"Trust in the One who Forgave You" (Sermon on Luke 17:1-10) | October 2, 2022

Text: Luke 17:1-10
Date: October 2, 2022
Event: Proper 22, Year C — Annual Church Picnic

Luke 17:1–10 (EHV)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2It would be better for that person if a millstone would be hung around his neck and he would be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3Watch yourselves.

“If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. 4Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

5The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

6The Lord said, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7Which one of you who has a servant plowing or taking care of sheep will say to him when he comes in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at the table’? 8Won’t the master tell him instead, ‘Prepare my supper, and after you are properly dressed, serve me while I eat and drink. After that you may eat and drink’? 9He does not thank the servant because he did what he was commanded to do, does he? 10So also you, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants. We have only done what we were supposed to do.’”

Trust in the One who Forgave You

Faith is, perhaps, one of the most misunderstood spiritual concepts in our day. Even many Christians may not be able to accurately describe and define what faith is. You might have heard people say, “Well, you just got to have faith! You just have to believe!” When talking about anything from applying for a job, to a scary medical diagnosis, to an emotional hardship, people can point you to believe. But… believe what?

Faith always needs an object. If we’re going to have faith, it means we are trusting something. You have faith in these public picnic tables to hold you up and not break while you’re sitting there. I have faith that this music stand isbn’t going to topple over and break my tablet that’s sitting on it. But we have to be careful that we’re not creating fiction to trust in, right? No matter how earnestly I may believe I can fly by flapping my arms, that does not make me able to fly.

The thought behind the statement “just believe” with the job application, or the medical diagnosis, or the other emotional hardship is often communicating a thought along the lines of: “God is going to do what you want him to do in this area,” be it getting you the job, curing the disease, or smoothing out the rough problems. But has he made those promises, or are we trusting promises he hasn’t made?

Jesus addresses the concept of faith in our lives in our Gospel this morning, and leads us to examine whom or what we are trusting and what expectations we have from that trust. Jesus urges us to trust the one who forgave you, because that is depending on the promises of God.

The last few weeks we’ve been hearing Jesus’ warnings and directions to the Pharisees. When it came to Jesus’ teachings, we might call the Pharisees unbelievers or fringe believers depending on the person. But in our Gospel this morning, we’re told that Jesus spoke to his disciples. This would include the 12, and probably the broader 72 that Jesus had earlier sent out to do some preaching and teaching work, and maybe an even bigger gathering of disciples. The point is that these words were not spoken to a mixed crowd. Jesus is not trying to shake unbelievers out of their spiritual slumber or apathy. He’s speaking to believers, which means even more than before, Jesus is speaking directly to us.

I want us to jump to the middle of our Gospel. After something that felt difficult to believe, the disciples responded to him, “Increase our faith.” They didn’t think they had an adequate faith to trust or do the things that Jesus was saying. And then Jesus responds with a wildly vivid picture:  “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Can you imagine doing that? Can you imagine me turning and speaking to one of these giant eucalyptus trees here in the park and saying, “Be uprooted and planted in the Bay!” and then it does it? It might feel like I had a wildly strong faith, or a uniquely strong connection to God to do such a thing.

But Jesus says that such an amazing outcome doesn’t require huge faith; it requires mustard-seed faith. Mustard seeds are really tiny. You can see a whole bunch them in a person’s palm on the front cover of the bulletin. Those are not impressive in size or scope. So what is Jesus’ point?

Faith’s power is not from the faith but from what it trusts. If you sit in a strong chair that you just barely believe will hold you, that chair will hold you just as well as if you were completely confident in its stability. Mustard-seed-faith or strong-faith doesn’t matter; what matters is what is trusted.

So, if God had made a promise that you could yell at trees to relocate themselves into the heart of a body of water, and you believed that promise even just a little bit, you could order the trees and they would obey. Because in that example, the power is coming from God’s promises—you’re just trusting that the promise is true and reliable. Of course, God hasn’t made that promise—Jesus is using a hypothetical example. So I would not recommend yelling at the trees the rest of the morning here to see if they’ll move.

We might think of Scriptural example of a one-off promise that was trusted—sort of. Think about when Jesus walked on the water and Peter asked Jesus to bring him out with him and Jesus says, “Sure, come on down!” He made a promise in that moment for Peter that he could walk on the water. And what happened? Peter walked on the water—at least until the wind and the waves shook his faith. That’s the argument for faith that is bigger and stronger than a mustard seed. Strong faith is less likely to let go in times of trial and hardship. But strong or weak faith doesn’t have any effect on the promise believed.

That means that faith has to trust a real promise. Faith can’t make the promise a reality. So, if our faith is going to depend on something, it has to depend on what God has actually said to us. And while God has made a lot of promises in many different areas of our lives, the principle one is that of the forgiveness of sins. He promises through the prophet Jeremiah, “I will forgive their guilt, and I will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34) and through the apostle John, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

The forgiveness of sins is not some wistful hope that we throw into the spiritual ether hoping it will become a reality. The forgiveness of sins is not a hypothetical situation like the tree being uprooted and planted in the sea. The forgiveness of our sins is not a one-off promise made to one specific person at a specific time like Peter walking on the water. The forgiveness of sins and the certainty of eternal life are the clear, consistent, and accomplished promises from God to all people, including you. Your forgiveness is a reality. Your sin is washed away in Jesus’ blood. You can trust that with all of your heart.

With that established, trusting the one who forgave you, we can start to apply Jesus’ teaching a little more clearly. The fact that you have been forgiven changes your outlook and approach to life. Knowing that Jesus died for you means you approach things differently than you otherwise would. Jesus said, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for that person if a millstone would be hung around his neck and he would be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Watch yourselves.”

Trusting that we are forgiven means that while temptations are unavoidable, sin is not. Trusting that we’ve been forgiven means we can tell temptation to take a hike and leave us alone because we are the children of God. It enables us to resist that temptation, and more than that, to not be the one through whom they come to others. So, because we are forgiven, it means we don’t try to get people in our lives to do what is wrong. We don’t act as a conduit for temptation for friends at school, our spouse, or our coworkers. Instead, we build them up to do what is right. We live our lives making clear that temptation is not something we want, because we want the chance to be able to share what Jesus has done with them.

And because we are forgiven, we know that when we stumble, when we do let temptation get the better of us and we do sin—because we will—we don’t have to fear that that is the end of everything. We can confidently bring that sin to God and say, “Lord, please forgive me.” And we know that, for Jesus’ sake, that sin is gone.

Jesus goes on: “If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” Trusting in the one who has forgiven you means that you can turn around and forgive others. It means treating other people’s sin like God treats your sin. Does God say he forgives you and then later throw it in your face? No, when God forgives, it is gone. Does God say you have to do something to earn his forgiveness? No, Jesus did it all in our place. So when someone wrongs us—even if it happens multiple times in a day—because of our trust in Jesus we can truly forgive that person each and every time.

Lastly, Jesus uses the picture of a servant taking care of his master. The servant receives no special accolades for doing what he was supposed to (though one would hope in that human relationship, gratitude and appreciation is expressed). But when it comes to our relationship with God, we don’t bring all the things we did because we trusted in him and look for special treatment. We don’t say, “Hey, I didn’t succumb to that one temptation—can I get something special?” We don’t say, “Hey, I didn’t bring temptation to someone else—can I get something special?” We don’t say, “Hey, I forgave that person who sinned against me multiple times—can I get something special?” No, when we do those things, we simply say, “We are unworthy servants. We have only done what we were supposed to do.”

As we approach the tasks that God has for us to do, we always remember where we came from. We were sinners, lost to hell for that sin. But God saved us. Jesus’ life and death forgives us. We are restored and whole again with God. That means we’re not looking for special treatment when we do what God asks us to do because he’s already given us that special treatment. We do these things because we trust in the one who forgave us, thus we are doing so out of thanksgiving to that one who forgave us.

Trusting God means depending on certain promises. Trusting God means you will not be disappointed or let down. Trusting God means leaning on him exclusively for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Trusting in God means knowing that we have all that we need for life and eternity, and that we can live our lives thanking him for what he’s done.

Trusting in the one who forgave you doesn’t mean you can command trees to be planted in the depths of the sea. But trusting in the one who forgave you does mean you can soothe your soul with the fact that God has rescued you from the depths of punishment. May God bless your lives lived in joy and thanksgiving to the one you trust, to the one who forgave you! Amen.

"Can You Judge Eternity by its Earthly Cover?" (Sermon on Luke 16:19-31) | September 25, 2022

Text: Luke 16:19–31
Date: September 25, 2022
Event: Proper 21, Year C

Luke 16:19–31 (EHV)   

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. 20A beggar named Lazarus had been laid at his gate. Lazarus was covered with sores and 21longed to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Besides this, the dogs also came and licked his sores. 22Eventually the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In hell, where he was in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus at his side. 24He called out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me! Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in misery in this flame.’

25“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, and you are in misery. 26Besides all this, a great chasm has been set in place between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27“He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s home, 28because I have five brothers—to warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29“Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’

30“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31“Abraham replied to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Can You Judge Eternity by its Earthly Cover?

You’ve heard the trite, cliche line: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But, there’s a lot of truth to that. I have a lovely copy of the Lord of the Rings books at home that have these wonderfully-feeling pseudo-leather covers. They look amazing. Despite being only a couple of years old, they smell amazing. I bought them like literally two weeks before the lockdown started in early 2020, and when we were stuck at home I thought this would be a great time to finally read these books. But as I sat down to do it, I discovered that the type in the books is so small that it’s almost unreadable. They are wildly uncomfortable to read. The good first impression did not speak to the whole.

And certainly this doesn’t just happen with books. Movies, video games, breakfast cereals, fast food commercials, real estate listings, and anything else trying to sell you on something or convince you on something’s quality is going to, at the bear minimum, put its best foot forward if not even outright lying about the quality that lies within. And yet, it works right? You go to that open house because the apartment or home looks great in the pictures and then you get there and it’s small and cramped and uncomfortable. You get that sandwich that looked so nice on the menu to find a squashed, kind of gross reality on the tray they hand to you. But still we want to believe that what we see will be what we get.

That becomes especially dangerous when we consider this life as the “front cover” for eternity. Is what we experience here a reflection of what is coming? How much about what we go through in this life shows us what God thinks about us? Should our experiences in this life make us hopeful or worried about what is to come?

In our Gospel, Jesus shares a story that’s probably a parable (although, it’s not called out as such) about an unnamed rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus. The experiences for both of these men in life could not have been more different. There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. A beggar named Lazarus had been laid at his gate. Lazarus was covered with sores and longed to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Besides this, the dogs also came and licked his sores. The rich man and Lazarus are living in two totally different worlds: wealth vs. poverty, comfort vs. pain, an abundance vs. not enough.

To look at this book on the outside, one might say that God loves the rich man and hates or at least is indifferent toward Lazarus. After all, look at all the good things the rich man has and look at all the good Lazarus lacks. Modern-day prosperity gospel preachers like Joel Osteen and his ilk preach a message similar to this. They will encourage people to measure their faith by the observable blessings that they have, and advise that if someone lacks wealth or health or anything else, they don’t believe strongly enough or haven’t pursued it with God often enough.

Does Jesus’ story give even one shred of credit to that notion? Lazarus dies and is taken to heaven and the rich man dies and is in hell. It’s a total role-reversal. If you were judging what God thought about either of these men by the cover of their earthly life, you would guess that God loved the rich man and despised Lazarus. But the reality in eternal life is much, much different. Looking at someone’s earthly life and earthly wealth tells you nothing about the relationship they have with the Almighty.

Last week we spent a good amount of time talking through the dangers of pursuing more and more earthly wealth. It leads to discontent; it could lead to a falling away from faith. And in Jesus’ story we see another strong reason for not pursuing earthly wealth and putting stock in this life: it just doesn’t matter. Being rich in this life doesn’t translate to blessings in eternity, and being poor in this life doesn’t translate to enduring grief in eternity.

I need to stress that again: it doesn’t matter. Earthly wealth doesn’t play into this at all, one way or another. Lest we misunderstand Jesus’ point: the rich man did not go to hell because he was rich in his earthly life and Lazarus did not go to heaven because he suffered in his earthly life. In Jesus’ story, Abraham makes clear the distinction as he speaks with the rich man about his brothers: They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.

In this story, the rich man ends up in hell because he does not believe the promises of God. Lazarus ends up in heaven because he does believe the promises of God. Note that God’s promises say very little about earthly life here, save for daily bread. Lazarus seemed to have just barely had daily bread where the rich man had an abundance.

But God’s promises primarily focus on the spiritual and the eternal. Is a person’s earthly life an indication of what is coming? Perhaps, but not necessarily. And if it does coordinate, one did not cause the other. The riches and pains of this life are completely inconsequential when it comes to eternity.

So when you look at your life, maybe you feel nervous about your ability to make ends meet and then worried that this situation means that God doesn’t care very much about you. Or maybe you look at your health struggles and it feels like God has forgotten you. It may feel that way, but the reality is the contrary! God loves you and has forgiven your sins in Jesus. Or when you look at your life and see that you have much more than you need or perhaps more than you could ever use, don’t let that twist your thinking to assume that this means you automatically have things set for now and for eternity.

Regardless of our socio-economic position, our health status, or our reputation among others, we have the same needs that Lazarus, the rich man, and his brothers all had in Jesus’ day: Moses and the Prophets. That’s shorthand for the inspired Scriptures at that time, so we might have sub in just “the Bible.” Rich or poor, healthy or sick, strong or frail, we need God’s message. We need God to come to us and confront our greed or our anger or our lust or our gossiping heart or whatever sins might have a snare around, and show us how incompatible those things are with God’s expectations. We need the message of God’s law to convict us of our sin and show us how we haven’t been the perfect people that God demands we be.

But then we also need the Bible’s message of gospel—the good news that Jesus lived and died to free us from those sins. This is where we actually find out what God thinks of us. You can’t deduce that from a bank account balance, the report from the doctor, or personal awards and accolades. Those things are just the cover of the book, which can be misleading. You can only deduce what God thinks of you by looking at Jesus. And what do you see when you look at him? You see the Son of God living a perfect life in place of your sinful life. You see the Creator of the universe dying to pay the debt his creation owed. You are so precious to God that he was willing to die to save you. That’s what God thinks about you, regardless of what you have or don’t have right here and right now.

We’ve spoken a lot about contentment over the last few weeks, but in Jesus’ story Abraham reminds us that if there’s one thing we should never be content with, it’s how much we know God’s Word, how well we’re connected to his love, and how powerful an impact that message of his love and forgiveness has on our lives of service to others. And those things are all things that God does for us, through his Word and sacraments.

You know how God loves you dearly, not because of what he’s given you now, but what he’s assured you is your inheritance forever. Spend your time focused on what is truly important and truly imparts understanding for what God has prepared for you. Your Savior gives you what you need now, and will give you an abundance in eternity because he loves you. May that fact, more than any earthly metric, be your encouragement as you look ahead to what is to come.

Thanks be to our Savior, who forgives our every sin in his love for us! Amen.

"How to Get Rich" (Sermon on 1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-19) | September 18, 2022

Text: 1 Timothy 6:6–10, 17–19
Date: September 18, 2022
Event: Proper 20, Year C

1 Timothy 6:6–10, 17–19 (EHV)

But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly cannot take anything out. 8But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be satisfied.

9Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into complete destruction and utter ruin. 10For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils. By striving for money, some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.

17Instruct those who are rich in this present age not to be arrogant or to put their hope in the uncertainty of riches, but rather in God, who richly supplies us with all things for our enjoyment. 18Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share. 19In this way they are storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

How to Get Rich

Not too many weeks ago, the Mega Millions lottery prize was over a billion dollars. A billion. I can’t even process that number. I once heard a way to try to distinguish the difference between a million and a billion. A million seconds is 12 days; a billion seconds is 31 years. It’s an astronomical number for anything, including dollars. Of course, if you win that, a huge percentage goes to the government in taxes. But even still, winning hundreds of millions of dollars? What would you even do with all of that money?

Several years ago, another lottery total was up around that much and I remember doing a lot of daydreaming about the good we could do if our family won that amount of money. What could be done for our family? For those suffering with homelessness and poverty? What could be done for our congregation and synod and the spread of the gospel at large? In fact, I can remember standing in line at a convenience store thinking, “I should just buy one ticket,” but they only sold them as a cash purchase and I didn’t have any cash, so I didn’t buy a ticket. But the result was the same as if I had bought a ticket—we didn’t win.

But you’ve likely heard the horror stories of people who win the lottery thinking it will make their lives better and it just ruins them. All of their relationships become strained. All the good they wanted to do seems impossible, and oftentimes, even those who win ridiculous sums of money, are bankrupt within a few years.

Having a ton of money isn’t all its cracked up to be. In fact, it can often be a burden rather than a blessing. Money in general is a tool, but it’s not an end. It’s a means to an end. So what is the Christian’s relationship with earthly wealth? And how do you manage that against the world’s view of earthly wealth? How do you get rich while taking God’s perspective on the matter?

Sometimes there’s a view that the church should’t talk about money. And if all we were going to talk about is how you should give more money to the church and end there, then that sentiment is probably right. But God’s Word is overflowing with verses guiding, advising, and warning about earthly wealth. So if this is important for God to say it’s probably important for us to hear and consider.

In our Second Reading, Paul is writing to Pastor Timothy with advice and guidance for him as he approaches his work shepherding God’s flock in the city of Ephesus. One of the topics he spills considerable ink on in this relatively short letter is money. The very first thing in our reading that Paul hits on is that of contentment. Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly cannot take anything out. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be satisfied.

That is not the way the world looks at wealth. The world’s advice is always get more, buy up more, hoard more, have more. And this is why greed is not a problem for rich people nor is it a problem for poor people, it’s a problem for people. Because whether I have a lot of money or a little bit of money, if I’m pressing on toward wanting more and focused on accumulating more, that’s going to lead me into trouble no matter what I’m starting with: Those who want to get rich (or we might insert the “richer”) fall into temptation and a trap and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into complete destruction and utter ruin. A lack of contentment leads to wanting more wealth, and wanting more wealth leads to complete destruction and utter ruin. In other words, continually seeking after more wealth leads to earthly and eternal loss.

