"Do You Trust the One Who Provides?" (Sermon on Matthew 14:13-21) | August 6, 2023

Sermon Text: Matthew 14:13-21
Date: August 6, 2023
Event: Proper 13, Year A (The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost)

Matthew 14:13-21 (EHV)

When Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place to be alone. When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns.

14When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw a large crowd. He had compassion on them and healed their sick. 15When evening came, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place and the hour is already late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

16But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

17They told him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”

18“Bring them here to me,” he replied. 19Then he instructed the people to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish. After looking up to heaven, he blessed them. He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples. The disciples gave the food to the people. 20They all ate and were filled. They picked up twelve basketfuls of what was left over from the broken pieces. 21Those who ate were about five thousand men, not even counting women and children.

Do You Trust the One Who Provides?

The young child calls out from the back seat, “Can we get ice cream now?” “No, dear, we said we would get ice cream after we have dinner with Grandma. We still need to drive for another hour to get to her house and then have dinner and then we’ll go get ice cream.” “Oh, ok…” is the quiet reply. 10 minutes later the question rings out again, “Can we get ice cream now?”

For the parents, maybe this incessant questioning is obnoxious as they’re trying to make the drive to visit family. But it does point to something very positive. The child trusts that Mom and Dad will keep their promise and they will get ice cream. Maybe the child thinks that the timing is negotiable, but there’s no doubt that it will be coming. Because if the child thought her parents were lying to her, she wouldn’t even bother to ask. If it wasn’t real, if it wasn’t going to happen, why bother? But, because she knew the promise was trustworthy, the questions kept filling the car.

The theme for our worship service this morning and especially of our Gospel is the promise that God will provide for us. But when we hear God’s promises, are we like the child who trusts and continually pleads to God for what he’s said he’s going to do, or do we fret and worry and thus dismiss his promises as fiction and assume we’re on our own? Do you trust the one who provides?

Our Gospel begins with the phrase, “When Jesus heard this,” which doesn’t tell us what “this” is, but the “this” is very important. Because if you were to open your Bible and look through the verses that come before our Gospel for this morning, you would see the retelling of John the Baptist being beheaded by Herod. The beginning of our reading for this morning comes hot on the heels of Matthew 14:12, “John’s disciples came, took the body, and buried it. Then they went and reported this to Jesus.”

Let’s pause for a moment and consider what that would have meant for Jesus. John was his relative, perhaps even his cousin, as both John's mother Elizabeth and Jesus’ mother Mary were relatives. We don’t know exactly how close they were growing up, but certainly the family bond existed between these two.

Then there was the more important link that John and Jesus shared in their work. John was called to be Jesus’ forerunner, to get people ready for his work. His preaching and teaching addressed the people’s sin and pointed them to Jesus—the Lamb of God—as their Savior. John’s work, promised by several prophets in the Old Testament, was absolutely vital in the God’s plan to save the world from sin.

Never mind those close connections, we see time and again how grieved Jesus is at death because death was not part of his original design for the world. While Jesus came to solve death caused by sin by his innocent death in the place of all people, he still was hit hard by the fact that people suffered these horrible wages of sin. Perhaps most notable was Jesus’ time outside of Lazarus’ tomb where he wept—and in that case he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead in just a couple of minutes! But Jesus knew the loss of death, he knew the unnatural separation of having someone dear to you ripped away from you. As a man, he felt that; as God, he despised it and had to fix it.

So, it’s in this context that Jesus is seeking a deserted place to be alone. This is not just Jesus being tired from his work (though surely, he was), nor was he needing some time off from the hustle and bustle of the crowds (though surely, he did). But this was much more pointed—Jesus wanted to be alone to grieve. As a man, losing his relative; as God, seeing his dear creation endure death; and as the Savior seeing the one who prepared the way for him suffer such an ignoble end all were cause for great pain of heart and soul.

What happens next for the grieving Jesus? When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw a large crowd. Can you feel it? What would have made sense for Jesus to be feeling and thinking? “I just needed this little bit of time by myself. I have nothing to give you all. Please leave me alone.” But we don’t see the veins starting to pop in Jesus’ neck. In fact, shockingly, we see just the opposite. He had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Here we see the heart of our Savior on display. When you come to God in prayer, what attitude do you envision God having? Do you think he’s the stern old man who’s not interested in your whining? Do you imagine your prayers have to stand in line for a chance to be heard by God? I think our minds and hearts can create all sorts of pictures. But I would encourage you, as you pray, to think of Jesus as he is here. According to his humiliation and human nature, desperately needing some alone time, but having his heart bleed for the people coming to him.

Trust the one who provides for you. He cares for you; he has compassion on you. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done, how “good” or “bad” you feel like you’ve been. You need him and he wants to pour himself out for you. Whether it’s the smaller day-to-day things of this life, the bigger life-and-death issues around us, or the eternal needs that we have, Jesus is there to provide. From our daily bread to the forgiveness of our sins and rescue from eternal death in hell, he provides it all. And the event that follows Jesus’ outpouring of compassion shows just the same thing.

Matthew tells us, “When evening came, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place and the hour is already late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ ” We are not told what the disciples’ motivation is here exactly for coming to Jesus with this problem. It’s likely that they just had a legitimate concern for the people. Jesus had chosen this place because of its remoteness; it’s not a surprise that there weren’t a lot of places to secure food for a huge crowd.

But also, let’s consider how are the disciples doing. Remember that many of Jesus’ twelve disciples had been John the Baptist’s disciples before they started following Jesus. How were they taking the news of his execution? How much time were they wanting to grieve, to be by themselves? Maybe that evening would work well. Maybe the crowds could go and they could finally have that processing time, though a few hours after they originally had hoped.

Jesus’ answer is a bit surprising. “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” Why is that his answer? He knew that they had few resources with them compared to the number of people. In John’s Gospel we learn a bit more about Jesus’ mind, “Jesus was saying this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do” (John 6:6). What would Jesus be testing them on? Perhaps, he was looking to see if they would trust him as the one who provides.

The miracle that Jesus performs here—feeding a group possibly numbering 10 or 15,000 when you add women and children to the count of 5,000 men—with just a few bits of food and then having twelve basketfuls of leftovers really points to the rest of his care. Jesus was concerned for the people’s well-being. He wanted them to trust him; he wanted his disciples to trust him; and he showed that he could provide even in miraculous, baffling ways. This miracle is really Jesus saying, “You do not need to worry. I will take care of you.”

Do we trust the one who provides? God has promised that you will have what you need. Do you believe that? God has promised that he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do you believe that? God has promised to be your eternal Helper, your Savior. Do you believe that?

Because the providence of God is not limited to a nice meal in a remote part of the Holy Land. His care is not limited to ensuring that we have enough clothing and food and a roof over our heads. No, all of these things are important and certainly the result of his love and compassion for us, but they point to a much greater providence. The crowds would get confused after this. They would want Jesus to be their bread king—someone to provide them with food they didn’t have to work for. But Jesus will need to be clear that he didn’t ultimately come to be the source of food that is consumed and then is gone. No, he came to give them the bread of life—to be the Bread of Life for them.

Jesus’ ultimate goal is not that we have what we need in the here and now (though that is very important to him). Jesus’ ultimate goal is that we have what we need for eternity. And so, Jesus’ work was not primarily about healing diseases or driving out demons or feeding the masses a nice miracle meal; Jesus’ work was primarily about providing for that greatest need—the need for the forgiveness of sins.

These miracles are all in service of and signs pointing to the one who promised to provide that forgiveness and eternal life. Do you trust him to provide that? All we need to do is journey with him a bit longer in his earthly ministry. The crowds will get smaller and smaller as people lose interest. But the greater miracle is to come, as God himself suffers hell on the cross to pay for our sins and then, three days later, rises from the dead to prove his victory over sin, death, and the Devil.

That’s where his compassion for us leads him. That is where his promise to provide for our needs and to take care of us ends up. He serves not as the provider of the temporary, but of the eternal, not of bread that we could buy for money, but of eternal life that is priceless and also given to us as a free gift.

My brothers and sisters, in all things, earthly and eternal, let us trust the one who provides, for he is trustworthy. He provides our daily bread now; we will have no more needs when he provides eternal life for us with him in heaven. He lived and died for us so that we will live with him forever! Thanks be to God for providing all we need! Amen.

"Seek True Treasure" (Sermon on 1 Timothy 6:17-21) | July 30, 2023

Sermon Text: 1 Timothy 6:17-21
Date: July 30, 2023
Event: Proper 12, Year A (The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost)

1 Timothy 6:17-21 (EHV)

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. 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.

20O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, turning away from godless, empty talk and the contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge.” 21By professing it, some have veered away from the faith. Grace be with you. Amen. 

Seek True Treasure

Can you distinguish between something valuable and something that is kind of worthless? Between something rare and something common? Maybe if you look through a handful of change, your eyes are tuned to be able to spot the differences between all those quarters that are just worth 25 cents and the quarters that are special and worth a lot of money. Maybe your ears are tuned to know the difference between a sedan driving past you on the street that is completely stock from the factory and the one that had an incredible amount of work done and new parts added under the hood that are not evident just by looking at the vehicle. Perhaps your eyes are sharp enough to be able to tell the difference between a luxury pair of shoes or bag and one that is a knockoff, made to look like the original, but made of far lesser materials and perhaps more likely to fall apart with use.

You probably don’t have an awareness of every difference in every field, but your expertise could be useful. If you know cars, perhaps you help a friend buying a car to buy something that is actually worthwhile and not a waste of time or a likely money-pit. Helping others with your knowledge and experience to make sure they are getting the most for their money or getting the most value out of something they already have is a real blessing, because it’s not evident to everyone what something’s value is or how to even determine that.

This morning, we are focused on the concept of the true value of true treasure. So many things in this world sparkle and glimmer and pull our eyes away from things that are truly worthwhile. These shiny things often turn out to be no better than fool’s gold. But as Jesus talked about doing everything possible to acquire a real treasure, so the Apostle Paul, in our Second Reading, encourages Timothy to help others to seek after real wealth, which he says is truly life.

Paul’s closing words in this letter to Pastor Timothy serve as a kind of summary of the work he is supposed to be doing: 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. There’s a couple of things that we can learn from this single verse which will be a blessing for us moving forward.

Let’s begin with Paul’s second point, God… richly supplies us with all things for our enjoyment. There is no mandate from God for asceticism, for getting rid of earthly blessings or needing to feel guilty for material things. In fact, Paul is clear, that if God has given you these things, he wants them to be enjoyed. That’s not to say that everyone will get the same number of things in this life, or that we should expect to have every wish fulfilled, but what God has given he’s given because he loves us and wants them to be for our good.

However, Paul does warn about enjoying these blessings to a fault. He said: 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. What is the danger with the enjoyable things of this life? They can take our hearts and eyes off true treasure, true wealth, and lasting comfort. Sure, a bank account with a lot of numbers in the balance may make you feel secure, but what happens if some economic disaster befalls the world and inflation destroys the value of that money? What happens if some bad actor gets access to your accounts and can siphon it all away so that you have nothing left and no way to get it back? What happens if you make a bad investment and the whole bundle of things you had saved disappears?

Has God disappeared? Do these situations mean that he is no longer willing or able to fulfill his promise of daily bread? Hardly! But if we recognize God as the source of those original blessings, and that our comfort and assurance come from him in whole not simply from the gifts that he gives, then those problems, while difficult to deal with, will not be impossible. We will know that the God who gave those blessings can certainly return them, give different ones, or see us through our earthly lives in a different if less comfortable way. If when we look at a bank statement or other expression of material blessings and see God as the source behind what is there, then if it disappears, we will find it easier to join Job in saying “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be blessed” (Job 1:21).

So, when we have material blessings, Paul says, don’t let those produce arrogance in your heart. Instead, see them as an expression of God’s graciousness to you. He loves you and has provided those things for your temporary enjoyment and use. However, if he hasn’t given you much in that way, that is not an expression of what he thinks about you—that is, if you are barely making ends meet it’s not that God doesn’t care about you or love you. It’s simply that he chosen to bless you in other ways, because he always knows what is best for you and for me. What Goes knows is best for may not be exactly what we have in mind.

So, earthly treasures and blessings are certainly not sinful, but they should not dominate our hearts and minds. Instead, Paul says, that we should put our hope in God. What does a trust in God for now and eternity produce in our lives here? Paul goes on: 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.

Rather than focusing on earthly things that have a tangible benefit now, Paul leads us to consider the more important things of generosity and a life filled with good works. Why? Because those good works are only possible with faith in Jesus as Savior. If you are doing things that God considers to be good, they are done in thanksgiving to God, not just for earthly blessings, but for the far more important eternal blessings, for the true treasure that he gives.

And that’s what Jesus was getting at with the parable of the treasure in the field. Even in earthly matters, if you have enough money to buy one piece of property, but you knew that once you bought that piece of property, you would be able to dig up a treasure worth 1000x more than what you paid for the land, wouldn’t you do it?

How much more than when we consider the temporary nature of this life and the eternal blessings that are coming in heaven! Shouldn’t Jesus and his forgiveness be our focus rather than the things of this world that will pass away? Shouldn’t the eternal be more important to us than the temporary? And yet, how difficult it is for us to keep that kind of perspective. We can’t see heaven—we can’t even see God—and so the things that we can see and hear and feel tend to dominate our thoughts and actions. We seek after treasure that passes away rather than true treasure.

This is why seeking the treasure of God’s Word and his promises in that Word are so very important. Without this revealed knowledge of God, we can’t see what is coming, we don’t know what he has done. But when we prioritize his Word above the other things in this life, things start to fall into place in a godly way in our lives. We are reminded of Jesus’ complete forgiveness that has been given to us without charge. And that, then, directs our lives to thankfulness to God and rejoicing in what is coming—while at the same time enjoying what is in front of us.

Jesus’ life and death in our place mean we have forgiveness for every sin, even those times when the earthly has been more important to us than the eternal. God forgives your sins and my sins of neglect of his Word, of materialism and greed, of dissatisfaction and malcontent. These and all other sins are washed away in the blood of Jesus. This assurance of forgiveness is the true, lasting treasure that we yearn for and seek after; this is the true treasure that God freely gives.

So, as we consider the treasure that we have been given in the gospel message, let us do what Paul encouraged Timothy: guard what has been entrusted to you. Don’t let the things of this world be more important than eternal life—and let us use the blessings of this world to share this good news with others. So many don’t know what God has done for them; let’s prioritize not only valuing that for ourselves but sharing it with the world! Amen.

"I Will Be Blameless...?" (Sermon on Psalm 19:9-14) } July 23, 2023

Sermon Text: Psalm 19:9-14
Date: July 23, 2023
Event: The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A [Proper 11]

Psalm 19:9–14 (EHV)
The fear of the Lord is pure.
It stands forever.
The just decrees of the Lord are truth.
They are altogether righteous.
10They are more desirable than gold,
even better than much pure gold.
They are sweeter than honey,
even honey dripping from the honeycomb.
11Yes, by them your servant is warned.
In keeping them there is great reward.
12Who can recognize his own errors?
Declare me innocent of hidden sins.
13Restrain your servant also from deliberate sins.
Do not let them rule over me.
Then I will be blameless.
Then I will be innocent of great rebellion.
14May the speech from my mouth
and the thoughts in my heart be pleasing to you,
O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

I Will Be Blameless…?

Trying to escape guilt is a life-long endeavor for many people. Perhaps they feel bad about the things that they did years ago. Perhaps they feel bad about the good things they left undone. Regardless, feeling that you have messed up and can’t do anything about it is not pleasant. And we can work and work and work to try to find relief from that guilty feeling without any success.

If we use Jesus’ parable about the wheat and the weeds as a guide for our thinking, perhaps we struggle with the feeling of wondering, “Am I the wheat or am I a weed? Am I destined for the harvest or am I destined for the fire?” As we zero in on God’s words through David’s psalm here this morning, I pray that we will find peace in God’s work for us and his guidance for our lives.

If you were to read through the book of Psalms in order, you would find that Psalm 19 stands out from those around it. Before and after, we have many psalms by David that plead to God for help and deliverance. But Psalm 19 is different. Psalm 19 in whole is a psalm of praise to God. This arrangement is a good reminder for our prayer lives—God is certainly there to listen to and answer our prayers, hear our cries for help and grant that help that he knows is best. But we also do well to remember to thank God for the blessings he gives—even in (or perhaps especially in) times of other great difficulties.

But we don’t always handle difficulties so well, do we? I mean, let’s be honest, we don’t always handle good times so well either. Look at your life. You don’t have to go back far. How was this week? How was yesterday? How was this morning before church? If we’re honest, probably not great, right? Whether it was familiar sins that have plagued you for many years or something totally new and novel that you came up with freshly, we can all identify where we’ve been unkind and uncharitable to others, where we’ve been selfish or greedy, where lust has taken control, or where our thoughts and desires went down paths that were not appropriate. Whether these things actively hurt someone else or were just in our heads or our hearts, they were sins against God—the God who demands perfection.

And that realization can make David’s joy at the beginning of our reading feel like barbs tearing into our hearts and flesh: The fear of the Lord is pure. It stands forever. The just decrees of the Lord are truth. They are altogether righteous. They are more desirable than gold, even better than much pure gold. They are sweeter than honey, even honey dripping from the honeycomb. Yes, by them your servant is warned. In keeping them there is great reward. Ok, yes, I get it—fearing or respecting God is good. God’s laws are right and desirable to keep. They are honey-sweet to those who love them. There is great reward in keeping them.

That’s great, except that’s not me. That’s not you. Part of us agrees with David’s words here, but another part of us hates these things. Our sinful natures scream at God and accuse him of wrongdoing when he set his standards. That sinful nature hates God and defies him and scorns any praise there is for him—especially his law.

