Advent: The God Who Was and Is and Is To Come

Two weeks ago, at the beginning of Advent, we talked about the God Who Was, and in that sermon we discussed the different conceptions of who and what the 1st century Jews thought the Messiah would be. We talked about the differences between the powerful and political Messiah they expected and the much bigger, much more significant ministry of redemption that Jesus actually came to accomplish.
After the God Who Was, we moved on in the next week to talk about the God Who Is. And if you recall, in that sermon we talked about how the ministry of Jesus isn’t merely something that occurred in the past, but how His ministry to and for us is an on-going ministry of intercession where He is REAL: Resurrected, Enthroned, Ascended, and Living.
Now after we’ve talked about the God Who Was, and The God Who Is, the most natural thing in the world to talk about this week would be the God Who Is To Come.
First, a few observations: One: I don’t want to give the impression through the titles of the past three sermons that we’re somehow talking about three different Gods. As Christians, we of course confess in the Athanasian Creed that we do not worship three gods, but one God in unity in Trinity and Trinity in unity. So we’re not talking about three Gods, the god of the past and the god of the present and the god of the future, but we are speaking of the one true God who is God over all.
The second observation that we need to make is that, just as we are not talking about three gods, neither are we talking about a God who acted one way in the past and acts differently today. Does God do that? Operate on one standard for one time and people and then go by an entirely different standard in another time and place? No, He says in Malachi 3:6 "I the LORD do not change.” He doesn’t change. Therefore we’re not trying to discover how God is going to change sometime in the future, we’re not looking at a God who will be at some future point, but a God who already is.
So, it’s not a God Who Will Be, but the God Who Is To Come, meaning that the point of our discussion today is centered on how God God will come in His 2nd Advent, Christ’s 2nd Coming to earth.
Now what does that mean? I mean, if you recall the end of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:20, Jesus promises, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” So what do we mean by saying, “Jesus will come again”? Isn’t God here with us today? How is God with us here, today? (Word and Sacrament, present with us in our hearts in His indwelling, in Spirit, etc.)
So sure! Of course God is here with us today! So we must also understand that when we talk of His 2nd Coming, we’re speaking of Christ’s second mission the Earth. Christ’s first mission was accomplished on the cross. Jesus Himself said in Luke 5:32, “I have come to call sinners to turn from their sins, not to spend my time with those who think they are already good enough.” (NLT) His first mission was to seek and to save what was lost, it was to be a doctor to those who suffer from the sickness of sin. We could say that it was primarily a mission of mercy.
But His Second Coming is not a mission of mercy. The Scriptures call His Second Coming the Day of Judgment. It will be a great Day. It will be a terrible Day. On that Day Christ will come and the Lord will judge the world.
Since that is true, it makes sense that we would learn something about Christ’s Second Coming. So what do we know about His Second Advent?
In Matthew 24:5-12, Jesus gives us a list of signs to watch for that will lead up to His Second Coming. “5 For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains. 9 "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.”
Let’s do a little exercise, shall we? I’m going to give that list to you again, and you tell me which—if any—of the signs that you have seen in your lifetime. You can just raise your hand for every one that you’ve seen.
People claiming to be the Christ.
Wars. Rumors of wars.
Famines.
Earthquakes.
Persecution of Christians.
False prophets leading believers astray.
An increase of wickedness.
The Christian love of some growing cold.

I doubt that we even need to take a count. We’ve all seen those signs. Does that mean we should be able to expect the End soon? Should we be able to predict when that Day will come?
That question brings us to the second thing we know about Christ’s Second Advent: No one knows when it will be. Just a little later in that same chapter of Matthew, Christ says in verse thirty-six, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Only the Father knows when that Day will come, and He is keeping that knowledge to Himself. It is the height of foolishness—the height of arrogance—to try and predict the timing of that Day.
The third we know about Christ’s Second Advent is that it will not be secretive or quiet. Unlike His first coming where many were mistaken about the coming of the Messiah—they simply couldn’t conceive of a little baby being the King of Kings—His second coming will be immediately apparent to all. 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says, “16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” That will be a pretty dramatic event! His first coming was marked by His humility and lowly position, but in His Second Coming He will bet revealed in all His glory, with His arrival heralded loud and long by the very head of all the angels; there will be no mistaking Him that time. Not for me, not for you . . . not for anyone.
Okay, well that makes me think of a good question: If His coming is visible to everyone, how will we react to Him?
Well surprise, surprise . . . would you have guessed that C.S. Lewis has something to say about that, as well? In the seventh and last book of the Narnia series, appropriately named The Last Battle, Lewis’ Christ-figure, Aslan, The Lion, stands before a door—the only door—between the land of Narnia and his own country—a figure of our eternal home. Aslan is drawing the curtain on the final act of the land of Narnia.
He went to the Door and they all followed him. He raised his head and roared, “Now it is time!” then louder, “Time!”; then so loud it could have shaken the stars, “TIME.” The Door flew open.

The light from behind them (and a little to their right) was so strong that it lit up even the slopes of the Northern Moors. Something was moving there. Enormous animals were crawling and sliding down into Narnia: great dragons and giant lizards and featherless birds with wings like bats’ wings. They disappeared into the woods and for a few minutes there was silence. Then there came—at first from very far off—sounds of wailing and then, from every direction, a rustling and a pattering and a sound of wings. It came nearer and nearer. Soon one could distinguish the scamper of little feet from the padding of big paws, and the clack-clack of light little hoofs from the thunder of great ones. And then one could see thousands of pairs of eyes gleaming. And at last out of the shadow of the trees, racing up the hill for dear life, by thousands and by millions, came all kinds of creatures—Talking Beasts, Dwarfs, Satyrs, Fauns, Giants, Calormenes, men from Archenland, Monopods, and strange unearthly things from the remote islands or the unknown Western lands. And all these ran up to the doorway where Aslan stood.
This part of the adventure was the only one which seemed rather like a dream at the time and rather hard to remember properly afterward. Especially, one couldn’t say how long it had taken. Sometimes it seemed to have lasted only a few minutes, but at others it felt as if it might have gone on for years. Obviously, unless either the Door had grown very much larger or the creatures had suddenly grown as small as gnats, a crowd like that couldn’t have ever tried to get through it. But no one thought about that sort of thing at the time.
The creatures came rushing on, their eyes brighter and brighter as they drew nearer and nearer to the standing Stars. But as they came right up to Aslan one or other of two things happened to each of them. They all looked straight in the his face—I don’t think they had any choice about that. And when some looked, the expression of their faces changed terribly—it was fear and hatred. . . . And all the creatures who looked at Aslan in that way swerved to their right, his left, and disappeared into his huge black shadow, which (as you have heard) streamed away to the left of the doorway. The children never saw them again. I don’t know what became of them. But the others looked in the face of Aslan and loved him, though some of them were very frightened at the same time. And all these came in at the Door, in on Aslan’s right.

In that one moment, at that Door, judgment will occur. Those who have spent their life denying Christ, rejecting His offer of salvation from their rightful punishment, will be given what they have been asking for their entire lives: eternity without God. There will be no second chances for them, there will no longer be any time to repent. The time for faith will have passed, and the time for sight and an eternity of regrets and torments will have come. They will finally see Christ for who He truly is . . . and they will be horrified.
But for those who have spent their earthly life under the gracious cross of Christ, that Day will be a doorway into a never-ending story of the adventure of faith. They will look with love upon their gracious Savior, and enter into His rest.

We’ve seen the signs. We know we can’t predict when the Day will come. We’ve heard how everyone will see Christ at His coming . . . but some will spend eternity wish they hadn’t. So what, then, are the Scriptures telling us regarding the End? They tell us to be watchful. They tell us to not grow lazy. They tell us to be prepared.

How can we be prepared for such a momentous event as the coming of the King of the Universe? There’s two very simple answers for that.
The first thing we must do to be prepared is to believe upon Jesus Christ. There is nothing else that will prepare you to meet Him if you do not believe upon Him, and there is nothing else you can add to help you be prepared if you do. So the first is believe in Him. Love Him. Grow in your relationship with Him. Come to church regularly, receive the Word and Sacraments to help you stand firm in Christ. Keep a short tab on your sins before God, and above all else trust—radically trust—in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. This will make certain that you are prepared.
The second is to help others be prepared. Is there anyone that you know that isn’t prepared to face judgment? Is there anyone that needs the love of Christ in their lives? Can they be ready to meet Christ without you first telling them how they might be made ready? Are you willing to condemn them to an eternity without God because you were too embarrassed to mention the name of Christ to them? Share your life in Christ with them . . . share what you have already been given. Help them to be prepared, even as others have helped you.

Advent: The God Who Was, And Is . . .