How do you get rich? The first step is by realizing that earthly riches are not something to be pursued, but something to be received. When it comes to earthly wealth here, no matter how much we’ve been given, the goal is always management, it’s faithfulness, to what has been entrusted to us. So if you are barely scraping by and just barely making ends meet to feed, clothe, and house your family, that is being faithful with what God has given. If God has given you an abundance to manage, you have the responsibility to use that abundance in a way that pleases God. And no matter where you find yourself on the poor/wealthy spectrum, contentment with what has been given is paramount.

But we know that we’ve not always been faithful, we’ve not always been content. We’ve dreamed about and lusted after more wealth for ourselves, be it adding to a considerable amount we already have or pulling us out of what feels like a low pit of no resources. There have been times, even if not constantly, where money and material things have become an idol for us, a god that we worship because we prioritized it above all other things. And that’s why Paul reminded Timothy that such attitudes lead to complete destruction and utter ruin, because they lead to focusing on worldly things instead of eternal things. In our Gospel, Jesus said that you cannot be a servant to both God and money at the same time (Luke 16:13), and Paul underscores that truth: By striving for money, some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.

But Jesus came to save us. When writing to the Corinthians, Paul put it this way: You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Jesus not only didn’t reach for things that hadn’t been given to him, in order to save us he actually gave up what was rightfully his. There was no reason for Jesus to take on our human nature, but to save us. There was no reason for him to give up on the glory he rightfully has as God the Son, but to save us. There was no reason for him to allow himself to be nailed to a cross and suffer the punishment of hell, but to save us. And saving us was of the utmost importance to him, so that’s what he did. He gave us the power and glory and riches he has as God in order to be our Savior.

Because he gave up those things for us, we are forgiven for the times we have let the desire for and worry about material things drive our lives. We have been forgiven for our discontent.  We have been forgiven for prioritizing earthly treasure over true, eternal wealth. Jesus paid the debt we owed in our sin and he freely gives us the most precious gift of eternal life.

So what now? How do we get rich? First and foremost, recognize that you already are. You have the treasure that no amount of money could ever buy. You have the love of God freely given to you in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. You have faith given to you by the Holy Spirit through his Word and sacraments which enables you to trust that these things are true and certain.

With that certainty of our eternal wealth established, Paul gives us the secret to getting even richer in this life: Instruct those who are rich in this present age not to be arrogant or to put their hope in the uncertainty of riches, but rather in God, who richly supplies us with all things for our enjoyment. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share. In this way they are storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

Want to be rich? Don’t focus on money or possessions or anything else the world might consider wealth. Rather, focus on being rich in good works. What does that look like? It means living your life in thanksgiving to God—every conversation, every interaction, tackling every moment of every day with the goal of bringing glory to God through it. It means being generous with what you’ve been given in treasures or talents or time, and in whatever degree God has allowed you to have those things.

God has given you the ability to be generous. Now, maybe you can’t write a check and pay off someone’s mortgage or singlehandedly support a new mission congregation somewhere in the country. But perhaps you can do some smaller-feeling things—helping someone who needs some water or a meal, spending time with someone who needs an ear to listen to them and support them, spending some time teaching someone a skill or some facts they need in their lives. There are many, many ways to be generous, and few of them require a giant vault of gold to do so.

So let those earthly resources that God gives be used in his service and in the service of one another. Don’t let earthly things become an all-consuming force. Put them in their place and use them for what God has intended: take care of your personal and family responsibilities, see to it that the message of the gospel goes out from this place and elsewhere, and take the opportunities to be generous to others so that you reflect God’s eternal generosity to all people.

How do you get rich? You let God give you true riches that endure now and forever. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"What Does God Think About You?" (Sermon on Luke 15:1-10) | September 11, 2022

Text: Luke 15:1-10
Date: September 11, 2022
Event: Proper 19, Year C

Luke 15:1-10 (EHV)

All the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus to hear him. 2But the Pharisees and the experts in the law were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3He told them this parable: 4“Which one of you, if you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that was lost until he finds it? 5And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6and goes home. Then he calls together his friends and his neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’ 7I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.

8“Or what woman who has ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, would not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9And when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the lost coin.’ 10In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

What Does God Think About You?

Do you ever wonder what someone thinks about you? Maybe you’re wondering if you got off on the wrong foot with that new coworker, or wondering if your first impression with that friend-of-a-friend went really poorly, or perhaps a formerly strong relationship has begun to drift. In any case, you can be left wondering what someone really thinks about you and that can make future conversations and interactions difficult, uncomfortable, or even feel impossible.

That’s bad enough when it comes to our human relationships. It gets multiplied when we consider our spiritual relationship, that is, our relationship with God. Knowing how God thinks about you, knowing what he feels for you, will be vitally important for your peace of mind and heart as you look forward to eternity. So, what does God think about you?

In our Gospel, Jesus took the opportunity to respond to some Pharisees’ criticism. They were appalled that Jesus would spend time with quote-unquote “sinners,” that is, people who were publicly known to have done or be doing things that the Pharisees felt were wrong.

What sorts of people were they referring to? Two of the most commonly referenced people in the Gospels that raised the Pharisees ire were the tax collectors and prostitutes. We know that Jesus welcome such people, spoke to them, and spent time with them. Were the Pharisees wrong to disapprove of these people from a moral standpoint?

Let’s start with the tax collectors this would not be the equivalent of an IRS agent. Tax collectors in Jesus’ day would almost be more akin to a member of the mob shaking down a business for personal gain. Tax collectors were local people commissioned by the Roman government to gather taxes. Now, they had a minimum that they were supposed to gather from people, but Rome turned a blind eye if they took more than they were supposed to. So many tax collectors became fabulously wealthy by collecting many times the required amount from the people and then pocketing the difference. They were morally corrupt by stealing from others what was not owed to them. And the rest of their countrymen found them to socially corrupt, because they were partnering with the foreign power to profit themselves at the expense of their own people. On many levels, this is not conduct that should be condoned.

What about the prostitutes? We don’t need as much background here as prostitution has been relatively unchanged in the history of the world. A prostitute seeks money by distorting God’s design for sex and turning it into a transaction. They are professional adulterers and fornicators. You do not need to look far to see the sin in people that take up this profession.

So no one, Jesus included, would defend the sin of these so-called “sinners.” Jesus would continue to try to help the Pharisees see beyond surface level obedience, though. The Pharisees were good at identifying professional sin. The tax collectors and prostitutes chose occupations steeped in sin or one where sin was very easy to walk into. The Pharisees recoiled at that, and to a certain degree, rightly so. However, what the Pharisees often failed to see was the personal sin, that not just in publicly seen action, but that in the heart of every person is a sinful nature. Sinful thoughts pervade even the most sanctified of people. Sinful desires and temptations claw at every single person. While not every person may feel temptation to the same sins, temptation in general is universal in fallen mankind.

But that’s not really the point of Jesus’ brief parables here with the Pharisees. The point Jesus is trying to make is not whether or not anyone is a sinner. Jesus has been clear over and over again that EVERYONE is a sinner, even the Pharisees who didn’t think they were. But Jesus’ point is that that’s not something someone needs to deny or run from because of what God thinks about them.

These parables are so powerful. What does the shepherd think of that one, straying sheep? He thinks so highly of that singular sheep that he leaves behind the rest of the flock and traverses the rocks and the hills to search it out. How valuable was that one coin to that woman? She spent the night sweeping out her home by lamplight and wouldn’t rest until she found it.

What is Jesus point? What does God think about you? He loves you with a love so complete and strong that you and I can’t even understand it. He seeks you out where you are with his loving forgiveness and brings you back to himself. We know that quest wasn’t just a trip through the rugged countryside or a night spent cleaning the house. The quest to find lost you and lost me cost Jesus his life. He died to forgive our sins. He died to bring us back to himself. He loves you so much that he willingly, gladly gave up his life to save you.

Perhaps you feel like the sheep all alone or the coin that tumbled into the dusty corner of a forgotten room. Perhaps you feel like you are in those places because of your own fault. Maybe it’s something you said to a loved one or failed to accomplish that you should have, or even sinful thoughts that drifted through your head. Perhaps you feel like you’ve wandered away from God and that that’s that.

It makes sense to feel that way—Satan uses guilt to twist us into a spiritual and emotional pretzel—but it does not reflect reality. It does not reflect God’s promises to you. It does not reflect what God truly thinks about you. God isn’t giving up on you. God is not abandoning you. God is not done with you. Rather, God is seeking you out. And he calls us to repentance. And when we repent from our sin, when we turn away from those things that are pulling us away from him, there is a giant party thrown by the angels in heaven.

And this is the thing the Pharisees missed: God doesn’t just love people who look like they live a good life on the outside. God loves all people regardless of who they are or what they’ve done. But notice how Jesus does emphasizes repentance. When Jesus spent time with tax collectors, prostitutes, and other so-called “sinners,”  he didn’t tell them to keep doing what they were doing. He loved them, which meant forgiving them and also not letting them think it was good or wise for sin to run rampant in their lives. It benefitted no one to avoid these people as the Pharisees wanted to do, rather they needed someone to interact with them and to call them to repentance. Zacchaeus the tax collector famously said he would pay back what he stole when he learned of Jesus’ love. Matthew the tax collector became one of Jesus 12 disciples. Jesus told the woman who was caught in adultery that he didn’t condemn her, but that she should leave her life of sin.

So Jesus’ approach to seeking the lost is not letting them stay lost. This is not a case of (as some distort it), “God loves me no matter what so it doesn’t matter what I do.” This is a case of God loving you and because he loves you, he calls you away from that sin.

Sin is a constant threat to our faith because sin leads us away from God. If we are determined enough, we can be a lost sheep that is carried away by sin and sprints away from our Savior every time he’s searching for us and calling to us. That will end in hell. But part of the comfort of God’s love for us is that he’s looking out for what’s best for us. Like a family member begging the person addicted to drugs to get help to get off of them, God calls us to get off of sin, because it only leads to self-destruction. And he provides the way out—Jesus.

So unlike the way the world defines love, God’s love is not letting us do whatever we want. The lost sheep doesn’t keep playing in the dangerous terrain, away from the flock; the shepherd takes the sheep away from the dangerous place and brings it back home. God brings us away from sin and back to himself. His forgiveness means we need not feel guilt over our past faults but also that we actively seek to thank him by living a life free from sin, living according to his will.

And this is the Christian’s constant struggle. Because no matter how much we study God’s Word, no matter how much we know what he wants or has done for us, no matter how much we know and believe that his thoughts for us are filled with love, we will still sin. Sin will be our constant companion until the day we die.

But so will Jesus. Our loving shepherd will continue to seek us out. He seeks us out in his Word as we read or hear it. He seeks us out in the loving concern of a fellow Christian who calls to us to examine what we’re doing or saying. He seeks us out no matter where we are, and in his loving forgiveness brings us back to himself.

What does God think about you? He loves you, and that will never change. God, keep us close to you, forgive our faults, and bring us to your eternal home in heaven. Amen.

"What Does it Cost to be Jesus' Disciple?" (Sermon on Luke 14:25-35) | September 4, 2022

Text: Luke 14:25-35
Date: September 4, 2022
Event: Proper 18, Year C

Luke 14:25-35 (EHV)

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus. He turned and said to them, 26“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28For which of you, if he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, everyone who sees it will begin to ridicule him, 30saying, ‘This fellow began to build, but was not able to finish.’ 31Or what king, as he goes out to confront another king in war, will not first sit down and consider if he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32And if he is not able, he sends out a delegation and asks for terms of peace while his opponent is still far away. 33So then, any one of you who does not say farewell to all his own possessions cannot be my disciple. 34Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how will it become salty again? 35It is not fit for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. The one who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

What Does it Cost to be Jesus’ Disciple?

When you’re getting ready to go away from home for a few hours or a few days, what are some things you have to think through? A lot of it focuses on what you’ll be doing, right? You’ll prepare differently for an afternoon spent in Golden Gate Park than a three day business conference in Dallas. You have to think through where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing to ensure that you’re prepared properly for it. You probably have to factor in time, weather, and what you have available to you.

Planning is important, and can be a lot of work. If you don’t have a natural inclination toward being a planner, doing a good job preparing for something can be a ton of mental and even emotional work. But being well-prepared, especially when you won’t have the time or ability to make adjustments where you’ll be is often the difference between a good experience and a miserable experience.

In our Gospel for this morning, Jesus is urging those following him to plan and consider the cost of what it  means to be his disciple. We do well to listen as well, because nothing has changed between then and now. Being Jesus’ disciple, being a Christian, has a cost associated with it in this life. If we are not well prepared for it, the hardships of this life may lead us away from the forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus has won for us and freely gives to us.

Our reading continues down the path of the middle of Luke’s Gospel that we’ve been walking for the last several weeks. Two weeks ago we heard Jesus directing us to strive for the narrow door, and last week we heard him remind us to approach this life with humility. This week, he urges us to consider what it costs to be focused on that door and being humble in this life. What does it mean for here and now as well as for eternity to be Jesus’ disciple?

Jesus’ first statement is kind of alarming: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Is Jesus saying I must hate my family to be a Christian? Is self-loathing a requirement for heaven? That’s not what he’s saying, but he is saying something not too far from it. We actually heard Jesus make a related point three weeks ago when he said: Do you think that I came to bring peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. Yes, from now on there will be five divided in one household: three against two, and two against three. They will be divided: father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law (Luke 12:51-53).

The heart of what Jesus is asking people to consider is what is most important to you. If there was a conflict between doing what your spouse wanted and following Jesus’ direction, who should win? If there was a conflict between being personal desires and what Jesus says, what should win? While hatred is a strong term, Jesus is clear that he must take priority over all things, even our most personal feelings and our closest relationships.

Living according to God’s will is always going to be at odds with the things of this world, and thus will put us at odds with anyone thinking about things from a worldly point of view—including ourselves. Being a Christian will be difficult; Jesus calls it carrying your cross to make clear that this isn’t always going to be pleasant. That’s not to say that every moment of a Christian’s life will be pure misery, far from it. But when those troubling things happen, when those crosses are placed on our shoulders, when we bear these burdens in the short term or the long term, it should not come as a surprise.

Jesus uses that truth to teach a powerful reminder: you need to take this into account when you figure in whether being a Christian is worth it. There is a real cost associated with this life, and we do well to consider that rather than just blindly following what seems best or what our parents or friends are doing. Jesus uses the example of a man starting a building project. He has to consider if he has enough resources to complete the project. He has to know what it costs before he starts to make sure he doesn’t just peter out. Likewise, the king going into battle, needs to weigh the cost and determine if he can win even if he’s outgunned, and if not to try to make peace before the fighting begins.

What’s the alternative to either of those situations? The man who starts the building project and runs out of resources will be left with a construction site and the shame of not being able to finish what he started. Everyone who sees it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build, but was not able to finish.’ Likewise, the king who doesn’t carefully consider the situation in front of him may have his authority ripped away from him while losing many lives, perhaps even his own. Starting something and not being able to finish it because you didn’t anticipate what was coming leads to disaster.

The same is true for the Christian life. If someone becomes a Christian but then doesn’t know that it’ll be tough, may have that difficulty choke his desire for Jesus out of him. And if the crosses we must bear as Christians leave us abandoning the Christian faith, what we will face after this life will be the same disaster (or even worse) than it would have been if we had never believed in the first place. If we give up on our faith in Jesus as our Savior, it doesn’t matter that we at one time believed. Abandoning our faith midstream leads to hell the same way that a lifetime of unbelief does.

That’s the point Jesus is making with the salt. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how will it become salty again? It is not fit for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Salt was far more important to people in Jesus’ day than it is in ours. It wasn’t just about flavor; it was a preserving agent in the eras before refrigeration. If salt lost the qualities it needed to be considered salt, it was worthless. It wouldn’t preserve anything, it wouldn’t flavor anything. Unlike spoiled vegetables that may be mixed into the ground to fertilize it or into the manure to aid in the breakdown of that compost, salt that isn’t salty is utterly worthless. It’s just thrown away.

As a Christian, Jesus says you are the salt of the earth. But abandoning your faith for any reason, including the difficulty associated with being a Christian in this world, leads you to be discarded like unsalty salt.

We do well to consider what it costs to be a Christian. Jesus is not the easy way through this life. Jesus is not the path of least resistance. In many ways, because Jesus sets you against the attitudes of the world around you, being Jesus’ disciple is the path of most resistance. It is more difficult to be a Christian in this life and live a life of thankfulness to God than it is to not be a Christian at all.

All of this ties into what Jesus has been saying for weeks in our Gospels. It’s difficult to strive for the narrow door. It’s difficult to be last in this life and look forward to being first in eternity. It’s difficult to live in humility.

Who is up to this task? No one. Not you, not me, not even the most pious, faithful believer that you’ve ever known. Without God’s grace we would abandon this calling, we would abandon this life, we would leave the construction site half finished and walk away to our eternal demise. But with God’s grace? By his grace we see the value in building that tower, so with his aid we strive to complete no matter the cost. By his grace we see the strategy to the battle of this life and with his aid strive to execute on it. By his grace we see the importance of being his salt in the world and with his aid continue to preserve this world by living and sharing his love.

By God’s grace we see the value of Jesus. The cost his high, absolutely. Unbearably high if we were on our own. But we are not on our own. We see that Jesus is the solution to our sin. Every time we’ve felt the pull to just walk away from him, we know that he has forgiven us. Every time that we’ve begun to think that this life isn’t worth it, he’s there to point us to the reality: his life and death paid for every sin which means we will be eternally safe.

We asked the question earlier if it was worth it to follow Jesus, to endure these hardships. The answer is absolutely “yes.” Because he provides infinite, eternal good and peace, not the temporary reprieve of this life. To couch it in financial terms, would you rather have a thousand dollars or an infinite supply of money and resources? That’s the difference between peace here and peace for eternity.

Being a Christian may mean divisions here, crosses that are difficult to bear, and temptations to walk away. But Jesus’ forgiving love guards us and guides us in that. What you are looking for is not a temporary joy that will eventually evaporate; you’re looking forward to the eternal joy that your Savior has prepared for you. Acknowledge that the cost is high, but see that it is absolutely worth it.

