Who's in Charge?

For my quiet time with God today, I read Luke 7. These words of Jesus especially caught me:

Jesus went on to say, “To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other: 'We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.’" (Luke 7:31-32)

The remarks come in the context of Jesus talking about John the Baptizer. John was the relative of Jesus whose task it was to prepare the world for the disclosure of the Messiah, Jesus. As part of that mission, John called people to repentance--that is, to turning away from sin and turning toward God--and offered a baptism of repentance.

John also had an ascetic life style. He didn't drink alcohol and he was never known to attend a party. Many found him offensive.

Jesus, on the other hand, did drink wine and His first miracle--turning water into wine--was at a party. Yet many of the same people offended by John were also offended by Jesus.

The source of their offense was that neither Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, nor John, Jesus' announcer, brought messages most people wanted to hear. Turn from sin? Put God first? Rely on God's grace through faith in Jesus instead of our own imagined goodness?

For most people, it was enough that they showed up at temple or synagogue, made their offerings, and tried to act decently. This, they thought, should keep God off their backs. They also thought that their outward shows of religiosity entitled them to critique John as prophet and Jesus as incarnate Deity.

Instead, John insisted that if people wanted to live rightly and with God, they needed to turn to Jesus.

Jesus insisted that they should turn to Him, away from their sins, selfishness, and even their religiosity.

God and the people of God must never dance to the world's tune or take its cues from the world, whether it's time celebrate or to grieve. Either the God we meet in Jesus is everything to us or nothing to us. There's no in-between. After years of preaching that, I'm finally beginning to understand that.

Whenever I fall into the trap of thinking that God owes me anything, I risk making myself into my own little god. But unlike the one God and King of the universe as revealed in Jesus, I am incapable of giving myself life or purpose or peace of mind. Only God can give these things.

If I follow God, the God revealed in Jesus, I live.

If I follow myself, I die.

God says: "Choose life!" (Deuteronomy 31:19)

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

7 (maybe 8) Movies for the Fourth

When our kids were growing up, we usually tried to spend some time with them reflecting on the meaning of holidays, secular and sacred. Often, that would include watching movies or TV films that helped them to understand that these special days were more than just time off from routine activities or to gorge ourselves.

That was true of the Fourth of July as much as other special days. I find that watching these and other films, along with reading books on American history and the American political system, contribute to my being a more informed and appreciative citizen.

So, in no particular order, some of my favorite movies for conveying a bit what America is, has been, and aspires to be.

1. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. This classic tells the story of a young midwesterner appointed to fill the unexpired term of a deceased senator. He runs into the corrupt pols of his own state as he upholds constitutional democracy, though. Interestingly, the tool he ultimately uses to take on political corruption is the filibuster, a Senate practice that has often been used to prop up segregation and racism. This movie was controversial when released in 1939. People thought that it portrayed the Senate as crass. But in the end, it upholds the virtue of our constitutional system.

2. John Adams. This Tom Hanks-produced adaptation of David McCullough's majestic and accessible biography of our second president, is simply wonderful. John Adams was always something of a contrarian. But his is the Horatio Alger story of a man of humble beginnings who read and worked his way to greatness, becoming one of the titans of America's founding. This mini-series is worth your time!

3. Lincoln. When I first saw Daniel Day-Lewis portraying Lincoln in the days before his assassination, I drew in breath as though seeing Lincoln himself come to life. From all that I've read about Lincoln through the years, I recognized the accuracy of the actor's portrayal of our sixteenth president: the lumbering stride, the high-pitched speaking voice, the morosity intermingled with hilarity. More than that, I saw the character of the man.

Above all, it's character, the character that knows right from wrong and that learns from experience, that makes great presidents.

Lincoln had to address the gravest constitutional crisis in American history, the Civil War. That conflict was started by rebels who assaulted their own government and countrymen in defense of an immoral institution, slavery.

The movie shows Lincoln as he upheld the principles that, (1) except on sound moral grounds, the Union was and is inviolable and (2) all are created equal.

In turn, it's clear that Lincoln understood the two fundamental principles of American democracy, the source of American exceptionalism: (1) The affirmation of the equality and right to freedom of every human being, which is (2) guaranteed by our mutual accountability under the Constitution and law.

This is an awesome movie!

4. Sergeant York. Yes, it has its historical inaccuracies. Yes, it's filled with stock characters. But, what a movie!

5. Saving Private Ryan. The second of two Spielberg movies on my list (the other is Lincoln), Private Ryan tells the fictional story of a mission designed to rescue a family's last surviving brother after his siblings have been killed in battle. This is more than an homage to what's been called "the greatest generation." The D-Day sequence is, according to many who were there, the most realistic (and the most haunting) portrayal of that battle ever.

This movie is a challenge to all Americans to live up to the sacrifices their forebears made--and not just those who fought in war--to give us our country intact.

6. All the President's Men. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigate the gravest American constitutional crisis since the Civil War.

The movie affirms what President Ford said on succeeding his disgraced predecessor, Richard Nixon:  "Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men."

It also affirms the indispensability of a free press for the proper functioning of the American constitutional system.

7. To Kill a Mockingbird. This poignant film explores the stubborn disgrace of racism in America and the need for people of principle to combat it. The characters are vividly real. The film is an incredible adaptation of what may be the best American novel ever. Children who haven't seen it will love this movie!

8. Finally, watch every episode of the PBS series, The American Experience, that you can. This ambitious series lives up to its name, showing everything about America: the good, the great, the bad, the ugly.

If we and future generations are going to do our parts in fulfilling our constitutional calling of forming "a more perfect union," it's important to know where we've been, the great themes and principles of American democracy, and how this country is worth the effort.

As President Kennedy wrote in the introduction to a multi-volume encyclopedia of American history, which my parents faithfully bought for me each time a new book was issued: "A knowledge of the past prepares us for the crisis of the present and the challenge of the future."

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. He also has a bachelor's degree in Social Studies from The Ohio State University and had the good fortune of being raised by parents who encouraged an interest in history and the possibilities of America.]

Willing to Be Crazy?

[These are reflections on my quiet time with God today. I spent time with God in Luke, chapter 5. To see how I observe quiet time, see here.]

Look: “When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break...When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’...Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.’” (Luke 5:6, 8, 10b)

Peter, as directed by Jesus, reluctantly put out from shore and, despite catching nothing during an entire night’s work, hauled in a catch so big that the boats onto which the men dragged the bulging nets nearly sank. As an experienced fishermen, Peter knew that this wasn’t normal and that the One Who had commanded him to let down his nets wasn’t “normal” either.

In Jesus, Peter saw a holy man, even if he didn’t yet understand Jesus to be Messiah and God. (That would come later.) He saw the distance between Jesus’ righteousness and his own imperfections; so, he begged Jesus to go away. Peter didn’t want to be consumed by the holy fire of God; he knew, as Hebrews 12:29 reminds, that “God is a consuming fire.”
But Jesus tells Peter not to be afraid. Jesus has plans for Peter. Peter is going to “fish for people.”