In the sermon last week we talked about Jesus Christ as the God Who Was. We discussed how the Jews of Jesus’ day had certain preconceptions of the coming savior, how they were looking for a certain type of Messiah—either a glorious Messiah or a powerful Messiah . . . or for that matter how some weren’t even looking for a Messiah at all—but that their preconceived notions of a Messiah were so much different, so much smaller, than the real thing that they missed out on the real Messiah, Jesus, when He made came on the scene.
What did Jesus do? Well, the words of faith that we just confessed in the 2nd Article of the Apostle’s Creed tell it nicely: And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell.
Now, this is good stuff, isn’t it? I mean, we talk like this all the time: unbelievers ask us how we can have such peace, and we tell them, “Because Jesus died for me.” We tell them about what Jesus did, we tell them about the God Who Was, and that’s good and that’s right . . . but do we ever tell them about the God Who Is? Do we ever stop to think or to talk about what it means to say that we have a living God?
One of the questions that must be asked of any sermon is “So what?” I don’t mean that we should ask that in a rude manner, but simply as it stands. “So what, preacher? You’ve told us some good things about Jesus, you’ve told us about the Gospel . . . but now what? How does this fit into my life today? So what?”
So what? Why does The God Who Is matter? Because as the God Who Is, Jesus Christ is REAL. “Well, sure!” you say, “Of course he’s real! It’s not as though He’s some fiction of our imagination, or something!” Of course I know that, but I mean (holding up the sermon sheet) Jesus is REAL! He is Resurrected, Enthroned, Ascended, and Living!
If Jesus Christ is an IS and not merely a WAS, then He has got to be REAL. How do we know He is REAL? To get the answer, let’s look at the remainder of that 2nd Article of the Apostle’s Creed.
After we confess that Jesus Christ descended into Hell to proclaim His victory, we say that on “The third day He rose again from the dead.” So the first letter, the letter R, stands for resurrected. The story of Jesus Christ doesn’t end on the cross or in the tomb, because the grave wasn’t strong enough to keep Jesus Christ down. In the Apostle’s great sermon to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, Peter says in Acts 2:23-24, “23 This man [Jesus] was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.”
Okay, that’s good . . . but what’s the question you’re supposed to ask? “So what?” Well, I’ve got an answer for that. The Apostle Paul tells us that that a dead God—a Jesus Christ who was NOT resurrected—results in a pointless faith, a worthless faith. In 1 Corinthians 15:12-14 “12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” A God who is, a God who is resurrected from the dead, gives meaning to our faith, it makes the object of our faith—Jesus Christ—someone worth believing in.
Let’s continue on with the Creed: “ He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven.” Stick with me, now . . . we’re going to do something just a bit crazy . . . we’re going to take the letters out of order. So the first letter R stands for “resurrected” and the third letter stands for “ascended.”
Christ’s ascension into Heaven is recorded in the first chapter of the book of Acts. Acts tells us what happened that day, but it doesn’t tell us why. For why, we can turn to the book of Hebrews.
The book of Hebrews tells us that the ancient Israelites worshipped God in the tabernacle, the temple, but that tabernacle was just a copy—an inferior copy—of the real sanctuary in Heaven. And when Jesus ascended into Heaven, He entered into the real tabernacle and took up His role there as the High Priest of that Heavenly sanctuary.
Hebrews 9:23 says, “24 For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence.” Earlier in that same book, in chapter eight verse two, the author tells us that Jesus serves in that sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord. The Old Testament system of priests and sacrifices and The Temple has been taken over and fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
Okay, so you understand that Jesus Christ now serves as the High Priest of the true, heavenly sanctuary, but the question you’re supposed to ask is . . . “So what?”
So what? The answer to the “so what?” question for the resurrection was that it makes our faith meaningful; but the answer to that question for the ascension of Jesus Christ is that it makes our faith certain.
In the Old Testament the people had the covenant of God, but there was a problem: the people weren’t faithful to the covenant. In Hebrews 8:7-8 the Bible says, “7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said: "The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” The problem with the old covenant was that the people still sinned! So what was needed was a covenant that fixed that problem once and for all.
So the fix for sin and the answer to “so what?” is found in Jesus. Remember that Jesus ascended into Heaven, where He took up His role as the High Priest of the true, heavenly sanctuary, and in Hebrews 7:21 the writer says, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever.'" 22 This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.”
We have a better covenant, and because of Jesus’s ascension, He serves today and forever as the guarantor! It would not be possible for Jesus to guarantee God’s covenant of salvation by grace alone if He had not ascended into Heaven. A God who is, a God who ascended into Heaven, gives certainty to our faith, a knowledge that what is promised in Jesus Christ will always be true.
Okay, so we’ve done the first letter—R for resurrected—and the third letter—A for ascended—and now we can step back to the second letter. The Apostle’s Creed continues on like this: He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” To say that Jesus Christ sat down at the right hand of God the Father Almighty is to say that Jesus Christ took His rightful place on the Heavenly throne: He is enthroned.
Being enthroned at the right hand of the King means a few different things: it means you’ve got the power of the King at your command—that “right hand of strength” kind of idea. It also means you’ve got the job of counselor or advisor to the king. It means you’ve got the king’s ear.
Now what in the name of Heaven and Earth does Jesus do in His capacity of being enthroned at the right hand of God? If we go back to Hebrews for a minute—that’s such a great book—if we go back to Hebrews 7:25, we read, “25Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Being enthroned, Jesus Christ now continually intercedes for us.
The “so what?” question seems to come up really early in this discussion, so let me ask you a few questions to help sort it out. First, how are our sins paid for? Right—through Jesus’ death on the cross. So is this intercession done for the satisfaction of our sins, is it done to pay for our sins? Again, you’re right—the answer is “no.” The satisfaction of our sins was accomplished completely on the cross.
The point of Christ’s intercession is not for satisfaction, but for application. Meaning that His intercession on our behalf is not for the payment of our sins (which was accomplished once for all on the cross), but so that that payment may be applied to us. The theologian Francis Pieper puts it this way, “the object of the intercession, then, is the gathering and preserving of the Church.” In other words, if Jesus Christ were not interceding for us, the benefits of the cross could not be applied to us. That’s “so what”: Christ’s death buys you salvation, but Christ’s intercession gets it delivered to you. As the God Who is, Jesus is enthroned at the right hand of the Father, and there He continually pleads your case before the Father, and as a result you are not only brought into the true faith, but you are kept there.
So Christ is resurrected, He is enthroned, and He is ascended. Those all add up to a God who Is, a God who is Living. A God who is living isn’t always a God we can understand, and certainly not one we can control . . . but we can be assured that He is always there for us.
Do you remember the great lion Aslan from C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books? If you recall, last week I told you how Lewis uses the lion Aslan as a way to show Jesus in a fictional story. Narnia is still on my mind--the movie is due out this Friday—and so I’ve got another bit from the third book from the Chronicles of Narnia—called The Horse and His Boy—to illustrate what it means to have a living God.
In this scene a boy named Shasta has run away from his adopted father and now finds himself for the first time in the northern lands. He has become separated from his traveling companions and is now lost on a mountain ridge. He can see nothing, because a strange mist has swirled around him as he travels on. He has suddenly become aware of a very large (and very frightening) creature walking beside him in the mist.
“Who are you?” Shasta said, scarcely above a whisper.
“One who has waited long for you to speak,” said the Thing. Its voice was not loud, but very large and deep.
“Are you—are you a giant?” asked Shasta.
“You might call me a giant,” said the Large Voice. “But I am not like the creatures you call giants.”
“I can’t see you at all,” said Shasta, after staring very hard. Then (for an even more terrible idea had come into his head) he said, almost in a scream, “You’re not—not something dead, are you? Oh please—please do go away. What harm have I ever done you? Oh, I am the unluckiest person in the whole world!”
Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. “There,” it said, “that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows.”
Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman. And then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. And he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat.
“I do not call you unfortunate,” said the Large Voice.
“Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” said Shasta.
“There was only one lion,” said the Voice.
“What on earth do you mean? I’ve just told you there were at least two the first night, and—“
“There was only one: but he was swift of foot.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the lion.” And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to share where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
“Then it was you who wounded Aravis?”
“It was I.”
“But what for?”
“Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”
“Who are you?” asked Shasta.
“Myself,” said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again, “Myself” loud and clear and gay: and then the third time, “Myself,” whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.

Shasta had thought he was the unluckiest boy in the whole world, but he didn’t realize that all along Aslan—Jesus—had been watching out for him, that a living God was putting all the pieces of the puzzle of Shasta’s life together . . . that all along God had been working behind the scenes to bring good into Shasta’s life.
It’s not much different with us . . . we go about our lives and never see the hand of God at work, and we think that perhaps He has abandoned us. We have troubles in life, and our eyes are taken off of God and we forget that we have a God who is. We forget we have a God who is REAL.
And all the while our Savior Jesus Christ is working behind the scenes, fulfilling the words of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 61:1-3, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion- to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.”
We have a God who is. He has risen from the dead to give meaning to our faith, He is enthroned at the right hand of God, where He continually and eternally intercedes for us, He has ascended into the Heavenly sanctuary to be the guarantee of our faith. And because He lives, He continues to be a very real presence in our lives today. Revelation 1:8 8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

Amen.

Advent: The God Who Was . . .