So, that’s where we are. We are fighting against God. Our sinful nature is furious with our Creator and wants to just rage at him until our last breath. And that rage—that sin—brings consequences, brings punishment, brings hell. Jesus said it in the Gospel—the weeds are thrown into the fire. Sin makes you and me weeds. It makes us worthless. We are to be cast out at the time of the harvest, never to be brought into God’s barn.

But, as we walk through these verses from Psalm 19, we do well to pay attention to the subject of many of the verbs for us to understand some things about David’s song. Consider just vv. 12-13: Declare me innocent of hidden sins. Restrain your servant also from deliberate sins. Do not let them rule over me. This is not the human being resolutely setting off to do right, to accomplish his forgiveness, or to resist temptation. No, this is God declaring innocence, this is God restraining deliberate sin, and pleading to God to not allow sin to rule over us.

Why? Because all of this is beyond our ability to do. I can’t make myself forgiven. I can’t fully restrain sin in my life. I can’t decide to be “good” and just have it happen. I know that you; you know that. That is our lived experience day in and day out, today. Sin has been here, it is here, and it will be here.

So then, how can David boldly say: Then I will be blameless. Then I will be innocent of great rebellion? How will he, a sinner, be blameless and innocent? After all, David was as guilty as guilty could be, just like us. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that this status of “blameless” and “innocent” is not something that we make happen; that change is God’s work, God’s declaration. That declaration of innocence is what we call justification. God looks at the adulterer and murderer David, he looks at you and all the things you’ve done wrong, he looks at me and all of my innumerable failings, and he says of us, “Not guilty,” which means no punishment for sin is placed on us at all.

But how? Is God senile and forgetful? Hardly. Has God decided he was too harsh and changed his plans? No, he is perfectly consistent. So, if God, who is consistent and does not change, has declared us innocent despite being worthless weeds, something had to happen to change everything. And that “something” is Jesus.

God declared that we deserved hell and surely, we did, but he was not willing to allow us to go with no hope. His love for us was so great that Jesus came to be our substitute. The life we should have lived, Jesus lived for us—perfect in thought, word, and action. The punishment that should have been on us for our sins—being abandoned by God in hell—was brought down on Jesus while he died on the cross. God has not chosen to just ignore our sins or say they are not a big deal or forget that they happened. He knows they happened, and he demands punishment for them, it’s just that he punished Jesus instead of you, me, or David. Jesus is the stable Rock on which we build; he is our Redeemer, the one who has bought us back from sin, death, and hell to be with him forever in heaven.

This, then, brings so much clarity to David’s words in this psalm because David is writing from the perspective of a believer, giving thanks to God for his mercy. When he speaks about loving God’s commands and being rewarded for keeping them, he is not advocating for an unbeliever to do good things to make God happy with him or her. Nor is this David campaigning for a works-righteousness mindset that seeks to earn God’s forgiveness by doing good things. Rather, this psalm speaks with the attitude of a believer who knows that he or she already has God’s mercy because that is what he has promised and done. The one speaking these words trusts their Savior—whether it was the Savior who was yet to come from David’s perspective or the one who has already accomplished his work from our perspective.

You are sinful, yet blameless. You are guilty, yet innocent. These contradictory truths find resolution in your Savior Jesus who lived and died to save you, who rose from the dead to prove his conquest and decimation of sin. And as a result of that, your faith, your new self, wants to keep God’s commands to thank him, knowing the gift he has freely given! Only after God has worked faith in your heart to trust your Savior Jesus and all that he did to save you can God’s decrees be known as truth and righteous. Only then can they be seen as more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey.

That is not to say that sin will be absent in your life or mine. It won’t be. We will wish it was gone rather than loving it. We will hate the parts of us that make us look like weeds in God’s field—but we will rejoice to know that he has made us wheat. We are blameless—not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done for us. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Where Do We Find the Lord?" (Sermon on Isaiah 55:6-11) | July 16, 2023

Sermon Text: Isaiah 55:6-11
Date: July 16, 2023
Event: The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year A [Proper 10]

Isaiah 55:6-11 (EHV)

Seek the Lord while he may be found!
Call on him while he is near!
7Let the wicked man abandon his way.
Let an evil man abandon his thoughts.
Let him turn to the Lord,
and he will show him mercy.
Let him turn to our God,
because he will abundantly pardon.
8Certainly my plans are not your plans,
and your ways are not my ways, declares the Lord.
9Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways,
and my plans are higher than your plans.
10Just as the rain and the snow come down from the sky
and do not return there
unless they first water the earth, make it give birth, and cause it to sprout,
so that it gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11in the same way my word that goes out from my mouth
will not return to me empty.
Rather, it will accomplish whatever I please,
and it will succeed in the purpose for which I sent it.

Where Do We Find the Lord?

Have you ever had that moment where you need to find something, and you remember seeing it… somewhere? Perhaps you saw it sitting somewhere and even thought, “Well, that’s a weird place for that thing to be. I would never find that there; I should move that to a more logical place,” but then you didn’t? And then, the next time you were looking for that item, you could remember that you saw it in a place that didn’t make any sense, but you can’t remember where that place was?

Maybe you’ve had that experience or maybe it’s just me. Regardless, I can assure you that it’s not a great feeling. Trying to hunt something down that you know is around but is in a place you’re unlikely to come up with is frustrating, even if it’s basically in plain sight. Why were my keys on the bookshelf anyway??

If you’re looking for something, you want to know where to find it. That may be why you always put your car keys in the same place at home each time you return. Maybe that’s why you invested in a little tracking device to put in your wallet or on something else valuable and important so that if you can’t find it, you can hunt it down relatively quickly. Maybe that’s why you store those important documents like birth certificates or Social Security cards in that fire-resistant safe; you know where they are, and they are protected.

But, as important as your keys or wallet or documents may be, there are things that are more important than those. Chief among them is your God. Your relationship with God—or maybe more importantly, his attitude toward you—is what is going to determine not just a day or week or year, but eternity. Will you be in hell as just punishment for your disobedience toward him or will you be in heaven with him in unending joy and peace? And how do you know?

This is comfort and knowledge that we cannot have on our own. We can’t look around us and determine how God thinks about us. We can’t do some deep soul-searching and decide what our status with God is. We can make things up, we can tell ourselves stories, but we will always know that that is all those are—creations of our own minds. So, if we want certainty, we need to go to the source. If we want to know God’s heart, he has to reveal that to us. How do we do that? Where do we go? Where do we find the Lord?

Through the prophet Isaiah, God calls on people to act: Seek the Lord while he may be found! Call on him while he is near! Isaiah’s ministry took place at a very fraught time in Israel’s history. After King Solomon, David’s son, died, the nation split into two pieces, roughly 10 tribes in the Northern Kingdom and two tribes in the Southern Kingdom. Isaiah was sent as a prophet to the Southern Kingdom.

In both kingdoms, the leaders’ and people’s faithfulness to the true God was very poor. They often worshiped false gods in the hope of blessings that the true God was not giving or simply because the false gods’ worship was more “fun” and less strict than the law God gave his people. It had gotten so bad that during Isaiah’s ministry, God used the nation of Assyria to come and exile the Northern Kingdom, whom we never hear from as a unified group again. Assyria harassed and conquered cities in the Southern Kingdom as well, but God saved them from the Assyrian army before they could conquer the capital of Jerusalem.

But all this temporal chastisement came because the people had wandered so far away from God. They weren’t listening to him, they weren’t looking for him, they didn’t care about him. God didn’t want them to be destroyed eternally so he uses earthly barbs to wake them up. But he couples that pain and discomfort with calls through his prophets to return to him. So, it is in this context that God sends Isaiah to plead with his people, “Seek the Lord while he may be found! Call on him while he is near! Let the wicked man abandon his way. Let an evil man abandon his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will show him mercy. Let him turn to our God, because he will abundantly pardon.”

Despite all the negative things that the people were enduring, there is so much gospel in these words. First of all, it is not too late—the people could still seek after God. He is near to them and ready to be found. For all that they had done wrong—for all their sins that brought down God’s eternal punishment—there was mercy and pardon available from God. He would forgive their sins. He loved them.

We may think it would have been wise for God to clearly set up shop on earth at this time. That is, that God should have just made himself visible to all the people. The messages he had to share should have come right from his mouth and he should have made it inescapable if he really wanted people to listen. That’s a whole lot of “shoulds” coming from people who don’t have God’s perspective and wisdom. And it seems that God anticipated this line of argument. God continues through Isaiah’s pen: Certainly my plans are not your plans, and your ways are not my ways, declares the Lord. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my plans are higher than your plans.

God rarely speaks directly to people. As you read through the Bible, it might appear that God was talking to everyone all the time during the time the events of the Bible were happening. The truth is, only a very tiny number of people have ever had a direct conversation with God—even considering those who spoke with Jesus during his earthly ministry. Instead, God has chosen to communicate through his Word, verbally recounted and written down throughout the ages. In what was probably a parable, Jesus recounts a rich man in hell begging Abraham to send the poor man, Lazarus, who had died, back to speak to his brothers. While this wouldn’t be God speaking directly, it would be a miracle that would hopefully cause those on Earth to stand up and take notice. Our natural sense is probably agrees with the rich man’s logic, but the words that Jesus put into Abraham’s mouth are alarming to us as we nod along with the damned man’s reasoning, “They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them…. If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:29, 31).  

God has always worked through his Word primarily shared through human messengers rather than through direct contact. So, if we’re looking for the Lord, if we are seeking to return to him, we need to look for him where he has chosen to reveal himself. As such, we will not find him in nature, we will not find him through pure meditation and introspection, and if we’re waiting for God to have a nice chat with us over a cup of coffee, we will probably be waiting our whole lives without it ever happening.

Where do we find the Lord? You may not find him in nature alone, but in his Word, you will learn the details of how he created the universe we call home. You may not find him through an emptying-of-your-mind meditation, but meditation that centers on the promises and truths of God’s Word will be productive. And no, God may not sit down with you at the café for a warm drink, but if you bring a devotion book with you or perhaps enjoy a beverage while sitting in Bible Study with your fellow Christians, there is where God will be found.

Word of God is not just sounds voiced into the air or scratches of ink on a piece of paper. God attaches promises and power to his Word—as unassuming and unimpressive as it might be at first glance: Just as the rain and the snow come down from the sky and do not return there unless they first water the earth, make it give birth, and cause it to sprout, so that it gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater, in the same way my word that goes out from my mouth will not return to me empty. Rather, it will accomplish whatever I please, and it will succeed in the purpose for which I sent it.

The Holy Spirit works through his Word to create faith in our hearts and to sustain it. When the Israelites were separated from God’s Word and promises, they were distancing themselves from the God who loved them so dearly. When you and I seek to fill our spiritual needs with things that do not include God’s Word, we do the same thing.

But, when we dig into his Word here at church, in our homes, even in our cars or as we go for a walk, as we read or listen to that truth, to those promises, there the Spirit builds us up; there faith is maintained and grows; there alone do we find return and remaining with our Savior God. Because there in that Word we hear God’s clear condemnation of our sins and his complete forgiveness in Jesus’ death in our place. We cannot learn about Jesus’ salvation apart from God’s Word. That’s where he’s chosen to reveal these eternally-important truths; that’s where we find the Lord.

So, my sisters and brothers, “Seek the Lord while he may be found! Call on him while he is near!” Where do we find him? Where he has chosen to reveal himself, in that Word that will not return to him empty. Value it. Cherish it. Use it, now and until that day when our Lord calls us home to himself in heaven! Till the soil of your hearts so that this Word, planted like seed, may grow and flourish into faith that trusts God’s forgiveness for eternity. Amen.

"What Are You Doing?" (Sermon on Romans 7:15-25a) | July 9, 2023

Sermon Text: Romans 7:15-25a
Date: July 9, 2023
Event: The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A [Proper 9]

Romans 7:15-25a (EHV)

For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. 18Indeed, I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my sinful flesh. The desire to do good is present with me, but I am not able to carry it out. 19So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self, 23but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members. 24What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

What Are You Doing?

The parent walks in on the child trying to expand her artistic talent with a large box of crayons and her bedroom wall as the canvas. “What are you doing??” The wife walks into the bathroom where her husband was going to “look at that dripping faucet” to see pipes and wrenches scattered all over the floor. “Um… what are you doing?” You see a person you don’t know skulking around your front door, just kind of hanging out there, and you feel the need to address them, “Excuse me, what are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” is a question that might come up in a lot of different contexts, with a lot of different tones, but the basic premise is the same. Whether in a happy way, a scared way, or an exasperated way, the person asking the question wants some insight to explain the other person’s actions. Why did this seem like the best thing to do at this time? What is the end goal? Or perhaps, when is this going to end?

We’re familiar with asking other people this question. We are perhaps familiar with someone else asking us this question. But how often do we ask ourselves that question? If you’re like me and talk to yourself all day every day when you’re trying to get things done, perhaps you ask yourself this regularly. Perhaps your thoughts don’t really go there during the day. But there is value in asking yourself this question, but not in the vapid way that I often ask myself throughout the course of the day, but in a probing, introspective way. “What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Is this a good idea? Does this bring glory to God?”

This is the very thought pattern that the apostle Paul is wrestling with in our Second Reading for this morning. He looks deep inside himself and tries to examine and explain his motives for his actions. We do well to follow in his footsteps to comprehend the motives behind our thoughts, words, and actions; to understand what those things mean for us and what they mean for God.

Before our reading, in the earlier part of Chapter 7, Paul had been pondering the purpose of the law. He notes that God’s law makes clear what is right and wrong. While we have some sense of that naturally, especially through the conscience, we can be wrong. We can call things that are not wrong “sin” and, much more often, call things that are wrong “good”—because we want to do them and might feel the need to rationalize them.

God’s law, then, corrects where our natural instincts are wrong, where our consciences are misguided. If I think it’s ok to steal or kill or engage in sex outside of marriage, God’s law, even as summarized in the Ten Commandments, very quickly corrects my misguided notions about what is good and bad, right and wrong. But Paul notes a curious quirk in how my natural self interacts with God's law.. Often, God’s law can actually produce the desire to sin inside of me. The fault here lies not with the law but with the way I consider what is good and bad.

We can see an example of this right here this morning. If, as you sat here listening to the sermon, I asked you all to not turn around and continue to face the front of the church, to please, please not look behind your pew for the next 10 minutes, what is the reaction that is produced inside of you? There’s probably some part of you that starts itching to look back there. “Why doesn’t he want me to look at the back of the church? What is going on back there?” Maybe you don’t think that so clearly, but maybe suddenly your neck just a little bit stiff and you know what would bring relief to that? Just a quick twist of the head—oops, I saw the back of the sanctuary.

Now, to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with looking at the back of the church, other than perhaps making the ushers feel a bit uneasy with everyone looking at them. But if I was serious and you still did it, how would you feel? There’s likely to be a moment of guilt—especially if you did see something you shouldn’t have and wish you hadn’t seen. And this proves Paul’s point: For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. Guilt signifies that I agree with the law in forbidding that action. Acknowledging that I did something I shouldn’t have—or didn’t even want to do—shows the value of the law. I need something to tell me the difference between right and wrong because, on my own, I always veer toward the wrong.

However, the issue runs deeper than mere mistakes or poor decisions. There's something inherent in each of us that actively seeks the wrong. We have a lot of names for this part of us—the sinful nature, the sinful flesh, the old Adam, the fallen human nature—but they all name the same problem: each of us is born into this world with a propensity and even a desire to do wrong. We are naturally inclined against God; we are feuding, at war, with God from our very conception.

However, Paul has an interesting way of describing this nature within each of us as he examines himself: But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. Indeed, I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my sinful flesh. The desire to do good is present with me, but I am not able to carry it out. So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. Notice how Paul attributes his doing of what he knows is wrong—what he doesn’t want to do—to sin living in him, to his sinful flesh, his sinful nature. Paul's description almost portrays sin as a parasite dwelling within him. He doesn’t identify with his sinful nature, he doesn’t embrace it, but he does acknowledge that it is real.

Paul does not do this to avoid accountability—after all, he calls himself a miserable wretch and says that needs to be saved from his body of death—but he’s doing it to show where his identity is. He doesn’t identify or see his true will embodied in his sinful nature. The things that are evil are not what he truly wants to do. Why?

This is the reality of every believer. You have a war going on inside of you right now. Your sinful nature yearns to fight with God. Everything God loves, your sinful nature hates; everything God hates, your sinful nature loves. But this is only part of you. When God worked faith in your heart to trust him as Savior, he created something new within you—a new man or a new self—that yearns for the direct opposite of what the sinful nature desires. The new self is the beginning of the restoration of the image of God, the perfect harmony with God mankind had when he first made us. That new self only wants to do what God wants, not to earn his favor, but to thank him. For what?

The new self knows the answer to Paul’s rhetorical question: Who will rescue me from this body of death? Jesus has done it. Jesus lived a life without this conflict, without sin. Never once did he catch himself in the middle of doing something wrong; never once did Jesus have to ask himself “What are you doing?” to course-correct his life. No, he did everything he should have all the time, perfectly obeying God’s law. But he didn’t do that to show us how or to shame us for our failures. He did it as part of the rescue we so desperately needed.

Jesus gives us his perfection. And he paid hell on the cross for every sin you and I have ever committed—whether it’s something we’ve done once in our lives or those sins that continually rear their ugly heads daily. Jesus rescued us from this body of death so that, like Paul, we don’t have to find our identity in sin. Sin doesn’t define us; Jesus does. We are not sinners doomed to death; we are the redeemed children of God, baptized into his name and rescued by his blood.