And support one another. As Christians, we are not left to bear these crosses alone. Offer to help your brothers and sisters in their hardships; share your need or desire for help in bearing the crosses that Jesus allows to come into your life. Together, we count the cost; together, we bear the crosses; together, we look forward to the perfect eternal life with out Savior who lived and died to forgive our every sin and failing. Dear Christian, press on no matter what the cost, because you press on with your Savior now and forever. Amen.

"You Are Exalted from Humility" (Sermon on Luke 14:1, 7-14) | August 28, 2022

Text: Luke 14:1, 7–14
Date: August 28, 2022
Event: Proper 17, Year C

Luke 14:1, 7–14 (EHV)

One Sabbath day, when Jesus went into the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat bread, they were watching him closely.

7When he noticed how they were selecting the places of honor, he told the invited guests a parable. 8“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline in the place of honor, or perhaps someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him. 9The one who invited both of you may come and tell you, ‘Give this man your place.’ Then you will begin, with shame, to take the lowest place.

10“But when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will tell you, ‘Friend, move up to a higher place.’ Then you will have honor in the presence of all who are reclining at the table with you.

11“Yes, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

12He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you make a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbors, so that perhaps they may also return the favor and pay you back.

13“But when you make a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. Certainly, you will be repaid in the resurrection of the righteous.”

You Are Exalted from Humility

Do you ever read advice columns? Be it in newspapers, magazines, or probably more likely now, online, the whole point of an advice column is that people have a situation in their life that they’re not sure how to handle and they seek out advice on what the solution may be. Perhaps it’s a social question, a work question, a family question, or even a question about the direction of their life. The one writing the response will do their best to give an answer with the limited information they’ve been given in the original note.

That’s seeking out advice, but have you ever received unsolicited advice? Maybe someone offered you some tips on your appearance or your health that you were not looking for. Maybe someone told you how to do you job differently than you were currently doing it, but the way you were doing it was working fine. Maybe your parenting or your relationship with your spouse was critiqued among a group of friends or by your in-laws, producing a really awkward situation that you did not ask for. And again, it would be advice given with very, very limited information.

In our Gospel this morning we hear and see Jesus offering some social and spiritual advice to the people at the meal he was attending, but it was not advice that anyone asked for. They were going about their business and enjoying themselves when Jesus launched into a brief sermon on humility and exaltation, a sermon that perhaps no one wanted to hear. Unlike the advice column or the unsolicited advice we might receive, though, Jesus is not speaking from a perspective of limited information. As God, he had all the information one could possibly need. And he uses that to direct his fellow guests not merely to better social graces, but to applying these principles to their spiritual lives as well.

There’s a bit of overlap in our Gospel for this morning and our Gospel from last week, where we heard Jesus talk about striving for the narrow door and the reminder that last will be first and first, last. But today’s focus is a bit different. Rather than focusing on the path one takes in this life, Jesus is zeroing on what people think about themselves. As he sat watching the guests at this dinner, he could see several people who thought very highly of themselves. They felt they deserved to be honored, and so took places at the table they felt that they deserved.

Jesus’ direction to his fellow guests, on the surface, is some social graces: “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline in the place of honor, or perhaps someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him. The one who invited both of you may come and tell you, ‘Give this man your place.’ Then you will begin, with shame, to take the lowest place.” Jesus advises against taking places of honor without invitation because then you’re inviting shame. If the host of the dinner had a different plan for those places of honor, then you’ll be told to move, and with shame and embarrassment have to take a place that someone feels is right for you.

So, instead, Jesus says, take the lowest position. If you take the lower, more humble place, you may very well be “upgraded” to a higher position, to a position of prominence. And when that happens, you will have honor in the presence of all who are reclining at the table with you. And even if you aren’t moved to a higher position, at least you avoided the public shame of being told to move down to a more lowly place.

But Jesus is not merely focusing on social graces here. What he really wants to address is the attitude of the heart that would lead someone to assume that the place of prominence is for them. That same attitude might also lead them to do something like inviting people to a dinner party with the hope of getting repaid in-kind. Why should they get repaid? Because they deserve it! After all, what they did for the other people means they should be shown the same blessing.

Lurking under the surface here is the idea that getting ahead in this life is the most important thing. Success in business, in family, in hobby, in general recognition or notoriety. Not that pursuing excellence in any of those things is wrong in and of itself, but pursing it exclusively or more than eternal things leads us astray. To use Jesus’ imagery from last week’s Gospel, pursuing these things above all else will make us stop striving to enter through that narrow door.

And this attitude, to one degree or another, is present in all of us. Because it boils down to selfishness, which itself is the essence of sin. Sin is, at its core, believing that what I want is more important than what anyone else needs or wants—including God. I’m more important than anyone and everyone else. Ah, this place of prominence is for me because who else could it possibly be for?

You see the problem right away. And this may take different forms in our lives. Maybe it’s pride (I deserve the recognition), maybe it’s greed (I deserve these treasures), but really it can be anything that exalts us above other people.

That’s the attitude and issue that Jesus came to solve. Jesus, of all people, had the rights to the highest position. He is the Son of God after all. And yet, what place did he take? The scratchy straw in the manger doesn’t seem like a very exalted position. Living in the home of a humble carpenter’s family doesn’t seem to be very eye-catching. Traveling around Galilee, Samaria, and Judea teaching, but never having a home to call his own doesn’t scream, “Success!” And certainly, allowing himself to be condemned and executed without even raising a finger to stop it doesn’t really speak to his power or authority.

Why was Jesus so humble? Because he was taking your place and my place under God’s law. He didn’t come to this world to be the extreme, dominant force in the world, to garner the praise and adoration of the nations. No, he came to give his life as the only possible payment to remove our sin. We said last week that Jesus made himself last to put us first. And today we can see that Jesus humbled himself that we might be exalted. Jesus’ humble work on our behalf lifts us from the shame of our sin. Jesus puts us in the place of honor that we did not deserve and that we had no ability to claim for ourselves. And no one will tell us to go back. We will never face what we deserved because of our sin. We will not be sent to hell in shame for what we’ve done because the forgiving-exaltation Jesus gives is forever.

What is our response to the exaltation that Jesus gives? Do we walk around with chest out, proud of what we have, as if we deserve it or earned it? Walking that path will lead us to put our hope in ourselves, which is the exact problem Jesus came to solve. Putting hope in ourselves in for eternal safety leads to a infinitely more dire outcome than being embarrassed at a dinner party. Putting our eternal hope in ourselves and in our work will lead to hell.

So, no, our response to Jesus work is not pride; it’s gratitude. We rejoice in what Jesus has done for us. We live our lives in way that should reflect that joy, doing what God wants us to do, not to earn something from him, but to thank him for what he’s already given to us.

This leads us to another question: how do we view others who don’t know Jesus? Do we get angry at those who don’t share our hope and thus our moral values? No! As we approach our whole life with thankful humility, that humility reigns in our interactions with the people around us.

There’s an axiom that humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. To be humble does not mean hating yourself. Humility is prioritizing others ahead of yourself. Paul, when writing to the Christians in Philippi, compared the attitude of Christians with Jesus. He told them, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility consider one another better than yourselves. Let each of you look carefully not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Indeed, let this attitude be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:3-5).

When we consider our relationship to other people, we want to think, “How can I be a little bit like Jesus in this person’s life? How can I love humbly and selflessly?” Your humble treatment of a coworker may be what eventually opens a door to share Jesus’ humble service for them to forgive their sins. Your humble treatment of a fellow Christian may be the reinforcement and reminder of Jesus’ humble love that they desperately need in the moment.

Your sin meant that you deserved nothing good, and everything bad. But Jesus humbled himself to exalt you. You’ve been lifted from the pit of hell and placed in the seat of a child of God in the kingdom of heaven. Rejoice in that humility that saved you. Reflect that humility around you. My dear brothers and sisters, because you are exalted, rejoice with humility at all times. Amen.

"Strive to Enter Through the Narrow Door" (Sermon on Luke 13:22-30) | August 21, 2022

Text: Luke 13:22-30
Date: August 21, 2022
Event: Proper 16, Year C

Luke 13:22-30 (EHV)

He went on his way from one town and village to another, teaching, and making his way to Jerusalem. 23Someone said to him, “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?”

He said to them, 24“Strive to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. 25Once the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open for us!’ He will tell you in reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ 26Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27And he will say, ‘I don’t know where you come from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’ 28There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown outside. 29People will come from east and west, from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. 30And note this: Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Strive to Enter Through the Narrow Door

I love GPS in the car. Well, maybe that’s a weird way to state it. Maybe a better way to state it is that I need GPS in the car. My sense of direction and my ability to accurately remember where the road I’m on actually leads is usually pretty questionable. I’m forever gluing a different road’s end to the one I’m driving on in my mind, and then am shocked when I don’t end up where I think I’m going. GPS can help me focus on the actual route to go. And even if I do know how to get there, it’s nice to get updates on traffic and accidents and such.

But while we were on vacation, we had the opportunity to be driving around in a few different cars. And sometimes, you connect the phone to the car, but the audio wouldn’t work for some reason, or it would but it would be weirdly quiet. So, despite the GPS telling us exactly how to get where we were going, you still had to focus a good deal on the directions it was giving because it maybe wasn’t filling the space with loud, clear announcements. You perhaps had to listen carefully or even look at the map on the screen to make sure you didn’t miss a turn or an exit.

In our Gospel this morning, Jesus is telling us to pay attention to the GPS. But he’s not talking about a road trip. He says we need to be focused on our goal of eternal life and the path to get there. If we’re not really plugged in and paying attention, it’s incredibly easy to take a wrong turn or try to get there by the wrong route. But, by God’s grace, we will stay focused, striving all of our life to enter through the narrow door.

Our Gospel takes place during a time of travel and teaching for Jesus. He would hop from place to place, teaching the people as he had the opportunity. And while he’s doing that, someone in one of the crowds asks him a question, “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?” We’re not really given any indication why this man is asking the question, and the motivation behind it can be important. I think there could be roughly three different motivations for it:

The first one that comes to my mind is fear. It is possible that this man is terrified that he’s not going to make it to eternal life and he’d like some assurance that the group is large so that there’s hopefully a better chance that he’s a part of that group. The second option that comes to mind is that he could be asking to try to rate God’s fairness, that is, if only a few people are going to be saved, then he’ll be accusing God of wrong-doing or making mistakes. This is an attitude that I (and probably you) have often run into in people’s thinking today. The third option could come from a sense of pride. In other words, “Are only a few people going to be saved? Because if so, that means I’m part of an elite group.”

It is fascinating that Jesus doesn’t really even answer the man’s question. Remember, the man asked Jesus, “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?” But Jesus’ response is: “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” The man asked for a piece of information and instead got a command from Jesus. Why?

Jesus is redirecting the man away from looking at everyone else, and instead focusing on himself. Not in a selfish way, but in a concerned way. If we can torture the GPS illustration a little bit more, this man seems to be driving down the road, maybe ignoring the directions in his car, but instead focusing on whether the other cars are going to the right way or not. He’s potentially missing his path by critiquing the path others are taking. That’s not real wise.

And so Jesus says essentially, “Be focused on you. Are you going to be saved? Because many people will try to get in and won’t be able to.” We know that it was a regular misunderstanding among people of Jesus’ day that they would be in heaven because of their bloodline. Many believed that simply because they were descendants of Abraham, they were good with God, regardless of what they said, did, or even believed. Jesus spent a good deal of time correcting that attitude for many people, and it seems likely that this is the problem Jesus is correcting behind this man’s question.

And so Jesus uses the illustration of a home owner who is bringing people into his home, but eventually gets up and closes the door because the time is done. And people still outside are pleading with them to let them in: ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ (As an aside, I really wonder if perhaps Jesus was answering this man’s question while standing in the streets of the town—did he even perhaps eat a meal with this man prior to this?) But despite this supposed close relation to the master of the house, they are not let in. In fact, he responds to their pleas in a pretty terrifying way: ‘I don’t know where you come from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’

Jesus is directing the man to some self-reflection. Why was he confident he would be one of the few saved? What was he putting his hope in? Was it because he attended several teaching sessions with Jesus? Well, just like the master of the house indicated, closeness to the teacher doesn’t mean anything. Was it because of his connection to Abraham, being a member of the Jewish nation? Jesus went on to say that  the faithful Jewish believers would join multitudes from all over the world in eternal life: “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown outside. People will come from east and west, from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.”

Jesus is directing you and me toward self-reflection as well. Are you confident that you are going to be among the “saved” when the last day comes? And if you are, what do you base that on?

It’s easy for us to gain confidence from some part of our lives. Have you been a life-long Christian, baptized and confirmed in the Christian faith and then active in worship through your adult life? Is that reason for confidence? Are you relatively new to the Christian faith, but you went through the Herculean task of throwing off your old way of life and dedicating yourself to God’s will? Do these types of things give us confidence?

I hope not. Because at first blush, while these roads appear to be heading toward the destination, they turn and veer us far away from where we want to be. Jesus reminds us that it doesn’t come down to how often you’ve sat at his feet listening to him teach, it doesn’t matter how many improvements and corrections you’ve made to your life. In fact, if you’re looking to yourself in any way, shape, or form, you’re going at this the wrong way.

Jesus concluded this conversation by saying, “And note this: Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” In other words, some who would seem to be a lock for eternal life by whatever metric may be applied will miss it, and some who would seem to be the last possible person to be in heaven will be there. Why?

Because confidence for eternal life should not come from what we look like, how we talk, where we’ve been, what we’ve done, how often we’ve been in church or read the Bible, where our church membership is or anything like that. Confidence for eternal life can only come from Jesus. You do not remove your sin by the act of coming to church; God does not reward that behavior by taking some sin away. Nor do you earn “points” with God by being a life-long Christian or a very dedicated convert so that he gives you a boost toward heaven. No, the only place to put our confidence in is in Jesus.

Because you and I, no matter what we do, cannot remove any sin. We cannot make ourselves look better to God. We, by nature, are rebellious trash that cannot be in God’s presence. We are the last of the last.

But Jesus, the first of the first, King of kings and Lord of lords, made himself last. He knew our hopeless state and said “I will take that on.” And so he did. He humbled himself to take on our human nature; he humbled himself to take on our sin. On the cross, Jesus became the last of the last so that we would become first. The Father punished him for all of our sins and you and I are set free, justified, declared to be perfect in God’s sight.

Jesus himself is that narrow door. People might come up with all sorts of ways to get to heaven; they might even come up with ways that incorporate Jesus to one degree or another. But any quest for eternal life that is not completely and only dependent on Jesus’ life and death in our place will end as Jesus said it would: many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.

By God’s grace alone, you will enter through that narrow door to be saved, because God’s love for you means complete trust only in your Savior. He has forgiven your sins, given you faith to trust him, and continues to care for that faith through his Word and sacraments. Striving for that narrow door means never, ever taking your eyes off of Jesus, because he’s the only way to be saved. The spiritual GPS that God gives to us continues to boldly and only so show us Jesus’ cross and empty tomb as our certainty that we will be among the saved.

Are only a few going to be saved? We have no idea that number. But in the end that matters far less than the question: how will you be saved? The answer is the same as it always has been and always will be: Jesus, Jesus; only Jesus! Thanks be to God! Amen.

"God’s Truth Burns and Breaks Our Errors" (Sermon on Jeremiah 23:23-29) | August 14, 2022

Text: Jeremiah 23:23-29
Date: August 14, 2022
Event: Proper 15, Year C

Jeremiah 23:23-29 (EHV)

Am I a God who is only nearby, declares the Lord,
and not a God far away?
24Can anyone hide in secret places
so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord.
Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.

25I have heard what the prophets who prophesy lies in my name have said. They say, “I have had a dream! I have had a dream!” 26How long will this be in the hearts of these lying prophets? These prophets proclaim the fantasies of their own hearts. 27They think they can make my people forget my name with the dreams each one tells his neighbor, the way their fathers forgot my name because of Baal. 28Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream. But let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully.

What has chaff to do with grain? declares the Lord. 29Is not my word like a fire? declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

God’s Truth Burns and Breaks Our Errors

We like to hear people say what we already think. If you use social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter or any of the other ones out there, they can easily become echo chambers because you set things up to only see things that you like and agree with and avoid the thoughts and ideas that you disagree with or don’t like.

Those types of echo chambers can make us start to think that everyone thinks the way we do, everyone agrees with us, everyone agrees with our opinions. But the reality is that your opinions can divide you from others. Whether it’s something silly like the best brands of ice cream or sports team allegiance, something important like political issues facing our area, or something eternally important things of the teachings of God’s Word, what you think and believe divides you from other people.

In our Gospel this morning, we heard Jesus say that he didn’t come to bring peace and unity of thought; he came to bring division. Not just among people in a country, or a state, or a city, but even among the very members of one’s family, “father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Luke 12:53). God’s Word, the truth of what he’s said and done, causes this kind of division and it always has. In our First Reading this morning from Jeremiah, written almost 600 years before Jesus was even born, we hear God saying the same thing was true then, as it was in Jesus’ day, as it is in our day. God’s truth divides, but it also burns and breaks down our errors, so that his Word leaves us better than we were before.

Jeremiah’s time of service to God’s people was tumultuous. In our Sunday Morning Bible Class, we’ve been studying the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah lived and worked roughly 120 years before Jeremiah. But much of Isaiah’s book of prophecy looked forward to tumult and trouble that would come in the future. Isaiah pointed ahead to those hardships; Jeremiah lived and worked during them.

Old Testament history makes crystal clear how God’s people had been continually unfaithful to him. They had abandoned the truth of his Word, they had served false gods, and generally disregarded everything he said. Not everyone, certainly, but the vast majority of people from kings to the lowliest among them skewed away from God, away from the truth.

So because of this, God sent chastisement in the form of the nation of Babylon who would come to take over the southern kingdom of Judah where God’s people lived and exile them east to Babylon. They would largely destroy Jerusalem, including Solomon’s ornate and magnificent temple.

Jeremiah’s job was to share this impending chastisement for their unfaithfulness, to warn the people so they could know what was coming, and more importantly, why it was coming. This was God calling the people to repentance, calling them to return to him.

