"Jesus' Gifts Are Different; Jesus' Gifts Are Better" (Sermon on John 6:24-35) | August 11, 2024

Sermon Text: John 6:24-35

Date: August 11, 2024

Event: Proper 14, Year B

John 6:24-35 (EHV)

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. 25When they found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

26Jesus answered them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: You are not looking for me because you saw the miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. 27Do not continue to work for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

28So they said to him, “What should we do to carry out the works of God?”

29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God: that you believe in the one he sent.”

30Then they asked him, “So what miraculous sign are you going to do, that we may see it and believe you? What miraculous sign are you going to perform? 31Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”

32Jesus said to them, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the real bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34”Sir,” they said to him, “give us this bread all the time!”

35”I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus told them. “The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.

 Jesus’ Gifts Are Different; Jesus’ Gifts Are Better

The child is opening presents for his birthday. One from a grandparent feels very promising because it feels like the highest priority on his birthday list—the brand-new video game that everyone was talking about. He opens it up to find a game he’s never heard of. Grandma smiles and says, “I know that’s not what you asked for, but they were all sold out. The clerk told me that this game was great too!” He smiles and thanks Grandma, but inside, he’s disappointed that he did not get what was on his list.

Later that evening, after the party was over, he pops the unknown game into the system and turns on the TV. To his surprise, this game he had never heard of before is great. In a tremendous surprise, the present that was different than he hoped for might actually be better than the one he had wanted. And time proves he’s not just coping with disappointment. In the coming days, friends come over and play with him, and they quickly are hooked on this new game that none of them had known about before.

Sometimes things work out that way. You have in mind one thing, something else happens, and in hindsight, you say, “That might actually have been better.” It doesn’t mean there’s no disappointment in the moment. It doesn’t mean that this conclusion comes quickly. But in the end, you might be able to see a benefit in how things worked out compared to how you had planned them.

In our Gospel for this morning, we have a group of people looking for one thing from Jesus while he’s trying to give them something far better. But can they see that? Can they understand that what Jesus has in mind is better for them? Or are they stuck in their own thoughts and priorities?

Our Gospel readings in recent weeks from Mark and now from John have all been dealing with the events before, during, and after Jesus fed the 5,000 men (plus women and children) with those few fish and loaves of bread. That miracle worked to feed the hungry bellies of those who had chased Jesus down when he and the disciples left them to try to find a solitary place. And then, after teaching them and the miracle meal, Jesus sent the disciples off ahead of him, and he later met them that windy night, walking on the water's surface, as we heard in our Gospel last week.

Now, after that windy trip and the miracle of Jesus walking on the rough sea, they have separation from the crowd. But, the crowd is not so willing to let them go. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Those in the crowd rush off to Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, which served as a type of home base for Jesus during his earthly ministry. They find him and are amazed that he’s there so far ahead of them—how did he get here without traveling in a boat?—but Jesus knows what they’re looking for, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: You are not looking for me because you saw the miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.”

Jesus says that this crowd has a problem. They’re not coming to him because they know his teaching is from God. And they’re not even coming to him to marvel at the miracles that he performed. Jesus says they’re coming to him for a much more crass and base reason, “because you ate the loaves and were filled.” In other words, all they care about in that moment was a full belly they didn’t have to work for or pay for. They wouldn’t care if Jesus had worked another miracle to feed them or if he had been sitting on a warehouse full of free food from which they could take what they wanted. Their goal with Jesus is that he will be able to feed them.

And so Jesus takes this wayward, misguided desire and tries to put them back on the path he wants. “Do not continue to work for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” Jesus has something in store for them that is far better than the physical food he gave them. He wants to give them something that endures to eternal life.

The crowd senses Jesus’ hesitancy to address physical things, so they try to take the conversation spiritually. But even their spiritual turn is misguided. They think that to get something good from God, they have to do something for God. They’re looking for a way to earn what God will give: “What should we do to carry out the works of God?”

Jesus plays with their question a little bit. He says, “This is the work of God,” not necessarily the work that God commands us to do, but the work that God does. “You believe in the one he sent.” This is faith in Jesus as Savior. He’s trying to get the crowd to see that he’s not just concerned about their physical well-being (although he is); he’s much more concerned with their eternal well-being.

This shift from food to faith is not what the crowd is looking for. And it’s gross, actually, the way they attempt to manipulate Jesus. They say, “Well, okay, if we’re going to believe in you, what miraculous sign are you going to do?” And then, they reference the bread and quail that their forefathers ate after their exodus from Egypt. “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. Just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

They are under the mistaken impression that the “he” in that verse was talking about Moses. They imply that people should have listened to Moses because he could give them food when there was none in the wilderness. But Jesus says that’s not at all what we’re talking about here.

The crowd quotes from Psalm 78, and if you read that psalm, it clearly talks about God’s work, not Moses’ work. The bread and quail in the wilderness was never about a guy earning the respect and admiration of a group of people by giving them something to eat. This was always about God providing for his people—and looking ahead to something far more important. So Jesus says, “‘Amen, amen, I tell you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the real bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ ‘Sir,’ they said to him, ‘give us this bread all the time.’”

And now, here’s the turn. Jesus explicitly states that he is not talking about flour, water, oil, and maybe yeast baked in an oven. He’s talking about himself. “I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus told them. “The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Does our prayer life reflect an attitude like the crowds or the goal that Jesus states? Are we treating God like some genie in a lamp that can grant us wishes? Would Jesus tell us, “You are not praying to me because you saw the miraculous signs. You are not praying to me because you know that I can grant you eternal life. You’re praying to me so that you can be comfortable here and now”? None of us want to treat God this way, but from my experience, this is an easy trap to fall into.

God has a purpose and a plan for our lives, and that purpose and plan may not always be what we want it to be. We may come to God with a request, and his answer might be, “No.” Frequently, his answer is, “I’ve got something better in store for you.” But that’s hard to deal with, especially from our perspective, especially when we don’t have God’s promise in the front of our mind that whatever he does for us will be for our good.

We have to take these things on faith. We must listen to what God says and say, “Yeah, I trust you, Lord. I trust you to provide what is best for me.” Some days, that might be something akin to the feeding of the 5,000. God might essentially say to you, “Here, this is what you need to get through the day or week or month. You didn’t see where this would come from, but here it is because I care about you, and I love you.”

Other times, Jesus’ purpose is to lift our eyes from this world, this life, and instead look forward to eternity because that’s what’s truly important. God is primarily focused on our eternal well-being, and he wants us to be primarily there as well.

This takes us back to the crowd’s question, “What should we do to carry out the works of God? How can we make sure that we are okay eternally?” Jesus’ whole point in this discourse in John chapter 6 will be, “You can’t.”

Nothing that you do or I do can ever satisfy God’s demand because God’s demand is flawless obedience to his law. And that is not what you have done nor what I have done. In our sin, we starve to death eternally. But Jesus is the Bread of Life. “The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Jesus did not come to this world to be a popular preacher, a miracle worker, or certainly to provide meals free of charge for everyone all the time. No, Jesus came with a much greater purpose. He came to be our Savior from sin.

This moment is going to be a turning point in Jesus’ popularity. In two weeks, as we continue this account in John’s Gospel, we’ll see the crowds turn away from Jesus en masse. He won’t have the outward, earthly popularity again that he has right here and right now. But that’s not why he came. He’s going to press on to the cross. There, he will do what he came to do, what we needed him to do.

In the moment, it’s tempting to think of Jesus as only providing for our earthly needs because that’s what we can see and feel. But what we really needed from him was forgiveness, to be food that endures to eternal life. And so Jesus will go to the cross without any popularity, being abandoned and denied by the people who were closest to him. And he will suffer the agony not just of crucifixion but of hell itself as he pays for your sin and my sin. There is where Jesus becomes our Bread of Life, food that endures to eternal life. There, we receive the spiritual nourishment we need, the spiritual medicine we require, and the spiritual resurrection that is necessary because we were dead in our sins. And now, through Jesus, we live.

Don’t walk away this morning thinking, “Any concern I have for any earthly thing is wrong.” That’s not the point. And in fact, God tells us to come to him with our concerns for day-to-day life. He wants us to pray to him about those things. But we always pray that God’s will be done in everything, knowing full well that God’s will might not be the same thing as our will and that his will is always focused on eternal life rather than the here and now.

God will give you that daily bread that he told you to pray for. But much more than that, he provides for your eternal well-being. He is your Savior, the one who forgives your sins and will bring you home to heaven. He does this because he loves you and forgives you, because he is the Bread of Life so that in him we will never be hungry or thirsty again. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"The Lord Will Rescue Me" (Sermon on 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18) | August 4, 2024

Sermon Text: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
Date: August 4, 2024
Event: Proper 13, Year B

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 (EHV)

You see, I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. 8From now on, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness. The Lord, the righteous Judge, will give it to me on that day, and not only to me but also to everyone who loved his appearing.

16At my first hearing, no one came to my defense, but everyone deserted me. May it not be counted against them. 17But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles would hear it, and I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. 18The Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

The Lord Will Rescue Me

We refer to many of Paul’s letters in the New Testament as “prison letters,” but most were written in circumstances different from those we might think of as a prison. Instead, most of them were written while he was under house arrest in Rome while he waited to appeal charges from the leaders in Jerusalem to the emperor, to Caesar. It is in this state that the book of Acts concludes. Luke describes Paul’s conditions this way: When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with a soldier who guarded him…. For two whole years Paul stayed in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to visit him. He was preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without anyone stopping him” (Acts 28:16, 30-31). Prison? Sort of. In chains? Probably metaphorically. But he was able to preach the gospel. If tradition is accurate, he would eventually be freed from this state and be able to continue his role as an apostle to the Gentiles for almost another decade.

While Paul was out presumably preaching around Europe, a devastating fire broke out in Rome in July of 64 ad. Rumors raged that then-emporer Nero had started the fire himself to gobble up land in Rome for his whims, to recreate the city in his design. True or not, Nero had to separate himself from that line of thinking, which meant someone else needed to take the fall. The contemporary historian Tacitus said that Nero pinned the blame “on a class hated for their abominations,” a group that had come to be known as “Christians,” This group had, for reasons that were utterly incomprehensible to the broader Roman public, attached themselves to a criminal who had been executed by “the extreme penalty” decades before. This man was known to the Romans by the name “Christus.” The religion these followers of Christus practiced was described as a “mischievous superstition”—a superstition that had started in the Roman province of Judea and was now thriving to a certain extent even in Rome (Annals, Book 15, Section 44).

A persecution of Christians on a massive scale oozed from Nero’s false accusations. This persecution was so brutal and, to most people, seemed so unfair and unjust that even criminals rightly on death row felt compassion and sorrow for them—perhaps not unlike the thief crucified next to Jesus thirty-some years earlier.

History and tradition tell us that this persecution swept up not only large amounts of Christians but also some very notable leaders in the church, not the least of which were the apostles Peter and Paul. This occurred years after the history recorded in the book of Acts concluded. Paul was again arrested, but there was no house arrest this time. Records indicate that Paul was held in Rome in the Mamertine Prison (as it would later be known).

This prison was as bleak of a setting as one could imagine. Here, Rome held those who were threats to the state as they awaited trial or sentencing. The unfortunate prisoners were thrown into the lower, older cell, twelve feet underground and nearly devoid of light. This place served not only as a temporary holding cell but also as a place to carry out executions. Here, a prisoner might be as likely to starve to death as they would be to survive until their trial. Writing about forty years before Jesus was born, the Roman historian Sallust described this cell this way, “Neglect, darkness, and stench make it hideous and fearsome to behold” (The War with Catiline, ch. 55).

You did not come here this morning for a history lecture, but understanding the context around God’s Word is vital for understanding what God was communicating through his inspired authors. Paul writes 2 Timothy from that horrendous hole of a prison as a result of the imperial persecution of Christians sparked by blame for that fire. So when he says, “You see, I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come,” he’s not being melodramatic. He can probably feel his life draining out of him in that dark, disgusting cell, and he knows, one way or another, his departure from this world has arrived. 2 Timothy is the last piece of writing from Paul we have preserved for us, and perhaps his last overall.

So it’s in this context that Paul pens these words to pastor Timothy. As Peter did in his second letter, Paul is very clearly passing the baton of the gospel to the next generation. But he knows that persecutions will continue and sticking to the faith he has preached will be difficult. After all, Paul saw Jesus on the road to Damascus; Timothy probably had not seen Jesus with his physical eyes. So, even one generation removed from the apostles, Christians were in a not-so-different situation as you and I are today, trusting in what God has said in his Word rather than trusting what we’ve seen with our eyes.

So, on the brink of death, imprisoned in this dank pit, likely physically chained, what is Paul’s perspective? What does he want our perspective to be?

Paul declares with all certainty: I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness. The Lord, the righteous Judge, will give it to me on that day, and not only to me but also to everyone who loved his appearing.

Paul knows what is going to happen. Years earlier, he had written to the Christians in Philippi, “Yes, for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Now, staring death in the face, he has no change of heart or mind. He knows that he is unlikely to survive this situation and that still, to die is gain. He clings to Jesus as his Savior; thus, he knows he has a crown of righteousness waiting for him that God himself will give him, a crown signifying this right relationship with God that is not only for Paul because of his work as an apostle, but to all who cling to Jesus as the certainty of their forgiveness, to all “who loved his appearing.”

If we think back a bit further in history to our Gospel for this morning, we will remember that very windy night on the Sea of Galilee and Jesus strolling on the water's surface out to the disciples’ boat. They saw Jesus there and were terrified! Was this a ghost or some other apparition coming to get them? Jesus’ words put their hearts at rest, “Take courage! It is I. Do not be afraid” (Mark 6:50). “It is I” is literally just the two words, “I am.” It seems like here Jesus is referencing the name he provided to Moses at the burning bush almost 1500 years earlier, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14). What’s the implication? The one walking on the water is not just a man but God himself.

Paul had that kind of certainty. Jesus was by his side, even in these horrendous circumstances. No matter how bad things got for Paul physically, he knew that he was safe eternally because the great I am was with him. Paul would not have to reckon with his sins before God because Jesus had already paid for them. All of his wrestling with being the “worst sinner” (1 Timothy 1:16) or hemming and hawing over not doing the good he wanted to do (Romans 7:15ff) does not dissuade him from the fact that Jesus had rescued him, that God was waiting to give Paul that crown of righteousness that was bought with Jesus’ blood.

Thanks be to God that you are not languishing in a wretched prison at this moment. Nor are you struggling to progress against a mighty wind storm in a boat. Nor are you feeling hopelessly outnumbered in a fight like Elisha’s servant was. But that doesn’t mean that you are not dealing with problems, and that does not mean that your concerns are insignificant. Nor are God’s promises to you any less certain or smaller than those God made to Paul. Your confidence can be the same as his: The Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.

But can you see it? Can you feel it? Or is so much in front of you blurred and dark? Does it feel like you’re sitting in that grimy pit of a prison in Rome? Do you feel helpless and afraid as the winds of problems batter you, or feel outnumbered by too many enemies to deal with?

How slow we are to believe God’s promises! How quick we are to think that, for some reason, we are the only person to experience a problem that is too big for God or that we are the one person in the history of humanity to whom God’s promises do not apply.

So, what evil work do you need to be rescued from? Do doubts about God rise in your hearts? God, who gave you your faith, is greater than your doubts. Do fears over an illness or a loved one’s illness grip you? God, the great physician of both body and soul, is greater than any sickness or pain. Do pains of heartache and disappointment claw at you day and night? God is greater than that heartache and has assured you that whatever he allows to happen to you, he will work for your good—now and forever. Whatever the evil work that is plaguing you is, God is greater than it. “The Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.”

My brothers and sisters, you have a crown of righteousness waiting for you. On the other side of this life’s problems, there will be perfection, eternally. This is the ultimate gift God has given you, the ultimate victory he has won for you. This is the basis of every confidence you have in this life: his love and power for you endure well past this life.

But until that day, God is still by your side, walking up to you on the rough waters, standing guard over you in all danger, and even sitting beside you in your greatest griefs. We don’t always know how the Lord will rescue us, but we do know that he will. His rescue may not look like we want it to look, feel how we want it to feel, or be when we want it to happen, but there is no doubt that it will happen. No matter the evil work that plagues you, your God holds you close and says, “My daughter, my son, do not fear. I am and always will be. I am your Redeemer, now and always. I am your Provider, now and always. I am your Protector, now and always.”

The Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

"God's Generosity Encourages Our Generosity" (Sermon on 2 Corinthians 9:8-11) | July 28, 2024

Sermon Text: 2 Corinthians 9:8-11
Date: July 28, 2024
Event: Proper 12, Year B

2 Corinthians 9:8–11 (EHV)

God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will overflow in every good work. 9As it is written:

He scattered; he gave to the poor.

His righteousness remains forever.

10And he who provides seed to the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed for sowing, and will increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be made rich in every way so that you may be generous in every way, which produces thanksgiving to God through us.

God’s Generosity Encourages Our Generosity

So there you sit at the presentation. It just wrapped up, and you thought it was really good, but others around you seemed even more into it or seemed to get more out of it than you did. The host for the day asks the crowd gathered to express their gratitude. Applause is almost immediate, but slowly, some people begin standing up to offer the presenter a standing ovation. This ovation slowly works through the crowd so that you find yourself standing up, even though perhaps you wouldn’t have done so on your own.

Some in the crowd can impact the rest of the crowd. Peer pressure is real—both for good and bad. From childhood, we follow models and seek to step in the footsteps of those we respect or who we think have their lives in order. You might read books or articles from successful people and start thinking that if you follow their advice and implement their habits, you might have the same kind of success they’ve had.

Modeling is powerful. Parents can sometimes instill habits in their children without even talking about them but just by being seen doing them. And, again, those can be both good and bad. The attitude of a boss is very often reflected in the attitudes of the department's employees. I will apologize for this in advance, but it is said that this effect can even take place in a congregation, where a group of Christians may be influenced in their drive and attitude by the pastor who tends to them, so much so that the very personality of the congregation can be a reflection of its shepherds.

It's evident that humans can influence others, especially through modeling behavior and attitude. But what about God? Is God’s relationship with people intimate enough to have a similar effect, or are we so distant from God that his influence is negligible?

Our Second Reading for this morning is taken from the latter part of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians preserved in the New Testament. In this section of the letter, Paul addresses a few housekeeping items with the Christians in Corinth. And one of those housekeeping items is about an offering that had been set up to support the very poor and persecuted Christians in Jerusalem at that time. A collection was being gathered from the churches across modern-day Turkey and Greece. Each congregation was setting up the goal of sending support to their brothers and sisters in the faith through Paul as he would soon make his way to Jerusalem.

However, Paul is just as concerned about the motivation for these gifts as he is about the gifts themselves. In the verses just before our reading, Paul gave this encouragement and direction on giving motivation: The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. The one who sows generously will also reap generously. Each one should give as he has determined in his heart, not reluctantly or under pressure, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:6-7). When gifts are given, be it to support the gospel ministry in a church, or to support an individual person or family in need, or to aid some other charitable group, God’s desire is that it be done in joy, with cheer, rather than as a burdensome obligation. In other words, unlike the standing ovation that perhaps you go along with because everyone else is doing it, God wants our generosity to be decided in our hearts, not just mimicking what others do or doing it out of a sense of compulsion.