Paul concludes our reading, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” What a fitting and simple way to describe our goal for our lives moving forward. We don’t avoid sin because we don’t want to feel bad. We don’t avoid sin even because it is objectively wrong. We avoid sin to thank God for rescuing us from that sin, from death and hell. This is the easy yoke and light burden that Jesus described in our Gospel. It is easy and light because we are not earning anything by our work, nor do we have the responsibility to fix the things we have broken. No, it is light and easy because our work is simply thanking God for doing all the difficult—impossible for us—work. We thank him because he has already rescued us and given us everything that we need for eternal safety with him.

But on this side of eternity, you and I will be in the same boat as Paul. We will know and rejoice that God loves us and rescued us. And then we’ll look at our lives and ask ourselves, “What are you doing?” With Paul, we will see that we fail to do the good [we] want to do. Instead, the evil [we] do not want to do, that is what [we] keep doing. In those moments, we will come to the same conclusion that Paul did: Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me.

We do well to not embrace or love sin, but this realization should not lead to despair. Rather, when we see that we keep doing what we don’t want to be doing, we come back again to Jesus with Paul’s realistic observation and plea on our hearts: What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Jesus’ answer is always, “My dear daughter, my dear son, I lived for you and died for you. I rose from the dead to prove that I have forgiven you. You are mine; your sins are gone.” And the result of our time of repentance in Jesus is the same as Paul’s was as well: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen.

"Fight the Good Fight" (Sermon on 1 Timothy 6:11-16) | July 2, 2023

Sermon Text: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
Date: July 2, 2023
Event: The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 8, Year A

1 Timothy 6:11-16 (EHV)

But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of eternal life, to which you were called and about which you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who made a good confession as a witness before Pontius Pilate, 14that you keep this command without spot and without fault, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15which he will make known at the proper time—the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16who alone has immortality, who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or is able to see. To him be honor and power forever! Amen.

Fight the Good Fight

One of the things that I’ve had to learn over and over again is that most problems only last for a season, but in the moment, they often seem like they will never end. For example, when you have a newborn and you’re getting barely any sleep, there are moments where it can feel like this your entire life now—you will never sleep again. Or more nonsensically and melodramatically, as your flight is delayed over and over again it can feel like you’re never going to get to leave that place and, in fact, perhaps you will have to live in the airport forever.

But what is true about those situations? Eventually, the flight will work out (or at least you’ll get out of that airport, even if it means driving away in a rental car). The kiddo will get bigger, and whether it takes weeks, or months, or even years, eventually the new parents will get something approaching normal sleep again. Bad things are rarely permanent.

As the apostle Paul wrote to young pastor Timothy, he was encouraging him toward faithfulness in the work God had put in front of him. With what attitude should he approach his ministry? This section addresses church leaders, but it also applies to all Christians. What does it mean to carry out the work God has given us in this world? What does it mean to function as forgiven sinners in a world still corrupted by sin? How does a Christian appropriately understand their role and task as “fight[ing] the good fight of faith”?

Our reading began in the middle of Paul’s line of thought. He said, “But you, O man of God, flee from these things.” The “these things” that Paul mentions here are false teaching, greed, and the love of money and material wealth in general which he had addressed earlier in Chapter 6. These things are not to be tolerated among pastors or other leaders in the church; they are not to be tolerated among Christians at large. But we can’t fully escape from them; we can’t be shielded from their influence or temptation. So, in part, the life of a Christian is literally running away from sin and its lies.

When we’re running away from sin, we’re not simply escaping, but we are running toward something. Paul’s encouragement to Timothy continues: flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. The life of a Christian involves not only avoiding sin but also pursuing good works that please God. This effort of avoiding sin and prioritizing God’s will is fight[ing] the good fight of faith.

But… how? We know that we will never be perfect, which is what God expects. We know that we will continue to fall short. No matter how well we run, sin will at least nip our heels. No matter how intensely we strive for those good, God-pleasing things, we will fall short.

Paul leaves some of this implied but encourages Timothy to what his motivation and strength in this fight will be based on: Take hold of eternal life, to which you were called and about which you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. How can you take hold of eternal life? What is the good confession that Timothy and Christians for millennia have made? It has nothing to do with how good we are. We don’t earn this; we don’t deserve this. Fight[ing] the good fight of faith always presupposes saving faith—trust that Jesus lived and died to take away my sins. It includes the comfort and assurance that in Jesus’ resurrection, we have the certainty of our own resurrections and of eternal life with him.

That means we no longer love sin—though it is still present with us on this side of eternity. Our joy in God’s free and full forgiveness motivates us to seek those things that please him and thank him for all he has done for us.

But this pursuit of God’s will may put us at odds with those around us. Family may dislike our actions; friends may mock our priorities; perfect strangers may insult us for our beliefs and thoughts (or at least, their perceptions of them). Jesus had some stark words about this conflict in our Gospel for this morning: “Do not think that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:34-39).

Now, it is important for us to note what Jesus and Paul are saying and perhaps more importantly what they aren’t saying. When Paul talks about the good fight of faith, this is purely a defensive fight, not an offensive one. We do not seek battles and conflict; we aim to protect the truth of God’s words and deeds from those who try to distort them. This is not a call for some sort of crusade that seeks to force people to confess Jesus as Savior. The good fight of faith is not really a battle against anyone else—it challenges the Christian internally to hold on to Jesus’ work for us.

When Jesus says that he brings conflict between the members of a family, maybe you can feel that. Maybe your faith divides you from some of the members of your immediate and extended family. But Jesus’ words are not meant to tell the Christian to seek conflict with those people or to cut them off. Jesus used even stronger language in the parallel account of this conversation in Luke’s Gospel when he said, “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” (Luke 14:26). But even then, Jesus simply means that he must matter more to us than anything or anyone else. If there is a conflict between Jesus and any other part of our life, we must prioritize him over that conflicting part of us. We don’t compromise what we believe and share for peace in our homes. We do not alter our preaching and teaching here to appeal more to those who may disagree with it. No, we hold fast to the truth and, in love with gentleness and respect, share that truth with those around us.

Divisions may come, people may hate us, and we may lose freedoms or suffer hardships because of God’s truth. So be it. Fight the good fight in you, not with them. Stand boldly and lovingly on the truth for those who oppose you, not to prove yourself right and them wrong, but to show your care for all people, even those who resist God. You want everyone in heaven, and so you fight the good fight to persist in the truth and be a loving witness to those who reject this gospel message but still need it desperately.

The Christian will bear crosses in this life. Fight[ing] the good fight does not evoke peaceful images of days at the beach or in a hammock among the redwoods. The Christian will not have peace all the time in this life. In fact, peace may be rare. But this time of cross-bearing will end, like the horrid day at the airport or the sleepless nights with a newborn. Individual crosses may ease or end, but the real relief will come when the season of cross-bearing is over. That will happen when Jesus calls us home to himself and brings us into heaven because he forgave us and prepared a place for us graciously.

We long for and yearn for that day. But until that happens—fight the good fight of faith. Hold on to the truth of God’s Word. Hold on to your Savior as more important than anyone or anything. The one who made his confession to the truth before Pilate, rather than turning away to save his own skin, will bring you to his eternal mansions. For he endured not just crosses, but the cross for you and me. By him, we are freely and fully forgiven. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"God's Word Is God's Work" (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 4:1-7) | June 18, 2023

Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 4:1–7
Date: June 18, 2023
Event: The Third Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 6], Year A

1 Corinthians 4:1–7 (EHV)

This is the way a person should think of us: as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. 2In this connection, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. 3But it is a trivial matter to me if I am evaluated by you or by a day in a human court. Why, I do not even evaluate myself. 4I do not in fact know of anything against myself, but I am not justified by this; rather, the one who evaluates me is the Lord. 5Therefore judge nothing ahead of time, until the Lord comes. He will bring to light whatever is hidden in darkness and also reveal the intentions of hearts. Then there will be praise for each person from God.

6Brothers, I turned these things into a lesson using myself and Apollos as examples. I did this for your benefit, so that you may learn from us not to go beyond what is written. Then you will not be arrogant, favoring one person over the other. 7For who makes you so special? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

God’s Word is God’s Work

As the pastor sits at the bedside of a member who is near death, words of comfort escape him. What can he say? What can he do? He is paralyzed with worry that he might say something wrong and upset the person who is going through so much—or the family standing there beside their loved one. He’s in his own head and can’t get out of it. Near-panic starts to set in. Isn’t this what he trained for? Isn’t this his job? Why can’t he get words to come out of his mouth to bring God’s comfort and truth to the person and family?

You sit with a friend in the living room, sipping coffee. Your friend starts asking some pointed questions about faith and spirituality, about forgiveness and the afterlife. You freeze. How can you be clear in these answers without closing the door on future conversations? How can you witness to God’s truth and be loving at the same time? And why is this a struggle? You’ve been going to church for decades, listened to countless sermons, and studied at more Bible classes than you can even remember. How is there not a single, concise way to answer these questions coming to mind?

Maybe you’ve been in these situations before and maybe it continued to go south and you felt like you missed a great opportunity to share God’s truths with someone who needed to hear it. But, perhaps, you also had a moment where you couldn’t come up with something in your mind but thoughts just came. Words flowed from your mouth that you had not prepared, had not rehearsed, were not memorized, but summarized the truth of what you knew from God’s Word. Perhaps it wasn’t exhaustive or completely satisfying to the questions or concerns of those you were talking to, but it was certainly better than staying silent in a panic.

In those moments, I often recall Jesus’ promise to his disciples not long before his death, describing the world and situations they would be working in: “Be on your guard! People will hand you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues. You will stand in the presence of rulers and kings for my sake as a witness to them. And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations. Whenever they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand what you should say. Say whatever is given to you in that hour, because you will not be the ones speaking; instead it will be the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:9-11). Jesus made a promise that words would be given to his followers in the moment of need. This is not an absolute promise that every time an opportunity arises words will just be given to you, but it is a promise that it can happen, and perhaps you’ve experienced it happening at times. Perhaps there have been times where you gave a summary of God’s truths that you couldn’t repeat later even if you tried, but it was exactly what needed to be said in that moment. “You will not be the ones speaking; instead it will be the Holy Spirit.”

This is the line of thought that Paul is emphasizing in our Second Reading for this morning. He’s stressing that the ministry of the church is really God’s work, not our work. That we are mouthpieces for God, not the source of truth and the foundation of the gospel. This work depends on God; this work is God’s.

And this is a fitting thought for us to consider as we head into the congregation’s 60th anniversary celebration next weekend. Because whether we think of our personal witness or our corporate, congregational work, it remains true that the work is ultimately not ours, but God’s. He entrusts it to us to do as well as we can, to be wise and faithful with the opportunities and resources he gives us, but ultimately, he gives us what we need and he brings the results.

We’ve spent a decent amount of time with Paul’s letters to the Christians in Corinth over the last few weeks, so you’re probably familiar with some of the issues they had. A lot of the problems stemmed from divisions, and those divisions largely fractured along the lines of dedication to different teachers. People would proclaim allegiance to Peter, or Paul, or Apollos, and assume that their dedication to one human being made them better than others who adhered to another Christian teacher or apostle.

And this, Paul says, is folly because it misses the point. Christian teachers, apostles, pastors are not in competition with each other—trying to gain the biggest following—but are all servants of God for the sake of the spread of the gospel. This is the way a person should think of us: as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. In this connection, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. One is not greater than the other. The call to Christian leaders and teachers is not to be flashier than others or more effective than others, but to be faithful with what God has given. They are not proclaiming their own wisdom or power, but are caretakers of God’s mysteries.

In a time of reflection as we have in front of us, it makes sense to think back over the history of our congregation and its ministry. But as you consider the past, do you find yourself dedicated to one pastor over another? Would you say, “I follow what Pastor Waldschmidt taught” or “I am dedicated to Pastor Geiger” or “Pastor Mammel was the one who could really do God’s work” or “Pastor Strey was the one who was worth listening to” or even more alarmingly, “I would only trust Pastor Shrimpton”?

Or if your history with Gloria Dei doesn’t reach that far back, maybe you think back to other pastors in your life—pastors who baptized you, confirmed you, oversaw your wedding, baptized your children, brought God’s Word to you later in your life in a way that you had never understood it before. While it is certainly not wrong to value the work of a specific pastor or teacher or Christian friend who meant a lot to you or brought comfort in particularly challenging times, we are often tempted to hold the messenger in higher esteem than the message. And, unfortunately, that can mean holding human beings in higher esteem than God.

So we do well to check what pedestals we place people on and remember that all of the work that any called worker does, or any congregation does together, is really God’s work. You and I cannot earn our own way into heaven or get other people there, but God can and does through the life and death of Jesus. You can I cannot make ourselves or other people believe that Jesus is their Savior, but God can and does. You can I cannot make good come from all trouble, but God can and does. You can I cannot bend our wills to align with God’s will so that we serve him in thanksgiving, but God can and does.

Jesus emphasized this reliance on God for all things when he sent out the twelve on that early mission journey in our Gospel. They were not to take a lot of supplies to care for themselves, but they were to entrust their care to the people they served, and really, it was trusting their care to God who worked in those people the will and ability to take care of these called workers from God.

Paul urged the Corinthians to consider these truths for a very specific purpose: I did this for your benefit, so that you may learn from us not to go beyond what is written. Then you will not be arrogant, favoring one person over the other. For who makes you so special? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? We do well to remember that our forgiveness is not about us, but God; our faith is not about us, but God; our eternal life is not about us, but God. These are mercies we have received, not wages we have earned. Our natural work is sin that earns hell; God’s work for us is mercy and forgiveness in Jesus—therefore we have heaven as a free, gracious gift.

In our personal lives, in our congregational life, in our physical life, in our spiritual life, no matter through which outward means it appears that our blessings have come, see God as the source of it all. God speaks his Word to us and through us. God creates and sustains our faith. But God’s grace alone, we will be with him forever in eternal life. Let us not boast about ourselves or any other human being. Instead, let us boast in the mercy, wisdom, and love of our Creator and Savior! Amen.

"May Our Lord Jesus Christ Establish You" (Sermon on 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17) | June 11, 2023

Sermon Text: 2 Thessalonians 2:13–17
Date: June 11, 2023
Event: Confirmation Sunday

2 Thessalonians 2:13–17 (EHV)

We are always obligated to thank God for you, brothers, loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation by the sanctifying work of the Spirit and faith in the truth. 14For this reason he also called you through our gospel so that you would obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15So then, brothers, stand firm and hold on to the teachings that were passed along to you, either by word of mouth or by a letter from us. 16May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and in his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17encourage your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.

May Our Lord Jesus Christ Establish You

Confirmation is about looking forward, building on a foundation, and ensuring that what has come before establishes success for the future. It’s a focus on not just knowledge and learning but on faith and the work of the Holy Spirit in us. It’s an important day for the confirmand and family and the congregation at large, but it can serve as a good reminder and a good way to examine the foundation of our own faith life.

Today is certainly different for our family. The personal nature of today is important for all of us, but in my heart and mind that should not overshadow the true purpose of today and what is being expressed: Today we celebrate the growth God has given to a fellow child of his kingdom. Today is a day when we are all able to be reminded of the truths of God’s love that we all value so deeply. Today is a day that, like Alex, we are able to find a renewed appreciation for our Savior’s love and forgiveness.

And so my prayer, our prayers, are really no different than Paul’s prayers for the Thessalonians. For our Second Reading this morning we have the very ending of his second letter to these Christians—save for the very last verse. And in Paul’s prayers for them, we will find our prayers for Alex, all those newly confessing their faith, and all those who have held on to this faith for generations.

The church in the Macedonian city of Thessalonica got off to a really rough start. When Paul first arrived in the city, he followed his normal pattern of going to the Jewish synagogue to proclaim with joy that the long-promised Savior, the Messiah, had arrived. Jesus had accomplished all that God had said he would do! We have the actualization of the forgiveness of sins, no longer left looking ahead to the day when God would follow through on his promises. What a tremendous proclamation to make to those who had been waiting for this day for their whole lives, and for millennia before they were even born.

Luke tells us in the book of Acts that some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great number of God-fearing Greeks and more than a few of the prominent women (Acts 17:4). But, among those who did not believe the message that Paul proclaimed, jealousy boiled over. A mob formed and a riot broke out, looking to seize Paul and try him for supposed crimes against the empire. The animosity burned so hot that the Christians in that city had to shuffle Paul and Silas away in the middle of the night for their protection, and then these enemies followed them to the next city.

It’s in this cauldron that the first Christian church in Thessalonica was born. It’s baffling that anyone was brought to faith at all in this environment—a clear reminder that faith is not a human work, but God’s work through his Word. Paul makes this clear in the opening verse of our Second Reading, the closing of his second letter to the people of this congregation: We are always obligated to thank God for you, brothers, loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation by the sanctifying work of the Spirit and faith in the truth. For this reason he also called you through our gospel so that you would obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

When Paul says he has an obligation to thank God, let’s not understand that as if it was a hardship or something Paul didn’t want to do. His point is that this work is so amazing that anyone who knew of it simply had to thank God.

And it’s not just that the Thessalonians were such a difficult case. Paul’s words apply to any of us who cling to Jesus as our Savior. That anyone believes in God’s forgiveness is a miracle in the truest sense of the word. Because, by nature, we are at odds with God, by nature we are fighting with God, by nature we are sinners who deserve nothing but hell for our rebellion and sin against God.

And Alex, you know you have a sinful nature working in you. You know it personally from experience and you know it with even more clarity from your study of God’s Word. And I am all too aware that you inherited that sinful nature from Mom and me. You were stuck from the word go, as we all were. Like all people, from conception and birth, you were a child of sin and death and belonged to Satan.

