Online with Our Saviour

The Curse of Complacency

2007-09-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking about how things go from bad to worse. Not really thinking about how that’s true . . . but more thinking about the how it happens. The mechanism, the process by which things go from a bad situation into a very, very bad situation.
This is actually the theme to one of my favorite books. Chinua Achebe, an African author, wrote a classic of modern literature called Things Fall Apart. It’s the story of an African tribal leader by the name of Okwonko who rose from poverty to a position of great standing in his tribe. Okwonko has great wealth, he has great power, but then tragic circumstances force him to be exiled from his village for seven years. And while he is gone, things begin to fall apart. White men move into the area, and with them they bring their culture . . . their law . . . their religion. The strong African culture is changed, bit by bit, until the point when Okwonko is finally able to return that he can barely recognize it. Okwonko strives to return to the life of wealth and influence that he once knew, he tries to get back to the way things used to be, but the forces at work are so strong and so subtle that he is unable to overcome them. The story ends with Okwonko’s dreams and life collapsing around him . . . and his spirit is broken. He is powerless against the forces that seemingly conspire against him . . . the forces that cause things to fall apart, the forces that cause things to go from bad to worse.
What I’ve come to realize is that the reason things fall apart has little to do with mere circumstances, but it has everything to do with attitude and action. Things fall apart because of complacency. When people get complacent, things go from bad to worse. People settle into a routine, they think that things are good enough where they stand right now, and they get complacent. Sometimes they think that things will always be the way they are currently, so they get complacent, and things start to fall apart.
I think that you know what I mean by complacent. When people get complacent they get a little soft, a little too comfortable. They lose that edge that they used to have, the driving force that used to propel them forward. They sit back on their accomplishments and expect the past to carry them into the future.
We’ve all seen people get complacent. The Republicans will hold office for a while and then forget that they have to keep working on it, so the Democrats take over . . . only to have the same thing happen to them a few years later. Or take a guy who’s never had much money, so he watches where every single penny goes. Scrimps by for years . . . and then one day hits big with the lottery. Suddenly the guy who’s never had two nickels to rub together is the proud owner of 100 million dollars, and he gets complacent. Doesn’t watch where his money goes, because he figures he doesn’t have to any more. And you know what happens to him? A few years later the money’s gone and he’s in worse shape than he was to begin with. Or how about this: when people get complacent, a little ol’ team called Appalachian State comes along and whups your rear end for you! Complacent people forget that the other team didn’t show up to get beat, but to play . . . and play hard.
Which is what makes spiritual complacency such a scary thing! People who get spiritually complacent forget that the other team came to play hardball. They think they’re tight with God, so they don’t take spiritual things as seriously as they did just a few months ago. Sleeping in on Sunday suddenly becomes more important than it used to be. Sunday morning Bible study gets put on the back burner. Prayer grinds to a halt. But since the other team is still playing hard, the complacent folks are hearing and believing the lie that they’re still spiritually okay. Sure, they might have missed a Sunday or two (well, let’s call it eight, but who’s counting?), but in the end they’re still pretty good, right?
This is the problem that the ancient Israelites had in our Old Testament reading for today. They had it so good that they got complacent in their relationship with God.
Last week we talked about the rich exploiting the poor. The reason for that was because in Amos’ day the Israelites had a thriving economy. They were fat and happy. But their financial success had made them so spiritually complacent that they couldn’t see what was happening around them. They couldn’t see that they were living in a spiritual wasteland. Amos says in Amos 6:4-6, “4 You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. 5 You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. 6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph”
The country was going to pot before their very eyes, but they couldn’t see it! The poor were languishing in the streets, unable to even buy bread! Worship at the temple of Holy God –instead of being the focal point of their lives, the very thing that their entire lives revolved around—had become something they did when they felt like it. They should have been grieving and mourning over the spiritual death that surrounded them on every side! But instead, they tended to have the attitude that everything was okay. “We’re happy, we’re wealthy, we’ve got a good life . . . heck, we’re God’s chosen people, what could happen to us?”
What could happen? They could forget that they were in a covenant with God. A covenant in which God said, “Honor Me above all else. Follow my decrees. Be about My business.” The covenant clearly stated that if they honored God by following Him, they would enjoy a life of prosperity and peace. They had prosperity, they had peace . . . but they forgot the God who gave it. And so God—in His mercy—took it all away from them. “You will be the first to go into exile,” He promised . . . and they were.
In 606 B.C. Jerusalem was overthrown. And the Scriptures record in 2 Kings 24:13-14, “13 As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar removed all the treasures from the temple of the LORD and from the royal palace, and took away all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the temple of the LORD. 14 He carried into exile all Jerusalem: all the officers and fighting men, and all the craftsmen and artisans-- a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left.” The people had sinned the sin of complacency . . . and God kept His word. Only the poor—the people who couldn’t afford to be complacent—were left.
You might be thinking, “Well, I’ll never get complacent! That will never happen to me!” But complacency isn’t something that happens all at once; it sneaks up on you over time. You have to actively fight complacency. You have to be constantly vigilant.
The Apostle Peter warns us in 1 Peter 5:8, “8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” On the surface, that sounds pretty easy to avoid, because it sounds pretty easy to spot. After all, all we have to do is be on the lookout for a ravenous beast named Satan. Once you see him, you avoid him.
But it’s not quite that easy. If it were, none of us would be spiritually complacent. You might feel like you’re not complacent.
You know how a lion eats an elephant? One bite at a time.
That’s how Satan works on you. It’s how he devours you. One . . . little . . . bite . . . at a time. He doesn’t pull us away from God all at once. That would be too obvious. I like to point out that our spiritual lives are like a compass. When we’re in tune with God, we’re facing true north. But then Satan comes in and sneaks us a little lie. Just a little lie. It still sounds like the truth, and if you’re feeling a bit complacent you’ll believe it and get taken just a few degrees off true north. Then another little lie and you’re still feeling pretty good, and now you’re a few more degrees off. And another lie. And some more complacency. And another lie. And another. And before you know it, in your complacency you’ve allowed Satan to turn you 180 degrees away from God!
One bite at a time. That’s all it takes. And if you’re not vigilant, if you’re not keeping one eye open all the time, if you’re not self-controlled and alert to the Enemy’s schemes, you’re going to get devoured . . . because you’ve allowed yourself to become spiritually complacent. The opposite of spiritual complacency is being spiritually vigilant.
Helen Hanna—a lot of you know her—has a little cross-stitched saying on her wall, and it says something to the effect of, “If you don’t feel close to God anymore . . . guess who moved?” Guess who moved? God didn’t. You got complacent . . . and so you moved. You moved away from God.
Let’s be honest, now . . . how many of us have failed to be vigilant . . . have gotten complacent. How many of us have moved? How many of us have felt far away from God?

Ephesians 2:12-13, “remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
We don’t need to feel far away from God. But the answer isn’t in doing more, in working harder . . . but in looking. The answer isn’t in what we can do, but in what He has done. The answer to spiritual complacency is in looking to the cross, because there we see the thing that has taken us from complacent people who are far away to redeemed people who have been brought near: the blood of Jesus Christ.
The blood of Jesus Christ keeps us near to God even when we feel far away! We get complacent, we start to move away from God, and the blood of Christ steps in and says, “No, that’s not you . . . you’re not far away. I’ve brought you close.” The blood of Christ stands as the eternal witness to the world, to the roaring lion, and to our complacency that we are close to God.
Things fall apart, they go from bad to worse because in our complacency we allow ourselves to be deceived, to turn away from God. But even when we are spiritually complacent, the blood of Christ is vigilant . . . bringing us to repentance . . . bringing us to the cross . . . bringing us back close to God.

“I will never forget anything they have done.”

2007-09-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

Good morning. I want to talk about something today that I’ve kind of understood for some time now, but have never really had to put it into words. This is kind of uncharted territory for me. Frankly, this is a sermon that I’ve really had to struggle with. Martin Luther used to use a profound Latin phrase, “Oratio, meditation, tentatio faciunt theologum.” Translated, it means, “Prayer, meditation, and struggle make one a theologian.” By that he means that the more a pastor prays over the text, the more he meditates over the text, and the more he agonizes over the meaning and application of the text, the more a pastor really wrestles with the text, the more the theology of God sinks deep, deep into the fiber of his being. That’s true for me, and it’s true for you. Prayer, meditation, and struggle make us theologians.
It’s that struggling part that’s really gotten a hold of me this week. I’ve wrestled with this text, questioning every possible angle I thought I might take on preaching it. It’s been the sort of thing that has caused me to question so many things that I’ve previously taken for granted. It’s not been easy! But I hope and pray that my struggles may result in good fruit for you, something for you to take home and ponder over. Something to sink deep, deep into the fiber of your being.
I guess part of my struggle with developing this sermon is because I’ve had to refine my understanding of what God truly cares about. I mean, the things He’s truly passionate over . . . the things that just get His heart racing. The things that are immensely pleasing to Him and the things that just make Him furious.
What’s the number one thing that God is just incredibly passionate about? It’s about people getting saved, right? It’s about the Gospel. And for the longest time I just kind of naively assumed that if the Gospel was getting out there, that if people were getting saved, then no matter what else happened God was cool with that. I guess that I just kind of assumed that if the Gospel was the thing that God cared about the most, the thing that topped His list, then that’s the only thing we really needed to be worried about. But I was wrong.
Now, it’s still true that God’s first and foremost concern is about getting people saved through the work of Jesus Christ. But just because that’s His biggest concern it doesn’t mean it’s His only concern. He’s also concerned about justice . . . about fair play. He’s concerned about the poor.
You can hear God’s heart, His passion, His driving concern for the poor of the land in these words from the Old Testament reading: Amos 8:4-7, “4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, 5 saying, "When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?"-- skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, 6 buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.”
The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. And it wasn’t just due to circumstances, but it was because the rich were getting richer by exploiting the poor. Everything they could do to put a little more back into their own pockets, that’s what they were doing. Scales that measured out just a little bit less than they said they did. Prices that were inflated because they knew people couldn’t get their goods anywhere else. Shoddy products: mixing the dry husk—the useless chaff—back in with the good wheat. Treating people like cattle . . . no, not like cattle . . . like property, like things. Lowering the value of human beings to the cost of a cheap pair of cruddy sandals.
This is what they were doing. Why? Because they thought they could get away with it. Because greed had taken over their lives. Because they thought that all God really cared about was their sacrifice at the Temple and their offerings that they made. They had remade God in their own image, but they forgot that God isn’t like us. They forgot that He doesn’t care about things at all, but what He truly cares about is people. They forgot that God wants us to use things and love people . . . and instead they loved things and used people.
And this using of people, this trampling of the poor and needy, this infuriates God so much that He says something so harsh that I can’t find the equivalent of it anywhere else in Scripture. This God that is a God of love and mercy and grace and second chances is so offended by the way that the rich are treating the poor that He swears—God swears—“I will never forget anything they have done.”

Now why is this so troubling? I mean, it’s not as though we’re an incredibly wealthy congregation. If anything we probably lean a little more towards the “poor” side of the spectrum. We’re mostly working class folks, and if anyone’s getting exploited around here it’s us. Corporate America exploits the working class. We’re the ones who deserve a break, right?
That’s what I used to think . . . until one day that I ate a chocolate bar.
Now in my house we love chocolate! When someone’s feeling down or they get a scraped knee, what do I say? “Chocolate fixes everything.” I love chocolate so much that I scoured the internet to figure out how to eat more of it and still be healthy. And I found out that the darker the chocolate the better it is for your brain. But if you don’t like the dark chocolate I also found out that the regular milk chocolate can also be good for you, too! You just have to take your chocolate bar and break it in half and shake all the calories out. Or if you don’t want to do that, all you have to do is put your chocolate on top of the refrigerator. Calories don’t like height, so they’ll jump off before your chocolate bar gets up there. In our house we strictly adhere to the two main food groups: chocolate and cheesecake . . . and if you put them both together you’ve got a complete meal!
But did you know that according to Lutheran World Relief that ninety percent—ninety percent—of the world’s cocoa is grown by families. Families that own small farms of twelve acres or less. West African countries in particular are critically dependent on cocoa for money.
And these families that grow cocoa for my chocolate bar don’t sell directly to Hershey. Instead, they are often forced to sell to a middleman who makes the real money. The farmers oftentimes have to sell their crops for less than it cost to produce them. If they make a profit at all it will be minimal. And somehow they still have to feed their families on next to no money at all.
The result is that these families live in poverty. As a matter of fact, in a recent sermon by pastor Rob Bell he reported that eighty percent of the people of the world live in sub-standard housing. Half of all the people in the world live on less than two dollars per day. 1 billion children live in poverty. And one billion people don’t have decent drinking water. In West Africa the prices for the cocoa crops are so low that it has resulted in severe poverty and even child slavery . . . all so that I can enjoy a chocolate bar for less than a dollar. Add in a soda with that and I’ve just spent more on a snack than half the people in the world have to live on every day.
Suddenly chocolate doesn’t taste so good. It tastes like starving children. It tastes like exploitation.
And this isn’t just true of chocolate, but of coffee and crafts and a thousand other things! Everywhere we go we are faced with choices of where to spend our money, and the fact is that very often the money you and I spend is on little comforts that come from the back-breaking toil and exploitation of the poor. We get richer . . . they get poorer . . . and God swears, “I will never forget what you have done.”
Amos prophesied against the ancient Israelites for their contemptible treatment of the poor. He spoke against them, and I think it’s more than fair to say that he speaks against us. God cares about the poor . . . He is passionate about the people of the world who live in poverty. And all too often we fail to use the blessings He gives us to bring them out of poverty.
The Old Testament prophets frequently use judicial language to describe the distance sin caused between God and His people. The message was clear: Israel had broken God’s covenant. They had failed to do what God commanded; they had failed to worship Him and Him alone. They had failed to speak on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves: the widow . . . the orphan . . . the poor. Israel had broken God’s covenant, and so God divorced Himself from them. In His anger, they were ripped from their homes in the Promised Land and cast from His presence into exile. No longer were they His people.
No one could deny God that right . . . because He was absolutely justified in His actions. They deserved it and, in many ways, should have expected God’s justice. But what they didn’t expect was God’s mercy.
As the book of Amos closes we hear something amazing. After the destruction of Israel that was brought about by their own sin, the Lord says in Amos 9:13-15, “13 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. 14 I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. 15 I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God.”
Did you hear those amazing words? They came right at the end . . . “the Lord your God.” He’s still their God. In spite of their sin . . . He’s still their God. He’s still the God of mercy . . . of love . . . and of second chances. And God does not change.
God doesn’t change! That means despite our sin, He’s still our God, as well! He looks at us and knows that we’re just as guilty as Israel, and yet He says, “I’m going to go the cross and bring you back from exile . . . I’m going to rebuild your lives and make you whole once again. I’m going to redeem you . . . because I am your God . . . and you are my people.” Jesus Christ is our God, and His blood gives us forgiveness . . . even when we’ve eaten a chocolate bar.
And in this forgiveness that Jesus offers us, He also guides into a new life! He gives us the power to leave our old lives behind. He gives us new eyes to see things as He sees them! He opens our eyes to the needs of the poor and He gives us hearts of compassion and hands that willingly work not only to bring justice and equity back into the world, but to carry His offer of salvation to those who are not only poor in life, but poor in spirit.
Proverbs 14:31 says, “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” You and I live in a state of unprecedented wealth. God has seen fit to bless us with wealth that is unimaginable to half of the world. Not only do we have physical blessings that others do not have, but we also have the spiritual blessing of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ. He has blessed us beyond imagination, and in that blessing He grants that we may use our wealth to honor God by showing kindness to the needy.

A Balancing Act

2007-09-16T10:15:00.000-07:00

Both the Law and the Gospel must be kept in balance for us to be spiritually healthy.

Remember when playgrounds still had teeter-totters? You know, when you had one big board that sat on a center pivot point, and you’d get on one side and your best friend would get on the other? You’d push up and they’d go down. They’d hit bottom and then push up, and you’d go down. Up, down, up down. Lot of fun, right?
But what was the most fun on a teeter-totter? When you got down to the bottom and stayed there, right? And your friend is there, hanging in mid-air, little legs kicking. And you’d look right at them and their eyes would get all big and round, because they knew what you were about to do . . . and they’d say, “Don’t you do it!” and you’d say, “Oh, I’m gonna do it!” And they’d say, “Don’t do it!” and you’d say, “Oh, I’m gonna do it!” And then suddenly you’d jump off and they’d rocket to the ground, crashing their rear end down on that board when it hit. Probably breaking their tailbone . . . oh yeah, good times . . . goooood times. Teeter-totters were fun!
Well, I take that back. Teeter-totters need balance to work properly. And while it was fun as long as you were the one causing the imbalance, it wasn’t fun at all when someone else did it to you! Then it wasn’t fair!
See, I never thought that it would be possible to learn an important spiritual lesson from a teeter-totter, but I did. And the lesson is this: if you don’t want to get hurt, balance is important.
We meet people all the time whose lives seem out of balance. It’s pretty easy to tell. I met a guy once who bought his dream car: a tricked-out Corvette. Wouldn’t even park normally; the car was so valuable that he was one of those guys who always ate up four parking spots just so no one else could park near his precious Corvette and scratch it all up. He had this great car, but he couldn’t afford anything else. Not rent. Not heat. Not food. His life was out of balance.
Or maybe you know someone who spends all their time on one particular passion of theirs. Could be a hobby or maybe even a worthwhile cause. But they spend so much time on that one thing that they don’t have time for relationships anymore. No friends, no family . . . just that one, all-consuming passion of theirs. Their lives are out of balance.
Now that’s sad to see, isn’t it? We just want to grab them and tell them, “Look, I understand where you’re coming from and all . . . but you’ve got to get some balance back in your life!” It’s hard to see a person with their life out of balance.
But as sad as it is when a person’s physical life is out of balance, it’s especially bad when a person’s spiritual life is out of balance. As Lutherans we often talk about two spiritual concepts that are equally important; two concepts that need to be kept in balance. Those concepts are called Law and Gospel, and they need to be kept in balance. If we get too far to one side or the other we’re missing something. We’ve upset the balance, and we’re going to be spiritually hurt.
This is what the Apostle Paul is trying to tell Timothy in the opening verses in our reading from I Timothy. Timothy is pastoring a church in the city of Ephesus, and there were apparently some supposed teachers there who were getting the message out of balance. From the reading, it sounds like what they were doing was preaching all Gospel and no Law.
We use the words “the Law” as a spiritual shorthand that basically means, “God’s commands.” The Law is what He has set down as being His requirements upon people. It’s His will for mankind. If you think of the Ten Commandments you’re pretty much on track. The Law of God are those things in which God looks to us and says, “This is what I expect of you.”
Now a lot of times we might be tempted to think of the Law in a negative fashion; a bunch of “thou shalt not” rules. Lines that we’re not supposed to cross. Things about which God says, “Do not do this!” But Paul says that the Law is good, if it’s used properly. How is this so?
The Scriptures show that the Law has three uses: three ways in which God uses His rules and expectations in our lives. The first is general: the Law restrains sin in the world. Now that’s good, isn’t it? I often like to say that a world in which everybody understands “Thou shalt not kill” is a pretty good place. That’s good, but it’s not what Paul’s talking about. He’s talking about the second use of the Law.
The second use of the Law is like this: it’s a mirror. This particular mirror was left in the church after Dale and Erin’s wedding. I’ve been wondering why that was . . . but now I understand! It was left here so that I can use it in a sermon illustration!
A little over a week ago a young bride used this mirror to make sure that she was beautiful for her wedding day. Every imperfection was looked at closely in this mirror, and it was covered up or fixed.
But what if the imperfections that show up in this mirror are so deep . . . so horrifying . . . that they can’t be fixed? What if this was like the magic mirror from Snow White? The wicked queen looks into the mirror and says, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . . who is the most beautiful of all?” She expects the mirror to say, “You are, of course.” But the mirror tells her the truth: she’s not the most beautiful. She’s flawed. She’s imperfect. There’s a new standard by which the queen is now being judged . . . and she doesn’t measure up.
In the second use of the Law God holds up a mirror to our lives. Here God shows His demands for us and the Law clearly reveals that we don’t live up to it. We haven’t kept the Law completely, and so we’re lawbreakers. We’re sinners. We can look in this mirror and feel pretty good about ourselves . . . but when we look in the mirror of the Law we can only come to the conclusion that the only thing we are worthy of is God’s condemnation.
The mirror of the Law is a mirror of death. It shows us for what we truly are, and we can’t escape its awful truth. It’s hard to look at a mirror like that . . . but it is necessary.
It’s necessary because until you take a long, hard look into that mirror you can never realize—and thus never believe in—the wondrous beauty of the Gospel. What the Law kills, the Gospel makes alive. What the Law condemns, the Gospel forgives. When the Law says, “Guilty!” . . . the Gospel pronounces “Forgiven.”
See, that’s what the Gospel of Jesus Christ does. Through His death on the cross, Jesus Christ won forgiveness and redemption for any who would believe and trust in that Gospel. It is beautiful not because it denies the claims of the Law—the claims that says, “sinner!”—but because it affirms that claim. Jesus Christ looks at each of us, knowing the full extent of our sin, and yet He says, “I give my life for you.” He does not love us because we are beautiful, but instead we are beautiful because He loves us.
This is the beautiful truth that the so-called teachers in Ephesus were trying to subvert! They were trying to do away with the Law, saying that the believer had no use for the Law, because the grace of Jesus Christ had been applied to them! But if you take away the Law . . . if you take away the mirror . . . then you can no longer see the cross. The old rugged cross loses its beauty . . . it’s majesty . . . and it becomes just another tragic death of a good teacher instead of the final triumph of the Son of God over sin, death, and the devil.
How does this play out for you in your life? Have you been shying away from calling a sin what it clearly is: a sin? You can say anything you like . . . you might say, “Well, this is just the way I am.” Or maybe, “You just don’t understand what I’ve been through . . . if you’d understand that, then you’d understand why I act the way I do.” Or even—and this is my favorite—“I believe God understands.” You can say any of that, and it still won’t change the fact that the mirror of God’s Law shows sin in your life. You’re not fooling God . . . you’re probably not even fooling any of the rest of us . . . the only one you’re fooling is yourself. And that’s tragic . . . because by saying you have no sin is saying that God—and His Law—is a liar. By hiding from God’s mirror you’ve also hidden from His cross, and the cross is the only place where you can really get rid of your sin.
When I was little there was one time when I spilled a glass of milk on the kitchen floor. No one saw me do it, so I tried to cover it up. I grabbed a rug that was in the kitchen and threw it over the spilled milk and walked away, secure in my knowledge that my spill was hidden away.
But after some time went by, do you know what began to happen? The milk soaked into the rug and stained it. The milk went sour. It stank up the kitchen. And when someone finally pulled the rug up, peeling it up off of the floor that it had gotten stuck to, they got a big whiff of the sour stink of what I thought had been hidden away.
Hiding from the mirror of the Law doesn’t remove your sin . . . it just lets it fester and rot until the stink of it permeates everything else in your life. There is no balance of Law and Gospel in your life, because you have cast away the Law . . . but in the process you’ve also hidden away the Gospel . . . and you’re going to be spiritually hurt.
Instead of letting that happen, why not just learn to look honestly into the mirror? But not in an imbalanced way; looking only at the Law. Instead, learn to look at it this way: through the cross. Look at the mirror: do you still see yourself? Is your sin still there? Yes, of course . . . but what stands in front of it? The cross.
This is where we find balance between Law and Gospel: the cross. It’s where we can humbly say “I am a poor miserable sinner” in the very same breath that we say, “I am a forgiven and redeemed child of God.” Nothing taken away from the demands of the Law, and nothing hiding the beautiful Gospel. Just the cross, holding both Law and Gospel in perfect balance. That’s spiritually healthy.

Are Only A Few Going To Be Saved?

2007-08-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

Do we weep over the lost that will not enter the narrow door?

(opening skit)

The church is darkened. A small, narrow door stands at the front of the church, near the pulpit.

