Matthew 1:1-17 - Jesus Is the Son of David - November 30, 2022

According to a recent report distributed by the United Nations the population of planet earth reached 8 billion people on November 15. They also projected that in 2050 there will be almost 10 billion humans on earth. [1] Since the dawn of time, somewhere between 60 and 100 billion people have walked on the dust of this earth. But, of those billions, only a handful have made any real, lasting, permanent impression – whose names are still spoken around the world. And of that handful, one stands far above the rest. His name is Jesus.

Think about it: Jesus never wrote a book – and yet millions of books have been written about him. Jesus never painted a picture (that we know of) – and yet the world’s greatest art has Jesus’ words and works as its inspiration. Jesus never raised an army – and yet millions of his followers have fought and died for him. Jesus never traveled very far from his birthplace – and yet word of his life and work has reached every corner of the globe – even those places that have tried to ban it. During his lifetime, Jesus only had maybe a few dozen dedicated followers – and yet today over 30% of the planet’s population confess to follow him. [2] The most important question that any of the earth’s 8 billion citizens can ever ask, then, is who is Jesus? That’s our question this Advent season: Who is Jesus? And today Matthew reveals him as the Son of David – that is, as a King.

However, what many people in Jesus’ day – and many people today – don’t understand is what kind of King Jesus came to be. Most expected him to be a “political” King – whose primary purpose would be to make their lives happier, safer and more prosperous. Would we really want Jesus to be that kind of King? Politicians of all stripes and all times have promised to be that kind of “king.” In 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson promised not so send American boys to Vietnam to fight a foreign war. He lied. In 1988 George H.W. Bush told Americans to “Read his lips: No new taxes.” He lied. [3][4] In 2008 Barack Obama promised that his so-called “Obamacare” healthcare plan wouldn’t raise rates. He lied. [5] And I didn’t even mention anything said by anyone running in the latest election cycle. In America we’re used to leaders who say what people want to hear. No one’s campaign slogan is, “Slow, arduous change,” or “realistic compromises,” or “it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” No. We want leaders who promise the moon – and so that’s what they promise. And you don’t have to live through too many elections to become cynical about such promises.

But when we look at Jesus, we see a completely different kind of leader – a different kind of king. First, we see that Jesus is the Promised King. Matthew begins his Gospel this way: a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Even this heading tells us a lot about who Jesus is. Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Christ is a title. It’s the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah which means “anointed one.”

The Old Testament – God, in countless places, starting already in Genesis – promised to send a Messiah – a King who would accomplish God’s mission. God left a breadcrumb trail of prophecies throughout the OT which would lead people to the Messiah. He promised that the Messiah would come from the line of David (2 Samuel 7:12). He would be born in David’s city (Micah 5:2) and sit on David’s throne (Isaiah 9:7). And part of Matthew’s purpose in providing us with this extensive genealogy – and the rest of his gospel – is to prove that Jesus is this king – the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of David. When Matthew wrote his gospel, Israel hadn’t had a legitimate king for hundreds of years. Now, Matthew declares, “a king has finally come to sit on David’s throne. And his name is Jesus!” Matthew drives this truth home by citing no few than 15 OT prophecies which were fulfilled in Jesus.[6] Jesus is the promised King.

He is also the compassionate King. Jesus didn’t come to lead a rebellion against Rome or hand out welfare checks. He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). We see hints of this truth in the structure of Matthew’s genealogy. First, in contrast to genealogies found in the OT, where a person’s descendants are listed (which makes sense – if there’s no Abraham, there’s no Isaac!) – here, Matthew lists Jesus’ predecessors (with the implication that those who went before Jesus were dependent on him!) Second, while the Israelites traced their ancestry through male ancestors, Matthew also mentions four women: Tamar (Matthew 1:3), Rahab and Ruth (Matthew 1:5), and Bathsheba (Matthew 1:6). All four of these women were outsiders. Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites (Genesis 38:2-6; Joshua 2:1-13). Ruth was a Moabite (Ruth 1:1-4). And Bathsheba was likely a Hittite like her husband – Uriah (2 Samuel 11:3). Moreover, each of these women were stigmatized. Tamar, after her brother-in-law refused to do his duty to provide her with a child (Genesis 38:10) tricked her father-in-law, Judah, into sleeping with her in order to have children (Genesis 38). Rahab was a prostitute (Joshua 2:1-13). Bathsheba committed adultery with King David (2 Samuel 11). Ruth once worshiped an idol called Chemosh (1 Kings 11:7) and was a widow (Ruth 1:5).

What’s the point? The point is that while the Jews of Jesus’ day expected a Messiah who would come to drive out their Roman oppressors and reestablish Israel’s power and status and independence, Jesus came instead to bring the outcasts to God – in large part, by removing the shame of marginalized, alienated people like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. The rest of Matthew’s gospel bears this out. Who does Jesus spend his time with? Outcasts and rejects. With those who had done terrible things or were afflicted with terrible diseases. But I think that what stands out to me most is the fact that three of the four women listed in Jesus’ genealogy were burdened with a shameful stigma. And yet, God was not ashamed to include them in his Son’s genealogy and Jesus is not ashamed to associate and save those who may bear some shameful stigma.

In the end, no matter what we’ve experienced in the past, this includes all of us. We all have plenty of ugly shame from our past that haunts us to this day. We tend to focus – and rightly so – on how Jesus takes away our guilt – that is, the debt of the sins we have committed. But he also takes away the shame – the sin done to us. We don’t have to try to wash our shame away, work our shame away, explain or eat or cry or drug our shame away. Because Jesus isn’t a king who sits on his throne and demands that you serve him; Jesus is a king who descends from his throne, filled with compassion wanting to serve you. Jesus knows what it’s like to live with a shameful stigma (remember, the Jewish leaders mocked him as an illegitimate child (John 8:41)). At our darkest point – when we feel the ugliest and most unloved – Jesus says, “I love you – no matter what!” He reminds us through Word and Sacrament that neither the sins we have committed nor the sinful things others have done to us define us. We don’t have to live with guilt or shame. We aren’t worthless. We aren’t damaged goods. We are clean. We are whole. We are his. Jesus is the compassionate King.

But in order to be compassionate, Jesus also had to be rejected. To the Jewish elites of his day, Jesus was the wrong kind of king. He came from the wrong place, associated with the wrong kind of people, preached the wrong message, gathered the wrong disciples, carried out the wrong mission, and waged the wrong kind of war against the wrong kind of enemies. (In fact, incidentally – and maybe ironically – in Matthew’s Gospel, apart from Matthew’s calling Jesus the “Son of David” here and the crowds on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:9), the only people who hailed Jesus as King – often far less than sincerely – were Gentiles and rejects – including the Wise Men (Matthew 2:1-12), blind men (Matthew 9:27), a demon possessed man (Matthew 12:23), a Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:22), Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:29), and Pontius Pilate (Romans 27:37).) But God’s chosen people – the Jews – almost universally rejected him as their King. It all came to a head on Good Friday. Matthew wrote about it: above his head they posted the written charge against him: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37). Pilate posted this sign – over the objection of the Jews – likely as a sarcastic shot against them: “See, this is your king…see what I, the Roman governor, can do to your supposed King!” The Jewish leaders – like so many people today – rejected Jesus, the promised and compassionate King. But more importantly, because we deserved to be rejected by our holy God – Jesus had to be rejected by him in our place. When Jesus cried out my God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Matthew 27:46) from Calvary’s cross, he was describing hell – that is, his Father had rejected him, turned his back on him, disowned him. Jesus was rejected by God for our broken promises, our failure to show compassion, our lack of faith and love and hope – so that we never would be.

But that’s not how the story ended. Three days later, after Jesus had risen from his grave, he proclaimed that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Matthew 28:18). That’s what we would expect of a king, right – to have all authority? Jesus has all authority over everything in the universe – politicians, economies, natural disasters, down to the minor things that happen in our lives every day. He also has the rightful authority to command us how to live. He has every right to demand anything and everything from us. But that’s not why we hail him as king. We hail him as king because he gave everything for us – to save and redeem us.

Who is Jesus? Jesus is the Son of David, the promised, compassionate – and rejected – King that we follow through this life and into the next. Amen.

[1] https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-reach-8-billion-15-november-2022

[2] https://www.kentuckytoday.com/baptist_life/7-encouraging-trends-of-global-christianity-in-2022/article_6a1f9336-861a-11ec-aab8-dbfeb19c7929.html

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/22/politics/gallery/presidential-promises/index.html

[4] https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jun/26/broken-presidential-campaign-promises-1916/

[5] https://www.budget.senate.gov/newsroom/budget-background/obamacares-five-biggest-broken-promises

[6] https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/how-does-matthew-prove-that-jesus-is-the-messiah.html

A New Year with Jesus: A Walk Through the Christian Church Year - November 27, 2022

Time. It shapes and structures (and in many ways controls) the rhythm and pattern of our lives. From our first breath, time forms the framework on which our lives are hung. Time isn’t just about watches and clocks and history books – it’s about birthdays and graduations and anniversaries – and, eventually and inevitably, obituaries. Time is precious and every second of every single human life is precious for one reason: it’s one chance we have to come to learn about and believe in Jesus and be saved. As precious as time is, it’s also the one thing in life none of us can stop or control or store up. It slips away. It gets spent. Sometimes it’s wasted. And once it’s gone, you can never get it back. In general – unless you’re at work or school – how you use your time is up to you…it’s all about personal preference. And while that may be fine in everyday life, it can be disastrous when it comes to the life of the Church. If the way we spent our limited time here was up to you or me, we might spend it all talking about football or politics or movies or the best way to use the leftovers from Thanksgiving or some other subject that might be interesting but is spiritually irrelevant. That’s why we thank God and the believers who have gone before us for developing and passing down to us the gift of the Christian church year. Not only because it helps us make the most of the time we spend here each week together, but because it helps us keep the main thing the main thing. What is the main thing? Jesus is. Jesus and his redemptive work for us is at the heart of every Christian’s life – and, therefore he is the heart of the Church’s life. And so, today we are going to take a deeper look at the Christian church year and how every season of it keeps us focused on Christ – his work for us, his words to us and his work in us.

Advent – Christ’s Coming                                                                                                                                                                       Micah 5:2

The first season of the Christian church year is Advent. Advent means: “coming.” During the season of Advent we wait and watch for three “comings” of Christ. 1) We wait for his coming in the flesh – Christmas. These four weeks remind us that OT believers waited roughly 4000 years for God to send the promised Messiah. Today, while many people are simply waiting for a few days off of work or some presents, we are waiting for a Savior from sin. 2) Jesus comes to us today in Word and Sacrament. The Savior who once came in lowliness as a helpless baby still comes to us in the seemingly ordinary means of grace: the Word, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. 3) Finally, we look for Jesus to come again in glory at the end of time. In Micah chapter 5, we are reminded how God chooses to reveal his mercy and his power most often in humble ways: most importantly, by becoming one of us in lowly, insignificant Bethlehem.

Micah 5:2 - 2But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, from you, will go out the one who will be the ruler for me in Israel. His goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.

Hymn 1                                                                                                                                                           The Advent of Our King (st. 1-2, 4-5)

Christmas – Christ’s Incarnation                                                                                                                                                      John 1:1, 14

In the Northern Hemisphere, Christmas comes at the darkest time of the year – just 4 days after the winter solstice (the shortest “day” of the year). This timing is fitting, given that Jesus was born into a world of darkness, a world of sin, despair, loneliness and hopelessness. Into this world, Jesus came to bring light. Certainly all children brighten the lives of their families – but this baby came to lift the gloom of sin that hung over the whole world – because this was no ordinary baby, this was the Son of God. Christmas is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions because on Christmas God became one of us, flesh and blood. Why? Only as true man could Jesus take our place under God’s law and die; only as true God could he live a perfect life and take our burden of sin to the cross to pay for it. Christmas proves that Jesus is true man – he was born of a woman. Christmas proves that Jesus is true God – he was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). In simple but profound words, John describes the mystery and majesty of Christmas.

John 1:1, 14 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 14The 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.

Hymn 36                                                                                                                                                    A Great and Mighty Wonder (st. 1-2, 4)

Epiphany – Christ’s Appearing                                                                                                                                                              John 2:11

You’ve probably heard the song The Twelve Days of Christmas (partridges and pear trees and so forth). But do you know where that song came from? It resulted from the fact that the better part of 2000 years the Christian church celebrated Christmas for 12 days, from December 25 to January 5. January 6, then, marked Jesus’ Epiphany, literally his “appearing” or “unveiling.” The church celebrates two “appearances” of our Lord. 1) First, He appears as the Savior of all people, not just the children of Israel. This is recognized when the Magi – those mysterious Gentiles from the East, come to Jesus’ home to worship him as their king (Matthew 2:1-12). 2) The second appearing is the revelation of Jesus as the powerful Son of God. On Christmas, Jesus appears in deep humility: born in a manger, wrapped in strips of cloth, acknowledged only by farm animals and shepherds. But during Epiphany, Jesus’ true nature as the Son of God is revealed by his baptism, his authoritative preaching and his powerful miracles. Epiphany will have served its purpose in our lives when what happened to the disciples happens to us:  

John 2:11 - 11This, the beginning of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

Hymn 90                                                                                                                                          The People that in Darkness Sat (st. 1-2, 4-5)

Lent/Holy Week – Christ’s Suffering and Death                                                                                                                         Isaiah 53:5-6

Lent, the season that stretches from Epiphany to Easter, is 40 days long, beginning with Ash Wednesday and concluding with the Holy Week festivals of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. For Christians, the season of Lent is a time to meditate deeply on Christ’s suffering and death for our salvation as well as a time in which to concentrate on the continuing importance of confessing our sins and finding forgiveness in our Savior’s cross. The darkness of Lent is the reason for the light of Christmas – the eternal Son of God took on our human flesh and blood so that he could bleed and die for our sins. In Lent we see God’s eternal plan of salvation worked out in human history as the Lamb of God suffers as our substitute. In Lent we stand with Isaiah at the foot of the cross and confess:

Isaiah 53:5-6 - 5but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6We all have gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has charged all our guilt to him.