But then, on a day that happened too long ago for you to remember, God claimed you. He used almost laughably simple-looking means—a splash of water from the tap in South Dakota and the name of God spoken over you—to make you his own. At your baptism, just two-and-a-half weeks after you were born, God powerfully brought faith in Jesus into your heart. He washed away your sins and redeemed you through the life and death of Jesus in your place. God loved you and made you his own child, adopted you in his family.

And from that day forward, God has tended to your faith. Through God’s Word at home, in school for a time, and at church, God has formed you and shaped you into the young Christian man that you are today. God chose you and sanctified you that you would obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, that for Jesus’ sake, you would find eternal life with God in heaven.

And Alex, like all of us, is a work in progress. We stress in catechism class that confirmation is not graduation. Confirmation day is not the end of growth in faith; in many ways, it is just the beginning. In just a few minutes, he will add to the tools he has at his disposal for God to increase his faith as he is welcomed to join our congregation for the Lord’s Supper. All of us do well to appreciate these miracles in our lives—the gift of forgiveness and faith to trust that forgiveness. Confirmation Sunday allows all of us to see these gifts in a renewed, fresh light.

The result of that faith—whether we’re thinking in terms of the initial creation of faith or the strengthening of faith that happens as we go along this journey—is a thankful, new life. Paul encouraged the Thessalonians and us along with them: So then, brothers, stand firm and hold on to the teachings that were passed along to you, either by word of mouth or by a letter from us. May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and in his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.

Knowing, trusting, that Jesus has forgiven all of our sins and given us the free gift of heaven changes the way we want to live. We want to live our lives in thanksgiving to God. We want to hold firmly to the truths that he has given us in his Word. And so, this is the goal for every confirmand, every Christian, that we continue to walk this path of gratitude and joy to our Savior for his goodness to us. We thank God by serving him and serving one another. We seek to love as he has loved us.

We will not always do that perfectly. For as thankful as we are for God’s forgiveness, for as much joy as we have in the faith that God has given, all of us still have that horrendous sinful nature we were born with. While we are on this side of eternity, we will stumble and fall. Temptation will lead us astray, we will give in to those desires that we know we should not, and we will sin and rebel against God—even the God who loves us.

But that love of God does not change. He does not call it quits with us, he doesn’t abandon us, and he doesn’t move on. For every time that you or I come to our God with guilt on our heart, for every time we have a sin to confess, there our God is with the assurance of his complete forgiveness. For every pile of sins we bring to God, those are the sins for which Jesus died. We are not beyond his mercy, his love, or his forgiveness.

That unending, inexhaustible mercy of God is what encourage[s] [our] hearts and establish[es] [us] in every good work and word. Whether today is your confirmation day, or that is a day yet to come, or that was a day long since past, continue to build your foundation and God’s love for us in Jesus. Continue to be established by our God, and rejoice in his love with your work and words. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"The Work of the Trinity Produces Work in Us" (Sermon on 2 Corinthians 13:11-14) | June 4, 2023

Sermon Text: 2 Corinthians 13:11–14
Date: June 4, 2023
Event: Holy Trinity, Year A

2 Corinthians 13:11–14 (EHV)

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Set things in order. Be encouraged. Agree with one another. Be at peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

12Greet one another with a holy kiss. 13All the saints greet you.

14The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

The Work of the Trinity Produces Work in Us

“Garbage in, garbage out.” That’s a mantra that applies to a lot of different situations. Are you feeling bad? What have you been eating? Is that spreadsheet just not working the way it seems like it should? How good is the data you’ve fed into it? Is your faith floundering? How often do you tend to it with God’s Word?

The inverse of that mantra is probably also true. “Good things in, good things out.” Maybe not quite as catchy, but if you have eaten a healthy diet and are drinking a good amount of water, your physical feelings are likely to improve. If you double check the information you’ve plugged into that project for work and corrected some errors, things probably work closer to how you expected and hoped they would. And extra time around God’s Word probably yields a faith that can withstand more assault and trouble than it could before.

This morning we are spending time considering the mystery of the Trinity. We’ll confess things in the Athanasian Creed later in the service that seem to run contrary to reason. How can God be both one and three? How can each person of the Godhead be equally powerful, completely God yet not three separate Gods? The mind starts spinning out of control.

This is a place where God’s Word is sufficient but not exhaustive. God has let us know the basics of the whats, but not so much the hows—likely, we wouldn’t get it even if he had gone into more detail. God is God—he is over us and above us and so it’s actually not unreasonable to think that our reason cannot comprehend and grasp his true nature.

But for our meditation this morning, rather than getting lost in the trees of what God’s nature is and how the Trinity functions, let’s spend more time on something we know much more about from God’s inspired Word—what the Triune God has done and continues to do for us.

As Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, they had a lot of troubles. They had divisions in the congregation. We heard last week how they had struggled with the appropriate use of and attitudes about spiritual gifts. There were a lot of problems. And over the course of at least the two letters we have recorded for us in the New Testament, likely another letter that was not preserved for us, and a great deal of time spent with them in-person, Paul addressed many of these issues with the members of this congregation.

And thanks be to God, they saw improvements! Things got better as God did their work among them. But what specifically would lead them to do the things that were God-pleasing? Well, the same thing that would lead you toward a God-pleasing life, because the work of our Triune God produces fruitful good works in us. Good things in, good things out!

We’re going to start at the end of our brief reading this morning, with what has commonly been referred to as the “Apostolic blessing,” as opposed to the “Aaronic blessing,” which was given to Aaron and Moses. The Aaronic blessing is “The Lord bless you and keep you…,” the way we end most of our worship services. The Apostolic blessing is this closing verse from 2 Corinthians: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

We use this blessing in worship often as well, so much so that the words may be overly familiar to us. We may hear them without thinking about them. So, let’s slow down and consider these words carefully and the powerful meaning God conveys through them.

To begin, Paul mentions God’s work in a three-fold way, naming each member of the Triune Godhead. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. A slightly different order than we would typically use for “Father, Son, and Spirit,” and the Father isn’t named quite that specifically, but the intention is clear. Paul is calling out the work of the Triune God as important and necessary.

Paul begins with the God the Son—Jesus—and describes his work as grace. Grace is a word that you hear often in a lot of different contexts. Maybe you know someone named Grace. Maybe you’ve been encouraged to have a little grace for yourself or someone else, which usually refers to something coming close to patience. But what is grace? Grace may get defined in a lot of different ways in our day, but in the biblical, New Testament sense, grace is God’s undeserved love to us. More than that, grace is the love that God shows us which gives to you and to me the exact opposite of what we deserve.

As sinners, we deserved only hell as the punishment for our sin. That’s what we had coming to us. Whether the people around us would call our sins large or small, hell is the only result for someone who has not kept God’s law perfectly. So, on our own, we are doomed.

Except we know that we have the opposite coming to us, right? Our whole confidence is that we will be in the perfection of heaven when we die, not the eternal punishment of hell. Why? Well, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ gives us the opposite of what we deserve. So great was Jesus’ love for us that he took our place under the demands on the law; Jesus kept God’s law perfectly and handed his life over to you and me. Now, through faith, God sees you and me as perfect. When he looks at you or me, he doesn’t see the failing sinners that we are every day, he only sees Jesus and his flawless obedience. Grace is not a word to be taken lightly or skipped over; grace means forgiveness instead of anger, heaven instead of hell.

Paul’s list continues with the love of God. Love and grace are very closely related terms (we used the word “love” to define “grace” just a few moments ago!), but it’s important for us to understand the love of God differently that we often use the word “love” in our day-to-day life. You might say you love a TV show. You might love the new coffee place that opened down the street from you. You might love your friends. But what happens to that love when the scripts for the TV show later in the season get weird and don’t make any sense anymore and the writing ruins your favorite characters? What happens to that love when that coffee shop starts blaring a music genre that you really don’t like all the time? What happens to that love when that friend betrays a confidence? Often, our love is conditional. We love when we are loved, we love when something is the way we want it to be, but if either of those changes, it is possible for our “love” to evaporate.

Not so with God. Paul uses a very specific Greek word here—agape—that is always used to describe the love of God. It’s not the love of friends, or parents. It’s not the love that is wrapped up in infatuation and lust. Agape love is selfless love. Agape love loves even when it is not loved in return. Agape love doesn’t falter and flounder. Agape love isn’t tied to a feeling in the stomach—agape love is a dedicated, conscious choice.

So it is with the love of God. The Father sent his Son to live that life of grace for us, not when we were nice to him, but when we were his enemies. He loved us when we were not loveable. He loved us when we were sinners, rebelling against him with every word, action, and thought. There was nothing in you and nothing in me that would have drawn God to us, that would have made him want to save us. No, the desire and will to save us came from God himself. His love is internal and unconditional. His love sent his Son to be our Savior. His love sent the Holy Spirit to work faith in our hearts.

And so, the love of God naturally leads into the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The word fellowship could also be translated as communion. The picture is having close, mutual interests, being bound together. The Holy Spirit gives us communion, fellowship with God. We who had been completely separated from God by our sin are now bound tightly to God. How? The Holy Spirit brings us faith that clings us to Jesus as our Savior. Through the Spirit’s work, everything that Jesus accomplished, everything the Father sent him to do, becomes ours. We benefit from everything that Jesus did because of the Spirit’s work in our heart through his Word and the sacraments. And the result of that faith? We have fellowship with our Triune God rather than being eternally estranged from him.

And this grace, love, and fellowship completely change our attitudes and approach to this life. No longer do we live for ourselves, wanting to gratify the desires of our sinful natures and seeking our selfish pleasures. No, we want to live our lives as God would have us live them to thank God for his full and free forgiveness. And what does a life of thanksgiving look like? Paul gives a sampling:  Finally, brothers, rejoice. Set things in order. Be encouraged. Agree with one another. Be at peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

Our lives are filled with rejoicing over God’s unending love for us. We set things in our lives in order according to God’s will because he has forgiven our many sins. We are encouraged because we know the punishment our sins deserve will never be on us. We will be at peace and agree with each other because we know not only does the Spirit bind us to God, but he binds us to each other as well. In these things, we clearly see that God of love and peace is with us.

This what the Trinity works in us through his work for us. Truly the best things given to us will produce good things coming out from us. Good things in, good things out. May you always rejoice in our Triune God and his saving love for you now and forever. Amen!

"You Have the Holy Spirit for the Common Good" (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:3-11) | May 28, 2023

Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 12:3–11
Date: May 28, 2023
Event: The Day of Pentecost, Year A

1 Corinthians 12:3–11 (EHV)

Therefore I am informing you that no one speaking by God’s Spirit says, “A curse be upon Jesus,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

4There are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5There are different kinds of ministries, and yet the same Lord. 6There are various kinds of activity, but the same God, who produces all of them in everyone.

7Each person is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8To one person a message of wisdom is given by the Spirit; to another, a message of knowledge, as the same Spirit provides it; 9by the same Spirit, faith is given to someone else; and to another, the same Spirit gives healing gifts. 10Another is given powers to do miracles; another, the gift of prophecy; another, the evaluating of spirits; someone else, different kinds of tongues; and another, the interpretation of tongues. 11One and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them to each one individually as he desires. 

You Have the Holy Spirit for the Common Good

More than once in high school as I sat studying vocabulary for a Latin or German quiz, I wistfully thought how nice it would be if the Holy Spirit would suddenly descend on me and I would just be fluent in these languages. I wouldn’t need to study anymore; my skills would be great rather than aggressively mediocre to bad; this would be a tool I could just use rather than fighting to try to haphazardly get it crammed into my skull.

But the Holy Spirit never came with that kind of gift for me. As a result, I’m probably not the person to bring all your burning Latin and German questions, which is probably ok; we can find other things to talk about and encourage each other with.

On a day like Pentecost, when we celebrate the birthday of the Christian church on the first Christian Pentecost day, we might look at some of the gifts that the apostles were given with some envy or even jealousy. We hear Peter’s sermon on Pentecost through which God brought 3,000 to faith and we think that even having 10% of that, or 1%, or even .1% of that would be an amazing blessing. How exciting would it be to have 300, or 30, or even 3 people brought from unbelief to faith through the message proclaimed here? And yet, we rarely see that. In fact, often instead of rejoicing over a myriad of new people coming to faith through our congregation’s work, we feel more like we’re losing the people we already had as part of our church family.

And so, either personally or collectively, we grouse a little bit at the choices God seems to have made. “If I had this gift or that gift, I could really do some good, Lord,” we might think. “If you just did something a little bit different, the way we see it should be done, the ministry of our congregation would be an unstoppable powerhouse, Lord.” And it’s not too far of a jump to go from mild dissatisfaction to full-blown coveting of gifts that God has not given and being filled with discontent over the gifts he has given.

So, this morning, let’s focus our attention on Paul’s parsing of gifts from the Spirit. Let’s work together to understand not just where they come from, but why God chooses to give the spiritual gifts that he gives.

Paul starts us with the most fundamental and the most profound gift of the Holy Spirit: saving faith. He says, “No one speaking by God’s Spirit says, “A curse be upon Jesus,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.” Without the Holy Spirit’s work, Jesus’ work is useless, because no one can choose to believe in Jesus on their own. Because our sin separates us from God, no one can make a decision to start trusting in Jesus or to welcome Jesus as Savior into their heart. None of that happens without the Holy Spirit. So, no one who believes in Jesus curses him, and no one can believe in Jesus as Savior without the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit brings and strengthens that faith through his Word and the sacraments. We see that in the conversion of the 3,000 on that first Christian Pentecost day. How did they come to believe? The preaching of the Word. Where was their faith strengthened? In baptism. The Holy Spirit was not primarily working that day in the sound of wind, the supernatural flames, and the ability to speak in tongues. No, the Holy Spirit was primarily working in bringing people to trust that Jesus was, in fact, their Savior. The conversion of the crowd from unbelief to faith was the most amazing miracle that day. That’s true with the number totaling 3,000; that would still be true if the number had just been one. Because in that conversion, it’s not just an amazing thing for a moment—it is work that brings blessings and rescues through eternity.

That is a gift you have been given. Whether you would deem your faith “weak” or “strong,” that you have faith to trust Jesus as your Savior at all is the gift and working of the Holy Spirit. You cling to Jesus’ death and resurrection as the certainty of your forgiveness. You trust, because of the work of the Spirit, that you will be in heaven as Jesus promised. You say, “Jesus is Lord,” “Jesus is Savior,” “Jesus is Good Shepherd” by the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God!

Every other gift God gives is in service of that gift of saving faith. Why could the disciples speak in various languages that they had never studied on Pentecost? Not to make studying for that foreign language quiz easier or unnecessary, but to tell people about Jesus. Why did Jesus, the prophets, or the apostles work miracles at times? To draw attention to the saving message that God has given: sins forgiven by the promised Savior.

And this is the point that Paul is getting to in the latter verses of our Second Reading: There are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of ministries, and yet the same Lord. There are various kinds of activity, but the same God, who produces all of them in everyone. Each person is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Why does God give gifts to people? For the common good—especially the common good of faith in Jesus and certainty of eternal life.

It's pretty misguided, then, if you or I look at someone else’s gift and envy that person or covet what God has given to them. In those moments, we are not considering the common good, but our own personal good, our own personal reputation, or our own personal glory, which is a wild distortion of why God gives gifts to people. Paul enumerates some of the gifts that may be given: To one person a message of wisdom is given by the Spirit; to another, a message of knowledge, as the same Spirit provides it; by the same Spirit, faith is given to someone else; and to another, the same Spirit gives healing gifts. Another is given powers to do miracles; another, the gift of prophecy; another, the evaluating of spirits; someone else, different kinds of tongues; and another, the interpretation of tongues. Do some gifts in that list seem flashier or more impressive to our human way of thinking than others? Does being able to heal someone’s disease seem more awe-inspiring than being able to “evaluate the spirits,” that is, to determine whether someone is teaching rightly by God’s Word or not? Does the gift of teaching publicly seem more impressive than the gift of encouraging privately?

What are we basing these evaluations on? What is informing our thinking? It’s probably not thanksgiving to God. Oftentimes, we find ourselves sinning either by coveting the gifts that God has not given to us and thinking he’s probably made a mistake of some sort or by disparaging the gifts that he has given to us as unhelpful or unimpressive. We fall into the same trap that the Corinthians fell into—valuing some gifts over others, coveting what we can’t or don’t have. Or, if we have gifts that our sinful natures do think are pretty spectacular, we might lord those over other people rather than using those gifts to serve others.

For these thoughts and attitudes, we need to repent. For our discontent, for our accusations against God, for our ingratitude with the gifts he has given to us, we come before him in sorrow over our sin. For our exalting of ourselves, for our thinking that our gifts have something to do with us rather than him, we come on our knees before our God. We come before him repentant. And we leave forgiven—because Jesus died to pay for these sins as well. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, we find the solution to all our sins, including the discontent or inappropriate exaltation of certain gifts. That chief gift of the Spirit sits above them all—we know our sins are forgiven because the Holy Spirit has worked that trust in our hearts.

It’s important for us to keep in mind how Paul ended our brief reading from this letter: One and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them to each one individually as he desires. It’s important to remember where these gifts come from. Every gift, as different as they may be, all have their origin point in the same Spirit. God not only is the source of these gifts, but he has carefully chosen what, where, and to whom he has given them. God gives these gifts not to produce jealousy and discontent, but for the common good, to serve each other, and to serve the mission of sharing his Word that he’s given to us all.

So, as you look at the gifts you’ve been given, rather than comparing yourself with others, take stock of the blessings God has given to you. If you feel that you cannot serve God as well as some people who’ve been given different gifts than you’ve been given, consider how the gifts you have been given could be better used in service and thanksgiving to God.