For God, the motivation for generosity is just as important as the act itself. Paul lays out where we should look for our motivation: God’s grace. God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will overflow in every good work. His grace guides, supports, and inspires us to be generous.

Our Gospel for this morning clearly shows God’s ability and desire to care for us. Jesus’ compassion on the crowds led him to work a miracle that saw a relatively small amount of food multiply into enough to feed thousands of people and even produce many baskets of leftovers. Jesus taught in the Lord’s Prayer that we should pray for daily bread, asking God for the things we need in this life, and then trusting that God will provide them because that is what he’s promised.

Paul specifically links God’s undeserved love for us, his grace, to our good works. Just as God’s grace overflows to us, good works will overflow from us. These good works don’t seek good things from God, but they are done in thanksgiving to God, who has already given them. God’s overflowing grace causes the overflowing good works, not the other way around.

Paul shows an Old Testament model of that when he quotes from Psalm 112 in the middle of our short reading. He scattered; he gave to the poor. His righteousness remains forever. Within our brief reading, it’s incredibly easy to think that Paul is talking about God with this quotation. But when you read Psalm 112, you see that the psalm writer isn’t talking about God’s actions but rather the believer’s response to God’s blessings. So the one scattering, giving to the poor, whose righteousness remains forever, describes the actions of a cheerfully generous believer seeking to thank God for all he has done for him.

It is impossible to count or quantify God’s generosity. That you could get to or connect online for worship this morning is part of God’s generosity. That your ears can physically hear his Word (although, maybe not always as well as we’d like…) is part of God’s generosity. That you have breath in your lungs, that your heart beats in your chest, that your brain is functioning are all parts of God’s generosity to you. In fact, everything we have that is good in our life comes from God: And he who provides seed to the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed for sowing, and will increase the harvest of your righteousness.

We might define righteousness as a “right relationship with God.” The writer of Psalm 112 said that the person who expresses their thankfulness to God has an enduring, proper relationship with God. Of course, we know that our natural state is not righteous because our sins have ruined our relationship with God. Adam and Eve’s original sin in the Garden of Eden was motivated by the dissatisfaction that Satan sowed in their hearts. Satan had convinced them that by denying them the fruit of that one tree in the garden, God was withholding good, even amazing, things from them! And so their discontent with God’s blessings led them to the disastrous actions of wanting, taking, and eating the forbidden fruit.

Their malcontent has trickled down to each of us. You and I all have a sinful nature in us that spurns God, that figures anything forbidden is just God being mean, and assumes that God clearly doesn’t care about us. We can easily lay anything we feel is lacking in our lives at God's feet and say that he is to blame. If we don’t think we have the right amount or kind of money, cars, relationships, fulfillment, peace, and happiness, we quickly assume lacking these things is God’s fault, that he is holding out on us, just like Satan convinced our first parents. Nothing is new under the sun. And this is hardly an increased harvest of your righteousness!

But spiritual maturity means looking at what you have with gratitude and joy. Is it the same that someone else has? Probably not. Is it everything you ever hoped for or dreamed of? Unlikely. But is it what you need, what God knows is good for you? Absolutely.

Of course, the chief of these blessings is the forgiveness of sins. Jesus’ life and death for us wipe out every sin, including those sins of discontent or even thinking that God is holding out on us and being mean to us. In Jesus’ blood, we are washed clean; in Jesus’ forgiveness, we can reevaluate our lives and see the glorious riches that God provides as they are.

What is the Christian, forgiven of every sin and with a fresh appreciation of her blessings, to do? You will be made rich in every way so that you may be generous in every way, which produces thanksgiving to God through us. Whether now or later today, take some inventory of the blessings of your life. We hear the word “rich” today and immediately jump to our net worth or the amount of money in our bank account. But that may or may not be a richness that God has given. So, how has God made you rich?

Has he given you a great capacity for empathy, for caring about others and their hardships and heartaches? Then be generous with that empathy, sharing it with those in great need of the unique blessing God has given you!

Has God given you a great deal of knowledge and understanding about spiritual things or even the things of this life? Then, be generous with that knowledge and share it with those who need it. Whether your insight is primarily in the realm of God’s promises and how to live in response to those riches, or how to repair the leaky faucet, your generosity with this knowledge and insight will be a blessing to others!

Has God given you a great capacity to encourage people, to lift them out of an emotional pit, or to maintain them so they continue to feel loved and appreciated? Share that encouragement generously! Let people know what you appreciate about them and what you’re thankful for, and help them to see the way out of their sorrows is not as impossible as it often feels.

Has God given you earthly wealth? Share it! Give generous offerings to your church to support the work of the gospel that we are carrying out, support those in more compromised positions than you are to help them through a rough spot, and seek out charities and other organizations who can help your generosity go farther than you could carry it on your own.

Remember your true wealth, no matter what skills or earthly blessings you may be able to list: you have your Savior, Jesus, and you can and should be generous in sharing him and his Word with others. Whether it's encouraging the guilt-stricken Christian with the reminder of God’s love and forgiveness for them or sharing the message of Jesus with someone who has never heard it or has long since forgotten about it. Your true wealth is the access to not just earthly, material support but eternal blessings, a treasure in heaven that will never perish, spoil, or fade, won for you and kept in heaven by your loving God.

My dear brothers and sisters, fight the temptation toward malcontent and see the blessings God bestows on you. Be generous to others as God has been generous to you. Look forward to that day when God’s generosity will not need to be carefully considered, but it will be before our eyes every moment, for we will see our God face to face forever, for Jesus’ sake. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Jesus' Compassionate Heart Is a Constant" (Sermon on Mark 6:30-34) | July 21, 2024

Sermon Text: Mark 6:30-34
Date: July 21, 2024
Event: Proper 11, Year B

Mark 6:30-34 (EHV)

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and taught. 31He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.” For there were so many people coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat. 32They went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. 33But many people saw them leave and knew where they were going. They ran there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34When Jesus stepped out of the boat, he saw a large crowd. His heart went out to them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. He began to teach them many things.

Jesus’ Compassionate Heart Is a Constant

How do you feel about a car that has been a reliable form of transportation? It's probably so good you don’t even think about trusting it. But, if the car had been untrustworthy, you might think twice before hopping in the vehicle and zipping off to the store or on to a destination farther away. Being stranded by that vehicle in the past may leave you not trusting it in the future.

In the last few weeks in worship, we’ve heard a few vignettes from Jesus’ earthly ministry from Mark’s Gospel. In these accounts, we find ourselves very close to the high point of his earthly popularity. Next week, we will hear the account of Jesus feeding more than 5,000 people with a small lunch, and that event will really be the top of the popularity mountain for Jesus. Of course, Jesus’ goal and calling wasn’t to become a popular earthly preacher, but we’ll take that up later.

For now, it’s enough for us to consider that Jesus was busy—really, really busy. We got a hint of that last week as Jesus sent out the twelve disciples two by two so that they could cover more ground. During his state of humiliation, when Jesus, though God, was only occupying one physical place at a time, having small teams of preachers traveling the countryside rather than just one person meant that the message could get out a lot faster.

In our Gospel for this morning, we meet Jesus and the Twelve just after they return from this teaching trip. We don’t know exactly how long this mission trip was, but we might assume it was enough time to have some significant things happen, but not so much that they were separated from Jesus for a long time. The disciples are excited to share what has happened and, we might assume, pretty tired from their work at the same time. Jesus himself was practically buried in people seeking him and his help, so Jesus directed the disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.”

Jesus and the disciples go from a situation that is non-stop activity (so much so that they don’t even have the ability to take care of their basic needs like eating and resting) to a solitary boat ride, with the goal of finding a quiet place to just relax.

Put yourself in their shoes in our modern era. You have spent the entire day taking care of things. Maybe you endured a rough day at work and a frustrating commute, and now you’re ready to just sit down for a moment and relax. Perhaps you’ve been doing things to serve other people—likely your family—all day, and now you’re ready for some quiet time to do something you want to do, that would recharge your batteries. And then, the phone rings. Or the requests from others around you start rolling in. Then you are taken from your ideal relaxation into what is far from it. What is your response, even if it’s just internal in your heart and mind?

Perhaps it is grumbling and disappointment. Perhaps it’s tiredness that leads to a wrestling with the ideal—I know that I ought to serve others—and the reality of being too worn out to do so graciously or joyfully. Perhaps it is tempting to put off those seeking help, to leave the phone call unanswered, and to reason that those emails will be there later.

This is really the situation Jesus and the disciples found themselves in because as they approached what was supposed to be a secluded place, they saw a throng of people. Many people saw them leave and knew where they were going. They ran there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. When Jesus stepped out of the boat, he saw a large crowd.

And what is Jesus’ response? Does he roll his eyes? Does he tell the disciples to put the boat out to sea again to find a different place to go? No, he looks at the crowd and immediately has compassion for these poor people. Despite being exhausted and emotionally drained, he doesn’t shoo away the crowds and tell them to come back later. His heart goes out to them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

It wasn’t just that they had been desperately seeking after Jesus and were tired after hoofing it around the Sea of Galilee or were wandering and lost as they sought him out. No, they were sheep without a shepherd in the spiritual sense because the ones who were supposed to be shepherding them, their religious leaders, were, at best, leaving them to fend for themselves and, at worst, leading them down dangerous paths away from God’s truth. And so, how does he act as their shepherd? He began to teach them many things.

This Gospel is not meant to scold us for not being like Jesus, although we readily recognize that we aren’t and can’t be. No, this account and our theme this morning is for comfort. Jesus is not the unreliable car that you need to approach skeptically as if this isn’t going to work. You will not find a time when Jesus is unwilling to listen to you, to help, guide, and support you. 

On our own, we, too, are like sheep without a shepherd. We can’t navigate this life in a productive way. We can’t get ourselves out of our sins and failures. We can’t even find (much less walk) the path to eternal life. It is impossible for us. We are helpless, lost little sheep with no one to blame but ourselves.

But Jesus looks at you and treats you with the same heart-pouring love and compassion that he had on the crowds that day. We heard that promise from God in our First Reading from the prophet Jeremiah that even though the earthly guides and shepherds he had tasked to take care of his people had failed, God would not abandon his sheep. No, he would directly intervene to be their Shepherd: I will gather what is left of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their pastures. They will be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them. They will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing, declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:3-4).

Jesus’ ultimate, mind-blowing compassion on helpless sheep came at the cross. Because there, he took on your failures and mine, our sin and our rebellion against him, and he allowed himself to be punished for them. The Good Shepherd endured hell that we deserved; he laid down his life to save us. We almost can’t help but think of the prophecy God put into the pen of the prophet Isaiah, “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” (Isaiah 53:6).

Jesus not only forgives our sins but gives us his compassionate heart—not just in how it goes out to us, but his heart dwells within us. That means we can start to feel for others the way Jesus feels for us, not as burdens but as those needing direction and help. The more we dwell on what Jesus has done for us—how he has given us eternal life as a free gift—the more we see people who don’t know this message not as enemies or fools but as scared lost lambs who need help that they might not even realize they need. Even the most violent, boisterous enemy of God’s Word is a soul for whom Jesus died. Even the most brazen and outspoken critic of our faith is someone who needs the loving care of his Good Shepherd.

And most often, God brings that care to people through other people. That means that you experience Jesus’ care most noticeably in the love that God works through the hands of others. That means you are privileged to share this compassionate worldview as you seek to bring God’s message of comfort and peace to those around you.

Be it a pastor or teacher, a dear friend, a brother or sister in the faith, a loving parent, or even a concerned child, God reaches out to us in our moments of need to support us, and he uses us to support others. And this is not meant with the goal of some utopic existence in this life where we all care about and support one another (though that goal is truly noble!). No, God does all of this to point us ahead to the time when we won’t need others to share Jesus’ love with us, nor will we need to share that love with others because we all will see him face-to-face in the perfect courts of heaven.

Until that joyful and highly anticipated day, as you struggle with your frustrations and failures to avoid sin or do what is good, your Savior’s loving heart is a constant. While he may primarily show his love outwardly through other people, you need no intermediary between you and God. You have direct access to your Good Shepherd in prayer. And you know that you will never catch him too tired to help or upset to care. Jesus is for you the perfect Shepherd whose loving heart continues to reach out to you day in and day out.

Rest easy in his promises for you; rest easy that your Shepherd’s heart forever goes out to you. Amen.

"God Gives Us His Authority" (Sermon on Mark 6:7-13) | July 14, 2024

Sermon Text: Mark 6:7–13
Date: July 14, 2024
Event: Proper 10, Year B

Mark 6:7–13 (EHV)

Jesus called the Twelve and began to send them out two by two. He gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8He instructed them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their money belts. 9They were to put on sandals but not to wear two coats. 10He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area. 11Any place that will not receive you or listen to you, as you leave there, shake off the dust that is under your feet as a testimony against them.”

12They went out and preached that people should repent. 13They also drove out many demons. They anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

God Gives Us His Authority

Have you ever been in a position to speak for someone else, someone whose authority level outranked your own? It’s a little surreal. If your boss gives directions for your team but sends you to share the directions, suddenly, you, who are on equal footing in the company with your peers, speak with the boss’s authority. An ambassador is not the leader of a nation. Still, if he interacts with another country, he does so with his homeland's authority and direct commission. The mail carrier doesn’t have the authority to take money from you, but she sure can drop those bills off in your mailbox, can’t she?

Jesus’ authority was something that regularly surprised the crowds. Whereas most religious teaching of the time would have been done through questioning, Jesus made declarative, authoritative statements. His frequent refrain of “Amen, amen!” or “I tell you the truth!” or “Very truly I say to you!” (depending on which English translation you are reading) would have been shocking for many people. Who is this who speaks with such authority?

And it wasn’t just the teaching that had authority. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Jesus’ words have power over nature as he scolded the sea and the storm to be quiet. His words even had power over death as he encouraged a dead, twelve-year-old girl to get up, and her life returned to her as easily as if he had just gotten her up from a nap. Jesus shows his authority over illnesses as he heals people and even over the spiritual realm as he casts unclean spirits out of possessed people.

This morning, we see a slight change in Jesus’ approach. Despite being God, in his state of humiliation, Jesus was only ever in one place at one time. So, logically, sending out several groups of people to teach and preach would reach many more ears much faster, so Jesus called the Twelve and began to send them out two by two. The disciples would go out and do a practice run in pairs to share the good news with the world. This is how it will work after Jesus has completed his work and ascended into heaven, so while Jesus is still with them, he gives them a taste of that work and practice being his messengers. They didn’t just go because they wanted to; Jesus sent them out.

And that is key. Jesus himself, as God, had authority innate to his being. The disciples did not have that. So, Jesus handed it over to them: He gave them authority over the unclean spirits. When the disciples spoke, it would be like Jesus speaking, up to and including giving orders to the demons. Jesus gave his authority to these six pairs of men as they went out.

How people received the disciples in these pairs would directly reflect how they received Jesus. He would make this more explicit when he sent out a broader group of disciples to share his message a little bit later. Then he told his messengers, “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Luke 10:16). The disciples were not just messengers, but they were Jesus’ chosen representatives and ambassadors, entrusted with the crucial task of spreading his message. Listening to them meant listening to him; rejecting them meant rejecting him.

It was indeed an amazing and humbling position for the disciples. Who were they to speak for God? On their own, they were nothing. But because Jesus gave them this authority, they had everything. They were not God, but God sent them out with a very specific purpose, and they humbly accepted this responsibility. They knew they were not speaking with their own authority but Jesus’ authority.

This was not new when Jesus sent out his disciples. This is how God had been working from the beginning. In the history of the world, precious few people have ever heard God speak directly to them or have had a back-and-forth conversation with God. But God has sent messengers, prophets, apostles, evangelists, teachers, and pastors to be his mouthpieces to spread his Word.

Consider our First Reading this morning. The prophet Amos was sent to the Northern Kingdom of Israel with proclamations of judgment—Assyria was coming, and that would be the end. Unsurprisingly, his message was unpopular, especially with Jeroboam, the king, and Amaziah, the false prophet. What was Amos’ response? He didn’t come by his own authority. He was a farmer, tending to the flocks and fig trees when God sent him. Their rejection of the message wasn’t rejecting Amos but God.

In our Second Reading, the apostle Paul gives Pastor Titus qualifications for the elders (a position most like our modern-day pastor). But those qualifications didn’t grant someone authority—these are higher levels of expectations to whom God had given his authoritative message. There, too, they were not reliant on their own abilities, actions, or life status, but as Paul said, God’s representative must cling to the trustworthy message as it has been taught (Titus 1:9).

This remains true in our day. You hear the refrain almost every Sunday morning. A fumbling jar of clay stands in front of you all. We all, together, confess our sins. And then what do I have the audacity to say? “I forgive you all of your sins…” Who am I to forgive the sins you’ve committed against other people and especially against God? The reminder is there in the words just before that declaration: “As a called servant of Christ, and by his authority.” It’s not my or any other human being’s authority that does these things, even as it’s not your own authority that forgives sins with people in your lives. It is Jesus’ authority that he grants to us; it is Jesus’ power that he has put on us; and it is Jesus’ forgiveness that he won for us.

This is what it means to be people called, sent out, and entrusted with the gospel of God’s forgiveness in Jesus. It means that when we speak to others and even as we live our lives, we have a duty, responsibility, and tremendous privilege to be messengers of God’s love for all people. Our lives—what we do, say, and even our attitude and tone—should reflect that we are the children of God, bought with Jesus’s own blood.

And what will be the result of that? Will everyone we share God’s Word with believe it? Will everyone who hears that Jesus loves them and died to forgive them instantly cling to Jesus as their Savior? Well, no, but that also has little to do with you and me and more to do with the sinful world’s response to God’s truth. Jesus did not promise total success to the disciple duos, and as we saw clearly last week in Nazareth, even Jesus himself did not have a flawless track record of people believing the message he taught—far from it, in fact.

So, Jesus gives the disciples (and us) some guidelines on what to do when this all-important message is rejected, “Any place that will not receive you or listen to you, as you leave there, shake off the dust that is under your feet as a testimony against them.” This was not a direction for the disciples to be petty and whiny, throwing a fit as they left a town. This was done in love for the people who rejected them and the message Jesus sent them to share. This was meant as a sign that what the people were doing was dangerous and had real consequences and that they really should reconsider their approach to this message.

You and I know all too well, not just as messengers but as ones being spoken to, how this goes. Have you always been excited to be corrected by God’s representatives? Have you always rejoiced in everything God has ever said in his Word? I know for myself I absolutely have not. I can struggle with this message as my sinful flesh chafes at God’s truth. And so sometimes I need gentle encouragement to realign my thinking; sometimes I need a spiritual 2x4 to smack me across the face to get me to see the error of my ways.

And sometimes, that whole process takes time. I might wrestle with something for hours or days or struggle for years or decades. We are all works in progress and will come to terms with what God has said, done, and expects at our own times and in our own ways. As those hearing the message, we do well to listen even when it feels like grit in our gears; as messengers, we share God’s truths in love, knowing that the message of Jesus crucified and risen is the only thing that can save people from an eternity of suffering in hell and assure them of an eternity of perfection with our Savior God.