Hymn 113                                                                                                                                                           Upon the Cross Extended (st. 1, 5)

Easter – Christ’s Resurrection                                                                                                                                      1 Corinthians 15:17, 20

Easter is the climax of our annual journey with Jesus. On Good Friday our Savior’s lifeless body was laid in a grave. It left unanswered questions: Is he the Son of God or a delusional madman? Are our sins forgiven or are we still guilty before God? Will we ever see our loved ones who have died again? What will happen to us when we die – will we rise again or will our bodies turn to dust and stay that way? Do the Word and Sacraments matter at all? Easter answers those questions. When the disciples returned to the tomb early on Easter Sunday morning they found it empty. Later, the risen Savior appeared many times to dispel their confusion, doubts, and fears (1 Corinthians 15:1-11) – to tell them and show them that he had risen. Easter removes any hint of uncertainty regarding our faith, our forgiveness and our future. Easter proves that Jesus is God’s Son, he is our Savior, our sins are forgiven and our future is in heaven. Paul lays out the truth of Easter simply and beautifully in 1 Corinthians 15:

1 Corinthians 15:17, 20 - 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 20But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Hymn 145                                                                                                                                                Jesus Lives! The Victory’s Won (st. 1, 5)

Ascension – Christ’s Coronation                                                                                                                                            Ephesians 1:22-23

For 40 days after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples to convince them that he had indeed conquered sin, death and the devil once and for all. They needed to be certain because he had appointed them to serve as his witnesses to the world once he was gone. At the end of those forty days, he ascended out of sight into heaven. But though he was gone from their sight, he did not leave them alone, he promised them: surely I am with you always until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). That same Jesus is still with us today, reigning at God’s right hand, where all authority in heaven and on earth [have been given to him] (Matthew 28:18). Today, as we live and witness for our Savior – as we carry out his commission to go and gather disciples from all nations by baptizing them…and by teaching them to keep all the instructions I have given you (Matthew 28:19-20), Ascension reminds us that we go with the assurance of his presence and his power that he controls all things and rules the universe for the good of his church…for the good of believers like us.

Ephesians 1:22-23 - 22God also placed all things under his feet and made him head over everything for the church. 23The church is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Hymn 169                                                                                                                                                                Alleluia! Sing to Jesus (st. 1, 3)

Pentecost – Christ Sends the Holy Spirit                                                                                                                                        Acts 2:32-33

Pentecost is derived from the Greek word meaning 50. 50 days after his resurrection Jesus sent the promised Holy Spirit to his disciples accompanied by amazing signs and wonders. The disciples desperately needed the Spirit’s power and guidance because they were to be witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection throughout the world – but, as they proved in the days following Jesus’ resurrection, they were often paralyzed by fear, they were often slow to believe and hesitant to speak. Paul explains the Spirit’s power and purpose in 1 Corinthians 2: what we received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the blessings freely given to us by God. We also speak about these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:12). In other words, Jesus didn’t send the Holy Spirit primarily to perform signs and wonders, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit so that we would know and believe the Gospel – and have the courage to share it. In Acts 2, Peter embodies the power and work of the Holy Spirit by his clear and fearless proclamation of the Gospel:

Acts 2:32-33 - 32“This Jesus is the one God has raised up. We are all witnesses of that. 33So, after he was exalted to the right hand of God and after he received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father, he poured out what you are now seeing and hearing.

Hymn 183                                                                                                                                                             Holy Spirit, Light Divine (st. 1-4)

Sundays After Pentecost – Christ in the Lives of His People                                                                                                   Romans 12:1

The Sundays after Pentecost might be summed up in one word: “therefore.” One of my seminary professors told us that whenever you see that word in the Bible, you should ask yourself “what’s it there for?” That word appears often in Paul’s letters. He frequently uses it to form a bridge between the so-called doctrinal and practical parts of his letters. “Therefore” invites us to look back at all God has done for us in his mercy; it reminds us that God chose us to be his own, washed us in the blood of his Son and keeps us in faith by his Holy Spirit. “Therefore” also asks us to look at our own lives and ask that uniquely Lutheran question: what does this mean? What does all that God has done for me mean to me and for my life? Paul gives us the answer. While in the OT believers offered a lamb to the Lord as a sacrifice at the beginning and ending of each day, we offer ourselves, our bodies and souls, our working and studying and parenting – even our eating and drinking – everything we do (1 Corinthians 10:31) – to the Savior who died for us so that we should no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and was raised again (Galatians 2:20). In other words, during the Sundays after Pentecost, the seed of faith the Holy Spirit planted in us through the Gospel of Jesus is watered and fertilized so that it might grow and produce fruit. Paul puts it this way:

Romans 12:1 - Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy and pleasing to God—which is your appropriate worship.

Hymn 462                                                                                                                               Oh, that the Lord Would Guide My Ways (st. 1, 4)

End Time – The Christian Waits for Christ’s Return                                                                                                        Revelation 22:20

The last four Sundays of the church year are sometimes referred to as the season of End Time. This season reminds us that our time in this world is not all that there is, that we are eagerly waiting for Jesus to return to make all things right, to punish unbelief with the never-ending fire of hell and to deliver believers, once and for all, to the endless glory of heaven. Since perhaps no part of Christian doctrine is more misunderstood and falsely taught today than the doctrine of the end times, we also take special care during this season to understand what God himself has revealed about the signs and nature of the end of time – instead of relying on the dreams and opinions and predictions of mere men. When we understand what God wants us to know about the end, whether we are looking to the end of the world or the end of our own lives, we will look forward to being reunited with all the believers who have gone before us – including those believers we dearly loved – and, even more important, we look forward to seeing Jesus face-to-face. Therefore we pray: Come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:20)

Revelation 22:20 - 20The one who testifies about these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

Hymn 214                                                                                                                                                                 Jerusalem the Golden (st. 1, 4)

1 Thessalonians 5:18 - In Everything Give Thanks - November 23, 2022

Tomorrow Americans will recognize one of the three most universally celebrated holidays of the year – along with Christmas and Easter. Outwardly, these holidays all look pretty similar: family and friends gather for food and fellowship. However, theologically speaking, there is one thing that sharply distinguishes Thanksgiving from the other two. Do you know what it is? In contrast to Christmas and Easter, Thanksgiving is 100% law. When you boil it down, Thanksgiving Day is essentially an annual ritualistic obedience to our mothers’ persistent demand that we say “thank you” when we receive something. Kind of a strange thing to celebrate, isn’t it? Even in the Bible, and especially here in 1 Thessalonians, thanksgiving is a matter of the Law. Listen to the verses preceding our text: brothers, we ask you to take note of those who work hard among you, who exercise leadership over you in the Lord, and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love, on account of their work. Live at peace with each other. We also encourage you, brothers, to admonish those who are idle. Encourage those who are discouraged, help those who are weak, and be patient with everyone. See to it that no one repays evil with evil, but instead, always strive to do good to each other and to everyone else. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:12-17). Law, law, law. And after all that, now Paul says in everything give thanks? My response is: really?

In everything give thanks? Paul’s original Greek allows for no exceptions. It’s just what it sounds like. We are to give thanks in everything – in every moment and every situation. He’s not just telling us to sit down at the table tomorrow and count our blessings. He’s not only telling us to say thank you when the surgery is successful, he’s telling us to say thank you after the doctor informs us that we have stage 4 cancer or early onset dementia. He’s telling us to be grateful not only when our children come to visit but when we find out that our daughter had a miscarriage or that our son is getting divorced. He’s telling us to be just as thankful in times of poverty as we are in prosperity; in times of pain as we are in times of pleasure; in times of sickness and of health – equally.

And if that doesn’t sound hard enough, Paul uses a little preposition that might push you over the edge: ἐν – that is, in everything give thanks. Right in the midst of sickness, sorrow, problems and pain we are to give thanks. Our world will talk about finding the silver lining in the storm clouds, of taking lemons and making lemonade, of making the best of a bad situation – but typically they’re talking about after the trial or challenge has passed. But right in the middle of it? Who can do that? Have you? I’m not sure who’s able to do it – I only know that God commands it. This is not a suggestion; it’s a command: in all things you must give thanks. It’s a present active imperative. This is a behavioral policy God demands from his children. It must be your policy to be thankful in everything, every situation, every circumstance – no matter how hard or painful. Really?

Now, there are those who try to stuff the breadcrumbs of this difficult command into the turkey of mankind’s natural religion. They say, “Yes, of course, you should give thanks to God in everything – because if and when you do, he will turn that curse into a blessing; that pain into pleasure; that sadness into joy; that poverty into prosperity.” You’ve heard that before, haven’t you? If you’re suffering, it’s just God snapping his fingers to get your attention, saying “what’s the magic word?”, to count the blessings he’s given you and throw some gratitude in his direction. Yep, just like when your mom made you say thank you when someone gave you something – because otherwise you may not receive a gift next year – so you have to give thanks to God from time to time if you expect to continue receiving his blessings. But that’s not true and that’s what Paul says. He doesn’t say to give thanks in everything as a way of manipulating God into turning the clouds into sunshine. He’s not giving a Christian veneer to the pagan concept of “the power of positive thinking.” He simply commands: in everything give thanks.

Really? Why? Why should I give thanks in all circumstances, even the bad ones? Paul cites three reasons. First, he says that we must give thanks in everything because this is God’s will. In other words, we give thanks because God says so. And that’s the reason why most people will be gathered around tables giving thanks tomorrow – well, maybe not because God says so, but because the government does. But there’s a danger in this motivation. There’s a danger in giving thanks simply because you’re told to. I’ve called Thanksgiving Day as the most idolatrous day in America. Why? Because many, if not most, people – sadly, even Christians who don’t want to offend their unbelieving family members – will give thanks to no one and nothing in particular – which is idolatry. And this idolatry is the root of the distinct lack of gratitude most people have the other 364 days of the year: it’s easy to give thanks to an idol when you’re sitting in a warm house eating good food with your family – it’s not so easy to give thanks to an idol when you’re laying in a hospital bed or standing at the graveside of a loved one. In the end, if the only reason we give thanks tomorrow is because God or government says so, then we might as well forget it, because mere lip service is not pleasing to God (Matthew 15:8).

Which is why Paul adds this is God’s will…in Christ Jesus. What is God’s will as revealed in Christ? Paul spelled it out in his first letter to Timothy: God our Savior wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). This means that whatever happens to you, whatever you’re going through in life – the good, the bad and the ugly – comes from God as he revealed himself through Jesus with the goal of the salvation of your soul – more on that later.

Let’s flesh that out a bit: how are God’s will for our salvation and our thanksgiving related? Well, there’s one thing that will be absent from many – if not most – Thanksgiving tables tomorrow: that even as we give thanks for what we have, we forget what we deserve. If we were to honestly review our thoughts, words and actions of the past year, we’d have to confess that we deserve nothing but punishment now and forever. What did our worrying about things that are outside of our control – which is unbelief – deserve? What did our lust and greed and pride and despair – and the millions of other sins we committed over the past year – deserve? Giving thanks to God in everything, every situation, is sheer nonsense until we realize that we don’t deserve anything but his wrath and punishment.

So tomorrow, as you give thanks for the blessings God has given you this year – consider taking some time to thank him for what he didn’t give you; what he gave to Jesus instead of you. He sent Jesus out of heaven’s never-ending feast to this earth to live a perfect live in a fallen world in your place. He sent Jesus to suffer thankless people, the torture of a Roman whip and cross, and the darkness of a damned death in hell for your sins and mine. Tomorrow, thank God for giving Jesus what we deserved for our ungrateful lives of sin and thank him for giving us what we don’t deserve for Jesus’ sake.

Paul cites one final reason to give thanks in everything. 3) In the original Greek, the words for you come last. That means they receive emphasis. “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will in Christ Jesus for you.” We give thanks to God in everything – because in Jesus, everything that we have and experience in this life is for us! The sun shines, the rain falls, the fields produce grain, there is food at the grocery store and gas at the gas station for you – but, in the same way, the physical, financial, and psychological troubles are for you. Why? Because God wants to do more for you than feed, clothe and make you happy in this life. He wants to save you for eternity. If he was willing to hand his own Son over to sin, death and the devil in order to save you – don’t you think that he’ll do anything to save you, even if it means making you hurt for a while (Romans 8:32)? Hebrews tells us to endure suffering as discipline. God is dealing with you as sons. Is there a son whose father does not discipline him? …we have earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them…they disciplined us for a little while, according to what seemed best to them, but God disciplines us for our good, so that we may have a share in his holiness (Hebrews 12:7, 9-10). And even if it takes a little bit of poverty or a little bit of pain to save you eternally – isn’t that a reason to give thanks in any and every situation?

And to prove that no matter what is happening in your life out there – he comes to you here to assure you of his continued care and love and guidance. He points you to the baptismal font as a guarantee that you are his child – and that nothing can change that. He absolves your sins daily and weekly – his assurance that even if you are suffering pain or loss in your life, it is not a punishment for your sin – because Jesus already suffered for your sins. He offers you tangible proof of his love in Holy Communion – an appetizer for the feast that he has prepared for you in heaven. Incidentally, you may have heard some of your Catholic friends refer to the Lord’s Supper as the Eucharist. That comes from the Greek eucharisteo – which means “thanksgiving.” Think about that for a moment. Is there anywhere that our loving Lord can’t or won’t come to us with his true body and blood to assure us that whatever we’re facing in this life is for our good? He comes here regularly. He will come to your house when you can’t come to his. He will find you in the hospital room, the nursing home, the death bed – even in jail. Which reminds us that no matter where we are or what we are going through – in everything – yes, literally everything – we can and should give thanks.

In everything give thanks, Paul says. Really? We’re tempted to respond. Really! He says, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Whatever you have experienced over the past year (good or bad), whatever is on the table tomorrow (or whatever is not because you can’t afford it) and whoever you will gather with (or won’t for whatever reason) – these are God’s gifts to you to keep you on the narrow road to salvation. We don’t give thanks just because the government tell us to. We give thanks in everything for this is God’s will for you in Christ. Really? Really! Happy Thanksgiving! Amen.