Listen: Peter was right to reverence Jesus, of course. He was right to be humbled by the reality of Christ’s holiness and his own unholiness. When I stop long enough to let God speak to me, I too am overwhelmed by the distance between Jesus’ perfection and my own imperfection.

But Jesus doesn’t want to end His interchanges with us on that note. The Law rightly condemns us for our sin. Jesus comes with His gospel--the truth that He has conquered the Law, sin, and death for us through His cross--and assures that all who repent and believe in Him have nothing to fear.

Just as Jesus doesn’t want us to get hung up on our guilt without appropriating the grace, forgiveness, and new life He wants to give to us, He also doesn’t want us to misinterpret or be dependent on signs, getting hung up on the billboard more than on the Savior they advertise.

The miraculous catch of fish was a notable sign. But signs always point beyond themselves. Peter might have thought, “I can make a lot of money with all of these fish. Maybe if I follow Jesus, He can make me really wealthy.” We know from Peter’s suggestion at the Transfiguration that he build booths for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah that Peter has a tendency to want to capture or domesticate miraculous signs, seeing them and not the Sign-Giver as the point. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter wanted to capture and bottle up the holiness he witnessed, like an addict wanting to keep a fix going.

But Jesus isn’t our junkie.

He’s not our cash cow either. Once Jesus assured Peter that Peter shouldn’t fear, before any earthly thoughts of his own comfort or advantage could form in Peter’s mind, Jesus told him, basically, “You’re not in the fishing business any more. This miraculous catch is a sign to you that from here on, you’re in the people-catching, disciple-making business.”

Jesus struck while the iron was hot. He didn’t tell Peter, “Now that you have some sense of Who I am, I’ll give you twenty-four hours to decide whether you’re going to follow Me or not. Consider whether you want to become an apostle or not.” No, that was the moment that Jesus wanted a response.

Would Jesus have accepted Peter if he’d put off the decision? Would Peter have come to play the role in Christ’s Church that he was to play had he deferred following? I don’t know.

But this is what I know: At the moment he was experiencing his greatest single success as a fisherman he had ever known, Peter left his nets behind.

This is a strange thing. It makes me wonder: If I experienced an enormous success, as a preacher or anything else, would I trust Jesus enough to follow when I sensed Him calling me to do something else?

This is probably a more soul-searing question than I think it is. I let little successes go to my head. A sermon gets more than the usual number of compliments, a family touched by grief tells me how much my ministry to them means, a friend extolls my cleverness...and suddenly, I’m in danger of thinking that I’m “all that.” What I mean is that even little successes put me over the moon.

So, I really wonder that, once exposed to the addicting power of being told, “well done,” would I have the faith and the courage to do something different if I sensed Jesus telling me, “It’s time to do this, Mark”? Would I be willing to leave the comfortable and apparently successful to go where Jesus sends me?

Once, I answered Jesus’ call to pastoral ministry and I believe that I’ve answered the call to specific congregations on four different occasions in the past nearly thirty-three years. But what if God suddenly made it clear that I needed to become a greeter at Walmart? Or a teacher in an inner-city school? Would I be as responsive as Peter was?

Say what we will (and often do) about Peter’s pig-headedness and impulsive braggadocio, the guy followed Jesus even when it made no sense to him. He was open to admitting when he was wrong. He was malleable to the direction of God. And at the moment he scored his biggest payday, he left it all to go wherever Jesus sent him, to do whatever Jesus wanted him to do.

He makes me wonder if I could ever be so sold out to Jesus to do anything that crazy.

Respond: Lord, help me to be open to what Your Spirit tells me through Your Word, prayer in Jesus’ name, and the counsel of mature Christians. Help me to follow Jesus even when it doesn’t make sense, even when I don’t feel qualified, especially when I don’t feel qualified. Help me to not be comfortable today. Help me to derive my comfort from being Yours. In Jesus’ name. Amen

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

Did the Bible inform the largely non-churchgoing founders?

"Not all of the founders acknowledged the Bible as the revealed Word of God. Nonetheless, it was widely regarded as a receptacle of great wisdom and, especially Jesus' teachings, a handbook for ethical and virtuous conduct."

Read the whole thing.

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

The Peace That Brings Conflict

Mark 10:34-42
This morning, I want to focus on just the first six verses from today's gospel lesson, Matthew 10:34-39.

That’s because Jesus’ words for us here are jarring. They’re not the kinds of words you’ll see quoted on a Hallmark card.

“I haven’t come to bring peace, but a sword. Happy birthday.”

“Anyone who loves family more than Me isn’t worthy of Me. Happy Father’s Day.”

“Take up your cross. Get well soon.”

“Lose your life to find it. Will you be my Valentine?”

But if we find Jesus’ words today jarring, know that the first disciples, on hearing them undoubtedly stood gape-mouthed at the Lord.

You see, as Jesus speaks the words in our lesson, the disciples were already coming to believe that He is the Messiah. And the Messiah, according to prophecy, would come to bring peace.

Eight centuries earlier the prophet Isaiah, under inspiration from God’s Holy Spirit, had said of the Messiah: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

At Jesus’ birth, angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:14)

Yet, look again at what the disciples hear the Prince of peace say to them in today’s lesson: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’” (Matthew 10:34-36)

So, what is it, Jesus? Did You come to bring peace or conflict?

The answer is both.

It’s important to remember what the Bible means when it talks about peace. Peace, from God’s point of view, involves more than the absence of conflict.

In God’s eyes, peace is complete, unfettered harmony between God and those who trust in Him. It also means peace between those who trust in Him and their neighbors, their world.

This is the peace that comes to all who turn from their sin and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. It’s called shalom in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, eirene in the Greek of the New Testament.

The peace that Jesus brings makes it possible for us to look ourselves in the mirror and to see, not just an imperfect sinner deserving of death, but a child of God redeemed and made eternally new by Jesus Christ.

The peace of Jesus makes it possible for us to look at God not only as the perfect Judge, but as the loving Father Who sent His Son to die and rise for us, Who sends His Spirit to live in us, guide us, and make us over into His image.

The peace of Jesus makes it possible for us to look on our neighbors as people for whom Jesus also died and rose, people who need to know and experience the good news of new and everlasting life that Jesus brings, people whom Jesus calls us to serve as if they were Jesus Himself.

In bringing the possibility of such peace in all of these ways to each and every human being though, Jesus inevitably creates conflict.

If we get serious about following Jesus, conflict will come. Jesus came to bring us peace with God, with ourselves, and with others. But not everyone wants what Jesus has come to bring. Not everyone wants to surrender to Jesus. Even those who believe in Jesus find that the hardest prayer He teaches us to pray is, “Thy will be done.” We have all inherited from Adam and Eve a desire to "be like God" and it's foreign to all of us to want to surrender ourselves even to the One Who makes and redeems us.