You might imagine, though, Jeremiah’s message wasn’t very popular. If there had social media in those days, everyone would’ve blocked Jeremiah’s posting and messages because they had plenty of other spiritual people to listen to. There were prophets who were supposedly bringing messages from God who had radically different words for the people. They said that Babylon wouldn’t pose a threat, that Jerusalem was safe just as it had been when Assyria had attacked during Isaiah’s day. Jerusalem, and the people living there, would always be secure, so said the other prophets.

What is God’s response to this? “I have heard what the prophets who prophesy lies in my name have said. They say, ‘I have had a dream! I have had a dream!’ How long will this be in the hearts of these lying prophets? These prophets proclaim the fantasies of their own hearts…. What has chaff to do with grain? declares the Lord.” Oh.

Again, we like to hear people say what we already think. And so the people of that day much preferred the other prophets’ messages of peace and joy rather than Jeremiah’s message of doom and gloom. But which one was true? And which one did they need to hear?

Where is it that we want a spiritual echo chamber that conveniently ignores what God says? Do we chafe a bit at the idea that his Word should be with us regularly at church each week and in our homes? Do we struggle when his moral directives run contrary to what we want to do or are in the habit of doing around sexuality or helping those in need or not speaking in a way that hurts someone’s reputation (even if it’s true!)? Do we think we should back off on some of the unpopular parts of God’s Word so that our church is more attractive to visitors or make compromises so that more families would join?

When we want to adjust what God says, we are trying to create a spiritual echo chamber that lets us think we possess the truth when we’ve really abandoned it. Instead, we’re really devoted to our own desires and opinions. And having that as our guide is following the lying prophets and their dreams in Jeremiah’s day. Those dreams and false prophets of my own opinions and desires are delusions and lead me down the path of eternal destruction. In the end, if we devote ourselves to our opinions rather than God’s truth, we are depending on what we think for our eternal safety and not what God has done for us. That leads not to the destruction of our city but the destruction of our souls in hell.

While parts of God’s Word are unpopular and difficult for us to come to terms with, God’s Word also offers the solution to our sin. Because whether it’s been an avoidance of the truth or anything else that runs contrary to what God has said, we have disobeyed God and have hearts of stone. But God’s Word brings us the truth of God’s forgiveness in Jesus. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, which removed our sin and proved that forgiveness, is fire that burns away our sin and the hammer that breaks our hard hearts to pieces. Only in God’s truth do we find the solutions that we need. Only in Jesus do we have forgiveness. Only in the Word that God has given us do we find the infallible promises and works of God to save us. Only in God’s truth do we find the way to live our lives in thanksgiving for all that he’s done for us.

And so we take God’s Word and use it to check our opinions and preconceived notions, not the other way around. Rather than picking and choosing what we like from what God has said, we let God’s Word pick and choose which attitudes of our hearts are appropriate and which need to be changed. We don’t surround ourselves in the echo chamber of personal opinion, but we let God envelop us in his truth. When my opinions on how to get to heaven run contrary to God’s, I am the one that needs to change, not God. When my desires and views on moral living disagree with God, again, I need to be changing those desires and views, not trying to warp or ignore God on that matter.

God’s truth burns and breaks those places where we have errors and opens our ears to hear his Word not as adversarial towards us, but eternally loving. If we need correction from God, it is for our eternal good. Because that is his attitude toward us. He made clear through Jeremiah that he was not a God far away but a God who is very near. He’s near to you and me, not to catch us or convict us, but to save us because he loves us.

We are nearing the end of summer here, and the end of summer and beginning of fall for as long as most of us can remember centers around education. Elementary school bells start ringing, college dorms begin buzzing, all in service of learning and growing. So, too, let us find time in the coming weeks to recommit ourselves to growing and learning in God’s Word, allowing personal and group study of his Word to shape us into the people God desires us to be, not the people we are by nature. Let us seek out more opportunities for the loving gospel of Jesus’ death for us to surround us and encourage us in our path through this life as we look forward to the eternal home he is preparing for us.

And let us not fear the division that it may cause in our workplace, neighborhood, or even our families, because being divided from the world means being unified with our God. His truth burns and breaks those errors that separated us from him, and in Jesus we are brought to unity with him forever. God, keep us safe and strong in your truth now and forever! Amen.

"Prayer Accomplishes God’s Purposes" (Sermon on 1 Timothy 2:1-7) | July 24, 2022

Text: 1 Timothy 2:1–7
Date: July 24, 2022
Event: Proper 12, Year C

1 Timothy 2:1–7 (EHV)

First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2for kings and all those who are in authority, in order that we might live a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and dignity. 3This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. 7For this testimony, I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I speak the truth; I am not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

Prayer Accomplishes God’s Purposes

When approaching a problem, it’s often less useful to ask, “What are we going to do?” and more useful to ask, “Why are we going to do it?” For instance, when considering repairing a vehicle, for two different families the what’s may be exactly the same. Let’s say it’s something huge, like replacing a whole engine. Before doing something like that, if you don’t consider the why, you might do something foolish. What if the engine is damaged because the rest of the car is mostly destroyed and replacing the engine won’t make a drivable vehicle? What if this is the only vehicle you own and while you could find a way to pay for engine replacement, a new or different used vehicle is beyond your financial ability? What if this is a rarely-used vehicle and serves no purpose? In each of those situations, the answer to the “why” question is much, much more useful than the answer to the “what” question.

The last few Sunday have seen Jesus focusing his disciples and us along with them on the Christian life. Like so many other things in our lives, when it comes to doing the things God wants us to do, the “why” is often much more important than the “what.” And our special focus this morning is on prayer. In our Gospel, we heard Jesus teach his disciples about the principles of prayer by giving them that most famous model prayer we’ve come to name the Lord’s Prayer, because the Lord Jesus taught it to his disciples. In our Second Reading, which will serve as our focus this morning, the apostle Paul reminds us of the spirit of our prayer life. Our prayers are not to be seeking our will, but God’s. And when we remember that, then truly our prayers accomplish God’s purposes, which are for our eternal good.

Paul is writing to young Pastor Timothy. This first letter is written as encouragement and direction for Timothy as he tackles the work of serving God’s people. And so Paul’s words are partially direction for the pastor and partially direction for the members of the congregation he serves.

And our section from the beginning of chapter 2 is a bit in both categories. It is a reminder for Timothy and it’s a reminder for those in the flock of what our focus ought to be when it comes to our prayers. And that point is made through a bit of inductive reasoning as Paul gives us a specific example that we can then broaden out to other applications.

Paul starts with the attitude and action for those in authority, both locally and more broadly. Where Paul talks about kings and all those who are in authority we might rightly apply to leaders at a national level all the way down the local level in the government. What does he say we ought to do? First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all those who are in authority, in order that we might live a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and dignity. We don’t know the exact, exact date of when Paul wrote this letter, but a good guess would be right around 65 AD. It is written during the reign of Emperor Nero, a wildly temperamental and erratic leader.

If 65 AD is correct, that means that Paul is writing to Timothy about a year after a great fire burned in Rome. It was devastating and the loss of property and life was gigantic. It burned for six days, burning 10 of the city’s 14 districts and leaving hundreds of people dead. Rather than taking responsibility, Nero did what any spineless leader does and shifted blame to the “others” around him, on to minorities or others who could not defend themselves well in the court of popular opinion. In this particular case, Nero seems to have planted the blame firmly on Christians in the empire. And so, the worst persecutions of Christians en masse up to that time began, a persecution that just a few years later likely took the lives of both Paul and Peter.

Can you imagine believers in Timothy’s congregation not feeling too kind toward their emperor? Can you imagine that they might be angry or flustered with or even hate their ruler? And Paul doesn’t say, “That feeling is justified! These leaders are sinning!” though of course that would be true statement. Nor does Paul say, “Pray for their downfall! Pray that God take them out!” No, Paul directs Timothy and those with him to offer these petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for all people, and especially for those who are in authority.

Why? Because Paul recognized that peace and stability in government would be a blessing to the spread of the gospel. Not necessarily that the gospel message would be condoned or endorsed by the government (in fact, Paul is making a pretty clear church and state division here). But Paul shows that good government leading to times of peace physically for people would bring greater opportunities for the gospel to be shared.

And there’s the rub—there’s the why. He’s not telling them to pray that these leaders do what the people want them to do. And he’s not really telling them to pray for the leaders so that these Christians can have relaxing lives free from stress or worry from wars, etc. Rather, he’s saying that these prayers should be brought forward with God’s goals and purposes in mind. He says that these prayers for the leaders should be offered, to bring about peaceful and quiet lives because this is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. It’s not just good and pleasing to God for us to have a quiet, calm life, but a quiet, calm life can be fertile ground to bring people to the knowledge of the truth of God’s love and forgiveness.

I don’t know about you, but for me this shines a whole lot of shame on my prayer life. So often my prayers and requests to God are self-serving. “God, make this better.” “God, take this bad thing away.” “God, do this thing that will make life easier for me.” It’s so easy to lose that crucial step and thought that Jesus taught in his prayer and demonstrated in his own prayer life, “God, your will be done.”

Praying for God’s will to be done really is the answer to the “why” question, right? My prayers may be filled with answers to the “what” question. “Please do thing thing to solve this problem.” “Please take this hardship in my life away.” But praying that the Lord’s will be done recognizes that he just might have other purposes for us. He might have a plan for that suffering or hardship.

So what is our take away from this? Remember that from God’s perspective, everything is in service of eternity. Whether good things are happening or bad, whether he’s clearly working through the leaders over us or in spite of them, whether we are content or feel lacking, God promises to use all of these things for our eternal good. And our prayers should reflect a confident trust in that promise.

He encourages, even commands us, to pray. Jesus in our Gospel said we should keep asking, keeping seeking, keep knocking (Luke 11:9)—for ourselves, for friends and family, for our leaders, for literally all people, that his will may done among them and among us. God’s will is that all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth by learning the love of the one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all. The reality and joy of God’s love and forgiveness in Jesus and a will that all people know that and we be strengthened in that should guide our prayers as well. Our goal in this life and in our prayers is not just our own, temporary, earthly good, but the eternal good of all people. When that is our driving motivator, then our prayers are guided by God’s will, then we’re praying with his eternal perspective as our guide, then our prayers are accomplishing God’s purposes.

And for the times that when our prayers seek our will not God’s, or for those times that we simply cut God out of the equation and don’t pray at all, we know that for that there is forgiveness. Jesus’ model prayer reminds us that there is forgiveness for our sins, our debts owed to God. And for that we weekly, daily, hourly come to God in prayer as well, “Lord, please forgive us.” And we know that of all prayers, that prayer is according to God’s will because of that forgiveness Jesus won for us is the one and only way to eternal life with him. Above all else, God longs to forgive those sins. And we have that one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all. We pray that prayer for forgiveness in complete confidence because of Jesus’ life lived in our place and his death died for us. My brothers and sisters, we truly have forgiveness for all of those failings.

Forgiven for all sins, we can rejoice to pray today more directed toward God’s will. We understand that God is not a vending machine that we put in our prayer quarter and get out the candy bar we wanted. Rather, God is the all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of all things who knows exactly what is best for us. So bring him your problems. Bring him your fears, worries, and heartaches. Even bring him your possible solutions. But in all things, seek his will. Be ready to accept it if the answer is not what you would want to hear, but rejoice that if God’s answer is different than what you were hoping for, he knows what is best for you and for all people, and that he will work eternal good from it.

So pray, pray boldly, pray confidently to your loving God. And let your persistent prayers be led by God’s will trusting his promises to do what is best for you. And as you do so, ask the question: how might what I’m praying for be in service of people being strengthened in God’s truth or even learning it for the first time? There, truly, God’s will is being done. Amen.

"My Soul, Rest Quietly in God Alone" (Sermon on Psalm 62:5-8) | July 17, 2022

Text: Psalm 62:5-8
Date: July 17, 2022
Event: Proper 10, Year C (Non-Lectionary Text)

Psalm 62:5-8 (EHV)

My soul, rest quietly in God alone,
for my hope comes from him.
6He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress.
I will not be disturbed.
7My salvation and my honor depend on God, my strong rock.
My refuge is in God.
8Trust in him at all times, you people.
Pour out your hearts before him.
God is a refuge for us.

My Soul, Rest Quietly in God Alone

This past week was only my second time being able to be at Tree of Life Bible Camp with the awesome kids and wonderful staff to spend a week in nature, having fun with the kids but mostly centering our day around God’s Word. We spent the whole week reviewing the different pieces of armor that Paul lists off in Ephesians 6 like the helmet of faith, or the belt of truth, or the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

So our theme was to be warriors for Christ—not fighting physical battles here with people, but fighting the battle of faith as we struggle toward this life and look forward to eternity. We recognized over and over again just how many things Satan tries to use against us, how mightily he strives to pull us away from our God and Savior.

We each have our own weaknesses in this regard. If we went around the room this morning and asked each person what it is that they feel pulls them away from their trust in God and looking forward to heaven, we’d probably get a lot of different answers, but we’d probably find things gravitating to a common themes. Maybe we’d find some people who find the promises of God too intensely good to be believed like Sarah in our First Reading. Maybe we’d find people who mean well but get things just a touch out of order like Martha did in our Gospel. Maybe we’d find people for whom the riches of life are too enticing and they become focused on those to the determent of all else—including their faith in God. Maybe we’d find people for whom the troubles of this life scream and stomp around so wildly in their minds that they just can’t think about anything else.

It’s that last distraction—the troubles of this life—that I’d like to focus on for a few minutes this morning. If I’m being honest, this is one of the real places that I struggle and places where I continually need God’s direction, reprimand, and refocus. And to zero us in on this, I want to read just a few verses from one of the psalms that King David wrote, Psalm 62: My soul, rest quietly in God alone, for my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I will not be disturbed. My salvation and my honor depend on God, my strong rock. My refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, you people. Pour out your hearts before him. God is a refuge for us.

Psalm 62 gives us direction for when trouble overwhelms us, when sorrow or loss or unfulfilled desires or despair weigh us down. David knew something of these struggles. From things that happened to him (like Saul trying to kill him or his son trying to steal the kingdom from him) or things that he caused (like all the horrible ramifications of his sin with Bathsheba and his attempted cover-up), we know about a lot about the hardships he faced and the trouble that would have tried to pull him away from God.

So David talks to himself in this psalm. Or, more accurately, he talks to his soul. He says, My soul, rest quietly in God alone, for my hope comes from him. That word quietly jumps off the page to me. When worries are crashing in, for me, it feels like they’re screaming in my head morning, noon, and night. I can’t escape them. It’s so loud and so painful and so distracting that I can hardly think about anything else. They occupy all the airspace I have, all the ability I have to think, and my emotions quickly follow suit. I am quickly sorrowful at the first hint of a problem. And then I am quickly frustrated by my inability to fix these problems.

Amid the cacophony of these worries yelling and screaming in our hearts and minds, what does David say? Rest quietly in God alone. Where is there peace from this horrid noise? Where is their calm amid this never-ending tumult? In God, yes, but also in God alone. Notice how David didn’t say, “My soul, rest quietly in your own strength.” Nor did he say, “My soul, rest quietly in your ability to rise above the fray.” No, he said, “Rest quietly in God alone.”

David calls God our refuge and fortress. If an enemy is attacking, where do you want to be? Behind the safety of thick walls, right? You want some protector between you and the adversary. You want protection that is sound. You want a fortress and refuge.

But the very presence of a fortress implies danger, doesn’t it? I always find the signs from fallout shelters from the Cold War-era to be very disconcerting. Here is a thing that exists solely because there is a chance that we should need it to be protected from something horrible.

When God describes himself as our fortress, it means that there will be things to hound us, things to attack us, things to make us sad, and hurt, and distressed. God does not promise that nothing bad will every happen to you. In fact, he promises just the opposite. But when those things do come, he promises to deal with it, to work good from it, to love us during it.

But that’s often not what we want to hear. We want to think that because we’re Christians, because we’re devoted to our God, that we should be immune from all of that bad and troubling stuff. Maybe I don’t want a fortress—maybe I want a rolling green field and a cool breeze or and warm beach with cresting waves. I want to live an idyllic life that has no troubles or worries or anything else of the sort. And when life isn’t that, it is easy to start to turn on God. Isn’t it easy to accuse him of making mistakes? Isn’t it easy to to ask him why he lets this trouble in my life but not this other person’s? Anger, jealousy, hurt, and frustration can seep out of us when life doesn’t go the way we plan, envision, or desire.

Which leads us to the next realization. God is called our salvation. Surely, God saving us is a good thing, but there’s also something else implicit in that, right? If God being our fortress implies danger and hardship, then God being our salvation implies that we need to be saved from something. And this is not being saved from trouble or hardship. This is being saved from sin. Because, whether it’s from our dissatisfaction with what God allows into our lives or a myriad of other things, we have sinned against God. He demands perfection and we have been far from it. We need to be saved because we have rebelled against him and have brought hell on ourselves as the punishment for that sin.

And if we combine those things, it can start to feel like we’re putting God to the test and perhaps trying our luck with him. Is he still going to protect us from those bad things if we continue to complain about how he’s let those troubles come to us in the first place? Is he he still going to forgive us, to be our salvation, if we continue to heap sin upon sin? And that’s where David’s third point as he describes God is so important: he says God is our rock, even our strong rock. God doesn’t have emotions in the same way that you and I do. Hi feelings aren’t fickle like ours can be. He doesn’t feel good about you one day and then feel frustrated with you the next day. He isn’t kind to you one day and then mean to you the next day. God is stable and solid, like a gigantic rock that cannot be moved no matter how hard we might push on it.

So you will not get up one day and find that God has decided to be done with you. God continues to stably and perfectly love you. He forgives every rebellion and sin because he died to take those sins away. You will not find God disposed against you. You will not find a day where your troubles are too much for him to handle or too irritating for him to care about. Every day we awake to a new day of his love and patience for us.

Which is why David encourages us on the path of true resolution to these heartaches and worries: Trust in him at all times, you people. Pour out your hearts before him. God is a refuge for us. It’s a theme that keeps coming up in sermons probably I personally feel so poor at this task, but how is your prayer life? Is it your first go-to when troubles arise or is it your last line of defense, if you use it at all? Knowing what we know about God’s protection, forgiveness, and stability for us, why wouldn’t we bring every problem to him in prayer? From the small pain to the gigantic personal problem, he wants us to bring all of it to him, and in faith to trust that he will work these things for our eternal good. He is, after all, a refuge for us.