Luke 12:32-40 - We Can't Handle the Truth - November 20, 2022

“The truth? You can’t handle the truth,” was a line spoken by the character played by Jack Nicholson in the 1992 movie A Few Good Men. [1] He was referring to the truth of how hard, and sometimes horrifying, decisions need to be made by the leaders of our armed forces in order to keep America safe. He meant that the truth was too ugly for Tom Cruise’s character, the prosecuting attorney, to handle. We’re going to borrow the phrase, but change the meaning a bit this morning. We’ll use it in the sense of a story told about a young Christian boy and his mother. On the ride home after Sunday school a mother asked her son what he learned today. He tells her that he learned about Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea. Like any good mother, she wants details. So he goes on to describe how Moses built a huge bridge for the people to cross on. The mother pauses, and, knowing better, asks, “is that what really happened?” Her son answers, “No, but if I told you what really happened, you would never believe me!” In the same way the underlying truth of Jesus’ words today are hard for us to handle – that is, they are hard for us to believe.

We will start with the hard truth. Jesus gives some simple, direct commands: sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide money bags for yourselves that do no become old, a treasure in the heavens that will not fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. Simple, easy to understand command, right? Here’s the thing: how many of us have actually sold something precious to us in order to give the proceeds to the poor? Yeah, me neither. On the contrary, how many of us have far more than we can ever use, and yet we give to the poor only what is left over after we use what we want? (For example, which of your possessions do you give to Twice as Nice or Goodwill – the stuff you use or the stuff you don’t want anymore?)

The truth is that we don’t sell anything in order to give to the poor and neither are we eagerly waiting for Jesus’ return. We don’t have our noses pressed to the window, all dressed, ready for service, with our lamps burning, expecting Jesus at any moment. No, we’re waiting for Thanksgiving and Christmas, for some time off of work and school, for the next hunting or shopping trip, for a pay raise or better job or a new house or for retirement – those are the things we are anxiously waiting for. We’re not like people waiting for their Lord but like people looking the wrong way. We’re eagerly waiting for the “next thing” in this life.

If you confess with me the truth that we haven’t sold our possessions and given to the poor and we aren’t eagerly waiting for our Lord’s return, then you’ll have to admit the hard truth that our treasure is in the wrong place. Jesus says where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. To figure out where your treasure is, just ask yourself, “where is my heart?” Scary question, isn’t it? Too often my heart, my thoughts and attention are on money, things, politics, fitness, sports, this life, this world – how about you? And Jesus reveals an obvious, but hard truth, about treasuring the things of this world: thieves can take it and moths can eat it. I can be fully focused on saving for my kids’ education and our next vacation and retirement – and inflation can rob it right from under my nose. I can exercise and eat healthy and do everything my doctor tells me in order to live a long life – and cancer or a car accident can devour the years I figured I had left. It’s the truth, isn’t it? Our treasure is in the wrong place – in Power Ball jackpots and Christmas gifts; in our kids gymnastics classes and basketball practices; in the stuff and experiences of this life. The truth is that we’re not eagerly waiting and watching for a Lord who will put a sudden and unannounced end to all those things we consider so precious.

So where is the hard truth of this text supposed to lead us? Well, clearly, to reassess our investments and shift our focus, right? We need to dump our stock in earthly things in order to gain a heavenly dividend. We should sell our new cars, our new clothes, and cancel our vacations and give the proceeds to the poor. And, in doing so, we’ll begin sewing money bags for ourselves in heaven with our dollars here on earth, right? We’ll start eagerly waiting for the Lord’s return. We’ll dress like people who expect to be taken to heaven rather than like people who expect to win fashion shows here on earth. We’ll shine our lamps (that is, our attention) on the path that leads to eternal life, rather than on the one that leads to temporary happiness and pleasure. We will try our best to keep ourselves watchful and awake every minute of every day. Do you know where that leads? It leads to living like Martin Luther did – as a monk. He – and many men and women like him – took vows of poverty and prayed for endless hours daily hoping that by suffering in this life they would earn and gain the next.

The sad truth is that the interpretation I’ve just given is how this text is preached in countless churches around the world. The truth of this text is that you must do a better job of serving God and others with your possessions and that you must double-down on waiting for Jesus’ return. You know what? None of us could handle that truth. Why not? Because no sooner will you resolve to give away your possessions than you will keep saving for a vacation, a car, a home, retirement. (And, even if you followed through on giving every last one of your possessions away, you’d quickly find yourself wanting it all back!) No sooner will you resolve to really watch for Jesus’ return than you will find yourself fixated on some relatively insignificant facet of this life – like sports or politics or money. We can’t handle the hard, Law truth of this text. Oh sure, we can understand it – but we can’t do it.

And the good news is that we don’t have to – but that’s a hard truth for us to handle too! In fact, I would be willing to wager that many of us didn’t even hear the good news. Did you? Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom. The truth is that your Father in heaven is not waiting for you to sell your possessions, give to the poor, get dressed, light your lamps and stand watch before he gives you the kingdom. Nope. He says, “It’s my pleasure to give it to you.” Actually, Jesus literally says that your Father has been pleased to give it to you. The past (aorist) tense indicates that from a point in eternity – from before you were conceived, before you had the chance to sin, before you repented, before you came to faith – God decided that his greatest pleasure would be to give you his kingdom (Ephesians 1:4-6). The shocking – and wonderful – truth we have a hard time handling and hearing is that heaven is NOT something the little flock needs to worry about getting.

You know what it’s like to look at this from God’s perspective, don’t you? Haven’t you ever been really excited to give a gift to someone? You just couldn’t wait for their birthday or for Christmas – for that moment that they would tear through the wrapping paper to see what you gave them. The last thing you would want is for them to worry about getting the present or trying to earn it. You were simply happy to give it.

The reason we can’t handle this truth – and often can’t even perceive it – because the devil, the world and our own sinful flesh have drowned it out with their deafening chorus that there is no free lunch; that if you want something, you’ve got to earn it; that heaven is only for good people who give to charity and faithfully stand watch. This is what Paul was talking about when he wrote that no eye has seen and no ear has heard and no human mind has conceived…what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Corinthians 2:9). The sinful flesh cannot imagine God sitting in heaven, rubbing his hands together, saying to himself, “I just can’t wait to give them my kingdom.” But this is the truth of Scripture. The central message of the Bible and the central job of the church is not to beat people over the head with the Law but to invite them to taste and see that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8). Just consider God’s work in your own life. What did you do to deserve to hear the Gospel from a parent or friend or pastor? What did God demand of you before he baptized you into his family? How much did your absolution this morning cost? There is a transaction that takes place in Holy Communion – you give Jesus your sins and he gives you his righteousness. Isn’t God good? And, the truth of this text is that he wants to give you even more. To quote Paul one more time: God is willing and able to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).

The inconceivable, unimaginably wonderful truth is that our heavenly Father is pleased to give his Son what we deserved and to give to us what he alone deserved. We have never sold enough, gave enough, watched enough or worked enough for God to do a single thing for us other than damn us to hell for all eternity. But Jesus, who sold his home in heaven for a life of poverty on earth, who freely gave away health and healing to the sick, whose entire focus – even as a 12-year-old – was on carrying out his Father’s business (Luke 2:49), accepted the hell we deserved so that we could receive the kingdom he alone deserved. As Thanksgiving nears, we often hear encouragements to count our blessings (and rightly so, but if we started now, we wouldn’t be done until Thanksgiving 2050!) – but the truth Jesus reveals here is that the Father doesn’t just give us some money, food and shelter to get through this life – he’s pleased to give us his entire Kingdom! This is the wonderful truth that sinners like us find so hard to handle.

But, you might be thinking, “what about the part where Jesus clearly commands us to sell our possessions and keep watch?” These things do enter the picture but only after the Holy Spirit has convinced you that the kingdom of God is already your possession. Only once you see your Father in heaven rubbing his hands together, saying to himself, “I can’t wait to give them my kingdom” can you handle the rest of these verses. Only then will you see how it all fits together.

Here’s how to handle these truths. If you already have an eternal kingdom; why worry about this temporary, passing one? Maybe you heard the news that last weekend Jeff Bezos gave $100 million dollars to Dolly Parton to distribute to charities of her choice. [2] It’s hard for most of us to conceive of that amount of money – much less giving it away. How could he do this? Well, he’s worth over 100 billion dollars. The same is true of us: in Jesus the kingdom of God is ours, now and forever – we have the golden ticket – which allows and enables us to give freely to others in need. In other words, grace gives birth to grace; generosity and charity are characteristics peculiar to Christians because they know that the kingdom is already theirs.

What about waiting for the Son of Man? If you read these verses as a threat, as a warning that if you’re not alert enough when Jesus returns then you might not get into the wedding or he might scold you and send you to hell – then you’ll hear this waiting as a burden and you’re hearing it the wrong way. But if you hear these verses as Jesus’ promise to return – at an unexpected time, to be sure – but to return with the gift of his Father’s kingdom in hand – how could we not be joyfully and eagerly waiting for him? My birthday falls somewhere around a holiday each year (the date is on a need-to-know basis – and you don’t need to know!). But when I was growing up in Nebraska my grandparents would drive out to celebrate that holiday and my birthday with my family. Whenever they arrived, I knew they came with gifts in the trunk for me. Knowing this, I would ride my bike up and down the block for hours watching for their car in whether it was raining or snowing or below zero. It wasn’t a burden, but a joy. In the same way, waiting and watching for a Lord who is bringing us the best gift of all – heaven – is not a burden, but a joy. That’s a wonderful truth, right?

The proper way to handle the truth of this text is to read it in the order Jesus spoke it. Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom. If he starts by telling you not to be afraid, you can be sure that the next words out of his mouth aren’t meant to strike fear into your heart. And if he starts by telling you that the Father decided to give you his kingdom even before he created the world – then you can’t possibly think that the next thing he says is about how you must give your stuff away and keep watch in order to deserve it. Best of all, he doesn’t even demand that you handle this truth – it really is more than we can ask for or imagine – he wants this truth to handle – and comfort – you. Amen.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FnO3igOkOk

[2] https://www.npr.org/2022/11/14/1136454716/dolly-parton-jeff-bezos-imagination-library

Luke 21:5-28 - Last Words on Last Things - November 13, 2022

A prominent 20th century philosopher once made a brilliant observation. He said that “it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” This philosopher’s name was Yogi Berra – who also happened to be an all-star catcher for the New York Yankees. Now, whether he actually said those words is debatable. What is undebatable is that they are true, right? The future is unpredictable – as we can all attest to. Meteorologists prove every day that their weather forecasts are at best, educated guesses that are often inaccurate. Two years ago, did you hear anyone predicting that we’d be paying close to $4 for a gallon of gas today? Just five days ago, every political pundit was predicting what they called a “red wave.” Tuesday’s election was barely a red trickle. And, last but not least, who in their right mind would have predicted that the Vikings – the Vikings! – would be in command of the NFC north division? (It’s so bad that I’m considering the unthinkable: asking my wife if there is anything on her “honey-do” list just so I don’t have to watch the Packers!) The future is unpredictable – and, therefore, it is unwise to make predictions about it. And yet, that’s exactly what Jesus does this morning: he predicts the future. And unlike any meteorologist, economist, or political or sports commentator – we’re going to see why we should take Jesus at his word about the last things.

We’ll start towards the end of our text where Jesus predicts that before the end of time there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. And on the earth nations will be in anguish, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the surging waves, people fainting from fear and expectation of the things coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Seeing pictures and videos of war-torn Ukraine and the aftermath of hurricane Ian may serve as a kind of a “snap-shot,” a “teaser” of what the end will look like – but they are nothing compared to what is coming. It will be like nothing this world has ever experienced or anyone could ever imagine.

The question is: how do we know we can trust what Jesus says about the future? I thought the future was unpredictable? Fortunately, the Bible provides us with a litmus test. In Deuteronomy the Lord says if a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, and the thing does not come about and does not come true, the LORD has not spoken that word. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him (Deuteronomy 18:22). Easy enough, right? If what the prophet predicts comes true, he comes from the Lord. How does that test fit with Jesus’ words? Well, Jesus is in fact making two predictions here – and the first was a short-term prediction regarding the city of Jerusalem and the temple. The people in Jesus’ day thought that the city of Jerusalem was invincible. It was God’s city, the home of his temple. They couldn’t fathom that God would let his city and his temple be destroyed. And yet, as they were busy ogling the temple’s beauty, Jesus warns them that these things you see here – the days will come when there will not be one stone left on another – every one will be thrown down. Jesus told them what to do when they saw Jerusalem surrounded by armies: let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those who are inside the city get out. Let those who are in the country not enter the city. When the Romans razed Jerusalem and the temple to the ground in 70 AD, Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled with pinpoint accuracy. Jesus’ warning saved many Christian lives. They knew to flee when the Romans began to surround the city. The truth of Jesus’ short-term prediction about Jerusalem is proof that we can trust his predictions when it comes to the end of time.

The disciples ask for a sign indicating that these things are about to happen. Jesus doesn’t describe a sign (singular), but signs (plural). Broadly speaking, Jesus warns about signs that will occur in four areas of life: 1) political; 2) natural; 3) religious; and 4) personal. 1) Politically, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Not only have we witnessed a war in Ukraine and saber-rattling between many other nations – including the very real threat of another world war – right here in our own nation we just lived through another contentious election, where it became crystal clear how politically, culturally and morally divided our own nation is. 2) In nature, there will be horrifying sights and great signs from heaven. This past Tuesday people all over the world were able to witness a total lunar eclipse: the moon went dark. It was a sign. Not necessarily a sign that the end will arrive tomorrow – but that the End is coming! 3) Religiously, Jesus says that before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, handing you over to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake. While, for the most part, we still enjoy religious freedom in our country – millions of Christians around the world do not. And, in recent we have experienced how easy it is for the governing authorities to prevent us from gathering for worship and how our right to freely speak the truth of Scripture – especially those that fly in the face of the current moral revolution – is under attack. 4) But Jesus saves the most troubling sign for last: you will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends. They will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all people for my name’s sake. Perhaps the most powerful temptation that anyone of us will face to forsake our faith in Jesus will come from our families – from those who turn away from him, even though they’ve been baptized and confirmed in the faith; from those who hate us because we hold to the truth of Scripture even as our society spirals down the drain of immorality; from those who threaten to disown us because we point out and rebuke their sin. But whatever form these signs take in the political, natural, religious or personal realms, Jesus’ point is clear: it’s going to get worse as the end gets closer.