During the church’s season of Advent we look at two things: Christ’s first and His second coming. We look back at His incarnation—when He was born a small, helpless baby born in a stable—and we look forward to that Day when He will return in power and majesty. Now, what the end will look like we aren’t exactly sure. Yes, we’ve got some good prophecies in the Scriptures to guide us, to give us the signs to look for . . . but as for real, concrete specifics . . . well, let’s just say that we’re not quite sure. I think that’s one of the reasons the Left Behind novels sold so well . . . there is just a hunger to have the details . . . but we just don’t really know, do we?
The ancient Israelites, in the centuries before Jesus was born, had a similar problem. They had the desire to know when the Messiah would come, to know what He would do, to know what it would all look like. But history would seem to tell us that they wound up looking for the wrong thing, doesn’t it?
It seems as though there were three types of ways of looking to the Messiah: Looking up, Looking down, and Looking within. None of them produced the right picture of the Messiah that was to come.
The first, looking up, is probably the one that most of you have heard of—it’s kind of the popular view. From Old Testament passages like 2 Samuel 7:16, where God promised King David, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever” and Jeremiah 23:5-6, which say, “The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness” some people in Jesus’ day had developed a mental picture of a great and glorious Messiah, a Messiah who would rally the people, who would lead them in victory against the Romans, demolishing all of Israel’s enemies, and he would set up a throne and lead Israel into a time of unheard of prosperity and peace. This Messiah was a larger-than life figure, someone who had the spirit of Moses and the strength of the angels. Not exactly the type of person you’d expect the illegitimate son of a carpenter to be.
The second group missed the Messiah by looking down. This crowd fell into one of two categories: they either got themselves preoccupied with day-to-day living or they got preoccupied with making a buck . . . and then another buck . . . and then another buck. They were either consumed by the pressures of just making it or they were inflamed with the fast-paced life of wheeling and dealing. For them, the Messiah became just another part of a busy, hectic day, part of a religious backdrop that had ceased to have any real, spiritual meaning in their lives. Over time they began to believe that maybe the Messiah was just some myth, that maybe He was just some figure in the far-off future. No, that group isn’t likely to hear the beautiful words of yet another street preacher in dirty clothes.
The third group missed the Messiah by looking within. Today, you and I have been trained to see Jesus when we read passages like the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53:3-7, which says, “3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” But the Jews of Jesus’ day were living in a time of a harsh and limiting Roman rule. They could look back on a national history of oppression and hardship. With that in mind, what were they most likely to do? Right . . . they focused upon their problems and woes and in their minds they became sure the “Suffering Servant” was themselves. It’s really hard to make sense of a man on a cross when you think the worst of the world’s problems are your own.
Three groups, one that looked like this (Look up and away), one that looked like this (looking down at the ground), and one that looked like this (holding head in misery) . . . and they each missed the Messiah, the Savior, who was right there in front of them the whole time . . . and we’re no different. Think about that as we confess our sins before God.

The Jews of Jesus’ day had built up certain expectations of the way the Messiah was to appear, to be, to act. What they had done was formulate their own ideas and their own expectations, and project them on to God’s chosen one, the promised Messiah. What they had done was put God into a box. It was as though they wanted to see a lion . . . but not a wild lion, an untamable, unpredictable predator who might do anything to them . . . but a trained lion. A comfortable, predictable lion. A lion who would roar at their command and devour only their enemies. A tame lion. But Jesus Christ the Messiah is not a tame lion.
There is a fantastic illustration of this principle in book six of the great Christian author C.S. Lewis’ wonderful series of books The Chronicles of Narnia. In this book, called The Silver Chair, Lewis describes an encounter near a clear-running stream between a girl named Jill and a talking—and very wild—lion.
“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.
“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.
“Then drink,” said the Lion.
“May I—could I—would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
“Will you promise not to—do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.
“I make no promise,” said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty no that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
“Do you eat girls?” she said.
“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.
“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.
“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”
“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.
It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion—no one who had seen his stern face could do that—and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn’t need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once. Before she tasted it she had been intending to make a dash away from the Lion the moment she had finished. Now, she realized that this would be on the whole the most dangerous thing of all.

Were the Jews of Jesus’ day looking for a Messiah that was a lion . . . or one that was safe? They wanted a safe Messiah, a predictable Messiah. They wanted a Messiah that would do what they expected him to do, one who would smash their enemies and give Israel a prosperous and free life. They wanted a mighty Messiah who would work within their established system, enabling them to carry on just as they had during Israel’s glory days of King David.
They missed Jesus Christ entirely because they were either looking up . . . or down . . . or within. How often do we do the same thing? How often do we convince ourselves that we’re truly looking for Jesus Christ, but all the time we’re looking in the wrong direction?
See, I’ve got this theory that what we really want isn’t Christ . . . but safety. We want a tame lion. So we look everywhere, high and low and into ourselves, we’ll look to the TV, to the internet or something off the best-seller list, grasping on for some answer that sounds right . . . not even that, just something that sounds right enough. Something that’s predictable, something that makes sense. Something that doesn’t demand anything of us.
But the true Messiah, the true Savior, isn’t like that. Living a life that is committed to following Jesus Christ involves putting our necks on the line sometimes. Following the real Jesus sometimes involves risk.
Let me give you an example: There was a time when I had spent a week at a church-planting boot camp. We had spent the entire week about the need for reaching the lost, about growing churches that were serious about evangelism, about being people who took the call to make disciples seriously. We studied the Scriptures and we prayed and we asked God to work through us.
So at the end of that week I found myself ready to break out and witness to some people! Fresh off this fantastic week of communing with God, I found myself in a long, slow-moving line of people waiting to get on our airplane. I just knew this was my chance to make an impact for God’s kingdom. So, in a casual kind of voice, I asked the lady in front of me, “Did you ever think this is what the end of our lives is going to be like? Everyone waiting around in a line, not sure if we’re going to get through the gates or not?”
Now, at this point in the story, you’d typically here the speaker go on to tell you how the evangelist went on to lay out the plan of salvation and the poor pagan would be so convicted that he or she would break down in tears, and the evangelist would lead everyone on the plane—including the pilot and the attendants—in a prayer of repentance and of confessing Christ as their Lord and Savior. Boy, I wish I could tell you it worked out like that. But despite my well thought-out and appropriate leading evangelism question, that lady gave me just one look that said, “Oh, Lord . . . another one of those religious whackos. I hope to God I don’t get stuck in a seat next to him!” And BOOM! . . . I was blown out of the water, left looking like a fool.
But that was okay. I decided there and then that I’d rather take the chance, I’d rather look like the fool, because the other option was too horrible. It was okay for me to look a bit foolish, because I had something serious to offer. I had something serious to offer because Jesus Christ gave Himself for me, that He chose me as one of His own. Christ has given me everything that I need for eternal life . . . and it’s more dangerous to run away than it is to come and drink.
I was reading in Jeremiah a few weeks back, and a few verses struck me so strongly that I printed them up and put them on the back of my office door where I would see them. Jeremiah 5:30-31 says, “A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: 31 The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?”
What will you do in the end? Will you continue to look for your salvation everywhere but to Jesus, who is right there before you the whole time? Will you look everywhere but the Scriptures to find answers? Will you look for safety . . . or will you look for Christ?
Early in the most familiar book of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe(which, incidentally, has been made into a fantastic-looking movie and is due out in just a week or so),, Lewis portrays a fanciful world where four children are chosen kings and queens of the the land, animals talk, mythical creatures come to life . . . and a the great lion we met before is named Aslan. Aslan is what you would call a Christ figure, a literary metaphor by which Lewis attempts to explain Jesus Christ.
In this reading, the four children are being prepared for their first meeting by a couple of beavers. Watch what they say about Lewis storybook Jesus figure, Aslan:
“But shall we see him?” asked Susan.
“Why, Daughter of Eve, that’s what I brought you here for. I’m to lead you where you shall meet him,” said Mr. Beaver.
“Is—is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

No, maybe Jesus Christ the Messiah isn’t exactly what we might call “safe.” He certainly wasn’t predictable for the Jews of His day, He wasn’t what they expected. But He is beyond all doubt “good.” He is good because He is so much more than we are expecting, He goes beyond from what we merely expect to what we truly need, and He will always be there to guide us, because He is the God who Was, Who Is, and Is to Come.