So rest quietly in God, not because he’s going to make life perfectly serene this side of eternity. He won’t. But rest quietly in God because no matter how loud the problems of this life or the guilt of our sin shout—he is greater than all of them. May he focus us on himself, and may we find our quiet rest in him now, until he brings us to that perfect home in heaven when things truly will be quiet and peaceful with him forever. Amen.

"Harvest Workers Labor in God’s Fields" (Sermon on Luke 10:1-12, 16-20) | July 3, 2022

Text: Luke 10:1-12, 16-20
Date: July 3, 2022
Event: Proper 9, Year C

Luke 10:1-12, 16-20 (EHV)

After this, the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.

2He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field. 3Go your way. Look, I am sending you out as lambs among wolves. 4Do not carry a money bag or traveler’s bag or sandals. Do not greet anyone along the way. 5Whenever you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ 6And if a peaceful person is there, your peace will rest on him, but if not, it will return to you. 7Remain in that same house, eating and drinking what they give you, because the worker is worthy of his pay. Do not keep moving from house to house. 8Whenever you enter a town and they welcome you, eat what is set before you. 9Heal the sick who are in the town and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near you.’

10“But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11‘Even the dust from your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ 12I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom on that day than for that town.

16Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

17The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”

18He told them, “I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19Look, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing will ever harm you. 20Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names have been written in heaven.”

Harvest Workers Labor in God’s Fields

How do you feel when working on someone else’s project, or with someone else’s tools, or in someone else’s space? Depending on who you are and the situation, there could be a few different ways to view it, I suppose. If you’re working on a friend’s car, and doing something you hadn’t done before, you might view it as a relief to be learning on a vehicle that isn’t yours. Or maybe it’s nerve-racking to have the responsibility of someone else’s vehicle in your hands.

If you’re cooking in someone else’s kitchen (or the new kitchen downstairs when it’s done!), perhaps you feel invigorated by being in a different space with different tools at your disposal to try some new things. Or, perhaps, you’re on edge and feeling discombobulated because you don’t know where anything is and you’re not as comfortable as what you’ve known in your own home.

Doing work that is not completely your own or in a setting that is not yours can have its pluses and minuses. But regardless of how you would feel in those situations, Jesus this morning tells us that the work of the church is work done not in our own spaces, but in God’s. That as we are sent or send out workers into the harvest field, we’re laboring in God’s fields, not our own. The work is his, the glory is his, and the challenges are his too.

As Jesus was making a final tour through the area at the end his earthly ministry, he commissioned 72 of his followers to go ahead of him and be his messengers. They had a specific job to do: Jesus sent them out two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. They were to go and serve kind of a similar roll that John the Baptist served at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. They were to go, preach the good news in these various places, and get the people ready for Jesus to come and continue his work directly among them. These messengers were also given the ability to perform miracles like Jesus did as a way to draw attention to the message they were proclaiming.

Jesus gives them a commissioning speech of sorts before they go, but it doesn’t feel like it’s heavily in the “motivational” category: Look, I am sending you out as lambs among wolves. In other words, this work was going to be rough. And Jesus prepares them for that. Just like not everyone would listen to Jesus, not everyone was going to listen to them as they went out. If a town did listen to them, they were to stay there and continue to share with them and live among them. Jesus says: Heal the sick who are in the town and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near you.’ The kingdom of God, faith in the heart that God creates, would be there among the people of that place. Jesus himself would soon be passing through. What a message of comfort and hope!

But, in places where they were not welcomed, where the message was rejected, they were still to announce something similar, but paired with warnings: ‘Even the dust from your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ The same phrase, but a wildly different meaning. In other words, “The kingdom of God, faith in the heart that God creates, was available here, but you rejected it. This will end badly for you eternally.”

What does this all say to us today? As a congregation, we are tasked with sharing the gospel message in the place where we’ve been planted. But remember, this work is ultimately God’s work, not ours. He is the one working through us (or in spite of us), and he brings about the results. So it’s tempting to get sucked into looking at the wrong things to measure success. Is it important how many members we have on the roles of our congregation? Is it important how many people love our campus or our congregational personality? All of those things have some value, but if we’re chasing after numbers or just being liked by others, we’re not really doing the work that God has for us.

If Jesus’s primary goal was that everyone they met were to like and get along with these messengers, he would have told them to tailor the message to meet what people wanted to hear. He wouldn’t have warned them about rejection but would have trained them in changing and tweaking things until everyone was happy. But that’s not what he told them to do. And it’s not what he’s told us to do, either.

We have God’s Word to share, and we do not have the authority to change what that Word says, even if it is deemed unpopular by the people we share it with. We can’t modify what we teach to make this person over here like us or to ensure that this family joins the congregation. No, as a congregation as we are workers in God’s fields, not our own. These are his people whom he bought with his own blood. Far be it from us to change the message he wants them to hear just to feel better about ourselves.

Instead of taking rejection personally, Jesus reminds us what’s really going on in those moments: Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me. Because they are rejecting the message that God wants to be shared, they’re not rejecting you and me, the messengers, but God, the one who brought this to them through us. While it can be difficult for us to remember, both success and failure, both acceptance and rejection, is not on us, but on our God who brings the good things about or on the people who are rejecting this message.

But this lesson also has something to say to us as people who hear God’s Word. Does the pastor always say the things we want him to say? Is the church run exactly the way we want it to be run? Notice where the focus is in those questions: my desires and opinions. Should those dictate what is done in the ministry of a congregation? God forbid it!

Instead, we should be asking: is the pastor saying the things God knows I need him to say, even if I don’t want to hear it? Is the church being run in a way that is consistent with God’s direction in Scripture? In those questions, the emphasis is on God’s will and Word, not our own subjective, emotional responses. And truly, there is room for variance. There are many things that God has not given clear black-and-white, right-and-wrong directions on. But for the places where he has, we do well not be those whose town would have the dust of the messenger’s feet wiped off against us. We do well to not be described as God described the people of Israel to Ezekiel in our First Reading: hard-headed and hard-hearted (Ezekiel 3:9).

As we consider these things, as we consider our roles as those carrying out this work and those benefiting from this work, we undoubtedly see weakness, failing, and sin on our part. And it is for that very reason that we need this message taught so purely and accurately. Because what is the gospel message but the assurance that God has forgiven every sin? While I may not be comfortable with or want to hear what God says is right and wrong, his Word also assures me that everything I’ve done wrong is gone. Jesus forgave my failings as a sharer or a receiver or his Word. If we water down God’s message of sin, we also water down God’s message of our Savior. But, if we labor in these fields in a faithful way, we also bring the comfort of complete restoration in Jesus’ death for us.

This work, even if approached in the best possible way, is absolutely overwhelming. Never mind the world, just thinking about our immediate context—sharing God’s Word with the 25,000 or so people in Belmont alone (never mind the 8 million+ in the Bay Area) seems impossible. It doesn’t take long for us to see that Jesus’ observation some 2000 years ago is the same today as it was then—The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. And the solution to that problem is the same as it was then—ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field. As we think about both pastor and teacher vacancy rates being at troublingly high levels across our synod, we will pray and implore our Savior to send out more and more public servants of the gospel into his harvest fields.

But it’s also interesting that Jesus tells these disciples to pray for workers, and then send them out to serve in that very role. So this is not a fire-and-forget prayer. This is a pray-and-act situation. How can we send out workers? Are there people in your family or in our congregation who could serve in the public ministry as a teacher or pastor in our churches and schools? Talk to them about it, encourage them to seek it out, and then also pray for them. Might you have gifts or interests in these areas? This is not just for the young people. Those seeking a second, different career or a new role after retirement might also find encouragement in the needs that Jesus points out. Could you, either here or elsewhere, serve in a more public, active way in our Savior’s gospel ministry?

In the end, members and pastors, congregations and church bodies, all of us are united as Christian brothers and sisters. We all are, to one degree or another, fellow workers laboring in God’s harvest field. May our God preserve us from caving to public pressure to change our message. May he make us bold, loving, and patient as we reach out to a world that increasingly has no idea what Jesus has said or done. And may he bless that work—his work through us—to bring about the purposes that he desires. Amen.

"Following Jesus Is Total Commitment" (Sermon on Luke 9:51-62) | June 26, 2022

Text: Luke 9:51-62
Date: June 26, 2022
Event: Proper 8 (The Third Sunday After Pentecost), Year C

Luke 9:51–62  (EHV)

When the days were approaching for him to be taken up, Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem. 52He sent messengers ahead of him. They went and entered a Samaritan village to make preparations for him. 53But the people did not welcome him, because he was determined to go to Jerusalem. 54When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?”

55But he turned and rebuked them. “You don’t know what kind of spirit is influencing you. 56For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s souls, but to save them.” Then they went to another village.

57As they went on the way, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

58Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

59He said to another man, “Follow me!”

But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

60Jesus told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

61Another man also said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say good-bye to those at my home.”

62Jesus told him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Following Jesus Is Total Commitment

I am baffled by the dedication many professional athletes have to their health and strength. Athletes who, in season are continually practicing and refining their skills, and in the off-season are working maybe even harder to get stronger, or leaner, or more accurate, or whatever their sport calls for. It is total dedication, total commitment to these small subset of physical tasks.

And while they’re committed to that they are in perhaps the best physical shape a human being can be in. But, what happens if they stop? Or what if they become only half as dedicated? Their performance in the sport and perhaps even their long-term health could suffer. Both are things the athlete wants to avoid at all costs.

Of course, I’m not here today to preach about the importance of dedication to physical fitness. Although, of course, it is important to take care ofd the bodies God has given to us, that’s not really our focus this morning. Instead, I want to think of that picture of the athlete training hard in the weight room or when they are getting ready to go onto the field or court in a sport, and see in their commitment to their physical performance as a picture of what our spiritual dedication to our Savior ought to be.

But before we think and talk about ourselves, we do well to think and talk about Jesus first. In our Gospel for this morning, we’re approaching the latter part of Jesus’ ministry. The time for him to die outside of Jerusalem had come. And yet, we don’t see him shrinking from this or running away from it. Instead we’re told Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem. Literally Luke says that Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” He locked his gaze on what was ahead. And even though it meant horrendous suffering and death for him, he was determined to see it through. Nothing could veer him off this path. He was totally committed to this work.

But why? Why does Jesus have this total commitment to something that would be so brutally painful, that would bring such unimaginable suffering? In short, it is God’s love for us—love that we do not deserve. That love is what makes Jesus determined to go to Jerusalem. Our sins meant eternal ruin for us and God is totally committed to saving us. So from the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve first sinned, through Jesus’ death and resurrection and beyond even to our personal lives, everything God has done he has done with saving you as the end-goal.

And so as Jesus carries out his mission to save us from our sins, he preaches and he teaches. And that peaching and teaching naturally produced believers, those who trusted in what he said and promised, in the same way that God’s Word does that for us today. In our Gospel we have several rapid-fire examples of people who came to trust in Jesus, but also people who were not totally committed to him.

First, the village in Samaria let their prejudice against Jewish worship lead them to reject Jesus outright. They were not committed to Jesus at all. James and John, likewise, show an almost baffling response to this lack of commitment when they want to destroy the people in that village with fire from the sky. Could they have been any less focused on Jesus’ mission to save? Jesus’ response we have before us is clear and direct: “You don’t know what kind of spirit is influencing you. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s souls, but to save them.”

Then we come to the man who professes what looks to be total commitment to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” But it seems that Jesus knows that his commitment will not last when pressed by the troubles of being Jesus’ disciple: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” In other words, “Will you be so dedicated when you lose comforts for my sake?”

Next, Jesus calls a man to follow him and his response is that he first needs to bury his father. At first blush, it seems like a reasonable request. Would we fault anyone for taking time away from church, work, or even immediate gamily to attend the funeral of a family member? But Jesus’ response leads us to think that there’s more going on than we hear in the man’s request. Either the man is saying that he’ll follow Jesus when his father has died—at some undetermined point in the future—which begs the question, “When would you actually start following Jesus?” Or, more dishearteningly, perhaps the man’s father had already died but as an unbeliever, and Jesus is speaking spiritually—“Let the spiritually dead bury the other spiritually dead.” It was more important to tend to the living with the gospel of Jesus’ forgiveness than to go through the ritual of funeral observances for someone who was now beyond the reach of the gospel. Whatever the reason, Jesus is clearly seeing some cracks in this man’s commitment and feels the need to refocus him.

Lastly, the man who wants to say goodbye to the people at home—again, we would say this is another reasonable request. But Jesus’ response seems to be, “If you go back home, would you come back to me?”

The common thread in all of these people seems not to be total rejection of Jesus but a wavering commitment. Other things, to certain degrees, were taking priority over Jesus in their lives. And Jesus makes clear that he and his mission to save are too important to have anything less than total commitment to him.

How’s your commitment to following Jesus? Is it total and complete? Or does it have cracks? Are there things that, at times, are more important to you than Jesus? Jesus expects the same dedication to him that he has for me, but does he find it? Hardly. When my frustration with other things leaks out and negatively impacts my family, I’m committed to my frustration or anger, not Jesus. When my laziness leads me to prioritize leisure over responsibility, I’m committed to the recreation, not Jesus. When I let my focus and energy be on money, I’m committed to my greed, not Jesus.

We each have places where our commitment to Jesus can or does hit a brick wall. Maybe we identify with one of the people in our Gospel; maybe it’s something entirely different from what they were wrestling with. But our commitment is always going to be lacking in some way or another.

This morning, in just a few minutes, we’re going to hear Calvin make some amazing-sounding promises. He’s going to pledge his commitment to Jesus—total commitment even. He’ll read his essay to show what he’s learned and believes. Maybe we will find in his commitment to his Savior a renewal in our commitment to our Savior. We will undoubtedly let our prayers be filled with requests for strength for him, to face the challenges of this life with resolve and commitment to Jesus.

But Jesus calls on all of us to share Calvin’s commitment to him. To resolve to dedicate ourselves more fully to following him, to putting his Word into practice in our lives, to finding continual strength in his forgiveness.

And that last part is perhaps the most important takeaway. Jesus didn’t endorse letting James and John call down fire on the Samaritans because he came to save them, not destroy them. He doesn’t say it’s too late for the other men who show questionable commitment to him; he doesn’t say that they missed their chance. He encourages them all, calls them, wants them to follow him.

He does the same for you and me. When we face challenges to following Jesus, to living our lives as he wants, to prioritizing time with him in his Word, Jesus is there to forgive those stumbles as well. Yes, following Jesus calls on us to have total commitment to him. But for every time that we fall short of that total commitment, Jesus’ forgiveness removes those stumbles, and we face a new hour or day or week or year to follow our Savior with our whole life.

The athlete who fails his carefully regimented diet and spends a day eating garbage is not disqualified from his position. But he then needs to recommit himself to following the plan laid out before him. Likewise, you and I are not rejected by our Savior because we’ve had poor commitment today, this week, this month, this past year, or even the past decade. Our lack of commitment to Jesus is completely solved by Jesus’ total commitment to us. And then, in turn, his total commitment to us is what produces our total commitment to him.

So we don’t follow James’ and John’s example and seek to destroy those who disagree with us or who don’t share our faith. We pray for them and seek ways to share with them, showing a commitment to what Jesus has said and done, and a commitment to them by how we treat them and live our lives around them.

I won’t sugarcoat it—this is going to be tough for all of us all the days that we live here. We will have good days and bad, good weeks and bad, good years and bad. But there is no variance in Jesus’ commitment to us. He has given himself to forgive every sin. And when the time for the end our lives here comes, we will not find him on a day where he’s lukewarm toward us. That day he will be just as committed to us as he was the day he suffered hell on the cross to pay for our sins. Jesus’ commitment to us means we have eternal life with him. Until the day we receive that in full, may God give us the strength to throw off what trips us up and follow him. Amen.

"Tell How Much God Has Done for You" (Sermon on Luke 8:26-39) | June 19, 2022

Text: Luke 8:26-39
Date: June 19, 2022
Event: The Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7), Year C

Luke 8:26–39 (EHV)

They sailed down to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across from Galilee. 27When Jesus stepped ashore, a man from the town met him. He was possessed by demons and for a long time had not worn any clothes. He did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, “What do I have to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torment me!” 29For Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. In fact, the unclean spirit had seized him many times. He was kept under guard, and although he was bound with chains and shackles, he would break the restraints and was driven by the demon into deserted places.

30Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

He said, “Legion,” because many demons had gone into him. 31They were begging Jesus that he would not order them to go into the abyss. 32A herd of many pigs was feeding there on the mountain. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. 33The demons went out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

34When those who were feeding the pigs saw what happened, they ran away and reported it in the town and in the countryside. 35People went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet. He was clothed and in his right mind, and the people were afraid. 36Those who saw it told them how the demon-possessed man was saved. 37The whole crowd of people from the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were gripped with great fear.

As Jesus got into the boat and started back, 38the man from whom the demons had gone out begged to be with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, 39“Return to your home and tell how much God has done for you.” Then he went through the whole town proclaiming what Jesus had done for him.

Tell How Much God Has Done for You

Today we begin what is sometimes called the “non-festival half” of the church year. And that makes some sense. If you think where we’ve been since November, we’ve been through Advent and had the festival worship services around Christmas and Epiphany, and then Lent with the high festivals around Jesus’ death and resurrection with Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. And finally we just had our services surrounding Pentecost and Holy Trinity Sunday.

All of those festivals and celebrations, largely surrounding the life and salvation-work of Jesus, take us from late November through early June. Now we are in the stretch of the church year, the Sundays after Pentecost, where there really aren’t festivals, at least not major ones. Instead of spending time celebrating the big moments in Jesus’ ministry and work to save us, we’ll be spending time slowing down and walking with Jesus during the somewhat quieter moments of his ministry. We’ll see his compassion as he heals the sick and learn from his wisdom with the disciples as he teaches small groups and large crowds, ever focusing them and us on himself as the only solution to our sins.