Aren’t you glad you rolled out of bed this morning to hear such a happy, cheerful message? Where’s the good news in Jesus’ last words on the last things? How and when are things going to get better? We’ll get there, but first we need to remember why this is all necessary. Jesus spoke these words on Tuesday of Holy Week, just three days before he would be nailed to a tree to die as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2). (Jesus was perhaps alluding to this when he talked about the Temple being destroyed – in that he had earlier referred to his body as a temple that his enemies would destroy, but which he would raise again within three days (John 2:19)).

And, in predicting the hard and troubling signs of the end in this section, Jesus is making clear that what was true for him will be true of each and every Christian. Just as Jesus suffered political and religious and personal persecution – so will all who follow him. That’s why the cross (and the sign of the cross) plays such a prominent role in genuine Christianity. Jesus was nailed to a cross to pay for our sins – and so we are baptized under the sign of the cross placed on our heads and hearts, we are absolved under the sign of the cross, we receive Jesus’ sacrificial body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins with the sign of the cross, we begin and end our worship with the cross. There’s a reason for this: everything we do, every minute of our day, we wake up and go to sleep under the cross. Christianity isn’t so much a way of life as it is a way of death. It’s dying with Jesus in order to be raised with him. It’s dying to sin and self and this world so that we can be alive to God (Galatians 2:20).

And, in a way no one would have ever expected, the troubling things that Jesus says lie in the future help us on that path. Now we might be skeptical of this. How can unrest between nations and in nature; how can religious and personal persecution help us on our path to heaven? Well, when the framework of this world begins to fall apart right before your eyes, where does that drive you? Doesn’t it drive you deeper into the Word of God, to search the Scriptures for some promise, some word of comfort and assurance? Did you catch the word of comfort Jesus gave here? No matter what happens politically or in nature; no matter how badly you are persecuted personally, Jesus promises that not a hair of your head will perish. By patient endurance you will gain your lives.

That’s the comfort hidden in these last Sundays of the church year and in considering the end of the world as we know it: the world as we know it must pass away before the true life Jesus won for us can be revealed. Picture it like the scaffolding that surrounds a building under construction. That ugly, relatively flimsy scaffolding hides the work that’s going on underneath. But when the work is done and the building is complete, then it’s time to tear down the scaffolding and reveal what’s been built. Jerusalem was a visible, historical example of this. Jerusalem certainly had a place and purpose in God’s eternal plan of salvation. It was the dwelling place of God with man until the coming of the Christ. But when Jesus appeared, it was time for the scaffolding to come down. The temple was no longer needed. Not only was the curtain in the temple which hid the Most Holy Place from view torn the moment Jesus died (Matthew 27:51), but forty years later, not one stone of the temple was left standing – and to this day the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim Mosque, stands where the temple used to.  

The same is true of the “scaffolding” of the world we live in today. The nations and institutions, the laws of nature and even our personal relationships – everything we see and experience in this life – is the scaffolding of history under which God is carrying out his plan of salvation; in which he is making everything new through Jesus. So when the nations are in turmoil and creation seems to be groaning in earthquakes and floods and famines and disasters, when the sun, moon and stars go dark – those are all the tearing down of a temporary structure to reveal the permanent, eternal kingdom of God.

More important, the same is true of the scaffolding of our lives individually. Did you notice that Jesus’ first warning sign concerning the end was not political or natural or personal – but spiritual? Watch out so that you are not deceived! For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. Jesus’ greatest concern is not for our earthly comfort but the preservation of our faith. Under the sinful flesh we all wear is hidden a saint by virtue of our baptism. But the flesh must die in order for the saint to be revealed. Whether that happens through political or religious persecution, through natural disaster, through being alienated from friends and family, or through death itself – the old Adam has to die in order for the New Man to be revealed. In other words, God uses these troubling and painful signs of the end to draw us away from this world – which is passing away; and to draw us closer to himself. That’s good news!

So whether it’s the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the death of Jesus on the cross, the end of the world on the Last Day, or the day you breath your last, it’s all part of God’s plan to bring about the salvation of his people. So, when everything seems to be getting worse, when you see the signs of the end, when it seems as if the whole world is headed to hell in a handbasket, when the church appears weak and persecuted and so do you, then you know exactly what to do: stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near. You know this because the Son of God and your Savior promises that even if heaven and earth…pass away…my words will never pass away (Luke 21:33). Amen.

Revelation 7:9-17 Two Questions about All Saints - November 6, 2022

In the words of the Nicene Creed we confessed that “we believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church.” There is only one Christian church. This is true in two senses. First, in the sense that despite the fact that Satan has sown countless doctrinal and, as a result, denominational divisions in Christ’s Church, in the eyes of God, there remains only one Church: that is, the Church consists of all who believe in Jesus as their Savior – regardless of their denominational label. There is also only one Church in the sense that all believers of all time – past, present and future – belong to one Church – although it consists of two distinct divisions: the Church militant – those still living, struggling, and suffering in this fallen world; and, the Church triumphant – those whom the Lord has rescued from this fallen world and now live in God’s presence in the glory of heaven. Revelation 7 speaks of both, but today we focus on the latter, the Church triumphant, and the two questions our text raises about them.

The first is: where are they now? When you lose someone you love, don’t you ask yourself that question? Where is the person you loved and laughed and lived with for so many years? If you were forced to answer that question right now, what would you say? You’ve heard the world’s sentimental (and mystical) answer, right? They’re not six feet under; they’re not in heaven; they’re in your heart. Whether it’s a Disney movie or a television drama – or even an interview with someone who’s mourning the loss of a loved one – they all seem to be convinced that when people die, they don’t go away; they go in here (your heart).

You can understand why that belief would be attractive, can’t you? No ugly grave; no pressure to consider that this person you loved, who was formed from dust, is now returning to dust because they had earned the wages of sin – which is death (Genesis 3:19; Romans 6:23). No, none of that ugly stuff, just the pleasant memories you hold in your heart. People hold to that belief because it seems comforting. It excuses you from having to explain to your children the harsh realities of death; of heaven and hell. It’s a way of avoiding the nasty little fact that death has created a permanent loss; that as long as you live, you will never see, speak to, or hug that person again. But is it really comforting to believe that your loved ones are only living on in your heart and memory? Certainly we can remember notable events and quotes from their lives, we can dust off the photo albums – and today, we can even watch little clips of their lives recorded on our smart phones. But is that eternal life? If it is, then our great, great grandparents are eternally lost – because who remembers them now? Many who have lost loved ones are incredibly troubled when they find that they can’t remember the sound of their loved one’s voice anymore. Is that loved one lost when you can’t remember their voice or the photo album burned up in a fire or Google didn’t actually save that one precious video? Is there any comfort in believing that our loved ones only live on in our hearts?

Where are they now? Outright unbelief – as articulated today by the theory of evolution – has an answer, too. They’re just buried six feet deep or, as is more and more common today, contained in an urn. Either a furnace has burned them to dust or they are well on their way to dust. They will never be seen, heard, or touched again. Unbelief says that we are nothing but a random blend of chemicals and minerals. There is no mind – just a collection of brain cells. There is no heart that loves – only hormones that make you feel a certain way. There is no eternal soul – only a physical body that ceases to be once its organs shut down. Again, is there any comfort to be found there? In thinking that the people you truly did love were really only dust in the wind (and so are you!) and this brief moment of life we experience together is all we get? I don’t think so. But that’s not even the most important question. The most important question is: is it true?

Well, let’s go to the source of truth: God’s Word? Now, our knee-jerk reaction might be to say, “Well, whatever the unbelievers believe, we believe the opposite.” That is, unbelief points at the grave or the urn, and says, “There and there alone is your loved one. Buried six feet under or burned up by fire.” And we’re tempted to say the opposite: “That’s not them anymore.” But it is. That’s why the patriarchs in the OT purchased caves in which to bury their loved ones (Genesis 23:12-20). That’s why the Church has always carefully cared for the bodies of the dead. That’s why many Christian churches have their own cemeteries. That’s why we spend a small fortune on funerals and headstones. They serve as tangible confessions of our faith that this isn’t the end of the body that rests there; that they are only sleeping, awaiting God’s final creative – or maybe better, recreative – act: the bodily resurrection of the dead.

Those lifeless remains are your loved one. Their DNA says so. More importantly, God’s Word says so. Job testified that 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 (Job 19:26-27). Jesus proved it by physically raising the dead during his ministry (Luke 7:11-17; 8:49-56; John 11:1-44) and again on the day of his death; when the moment he gave up his spirit…tombs were opened, and many bodies of saints who had fallen asleep were raised to life (Matthew 27:50, 52). You didn’t just love a soul – you loved a body. And so did God. That’s why he didn’t just send his Son into the world to redeem souls but bodies; that’s why Jesus lived, suffered, died and rose with a physical body. God created us with bodies and souls, and the fact that he promises to raise our ashes to life means that our loved ones are there in the grave or urn we laid them in.

But the Bible says more than that. It says that our loved ones who died in faith are also in heaven. Again, that’s not my opinion; that’s God’s Word. Just as Jesus told the thief on the cross today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43), so the countless multitude stands around God’s throne in paradise. As the Jews were pelting the life out of Stephen’s body with stones, he cried out Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! (Acts 7:59). That’s where your loved one who died in the faith is right now: with Jesus. Just as you stand before Jesus here in the church militant singing his praise, so Revelation shows our loved ones standing before the throne of God, singing: salvation comes from our God, who sits on the throne, and from the Lamb.

But there is a difference. They have escaped the great tribulation called life on this earth; you haven’t. You get hungry; they don’t. You get thirsty; they don’t. The sun beats down on you – that is, many things make life on this earth hard for you as a result of sin’s curse (Genesis 3); there’s no hardship in heaven. You cry; they don’t. God doesn’t just wipe away the tears from their cheeks – as we do; he wipes the tears from their eyes – meaning, he takes away any reason they could have for tears. Isn’t the Bible’s answer in Revelation to the question “where are they now” infinitely better than the baseless, mystic sentimentality of the world or the cold and comfortless answer of unbelief?

But that brings us to the second question: “how did they get there?” – and, relatedly, “how do I get there?” Once again, the world and unbelief have their answers. The world says that the dead live on in your hearts. How do they get there? By doing memorable things. By writing novels and starring in movies; by scoring touchdowns and pitching perfect games; by sacrificing for others and donating hospital wings. The reality is that our children will never really know or care about Bart Starr or Rollie Fingers; they will probably never read Mark Twain or watch Gone with the Wind; and, honestly, who even notices the names on the plaques that cover the walls of the hospital you’re walking into? If such famous and impactful people can be so easily forgotten or ignored, what hope do you or I have to live on eternally in the memories of other people by virtue of our words and actions?

Unbelief claims that the dead are gone. That once the chemicals and minerals which evolution arranged that enabled you to think, move and talk stopped sparking and moving, that’s it. Here’s the thing: do you know anyone who actually believes that? The idea of an afterlife has appeared in every civilization that has ever existed. That’s not a coincidence, Solomon says that [God] has put eternity in [every human heart] (Ecclesiastes 3:11). And most believe that there is a good afterlife and a bad one. And what gets you into the good one? Good works. Effort. Blood, sweat and tears. Good people and those who die a hero’s death go to a good afterlife. It’s in songs and books and movies. You hear it at funerals: “They worked hard, were a good mom or dad or brother or sister, they loved to help others – and, so, now they’re in a better place.”

Is that what you want people to say at your funeral? I don’t. Because if the requirement for getting into heaven depends on me being a good person, a loving husband, a caring father, a faithful pastor – then I’m toast – and so are all of my, and your, loved ones who have died. If you doubt this, just compare the names listed in Hebrews 11 – the so-called Hall of Fame of Faith – to their OT biographical accounts. They were far from “saints” during their lives on earth; they were liars and deceivers, murderers and prostitutes. If getting into heaven depends on good works, pure thoughts and loving words – where does that leave your grandparents and parents? Where does that leave you and me? On the outside looking in. It leaves you looking at the headstone and remembering the time grandma let a naughty word slip and thinking that maybe she didn’t have what it takes to get into heaven.

Thank God for Revelation 7. What does it say? Does it say: “These are the ones who have made their dirty robes white by the good works they did on earth?” Does it say: “These are the ones who earned a place there by their unshakable faith, bold confession and tireless efforts in God’s kingdom on earth?” Does it even say: “These are the ones who confessed their faith to the point of death so that their blood made their robes white?” No, it says they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

That the saints in heaven did good works on earth is undeniable. But their good works didn’t get them into heaven. No one, not any of your loved ones or any of mine; not even any of the famous saints like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter or Paul had possessed the righteousness needed to stand in God’s presence on their own. So how did they get into heaven? The same way your Christian loved ones did and the same way you will. Through the blood of the Lamb; through the blood Jesus shed for your sins on the cross; through the blood he poured out which covers your sinful life. It’s the blood of Jesus that washes away any and every sinful stain on your robe. Even if someone you know who died in the faith hurt you in a way you struggle to forgive and forget – Jesus can and Jesus did. Even if you hurt a loved one and never had the chance to repent and receive their forgiveness – Jesus can and Jesus did. No sin can stick to a robe that has been washed white through faith in the blood of the Lamb – and that’s the only reason that that great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, could be standing in front of the throne and of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palm branches in their hands – including your loved ones and mine. If you want to see them again, then know this: the blood of the Lamb is the key. This is the blood he puts in the water of baptism for sinners; the blood he uses to wipe your slate clean in the words of Absolution; the blood he gives in Holy Communion to sinners to drink – for forgiveness and, therefore, eternal life and salvation.

On All Saints’ Day, Revelation 7 answers the two big questions we have regarding those who have died in the faith: where are they now and how did they get there? Right now their bodies are resting in the ground awaiting resurrection and the souls are singing God’s praises in heaven – and they got there by his good works and the blood he shed which was offered to them and received by them in baptism, absolution and communion. And, as a bonus, now you know how you can join them there. Amen.