Day of Judgment, Day of Joy

This past week CNN reported that Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design" and warned them Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck.
A few quotes from the article, entitled, “Robertson warns Pennsylvania voters of God's wrath,” seemed appropriate to the message today.
“Robertson, a former Republican presidential candidate and founder of the influential Christian Broadcasting Network and Christian Coalition, has made similar apocalyptic warnings and provocative statements before.
Last summer, he hit the headlines by calling for the assassination of leftist Venezuelan Present Hugo Chavez, one of President George W. Bush's most vocal international critics.
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."
"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there," he said.
. . . In 1998, Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Florida that it risked hurricanes, earthquakes and terrorist bombs after it allowed homosexual organizations to put up rainbow flags in support of sexual diversity.”
Now, regardless of any of our personal opinions regarding Pat Robertson, school boards, or elections, these quotes prove quite interesting. Simply put, what Pat Robertson is doing is declaring that a day of judgment is awaiting the sinner. Now of course I understand that Pat isn’t offering a prediction for the end of the world, but it’s the comparisons between Pat Robertson’s predictions of judgment and the centuries upon centuries of end-times predictions that I find interesting. Pat Robertson has a habit of predicting that God’s judgment will come down upon sinners. And in similar fashion, people have been saying for years that the end of the world is near. People have been saying for years that God’s judgment is coming . . . and yet has it?
For instance, in 1988 NASA scientist Edgar Whisenaut published a book 88 Reasons why the Rapture will Occur in 1988. The book sold over 4 million copies . . . but I don’t recall the end of the world coming that year.
How about another? The Watchtower Society—that the Jehovah’s Witnesses—has predicted the coming of Jesus Christ no less than eight times. According to various calculations, the Watchtower predicted that Christ would return in 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994. It seems as though they were wrong, too.
Remember all the hoopla surrounding Y2K? Well, at the turn of the first millennium—which I guess we’d call Y1K—many Christians were predicting that Judgment Day would occur. When it didn’t, a man named Gerard of Poehlde decided in 1147 that the millennium had actually started in 306 CE during Constantine's reign, and so Judgment Day was actually scheduled for 1306 A.D.
Now, with all these bad predictions, you might get the impression that Christ’s coming, that Judgment Day, isn’t going to happen at all, and there are people who would agree with you on that. But that’s not a new issue; St. Peter warned the believers of his day in his second letter, saying in 2 Peter 3:3-4 “First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, ‘Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’” You see, even in the first century there were people looking at the idea of Christ’s return, of Judgment Day, and cracking jokes about it.
But is there a Day of Judgment? A day when Christ will return to the Earth in His full power and glory and judge the deeds of men and women? The Bible says so. We see a little hint of it in today’s Old Testament reading, when Jeremiah says that the Lord’s judgment will be like a lion roaring from above, that the noise will be heard around the globe, and “the LORD will bring charges against the nations; he will bring judgment on all mankind and put the wicked to the sword.”
What will happen on that day? What will that day be like for the people of the world? Imagine—for a minute—that you are an unbeliever. That day—the Day of the Lord—will bring your worst fear to life. The fear that you have spent all your life denying the existence of God, of denying that Jesus Christ is both Lord and God; that fear will be realized. As the Lord Jesus Christ descends with a shout, leading a great army of angels, and seats Himself on His eternal throne . . . there will be no more time to receive His grace, no more time for faith. The very One you had spent your life denying and rejecting now sits before you in all His radiant glory . . . and your eternity will be sealed.
That day will bring judgment to the world. The Bible describes the coming judgment as something to be feared. In Matthew 24:30 Jesus says that His coming will cause all the nations of the earth to mourn. Jeremiah describes how the storm of the Lord will burst out in wrath, it will be a whirlwind swirling down on the heads of the wicked, and that the Lord’s anger will not be held back until He accomplishes His judgment.
On the Day of Judgment all who have spent their earthly lives in rejection of God and His Son will be given the very thing that they had been asking for: eternal condemnation. Revelation 21:8 says, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-- their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
In the coming judgment there is only one price to pay for sin: death. There is only word that God will utter: guilty. No favor is given for good intentions, nothing for attending church, nothing for being a good person. There will be no escape. There will be no repentance. There will be no mercy. There will only be God’s wrath . . . His eternal, unrelenting, righteous and mighty wrath; the wrath that an unbelieving world has invited upon itself . . . and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
What should our attitude be towards the Day of Judgment? Shall we sit tight, smugly confident in knowing that those sinners are going to get what they deserve? That Day . . . that Day will be terrible for those who do not know Christ. Who are those people? Your loved ones? Your neighbor? The waitress at the diner? The checker at the grocery store? You?
Our attitude towards judgment day should be like that of the prophet Jeremiah, who said in Jeremiah 8:21 - 9:1, “21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? 9:1Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.”
Listen up, people of God. You have a job to do. Let me put this simply: if you would keep your loved ones from the terrors of the end of the world, you must tell them about Judgment Day. But don’t frighten them with stories of the judgment that is to come: tell them what the Scriptures say of the judgment that has already been. Tell them of the first judgment day, the one that occurred nearly 2000 years ago . . . tell them of the cross.
There is a day coming when God will bring charges against the nations and judge the sin of the world; that is true. But there also has already been a day when that has happened . . . but on that day only One person would pay the price for sin. That person was Christ, and He was judged not for His sin, but for ours.

Answer this for me: Had Jesus Christ ever done anything worthy of judgment? __________ No, He hadn’t. He had no sin, He had no reason to fear God’s wrath. Yet Isaiah speaks of Christ, saying in Isaiah 53:9-10, “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.”
In the past judgment there was only one price to pay for sin: the death of Christ. There was only one word that God needed to utter: guilty. There was no escape from the cross, Christ received no mercy. Christ literally endured Hell on the cross, He suffered the full brunt of God’s wrath.
You understand, then, what that means? If Christ has already suffered God’s judgment on our behalf, there is no need to fear the coming judgment! Do you understand what a great gift that is? God Himself has created for us an escape hatch, a way out, He has made it possible to escape the wrath that is to come, because He has already poured out His wrath on Jesus Christ. And if you know it and believe it, and if you tell your loved ones and they know it and believe it, then none of you will have anything to fear from Judgment Day. You see, there is only one way to escape your coming judgment, and that is to embrace your judgment that Christ has already endured.
The Day of Judgment will be both great and terrible. Those who have refused Christ will receive God’s righteous anger for their sin, and they will be eternally condemned. It will be the first day in a living death of eternal torment. But for those who have received Christ, for those who have believed upon Jesus Christ and received the gift of eternal life . . . that final day won’t be terrible and condemning, but great and liberating. The Day of Judgment will be a Day of Joy.
There will be joy . . . and oh, what joy it will be! As believers in Jesus Christ we have been adopted as children of God, and even on this earth we enjoy the privilege of being called His own. But on that day, as believers we will receive our full inheritance.
Peter, consumed and overflowing with joy, puts words to the joy he has in his heart, saying in 1 Peter 1:3-5, “3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”
On that day we will leave behind forever all of the limitations that this world imposes upon us. The Apostle John testifies in Revelation 21:4 that God will wipe every tear from our eyes. “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away,” and the new order will have come.
There are two options for that final Day; Judgment or Joy. Both hinge upon what we do with Jesus Christ.

Sermon for Sunday, November 6th . . .

Is not yet available.

The sermon was a highly interactive sermon, as as such a formal manuscript does not exist. If possible we will have a transcript available soon.

Where's his boasting now?

What is our Reformation heritage?
There are those that would say that our Reformation heritage is a doctrinal correctness. They see our task as the Lutheran Church to be primarily one of preserving correct doctrine, that the majority of our efforts should be expended at keeping doctrine pure, at preserving every jot and tittle of the true confession of faith that has been so ardently preserved by those precious and valiant warriors who have gone before us. They boast of a doctrinal purity that reaches back for ages. Are they correct? Is that our Reformation heritage? Well . . . that’s part of it.
What is our Reformation heritage? There are those who would say that our Reformation heritage is a dedication to pursuing new truth, new revelation from God. These people would see our task as Lutherans to be one that constantly pushes the envelope, of keeping the comfortable majority unsettled. To them a true Christian is, in some ways, one who lays aside the accepted religious definitions of the previous generation and pushes for a radical, new understanding of what Jesus Christ means in the world today. They boast of their willingness to adapt their theology. Are they correct? Is that our Reformation heritage? Well . . . that’s part of it.
Now, frankly, these two concepts are vastly different ends of the spectrum. How then can I say that they are both part of our Reformation heritage? Well, hold on for a while and let’s see if I can get it explained or not.