Your God loves you and has given each of you the most precious gift—faith to trust Jesus as your Savior. Everything else is a bonus. May God lead us all to cherish that primary gift and everything else he gives, using them to his glory in thanksgiving for the eternal life that he freely gives! Amen.

"Jesus’ Work Is Done; Our Work Continues" (Sermon on Acts 1:1-11) | May 21, 2023

Sermon Text: Acts 1:1-11
Date: May 21, 2023
Event: The Ascension of Our Lord (Observed), Year A

Acts 1:1-11 (EHV)

I wrote my first book, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began doing and teaching 2until the day he was taken up, after he had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3After he had suffered, he presented himself alive to the apostles with many convincing proofs. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and told them things about the kingdom of God.

4Once, when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for what the Father promised, which you heard from me. 5For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6So when they were together with him, they asked, “Lord, is this the time when you are going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7He said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

9After he said these things, he was taken up while they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10They were looking intently into the sky as he went away. Suddenly, two men in white clothes stood beside them. 11They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Jesus’ Work Is Done; Our Work Continues

Do you make to-do lists? Lately, I’ve been using electronic to-do lists on the phone and computer. While I really like that from an organizational standpoint and being to have my list just about anywhere, I have to admit there’s something missing without the tactile, almost visceral feeling of scratching something off a list. And there’s something not quite as satisfying about an empty to-do list on the screen compared to a mangled, completed list on a piece of paper.

Whatever your organizational methods might be, there is something satisfying about a project completed and taking it off our plate. In a lot of ways, that is what the festival of the Ascension of Our Lord is about—Jesus is showing us his completed to-do list. But in other ways, it’s a fresh, well-filled list of things for God’s people to accomplish. So, this morning, let’s consider what it means that Jesus’ work is done, and our work continues on.

It may seem a little bit weird to talk about Jesus’ work being done here with his ascension into heaven. After all, haven’t we been talking throughout the whole Easter season that his resurrection was the end of his work, proving that the payment was received in full? Even more than that, didn’t Jesus himself say his work was finished on Good Friday on the cross? So, what makes his ascension the actual end of his work? Is it even the end?

Jesus’ resurrection was and remains a crucial part of the gospel message. It was absolutely vital that Peter and Thomas and all of the disciples knew that Jesus had actually, physically risen from the dead. Not that our sins were paid for at the tomb—but it was promised that the Messiah would rise, that he would not see decay in the grave. Jesus had to rise from the dead to fulfill the promises about the Savior. But this was more than just scratching things off his to-do list. Jesus’ resurrection proved that everything worked. Jesus said he would suffer and die to pay for the sins of the whole world—that he would be lifted up so that everyone who put their faith in him as Savior would have eternal life. Had he not risen from the dead, that would mean something had gone horribly wrong with God’s plans, and as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). But Jesus has been raised and his resurrection assures us that God accepted his payment for our sins and that through Jesus, we are forgiven!

God drives the truth that our salvation is complete in many ways. If Jesus’ work for us could be summarized with his words from the cross, “It is finished,” his resurrection is the exclamation point at the end of that sentence, and his ascension is a heavy underline.

Jesus ascending into heaven is a clear mark that this work of salvation is complete. Everything that mankind needed from God to rescue us from our sins has been accomplished. Jesus lived a perfect life for us and suffered hell in our place on the cross to pay for our sins. We are forgiven. Heaven is our free gift. There is nothing, not one sliver of anything, that we need to (or even can) do. His ascension is the end of his earthly ministry because he did it all. You and I are forgiven because God has forgiven us in Jesus. End of story. Full stop.

Jesus’ work of salvation is done. But at his ascension, his disciples’ work was really just beginning: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Jesus had often told his disciples what their role would be after his work was done. Jesus had even sent them to practice sharing his Word while he was still with them. And this was because Jesus would not remain visibly on earth as a teacher, preacher, and miracle worker as he had been during his earthly ministry. His disciples would be the messengers. He would give them that title apostle, which means someone who is sent out. Jesus was sending them out with the gospel.

That’s really the point of the book of Acts. It is Luke's follow-up to his Gospel which traces not the life and work of Jesus, but the life and work of the very early Christian church. The book of Acts, in part, answers the question, “How did the apostles serve as Jesus’ witnesses?” Luke writes to Theophilus to tell him what happened after Jesus’ work was done—and so begins with the very end of Jesus’ earthly ministry.

Throughout the book of Acts, you can see the gospel acting like a rock thrown into a pond, just as Jesus said it would. It starts in Jerusalem (which we’ll celebrate next Sunday on Pentecost Day), and ripples out to Judea, the region around Jerusalem, then to Samaria, the region between Judea and Galilee, and from there to “the ends of the earth.” The book of Acts shows the gospel getting as far as Rome. Paul’s letter to the Romans makes clear he had a desire to get to Spain (though whether he got there or not remains unknown). History and tradition tell us of the possibility of the disciples going very, very far from Jerusalem, perhaps as far as India or even beyond.

So, they went far, but not everywhere. Not every person heard about Jesus from the apostles. Because Jesus never intended this message to be shared in one generation. The work of going to the ends of the earth began with the disciples, but it continues with us.

The angels reminded the disciples of what would come in the future: “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” This remains true for you and me today as well. We don’t see Jesus with our physical eyes—though we know he is ruling all things for us. But Jesus will return one day, and on that day that will be the end of this life. If you and I are still alive when Jesus returns—which really could be today!—we will rejoice to finally to have our sinful natures purged from us completely, to be taken to eternal life with our Savior because he has taken away our sins.

And while he could return at any moment, we are not to stand on the top of a hill, slack-jawed, staring at the clouds waiting for him to reappear. No, until Jesus returns, we have work to do. We have responsibilities on our plates to our families, our communities, our work, and even ourselves.

But Jesus also has included us in the work to share his gospel. In fact, neither he nor the angels would be the primary messengers of this good news. No, it was always the plan that those who have experienced God’s forgiveness—you and me—would be the primary messengers to share that forgiveness.

We do that together as a congregation as we provide a place where we all can gather regularly, study God’s Word, and have the Holy Spirit build us up in our faith. We work together to bring this eternally-important message to our community in the best way that we can. We work together as a church body, a synod, to jointly train new generations of pastors, teachers, staff ministers, and church leaders. We work together to send missionaries to places where you and I cannot go, to support those messengers as they truly go to the ends of the earth.

And in this, we rightly question if Jesus’ work is actually done. While the work of salvation is absolutely complete, Jesus’ ascension does not mean that he has left us on our own to fend for ourselves and navigate these tasks blindly. God is really doing this work through us. We may share Jesus with someone, but he is working through that sharing. We may ensure that God’s Word goes out to some distant or very close place, but God is working through us to bring about success for that work. He alone works faith in the heart of those who hear this message. He brings people to himself through our witness of what Jesus has done.

So, let’s embrace the task that Jesus has for us. Let us work together in with whatever skills and blessings the Lord has given to us, to share the glorious message of sins completely forgiven by Jesus. This is a message that people will not learn on their own; they cannot figure it out by exploring nature or searching their own hearts. They need someone to share it with them. They need a witness to share what they know. My brothers and sisters, let’s be those witnesses in whatever opportunities the Lord provides for us. Let us work together to share the glorious message that our sin is forgiven, and heaven is ours because Christ is risen, he is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"Repentance Conforms Us to God" (Sermon on Acts 17:22-31) | May 14, 2023

Sermon Text: Acts 17:22-31
Date: May 14, 2023
Event: The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A

Acts 17:22-31 (EHV)

Then Paul stood up in front of the council of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. 23For as I was walking around and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which had been inscribed, ‘To an unknown god.’ Now what you worship as unknown—this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

24“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made with hands. 25Neither is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, since he himself gives all people life and breath and everything they have. 26From one man, he made every nation of mankind to live over the entire face of the earth. He determined the appointed times and the boundaries where they would live. 27He did this so they would seek God and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘Indeed, we are also his offspring.’

29“Therefore, since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and planning. 30Although God overlooked the times of ignorance, he is now commanding all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he appointed. He provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Repentance Conforms Us to God

As Paul walked through the city of Athens, he was coming from some really, really difficult times. He had been run out of both the Macedonian cities of Thessalonica and Berea by those who rejected the gospel and were jealous of his preaching about Jesus. Now, he walked through the capital city of Greece, alone, waiting for his companions to join him.

But he wasn’t exactly throwing a pity party for himself. Paul took the opportunity to share Jesus in this new place where his mission journeys had not yet taken him. As he did in most places, Paul began by seeking out the Jewish synagogue and sharing the good news with the believers there. But Paul didn’t just reach out to the Jewish people, he also spent time every day speaking in the marketplace, sharing the good news with the population at large. And as he had time, he explored the city. He was distraught to see all the idols, shrines, and temples devoted to the gods and goddesses of what we would today call the Greek mythology system—supposedly divine beings like Zeus, Hermes, Artemis, Dionysus, and Poseidon, just to name a few.

But Athens wasn’t just the political capital of Greece, it was also the thought capital. In the verse just prior to our First Reading for this morning, Luke describes the people in Athens this way: All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there enjoyed doing nothing more than telling or listening to something new (Acts 17:21). They loved to soak in new thoughts and philosophies and were eager to hear any new ways of thinking.

The Athenians’ addiction to new thought meant they just had to know more about what Paul was sharing. They asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are talking about? You seem to be bringing in some ideas that are strange to our ears, so we want to know what these things mean” (Acts 17:19-20). They brought Paul to the council of the Areopagus, a group that had oversight on “matters of morals and religion” in Athens—a highly respected group (cf. The New Bible Dictionary, 3rd Ed.). If someone was bringing new religious thought into Athens, this was the group to investigate.

Our First Reading for this morning is the message that Paul delivered that day to this council. Notice that Paul doesn’t bring in Scripture at all, to begin with. He meets them where they are with the things right around them in the city: “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way.” What a charitable way to say, “Boy, you sure worship a lot of fictional deities around here, don’t you?”

But something stuck out to Paul as he walked through the city: As I was walking around and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which had been inscribed, ‘To an unknown god.’ These people were so dedicated to religious thought that they figured they must have missed someone or something, so they created a catch-all altar to celebrate the god they did not know. This was Paul’s in: Now what you worship as unknown—this is what I am going to proclaim to you. He doesn’t chastise them for their idolatry, but he hooks into their obsession with new philosophical and religious thought: “You want to know a secret? I know this unknown God. Let me tell you about him!”

The problem that created all the different gods in the Greek system is the same problem the people have today. Mankind always wants to fashion a god they can understand or hold or even manipulate. People take the natural knowledge that they have—that a supreme being exists, that he is powerful, and that he is upset because they have not done what he said they should do—and then they try to make the best possible situation out of it. Either, creating gods that have plenty of human quirks and failings as the Greeks and Romans did so that they don’t feel bad about their own failings, or creating a system of work that will try to scratch the itch to pay off a debt to this deity, earn his love or respect or forgiveness or whatever the goal might be, and overall just try to soothe the screaming conscience.

But that’s not the way God works, that’s not the way religion or faith works. You can’t just create something and hope that it works out. Faith needs an object, and to be of any value that object must be trustworthy. You and I are not immune from this line of thinking. The delusions that you and I create in our minds are not trustworthy in any way. Any inclination that we are in control, that we can fix things, that we can make things right with the Creator of the universe is pure ego—to a damning degree.

No, we don’t bend and shape God to meet our thoughts and feelings; God bends and shapes us. How does he do that? Paul said to the Athenians, “Therefore, since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and planning. Although God overlooked the times of ignorance, he is now commanding all people everywhere to repent.” Repentance is not making up your own rules, fashioning your own god, or trying to create your own balm for a burning conscience. No, repentance acknowledges sin and trusts that God—who promised to forgive us—has removed those sins. Repentance doesn’t find comfort or relief in the act or the process; repentance brings the true, lasting comfort that God promised and provides.

And in this way, God conforms us to his will. He makes the rules; he sets the standards. We, as the creation, are in service and at the will of the Creator.

That might not sound great. That might sound like our agency is removed. It actually has been, but not by God. Our sin removed that agency and made it impossible for us to do anything to please God or fix our relationship with him. Paul said that God wanted people to seek [him] and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. God’s will is that we would reach out and find him, not in some fiction that we create, but in the way he has provided for himself to be found.

Where has God revealed himself? In his Word. God’s Word clearly confirms our consciences’ feelings of failure by showing us God’s objective right and wrong in his law, and how we have failed to keep it. But he doesn’t leave us flailing, making up things in a vain attempt to fix it. He doesn’t direct us to build altars at random grasping about wildly for some comfort. No, in his Word God himself provides the comfort we desperately need and naturally long for—though his comfort is something we could never have imagined.

Paul confirms that the judgment the Athenians naturally feared was true—judgment was coming. But what they did not expect and could not have known is that the one who would do the judging is also the one who had saved them. “He has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he appointed. He provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Now, our reading ends here because Paul’s sermon gets cut off here. Once Paul brings in Jesus’ resurrection, many of the people recoil from his teaching. They liked new, wild ideas, but this was evidently a bridge too far for many of them. And that makes sense because now Paul is moving into areas that can only be grasped with God-given faith.

Jesus is our substitute and Savior. He is the one that lived a perfect life in our place. He is the one who suffered the death, the hell, that we deserved on the cross. He paid the full price for all of our sins. The “unknown god” is the Savior God. Our consciences can’t conceive of this; our minds could never even begin to imagine that the one we sinned against is the one who would pay our penalty and rescue us. But this is what has happened—and as we heard Jesus say last Sunday, it is the only way for us to find forgiveness of sins and eternal life. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus.

Repentance, then, is our path forward. Not just feeling bad about sin—though that is the start of it—but trusting that what God says is true. When he promises you and me that our sins are forgiven and gone, we can trust that with no hesitation, no matter how much we might naturally recoil from that message or find it to be bizarre or even wrong. The gospel message of sins forgiven in Jesus is never going to make sense to our natural selves, but in repentance, we express our faith that God has given to us—we bring our load of sins to Jesus and trust his promise that he has taken them away.

In this, God conforms us to himself. Rather than people forming statues and altars from stone and wood and precious metals in an attempt to find spiritual peace, God forms us into people who trust him, and who see Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as the certainty of our salvation. He forms us into people who live lives as he wants us to live to thank him for his free and full forgiveness.

My brothers and sisters, let God conform you. Let him shape you. He does that through his forgiveness; he does that through his certain promises. May we not seek our own way through this life, but his way. That way leads to eternal life only and always through Jesus. There is no doubt about the result of God’s conforming work through his Word that produces repentance, for Christ has risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"Build Wisely" (Sermon on 1 Peter 2:4-10) | May 7, 2023

Sermon Text: 1 Peter 2:4-10
Date: May 7, 2023
Event: The Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A

1 Peter 2:4-10 (EHV)

As you come to him, the Living Stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious, 5you also, like living stones, are being built as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, in order to bring spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For it says in Scripture:

See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who believes in him will certainly not be put to shame.

7Therefore, for you who believe, this is an honor. But for those who do not believe:

The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,

8and,

a stone over which they stumble
and a rock over which they fall.

Because they continue to disobey the word, they stumble over it. And that is the consequence appointed for them.

9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the people who are God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10At one time you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. At one time you were not shown mercy, but now you have been shown mercy.

Build Wisely

Over the last year or so, we’ve gone through a lot of different decisions with our remodeling work around campus. Many decisions had to be made because what we found when doing demolition was not what was expected (or hoped) to be true and other times it’s the debate of what is the best option in terms of plan and materials. Should the bathroom floor be vinyl or ceramic tile? Should the walls have a smooth or textured finish? Should the paint colors be striking or neutral? Should there be one combined furnace and AC unit for both the Sanctuary and Fellowship Hall or should we have two separate units? And if two, where will we put them? Should the hillside in the parking lot be graded to be stable or have a retaining wall?

Our prime driver in these decisions, as we worked with the contractor, has been bang for the buck—we’re not looking to do the most expensive things possible, but also recognize that the cheapest path forward right now is probably not the best option long-term. So, the decisions have largely come down to what we can economically do that will last for a long time. What can make this space a place to worship our Savior and enjoy fellowship with each other for many years while at the same time not bankrupting the congregation?

For many of those decisions, there is no right or wrong answer, but you do have to make a choice because you can’t do three different things at the same time. So, you try to make the best decision you can and commend it to the Lord for his blessing.

But these are not coinflip decisions. No one is just saying, “Well, I know nothing about this, let’s just throw darts at the wall and see where they land.” No, the decisions are informed. They are based on our research or on asking people more in the know than any of us are. You can’t make good decisions without being informed at least a little bit. If you’re going to build and do a good job, you must build wisely.

In our Second Reading for this morning, God gives us a picture of a building being built to compare to you and me, the church. In fact, this is a common picture that God uses throughout the Old and New Testaments to describe his people. God builds us, but once you have been brought to faith, you are part of that building and reinforcing project. When it comes to your spiritual life, far more than any physical building or renovation project, you want to build wisely.

Peter begins our reading this way: As you come to him, the Living Stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious, you also, like living stones, are being built as a spiritual house. What is the goal of this building project? That you and I are built as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, in order to bring spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God.

And this is quite a monumental undertaking because by nature we were not holy at all. By nature, we are corrupted by sin completely and totally. And because of that sin corruption, we can’t do anything to please God. Nothing an unbeliever does or says or thinks is ever acceptable to God because it is completely ruined by sin. So, how does this happen? How does the change take place?