John 8:31-36 - Jesus has Set Us Free! - October 30, 2022

This time of year our mailboxes and email inboxes are filled with political mailings and messages. Often the candidates who are asking for your vote promise to give you freedom of some sort in return. And rightly so, since our nation was established on the principle of freedom – freedom we still enjoy today. In 9 days, we can exercise our freedom to vote. We enjoy freedom of speech (although as Christians we will always use that right to edify others and glorify God). We enjoy freedom of the press – MSNBC or FOX, the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal – we are free to consume all of them or none of them. Most importantly, we enjoy freedom of religion. Unlike thousands – perhaps millions – of Christians around the world, we don’t (or at least shouldn’t) have to worry that the government will persecute us because we confess Jesus Christ as our Savior. As Americans, we are free in any number of ways – and let us never take our freedoms for granted. But today, let us cherish the most important freedom we have – one not granted by the Constitution but by Jesus.

Many Americans today take their freedoms for granted. So do many Christians. That’s because you can only appreciate freedom when you’ve known and experienced the opposite: slavery. The first part of John 8 provides a prime example of what this slavery looks like. As Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, the scribes and Pharisees dragged in a woman who had been caught red handed in the sin of adultery. The Pharisees brought this woman to Jesus to see if he would support the Law of Moses which said that she should be stoned to death for her crime (Leviticus 20:10). This woman knew what it meant to be enslaved to sin. Lust controlled her. Wicked, angry, vengeful men surrounded her, and on the other side of her only apparent escape – death – stood Satan, cackling with delight in the fact that he had wrecked another home, ruined another life, and trapped another soul for eternity.

The Galatians in our second lesson also knew what it meant to be slaves. Some of them were literal slaves – a grim reality for many in the Roman Empire. Many of them had, at one time, been slaves to idols – false gods with eyes that couldn’t see, ears that couldn’t hear, and hands that couldn’t help. Behind every one of these false gods stood Satan – who had succeeded yet again in convincing humans created in God’s image to worship blocks of wood and statues of silver. It was pure insanity. Pure satanic slavery!

But before you spend your pity on that woman and those Christians in Galatia, listen to what Jesus has to say: Amen, Amen, I tell you: everyone who keeps committing sin is a slave to sin. All sin is slavery. Sometimes this slavery is easy to spot. The addict who lies and steals to maintain his addiction – his slavery is obvious. The husband who spends his time, money, and creativity deceiving his family and friends to maintain a secret affair – his slavery is obvious. When pastors reach out to members who haven’t attended worship in months or years, they often hear the rattle of sin’s chains in the excuses given: busy schedule; gotta work; it’s the kids and their sports or academics; it’s my only morning to sleep in; I’m young, I’ll have time for Jesus later, etc. Wrecked bodies, destroyed homes and lives, greedy hearts and starving souls – all of it is slavery, slavery to sin and slavery to Satan.

Other times it’s harder to spot – especially when you and I are looking in the mirror. There’s one important thing to remember: slavery to sin isn’t only what we do, it’s who we are. We just admitted that, didn’t we? I confess…. that I am a miserable sinner, guilty of every sin… Pick a commandment, any commandment – and when you look into it as a mirror, your slavery and mine will become obvious. The 4th – sure we respect those in elected office, those called by the church, our parents and employers – to their faces; how many of us would have to blush with shame if our private thoughts and conversations about them were made public? The 5th – it’s easy to refrain from pulling a trigger on a gun. It’s not so easy to keep from pulling the trigger of hatred in our hearts. The 6th – it’s fairly easy to stay out of our neighbor’s bedroom. It’s not so easy to keep our eyes to ourselves. The 8th – I doubt that many of us have had the opportunity to commit perjury in a courtroom – but the times we’ve told lies about neighbor, betrayed him, or given him a bad name; those are innumerable. Jesus says, everyone who keeps committing sin is a slave to sin. The hard truth is, then, that because we sin we are slaves to sin.

When we learn this truth, we don’t like it. So we try to escape. Generally, in one of two ways: 1) We try to work our way out of it, or 2) we deny it. The Galatians had chosen to try to work themselves out of their slavery. They did so by confusing Law and Gospel. Some false teachers had wormed their way into the Galatian congregation. They were essentially Pharisees in Christian clothing. They said that it was fine to believe that the Gospel made you a Christian, but that if you wanted to stay a Christian and be certain of your salvation, you still had to obey the Old Testament laws: you had to be circumcised, not work on Saturdays, not eat bacon or pork chops. Paul could hardly believe it: I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ, for a different gospel, which is really not another gospel at all (Galatians 1:6-7). Paul is shocked that these Christians would even consider giving up the freedom they had in Christ for the chains of the Mosaic Law.

Martin Luther tried a similar route 1500 years later. He gave up a promising career in the law to become a monk. He gave up ownership of earthly possessions. He slept on a stone floor, became a priest, named and confessed his sins seven days a week and prayed seven times a day. He did all this in an attempt to free his conscience from guilt and his soul from slavery to sin. And yet, his path of freedom through works quickly became another form of slavery. I saw many who tried with great effort and the best of intentions to do everything possible to appease their conscience. They wore hair shirts; they fasted; they prayed; they tormented and wore out their bodies so severely that if they had been made of iron they would have been crushed. And yet the more they labored, the greater their terrors became. Especially when the hour of death was imminent, they became so fearful that I have seen many murderers facing execution die more confidently than these men who had lived such saintly lives (LW 27:13). Attempting to work your way out of slavery – whether that means fasting, giving, praying, working, serving, preaching, or just trying harder tomorrow – is simply trading slavery to sin for slavery to the law. And slavery never leads to freedom.

Option 2: deny, deny, deny. Israel’s history was one of slavery beginning, middle and end. Egypt. Babylon. Rome. It was undeniable. And yet they claim: we are Abraham’s descendants…and we have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be set free’? They were in denial. “We can’t be slaves. We’re children of Abraham. We’ve got the right blood flowing in our veins – so God has to give us a pass.” Sadly, these Jews forgot that the fact that their forefathers wandered and died in the wilderness for their rebellion and unbelief (1 Corinthians 10:1-13) shows how serious God is about sin – no matter who you’re related to.

That’s why we don’t let our celebration of the Reformation turn into Lutheran pep rally. “We’re sons of Luther – and we’re WELS (that’s the good kind of Lutheran) on top of it! God must be happy with us.” The truth is that belonging to a confessional Lutheran church and synod doesn’t earn us a thing in God’s eyes. If we imagine that we are free because of our Lutheran pedigree – because we were baptized, confirmed, married and plan to be buried Lutheran – we are in denial, and we end up losing the one person with the pedigree that really matters: Jesus. That’s why we don’t celebrate the Reformation to worship Martin Luther, or to place our trust in our Lutheran heritage as if that somehow earns our spot in heaven; no, our celebration of the Lutheran Reformation is nothing more and nothing less than an opportunity to thank God for using Martin Luther to bring back to the forefront the one true solution to our problem of slavery: Jesus!

Obedience to the law cannot set us free. Being Lutheran does not set us free. Only one thing sets us free from sin: If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free…a slave does not remain in the family forever. A son does remain forever. So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.

The big question is: who is this Son who claims to have the power to set sinners free? There is no more important question and answer that Satan tries harder to confuse and cover up. The world at large is too distracted by the pursuits and pleasures of this life to be bothered with this question. The visible church has mutilated the Son’s identity, with many saying that Jesus can be whoever you want him to be. But salvation doesn’t depend on who you want Jesus to be, it depends on who Jesus proved himself to be. Thank God that Jesus has proved beyond all doubt that he is God’s Son and our Savior – but he did it in a rather unorthodox manner. He proved his power to free us from our slavery to sin by voluntarily becoming a slave in our place. He freed us by giving up his freedom. He left his majestic throne in heaven to become a servant on earth. He came preaching and teaching the truth – but no truth has been more frequently and completely rejected than His saving gospel. Jesus came to bring light to people living in darkness, but most preferred to stay in the darkness of sin and unbelief (John 3:19-20). Jesus was omnipotent, all-powerful; but in humility he allowed himself to be arrested, mocked and beaten by his creatures. Jesus, the King of Justice, suffered the ultimate perversion of justice – the guilty Barabbas walked free while he was nailed to a cross. The Author of Life died (Acts 3:15). The one who fills the universe was sealed in a cold stone grave. But…that wasn’t the end of the story: the One who died rose and now lives forever!

Because God’s Son broke the bars on death’s prison, not only is he free – he has earned the right to set us free. Slaves can only make other slaves. If we trust our own obedience to set us free – we will be slaves forever. If we look to Luther to set us free – we will find that heaven isn’t the only corner of eternity with a special section for Lutherans (there’s a section of hell for all who falsely claimed to be Lutheran, too). But if the Son sets you free, you really will be free. Through the conquering work of the Son, you are free from slavery to sin. Through the Lord of Life, you are free from the fear of death. Freed from Satan’s chains by Jesus’ blood, you are free to be sons and daughters of our Father in heaven.

That’s freedom you enjoy right now. How? Lutherans (especially Lutheran pastors) love the answer to that question. If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. We hold to the Reformation creed of Scripture alone because Jesus tells us that it is only through his Word that we are truly set free. Jesus ties the gift of freedom – not to our genetic heritage, not to our church membership, not to a feeling in our hearts, not to our obedience or good works – but to His Word. Jesus connects true freedom, not to an army representing the red, white, and blue but to the blood-stained Gospel. If you want to be free; if you want to experience true freedom – hold onto Jesus’ teaching, treasure every doctrine in it, take every opportunity to hear and dig into God’s Word, remember your baptism daily and receive the Sacrament as often as you can – because through that Word Jesus sets you free to be children of God.

As people blessed by God to live in the land of the free, may we never take our freedom for granted. Don’t forget that our freedom of press, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion were bought and paid for by American lives. Thank God for the freedoms granted and guaranteed to us by the Constitution. But more importantly, on this Reformation Day, rejoice in the freedom you have as a child of God. It was purchased and won for you, not by American soldiers, but by the blood of God’s one and only Son. That freedom comes to you through Word and Sacrament. That freedom can’t be taken from you. That freedom will ring loud and clear forever. Amen.

Luke 18:18-27 - Inheriting Eternal Life - October 23, 2022

You often find them in locker rooms and classrooms. You’ve probably seen them posted on social media or tacked on the office bulletin board. They are usually set to majestic backdrops of mountains, rivers or oceans – to give the impression that they are conveying something profound – and they are printed with phrases like: “If you just put your mind to it, you can do anything!” “When we work together, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish!” “If you believe in yourself, there’s nothing you can’t achieve!” They are motivational posters. And while a precious few might actually find these posters motivational, they are also a vivid reminder of the proud mentality that lurks deep inside every human being. It’s the mentality that there is nothing we can’t do if we try hard enough, work long enough, or want something bad enough. And, yet, from the beginning of time there has been nothing man has tried harder to achieve than immortality. Adam and Eve had it, lost it, and then had to be driven out of the Garden of Eden to prevent them from regaining a cursed version of it in this fallen world (Genesis 3). Around 200 B.C., the self-declared first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, obsessed over finding immortality in the form of a magical elixir. As fate would have it, his elixir of choice was mercury, which not only failed to give him immortality, but wound up shortening his life considerably. [1] More recently, many people have chosen to have their bodies cryogenically frozen in the hope that a future technology will be able to revive them from death. It’s a tragic irony, isn’t it? As humans we love to imagine that we can accomplish anything we set our minds to, and yet we have been 100% unsuccessful in preventing the only thing besides taxes that is absolutely guaranteed in this life; the one thing we fear most: death.

One day, a certain ruler came to Jesus searching for the secret to immortality: Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? This man was likely a leader in one of the local synagogues. He had been taught by the rabbis that the way to eternal life was through obedience to the laws of Moses. Jesus played along, saying: “why ask me, you know how to get to heaven – keep the commandments: you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. Honor your father and mother.” According to rabbinical (not divine) law, a male was not obligated to keep the law until he turned 13. [2] This man was certain he had been perfectly obedient since then: I have kept all these since I was a child. Which begs the question: if he was so confident he had kept God’s law, why would he come to Jesus asking about eternal life? Wouldn’t he already have earned it by virtue of his perfect obedience? Didn’t he know that God promised in Leviticus 18:5: Keep my regulations and ordinances. Anyone who does them will have life through them. I am the LORD. According to this man’s own confession, he was well on his way to achieving eternal life on his own. But something brought him to Jesus, something was bothering his conscience; he could sense that despite his supposed obedience, he needed something more.

Jesus agreed with his self-assessment: you still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. Now, Jesus’ answer was not at all what we would consider today to be a politically correct or properly sympathetic response, was it? Our politically correct world would probably say: what a jerk, I thought Jesus was supposed to be loving and kind, this man is trying his best, why not encourage him rather than command him to do something impossible? The truth is: Jesus was acting out of love. Mark tells us Jesus looked at him [and] loved him (Mark 10:21). This man thought he could earn eternal life by obeying the law and he needed to realize how badly mistaken he was. So Jesus aimed an arrow of law at his Achilles’ heel. And this arrow had its desired effect: when the ruler heard these words, he became very sad, because he was very rich. Wealth had become this man’s idol. This man walked away sad because, perhaps for the first time in his life, this man realized that he had failed to obey the most important commandment: You shall have no other gods (Exodus 20:3). By making this seemingly impossible demand, Jesus was showing the rich ruler that he had been fooling himself all along, that far from earning eternal life by his obedience, he had forfeited it by his idolatrous greed.

“Well. Thank God I’m not rich then, right? Fortunately for me the issue is having too little, not too much of the green stuff.” The thing is, this encounter isn’t really about money. Scripture never says money is the root of all evil. 1 Timothy 6:10 does read: the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. Being wealthy is not a sin. Loving wealth more than God is. And we might argue, we might try to justify ourselves, saying: I don’t love money. I don’t spend every waking moment thinking about it. I don’t spend most of my energy in gaining more of it and storing it up. I don’t trust in money to provide for my every need and help me in every trouble. Maybe not. Maybe it’s not money for you. But what do you cherish most in this life? What is the one thing in this world you could not live without? What if Jesus was standing here, looking at us, taking aim with the arrow of the Law, saying: you still lack one thing. Give up all those hours you spend in front of the TV; give up that hobby that so often comes before time with God’s Word; give up your nice home, your pension, your nest-egg; give up your children or your spouse; give up social media; give up thinking that you are better and smarter than other people; give up your fear of death – give up those things, and you will have treasure in heaven. Jesus focuses on wealth in this story because the ruler before him idolized his riches. But if Jesus was taking aim at the idols in our hearts, would we walk away any happier than this man?