There are two men we’re going to talk about today. Two men . . . but with four lives. Each man had an old life and a new one. One man, named Saul by birth, had been trained as a Pharisee; one of the strictest sects of Judaism. He was consumed by his religion, and he zealously pursued a righteousness of fulfilling God’s Law.
Saul’s credentials were impeccable. At one point in his life he looked back upon his early days and said, “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless.” (Philippians 3:4-6) Saul was confident—perhaps over-confident—in his righteousness before God.
Like Saul, Martin Luther was a man preoccupied with religion. But where Saul’s religion had filled him with an inner pride, a self-righteousness characterized by a zealous hatred of the followers of Jesus Christ, Luther’s religion filled him with an inner contempt, a self-hatred that could not achieve the demands of God’s Law, no matter how hard he tried.
In Luther’s day the church taught that “God will not refuse grace to those who do what is within them.” If only Christians would do the little bit they could, God would do the majority of the work of saving them. The church taught that Christians could earn the grace of God by doing their best.
Yet Luther took no joy in this teaching, he didn’t take any comfort. He too easily saw the depths of his own sin. He knew how corrupted he was. And so he sought to purge himself of all traces of pride, of gluttony, of lust. As Saul had boasted that he was a “Hebrew of Hebrews”, Luther took it upon himself to become a monk of monks. He sought to make himself as good a monk as could be.
He went down the road of self-denial, refusing food and drink for days on end, sleeping in the dead of winter with neither coat nor blanket. The practice is called the mortification of the flesh—the attempt to kill off one’s own sinful desires through denying the body’s cries for attention—and Luther took it so far that he would beat himself with whips, trying to scourge himself free of the sin that so easily entangled him. For Saul, God’s righteousness was a weapon . . . but for Luther the righteousness of God was his mortal enemy.
Near the end of his life Luther would reflect upon this time, and he wrote, “I hated that word, ‘the righteousness of God . . . Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt, with the most disturbed conscience imaginable, that I was a sinner before God. I did not love, indeed I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners and secretly (if not blasphemously and certainly with great grumbling) I was angry with God.”
The early lives of these two men—the early lives of Saul and of Martin Luther—were so different. One is self-confident and cocky, the other self-loathing and unsure. So different . . . and yet they were missing the same thing: neither understood the grace of God.
The one thing that was missing from both of their attempts at religion was grace! Without knowing grace, without experiencing grace, Saul was forced to say, “Because of what I do, God must certainly be pleased with me!” and at the same time Luther was forced to say, “Because of what I do, God must certainly be angry with me!” Neither of them knew of the love of God, of the gift of God . . . neither of them knew the true message of the cross of Christ.
That message of the cross is radical. The message of the cross is life-changing. The message of the cross is eternal and constant, but the message of the cross does not stand for the status quo.
The message of the cross is life, and the message of the cross is death. The message of the cross is mercy, and the message of the cross is judgment. It both challenges and reassures, afflicts and comforts. It leaves no heart unchanged, no life untouched, no eternity undecided. The message of the cross marks the dividing line in all of earth’s history, and the message of the cross makes the difference between dying for something and dying of something.
It was nothing other than the message of the cross that changed both Saul and Luther. Saul—proud, self-righteous Saul-would meet Christ in a flash of light and the voice of God on the road to Damascus, and he would go on to become Paul. Paul, who wrote half of the New Testament and evangelized the known world. Paul, the man who had formerly persecuted and imprisoned untold numbers of faithful Christians would, because of the message of the cross, become a man who would gladly endure beatings, scourgings, stonings, and shipwrecks if it meant he could continue to proclaim that same message.
The message of the cross redeemed Paul and sent him out with a mission. Writing to his good friend, Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:15-16, “15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-- of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.”
And Luther? The message of the cross took this sad, self-pitying little monk and turned him into a world-beater. Luther embraced the message of the cross and with it challenged a corrupt system of bishops, governors, emperors and popes. A little monk with bad bowels and a funny haircut took on the superpowers of his day . . . and won. The sin that had so easily entangled had not left him, but in the message of the cross he had learned to put it in its true place.
Writing to a fellow monk, Luther would say, “Therefore, my sweet brother, learn Christ and Him crucified; despairing of yourself, learn to pray to him, saying, “You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness, but I am your sin; you have taken on yourself what you were not and have given me what I was not.’ Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. For Christ dwells only in sinners.[1]”
In the message of the cross both men found what they had been missing. No longer were they required to attempt to please God through their actions. The Law had ceased to be their measuring tool for salvation. Instead, the Gospel—the free, life-giving Gospel of Jesus Christ—now became their power, their strength, their source of comfort.
What is our Reformation heritage? One significant aspect of it is the teaching—no, not just the teaching, but the realization—that we are saved by grace through faith. We no longer need to rely upon our character, our actions, our selves but simply grasp the grace of Jesus Christ with the hands of faith. We no longer look to ourselves for comfort or assurance of salvation, but in faith we rest completely in Jesus Christ.
Paul writes, “27Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.”
Where is Paul’s boasting now? In writing to the Romans Paul says that he no longer has a place for boasting in his former deeds. There is nothing in him worth boasting about, because all the stuff that he used to think was so important . . . that just wasn’t worth anything anymore compared to the glorious riches of Christ. Through the eyes of faith, Paul saw Jesus Christ as his All in All, and gloried in Him alone.
And Luther? The learned Doctor Martin Luther, author of numerous books, the man who had the adulation of the German people? When he was called before the Emperor at the Diet of Worms . . . where was his boasting?
(play Luther clip)

Luther’s boasting was no longer . . . but his simple prayer to Christ was, “I am yours . . . save me.”

“I am yours . . . save me.” That simple little prayer speaks of a person whose life has been eternally changed by an encounter with Jesus Christ. An encounter that is given by grace and grasped by faith.
It is that faith in Jesus Christ that will sustain you, that will change you. In the same way that it changed The Apostle Paul and Doctor Martin Luther, the life of faith will work in you, and before you know it you’ll find yourself bringing Christ to your friend, your neighbor. Faith—true faith in Jesus Christ—has a funny way of turning your world upside down.








At the beginning of the sermon I mentioned two different kinds of Lutherans, one group who boasts of their doctrinal purity and the other who boasts of their willingness to adapt their theology to a constantly shifting culture. And I asked you, “Which one is correct?” Which one is our Reformation heritage?

The answer is: both . . . and neither.

What is our Reformation heritage? It is not found in boasting, but it is found in faith in Christ. We don’t boast in what we have or what we do, but we trust in Christ and allow Him to work in and through our lives.
Our Reformation heritage is revealed when we hold tightly to the sound teachings of the faith, when we strive to keep the message pure, and at the same time strive to speak the message in such a way that those who surround us truly understand it. When we keep one hand holding on in faith to Jesus Christ and the other hand reaching out and constantly finding new ways to grasp hold of those who need a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, then I think we’ve got a real understanding of what our Reformation heritage truly is.
[1]Luther, M. (1999, c1963). Vol. 48: Luther's works, vol. 48 : Letters I (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (Vol. 48, Page 12-13). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

The Trust Test--Part II

w This is now the fourth week—the final week—in our series on stewardship. Stewardship: It’s a Matter of Trust began with us looking into God’s trustworthiness, continued with God looking into our trustworthiness, and now for the past two weeks has been involved in what author John Maxwell calls The Trust Test.
The Trust Test, if you recall from last week, is a line to be crossed, a decision to be made. At some point in each of our lives we come to a point where we must decide if we will make our actions line up with our words. A.W. Tozer said it this way: “The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape so he will have a way out if the roof caves in. What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day.”
To get a handle on the Trust Test, last week we began with an acrostic:
“T” stands for take a personal inventory. Taking inventory is looking at and taking stock of our lives. It is seeing how we are measuring up against what we know we are to be doing. It means we need to look at every facet of our lives and ask, “Am I trusting God in this area of my life?”
“R” is for recognize God as our supply, and it basically means that we acknowledge God as not only the source of what is good in our lives but that we recognize that He is, in fact, continually supplying us with all that is good.
“U” is for the fact that must understand God’s principles of stewardship. And here we began to unpack what it means to be a steward of God. The first two principles—the Divine Boomerang principle and the Give and Grow principle—we heard about how we must keep those two principles not only together but in order. First God gives to us and then we give in response, and to separate those two actions is unbiblical and results in not just poor stewardship, but no stewardship.
Principle number three—and this is where we pick up again on the interactive sermon sheet—principle number three is the “Who is number one?” principle. This is the principle of stewardship that most people are immediately familiar with. It goes back, way back into the Old Testament times when God declared to ancient Israel that, in order to honor Him rightly, they were to give the firstfruits of all that they had.
This can be difficult for us; instead of giving to God off the top, instead of giving Him our first and our best, there is a tendency for us to give Him of our leftovers. At times we’re like the little girl who went to her mother to ask for some money. Her mother handed her two dollars—one for ice cream, and one for giving to God on Sunday. Now this little girl heard the ice cream truck coming down the street, and so she got in a hurry, and as she was running down the street, one of the dollars slipped out of her little fist and blew down into the sewer. She stopped, and wasn’t sure what she should do. With her little lip quivering, she looked down in the sewer, then to the dollar in her hand . . . and then finally at the ice cream truck just down the street. Then she looked up at the sky and said, “Sorry God . . . I dropped your dollar” and off she went to get some ice cream!
Now, is that how you give to the Lord? Do you deposit your check, then pay the bills, then buy the groceries, then go out to eat . . . and THEN drop a bit of whatever might be left into the plate on Sunday? That’s not the way God says brings Him honor. Instead, God says we are to set aside His portion first—before taxes, before bills, before groceries, before play money.
Don’t go dropping God’s dollar.
Now you may be thinking, “Well, I’ll give to God of my firstfruits; but I’m not gonna like it.” And that offering plate comes around and BAM! . . . you chuck your money in the plate. Oooooooohhhh . . . . bad idea. That goes against principle number four: the “Cheerful attitude” principle.
The Cheerful attitude principle tells us that the management of God’s resources, that stewardship begins with the love of God working in us. It begins with loving, and not giving. It is a legalistic view to look at stewardship primarily as a religious duty to be filled, a spiritual checkbox to mark off once a week. What we need is an attitude of gratitude, a cheerful heart that is eager to give.
We talked briefly about this last week: How the Apostle Paul was so impressed by the church in Macedonia that he wrote to another church, the church in Corinth, saying in 2 Corinthians 8, “And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. 5 And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will.” The church in Macedonia had been infected with God’s love . . . and His love just poured out of them. They were cheerful givers.
Legalism says, “What do I have to give?” Love says, “I want to give!” Legalism says, “What is the least amount that I must give and still do my duty?” Love says, “Please let me give!” Legalism says, “How little can I give?” . . . but love says, “How much can I give?”
See, it may be true that we can give without loving, but we cannot truly love without giving. Each one should give what they have decided in their heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
The fifth and final principle that falls under the heading of Understanding God’s Principles is the “Do it now” principle. This, too, is a bit of a reminder from a few weeks ago. Recall that stewardship is built around what we are doing now. It’s very real, very concrete. Stewardship doesn’t deal with hopes or intentions, saying, “I would give more if I had more,” stewardship doesn’t say, “I’m not giving anything now, but I’m planning on getting a big refund check in the mail, and I’ll be sure and give then.” See, you can’t do that! A trustworthy steward is one who is correctly handling what God has given him right now. There’s a little poem that goes with this, and it goes, “Procrastination is my greatest sin, it brings me untold sorrow. I’m going to stop putting things off . . . perhaps I’ll start tomorrow.”
Don’t do that! We can’t keep putting off to some indeterminate time in the future when we’re going to start being trustworthy stewards. Because if we keep on banking on what we’re going to do tomorrow, with what we may have tomorrow or the next day or the next month or the next year . . . if we keep on banking on tomorrow sooner or later there won’t be a tomorrow. The Master of the house, Jesus Christ, will come back and ask you, “What did you do with what I gave you?” And the fact that we had good intentions will really mean very little. Do it now—today is the day.