This morning’s Gospel is perhaps an unfamiliar account. This event might be covered in Sunday School, but it has not been a part of our rotation of readings in worship until our new’s hymnal’s new lectionary. Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee to the Gerasenes. This was out of Jewish territory; it was a place inhabited by Gentiles. The exact location of this area is up for some debate, but we know it must have been a coastal area because as soon as Jesus puts a foot on the sand, things start to happen: When Jesus stepped ashore, a man from the town met him. He was possessed by demons and for a long time had not worn any clothes. He did not live in a house but in the tombs. A naked man, tormented by demons, who lived in the local equivalent of a cemetery, comes up to Jesus.

Upon seeing Jesus, the man (or more accurately, the evil spirits within him) cry out in fear, “What do I have to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torment me!” It’s fascinating that these demons can see in Jesus what no one else could. This Jesus was no normal human being. He was God-in-flesh. As we confessed from the Athanasian Creed last Sunday, Jesus is both God and man… not two persons but one; one, not by changing the deity into flesh, but by taking the humanity into God. And these demons in this man instantly recognize that this Jesus has the power to do things to them they would find very unpleasant, to torment them, returning them to the abyss, which seems to be another word for hell.

We don’t really have a clear understanding of the supernatural forces at work here. What does it mean for a demon to be roaming the earth or in a man (or pig) compared to being in hell? This account raises many more questions about the working of the spiritual forces around us than it answers. But, that is not the point of our focus this morning. No matter how much these demons did not want to have anything happen to them, in the end the best they could do was bargain with the Son of the Most High God.

We’re told, “the demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission.” Permission. Fascinating, isn’t it? Something like demons and hell and all of these things, whether it’s our own imagination or movies and books, or even accounts in the Bible, can seem so scary, so powerful, so unnerving. But what do we learn here? Nothing is beyond the control of God. Every force, power, or being, no matter how daunting or dangerous, must submit themselves to the God who created and rules all things. And in this case, even that God clothed in human nature who was, at the time, not making full use of that glory and might as God.

At Jesus permission and command, the demons flee the man and enter the heard of pigs and drove them off the hillside into the water. What does this all mean for the man living naked and among the tombs? People went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet. He was clothed and in his right mind, and the people were afraid. Can you even imagine what it was like for this man? We have no idea how long he endured this demon possession other than Luke’s comment, “for a long time.” This wasn’t something that had happened for days or weeks or even months; this was probably years of suffering under this burden. And then, in an instant, Jesus solves it with just his word.

The people around were scared of Jesus, but not the man. It’s not clear if he would have known anything about Jesus before that moment, but the demons’ testimony about Jesus let him know who Jesus was. And Jesus’ words were powerful to create faith in this man’s heart. The miracle demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was not someone to fear, but someone to praise. This man wanted to be one of Jesus’ disciples, to continue to be with him. As Jesus got into the boat and started back, the man from whom the demons had gone out begged to be with him.

This fledging faith just wants to be near Jesus, which is more than understandable. But Jesus had other plans. This man, this likely-Gentile man, would not be one of the twelve, or even one of the broader group of disciples who would travel with Jesus around Galilee and Judea. No, instead Jesus gave him a different, more personal directive: “Return to your home and tell how much God has done for you.”

There are times during Jesus’ ministry that we see him tell people to be quiet about the miracles or things he’s done, largely because people might get the wrong idea about his goals and purpose. But not here. Here Jesus very directly tells this man to be a witness, tell others what God had done for him. And what a powerful message he had to share. His suffering was very, very public so the miracle also was very, very public. Jesus had rescued him from this slavery to the minions of hell and he would never forget it.

You and I probably have not lived through the physical torment that this man did, but we all have God’s care in our lives. Maybe we can point to some very specific times where God made his intervention pretty clear—safety in a near certain car accident, healing from a disease that surprised the doctors, daily bread coming to us in dire times from an unexpected place.

But even if we don’t have some specific story from our lives to share, we all have the rescue that God gives not from demon possession, but from hell itself. Because for as bad as that man’s torment by the demons was, we saw that even the demons didn’t want to be sent back to hell. And by our own work, we’re in the same place as they were. We are terrified of what God will do to us because of our sins—because we know that our sins have earned that eternal death in hell.

But Jesus enters, not to torment, but to save. He has mercy on us. He doesn’t just lessen the hardship like he did for the demons, allowing us to be sent into whatever our equivalent of a heard of unclean pigs might be. No, he completely saves us from the hardship, completely saves from hell. He uses his word again to assure us of this, when from the cross he declared his work finished. He suffered hell in our place, died the death we should have died, to ensure that we were saved. Not just from earthly strife and torment, but from eternal suffering.

And beyond that, Jesus’ words create faith to trust him as Savior. Whether we first heard those words as an infant in our baptisms, during childhood, or adulthood, the result is the same as it was for that man possessed the the legion of demons: the Word of God creates trust in everything God has said and done. Our faith is a quiet confidence that knows that our Savior is trustworthy.

As a result, we long to be away from this world of sin and decay and instead to be with Jesus. We want to go where he goes and always have him clearly, visibly with us. And surely, by his grace, we will do that when the time for our departure from this life arrives. But until that time he looks each of us in the eye and says, “Return to your home and tell how much God has done for you.”

Where is home and how do we tell? Well, that’s going to vary a lot from person to person. You bring your children to the waters of baptism to bring them into God’s family and his kingdom. You model the love of Jesus in your family. You live a life of thankfulness to God among your coworkers. Your neighbors may see you journey to church on a Sunday morning as a quiet testimony to your priorities. You comfort a hurting friend, and show kindness to a total stranger. You share the peace of Jesus’ victory over sin with those who don’t know it and remind those who had let it fall out of mind. You support those who publicly spread God’s Word in your name in your congregation, in the other places of our nation, and around the world.

I don’t imagine that man in the Gerasenes ever stopped thinking about the kindness Jesus did to him that day, and likely he continued to prioritize telling how much God had done for him. May God give each of us that same heart and mind. Today, and every day, as you return home and everywhere you find yourselves, tell how much God has done for you. Amen.

"Our Triune God Justifies and Sanctifies" (Sermon on Romans 5:1-5) | June 12, 2022

Text: Romans 5:1-5
Date: June 12, 2022
Event: Holy Trinity Sunday (Confirmation), Year C

Romans 5:1-5 (EHV)

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God.

3Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, 4and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. 5And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.

Our Triune God Justifies and Sanctifies

It’s useful, but not always pleasant to admit that you cannot do something. Acknowledging your weaknesses, your limits, can actually help get things done because you will ask for help when you need it and even hand something off completely when you can’t deal with it at all.

But, it’s not pleasant because we don’t like to admit that we can’t do something—or can’t do something well. Maybe we feel like we’re burdening someone else with a task if we ask for help, rather than giving them an opportunity to serve. For some this is easy to do, but for many it is not.

But what if you had the task of building a complicated wooden table but didn’t know how to use a saw? And what if your neighbor was a master carpenter? Doesn’t it make sense to ask for help when the person who has al the answers and more in his head and hands is right there?

This Sunday of the church year, the first Sunday after Pentecost, specially focused on the work of the Triune God. It gives us an opportunity to see the Triune God’s work in a special light, how Father, Son, and Spirit work together to accomplish what we could not: reducing us from sin and giving us eternal life. Again, it’s not pleasant admit that we need help, but in this case especially, when we are TOTALLY powerless and our God who loves us is right here ready and willing to save, why would we continue to struggle to save ourselves?

Our Second Reading specially serves almost as a creed, a confession and summary of faith in itself. And we will do well to use it to spend a few moments reviewing and renewing our love of what God has done for us—rescuing us when we were completely helpless.

As Paul wrote to the Christians living in Rome, he was writing to people he had never met. Paul would eventually make it to the capital city of the empire, but he hadn’t yet when he wrote these words. And his letter to them, that we’ve come to know simply as “Romans,” is a beautiful summary and defense of the Christian faith. The first 2 1/2 chapters or so serve as a harsh summary of the reality of our standing before God. Whether people were Jewish believers or Gentiles who knew nothing of God’s Word, Paul shows how all have fallen far short of God’s expectations of perfection. Every single person on the face of the planet stands under condemnation for their sins with no hope of ever fixing it.

But Paul doesn’t leave his readers (or us) in this hopeless state because that’s not where God has left us either. Paul assures us that there is a solution in God alone. He rejoices to tell us that we are freely justified (we’ll get back to that word in a moment) by God’s love for us, shown in Jesus. That in Jesus, every sin is forgiven and every threat of hell has been undone. And Paul moves on to explain how Abraham’s faith, his trust in God’s promises, is the same as ours. That just as Abraham trusted in God’s promises and received what God promised, so too we trust God’s promises and receive what he’s promised.

Which leads us to the beginning of Romans chapter 5, from where our Second Reading is taken. This really serves as kind of a summary of all that has come before. Echoes of the middle of Romans 3 greet us in verse 1 of Chapter 5: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul uses that word justified. We probably don’t use that word often, or at least not in the same way that Paul uses it. We might use justify in a negative way if someone is trying to argue that the wrong or hurtful things he is doing is actually ok. He’s justifying his actions. And that’s related to how Paul’s using it, but not in exactly the same sense. “Justify” is at its heart a courtroom term. If a judge justifies you, he declares you not guilty. And if the “not guilty” verdict has been issued, it doesn’t matter if you actually committed that crime or not—there will be no punishment, no consequences, nothing bad comes to you after that.

And so it is with God. We have sinned—that is an undeniable fact. And that sin should carry with it the sentence of eternal death in hell. But Jesus undoes all of that. His perfect life was sacrificed for us. Jesus suffered hell on the cross and he did that in our place. So the payment for those sins has already been made. Jesus’ suffering replaces our suffering.

And what are we left with? Our sin was war and conflict with God but now, because of Jesus and only because of Jesus, we have peace with God. Paul says that because we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God. God’s forgiveness, his justification, changes everything. We sinned, yes, but that sin has been forgiven. We deserved punishment, yes, but someone else—Jesus—has taken that punishment in our place. We had hell coming as our eternal destination and Jesus has totally reversed that to being with him in heaven.

So we have the hope for the glory of God, or if we felt like speaking Latin this morning, the hope for the gloria Dei. That glory of God is the eternal life that is waiting for us. But hope here is not a hope the way we might use that word. In modern English we use hope attached to a great deal of uncertainty. We hope for something that we just don’t think will happen or we think is a good chance will not happen. But Paul uses hope differently. This hope is confident, certain. There is no doubt about this happening. Jesus’ finished work, his resurrection and ascension, confirm that everything we needed is done.

I know that today is Trinity Sunday, but we won’t spend a lot of time this morning trying to explain the Trinity—how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit can all be completely and fully God, while at the same time there is only one God. It’s a teaching of God’s Word that defies understanding. In fact, almost every year in Catechism classes I offer the kids that if they can explain the Trinity so that I have no questions about it, they can be done with the class, receive an A+ for everything, and be confirmed the next Sunday. In 14 years of teaching Catechism, I’ve never had anyone even try because the true nature of God goes beyond our reasoning and understanding.

But here in these few short verses from Romans 5, we see the Triune God at work. We have peace with God the Father because of the work of God the Son. And then, as Paul continues, we have the love of God the Father because of the work of God the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit’s work is often called sanctification. Like justification, maybe hearing that word makes our eyes glaze over with “church speak” or maybe we have flat back to our time in Catechism or Bible Information Classes. But in short, sanctification means to set apart as special, to make holy. And that’s what the Holy Spirit does, he sets us apart from the rest of the world. He makes us different by making us part of God’s family, something we couldn’t have done on our own. His work in us is God’s love [being] poured out into our hearts.

And that change from sinner to saint, from one who is condemned to hell to one assured of eternal life in heaven, makes a big change in our lives. It gives us a perspective we would not have had otherwise, a perspective so wildly different of what we have by nature, that it seems almost nonsensical. Paul describes this change this way: “We also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope.”

The certain hope of eternal life means that we look at even bad things in our lives here as something that can be understood as positive. Perhaps being shut out from that opportunity will lead to a different, better one down the line. Perhaps going through this hardship today will make me more resilient to face a different hardship later, or be in a position to support someone going through something similar down the line. Or perhaps that suffering is just a reminder of the very temporary nature of this life.

When we have the certain hope of eternal life in Jesus’ work for us, we can begin to have God’s eternal perspective and be reminded that the suffering we have here will not be forever. There will be relief from it, probably in this life, but even if not, certainly in the life to come. That’s the patient endurance and tested character that Paul refers to.

The Holy Spirit’s work in our lives and in our hearts remind us not only that Jesus lived and died to forgive all of our sins, but that God always has our eternal best interests in mind. That work gives us a peace even in hardship and suffering that we probably would not otherwise have. That’s part of the sanctification that the Holy Spirit works, producing a life and an attitude in us that is lived out of thankfulness to God, trusting in the certainty of God’s promises.

Our eternal well-bring is what links the work of the Triune God together. We could do nothing and needed him for everything. Thanks be to God that he has a single-minded goal of rescuing us from hell so we can be with him in eternal life. And by his grace and his work for us, on us, and in us, that’s exactly what we will have.

May these truths that we confess and the hope that God gives be the focus and joy for us all our lives. Amen.

"Hold On To Jesus' Word" (Sermon on John 14:23-27) | June 5, 2022

Text: John 14:23-27
Date: June 5, 2022
Event: The Day of Pentecost, Year C

John 14:23-37 (EHV)

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will hold on to my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24The one who does not love me does not hold on to my words. The word that you are hearing is not mine, but it is from the Father who sent me.

25“I have told you these things while staying with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I told you.

27“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.”

Hold On To Jesus’ Word

Are heirlooms a part of your family? Do you have items that are precious to you and perhaps have been precious to your family for generations? Value can be found in something old—something from decades or even centuries ago—or in something new. Someone might be very mindful of the care of a great grandparents’ photo album and a brand new cell phone. For different reasons and purposes surely, but they will protect what is valuable to them.

This morning Jesus urges us to find value and use careful handling not with a physical object, but with his Word. But he also reminds us that we don’t hold on to this treasure by ourselves—the Holy Spirit himself brings it to us and keeps it with us through this life.

Our Gospel for this celebration of Pentecost is actually taken a little over 50 days before that first Christian Pentecost Day. We’ve had several Gospel readings from that Maundy Thursday evening because Jesus did a lot of teaching with his disciples that evening, and the Gospels record a lot of it for us. Jesus spent much of that evening getting his disciples ready for what was going to happen in a couple of hours—being betrayed by Judas, arrested by the Jewish leaders, and eventually condemned to death. But he also looked forward, looked beyond his crucifixion and resurrection and ahead to what would come after that.

In a few short hours things were going to go crazy for the disciples, and in the weeks that followed, they would probably feel rudderless and adrift. Even though they would be seeing the resurrected Jesus, they had to wonder at times what to make of all of this and even what would come after this stage where Jesus would meet with them and prove his resurrection to them.

Don’t you suppose the temptation to give up on all of this would have been strong for the disciples? I  have to imagine that at least some of them at this time would have thought something along the lines of, “Well, these three years with Jesus were sure something, but I think it’s time to be done.” I mean, there was nothing but chaos surrounding Jesus. By association with him, they were increasingly considered persona non grata by both the religious leaders and the political leaders, and probably the populace at large.

So what does Jesus say to dissuade them from giving up during those difficult times? If anyone loves me, he will hold on to my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. The one who does not love me does not hold on to my words. Giving up on Jesus’ words and the things he had done are tantamount to saying “I don’t love you Jesus. I don’t value what you’ve done.”

Holding on to family photos shows a value and love of the previous generations of your family. Handling a new phone with care might show a good stewardship, seeking to protect something that cost a considerable amount of money. Likewise, holding on to and prioritizing Jesus’ words show a love for Jesus and the forgiveness he won by his life and death in our place.

How are you at holding on to Jesus’ words? If you think through your thoughts and actions this past week, how did it go? If we had a screen up here with everything you said, did, and thought written down on it for the past seventy-two hours, would someone reading it say, “Wow, what a devoted follower of Jesus!” Or would the reaction to those things, written out and collected, communicate a much more negative impression? Would they be embarrassing to have shown to other people?

The reality is sin is always with us. And we think, say, and do things that are not at all in keeping with loving Jesus and holding on to his Word. But his Word is the very thing that brings the solution to that problem. Because Jesus’ Word not only tells us how we should live but tells us how he lived for us. That in his life and death, we have the forgiveness of all of our sins. That because of Jesus, we will be in heaven forever.

This is a message that people need to hear. This is the message Jesus would send his disciples to share. This is the message that really publicly had its debut on that first Christian Pentecost day. But as we’ve seen, we’re not good at holding on to Jesus’ Words. Left to our own devices we would take this Word, given by Jesus from the Father and chuck it right out the window. Our sinful nature finds no value in what Jesus said or did, and has no love for him at all.

Jesus knows that. He knew his disciples and he knows us. “I have told you these things while staying with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I told you.” The disciples had three whole years with Jesus but they still couldn’t get what Jesus was saying, or hold on to it in their minds. It often escaped their understanding. They were confused and often misapplied Jesus’ words. But the Holy Spirit would come to teach them and remind them of everything Jesus had said.

That’s probably the most remarkable part of that first Christian Pentecost day. Not the sound of the wind, or the tongues of fire, or the apostles speaking in languages they had never studied, but that they got it. They understood what Jesus had taught them. They understood the necessity of everything he did. They understood what all of his work meant for them and for all people eternally.

Now, the apostles were certainly works in progress. We can read through the book of Acts and see them growing and learning even after that amazing Pentecost day. But this is the gift of the Holy Spirit: faith that clings to the promises of God, faith that trusts what God has said.

And while we don’t speak in other languages or have the other gifts that the disciples received that day, we have the same, primary gift that the Holy Spirit gave to them that day. Because you, like Peter and the others, have received the Holy Spirit who created faith in your heart. You, like the 3,000 people that first Christian Pentecost day, have heard the good news and believed it because the Spirit worked that belief in you.