Peter quotes from Isaiah 28 when he says: See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who believes in him will certainly not be put to shame. And then he comments: Therefore, for you who believe, this is an honor. In our midweek Lenten worship about two months ago, we heard Jesus talk about this cornerstone prophecy. The cornerstone was not an ornamental part of the building in those days, but a crucial component of the building. A well-cut, strong cornerstone placed at the start of the walls would ensure a square, stable building. But a cornerstone that was weak or whose sides were at goofy angles would mean a really, really questionable building that was potentially a great hazard and a waste of time and resources. The cornerstone was absolutely critical if one wanted to build wisely.

When it comes to our spiritual state, we as people come up with all sorts of ideas of how to make things better. “If I do this this way, God will be happy with me.” “If I check these things off of a list, God won’t be so upset with me.” “If I do this for this person, I’ll start to get rid of that guilty feeling I feel over here.” We think this way because we want to believe that our spiritual problems are things we can fix, that our sin is something we can remove if we just scrub hard enough or in the right way. We start trying to build this spiritual house, but a house built like that is built with an incredibly wonky cornerstone. It’s soft and weak; it’s cattywampus and means the walls of the building go all over the place. It will not stand or endure.

Jesus made some pretty exclusive claims in our Gospel for this morning: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me” (John 14:6). Jesus claims exclusivity as the way to heaven; he claims exclusivity as the one and only Cornerstone on which our spiritual houses can be built. Why?

Peter commented on this as he continued his Old Testament quotations regarding God’s Cornerstone: But for those who do not believe: The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and, a stone over which they stumble and a rock over which they fall. Not building with God’s Cornerstone doesn’t mean that it goes away. Building with something different just means that God’s Cornerstone is a hazard on your construction site. If Jesus is not the basis of your spiritual life, he is something you’re tripping and falling over.

Those who ignore God’s Word, who ascribe many paths to heaven, who think all “good people” will end up fine after this life are faceplanting over God’s Cornerstone. Peter says of people building in this way: because they continue to disobey the word, they stumble over it. And that is the consequence appointed for them. Ignoring God’s Word, or actively rejecting it, leads to this spiritual stumbling and ultimately disaster. It’s not like a little trip that you get up and brush yourself off from; it’s a dire fall that means eternal condemnation as the consequence for choosing to ignore God’s Cornerstone and building foolishly.

If my confidence for eternal life or spiritual health or anything else comes from my own piousness and assumed God-pleasing behavior, I’m building a horribly unstable building. It will fall down and take me with it.

To build a spiritual house wisely, you need Jesus. Peter describes the one built with Jesus as the Cornerstone this way: You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the people who are God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. At one time you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. At one time you were not shown mercy, but now you have been shown mercy.

It's frustrating to think that there’s no way for me to solve my sin problem. It’s a helpless feeling to know that any way I chose to build my spiritual house, on my own, will end in disaster. But God doesn’t look at that situation and say, “Wow, it really stinks to be you” and then turn his back on us. No, God gave us what we needed. When we needed mercy, he showed us mercy in Jesus’ work on our behalf. When we were helpless, he rescued us. When we were without a cornerstone, he placed himself as the root and foundation of our lives.

Yes, it doesn’t feel great to know that by nature we cannot do anything to save ourselves and that any plans we make, any walls we build, will collapse and fail. But you don’t have to figure this out for yourself. God has done it for you. He has given you Jesus as your Savior, as the one who brings complete forgiveness for every sin. You build a spiritual house on him, not in an effort to fix your relationship with God, but built wisely and joyfully because Jesus already solved all of those problems.

So, as you continue to build that spiritual house, base it all on Jesus, the one who is our only and complete rescue from sin, death, and hell. We have been rescued from every evil, not because we are so wonderful, but because our God is so merciful. He has made us into his church, called us out of darkness, made us his people, and shown us mercy. If you build on him, you build wisely. Lord, help us to always build our spiritual lives like this, dependent completely on you as the one who lived, died, and rose to free us from sin. Amen.

"We Have Returned to the Shepherd of Our Souls" (Sermon on 1 Peter 2:19-25) | April 30, 2023

Sermon Text: 1 Peter 2:19-25
Date: April 30, 2023
Event: The Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A (Good Shepherd Sunday)

1 Peter 2:19-25 (EHV)

For this is favorable: if a person endures sorrows while suffering unjustly because he is conscious of God. 20For what credit is it to you if you receive a beating for sinning and patiently endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and endure it, this is favorable with God.

21Indeed, you were called to do this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you would follow in his steps. 22He did not commit a sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. 23When he was insulted, he did not insult in return. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24He himself carried our sins in his body on the tree so that we would be dead to sins and alive to righteousness. By his wounds you were healed. 25For you were like sheep going astray, but you are now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

We Have Returned to the Shepherd of Our Souls

Sheep wander. That’s kind of their trademark action, almost their whole personality. They mindlessly go off on their own path even when where they are is good and pleasant. A sheep is likely to go from plenty of food to a place with no food, to go from a place with abundant water to someplace dry, from a safe place to a place filled with danger and peril.

This is not because the sheep has a death wish or is filled with self-loathing. The sheep is just kind of mindless. He will absentmindedly go from a good place to a bad one because he didn’t even notice.

There’s a reason that God often uses sheep as a picture and example of us. How often don’t we wander from what we know is good because God has provided or willed it, and moved on to someplace we thought would be better and wasn’t? That’s sin in its most basic essence. If we think back to the Garden of Eden, what was Satan’s primary temptation? “What God here has provided is bad. Listening to him is limiting. Everything will be better for you if you just disobey his cruel commands.” And we know how truthful Satan was being—all mankind since has paid the price because Adam and Eve trusted his lie.

“We all have gone astray like sheep,” Isaiah says in his prophecy, reflecting not only of his countrymen of his time but of all people of all time—you and me included. We have wandered from what our God has said and done and instead sought our own desires against his. We have gone far from God, this path of seeking out sin instead of God has left us in the same position as the people the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy about: Some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.

Sheep may wander away and inflict suffering on themselves by their own doing. We may have a sense of sorrow for an animal in that condition, but we might also recognize that they kind of did it to themselves. In our Second Reading for this morning, Peter has a similar observation, not about sheep, but about us: For this is favorable: if a person endures sorrows while suffering unjustly because he is conscious of God. For what credit is it to you if you receive a beating for sinning and patiently endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and endure it, this is favorable with God.

Someone who suffers negative consequences, who endures punishment because of something wrong they have done are experiencing justice. And while we might not wish harm on any other person, we probably would also look at that situation without a ton of pity. To the convicted murderer who must spend the rest of his life in prison, we might not grieve. We may not see as much sorrow in that situation as we see justice: these are the natural results of these actions.

And that’s Peter’s point. If you, dear sheep, suffer hardship because you are wandering away from God and embracing sin, what credit is it to you? Will anyone commend you for your patience in such a situation? Is anyone going to feel for you if you’re getting the just results for what you have done? Probably not.

But this is the path of sin. Sin always seems enticing and exciting, but never leads to anything positive, only negative. The person who is obsessed with money is consumed by his greed. The person who seeks sexual fulfillment outside of God’s design for sex and marriage brings heartache, depression, and perhaps even disease on themselves. The person who abuses drugs or alcohol may be impaired, and their relationships or even their freedom may be jeopardized based on what they do while under the influence. What credit is it to you if you receive a beating for sinning and patiently endure it? That doesn’t say anything positive about your character other than perhaps you can do the time for doing the crime.

But sheep don’t just suffer because they wander away from the safety and abundance that the shepherd supplies. Sometimes there are dangers that come seeking them out. Predators arrive to try to tear the flock apart and kill some of them. Hardship and dangers may come through no fault of their own—even if they were listening to their shepherd completely.

Peter acknowledges that this same thing is true for you and me, sheep of the Good Shepherd. You and I may endure sorrows and suffering because of our faith in God. Peter says that while suffering because you did something wrong is not to your credit at all, suffering for doing good and even suffering because you are a Christian is favorable with God.

Why is this favorable with God? Because this is part of his calling to you to be his follower, to be his disciple. Jesus described this as bearing your cross and following him. Peter expounds upon this thought: You were called to do this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you would follow in his steps. He did not commit a sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When he was insulted, he did not insult in return. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. Jesus suffered; those who follow him will endure suffering. As what happened to the Shepherd, so it will happen for the sheep.

Jesus suffered for a very specific purpose. He himself carried our sins in his body on the tree so that we would be dead to sins and alive to righteousness. By his wounds you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but you are now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. Our Good Shepherd took the sins that separated us from him and brought punishment on our heads on himself. And whether our minds are drawn to some of the sins we mentioned before—greed, lust, substance abuse, or something more subtle like trying to hide away from our faith because we don’t want to endure any suffering because of it, all of these Jesus has forgiven. Every sin was placed on our Good Shepherd when he laid down his life for us.

And because of that, he has become the gate, or the door, for us to enter back into fellowship with God. We couldn’t make that happen, but we have access to God once again through Jesus’ death and resurrection, which has paid for our sins and proved our forgiveness.

Being forgiven means we have returned (or perhaps even better, we have been turned) to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. No longer are we sheep wandering away from God. No longer are we sheep in danger from predators who will tear us to pieces. The Good Shepherd has curbed our wandering and brought us to himself. He has defeated our enemies so that we are his. And nothing will change that. No suffering in this life, no failures on our part. Our Good Shepherd is infinitely patient, infinitely loving, infinitely forgiving, and infinitely protective. Whatever happens to us, good or bad, our dear Shepherd will work for our eternal good.

So, my dear fellow sheep, let us stick tightly to the Shepherd who loves us, who takes care of us, who even corrects us for our good. He suffered for us so that we would never suffer again after this life. He laid down his life and took it up again to rescue his wandering sheep. By his wounds you were healed. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"Jesus' Resurrection Brings Us New Life" (Sermon on 1 Peter 1:17-21) | April 23, 2023

Sermon Text: 1 Peter 1:17-21
Date: April 23, 2023
Event: The Third Sunday of Easter, Year A

1 Peter 1:17-21 (EHV)

If you call on the Father who judges impartially, according to the work of each person, conduct yourselves during the time of your pilgrimage in reverence, 18because you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, not with things that pass away, such as silver or gold, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot. 20He was chosen before the foundation of the world but revealed in these last times for your sake. 21Through him you are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Jesus’ Resurrection Brings Us New Life

What is the point of a nation’s jail and prison system? You’ll find a lot of different opinions on that question. Some might say it’s to separate vulnerable people from dangerous people. Some might say it’s to inflict punishment on the wrongdoer. Some might say it’s to keep people in check—to keep people from doing bad things because they don’t want to endure the difficulty of time in jail. Still others will say that it should be about rehabilitation—a system set up to take someone who has gone down a wrong path to learn how to move forward in a different way.

That rehabilitation idea is where I’d like to center our thoughts this morning, not really on our criminal justice system, but on our faith. What is the point of Jesus’ resurrection? What is the point of God’s forgiveness? It’s rescue and rehabilitation. It’s a new life.

We heard in our Gospel how the two men walking to Emmaus from Jerusalem had a lot of confusion and heartache. While not part of the inner circle of the Twelve, these followers of Jesus had lost someone dear and precious to them. They likely had heard Jesus say that he must suffer, die, and rise from the dead, but they didn’t get it. They needed to have Jesus explain the plan to them that God had revealed through promise and prophecy throughout the Old Testament. (Oh, to be journeying along with that trio to hear Jesus explain everything about himself!)

In our Second Reading, Peter does a bit of that educating too. Writing decades after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, Peter has clarity about these things that he did not have in those first days and weeks after Jesus rose from the dead. From this vantage point, Peter can see and explain what the plan was: [Jesus] was chosen before the foundation of the world but revealed in these last times for your sake. God was not “winging it” when it came to the salvation of mankind. He had a plan in place from the beginning of time of how he would save mankind from their sin, just as Jesus said in the Gospel: “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter his glory?” (Luke 24:26). As we emphasized repeatedly during Lent and Holy Week, Jesus’ suffering and death was not a case of things spiraling out of control for him; everything from the Garden of Gethsemane to Pilate’s courtyard, to the cross, to the tomb was all as God had planned. He had to go through these things, this plan was put in place before the foundation of the world.

To what end? Peter explains: You were redeemed from your empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, not with things that pass away, such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot… Through him you are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. This plan, Jesus’ death and resurrection, means forgiveness for you. Every sin is gone. You have been purchased for God, redeemed, with the priceless blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. By God’s grace, you have trust in him as your Savior. Your faith is in God; your confident hope is in God. You fully lean on him.

And that means that you do not fear death—your grave will end up empty just like Jesus’! You do not fear punishment—Jesus took your punishment on himself! You do not fear God—he has shown you the full extent of his love as your dear heavenly Father and will bring you to himself in heaven!

So, what about rehabilitation? Peter began our reading this way: If you call on the Father who judges impartially, according to the work of each person, conduct yourselves during the time of your pilgrimage in reverence, because you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers… Peter says that God’s work for you in Jesus should change your life, should rehabilitate you.

We received an empty way of life from our parents and their parents because from them we inherited a sinful nature. We inherited a nature that rebels against God, hates God, and fights against him. Peter’s word “empty” almost seems like an understatement, doesn’t it? It’s not just empty; it’s disastrous. It’s eternally condemning. That empty way of sin leads, ultimately, to hell.

So, Peter says, once we have come to know that we have been redeemed—bought back from the very jaws of eternal damnation with the precious blood of Christ—that should change us. It should rehabilitate us. It should lead us to live a life not governed by the sinful nature but governed by thanksgiving and joy to God. Peter describes that life as conduct[ing] yourselves during the time of your pilgrimage in reverence.

That phrase “the time of your pilgrimage” is fascinating. Peter is referring to our lives here on earth. Some translations talk about sojourning, some as a time of exile. Regardless of the English words we use, the point is clear. It’s a recognition that this life is not home. This life is not the ultimate that we have waiting for us. This life is what we have to get through for us to enjoy what God has really won for us, given to us, by Jesus’ death in our place.

But do we treat this life like that? Do we reject that empty way of life we inherited from our parents, or do we still find ourselves embracing it? Do we live differently than the unbelievers around us, or do we seek to blend in with them? Could someone identify you as a Christian not by your jewelry or badges attached to your car but by your words, your actions, your tone, your attitudes? Do you stand out like a sore thumb (in a good way!) in this world corrupted by sin, or do your words and actions look like everyone and everything else?

How has your life been in the two weeks since we got to celebrate the highest of high festivals in the Christian church—the resurrection of our Savior? Did our Easter celebrations change you? Did the message of Jesus’ resurrection empower you to live a very different life, or has it looked kind of the same as it was before? How present has sin been in your attitudes toward your neighbors, your friends, your family, or your coworkers? Would someone objectively looking at the past 14 days say, “Wow, that person has been rehabilitated!” Or would they cringe if they could see our words, actions, and thoughts of the heart laid out before them?

I really, really don’t want my heart laid bare before you all because of the great shame my sinful nature brings to me. I’m sure none of us would want a detailed listing of our attitudes and actions projected on a screen for the whole congregation to review. But this, my dear sisters and brothers, is where we have commonality. We may not have the same sins, but we all sin. We may not all have the same struggles, but we all struggle.

So, we have not conduct[ed] [our]selves during the time of [our] pilgrimage in reverence. Instead, we have often treated this life as if it’s the best and only thing we have coming, that this life is truly home. We have not behaved as if we were redeemed from [our] empty way of life handed down to [us] from [our] forefathers. Instead, we have often held up that way of life as delightful, fun, tantalizing, and full of value.

So, what now? Have we lost the hope God gave to us? Have we abandoned our redemption? Hardly! It was for this very reason that Jesus redeemed us with his blood. It was for this very reason that Jesus proved that redemption through his resurrection. You and I will not go through this life without sin—that is impossible. But we can make an effort to curtail it. We can make it a goal to not love sin and have it dominate our lives. We can make it our task to bring those sins to Jesus each and every day and say, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

And what is Jesus’ response? “My dear child, I have had mercy on you. I have paid for your sins and they are gone. You will be safe with me in eternal life.” That does not change. For as many sins as we commit, those were the sins that Jesus paid for and redeemed us from. And if you want proof that it is so, we only need to hear the angels’ words again: “He is not here! He is risen!”

That redemption proved by his resurrection then leads us to a new life. Our lives will not be perfect, but we will hold on to that as a goal. We will wrestle with that inherited empty way of life until we are brought to our Savior’s side in eternity. But we will let a new life shine. We will let the words and comforts we’ve been reminded of here today impact our relationships and work ethic, our attitudes and our motivations. We will seek to live a life that doesn’t embrace sin but seeks to thank God for his forgiveness.

Our motivation to do what God wants is not simply because that is “right” and to do the opposite is “wrong.” No, we have far grander and loftier motivations. We live this new life to show our gratitude to God for his forgiveness. We most often express that gratitude through how we treat other people and even ourselves. We know our time of thanksgiving here is limited—we are but pilgrims, exiles, strangers in this life; heaven is our home. We will let our joy in that forgiveness and eternal life permeate our hearts and minds, every aspect of our lives.

My dear friends, conduct yourselves during the time of your pilgrimage in reverence, because you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, not with things that pass away, such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"Should We Seek to Be a 'Doubting' Thomas?" (Sermon on John 20:19-31) | April 16, 2023

Sermon Text: John 20:19-31
Date: April 16, 2023
Event: The Second Sunday of Easter, Year A

John 20:19–31 (EHV)

On the evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were together behind locked doors because of their fear of the Jews. Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be with you!” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. So the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you! Just as the Father has sent me, I am also sending you.” 22After saying this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23Whenever you forgive people’s sins, they are forgiven. Whenever you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

24But Thomas, one of the Twelve, the one called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples kept telling him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

26After eight days, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at my hands. Take your hand and put it into my side. Do not continue to doubt, but believe.”