If we take each of those five principles—the Divine Boomerang principle, the Give and Grow principle, the Who Is Number One principle, the Cheerful attitude principle, and the Do It Now principle—if we take each of those and truly understand how God is working through us in each of those principles, then the next step in the Trust Test is to Surrender everything to God.
This is an aspect of stewardship that, frankly, can get pretty uncomfortable to us. Surrendering everything to God is closely related to the first commandment. Remember the first commandment? A little catechism test, here . . . it starts “You shall have no other gods before Me.” What does this mean? Answer: We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. And so if we surrender everything to God, it simply means that nothing in our lives comes before Him. Nothing else is number one.
Now, folks always seem to want to qualify the meaning of “everything.” You mean my money? I mean EVERYTHING. You mean my time? I mean EVERYTHING. What about my health? EVERYTHING. How about my family? EVERYTHING. What about * EVERYTHING.
EVERYTHING means . . . every thing. It means that there is nothing that you or I have, eat, breathe, spend, or use that is not a gift from God. The trustworthy steward acknowledges everything as a gift from God, and everything is in it’s place—beneath God. Not overshadowing Him, not blocking our view of Him, not gripped so tightly that He can’t use it . . . but everything we have is held in an open hand, for God to take and use as He sees fit.
Surrendering EVERYTHING means this:
You can’t only give and not serve.
You can’t only serve and not give.
You can’t give money but no time.
You can’t give time but no money.
You can’t pick and choose what you’d like God to have from you.
You can’t pick and choose what you’d like to have from God.
You can’t come to church on Sunday and forget about God on Monday.
Leviticus 27:30 says this, “A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.” Everything you have already belongs to the Lord, refusing to surrender it to God doesn’t make that any less real . . . but it does make stewardship more difficult.
The final letter in the Trust Test is “T”—Test God’s promises. I like this one. It has seemed at times like all the rest of the stewardship principles have been Law-oriented; they’ve been things that God has commanded us to do in His word. And that’s okay, because David says in Psalm 119:97, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.” God’s Law is good . . . but it can’t save us. And so I find it simply astounding that God says not to test Him in His Law, but in His promises! The Word of God recorded in Malachi 3:10 says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” Right there you have the one place in all of Scripture where God says to test Him. He encourages us in that chapter to put Him first and to test His promise.
But what is His promise? Is it simply that if we tithe that He will increase our wealth? No . . . that is far too chintzy of a promise for our God. His promises go well beyond mere material comfort here on earth.
The Apostle Paul, speaking to the church in Corinth, says in 2 Corinthians 1:19-20, “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." 20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God.”
The promise of God is Christ. And so when God invites us to test His promises, He first points us not to money, not to things, not to stuff . . . but to Christ. And in Christ God gives us rich promises, real promises that mean something. Not just for now, not just for a little while, but for all eternity.
You want to know something? You want to know the absolute bedrock of being a steward? You want to know the foundation of having a relationship with Christ, of receiving great, big, enormous gifts from God and returning a portion to Him and His work in thanksgiving for what we’ve received? That is in the promises of Christ, and there is ultimately no better reason I can give to you for being a trustworthy steward, of taking the Trust Test, than the promises of Jesus Christ.
Jesus says in John 5:24, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
In Matthew 5:11-12 He says, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Again in John 10:28: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”

And there are so many more:
In Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
In Matthew 28:20 “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
John 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 6:35 "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 8:12 “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
John 10:11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me-- just as the Father knows me and I know the Father-- and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And John 11:25 "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies”
We test the promises of God that we read from His Word, we test our trustworthy God against what He has promised and given in Jesus Christ, and in that testing He proves His trustworthiness and through the Word our faith grows.

Today we are talking primarily about giving, about money. But the principle is that Stewardship is not a single action or, indeed, a set of actions—it is a way of life, it is a matter of trust. It encompasses all of us, our outlook on every aspect of life. It is a matter of trust.
A friend of mine a few years back told me a story about a preacher he knew. When people came by and greet the minister on the way out the door at the end of the service, it often happens that someone will say, “Good sermon, preacher!” And this wise old preacher would always respond by something just a bit odd. When they came by and said, “Good sermon!” this preacher would simply nod and smile and say, “ . . . We’ll see.”
“We’ll see . . .” This preacher was wise enough to know that the mark of a good sermon is not whether the people get pumped up on Sunday morning, it’s not if you get an emotional reaction to a story he told, it’s not how passionately he spoke. No, the mark of any sermon worth preaching is whether you can measure it’s effect in changed lives. A good sermon is one in which the Holy Spirit has worked in you to change your heart, to bring about a change for the better in your walk with Jesus Christ. That is what you call a “good sermon.”
When the preacher said, “We’ll see” it simply meant that if the message had been truly good that people’s lives would be visibly changed . . . the preacher would be able to see it. He might have to wait until next week, next month, maybe even next year . . . but in the end his reward wouldn’t be a compliment on the way out the door but in being able to see how God had used him in to work a spiritual change in the lives of the people whom he had been given to watch over.
The end of this sermon, then, isn’t mine to write, but yours. Today I ask you to write the end of this sermon by hearing the Word of God and obeying it, by allowing the Holy Spirit to work a true change in your hearts and in your lives. The end of the sermon is our Trust Test.
We’ve heard the Lord speak from His Word on this particular aspect of stewardship and giving, over the past week you’ve been in prayer over the amount you will commit to give towards God’s work in this place, and now has come the time for you to step up. In just a moment you will have the opportunity to put down on paper the dollar amount and the frequency that you’ve already committed in your heart to give. Simply take your pledge sheet, fill in your information and fold the sheet in half. And then, any time during this next song . . . when you are ready, I ask you to come forward and place your commitment on the altar. Just put it right up there . . . right on the altar. Take the Trust Test . . . God won’t let you down.

The Trust Test--Part I

When we first began our series on stewardship two weeks ago we began with a simple question: Can I trust God? And as often happens in life, we discovered that although we may not always understand God, He remains completely and totally trustworthy. He keeps all of His promises.
In the second week in our series—which was last week—we discussed a slightly more difficult question. We talked about whether or not we are currently—right now—being good stewards—good managers—of the possessions, opportunities, talents, and time that God has graciously given us. We discovered that it is God’s intention that we use worldly wealth not to try and repay Him for what He has done for us, but instead use it in deliberate, compassionate endeavors to bring the name of Jesus Christ to those who do not yet know Him.
This week—the third week in the series—we get down to the nitty gritty. This week we dig in, we get our hands dirty . . . and we begin evaluating ourselves in the area of stewardship. I promise you only one thing and ask only one thing in return: I promise you that I will not apologize for God’s Word, for preaching what He says on the subject of stewardship and giving, and I ask that you simply listen to His voice today. That you listen to Him and let His Word soak into your life.
As we progress through our Christian lives, we go through different phases of how we view Christ’s presence in our lives. Often there is a tendency to view Christ as being our helper, someone who is there when we need Him, a sort of Divine back-up that we turn to when things get rough. You’ve seen the bumper sticker, “God is my co-pilot”? That kind of exemplifies this type of thinking. We’re in the driver’s seat, in control of where we’re headed, and Jesus is there to provide occasional directions and various little tasks as we head on down the road. We know what our destination is, the place we want to get to, and we drive the shortest distance we can over well-traveled roads. It is boring, at times . . . but at least it is predictable.
But occasionally we’ll spy some brave soul who understands the Christian life a bit better than we do. I have etched into my memory a mental picture of a semi truck with the “God is my co-pilot” sticker in his window . . . but the truck driver had crossed out the adjective “co.” “God is my pilot” was what the sticker now said. And that is a truer view of life. At some point we’ve turned over the wheel to Jesus Christ, and He now sets the destination. Still, we are there in the passenger seat, poring over the road-map, telling Jesus the best route to take, pointing out the best places to stop, telling Him the way we ought to go.
But Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” At some point in our lives we come to a line that needs to be crossed, a decision that needs to be made. We need to decide whether or not we’ll allow Jesus to drive as He pleases, to go where He wants to go, to drive as fast—or as slow—as He sees fit. The decision is whether or not we’ll fold up the maps, roll the top down on the car, climb into the back seat . . . and take the adventure that comes to us as we hit the road with Jesus at the wheel.
That decision, that line . . . that’s the Trust Test line. And when we come to it, we discover that we have two spiritual choices laid out before us: we can cross it and grow, or we can back away from that line and shrink.
Now, everyone knows what happens when you cut a vine at its base. The vine continues to look good for a little while, the leaves are still green, it still looks like it is thriving . . . but all the while it is dying, bit by bit. Before too long the vine is dead, dry, and lifeless. It is a dry, lifeless husk that just happens to be in the shape of a living thing. Backing away from the Trust Test line is like that for us spiritually.
But crossing the line? That’s like slipping into the back seat of a convertible, it’s like jumping into the rumble seat on a summer afternoon. Jesus hits the gas and heads off into places we couldn’t even guess we were going to end up. He takes us to different places, He introduces us to different people. We might not know where the next stop is, but we know Who’s driving, and we sit back, let the wind whip through our hair, and enjoy the thrill of being on an adventure, not knowing where we’re going but being with someone we love.
That line, that choice; it may not seem like a large decision at the time, but in the end it means the difference between really living life and just simply dying a slow death. It is the difference between being a disciple of Christ and playing church.