So when Jesus tells you to hold on to his Word, he doesn’t expect us to do that solo or in a vacuum. He gives us the Holy Spirit to create that faith and help us hold on to those promises. The Holy Spirit uses the means of the grace, the gospel message as it comes to us both in the Word and the sacraments, to strengthen our grip on what Jesus has promised and done. The more we are surrounded by God’s Word, the more valuable it becomes to us.

And what is the result of that work of the Spirit on us? “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.” By keeping us holding on to Jesus’ Word, the Holy Spirit brings Jesus’ peace to our troubled hearts. Sure, we can look at the past week and see failure after failure to live as the child of God, to live as one who holds on to and loves Jesus’ Word. But the Spirit continues to bring us to the cross and the empty tomb, to show us what Jesus did, to show us Jesus’ forgiveness for those failures to hold on to his Word in our life, and then to wrap our fingers around that word and tighten our grip, to see his Word as the most precious gift we’ve ever been given.

The peace that Jesus brings through his Word, through the Holy Spirit, is the peace that comes from knowing our sins are forgiven. It is the peace that comes from knowing we will be safe in eternal life. It is the peace that comes from knowing that no matter how difficult life here becomes, we need not have a troubled or fearful heart, because we have the Spirit in us and are safe in Jesus’ love for eternity.

The peace that comes from Jesus is more precious than any family heirloom or exciting new purchase. The peace that Jesus brings is greater than anything you can get from the world. Jesus’ peace come from his Word. Hold on to that Word; value that Word. By the grace and work of the Holy Spirit, that’s exactly what we will do. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Jesus' Ascension Shows God's Necessities" (Sermon on Luke 24:44-53) | May 29, 2022

Text: Luke 24:44-53
Date: May 29, 2022
Event: The Ascension of our Lord (Observed), Year C

Luke 24:44-53 (EHV)

He said to them, “These are my words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”

45Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. 46He said to them, “This is what is written and so it must be: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things. 49Look, I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

50He led them out as far as the vicinity of Bethany. He lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51And while he was blessing them, he parted from them and was taken up into heaven. 52So they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53They were continually in the temple courts, praising and blessing God. Amen.

Jesus’ Ascension Shows God’s Necessities

We will have things we want to do and things we need to do. Sometimes those things are one in the same, sometimes they are worlds apart. But things that are required, are needs, are necessities, are things that cannot be avoided, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant.

When talking about “Daily Bread” with the kids in Catechism class (or almost as often with adults in Bible class!), we have to make that distinction between needs and wants. Wants might be fulfilled or might not be, but God promises that the needs will absolutely be met. So then the question is, what are our needs, what are necessities from God’s point of view? Do they sync up with what we would say our needs or are they pretty different?

Today we are celebrating Jesus’ ascension. Technically, the day for this celebration would have been this past Thursday as Jesus ascended 40 days after his resurrection, but we are observing it this Sunday. Jesus’ ascension gives us a good opportunity to see God’s priorities, what he deems to be necessities. So this morning, as we review the simple account of Jesus’ ascension from Luke’s Gospel, let’s consider what Jesus’ ascension tells us about God and what it tells us about ourselves.

Jesus spent 40 days on and off with his disciples after his resurrection to serve as a coda on his teaching with them. Of prime importance for Jesus was that each of these followers know beyond any possible doubt that he had, in fact, been physically raised from the dead. This truth is massively important for people’s eternal comfort and would be one of the center points of the disciples’ teaching as they went out into the world. So Jesus made sure they knew that he had been raised.

But he was also teaching them a lot about the necessity of what had happened to him and the things he had done. This was not the first time Jesus had said things like this. In fact, at some point after Jesus had been teaching for a while and after John the Baptist had been executed, Jesus asked his disciples who the crowds of people were thinking he was. They knew the crowds had all sorts of answers and gave Jesus a sampling. And when Jesus turned the question to his disciples—who did they think he was?—Peter gave that famous, accurate confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).

While praising that confession we’re also told “From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and on the third day be raised again (Matthew 16:21). Note how similar that is to his words in our Gospel, just prior to Jesus’ ascension: “These are my words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms…. This is what is written and so it must be: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.”

So, in part our answer to the question of “what is a necessity for God?” is following through on the promises he has made. He can’t make a promise and leave it undone. But that point skips a necessary question: why were these promises made in the first place?

And that gets us to the heart of God’s necessities. For God, it was a necessity that mankind not be doomed to hell for their rebellious sin. For God, it was necessary that payment be made for sins, but not by us. For God, it was necessary that we be saved from this punishment and safe with him forever.

And so here is the first necessity for God: our rescue from sin. God did not hesitate for even a moment. It was the very first conversation after Adam and Eve fell where God made that first promise of a Satan-crushing Savior. God’s nature meant that he could not and would not shrug at our sin and leave us to our doom. His love for us is so great, so profound, so deep, so absolutely-selfless, that he promised a Savior and would be that very Savior for us. Jesus’ work had to happen because God’s loving nature, his grace toward fallen mankind, demanded that.

There are times when it doesn’t feel that way. There are times where we think God must not love us very much because we have this hardship or we lack that blessing. But Jesus shows us the error of that thinking. Does God love you? Does God care for you? You know he does because he made your salvation a necessity for himself. The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that’s exactly what he did. And because he did, your sins are forgiven and you are safe with your Savior.

But the necessity is not just in God doing it. It would do no good for God to do all of this and then for no one to know about it. And so from the beginning, he let people know. He let people know what he was going to do—he made those promises in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. But he also let people know what he had done: Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in [my] name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

And we’ll see this start in earnest next week as we celebrate the first Christian Pentecost day. We will see the message of Jesus go out through Peter and the other disciples in that famous day of speaking in languages they had never studied. And in that moment, God will fortify the church by adding 3,000 believers, nearly 30x the number of believers than there had been at Jesus’ ascension.

Throughout the Easter season, we’ve had bits of this history in our First Readings from the book of Acts. Jesus was with his disciples wherever they went, whomever they were talking to, sharing what he had done with the people he had died for. People were brought to faith through this preaching of the Word and through baptism. They were strengthened in their faith by this continued proclamation of the Word and their celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

All of this points back to God’s original necessity: that people be saved from their sins. There is no being saved from sin without Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. But there is also no being saved from sin without the message of Jesus being shared with people who don’t know about it yet, or who had known it and fallen away, or know it and love it but need to be strengthened in it.

And this necessity has not changed. It was needed in the apostles’ day just after Jesus’ ascension, and it’s just as necessary today almost 2,000 years after Jesus’ ascension. Because the truths are still truths. God’s necessities are still the same. He needs people to be saved from their sins. Jesus did the work that was needed, and now that necessary task of sharing that rests on you and me. We are the messengers of God’s loving necessities. We are the ones to share it with our brothers and sisters in Christ, our unbelieving friends, coworkers, neighbors, and even with people we’ve never met around the world.

What is truly needed and necessary? From God’s perspective, it’s you—your eternal safety is the driving motivator for him. His love to save you has forced his hand continually, and he will not stop working toward that goal until you and I are safe with him forever. Jesus’ ascension shows the end of a crucially important part of that work, and the beginning of the next step. May God bless our work in sharing the necessity and the  reality that Christ is risen, he is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"God's Joy Outlasts Sin's Sorrow" (Sermon on John 16:16-24) | May 22, 2022

Text: John 16:16–24
Date: May 22, 2022
Event: The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year C

John 16:16–24 (EHV)

[Jesus said.] “In a little while you are not going to see me anymore, and again in a little while you will see me, because I am going away to the Father.”

17Therefore some of his disciples asked one another, “What does he mean when he tells us, ‘In a little while you are not going to see me, and again in a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going away to the Father’?” 18So they kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he’s saying.”

19Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you trying to determine with one another what I meant by saying, ‘In a little while you are not going to see me, and again in a little while you will see me’? 20Amen, Amen, I tell you: You will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. 21A woman giving birth has pain, because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of her joy that a person has been born into the world.

22“So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. 23In that day you will not ask me anything. Amen, Amen, I tell you: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 24Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be made complete.”

God’s Joy Outlasts Sin’s Sorrow

Typically, you want things to last. You don’t want the cell phone you paid hundreds of dollars for to last for a few months, right? You want to get several years of use out of it at least. You buy a car for tens of thousands of dollars with the intention that you’ll be able to use it for many years. And if you’re able to buy a home, you spend a much larger amount of money hoping that it might last you decades.

And we want things to last outside of just things we buy. A balanced meal will give you energy and keep you feeling good much better than the same amount of calories from candy and soda. In school or other training, you spend time and effort studying the material so it stays in your head and is a benefit to you moving forward rather than forgetting it when you step out of the class or training session.

Jesus this morning focuses on something that endures much better than a well-made car or a good meal. He zeroes us in on the joy we have in his victory over sin and death. While we are moving farther from it, we are still basking in the joy of Jesus’ resurrection. And one of the points we’ve tried to make during this season is how that Easter joy and blessing endures. Last week we saw that the motivator for Jesus’ work, God’s undeserved love for sinners, lasts beyond this world and into eternity. Jesus’ resurrection, then, is not a one-time event that comes and goes. It’s an eternally-important event that brings so much comfort and blessing for us all the days of our lives.

And Jesus is making that same point in our Gospel for this morning. Our Gospel is taken from the teaching Jesus did during that Maundy Thursday evening, just prior to his betrayal and arrest. And so it’s that heavy context that serves as the back drop of what Jesus has to say. And that helps us to understand what he means when he says, “In a little while you are not going to see me anymore, and again in a little while you will see me, because I am going away to the Father.”

The disciples didn’t understand what he was talking about in the moment, but you and I, with the benefit of hindsight, can see what he’s referring to pretty clearly. In just a matter of hours Jesus would be arrested. The disciples would scatter and largely, they would not see him again. We know John, at least, was at the cross, but we don’t know for sure that any of the other disciples saw Jesus again after this night.

So then Jesus was hidden from them in the Sanhedrin, with Pilate, Herod, the cross, and then finally the tomb. At that point, it was too late. If they had a change of heart, if they wanted to see their teacher and friend again, it was impossible. The stone was in place, the seal applied, and the guard posted.

Of course, you know what comes next. Jesus said, “and again in a little while you will see me.” It wouldn’t be until that first Easter evening, but Jesus appeared to most of these same disciples where they were scared and huddled together.

And in that disappearance and reappearance was the assurance of all Jesus promised to do. In his disappearance, he was cut off from the land of living because in his death he paid for our every sin. In his reappearance we have the assurance that all things are complete. Jesus completed the work that his Father gave him to do. He gave his life to save us, and we have the full and free forgiveness of every single sin. What Easter joy is ours!

But, have you felt joyful from April 17th on? We gathered outside for a beautiful service, we rejoiced that Jesus had been raised from the dead. What could possibly drag you down? What could possibly rob you of that joy? What could possibly make you feel sad knowing that Jesus has conquered sin, death, and hell for you?

Well, a lot, actually. Jesus says as much, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: You will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy.” Life brings sorrow in this world. Yes, we trust that Jesus is our Savior. Yes, we rejoice that heaven is ours. But we will not always feel good because we still live in a world of sin. The world attacks us, dear ones fail us, and we become sorrowful at our own inability to live our lives the way God expects. While we live in this world of sin, sorrow goes hand-in-hand with us.

Jesus uses the analogy of a woman in labor to show not only the severity of the pain and sorrow that life here produces, but also the inevitability. No child is born without pain. Even modern medical science that has some options to lessen that pain cannot eliminate it entirely. A child being born causes great pain to the mother who brings the child into the world.

But, to Jesus’ point, that pain is temporary. When the child is born, the pain physically begins to subside, but also emotionally, as Mom gets to hold the child, the joy of the birth well-overshadows the difficulty to get to that point. If Mom and child are healthy, joy beams brighter than sorrow and pain.

It’s no surprise that God often uses this picture to describe life in this world. Pains and sorrow are unavoidable here, but we know what is coming. Eternal life is waiting for us, where there will be no sin or sickness or sorrow or pain. Heaven is prepared for us, where God will wipe every tear from our eyes. Perfection has been won for us, where nothing bad will ever happen to us again. No wonder Paul, when writing to the Romans, observed, “Our sufferings at the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

And that’s great for then, but what about for now? How do we scrape by in this life without despair, without giving up hope, without losing track of the promises God will absolutely keep? “So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. In that day you will not ask me anything. Amen, Amen, I tell you: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be made complete.”

We have sorrow now, and that sorrow will evaporate when Jesus returns at the last day. But until that day, you have access to God through prayer. Jesus said that the disciples at that point had not asked for anything in his name, which makes sense. Jesus was right there; why would they ask the Father for things in Jesus’ name when they could just ask Jesus directly?

But there will come a time when they won’t see him anymore, not the brief time when he’s in the tomb, but after his ascension. The disciples would live through the start of the time that you and I live through right now. We, like they likely did, long to be able to ask Jesus for help, guidance, support, whatever, and it’s frustrating or sad that we don’t have direct access to Jesus.

But, Jesus says, we actually do. Asking the Father in Jesus’ name is tantamount to speaking to Jesus directly. When we can’t see Jesus with our physical eyes, we ask the Father for what we need in Jesus’ name, and we can be sure that we will have what we need.

And in this connection to our Savior and Creator God in prayer is what makes our joy complete. It will find its completion in the comfort we have now, and the ultimate completion in our eternal life with him forever. The sorrows of sin will pass away, but God’s joy never will. His love, and our joy in that love, endures forever! Why? Because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"Love Is Eternal" (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13) | May 15, 2022

Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Date: May 15, 2022
Event: The Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C

1 Corinthians 13:1–13 (EHV)

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and know all the mysteries and have all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away everything I own, and if I give up my body that I may be burned but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. It does not brag. It is not arrogant. 5It does not behave indecently. It is not selfish. It is not irritable. It does not keep a record of wrongs. 6It does not rejoice over unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never comes to an end. But if there are prophetic gifts, they will be done away with; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be done away with. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, 10but when that which is complete has come, that which is partial will be done away with. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. 12Now we see indirectly using a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I was fully known.

13So now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Love Is Eternal

This morning’s service is focused on love. We heard Jesus’ clear command to his disciples on Maundy Thursday evening in our Gospel for this morning, “Love one another.” He demonstrated love that is God pleasing when he washed his disciples’ feet that evening. No one else was willing to humiliate themselves to do that lowly work, but Jesus did. He loved his disciples enough to give that brief but powerful demonstration of love.

In our Second Reading for this morning, the apostle Paul does a deep-dive on just what love is and looks like. These are famous words that are likely familiar to us and likely also familiar to those who have never even cracked open a Bible. These words are sometimes used at weddings even when the people aren’t Christians because the sentiment assumed is that of a mushy-gushy, romantic love being celebrated in that moment.

But this morning as we dig into these words, we will hopefully walk away with a better understanding not only of God’s love for us, but of our love for each other, love that should be expressed not only in words and actions, but even in the attitudes of our hearts.

And that’s exactly where Paul begins. He starts this famous chapter on love by addressing the importance of love not only as action but as attitude. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all the mysteries and have all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I give up my body that I may be burned but do not have love, I gain nothing. Paul offers a lot of examples here in these opening verses, but they all make the same point. If I can do and actually accomplish amazing things, but I don’t have love as God defines love, it is all worthless. If I’m only out for self-glory or drawing attention to myself, if my motivation is skewed from love to selfishness, I am nothing.

What love, then, is Paul talking about? Well, he goes on to define it: Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. It does not brag. It is not arrogant. It does not behave indecently. It is not selfish. It is not irritable. It does not keep a record of wrongs. It does not rejoice over unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. This is a definition of God’s love. If you’re familiar with the Greek term, agape, a selfless, self-sacrificing love, that’s what Paul is talking about. Patient, kind, not envious, brag-y, or arrogant.

And this is where those quotes from this chapter can start getting skewed. Because Paul’s point here is not how great the love of the Corinthians has been. His point here is law. He showing where your love and my love have not measured up to God’s definition of love. We might well read these verses like this, Love is patient (but you’re not). Love is kind (but you’re not). Love does not envy (but you do). It does not brag (but you do). It is not arrogant (but you are). It does not behave indecently (but you do). It is not selfish (but you are). It is not irritable (but you are). It does not keep a record of wrongs (but you do). It doesn’t take long for the mushy-gushy vibe some people attach to these verses to evaporate, does it?

Here God forces me to take a step back and evaluate not just my actions and my words, but my very heart. How do I approach my relationship with other people? How do I consider my goals or accomplishments? What do I think about myself compared to what I think about other people? As you work through these thoughts with me, it’s not real pretty, is it?

Think back to this week, look at all the hats you’ve worn and the responsibilities that you’ve had. How have you been as a spouse? How have you been as a single person? How have you been as a parent? How have you been as a child? How have you been as a student? How have you been as an employee? How have you been as an employer? How have you been as a member of our congregation? How have you been as a Christian in general? As you carried out the tasks associated with those roles, did you do so with a God-like love, or did you come off as more of a clattering gong?

None of us probably failed in all ways at all times, but despite the best of intentions, did your selfishness slip in there? Did you have moments of weakness where you weren’t loving at all? Did you seek to use your love as manipulation rather than selfless self-sacrifice?

Of course you did. That’s Paul’s point. This is how we should love, but we don’t. And this is why we need God’s love so desperately. Because God’s love is always patient and kind. It’s never envious, bragging, or arrogant. God’s love is perfectly selfless all the time.

And we see that most clearly in Jesus. Our sin in general, and specifically this morning as we focus on our lack of love, needs forgiveness. Because this is sin that offends the eternal God. This is sin that leads to hell. This is sin that we cannot make up for. My lack of love to another person may be made up for with an apology, a gift, a change in approach in the future, or simply letting some time pass. But that lack of love can never be made up for in God’s sight. It is an eternal weight around my neck, dragging me to hell without hope.

And so God’s love is demonstrated most clearly for us in this: while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us. His death on the cross paid for my lack of love. He died for your selfishness. All of our problems with loving as God loves are solved in Jesus’ perfect life and innocent death. As we look, yet again, at his empty tomb, we see his victory, his inescapable proof of his love for us. His loving victory means we will not be in hell for our sins; we will be in heaven.

That love is then what motivates us to love one another, to look at the times we’ve failed to love this past week and strive to do better. To be that better spouse, coworker, neighbor, friend, parent, child, whatever roles we have, to let love, namely God’s love, flow through those responsibilities. In doing that, we give thanks to God for his love for us.