28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

29Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

30Jesus, in the presence of his disciples, did many other miraculous signs that are not written in this book. 31But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Should We Seek to Be a “Doubting” Thomas?

Maybe I’m just more aware of it than I was in the past, but it seems like the concepts of scams and being scammed have become more ubiquitous than it was in previous years. Perhaps that has come with the rise of the Internet’s ubiquity as well, that everyone is so connected that there are more channels to reach more people than ever before. So, people try to take advantage of other people by pretending to be someone they are not, presenting problems that are not real, and looking for resources they are not entitled to.

In an era so prone to scams and being deceived, we are right to be skeptical about things. Things that seem too good or too bad to be true should be double-checked. Does that person really have control of a multi-million-dollar inheritance coming to you from a relative in a foreign country? Probably not—especially if they need some cash upfront to get the process rolling. Is that relative of yours really in jail? Probably not—especially if they need gift card codes to get out.

This is not directly related to the sermon, but it is a big enough problem that it deserves its own side note: if you ever receive a call or an email or text message asking you to pay some bill or fine with gift cards or wire transfers, that is almost certainly a scam. Please do some due diligence to check on the claims that people are making. If a family member is supposedly in trouble, contact another family member to confirm—even if the person who originally called asks you not to tell anyone. A tactic used by these scams is to isolate people from anyone else who could clarify that what they are seeking is not real.

This morning we are presented with Thomas, who is often a bit vilified for his lack of trust in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. But I think we can probably sympathize with him. After all, if ever there was anything that seemed too good to be true, would it not be that the dear friend who was brutally killed was now alive again? That doesn’t happen. That’s not logical. There’s no precedent for that.

On Easter Sunday evening, ten of the eleven disciples were together; the whole group was there except Thomas. Jesus made clear for all of them what a few had seen and what they had heard rumblings about: Jesus was alive! “Peace be with you!” was his greeting, which went back to his promise on Maundy Thursday evening to give the disciples peace, real peace, not worldly peace. Jesus was now able to grant that peace because he had died to pay for their sins and risen to life to show his victory. Jesus had brought true, lasting, eternal peace between God and sinful mankind—the disciples included!

Then Jesus had a task for them. They were to go and tell. They were to go and spread the news that Jesus had risen from death and that Satan had been defeated. He granted them not only the message but the ability to truly forgive sins in his name. On that Easter evening, Jesus was giving his disciples their marching orders that would be in place for the rest of their lives (and that govern the work of all Christians to this day). They would be witnesses of the forgiveness of sins won for mankind over the past three days.

The recipient of their first evangelism sermon was Thomas, “We have seen the Lord!” What joyous news! How glad that would’ve made all of them! But it wasn’t so joyous for Thomas. His response was cold and rational, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

Thomas had reason to doubt, didn’t he? Who could believe such a message? The rest of the disciples were all in varying states of faith, doubt, and confusion until Jesus appeared to them that first Easter night. Why would it be any different for Thomas? And what was the simplest explanation? Was it that Jesus had actually been raised from the dead or that his dear friends so desperately wanted their teacher back that they imagined—wanted to be true—Jesus’ resurrection? Thomas was skeptical—doubting—perhaps to not fall into the same emotional trap. Perhaps Thomas even saw himself as the connection to reality that the rest needed. He would be their rock while they processed their grief.

Do you treat the things you hear in our Bible Classes and from this pulpit with the same sort of skepticism? Do you react to a sermon the same way you react to an email saying that you’ve won a foreign lottery for millions of dollars—a lottery you never entered? Perhaps not, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go looking for proof. You may trust your pastor, but that doesn’t mean you sit here on a Sunday morning accepting everything you hear, unfiltered, without a moment of critical thought. We all want to be students of the Word and go back to it to bolster what we believe so we are not deceived and so that we do not put our hopes and faith in the wrong place. We want to check with what God has actually said and ensure that what we’re hearing is accurate, that we’re being fed solid spiritual meals, not half-poison meals.

We have a scriptural example of this during Paul’s missionary work. After being run out of the city of Thessalonica, Paul went to the Macedonian city of Berea. He shared with the Jewish believers there that Jesus was the Messiah—come at last!—and that in him they had the forgiveness of sins and the certainty of eternal life. The Bereans were overjoyed at Paul’s message, but we’re told they received the word very eagerly and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so (Acts 17:11).

Faith does not make things a reality, but faith leans and trusts in something real and concrete. Faith is only worthwhile if it’s trusting something reliable. Thomas’ friends could not, by their own wishing it was true, bring Jesus back from the dead. Thomas’ seeking to verify what he heard from his dear friends was not the problem. The problem was that Thomas had already received enough verification to support what they said and he chose to disregard it. He let his senses and feelings override the Word that had been spoken to him. More than once, long before Jesus died, he had promised his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law. He must be killed and be raised on the third day” (Luke 9:22). Jesus had told them that he would live out the sign of Jonah among them. Jesus had told them time and time again that exactly what Thomas’ friends were saying had happened would happen. And the word of Jesus should have been enough for Thomas.

And it should be enough for us too. But is it? When times are difficult, how easy is it for us to lean on Jesus’ promises to always rule all things for our good? Jesus said it; why do we struggle to believe it? When we’re feeling guilty about something we’ve done or left undone, do we always believe that Jesus has really forgiven those sins? Jesus said it; why do we struggle to believe it? When we’ve lost someone to death and we miss them terribly, but we know they died trusting their Savior, are we always completely confident that we will see them again in heaven, that as Jesus was raised, we all will also be raised? Jesus said it; why do we struggle to believe it?

We find ourselves often not taking God at his Word; we find ourselves wishing there was a sign or something to confirm what he’s said. God says, “I’ve promised these things to you.” And we, with Thomas, say, “No, that’s not enough. I need more proof.”

My brothers and sisters, you have the proof recorded in the pages of Scripture. The Bible is God’s love letter to you. It details every step along the path that God took to save you. From the first promise in the Garden of Eden to a manger in Bethlehem to a bloody cross at Golgotha to the empty garden tomb, this Word is your assurance of God’s love. This Word is your assurance of God’s care. This Word is your assurance that you have an almighty God who loves you and is protecting you from all danger. This Word assures us that every moment of doubt, every time we’ve not taken God at his Word or believed the promises he’s made to us, that has all been forgiven.

We do well to examine the Scriptures to check what we hear and what we feel. Are those things accurate to what God has said? In that sense, it’s not bad to be a skeptical Thomas, lest we believe and trust something that is untrue. But, when we find confirmation of those promises in the Word, let us not continue to doubt. Let us silence our conscience or our emotions or whatever would lead us to say God’s promises and words are not accurate, and let our hearts and minds be captive to the Word of God.

As we dig into that Word more and more ourselves, with our family, friends, and fellow Christians here at church, find the comfort that only the promises and work of the almighty God can bring. The one who has promised you everything is the sole being able to give it all to you. Cling to God’s promises, for he is trustworthy. The Holy Spirit builds your faith up with the very words that he himself recorded through the apostles and prophets, words that, as John said at the end of our Gospel: these words are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. As you cling to these promises of God, you will find yourself being the very people that Jesus mentioned to Thomas: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” You are blessed, you are happy, and you are loved, because Jesus has given you eternal life. His tomb didn’t stay occupied; neither will yours.

Hear the proof, see the proof, read the proof, rejoice in the proof, believe the proof, for it all comes from God. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen!

"The Sign of Jonah Means Grace Like Jonah" (Sermon on Jonah 2:2-9) | April 9, 2023

Sermon Text: Jonah 2:2-9
Date: April 9, 2023
Event: The Resurrection of Our Lord, Year A

Jonah 2:2–9 (EHV)

2He said the following:
In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From the belly of the grave I cried out,
and you heard my voice.
3You threw me into the depths,
into the heart of the seas.
The currents swept around me.
All your breakers and your waves swept over me.
4I said, “I have been driven away from your sight.
Nevertheless, I will once again look toward your holy temple.”
5Waters engulfed me so that I was near death.
The deep surrounded me.
Seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6To the roots of the mountains I sank down.
The earth locked me behind its bars forever.
But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord, my God.
7When my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord.
My prayer came to you, to your holy temple.
8Those who cling to worthless idols forsake the mercy that is theirs.
9But I, with a shout of thanksgiving, will indeed sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed, I will certainly pay in full.
Salvation belongs to the Lord!  

The Sign of Jonah Means Grace Like Jonah

You may be familiar with the account of the prophet Jonah, but if not, let’s take a moment to review it. Jonah lived and worked in the early 700s BC. Jonah was called with a unique mission. He wasn’t called to God’s people; he was called to foreigners. He was called, actually, to the capital city of the dominant world superpower of the time. He was called to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.

Jonah did not really like the idea of going to Nineveh and sharing God’s Word with them. He did not want to share the love of God with the enemies of his nation because he knew that God just might be gracious to them and forgive their sins. So, instead of beginning his journey east to Nineveh, Jonah hopped in a boat and went in the opposite direction to what God had told him—his destination was as far west as he could possibly get.

While on the boat, a great storm arose on the sea, so much so that it threatened the lives of everyone onboard. Through the casting of lots, God made clear that the reason for this horrendous storm was Jonah and his disobedience to God’s call. The unbelieving sailors tried everything to spare Jonah’s life and the lives of everyone else on board, but it was ineffective. The only solution was to throw Jonah overboard and, reluctantly, that is what they did. When Jonah hit the water “the sea stopped its raging” (Jonah 1:15).

Our First Reading for this festival Sunday is Jonah’s prayer after all this happened. God provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah whole and the words we read he prayed from the stomach of that large animal. After parts of three days in that stomach, God caused the fish to spit Jonah out onto dry land, and his life was spared. He then embarked on the work that God had called him to do.

The words of a disobedient, obstinate man might seem like a strange focus on a day like Easter. After all, aren’t we here to celebrate Jesus’ complete obedience? Aren’t we here to celebrate Jesus’ victory? Aren’t we here to celebrate Jesus’ perfection for us? So why do we have the words of such a reluctant and stubborn prophet before us?

We heard on Good Friday that Jesus had told the people of his day that the sign they would be given to prove Jesus’ power and authority would be the sign of Jonah. “Just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). Jonah’s time of contemplation in that fish’s belly was a foreshadowing of the time that Jesus’ body would lie in the tomb.

But Jonah’s prayer is far more than just a precursor of Jesus’ resurrection. Jonah’s prayer shows the change of heart that he had. While Jonah’s work would be far from perfect after this, he recognized where he had strayed. As he sunk into the water (and probably during the storm on the boat), Jonah was forced to reckon with his sin. He had been disobedient to God, and he recognized what he deserved. He deserved to be cut off from God forever because that’s the just punishment for sin.

But Jonah’s brief prayer is chock full of God’s grace—God’s undeserved love—for him: In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From the belly of the grave I cried out, and you heard my voice…. To the roots of the mountains I sank down. The earth locked me behind its bars forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD, my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered the LORD. My prayer came to you, to your holy temple.

As Jonah sank into those waters, he knew what he deserved, and yet he also clearly recognized that that was not what God was giving him. He should be cut off from God forever, but he was being rescued. He should have died—both physically and eternally—but that’s not what was happening. God was rescuing him, preserving him, forgiving him.

My sisters, my brothers, we are Jonah. Maybe we haven’t literally hopped in a boat to go in the direct opposite direction God told us to travel, but we have done the opposite of what God expects us to do. God had said go right, and we have gone left; God has said go up, and we have gone down. Our lives are infected with sin from conception, and we are opposed to God. The greed, lust, selfishness, laziness, and self-righteousness that pervade our thoughts, words, and actions all mean that we deserve to be condemned to hell forever. And it's not just because the pile of sin is so large. Even one sin against the perfect, eternal God who demands perfection brings with it that eternal condemnation.

And so, in our sin, we are Jonah sinking to the bottom of the sea: Waters engulfed me so that I was near death. The deep surrounded me. Seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down. The earth locked me behind its bars forever. We are just as helpless as Jonah was in the sea—even more so. We can do nothing to save ourselves or even to partially help ourselves. In our sin, we are lost.

And yet, here we are. We’ve journeyed to the tomb with the women, felt the earthquake, and heard the announcement of the angel, “He is not here. He has risen, just as he said” (Matthew 28:6). What does the resurrection of Jesus mean? What does the sign of Jonah mean for us? It means grace and mercy for you and me just as it meant for Jonah.

Jonah had confidence in his prayer. He said “I have been driven away from your sight. Nevertheless, I will once again look toward your holy temple.” Jonah, at that moment, would not have known if God would physically rescue him. But he had confidence that he would see God’s temple again—he trusted God’s promises. Perhaps God would save him physically and he would see Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem again. Or perhaps he would die there in the sea and he would be with God in heaven. Which was going to happen he did not know. But what he did know is that, live or die, he was safe with God.

Jesus’ resurrection means that we can face every moment of our lives with the same confidence. Will that bad thing go away? Maybe, but maybe not. Will life get easier for me? Maybe, but maybe not. But is God with me every step of the way? Absolutely. Will God ever abandon me? Never. Am I safe with my Savior? Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Jesus’ death on the cross paid for every sin. He suffered the hell that we deserved because he loved us. And his resurrection from the dead proves that it worked, that the Father accepted his sacrifice on our behalf, which means we have been forgiven. We should have been abandoned by God, but, like Jonah, he saved us. We should have endured everlasting punishment for our sins, but, like Jonah, God took that punishment on himself. We should have drowned in despair, but, like Jonah, God has brought [our lives] up from the pit.

Jonah’s prayer ends with that clear statement of faith—Salvation belongs to the Lord! It belongs to him, and he has given it to us. We have done nothing to deserve his salvation, but he’s given it to us anyway. The sign of Jonah would prove Jesus’ faithfulness—his resurrection would show that he truly finished the work that his Father had given him to do to save us from our sins.

The sign of Jonah is our confidence as well. Our bodies will rest in the earth for some amount of time, until God raises us all to life again, reuniting body and soul. On that day, you and I and everyone who clings to Jesus as Savior by the faith that God alone gives will be brought to God’s perfect, eternal dwellings. We will stand with Jonah, knowing that we have all been forgiven by God’s grace, by his mercy, for us. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen!

"This Is the Lord's Gracious Plan" (Sermon on Isaiah 52:13-53:12) | April 7, 2023

Sermon Text: Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Date: April 7, 2023
Event: Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13—53:12 (EHV)

Look, my servant will succeed.
He will rise. He will be lifted up. He will be highly exalted.
14Just as many were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man,
and his form was disfigured more than any other person—
15so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him,
because they will see something they had never been told before,
and they will understand something they had never heard before.
53:1Who has believed our report,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2He grew up before him like a tender shoot
and like a root from dry ground.
He had no attractiveness and no majesty.
When we saw him, nothing about his appearance made us desire him.
3He was despised and rejected by men,
a man who knew grief,
who was well acquainted with suffering.
Like someone whom people cannot bear to look at,
he was despised,
and we thought nothing of him.
4Surely he was taking up our weaknesses,
and he was carrying our sufferings.
We thought it was because of God
that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
5but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.
He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved.
The punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6We all have gone astray like sheep.
Each of us has turned to his own way,
but the Lord has charged all our guilt to him.
7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth.
Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that is silent in front of its shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
8He was taken away without a fair trial and without justice,
and of his generation, who even cared?
So, he was cut off from the land of the living.
He was struck because of the rebellion of my people.
9They would have assigned him a grave with the wicked,
but he was given a grave with the rich in his death,
because he had done no violence,
and no deceit was in his mouth.
10Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him
and allow him to suffer.
Because you made his life a guilt offering, he will see offspring.
He will prolong his days,
and the Lord’s gracious plan will succeed in his hand.
11After his soul experiences anguish, he will see the light of life.
He will provide satisfaction.
Through their knowledge of him, my just servant will justify the many,
for he himself carried their guilt.
12Therefore I will give him an allotment among the great,
and with the strong he will share plunder,
because he poured out his life to death,
and he let himself be counted with rebellious sinners.
He himself carried the sin of many,
and he intercedes for the rebels.

This Is the Lord’s Gracious Plan

It was almost like he was there. Did you have that feeling as we read those verses from Isaiah chapters 52 and 53 earlier in the service? Did it feel like Isaiah was standing at the foot of the cross, watching Jesus suffer and die, and writing it all down? He was despised and rejected by men, a man who knew grief, who was well acquainted with suffering. Like someone whom people cannot bear to look at, he was despised, and we thought nothing of him. Surely he was taking up our weaknesses, and he was carrying our sufferings. We thought it was because of God that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all have gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has charged all our guilt to him. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent in front of its shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was taken away without a fair trial and without justice, and of his generation, who even cared? So, he was cut off from the land of the living. He was struck because of the rebellion of my people.

Isaiah’s words are vivid and accurate to the scene we hear about in the Gospels. It’s like he was there. Of course, he wasn’t there. Isaiah recorded those words by inspiration roughly 750 years before Jesus died. Separated by three-quarters of a millennium, Isaiah seemed like he was describing what he saw standing in Pilate’s courts and peering from the ground at the Son of God pinned between heaven and earth.

On the one hand, that’s not surprising, is it? I mean, if we truly hold to the teaching of verbal inspiration, that the words of the Bible are God’s perfect words written down by human authors, then of course, if God wanted to describe what was going to happen centuries in the future, he could easily do that.

But it’s not just the vividness of the details or the description of the suffering that stands out. It’s the deeper motivation and causality that Isaiah lays out for us that is more striking, and more important. It’s not just that his verbs like stricken, smitten, afflicted, and pierced can’t help but bring to mind the scourge, the nails, and the spear. But Isaiah’s words are clear as to why this happened. It was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed…. the Lord has charged all our guilt to him…. He was struck because of the rebellion of my people…. Through their knowledge of him, my just servant will justify the many, for he himself carried their guilt…. He himself carried the sin of many, and he intercedes for the rebels.