So, it’s in Jesus’ call to follow and surrender that conflict begins. That’s where Jesus, in the words He cites from the Old Testament book of Micah, pits “man against father, daughter against mother,” family member against family member.

Jesus is not just the great giver of peace, He’s also the great divider of human beings and of human history.

Years ago, the movie Chariots of Fire told the story of an Olympic athlete getting into the very kind of conflict that Jesus brings to those who follow Him. Eric Liddell was a young Scotsman who had trained for a track event. But he learned that his event was scheduled for a Sunday and, as a devout Christian, who would later be a missionary to China, he did not believe that he should run on the sabbath. The United Kingdom’s Olympic elite were appalled. “In my day,” one of them, a former Olympian himself, tells Liddell heatedly, “we knew who took first place between God and King.”

For the Christian, of course, no matter how patriotic, God must always take first place. The God we know in Jesus Christ must take first place over country, over family, over career, over friends, over self. And when Christians dare to make the God revealed in Jesus their highest priority, there will inevitably be conflict. Jesus is preparing us for that with His words to us today.

And Jesus isn’t done bracing us for following Him while we live in this fallen world. He goes on: “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37)

When you follow Jesus, conflict may happen even in the intimacy of family. I was talking with a worried father a few years ago. The father was a Christian; but his faith was basically confined to Sunday mornings. His son had acquired a deep faith in Jesus while in college. The young man had started sharing his faith in Christ and, despite being on a great trajectory with his new career, decided to take two years off in order to go to a Third World country to do evangelism and mission work. His father was appalled! He was sure that his son could never pick up the thread of his rising career after a two-year absence in some far-off country. “I keep trying to make my son consider,” he told me, “how this is possibly going to help him.”

It was hard for me to help this man understand that, while not all of us are called to spend two years following Christ into a Third World country, his son was doing the right thing. The father viewed the son’s prospective missionary trip as a betrayal: All that money spent on the son’s education was going to waste. But for his son, it was clear: He loved his father, but he loved his Lord even more.

Jesus asks us, “Who do you love more, the things of this world or Me?” That father was conflicted; his son was at peace. When you follow where Jesus leads, despite the conflict roiling around you and sometimes inside you, you have a peace that passes all understanding.

Jesus goes on to say: “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:38-39)

The first disciples would have had no understanding of Jesus at this point. They didn’t realize that Jesus would, on Good Friday, take up a cross and there, experience the death sentence that every one of us deserves for our sin, taking it for us so that we, by faith in Christ, be reconciled with God.

What Jesus is telling us is that, if we are to experience the new life that He has come to bring us now and in eternity, we must allow our old selves to be crucified.

Daily, we need to subject all those sins that we commit, either deliberately or reflexively, to crucifixion.

That means coming to God each day and asking Him to show us our sins so that He can rip them from our lives, even all those sins we like to commit, to be put on the shoulders of Jesus, Who died to consume them from existence forever.

Listen: Sin kills. All sin kills--from taking God’s name in vain to murder, from sexual intimacy outside a marriage of woman and man to gossip, from dishonoring our elders to coveting what our neighbor has, from making idols of our kids to even the pettiest of thievery.

And, if we are to live with the God Who sets sinners free to live as human beings were meant to live, we must daily submit all our sin to crucifixion.

And this is no abstraction. We are born in sin. Sin is such a part of us that it’s part of what composes our personalities, our habits, our ways of looking at the world. It must be crucified. Daily. Hourly. Through constant surrender to Christ.

Like the fog that clings to the ocean at the beach in the morning, it must be burned off by the light of God’s grace given in Christ.

It’s more violent, more painful than that.

Once, a melanoma, a malignant cancer, was found on my leg. It hadn’t grown much. But the cancer had become part of me. It had to be removed. So, one day, I went to the James Center at Ohio State, where a surgeon removed the cancer. It was no longer part of me.

It was a minor surgery; the scar is still there, but the sting lasted only a few days. Taking up our crosses, daily repenting, daily agreeing with God that the sins that have become part of me must go, is vastly more painful than that. And daily repentance for our sin will leave its scars on our psyches and our lives. That’s just the truth!

But as we take up our crosses each day, God goes to work to create our best selves. The sin selves die so that our God selves can live.

Jesus died and rose to make this soul surgery successful!

We often buy Hallmark cards to make people laugh or to comfort them. There's nothing wrong with that. But in describing what may come to us as His disciples, Jesus isn’t sending us a Hallmark.

Life with Christ is, of course, an incredible comfort. All who repent and trust in Christ have life with God that never ends. Christ stands by those who follow Him through this life and will usher us into a perfect eternity with God at the resurrection. That’s true comfort.

But along the way, the disciple will be constantly called to choose Christ over our own temporary comforts.

Christ over the world.

Christ over our family.

Christ over our status.

Christ over self.

Christ over our country.

That may cause us conflict with others, conflict even with ourselves, as we live from day to day. But all who dare to trust in Jesus, day in and day out, live with this comfort from Him: “...the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13) No Hallmark card can bring that kind of comfort. Only Jesus.

Keep following Him!

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

Hope and Comfort

[This was shared during the funeral of the father, father-in-law, grandfather, and great-grandfather of friends from Cincinnati earlier today.]

2 Corinthians 1:3-4
John 11:21-27

There’s a passage of Scripture I mentioned as we began today’s service. It comes from the first chapter of the New Testament book of 2 Corinthians and says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort…”

I know something of how important Lee was to people, especially to his family. He was a strong presence in the life of that family, a man who loved his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. And he was a vital presence in their lives almost to the end, as the video Dave shared on Facebook the other day, showing Lee teeing up on the golf course at the age of 90, demonstrates. All of you have been blessed to have Lee in your lives and you know it.

But now what?

People who haven’t been blessed as you have, strangers to Lee or to all of you, might not understand that it’s possible to grieve just as much, sometimes more, for an older person who has left this life as it is to grieve for someone younger. When someone has been the patriarch of a family for so long, it leaves a hole in many lives.

So, the first thing that I would say this morning is that you shouldn’t let anyone tell you that it’s time to snap out of it, time to stop feeling your loss.

As I read God’s Word, the Bible, it becomes clear to me that death was never meant to be part of the human experience. We were created in the “image of God,” Genesis says, and the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes tells us that God “has put eternity into [humanity’s] heart…” We have every right to feel offended by death, to resent its removal of loved ones from our lives. We weren’t made for death. It’s offensive and hurtful to us.

Listen: It’s offensive to God and hurts God too. He loves us. He wants more for us than death and grief. He wants to give us life and hope and peace.

That’s exactly why He took on human flesh in the person of Jesus, Who took the death sentence for sin each of us inherits at birth and then rose from the dead so that all who turn from their own sin and trust in Him have a life with God that cannot be taken from them.