A lone woman enters hesitantly from the rear doors. She is clearly confused and distraught, not exactly knowing what’s going on. As she approaches the front, she is met by another woman. They apparently know each other.

Woman # 1: Oh, I’m so glad to see a familiar face! I can’t figure out what’s going on. The last thing I remember was that I was driving in my car on the way to a football game, I think there may have been something in the road ahead, and next thing you know I’m here, standing before this door. Can you help me? I’m so scared . . .

Woman # 2: Easy now . . . it’s okay. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but I think that’s the door into Heaven.

Woman # 1: What? You mean I’m dead? Was I in an accident? Is that what happened?

Woman # 2: I don’t know. I guess so. I think something like that happened to me, too.

Woman # 1: Wow . . . this is crazy! (indicating the congregation) I guess all these people must be dead, too?

Woman # 2: Yeah, I guess so. I think we’re all waiting to get into Heaven.

Woman # 1: Wow . . . who would have guessed that after all those years of being neighbors, we’d end up here together! What church did you go to, anyway?

Woman # 2: I went to Our Saviour. And you?

Woman # 1: Oh, I was a church member, but I never really attended. It just didn’t seem important at the time, you know?

Woman # 2: Uhh . . . no . . . not really.

Woman # 1: Well, it doesn’t matter now, I guess. After all, they say all roads lead to God.

Woman # 2: Who says that?

Woman # 1: Well, you know . . . they. Them. People that say things like that.

Woman # 2: (beginning to feel awkward) Ummm . . . we never really talked about . . . well . . . religion, did we?

Woman # 1: No. No, I guess we didn’t. That’s funny, huh? All those years living next door to each other. We talked about kids, we talked about our husbands, we talked about the price of milk and gas . . . but we never talked about religion.

Woman # 2: I’m so sorry . . . I guess I should have taken the time to talk to you about it.

Woman # 1: Well, don’t worry about it now. Let bygones be bygones, I always say.

(A robed man steps out of the door. He gestures to woman #2 to come and enter.)

Woman # 2: Ummm . . . I guess that’s my cue. I’ll see you around, okay?

Woman # 1: Hey, don’t worry about that. I’ll come with you!

(They both come forward, woman #2 first. The robed man allows her to pass but stops woman #1.)

Woman # 1: What’s going on? Why won’t you let me in?

(a voice is heard, reciting the words of the Scriptures)
Luke 13:22-29 22 Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23 Someone asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" He said to them, 24 "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25 Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' "But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' 26 "Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.' 27 "But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!' 28 "There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.

Woman # 1: What do you mean, “Away from me?” But she gets to go in!

Woman # 2: (clearly distraught) I’m so sorry . . . I should have told you. Only those who believe in Jesus Christ can enter Heaven. I’m so sorry . . .

Woman # 1: You mean I can’t enter the door? Why didn’t you tell me? (the robed man shakes his head, “no” The woman begins to walk slowly back down the aisle, emotion welling up in her) All those years we lived next door to each other . . . Why didn’t you tell me?!!

. . .

According to a 2002 poll taken by the Pew Research Council, over 82% of Americans consider themselves Christian. Eighty . . . two . . . percent. By and large, that number reflect my own experiences with the people of Hudson. As I’ve been around town—maybe at the youth soccer league or even perhaps at the store—when I meet someone inevitably the question comes up, “What do you do for a living?” And while I’m always a bit hesitant to say what I do (it always seems to change the conversation somewhat), in the end I end up telling them, “Well, I’m a pastor over at the Lutheran church.” And almost without fail, someone will say, “Oh, that’s good. I’m a member at such-and-such church.”
I assume that’s your general experience, as well. Mostly everybody you know in the Hudson area claims some sort of affiliation with an area church. And maybe you’ve been content to leave it at that. After all, it seems a bit rude to press the issue. When a person says they attend church, we ought to give them the benefit of the doubt, right?
Yet it makes me wonder . . . if all these people are church members, then why aren’t all our Hudson churches full? Hudson has a population of what? Around 2500 people or so? But yet in my talks with the area pastors, I can account for only about three to four hundred people in church on any given Sunday morning. Three to four hundred. And that’s even a fairly generous estimate, in my opinion.
But that’s just the people in Hudson itself. It doesn’t take into account the number of people that live within just fifteen short miles of Hudson. According to the US Census, by 2011 there will be over fifty-eight THOUSAND people living within fifteen miles of Our Saviour Lutheran Church. Fifty-eight THOUSAND. 82% of that number claims to be Christian. Why in the world aren’t all of our churches full?
The only conclusion that I can come up with, and the only conclusion that I think is valid, is that while many people claim to be Christian, they do not follow Jesus Christ. They are not His disciples. They may claim to believe, they may even be a church member somewhere, but since our churches are not full to overflowing, I can only assume that although many people claim Jesus Christ, they do not walk with Him as His followers.
These are people we know! These are our neighbors . . . our friends . . . our family. They claim Jesus Christ, but do not seem to follow Him. An apparently they believe that that makes them safe. But let’s ask ourselves: what will happen to these people—our friends, our neighbors—if they continue along that path?
There were apparently some followers of Jesus who were wondering the same thing. He was traveling around, preaching and teaching on the Kingdom of God. And apparently His words must have touched a nerve in one person, because that one person got up and asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”
“Are only a few people going to be saved?” Well, that gets to the heart of the question, doesn’t it? And it seems like we’d expect the God of mercy and grace to say, “No, of course not! My grace is big enough to cover everybody! I want everybody to be saved, and so it doesn’t matter what a person says or does, or even what they believe in, because in the end all paths lead to me. No, no . . . don’t worry. I’ll make sure everyone gets in the door of Heaven when the time comes.”
One of the cleverest lies of the Enemy, of Satan, has been to convince as many people as possible that the way to eternity with God is wide and broad. That it’s easy. That a loving God would never turn anyone away from the doorway into Heaven.
But Jesus doesn’t say that. Instead, what He says ought to shake us up a bit. Heck, it ought to frighten us. What He says is, “The door is narrow.” The door is narrow, and that puts the brakes to the lie that everyone gets in in the end.
Jesus says the door is narrow, and that many will try to enter, only to have it shut in their face. And while others are admitted in, the people who thought that the door would always be open will be on the outside, pounding on the door: “Sir! Open the door for us!” “Why would I open the door? I don’t even know you.” “But Lord . . . we ate with you. We drank with you! You taught in our streets! Didn’t we talk about you while we walked around town? Didn’t we chat about you while we had breakfast at Karen’s Café? Didn’t we laugh with your followers while we filled up at the gas station? Didn’t we live right next door to your people?”
And Jesus will say, “Away from me, you evildoers.” And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Weeping . . . because of opportunities lost. Because of a door—a precious, precious door—closed in their face for all eternity. And gnashing of teeth over eternal separation from the beauty and truth of God and condemnation to the torment and eternal regret of Hell.
Who will weep? Our friends will weep. They’ll realize—all too late—that Christ was real, that His forgiveness was absolute, but that they never truly became His disciples and instead preferred the false comfort over being a “church member” to the true comfort of being a devoted, active disciple of Jesus Christ. Our neighbors . . . our friends . . . our family . . . will weep.
They will weep, but will we? What if the final words we heard as we entered into eternity with Jesus Christ weren’t, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”, but “Why didn’t you tell me?” What if we entered into eternity with the accusation ringing in our ears that we knew the truth but hadn’t cared enough to go the extra mile, to make sure that our neighbors had every opportunity we could possibly find to hear and believe in the Gospel, but that we hadn’t shared it with them? Would we weep then? No . . . I understand that we won’t weep in Heaven . . . but does the thought of those who will not be allowed through that narrow door make you weep now?
God’s people are no stranger to sorrow over the lost. In Psalm 119:136 the Psalmist weeps streams of tears over the fact that God’s Law is not obeyed. In Jeremiah 9:1, the weeping prophet longs that his head were a spring of water and his eyes a fountain of tears . . . he would weep day and night for his people that are lost. And the Apostle Paul weeps aloud in Romans 9:2, crying out, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race.” Paul is willing to suffer eternity in Hell if only his people could live forever in Heaven. His heart is broken for the lost!
But not just God’s people, not just His prophets, not just His Apostles, but God Himself weeps over the lost. As He prepared to enter Jerusalem for the final time, the time having come for Him to offer His life on the cross for the redemption of the sins of the world, Jesus Christ looked into eternity and saw how even then people would reject Him. He saw how they’d reject His free offer of eternal life, how they’d turn away and instead decide to follow their own path, and He wept. He wept because they did not recognize the time of God’s coming to them . . . for them.
God’s people and God Himself weep over the lost because of the utter futility of the tragedy! They weep because they know that they don’t need to! No one needs to weep over the lost, because Christ worked to make sure that there didn’t need to be any lost! He came to earth as a little baby, becoming human just like you and me. In our place He lived the perfect, sinless life that you or I couldn’t live. And on the cross He died the death that you and I deserved. His work was done for all, for everybody, and all that someone who is lost must do to receive the benefits of Christ’s work is to believe upon Him, to trust in the salvation that Christ offers, to believe and to be baptized. His work is completed, and it stands completed for all, for everybody, if only they would just believe upon His promises.

That’s the promise that you stand upon: the promise that you are forgiven in Jesus Christ. You won’t we weeping with regret on that day, because the narrow door will be open to you. But since that is true, it is also true that until that day you are to weep over the lost. You weep because you bear the responsibility of exposing as many people as possible to the true, saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.
There’s a story told about a man of faith—a believer in Jesus Christ—who worked in a decidedly un-Christian workplace. And day after day his righteous soul was vexed by the sinful lifestyles he saw exhibited every day. And day after day he cried out to God, complaining that he was the only Christian in his department. He complained to God day after day, “God, it’s so hard working with all these people! I’m tired of hearing about their wild weekend flings! Not one person in my department follows you!”
And then . . . one day . . . God answered him. God said to him, “You are right . . . you are the only person your entire department that follows me. Isn’t it amazing, then, that I have entrusted the task of reaching all of them to you?”

There was one time, not all that long ago, when a young girl came to the font of Christ’s baptism. This was a young girl that our family had befriended; who had found a place in our church home and there was taught of how Jesus Christ had offered His life as a ransom for hers. In this church, she learned of how to be cleansed from her sins. She learned not just how to become a church member, not just how to claim to be a Christian, but to live a life that followed in Christ’s footsteps. And as she came to this font . . . this very font . . . I wept. I wept because my heart could not contain the joy over the fact that Christ had claimed her as one of His own. Because of what He had done, her name was written in the Book of Life. She would, one day, enter through the narrow door. And in my tears were the applause of all of Heaven over one sinner who had repented.
Can we make an effort to weep like that more often? Not to weep with regret over those lost, but over those found? To weep with joy, knowing that God has used us—each and every one of us—as His instrument in proclaiming His Gospel, in inviting our neighbors and friends to church to experience His Gospel, in ensuring that the people of our community that we know and love will one day enter through the narrow door.

Interpreting This Present Time

2007-08-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

We live in today with an eye for eternity.

If you’ve looked in the back yard of the parsonage, you may have noticed that I’ve got a pool there now. But you may not have heard the story behind how I got it.
It was around Mother’s Day, and the kids and I had been shopping in Adrian for a little somethin’ somethin’ for Stephanie. We got her some “mother bling” . . . a gold chain that holds little kid-shaped charms: one charm for each kid, each with the appropriate birthstone set in it. But then on the way home I glanced over into the yard of one of the houses we were passing and did a double-take.
“Is that really what that sign said?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. So I whipped the van around and headed back up the street. And sure enough, just as I had seen, was a sign: “18’ pool. With accessories. Free.”
Well! A free pool! How could I pass that up? (Now, I did think briefly of returning all the stuff we had bought for Stephanie and instead passing off this pool as a very thoughtful gift . . . but I resisted the urge to be a total cheapskate!)
So we got the pool loaded up in the van and headed home to set it up. And little did I realize how much a free pool would cost! First, you’ve got the water. Two to three thousand gallons of water has to be paid for somehow. Cha-ching! Then the chemicals. Cha-ching! Algae killer. Cha-ching! Pool vacuum broke, gotta get a new one. Cha-ching! And so on and so forth, until it starts to sound like a twisted version of the credit card commercial: Pool chemicals: 40 dollars. Pool skimmer: 25 dollars. More pool chemicals: 45 dollars. Look on pastor’s face when he realizes how much the “free” pool is costing him: priceless.
What seemed to be a good idea for today—a free pool—turned out to be a rather pricey venture just a few months down the road. I had allowed myself to get into a situation where living with an eye for today was costing me in the long-term.
It’s foolish to live only for today! Parents, you understand this. When you were raising your kids, there were times when you had in mind the person that they would become in 20 years’ time but they only had in mind what they wanted today, right now. You wanted to build some lasting character into them, and so you were willing to live with a bit of division, maybe even hostility, for today. Who they were going to become was more important than what they thought of you today. Your mission of raising good kids—really, of making raising a kid into a good adult—had you living in today, but guided your actions with an eye for the future.
Or sometimes we see this in union negotiations. There might be a contingent of union members who want huge benefits and big salaries. Their desires for today might very well bankrupt the company, but it seems like some workers don’t care as long as they get want they want today. But the negotiators realize that they’ve got to look a the big picture, and so they accept a package that will keep the company financially healthy in the long run so that the employees might continue to be able to make a living not only for today but for years to come.

Of course, the truth is that today is the only day we can live in. But there must be times when the things that we choose to do today aren’t determined by what today demands, but by what our long-term goals are. When we have a long-term plan in mind, we are able to endure sacrifice, hardship, and even some strife and division in today so that our goal for tomorrow may come about. The demands of today are deliberately ignored in order to serve the greater goal of a better tomorrow.

In Luke, chapter twelve, beginning with verse 49—the Gospel lesson for today—Jesus presents us with a pretty clear picture of how to live a life that balances the demands of today with the goals of tomorrow. He gives us a picture where we understand the context in which we live today, but our actions and choices are driven by the greater goal of what will happen in the future. Jesus shows us that we live in today with an eye for eternity.

How do we as Christians live in today? We live in today by understanding how to interpret the time in which we live. Jesus tells us that we should be able to interpret the times in the same way that we can look at the sky and know what kind of weather we’ll be having. Interpreting the times should almost be second nature to us.
When I think about understanding the times in which we live, I think of the men of Issachar. The men of Issachar lived in the time of David. David’s not yet been made king, and he’s on the run from Saul: the evil, faithless king that God was about to replace with David. It’s a critical time in Israel’s history.
And as David was on the run, men from all over Israel came and joined him, forming a mighty army. And in 1 Chronicles chapter twelve there’s this list of all the men who joined up on the side of David. Nearly everyone in that list is named as being some sort of mighty warrior. It mentions men who came with shield and spear, brave young warriors, experienced fighters with every kind of weapon. All the men who came to David were named as warriors . . . all except the men of Issachar. The men of Issachar stick out not because of their fighting strength, but because they were called men “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.”
All the men came ready to fight a battle, but the ones that get some special recognition are the ones who understood the times. They not only knew where the nation of Israel had been, they understood where it was going now. The men of Issachar had been carefully taking note of what was going on in the country. They realized the impact that the country’s woes would have on their own tribe. Because they were students of the times, they realized that the future of Israel was at stake. And furthermore, because they understood the times in which they lived, they had a better understanding of what God’s plan was and what their part in it would be.
In order to carry out our mission, Our Saviour Lutheran Church must become like the men of Issachar. We must become students of the time in which we live. We must become students of the community, watching and learning what’s happening among our neighbors, our city, our county, and understanding it. Not living in the past, but living in today, having our finger on the pulse of our community. We’ve got to know what challenges our neighbors are facing . . . what factors are threatening the livelihood of our community . . . what obstacles there are that will keep us from accomplishing our mission. Like the men of Issachar, we must understand today and live in it.
But Jesus does not give us the luxury of living only for today, but He also gives us a mission that is meant to create in us a sense that what we do today will have repercussions into eternity. At the beginning of the Gospel reading He says, “I have come to bring fire.” That’s end-of-the-world talk. It’s language that brings to mind the end of the age . . . it brings to mind Judgment Day.
Our mission is huge! C.S. Lewis once wrote in The Weight of Glory, “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.”
Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, and to do so with the knowledge that every person we as a church encounter is a person that we will somehow help along their way to either Heaven or to Hell. Everything we do will in some way impact their eternal destiny, and we must understand the times in which we live in order to carry out our mission to its full effectiveness.
We live in today with an eye for eternity. The key is to properly view the former in the context of the latter. Our Saviour Lutheran Church has a greater mission at stake than just what we desire for today. It’s not about what we desire, it’s about what God would have us do in and among our community. None of our personal desires is as important as the mission.
In the 1950’s there were five men who understood their times and the mission God had called them to. And so these five men left America, took their wives and children, and banded together as missionaries to the Auca Indians in Ecuador. The Auca were a fierce tribe, feared by all their neighbors. And yet these five men took it upon themselves to meet—and minister to—this brutal tribe.
Over the period of a few months they would air drop gifts to the Aucas. They learned as much about them as they could from the other natives. And then, finally, they decided it was time to meet the Aucas face to face.
They never came back alive. All five men were speared to death. Why? It would be discovered later that the men had been killed because of the word of one young Auca girl. A girl who on a lark decided to tell the rest of the tribe that these men had come to kill them and eat them. A lie . . . a lie told as lark, a joke, and it cost five good, Christian men their lives.
No one would have denied the choice of the women to take the bodies of their dead husbands and head back home. But one woman stayed. Understanding what was at stake—both her life and the eternal lives of the Aucas—Elizabeth Elliot stayed and continued to reach out with the message of God’s love and grace given through Jesus Christ to the very people that had made her a widow.
And she did it. Within two years she had made friends and converts of the Aucas. Elizabeth Elliot answered God’s call and made a major difference in the eternal destiny of a people who, without her, would have died without Christ. She understood her times. She understood the cost. And she was willing to live her life today with an eye for God’s mission in eternity.
As Jesus came to fulfill His mission, there were certain things that He understood. He understood not everybody was going to answer the Spirit’s call to believe in Him. He understood that households and families would be divided in two over who chose to follow Him and who rejected His message. He understood that, because of Him and His message, there would be strife and division and even anger and resentment among people who had before known only peace and love. He understood all of this . . . and yet He came anyway! He came anyway, knowing the cost and willing to pay it, seeing the cross and willing to endure it, because the cost of not coming was too great for God to endure. The cost of Christ not coming was that all would die in their sin and be condemned. So He came on His mission, offering grace and eternal life to all in order that at least some might believe and be saved. This is the cost He paid for you. This is the cost He paid for me. As Christ looked upon us in love, He calculated the cost that His mission would take to get us into eternity with Him. And thank God . . . He paid it. He paid it all.

What cost is keeping you in a life that lives just for today? What cost is keeping you from carrying out God’s mission? What cost is keeping Our Saviour from being a church that lives in today with an eye for eternity? Is it a church service that runs a bit longer than what we might like? Is it that you feel you’re too old, that you’ve already done your part? Is it that you just don’t really yet understand the times in which we live? Is it that you just don’t know how we can carry out the mission we’ve been given? What’s the cost that’s keeping us from fulfilling our mission?
Is it greater than this? Is it greater than the cost of the cross? Because if it is not, then it pales in comparison to the cost Jesus was willing to pay so that you and I and everyone else in this community may come to Him and know Him and be forgiven and be redeemed.
Imagine the impact Our Saviour could have on our community if we began to live in today with an eye for eternity. Imagine the change that would occur in our community if we united together under the mission of Jesus Christ. With His grace supporting us, with His mission guiding us, setting aside our desires for today and living out lives that impacted people for all eternity . . . this community could be transformed. All through a church living in today with an eye for eternity.

Lord, Teach us to Pray

2007-07-29T10:15:00.001-07:00

Now, I know none of you ever have problems when it comes to prayer, but frankly sometimes I’m at a loss for what to say. I know, I know! That’s a terrible thing to say. After all, I’m the professional!
And that’s what I get all the time: At somebody’s house for a meal, they say, “Pastor, would you pray?” And typically I’ll say, “It ain’t my home . . . you pray!” Or like a few weeks ago when Stephanie and I were at our high school reunion. We went to a Lutheran high school in Nebraska, so of course after our old class president gave his big welcoming speech and right before we sat down for a little meal, he said, “ . . . and now pastor is going to lead us in prayer before we eat.” And in my mind I went, “oh, brother . . . okay, well I can think of something.” But thankfully in the ½ second I had to think as I took a breath and opened my mouth to begin praying for all my old classmates, I suddenly realized that he didn’t mean me, but the elderly pastor who served as the school’s alumni coordinator! Dodged that bullet, let me tell you!
But okay, okay . . . maybe some of you do have that same problem. When it comes time for prayer, you’re not certain of what to say. You’re not sure of what you can pray for. Can you pray for yourself? Is every prayer supposed to be for someone else? Are there certain prayers God just doesn’t want to hear?
I think that the main problem behind our fear to pray lies with confidence: we don’t have it. We’re pretty sure that God answers prayer, we know that’s what the Scriptures teach, but we just really don’t have the confidence that He’s going to answer this particular prayer. There’s a number of different reasons for this: we’ve never been taught how to pray, so we’re not confident that we’ll say the right words to get God to hear us. We’re nervous about speaking in public, so we’re not confident that we can pray without making some sort of mistake and look foolish in front of other people and God. But even worse, sometimes we’re not confident that God even wants to hear what we have to say. We’re afraid we’re just bothering Him, and so we lack the confidence that our prayers are even something that God desires.
Now, I can’t do much about you being afraid to pray in public (unless, of course, you’re in the Discipleship class, in which case I simply force you to! J). But would it surprise you to know that the disciples—the early leaders of the church, the heroes of the Book of Acts—that there was once a time when they weren’t so confident in how they should pray, either? It’s right there in the Gospel lesson for today. Open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter eleven.
Jesus is praying—of course Jesus is praying. It seems like you can’t sneeze in the Gospels without Jesus praying—Jesus is praying, and the disciples look over and notice what He’s doing. And they realize something: they don’t know how to pray like Jesus prays. Now, these are good Jewish boys, all of them. They’ve been raised up attending the synagogue and no doubt they’ve memorized a number of prayers. But true to form, Jesus doesn’t seem to pray the way they’ve been taught. He approaches it differently. Maybe it’s just easier for Him . . . maybe His prayers sound more like He’s talking to someone that He knows personally, I don’t know. But the disciples recognize that He’s got a handle on prayer that they don’t, and so they say, “Lord teach us to pray.”
What comes next is interesting. The next words Jesus says are what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. We pray it every Sunday, really every worship service. It’s an excellent prayer, perhaps even the best, most sublime piece of beautiful, poetic prayer that’s ever been known to man.
But while the Lord’s Prayer is an excellent prayer and it is good and right to pray it, I want you to notice something: the disciples didn’t say, “Lord, give us a prayer”, but, “Lord, teach us to pray.” That means something.
It means something, because Jesus says, “when you pray . . .” “When you pray.” We could maybe even say, “whenever you pray” (that’s fair in the Greek). Jesus isn’t primarily giving them His words to pray, but giving them a model to guide their own prayers. While the Lord’s Prayer is an excellent prayer in and of itself, it also serves as a model for how to build our own prayers.
The Lord’s Prayer is a template that Jesus gives us for prayer, and it’s pretty good: approach God knowing that He is your loving Father, keep in mind that He wants us to be more and more holy, ask Him to give us all the things we need for daily living, ask for forgiveness, forgive others, and ask for strength to leave our evil ways behind. It’s simple. It’s straightforward. It’s a good prayer.
But so far Jesus has given the disciples a template for prayer, but He hasn’t necessarily given us them the confidence they need to pray. For that, Jesus offers two parables that aren’t a template for prayer, but incentive to prayer. The parables give us confidence to pray.
Luke 11:5-8 5 Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' 7 "Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
There’s three characters in the story. One character is us: we’ve had a friend come to visit and need to lay out a little spread for him, but we don’t have any bread. Bread’s important; in those days it was the staple of every meal. In fact, it was the utensil that they used to eat. Not having bread would be like you or I not having forks or knives or spoons to lay out on the table. The friend we go to get bread is God. We’re asking him to give us what we need to provide for the third character: the friend that’s come to visit us.
The way that I’ve commonly understood this story was that we go to God and we hammer and hammer and hammer on his door until He gives us what we are asking for. The moral of the story, as I’ve always understood it, is that persistence in prayer pays off.
But wait . . . wait. Look at that passage more closely. Kenneth Bailey, in his book Poet and Peasant, points out several important facts about this parable. One, there is no indication of persistence in that parable! Where does it say that the guy bugs his friend until he finally gets up out of bed, goes down to the cupboard, throws some bread out the door and says, “THERE! Are you satisfied now?!?!?” Because God’s not like that . . . He’s not doesn’t answer our prayers just because He’s irritated half to death with our asking.
Instead, Bailey points out that the custom of the time dictated that a guest be given hospitality. A host was obliged to honor his guest by setting out a meal. But we have no bread. Our friend needs a meal, he’s been traveling long and hard and he’s tired and worn out. He needs what we cannot provide. Where will we get what we lack to provide for our friend’s needs? We’ll go to the One who can provide out of His surplus.
The women of the day baked bread in a communal oven, one that was owned by the whole village. Since they all met there, they each knew who had extra and who had yet to bake some. Therefore, the host goes to the house of a man whom he knows has bread. He knows where to get the things he cannot supply for his guest, and so he goes to the only place that can provide what he lacks: he goes to the house that has a surplus.
And when he gets there, note this: he doesn’t knock. Strangers knocked. Soldiers hammered on the door. But a friend? A friend calls out. “Friend, give me what I need to provide for my other friend . . . for I do not have what he needs myself.” As we pray for the needs of others, then, we go to the house that can provide. We go to the house of our friend—we go to the Father—and we call out in prayer that from His surplus He may provide us with something to give to our friend in need.
But now that we have the confidence of where to go to receive what is needed, do we still lack the confidence that once we get there our request will be granted?
Luke 11:11-12 11 "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
Does a father love his child? One of the things that’s always impressed me about both my parents as well as Stephanie’s is that they have always been willing to give us good things that we lacked. No matter what the problem was, when we have had a need, they’ve always been willing to help out. And why? Because we’re their kids . . . and they love us. We’ve never been embarrassed to approach them with our needs, because we know that out of their love for us they’ll do what they can to ease our burden. No strings attached, just a generous gift given from the heart.
God’s the same way. When we approach Him in prayer we call Him “Father.” And because He loves us He’s not about to look down His nose at us and say, “You want whaatt?? A new car to get to work? Whattsamatta, you can’t walk, or something? Oh, heck . . . here’s this old beat-up skateboard. Now take it and go away, you’re bothering me.” No! God gives us good gifts! Why? Because He loves us! And we can have confidence in approaching Him with any prayer request, knowing that He will listen to that request in love and answer our prayers in a way that results in good.
So there it is: Jesus has taught us to pray. He’s given us an outline for prayer, and He’s given us the incentive to pray.
Do you have the confidence to pray now? God is your Father, He loves you. You only have to look to the cross to see that. That’s where this all ties together. At the cross we see God’s care and concern for us, the depths of His love for us. But we also see the enormous surplus that He has to offer, for in the cross of Christ every sin that you have ever committed or will one day commit has been paid for. All from God’s surplus of grace and mercy. The cross proves that God cares about your needs, because it was at the cross that He met your need for forgiveness even before you realized your need for it. And it proves that God wants to hear what you have to say, because the Scriptures teach us that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord—everyone who looks at the cross and trusts in the forgiveness that God offers there—everyone who calls upon God to save them through the cross will be heard. The cross reveals to you the confidence you have in prayer, knowing that God will hear your prayers and answer them with the love of a father for His children.
What would happen if we all began to pray with the confidence that Jesus says we can have?
Would we pray more often?
Would we pray more fervently?
Would we prayer with greater hope?
. . . might we pray expecting?