You may not be the person God uses to bring that other one to faith. You may be a link in a chain that eventually leads to God creating faith in that person’s heart. Your shaking the dust off your feet may awaken that person to the realization of just how important this all is—not just for now but forever.

And so when you hear God's message, respect it as being sent from God through someone he has given his authority to share with you what you need. And when you are serving in that messenger role, go with the confidence that God has given you his authority by what he’s made known to you in his Word, and patiently, lovingly, gently share the good news about our Savior who has conquered our sin and freely gives the gift of eternal life through faith.

Dear Lord, bless the message of forgiveness wherever it is shared. Open our hearts to be willing to listen to your Word and embolden us to go with your truth—your authority—to share your love with a world that so desperately needs to hear it. Amen.

"Why Do People Reject Good News?" (Sermon on Mark 6:1-6) | July 7, 2024

Sermon Text: Mark 6:1-6
Date: July 7, 2024
Event: Proper 9, Year B

Mark 6:1-6 (EHV)

Jesus left there and went to his hometown. His disciples followed him. 2When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue. Many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did this man learn these things? What is this wisdom that has been given to this man? How is it that miracles such as these are performed by his hands? 3Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

4Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own house.” 5He could not do any miracles there except to lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6He was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went around the villages teaching.

Why Do People Reject Good News?

Have you ever felt nervous asking someone a question or having a necessary conversation with them? I’m going to guess that it was not because you thought they would be too happy to hear what you had to say or too excited to talk about the topic you needed to raise. No, if you delayed or even outright avoided having a conversation, it’s likely because you were nervous about how the other person would respond—and you likely assumed that their response would be negative in some way. Maybe you thought it would make them sad; maybe you thought it would make them angry; maybe you thought they would lash out at you; maybe you thought you wouldn’t find the right words to explain the situation or ask the question accurately.

Regardless, we all know that there are heavy conversations and topics that can be nerve-wracking to bring up. But it can really hurt when something that you think should be good news is interpreted negatively and when something positive is outright rejected.

If you’ve ever tried to share your faith, you might be familiar with this adverse reaction to good news. While we might understand why someone might react poorly to certain things that we think are good news—they don’t like the person you’re now engaged to, they don’t want you to attend that university you were accepted to so far away, they’re concerned what that new job will mean for the family—when it comes to the gospel, this is universally good news! The forgiveness of sins! Eternal life! What is there to be upset about? Why do people reject good news, especially the good news?

Rejection of God’s message is the central theme of our worship this morning. God was clear with the prophet Ezekiel that his message would not be well received. Paul sat in a Roman dungeon as he authored 2 Timothy, imprisoned for the message he shared, facing imminent execution. And Jesus, in our Gospel, went to Nazareth, his hometown, among the people he knew and knew him, and was rejected. These situations are sad and frustrating in their own ways, but we will focus our attention primarily on Jesus’ experience in Nazareth this morning.

Things seem to start well. Jesus takes his disciples back to where he grew up, to Nazareth. Saturday rolls around, and Jesus is in the local synagogue for worship, including teaching. In Luke’s Gospel, if this is the same event, we hear that Jesus read a messianic prophecy from the prophet Isaiah and then declared that this promise of a Savior was fulfilled among them that day. Mark tells us that many who heard him were amazed. Notably, though, amazement is not the same thing as faith.

In fact, Mark tells us that the people of Nazareth took offense at him as he taught and worked (or they at least heard accounts of) miracles. “Where did this man learn these things? What is this wisdom that has been given to this man? How is it that miracles such as these are performed by his hands? Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” And it doesn’t end there. Luke’s Gospel tells us that this contempt would bleed over into rage once Jesus confronted their offense at him with the assurance that this good news would be given to others, to people they might have viewed as lesser, the non-Jewish Gentiles. The people of Nazareth tried to throw him off a cliff.

Why? Why would Jesus’ own people, the people who saw him grow up, the people who perhaps knew him the best, the people who we might expect to be first in line to support this amazing “hometown boy,” why would they be so taken aback and even furious with Jesus? It is said that familiarity breeds contempt, a psychological principle that suggests the more we know someone or something, the more likely we are to find fault with them, which may be what is at play here. They were too familiar with Jesus (or at least who they thought Jesus was), and couldn’t see him as he actually was.

Maybe you’ve experienced this where someone is too familiar with Jesus to care what he says or thinks. Maybe it comes in the form of a child whom you raised at Jesus’ feet and then, as an adult, seems to care little for their Savior. Maybe it comes in the form of a friend who was dedicated to their church and God’s Word, and then something happened to sour them on the whole thing. Maybe it comes from a coworker who knows the pop culture points about Christianity and finds the whole thing so ridiculous (God becoming a man, dying, and then rising from the dead?!) that they reject it.

However, rejection of the gospel message is usually about more than simply familiarity. After all, many of you have known the truth of Jesus’ forgiveness for many decades, yet here you are, prioritizing time at Jesus’ feet and not rejecting what he has to say. What else plays a role in someone rejecting God’s message?

In large part, it’s about agency. We want agency; we want control. We want to be able to say we had a part in something. Maybe it’s in voting for or against that proposition, and the vote went how we wanted it. Maybe it’s in contributions to a group project in school or at work, even if those contributions are mainly in the background—perhaps no one else will know, but we do!

There is a part of everyone that wants to contribute to their eternal well-being and have a role, no matter how small, in the soul’s salvation. Maybe someone wants to think that they decided to believe in Jesus, that this was their choice. Perhaps someone wants to think that their good deeds are why God loves them. At an extreme, perhaps they don’t view their sins and failures as that big of a deal or that God should be happy that they compare pretty well with many other people in the world, their city, and maybe even their own household.

We know there’s no such thing as a free lunch, so when people hear about God’s forgiveness as a gift that we don’t have to and, in fact, cannot contribute to in any way, a large part of our natural selves burns against that. And that friction is present whether you’re hearing the good news for the first time or the millionth time. At the start of the service, we sang “Christ Be My Leader,” but how often isn’t our internal hymn more like, “I’ll take the lead, Lord, and you do as I say”? When we think about what Jesus said and did, perhaps our reaction is more, “Isn’t this the carpenter?” and less, “Thanks be to God!”

All of this forces us to engage in self-reflection. Rather than always thinking about other people’s rejection of God’s good news, we should focus more on how we receive God’s Word. You’re here this morning, yes, but why are you here? Is it because you want to hear what God has done for you or because it’s a habit or an obligation? Whether you’ve been coming to worship Jesus for your whole life or it’s relatively new to you, is there any amount of rejection, apathy, or offense to God’s message in you? Are you excited about everything in the Bible? Is there anything you might have said or done differently if God had consulted with you? Are there parts of God’s Word that you can’t understand, really wrestle with, or flat-out don’t agree with?

To a certain extent, that’s going to be true for everyone. None of us have a perfect understanding of what God has said and done. Because of sin, our wills are not in harmony with God’s, so there will be times when we will find ourselves in conflict with God in our thoughts and desires. How do we find a resolution to that?

The message that our natural selves burn against in the message we so desperately need. The message that the people of Nazareth didn’t want to hear was of the utmost importance for them. The message that so many in our world don’t have time for or think is ridiculous and reject, that message is the solution to the times that we grind against God’s will and Word. Because while we are inclined to think and speak for ourselves and what we want, Jesus never did that. He always obeyed the will of God, up to and including when it was his Father’s will that he suffer that horrible, torturous crucifixion.

He went to that death and faced those physical pains and even greater spiritual suffering, for you, for me, for all the times that we haven’t wanted to listen to him or thought his way was wrong. Jesus paid for every single sin on that cross, which means every time we’ve conflicted with God, those are forgiven; every time we’ve been in church for the wrong reasons, those are purified; and every time we’ve neglected his Word, and will in our lives, those are buried in the depths, never to be seen again.

We are forgiven for the times we have rejected the message that we are forgiven. It’s a bit recursive, but that is the total completeness of God’s forgiveness. He doesn’t take offense at us like the people of Nazareth took at him. He doesn’t treat our rejection or struggles as the “last straw,” so he draws back his love and forgiveness from us. No, even if he is amazed at our unbelief as he was that day in Nazareth, he still forgives us, as he did for those in his hometown. He went to the cross to bear the sin of rejection his neighbors in Nazareth committed, even as he went to bear the sin of rejection that you and I so often commit.

With encouragement and fire in our souls, what is your feeling about sharing your faith? Is there fear that sharing what you believe, inviting someone to church, or even just living your life in thanksgiving to God will mean rejection by those around you? It might. It often did for Jesus, so it should not be surprising when it happens to us. But that is not a reason not to do those things.

Rejection will come, but the message of Jesus being crucified and rising from the dead solves that rejection in ourselves and others. Bring them to Jesus; drag yourself to his cross and empty tomb. This is good news that we should not reject; this is good news of great joy that is for all people. We have peace with God, whether or not we’ve always wanted to acknowledge that. We are forgiven; our Savior will never reject us. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Where Does Your Power Originate?" (Sermon on 2 Corinthians 4:7-15) | June 30, 2024

Sermon Text: 2 Corinthians 4:7-15
Date: June 30, 2024
Event: Proper 8, Year B

2 Corinthinthians 4:7-15 (EHV)

We hold this treasure in clay jars to show that its extraordinary power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not despairing; 9persecuted, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11To be sure, while we are living we are continually being handed over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh. 12So then, death is working in us, but life is working in you.

13Since we have that same spirit of faith, which corresponds to what is written: “I believed; therefore, I have spoken,” we also believe, and therefore we speak. 14For we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and bring us (together with you) into his presence. 15In fact, all this is for your benefit, so that as grace increases, it will overflow to the glory of God, as more and more people give thanks. 

Where Does Your Power Originate?

If you’ve spent any time with books, movies, or video games in the genres of fantasy or science fiction (or even a blend of the two), you’re probably familiar with the idea of a character who had great, perhaps even untapped power. Maybe the antagonist seems to always have a trick up his sleeve, some hidden power reserve that the hero wasn’t aware of, some backup plan to his backup plan.

Depending on how these things are presented, they can either be suspenseful and intriguing plot developments, or they can be eye-rolling moments that feel like lazy writing to prolong a conflict that should have been resolved already. And it’s not just the antagonist, either. The hero of the story can pull out some power or plan seemingly out of nowhere, and if it wasn’t at least hinted at or foreshadowed in some way, it could feel like something that comes out of left field. Did that magician really have a secret stash of power he wasn’t using until the last possible moment? Did Batman really have even that tool tucked away in his utility belt? How did that warrior find the strength to overcome the forces of evil when he had been essentially left for dead?

The source of strength and power is important because it can determine how beneficial it is. Outside of the realm of fiction, if I put batteries in a flashlight to go out at night, it’s pretty important to know the quality of those batteries, their age, the amount they may have been used beforehand, etc. Going far from home at night with a flashlight with old or depleted batteries is not wise.

When we face challenges in life, we are often taught to look inward and to find our strength internally. Breathe right, eat right, exercise right, think right, and things will be better. And surely, there’s a lot of benefit in those things. But often, if we look inside ourselves for strength to face difficulties in life or to address a guilty conscience, we will be left really, really wanting.

Paul is very aware of that in our Second Reading this morning. Here, in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, he’s reflecting on the difference between the power of the gospel and the difficulties he and his companions have had in their ministries. They have faced opposition from the Jewish people who thought they were traitors to their people, from Gentiles who thought the message of Jesus was insane, from false teachers seeking to undermine the message of the gospel, from government leaders who didn’t care for him, from business owners who thought this message would impact their livelihood. The list goes on and on. Some said that he wasn’t impressive enough, that he wasn’t trustworthy. But still, Paul did not resort to “shameful, underhanded methods” (2 Corinthians 4:2) to spread the gospel. No, he sticks to the message entrusted to him.

In fact, he doesn’t really even defend himself or make an argument for why people should listen to him and not those who were set against him. He doesn’t lash out with a stern retelling of how Jesus specifically called him on that road to Damascus, plucked him out of his pharisaical persecution of Christians, and set him on the path to be his apostle. No, this hand-selected messenger for Jesus doesn’t boast about himself. In fact, how does he describe himself and his fellow gospel ministers? As clay jars.

That’s not complimentary. If you want something to endure and last, you make it out of stone, or metal, or even wood. But clay? Clay is almost temporary, almost disposable.

So why does Paul use such a self-deprecating picture to talk about himself and his coworkers? While his opponents boasted in themselves, in their own flashiness and ability to wow audiences, Paul says that their apparent weakness is actually a strength because it shows where the real power comes from: We hold this treasure in clay jars to show that its extraordinary power is from God and not from us.

Death is the ultimate moment of powerlessness. The dead person can do nothing to help himself, and often, there is precious little those around the person can do to try to intervene and help. I find it difficult to put myself in Jarius’ place in our Gospel without becoming overly anxious. A child at home, sick and near death. And what our Gospel for this morning skipped over is that Jesus was delayed by the crowds from getting to their home. And then, the ultimate heartbreak comes: before they even get to the house, messengers come to let Jairus know that the child has died. Why trouble Jesus anymore? There was nothing anyone could do now.

Or so it seemed. Jesus addressed that fear head-on: “Don’t be afraid. Only believe” (Mark 5:36). In what was the worst possible scenario, Jesus solves it with just a simple command, “Talitha, koum!” “Little girl, get up!” In my mind, Jesus says that with a smile and all the gentleness of a loving adult comforting a child, not so much a command but an invitation. Yet, in that gentle phrase is the power over death itself.

Of course, the power is not in the words, is it? No, I could go to morgues and funerals and cemeteries my entire life speaking those words—even in Aramaic!—and no one would return from death to life. The power is not the words themselves but the one who spoke them. Jesus, who created the universe, has power and command over his creation. We saw it last week as he rebuked the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and it stopped. Here, we see an even more impressive display of his power as he defeats death itself, not just calming some rowdy waters.

Last week, we journeyed with the writer of Psalm 42 through depression. We saw and learned from him how we might combat some of those misguided thoughts and feelings by focusing on God's promises. And here, the apostle Paul gives us a very specific example. Why might God allow trials and hardships in our lives? He has promised that one of the things he will do through those hardships is remind us where our strength truly lies, not in ourselves but in God.

You would expect clay jars that are assaulted and battered around to break. Try dropping a vase from just two feet in the air onto a tile floor; that won’t end well for the pottery. But what happens to the clay jars of Christians, and even gospel ministers, when they are besieged? We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not despairing; persecuted, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. To be sure, while we are living we are continually being handed over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh.

Paul viewed his sufferings and weakness as a component of preaching Jesus. After all, Jesus didn’t look all that powerful on the cross, did he? And yet the one who calmed storms and raised the dead with a word showed his ultimate power at that cross. Because there, as he hung suspended between heaven and earth, he suffered hell for our sins; there, he defeated sin and Satan for us. And if Jesus’ time with Jairus’ daughter wasn’t enough to demonstrate his power over death, he himself rose from the dead on the third day, proving his victory over every one of our enemies.

And so, what does that mean for us? It means knowing where our power really comes from—not from inside us, but God’s power working in us. For we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and bring us (together with you) into his presence. We do not defeat death; we do not rid ourselves of sin. Jesus does that. He has completely rescued us, you and me, who were utterly helpless. Clay jars that we are, we see that we are completely and eternally protected by God’s love for us, which he promised.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that things will always be great in our lives. Things weren’t great for Paul and his companions, but still, he saw God working good through that. In fact, all this is for your benefit, so that as grace increases, it will overflow to the glory of God, as more and more people give thanks. Paul saw his sufferings and hardships as being to God’s glory and to the benefit of sharing the good news of Jesus’ forgiveness. The result is that God would work faith in more people, and then more people would be rejoicing in his forgiveness and eternal life, and they, in turn, would tell others, despite the hardships that might come their way.

Paul revisits this theme later in 2 Corinthians as he talks about his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7), which was some ailment, likely physical, that he begged God to take away. But Jesus answered him that the difficulty would not be removed. Jesus explained that this hardship made clear his power and his grace, his love, for Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, because my power is made perfect in weakness,” to which Paul responded: Therefore I will be glad to boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may shelter me. That is why I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For whenever I am weak, then am I strong. (2 Corinithnas 12:9-10).

My dear brothers and sisters, whenever God allows trials in your life that force you to acknowledge your inability to fix them and to see your weakness in stark relief, you have true power. Because that is when you stop relying on your strength, skill, and power and instead fall completely in God’s embracing, loving power for you. Martin Luther is recorded as having once observed, “God both loves and hates our afflictions. He loves them when they provoke us to prayer. He hates them when we are driven to despair by them.”

My dear fellow clay jars, do not let the trials of this life drive you to despair. Remember where your power comes from—from God, and from God alone. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not despairing; persecuted, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed.

We may have all sorts of trials here, but those will all end when Jesus brings us home to eternal life with him. And until that day, he stands by our side with his power. The one who raised the dead, and more than that, died and rose, can certainly guide any hardship in your life for your eternal good. That is what he has promised, so that is exactly what will happen. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Why Are You So Depressed, O My Soul?" (Sermon on Psalm 42) | June 23, 2024

Sermon Text: Psalm 42
Date: June 23, 2024
Event: Proper 7, Year B

Psalm 42 (EHV)

For the choir director. A maskil by the Sons of Korah.

As a doe pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and appear before God?
3My tears have been food for me day and night,
while people are saying to me all day,
“Where is your God?”
4I am overcome by my emotions
whenever I remember these things:
how I used to arrive with the crowd,
as I led the procession to the house of God,
with loud shouts of thanksgiving,
with the crowd celebrating the festival.  

5Why are you so depressed, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I will again praise him
for salvation from his presence.  

6My God, my soul is depressed within me.
Therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan,
from the heights of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7Deep calls to deep in the roar of your rapids.
All your breakers and your waves have swept over me.
8By day the Lord commands his mercy,
and at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life.
9I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go around mourning because of oppression by the enemy?”
10It is like breaking my bones when my foes taunt me.
All day long they say to me, “Where is your God?”  

11Why are you so depressed, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I will again praise him
for my salvation from the face of my God.

Why Are You So Depressed, O My Soul?

You might not have been there or experienced anything like it, but we can probably work to empathize with the psalm writer this morning. He sits in a foreign land, Babylon, cut off from not only his home and the home of his ancestors but also the land that God had promised to give them. Jerusalem, the city where God had said he was going to place his name, had been conquered, and the temple, the great reminder of God’s presence with them in stone, wood, and precious materials, lies a ruin after the destruction of the Babylonian army.

So now, the inspired poet pours out his heart and soul to God. He’s not just homesick, he’s engulfed in a profound sense of hopelessness. There is no temple, tabernacle, or place to focus his worship. He cries out in despair, but it must feel like shouting into the void. Is anyone listening? Does anyone care? If God did care, why is he letting these things happen?

He knows the reasons for all of this. God had been clear through the prophets that the Israelites, his people, had been unfaithful to him for generations. There had been bright spots occasionally, yes, but on the whole, things had been bad. Many people in Israel, from the least to the most powerful, had dedicated themselves to worshiping false gods—the fertility gods of Baal and Asherah, but also, in extreme cases, horrendous gods like Molech, who demanded the sacrifice of children in fire.