When a friend of Jesus, a man named Lazarus, died, Jesus took His apostles with Him to the little village of Bethany. Some regarded this as a risky trip because, by that time, the forces of government and religion had decided that Jesus needed to be killed and Bethany was close to Jerusalem, where temple police or Roman soldiers could easily get their hands on Him. But Jesus went anyway.

Lazarus had two sisters, who also lived in Bethany. Martha was the first of them to see Jesus when He got to Bethany and she was none too pleased with Him. She and her sister had sent urgent pleas to Jesus to come and help their brother. They were sure that Jesus, Who already had a track record of miracle-working, could come and heal Lazarus. But, by the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus was dead four days.

And so, when Jesus arrives, Martha is reproachful. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother he would not have died,” she tells Him. “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” They exchange a few more words, then Jesus tells her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

Jesus was offering to Martha at that moment the same thing that He offers you today: hope. Hope that when we dare to follow Christ, dare to turn away from sin, and turn to Him in trust, we have life with God. It’s a hope that God will be with us always and a hope that death need not have the last word over the lives of those who trust in Jesus.

To all people, Christ offers universally and unreservedly the chance to receive what, deep in our souls, we all know we were made for, eternal life with God. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” Jesus says elsewhere. “No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.” As we turn to Jesus each day, He brings God’s hope to us, even when we grieve.

But this same God can give something else to you today. I pray that you’ll take it as He offers it to you. It’s mentioned in that passage from 2 Corinthians I spoke of a few moments ago: Comfort. The passage calls God “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.”

If you seek God, the God made plain in Jesus, He can bring you comfort.

I remember being at a funeral visitation. One of the friends who stopped by to visit the grieving family was a man I’d met several times previously. We fell into conversation. He talked about how it had been when he lost his wife of fifty some years. They had been inseparable and he was devastated. He talked about how often at night he would fall to his knees in his bedroom and cry out, “God have mercy on me.” God’s Word, the Bible, promises that all who call on God will be saved. This man, as he called on God for help, was saved from facing His grief alone. “I don’t know how I would have survived without God’s help,” he told me.

And speaking personally, when I had a heart attack seven years ago and needed to be hospitalized, my son spent the night with me. As I lay in bed, I asked him to read some Scripture to me. I'll never forget the comfort I felt amid the noise in my soul when he read the words of Psalm 46:10: "Be still, and know that I am God."

The God Who has experienced death and grief Himself, wants to offer that same comfort to you today.

He wants you to know that you’re right to be hurt by the loss of your father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and friend.

He wants you to know that, for all who dare to trust in Christ, there is a hope for life with God in this world and a perfect life with God in the world to come, and there is comfort for those who run into the strong, compassionate arms of the God Who made you, loves you, died for you, rose for you.

Take the comfort and hope that only the God we meet in Jesus can offer.

And know that a lot of people, including Ann and me and our family, love you. God bless all of you. Amen

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

Grace, Discipleship, and Change

[Below are reflections on my quiet time with God from this morning. For more details on how I format my time with God, see here.]

Look: “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.” (Philemon 1:11)

“If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.” (Philemon 1:18)

Two thoughts:

(1) Onesimus, whose name means useful, has undergone a transformation. Paul says that he has been moved from uselessness to his master, Philemon, to being useful. Today a myth prevails in the West, under the influence of pop psychology, that people don’t change. Paul tells Philemon that Onesimus has changed. The gospel changes people.

(2) Compelled by the gospel of Christ that has changed him from an enemy of God to a friend (Colossians 1:21-22; Romans 5:10), Paul pledges that he will repay Philemon for anything that Onesimus has cost him.

It’s believed that Onesimus was a runaway slave and that he ran after stealing from his master, Philemon. But, in running, Onesimus ran right under the influence of Paul, who had earlier been instrumental in Philemon’s conversion to faith in Christ.

After hearing and experiencing the gospel through Paul, Onesimus too became a Christian. Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon reluctantly, with a plea that this once-useless slave could now become Philemon’s useful friend “as a brother in the Lord” (v.16). (Paul also refuses to pull rank on Philemon. Although “in Christ…[he] could be bold and order” [Philemon 1:8] Philemon to free Onesimus, Paul instead chooses to appeal to Philemon “on the basis of love” [Philemon 1:9]). Paul goes completely to bat for Onesimus.

Listen: Several important truths emerge for me from this encounter with God in His Word.

(1) The Gospel has the power to transform us from people leading useless, vain lives to people whose lives have purpose and meaning. That’s exactly what Jesus has come into our world to make possible through His death and resurrection. Paul writes in Romans: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” (Romans 1:16-17)

This morning, I was upset with myself for the intractability and recurrence of the sins I seem to specialize in, as well as for my stubborn bad habits. This is one of the things I discussed with God during the “STOP” portion of my quiet time.

I get discouraged with myself, ignoring the fact that while I may battle with the same bad old stuff, I can take consolation from two facts: (1) When I look back over the decades of my walk with Christ, I can see the ways in which He has impacted me positively, to use a non-existent word, Christwardly; (2) I am in the battle. I haven’t surrendered to my sins and bad habits; I seek each day to surrender to Christ.

If I weren’t in the battle, I wouldn’t feel the need to repent while reading Scripture or while praying or during conversations with maturing Christian. The surest indicator that I am seeking to follow Christ is guilt...not shame...but guilt. It’s guilt that prompts repentance and nudges me to confession, the experience of grace, and a closer walk with Christ. (This isn’t a license for sin, of course. Paul dealt with this issue when he wrote in Romans 6:1-4: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”) Our call is to cover ourselves in Christ through daily surrender to Christ as He renews us more deeply into His own image.

The most prominent dynamic of Christian discipleship is change. The disciple is always changing. If they’re not changing, they’re no longer following Jesus. They’re deluding themselves with the idea that they’ve arrived, that they no longer need to be covered in Christ’s righteousness. This leads either to self-righteousness or spiritual indifference.

But none of us, not even spiritual giants, “arrive” before we leave this life. Until that time, God has work to do on us.

So, my despair over my intractable sins and bad habits, the things that make me “useless” to God and the world is unwarranted. I belong to Jesus Christ. I turn to Him in daily repentance and renewal of the covenant He made with me at my baptism. I am in the battle. The damnation of my imperfection that Satan, my sin-distorted conscience, and the world seek to hand out to me be damned.
Jesus Christ is alive and I belong to Him despite the sins and flaws I daily ask Him to forgive and take away. As long as I’m in the battle against the old Mark, all is well. That’s incredibly comforting!

(2) It’s my responsibility as a Christian and a Christian servant-leader to go to bat for those others may dismiss, ignore, marginalize. I need to be an advocate for those Christians others may be inclined to dismiss, leave out, insult. I need to stand with those Christians whose faith others may doubt.

