. That's how we love each other." Really?

How is it possible for us to perfectly keep Christ’s law by loving in the style of the love chapter?

Jesus tells us. Verse 16: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.”

To baptized believers in Jesus, Jesus comes to live. Through His Holy Spirit, Jesus comes to us. He speaks Jesus’ word of truth to us, in us, for us.

• He does this at the Baptismal font, where we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then “marked by the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever.” 
• He does it in His Word, where we read and hear God’s life-giving truth. 
• He does it in the bread and wine, where He says, “Take and eat; this is My body...Take and drink; this is My blood,” offered to bring us forgiveness and effecting the miracle of re-membering us to Christ--breaking down the walls of separation, the walls of sin and death. By this, I mean that when Jesus gives us His body and blood at Holy Communion and says, "Do this in remembrance of Me," He is not saying, "Bring memories of Me to mind." He isn't saying, "Recollect Me." He's saying, "Be remembered to Me. Be reconnected to Me. Be the branches to My vine and take My life into your very body, soul, spirit, and will."

To the unbelieving world, the notion that by the power of the Holy Spirit, God comes to us in the Word and sacraments is crazy.

When you’ve never dared to open yourself to Christ and His love, talk of the Holy Spirit seems like foolishness.

But we know better.

When Jesus knocks on the doors of our hearts and we let Him in (Revelation 3:20), we know what it is to have life-giving communion with the God revealed in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit lives in believers in Jesus.

• When we sin, He calls us to repent. 
• When we love, He tells us, “good and faithful servant.” 
• When we don’t know what to pray, He forms our longing into groaning prayers too deep for words. 

Despite a bad news world filled with sin and death and selfishness, even within ourselves, the Holy Spirit empowers us to trust that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life and that because Jesus, crucified and risen, lives, we too will live.

The Holy Spirit brings Jesus’ love into the centers of our souls and we know that we’re not orphans and, fortified by His love, He makes it possible for us to love when we can’t.

I’ve told you that one prayer I’ve offered through the years is, “Lord, I find myself incapable of loving so-and-so. Please love them through me.” I find that God not only loves those people through me, over time, He creates within me genuine love for them.

I’m sure that others have offered similar prayers regarding Mark Daniels.

A woman heard me share this years ago and told me months later that she had tried this on her husband. “I’d gotten to where I couldn’t stand him,” she told me, “but after awhile, I began to see him differently and his behavior seemed to change as I loved Him.”

When Christ’s love and the Holy Spirit come to town, when we let Christ and the Spirit lodge within us and we surrender, we will love.

We will keep Christ’s commands without thinking of it. That’s how grace works.

Jesus continues: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Here’s an incredible thought: The Creator of the universe ushers with faith in Jesus into the same relationship of intimacy, trust, and love He has enjoyed within the Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--for all eternity. He wants you beside Him now and in eternity.

When we surrender to the grace that accepts us as we are and works to make us all that we can be, our relationship with God is totally transformed. We are transformed.

“You shall have no other gods before me,” for example, is changed from a command to a promise.

Through Jesus, we know we have no need of other gods.

We don’t look for love, affirmation, success, peace, or hope anywhere else.

We have it all in Jesus!

No other gods will bother us, entice us, or drag us down.

We’ll have the God we meet in Jesus and, through Him, we have life.

The message of Jesus then is that you don’t have to love, you get to love, just like the Lord Who made you, Who died and rose for you, Who speaks His truth to you again this morning.

Through Jesus, you get to be a free, redeemed child of God, now and forever. Hallelujah!

Now live in His love!


[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message for today's Sunday worship services.]