The answer, of course, is yes. With the confidence that Jesus gives us in prayer—the model for prayer, the incentive for prayer, and with the cross as the basis for prayer—we will pray.
. . . and God will hear.

Your Questions Answered, Part Three: Strong Faith

2007-07-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

Hebrews chapter eleven begins with this way: Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” With these words the anonymous writer of the book of Hebrews begins what is now known as the great “Heroes of Faith” chapter.
Now that very name gives birth to something in our minds. They were “heroes of faith.” They had extraordinary faith. Life-changing faith. Strong faith. The list of people in Hebrews chapter eleven reads like a “who’s who” of the Old Testament. Noah. Abraham. Moses. Each of them commended for their faith. Each of them held up as an example for us to follow.
Certainly faith is important. I remember one of my earlier seminary classes. There was one class where a professor was challenging us not just on what we believed, but why we believed. And as young seminarians, we began to trot out all the common answers that give us grounds to prove that our faith is valid. You know, good things like the scientific evidence for creation, the concept of intelligent design—where the order and structure of the whole of creation is cited as evidence that someone must have created it—and even things like the circumstantial evidence for the resurrection of Christ and the presence of absolute truth.
And this professor shocked—no, stunned—the whole class when he simply said, “What do you guys have against faith?” His point was—and although it took a few years to really get ingrained into my mind—that we as a church are a community of faith. We don’t live by evidence. We don’t believe in God because He is the most logical option. No, our existence is lived by faith. It is defined by it. The presence of faith—call it blind faith, reasoned faith, or whatever—is the thing that binds us together as a religious community.
Now if that is true, if faith is the core component of the religious life, then it must be true that strong faith is also important. I mean, no one wants a weak faith . . . “Dear God, if you do truly exist, and if you love me . . . which I’m not sure that you do . . . then grant my sister the healing she needs . . . if you can, anyway . . . anyway, if it be your will, ummm . . . amen.” No! Nobody wants a weak, wimpy kind of faith! We want a strong faith! You know, where we just walk into the room and the demons get a little shaky. The mountain-moving kind of faith; the kind that prays insanely bold prayers. “Lord, we know that it is your will that little Johnny be healed, and therefore we pray that your healing will come this hour, this minute. Cast this demon of teething pain away from this little boy and give him and his parents a good night’s rest. Oh, and while you’re at it, park a new Mercedes in my driveway by the time I get home. In Jesus’ strong name, amen!”
If we want that kind of faith, then how do we get it? What’s the magic formula for growing that kind of faith? What prayers do we need to pray? What do we need to give to get that strong, mountain-moving, world-beating, demon-terrifying, rock-solid, bedrock kind of faith? How do we become “heroes of the faith”?
Let’s turn to chapter eleven of the book of Hebrews for some answers. Open up those Bibles and let God’s word soak in a bit.
As we read through chapter eleven, I want you to notice that there are two kinds of people in there. Two groups of people, but really only one common situation. We’ll get at the common situation in just a bit, but first let’s look at the two groups. The first group is the people for whom good things happen. We’ll begin at verse four.
Hebrews 11:4, “4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.”
Abel is commended as a hero of the faith because of his good sacrifice. Abel offered God his best. He gave Him the very best he had. It takes a strong faith to offer God your best, not to just give Him what’s left over after the bills are all paid, and that’s exactly what Abel did: he offered God his best, and was commended for it.
Hebrews 11:5, “5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.”
Enoch was “one who pleased God.” His faith was of such character that God saw fit to even remove him from the pain of death. Enoch’s faith in this life was so evident that it literally carried him into the next.
Hebrews 11:7, “7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
When warned of a coming flood—something that seems pretty bad on the surface—Noah trusted God in faith and built the ark. In so doing he not only saved his family, but in fact the whole of the human race. Everyone else—the people without faith—perished, but Noah and his family survived and inherited the righteousness of God.
Hebrews 11:8-10, “8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
Abraham was called by God to go. Go where, he didn’t know . . . but in faith he went. And when he answered God’s call in faith, Abraham never had to worry about where he was going to live, because God always provided for him. He lived each day in faith, each day seeing the bounteous providence of God in his life.
Now certainly these are all good things. Offering God our best and being recognized by God Himself for it. Being spared from the agony of death. Surviving a world-wide flood on a boat made of gopher wood. Living every day surrounded by God’s blessings.
Is this what strong faith brings? No, it is how strong faith grows. Strong faith grows when people believe in the promises of God and then live to see those promises come true.
Now this just makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? After all, when people promise us something and then fulfill those promises, then we begin to trust them more and more, don’t we? It’s the same way with God; when He fulfills His promises to us, our faith in Him naturally grows stronger each time we see another promise fulfilled. We learn to trust Him more and more because of the good things that happen.
And we see this all throughout the entire chapter! The author of Hebrews rattles off name after name, telling all the wonderful things that God had done for the great heroes of the faith! He goes on for so long, telling these wonderful stories, that finally he runs out of time! Hebrews 11:32-35, “32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again.”
Who wouldn’t trust a God like that? Who’s faith wouldn’t be strengthened by seeing God’s strong hand of deliverance through trials and sufferings? When victories are won, we trust God all the more. When we become powerful through God’s workings, our faith grows stronger and stronger. That’s the first group of faith’s heroes: the people whose faith grew by seeing God’s promises fulfilled.
That all sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Having a kind of faith that is built upon a trustworthy God, where we just know . . . we know that we know that we know that God will deliver us from evil because He’s done it so many times in the past.
But there’s a second group revealed in chapter eleven, as well. If we’d back up a bit in the chapter, we’d hints of it in earlier parts, but this second group really becomes crystal clear at the end of chapter eleven. This second group is the people whose faith grew through bad things happening to them.
Pick it up half way through verse thirty-five. The author of Hebrews has just ran through those marvelous events of conquering kingdoms, shutting the mouths of lions, quenching the fury of the flames and women receiving back their dead, and then he says this rather frightening word, “Others . . .” “Others.”
Hebrews 11:32-39, “Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.” Tortured . . . and refused to be released. That’s some seriously strong faith. “36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.” What kind of faith can endure imprisonment?
“37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.”
This is the second group of people: those for whom strong faith is cultivated in the stinking fertilizer of suffering and pain and even death. And every time that these people faced a new and greater hardship, they looked to God, trusted in His promises, and believed that even if they were not to be delivered in this life, that God was more than capable of delivering them from suffering in the next.
There’s two groups of people, and although I think we all know which group we’d prefer to belong to, I want you to notice that they all have but one common situation: it is God that put them into situations where their faith must grow.
Whether your life is the pinnacle of blessedness of the pit of despair, God has put you there in order that your faith might grow. Are you living a blessed life? God is blessing you so that you may see the fulfillment of God’s promises and learn to trust Him more. But on the other hand, if you are in a world of hurt and pain, God has put you there so that you will be forced to trust in the graciousness and mercy of God despite the fact that everything that your eyes see tells you otherwise. Pain or pleasure, it is God at work to strengthen your faith in Him and His promises.
Grab a hold of that truth! Let that sink into your mind! Say it with me: Pain or pleasure, God is at work to strengthen my faith. Because once you really begin to understand this, every situation in your life begins to take on new meaning. You didn’t just happen to receive a check in the mail just in time to pay that bill that you had no way to pay: you’re seeing God’s providing hand in your life. You didn’t just happen to get bad news from your doctor, but God is asking you to trust Him despite the odds against you. You’re not just living a charmed life and it’s not that if it weren’t for bad luck you wouldn’t have any luck at all, but in each and every event of your life, whether good or bad, whether pain or pleasure, God is throwing you back to the foot of the cross where you can look up to Him and say, “Yes God, I do trust You! Do with me as you will! Bless me if you wish, yet even though you slay me, yet will I trust in you.”

One more thing about strong faith: it has to have an object. Faith doesn’t just trust, but it must have something to trust in. And the object of faith—strong faith, mountain-moving, demon-quaking faith—is the cross. The cross is the center of the Christian faith, for it is there that Christ made the ultimate fulfillment of every single promise that God ever has made and ever will make. Look to the cross . . . look in faith . . . in faith lean upon Christ’s cross, and everything falls into place.
You have riches? You have wealth of any kind given to you by God? They just pale in comparison to the riches Christ offers you on the cross. Every blessing you’ve received from God stems from that cross, and when in faith you look to that cross you are able to recognize them for the gift of God that they are, and your faith will be strengthened.
You have pain? You have suffering? That pain and suffering is absorbed into the cross through the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. Every trial you face is a trial that Christ bears for you on His cross, and when in faith you look to His cross you are able to see that God is using this pain in your life to make you more like His Son . . . and your faith is strengthened.
Pain or pleasure, God is at work to strengthen our faith. It doesn’t matter which one is happening to us right now, because through all of it God is at work in all of us. But no matter what our circumstances are, we can as one body look up at that cross and together say, “Yes Lord, we do trust in you. Do with us as you will.” And in faith together we will move mountains. The demons will quake in our presence. We will pray insanely bold prayers. We will have strong faith.

In Jesus’ strong name . . . amen.

Your Questions Answered, Part One: Disillusioned With God

2007-06-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

There was a time in my life—not all that long ago—when I suffered through a fairly serious crisis of faith. It seemed that my whole world was collapsing around me. I had enemies on every side, my hopes and dreams were turning to dust before my eyes.
I did all the things that heroic faith demanded. I claimed the promises of the Scriptures. I prayed for my enemies. I prayed to God for my deliverance. I doggedly believed that God would vindicate me and that He would restore everything that had been taken from me, that I would see my life rise up from the ashes.
But despite my faith that the situation would get better, instead it got worse. It got worse. It got so bad, in fact, that I lost my unshakable confidence that God would see things right. I began to question Him. And then I began to distrust Him. At the very lowest point I remember simply having a breakdown. Crying and screaming, I yelled out, “Why is God allowing this to happen to me?!?” I had become disillusioned with God.
Now I think that if we were all to be honest there have been times when each of us has experienced a certain sense of disillusionment with God. Are you with me? Have you experienced this yourself? It’s not a crime, it’s not an unforgivable sin, we can confess this in front of one another.
We’ve all been there. God doesn’t do what we expect. We pray and pray and pray, we serve and give faithfully, we read our Scriptures, we do all the things that God’s faithful people are supposed to do, the things that we assume will result in God hearing us and answering our prayers, and still He doesn’t do what we want Him to. He doesn’t answer our prayers the way we would like Him to. The illness we’ve been praying over doesn’t get better, it gets worse. Our prayers and fasts and offerings seem to have no effect, and it looks for all the world as though God has left the building. Trouble is, we’re still inside it, struggling and striving and hoping for release.
So how do we deal with this? There we are, standing in the pile of smoking rubble that used to be our lives, and it looks like God refuses to fix it. We are ready to go into battle, strapping on the full armor of God, and still the enemy lops our head clean off. We claim God’s promise that “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you” and then we look over in our corner and God’s . . . just . . . not . . . there. And inwardly we struggle and fight and desperately try to hold on to some kind of faith, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to hold on to. We grasp the wind.
How do we deal with this? Well, it’s a bit different for every individual, but there’s a basic outline that we each can follow. The first step is to arm yourself with knowledge. You need to know what’s really going on.
The fundamental issue of disillusionment with God stems from a desire to be in control, to be able to dictate the actions of God rather than live under His apparent whims.
In that sense we’re a little bit like Roy Pearson. You may have heard about him in the news recently. Seems ol’ Roy took his pants to the cleaners two years ago and when he came back to pick them up a few days later, they couldn’t find them. So he waited a few more days and they gave him pants that matched his check-in receipt. Trouble was, Roy doesn’t like cuffs on his pants, and these had cuffs, so of course Roy figured they couldn’t really be his. He’s been so upset over the whole matter that he finally decided to sue. For 54 million dollars. And the reason? Because the cleaners had a sign that said, “satisfaction guaranteed”.
Sometimes we come to God and figure that He has a 100% satisfaction guarantee. We figure that we have an inherent right to our satisfaction and that God should live up to our expectations. In other words, we feel that we have a right to control God.
But God will not be controlled. He will continue to work, but always—always—on His own terms.
The is what the Old Testament prophet Elijah learned in 1 Kings 19:13-18. Elijah was on the run, fearing for his life. The queen of Israel was working hard to establish Baal—and not the one true God—as the god of Israel, and she was fed up with Elijah’s continual reminder that she was on a path to destruction. She had her sights on Elijah and was seeking to put him to death. It appeared as though God no longer cared. So defeated and disillusioned, Elijah went and hid in a cave. Then God spoke to him. “What are you doing here, Elijah?" 14 He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too." 15 The LORD said to him . . . 18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel-- all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.””
God continues to work, although we may not see what He is doing. But does that mean He isn’t working at all? No. God has His plan, He is working His plan, but it is a plan that is His. We can’t control what He does or when He chooses to reveal His work and His plan. But He is working, nonetheless.
That brings up the second bit of information you need to know. Sometimes we think, “I don’t like what’s going on, but if I could just understand what God is doing, then I’d be okay.”
This is kind of what Job—the all-time winner for the “Disillusionment with God” award—did. At nearly the height of his suffering, Job finally breaks down and complains that he just doesn’t understand. Job 23:1-5, “Then Job replied: 2 "Even today my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning. 3 If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! 4 I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. 5 I would find out what he would answer me, and consider what he would say.”
It’s natural to want to understand why. But what’s really going on when we say that? Isn’t that just another form of control? When we say, “I want to understand,” we’re in effect saying that if we could understand, then we’d approve. The whole thought, when laid out, would be something like, “I now understand what God is doing through such-and-such, and I hereby give my consent.” In other words . . . we’re still in control.
Disillusionment with God is just that: dis-illusionment. On the original sermon topic request, the person who requested this noted that they had heard it recently said, “Disillusion is the child of illusion”, and that’s true. When we are dis-illusioned, the illusion that we can control God is becoming unraveled. It’s frightening to realize we don’t have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, that God cannot be controlled. As C.S. Lewis was fond of saying, “It’s not as though He’s a tame lion.” He is, after all, a living God.
So now you’re armed with knowledge. You know that God is a living God, that you cannot control Him. And yet you’re still faced with the reality of this bad situation. You want it to turn out better, but still God seems to have other ideas. What’s the next step? In other words, how do you learn to deal with a living God?
God cannot be controlled . . . but that does not mean He can’t be trusted. Quite the opposite, actually. If you were to meet a person who continually brought you harm, you would naturally—and rightly—assume that they couldn’t be trusted, and you would stay away from them. But in God’s case, you can trust Him even in the midst of what appears to be a very, very bad situation.
Why is that? Because God’s word is trustworthy and true. You can rely upon it. You can trust God’s Word because it is the Word of God. When He speaks, it is impossible for Him to lie.
And that trustworthy, reliable Word of God—the Scriptures—has this to say about living in brokenness and still trusting in a living God for deliverance: Romans 8:25-28, “25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Let’s break that down quickly: In this case, last things first. The final thing Paul says you must know is the most important. You must know and trust that God is using your present difficulties to conform you to the image of His Son. God is using this time of pain and suffering to make you more like Christ.
Think of all that Christ’s suffering has brought you! Through His suffering, you have been given new life, forgiveness of sins, and peace with God. You don’t need to live in fear of divine judgment. You don’t need to fear death. Through Christ’s suffering, God has given you eternal life. Can any amount of present suffering, no matter how difficult, ever take that away? As Paul says, God’s grace is truly sufficient for you.
That’s really the answer that drives all the other answers. As Christ suffered, so too you, a Christian—literally a “little Christ”—will suffer. Not a meaningless suffering, but a suffering with a glorious, heavenly purpose that will echo into eternity, because the grace of Jesus Christ that He won through His suffering can and will see you through.
And in that knowledge—the knowledge that Christ’s suffering is of benefit to you, and therefore your suffering also has benefit—in that knowledge Paul says that when you are faced with circumstances in our life that we cannot explain, those times when it seems as though God is not listening—the times of sicknesses, of death, of pain and regret, the times of our own weakness—Paul says that first you wait. Not just an idle waiting, but a hopeful, patient waiting. A waiting that puts its faith in God for Him to do what is good . . . no, to do what is best, and do it in His own time.
And while you wait, you pray. And whatever you do, remember this point, and remember it well: when you try to pray but you’re so broken and in so much pain and confusion that you can’t even make the words come out, the Holy Spirit—God Himself—helps you to pray, translating your groans and cries into a beautiful prayer that words by themselves could not express. Where is God when it hurts? He is with you, praying.
You wait in hope, you pray in the Holy Spirit, and thirdly in faith you cling to His promises. The promise in verse twenty-eight that all things—not just some things, not just the good and pleasant things—but in all things God is working to bring about good—real, true good—in your life. Your current trials and temptations, your hurts and your scars, in God’s hand they will one day turn into badges of honor and glory, because God has promised that it is so. And as one who’s been there, I promise you that it will be amazing the way God does it.
We all feel disillusioned with God at times. We don’t like pain. We don’t like fear. We don’t like being out of control. We don’t like suffering. But perhaps it’s good to be dis-illusioned, because then we must rely upon the true God, and not an illusion of a God we can control. The true God makes no promise that we will not suffer, but He does make a promise to be with us even in the midst of our suffering. Whether or not we see Him or feel His presence, He is there, praying with us, working to bring good into our lives . . . even through suffering . . . all in the name of Christ.

. . . and they praised God because of me.

2007-06-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

People are not to be praised for what they do for God, but God to be praised for what He does through people.