As we’ve talked for these past few weeks, we’ve talked about trust. John Maxwell has developed a little tool to help us get a handle on what it means to trust; to identify how we trust God in the area of stewardship. John has taken the five letters of the word trust and broken it down into an acrostic. We’ll go through the first three today and talk about the last two next week, but very quickly let me give you the acrostic for trust.
T—it stands for take a personal inventory. Taking inventory is looking at and taking stock of our lives. It is seeing how we are measuring up against what we know we are to be doing. It means we need to look at every facet of our lives and ask, “Am I trusting God?”
The “R” stands for recognize God as our supply. There is nothing good that you or I have been given that has not, in some way, come from God. Everything we have, everything we use is a result of a gift from God. Our possessions, our opportunities, our talents, and our time—they all come from God.
“U”—we must understand God’s principles of stewardship. Until we understand the principles of stewardship that God has for us—these principles that are unlike the world’s—until we understand we will hold back in our trust for God.
“S”—Surrender everything to God. We first understand God’s principles of stewardship and then respond by surrendering all.
And finally, “T”—Test God’s promises. We test the promises from the Word, we test our trustworthy God against what He has promised, and in that testing He proves His trustworthiness and through the Word our faith grows.
These five letters spell trust. Trust is the single most important factor in any relationship.

The first “T”—take a personal inventory. To get an idea of how personal the inventory needs to be, take a look at Psalm 139. Psalm 139 says this, “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in-- behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Three quick observations about this Psalm and taking a personal inventory:
1. Only God knows everything about me. Even I don’t know all that’s within me. If I’m going to take a personal inventory, I need to try and see myself as clearly as God sees me. Which leads us to number 2:
2. Only God can lead me correctly. Even in taking a personal inventory there will be areas in which we will want to gloss over. We need God’s guidance as we take inventory. His guidance comes from His Word.
3. Taking inventory and trusting God begins with God. If I can’t even know myself and I need Him to lead me, this process has to have God in the beginning, at the end, and in the middle. We must take a personal inventory, line that up against the commands and instructions of God, and see if we are indeed measuring up, to see if our actions show what we claim our hearts know: that we have been saved by grace alone.

Recognizing God as your supply is much more than simply acknowledging God as your source. A source is a starting point, a place from which we head forward on our own. But that is not a good description of our life with God. God is far more than just our source.
Rather, God is our supply. He not only gives us His good gifts, His grace at the beginning of the journey, but is there all along the way, as well. There is no time in my life or yours that we are not totally, utterly dependent upon God’s supply. Psalm 54:4 says, “Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.” Psalm 3:5 says, “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.”
If God is our constant supply, then there is nothing that we have that is not a gift from God, and we’d do well to remember that. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:17, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” Can money bring us enjoyment? Yes. But it is strictly temporary. Unless we recognize God as our supply we will never be able to truly enjoy it, because we’ll always be worried about losing it. But according to Ecclesiastes 5:19, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work-- this is a gift of God. Recognizing God as our supply brings long-term contentment, regardless of the presence or absence of any particular material blessing.
A trusting stewardship begins with taking a personal inventory, it continues with recognizing God as our supply, and moves into action with understanding God’s principles for stewardship. Now this last one we’ll need to break down a bit more than the others.
It seems that there are typically three circumstances that lead people to not be trustworthy stewards for God:
1. They don’t believe that they can give and still meet their own needs. They feel that they are choked up by bills, that if they gave more they couldn’t meet their budget, etc. Their financial obligations alarm them, and they don’t feel they’ve got any margin to give to God. This is a faith issue.
2. They don’t plan to give. People don’t plan in their lives, and so they are almost always in an “emergency” state. When one thing after another keeps coming up through lack of planning, it chokes off both the desire and the ability to be a good steward. This is an issue of personal discipline.
3. They don’t know how to give. Because they don’t know God’s principles, they don’t understand the whole process of how to give. Maybe they’ve never been taught what it means to be a steward, maybe they’ve never been taught God’s stewardship principles. This is an issue of knowledge.

Now, I can’t make you believe in God’s promises—that’s the job of the Holy Spirit. I can’t get you to do something that you are refusing to do—that is, after all, your job. But what I have I now give to you: I can give you the knowledge you need to understand God’s principles of stewardship.
Principle number one is the Divine Boomerang principle: A boomerang returns to the person who threw it. In other words, God gives, we respond—we give back. Why do we love? 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” Why do we give? Because He first gave to us. The Apostle Paul tells in 2 Corinthians 8 of the churches in Macedonia that were incredibly poor financially, yet out of their overflowing joy at what they had been given in Jesus Christ, they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. You’ll never be able to out-give God because all blessings first come from Him.
Principle number two is the Give and Grow principle. This is not a “give to get” principle of stewardship, this is not a promise that if you drop 1 dollar in the plate this week you can expect 10 dollars to show up at your door next week. No, this simply means that practicing stewardship produces growth in our lives. The Give and Grow principle tells us that stewardship is a spiritual discipline: and like any discipline, if you commit yourself to it you will see growth. In the same way that a professional athlete spends long hours at the gym honing his body, in the same way that a diet requires self-control but produces long-term health benefits, so the discipline of stewardship reaps spiritual benefits.
Timothy Johnson has this to say about stewardship: “Some say, dedicate the heart and the money will follow; but Our Lord put it the other way around. ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ If your treasure is dedicated, your heart will be dedicated. If it is not, it simply won’t. It is as simple as that.”
We’ll get to the rest of the principles next week, but it is these two that it is absolutely critical to keep together and to keep in order. If we separate these two principles, we miss the point of stewardship—no, not just the point. We miss the whole thing. These two principles tell us stewardship can be summed up this way: God gives—we give. If we reverse them and say, “we give—God gives” then we’re back in the co-pilot’s seat, trying to run the show and telling God where He should be going. If we leave off the first part and say, “We give” then we’re in the driver’s seat and wondering exactly where God is. If we take off the second part and simply leave it at “God gives” then we’re not even hitting the road. Sure, God’s in the driver’s seat but the car is just sitting there, going nowhere and doing nothing.
But if we keep these two principles together and we keep them in order, when we say, “God gives—we give” then we show that we’ve got a firm grasp on what it means to be a trustworthy steward.

Can God Trust me?