The psalm writer repeatedly asks himself a question in this psalm: “Why are you so depressed, O my soul?” The answer seems pretty obvious. “Why? Because things are bad—really, really bad. They seem to be getting worse, and there seems to be no way out. So what is left but depression-fueled despair?”

We have the theme of storms running through our readings for this morning. Be it literal, natural storms on the Sea of Galilee for the disciples and on the Mediterranean for the apostle Paul, to what we might call the storms of life that Job and the psalm writer endure. Being trapped in a storm, literally or figuratively, is a totally helpless feeling. If you’ve never been on a boat amid a raging storm, perhaps you’ve been driving a car in rough weather, slipping on ice, or losing control hydroplaning on a rain-drenched road. Things go really badly quickly, and you feel utterly powerless to do anything. You can’t control the wind and the waves; once the tires have lost contact with the road surface, braking, steering, or acceleration will make little difference.

Is that what your life feels like? Do you feel like you're flying down the highway in a vehicle spinning wildly out of control? Do you crave help, care, direction, and stability but feel there is none? My dear Christian, you are not alone.

The psalm writer is reflecting on the past. The loss of what he thought he would always have is overwhelming. I am overcome by my emotions whenever I remember these things: how I used to arrive with the crowd, as I led the procession to the house of God. Over and over again, he replays what it was like to worship God in Solomon’s glorious temple. He was even a leader of that worship, and now that’s all gone. He sits in this foreign land, cut off from everything he held dear.

But as these thoughts fester and accumulate, the psalmist tries to correct course: Why are you so depressed, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I will again praise him for salvation from his presence. Things feel really bad, and everything is different than he hoped for. He can easily feel cut off from God, but he reminds himself that his relationship with God has not changed. God still loves and cares about him. This is a powerful reminder for us in our own times of despair and distress.

Consider something very similar in our Gospel for this morning. The disciples fight the storm, and an exhausted Jesus sleeps in the stern. Their cry comes to Jesus amid fear and panic: “Don’t you care that we are about to drown?” (Mark 4:38). Well, what’s the answer? Of course, Jesus cares! But it sure didn’t look or feel like it when the storm threatened to destroy the boat, and it seemed their lives were forfeit. After showing his ultimate control over nature, Jesus asks his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still lack faith?” (Mark 4:40).

In our Second Reading, Paul has bad and good news for his shipmates. There would be no calming of this storm. The ship would be torn to pieces, and the cargo would be lost. But God had assured Paul that the lives of everyone aboard were safe. Paul said to those on the ship with him: “But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because there will be no loss of life among you…. last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me… So keep up your courage, men, because I believe God that it will be exactly the way I have been told” (Acts 27:22-26). In other words, “Things are going to go from bad to worse, but I belong to God and know that he will do exactly as he promised.”

The psalm writer continues battling his thoughts and emotions in our psalm for this morning. He acknowledges to God what he is feeling; even for himself, he validates his emotions and acknowledges that they are real. But he also sees that his thoughts and feelings are not the be-all, end-all of reality. My God, my soul is depressed within me. Therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan… Depression grips him, but he turns his attention away from the inward, downward spiral and towards the promises of God, remembering what God has said and done.

The fears and concerns of this life sap our energy physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So where do we find rest? We thirst for God like a parched deer desperately seeking out a stream of water. We must look outside ourselves and find hope not in what things feel like or how we consider our present circumstances but in the God who made us.

The psalm writer’s work has a lot of similarities to modern therapeutic treatment. A therapist or counselor will encourage people to examine their thoughts and see what can be modified. For example, if I am overwhelmed by the thoughts that I am a failure to those depending on me or my work is an unproductive disaster, I can start challenging those thoughts. “Is that real or just what I’m thinking? Is it actually as bad as it feels, or is there some nuance there? What if I changed the way I’m thinking about this situation?” If I change my thoughts by acknowledging where there are distortions, often my emotions follow along.

But we Christians can take this even one massive step further. We don’t have to rely on the hope that probably things won’t be as bad as we think they might be. We have God's firm and certain promises. The one who gives these promises calmed a raging storm with just a word; he is trustworthy.

What has God promised you? And what would Satan want you to forget or doubt? To be clear, God has not promised a happy-go-lucky life. Jesus was clear that life in this world would mean bearing crosses. The thought that the life of a Christian should be easy and smooth is a vicious lie that seeks to undermine us and our faith in our weakest moments. No, God did not say there would be no distressful days in our lives, but he did promise, “Call on me in the day of distress. I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (Psalm 50:15).

There will always be deliverance from troubles, even if it “only” comes in eternal life. Sometimes, God has decided to let the trouble we’re experiencing remain. But it’s never because he’s angry at us, doesn’t like us, or has left us. In some way, God is working that trouble for good. I would dare not speculate this morning about what good God is working through your specific troubles, but that is perhaps a good question to ponder for yourself. Instead of weeping and wailing, “Why won’t you take this away, Lord? Why are you letting this happen to me?” perhaps we do better to focus on the question, “What good might the Lord work through this temporary or permanent hardship?” And perhaps even follow up those thoughts with a prayer, asking God to help you to see the good he’s working, if that is his will.

Satan would have you see trouble as God forgetting you, holding out on you, or even hating you. But my dear sisters and brothers, this is not the case, no matter how real it may feel or how intrusive the thoughts are. Let’s zero in on a few more promises of God that remain true no matter what we’re thinking or feeling:

God is with you and is powerful enough to control things for your good. God will not give up on you; you will make it through this, and it will end well.  He promises through the apostle Paul in Romans 8: We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose… If God is for us, who can be against us? Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him? (Romans 8:28, 31-32).

Sin has consequences, but whether it’s the result of my or others’ sin, the consequences do not indicate that God is done with me. In fact, God will never be “done” with me because Jesus bought me with his blood; he paid the whole price for my sins. God’s comfort rings out through the promise of a Savior in Isaiah: 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 (Isaiah 53:5-6).

You are not a victim of your circumstances but a conqueror through your Savior, Jesus. Again, Romans 8: What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35, 37-39).

Why are you so depressed, O my soul? To one degree or another, we all ask this question regularly. Why are you so down? What is so grievous that things cannot be fixed? But on the really bad days, we might not even get that far. We might not feel able to challenge those thoughts and feelings. Everything can feel dark and hopeless.

Martin Luther struggled with depression regularly. At a particularly low time for him, his wife, Katie, came to where he was; she was dressed completely in black. Luther took notice of his wife’s attire and asked if she was going to a funeral. “Well,” Katie said, “you were so down that I figured the only possible explanation was that God had died, and we all should be in mourning.” That helped to snap Luther out of it and focus on the promises God had made and the things he had done.

The truth is, God did die, but that doesn’t produce despair; it brings joy and confident hope. The bloody cross means you have no eternal reason to be down. While God did die on that Good Friday, he did not stay dead. He conquered your sin on that cross and rose to prove that he is the victor and to show that nothing, no trouble or sadness or sin, could ever separate us from him. Drag yourself to Golgatha to see your Savior abandoned by his Father for you. Claw your way to the garden tomb, and even if tears cloud your eyes like they did for Mary, see the tomb where they laid him, empty; see your Savior alive and well in front of you.

And maybe this isn’t your struggle. Maybe it’s not something you deal with regularly. Or maybe you, at least, have times of respite and relief. Then, you can serve others by bringing them to Jesus yet again. You might not have answers or solutions, and you might not have any way to calm someone’s anxiety, bring peace to their panic, or uplift their downcast heart, but you can share Jesus and his love with them. You can remind them of the promises of God and lift up their eyes to the one who saved them from their sins and will bring them to eternal life.

In good days, but especially in troubling ones, hold on to the psalm writer’s question and direction: Why are you so depressed, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I will again praise him for my salvation from the face of my God. Things will work out for your good, and God will give you the strength to endure the sorrows of this life. God has promised, and so it will be. Amen.

"The Gospel Bears Fruit" (Sermon on Colossians 1:3-8) | June 16, 2024

Sermon Text: Colossians 1:3-8
Date: June 16, 2024
Event: Proper 6, Year B

Colossians 1:3-8 (EHV)

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints 5because of the hope that is stored up for you in heaven. You have already heard about this in the word of truth, the gospel 6that is present with you now. The gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the entire world, just as it also has been doing among you from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth. 7You learned this from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. 8He is the one who told us about your love in the Spirit.

The Gospel Bears Fruit

Do you ever look around our little congregation on a Sunday morning and get a bit discouraged? Maybe it’s not even discouraged, but maybe it’s worry that comes across your heart. Almost 10 million people in the Bay Area, and our congregation’s membership normally hovers around 100 souls. Even when church is full, relatively speaking, we are tiny. What does that say about us? What does that say about God’s work in this world?

A few weeks ago, we celebrated the Day of Pentecost, and we saw the Holy Spirit’s arrival with power. But the main show of that power wasn’t in the sound of a rushing wind, tongues of fire, or sudden fluency in foreign languages for the disciples. The far greater miracle came later but also looked much more subtle. At the preaching of Peter and the others, three thousand people who had not believed in Jesus as their Savior left that day clinging to him by faith. That change of heart miracle, while perhaps not very flashy, was the most amazing thing to happen that day.

In our Gospel, Jesus compared the gospel's spread with seed being scattered on the ground. Seeds don’t look impressive. In fact, they seem to share more in common with pebbles than they do with anything powerful. Yet, what happens when you plant a seed in the ground with adequate water, sunlight, and nutrients in the soil? The seed sprouts, and a full-fledged plant grows up. Maybe it produces beautiful flowers or plants that are useful for nourishing the body. From this rather unremarkable start comes aesthetic beauty or, even more importantly, life-sustaining blessings from God.

This is the picture that Paul is working with when he speaks about the gospel with the Colossians. At the time Paul wrote to them, the Christians in the city of Colossae were besieged by false teachers. A popular false teaching distorted Jesus’ work and the comfort God wanted for his people. This teaching often focused people on the Old Testament ceremonial worship laws, saying that you had to follow them to benefit from Jesus’ death. These false teachers were adding works to God’s message of grace.

And from the outside, these false teachers may have appeared to have a point. This false teaching appealed to that part of every human being that wants to play some part, even if it’s very small, in our salvation. Also, Paul would not have looked very impressive. He was writing while under house arrest in Rome, so someone might mistakenly come to the conclusion that Paul’s incarceration was a sign of God’s displeasure with his teaching and God’s approval of these other teachers who were distorting the truth.

But Paul, even in these introductory verses of this brief letter, encourages the Colossians to look to God’s work for confidence and comfort: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints 5because of the hope that is stored up for you in heaven. You have already heard about this in the word of truth, the gospel 6that is present with you now. The gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the entire world, just as it also has been doing among you from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth.” Paul doesn’t direct them to himself. He doesn’t point them to their own congregation for comfort. No, he wants the Colossians to take a holistic view of the work of God around them—around the world.

Let’s go back to our observations around us. We had our district convention earlier this week. These conventions serve a lot of purposes, but a huge focus is to give an update on the work of our church body as a whole. One of the statistics we heard in the reports was that in North America, membership in WELS churches is around 300,000 people. On the one hand, that’s a lot of people, but on the other hand, when I was growing up, that number always hovered around 400,000. That’s quite a drop-off. What does that make you think about God’s work or the health of the gospel? Do statistics like that leave you comforted or worried?

What is God doing? What is his plan? We might ask that about our work as a congregation or a church body. Paul might have asked that from the captivity he found himself in. The Colossians might have asked those questions as false teachers came trouncing all over the truth. Just what is God doing?

And, in a way, that question is starting to point in the right direction. What is God doing? Not, “What are we doing?” We do well to remember that the spread of the gospel is primarily God’s work, not ours. We are the ones scattering the seed while God makes it grow.

But we can take too much on ourselves. We can easily put ourselves in the place of God and say, “No, we need to do this work because we are on our own. Without us, God’s message will disappear!” A look at smaller congregations, shrinking church bodies, and nationally diminishing interest in Christianity can all lead to this line of thought, making us consider ourselves more important than we are. This line of thinking is often fueled by worry rather than trust.

Let’s take a moment to review some of the promises that God has made. He promised that his Word would never return to him empty but would do exactly what he sent it to do (Isaiah 55:10-11). He promised that his words would not disappear until he fulfilled every promise (Matthew 5:18). He promised that we don’t need large crowds to have his presence with us, that just two or three gathered together means he is present, and that he will not leave us even as individuals (Matthew 18:20; 28:20). Note who is doing the action in all of these promises: God, not us.

If we try to take on the responsibilities God has reserved for himself, we’re in trouble. And really, this is a summary of the entire gospel message, right? What is the message of the gospel? Jesus as Savior; not you, not me. My sacrifice and suffering don’t pay for my sins; only Jesus can and did do that. I can’t make myself believe or even choose to believe in Jesus as my Savior; only the Holy Spirit can and did do that. My entire spiritual health and eternal safety relies on God and on God alone.

And so it should be for our work as messengers of the gospel. We do well to see ourselves as mouthpieces sharing what God has done; we do well to see that God is the one doing the real work. And like a gardener watching the seeds sprout and plants begin to grow, we can look at the results of God’s actions. As Paul encouraged the Colossians, stop and notice that the gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the entire world, just as it also has been doing among you from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth.

While we don’t want to be focused on just the numbers, sometimes taking a step back and seeing the fruits of gospel ministry that God does let us see is worthwhile. Remember earlier when I said the North American membership in WELS churches is down to about 300,000? Well, the number of souls reached by our world mission work is at about 300,000—and growing! That means that sometime soon, the number of people reached with the gospel by our work outside of North America will be larger than that reached within our “home” borders. Praise God for the fruits of the gospel, that the message of Jesus as Savior is spreading far and wide!

What about our own work? We can take a peek at the statistics for our congregation’s webpage and see some interesting things. Do you know how many visits we’ve had from within California in the last month? About 350. Do you know how many people checked out our worship and education schedule? About 10-15.

But do you know how many visits we’ve had in total in the last month? Over 5500. Clearly, we don’t have 5500 people scrambling to attend worship with us in person each month. What is driving that traffic? Our archive of sermons and our clear confession of faith we have posted. And, in a way that almost seems to mirror our synod’s work as a whole, only a little over 40% of the traffic to our website came from North America. The rest came from across the world—the Philippines, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and England, to name a few.

I can assure you that the sermons on our website are not popular because they are so masterfully written—because they are not. But they are a tool God uses to share his truths with people worldwide, even from our little outpost here in God’s mission fields.

Where God sends his gospel, there will be fruit. What will the fruit look like? It may be a Penetcost-like mass conversation of a whole group of people. More likely, it will be the simple sustaining of the faith that God has given to his people—a remnant in this world—and the slow, individual, one-by-one leading of the sheep who are outside into his sheep pen.

And what about those times that we’ve worried that this might all disappear, where we haven’t trusted God to do the work he promised to do? Well, for that there is forgiveness. The very message we proclaim—that Jesus paid for all the sins of the whole world—assures you and me that we are forgiven for this worry and lack of proper focus and perspective.

So, my brothers and sisters, see the fruits the gospel is producing. Look around you and see the other people who are here this morning and care about God’s Word and his message of forgiveness. That only happens because God makes it happen. Rejoice that we are not alone, but join many within our church body and within the holy Christian church at large rejoicing in God’s forgiveness and looking forward to eternal life with him. And let us go out with confidence, both as a congregation and as individuals, to share this glorious good news of sins forgiven in Jesus and see God bring about that fruit through us.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Jesus Is Greater than Satan’s Cunning" (Sermon on Genesis 3:8-15) | June 9, 2004

Sermon Text: Genesis 3:8-15
Date: June 9, 2024
Event: Proper 5, Year B

Genesis 3:8-15 (EHV)

They heard the voice of the Lord God, who was walking around in the garden during the cooler part of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

9The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

10The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.”

11God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

12The man said, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

13The Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14The Lord God said to the serpent:

Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than all the livestock,
and more than every wild animal.
You shall crawl on your belly,
and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
15I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.
He will crush your head,
and you will crush his heel.  

Jesus Is Greater than Satan’s Cunning

If you’re in a conflict, you want to come from a position of strength, not weakness. For a court date, you want the facts and evidence to support your side of the case. If you’re the leader of an army fighting a battle, you want to ensure you have numbers or strategy in your favor. In any conflict, you want to ensure you’re on the side that is more likely to win.

On that day long ago in the Garden of Eden, it sure would have seemed like Adam and Eve were on the side more likely to win as a conflict with Satan arose. After all, they had been created by God in his own image. They had perfect harmony with him. Though they had free will, they knew and understood God’s commands and desires for them. How could they lose? They were God’s special creatures, the crown of his newly created, expansive universe. There was no better position to be in!

But then the questions started coming, “Did God really say…?” Eve was too willing to listen to Satan’s questions, and nearby, Adam was too willing to let them talk. The moment Satan started questioning what God had said and later God’s care and concern for them, Adam and Eve should have cut it off right there. But, Satan found a crack in the armor and turned up the pressure. He accused God of lying to them, of holding out on them, and that what God forbade was actually good for them. They should eat the fruit from the tree God told them not to eat. Only good things would come of it!

Except Satan is the father of lies. And this first lie recorded in Scripture was a doozy because it roped Adam and Eve into its trap. Before long, they ate some of the fruit, which was off-limits to them. And in that moment, as sin entered the world through our first parents, everything changed.

The change was instantaneous; Satan’s mission was wildly successful. Previously, Adam and Eve had enjoyed being together as they were created. After they sinned, the first thing they noticed was that they were naked and felt shame, so they hastily used leaves to make impromptu garments.

But the real tragedy came in the first verse of our First Reading for this morning. They heard the voice of the Lord God, who was walking around in the garden during the cooler part of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. They had been created in God’s image to have perfect harmony and fellowship with God. Sin destroyed that. So now, instead of joy at God making his presence known, they hide from him. Sin replaced the harmonious fellowship Adam and Eve had with God and replaced it with fear. And rightly so. They had disobeyed God’s clear, simple command and would now face the consequences for what happened.

But see God’s patience and his love. He seeks out Adam and Eve. “Where are you?” It’s not that God didn’t know, but he was giving our first parents the chance to repent, to come to him and express their sorrow over what they had done. But instead of repentance, there was blame. Adam blamed Eve and then even had the audacity to blame God for the sin; Eve, in turn, blamed the serpent, Satan.

God is not fooled by their blame game. It’s not as if the pointing fingers make him forget that he needs to deal with this sin in his people. He will get there. But he does draw his attention first to Satan with words that will have a tremendous impact on Adam and Eve and you and me.

The Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the livestock, and more than every wild animal. You shall crawl on your belly, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. I’m not sure what snakes looked like in God’s original creation, but here is where they get their form that we are familiar with. A whole order of animals faced the effects of Satan choosing their form to bring sin into God’s perfect creation.

But verse 15 is the real focus for this morning. It speaks not only to Satan but to all people as well, and if you permit me, we’ll spend a few moments with this amazing verse: I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel. 

Speaking directly to Satan, God promises hostility (or you might have the word “enmity” floating in your mind from other English translations) between Satan and Eve. But this hostility goes beyond just Satan and Eve, it will be between Satan’s seed and Eve’s seed. Satan’s and Eve’s descendants would be at each other’s throats. But who are their descendants? Angels, including fallen angels like Satan, do not reproduce.