On one of the internet pastor’s forums I regularly participate in there was a recent conversation about what one guy called “mega Christian stars.” The topic of discussion was how this man had met one of our modern-day Christian heroes and was a bit disappointed in how the encounter turned out.
Considering what the “Christian hero” had done in his life—he was a Hollywood actor who had found Jesus and become known for his firm stand on the gospel and his love for Christ—my internet friend was disappointed that, when he met the man face-to-face, his hero was just another regular guy. I don’t know what he expected—maybe a halo hovering around his head or a bright, shining, holy light that enveloped him wherever he went—but what he expected wasn’t what he saw. He saw a normal guy and was disappointed that he wasn’t something more exciting. Something praiseworthy.
It got me to thinking this week about the nature of praise and to whom we naturally want to give it. In the Christian community we love our heroes of the faith: those people who are great teachers or preachers or leaders. The people who have really accomplished something huge for the Kingdom of God. We talk about them to our church friends and sometimes even recommend their books or CD’s or whatever to our unbelieving friends.
There’s a certain ring of truth to doing that. After all, I think what is in our minds is just to give credit where credit is due. So when we see someone who is really doing some good for the Kingdom of God, we want to acknowledge that. But . . . to whom is the credit really due?
Think about it. When we heap praise upon someone or something other than God, what do the Scriptures call that? It’s called idolatry: the placing of someone or something in the place of honor that rightly belongs to God alone. Rather than praising people for what they’ve done for God, we should instead praise God for what He’s done through people.
Let’s use the Apostle Paul as an example. In his letter to the Galatians Paul embarks on a discussion about himself. After opening his letter, he begins to tell the Galatians about how no one taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ, but that he received it in a personal revelation from Christ Himself. He launches into a discussion about what he used to be like, how he persecuted the church, how God called him and then how he did this, how he did that, the places he went, the people he met.
Now by any standards this sounds pretty prideful. Paul appears to be boasting about himself, doesn’t he? After all, I count about seventeen “I”, “me” or “my” references in those thirteen verses alone! That’s one way that you can tell when a person is really self-centered: when they talk about themselves all the time. When they say, “enough about you . . . let’s talk about ME!”
We’ve all met people like that before: people who work really, really hard to make sure you know how great they are. People who want to become some sort of idol in your eyes. But when it’s that obvious, it’s usually pretty easy to spot. It’s harder to spot the same kind of thing when we’re the ones putting someone else on a pedestal.
Whenever a group of Christians gets together, it doesn’t take long for one of them to start talking about one of their Christian heroes. Get the right circle together and you’ll hear names like Joyce Meyers or Joel Osteen. Someone really into prayer is going to mention Stormie Omartian. The folks who like to be on the cutting edge will mention Rob Bell. And you’ll hear people positively gush about how great these folks are.
I’ve got my Christian heroes, of course. If you were to ask me which books to read I’d throw out a list including Andy Stanley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, and John Maxwell. I’d probably thrown in a little bit of Augustine and possibly even some Rick Warren or Hermann Sasse for a bit of flavor. And then no doubt I’d tell you what each of these men has accomplished for God and His Kingdom to underscore just why they’re so important. I’d want you to know the men’s lives so that you could appreciate them in the same way I do.
But pride in the person is misplaced. It’s not much different than assuming Paul is being prideful in talking about himself. It’s the same thing.
But if we back up just one verse in Galatians, it becomes obvious that there’s something deeper that Paul is saying. Forget for a moment the notion that he’s just seeking attention for himself and read verse ten. What does he say there? Galatians 1:10, “10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
Paul prefaces all of his prideful-sounding “me” talk by saying that he’s NOT trying to win the praise and approval of men. If he were, he wouldn’t be a servant of Christ. The servant isn’t more important than the master. In fact, everything the servant does is done to make the master—and not himself—look good. The servant is invisible, and the master gets the praise.
That’s the ticket to understanding what Paul is saying! He’s not trying to draw attention to himself, but to what God has accomplished through him! Look at verse twenty-four: Paul doesn’t say that people praised him for what he had done for God, but Galatians 1:24, “they praised God because of me.”
So Paul’s whole story in verses eleven through twenty-four is not told to glorify himself as bragging what Paul’s done for God, but so that others may praise God for what He’s done through Paul. In telling his the story of his own redemption, Paul actually takes the focus off of himself and puts the focus on God! And just look what God has done!
In verse eleven God has established His gospel in Jesus Christ.
In verse fifteen God has called an imperfect sinner to repentance through His gospel.
In verse sixteen God has chosen that same sinner to proclaim His gospel.
In verse twenty-two an invisible, unknown servant’s life is held up before the people, and in verse twenty-four they praise God for what He’s accomplished through that man.
Paul’s still not perfect, he’s still a sinner, and yet people are praising God because of the story of how God has worked in Paul’s life.
The Greek word for praise in verse twenty-four helps us to understand this a bit better. The word translated as “praise” is the word doxazo, from which we get our word doxology. How does the doxology go? Let’s sing it together, and as we do I want you to notice who is getting the praise:
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
Praise God. Praise Him. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise be to the Triune God, the God who works, the God who redeems, the God who saves!
The only person that praise is rightly directed to is God. He is to be praised not because of people’s amazing accomplishments for Him, but because of the awesome, gracious way that He works through broken, sinful people.
Do you know anyone like that? Some poor, broken sinner through whom God has worked His story of redemption? Of course you do . . . all you have to do is look in the mirror. God has worked through you!
So you’re heard Paul’s story . . . what’s yours? How has God redeemed your life and changed what was misdirected and self-centered into something for which He is to be praised?
I know . . . it can be hard to think about your story, and it can be hard to talk about it. It’s hard to tell your story because, honestly, it may seem like bragging. But that’s okay, because when you brag, brag on what God has done, not about what you have done. Downplay your role and brag His up.
It’s not too hard to get started, really. Just start by contemplating the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Think about that for a moment. About what the Gospel is. The God of all creation sent His Son to earth. Picture Jesus Christ . . . see Him teaching . . . see Him leading His disciples . . . see Him praying for His followers . . . and see Him hanging on a cross. He is there; broken and bloody but still holding to His Father’s will and strongly seeing through His mission to the very end. And He did that for you. That’s what the Gospel is.
But the Gospel isn’t just something Jesus did, but also what He is doing now. He continues to take all the work He did all those year ago and apply it to your life today. He is still teaching you, leading you, interceding for you. His death still redeems you, it buys you back from a shallow, self-centered life into a life filled with good, God-centered things.
That’s what the Gospel does, it works through you to change you, to redeem you, to save you. That’s your story of how God has worked through you. This is your way to give praise to God for what He has done.
And when others hear your story, they too can praise God for what He’s done in your life and even for what He has yet to do. I don’t know about you, but I know that God has brought about some real serious changes in my life, and I hope and pray that He’ll continue to work, because I’ve got stuff that still needs to be changed.
But when I tell others the story of how God’s worked in my life, I don’t tell them so that they’ll praise me. I don’t want them to know about seminary, or about pastoring, or anything else so that they’ll think I’m really doing something for God, but I tell them so that they can see that God can work even through a normal, flawed, every-day human being like me . . . and they will praise Him for His goodness, His mercy, and His work. He is a God worthy to be praised.
So be like Paul . . . tell your story. Fix your eyes and your heart upon Jesus and tell the story of how He has worked in your life—not so that they will praise you for what you are doing for God, but so that they will praise Him for what He has done through you. Allow others to see how Christ has shone his light into your life, and they will praise God because of you.

The Darkness and the Dawn, part 5: The Good Book and the Checkbook

2007-05-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

The Good Book and the Checkbook. That’s where the Darkness and the Dawn are revealed today in our sermon. We’re going to talk about finances and money. And I think the best place to start in a conversation like that is to take a few moments to look inside ourselves and re-evaluate our commitment to giving to the Lord’s work. Now, our organist has prepared a little song for our meditation, and as she plays it, I want you to think upon how much you give to the church. And if, at any time during that song, God convicts your heart and you feel that you can start giving more . . . then I want you to stand up. At any time during this next song, stand up if you feel that you can start giving more to the church.

( . . . Organist begins playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” :))

HA!!! I got you! Come on, now . . . I know what you were thinking! See, I think we’ve been sort of programmed to think that every time a pastor talks about money what he really wants is for you to open your wallet. “Pastor just wants me to give more!” But let me let you in on a little secret: I don’t care how much you give to the church.
Honestly, I don’t really care. Could be a lot, could be just a little. I don’t care what the dollar amount is. But what I do care about is how you view your finances and how you view your relationship with God.
Martin Luther once said that wherever you put your trust, that thing becomes your god. He said, “A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need.” Does that sound like money to you? Now obviously there’s two kinds of gods we can put our trust in: false gods or the true God. When we trust in money, when we find our refuge in our finances, we put our trust in a false god.
Putting our trust in finances is called materialism. Materialism is a desire to find refuge in things. As such, it is the opposite of another concept we’re going to talk about: the Biblical concept of contentment.
Nearly every place where the Good Book and the checkbook meet, we’ll become involved in a war between the darkness of materialism and the dawn of contentment. Materialism is something that needs to die in us. It needs to die and have contentment raised to life in its place.
There’s two ways that the darkness of materialism shows up in our lives. The first is pretty easy to spot . . . well, at least in others, anyway. The first way materialism shows up is in blatant greed.
If you want to get a glimpse of blatant greed, there are any number of places you can go to find it. Wall Street to Main Street—you can find it anywhere. I remember a comic strip from when I was a young boy. The main character was young girl who was watching TV around Christmas time. As each commercial came on advertising a new toy, the girl would squeal, “Oooh! That’s what I want for Christmas!” And this went on and on, “Ooh, I want that for Christmas! . . . I want that for Christmas! . . . I want that for Christmas!” And her father, sitting in front of a pile of bills, heard his little girl from the other room. His emotions overcame him as he listened to his sweet, precious little girl . . . so he got up . . . went downstairs . . . opened a closet door . . . and shut off the power to the TV. “That’s what I want until Christmas!”
Greed is pretty easy to spot in other people, and it wears you out when you see it! But it’s a little harder to see it in yourself. But it’s still there, isn’t it? Whenever you act like that little girl (“I want that! I want that! I want that!), you’re being greedy.
But the second way the darkness of materialism show up in our lives is a little more subtle. It’s a little harder to spot, but it’s no less a sin. The second way materialism shows up is whenever we depend upon material things for comfort and contentment.
You can see this kind of materialism in the restaurant. C.S. Lewis once wrote about a hypothetical lady who was a slave to this kind of materialism. Whatever she ordered wasn’t just quite right when it finally got to the table. It wasn’t that she wanted something extravagant . . . she just wanted it perfect. Just a piece of really crisp toast, an egg cooked just right, a cup of tea made just so . . . and she’d be happy. But until she got what she wanted, contentment eluded her.
See, rather than accepting something as a gift from God and giving thanks for it, she chose instead to complain that it wasn’t just perfect. Her dependence upon things—things exactly as she desired them to be—was a form of materialism. She had made something simple—toast, eggs, and tea—into a god without which she could not be content. She thought she wanted simple things, but she was very, very materialistic in the way she wanted them. Materialism—whether blatant greed or a subtle desire for things just so—rejects thanksgiving to God the Giver and instead focuses upon the gift as the source for contentment. Materialism tries to find peace and wholeness through having, collecting, or acquiring things. This can be anything, anything, from a high-dollar purchase to the smallest, seemingly insignificant thing. You want a really good example? Go look in your pastor’s office! Does any one man really need that many books? I’ve got books that are in boxes still packed up in my basement! Books I’ve never read! And no matter how hard I try to justify those purchases—“Well, you know Lord, this is really a tool for my ministry”—it just doesn’t hold water.
Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
Now right there’s a good verse to transition from darkness into light—if materialism drives us, we’re in the darkness. We need the light of Christ to deliver us and raise us up out of the darkness of the idolatry of materialism. Whenever we seek to find refuge in things, we’re putting something else in God’s rightful place and falling prey to the darkness of materialism.
The opposite of the sin of materialism is Godly contentment. Paul says in Philippians 4:12-13, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
Paul understands that the secret to contentment isn’t in getting more things or getting things that are just so. He understands that the secret in being content isn’t in seeking refuge in the gift, but in trusting the Giver.
Where does this start? In thanking God for what you’ve been given. There was a woman who woke up one morning and looked in the mirror and saw that she only had three hairs on her head. Rather than putting her trust in having more hair, she said, “I think I'll braid my hair today.”
The next morning she had two hairs on her head. She said, “I believe I'll part my hair in the middle today.”
The next morning all she had was one single hair. “I guess I'll wear it in a ponytail today.”
The next morning she was completely bald, and she shouted, "Praise the Lord! I don't have to do my hair today!”
No matter what, whether you have a lot or have a little, it’s a gift from God. Thank Him for what you have.
When we thank God for all that we’ve been given, we acknowledge that we are trusting Him for everything. And surprisingly, this even allows for asking Him to supply things that we both need and want.
Pastor Dwight Nelson tells a story about a pastor who had a cat. A little kitten, actually. And one day that kitten climbed up a tree in his yard and got stuck. The pastor did everything he could to get it down, but it just stayed there, stuck up in the tree and meowing to get back down.
Now, the tree was a smaller one, not big enough for the pastor to actually climb up himself. So he figured, why not get the car, throw a rope around the tree, and then use the car to bend the tree down to where he could get the kitten? So that’s what he did.
But just as the tree was getting low enough to where he could reach up and get the kitten . . . the rope broke. As he was looking in the rearview mirror, the pastor saw the tree snap straight back up and the kitten sail out of sight!
He looked high and low for the kitten, but couldn’t find it anywhere. So eventually he gave up the kitten to the protection of the Lord and headed off to the store where he had to pick up a few things.
Now as he got to the store, he saw a church member coming out, pushing a grocery cart with a bag of cat food in it. That was kind of odd, because this woman wasn’t really what you’d call a cat person. So he asked her about it.
“Pastor,” she said, “the strangest thing happened. My little girl has been asking for a cat for ages. I got so tired of telling her ‘no’ that I finally said that if she prayed to God to give her a cat and He did, then she could have one.”
“Well, I watched her go out into the yard and kneel down. She began to pray right then and there for a cat. And pastor . . . I wouldn’t have believed it, but I as she prayed I saw with my own eyes a little kitten come sailing out of the clear blue sky and plop down right at her feet!”
God knows you have needs. He knows you have desires. And He doesn’t mind at all giving you both . . . but He wants you to trust Him as the Giver and not seek your refuge in the gift.
It’s not the need that makes us discontent. It’s not need that causes us to fall into the darkness of materialism, but it’s where we seek to find the answers to our need. Because we all have need. We all have needs that we can’t meet on our own.
At one time or another we’ve all fallen into the dark, dark sin of materialism. We’ve sought refuge everywhere, made every thing into a god . . . except God Himself. Did God turn His back on us when we turned away from Him? No . . . he sent His Son . . . His one and only Son . . . to be our Savior.
Jesus Christ met every spiritual need you and I will ever have by dying on the cross for us. He saw our need—our extreme, hungering need—and met it head on, offering His own life so that our need could be fulfilled. So that we could be content in knowing that we are forgiven before God in Jesus Christ.
Think about that! There we were, standing before God . . . empty handed . . . nothing to offer . . . spiritually bankrupt . . . and Christ stood before God and said, “I’ve paid the debt for this one. I’ve filled this one’s need.” There’s a God to trust in! There’s a God in whom we can find refuge!
Hebrews 13:5, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." 6 So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
Christ filled your biggest, most pressing need: the need for forgiveness. And if Christ filled our biggest, most pressing need like that, you can trust Him for all of your material needs, as well. The place where the Good Book and the checkbook meet is the same place where we find refuge for the forgiveness of our sins; right at the foot of the cross. You can trust the Giver, because He’s also the Savior. In Him you can do all things, give thanks for all things, . . . and be content.

The Darkness and the Dawn, part 4: The Great Light and the Ultimate Darkness

2007-04-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

In this sermon series we’ve been talking about darkness and light. But if you’ve been listening closely, it’s been apparent that we’re not focusing on literal darkness and literal light, but the spiritual implications of both.
The “light” has been a metaphor for how Christ enters into the situations and brings His unique contribution, His light, into those areas where His cross intersects our daily lives. The darkness we’ve faced so far has been revealed in places like the brokenness in our relationships and the need of others.
But before we go any further in this sermon series, it would be worth taking the time to ask a few questions about the nature of darkness and light. If you were asked, how would you describe “darkness”? Could you do it? What is “darkness”? _____________________
Let me suggest a definition of darkness. Darkness is the absence of light. That means something. It means that darkness is not a living thing all on it’s own. It is not the opposite of light, exactly, but the absence of it.
Now that’s certainly true physically, right? Way back in the day when I was in high school I was on the yearbook team. And back in those stone-age days in order to take pictures we used a funny little thing in our cameras called film. Because the film was light-sensitive, it had to be developed in a special room called a darkroom. No light was allowed in that room. The doors were sealed off from the outside world. When I entered into that room, there was utter darkness. But even in that pitch-black darkness, the kind of darkness where I literally could not see my hand in front of my face, what happened when I flipped on the lights? The darkness was dispelled.
If darkness were the opposite of light, the darkness would have fought for control of that darkroom. But since darkness is merely the absence of light, there was no way the darkness could defeat the light. The darkness reigned only until the light was turned on, but once that switch was flipped . . . the darkness was no more. The darkness could only exist where the light did not shine.
Darkness is the absence of light. That’s not only true physically, but spiritually, as well!
Spiritual darkness is the darkness of sin. Sometimes that sin is deliberate and willful, as when we reject God’s good and righteous ways and choose to follow our own path. Sometimes that sin is a condition, like the darkness that we are born into and inherit from our parent and can trace all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But no matter if the sin is deliberate or a condition, when Christ shines His light into our hearts and lives, the darkness is dispelled, because spiritual darkness cannot exist where Christ’s light shines.
Is there any place where the light of Christ cannot reach? Is there any life, any person, any place where the light of Christ does not shine?
There is one place. Today we face the darkest place in all of creation. The one place where even Christ’s light cannot touch. That is the darkness of the second death.
“Second” death? What in the world does that mean? How many deaths are there?
Well, I admit that it’s a bit of a mystery. As a matter of fact, in the reading from Revelation today John mentions two such mysteries: in addition to the second death he also mentions something called the first resurrection.
So before we go any further, let’s get a handle on those terms. John mentions both a “second death” and a “first resurrection” but he never once tells us anything about a “first death” or a “second resurrection.” We’re left on our own to decipher what these mean with the help of other Scriptures.
Very briefly, what we see in Scripture is that while the first resurrection and the first death both occur in this life, they have nothing to do with our physical body. They are spiritual in nature. They deal not with an outward physical appearance, but an inward spiritual reality.
The Apostle Paul helps us understand this when he says in Colossians 2:13-14, “13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.”
Now, Paul isn’t suggesting that there were a group of people in the Colosse church had been physically put to death and then raised to physical life. No. When he says we are dead, he is talking about is our natural spiritual state. We are born spiritually dead. We don’t have the ability to make spiritual choices like a living person would. But when Christ’s light comes into our lives, we are made spiritually alive! It’s that simple: we were spiritually dead, but in Christ we are now spiritually alive! The first death and the first resurrection are both spiritual, and they both occur in this life.
But the “second death” and “second resurrection” . . . what are they? Well, John leads us to believe that they are different from—but related to—the first ones. They are different because they are not primarily hidden, inward, spiritual realities, but rather something that can be viewed with our own eyes. The second death and second resurrection are a physical reality that occurs in the life that is to come.
In the book of Revelation John uses the words “second death” four times. Two are merely references to the faithful escaping the second death, but two are very, very informing. In Revelation 20:14 and Revelation 21:8 John connects the second death with a very specific place: the lake of fire. This lake of fire is a place where the ungodly are condemned for eternity. It is a place of great suffering. There is no one there who is called by the name “Christian” . . . it is reserved only for those who, like Satan, have rebelled against God and rejected Him. Sound familiar? The second death is what we commonly call Hell.
Hell is a real, physical place filled with real, physical torment for all eternity. Now, when I say “eternity”, however, don’t make the assumption that time will have no meaning. No, I believe that people in Hell will be painfully aware of each and every passing second. The seconds will multiply into minutes, the minutes into years, the years into millennia . . . and still there will be no end in sight.
The Old Testament uses a word—sheol—that translates as “The Place of Asking” to describe the second death. I think that’s a particularly poetic description. Imagine the darkness of asking and asking and asking . . . but never, not once, ever getting an enlightening answer
The second death is a place of utter darkness because it is the one place where Christ’s light does not shine. This is maliciousness on His part: His light would indeed shine there if it could. But it cannot, because Hell is a place reserved for those who spent their lives rejecting Christ and His light. In The Great Divorce, a wonderfully illuminating tale about the after life, C.S. Lewis said this: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell chose it.”
Christ’s light does not shine in Hell because what people wanted in this life, they received in eternity. It’s not God’s decision that they be in the darkness and apart from Christ’s light, but their own.
But now let’s contrast the second death to the first resurrection. Again, whereas the second death is physical, it occurs in eternity, and is marked by the utter self-chosen absence of the light of Jesus Christ; the first resurrection is spiritual, it occurs in this life, and is marked by the wonderful, grace-filled hand of God the Father as He shines the light of Christ into our lives.
The first resurrection is when the Holy Spirit creates saving faith in our hearts. There is a marvelous illustration of Christ’s light filling the first resurrection in the Scriptures: the account of the conversion of Paul.
Paul—who was then called Saul—was on the road to Damascus to carry on his favorite pastime: persecuting Christians. All the church feared Saul. He was one bad dude.
But when Saul got a certain stretch of road, suddenly he was blinded by a heavenly light that enveloped him. He fell to the ground and tried to shield his eyes from that bright light, but it seemed to fill him up from the inside out, even searing his eyesight beyond repair.
Christ was in that light. Nowhere in Scripture do we see in Saul anything worthy of being approached by Jesus Christ. Nowhere in Scripture do we hear of Saul accepting the light, asking for the light . . . we only see Jesus Christ, in His divine goodness, choosing a wicked sinner like Paul. Christ chose Paul . . . and Christ gave Paul His light.
The first resurrection happens wherever and whenever Christ shines His light into the heart of wicked sinners. The first resurrection happens whenever the Holy Spirit creates saving faith in the heart of someone; the saving faith that makes he who had previously been dead in his sins now alive in Jesus Christ. No, you can’t see it with your eyes, but it is nevertheless absolutely real.
It is real because in that first resurrection—what we often call “conversion”—Christ gives us something priceless beyond compare: the forgiveness of sins. Catch that in your mind for a minute: Holy, righteous, God—so holy that even the minutest infraction of His rules is a monumental offense to Him—this holy, righteous God looks down upon Christ, He looks down upon the cross, and then He looks at you and sees that Christ has put His mark upon you. Christ has called you by His own name . . . and the holy, righteous God reaches up, takes down the register that holds all the accounts of all the people of all time, finds your name . . . and marks “paid in full.” In and through Jesus Christ, you have been given the first resurrection: being brought from spiritual death into spiritual life.
And you want to know the good part? You want to know the really good part? The second death can’t touch the people of the first resurrection. It can’t touch them! Everything that the second death is—the eternal darkness of separation from God—is countered and conquered by the first resurrection! When you believe in Jesus Christ in this life, what happens to you in the next life is absolutely secure. You won’t ever need to fear the second death of Hell if you’ve been given the first resurrection in Christ.
This is what John means by the second death and the first resurrection. The second death is eternal damnation: it is torment; it is asking . . . it is Hell. But the first resurrection is belief, contentment, and answers that all find their fulfillment in eternal life in Jesus Christ. Eternal life that begins right now . . . right now in the moment that Christ shines His light into your life.

The Darkness and the Dawn, part 3: A Little Light in a Dark World

2007-04-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

The apostle Paul once said in Philippians 4:12, “12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.” And oh brother . . . isn’t that true! You and I both know what it’s like to have a wallet full of cash, and then other times we don’t even two nickels to rub together. I know that I’ve talked about it before, but the best example I can think of this in our lives was when we were at seminary.
During our time at seminary I didn’t have anything that could reasonably be called a “job.” Without a job, of course, there’s no such thing as a steady paycheck, right? So the single-most comforting thing that modern man knows—the knowledge that payday was only a few days away—was something that we didn’t know for three years. It was a time that could have been very, very dark indeed.
But strangely enough, those years without any discernible source of income were, in fact, filled with light and hope. And the simple reason is this: God’s people provided for us. Every moment we lived, we lived on the charity of others. And while that was a very humbling thing, it was also something that personally taught me a deep truth: God works through people to provide for people.
But soon we began to look around, and at a place where we were all in the same boat it didn’t take long to find someone who needed a bit of help. And so even as we continued to receive gifts from God’s people, we also began to take a portion of God’s gift to us and use it as His gift to others. And while it was certainly always a joy to give thanks to God when we received a gift from one of His people, it was an even greater joy to realize that we could share those gifts with our fellow seminarians. We had the most fun sneaking around at night, dropping a little envelop or a gift card on someone’s doorstep or their car window . . . and then we’d ring the doorbell and run away! And then sure enough, some time later our friends might relate how they had received an anonymous gift, and we’d rejoice together at how God had brought light and hope into our lives through His people.
Who are the people you know that live in the darkness of need? There’s a place on your interactive sermon sheet for you to make a list; a list of people that you know, that you can think of, that have some need in their lives that they cannot fill on their own. They have a darkness, but no light to dispel it. Think about those people: are they your neighbors? Are they your family? Are they people you hear about on the news? (The people involved with the terrible shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech come to mind.) Think about those people—your neighbors, your family, others you may not know personally but still know of a need—and then write their names down on your interactive sermon sheet.
What can you do about their darkness? They might have some significant—maybe even overwhelming—needs . . . how can you help? For that matter, where in the heck do you even get started?