“How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Jesus understood perfectly what is so difficult for mankind to recognize and remember: it is impossible for anyone – you, me, rich, poor, man, woman, old, or young – to enter the kingdom of God on our own. This is what the picture of the camel and the needle is all about: as impossible as it would be for a camel to go through the eye of a needle it is even more impossible for any sinner – wealthy or otherwise – to enter the kingdom of the holy God. Why? For the same reason that ruler walked away sad – God doesn’t demand that we give it our best effort – he says be perfect (Matthew 5:48); he doesn’t demand to be in the top 5 in our lives – he demands 1st place; he doesn’t expect us to love [him] with all [our hearts]…[souls]…strength…and…[mind] (Luke 10:27) only when it’s convenient – he demands our absolute loyalty 24/7, 365. And when God shoots an arrow of his law at our hearts, when he holds up the mirror of the law to show us how wicked and idolatrous we have been; we can’t help but walk away sad like that rich ruler. We can’t help but realize that we haven’t lived up to God’s demands. We can’t help but tremble in terror and cry out with the disciples then who can be saved?

And with that, we are back to the rich ruler’s question, aren’t we? The question that has captivated people since the beginning of time, the most important question that can be asked in this life: what must I do to inherit eternal life? It’s the right question – but wrongly phrased. What I mean is that this question is contradictory on its face, isn’t it? How can a person earn or do something for an inheritance – isn’t an inheritance, by definition, a free gift? This man was so close to his answer, in fact, he was speaking with the Answer, but the things of this world had clouded his vision. He was bound by the worldly opinion that if you want something you have to earn it. And that has been the flawed condition of mankind ever since the fall into sin. Adam and Eve longed to take a bite out of the tree of life; many have spent fortunes searching for an elixir of immortality; others have had their dead bodies turned into popsicles; and countless masses hope that when Judgment Day comes God will give them a pass because they tried their best to be good little boys and girls.

But the point of the 10 Commandments and the point of this lesson is simple: It is impossible for us to earn eternal life no matter how hard we try. God demands perfection, and we are far from it. But God didn’t give us his law to make us despair of ever reaching eternal life – he gave it to us to lead us to despair of achieving it on our own; to show us that we need a Savior; the Savior that is standing right before us this morning: [Jesus] replied, “What is impossible for people is possible with God.” Our almighty, immortal God knew from eternity that his most treasured creation, mankind, would plunge from perfection into the depths of sin. But he wasn’t going to let Satan steal our souls so easily. He wasn’t about to let his precious creation perish eternally in the fire of hell. So he did something about it. He started right away in the Garden with Adam and Eve, where he first sowed the seed of eternal life: 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 (Genesis 3:15). And then, over the course of thousands of years God protected his promise, he nurtured and sheltered the Eve’s seed within his chosen people of Israel. For thousands of years, God guided the entirety of human history with one goal in mind – to fulfill his promise to redeem all people from the death their sin had earned them (Romans 6:23). And then, 2000 years ago he put his plan into effect – when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law, so that we would be adopted as sons (Galatians 4:4).

What was impossible for man, God made possible all by himself. God threaded the camel through the eye of the needle. God came to this earth and was born as a baby in Bethlehem. Baby Jesus grew and was tempted and suffered just as we do – yet he never sinned. Never once did he let his family or friends or job or wealth come before his Father in heaven. Never once did Jesus ever lose his focus on his mission of redemption. Never once did Jesus have to walk away sad because he was too busy, too proud, or too selfish to serve God and fallen mankind with all his mind, soul and strength. In fact, just the opposite, Jesus gave up everything to save us: he gave up his Father’s riches in heaven, he gave up his seat of power at God’s right hand, he gave up his position as judge over all the earth – and Jesus was anything but rich and powerful when he lived on this earth; he didn’t have a penny to his name or even a place to call home. Jesus did the impossible not once but three times: he lived a sinless life, paid for the world’s sin by his death, and then overcame death itself by rising to life three days later. Jesus is the answer to life’s most important question: who can be saved? By God’s grace and through faith in Jesus’ merit, anyone can be because what is impossible for people is possible for God.

Motivational posters might be useful when it comes to building morale and self-confidence. The mentality “there’s nothing you can’t do, if you just put your mind to it” might be true when it comes to shooting rockets into space, curing disease, and all sorts of wonderful and beneficial inventions. But when it comes to defeating death, mankind has struck out. But where man failed, God succeeded. Jesus did what no other man could do: he lived under the law but never broke it; he died but didn’t stay dead. And he gives this elixir of immortality to us regularly through baptism, absolution and the Lord’s Supper – the means of grace which confirm that because of Jesus, while you may die, you will live eternally (John 11:25-26). What must we do to inherit eternal life? Nothing but receive it as God’s free gift through Jesus! Amen.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170411-the-army-that-conquered-the-world

[2] https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2957494/jewish/Why-Are-Bar-and-Bat-Mitzvah-at-13-and-12.htm

Luke 18:1-8 - Always Pray and Do Not Lose Heart - October 16, 2022

It’s a situation familiar to most of us. You’re running late but you still have to pick up the last few ingredients for supper. You grab a cart, scramble through the aisles and hurry back to the register. At the register, you have everything ready – your Fresh Perks number, your coupons, your credit card. With a quick ‘have a nice evening’ to the cashier, you run back out to the car. But then, as you’re going, you happen to glance at the reciept – they overcharged you for the milk. What do you do? There are two different types of people in this world with two radically different responses: 1) You run back in to customer service, demand a refund – and won’t take no for an answer no matter how much it will delay dinner; or 2) you shrug your shoulders, decide the money you would save isn’t worth your time, drive off, and make the mental note to hide the receipt from your spouse when you get home. Which one are you? In the end, it doesn’t matter how persistent you are or how valid your demand – your refund doesn’t depend on your pleading and begging but on the willingness and ability of the customer service rep to help you, to give you justice.

In a continuation of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells a parable about a more serious, but similar situation. He sets the stage: there was a judge in a certain town who did not fear God and did not care about people. Just like today, in ancient Israel, disputes between citizens were decided by a third party: an independent judge. Unlike today, there was very little red tape – there were no lawyers, no class action lawsuits, no appeals courts. But in the parable before us, we are told something unexpected about the judge. He was an unbeliever; he did not fear God. Now, taken by itself, that’s not a big deal. There are plenty of unbelievers who are perfectly honest judges. Earthly justice doesn’t depend on faith, it depends on reason. But this judge’s unbelief makes the second part even more troubling – he did not care about people either. He didn’t care what others thought about his decisions and judgments. Care – or better here ‘respect’ – for men is an essential quality for a judge – an honest judge is one who is concerned for the weak in society, who stands up for their rights against powerful oppressors. But this judge was neither fearful of God nor a respecter of men; he was – as Jesus puts it – an unjust judge.

Then Jesus takes us to the other end of the spectrum. There was a widow in that town, and she kept going to him, saying, ‘Give me justice from my adversary!’ Why would Jesus pick a widow to be the protagonist in his parable? Well, we know that Jesus always showed special concern for the weak and powerless in society. Jesus spent much of his time on this earth with children, the sick, the handicapped, and widows. A widow, by definition, had lost her legal protector when her husband died. She didn’t normally have the assets to bribe her way to justice. She was an especially easy target for those who prey on the helpless. Jesus picks a widow because a widow was powerless to get justice for herself – she needed the help of a just judge.

But this widow wasn’t getting the justice she demanded: For some time he refused, but after a while he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God or care about people, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not wear me out with her endless pleading.’ Although this widow may have appeared helpless, she had one tool at her disposal – persistence. The phrase translated wear me out is literally ‘give a black eye’ – this widow was coming close to giving a judge a black eye. Not physically but metaphorically. If it became public knowledge that this judge was ignoring the pleas of a helpless widow – he ran the risk of having his reputation tarnished – he might even lose his job. (Incidentally, how many elected officials do the right thing only for the same reason – because they may damage their reputation or lose their job?) This judge may have been shamelessly crooked and godless, but he had to keep that fact hidden, he had to keep up at least a façade of honesty to keep his job, and this widow was a threat – so he finally gave in and gave her justice.

A nice story, right? But what’s the point? What does it mean for us? Unlike many parables, we don’t have to go searching for the point of this parable – Luke gives it to us directly: Jesus told them a parable about the need to always pray and not lose heart. Ok, Amen, we can all go home now, right? We should be like that widow and pray persistently until we get a favorable response from God. Point taken Jesus, see you next week! But Jesus isn’t done applying this parable to our lives. Maybe you have begun to put the dots of this parable together in your mind – it’s easy enough to see how we are like the widow; we often feel weak and helpless to get answers and justice from God – but that second part, the part about the godless, shameless, unjust judge – what is that about?

And this is the crux of the parable. We’re pretty familiar with the places in Scripture where Jesus invites us to come to him in prayer: keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep seeking and you will find. Keep knocking and it will be opened to you (Luke 11:9); therefore I tell you, everything that you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours (Mark 11:24). In hard times – for that matter, at all times! – we know we should pray. When things beyond our control take over our lives or cause destruction and pain around the world, we know that God invites us to talk to him about it. If we are the ones undergoing pain or trial, we might even have friends and family who try to help us out by encouraging us to pray, saying: I know you’re going through a rough patch, but God has a plan for you, even in this. And isn’t it a great comfort that you can take all your cares to God in prayer? But when you are sitting on rock bottom, it can be difficult to see the point of prayer, instead we think: you know, prayer doesn’t seem real helpful right now, I’ve been praying for years, my family has been praying – it hasn’t helped in the past, why would it help now? Even with prayer, things don’t get any better, they just keep getting worse.

Have you ever been there? Have you ever decided that God is going to do what he’s going to do and nothing you say or pray will change it? If so, you’re not alone. I would wager that just about every Christian has, in a time of crisis, experienced such feelings of helplessness and despair. Fortunately for us, our Lord Jesus, was a true man who knew and experienced every emotion we feel, also knew that we would feel this way sometimes. That’s why he tells us this parable.

But, at least at first glance, Jesus’ interpretation doesn’t seem very comforting, does it? The Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. Will not God give justice to his chosen ones, who are crying out to him day and night? Will he put off helping them? “So…God is like that wicked judge – he doesn’t really care about me or upholding justice – but he does care about his reputation? So I should keep praying because if he doesn’t answer that makes him look bad, and he can’t allow that to happen? Is God afraid of losing his job?” Not at all. Jesus’ lesson is a lesson in contrast. He’s saying that if even an unjust judge who doesn’t care about God or widows will grant justice in order to protect his good name; how much more will the Lord who loves his children dearly, and who is very much concerned with upholding justice, and who, by the way, has a flawless name to protect, help his chosen ones from affliction when they cry out to him for help? What kind of mother ignores her crying baby? What kind of father stands idly by when his child is suffering and they’re crying out to him for help? Only terrible parents – the very worst kind. But here’s the thing: when we give up on prayer, that’s what we’re accusing God of being. That’s also what we’re witnessing to the world when we neglect worship and prayer: Hey, why don’t you become a Christian? It’s wonderful! We have an awful God who plugs his ears to our prayers and can’t be bothered when we’re suffering. Christians who fail to pray are breaking the 2nd commandment and need to repent.

But that’s not who God is. That isn’t who he’s revealed and proven himself to be. And that’s the point: our attitude toward prayer (and worship) is directly connected to who we believe God to be. If you imagine that he is a villain on par with that unjust judge, then by all means, go ahead and give up praying, it’s not doing you any good anyway because the God you “believe” in doesn’t exist. But if you believe, as Jesus taught us (Matthew 6:7-13), that you have a Father in heaven who loves you, who always wants what’s best for you, and who is so deeply concerned about every detail of your life that he has numbered the very hairs of your head (Luke 12:7), then pray knowing that your Father hears you and that whether his answer is yes, no, or not yet – that is the best answer for you.

Prayer is above all an act of faith (which incidentally, is why we don’t pray with people of other faiths). Prayer is an expression of your belief that God is who he says he is. It’s in this context that Jesus asks: when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? If Jesus were to return this instant, would he find this kind of faith in the world, in our country, in our community? Would he find it here, at Risen Savior? Jesus is asking if people like you and me will be ready and waiting for His return; praying for it; confidently expecting that the Lord who promised to come again will indeed come to answer our prayers and rescue us from this broken, sinful world. If that’s who you believe the Lord to be, then you will be persistent in prayer.

Now, we might argue: but often, when I pray, I don’t always get what I ask for. No, you don’t. But you can be sure of this: the Lord always gives you what you need. And he’s a whole lot wiser than you are. So if he doesn’t give you what you want, you can be sure there is a good reason for it. A better question is: what good things could you have that you’re not asking for? James writes: you do not have because you do not ask (James 4:2). And he’s not talking about the things we think are so important in this life; relief from pain, a happy family, an easy retirement, or job security. No, the Lord is more interested in giving us the gifts of the Spirit: things like faith, patience, peace, kindness, wisdom, and love (Galatians 5:22-23). The Lord wants to give us these gifts – but how often do we ask for them? If our wise God sees fit to send trials and hardship into our lives – our knee-jerk reaction is to pray that he would remove them immediately. And sometimes he does – but sometimes he doesn’t. Maybe it would be better to ask for the faith and strength to endure them and to be a faithful witness of the Gospel in the midst of them.

But back to the question: When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? On that day, there will be only two kinds of people: those on our Lord’s right (believers) and those on his left (unbelievers). And on that day, the most important thing won’t be how persistent you have been in prayer; it will only matter whether God is an unjust judge or a benevolent Father. What do you believe about Him? And if we believe what he says about himself won’t we wait for that Day patiently and hopefully? Won’t we wait for the Lord to answer our prayers like young children waiting for their parents to put supper on the table? And it won’t matter what it is because we trust that whatever it is – it is for our good. So keep on praying, keep on asking, knowing that the Father will give you justice and he will give it quickly – Jesus promises it!