Paul went to bat for Onesimus. He was willing to repay Philemon for whatever damages to or loss of property Philemon experienced as a result of Onesimus’ actions.

When I was a young and very, very immature Christian (today I’m just a very immature Christian, I think, by the grace of God), Martha Schneider, a sixty year old-plus member of the church where I came to faith, put up with my twenty-something infantile behavior. She discipled me. She mentored me. She even came to see some of my behaviors which she’d once seen as useless and disrespectful as useful.  

When others may have been inclined to give up on me, Martha didn’t. She taught me about Jesus, grace, prayer, and resilient faith. She saw my potential and she was an instrument by which God brought changes to my life: deepened faith, an openness to God’s call, a love of prayer. She was Paul to my Onesimus. 

Respond: Father, You haven’t given up on me. Help me to not give up on You or the changes Your Holy Spirit can bring to me as I humbly bring my life to You each day in Jesus’ name. And help me not to give up on anyone, to pray for and to witness to those not yet converted to Christ and to stand with those who confess Christ who may be misunderstood or regarded with fear or suspicion by other Christians for their sketchy track records. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit again today, so that You guide my thoughts, words, and actions. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

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

Persecution and the Only Thing to Fear (AUDIO)

Here.

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

Persecution and the Only Thing to Fear

Matthew 10:1, 21-33
I had no idea when I first planned on this being the day we would welcome twenty new members to Living Water that in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus would talk about the subject of Christian persecution.

In any case, you should know that this is not an abstract topic.

Open Doors USA, a Christian organization that offers support to persecuted sisters and brothers in Christ, defines persecution as “any hostility experienced from the world as a result of one’s identification as a Christian.” Open Doors estimates that worldwide, each month:

• 322 Christians are killed for their faith in Christ; 
• 214 churches and church properties are destroyed; and 
• 772 forms of violence--including beatings, abductions, rapes, arrests, and forced marriages--are perpetrated against Christians. 

Jesus warns us today of the truth borne out by those figures: Being His disciple is not easy.

That might make people wonder why anyone would want to be a Christian. And yet, millions of people come to faith in Christ each year.

I am not a media basher, but much of the media likes to say that Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion. But that’s true if you only count the number of people born Muslim. The fastest growing religion by conversions in the world is Christianity.

And this growth is led by the numbers of Christian conversions that are happening in places where Christians face daily persecution, whether from their governments or their neighbors, places like China, Nepal, and Ethiopia.

But, it must be said that, as hostility toward and ignorance about Christ and His Church grow in North America, even here, where we face no persecution, we can feel apprehension, if not fear as followers of Jesus about being overt in the expression of our faith.

Today though, Jesus tells us: “Don’t be afraid.”

And He tells us why we shouldn’t be afraid, too.

Let’s take a look at our gospel lesson for this morning. Jesus begins by citing things that would happen--and have happened many times in the twenty-plus centuries since--to His disciples: “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

Nobody can accuse Jesus of painting a rosy picture of Christian discipleship! Not only does Jesus call us to die to our sins and our old selves and be subject to the reconstruction of our characters He wants us all to undergo so that we can be, sometimes painfully, more like Him in His love, integrity, kindness, and righteousness...He also says that, during our lives on this earth, as we follow Him, people we know and love may turn on us.

Every person in this sanctuary probably has experienced this. I know that in my own life, there are people in my life, many of whom I’ve known for years, who view me as a humorless, naive, judgmental, party-pooper. Now, I suppose that there are times when I am a humorless, naive, judgmental, party-pooper, although I hope I’m not. But it seems to me that those who “know” me and think these things don’t really know me. They just know that I hang out with Jesus and they don’t want to get too close to that.

Some years ago, I was appointed by the county government of the community in which we lived to a committee charged with addressing the use of drugs by young people. There were about twenty-five of us on this committee. At the first meeting, the chairperson went around the room, asking people what they thought was the fundamental reason for the drug problem in our community.

There were many answers: family disintegration, the influence of media superstars, poor communications, a predisposition to addiction, poverty, affluence. In truth, each of those factors play some role in the use of drugs. But I don't think that they're the fundamental reason.

When the question came to me, I said that I thought it could ultimately be traced back to a disconnect from God.

When you are connected with God, you know how highly prized you are in God's eyes and are more resistant to abusing the gift of your life.

When you're connected with God, you're also connected to Christian community; God and His people can help you to make healthier, life-affirming choices.

No one is immune to addiction, of course. No family is. But, without God, people aren't living in hope. They're trying to fill holes in their souls that can only be filled by God.

After I'd said my piece...crickets. I could almost hear my fellow committee members saying, "There goes the guy in the collar."

As the question continued around the circle, one other person offered a similar answer. His name was Reggie. I came to find that Reggie is an amazing man, the leader of a program designed to help people get out from under addiction, himself recovering from an addiction. "You know," he said, "I agree with the pastor."

We didn't win any people over that day. But I learned a valuable lesson on how difficult it is for people to accept the practical application of faith in Jesus to everyday life.

At some level, I suspect that most people are afraid that if they get close to Jesus, He will win them over with His love:

• they’ll come to see Jesus as God-enfleshed;
• they’ll become grateful that despite His sinlessness, He died for their sins, and they’ll repent; 
• they’ll come to believe that Jesus rose and that He can give them new lives; 
• they’re afraid they’ll start surrendering their lives to Him each day. 

And surrendering to Christ is the hardest thing for us to do, whether we're just coming to faith in Christ or if we've been striving to follow Him our whole lives. It will keep on being the hardest thing for us to do every day we live on this earth.

I know that when I was an atheist, I didn’t like being around authentic Christians. When you’ve drawn your identity from things like your favorite sins, your sense of self-reliance, your winning personality, your brains, your work ethic, it’s tough to admit that Jesus even died for your sins, that even you need to come to the foot of the cross and confess sin, and trust in Jesus to live.

The good news of new life for all who believe in the crucified and risen Jesus will always clash with the human ego. 

But for all who dare to hear Jesus’ call to follow Him, that good news will never clash with truth. 

And it will never clash with joy, even in the face of persecution.

Jesus continues in our lesson: “The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. [If Jesus, our teacher and master, faced persecution and then, death, who are we as people He has saved from eternal death and darkness, to be spared from persecution and even death as we follow Him here on earth? Jesus continues:] If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!” On this last point, you may remember that some of Jesus’ opponents once said that the only way Jesus could cast our demons was in the power of Beelzebul, another name for the devil. Jesus made mincemeat of that logic by pointing out that the devil would hardly act against his own self-interest in that way.

Then Jesus says something curious: “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.”

As one Bible scholar points out, you would expect Jesus to say something like, “Don’t be afraid. I’m with you always." Or, "Don't be afraid. I’ve overcome the sin and evil of this world.”

And, in fact, Jesus says those things elsewhere.

But not here, when telling His Church how to face persecution.