The seed of Satan are all those who follow his path, who take his bait. In those first few moments between their sin and God’s intervention, Adam and Eve were both the seed of Satan. They were those who followed Satan and faced the same condemnation that he faced: hell. They were spiritually dead. To use more familiar language, they were unbelievers.

The seed of Eve would be believers, those clinging to God’s promises in faith. But there is no promise to cling to in this unique moment in the Garden of Eden. So God wastes no time in making the promise: He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.  The promise of seed shifts from plural to singular, from all seed to one particular seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel. God is speaking about one singular descendant from Eve. This is the first promise of a Savior.

There are two promises here. First, someone is coming to crush Satan’s head. Secondly, Satan will crush this person’s heel. If you’ve ever had a heel injury, you know it is wildly unpleasant. It hurts to walk; every step is a reminder of that injury, and there’s really no way to avoid the pain and reality of what has happened.

As painful and annoying as a heel injury is, though, we’d all much prefer a crushed heel over a crushed head. A crushed head isn’t painful and annoying; it’s the end of your life. A crushed head is complete defeat. If, in a battle, one person has their heel crushed and another has their head crushed, the one who suffered the crushed heel, while injured, is the victor.

This first promise of the Savior takes us right to Golgatha, to the cross. We don’t have the vivid details that would come in later promises through the prophets, but the outcome is certain, even in this foggy, somewhat vague first promise. The promised Savior is the victor. He will crush Satan’s head while suffering a real but not defeating injury.

Jesus foreshadowed what was coming throughout his ministry. Time and time again, he rebukes evil spirits, the fallen angels, the cohorts of Satan. When he speaks, they must obey. They scream in terror at facing the Son of God because they know his authority over them.

But the real crushing battle took place at the cross. Jesus’ “heel” is severely wounded as he suffers unimaginable physical torture before the Sanhedrin, Pontius Pilate, and the crucifixion. And that’s to say nothing of the even worse spiritual torment he endured, as all the world’s sins were placed on him, and he suffered the hell that Adam and Eve’s first sin and our many sins since deserve. God abandoned him. “Eli, lama sabachthani?” “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45).

That dark Good Friday looked like the roles were reversed. As Jesus hung lifelessly on the cross and then his body was placed in the tomb, it looked like Jesus had been doing the heel-crushing and Satan had accomplished the head-crushing.

But as the women went to the tomb that Sunday morning, the reality was made clear. The angel’s question implies it, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” The vacant tomb points at it. But Jesus’ appearances thereafter proved it. Jesus walked away from that horrible battle the victor. To use Jesus’ words from our Gospel, Jesus has walked into Satan’s home, tied him up, and then plundered him. Satan lost that battle with Jesus completely. Jesus crushed his head. There were no cunning, crafty questions to bring, no sweet-sounding lies to put forward. Satan lost; Jesus won—end of story.

What does that mean for us? The same thing it meant for Adam and Eve. We have sinned, yes; we deserve God’s punishment, yes; we will face difficulties, trials, and chastisements in this life because of our sins. But Jesus won the victory for us. He ensured that our sins were forgiven because he took them upon himself.

Satan’s whole goal in the Garden of Eden was to ruin what God made. His jealousy over mankind’s relationship with God and God’s power led him to the tree that day. But in the end, God was the victor.

There will come a day when we will no longer be in this world of sin and decay, when our sinful nature will no longer pull us to disobey God. No, there we will have the full restoration of the image of God within us; there, we will have perfect harmony and fellowship with God forever. It will be ours because Jesus gives it to us as a free gift.

We are in the midst of a very real battle in this life, but Jesus is greater than all the cunning tricks of Satan. My dear brothers and sisters, you do not need to be afraid. Jesus has rescued you. You are safe with him. He has crushed Satan’s head so that you can spend eternity with him. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Rest Is God's Eternal Blessing" (Sermon on Deuteronomy 5:12-15) | June 2, 2024

Sermon Text: Deuteronomy 5:12–15
Date: June 2, 2024
Event: Proper 4, Year B

Deuteronomy 5:12–15 (EHV)

Observe the Sabbath day by setting it apart as holy, just as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you are to serve and perform all of your regular work, but the seventh day is a sabbath rest to the Lord your God. You are not to do any regular work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock or the alien who resides inside your gates, in order that your male servant and your female servant may rest like you. Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the day of rest.

Rest Is God’s Eternal Blessing

This week I came across a brief video of a guy bragging about being awake, working at 2am because he was dedicated. The implication was that other people were weak for sleeping … or something? I’m not sure. I didn’t pay much attention to it because it seemed kind of bonkers. Because, after all, rest is important. Ask any parent of a newborn how important it is to get some rest whenever you can because the baby’s arrival means a complete upheaval to your sleep patterns.

Now, are there times when you need to buckle down and get things done, be it that essay for school, that report for work, or setting the house back in order after a long day? Sure. But perhaps with slightly better time management and flexible priorities, you can both get things done that need to be done when they need to be done and get the proper amount of rest. Taking care of your body’s physical needs is not a foolish weakness; it’s a wise strength.

And this is not just some modern worldly wisdom that people have come up with after years of study and observation. These are truths that God, in his infinite wisdom, built into creation and emphasized repeatedly in his Word. God designed the world so that day and night would divide each day into working time and resting time. When Elijah was falling into the pit of despair and depression, God didn’t try to reason with him. He tells him first to sleep and eat and then sleep some more. Even Jesus, as true man, grew tired and often withdrew from the crowds to rest. At one point, he was so exhausted that he was sleeping through a massive storm on the Sea of Galilee while in the stern of the boat!

So important was rest that God even built it into the Ten Commandments. It wasn't just about taking a nap or spending time with the family. God had a very specific, spiritual reason for this command. Through it, he worked great blessings for his people then, and he continues to work for us today.

Our First Reading this morning is taken from the book of Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law to the generation who would inherit the Promised Land after they wandered in the wilderness for forty years because of the previous generation’s lack of trust in God’s promises. But when God originally gave this command to his people right after their rescue from Egypt, he included this detail and explanation: For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. In this way the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy (Exodus 20:11).

So the origins of this rest command take us all the way back to the very beginning, to creation. In the book of Genesis, at the end of the initial account of the creation of the universe, God explains the seventh day this way: The heavens and the earth were finished, along with everything in them. On the seventh day God had finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had been doing. God blessed the seventh day and set it apart as holy, because on it he rested from all his work of creation that he had done (Genesis 2:1-3).

We get a better understanding of what God is commanding in this Sabbath day command when we know what he’s basing it on. God wasn't tired when he rested on the seventh day of that creation week. God is all-powerful; he doesn’t run out of energy or need to take a breather. No, when God rested, he stopped his creative work because it was perfectly done and he enjoyed the work that he had done.

Maybe you can appreciate that. I can remember in school finally getting that big paper done, printing it out, stapling it, and then just leafing through it to enjoy the fact that the project was complete. Even this past week, I cleaned the garage at home and used a leaf blower to do an incredibly basic floor cleaning. It’s not impressive at all, but how many times do you think I admired how the cleaner floor looked in the garage as I came and went this week? These small moments of rest and reflection can bring us joy and satisfaction, just as God enjoyed his creation on the seventh day.

God created the entire universe in service of a special relationship with the crown jewel of his creation—people. He created them his own image—in perfect harmony with him. And so that seventh day of rest was a day to be done creating and to start enjoying fellowship with Adam and Eve.

Israel’s Sabbath day commandment echoes this purpose. Though sin has completely ruined people's relationship with God, God promised to fix it. Right in the Garden of Eden, not long after the first day of rest, God promised a Champion who would crush the serpent’s head and rescue every human being from their sins. In many ways, the Sabbath day of rest was just a little glimmer of what God would do. And that promise was fulfilled in Jesus, who observed the Sabbath perfectly and became our eternal rest, providing us eternal rest in him.

Note that our First Reading does not mention what specific things you can or can’t do. As the centuries passed, different hedge laws were added around this Sabbath day law. These man-made traditions set limits on what type of actions were allowed on the Sabbath and even, at times, how many steps you were allowed to take. None of those restrictions are in God’s command. God’s command was to take a day off, a day of rest, trust that he would provide even if you didn’t work on that day, and spend that time focused on him and his promises. Perhaps that would mean worship at the Tabernacle or Temple. Perhaps that would be longer times of family discussions around what we might call home devotions. But the Sabbath’s design was one of blessing—as Jesus said, the Sabbath was for man, not the other way around—and it was much less about following rules and more focused on what God would do.

And so we jump ahead to our day. Paul was clear in our Second Reading that no one should be willing to be judged by a Sabbath day celebration. We are not obligated to observe a complete day of rest on Saturday because Jesus has fulfilled that law for us. He has brought the real rest from sin and death that the Sabbath day only pictured. Paul reminded us that you don’t continue to stare at someone’s shadow when you have the person standing in front of you, We are not required to stare at the shadow of the Sabbath day when Jesus is right before us.

That said, the spirit of the original Sabbath day still applies. We may not be required to observe a day completely off from our regular work, but fellowship with God, time surrounded by him and his promises, is vital. Martin Luther picked up on that spirit of the Third Commandment when he wrote his explanation of it in his Small Catechism: We should fear and love God that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but regard it as holy and gladly hear and learn it.

We don’t need to limit this to one day! There can be little sabbaths for you every day. Perhaps a time of devotion and prayer with your morning coffee, meditation on God’s promises and blessings, and prayer before bed. Here in worship on a Sunday morning, Bible Class with your fellow Christians, time in the Word after dinner. There are so many times to gather at our loving Savior’s feet and hear anew all that he has done and will do for us!

All of these sabbaths point ahead to the real rest that is coming. Not an hour in a pew or a day off of work, not a quick prayer before bed or a lengthy study of God’s Word. No, the real rest comes after this life. Jesus didn’t come to give us occasional rest from the rigors of our day-to-day existence; all of his promises point to the future, eternal rest that we will have with God forever in heaven.

This is good because even though we’re not required to observe a specific day of rest, your mind is likely racing with times when you haven’t kept the spirit of this Third Commandment. Have I avoided attending church because I felt I had better things to do with my time? Have I been in church but let things other than restful time with my God be my priority? Have I ignored personal time in God’s Word or just seen it as another task to get done rather than the blessing that it is? We can all give a hearty, yet shameful, “yes” to those questions.

And so we look at Jesus, the one who not only taught the truths about the Sabbath—it’s for doing good and receiving God’s blessings!—but also kept this commandment perfectly for us. Jesus was always dedicated to worship, regular in prayer with his heavenly Father, and sacrificed his time and energy to bring God’s Word to the people around him. Jesus was flawless in his obedience so that he could give that obedience to you.

The shameful “yes” to those questions of neglect is not the final answer because Jesus kept this command in our place. So when God examines us and how dedicated we have been, he doesn’t see my flaky attitude to his Word or your failures to prioritize it. No, he just sees Jesus’ perfection. And those times that we have failed to do what we should are washed away in his blood, shed for us on the cross.

And that’s when the purpose of the Sabbath rest comes into focus. This was not and is not a rule that had to be followed to show obedience; no, this rest is for our eternal good. It is a time to meditate on how Jesus saved us from our sins. It is a time to repeatedly prioritize hearing God’s amazing love story, how he cares so deeply about us that he would sacrifice his only Son to rescue us from our sins.

Like nearly everything God does, this direction of rest and time in his Word looks ahead to eternity, when God will provide real rest from everything that causes pain or sadness. In eternal life, we will have unending rest and fellowship with our Creator and Savior God.

So take your time with God, not as something you have to do but as a blessing you get to do. Sit at Jesus’ feet and hear again and again how he loves you. The message of our salvation is not always pleasant to hear because we’d much rather be told that we had nothing bad in us from which we needed to be saved. But the end of that story is always a perfect joy because it ends with a perfect rest won on Jesus’ bloodied cross, which is proved by his empty tomb.

Lord, hasten that day of eternal rest! And until that day, help us find our rest in you for all the days of our lives. Amen.

"The Triune God Is United in Mission" (Sermon on John 3:1-17) | May 26, 2024

Sermon Text: John 3:1-17
Date: May 26, 2024
Event: Holy Trinity Sunday (The First Sunday after Pentecost), Year B

John 3:1-17 (EHV)

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these miraculous signs you are doing unless God is with him.”

3Jesus replied, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”

5Jesus answered, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God! 6Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh. Whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be surprised when I tell you that you must be born from above. 8The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

9“How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.

10“You are the teacher of Israel,” Jesus answered, “and you do not know these things? 11Amen, Amen, I tell you: We speak what we know, and we testify about what we have seen. But you people do not accept our testimony. 12If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven, except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.

14“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

The Triune God Is United in Mission

When a group is working on a singular project, ensuring everyone is going in the same direction is very important. For some people, their whole job is managing those projects to ensure each person or team has the necessary resources and adheres to a schedule to make the process move smoothly. If you have people out of sync, or going rogue, or deciding they have different priorities, the whole system will break down and fall apart.

This isn’t just true in groups of multiple people. I know all too well that I can have one priority for something to get done but then spend my time on other things. Then, I feel like I’ve more or less wasted my time because I didn’t do what I wanted to get done. If it was that important, I should have prioritized it and executed it!

This morning, on the First Sunday after Pentecost, we spend time especially on the Triune God. The Trinity is not something we’ll be able to explain logically. How can God be one yet three? How can there be different persons to God, yet each person is completely and wholly God, not simply one-third of God?

So, the hows of the Trinity will never really make sense—we must take God at his Word and trust that he knows better than us. But what is clear, and what does make sense, is that the Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—are all unified in their mission. Their purposes and goals are completely in sync. They have one main task in mind and work together to execute it. My dear brothers and sisters, you are the Triune God’s mission and priority.

This morning, we meet up with Jesus early in his earthly ministry. He’s meeting with one of the Pharisees, a man named Nicodemus. Now, in the Gospels, when we run across the Pharisees, and they’re talking with Jesus or asking him questions, they often try to trick or trap in his words. At a minimum, we usually see them test him to learn what he’s really up to. But that’s not the case here with Nicodemus. He recognizes that there’s something special about Jesus. He views Jesus not as a threat but perhaps as a true gift from God. But he has some questions. And so, under the cover of darkness for fear of his fellow Pharisees finding out, he goes to learn more about and from Jesus. “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these miraculous signs you are doing unless God is with him.”

It's not a question, is it? The implication is, “Jesus, please give me some insight from God, help me to understand what he’s done or is doing.” And so Jesus begins with what we might call the end: “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” That’s where we end up once God has worked faith in our hearts. But Nicodemus is so baffled by this concept of a second birth that he can’t get past it.

So Jesus continues to tell him that the things of this life produce things that are useful only for this life, but the things that God works are useful for eternity—faith in God’s promises being first and foremost among them.

So then Jesus backtracks even more. As shocking as it seems to Jesus to need to break things down into the simplest of terms for one of Israel’s premier teachers, he does. He goes back to the Old Testament to help with that, to the days of God’s people wandering in the wilderness after they were freed from their slavery in Egypt. As they traveled, they grew impatient with Moses and God and grumbled and complained. So, as a chastisement for their malcontent, God sent venomous snakes among the people. We’re told that as a result of the snakes, “many people from Israel died” (Numbers 21:6). This was no minor inconvenience. God was serious about the people’s sins and ensured they knew!

Seeing what had befallen their countrymen, those left cried out in repentance and fear. They admitted their wrongdoing and pleaded with Moses to pray for them. And so Moses did, and God gave him specific directions: “‘Make a venomous snake and put it on a pole. If anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.’ Moses made a bronze snake and put it on the pole. If a snake had bitten anyone, if that person looked at the bronze snake, he lived” (Numbers 21:8-9). A bronze snake was lifted up on a pole, and everyone who looked at it, trusting God’s promise that he attached to it, was spared from physical death at the bites of the real snakes.

Jesus uses this illustration to depict what will happen to him and the result. Jesus, like the metal snake, will be lifted up—not on a pole, but on the cross. He’ll be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Looking to Jesus, trusting his promises that he saves, brings the forgiveness of sins God promised.

But then Jesus takes us back even further. Why would Jesus come to rescue us from our sins? Why would the Holy Spirit work fresh, heavenly birth through faith in Jesus? There’s a fundamental core driving all of these actions: love. And that love stems from the Father, causing him to send his Son, and then the Father and Son, in turn, send the Holy Spirit with that heavenly rebirth of faith. Jesus described that foundational love in the famous verses at the end of our Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

The mission that the Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—is unified in is saving you from hell. Because that’s where we are naturally. As sinners who rebel against God’s will in our lives over and over again, we are nowhere near the perfection that God requires. On our own, we are lost to eternal damnation; we will perish eternally without God’s intervention and rescue.

And as God examined that state, his heart was twisted in knots. He loved you, me, and the world too much to let hell be our inevitable destination. He loved us too much to let his justice separate us from him forever. And so the Father, in that love, gives direction to the Son. We sang a poetic version of this commission two weeks ago in the hymn “Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice,” where we sang, “He spoke to his belovèd Son: ‘Tis time to have compassion. Then go, bright jewel of my crown, and bring to all salvation. From sin and sorrow set them free; slay bitter death for them that they may live with you forever.’” For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…

And then, once Jesus does the work we needed him to do, once he suffers and dies on the cross to pay for every single sin ever committed by every person, there is still something left to be done. While the forgiveness of sins is an objective truth because the work is complete, if I, as an individual, do not know what Jesus has done, it does me no good. It’s like a Christmas present wrapped under the tree, completely prepared, yet never opened and enjoyed.

If we don’t look to our lifted-up Savior in faith, we don’t benefit from what he did for us. So, the Holy Spirit comes to us as individuals with that good news of the gospel to assure us that Jesus paid our debt. He creates and sustains faith in our hearts through his Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, where he brings us the confidence of our forgiveness and eternal life.

So, the Father sends the Son; the Son is lifted up on the cross to save us; the Father and the Son send us the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit works faith in the fact that the Son completed the Father’s mission of mercy. Each member of the triune Godhead has different roles but the same unified mission. God’s mission was to save you. And that mission is completed.

Dear Holy Spirit, keep us strong in our faith, which assures us that we are forgiven and will be in heaven because of your love for us! Amen.

"I Will Send Him to You" (Sermon on John 15:26-16:11) | May 19, 2024

Sermon Text: John 15:26-16:11
Date: May 19, 2024
Event: The Day of Pentecost, Year B

John 15:26-16:11 (EHV)

“When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me. 27And you also are going to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.”

16:1“I have told you these things so that you will not fall away. 2They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who murders you will think he is offering a service to God. 3They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me. 4But I have told you these things so that when their time comes, you may remember that I told them to you. I did not tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you.

5“But now I am going away to him who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6Yet because I have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart. 7Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth: It is good for you that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment: 9about sin, because they do not believe in me; 10about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; 11about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

“I Will Send Him to You”

Last week, we addressed some of the difficulties of being a Christian in this world: We believe, but we do not see. It is difficult to have that child-like faith to trust what we cannot see! Jesus said to Thomas the week after he rose from the dead that those who believed yet did not see were blessed! But how often aren’t we like Thomas, just longing for proof and evidence that God does love us? “Lord, please, just a moment… let me touch those nail marks in your hands…”

Jesus promised his disciples some proof that he had not left them: he would send the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, to them. Jesus said that the order of things was that he had to go, and then the Holy Spirit would come to them. Elsewhere, Jesus describes it as being clothed with power from on high. The Holy Spirit was going to do some remarkable things.