But love is special, it’s different than anything else. Paul makes this point: Love never comes to an end… these three remain: faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. Why is love the greatest of the amazing triad of blessings of faith, hope, and love? Because it’s the one that never expires. We only need faith and hope when we are waiting for a promise. We have faith in God’s forgiveness and hope for eternal life because God has promised them, but we don’t have the full realization of all that God has promised just yet. But when God brings us home to himself, we will not need faith or hope. When you have something in your hand, you dob’t need faith that it’s there or is coming. And in that moment we will see God face to face! We don’t have to hope, even have confident hope, that heaven is waiting for us when we’re standing in that perfect place.

But love? Love will fill eternity. God’s love for us will be direct and inescapable, even more than it is now. Our love for one another will be perfectly refined, unhampered by sin and failure. Love will be our constant companion through the endless ages of eternal life. Never will we be apart from God’s love or apart from perfect love for each other.

That change is coming, but it’s not here yet. While we journey through this life we will need faith, trust, that God has forgiven us. We need hope, though not doubt, that God will follow through on his promises to us. And we need God’s love that envelops and restores us. God’s love will not fail for eternity and it will not fail us now. Jesus’ forgiveness is not in doubt. God’s eternal love is our possession now and forever.

Take comfort in that eternal love of God. Even when you fail to love or others fail to love you, God’s love in Jesus, your Savior, is a constant. He died for you; he was raised for you. He loves you now and forever. Rejoice in God’s love, and with his love, love one another, because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"Jesus Is Our Eternal Shepherd" (Sermon on John 10:22-30) | May 8, 2022

Text: John 10:22-30
Date: May 8, 2022
Event: Good Shepherd Sunday (The Fourth Sunday of Easter), Year C

John 10:22-30 (EHV)

Then the Festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23and Jesus was walking in the temple area in Solomon’s Colonnade.

24So the Jews gathered around Jesus, asking, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

25Jesus answered them, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I am doing in my Father’s name testify about me. 26But you do not believe, because you are not my sheep, as I said to you. 27My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30I and the Father are one.”

Jesus Is Our Eternal Shepherd

It’s Good Shepherd Sunday, which means the sermon is obligated to include a paragraph about how not-bright sheep are. It might be a little trite or even cliche, but it’s true. If you have spent any time with sheep, you know that they’re pretty mindless. They will wander from safety into danger and from plenty of food and water into a barren place.

This truth is why God so often speaks of himself or even other human leaders over his people as shepherds. You know that we are all too likely to wander off away from the safety of God’s protection and love and instead get ourselves wrapped up in the danger of sin. And like a sheep realizing that it’s no longer grazing in grass but sinking in mud, we often don’t realize the danger we are putting ourselves into until it’s too late to course correct.

So God promises to be our shepherd. Most of our songs this morning are summaries and paraphrases of David’s famous Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” The theme of our whole service is that God provides for and protects his sheep. We know that God is loving and especially forgiving for we sheep who get ourselves wrapped up in sin. He is our perfectly patient, eternal shepherd, who rescues from sin and brings us to eternal life.

But often, we lose track of that. We lose track of the eternal and instead focus on the here and now. We get so focused on earthly things that we take our eyes off of eternity and that leads to real problems. We become sheep wandering away from what our Shepherd knows that we need, and he has to come seek us out and put us back where we belong, refocusing us on what is truly important.

Our Gospel takes place during the Feast of Dedication. You know this celebration by a different name, Hanukkah. Now the celebration that Jesus attended probably looked pretty different than modern-day celebrations, but the event celebrated is largely the same. This festival commemorated a victory of God’s people over rulers who sought to snuff out the worship of the true God.

In the time between the Old and New Testaments, the Greek empire ruled over the Promised Land. Israel was subject to Greek influence, first brought about by the ridiculously large conquests of Alexander the Great. By the early 100s BC, things were going badly. A Greek king named Antiochus IV ruled over this section of the empire, and he demanded unity at all costs. That unity included religious thought and practice. Which meant that anything the didn’t conform to Greek thinking about religion—including Judaism—had to go.

Antiochus did horrible things to God’s people during this time. Perhaps one of the worst symbolic acts he performed was having pigs sacrificed on the altar in the temple. If you remember, pigs were considered unclean animals in God’s Old Testament worship laws; they had no place in sacrifices during worship. This was a defilement of the worship space second almost to none.

So, the people fought back. By God’s grace, through the leadership of a man named Judas Maccabeus, God’s people ended up kicking the Greek rule out of the area and then rededicated the temple. They built a new altar to replace the defiled one and rededicated the worship space to the true God. This Feast of Dedication, Hanukkah, is a celebration of that rededication of the temple, the very temple that Jesus would worship in a little over 150 years later.

It is telling that during this celebration of Judas Maccabeus’ victory over the Greeks that the Jews gathered around Jesus, asking, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” They undoubtedly has Judas Maccabeus in mind, the champion of that temple fight and purification. Was Jesus going to be another of these heroes? Wouldn’t the Christ, the Messiah, want to save them from the Roman rule that in their day had replaced the Greek rule of 200 years prior? The question is really, “Jesus, are you going to do something to save us from the Romans? Are you going to restore our nation like Judas did long ago? If you really are the Christ, show it to us plainly by action!”

Jesus identifies the problem. “I did tell you, but you do not believe.” He had been speaking plainly to them, but they weren’t listening because they were looking for something very different than what he was providing. Jesus had not come to be a physical or political rescuer as those they were celebrating that day in Jerusalem had been. He had come to be an eternal Savior. “The works I am doing in my Father’s name testify about me. But you do not believe, because you are not my sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.”

You and I are among those who are Jesus’ sheep. We hear his voice and listen to him, know him, and follow him. We know our sins and our need for a Savior. We know that our sin brings hell on us, but that Jesus came to be our Shepherd, to lay down his life for us. That’s what we need him to do, and that’s what he did for us. His death paid for our sins, and he proved that by his resurrection. We are forgiven and have eternal life because Jesus took away our every sin.

But how often are we still those foolish sheep, wandering away from safety? How often doesn’t the desire of our hearts override what our Shepherd has done for us? Does the appeal of money and other earthly riches distract you from eternity? Does lust in your heart lead you to discount what God’s will for your life is? Does the appeal of work, or entertainment, or sleep pull you away from time with God’s Word regularly in worship with your fellow Christians?

Oh what foolish sheep we are, wandering away from our Shepherd, seeking temporal pleasure and joy rather than focusing on what our Good Shepherd knows is best for us. And yet, he seeks us out. He lovingly picks us up and corrects us. That’s not always pleasant—being told what we want is not what we’ll get is never anyone’s idea of fun. But it’s necessary for us. He refocuses us on himself, on what he’s done to save us, and how the perfect, eternal life waiting for us is infinitely better than even the best life we could find here. “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.”

Sheep can wander into danger, but there are also dangers that are no fault of the sheep. Predators can come and attack the flock. Wolves can hurt and even kill the sheep. A dozing or absent shepherd may let his flock be decimated by these outside forces.

But not so with our Good Shepherd. No one will snatch us out of his hand. And even more than that, Jesus says that God the Father has given us to Jesus, and that no one can snatch us out of the Father’s hand either. Jesus speaks in simple words that speak baffling truth: I and the Father are one. They are one in so many different ways, especially in their mission to save us from our sins. God the Son, Jesus, came to do this work for us because God the Father sent him. Our Triune God is in perfectly united to save us from our sins and bring us to be with him in eternal life.

As we move through this life, we will face struggles and trials. Some of them will come from outside of us, like wolves attacking a flock of sheep. Others will be self-inflicted, like sheep wandering away from safety and plenty and into danger and scarcity. But no matter what trials and hardships come on us, our Good Shepherd is with us, guarding us and protecting us. He is certainly concerned about our physical, temporal welfare. But make no mistake: our Good Shepherd is ultimately our eternal Shepherd and all of his work is focused on our eternal safety. Don’t mistake him for one who will make life easy; see him as the one who will rescue from this world of hardship and heartache and bring us to himself, to those eternal pastures of heaven, to be safe and secure forever. Amen.

"See Jesus As He Is" (Sermon on Revelation 1:4-18) | April 24, 2022

Text: Revelation 1:4-18
Date: April 24, 2022
Event: The Second Sunday of Easter, Year C

Revelation 1:4-18 (EHV)

John,

To the seven churches in the province of Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is, who was, and who is coming, and from the seven spirits that are before his throne, 5and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his own blood 6and made us a kingdom and priests to God his Father—to him be the glory and the power forever. Amen.

7Look, he is coming with clouds,
and every eye will see him,
including those who pierced him.
And all the nations of the earth will mourn because of him.
Yes. Amen.

8“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, the one who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Almighty.

9I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingship and patient endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus.

10I was in spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard a loud voice behind me, like a trumpet, 11saying, “Write what you see on a scroll and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

12I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me. When I turned, I saw seven gold lampstands, 13and among the lampstands was one like a son of man. He was clothed with a robe that reached to his feet, and around his chest he wore a gold sash. 14His head and his hair were white, like white wool or like snow. His eyes were like blazing flames. 15His feet were like polished bronze being refined in a furnace. His voice was like the roar of many waters. 16He held seven stars in his right hand. A sharp two-edged sword was coming out of his mouth. His face was shining as the sun shines in all its brightness.

17When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand on me and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last— 18the Living One. I was dead and, see, I am alive forever and ever! I also hold the keys of death and hell.”

See Jesus As He Is

It was halloween and the Mom and young daughter were going to go out trick-or-treating. Both had costumes, but Mom’s costume did a lot to change her appearance. She was tough to recognize with the mask over her face. As Mom walked into the living room, the daughter gasped and got scared. “Don’t worry,” Dad said, “It’s Mom!” Mom quickly took off the mask and wig to make clear that it was still the one who loved her daughter so dearly under the different-looking costume.

The daughter breathed a sigh of relief and off they went into the neighborhood. But periodically as they went, the young girl asked Mom to let her peek under the mask for the extra reassurance that it was, in fact, still Mom under there. Each time brought relief and a renewed confidence that she was safe and able to have a fun evening.

Maybe it’s not a halloween costume, but all of us need some reassurances from others in our lives that things are ok, right? Maybe a parent sits with a child and helps them think through that bigger project for school, and that child is reassured that their parent loves them and takes care of them. The boss that holds the employee’s feet to the fire a bit in a meeting comes over afterwards to see how she can help the employee with what is ahead. The friend who has been out of touch for a long while calls to check in on and assures the other person that he is always there for them if they need anything.

The same is true about Jesus. The whole season of Easter is going to be Jesus doing just that. Jesus’ resurrection is so massively important that he’s going to spend 40 days from Easter Sunday through his ascension making sure the disciples know beyond any doubt, that he has risen from the dead. As we said last weekend, Jesus’ resurrection was God’s stamp of approval on everything that Jesus had done. We know that all of our sins are forgiven because Jesus was raised from the dead. And because of that, as the disciples would go out into the world after Jesus’ ascension preaching this message, it was vital for them to know this for sure so that they could share it.

People needed to see Jesus as he is, not just the crucified, defeated man who died on Good Friday, but the resurrected, triumphant Savior that burst the tomb three days later. This is not a matter of fine points of doctrine or scholarly debate. The physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus is of the utmost importance for all of us for the assurance of eternal life with our God.

But it wasn’t just the post-Easter disciples that needed encouragement and reminders. Jesus would appear to his apostles at various times during the time of the New Testament to remind them, encourage them, and guide them. This was critical in that difficult period in-between Jesus’ ascension into heaven and before the New Testament was fully complete as a concrete record and reference of God’s inspired words.

And so that’s where we find ourselves in our Second Reading for this morning. At the very beginning of at the book of Revelation, we’re at the very end of the time period in which the New Testament was written. Revelation and John’s letters are likely among the last of the New Testament books to be written and sent out, in the late 80s or early 90s AD.

John is likely the only one of the original 12 disciples still alive at this time. He’s an old man who has spent his entire life devoted to preaching the good news about Jesus. And when he writes down these amazing visions, he’s paying the price for that work. As far as we know, he was not executed for his work like so many other of the apostles. But he was exiled on an island, just west of modern-day Turkey. John says that he was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus.

At this time, the Christian church was in rough shape. From both problems internal and external, Christians throughout the world were going trough hardships. Persecutions and false doctrines threatened people’s physical and eternal lives. If you read through the seven individual letters sent to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, you get a sense for what the people were going through. John himself had lived through most if not all of his fellow apostles executed for the message they were tasked with proclaiming. There were likely many times that this didn’t feel like the eternally-victorious triumph that Jesus was supposed to be. As John sits in exile, it probably feels far removed from the joy of that first Easter. Honestly, it probably felt pretty far away from the joy we had at our Easter celebration just last week.

Was Jesus really victorious? Is he really all-powerful? Or did everyone get duped? Did they back the wrong horse in this eternally-important race? The book of Revelation is largely Jesus bringing comfort not only to John but also to all of the churches who would receive the accounting of what he saw and heard, you and me included. And in this intro section at the beginning of chapter 1, we have the answer to what is perhaps one of the most important questions to a struggling Christian: who is Jesus, really?

In his vision, John hears Jesus speak, and he turns to look at him, and this is what he sees: When I turned, I saw seven gold lampstands, and among the lampstands was one like a son of man. He was clothed with a robe that reached to his feet, and around his chest he wore a gold sash. His head and his hair were white, like white wool or like snow. His eyes were like blazing flames. His feet were like polished bronze being refined in a furnace. His voice was like the roar of many waters. He held seven stars in his right hand. A sharp two-edged sword was coming out of his mouth. His face was shining as the sun shines in all its brightness. I wonder, as I read these words, did John even recognize Jesus? Did he look anything like the teacher who loved him so dearly during his earthly ministry? Maybe there was a reminder of Jesus’ transfiguration in this vision, but what John describes here seems to be well beyond the change in appearance the Gospels describe on that hilltop so many years before.

We won’t spend a ton of time this morning going through Revelation interpretation, save for this point: the seven lampstands are symbols of the seven churches to which John is writing. So when Jesus is “among the lampstands,” that is a picturesque way of showing that Jesus was at the moment with his people. Jesus wasn’t far away in some remote part of the universe. He had not ascended and then forgotten about the people he left on earth. Despite what it may have felt like at times, Jesus is there among his people, with them in all of their trials and adversities. He was supporting them—not necessarily making life easy, but make it possible to navigate the difficulties of the crosses they were bearing.

And what a powerful vision of his ability to do so! John began this section by giving us this brief quote and description of Jesus: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, the one who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Almighty. And in what he sees, Jesus looks the part doesn’t he? You can feel John struggling to come up with words to communicate what he’s seeing. But all the talk of gleaming white, flames, and glowing hot metal really conveys the brightness and power of our Savior. He looks nothing like Jesus did during his earthly ministry, during that time of humiliation. No, he looks every part the Almighty God that he always was.

And whether John recognizes Jesus or not, you can see his reaction to this divine vision: When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. We have this over and over again in Scripture: someone is given even the slightest glimpse of God’s glory, or even the glory of one of his messengers, the angels, and they fall down, terrified. Sinners can’t be the presence of perfection, and more to that, sinners can’t be in the presence of the holy God. And so John might figure here that is life is forfeit.

But here we see the wild looking, glowing guy act very much like the Jesus we know from the Gospels: He placed his right hand on me and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last—the Living One. I was dead and, see, I am alive forever and ever! I also hold the keys of death and hell.” You can almost hear Jesus using the same voice that he did with Mary Magdalene in the garden when she was so distraught that someone had stolen his body that she mistook the resurrected Jesus for the gardener, until he said her name. Or for Thomas, as he calmly, lovingly, but also directly focused doubts on the reality that stood before him.

But whether it’s Mary, Thomas, or John here in Revelation, Jesus’ patient, kind, loving goal is the same: he wants people to see who he really is. He isn’t a weak pitiful man that someone might mistake him for at the cross. He isn’t an angry, vengeful God that some might mistake him for here in Revelation’s opening vision. No, he is the God-man who loves you. He is the God-man who died for you. He is the God-man who was raised to life for you.

How often do you feel like Thomas, plagued with doubts about God’s ability to follow though on the promises he’s made? Is he really going to work good from hardship and difficulty? Is he really going to not give us more than we can bear, and provide a way our of testing and temptation?

How often do you feel like Mary, overwhelmed with grief and heartache? How many days do you view the world through tears, without being able to recognize God’s presence, even if he stood right in front of you? How often do those heartaches feel totally out of your control to do anything about at all?

How often do you feel like John and those other first-century Christians could have felt, that Jesus had left them all alone. As the world around us seems to come crashing down, as we seem to struggle with difficulties and hardships for our faith rather than find comfort, how often do you find yourself wondering if this is all worth it? How often do the physical trials of this world lead you to lose track of the eternal blessings to come?

Whether you feel like Thomas, Mary, or John and the other first-century Christians, see Jesus here in all of his power, all of his victory, but also in all of his love and care for you. He is the one who holds the keys to death and hell because his death and resurrection have completely defeated both. You are free from their clutches because Jesus won the day for you. He is not an angry God, or an absent God, or a powerless God. He is the God who has set you free for eternity. He’s the God that loves you with an eternal love. He is the God whom you and I are privileged and honored to serve. He is the God who walks among the lampstands, with Gloria Dei, Belmont, CA being one of the many he tends to.

This life is going to be filled with grief and difficulty. Jesus never, ever promised an easy road for those who trust in him. In fact, just the opposite. He promised a life where we will have to bear crosses and suffer for our faith. But, my brothers and sisters, through all of it, don’t lose track of what is real and in front of you. Easter points us not to the here-and-now, but to what is to come, the blessings that God has in store for us in eternal life. Our sins no longer mean hell; Jesus’ sacrifice and victory mean heaven for you and all who trust in him. Though our hearts may waver, Jesus is ever patient, ever loving, ever caring.

Today, Jesus gives us a quick look behind the mask it feels like he wears to reassure us and comfort us. See Jesus as he really is, not with your physical eyes, but with the eyes of faith. Because, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Christ is risen; he is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.