Instead, Jesus seems to say that we shouldn’t be afraid because one day, at the end of the age, when He comes to judge the living and the dead, everything we’ve ever done, said, or thought will be laid open for everyone to see.

That’s supposed to make me feel less afraid? I don’t know about you, but there are plenty of my actions, thoughts, and words I’d just as soon nobody else knew about.

In one way or another, I’ve violated every single one of the Ten Commandments and I’d just as soon those weren’t paraded before the whole world on Judgment Day, thank You very much.

Well, maybe all of our sins will be paraded before the universe at the judgment.

But we don’t need to be afraid when we have put our trust in Christ, when we’ve repented for our sin, and grasped the grace only Jesus can offer.

That’s because the thing that will also become visible at the judgment is whether we have taken refuge, life, and hope from Jesus Christ, whether we’re clothed in His righteousness and stand naked in our own sin.

And when our conscience, or the devil, or the world accuse us for our sin, the disciple of Jesus can take the example of Martin Luther, who advised: “...when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: ‘I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!’”

Jesus goes on: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.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.”

Look, Jesus is saying, the most that those who persecute you is take your earthly life. That’s nothing to fear!

The One we should fear, reverence, and follow is the God revealed in Jesus, the One Who can send us away from Him, life, and eternity.

But when we trust the One Who made us, saves us, died for us, and rose for us, we know that we are eternally in His care.

None of us is perfect. We all sin. I sin.

Just in the past few days, I have unconsciously and reflexively sinned and it was only after God pricked my conscience that I knew I needed to repent before the only One Who can forgive me and set me on the right path.

That’s why, for centuries, Lutheran Christians around the world have come to God daily in repentance and faith, to daily be revived by the God seen in Jesus, to daily surrender to the One Who gives life to the repentant.

That’s why you and I confess our sins and receive assurance of God’s forgiveness given through Christ each Sunday morning.

As the prodigal son learned, the question isn’t whether we have wandered from God. Everyone of us is prone to that. The question is whether we keep coming back to the God Who reaches out to us as He has reached out to us through Jesus from cross and tomb and as He still reaches out to us from His throne in eternity. 

Our daily coming back to Christ will also be revealed at the judgment. And to all who have trusted in Christ from our King in this way, He will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” (Matthew 25:35)

Along the way, in this life, Christ will be with us.

He will forgive us.

He will give us the gift of the Church from which we mutually draw strength and to which we are each accountable.

He will meet us every time we read His Word and pray in His name.

He will meet us every time we worship with others in His name, every time we receive the sacraments, every time we tell a neighbor the good news of new life for all who believe in Christ, every time we serve our neighbor in Jesus’ name.

All of these things--gifts of grace--Christ does for us, no matter what the world does to us.

And then, one day, after we have passed from this life, the ultimate truth about fear will be revealed. Do you know what that truth is? It’s this:

The only thing to fear is a life without Christ. 

Not poverty.

Not contempt or indifference from neighbors.

Not our lapses into faithlessness for which we repent.

Not persecution.

No, the only thing to fear is life without the Life-Giver Jesus Christ.

May you never have that kind of fear. Amen

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

Shame on Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp's rhetorical question about the last time a president was assassinated by an actor must make every legitimate opponent of Donald Trump's policies, actions, and words cringe. Depp doesn't help the cause of those who want to disagree with Trump through political dialog and action.

And it's just plain wrong to fantasize--however facetiously--about doing violence to other human beings. It's not the right thing for Ted Nugent to do; it's not the right thing for Johnny Depp to do.

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

Good Advice

"Take the day's measure of good, and be thankful, and who knows but more may be added?" from The Confession of Brother Haluin by Ellis Peters.

As I say, you never can tell what God may have up His sleeve.

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

A 'Melania Makeover' and the Value of a Human Being

The New York Post has the story of a seemingly attractive woman who feels the need to look like someone else, in this case like Melania Trump.

This is not much different--only be degree--from the person who feels the need to derive their sense of identity and worth from having someone else's name on their clothing, be it jerseys, sneakers, dress shoes, t-shirts, ties, suits, or other articles of clothing.

If you don't know by faith in God that, through Christ, you are acceptable in the eyes of the only One Whose opinion matters, you become subject to the temptation of subordinating your own unique personhood to other people or things, all so that you can feel powerful or worthy.

But God has already shown you your infinite value by sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross for you, where he bore the punishment for sin that we all deserve. Then He rose from the dead to open up the perfection of eternal life spent in God's presence to all who trust Christ for forgiveness, life, and the certainty of their worthiness.

Trust in Jesus, not face lifts, hair coloring, sneakers, a career, a house, a car. None of those things can deliver what only Jesus can and does give to those who repent and believe in Him: a certainty of their worth, the presence of God and the support of His Church today, and the promise of life with God beyond death.

[UPDATE: This situation also reminds me of the former Rachel Dolezai, one-time leader of the Spokane NAACP chapter, who, it turned out, claimed to be black when, in fact, she is white. We are all "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14), no matter how difficult that may be for us to accept.]

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

Is this a bid for the Nobel Peace Prize?

For about two years now, Chris Riccobono, who owns Untuckit, has been telling the story of how he was inspired to become a shirt salesman. (He also clearly wants to be a model.) Finding a shirt that looked good untucked became his passion. His passion? Really?

Riccobono makes it sound as though his shirts are the answer to some pressing world need, akin to a cure for cancer or Middle East peace. Every time I see this commercial, I want to scream.

(I've held that in for two years. Now, I feel better.)



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

Trusting

[Below are reflections on my quiet time with God from this morning. For more details on how I format my time with God, see here.]

Look: “...But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith…” (Colossians 1:22-23) 

Two things stand out here: (1) My reconciliation with God and my freedom from sin and its consequence, death, have been accomplished. I’m not waiting for salvation to happen to me. In Christ and through my faith in Christ, it has happened to me and is happening to me. I’m reminded of Jesus’ words to the woman at the well: “...a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth…” (John 4:23) The kingdom is coming in its fullness, but it has already come fully to all who believe in Jesus. “Today salvation has come to this house…,” Jesus said of the unlikely candidate for salvation, the extortionist Zacchaeus (Luke 19:9). As I trust in Jesus, I am in the kingdom even now and know that nothing can separate me from the love of God given in Christ (Romans 8:31-39).

(2) The citizenship in the kingdom of God which I enter by faith in Christ is mine so long as I continue to live my faith in Christ. God is faithful. God will never rescind my salvation. But if I cease to believe, ceasing to trust God with my sins through Christ or to trust in Christ for forgiveness and life, I voluntarily cede my citizenship. 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 10:32-33)

Listen: “Daily repentance and renewal” must be more than a Lutheran motto, but my way of life. The daily renewal of my faith relationship with the God I know in Jesus is how my faith is maintained against the corrosive influences of my own sin, the sin of the world, and the never-ceasing temptations presented by Satan. As I live in intimacy with Christ, He takes hold of my life more deeply. He enters into my life more fully (Revelation 3:20). I experience His kingdom and the confidence, peace, and hope of it more completely.