And we saw some of those things in our Second Reading this morning—the sound of the rushing wind, the flames of fire over the disciples’ heads, and the ability to speak in earthly languages they had never studied. It was a clear, public sending of the Spirit’s power. One could hardly miss it if you were there. That first Christian Pentecost Day was, in part, Jesus making good on his promise, “I will send him to you.” The Spirit’s power was the proof that Jesus was faithful to his promises and continued to be with them even if they couldn’t see him.

However, the Pentecost arrival of the Holy Spirit is only one small sliver of the Spirit’s work. And even if we have never experienced the outward gifts that the disciples did on that first Christian Pentecost Day, the promise of the Holy Spirit still applies to us because Jesus was not speaking only of this one day when he promised the Spirit to his disciples: he promised a lifetime of blessings as the Spirit did his convicting and convincing work through the disciples’ message. And this is a promise that spans generations, even to us today.

Unlike on that first Christian Pentecost, though, sometimes the work of the Spirit is about as difficult to see as Jesus himself. The Holy Spirit works quietly in the background, generally through unimpressive means. And so, we can feel a bit alone, as if God is not with us, as if Jesus’ promises perhaps do not apply to us. This morning, let’s take a few moments to unpack what Jesus said the work of the Holy Spirit is and see if we can see that work being done among us today.

Jesus centers and grounds the Holy Spirit’s work in testifying and witnessing, “When the Counselor comes… he will testify about me…. When he comes, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment.” The Holy Spirit’s primary work is not in flashy signs or miracles, though he can certainly do that. The Spirit’s primary work is testifying and witnessing about Jesus, bringing both God’s law and gospel to the world.

So, the Holy Spirit’s arrival on Pentecost wasn’t the first time the disciples experienced the Spirit’s work within them. The Spirit was at work in their hearts before they ever met Jesus, as they were faithful Jewish believers looking forward to God fulfilling his promises. The Holy Spirit was responsible for that forward-looking, “Old Testament” faith. On that first Christian Pentecost Day, the Spirit’s work was most importantly demonstrated not in tounges of fire or language gifts but in the boldness he gave to the disciples to speak and in the faith he brought to life in the hearts of 3,000 people who listened to Peter and the others proclaim the wonders of God.

By nature, without God’s Word, you knew some things about God. You looked around and could reason that this world did not come out of nowhere. Some strong power and organizational force must have put it together. You knew the difference between right and wrong, not as a social construct, but as an inward and innate knowledge. The guilt that could grip you testifies to the fact that you have not kept right and wrong in your life as you should and that there would undoubtedly be bad ramifications for those failures, probably at the hand of whoever or whatever put this world together. And so, by nature, we are at war with God. We are as spiritually dead as those dusty bones Ezekiel saw in the desert.

But that’s not all there is to know about God. Nature and your conscience testify in part, but the Holy Spirit testifies in whole. Yes, God reinforces the concepts of objective, universal morality through his Word. But much more than that, the Holy Spirit testifies to what we could not know on our own: God's love and forgiveness.

In his Word, the Holy Spirit takes us back to the cross and points to Jesus crucified there for the world's sins. The Spirit declares what we could not see or understand even if we had been there that day. “This,” the Spirit says, “is for you. You are forgiven because Jesus paid the price, your debt, and suffered your hell.” You believe that Jesus is your Savior, not because you decided to believe or put so much effort into it, but because the Holy Spirit created that faith in your heart. You and I, who were spiritually dead, are raised to life in the faith God gives.

The message of the gospel doesn’t really make any sense. Why would God, whom we sinned against, take on human flesh to suffer and die for those sins that we committed against him? This is not something that we could have come up with on our own, and even if someone had, it would be viewed as laughable fiction. But it is not fiction! When we had no one to save us, Jesus died for us and paid for every sin!

That means we are forgiven for all we’ve ever done wrong. Jesus took that load of guilt and the punishment of hell on himself. He promised his disciples a gift in the Holy Spirit, but the gift of his life was just as important. When he died, he defeated sin for us. When we rose from the dead, he proved that sin has been put away forever.

That means that you and I stand forgiven. For every doubt, for every time we’ve not made God our priority, for every sin against his holy law, those sins are all gone. And the Holy Spirit brings this comfort in ways that don’t seem particularly impressive. A splash of water and God’s name being spoken over a person. The promises of God spoken aloud or read off a page. A fleck of bread and a sip of wine that carries with it Jesus’ actual body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. None of these things would make anyone ooh and aah. But they are the simple ways that God does his extraordinary work.

So simple are these means that Jesus is clear that the disciples would be the ones to bring them to others. Jesus would not be with them permanently—he was going away just as planned. Angels would not come to preach to the masses. And even the Holy Spirit would not clearly, directly intervene in the lives of the people of the world. No, the Spirit will work quietly, content to bring his perfect message through flawed messengers. Flawed messengers like Peter and the other disciples, like you and me.

So, the real work of bringing people to faith is God’s alone. But just because God works through his messengers and the Holy Spirit works through his gospel message, it does not mean that this work will be easy or pleasant for us who share his Word. I have told you these things so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who murders you will think he is offering a service to God. That sounds… very bad. Very troubling. Very difficult.

Despite the gospel's message being immensely good news, it will not be universally well received. People will ignore it, make fun of it, and even violently fight against it. But despite all those hardships and troubles, the Holy Spirit is still working. Maybe he doesn’t bring 3,000 to faith as he did on that first Christian Pentecost Day. Maybe it’s just one; maybe at a given time, it’s actually none. But where God’s Word is, where the gospel is proclaimed, there is the Holy Spirit. And wherever we Christians go, the Holy Spirit is also there with us. Why? Because Jesus promised he would send him. And so he has.

Take heart, my fellow temples of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has been faithful, bringing you from spiritual death to spiritual life. He sent us the Holy Spirit as he promised. Let us go and be the Spirit’s mouthpieces in the world! Amen.

"Jesus 'Leaves' Us with His Blessings" (Sermon on Luke 24:44-53) | May 12, 2024

Sermon Text: Luke 24:44-53
Date: May 12, 2024
Event: Ascension of Our Lord (Observed), Year B

Luke 24:44-53 (EHV)

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

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

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

Jesus “Leaves” Us with His Blessings

What do you think it was like? What do you think it was like to stand there on that hill outside of Jerusalem and Bethany, having barely processed all the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection, and then to see him taken up to heaven, hidden by the clouds? What do you think it was like to have the whole weight of this ministry that Jesus had conducted on earth dumped into your lap as he said he was done and now gone?

I think I know what I would’ve been thinking if I had been there. “He left us!” I would feel alone for the second time in just over a month. Sure, his death had proven to be much more temporary than anyone expected, but this? This had an air of finality behind it. He was gone, taken from their sight, not by death but simply by disappearing.

So, they were alone. The protection they had hoped Jesus would provide was now over. They couldn’t rush and hide behind him like scared children. He had left them. But he had “left” them with amazing blessings—amazing power! Jesus had given them a mission to be a blessing to the world. Jesus has given us the same blessings. By his grace, we understand the message that’s been given to us, and thus, we look for every opportunity to be witnesses of that same message.

As Jesus was standing with his disciples before his ascension, he said something that could be alarming. He said, “These are my words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms…. The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.” Jesus says he needed to endure all of these things. It was so necessary that they were written down hundreds of years before they took place. Whether we hear Isaiah describe in alarming detail all the horrors of the crucifixion, Job’s triumphant assurance that he knows his Redeemer lives, or go all the way back to that vague yet all-encompassing promise of a Satan-crushing champion in the Garden of Eden, all of it was there, foretold by God in his Word.

What stands out to me is not that these things were promised but that they had to happen. That means that I couldn’t do anything. My sin was so severe that literally, the only way God could fix what I had messed up was by condemning his own Son to hell. That was it! The almighty God had only one choice and solution at his fingertips. Even as we hear Jesus pleading with his Father to let there be another way in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, we know that Jesus had to drink the cup placed before him. There were no other options; everything had to be fulfilled; this was the only way.

We can be tempted to look at what was necessary to save us from hell and say to ourselves, “Look at what my sin did to Jesus! Look at what I caused him to suffer! Look at what I did! How wretched I am!” We tried to address this temptation on Good Friday, but it rears its head again this morning. To some degree, this honest appraisal of the situation is good and healthy. We are so often tempted to take for granted what Jesus did for us that it’s good for us to remember what he did and why he did it. But we're missing the point if we’re overcome with guilt when we hear Jesus recount what he endured.

The disciples were undoubtedly exhausted at this point, having been on this crazy emotional roller coaster of losing Jesus and then receiving him back from the dead, a feat that they could never rationally explain. So what does Jesus do for them to calm them down? He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. The only way to make sense of this was for them to see all of these events through God’s eyes. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would come to them when he said, “I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Then, the Holy Spirit would enable them to do amazing, miraculous things. But here, the Holy Spirit works a far greater miracle to calm them and increase their understanding. He strengthens their faith. He allows them to appreciate the full extent of what Jesus had done for them—because he loves them, and that’s exactly what he promised.

We don’t need to stand on a hill in Judea to have this experience. We have it right here. As we come together as a congregation, hungry for the food that only God can give, we hear Jesus say the same things to us, promise us great things, and assure us that he’s not left us. But if we want to jump right into the work we have to do together as a congregation, we’ve put the cart before the horse. We all need Jesus to open our minds to understand the Scriptures and have the Holy Spirit increase our faith. And he does that the more we are in his Word—in church, Bible Class, home devotions, and quiet, personal meditation. Jesus opens our eyes to appreciate what he’s done in these ways. He did have to endure all of those things to save us. But he also endured those things because he wanted to save you, because he loves you. And so he did everything we needed. By his death, your sins are gone. You are free!

And what’s our response to that? It’s the same as the disciples’ response. They worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. They were continually in the temple courts, praising and blessing God. They were overjoyed in what God had given them, but even having Jesus open the Scriptures wasn’t enough. They continually stayed in the temple, worshiping God, studying his Word, and allowing the Holy Spirit to strengthen and build them up.

We need to be doing the same thing. We can’t be content with our knowledge about God. We want God to continually open our minds to better understand his love for us in Jesus. We can never get over the fact that heaven is open. We can never marvel too long at the love shown at the cross and proved at the empty tomb. And if we find ourselves taking these things for granted, we need to stop and look again. Marvel again. Be filled with joy again. Praise again.

And then we’re ready for what lies ahead. Then, we are prepared for the task that Jesus has given to us. He told his disciples, “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” That was going to be their job. They would take their understanding, the things they had seen and heard, and share them with the world.

You weren’t there to see Jesus feed thousands of people with a small lunch. You weren’t there to see and hear Jesus call Lazarus from outside his tomb and raise a man to life who had been dead for four days. You weren’t standing in the courtyard at the temple to see the kangaroo court condemn Jesus to death. You weren’t there to hear the shouts of “Crucify!” You didn’t run with Peter and John to see the tomb empty, the burial cloths folded. And yet, like the prophets who wrote about these things so long before they happened, you have seen them. You have been witnesses to them in his Word. With the eyes of faith, you have seen all of these things. You become witnesses of these things repeatedly as God continues to open your mind to understand everything he’s done for you. These are amazing blessings from your Savior.

Sometimes, we overextend ourselves on this work. We assume that as witnesses, we need to convince and make people acknowledge that what God says is true. But you know what? You were not argued into believing in Jesus. You were not logically persuaded that Jesus is your Savior. The Holy Spirit did that. The Holy Spirit created that faith in your heart through baptism or the truths of his Word.

A witness’s job is not to convince anyone. A witness’s job is to tell the truth about what they have seen and heard. As you think about the people you know with whom you desperately want to share your faith, don’t overthink your role, and don’t assume that you have to do everything. God will use his Word on them, just as he used it on you, to create and sustain that faith. And so we bring the Word. Whether bringing our children to the baptismal font, sharing our faith with a coworker, or inviting a friend to church or Bible Class, our job is to witness. Our job is to get as many people as possible as much time with God’s Word as possible. Then, we let God do the rest, the hard part. Because God needs to open their minds to understand the Scriptures, we can’t do that. There, and there alone, will they see their Savior's love for them. There, and there alone, they will see the blood of Jesus shed to save them. There, and there alone, they will rejoice and praise their God for setting them free from sin, death, and hell. There, and there alone, they will be assured that we will all praise our God together in heaven’s perfect, eternal courts.

Your Savior has not left you alone. He’s given you that amazing understanding of his Word through the Holy Spirit. He’s given you the ability and opportunity to be witnesses of all he’s done for you and the whole world. My brothers and sisters, know that though we cannot see him with our physical eyes, he is ruling everything for our good and blessing everything we do. He’s “left” you, but with amazing blessings for yourself and for those you witness to. With that confidence, go, be his witnesses to all nations, starting in your very homes!

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"Love One Another? How?" (Sermon on 1 John 4:7-11, 19-21) | May 5, 2024

Sermon Text: 1 John 4:7–11, 19–21
Date: May 5, 2024
Event: The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B

1 John 4:7–11, 19–21 (EHV)

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8The one who does not love has not known God, because God is love. 9This is how God’s love for us was revealed: God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him. 10This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, if God loved us so much, we also should love one another.

19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For how can anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, love God, whom he has not seen? 21This then is the command we have from him: The one who loves God should also love his brother.

Love One Another? How?

Have you ever stared at the assembly instructions for a piece of furniture or some other thing you had to put together yourself and wondered what you were looking at? Perhaps the jump from step 6 to step 7 didn’t make any sense, or the images suddenly were reversed for some reason, or it referenced a piece that didn’t seem to come in the box. In these cases, it’s not enough to have a final goal or step-by-step directions, but those directions need to make sense to finish the project.

We opened the box last week and pulled out the instructions for Jesus’ command to love one another. That exact command followed hot on the heels of Jesus’ vine and branches analogy earlier in John 15 that we read last week, and this morning’s Gospel has Jesus stating it directly. But, like last week, we’re continuing to examine this command through John’s commentary in his first letter in the New Testament.

Last week, we answered the question, “Why?” Why should we love one another? Well, not only did Jesus command it, but it is a way (arguably the primary way) we show our thanks to God for rescuing us from our sins. John reinforces what we said last week in our Second Reading for this morning: This is how God’s love for us was revealed: God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him. This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us so much, we also should love one another. We love because he first loved us. Why should we love each other? Because God loved us and gave us his only Son to rescue us from sin, death, and hell.

I don’t want to zip by that truth because it’s vitally important. The love God showed us in Jesus is something we did not deserve and could never earn. Jesus came to give his life for us to take away all of our sins and promise us a perfect, eternal life in heaven, even though we were his enemies. Last week, we heard that the truth (1 John 3:18) motivates our love, and John summarized that truth in this way: “This is how we have come to know love: Jesus laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16).

When writing to the Roman Christians, the apostle Paul described it this way: “At the appointed time, while we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly. It is rare indeed that someone will die for a righteous person. Perhaps someone might actually go so far as to die for a person who has been good to him. But God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6–8). Note how much Paul emphasizes that we didn’t deserve God’s love, but he gave it to us anyway. He rightly calls us helpless without Jesus and stresses that Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, that is, while we were still God’s enemies.

Sin is disobedience toward God. It is having anything in us that makes us flawed and makes us fall short of the perfect people God demands us to be. This is common to our human condition. All of us here are sinners. All of us here are imperfect and have fallen far short of the expectations—the demands—God has for us. And that sin separates us from God and sets us against him. In our sin, we pick a fight with the almighty Creator of the universe. That is not a battle we have any chance of winning.

This is God's love: Though we set ourselves against him, he did not want us to perish. He did not want us to face what our sins truly deserved—an eternity of separation from God in hell. So, God took it upon himself to fix what we had broken. Jesus took our sins on himself to rescue us from the punishment that we deserved. He loved us when we did not deserve it in the least.

That love of God shown to us is why we show love to other people. While we can’t contribute to our forgiveness, nor can we ever pay God back, we can thank him. And we thank him by showing love to others. The way we treat others shows our thanks and  refelcts the love God has for them as well as us. Jesus, before our Gospel for this morning, had told his disciples that this love for others would make it evident to all that they trusted in him for forgiveness: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

So, how does this play out in our lives? How do we love one another? John gives us a bit of an explanation by showing us the negative: If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For how can anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, love God, whom he has not seen? “Hate” may feel like a strong word. Often, we associate hate with wishing harm on someone else or hoping things go poorly for them in their life. But we are dealing with extremes here; love is the opposite of hate.

To love someone is to want what is best for them. To love someone is to want to help them in any way you can. To love someone is to be willing even to sacrifice yourself—your plans, desires, time, earthly riches, whatever we might consider valuable—in service to that person.

Yet how quick we are to be angry with someone and even to hate them! Sometimes, we even call it justified anger or righteous anger because we’ve been hurt or harmed in some way! We deserve to feel upset! Our anger makes sense to us, therefore it is justified!

But consider this from God’s point of view. Does God love with that kind of love? If he did, we would be lost to our sin. More than we’ve ever been hurt by anyone else—no matter how grevious the hurt—we have harmed God more. A sin may be harm against a fellow person in this life, but every sin is an attack on God. So if anyone deserved to feel upset, to burn with righteous anger, it would be God against us. And yet, what did God do? This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin. God loved us when we did not deserve it.

And there’s the key: true love does not love because it is loved; true love loves even if it is not loved in return. The husband or wife may not treat their spouse poorly simply because they feel mistreated. A child may not treat a parent with contempt just because they don’t appreciate the parent’s decision on an important matter. A person trying to be generous may not lash out at someone because that person tried to exploit their generosity. True love seeks out the good for the other, even if such care isn’t or doesn’t feel reciprocated.

But love also doesn’t mean ignoring when you’ve been wronged; it doesn’t mean pretending like it never happened. Love does not condone sin actively by confirming it or passively through silence. True love confronts hurts and wrongdoing. It addresses the problem when it is present. It is unloving to let sin go unchecked, unaddressed.

This might lead us into a position where loving someone means we have “tough love” for them. Tough love is not being mean to someone in a misguided attempt to make them stronger. Tough love might be the parent saying “no” to the child’s request which will be bad for them or even dangerous. Tough love is confronting sin not because you’re angry about how you’ve been hurt but because you care for the person who wronged you, and you do not want them to be swept away by their sin. Tough love may mean confronting a problem that, by that very confrontation, threatens the relationship.

None of this is easy. Real love is not the butterflies of joy when you see a person whose company you enjoy sharing. Real love is sticking with your fellow sinners, even through the hurts, and seeking the good of everyone involved. Real love is genuine concern for the other person, not a shallow, surface-level-only string of words. Real love works through the hurt and pain and loves even when it is not loved in return. Real love patterns itself after Jesus’ love for us.

This brings us back to the whole reason we endeavor to love all people, even when they might be very difficult to love: We love because he first loved us. Why should you show love and compassion to that coworker who frustrates you, that person on the train who is annoying you, or to the family member who is on your very last nerve? Because Jesus first loved us. He sacrificed his very life to rescue us from our sins.