Luke 10:25-29, “25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" 27 He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" 28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"”
Now you all know the story that follows that discussion. The man wants to know who his neighbor is. Just who is the one he’s supposed to love as himself? Into whose life, exactly, is he supposed to bring a little light?
Despite the fact that the expert in the Law doesn’t really care about who his neighbor is—he’s really just trying to see how strong Jesus’ theological muscles are—nevertheless Jesus is going to give him a lesson he won’t soon forget.
The story Jesus tells is about a poor traveler who is ambushed by the side of the road. He is beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Two people pass by the man, they see his obvious need, but for some reason choose to pass by without offering even the slightest bit of help.
But a third man comes by, and he takes action. Watch what he does: Luke 10:33-35, “33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'”
There are three things I want you to notice about how the Samaritan brought some light into this poor traveler’s darkness. 1) He got emotionally involved. 2) He got personally involved. 3) He got financially involved.
1) The Samaritan got emotionally involved. Verse thirty-three tells us that when he saw this poor, beaten, and bloody man he took pity on him. This is the first level of involvement. It’s a good first step. It’s necessary. Unless you first get emotionally involved, there is virtually no chance that you are going to get involved any further.
The problem is, of course, that it’s much easier to be desensitized. Sometimes we believe that it hurts too much to care. For instance, this past week, on two of the internet forums I participate in, someone brought up the tragedy at Virginia Tech. Thirty-three people . . . dead. Killed. In cold blood. The worst mass murder in the history of the United States. Thirty-three human beings . . . each life precious to God . . . each a life that Christ shed His blood for . . . each life somebody’s son . . . somebody’s daughter. And on both of these online discussions, do you know in what direction the conversation turned? Gun control. Talking about thirty lost lives was just too painful; it was too raw of an emotion, and so we turned very quickly to something clinical, to something sterile. But when the conversation changed, we lost something precious because we avoided getting emotionally involved.
To bring light into the darkness of need, we must first get emotionally involved . . . but we cannot leave it at that. The Samaritan then got personally involved. With his own hands, he poured soothing oil on the man’s wounds. He disinfected the festering wounds with wine. He bent down, gently lifted the man up, and placed him on his donkey. These are not the marks of a clinical detachment, but a personal involvement. His true emotional involvement led him to personal acts of service. Because he cared, the Samaritan was willing to roll up his own sleeves and get his own hands dirty.
Thirdly, the Samaritan got financially involved. After making sure the traveler was comfortable and well cared for, he pays for the man’s stay in the inn where he would leave him. Two silver coins were certainly enough to pay for several days’ stay. But not only that, he tells the innkeeper to keep a tab for him . . . he’ll pay for whatever needs the man might have as he recovers. In effect, he leaves a blank check, he leaves his credit card and says, “Whatever he needs, it’s on me.” That is some serious financial involvement.
In order to bring some much-needed light into the darkness of the poor traveler’s life, the Samaritan got emotionally involved, he got personally involved, and he got financially involved. And what does Jesus say to me? To you? “Go and do likewise.”
“Go and do likewise!” That means you! Go, get emotionally involved! Risk some heartache! Stay sensitive to the needs of others! Get personally involved! Roll your sleeves up and get into the trenches! That’s where you’re needed! Get financially involved! Open up those wallets and purses and spread some light into the lives of someone who needs it!
Where can you “go and do likewise”? Well, obviously one way is through assisting the ministry of Compassion International. That’s what Everett Swanson did.
Everett Swanson was an evangelist during the Korean War. At one point he was on a preaching tour of Japan and Korea, and he shared the gospel with thousands of our troops.
But one frigid winter as he walked through the city of Seoul, he encountered something that would change his life forever. As Everett walked along one morning, he noticed some garbage collectors on a flatbed truck. Every few blocks the truck would stop and the sanitation workers would climb from the cab and head into the gutters and doorways and alleys, scoop up some piles of rags and trash, and throw it onto the back of the truck.
Strangely enough, however, the workers would kick each pile of rags before they picked it up. Everett thought, “Well, that makes sense . . . there’s a lot of rats in the city. I’d want to make sure I wasn’t picking up a rat, myself.” But as a worker approached a pile near him, Everett noticed a small arm protruding from the bottom of the pile. It was a child’s arm . . . no doubt one of the many children who lived on the streets, huddling together for warmth and begging for coins to stay alive. The child must have slept under the rags to keep warm.
Everett didn’t want the garbage man to kick the child by accident, so he began to run towards the man to stop him . . . and then his eyes were opened. He drew up alongside the “garbage” truck and saw what it was truly filled with. They weren’t bundles of rags . . . they were children dressed in rags. The street children who had frozen to death in the night . . . they were piled on the truck like garbage. The street children who had survived another night of the frigid Korean winter would be woken up by the kicks of the garbage men and rise to face another day of hunger, cold . . . and darkness.
I’m not sure which group of children was luckier.
But I do know this: Everett Swanson got emotionally involved. His heart broke for the poor kids on the streets. Everett Swanson got financially involved, setting aside a portion of his own monthly income to help those children. And Everett Swanson came back home to the United States and got personally involved, slowly building a ministry called Compassion International where more and more people caught the vision to “go and do likewise.”
Compassion International is an excellent way to bring light into the dark lives of others! But you need to realize that there is no limit to the number of places you can bring light. Who is your neighbor? Wherever you see the darkness of need, you see your neighbor. Your neighbor is the one who lives in the darkness of need . . . a darkness that God has given you a light to banish.
But wait . . . wait just a minute. The entire premise of this sermon series is how the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ serves as the model and basis for our daily lives. Where is He in all of this?
I think the answer has been right in front of us all along. I wonder if the story of the Good Samaritan is perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . Jesus telling us something about how He brings light and hope to us.
Getting emotionally involved . . . getting personally involved . . . getting financially involved . . . isn’t this exactly what Christ did for you?
Has there ever been a darkness in your life that Christ did not bring light into? When you’ve preferred to isolate yourself and shield your heart from the pain of getting emotionally involved, Jesus Christ nevertheless loved you with an unbridled love that is cosmic in scale and scope. When you’ve turned away from a need and failed to get personally involved, He’s the one who got down and dirty and became a human being, living among us. God Himself getting His hands dirty . . . for you.
And when we’ve balked at taking that last step, when we decided we’d rather keep our money for ourselves, Jesus Christ is the one who paid the full price for our redemption. He got financially involved by paying for your sins . . . buying you with His own precious blood. One drop of that blood is worth more than a world full of diamonds . . . and yet He used that precious blood to buy you back from the sins that lead to death and bring you into eternal life.
When we’ve lived in darkness, Christ has brought us His light. And in so doing, He has changed our lives forever. That’s the kind of impact His light has.
And that light that Christ has brought us? That’s the same light we give to others. He uses us to bring His light to others. His work for us is accomplished, His work through us carries on as we get emotionally, personally, and financially involved in bringing light and hope into the dark, dark lives of people who desperately need Christ.
That’s where Christ fits in. He’s the one who got involved for us. He’s the one who got involved and brought us poor, desperate people out of the darkness and into the light.
That’s what Christ has done for you. Look at your list from earlier . . . look at those people who live in darkness. Remember what Christ has done for you . . . what He has given you. Now in Him . . . you go and do likewise.

The Darkness and the Dawn, part 2: Life Together

2007-04-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

There’s no secret that life together can be difficult at times. As we live out our lives we will encounter difficulties in relationships, whether we like it or not. I mean, the last time I checked there was no “Earth: love it or leave it” clause. If we live on Earth, we will be forced to interact with difficult people, and we will encounter difficult relationships.
Now just a quick word on the word “relationship.” When I say that word, I tend to think of something along the lines of “committed relationship.” And while the word certainly does mean that at times—it certainly can mean a romantic or family relationship”—it frankly has a much broader meaning. Quite honestly, you have some sort of relationship with every single person you meet. Some relationships are by nature very close, very intimate. There’s a high degree of emotional investment. This is your inner circle—your family, your friends. Other relationships are casual, with very little emotions involved. Still others are almost completely business-oriented, with nothing more than a transaction forming the basis for the relationship.
Of the three types, the one that causes the greatest joy is the one where there is the closest bond. But oddly enough, when that relationship is bad—when it is a relationship of “darkness”—then that same relationship has the potential to also give the greatest grief.
The reason for that extreme grief is because it is a relationship that is functioning in direct opposite to God’s ideal for our relationships. God’s ideal for relationships is based upon love. Not just any love . . . but His kind of love. The Apostle John says as much in 1 John 4:7 when he says, “7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.”
God’s kind of love is not just a lovey-dovey feeling . . . but real love. Love that is typified by Paul’s list from our epistle reading for today: Love that is patient. Love that is kind. Love that doesn’t envy or boast. Love that doesn’t get angry easily. Love that is not rude, not self-seeking. Love that rejoices with the truth. This is a love that always has the other’s best in mind. This is the love that God wants to govern our relationships.
But when we get away from that ideal of a self-giving love, we encounter what I’m going to call “darkness” relationships. These are controlled by anything other than true love. They are relationships:
· that hurt.
· Where trust is broken.
· Where confidence is betrayed.
· Where slander is made. Character assassination.
· Where opposition is always felt. Not a healthy check and balance, but opposition for the sake of opposition.
· Where love is conditional.
· Where the desire to dominate and control outweighs the desire to give and build up.
· Where there is abuse—physical, emotional, or spiritual.
· Where there is neglect.
· Where I find myself doing any of these things.

Even if I didn’t know you at all, I could be 100% sure that you have been in darkness relationships from time to time. We’ve all been in these relationships, where we have to deal with very, very difficult people. Is there anything in the Bible that can give us guidance for difficulties in relationships?
Let’s take a look at two Godly men. Paul and Barnabas are real heroes of the book of Acts. They traveled together extensively, preaching the Gospel wherever they went. Together the converted Pharisee and the “Son of Encouragement” were a force to be reckoned with. They were partners in God’s mission: sold out for the Gospel, absolutely committed to spreading the name of Jesus Christ . . . and still at one point their relationship suffered a bitter argument.
Acts 15:36-41 “36 Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, "Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing."” Now this is a great thing! Paul wants to go back and encourage the Christians that they had worked among throughout the countryside. It’s a great plan . . . until . . . “37 Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38 but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. 39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. 41 He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.”
The “Mark” in question is a former companion of Paul and Barnabas. He had traveled with them, served with them, preached with them . . . but at one point he had had enough of the life of a traveling missionary and deserted them, leaving them and leaving unfinished work. What happened when they were making preparations for their next missionary journey? Paul and Barnabas—two heroes of the faith, two Godly men who had the full support and trust of the church—they had such a heated argument that their relationship fractured. They split up and went their separate ways.
What can we learn from that? Let’s take Paul’s side for a minute. The best lesson that we can learn from Paul is the lesson of saying, “No.” He said, “No.” Paul felt that he had learned his lesson with Mark. Fool me once, shame on you . . . fool me twice, shame on me. And so he said, “No.” “No, Mark . . . you betrayed me once, and I won’t let you do it again. No, Mark, you broke trust with me once, and I won’t let you do it again. No, Mark . . . you hurt me once, and I won’t let you do it again.”
This may seem odd. I mean, isn’t a Christian supposed to forgive and forget? Shouldn’t Paul have extended grace to Mark and said, “No matter what you’ve done in the past, I’ll still let you back into my life. C’mon on board!”
Well . . . no. No, he shouldn’t have. Paul understands a profound truth: that sometimes true love says, “No.” Imagine what was at stake when Mark left. The team was down one person, and so they all suffered. They often had to work to support themselves. With Mark gone, Paul and Barnabas would have to work harder to make enough money just to eat, which would leave less time for preaching the Gospel. Not only that, but he put the mission itself in jeopardy by setting a bad example for the new believers. When Mark left he modeled the very opposite of the one thing that they were really trying to instill in the people that they were reaching: a full commitment of following Christ at all times. Mark had abandoned the cause once before, he had put the mission itself in danger, and he had risked the tender, young faith of the new believers. So Paul’s love for Christ, for the believers, and even for Mark demanded that he say, “No.”
This is a hard lesson for some of you! But you’re not alone; my wife tells me that this is my problem, as well! We think that modeling Christian love means that we will say “Yes” at all times! We’ve become Yes-aholics! Always giving, always trusting . . . and yet always having our trust broken time and time again.
Is this the way God loves? Does He always say “Yes”? In the movie Bruce Almighty God gives Jim Carey all of His powers for a week . . . but He also gives Jim His responsibilities, as well. And in one very funny scene, all the prayers that Jim has been ignoring overwhelm him. He can’t stand all the voices in his head, and so he uses his new God powers to create a computer that answers “prayer-mail” and figures that he’ll make everyone perfectly happy by programming the computer to automatically answer “Yes” to every prayer!
Do you know what happens? Sure, some people are happy for a while, like the lady who lost 40 pounds on the Krispy Kreme diet, but the end effect is utter chaos. Two million people win the lottery . . . but they only get a payout of a dollar each, so in their anger they riot in the streets. The long-shot local hockey team miraculously wins the Stanley Cup . . . and the fans celebrate by rioting in the streets. The city is torn apart . . . all because “God” answered “Yes” to every prayer, granting people what they selfishly wanted instead of what they truly needed.
In our relationships we must love like God does, and that means knowing when to say, “No.” “No . . . I won’t let you hurt me anymore. No . . . I won’t let you hurt them anymore. No . . . I won’t let you hurt yourself anymore.” True love means that we must learn to say, “No” to darkness relationships.
Saying “No” is sometimes an expression of true love. This is what Paul understood. But what about Barnabas? What can we learn from him?
Barnabas is a nickname. It literally means “Son of Encouragement.” This is the life that Barnabas modeled; he was an encourager.
The encourager saw a young man who had made a mistake. But rather than turn his back on Mark for all time, he allowed Mark the chance to prove that he could be trusted again. He offered Mark a second chance, and worked with Mark to help him become the man God knew he could be.
Second chances are also a show of true love, but they cannot be second chances with no limits. I’m quite sure that Mark had complete and free reign to do whatever he wanted to do. Barnabas must have watched over Mark very closely, I’m sure that he was very careful in helping Mark to build up the trust that he had broken.
This is also God’s way of loving us. God gives us each gifts and watches how we use them. To the one who proves faithful, God gives more, because that person has earned more trust. Luke 12:48, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” When we mess up and sin, God forgives us completely . . . but neither will He immediately give us the trust that we had broken with Him. Instead, He watches and waits and helps us to build trust once again before He gives us more.
The key to a second chance in a darkness relationship is learning to say “yes” and “no” at the same time. “Yes, you are allowed back into my life, but no . . . I’m not going to give you the knife to stab me in the back.” Good second chances aren’t blind trust. Instead, they involve deliberate, planned opportunities to build trust, they foster moments to turn a darkness relationship into a good one.
In darkness relationships you need to be able to say both “yes” and “no”. There’s a time and a place for both. Unfortunately, it can be difficult sometimes to understand which one to say. But if you learn to do it properly, you will see your relationships transformed from the darkness of hurt and broken trust into the light of safe relationships with trustworthy people, where love is constant and unconditional . . . where there repentance over wrong and there is genuine care.

But one more thing before we go. No matter what else you’ve learned about yourself and relating to others, you must know this: No matter where your relationships are, you cannot try and find ultimate fulfillment in them. Every relationship you have will always fall short of being perfectly ideal . . . every relationship except one.
The first and primary and the only true “light” relationship is a relationship with Christ. In Him alone do we find true love, find true acceptance, find genuine relationship. Christ’s love for you is unconditional. A relationship with Him is the only relationship where we will never be disappointed, because in Him alone do we find what we truly need: forgiveness for our sins and reconciliation with God. And in Him, the strength of His relationship with us strengthens our other relationships, as well.

The Darkness and the Dawn, part 1: Dying and Rising

2007-04-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

He is risen! (He is risen indeed, alleluia!)

What time did you get up this morning? Was it still dark? When I got up it was dark, and it made me think. Now, it’s not that I have a problem with darkness, exactly—my problem is more with mornings in general—but I got to thinking about what the darkness symbolized. The last time we were in this church was on Good Friday. As that service came to a close we read Christ’s final words from the cross, and the room got darker and darker, until finally all the lights were out and the absolute darkness became a visible reminder of a spiritual reality: Jesus Christ died for our sins.
But now we’re not sitting in darkness! The place is well lit, the mood is festive. We have light both in the building and in our hearts . . . why? Because while the darkness of Good Friday represents dying, the light of Easter morning reminds us that Christ has risen victorious from the dead! He is Risen!
This theme of darkness and dawn, of dying and rising, is played out in our lives all the time. For instance, just imagine the women going to the tomb on that first Easter morning. It’s been said that it’s always darkest before the dawn, and that is nowhere truer than in the hearts of the women that morning. They thought they had found their answers in Jesus, but now He was laying in a tomb. With His crucifixion they had lost all hope. No Messiah, no teacher . . . no savior. It’s dark outside, sure enough, but it’s darker in their souls.
But then as the sun begins to rise, with its first rays spilling over the hillside, they see a strange sight. The stone in front of the tomb appears to be rolled away! And as they get nearer and nearer, the light from the sun and in their souls increases more and more until it explodes forth with the announcement that the One for whom they are looking is no longer among the dead! The light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has dispelled all darkness in their souls, and they once again know what it means to hope!
Do you know what I’m talking about? Have you been there, in the darkest part of the night, with no hope left and no options in sight, only to have the light of Jesus Christ break in and give light to your tired soul?
If you’ve been there in the darkness of death before, or even if you’re there right now, then this message is for you. In fact, the next six weeks will be filled with messages just for you. Because beginning today and for almost all of the season of Easter, we’re going to talk about dying and rising. Not just in a literal sense—as in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—but in a figurative sense, as well.
We’ve all lived through period of darkness, when a dark, death-like shroud threatens to envelop us. We’ve been in relationships where the darkness of bad or hurtful interpersonal conflicts blots out the light. Do you want to know how God’s Word addresses that darkness and gives us real answers, real light? Then this series is for you. We’ve been in tough financial spots where a mountain of debt and poor choices have overshadowed the light of Jesus Christ in our lives. We’ll address those issues, too. Over the next few weeks we’ll look at how God’s Word addresses issues such as the darkness of self-centered living, how to bring light into the dark lives of others through acts of service, and we’ll even tackle the ultimate darkness of death itself.
Throughout the entire sermon series there’s just two things we need to know right now. 1) Darkness happens to all of us. We all go through periods of darkness in our lives. You are not alone in your darkness. And 2) God’s word addresses those periods of darkness. It brings the light of Christ into those dark times, allowing the dawn to break in and raise us up from the dead. God’s Word brings us light . . . and it brings us hope.
God wants to help us through those periods of darkness in our lives. That’s why we’re going to spend the next few weeks of this Easter season getting real practical. We’re going to look at these different areas of difficulty that we face living in the 21st century and watch what happens as God’s light breaks into those situations. During this sermon series you can expect to be challenged, and you can expect to be changed. You can expect the light of Christ and His resurrection to carry you into the light and out of the darkness. But before we get into all those different areas we first need to lay the groundwork. Today’s sermon is a foundational sermon to the whole series, so listen up closely. I’m going to show how Christ and His resurrection lays the groundwork for a fruitful life not only in eternity, but right here and now, as well. “Dying and Rising” becomes a paradigm for living out your life in Christ. It becomes a model for your daily life. Are you ready? Then let’s turn to God’s Word and hear what He has to say to us about the darkness and the dawn, about dying and rising.
Let’s begin with Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” Now that’s an odd thing to say, isn’t it? Can you imagine a street evangelist telling you that if your hope in Christ is only for this life, then you don’t really have any hope at all? I mean, as far as salesmanship goes, Paul doesn’t really have much of a sales pitch, here, does he?
But Paul’s not trying to be a salesman, he’s trying to tell us the truth. And the truth is that if Jesus Christ is only for this life then we must still fear death. If the mission of Jesus Christ was only to give us a triumphant life in the here and now, then our eternity is still in question.
Paul had a great life, one that many people wanted. In his letter to the Philippians he details how he had reached the very pinnacle that an outwardly religious life could obtain. He had power, he had influence. He was more religious than you or I or any of us put together, and in his religiosity he had every confidence that his life in the here and now would earn him solid rewards in eternity.
But religiosity—even one as hardcore as Paul’s—didn’t do anything to dispel the darkness that he lived in, except Paul didn’t know that. But when Christ’s light broke in, he realized the darkness that had surrounded him. His so-called “life”—the life that he thought was so great and wonderful—was a dead end.
Paul’s wonderful, religious life wasn’t getting him anywhere. In retrospect he would later call that life “rubbish.” He realized that all of his religious accomplishments and his wonderful “life” were nothing more than . . . well, in the Greek you get the idea that it was nothing more than the stuff you don’t want to step in out in the cow pasture. Life without Christ was crap . . . and then he realized that that even life with a dead Christ—a life without any hope of a resurrection—that was crap, as well. And he realized that if that was true he was to be pitied more than all men.
It’s not as though Christ’s death didn’t count for something; it did! It counted a lot! But Paul recognizes the fact that the darkness of Good Friday must be complemented by the dawn of Easter morning! Christ’s dying offers us the forgiveness for our sinful ways in this life, but His rising paves the way for our eternity! Without Christ’s resurrection, without both His dying and rising, then we still must fear death! We still must fear what will happen to us in eternity! But because Christ was crucified and is risen, we who trust in Him know that even though we will one day follow Him into death we will also be like Him in His resurrection! The power of Christ’s resurrection gives us hope for eternity because it gives us the certain hope of conquering even death.
In Christ you can have eternal life, a life that lives beyond the grave. But does that mean that His dying and rising has no value for you now? Certainly not! And the reason is this: because your eternity steers how you live currently. Christ’s dying and rising becomes a paradigm, a model for your daily living.
In the situations you face every day, you often need to have a “dying” moment. Christ was put to death for your sins, and so we follow Him by putting our sins to death on a daily basis through repentance and His forgiveness. There is a part of you that needs to die every day; the sinful, selfish part. The part that doesn’t live in the fullness of life that God wants you to live.
These dying moments . . . they occur whenever you feel crushed, unable to continue. When you don’t know where to turn anymore, or when you feel convicted. These are all God’s indicators that it’s time for you to do a little dying.
If you’ve had to live through a death, then you already know that watching another die is a painful experience. And yes . . . it’s the same when we put our sinful nature to death, as well. It’s often difficult . . . often painful to put a portion of ourselves to death. But these “dying moments” are absolutely necessary in order to rise again. And just like Christ, when you understand the new life that God will be able to bring about afterward your “death”, you will gladly endure the pain of these “dying moments” Because when we follow Christ, resurrection always follows a death.
Your “resurrection,” then, comes from God when you leave behind your sinful, broken ways and are raised up to follow Him in healthy, Godly living. Your daily dying means you are still held prisoner to sin, but your daily resurrection means that that you are freed from the bondage of sin and freed to a new life in Christ! You have a resurrection moment every time you realize that there is hope, that God still cares for you, that God still loves you and has a useful purpose for you.