Why are we here tonight? It’s not just to stand slack-jawed at the brutality and injustice of Jesus’ execution. We’re not just here in memory of someone who was killed and shouldn’t have been. No, we are here because we can see in his suffering and death exactly what we deserved. It should have been you, it should have been me, suffering the torment not just of crucifixion but much more so of hell—separation from God—as the true punishment that our rebellion against God deserved.

And yet here we are. We have the audacity to call this horrid day “Good” because we know what Isaiah knew. We know that the Messiah suffers not for his own sin, but for my sins, your sins, the world’s sins. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

This was the Lord’s gracious plan all along. From the first promise in the Garden of Eden we heard that things were going to go badly for the Savior. Yes, he would crush the serpent’s—Satan’s—head and undo all of his work, but right there we are told that the Savior’s heel would be crushed in the process (Genesis 3:15). And while I would certainly take a crushed heel over a crushed head, it’s still a painful and frustrating wound.

Never was the Savior going to come and painlessly solve our sin. That was impossible. To solve sin, there needed to be death. And in order for all of us to not face eternal death in hell, the eternal Son of God had to face hell in our stead. That’s what happens when darkness swept the land on that first Good Friday. That’s what was happening as Jesus cried out to his Father, only to have his prayer fall on deaf ears. That’s what was completed when Jesus cried out “It is finished!” and gave up his spirit (John 19:30).

The Lord’s gracious plan was that Jesus suffer for our sins so that we won’t have to. He promised through Isaiah, “the Lord’s gracious plan will succeed in his hand.” That seems not true tonight. As we will hear of Jesus’ body being taken down from the cross and laid in a tomb, this looks like failure, not success. This looks like defeat, not victory. But Jesus made a promise to those of his day who wanted him to prove his authority through miraculous signs. He said, “Just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).

Without the resurrection, Jesus’ death is meaningless. We will gather once again in three days to see just how successful the Lord’s gracious plan was in Jesus’ nail-pierced hands. But for now, let’s simply take him at his word. His work is finished. The Good Shepherd laid down his life for wayward, sinful sheep. Our sin has been paid for. By his wounds we are healed. This is the Lord’s gracious plan. Amen.

"Here Comes the King of Glory!" (Sermon on Psalm 24) | April 2, 2023

Sermon Text: Psalm 24
Date: April 2, 2023
Event: Palm Sunday (The Sixth Sunday in Lent), Year A

Psalm 24 (EHV)

By David. A psalm.
1The earth is the LORD’s and everything that fills it,
the world and all who live in it,
2because he founded it on the seas,
and he established it on the rivers.
3Who may go up to the mountain of the LORD?
Who may stand in his holy place?
4He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
whose soul is not set on what is false, who does not swear deceitfully.
5He will receive blessing from the LORD
and righteousness from the God who saves him.
6Such are the people of Jacob who look for the LORD,
who seek your face.
7Lift up your heads, you gates.
Lift yourselves up, you ancient doors,
and the King of Glory will come in.
8Who is this King of Glory?
The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.
9Lift up your heads, you gates. Lift up, you ancient doors,
and the King of Glory will come in.
10Who is he, this King of Glory?
The LORD of Armies—he is the King of Glory. 

Here Comes the King of Glory!

When I was younger, I can remember the wait that never seemed to end when company was on the way, especially grandparents. Sitting by the window, continually checking the driveway. Every car that went down the street, wondering, “Is that them? Did they get a new car?” Sadly, no; Grandma was never driving the giant pickup truck or the tricked-out sports car that both made enough noise to alert the whole neighborhood of the vehicle’s presence.

That feeling of waiting, of anticipation, is both stressful and wonderful. This morning on Palm Sunday, we have a lot of anticipation. Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem brings a lot of thoughts and feelings. We’re anticipating the events of Holy Week that will resonate in the coming days; we’re looking forward to celebrating the victory that we know is coming; but we’re also looking forward to the true, final arrival of our King of Glory. So, this morning, let’s lift up our heads and pour our anticipation into meditation on Psalm 24.

It's not exactly clear when David wrote Psalm 24 or for what occasion. Some have theorized that it was for when the Ark of the Covenant came to the city of Jerusalem. Perhaps it was a psalm written with the idea that it would be used at the dedication of the temple when his son, Solomon, completed that project. Perhaps it didn’t have such a specific purpose as much as it was meant to celebrate God’s goodness, promises, and faithfulness to his people.

Regardless of the original purpose or idea behind it, the points made in the psalm are clear. David begins with a reminder of why we matter at all to God: The earth is the LORD’s and everything that fills it, the world and all who live in it, because he founded it on the seas, and he established it on the rivers. Why do we matter to the Lord? Because we are his dear creation. We are the people he made. As we’ve seen in our Bible study on Sunday mornings, human beings were created not just as part of the creation, but as the creation’s crown. More than the plants and animals, more than the mountains and rivers and oceans, and even more than the angels themselves, God created human beings as the most important part of creation and tasked us with taking care of it. You are important to God because he made you and you belong to him. And in a special way that goes beyond anything else in nature. As Jesus once observed comparing God’s care for us to his care for the rest of the world: “You are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:31).

This special status is something we do well to treasure and value. You are not an afterthought to God; you are his dear one! What great love he has for us!

David continues: Who may go up to the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, whose soul is not set on what is false, who does not swear deceitfully. And now we’re into something that might cause us some trouble and heartache. Who can approach God? Who can be with him? The person who has clean hands and a pure heart, whose soul is not set on what is false. If that isn’t the polar opposite of my life, I don’t know what is. My hands are filthy with sin; rebellion drips from my heart like a crude oil spill. Intentionally or unintentionally, I seek my own good or my own desires, even if it means trampling on others. I cling to lies that I want to believe about myself and others. I do not want to consider my sin.

If you are honest, you’ll see yourself that way too. None of us are the people God expects us to be or who he created us to be. We have fallen impossibly short of his standard of perfection. Thus, to apply David’s reasoning we are to be excluded from those who can go up to the mountain of the Lord and stand in his holy place. Our sin separates us from God, and we can’t do anything about it.

Thankfully, David doesn’t stop there: He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God who saves him. Such are the people of Jacob who look for the LORD, who seek your face. Notice the preconceived notion here: the one who has clean hands and a pure heart is the one who will receive blessings from the Lord. But this same God is the one who gives righteousness, who saves him. When David spoke of people with clean hands and pure hearts, he wasn’t talking about people who could make that claim on their own. David knew as well as you and I that earning that, deserving that on our own, is an impossibility for every human being because every human being born since the Adam and Eve’s fall into sin has been born in sin. We all start out disqualified.

But though our sin separated us from God and ruined our relationship with him, God gave us his righteousness, a proper relationship with him. God, when he saved us, took away those sins and nailed them to the cross. We who were so unworthy to approach God are now worthy because God has washed our hands and purified our hearts. God makes us worthy to stand before him, to have a relationship with him, not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus did for us, for Jesus is truly the LORD who gives blessing and righteousness, the God who saves us.

So, this morning, we stand with the crowd on the road as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. We join our voices in shouting, “Hosanna!”, a Hebrew word of praise that means, “Save us, please!” We wave palm branches, the ancient symbol of victory, as this King enters the city. Lift up your heads, you gates. Lift yourselves up, you ancient doors, and the King of Glory will come in. Who is this King of Glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, you gates. Lift up, you ancient doors, and the King of Glory will come in. Who is he, this King of Glory? The LORD of Armies—he is the King of Glory.

The King of Glory is the promised Messiah. The King of Glory is the covenant God of the Old Testament, Yahweh, or in our English Bibles, the all-capital-letters LORD. The King of the Glory is the one who promised to save us from sin and death. The King of Glory is one who did just that.

As we journey into this Holy Week, we will see the King of Glory do everything you and I needed him to do to save us from our sins. He enters amid shouts of praise, but the cries of “Crucify!” that people will shout later will be the nauseating way in which God rescues us. Because the King of Glory comes—to die. The gates receive him, only to see him leave their protection carrying a cross. Before this week is over, it will not be the gates of Jerusalem welcoming Jesus, but it will be the rough opening of a cave tomb that will receive his lifeless body. The King of Glory will look defeated, but we will hear from his own lips that this death means that his work is finished.

Because this is how you and I are washed and purified—not with soap and water but with the very blood of the King of Glory. His glory is not in his outward show of power, but in his self-sacrificing love that saved us. His glory is in paying for the sins of the whole world, including you and me. His glory is in his humility that he endured so that you and I would be exalted.

Holy Week will be a roller coaster. We will delight in the intimacy of Maundy Thursday—“this is my body… this is my blood… love one another.” We will struggle with greatly mixed emotions on that horrendous Friday that we dare to call “good” because we know that despite the horrid brutality of his suffering and death, there will be Jesus’ love for us as clear as it can be. There will be our victory in what appears to be his defeat. And then, a week from today, we will gather again, not in sorrow and anguish over the death of our Savior, but in shouts of praise that outshine the Palm Sunday shouts of “Hosanna!” more than the sun outshines the moon. On Palm Sunday, the praise is a request for the King of Glory to save us. On Easter? It will be praise and thanks that he did just that.

My dear brothers and sisters, here comes the King of Glory! Let’s follow him through this week to see what our sins cost him, a price he willingly paid. The King of Glory will triumph. The King of Glory will bring us into his glory forever. Amen.

"What Does the Promise of Resurrection Mean?" (Sermon on Romans 8:11-19) | March 26, 2023

Sermon Text: Romans 8:11-19
Date: March 26, 2023
Event: The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A

Romans 8:11–19 (EHV)

And if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit, who is dwelling in you.

12So then, brothers, we do not owe it to the sinful flesh to live in harmony with it. 13For if you live in harmony with the sinful flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the actions of the body, you will live.

14Indeed, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit of slavery so that you are afraid again, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we call out, “Abba, Father!” 16The Spirit himself joins our spirit in testifying that we are God’s children.

17Now if we are children, we are also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, since we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.

18For I conclude that our sufferings at the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. 19In fact, creation is waiting with eager longing for the sons of God to be revealed.

What Does the Promise of Resurrection Mean?

We said at the beginning of the Lent season that the Sundays in Lent don’t “count.” That is, there are 40 days in Lent, as long as you don’t count the Sundays. And that’s because while the season of Lent is to be a somber and introspective time to contemplate our sin and the price Jesus paid to save us, and while some of that somberness does work its way into our Sunday worship, the Sundays in Lent are little respites, little springs of refreshing water. Some have even called the Sundays in Lent “little Easters.”

The idea of the Sundays in Lent being little Easters is perhaps no more apparent than this Sunday where the resurrection is front and center in our readings and our focus for worship. God showed how he had the power to undo death through Elisha to raise the only child of a family back to life. Jesus demonstrated his power over death when he raised Lazarus from the dead. And Paul in our Second Reading, which is our focus this morning, reminds us of the power of God’s resurrection within us.

But what does the promise of resurrection mean? What does it mean for right now? What does it mean for the future?

Paul attempts to put the resurrection in perspective for us. But, before we can truly appreciate resurrection, we need to wrestle with the reality of death. Death was not part of God’s original design for human beings. He did not create this world, this universe, with death and decay as a part of it. No, he created it to be perfect and flawless, a forever-union between God and the human beings he created, all enjoying the setting of the natural world.

But it didn’t stay that way. Death and decay came to creation through Adam and Eve’s sin. Their disobedience to God ruined everything and corrupted the creation to its very core. Because of them, death came into nature. Because of them, death came to people. As much as we might try to coddle ourselves with ideas like “death is just a part of life,” we know that this is just not true. Any death feels like an unnatural ripping and separation. Nothing about death seems right to us—because it’s not how we were designed.

Death is the wages—the paycheck—for sin. Our sin earns death. Death is most simply “separation,” so we can think of death as physical death—the separation of soul and body—and ultimately eternal death—the separation of a human being from God forever in hell. This is the result of Adam and Eve’s sin. This is the result of your sin and my sin.

But of course, resurrection is the opposite of death. Someone who has been resurrected has had death undone and, at that moment, death seems maybe not quite as powerful or inevitable as it once seemed. Prior to our Gospel, Jesus didn’t tell his disciples he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead; he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up” (John 11:11). This says a lot about death as viewed from God’s perspective. While it needs to be solved, it is not something big, scary, and difficult. From God’s perspective, raising someone from the dead is no more cumbersome than waking someone from a light cat nap. 

And this is all fine and good—even if it sort of feels like we’re skirting closer to philosophy than theology. Is “resurrection” a nebulous, esoteric term that refers to something we just can’t pin down? Or is it something more solid, more concrete, more tangible than that description allows for?

Resurrection is the undoing of death, the undoing of separation. We mentioned two types of death before—physical and eternal—but there is a third kind of death: spiritual. Spiritual death is the way you and I were born. We were born living and breathing, but dead spiritually, because we lacked faith in God. We were set against God in our sin. Paul wrote to the Ephesians and observed, “You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked when you followed the ways of this present world. You were following the ruler of the domain of the air, the spirit now at work in the people who disobey” (Ephesians 2:2). This spiritual death was a separation from God—not permanently as it would be in hell, but a very true separation by unbelief that you and I could not change.

If that was going to change, God had to change it. And change it he did. Through his Word and the sacraments, God created new life within you. He raised you from the death of unbelief and gave you a new life, a life that clings to Jesus as the solution to sin. Jesus paid for every sin to bring you spiritual resurrection. When he physically died on the cross, he suffered for each of your sins. When he physically rose from the dead, he proved his victory over sin and its wages, death.

So, what does the promise of resurrection mean? Well, first of all, it’s not just something that will come in the future; it’s something you and I have right now. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit, who is dwelling in you. Because the Holy Spirit dwells in you, you are spiritually alive. You already have the spiritual resurrection from spiritual death because you no longer are slaves to sin in unbelief, but you live to God’s glory through the faith in Jesus that he has given you.

Secondly, Paul emphasizes that this resurrection means a new life lived today. This is not just head knowledge; it’s of the heart. Knowing your Savior affects the way you live even in this life: So then, brothers, we do not owe it to the sinful flesh to live in harmony with it. For if you live in harmony with the sinful flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the actions of the body, you will live. The one living in accord with God’s will is the one who trusts Jesus as Savior. A life of good works, of living the way God wants, is the natural consequence of thanksgiving for God’s free forgiveness. Living by the Spirit does make us forgiven, rather, because we are forgiven, we live by the Spirit. God’s forgiveness causes us to live as he wants in joy and thanksgiving to him.

This resurrection means that our status with God has changed. No longer are we dead in sin. No longer are we God’s enemies, fighting against him. No, through Jesus we have become God’s children. Indeed, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery so that you are afraid again, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we call out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself joins our spirit in testifying that we are God’s children. Because of Jesus, we call God Abba, an Aramaic word whose closest English equivalent is perhaps “Dada.” It’s the call of a young child who trusts his or her parent completely, who knows that he or she is loved, and who knows that he or she is cared for and safe. What a change! We have gone from being enemies of God to being his dearly loved children.

And even more than just a child, Paul says that you are God’s heir. When he raised us to life by faith, God made us heirs on equal footing with Jesus! This is, perhaps, the most baffling part of a wholly baffling concept. Jesus not only gave his life to pay for our sins that we committed against him when he had done nothing wrong to deserve any punishment, but he also then turns around and shares the inheritance that he alone deserves with us! Now if we are children, we are also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, since we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.

Ah, and there’s the rub. We share in Jesus’ glory, we are his fellow heir, but we will also suffer along with him. Not for the same reason—we do not suffer to pay for anyone’s sins—but the life of a Christian is not one of perfect peace and joy in this life. We will have trouble in this life because of the sins we continue to commit; we will have trouble in this life because we simply live in a sinful world; we will have trouble in this life at times because we are Christians. Jesus told us that we would have to bear these crosses. He told his disciples just before he was betrayed, “In this world you are going to have trouble. But be courageous! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

So, suffering and hardship and heartache in this life is not a sign that you don’t have God’s resurrection. In fact, it’s a sign that you do. God uses these troubles to point us ahead to what is to come, to what is better, to what is perfect: I conclude that our sufferings at the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. So great will life be in heaven that even the most difficult of times in this life will seem as serious as a dream that disappears when you wake up. In eternity, with Jesus, death will be fully gone, sin will be fully gone, hardship and sorrow will be fully gone—forever!

If these promises have us crying out to God, “How long until you fully rescue us?” that is exactly the point. The resurrection that we have now by faith leads us to long for the final and complete resurrection we will have at the last day. Our triumphing Savior will return; he will reunite souls and bodies and we will be with him as the complete people he originally designed us to be: no sin, perfect harmony with him, safe forever. Is it any wonder that Paul says creation is waiting with eager longing for the sons of God to be revealed? Even the creation around us longs to be released from the corruption of sin; that will happen at the end, at the founding the new heavens and the new earth.

What does the promise of resurrection mean? The promise of resurrection means you have been raised from the death of unbelief by the faith God gives to trust Jesus as your only and complete Savior from sin. The promise of resurrection means that you can live in this new life, right now, praising and thanking God for his gift. The promise of resurrection means that you know you have the complete forgiveness of every sin, which means that in the end you will be rescued not just from physical death at the final resurrection, but you will be rescued from eternal death as God brings you to heaven for Jesus’ sake.

The promise of resurrection means only good. As we continue the final walk with Jesus to the cross, as we look ahead to the garden tomb, remember the one who called Lazarus out from the grave. This same Savior will call you and me from our graves as well, to be with him forever at peace in heaven. Thanks be God! Amen.