Respond: Today, Lord, help me to more fully, completely, and transparently yield my life to You. Help me to trust You with my whole life. Thank You for making me part of Your kingdom through Christ and my faith in Christ. Amen

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

What Now?

Matthew 9:35-10:8
Today is the second Sunday after Pentecost. It begins the longest season of the Church Year.

To the outside observer, the Sundays after Pentecost don't constitute the most exciting or compelling part of the church calendar. There’s no Christmas, Easter, or Pentecost to enliven it.

Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers and other fellow Christians don’t speak of the season as “the Sundays after Pentecost,” but lump it in with what they call “Ordinary Time.” That’s how most people will see this season of the Church Year, just ordinary.

It is in some ways. I think of it as the Season of Getting Down to Brass Tacks.

The question that our Bible lessons throughout this season ask and help us answer is a simple one: After God has entered our world in Jesus, died on the cross for our sins, risen from death to open life with God to all who repent and believe in Him, filled us with the Holy Spirit to empower us to believe and share the Gospel news of new life through faith in Jesus, what now? While we await our personal encounters with Jesus, either at our deaths or when He returns to this world, how do we live? What now?

That question takes center stage in our gospel lesson for this morning.

It comes at a transitional spot in Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

After the exciting beginning of Jesus’ ministry and following the incredible time of teaching we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus begins what may seem like a fairly routine portion of His ministry. (If anything about Jesus’ time on earth can be called routine!)

Our lesson finds Jesus at what we might call a hinge of His earthly ministry, one on which a door is closed on one phase and is opened to a brand new one.

Here’s what I mean: Up to this point, Jesus has been the One doing all the ministering. Jesus has been the Actor, His disciples the audience.

But in our lesson, things change. Here, Jesus calls and empowers His followers to enter into the same ministry with the same power--the same authority--He possesses as God the Son.

There will be another hinge in Jesus’ ministry, coming after He dies, rises, and ascends into heaven, when all who follow Him will be unleashed not just onto the small land of Judea to share Him with others, but when all of His disciples--everyone who bears the name of Jesus--will be sent into the whole world to share and live out the Gospel so that their neighbors of all colors, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds can come to know and follow Jesus.

We, in the Church, live on the other side of that doorway.

But today, let’s take a look at what we can learn about living in this green season, this ordinary time, from what Jesus says and does in today’s gospel lesson.

Matthew 9:35: “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.”

This was Jesus’ ministry before His death, resurrection, and ascension summarized: He taught, he shared the Gospel of new life with God for all who repented and believed in Him, He brought God’s healing to people’s lives.

But that ministry was about to expand beyond Jesus, motivated by the loving compassion of God for all people.

Read on, please: “When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed [The word that Jesus uses here, in the Greek in which Matthew wrote his gospel, means more literally, troubled] and helpless [This word in the Greek carries the meaning of cast away, thrown away], like sheep without a shepherd. [The people were lost, set adrift in the world without hope, untethered from God by their inborn sin.] Then he [Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’”

Don’t miss out on the importance of that last sentence. These sheep--lost in sin, lost to death, losing out on purpose for their lives--are troubled. They’re the world’s throw-aways. But, unlike the world, Jesus has compassion on them all...on all of us. They, like us, need a shepherd, someone to lead them to life and peace with God.

Jesus was, while on earth, a shepherd to many people.

But, for the sake of being the perfect human sacrifice for all of our sins, Jesus had voluntarily accepted the limitation of living one human life while on earth, able to reach, touch, and speak to only so many people.

It’s possible that He could have talked to all the residents on Planet Earth at a single time (and Scripture says He will do just that when He returns one day), but it is in the nature of our loving God to want to meet us and offer us new life intimately, one to one.

By accepting that limitation, Jesus fulfilled the desire of the little boy I’ve mentioned before who couldn’t get to sleep, afraid in his bedroom by himself. His dad pointed out that he and mom were just down the hall and that besides, “God is right here.” “I know that God is right here,” the little boy says, “but I want someone with skin on them.”

Jesus was God with skin on Him.

But it’s Jesus’ intent that we should all meet God through people with skin on them, through people who believe in Jesus Christ and whose lives have been changed for all eternity by Him. It's people who know, follow, and love Jesus who can bring the God we know in Jesus close to others.

So, switching metaphors from sheep to crops ready for harvest, ready for eternity-changing good news, ready to be brought into the shelter of God’s kingdom, Jesus commands His disciples, including you and me, to pray for workers to move into that harvest.

I can think of no other command we have received from Jesus that is more ignored by His Church. We're even more obedient to Jesus' great commission command to make disciples, to evangelize, than we are to this one.

We Christians often lament the sorry state of the world. It bothers us to consider how many people go through their lives without ever knowing Jesus Christ, the only One Who can save them from sin, the only One Who can give them the life with God that they yearn for even of they don’t know it.

But we fail to do what Jesus tells us to do in our gospel lesson this morning: To pray that God will send disciples with skin on them into the lives of all people in order, by the power of the Holy Spirit Who lives in every Christian, to duplicate the ministry of Jesus--the ministry of teaching, proclaiming the good news, being agents of God’s healing--to the harassed and helpless who need Jesus as much as you and I do!

Praying that God will send workers into all of the harvests of the world should be something that we as Christians do every single day!

We need to pray that God will send workers to bring in the harvest of the lost among the elderly, baby boomers, GenXers, and millennials, to bring in the harvest of those presently lost in Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, atheism, to bring in the harvest from all who do not yet know Jesus.

But be careful what you pray for! When we pray in this way, we must also be prepared to be the workers that Jesus sends into these harvests.

We may be the disciples with skin on them that Jesus sends out.

Consider what happened to the Twelve that to whom Jesus first commanded this prayer. He called them to be workers in the harvest. He sent them out to do exactly what He was doing, at first only in Judea. Later, He would send His whole Church with the mission to go to the whole world to make disciples. That’s our call--yours and mine--today.

It is a daunting mission. But it’s one we take seriously at Living Water.

When we revised our congregation’s constitution a few years ago, we knew that we had to adopt a new mission statement. The old one was more of an observation than a statement of our mission.

But we became convinced that we didn’t need to formulate some snappy new wording. We didn’t need months of input or study.

That's because the risen Jesus gave His Church its mission just before He ascended to heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand: “...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

This is Jesus’ answer to our question, “What now?”

• We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, what now? 
• We’re given the Holy Spirit at Baptism, what now? 
• We are told to pray in Jesus’ name, what now? 

The answer: Do the mission Jesus has given to us; be and make disciples. We’re to keep being and making disciples until Jesus returns. As we do it, Jesus promises that He will be with us always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

On Tuesday night, we’ll have an open house, allowing you to ask questions about our proposed three-phase building project.