Have you had enough of living a life that is unsatisfying? Have you had enough of living a life that’s stuck in a rut; that just spins its wheels and doesn’t go anywhere? Have you had enough of living a life that, frankly, just needs to die off? Then stick around for the next few weeks. Learn how Christ’s dying and rising can become a model for your life. Learn how to live in the power of His resurrection. Learn how to leave the darkness of sin and rise to new life in the dawn of Christ’s resurrection.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake

2007-04-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

At first glance, I want to say that this passage applies more perfectly to Jesus Christ than to any other. Was our Lord not perfect? Was He not truly righteous? Is it not true that Jesus Christ was crucified, died, and was buried on account of His righteousness? Was He not alone truly persecuted for the sake of righteousness?
No . . . no He was not. Jesus Christ was persecuted, was put to death, for sin. And yet it was not His sin that caused Him to suffer, but mine.
On any other day in the church year I can hold up the cross as a sign of God’s power. Look at the cross where Christ triumphed! Look at the cross where He laid His life down! See how much Christ loved me! Mighty is the power of the cross!
But today, on Good Friday, I am confronted with the awful reality that it was my shortcomings, my failures, my sin that killed the truest friend I will ever have. On any other day I can rail against the corrupt system of the Pharisees and the political machine of the Jewish ruling council that condemned an innocent man to die. But today . . . today I am reminded that my King, my Lord, my friend was crucified because I could not make the cut.
Surely he took up my infirmities and carried my sorrows, yet I considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for my transgressions, he was crushed for my iniquities. The Lord of Heaven and Earth hangs, broken and bleeding, from a cross that should have been mine . . . and I am ashamed to see what my sin has wrought.
It wasn’t Adam and Eve who rebelled against God’s command and ate the fruit . . . but me. It wasn’t the Israelites who bowed the knee to Baal and served false gods . . . but me. It was me who denied Him three times in the courtyard, and it was me who mocked and laughed as I drove the nails into His hands. It was not Christ who was guilty . . . but me.
Why then, did He have to suffer? Why? It should have been me hanging from that cross! It should have been me dying that shameful death! It should have been me!
But it wasn’t.
Christ suffered the wrath of God, He took my place on the cross. He who was holy and righteous became sin . . . for me. Why? Because He loved me. “How much do you love me?”, I asked. “This much”, He said . . . and He stretched out His arms and died.
This is the way of Christ. This is the way of the cross . . . to suffer when no wrong had been committed. To suffer for the sake of another. This is the way of Christ . . . and so it is the way of all who would follow Him. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Our Lord says in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” We are Christ-followers. We are called to go where He goes. When Christ calls you to follow Him, He bids you come and die.
This is the meaning of this Beatitude! Where Christ first goes, so go His disciples. Where Christ leads, so go His followers. As He was persecuted for our sake, so we must also be persecuted for His. The way of Christ is the way of the cross, and so it is our way, as well.
Wouldn’t it be so much nicer if we could just believe what some of the TV preachers tell us? If we could believe the lie that if we are in Christ we will all be healthy and wealthy? Wouldn’t life be so much nicer if we could simply turn from the cross, turn from suffering and live what some call the “triumphant Christian life”, where we have all we want, where riches are our guarantee of God’s blessings, and where a life free from hardship is a guarantee of God’s presence among us?
But that is not the way of the cross. Scholar Jeff Gibbs points out this truth: that the final two Beatitudes prevent Jesus’ disciples—both then and now—from adopting any such triumphalistic nonsense. Where Christ reigns, we reign with Him . . . but Christ reigns not from a golden throne, but from a cross.
And so we suffer. Certainly we suffer in this world for our own wickedness and sinful actions, but that’s not what Jesus is talking about. There is no blessedness in being persecuted for our own evil, to be jailed for our own actions. But when we suffer the sake and name of Jesus Christ, we . . . are . . . blessed.
You are blessed when you are persecuted because of righteousness. You are blessed when people insult you because you hold the name of Jesus dear. You are blessed when people lie about you because they can find no fault with you otherwise. You are blessed when they create all sorts of evil and slander your name because they are offended by your humble and authentic walk with your Savior.
You are blessed because they are treating you the same way they treated Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 4:16, “However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.” You bear the name of Christ, and you walk in the way of the cross.

This cross is the way of Christ. On this cross He was put to death. He was persecuted and suffered for the sake of another . . . you. This is His way. It is the way He has chosen. Because He loves you. Because there was no other way that He could redeem you from the judgment that your sins demanded. Because He would rather go through Hell than to go to Heaven without you. This cross . . . all for you.
This cross is His way. I won’t kid you: it is no small thing to follow Him in His way. The cross cost our Lord everything . . . so too it may cost us everything. It is no small thing to follow Him, to deny yourself, take up your cross, and be persecuted for the sake of His righteousness. It is no small thing to do that . . . but you are blessed when you do, for in so doing you are called a child of God.

This cross is the way of Christ. It is His way . . . it is our way.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

2007-04-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

I’ve often had to be a peacemaker in my life. There are times when I’ve had to step in between two people who were shouting at each other and say, “Now that’s enough!” Two people that were toe to toe, faces red, veins sticking out, tempers running hot . . . and I had to step in and guide them into a peaceful resolution. It’s not always easy being a peacemaker, but sometimes it’s necessary.
But what is a peacemaker, according to Jesus? Do Jesus mean to tell us that someone who “keeps the peace” in a family by smoothing over those little differences is a blessed thing to be? Or does He have in mind our troops in Iraq who are striving to create and keep a delicate balance of peace in a war-torn region?
In order to understand what Jesus means by being “peacemakers” we can turn to Matthew chapter ten. There Jesus is sending out his twelve disciples on a journey, and He tells them in Matthew 10:11-13, “11 "Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. 12 As you enter the home, give it your greeting. 13 If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you.”
“Let your peace rest upon that house” . . . that says something about what Jesus considers to be in the task of peacemaking. For the disciples were not just on any journey, but specifically a missionary journey. According to Matthew 10:7, they were to preach this message: “The kingdom of heaven is near.”
Jesus equates bringing peace to a household with proclaiming the message of the Gospel’s nearness. For Jesus, peace—true peace—is first and foremost a matter of having peace with God through Him. “Peacemakers” bring people peace with God through Jesus Christ.
Do you believe that? Better yet . . . does Jesus Christ bring real peace? You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker “Know (k-n-o-w) Jesus, know peace. No (n-o) Jesus, no peace.” And if you’ve seen one of those bumper stickers, odds are you’ve also seen someone driving that car who was screaming their head off trying to get the best parking spot at the mall. “Know Jesus, know peace”? You who know Jesus . . . are you always models of perfect peace? Or do you feel like you lack peace—that sort of tranquil feeling of inner serenity?
Does Jesus bring real peace?
Peace can be like reading a book. Life without Christ would be like me handing you a book and ripping out the final chapter . . . you’d read the whole thing KNOWING that you wouldn’t have all the answers when you were done . . . that would be very frustrating! But life with Christ is like handing you the final chapter, having you read it, and then giving you the rest of the book. No matter what happens in the middle of the book—bad, good, tragedy, beauty—you know how the story ends up. You can relax, you can have peace, because you know the end of the story. The peace of Christ is in knowing that no matter what happens in this life, your eternal destiny is secure in Him. That’s peace.
Peace can be like a map. Who can be peaceful when they are lost? It’s frightening, tense. But when you have a map, you can readily discern where you are, where you are going, and how to get there. Just having that map brings you peace, because you can find the way if you happen to get lost. And when you are lost, pulling out that map brings a lot of peace. Christ is like that, as well, because He shows us the way to the Father. When we get lost, He is there to steer us back on to the correct course. The peace of Christ is in knowing that we can never be lost with Him at our side, even if we do wander off the path for a while.
But more than that, Jesus Christ brings us peace not just by knowing the end, not just by knowing the way, but by reminding us that He knows the end and is carrying us toward it. Jesus Christ brings us peace, He gives us peace. In this Sacrament of bread and wine we have peace because we are reminded that God, in Christ, is favorably disposed towards us. We’re not His enemies, but His beloved children. The knowledge of who we ARE, right now, also brings us peace. That’s not like reading a book, it’s not like having a map . . . but it’s peace from knowing our identity in Jesus Christ.
The peace of Jesus Christ is a real peace, because it is a peace with God. It’s not something we always feel, but it’s something that we always have in Christ.
Peace-makers, then, are blessed because they bring the real, genuine peace of Jesus Christ to people wracked by the terrors of their conscience. Peacemakers are blessed because they bring the peace of Jesus Christ to people afflicted with guilt.
When your friends and family are poor in spirit, when they mourn, when they hunger and thirst for righteousness and they feel the impurities in their hearts, you have not only the duty, but the blessed privilege of being a peacemaker for them. You become God’s chosen instrument to bring the peace they long for into their lives.
Isaiah 52:7, “7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"” How wonderful is the news that Jesus Christ can be Savior to those you know and love! How great . . . how good . . . is the peace that God brings when you say to a struggling sinner, “Jesus Christ forgives you all your sins.” Peacemaking is something you do when you offer Jesus Christ to someone who needs Him.

Tonight you will come and receive God’s peace through the wonder of the very body and blood of Jesus Christ being present in, with, and under the bread and the wine. You will receive God’s peace through this Sacrament and receive the forgiveness of your sins. Isaiah 53:5, “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.”
And after you receive God’s peace in this Sacrament, Jesus Christ asks that you remember what it was once like to live as an enemy of God. Remember what it was like to have no peace because you did not know Jesus. See yourself in the lives of the people you know . . . the people you meet. And then become God’s blessed peacemaker for them.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

The Sunday of the Passion

2007-04-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

(The sermon for this Sunday was a reading of the full Passion narrative, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. What follows below is the text from the New International Version.)

Luke 22:1 - 23:56

Luke 22:1 Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was approaching, 2 and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. 3 Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. 4 And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. 5 They were delighted and agreed to give him money. 6 He consented, and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present. 7 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover." 9 "Where do you want us to prepare for it?" they asked. 10 He replied, "As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, 11 and say to the owner of the house, 'The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' 12 He will show you a large upper room, all furnished. Make preparations there." 13 They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. 14 When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15 And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God." 17 After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. 18 For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." 19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." 20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. 21 But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. 22 The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him." 23 They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this. 24 Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. 25 Jesus said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. 26 But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. 28 You are those who have stood by me in my trials. 29 And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, 30 so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 31 "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." 33 But he replied, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death." 34 Jesus answered, "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me." 35 Then Jesus asked them, "When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?" "Nothing," they answered. 36 He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. 37 It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment." 38 The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords." "That is enough," he replied. 39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation." 41 He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. 45 When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 46 "Why are you sleeping?" he asked them. "Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." 47 While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, 48 but Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" 49 When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?" 50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered, "No more of this!" And he touched the man's ear and healed him. 52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? 53 Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour-- when darkness reigns." 54 Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. 55 But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. 56 A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, "This man was with him." 57 But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," he said. 58 A little later someone else saw him and said, "You also are one of them." "Man, I am not!" Peter replied. 59 About an hour later another asserted, "Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean." 60 Peter replied, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about!" Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times." 62 And he went outside and wept bitterly. 63 The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. 64 They blindfolded him and demanded, "Prophesy! Who hit you?" 65 And they said many other insulting things to him. 66 At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. 67 "If you are the Christ," they said, "tell us." Jesus answered, "If I tell you, you will not believe me, 68 and if I asked you, you would not answer. 69 But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God." 70 They all asked, "Are you then the Son of God?" He replied, "You are right in saying I am." 71 Then they said, "Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips." NIV Luke 23:1 Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. 2 And they began to accuse him, saying, "We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king." 3 So Pilate asked Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. 4 Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, "I find no basis for a charge against this man." 5 But they insisted, "He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here." 6 On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. 7 When he learned that Jesus was under Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time. 8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. 9 He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. 11 Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. 12 That day Herod and Pilate became friends-- before this they had been enemies. 13 Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers and the people, 14 and said to them, "You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. 15 Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us; as you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death. 16 Therefore, I will punish him and then release him." 17 18 With one voice they cried out, "Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!" 19 (Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.) 20 Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. 21 But they kept shouting, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" 22 For the third time he spoke to them: "Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore I will have him punished and then release him." 23 But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. 24 So Pilate decided to grant their demand. 25 He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Jesus to their will. 26 As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' 30 Then "'they will say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!"' 31 For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?" 32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals-- one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One." 36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself." 38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. 39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" 40 But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." 42 Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." 43 Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." 44 It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last. 47 The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, "Surely this was a righteous man." 48 When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. 49 But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things. 50 Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea and he was waiting for the kingdom of God. 52 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body. 53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. 54 It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. 55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

Road to Redemption: Leaving the Road

2007-03-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

The following message is based upon Luke 20:1-20, which reads:
"1 One day as he was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. 2 "Tell us by what authority you are doing these things," they said. "Who gave you this authority?" 3 He replied, "I will also ask you a question. Tell me, 4 John's baptism-- was it from heaven, or from men?" 5 They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Why didn't you believe him?' 6 But if we say, 'From men,' all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet." 7 So they answered, "We don't know where it was from." 8 Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things." 9 He went on to tell the people this parable: "A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. 10 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. 12 He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out. 13 "Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.' 14 "But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. 'This is the heir,' they said. 'Let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' 15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. "What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others." When the people heard this, they said, "May this never be!" 17 Jesus looked directly at them and asked, "Then what is the meaning of that which is written: "'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone'? 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed." 19 The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people. 20 Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor."

I recall a conversation I once had with a unbelieving friend at work. It was one of those times when, for some reason, the topic of discussion in the office had turned to spiritual matters. This friend of mine openly admitted that he was not convinced that Jesus Christ was important. I professed my belief in God’s Word that Jesus Christ was the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one could come to the Father apart from Him. I said that Jesus Christ was and is the only way to salvation.
The conversation became very pointed when, from across the room, my friend asked me straight out: “So, you’re telling me that if I died tonight, that I would go to Hell?” I still remember how my heart broke, how tears started to come into my eyes as I was forced to tell him the truth.
It’s not something I wanted to tell my friend. It would have been so much easier if I could have backed away and given him an easy lie. But I would have been guilty of playing games with his eternal soul. So I looked down for a second, gathering my thoughts and then looked right at him and said, “Yes, Joe . . . I am telling you that. You would go to Hell.”

For the last five Sundays—since February 25th—we have been on the road to redemption. We’ve walked along this road called Lent, walking alongside Jesus Christ as He heads towards Calvary. As we’ve walked with Him towards the cross, we’ve been witness to a series of scenes, a series of teachings. As Jesus has interacted with others along that road, He’s been able to give us glimpses in our own lives . . . He’s been able to reveal to us some of our own sinful attitudes . . . He’s revealed how He is not just the Savior, but our Savior. He’s shown how He redeems us from our sins.
It hasn’t always been easy to hear. Certainly it hasn’t always been easy to preach. Because we’ve dealt with some very serious issues in these sermons. Jesus has seen those times when we’ve given into temptation. Jesus has showed us times that we’ve been unwilling to hear His instruction, when we’ve despised the preaching of His Word. Jesus has shown us the times that we’ve been inclined to point out someone else’s sin . . . and He’s turned out attention away from them and held a mirror up in front of us. He’s convicted us of those times when we’ve refused to join in the celebration over a sinner who repents . . . those times when we’ve felt so self-righteous that we forgot there was always room for one more.
But in each of those times Jesus has been present and active in our lives. Not satisfied to leave us in our sin, He has taken our lives and redeemed them. For every time that He’s shown us where we’ve gone wrong and were burdened down by the heavy weight of sin, He’s shown us how He shoulders our burden, taking it away from us and nailing it to the cross so that we might have eternal life with Him. During this Lenten journey, He has truly shown us that He is our Savior.
I suppose that’s what makes today’s message so difficult. Despite the fact that our God is gracious, despite the fact that He is patient and long-suffering, despite the fact that Jesus is ready, willing, and able to save completely those who come to God through Him, there will nevertheless be those who turn away from His free offer of forgiveness and life. There will be those who choose to walk their own path and leave the road of redemption.
In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus is faced with a hard situation. The background for the story is in Luke chapter twenty verse one, where we find Him teaching in the Temple courts. He is approached by the religious leaders of the day, and they demand to know on whose authority He is teaching. They seem to feel that the Temple and its grounds are their sole domain, that they have authority over all that goes on there.
Jesus sidesteps the question, and instead proceeds to tell the people listening to him this parable: Luke 20:9-15, “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. 10 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. 12 He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out. 13 Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.' 14 "But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. 'This is the heir,' they said. 'Let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' 15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.”
Now to get the meaning of this parable you must understand that the story Jesus tells is an allegory of a true story. The story of the vineyard is really a story about the salvation history of Israel. Israel is the “vineyard” which God has planted. It is His vineyard, He owns it. And as His right as the landowner, He entrusts His property to certain tenants. Those tenants are the ones given the task of caring for the vineyard and ensuring that the vines will grow and produce rich fruit. They are to value the property as though it is their own while still acknowledging the true ownership of the landlord, God.
God sends His servants to collect some of the fruit of the vineyard. What kind of fruit does God look for in His vineyard, His people? __________________________ He looks for the fruit of repentance. He looks for the fruit of righteousness. He looks for the fruit of mercy. We could even perhaps say that the “fruit” God looks for is the addition of more people to His vineyard, the addition of more people to His Kingdom through the preaching of His grace.
But the tenants refuse to give God’s servants the fruit. Instead, they beat the servants and send them away. They reject the servants—those are the prophets of God—and in so doing reject His rightful claim on the fruit of His vineyard.
How does God respond to such harsh treatment? Does He call down wrath from Heaven and obliterate His precious vineyard? No . . . instead He sends another servant, another prophet, and another . . . and another . . . and another. And each prophet receives the same treatment. The very people who are entrusted with producing fruit according to God’s Word reject His prophets and reject His Word. Until finally, God sends His very own Son, thinking that perhaps they will finally listen to Him.
And instead of listening to the gracious words of the landowner’s own Son, the tenants eject Him from the vineyard, kill Him, and claim the property of God as their own. Can a man rob God? No . . . yet they reject His prophets, kill His Son, and claim the vineyard as their own. They have rejected God’s servants, rejected God’s Word, rejected God’s own Son . . . and have sealed their own fate.
Luke 20:15, “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?” What is the worst possible fate that could fall upon the tenants? They will receive the very treatment that they accorded the Son, “16 He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” And when the people heard this, they said, “May this never be!”
“May this never be!” How many times have you heard something like that? Maybe not those words exactly, but have you heard someone say, “God is a god of love . . . He could never condemn someone to Hell.” For some reason, there are people—from good church folks to the unchurched people on your street—who know one thing about God and one thing only: that He is a God of love. Are they correct? Yes . . . but they only have half of the story.
They know the half of the story that proclaims God as long-suffering and patient. They know the half of the story that tells about His great love for mankind. But they either forget or fail to understand the other half: while God is a god of love, He is also a God of judgment.
God’s mercy, God’s love . . . in fact all of the wonderful, pleasant qualities of God are revealed in Jesus Christ. But where Jesus Christ reveals God’s love, He also reveals God’s wrath. His anger. His condemning judgment.
The magnificent St. Louis arch is an architectural marvel. Over seventeen thousand tons of concrete and steel stand 630 feet high. And there the only thing that makes it possible to stand is the equal weight of both sides pressing against the centerpiece at the top. The entire weight of both sides of its massive structure press upon that one centerpiece—the capstone if you will—and without it the entire arch would collapse, crushing everyone inside and below.
Jesus invites us to think of an arch just like that. The wonderful, carrying force of God’s love presses against the crushing weight of His judgment, and Jesus Christ at the center balances the weight of both. You can’t have one side without the other: God’s arch must both have His mercy and His judgment, it must have Jesus Christ at the center, or else all of salvation collapses.
Jesus Christ is the capstone of salvation. And that means that His appearance draws a hard and fast line in the sand. In Him alone there is mercy, but to those who reject the Son and claim the vineyard of salvation as their own there is only judgment of the harshest kind: Luke 20:17-18, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”
Do you know someone who knows only about God’s love but doesn’t know anything about His judgment? Do you know someone who trusts in a vague sense of a loving God but doesn’t trust in Jesus Christ the capstone? What does God’s Word say will happen to them? They will be crushed. Condemned. For all eternity.
There is no getting around it. It’s sad. It’s tragic. But it’s true all the same. Without a faith and hope Jesus Christ the people we know will be crushed by the tremendous weight of God’s judgment. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Just for one minute, put yourself into the beginning of Jesus’ parable. Make yourself the tenant. God sends His servant to you requesting from fruit from His vineyard . . . what can you give Him?
Let me just suggest that you can give God the fruit of having told one more person about Jesus Christ. Every good vineyard owner wants healthy fruit . . . but he also wants more fruit. God is the same. He gets no joy from condemning sinners to be crushed by His judgment. God wants more and more fruit on the vine. He wants more and more people to come to know Him and the power of His resurrection. And He wants you—the tenants of His vineyard—to do the things that produce fruit. He is looking to you to care for others and tell them of the salvation that waits for them in Jesus Christ.
You already have His vineyard. You have been redeemed by Jesus Christ. You have had your sins forgiven through His cross. You walk with Christ on the road to redemption and in Him are in no danger of being crushed by the capstone. He doesn’t ask you to produce fruit for Him so that you can be saved . . . but so that others can.
And the only way that they can be saved is the same way that we are: by looking to Christ. By trusting that Christ the capstone can and does bear the weight of both God’s mercy and His judgment.

Road to Redemption: The Older Brother Syndrome

2007-03-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

I recall one point in my life where I knew a man who was opposed to just about everything I stood for. He didn’t like the church, he had little use for God’s Word, and he lived a life that reflected his rejection of Jesus Christ. When circumstances forced me to be with him for extended periods of time, it was uncomfortable, as we had so little in common.
As time went on, though, he eventually began to attend a church just down the street from his house. I have no idea why . . . I suppose that he began to feel the weight of sin that his lifestyle was causing in him. I suppose he wanted some answers. God knows he never listened to mine. But there he was anyway, in a church. I wondered if he’d get anything out of it.
And then one day something strange happened. He called me up and told me that he had gotten baptized. Baptized, of all things! Of all the things in the world that I expected, this was the last of them! And then he said to me, “I just thought you might like to know.”
Now at that exact moment in time, I had two choices before me: I could rejoice with him over what God had worked in his life . . . or I could scorn him for his lifestyle marking him as someone not worthy of being in the Kingdom of God.
Maybe you’ve been in a similar situation yourself. Before you deny it, think about this: Is there anyone who, if they showed up in church today, you would say to yourself, “Well, they don’t belong here.” You know the type: if they offered to shake your hand you’d be sure to check the other one first to make sure they didn’t have a knife to stab you in the back. “Oh . . . you mean that kind of person. Well that’s not the same, pastor, because you see . . . well, it’s just not the same.”
When we get into that mode of thinking, when we doubt that a person we know has a place in God’s Kingdom because of what they’ve done in the past, then we have fallen into the older brother syndrome.
Jesus tells three parables in Luke chapter fifteen that we all love to see ourselves in. He tells a parable about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. We all love to see ourselves as the lost sheep. We’ve wondered away from the fold, and Jesus Christ himself leaves behind the entire flock to look just for us, searching high and low until He finds us. We love to be the lost coin, where God searches and searches until He finds us. We like feeling that although we’re the prodigal son, God waits each and every day for us on His front porch. And when He finds us, He calls all of creation together and throws a party, saying, “Rejoice with me! For this poor sinner, this poor sheep, was dead and is now alive again. He was lost, but now has been found.” We love the notion that God searches and searches for us, and that’s certainly true and right and it’s a good thing . . . but that’s not really the point of the story.
Listen again to Luke’s words in chapter fifteen: Luke 15:1-2, “Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."
Jesus has a reputation for being a guy that hangs around with the riff-raff. He has a reputation for hanging out with the type of folks that good religious people wouldn’t even be caught in the same room with. The tax collectors had betrayed their own country, their own people, and were working for the oppressive, pagan, Roman government. The “sinners” that Jesus was routinely seen in the company of included prostitutes and other less savory members of the population: the barflys. The outcasts. The rejects. Not the type of folks you’d want your pastor to be seen with.
And so the religious people—the Pharisees and the men who taught God’s law in the synagogues—, they’re scandalized! They were saying, “These people don’t have a place in God’s Kingdom, because they don’t follow His laws like we do! They’re not good people. If Jesus is really a rabbi, he shouldn’t be hanging out with people like that.. It’s just not . . . nice.”
And then Luke continues, Luke 15:3, “3 Then Jesus told them this parable.” Jesus told them this parable. He’s not speaking to the “sinners”, but to the Pharisees, to the religious people. The people that worked extra hard at following every one of God’s laws. The people who looked at the “sinners” and deemed them unworthy of God’s Kingdom.
You know the story Jesus told. He told of a selfish son that demanded his inheritance and then squandered it on high living. He had it all . . . friends, girls, cars, drinks and drugs. But when the money ran out, his rock star life faded pretty quickly. It took him hitting rock bottom for him to become convinced what an idiot he had been, and so he headed back home with his tail between his legs.
But while he was yet a long way off, his father saw him and ran to him! The son tried to speak, he tried to apologize, but the father just said, “Shh! You and you . . . go get my best robe! Get some good clothes and shoes for my son! My son has returned, let’s throw a party!”
So far, so good. The Pharisees are listening and nodding patiently . . . but then Jesus gets to the real meat of the story.
Luke 15:25-28, “25 "Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' 28 "The older brother became angry and refused to go in.”
“All my life I’ve been slaving away for you! I’ve never disobeyed your orders! I’ve followed your every command! And when this . . . this sinner comes home looking like something the cat dragged in, you throw a party! I deserve a party! I deserve some recognition! This so-called “son” of yours doesn’t even deserve to be in this house!”
Do you suppose that at this point Jesus really has the attention of the religious people? Now they’re listening! And they’re getting mad, because they see themselves in the older brother. They didn’t want these prodigal “sinners” to be included in God’s Kingdom, and yet here Jesus was, talking with them, laughing with them, eating . . . with . . . them.
The last thing the Pharisees wanted was a bunch of riff-raff smelling up their nice little religious ideas. If you didn’t measure up to their standards, you were on the outside. If you weren’t as righteous as they were, you weren’t to be included in the Kingdom. To the Pharisees, there were only two classes of people: the people who were in good with God—that’s themselves, by the way—and everybody else, and there was no way on God’s green earth that God would ever pay any attention to them.
And yet what does Jesus say? Speaking through the father’s words, he tells the Pharisees, “My son . . . you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours (oh, I just bet that chapped the Pharisees’ hides!) this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and now is found.” Jesus tells the Pharisees that one sinner who repents is worthy of a greater heavenly party than ninety-nine “righteous” religious people who don’t need to repent.
“We had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” How does that play out in your life?
Are you guilty of having Older Brother Syndrome? Are there people you would be unwilling to rejoice with, if they were to repent?
When you refuse to come to the altar because some “sinner” might be next to you . . .someone who clearly doesn’t deserve to receive the same Sacrament as you . . . does that make God’s heart proud? Or do you break the heart of the Father by having the arrogant attitude of the older brother?
That attitude says, “Those sinners might fit in with the rest of the world, but here in the church we have different standards. Here in the church we don’t hold with any of that sin nonsense. No . . . we’re better here.”
Do you suppose that God classifies people according to our system? Does He group people into “us good religious folks” and “those ugly sinners”?
For God there is just one group: the people for whom He sent His Son to die. And He loves all the people in that one group with a deep, abiding love. Who is it that Jesus came for? Luke 19:10, “10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Luke 5:31, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus’ heart beats passionately for the lost, the sinners. A group, by the way, that you once belonged to. And when you were yet dead in your sins, God made you alive with Christ, forgiving you. There was a celebration in Heaven that day for you. This is what He does over every . . . single . . . sinner who repents. Think of that! One party right after another! The angels just finish cleaning up after one bash and then they get the call: “Wait! There’s another one! Set everything back up!” And they never get tired of it! God never gets tired over celebrating over another soul that He’s brought into His family. He never gets tired of saving one more person from Hell.
Can you imagine the impact that our church could have on Hudson . . . on the world . . . if it became known that we were a church that threw parties over repentant sinners? If every time a sinner walked in through that door we all moved over in our pews and said, “C’mon in! There’s always room for one more!”? If we all left the older brother syndrome outside because we knew Who had saved us and that His party was big enough for everybody? One big happy family, all forgiven in Jesus Christ, all celebrating.