So, this week, note where you get irritated with another person and find yourself drifting toward grudges, anger, or even hate. Note them; pay attention to them; maybe even write them down if that’s helpful. Then, ask this question: how can I show love to them? How can I show true love to them like Jesus has shown to me? Perhaps that love will express itself in swallowing my pride and forgiving them. Perhaps it will be confronting the harm they’ve done that you might work through it. Perhaps it will be confession on my part for not loving my brother or sister as I should.

In all of it, hold fast to the love of God that rescues you from all sin and makes you his dear child. Hold fast to that love, best summed up in Jesus’ death in our place and his glorious resurrection from the dead. Christ is risen; he is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"Love One Another? Why?" (Sermon on 1 John 3:18-24) | April 28, 2024

Sermon Text: 1 John 3:18-24
Date: April 28, 2024
Event: The Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B

1 John 3:18-24 (EHV)

Dear children, let us love not only with word or with our tongue, but also in action and truth.

19This is how we know that we are of the truth and how we will set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God. 22We also receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight. 23This then is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we love one another just as he commanded us. 24The one who keeps his commands remains in God and God in him. This is how we know that he remains in us: We know it from the Spirit, whom he has given to us. 

Love One Another? Why?

If you’re trying to motivate someone to complete a task, explaining why the job needs to be done can be really helpful. If a boss, a parent, or even a police officer tells you to do something and you don’t understand why you need to do it, perhaps you’ll be a bit reluctant to do what they ask. What is happening? Why this course of action? Am I safe? Is our business safe?

For the next two Sundays, we’ll focus on Jesus’ command to his disciples to “Love one another,” but John’s commentary in his first letter will guide us. This command to love one another (one of the commands that Jesus gave to his disciples on Maundy Thursday evening) will always have Jesus as the focus; the love that we show to others will be the fruit produced because of our connection to the Vine, our Savior.

But loving other people, especially those who seem not to love us, can be very difficult. Next Sunday, we’ll see more concrete examples of how we can love one another, but this morning, we need to answer the more fundamental question: why? Why should we love one another? And beyond Jesus’ command, why did he command it? What is the point?

Our reading doesn’t answer that right off the bat. Instead, John says there are right and wrong ways to show love (or at least, to appear to show love), which will get into the whys of this command. He begins a heartfelt call to people he loves dearly, “Dear children, let us love not only with word or with our tongue, but also in action and truth.”

Perhaps you’ve been frustrated with people responding to some tragic event by assuring everyone that the people affected are in their “thoughts and prayers,” but then don’t seem to go any farther than that. Perhaps you’ve been irritated with people speaking against prayer in these situations while minimizing or simply not understanding the true power of commending someone to the almighty Creator of the universe. But, the tension in this frustration is an understanding (or lack thereof) of what is being done in prayer.

If I tell someone that I’m praying for them, it could look like I’m loving them only with word or with… tongue. And truly, maybe it is. “I’m praying for you” can be used as an empty nicety to move the conversation on from an unpleasant topic rather than showing genuine concern for that person. We might think of James’ direction in his letter to somewhat apathetic Christians when he wrote, “If a brother or sister needs clothes and lacks daily food and one of you tells them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but does not give them what their body needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15-16).

John is following up on this idea with the command that we should not love in this empty, words-only way; instead, we should love in action and truth. This truth is central to the “why” of loving one another. Two verses before our Second Reading, John had written, “This is how we have come to know love: Jesus laid down his life for us. And we also should lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16). This is the truth that John is referring to in v. 18. What should motivate us to love one another? Jesus’ love for us.

In our reading, John expounds on this truth: “This is how we know that we are of the truth and how we will set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God.”

John sets up a scenario where “our hearts condemn us,” that is, when we feel guilty, when our conscience is screaming at us for something we’ve done wrong or something good that we’ve left undone. You and I know this well. And while our consciences can get mixed up and be wrong, they’re not always wrong. Your conscience continually points out that you have not done what you should do. You have not been the perfect person that God demands you to be. And for that, there is punishment. Guilt is that fear and dread of what we brought on ourselves. This is your heart and my heart condemning us.

The conscience can be a helpful tool, but there’s a huge, glaring weakness. Your conscience doesn’t know anything about Jesus. It doesn’t know anything about God’s mercy or his forgiveness. It only knows that God’s punishment for sin is unbearable. It may not, on its own, be able to articulate the suffering of an eternity in hell, but it knows enough to continually warn us, “BE AFRAID! YOU’VE MESSED UP! THIS IS GOING TO BE REALLY, REALLY BAD!”

John says that when that happens, if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. What does God know that your conscience doesn’t? What does God know that can be so easy for us to forget as guilt sweeps over us? He knows what Jesus did. He knows that Jesus suffered in your place and in my place, so we would never endure the rightful punishment for our sins. He knows that our sins have been washed away in the blood of Jesus shed for me and you and that we stand before him as perfect people because Jesus’ perfection has been given to us.

Yet still, our hearts will rage on about our failures and, in doing so, speak directly against God’s decrees. Earlier in his letter, John had mentioned that saying we had no sin was deceiving ourselves and calling God a liar (1 John 1:8-10). But the flip side is also true. Saying that we are not or cannot be forgiven is also deceiving ourselves and calling God a liar because he said he has forgiven us for Jesus’ sake. This was Judas’ downfall. He’s not in hell because he betrayed Jesus or because he committed suicide. Instead, Judas believed that God lied when he said he forgave his sins and rejected the redemption that Jesus promised and would win.

And so, here is a battle between our hearts and God. And what’s the end result of that battle? Well, as John says, God is greater than our hearts. Dear Christian, when your heart condemns you, send it to God. Let your conscience ask Jesus what it should think. Let Jesus direct it to the nail marks in his hands and his feet, the opening when the spear pierced his side, and to the once-occupied but now-empty tomb. Let God silence that raging, fearful heart within you.

A quiet conscience means a good relationship with God. If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God. This confidence doesn’t come from our innate, natural “goodness” but rather from the perfection Jesus gave us. Along with that, God gives us everything that serves our eternal good.

How do you respond to that? How do you wrap your mind around the reality that God has forgiven you your sins, that God literally died to save you and has given you eternal life in heaven as a gift with no strings attached? Well, at the risk of sounding trite, you respond with thanks. You don’t and can’t respond by repaying God, but you can say “thank you.”

And how do you say thank you? By doing what God commands. And what does God command? That we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we love one another just as he commanded us. I can’t help but assume that John, as he wrote these words, was thinking of something Jesus said during his ministry. When the crowds looking for free bread asked him, “What should we do to carry out the works of God?” Jesus responded, “This is the work of God: that you believe in the one he sent” (John 6:28-29). Do you want to thank God for saving you? Trust that he is telling you the truth; trust that he saved you.

And lest we go too fast, John also mentioned one other way to thank God: that we love one another. It is wild to me that the primary way we express our gratitude to God is in how we love one another. God has set up a system that we love him by loving other people. We will hear next week that all of our love originates with Jesus’ love for us. So when I love someone else, I’m reflecting Jesus’ love. When I love someone else, I’m thanking God for loving me. Why should I love others? Because God has loved me.

My dear brothers and sisters, God remains in you. He gave you the Holy Spirit to create and sustain your faith in Jesus as your Savior. You will be in heaven, despite your many failings, because Jesus has removed them all. Your sins are forgiven; you are perfect in God’s sight. What can we do in response to this? Love one another.

Take heart, dear children; Christ is risen; he is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"You Know Your Shepherd" (Sermon on 1 John 4:1-6) | April 21, 2024

Sermon Text: 1 John 4:1–6
Date: April 21, 2024
Event: The Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B

1 John 4:1–6 (EHV)

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3and every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is already in the world. 4You are from God, dear children, and you have overcome the false prophets, because the one in you is greater than the one in the world. 5They are from the world. That is why they speak from a worldly perspective and the world listens to them. 6We are from God. The one who knows God listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. That is how we can distinguish between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

You Know Your Shepherd

God often uses the picture of a shepherd and sheep to picture his relationship with his people. And while there’s a lot of comfort in that, it’s also not particularly complimentary toward us. Sheep, perhaps more than any other animal, really need a caretaker, a shepherd, because without that caretaker, they will be in danger. They will not have enough food or water, and predators will threaten, hurt, and kill them.

If God compares us to sheep, that means we need a shepherd. It means we cannot take care of ourselves. We need help. And that's true. We can't save ourselves from our sins. We need Jesus to do that. We need him to lay down his life and then take it back up again to give us the forgiveness of sins.

However, Jesus, in our Gospel this morning, mentioned that sheep are not entirely helpless. He said, “I know my sheep and my sheep know me” (John 10:14). Sheep may not be the brightest animals in the world, but they know where it's safe. They know it is safe with their shepherd. And because they know they are safe with their shepherd, they stick close to him.

But what about someone pretending to be the shepherd? Will the sheep follow him? Jesus said the hired hand would just run away because he doesn’t care for the sheep. But can the sheep be deceived into following someone who is not the shepherd? “I know my sheep and my sheep know me.”

We are focused this morning on our Second Reading, in which the apostle John, writing near the end of the first century, not long before he would die, encouraged the next generation of Christians. His first encouragement and direction in our reading is, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God.” What does it mean to “test spirits”?

John is not focusing his readers on spirits such as angels and demons, but on “spirits” as in anyone who comes with a spiritual message. John says that when another person comes and talks to you about God, you should test him. Does what he says agree with God’s Word? Determine if this person is trustworthy and reliable. Does he speak for and represent your Good Shepherd? Or is this just an intruder, someone seeking to harm?

False teaching is always dangerous, whether it is intentional or not. If someone is maliciously trying to lead someone astray, to exploit and take advantage of them, clearly, that is a massive problem. But just as much of a problem is the person who proclaims false teachings that they truly believe. They may be even more dangerous because their sincerity may gloss over the falsehood, and they may not have tell-tale signs of deception, greed, or other things that may go along with consciously deceptive spiritual teachers.

When dealing with spiritual things, we're not just dealing with something relatively trivial like your favorite sports team or movie. Nor is it even dealing with things that we would, in this life, say are very important, like: how long should you cook this food before it's safe to eat, or what kind of medication can you take that will be safe and offer some relief from the problems you're experiencing? Spiritual teaching has a bigger impact than anything else because spiritual teachings are not dealing with temporary things that will come to an end, but with eternal matters that will never end.

At the time John was writing, there was a growing line of thought among Christians that the words of the Bible were just the beginning. People began to teach and think that the real knowledge was hidden, was secret. And so only the truly enlightened could know the secret things of God. They would often ignore the simple words put on the page of Scripture that God inspired and instead look for alternative and secret meanings within them. If you ever heard someone try to explain something from God’s Word by counting letters or pinpointing something like the exact center of the Bible and trying to make a point from that, or even trying to claim that the historical accounts of God’s Word are just stories to teach spiritual truths that we should learn rather than things that actually happened, these are all versions of this line of thought (known as Gnosticism) that live on today.  

And so this is why John’s metric for who is and who isn’t a teacher from God might seem relatively basic: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. That’s it? All we need to know to determine if someone is teaching the truth is if they teach that Jesus came as a human being? Well, it’s at least step one—and that question is perhaps more complex and important than we might think at first.

Some teachers in John’s day or in our day might say something along the lines of, well, Jesus came as a spirit. Or maybe Jesus is more of an idea or philosophy than a real person—some sort of ideal character for people to aspire toward. When thinking about Easter, such teachers might claim that Jesus “spiritually” rose from the dead (whatever that means). They might claim that you need to dig deeper to understand the resurrection. It's not as simple as a man coming back to life after having been crucified and a stone being rolled away to show he was gone. John’s point is that actually, yeah, it is that simple. It is that easy. That's exactly what has happened. John should know; he was there.

Why is that so important to get right? Why is it important to know that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? Why is it so important that we surround ourselves with spiritual teachers who would teach this truth? This is the core of Jesus’ work. Jesus didn't come to give some hidden knowledge. He didn't come to drop breadcrumbs for the truly perceptive to follow. And he certainly hasn't given you the secret to wealth and happiness in this life. Jesus came for the exact reason that he said he came: to offer his life for the forgiveness of your sins and mine; he came to give himself in the flesh to rescue us from hell. He literally died and literally rose to assure you that you will be in heaven with him. Someone who's trying to sell you a more complicated explanation of God's Word, someone who's trying to add something extra, or warp and distort the clear, simple words of the Bible is not a spirit sent from God.

John is not calling out specific people here. Rather, John condemns messages rather than messengers. John is establishing principles that will not just address specific false teachers in his day, but throughout history. Johbn isn’t just speaking to his first centruy audience with these words. He’s speaking to you and to me. “Test the spirits to see if they are from God!”

Are you up to that task? Are you up to testing the spirits? Do you feel capable of evaluating spiritual ideas when they are presented to you? And not just on social media or the television or a tract given to you when you go to the grocery store, but even here, now, as words come from this pulpit. Are you testing the spirits? Is this a message from God or not? That’s a big, daunting task. Do you even know enough to test the spirits?

I can say without any doubt, “Absolutely you do.” And that's not because I know each one of you so well, and I know exactly all of your strengths and all of your blind spots, and I know exactly how well you understand the concepts of Scripture or how much time you spend in God's Word, or have spent in Bible class, or have sat here listening to God’s Word proclaimed in this sanctuary. You can test the spirits because you know your Good Shepherd even as he knows you. You recognize his voice, his accent, so that when someone starts using words that kind of sound like something Jesus might say and yet seems to be making different points, your ears perk up, and maybe even the hair on the back of your neck stands at attention. Perhaps you recoil just a bit because suddenly it sounds like someone who is not your Shepherd is trying to lead you to a place that may not be safe.

You don't need a degree from a religious school. You don't need a certain number of hours having studied the Bible. You don't need to read the Bible cover to cover so many times to do this work. Several years ago, I can vividly remember explaining to someone some problems in another congregation centered around some false teaching. It was a sad and scary situation, and the person was concerned about what was happening and wanted to understand the details. There was a five-year-old sitting near us where we were having the conversation. He looked up from what he was playing with or working on as I explained this false teaching, and he looked right at me and said, “That's not right.” He, as a five-year-old, could recognize that what was being summarized was not what his Shepherd would say.

And so your ability to test the Spirit has nothing to do with your age. It has nothing to do with your experience. It has everything to do with what God has worked in you. You may be that silly sheep, plodding along the path, tripping through the field, falling into holes, and needing to be rescued by your Shepherd. But you know him. You know his voice. You know his accent. And when someone starts pretending to be your Shepherd and is not, you know. When John said in v. 2 that you’ll be able to recognize the Spirit of God, he used a word in Greek that very specifically means knowing something through experience, not through book learning. This comes from the experience of following your Good Shepherd. The experience of knowing his preservation, knowing his love, knowing his forgiveness, knowing what he's promised.

Anything that tries to take the place of Jesus’ death and resurrection is the very definition of the spirit of the antichrist. Antichrist is someone or something that tries to be a substitute Savior. That may be seen in teachings that proclaim my works as important instead of or in addition to Jesus’. It might be someone focusing our attention on earthly joys rather than looking ahead to eternal life.

We don’t need a replacement, alternate, or substitute Christ. We don’t need any other shepherd other than our Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for us—only to take it back up again. You heard him proclaim it on Good Friday, “It is finished!” And your Shepherd does not exaggerate or lie. That is how we can distinguish between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

My dear fellow sheep, you know your Shepherd, and he knows you. Continue to follow your Good Shepherd, who came in the flesh, who died, and has risen, risen indeed. Alleluia! Amen.

"You Are Witnesses" (Sermon on Luke 24:36-49) | April 14, 2024

Sermon Text: Luke 24:36–49
Date: April 14, 2024
Event: The Third Sunday of Easter, Year B

Luke 24:36–49 (EHV)

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

37But they were terrified and frightened and thought they were looking at a ghost.

38He said to them, “Why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41While they still did not believe it (because of their joy), and while they were still wondering, he said to them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”

42They gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb. 43He took it and ate in front of them. 44He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”

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

You Are Witnesses

I try to avoid sports analogies too often in sermons because if you don’t care about or don’t follow sports, the illustrations won’t be very meaningful. But as I read the Gospel for this morning, one sports analogy was inescapable to me. Way back when, in 2003, Cleveland’s professional basketball team, the Cavaliers, drafted an 18-year-old LeBron James straight out of high school. To say the hype was over the top would be an understatement, with LeBron receiving the title “The King” before he even set foot on an NBA court for a game.

A few years after that, though, he had done much to live up to that hype. In 2007, four years after his NBA debut, Nike ran a new advertising campaign focused on LeBron. It was usually a stark black background with the words “We are all witnesses” printed in white text. The idea was that when you watched LeBron play, you saw some special, unique, memorable moments in the game’s history. And, if while doing so, you wanted to buy some things from Nike as well, they wouldn’t complain.

But the idea of being witnesses, of seeing something that is perhaps once-in-a-lifetime or once-ever type of thing, is special. Many traveled to the path of totality for the eclipse this past Monday to witness that astronomical history, at least on our part of the globe. Perhaps you’ve had a moment or two like that, moments that you were glad or thankful that you had the TV on or were in attendance at an event to be a witness. Maybe it was something of global importance; maybe it was pretty much just for you.

But for anything of any importance, you probably not only see it but also share it. You tell the story of that great moment in sports you saw, or that concert you attended, or share photos of a spectacular sight you were present for. That’s what a full-fledged witness is—not just one who saw something but also shares what they saw.

In our Gospel for this morning, we once again visit the disciples on that first Easter evening. The disciples in the locked house were talking with the men who had been on the road, walking to Emmaus. Jesus had come to them, unrecognized, and walked with them. He had explained to them, from the Old Testament, “what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Their hearts burned as the Holy Spirit worked through Jesus’ words to have them begin to understand what happened at the crucifixion and to start to make sense of these early reports of an empty tomb.

As soon as they realized it was Jesus, he disappeared, and they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the brothers there what had happened. They were talking about this as Jesus came and stood among them again. They were terrified, as I suspect any of us would be if we suddenly saw someone we knew had died standing before us, seeming to be alive and well. Here, Jesus is proving his physical resurrection from the dead because it is a cornerstone of the gospel these men would share.

But what was going on here? Luke writes, “They still did not believe it (because of their joy).” Were they rubbing their eyes? Pinching themselves? Were they trying to figure out if this was a dream or some hallucination?

How patient Jesus is! He doesn’t scold them for their lack of faith or rebuke them for their unbelief; he simply gives evidence. He offers them the same opportunities that Thomas would have the next week: see him, touch him. Jesus isn’t a ghost or a mere spirit but a flesh-and-blood living human being. He eats some fish. Ghosts can’t eat, but Jesus can.

So Jesus gave them the tools to understand what was happening. Jesus doesn’t really tell them anything different than what we teach our catechism students. When looking at the purpose of the Bible, we teach that Jesus is the center point of the whole thing; the Old Testament points forward to Jesus in prophecy and promise. The New Testament points back to Jesus, telling us what he did and what it means for us. And that’s exactly what Jesus did for these men. He said, “This is what is written and so it must be: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” The time was now for them all to understand, finally, why this all happened: why he had to suffer all those grievous things on Good Friday and why he needed to stand before them, not a ghost or a spirit or a vision, but a man risen from the dead.