And that’s how it has to be – because it’s only through Jesus that we can have that kind of faith. It’s in the Son that we see the full extent of our Father’s love for us. We can be certain that our prayers will be answered for Jesus’ sake – because his most desperate prayers went unanswered. Jesus begged his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane to find another way to save us, so he wouldn’t have to drink the cup of eternal suffering that we had earned (Luke 22:42). God denied his request. And while Jesus was hanging in our place on the cross, his cry my God, My God, why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15:34) was answered with deafening silence from heaven. There, on the cross, Jesus received his Father’s cold shoulder in our place – and that’s the greatest proof that our Father will never give us the cold shoulder. In fact, properly understood, you could even say that on Good Friday, God did play the role of the wicked judge: ignoring the plea of his innocent Son who made himself helpless for our sake, while we who are wicked prospered at his expense. That is the Savior we have. That is the Father we pray to. That is how much he loves us.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what kind of shopper you are. But the kind of God we pray to – that is eternally important. Will not the same God who did not spare his own Son…graciously give us all things along with him? (Romans 8:32) Of course he will. So we pray. We pray boldly, persistently, and confidently no matter how dark things seem to be – because we know who our God is and that when the Son of Man returns all our prayers will be answered once and for all. Amen.

Luke 17:11-19 - The Poll Results Are In - October 9, 2022

It’s election season and therefore it’s also polling season. Politicians and pundits place great value on polling data. I’m not sure I agree with them. Not only because polls have been proven to be very wrong in the recent past, not only because over 60% of Americans do not even have land-lines [1], but because right now many people will outright lie to a pollster – to just go along with the popular opinion that they don’t believe to protect themselves from being “canceled” from society. I doubt how accurate any poll can be. What does this have to do with the 10 lepers before us? Well, I think that there are some things we can learn from polling these ten lepers – a poll not based on phone calls but on Luke’s inspired record of their words and actions.

Luke tells us that as Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, he was passing along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As Jesus was traveling through this region, ten men with leprosy met him. Standing at a distance, they called out loudly, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” It might not be obvious to we NT Christians just how bold and even radical this behavior was. In Leviticus, God had given his people this command regarding those who were afflicted with leprosy: the person with the skin disease who has an infection on him must wear torn clothes and let his hair be disheveled. He must cover his upper lip and cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” For as long as the infection is on him he shall remain unclean. He is unclean. He must live alone in a place outside the camp (Leviticus 13:45-46). The clear majority – 10 out of 10 – of these lepers broke with OT protocol to approach Jesus and, instead of crying out “Unclean!” they cried out for mercy. Actually, their plea was stronger than a cry. It was a command: “Jesus, Master, you must have mercy on us!” A bold demand from a group that was considered society’s outcasts, right?

The question is: why? Why did 10 out of 10 of these lepers boldly break with protocol and confidently – almost brashly – demand that Jesus have mercy on them? Let’s start with what did not lead them to this action and these words. It was not because they believed they deserved healing. That comes out by their use of the word mercy. Mercy is kindness shown to someone who doesn’t deserve it. If you are pleading for mercy, then, you are admitting that you don’t deserve to have whatever you’re asking for. The criminal who pleads for mercy from the judge knows they don’t deserve it; the cheating wife who pleads for her husband not to leave knows she doesn’t deserve it. So it is here: 10 out of 10 lepers know they don’t deserve Jesus’ kindness but they demand it anyway. Why? Well, if it’s not because of something in them – then it must be something in Jesus. What did they know about Jesus? Well, they knew that Jesus had healed many, including a leper (Luke 5:12-15). They demanded that Jesus have mercy on them – only because they were unanimous in their belief that Jesus was merciful in nature! And in this case, the majority was right.

What would a similar poll taken of those of us gathered here today reveal? Would it reveal that while we all confessed earlier that [we] do not deserve to be called your child, there’s a little part of us that believes we do; that we’re just a little better than all the people out there who have been things to do than come to church; that by our sacrifices of time, money and effort we have earned God’s favor? Just realize what that would mean: it would gut the entire idea of mercy. Mercy which is earned or deserved is not mercy at all. It is a business transaction. And, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) shows that no one who believes that they deserve mercy will receive it. What does the poll of your heart reveal?

More importantly, what does that poll of your heart reveal about what you believe about Jesus? Do you come to him in your daily prayers boldly – even brashly – demanding that he live up to his reputation and have mercy on you? Or have doubts about Jesus’ reputation slipped into your heart and mind? Do you pray only rarely – do you maintain a safe distance away from him – because you don’t really believe that he will listen? Do you pray only for small things because you don’t believe that he’s really capable of solving your big problems – like an incurable disease? I’m not going to ask for a show of hands – but you know, and God knows, the results of that poll. This poll of these 10 lepers demonstrates with perfect accuracy that we should boldly expect God to be merciful to us – not because we deserve it, because we don’t – but because he is merciful (Psalm 136).

There was a second poll taken of these 10 lepers. When [Jesus] saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” As they went away they were cleansed. 10 out of 10 of these lepers took Jesus at his word and set out for the nearest priest to be examined and to be declared clean. Again, realize how radical and almost ridiculous this was. Jesus didn’t explicitly promise that they would be cleansed like he did with the leper in Luke 5. He didn’t lay his hands on them to cleanse them. He didn’t tell them to go wash in the Jordan River like Elisha did with Naaman in the OT (2 Kings 5). He just told them to go…and they went. These lepers were unanimous in their trust of Jesus’ mercy and in obedience to his rather unusual command.

How about us? Do we truly believe that Jesus gives us unusual and difficult commands in his Word he promises to bless our obedience? Do we trust that his reputation as merciful is more than enough reason to do whatever he commands – even if it seems radical and ridiculous in today’s world? Jesus calls us to pray for those in authority – yes, even and especially those who not only condone but even support and mandate behavior that is contrary to God’s will – do we go and do it (1 Timothy 2:1-2)? Jesus commands parents to make training in the Word of God the absolute highest priority for their children (Ephesians 6:4) – but how many other factors, activities and priorities have gotten in the way of doing that? Jesus commands us to speak up and speak out against injustice, against immorality, against anything that is against his will (Proverbs 31:8-9), and yet how often haven’t we kept quiet out of fear of offending our families or friends or the risk of losing our jobs or reputations? While the obedience of these ten lepers may put us to shame – and rightfully lead us to repentance – may it also lead us to trust that when our merciful God gives us a command he also promises to bless us when we obey it (Deuteronomy 11:26-28).

There’s one final poll taken in our text this morning. But, in contrast to the two previous polls, in this one the majority is dead wrong. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice. He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, thanking him. And he was a Samaritan. Jesus responded, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give glory to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go your way. Your faith has saved you.” I’m sure we’ve all heard a Thanksgiving sermon on this text which make the main point of this story the lack of gratitude on the part of 9 of the 10 lepers. Is that accurate? Jesus doesn’t question their gratitude – I mean, only a psychopath could fail to be thankful for the curing of an incurable disease – but that they did not return and give glory to God. In other words, while it’s a stretch to argue that they weren’t grateful to for their healing, it’s that they didn’t return because they failed to recognize two things: 1) they failed to recognize that the God they were to worship was standing right in front of them in the flesh and blood of Jesus; and 2) they failed to realize that their need for mercy extended deeper than their skin – that while their rotten flesh had been healed they still needed healing for their rotten hearts.

What can we learn from this poll where the majority is wrong? The old saying is that there are no atheists in fox holes – meaning that when things get really bad, when there seems to be no hope, when there is nowhere else to turn, when your life is in danger, most, if not all people turn to God for help (kind of like 10 of 10 of these lepers did). While I doubt that that adage is true 100% of the time – especially in our society where God has all but been removed from the public discourse – isn’t it uncanny how many people seem to “find God” at the very moment when their lives have been shattered by some kind of tragedy, disaster or illness? We saw it on a nation-wide level when churches were packed after the 9/11 terror attack. We see it when politicians who seem to have little regard for God’s will in their policy-making suddenly announce that their thoughts and prayers are with the victims of some man-made or natural disaster. You might see it in your personal life when a friend or family member who hasn’t been to church for years asks for your prayers as they face some difficult situation. And, you know what? In many cases God does provide the healing, the help and the resources those people are seeking. Look at the legions of electrical linemen and Coast Guard personnel and Red Cross volunteers who traveled to Florida to help people in the wake of Hurricane Ian. Look at the doctors and nurses who provide help and healing on a daily basis at hospitals around the world. While we may not agree with every social safety net program our government operates, isn’t it incredible how there is no reason for anyone in our nation to starve? All of this help, all of this healing, all of these acts of mercy come from God – and in the moment of crisis, the majority usually recognizes that.

But…how many, once their prayers, their requests for mercy have been answered return to Jesus to praise him as the one, true God and glorify him for his mercy? And, more importantly, how many return to him seeking the one thing that neither the Coast Guard nor the Red Cross can provide: the forgiveness of sins? Sadly, in our country the majority of those who don’t is growing and the minority who do is shrinking by the day. Again, I don’t think the issue is one of gratitude. If you’ve seen the videos of people who’ve been rescued from their rooftops or had a tanker truck show up to fill their generators, I don’t think that there’s any doubt that they are grateful. The issue is that even though they have found relief in this particular situation – they fail to recognize that they continue to be rotten beggars in need of continued mercy from the only one who can provide it; they fail to return to Jesus – who provided the mercy in the first place.

If this story is all about gratitude and ingratitude, then mercy is reduced to a transaction – like when your mom would say “Now, what do you say…” when someone gave you a gift. Is God merciful because we are grateful? Never, because then it wouldn’t be mercy! In a strange way that can only be divine, God is merciful to us – not just to get a “thank you” out of us – but in order to lead us to beg for even more mercy! Paul puts it this way: do you have so little regard for his rich kindness, his restraint, and his patience, that you ignore the fact that the purpose of God’s kindness is to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4) In other words, God is merciful to us so that we would come to Jesus and seek even more mercy from him!

And how do we do this? Where do we find Jesus today to beg him for even more mercy? In Baptism. Paul says: as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ (Galatians 3:27). In Absolution, where Jesus promises: whenever you forgive people’s sins, they are forgiven (John 20:23). In the Lord’s Supper, where the same Jesus who cleansed those lepers of their rotten skin promises that his true body and blood are present to cleanse our rotten hearts of sin (Matthew 26:26-28). These are the places you find Jesus, these are the places you find God, these are the places – the only places – where you will ever hear get up and go your way. Your faith has saved you. The majority may have received healing for their bodies; only the minority, only one received healing for his soul.

I don’t place much trust in political polling today. But I hope we all have learned something from one conducted on these 10 lepers. The majority can be right, but it can also be wrong. Where are the other nine? Polls can’t tell you, but if they’re not here at Jesus’ feet, you know where they’re headed. May the Lord help us to be found in the minority, where we recognize that the best way to thank Jesus for his mercy is to keep coming back for more! Amen.

[1] https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2021/05/data-shows-625-percent-of-american.html

Luke 17:1-10 - The Right Combination - October 2, 2022

“The right combination.” Meteorologists use that phrase when they believe that the atmospheric conditions are just right for a hurricane or tornado or some other weather event. Sports commentators say it when in their judgment a player has the right blend of speed, strength and talent to become a superstar. Political analysts say it around election time, when, in their estimation, there is just the “right combination” of sinking poll numbers, economic turmoil, and social unrest for an incumbent to lose and a challenger to win. But today we’re talking about something far more important than the weather, sports or politics. Today, Jesus describes the “right combination” of what it takes to be a Christian, his disciple.

While these verses may seem like a series of random, disconnected statements, there’s one thread that ties everything together: everything Jesus describes is (or at least seems) impossible. Its starts already in the first verse. Our translation reads: temptations to sin are sure to come – but a more literal translation would be it is impossible that death traps will not come. It’s impossible to avoid temptations and pitfalls in this fallen world, but woe to the one through whom they come. In fact, it would be better for you have a millstone hung around your neck and be thrown into Lake Michigan than for you to cause one of these littles ones to sin. Some Muslim nations still cut off the hands of thieves. Several states still execute capital criminals. But only mob bosses and drug lords have ever picked drowning as a fitting punishment. Yet here, Jesus is suggesting that just this type of cruel and unusual punishment would be better than leading another Christian to sin. Why? Because leading someone else to sin is putting their soul in danger of hell. Without question, we would be better off dead than leading someone to sin. So watch yourselves. Watch your words, watch your actions – because they don’t only affect you and your eternity, they affect the people around you and their eternities as well!

Then what should we do when sin inevitably raises its ugly head? If your brother sins, rebuke him. Pretty simple, right? If a fellow believer falls into sin, confront them gently but firmly and call them to repentance. But in a culture where it’s considered absolutely unacceptable to question the right of anyone to do anything – rebuking sin often seems all but impossible. “What if they get mad? What if they never talk to me again? What if it ruins our relationship? It’s not my place; let someone else do it.” That begs the question: how many of us actually obeyed Jesus’ command – even once – much less consistently? When’s the last time you called someone – be it a family member or fellow church member to repentance? And yet, Jesus says that it’s impossible for sins not to happen, so there should to be plenty of rebuking happening. Have you loved someone enough to rebuke them? If not, why not? More importantly, if we can’t even obey this simple command, do we have any right to call ourselves Christians?

Believe it or not, we haven’t even gotten to the really hard part yet. Rebuking sin is only a preliminary, preparatory duty. Just as God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:17) so our primary duty as Christians is not to rebuke sin but to forgive it. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him. Again, in a world that loves to dredge up sins from the past and use them to damage careers and reputations today, where holding on to rage seems like a political virtue, where many marriages and families and churches have been destroyed by the refusal to forgive even once – this sounds impossible. The more cynical part of us might suggest that Jesus must not know what it’s like to be married or to have children or to belong to a church that’s full of sinners. If we’re honest though, we might confess what Jesus is commanding is beyond our ability; that it seems impossible.

And we’re not alone. The apostles recognized how impossible these commands were. They realized that the duties of discipleship required something they didn’t think they had enough of: not clarity, not direction, but faith. They realized – and so should we – that it takes great faith to rebuke and forgive sin. So they say increase our faith. “Lord, you’ve got to increase our faith if we’re to do this!” And how did Jesus respond to this request? “You have enough faith.” If you had faith like a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. Mulberry trees are troublesome. They have massive root systems. There is as much mulberry tree underground as there is above. It’s hard enough to get rid of a mulberry tree, much less uproot it and then plant it in the sea. It’s impossible. But Jesus is saying that if faith the size of a mustard seed can accomplish this impossible task – then faith the size of a mustard seed is more than enough to enable us to carry out our duties of rebuking and forgiving sin. Then why does it still feel so impossible to do what Jesus asks? Why does discipleship seem relatively easy when all we have to do is show up and sit down on Sunday mornings – but impossibly difficult when it comes to properly dealing with sin?