There are three statements we can make about stewardship. The first, “God is totally trustworthy,” we talked a bit about last week. We talked of how God is worthy of our complete confidence, that He is totally dependable. You can trust Him!
The third statement is that we are a trustee of everything God has given us. That’s fairly simple—we are not owner, but managers. The Biblical imagery is a steward, one who keeps, maintains, manages and grows the possessions of another. We are accountable for how we use what He has given. To some extent we’ll talk about that next week.
So we’ve got two statements: the first and the third. What’s missing? Right—the second statement, which is this: God has entrusted us with possessions, opportunities, talents, and time. These possessions—they’re not ours. They ultimately belong to God.
Now think about that for a minute; all the things that you have in your life: your bank account, your health, your talents, the hours in each day . . . those aren’t yours, but God’s. How you and I decide to use those things, whether we view them primarily as our own possessions to be used for our own gain, or whether we view them as God’s possessions to be used for His good purposes . . . that will tell whether or not God is able to view us as a trustworthy servant.
Can God trust you? Can God trust me? Trust is a fairly simple thing, really. It begins with extending trust to a person on blind faith, basically. Trust begins when we place trust in a person for whom we have no real, solid reason to do so. They haven’t proven themselves to us yet. And so we invest a little bit of trust into them. How they respond to that trust—whether they prove themselves trustworthy or not, whether they show themselves to be honest and straightforward, whether they show themselves to be diligent and hard-working—how they respond to that trust determines whether or not we trust them with more. And that is simply the way trust works: a little trust might be given, but a large trust is earned.
In Luke chapter sixteen Jesus tells us a strange, strange story, but He does it in order to illustrate to us the importance of being trustworthy with what we have been given by God. In the parable of the shrewd manager Jesus is giving us instruction on wrong attitudes about wealth.
Now, it’s not very earth-shattering that Jesus would be talking about money. But the use of money, as I’ve said before, is never the main point. It is a symptom, an indicator, a barometer of our spiritual lives. It is such an important physical tool of our spiritual reality that Jesus talks about money in 16 out of 38 of His parables. 1 out of every 10 verses in the Gospels speak about money. The Bible has less than 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 verses on faith, but it has OVER 2000 verses on money and possessions. Does God consider how we use our money to be something of importance to Him? You bet He does.
But back to the parable: There are a few different characters in the parable, and it would be helpful for us to know how to relate to them. Verse one introduces us to the two main characters, the rich man and his manager. In the book of Luke I cannot find a single positive example of a rich man. No, I’m not saying it is a sin to be rich, not at all! But in the Gospel of the good doctor Luke the “rich man” is consistently used as a caricature, a bad example of what can happen when wealth and the desire for more consume a person. Apparently, Jesus wants us to consider this man in the same light.
The second character, the manager of the rich man, is the one who has the task of managing the business affairs of the rich man. And charges of some type have been brought to the rich man’s attention that the manager has in some way been wasting his goods. This could be either outright embezzlement or just simply poor management practices, but the end result is that the rich man’s wealth is failing to accumulate in the fashion that he would have liked.
Right away we see one of the principles of stewardship in action: the steward is accountable to the master. The rich man demands that the manager turn in all the records of his dealings and informs him that his services will no longer be needed. And the manager is terrified of what may happen to him if he is thrown out on the streets.
So he hatches a plan that he believes will get him into another job, or at least into the good graces of the rich man’s debtors. What he does is this: He calls in each debtor, one by one, and asks them just how much they owe his master. “How much do you owe?” he asks the first guy. “800 gallons of olive oil” comes the answer. And this crooked manager looks the debtor straight in the eye and says “make it four hundred.” He cuts the debt right in half. He is canceling half of a debt that isn’t even his in order to make some friends for himself, and do it fast.
Jesus only gives two examples, but I get the impression we are to imagine a long line of debtors, and each getting the same treatment. “Cut it in half! . . . Tell you what, knock of 20 percent!” The manager is all too ready to steal from his master to insure his own future, and the debtors are all too eager to cooperate so they can keep some more of their own money. The manager has made himself a long list of friends will that feel indebted to him. He will be well taken care of.
But right here is where the story gets strange. The rich man gets wind of this, but instead of having this old fox of a manager chucked into jail, he praises him! Personally, I thought this seemed a bit odd, until I read Jesus’ reason in for this strange behavior. Verse eight says “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.” It might be better understood if we just simply said “One crook knows another.” Because that’s what the rich man is, too. What he probably has been doing is loaning out money and charging some pretty hefty interest on it, which was strictly against the Old Testament Mosaic law. But he got around it by demanding goods, and not money, in return. This was a fairly common practice in the time of Jesus. It was something akin to my loaning you twenty dollars, but in return demanding you fill up the gas tank on my van. Take a 15 passenger van with a 30 gallon tank at two-sixty, two-seventy a gallon, and you see I’ve got all my money back and more, but I never really charged you interest, did I?
And so here is what is going on: Jesus has just told a parable about two greedy and shifty individuals, both of whom are trying to insure their own futures through some dishonest gain. Everyone in the parable is a player, and everyone is in the game strictly for themselves. It sounds, frankly, a lot like you and me.
But in light of this parable Jesus lets go with a simple command that is exciting and liberating and if we let it, it offers to turn our whole view of money right around! If you’ll permit my own translation, Jesus says to His disciples in verse nine, “And I myself say to you, make for yourselves friends by means of worldly wealth, in order that when it fails they may receive you into eternal dwellings.”
The Greek word for “dwellings” is more typically translated as “tent.” When this word is used to speak of worldly things, it emphasizes the temporary, the transitory nature of this existence—Paul speaking of “the tent of the body” is one example. But when the word is used to speak of eternal, heavenly things, as it is now, it is better translated as “tabernacle,” that special type of tent that is God’s own dwelling place, the place where He chooses to live among His people. In the Old Testament, it was the tabernacle tent and then later the Temple. In the New Testament, it speaks about the eternal dwelling place of God, it speaks of Heaven.
Now, there’s only one way to gain access to Heaven, and money isn’t it. Worldly wealth has not ever and cannot now buy your way into Heaven, no matter how much you give! But note that the focus in verse nine isn’t upon your getting into Heaven, but upon who is greeting you once you get there. Jesus says that the friends that are made using worldly wealth are the ones who are welcoming you upon your arrival, a grand welcoming party. Jesus says that worldly wealth is not just to be thrown around helter skelter in an effort to make a good life for yourself here and certainly NOT to try and buy your way into Heaven, but to be used in deliberate and compassionate endeavors to spread the Kingdom of God, giving people everywhere the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.
No matter how much we act like it’s true, money is never the end. The best money can ever be is the means to reach an end. Because worldly wealth will fail, make no mistake. And the only thing that will reach into eternity is the echoes of how you used what God has given you. According to Jesus, the person who uses his or her worldly wealth to further God’s kingdom and make people into friends of God is the one who will be greeted at the gates of Heaven with a host of people whose lives have been touched in the name of Jesus Christ.
This is what we are entrusted with! Our Heavenly Father has given us these good gifts in order to further the family business—God has given us possessions, opportunities, talents, and time in order that we may use them in service of His Kingdom . . . He’s given us these things so that we can make the name of Jesus Christ known. He has given us an initial investment of trust. Trust can be measured . . . and further, deeper trust has to be earned.
In verses nine through eleven Jesus says this: “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. 10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?”
Did you catch that? There was something really, really important in there. Let me repeat it: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” You know what this means? It means trust can be measured, and the measuring tool is what we are doing with that trust right now. Are you faithfully using what you have right now? Or are you waiting for some big opportunity to come along? If we cannot use the things we have right now—if our entrusted possessions that we have right now are not being used in God’s service . . . then how in the world do we ever think that we would use them later? John Maxwell tells a story about an old country preacher and a farmer, and the preacher asked the farmer, “If you had 100 head of cattle, would you give the Lord fifty?” And the farmer said, “Why, sure I would, preacher!” And the preacher asked the farmer, “If you had a flock of 20 sheep, would you give the Lord 10?” And the farmer said, “You know I would, preacher!” And the preacher asked the farmer, “If you had two hogs . . . would you give the Lord one?” And the farmer said, “That’s not fair, preacher . . . you know I have two hogs.”
You can’t serve both God and money. Who are you and I a slave to today, right now? Look inside yourself. How much does Jesus own, and how much is ruled by worldly wealth? Open your checkbook . . . look at your credit card statement. Do the friends of God have a prominent place there, or has the throne of Christ been crowded and cramped and crushed to the mere fringes of your financial picture? How long has it been since you have been a cheerful giver? A month? . . . A year?
When Jesus Christ became man, He left behind all the treasures of Heaven, taking on our extreme poverty so that we might know His glorious wealth. Does my giving reflect that? When Jesus Christ died in shame and pain on the cross, He gladly endured it so that we might know true life. Does my giving reflect that? And when Jesus Christ rose victorious from the grave, He ascended into Heaven and continually and eternally intercedes for us, so that we might one day have a place next to Him. Does my giving reflect that?
The answer in every single way has got to be a resounding “NO!” Because when He left the treasures of Heaven, when He died on the cross, when He rose again in power and victory, He did it all saying “I know you can never repay me, I know that there’s no way you can ever earn what I’m doing for you. But I’m doing it anyway. I’m giving you all I’ve got, the whole enchilada . . . because I love you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
So, in an odd sort of way, I’m glad to say that my personal giving doesn’t reflect the awesome gifts God has given me, because I could never even begin to hope to measure up or repay what the Lord has done for me in my life, and neither can you. But the great and grand thing about our Lord and Savior is that He never demands or even asks us for repayment. Salvation is a gift, free and pure and fully paid for by the blood of Christ, and to think of our tithes and offerings as repayment is an insult to the gift.
Do not try to repay Christ’s gift in your giving, but instead remember it! Let us remember all that He has done for us, let us remember that all that we have is ultimately His. If we truly grasp the full reality of Christ, then we will be trustworthy stewards, faithfully and consistently using the possessions, opportunities, talents, and time that God has given us in order to bring His Kingdom into the lives of others. And then in the end, still trusting in only the grace of Jesus Christ, when that worldly wealth has failed and our temporary time here on earth has come to an end, we may be received into Heaven by those countless souls, each of which has been reached in some part due to the gifts God enabled us to give. And there to see the Lord, showing us these souls—the rich harvest He has reaped, the fruits of those gifts that He had first given—and to hear Him say to us, “Well done, thou good and trustworthy servant. Enter into thy rest.”



At that point, the very event that we have been longing for all of our lives as redeemed saints of God, how could we do anything other than to give Him the glory and honor for that which is rightfully His? He Who has given, He Who has redeemed, He Who gives to us so that we might give Him to others.
We give thee but thine own, whatever the gift may be. All that we have is thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from thee.
Amen.