You may not have witnessed Good Friday while standing at the foot of the cross, or helped prepare Jesus’ body for burial, or walked the dusty road to Emmaus, or spent time in that locked upper room. You might not have seen him eat some fish or placed your fingers in the nail marks on his hands. But you, too, are witnesses of Christ’s work. You’ve sat in these pews, and through the eyes of faith, you’ve seen it all. You’ve heard his anguished prayer in the garden, you’ve felt the energy of the crowd screaming for his blood, you’ve seen the nails go into his flesh even as the sun hides its face from the travesty of justice. You’ve heard him cry out a proclamation of completion—it is finished! You saw where he was buried. You went into the tomb and touched those neatly folded burial cloths but did not find his body. By God’s grace, you’ve come to understand and believe what it means: because he lives, you too shall live. You are witnesses of all these things.

Witnesses need to speak up, to share. What good is it to anyone if you keep this whole message under your hat? Evangelism is not primarily done through increasing an advertising budget for the congregation. Evangelism doesn’t just happen at the behest of the Evangelism Committee nor does the pastor just take care of all of that work. No, evangelism, being a witness, happens in your living room. It happens at work. It happens at a friend’s kitchen table.

It happens when you look into the sad eyes of a neighbor drowning in despair. It happens when your coworker voices his anger at God but then there’s a sliver of an opportunity for you to share comfort. It happens when you talk to your son, daughter, or grandchildren about how they’re living their lives—encouraging them in their positive choices and offering warning about where the path of sin leads.

You are witnesses of all these things. You are witnesses of a law that can crush stony hearts of sin and a gospel that can build up the despairing because you know it yourself. You’ve been the hardened sinner, angry or indifferent to God. You know the pain of the law’s hammer. You know the comfort, then, that comes from knowing that Jesus saved you. You, who shouldn’t be worth a thing to God, and yet he died for you. That is what you testify to. That is what it means to be Christian—to tell the full truth about Jesus as you can. That’s what it means to be a witness.

Easier said than done, though, isn’t it? It’s easy to preach or listen to a sermon about being a witness; it is far harder to do the witnessing. Jesus had no delusions about the difficulty of the work he placed in his disciples’ laps. When he sent them out earlier on what we might call their “practice” witnessing work during his ministry, he told them, “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on guard against people. They will hand you over to councils, and they will whip you in their synagogues. You will be brought into the presence of governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. (Matthew 10:16-18).

The apostles were going to have a challenging time. They would face opposition at every turn, and the people they were trying to reach would fight them tooth and nail. Do you think that was easy for them to face? Don’t you think they had to drag themselves, kicking and screaming, to witness to people when it would undoubtedly be, at best, uncomfortable and, at worst, downright horrible for them?

But Jesus reminds them of a promise he had made to them before. Even as their hearts are perhaps still racing from being startled at seeing him, he tells them, “Look, I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” The power he would send, the power promised by the Father, was the Holy Spirit. When Jesus had warned them earlier of all the troubles they would face, he had also said, “Whenever they hand you over, do not be worried about how you will respond or what you will say, because what you say will be given to you in that hour. In fact you will not be the ones speaking, but the Spirit of your Father will be speaking through you” (Matthew 10:19-20).

That promise applied to the disciples’ early work during Jesus’ ministry and their full work at the start of the Christian church after Jesus’ work was complete. And that promise still applies to you and me today. That’s why you’re here right now: to be built up in your faith and to hear the Holy Spirit’s words for you to share again. At this place in worship, Sunday School, Catechism Class, and Bible Class, we learn the things we are to say. Here, we learn the words that the Holy Spirit was preserved for us. Here, we become witnesses, yet again, of all that Jesus has done. Here, we are motivated to speak solely from the joy of knowing that our sins are forgiven and that we have no fears. Here, we are reminded that this news can and will bring joy to the hearts of people we have contact with every day.

You may witness many amazing things in your lifetime, whether in sports, politics, world history, or phenomena in the sky. The things you witness may be important to many or few, but none will ever be more important or applicable to more people than this: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"The Life Appeared, and We Have Seen It!" (Sermon on 1 John 1:1-4) | April 7, 2024

Sermon Text: 1 John 1:1–4
Date: April 7, 2024
Event: The Second of Easter, Year B

1 John 1:1-4 (EHV)

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed and our hands have touched regarding the Word of Life—2the life appeared, and we have seen it. We testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We are proclaiming what we have seen and heard also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. 4We write these things to you so that our joy may be complete.

The Life Appeared, and We Have Seen It!

This morning we get a chance to really spend a lot of time with the apostle John. One of Jesus’ twelve disciples and one of the close “inner circle” of the three disciples (along with Peter and James), John was with Jesus from almost the beginning of his ministry. He was in the courtyard during Jesus’ trial before the high priest. He stood at the foot of Jesus’ cross with Jesus’ mother, Mary. John raced to the tomb with Peter that first Easter morning once the reports of Jesus’ body being missing came to them. John would be an instrumental leader of the early church and likely the longest-living of the twelve, perhaps the only of them to die a natural death rather than be executed for the sake of the gospel.

So, if there were someone you would want to go to, someone you would trust, about anything that happened in Jesus’ ministry and the life of the early Christian church, it would be John. This morning, we have his accounting of the first Easter Sunday and the following weekend in our Gospel. Then, our Second Reading is a letter he wrote very late in life, reflecting on this message, his work, and encouraging the next generation of Christians. In some ways, we get to see both ends of the spectrum from John this morning: both the wide-eyed amazement and naivete of seeing the risen Jesus for the first time and then the quiet, calm words of an old man who had dedicated his life to the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for all people.

While the events recorded in John’s Gospel happen long before the end of John’s life, his New Testament letters and his Gospel are likely written around roughly the same time, so we can see parallels between what John writes in the introduction to his first letter that we have before us this morning and the famous introduction to his Gospel. John begins his first letter and our Second Reading for this morning this way: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed and our hands have touched regarding the Word of Life—the life appeared, and we have seen it…” Compare those words with the opening of his Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning…. The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. We have seen his glory, the glory he has as the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-2, 14). Whether a letter of encouragement or a historical Gospel, John’s focus is the same: Jesus, the eternal Word of God, and what John has to share about him from his personal experience.

While eyewitness testimony is not always rock solid, you’d certainly rather have an eyewitness than someone who just heard something secondhand. For God, it was absolutely imperative that we have the assurance of eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, not just hearsay or a mystery of an empty tomb paired with speculation. In our Gospel this morning, we saw how Jesus himself found this so important that he couldn’t let Thomas operate on the reporting of the other disciples and doubt: “Put your finger here…” (John 20:27). All of the apostles of the gospel would be eyewitnesses of Jesus’ actual, physical resurrection from the dead.

We were reminded on Easter how vital the resurrection is. Decades before John wrote any of his New Testament letters, the apostle Paul said that if Jesus hadn’t been raised from the dead, our faith would be empty and worthless, and we would still in our sins. Jesus’ resurrection proves that everything he promised and set out to do was finished. If Jesus had not been raised from the dead, we would still be in our sins, but because he has been raised, we are freed from our sins.

And this, decades later, is what John wants his readers to focus on. It would seem dark and lonely as a Christian in those early years. If this was God’s plan for the world, his plan to save all of mankind, why were Christians suffering for their faith? Why wasn’t there great power on display and mass conversions happening constantly? Why were Christians around the world being forced into hiding for their faith? Why were the most prominent and bold messengers of the gospel put to death? Was any of this worth it?

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed and our hands have touched regarding the Word of Life—the life appeared, and we have seen it. We testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. On Maundy Thursday evening, as Jesus sought to comfort, strengthen, and guide his disciples for the hours and years ahead, he offered them this reminder: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me” (John 14:6). John is only one of the four Gospel writers to record these words from Jesus, and I have a hard time believing that these words weren’t echoing in John’s mind as he wrote the words of our Second Reading. After all, Jesus said the Holy Spirit would remind his disciples of everything he had said, a gift of perfect recall from God.

There’s a reason Jesus shared those words that night, and John echoes them in his writings near the end of the first century: no matter how it may feel or seem, Jesus is still the Way, the Truth, and the Life—eternal life.

So much of life is focused on death and trying to keep it at bay. Maybe it’s dealing with your health issues or caring for a loved one, such as a parent or child who needs you. Maybe it’s the pain of losing a loved one who was so dear to you. And yet, no matter how well we take care of ourselves or those entrusted to us, the best we can do is perhaps delay the inevitable. Death is coming for everyone at some point.

That reality can easily lead us to despair or apathy. What’s the point? Either I’m panicked all day, every day, fearful of what might be coming around the next corner or from the next battery of tests that the doctor runs, or I don’t care anymore and live my life however I, on a whim, might see fit. What really matters?

This narrow view of life is easy to get when all we have is what we can see and feel around us. This is why John brings us back to Easter, to the evening that Jesus declared, “Peace!” to a room full of terrified disciples.

What really matters? What’s the point? Well, John would have you and me remember that real life matters—eternal life. Jesus didn’t come to make everything here fine and dandy—he came to rescue us from this sin-corrupted and death-infested life. He came to rescue us when we were utterly helpless. He came to bring peace when we waged war with God in our sins. He came to be what the angels promised the shepherds he would be on that first Christmas night: “Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all people: Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord…. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward mankind” (Luke 2:10-11, 14).

John’s all-consuming mission was for others to know the peace that he knew that Jesus gave to him and gave to the entire world. John calls knowing this peace a fellowship, a rallying and uniting of Christians and with God himself: We are proclaiming what we have seen and heard also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.

The peace that Jesus won for us on the cross and proved by his empty tomb joins us together as brothers and sisters in faith and binds us to our Savior, Creator God. We have not just a professional or standoffish relationship with God; we are part of his family, sons and daughters of our Father, brothers and sisters of our Savior.

Jesus declared a uniting peace in those early appearances after his resurrection. “Peace!” he said. In other words, “Look, your sin is gone! What divided you from God has been obliterated! You have peace with God and the ability to have peace between each other because I have triumphed over sin, death, and hell for you!” This was the joy that drove Jesus to the cross and beyond. This is the joy we now have by God’s undeserved love for us.

So, your joy can be complete as John’s was. You can walk through the difficulties of this life neither driven by despair nor apathy. You can go knowing that you are God’s dearly loved child, redeemed in the blood of Jesus your Savior. You can go forward knowing what Jesus’ death and resurrection mean for you today: forgiveness of sins and the certain hope of eternal life. You can go forward in the complete joy of knowing what waits for us beyond this life: perfect, eternal fellowship with God forever.

You may have not been in the privleged position of John or Thomas, to be able to see with your eyes and even touch with your hands the Word of Life. But by your God-given faith, you too have seen the Life, our Savior Jesus, crucified and raised.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

"What Words Are Worth Preserving?" (Sermon on Job 19:23-27) | March 31, 2024

Sermon Text: Job 19:23-27
Date: March 31, 2024
Event: The Resurrection of Our Lord, Year B

Job 19:23-27 (EHV)

Oh how I wish that my words were written down.
Oh how I wish that they were inscribed in bronze,
24that they would be engraved in rock forever
with an iron tool and letters filled with lead.
25As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the end of time he will stand over the dust.
26Then, even after my skin has been destroyed,
nevertheless, in my own flesh I will see God.
27I myself will see him.
My own eyes will see him, and not as a stranger.
My emotions are in turmoil within me.

What Words Are Worth Preserving?

Preservation is a very difficult and complicated task. Nature breaks down everything from cement buildings to film. One errant keystroke could render years of work or family memories housed on the computer gone. You’re always fighting time when it comes to preservation. It’s difficult to protect what is being preserved, but it’s also difficult to figure out what things should be preserved in the first place.

On the one hand, preservation may feel like it’s about keeping everything possible. On the other hand, subjective as it may be, preservation may be carried out based on what seems important. Of course, the danger in that is that what seems important today may be different than what seems important tomorrow.

I think through our congregation’s work and about how we preserve minutes from important meetings both digitally and physically. But there are no summaries recorded of conversations in the parking lot after worship, nor was anyone taking notes during our joyous time at breakfast this morning. Those things, while not meaningless or trite, probably will not be important down the road and may not need to be preserved.

Even when considering God’s interactions with people, we don’t have everything preserved. John tells us in his Gospel that Jesus did many things that he did not write down. The Bible itself, the verbally inspired and inerrant Word of God, is not complete. It is sufficient but not exhaustive. God’s Word tells us enough of how we are saved from the hell our sins deserve, but it hardly addresses every question one might have. I’ve lost track of the number of times that a question has been asked in Bible Class, and we end up having to leave it at, “Well, I guess we’ll just need to ask God when we get to heaven,” because we don’t know the answer and have no way of knowing.

But some things are worth preserving: the founding documents of a nation or an organization; the photos of a wedding, the birth of a child, or a family reunion; the favorite family recipes to be passed down to the next generation. And that list will be different depending on who you are, what is important to you, and where your interests lie.

In our First Reading for this Easter morning, we have a small snippet of the book of Job, perhaps largely made popular by the hymn “I Know that My Redeemer Lives,” which we’ll sing in a little bit, or even before that in its use in the grand soprano aria in Handel’s Messiah. In it, Job identifies that the words he’s about to speak are worth preserving, “Oh how I wish that my words were written down. Oh how I wish that they were inscribed in bronze, that they would be engraved in rock forever with an iron tool and letters filled with lead.” Job thinks these words are important and that they should be permanent.

It’s unclear exactly when Job lived, but it seems likely that he was a rough contemporary with Abraham. So, probably more than 2,000 years before Jesus lived and more than 4,000 years from today. Job had many material, earthly blessings and then lost everything in very quick succession—his property, most of his family, and even his health. The book is a conversation between Job, his friends, his wife, and eventually God. Job’s friends accuse him of wrongdoing and urge him to confess the horrible thing he did to bring this disaster on himself. Job’s wife is more blunt, suggesting that Job should curse God and die. But Job does none of these things; instead, Job sticks to his faith. He wavers at times, but largely, his attitude remains consistent with what he spoke in the opening two chapters of the book, “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... If we accept the good that comes from God, shouldn’t we also accept the bad?” (Job 1:21, 2:10).

By the time we get to our reading, Job is deep in the battle of words with his friends. He begins chapter 19 by saying to one of his friends, “How long will you torment my soul? How long will you crush me with words? Ten times now you have insulted me, but you are not ashamed that you are treating me so badly” (Job 19:1-2).

That is how he speaks to his friends, who continue to accuse him of wrongdoing baselessly, but when he remembers God, his tone is much different. His words speak confidently of God’s promises and his hope for the future: As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the end of time he will stand over the dust. Then, even after my skin has been destroyed, nevertheless, in my own flesh I will see God. I myself will see him. My own eyes will see him, and not as a stranger. My emotions are in turmoil within me.

Job calls God his Redeemer. The basic meaning of the word “redeem” is “to buy back.” In other words, to take something that used to belong to you and to make it yours again. We might think of taking something to a pawn shop and then going to get it back. Or someone who pays a ransom price to rescue someone else from a kidnapper. All of those are redemptions and rescues.

And so if God is our Redeemer, we used to belong to him, but then we didn’t, and he had to buy us back. From what would God need to redeem us? God created mankind to have a close, personal relationship with him. The harmony that our first parents shared with God, called “the image of God” in Scripture, was a beautiful thing. Adam and Eve loved God, wanted what he wanted, and didn’t want what he didn’t want. But not in a mindless way; God didn’t create robots that couldn’t help but follow his programming. No, the image of God meant they agreed with God, and the free will God gave them meant that they could choose to do what God wanted or not. But disobedience, rebellion, and sin would mean an implosion of that special family relationship with God.

Unfortunately, they chose to sin and ruined the perfect harmony. Where they had belonged to God, were dear members of his family, now in sin, they belonged to sin—were slaves to it—and brought death on themselves and all of their descendants. Physical death that we most often associate with that word that we observe at a funeral, yes, but more to the point was the eternal death that sin carried with it. Rebellion against God in sin brings with it eternal separation from God in hell as punishment.

And yet, Job had confidence that his Redeemer would live, which means God would do something about this. Maybe Job wouldn’t get his possessions and family members back; maybe he’d never have a comfortable day or night again. But Job was confident that God would not abandon him for his sins and leave him to suffer in hell. God would redeem him.

And that’s what we celebrate today. Well, in part. We started the celebration on Good Friday, a day named in a way that feels wildly contradictory. That day we call “good” was the day that Jesus died on the cross, an innocent man sentenced to crucifixion. But as we said on Friday night, so we remember this morning, the physical pains he endured, as horrific as they were, were not the worst of what he suffered. We heard Jesus cry out from the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” And you and I know the answer. Why did God the Father forsake God the Son there on the cross? Why was the triune Godhead rent asunder on that dark afternoon? Because Jesus suffered what Adam and Eve, Job, you, and I deserved. There, Jesus himself endured hell, separation from God, so that you and I wouldn’t have to.

And if that had been the end of the story, if the tragic death of Jesus was the end, then it would be just that: a tragedy. We would have no reason to celebrate today; we would have no reason to call this past Friday “good.” But today, we celebrate what Job saw thousands of years before it happened, as we heard in our Gospel this morning: “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him” (Mark 16:6). Jesus did not stay dead. So complete was his victory on the cross that he undid sin, hell, and even death itself.

“I know that my Redeemer lives.” Historically, this is probably the first promise of the Savior’s resurrection from the dead to be inspired by God. To be clear, Easter is not just some cute legend or mass hallucination by Jesus’ followers. No, Jesus, actually, physically rose from the dead. This was proof of his victory and our rescue. And, as Job points out, by rising from the dead, Jesus shows what is ahead for us.

Job says that despite all the trouble he’s going through, all the hardship, loss, and pain, he is confident that his Redeemer lives. Job knows that despite the inevitability of death, yet at the end of time, in my own flesh, I will see God. I myself will see him. My own eyes will see him. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we, too, will rise from the dead on the last day. Then, our tombs will look exactly like Jesus’ tomb: empty.

The apostle Paul, in our Second Reading this morning, observed that “if our hope in Christ applies only to this life, we are the most pitiful people of all” (1 Corinthians 15:19). But very little about our faith is focused in the here and now—we look forward to the resurrection and our rescue into eternal life where we, with Job, will stand in our own flesh and see God with our own eyes, face-to-face.

Can you see why Job wanted these words preserved forever and why he found them so important? Job looks past even the cross to see the ultimate victory Jesus would win and the ultimate rescue he would provide. He sees Jesus not as the lowly, humble, crucified man suffering for the sins of the world but as the victorious Champion Redeemer who has crushed sin, death, and hell forever.

So, my brothers and sisters, rejoice today. Not just because we have festive music and a lovely gathering of people here. But rejoice because not only were Job’s words preserved, but they were proved true. And because they were proved true—because your Redeemer lives—you also have the confidence of your rescue from sin, death, and hell.

I pray that you will never experience loss in your life on the scale that Job faced, but no matter what hardships and sadnesses grip you, take solace in this hope: this life is temporary. By Jesus’ life and death in your place and proved by his resurrection, you have the forgiveness of every sin. For Jesus’ sake, you will be in heaven. When we are there, Job’s words will continue to resonate for eternity, surely worthy of being preserved: I know that my Redeemer lives!

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.