When you see a “sinner” that comes to repentance, don’t look down; look back. Look back to your own baptism, to your own conversion. Look back to the time when God made you His own, to the time when all of Heaven shouted with joy over what Christ had accomplished in your life: the saving of one more sinner. Feel the joy that filled God’s heart on that day . . . and enter into the celebration over what Christ has done for one more lost sheep. Join the celebration that the Father throws over His lost son that finally came home. Leave the older brother syndrome outside where it belongs, and come in and join the party!

Road to Redemption: Unless YOU repent . . .

2007-03-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

Normally I’d probably begin a sermon with a personal illustration or some such thing. The reason for that is because I want to build from my personal experiences—from me—to all of us—to we. I want to explain how God has worked in my life and then, hopefully, help you understand how He relates to you in your life. So I move from “me” to “we.”
But today is a bit different. Today there is no “we.” This message is aimed at a single person: me. Only here’s the catch: everyone’s got to be the “me.” This message isn’t for the person next to you . . . it’s not for the person in front of you . . . it’s not for anyone else but . . . “me.” So everyone say it now, “This message is for me.”
Since this message is for “me”, I want every “me” in here today to do a little something. Take out your interactive sermon sheet, grab a pencil, and do a little thinking. I want you to think about a time when you saw something you knew was wrong. You knew it was wrong, and you knew you were right. This might be a response to a news story or something like that, but your reaction was essentially to say, “That is wrong. What they are doing is wrong.”

Now that you’ve got that time in your head, write down four words that describe how you feel about that moment. Four words that describe how you felt at that time, how you felt about it later . . . how you feel about it now. If you’re having a bit of trouble, let me suggest some possible answers: Angry. Upset. Morally superior. Morally indignant. Righteous anger. Confused. Sad. Broken-hearted. Intolerant. Unloving. Self-righteous. Self-loathing. Right. “Moral high ground.”
Depending upon your own time and circumstance, there is no doubt any number of answers that you could put down. But the one common experience we all have in this, the common experience that all the “me’s” have in this, is that we looked at someone else and recognized a behavior or act that God condemns as wrong. No, not necessarily in a self-righteous way, we may have been both correct and humble in our assessment of wrong-doing. But the point is that we looked at someone else and said, “That’s wrong.”

What does Jesus say about that? Well honestly He says a variety of things about that, depending upon what the circumstances are. There are a number of different responses in Scripture to that very scenario. But Jesus has something to say to us today about looking out at others and seeing their sin. Open up to the Gospel lesson, Luke 13:1-9.
Luke 13:1 “Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.” Now why are they telling Jesus this? Well, to understand that question, we have to understand that the common idea then—as it is today—is that bad things happen to bad people. The very fact that they are telling Jesus this story is an indication that the Galileans in question had done something so terrible, so sinful, that God had exacted His judgment by causing Pontius Pilate to have them bloodily murdered even while they were in the very act of offering their sacrifice to God.
The evidence for this line of reasoning is pretty strong. Let’s add it up: the only city sacrifice could be offered was in Jerusalem. The only place in Jerusalem where sacrifice could be offered was at the Temple—the place where God had promised to literally dwell with His people. The only time that the average person would be offering sacrifice would be at the Passover, the time of year in which God had commanded a celebration commemorating the time when He delivered all of Israel from slavery in Egypt. So if we add all that up, we have some men who are tainted by sin coming at the most holy time of year to the most holy place in the most holy city and offering a sacrifice to God. I’ve got to tell you that God blasting them would be the most likely thing in my mind!
But Jesus’ answer yanked the tale-bearers out of their little gossip party and confronted them with a strong dose of reality. Luke 13:2-3, “2 Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
Jesus answers them and says, “Look . . . what are you thinking? That God uses a sliding scale? That some sins—that some sinners—are somehow less offensive to Him than others? That somehow, in all of Galilee, that these were the only guys that had offended God, and that’s why they died? If God doesn’t use a sliding scale for sin, then what do you suppose God should do to you?”
You see, what these tale-bearers forgot is that they don’t have God’s all-seeing eyes. They looked at some outward circumstances and assumed God had seen sin in these people and executed His judgment upon them. They didn’t know if the people involved in these horrible deaths had sinned or not. They didn’t know the status of their spiritual condition. But still they figured God must have seen something sinful there.
But the most important thing that they forgot that God’s all-seeing eye could see them, as well! And the spiritual condition that they assumed to infect others was, in fact, their own ailment. They thought they could look at others through a window, but what they needed was a mirror.
Jesus’ response brings the focus of His hearers back to where it needs to be: on their own relationship with God. On their own need to repent. Jesus tells them, in effect, “Were those people sinners? I don’t think that matters right now. The question is . . . are you? Don’t worry about them. I’ll worry about them. You worry about you. Unless you repent, you too will perish.”
But this message isn’t for first-century Jews. Today’s message is for . . . who? Right, “me.” Today, Jesus tells us—I mean me—that unless I repent, I too will perish.
Whenever I see an act of sin somewhere “out there” Jesus today tells me in this Gospel lesson that I must not through the window, but into the mirror. I must look into the mirror and see what He sees: a sinner. In this lesson He doesn’t ask me to judge the presence of sin in other’s lives. He doesn’t ask me to confirm tragedies as evidence of His judgment. He doesn’t ask me to compare myself to others. What He asks is that I acknowledge my own sin.
This is tough! I know God’s Laws, I try to live by His commands. I try to be a good person. And so, when I see someone else that’s not living according to God’s ways I’m tempted to call His attention to it. When I see that scantily dressed young woman in the supermarket I’m tempted to write her off as someone possessing less moral virtue than I. When I the drunk staggering out of the bar I’m tempted to dismiss him as having less Christian character than I do.
And it goes on and on. I read the news and hear about the “Barbie Bandits”—who, it turns out, worked as strippers before their little bank heist—and I look down on them. The teenagers who gave the toddlers some pot and laughed while the 2 and 3 year olds got stoned . . . the pop star diva running around, checking in and out of rehab . . . I read about these people and I’m tempted to tell other people so that we can shake our heads together. I’m tempted to tell God and point out what great sinners these people are.
And when I see these people, if my nose so much as even tips—just even tips—upwards, then Christ’s words convict me. His words convict me as a sinner, not them. See, God can’t deal with a “them.” He can only deal with a “me.” And the “me” that He wants to deal with is the person who’s talking to Him right now. And to that person, to that “me”, He says, “Unless you repent, you too will perish.”

During this Lenten series, we’ve been talking about how Jesus Christ becomes our Savior. But today it’s even more personal than that. Today I learn about how Jesus becomes my Savior. He deals not with “them,” but with me. We’ve learned before that “it’s not about you.” Well today it is. When it comes to sin, when it comes to what stands between me and God, it most certainly is about me. And when it comes to sin, Jesus deals with me only on a one-to-one basis. When it comes to sin, Jesus doesn’t deal with a “them” . . . He only deals with me. And my sins are worthy of condemnation.
And yet Jesus offers me hope. Read the last few verses of the Gospel lesson. Luke 13:6-7, “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?'
In this parable, I am the fig tree. God the Father is the owner of the vineyard. He looks to me for good fruit, but I don’t bear any. He looks to me for repentance from my own evil actions, but He can find none. And since He can’t find anything in me that is worth saving, He condemns me to be cut down. I will become fuel for the fire.
But what happens? The caretaker intervenes on my behalf! Luke 13:8-9, “8'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.'”
Jesus Christ sees my sinful life, He sees that I have no good fruit, but still He steps in between the Father and I and offers to work on my behalf. He goes to the Father, asking for patience. “What you say is true, Father . . . but let Me work with him. Let Me nurture Him. Let Me cause him to bring forth the fruit of repentance.”
And then Christ goes to work on me. He cares for me, He bears the weight of my sin. He goes to His own tree and offers Himself to the fire. All this He does because He is still working with me on a one-to-one basis . . . all this He does so that He can have me in His garden. All this He does so that He can be my Savior. And because of His work, when the Father looks over His garden again, He will look at me, see the work of His Son, He will be pleased, and I will be saved.
Today Jesus asks you to be a “me.” Not looking at anyone else, just to Christ. Jesus Christ wants to deal with you on a one-to-one basis. And unless you repent, you too will perish.

Road to Redemption: The Unwilling

2007-03-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

(Pastor’s snoring is heard)
Pastor's wife. approaches the sleeping pastor.
Pastor's wife: Hey! Wake up! You’ve got a sermon to deliver!
Pastor: Huh? No! Just give me five more minutes . . . *snore*
Pastor's wife: Come on! You’re the pastor, it’s your job to give God’s Word to His people!
Pastor: (sleepily) I don’t feel like it today . . . just tell them to go read their Bibles, or something.
Pastor's wife: (pulling hard at pastor’s arm) Come ON! You’ve got a job to do!
Pastor: No! I don’t wanna!
Pastor's wife pulls pastor up as they continue to argue. Pastor grudgingly steps into pulpit.

The preceding has been a dramatization. Of course I want to preach today. I love coming to church every Sunday . . . or do I? *da da daaaaaaa!*
No, of course I do! I’m just like you. I like getting up early on Sunday morning, just like you. I like spending my entire morning here, just like you. I like hearing the same stories week in and week out, just like you.
* . . .
Okay, I guess both you and I could have a better attitude about Sunday morning sometimes, couldn’t we? Sometimes we’re just unwilling to put forth the effort to get the most out of a church service. And although God tries to get our attention, there are honestly times when we’re simply not listening.
But you know what happens when Stephanie is talking and I’m not listening? She feels like I’m ignoring her. When I don’t listen to her, I’m not giving her the respect she deserves. In effect, I’m rejecting her in favor of whatever’s going on in my mind at the moment. I’m turning away from her and turning to my own needs.
When we don’t listen to God, aren’t we doing the same thing? There is no middle ground, really. It’s not as though we can say that we truly value God, that we truly value His Word, that we truly honor and respect what He has to say when we deliberately turn away from His Word. And when we turn away from His word, we turn away from His Son. When we reject the opportunity to hear His Word, we reject His Son.
This problem of rejecting Christ—that’s the basic problem we see in today’s Gospel lesson.
Does Jerusalem have God’s attention? Read verse thirty-four: Christ says (Luke 13:34), “34O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”
Does Jerusalem have God’s attention? In Exodus 19:4 God reminds them, “4You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.” In Deuteronomy 32:9-11 the people of Isarel are reminded, “9 For the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. 10 In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, 11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.” And in Psalm 91:4 they are promised, “4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”
But in 2 Chronicles 36:15 we’re told, “The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. 16 But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.”
Jerusalem would have —not just could have, but would have—God’s protection . . . if they wanted it. But instead they choose to reject it. Over the course of their entire history God has come to their aid when they were oppressed. Over the course of their entire history God has sent His prophets to educate them, to instruct them in His ways, to teach them how to live as God’s people.
But the problem with prophets is that they often had things to say that Jerusalem didn’t want to hear. It’s hard to hear a word of rebuke . . . to be told to get your act together. Their itching ears demanded something other than the truth, and so finally God says of them in Isaiah 30:9-11, “9 These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction. 10 They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. 11 Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”
The problem with Herod, with the Pharisees, and with Jerusalem isn’t that they lack God’s protection, but that they decided long ago to reject it! They turned away from the will of God, the clear, concise teachings of the Word of God that He spoke through His prophets. While they claimed to love God, in reality they despised Him so much that the mere presence of one of His messengers incited them to anger and violence. Jerusalem despised God so much that they killed His prophets rather than be forced to hear Him.
But even though Jerusalem rejects God’s prophets, even though they despise the Word of God, even though they reject God Himself . . . where is Jesus still going? He is headed to Jerusalem.
Even though Jerusalem rejects Christ Himself, He still is headed there. He knows that He goes to Jerusalem to be rejected, to be crucified . . . to die. And yet His ministry carries Him there. “I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day”—Jesus is going to keep doing the work for which He was sent, and He’s going to do it faithfully, day in and day out. He’s not going to be kept down, but each and every day that God has given Him He’s going to get up, He’s going to beat down Satan, He’s going to bring health and healing to people, He’s going to give the Gospel all the way to Jerusalem and on the cross He’s going to be it! Nothing will keep Him from reaching out with God’s love to the people of Jerusalem. Nothing will keep him from being God’s love to the people of Jerusalem. Such is the love that Christ has for them.
That’s the kind of Savior we have: a Savior that serves; a Savior that offers Himself even when His own people turn their backs on Him. A Savior that goes to the cross even when you turn your back on Him.
Because it’s not Jerusalem that has rejected God’s attention. It’s not Jerusalem that’s rejected His prophets . . . it’s you. It’s me.
“The Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”
Remember that? It’s from the Small Catechism. It goes on to say in the explanation that you sin against the third commandment—you despise preaching and the Word of God—when you don’t attend public worship, when you don’t make regular use of the Word and the Sacraments, and when you use the Word or Sacraments negligently or carelessly.
God has given us His Word. He’s given us His Sacraments. Add to those to those a pastor to proclaim God’s Word to you and now you’ve got the same blessings and offer of protection that God longed to give to Jerusalem. The question is, then, do you treat those things any better than Jerusalem did?

Well . . . do you?

Let’s start with the issue of the pastor. Have you, as the people of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, consistently treated all the pastors that God has given you with the respect and honor that their calling rightly deserved? Do you consistently treat your current pastor with the respect and honor that his calling rightly deserves?
Now I don’t want to be mean about this, and I’m understand that I’m not being petty. But I am trying to drive home a point: when you despise the prophet—when you despise the pastor—you despise the Word that he brings. When you despise the Word, you despise the God who gives it. And when you despise God, you are unwilling to receive his gifts of protection, comfort, and security. You don’t want to be under his wing.
Or have you, as the people of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, consistently held the public worship service in such high regard that you go out of your way to attend and to participate? Or do you come and just go through the motions? Have you ever gotten up in the morning and said, “Church? I don’t want to do church again! How boring!”
Do you realize what you’re saying to God? “God I don’t want draw near to you with a true heart and confess my sins! God, I don’t want to hear that my sins are forgiven in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! I don’t want to praise thee, to bless thee, to worship thee, and I don’t want to give you thanks for thy great glory! I don’t want you to create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and I don’t want you to lettest thou thy servant depart in peace! I don’t want what You have to give, I don’t want to hear Your Word, and I don’t want You.” That’s what it sounds like to God when you despise preaching and His Word.
Shame on us. For every time that you or I have turned away from God’s Word, we have killed the prophets and stoned those whom God sent to us. Christ has longed to gather us under the protective wing of His Word and Sacraments . . . but we were not willing.
But if Jerusalem’s sin is true of us, then thank God that her redemption is true of us, as well! Even though we’ve despised the Word of God . . . where is Jesus still going? He’s still going to the cross. He’s not daunted by our sin, He knew about that a long time ago, and He’s not going to let that stop Him from earning for us the forgiveness that we need.
He’s not going to be kept down, but each and every day that God has given Him He’s going to get up, He’s going to beat down Satan, He’s going to bring health and healing to us as His people, He’s going to give us the Gospel all the way to Jerusalem and on the cross He’s going to be it for us! Nothing will keep Him from reaching out with God’s love to you. Nothing will keep him from being God’s love to you. Such is the love that Christ has for us.

Does this change things for us? Oh, you bet it does. It’s much easier to run from God, to hide from His Word, to be unwilling. But the church that can see the folly of that path, the church that sees that being unwilling leads to destruction; that is the church that can receive the Word of God gladly. It is a church that can hear the Word of God and receive it with great joy. The church that hears the words of Christ’s rebuke and yet also hears His words of forgiveness . . . that is a church that walks with Christ, following Him on the road to redemption.

Road to Redemption: Walking with Christ to Calvary

2007-02-25T10:15:00.000-08:00

Who here has known temptation in their lives?
You’re not alone in that, obviously! If you’re not being tempted by something, you must be a perfect saint . . . or you’re dead. I myself am tempted by many things. Some are minor things . . . kind of funny, even. Like being tempted by an Oreo cookie around 11:30 at night. Or being tempted to dump a glass of cold water into the shower when someone else is in it. And frankly, whenever I have a camera in my hand I’m always very tempted to take a picture of Stephanie if she happens to bend over!
Those are kind of mischievous temptation. And yes, I yield to those kinds of temptations quite often. But I also have a number of greater, more serious temptations that plague me. Temptations that pull at the darkest, most sinister corners of my mind. I’m frequently tempted to feel very, very sorry for myself. I’m tempted to lie about how I’m doing, preferring to put on a religious mask rather than show my true emotional state.
I don’t want to worry anybody, but I do want to be perfectly honest about this. In my life I’ve been tempted to have one or two or five drinks too many. I’ve been tempted to cheat on my wife. I’ve been tempted to react to stressful situations with violence. At times I have even been tempted to take my own life. Some of these temptations I have yielded to. Others, thankfully and by the grace of God, I have not.
But you understand the temptations I face, because you go through them yourself. You understand what it’s like to be tempted. We all face it. There’s not a one of us here that doesn’t understand temptation. And temptation can leave us feeling dirty and ashamed. We believe that no one could be truly close to God and still suffer this kind of temptation.
No one understands what you’re going through. That may be what you’re thinking. But during the season of Lent I want to take the time during Sunday mornings to put that lie to rest. We do have someone who understands what we go through: our hardships, our trials, our temptations. His name is Jesus Christ. And each Sunday during Lent we’re going to walk with Him on His journey to the cross. We’ll hear His words. We’ll observe His actions. And at the end of our journey, as we come with Jesus into Jerusalem for the last time, we’re going to understand better just how Jesus becomes our Savior.
It begins today with the question right in front of us: Does anybody really understand my struggles with temptation? The answer, of course, is yes. Jesus Christ understands.
In today’s Gospel lesson we have a Bible story that many of us may remember from Sunday school. But just because it’s a Sunday school story doesn’t mean that this lesson is child’s play. No, this lesson is for everybody, because in this story we focus on Christ, on His victory, and we understand how His victory gives us victory.
Luke records that at the end of forty days of fasting Jesus suffers through three kinds of temptation. These temptations are real, they represent significant choices Jesus had to make: yield to temptation or not?
For instance, in His first temptation Satan tries to get Jesus to get some food for himself. Satan says to Him in Luke 4:3, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
Jesus has been forty DAYS without food. Satan is just trying to get him to feed His own hunger. What’s more, it seems to be merely a request that Jesus demonstrate His divine authority. After all, if God gave manna to the children of Israel in the desert to feed them, the Son of God should be able to turn a stone into some bread to feed Himself, right?
These things sound fine, don’t they? So what’s the problem? See, that’s the thing about temptation; it always sounds fine. You can always make a case for giving in.
But Jesus understands that there are greater things at stake. So, weak with hunger, He still manages to respond, “Man does not live by bread alone.”
Those words Jesus spoke reveal that He understands what Satan is really getting at. They are a quote from Deuteronomy 8:3, where Moses tells the children of Israel how God has instructed them during their wilderness wanderings. It says, “He—that’s God—He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
Jesus defeats Satan by relying upon the word that comes from the mouth of the Lord, rather than using His own mouth to feed Himself. Rather than trusting His own power or abilities, He’s relying upon God to provide what is truly needed. Would it be wrong for Jesus to use His Divine powers to feed Himself? No . . . but it would be wrong even for Jesus to use His abilities in a way that the Father didn’t intend. And so Jesus defeats Satan, He conquers temptation, by trusting in God’s Word and perfect will rather than His own strength.
In His second temptation, Satan tries to get Jesus to worship him. This one is, I think, a bit more obvious, a great deal less subtle than the first temptation. But it is still a strong one.
Satan offers Jesus a glimpse of the whole world. In one instant he shows Jesus all the glory and splendor of the worlds’ most beautiful cities, the largest palaces, the grandest armies. He then claims it is his to give away as he pleases, and Jesus could have it all . . . for a price.
For a price. Just a small price . . . a little trifle, really. “Just worship me, Jesus. Bow down before me . . . you don’t even really have to mean it, you know . . . just go through the motions, and all this can be yours.”
Jesus is tempted on a false claim to give worship to Satan. The world isn’t Satan’s to give away. And though Jesus is tempted, He recognizes that it doesn’t matter how great the reward would be for worshipping this pretender to the throne, in the end it would be a false reward, a false hope, a throwing away of what had real value for something that was shallow and temporal.
And so Jesus replies, “'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only” Now that’s also a quote from Deuteronomy, this time from Deuteronomy 6:10-14. Moses warns the people of Israel before they go into the beautiful, lush promised land, “10 When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you-- a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant-- then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 13 Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.”
Satan has nothing worthwhile that he can give. The large, flourishing cities are a gift from God, not Satan. The lush live Israel enjoyed was God’s gift to them, and they would be wise to remember HIM as their source. Jesus also trusts and worships the Giver, not the gift. He also successfully demonstrates that He knows who the true Giver is—God alone—and He reserves His worship for the One who can give, not the pretender who can only take away.
In His third and final temptation, Satan tries to Jesus to deliberately put Himself in harm’s way. “If you’re really the Son of God, Jesus, throw yourself off this building! After all, if you are who you say you are, God wouldn’t let you be harmed, now would He? Is the Lord with you . . . or not?” Interestingly enough, this time Satan quote some Scripture himself to prove his point. He’s got some heavy guns to back him up.
But despite the cold logic, despite the reality that Satan sounds so right, Jesus still sees through his game and understands what is going on behind the scenes: Satan is trying to get Jesus to tempt God, to force God into a situation where Jesus can command the Father’s will instead of the other way around. Satan is trying to get Jesus to force God to prove that He is truly both provider and protector.
But instead, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy to Satan one last time. Luke 4:12, “12 Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'” I. Howard Marshall, in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke, points out that Jesus’ response reveals this truth: The Godly man does not need to force God to prove Himself. He doesn’t need to tempt God, because the Godly man as already put his faith in Him as provider, protector, and savior.
Jesus’ response reveals that He already knew God was with Him, that the Father cared for Him, and so He didn’t need to force God to give Him a sign! Throwing Himself off the top of the temple so that God could catch Him wouldn’t prove a thing. It wouldn’t prove that God loved Him, it would only prove that He didn’t trust in or understand God in the first place.