I must tell you that, as a pastor who has been through two previous building projects, I face this one with some apprehension.

I’m not concerned about arguments over the bricks and mortar; the plan reflects the prayers for God’s will and the extensive input of our members.

I’m not concerned about leadership or financing.

The thing I pray about as your shepherd is that, in the excitement over putting up the first phase of this project, we forget about our mission of being and making disciples.

Listen: If we see any building we erect as anything other than a tool for being and making disciples, we shouldn’t bother building at all.

The first disciples of Jesus followed Jesus, taught others about Him, proclaimed the good news of new life through repentance and belief in Jesus, and brought Jesus’ healing to others without having sanctuaries, fellowship halls, offices, kitchens, or classrooms. And history shows that they did pretty well at the mission of being and making disciples Jesus gives to His Church. The first permanent church structure wasn't even built until the fourth century.

I believe that the first phase the Vision Forward team and the Church Council is proposing can help us with the mission that Jesus has given to us. So, can the subsequent phases...but only if we refuse to see our buildings as ends in themselves.

We must not see any building project as a destination, only a route by which we get to our destination. The destination, the constant journey of the Church, is to fulfill Christ’s great commission, to make disciples. And Jesus even tells us to cheat in pursuing it; we’re to pray the power of God’s Holy Spirit on all those disciples with skin on them who have been sent by Jesus Christ to turn the world upside down--one person at a time--with the life-altering good news of Jesus Christ. Whatever we do, we must always remember and pursue our one and only mission!

For the Church, that’s always the answer to the question, “What now?” Amen

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

Thoughts on the Philando Castile Verdict

The Philando Castile verdict is the latest chapter in a horrible ongoing feature of our national life in America. Millions of Americans are daily aggrieved because they feel they are denied justice owing to the color of their skin. It's hard to argue otherwise.

I pray that God will prompt us all to remember the words God spoke to all the world through the prophet Micah: "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you, To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)

If this were our way of life, Philando Castile might still be living today.

Earlier this week, we were awed by and thankful for the actions of the US Capitol Police and others in law enforcement in saving lives threatened by a gunman assaulting members and staffers of Congress. Their heroism was inspiring. They represented the thousands of women and men in blue who keep their communities safe each day.

But we are also aware of the issue of recurring police violence visited, with inordinate frequency, on people in the African-American community.

Irrespective of the specific merits of the Castile case, it is clear that all Americans--white, black, brown, red, yellow--need to find ways to live with the justice, mercy, and humility that God commands.

We can't possibly live with these attributes as our hallmarks on our own, apart from the help and empowerment of the God revealed in Jesus Christ. That's because, as Jesus tells us, "Apart from me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Left to our own devices, we cannot rise above our own sins: sins like racism, fear of those who are different from ourselves, the notion that the powerless are always threats to the powerful, and so on.

No matter how often we resolve to end injustice or treat others with love, we will fail in that resolve absent a humble repentance for our past sins and a humble surrender to the God Who came into our world in Jesus, then submitted to unjust execution for our sins and rose to give new, everlasting life to all who believe in Him.

If things like violence and bigotry are to be defeated in this country, it will not be because we've all decided to be nice.

Nor will it come because of sterner laws or sensitivity training, important as such things might be.

It will only come when we turn to Christ.

It will only come when we, seeking to follow Jesus, begin, by His grace and power to reflect His presence in us.

That's what happens: You walk with Jesus daily and He will begin to change you from the inside out.

To those who keep trusting in Jesus, turning daily away from their sins, and daily following where Jesus leads, our thoughts, actions, and motivations start to change, "for it is God at work in you, enabling you both to will and work for [God's] good pleasure" (Colossians 1:13).

In Phlippians 2, the first century apostle Paul, issues this command: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus..."

We can only have the mindset of Jesus when we believe in Him, when, through Holy Baptism, Holy Communion, and God's powerful Word, the Holy Spirit is unleashed in us to help us live out the life of love, justice, and mercy God has always meant for us to live.

I, a white man, am the servant of my neighbors who are black. And Christian honesty compels me to say that their families too often suffer the summary justice of officers who may be afraid, may be untried, may be racist. I pray in the name of Christ, that things can change.

And I always pray for those who do the difficult task of law enforcement, that God would keep them safe also. And I pray that God will give us all wisdom.

And I pray that the scourge of racism will finally be exorcised from our souls as we follow Jesus Christ, the Savior and God Who alone can transform us from God's enemies to God's friends.

None of this is a political statement. 

It's a plea for all of us to turn from sin and the myth of human self-sufficiency and, instead, to invite Jesus into the center of our lives, as individuals and as Americans.

When we do that daily, Jesus takes up residence in repentant and believers; they, in turn, begin to think differently, live differently, engage with society differently.

Believers in Jesus realize that they cannot (I cannot) be Christians on the strength of our own will power. Like millions of others Christians, I confess each week that, "...we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors ourselves." This what we say when we ask God to forgive us and help us to live as God calls human beings to live, in Micah and others places in the Bible, and to provide us the help of God's Holy Spirit in doing so.

The Christian knows with the apostle Paul that: "...it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:8-10)

It's difficult to imagine a better work we could do as Americans than to follow Christ and invoke His power in living with the kind of humility, love, and mercy that could bring racial justice fully into being and consistent respect for all people, including police officers, into being. But we must begin with Christ! (There is no other way, John 14:6).

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

Did Dylan Swipe from SparkNotes for His Nobel Lecture?

That's the question recently raised by Vox.

It's not implausible.

I love Dylan. But it must be conceded that he has always been a heavy borrower, sometimes it's said, plagiarist.

There are the whole-cloth thefts of a southern poet on an LP some years ago, then his "original" paintings which turned out to be Dylan's renderings of post cards. Those are just a few examples his alleged artistic thievery.

But this seems to take things to a higher order of magnitude. It's one thing to mimic the musical styles of Woody Guthrie and Chuck Berry, or to take the words of Rimbaud or Ginsberg as models for lyrics. It's another to swipe from an online equivalent of Cliffs Notes for a Nobel lecture.

Some will, I suppose, write this off as another example of Dylan's impish disregard for social norms and other people's opinions. But, this is actually serious business. Plagiarism is serious business, especially when it involves the most recent Nobel laureate for literature.

The irony here is that no artist I know of more jealously guards his copyrights. You can find some Dylan performances on youtube, but he routinely quashes a lot of videos of his performances from appearing there. And on Apple Play, Dylan's lyrics don't appear with his songs.

I still think that Dylan deserves his Nobel Prize for Literature. His body of work is filled with originality and daring re-imagining of old ways of writing and speaking.

Nonetheless, if this is all true, Bob, what were you thinking, resorting to thievery from an online source like some disinterested high school kid trying to make the deadline for a term paper?

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