Jesus faced down and conquered these three temptations. But not just any three temptations; three temptations that encapsulate, that describe, all of the temptations that we face every day. Look at that list again. Aren’t these our temptations, too?
In the first temptation we’re tempted to trust in our own strength rather than God’s. Does that sound familiar? How many times in a week, how many times in a day do you try to rely upon yourself instead of God? How many times do we say to God, “Lord, it’s in your hands” and then snatch whatever “it” is right back out of God’s hands and try to fix it ourselves?
In the second temptation we’re tempted to compromise. Just a little . . . just give in a little bit . . . just one little bit . . . and we could have a huge payoff. Does that sound like fudging just a bit on your taxes so that you can have a refund instead of having to pay? Does it sound like telling a little white lie so that you can get what you want?
And then in the third temptation our relationship to God is called into question. We wonder if God is truly watching over us, or not. We want Him to produce some sort of evidence, some sort of sign that He is truly on our side. “God, if you’re really up there, then answer my prayer.” “God, if you really love me, then bail me out of this mess.” “God, if you truly cared, you wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.”
Jesus understands what we’re going through! He’s faced the very things we face, day in and day out! And though He faced our temptations, He overcame them. His victory becomes our victory, because in His victory we know that we have someone in Heaven who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses, who understands our struggles, and yet can pull us out of them.
Hebrews 4:15-16 summarizes this when it says, “15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-- yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Because Jesus understands, because He’s been there, we can come to Him for strength to overcome our temptations with His strength.
With this truth, as we walk on this road to redemption, we can better understand how Jesus is not just the Savior, but our Savior. He’s not unapproachable, He’s been where we are, and His strength wins the victory over our temptations. So in His victory over temptation we can shrug off the need to linger for one more second on that commercial, the need to tear down someone else so that we can feel bigger, the need to go our own way instead of His.
Are we still tempted daily? Yes, we are. But Jesus Christ understands what it’s like for us. Even in our darkest moments, when we are about to give in, He understands our struggles. He truly is our Savior, because He’s been tempted, and yet was victorious. And in His victory over temptation we find ours.

Body/Building: The Full-Body Workout

2007-01-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

Time for a little TV trivia! Name the TV show from which this theme song is taken (music from “Adams Family” is played). Did you ever watch that show? Right—it’s The Addams Family! Gomez, Morticia, Lurch . . . Cousin Itt . . . and there was one character in particular that was always good for a laugh, Thing.
What was Thing, do you remember? ____________ Yeah . . . a disembodied hand. He’d show up out of nowhere, popping up out of the mailbox or on a table, handing Gomez an envelope or something like that.
The funny thing about Thing was that he was just a hand. No arm, no elbow . . . just a hand. I always thought it would be cool to have Thing around. He could take dictation for you when you wrote a letter, he could dial the phone for you. You could ask him how many scoops of ice cream you should get (“one or two? Two? Okay!”). I’m sure the backrubs would be great.
But see, the problem with that is that it could never really happen. There is no way a hand that was separated from the body could live on its own. It couldn’t think or communicate. It would have no way of getting bloodflow. It couldn’t perform any action that would benefit anybody. The fact of the matter is that when a hand is severed from the body it dies . . . and the rest of the body suffers.
Last week we emphasized the unity of the church, which Scripture calls the Body of Christ. With Christ as her head, the Body lives, acts, find purpose and direction. The Body acts as one complete organism.
And though we’re not going to leave behind that teaching, this week we’re need to emphasize something a bit different. This week we’re emphasizing the diversity of the Body. Paul rounds off his emphasis on the unity of the Body in our epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, saying this, “12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body-- whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free-- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” But then he takes that metaphor of the body and says, “14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.”
God designed our physical bodies to be an intricate working of divergent parts. I think its safe to say that no one individual body part completely duplicates the purpose or functions of another. God has given us unique body parts that perform specific functions: the heart, the lungs, the digestive system. Some parts serve multiple functions: the mouth serves us for communication as well as a place to take in food. Where would we be without our hands, our feet, even our reproductive organs? They all serve a purpose in the body, and they are all unique.
Where would we be without each member of the Body? We couldn’t function! Each part performs a much-needed function, each part relies upon each other. And yet isn’t it weird that when it comes to church we try to act like we’re Thing? As though we could live on our own, detached from the rest of the Body of Christ, and no one would be any the wiser. But that’s not what Paul says. Paul says that each member of the Body of Christ also performs unique, specific functions. In this very church we have hands that do work, we have feet that carry us along, we have a mouth that speaks the words of God. You are the Body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
And there’s still this problem of the Lone Ranger Christian—the Christian who wants to go it alone, to be self-sufficient, to be detached from the Body. Gregory Lockwood, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, shows that Paul suggests two reasons why we think we should be on our own: feeling inferior and feeling superior.
Sometimes we feel inferior to other church members. Sometimes we see someone else getting all the glory and get jealous, feeling like we’re nothing compared to them. Sometimes we look at how well someone else does a particular job in the church and we think, “I could never do that. I guess there’s just not a place for me here.” Maybe you even have thought, “I’m too old/I’m too young.”
Let’s expose that for the lie it is. You are the Body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. You don’t have to be at the forefront of visible ministry to make a significant impact on the life of the church. Okay, so maybe you’re not the best public speaker in the congregation . . . but can you bake cookies? Maybe you’re not the best singer in the world . . . but can you pick up the phone and call somebody who’s hurting? You say you can’t teach a Bible class, but could you open up your home and let a small group meet there?
I see this all the time, and I tell you I am sick of it! All the time I see people believing they’re inferior, “I can’t speak, I can’t teach, I can’t give . . .” It’s as though somehow Satan has so deceived us into believing that if we’re not exactly like another part of the Body, if we don’t have the exact same talents and gifts and abilities then we’re somehow second-class church citizens.
Now to show how destructive this line of thinking is, just imagine what would happen if Paul’s words were reality. What if your feet had an inferiority complex and said, 1 Corinthians 12:15, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body”? That would be ridiculous, right? Your feet woke up one day and decided they wanted to peel a banana! “Here, have a little toejam with your fruit today!” What would happen if my feet decided they wanted to gently stroke my wife’s hair? I’d get kicked out of bed real quick, I can tell you that!
1 Corinthians 12:17, “17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?” Imagine that! Just one big ol’ eye, rolling around. Can’t do anything but see—can’t breathe, can’t hear . . . nothing. Just . . . see. Or one HUUUUGE ear . . . oh yeah, that’d be attractive. The chicks would just flock to you in school, wouldn’t they? It’s ridiculous! But not only is it ridiculous, it’s also harmful, because of what the body would be missing out on by everyone being exactly alike. If we all performed the same exact functions in the body, we’d accomplish absolutely nothing as a church.
1 Corinthians 12:18, “8 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” You are the Body of Christ, and God has placed each of you exactly where He wants you to be. To serve. To support. To enable others in their ministry. The Body cannot live without your unique, special contribution. Your role—no matter how big or how seemingly small—your role is vital to the whole Body. The Body cannot function without each and every one of you.
Separating yourself from the Body because you feel inferior is bad. It’s bad for you, and it’s bad for the rest of the Body. But the other end of the spectrum is just as harmful. Separating yourself from the Body because you feel superior to others also damages both you and the Body.
Now I’ll tell you straight out, I haven’t seen this a lot around here, and for that I’m thankful. But I have seen it in other churches. What’s more, I know that where people are, there is always the potential for something like this. So we’re going to talk about it a bit.
1 Corinthians 12:21, “21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!"” Now that should be fairly obvious. It’s just ludicrous to think that the head feels itself SO important that it would no longer need feet to carry it—and the rest of the body—around.
I remember a story another pastor told me some time ago. It seems that one person in this pastor’s congregation got his nose bent out of shape by something in the church. Really what happened was is that he got his pride hurt. And so he told the pastor that if he couldn’t have his way, he was going to take himself, his family, and his offerings to some other church.
Now, there was no doubt that this man was a high-dollar giver. But what had happened is that he had allowed himself to believe that he and his money were so important to the church that he could call the shots. He had allowed himself to believe that he—alone among all the other members of the congregation—was so important to the life of the church that he could dictate what happened in that church.
Now obviously that’s dead wrong—there is only One person whom the church cannot live without, and none of us are Him. When I begin to believe that I’m the most important one in the church, when I have to be the one that calls the shots, when I’m the one who should decide what’s going on, I am telling Christ, “Lord, the church doesn’t need you . . . it needs me. Thanks a lot, but I’ll handle it from here.”
When we pull the church’s focus off of Christ and try to put it on ourselves, we are in effect telling everybody else, “I’m important, you’re expendable.” But Paul says, “22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” No matter how important you think you are, you still need the contribution of every other one of us to function as the Body of Christ. We all need each other, the Body must have every member functioning and treated with proper respect if it is to accomplish anything at all.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. Christ’s death grants us each the forgiveness of sin. His resurrection causes us each to live in a new life. Every single one of us, from the youngest to the oldest, from the weakest to the strongest, is so important to Jesus Christ that He was willing to die so that we may be part of His Body. We’re that important to Him.
But just as important to Him as our individual salvation is our life together as the Body of Christ. He didn’t save us so that we could try to run things on our own, but He saved us from sin and death and placed us into the community of believers so that we can support one another, comfort one another, and love one another even as we receive His love, comfort and support. This is what we are saved to. You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
I suppose that Thing is going to continue to be funny. There is something amusing about a disembodied hand running around everywhere. But that’s no way to run a church. Christ loved us so much that He made us part of His Body

Body/Building: It All Starts With the Head

2007-01-14T10:15:00.001-08:00

I love my wife. She is such a great treasure to me. Every day when I wake up, she’s there with me. Every night when I go to bed, she’s there with me. I want her by my side for the rest of my life, and I’m working to make sure she will be.
I love my wife, so I want to see her achieve everything she can. When I give her gifts, sometimes it’s just because I love her. Other times it’s because she needs something to accomplish her daily tasks and life’s goals. I’m willing to lay down my life for her, and I give what I have to her so that she knows that I love her and want her to grow in her love for me.
There are a number of reasons I love her—her beauty, her pure heart—but one thing that makes me crazy in love with her is knowing that she only has one husband. I love knowing that there’s only one man she turns to for her needs. There’s only one man she confides her deepest hopes and fears in. There’s only one man whom she trusts completely to be by her side forever.
Now, I could go on telling you about my love for my wife for quite some time, but I don’t want to monopolize your entire afternoon and, frankly, you’d probably get tired of hearing me gush about my wife after the first hour or so. And of course I’m not here to do that. But I am here to talk about something important to our lives as God’s church, and the easiest way to help us understand what we’re going to talk about is by comparing something we know—a man’s great, great love for his wife—with something that we may not fully understand: Christ’s love for His church.
The Bible tells us the way Christ loves His church is much like the way a man loves his wife. He treasures His church. He died for His church and lives with His church. He gives gifts to His church so that it may succeed. His church trusts only in Him, confides only in Him, and He alone is the loving Head of His church.
Over the next few weeks we’re going to be in a sermon series called Body/Building. It’s kind of an interesting title: We have two words that are synonymous with the word “church”: “body” and “building.” Both words describe Christ’s Church. But if you say them together—“ bodybuilding”—we have a word that describes the process of making a body stronger and healthier through discipline and exercise.
It was last year about this time that we spent forty days studying and discussing God’s five purposes for His church, remember? What we talked about then were the five things that made a healthy, Bible-based church: worship, fellowship, discipleship, mission, and ministry. Those are all things the church does.
But what I want to do with this sermon series is explore the relationship between Christ and His Church. We’ll talk about how He equips His church to accomplish her tasks and goal. We’ll talk about how the Church is guided by love. We’ll talk about how the church chooses methods that get desired results. And we’ll talk about one of the central objects of the Church’s faith: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But for today there’s just one thing that we are going to focus on: Christ as the head of His Church.
Ephesians 1:22-23 says, “22 God placed all things under his—that’s Christ’s—under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
That verse says a few important things. First, Christ reigns supreme over everything. He has absolute, final authority in all of creation. Christ reigns supreme in Heaven. He reigns supreme over the angels. He reigns supreme over the world. He is truly the King of kings and the Lord of lords. His word is final. His rule is absolute. The governments of the earth are subject to Him. The surgeon’s hand, a mother’s child . . . there is nothing that is not under Him.
But as true as that is, that verse also tells us that Christ was given a special relationship to His church. Yes, He is the supreme ruler over all, but He alone is the head of his church. Now, a head is intimately connected to the body. The head dictates where the body goes, what it does. We know that the head controls all of the body’s functions. Whether voluntary or automatic, every muscle that moves, every function that the body performs, is controlled by the head. It doesn’t stretch the point too much to say that the head defines the life of the body.
What would the body be without the head? It couldn’t survive. When we apply that terminology to Christ and His church, we must remember that this remains true. This isn’t just idle speculation, it’s not just a nice metaphor. Christ isn’t just the figure-head of the church, some sort of titular leader that guides us, but He is the very one who gives the Church life and breath. He alone is the One who gives the Church direction. He alone is the One who defines the life of the Church.
Now wait a minute . . . didn’t we just hear in the epistle reading where it’s the Holy Spirit that gives gifts to the Church? So how can I say that Christ alone defines the life of the Church? Am I just overstating my point, or does God Himself, in every member of the Trinity, point the Church to Christ?
No, I’m not overstating this. Even if we look to our God, every member of the Trinity points us to Christ. The Father speaks from a cloud in Matthew 17:5 and says, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” The Father points us to Christ. Jesus Christ Himself says that He has come so that we might be with the Father, but to get there? He points to Himself. John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The Son points us to Christ. And the job of the Holy Spirit, according to Jesus in John 14:26, is to “teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” The Holy Spirit points us to Christ.
Our very relationship with God, with each member of the Trinity, points us to Jesus Christ as our head. Christ defines the life of the Church.
Christ defines the life of the Church. Think about that for a minute or two. Our church-year calendar . . . that revolves around the life of Christ, so He shapes our lives of worship. The whole of our Scriptures point solely to Christ: the Old Testament points forward to Him, the New Testament focuses us on His work 2000 years ago even as it draws us into His work today. Our hymns and praise songs focus our attention on Christ. Even our traditional church furniture, from the altar to the pulpit to the Paschal candle . . . they all in some way focus us on Christ . . . His work . . . His person . . . Himself. Because He alone is the head of the Church.

Bodybuilding . . . the process of making a body stronger and healthier through discipline and exercise . . . it all starts with the head. This is Paul’s point from the epistle lesson. Paul is about to launch into several chapters that detail how the Body of Christ—the church—works together as one to accomplish the things of God. He’s going to tell us how to work together, but first he focuses our attention on the rightful head of the church: Christ Himself. No one can say, “Jesus is Lord”—that is to say, “Jesus is the head”—except by the workings of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit whose job it is to point us to Christ.
From there Paul jumps into a listing of seemingly different things, but notice that his focus isn’t on diversity, but on unity. 1 Corinthians 12:4-6: “4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.”
We are united as one body, with one head. One Lord Jesus Christ whom we all worship and serve. And though it is true that we are a diverse bunch, each with different tasks—and to a certain extent we’ll talk about that next week—Paul’s overall thrust in this passage is our unity. 1 Corinthians 12:8-11, “8 To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit . . .”
Every task, every role in the church, they are all there to serve one purpose, and that is to point to Jesus Christ. That means that the Church pulls together towards one goal, in one direction. It’s against our nature to pull against each other, to each serve our own agendas, because we are united as one. It doesn’t matter what I say, what he thinks, what she feels, what you do, what matters is what Christ says, what He does . . . and where He leads.
If all this is true—if Christ alone truly is the head of the church, the head of Our Saviour Lutheran Church—then what is our primary responsibility as His church? To follow Him. To go where He goes. To do as He does. To do as He says. To truly be His body.
Now, we have a lot more to talk about in the coming weeks. We’re not even ¼ of the way on knowing what it means to be the Body of Christ. So stick with me; good things are coming! But as we finish today, even though we don’t yet know all the things we need to know about being Christ’s body, we do know the most important thing: Christ is the Head of His church. And it all starts with the head.

Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

2007-01-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

This past week, I got to do something I’ve never done before: I got to jump in a lake in the middle of winter. As you probably know, John and Mary Boehk host an annual Polar Bear Dip. Every year for the past four years, folks get together on January 1st for the purpose of jumping into a lake full of freezing water. Okay, so the water this year wasn’t quite freezing; but at 38 degrees it was far from balmy! The kids and I got there just a few minutes late to go in with the big crowd, but we still made sure we jumped in. As that icy water closed in over my head, I felt that this was one of the funnest, zaniest things I’ve ever done.
But water wasn’t always my friend. When I was younger I couldn’t swim very well. But it still was fun to go splash around in the kiddie pool.
The swimming pool in my hometown is kidney-shaped. You can wade in from any side, and it gradually gets deeper and deeper until you drop off a ledge at a depth of about four feet, and then it rapidly gets deeper until it drops suddenly into a pit with a maximum depth of twenty feet. That’s what we kids called The Hole.
The kiddie pool is separated from The Hole by an iron fence. And one day, I somehow let my sister talk me into leaving the safe confines of the shallow kiddie pool and venturing into the deep waters. My sister and I clung to that outside of that fence, slowly moving into deeper and deeper water, until finally we felt brave enough to let go of the fence.
We slipped into water that was far too deep for my poor swimming skills. I remember that water closing over my head, too . . . but this time it was horribly frightening. We struggled to the surface long enough to gasp for help and then went under again. I went down once . . . twice . . . three times, each time wondering if that would be my last time I would ever breathe air again. Finally—after what seemed like an eternity—some bigger kids noticed our struggles and dragged us back to the fence. I can’t remember what happened after that, but I do know that for the longest time after, whenever I remembered coming that close to death, I would shudder with shame at being foolish enough to get into deep water that I had no business going into the first place.
Have you ever done something like that? Something so foolish, so absolutely stupid that you had to live with the shame of the choices you made? That shame starts to define you after a while, doesn’t it? It starts to dominate your life. You start to look at yourself as a failure; just when you feel you can move on with your life, that old shame comes back strong, kicking holes in your sense of self-worth. Your identity becomes wrapped up in that one moment when you made that stupid, stupid decision and the water closed in over your head, changing your life forever.
What can you do at that point? You want to move on with your life, but part of you will always be there, drowning in your own Hole. You know you shouldn’t have gone there; you wish you would have avoided the temptation. But you can’t turn back the clock; you have to live with the poor choices you made, the choices that dragged you and everyone else in your life into a deep pit of sin and consequences. You hurt people and you can’t fix it. You sinned.
There are some folks—I’ve met them—that figure since they can never climb out of that hole they might as well start living there. The sin that led them there becomes a matter of almost daily routine. They sear their conscience and try to shove away the shame. They lie to themselves and tell themselves that it’s all right . . . everybody does it . . . it’s not such a big deal after all . . . but still they stay as far away from God as they can, because being close to Him brings back the memory of their sin, and that brings back the feelings of shame.
There are other folks—and I’ve met them, as well—that put on an act. They act like that one thing had never happened. They never talk about it openly. They stick that memory as far back in their minds as they possibly can and then they work and work and work. Unlike the first group, this groups sets out to do as much good as they can to offset their memory of their sin. But like the first group of people, this group also lies to themselves, telling themselves that they can overcome their past. And—this is interesting—also like the first group, despite all their “good” activity what they’re really doing is also staying as far away from God as they can.
Two groups of people—one you might never see in church again, the other you might see there every day. But neither of them understands exactly how to deal with their sin. Neither of them can bear to live with the shame.
Now it’s possible—just possible, mind you—that we as good church folks could say, “Well . . . that’s okay. Because we’ve got God’s grace, and His grace covers up our sins. Let them live like that.” Okay, that’s good. But is it good enough? Is it good enough to say, “Well hey, sin doesn’t matter, because we’ve got grace!” Is it good enough for us to remain in hiding, to remain in sin and separation from God, to remain in shame, or does God want something more, something better, for us?
Romans 6:1, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”
We what? We died? We died to sin? When did that happen? How did that happen?

The when is different for each of us, but the how is the same: It’s when the water closed in over our heads. Not the water of a swimming pool, but this water right here: The waters of baptism. Romans 6:3-4, “3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
Christ died for sin. Your sin. You know that. You’ve heard it before. For God so loved not just the world, but you, that He gave His one and only Son to die for us. Jesus Christ was lifted high, He was nailed to a cross, taking your sin upon and into Himself, He was mocked and despised by the very people He had come to save, and He died. Dead.
They took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. Three days later He rose from the dead into a newness of life that is incomprehensible in its beauty. But what stayed on the cross?
What stayed on the cross? We did. Or at least our old, sinful selves did. Romans 6:6-7, “6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” God’s word says that through baptism our sin was nailed to the cross with Christ, that it died with Him there, and that we are free from its dominating control over our lives! This is a liberating thing! This is a beautiful thing.
How beautiful? Have you ever been to the symphony? You can count dozens, maybe even a hundred or more individual musicians. If you were to hear their one part alone it wouldn’t be anything very special. But when they play together they are united as one instrument, and the result is a beautiful, stirring piece of musical artistry that can lift your very soul. That’s what the symphony is: individual notes being bound together in a dance of unifying beauty. That’s the symphony.
So let me throw a Greek word at you now. Just one, and it occurs in verse five. Verse five says, “5 If we have been symphutos with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be symphutos with him in his resurrection.”
Symphutos. You hear the word “symphony” in there? That’s what we have through baptism in Jesus Christ. Our individual note is beautifully bound together with His in the finality of His death and the newness of His risen life.
Your poor choices in the past—the sin that’s trying to dominate your life, the shame that is eating you alive—God says that is dead. Nailed to the cross with Christ. And the Gospel connection I want to make, the application I want to give you today is that sin and repentance is not an opportunity to beat ourselves up, to wallow in an unending state of shame and self-torture, but to rise up again in Christ and walk in newness of life.
That’s your true identity in Christ: a new creation. A truly living human being. Living human beings can love and serve one another. They can be restored to right relationships. They can be forgiven and they can forgive. They can be healed . . . and they can heal. The old ways of shame and sin and death—the old self—no longer has mastery over them, and their new life in Christ is a life lived to God.
I had an opportunity like that this recently. I messed up, and it was brought to my attention. I spent the better part of a day kicking myself, thinking that I wasn’t qualified to be a pastor, thinking that I would never amount to much of anything. But God reminded me that I am forgiven and that in Him, in Christ, I am lifted up to walk a new way, to live a new life. The shame wasn’t from God—it was from Satan, trying to pull me back down into the grave, trying to make me stay dead, trying to keep me in self-centered sin. Instead, Philippians 3:13-14 forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Don’t go on sinning. Don’t stay dead. Live your new life. How do you do that? Well, you will want to begin by being honest with God. Admit to Him that you did, in fact, sin against Him. Admit that you’ve ran away from Him by either wallowing in your sin or working to deny it.
After that . . . well, you’ll probably have to work to make it right with the people you sinned against. If our new life in Christ is a life lived to God, then it’s a life that we live according to His principles. God asks that we seek forgiveness when we’ve given offense. He asks that we attempt reconciliation. And He asks for repentance: literally “turning around” from our sin and walking away from it. That may be difficult. Heck, it may be painful for you . . . but I guarantee it will be good for you, because when the water closes over our heads, He raises us in Christ, He raises us from death into new life. And that new life is something that cannot be overcome, because it is in Christ.
Romans 6:1-11 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.