Clearly, Jesus’ point is that it’s not impossible. Maybe a better way to describe it would be “unnatural.” Not causing people to sin, rebuking others when they sin, and forgiving sins against us only appears impossible because it seems so unnatural. A recent court-case from Texas bears this out. Last December, a man called Jamie Jaramillo shot and killed a Mesquite, Texas police officer named Richard Houston. At Jamie’s sentencing just over two weeks ago, Richard Houston’s family, including his daughter, spoke. This is what his 19-year-old daughter, Shelby, said, “I forgive you, Jamie Jaramillo, for shooting and murdering my father. My prayer down the road is to spend time with you. Not to yell at you, not to scold you, simply to tell you about Jesus.” [1] Needless to say, even the usually heartless media was struck by this radical demonstration of forgiveness. Why? Because it was so unnatural. Because today people tend to deal with sin with cruel and senseless social media posts and destructive riots, not with grace and forgiveness.

The question is: why does it seem so unnatural and nearly impossible for us to deal with sin the way Jesus commands? Because we often do what the apostles did: we try to measure our faith. We try to measure if we have the strength, the courage and boldness to do what Jesus commands – and if we feel that we’re lacking, then we can use that weakness to justify our failure to do our duty. That’s a problem. Not a lack of faith problem, but a focus of faith problem. Here’s where Jesus’ picture of the mulberry tree comes in. His point is that even faith the size of a mustard seed in the almighty Word of God can do unnatural and seemingly impossible things. If God’s Word commanded you to uproot and replant a mulberry tree, you could do it. God’s Word doesn’t command or promise anything about mulberry trees. It does, however, clearly and frequently, command us to rebuke sin and then forgive it.

Do you have that kind of faith? The mustard seed size kind of faith that dutifully rebukes and forgives sin simply because God’s Word commands and promises it? No, I don’t either. That’s because discipleship is like a combination lock: two numbers are never enough. You need at least three. Jesus has so far covered two parts: duty and faith. There’s one more thing needed, and that’s grace. That’s where his little illustration about plowing, shepherding, and serving comes in. Jesus is saying that the only way we can do the impossible, unnatural things he’s commanding is by God’s grace.

Wait a minute…where is that in this parable? If we could all read Greek we would see this. In verse 9 Jesus literally asks “he would not have grace (χάριν) for the servant because he did what he was told, would he?” By the way Jesus asks the question he’s expecting a “no” answer. No, a master doesn’t give grace to his slave because he does what he’s been told. That’s both unnatural and impossible. You can’t get grace by doing anything – if you could, it wouldn’t be grace (Romans 11:6).

So follow Jesus’ line of logic here: faith is needed to carry out your unnatural and impossible duties as a Christian, but where does faith come from? Grace! And where does grace come from? Grace comes from God, not from you. Look for it inside yourself, look for it in the worthiness of the person or in your thoughts and feelings and you won’t find the grace, the fuel, to do what you’ve been commanded. Grace can only be received from the outside. You can’t merit grace; you can’t win it; you can’t deserve it.

I said a couple weeks ago that you can often find the Gospel in the part of the parable that seems “off”, that doesn’t seem right, that doesn’t make sense. The Gospel in this parable is that God has shattered all the norms of a servant / master relationship. God does what no earthly master ever would. He gives us grace even though we haven’t done what we’ve been told. That’s the part that doesn’t make sense. We don’t even do the most basic things we’re supposed to do as Christians – like rebuke and forgive sin – and yet, God is still gracious to us. Why? There’s an acronym that tells you everything you need to know about grace: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. God gives you grace only because of Jesus. He’s the only One who always did what his Father commanded him to do. He never rolled his eyes, never muttered in protest, never argued that it was impossible – he never once failed to either rebuke or forgive sin, and he certainly never caused anyone else to sin. He was the perfect man, the perfect disciple. And what was his reward? It was even worse than death by drowning – his reward was death on a cross. God didn’t hang a millstone around his neck – but he did hang all of our sins, every last one of our failures to do our duty on him. That weight didn’t drag him to the bottom of the sea, but it did drag him into the depths of hell – where God held him until he had satisfied his righteous wrath. But when he said it is finished (John 19:30), it was. Jesus had drained every last ounce of God’s wrath against us (Romans 8:1) – so that all that’s left in his heart for us now is simple, beautiful, undeserved grace. That’s why, I can say without hesitation that whether you have been dutiful or disobedient, whether your faith is the size of a mountain or a mustard seed, the only thing God has for you is rich, boundless, impossible grace.

Doing our duty as disciples is impossible. It’s impossible for us to perfectly rebuke and forgive sin – no matter how big we think our faith is. But we can be unworthy, can’t we? And when we confess that we are unworthy servants then we’re right where God wants us. That’s why we call the main things we do in church the means of grace. Baptism is grace poured out on infants who can do absolutely nothing for God. Absolution is the grace of forgiveness applied to self-confessed, self-convicted sinners. Communion is the gift of Jesus’ own body and blood offered to sinners who can never be worthy to receive them (1 Corinthians 11:29). You can’t deserve to be baptized, absolved, or communed. And yet, through these means, God gives you his grace for Jesus’ sake.

So I’ll ask one more time, do you have what it takes to be a disciple, do you have the right combination? Remember what Jesus does and doesn’t command us in this text. He’s not commanding us to plant mulberry trees anywhere, but he does command us to rebuke and forgive sin; and, finally, he does command us to say we are unworthy servants; we have only done what we were supposed to do. That’s a confession you can live with and, more importantly, die with, because it is the most basic confession of faith: that we can be disciples only by God’s grace and not by our own effort. You have God’s grace, and with that gift, you do have the right combination; you have just what you need to do the seemingly impossible duties of a Christian. Amen.  

[1] https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/slain-mesquite-police-officers-daughter-offers-convicted-killer-forgiveness/3073465/

Luke 16:19-31 - Four Myths from Hell - September 9, 2022

There used to be a show on The Discovery Channel called MythBusters. From the very name you can probably guess what it was about. The hosts would take a myth or an old wives’ tale or an urban legend and put it to the test using scientific experiments. They tested the Hollywood theory that a car can break through a locked chain link fence (it can), whether elephants are really afraid of mice or not (they really don’t like having them around!), and last but not least, whether it’s actually possible to take someone’s hat off with a bullet – like you see in the Westerns – (yes, but with the caveat that you tend to also put a decent sized hole in the person’s head, too!). Whether or not such a show interests you, the premise is undeniably true: you can’t believe everything you hear or see. While most urban legends are fairly harmless, there are many myths from hell that the devil uses to do real, eternal damage. Today Jesus busts four of those myths – not with science – but with the inerrant Word of God.

Myth #1: everyone goes to heaven. Even in our increasingly secularized society, most people believe that there is a life after this one, that it is a better life than this one, and that – apart from terrorists, pedophiles and politicians – virtually everyone will go there when they die. That’s why even when you’re at the funeral of a confessed unbeliever, you don’t ever hear “well, they died in unbelief, and now their suffering has just begun” – no, you always hear, “now they’re at peace,” or “they are in a better place.”

But it’s a myth, as Jesus demonstrates in this story. (Incidentally, despite the fact that this is often labeled a parable, it’s probably not. A parable is an earthly story which conceals a spiritual meaning. Here, while Jesus does indeed speak in earthly terms – the spiritual meaning is not at all hidden.) Not everyone goes to heaven; some, like the rich man, are suffering in agony in the fire of hell. What’s striking is that it’s Jesus who is giving us this awful description of hell. Most people think of Jesus as nice, tolerant and loving – far too nice, tolerant and loving to ever send anyone to hell. But the truth is that Jesus talks about hell more often and in more horrifying language than anyone else in the Bible. Here he describes hell as a place of torment, where people burn alive without any hope of death, a state of permanent separation from God and his love. Of course, he’s using earthly language to describe the horrors of hell – which can’t really be described – but his point is clear: it’s a myth that all people go to heaven. Some don’t. Some go to hell forever.

Myth #2: outward appearances matter. The false belief that prevailed in Jesus’ day still survives today – and it goes like this: if you’re happy, healthy, and wealthy God loves you, and if you’re not, he’s angry at you. In other words, if you are blessed in this life, it’s almost guaranteed that you will be blessed in the next life, because we all know that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Jesus busts this myth by describing two men whose outward circumstances couldn’t have been more different. At a time when people rarely ate meat the rich man enjoyed a 5-star feast daily – while Lazarus’ stomach ached for the crumbs that fell from his table. While the rich man dressed in purple and fine linen – which served no practical purpose other than to broadcast how rich you were – Lazarus was clothed in sores. Lazarus died like a beggar. No mention of a funeral. His corpse was probably unceremoniously tossed into a mass grave somewhere. But the rich man was buried. While I must confess that I didn’t watch a single second of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, I’ve heard it was quite the show. Ever been to a rich person’s funeral? Flowers upon flowers upon flowers – always with a little card so that the family knows just who to give the credit to. People fall over themselves to make themselves seen and heard at the funeral of a rich person. Even pastors, for some reason, often feel obligated to talk more about the rich, dead person in the sermon than Jesus Christ. Based solely on appearances, which of the two would you think would end up in heaven?

But then Jesus pulls back the curtain to let us see what’s really going on. First, what was the most notable thing about Lazarus? Not that he was a beggar and a cripple – that was all-too common – but that he has a name! This is the only time Jesus names one of the characters in his stories (or parables) – and that name tells us everything we need to know. Lazarus comes from the Hebrew name Eleazar which means God is my help. The rich man may not have helped Lazarus, but God did and wrote his name in the book of life (Revelation 20:12). The rich man, on the other hand remains anonymous, for the damned are not known by God (Matthew 7:23). Second, God dispatches angels to carry the Lazarus’ filthy, sore-covered body to heaven. No angels are sent to fetch the rich man because the damned don’t need any help in getting to hell. Finally, Lazarus finds eternal peace and rest at Abraham’s side while the rich man winds up screaming his lungs out in the never-ending torments of hell. Certainly, appearances can be deceiving.

There’s a warning here for us. Paul put it succinctly: let him who thinks he stands be careful that he does not fall (1 Corinthians 10:12). Don’t think that you can tell who will go where based on outward appearances. It’s not only that wealth doesn’t equal heaven and poverty doesn’t equal hell – or vice-versa; but that no outward circumstance can be used to judge a person’s eternal fate. To use a crass example: don’t assume that a mass-shooter is automatically going to hell and his victims get a one-way ticket to heaven – because appearances can be deceiving.

Myth #3: church is no big deal. One myth that prevailed among people in Jesus’ day is still prevalent today; it’s that faith is a very subjective, very mystical thing. It’s the idea that God comes to us directly, apart from external means. And so when seeking certainty for their salvation, people are directed to look at themselves, their feelings, their heritage, their circumstances. People equate faith with the emotion of “feeling” close to God. When people find out I’m a pastor they often feel the need to justify themselves and sometimes say “Oh, well I think about God all the time.” When I contact members who don’t come to church one of the first things they will say is “Don’t worry pastor, I have a bible on a shelf somewhere; I pray sometimes; my faith is strong!” The problem is that as a result of the Fall we are already turned in on ourselves far too much. By nature we are self-centered rather than God-centered. But the fact is that faith that looks inward at one’s feelings or heritage or circumstances is no faith at all.

Where do we see this in our story? Well, why did the rich man go to hell? Well, because rich people are bad and poor people are good – or, because the rich man abused and mistreated Lazarus. But the text doesn’t explicitly say that, does it? We aren’t told that he spit on Lazarus, kicked him, or yelled at him to get off his lawn. Nor are we told that the rich man went to hell because he was an idolater, insurrectionist, murderer, adulterer or thief. In fact, we are probably safe in assuming that he was viewed as a Jew in good standing from the fact that he called Abraham Father (and Abraham even called him child). No, the only sin directly named in this lesson is a sin against the third commandment: not [listening] to Moses and the prophets. In other words, while this rich man may have received a proper Jewish burial, he apparently didn’t make it a priority to listen to Moses and the prophets, that is, the Word of God, preached and taught.

Please don’t misunderstand. Faith in Christ certainly does save because faith is the open hand that receives the forgiveness, life and salvation that he won on the cross (Ephesians 2:8-9). But don’t for a second think that this faith can exist apart from hearing the Word of God. Faith can no more live in your heart apart from the Word than your body can live apart from eating food (John 6:53). Going to church is important because church tears your attention away from yourself, your feelings, your circumstances and places it on Christ and how Christ comes to you: in the Word and Sacraments. And you might say: “I read my bible at home,” “I pray.” Good, I hope you do. But the Bible teaches that faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). And Hebrews commands let us not neglect meeting together, as some have the habit of doing. Rather, let us encourage each other, and all the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:25). Faith is a miracle but God has decided to not create or sustain it mystically but through totally ordinary, objective external means: water and Word, bread and wine.

That’s why, if you’ve ever doubted or questioned or wavered in your faith – I have good news for you. Why? Because it means you don’t have to search for comfort and certainty in your heart or the circumstances of your life. Instead, you can find him in the clear, objective means he has given. Were you baptized? Then your name is written in the book of life in heaven (1 Peter 3:21). Were your sins forgiven moments ago in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Then the gates of heaven are open to you (Matthew 16:19). Are you faithfully eating and drinking Jesus’ true body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins? Then God is strengthening your faith in Jesus, whether you feel it or not (1 Corinthians 11:23-26) Church is important because church is where the Word is preached and the sacraments are administered. The rich man went to hell not because he neglected Lazarus (if that were the case, then all of us should be damned for neglecting the poor in our world) but because he neglected the means of grace.

Now I know where that third myth may be leading many of you. You worry about the people you know and love who neglect and despise Word and Sacrament. You wonder “if they die like that rich man, what’s going to happen to them?” You want them to be saved so badly that you run the risk of falling for myth #4, of believing that if only God would just do something miraculous in their life, they would repent. That’s the fourth myth from hell we have to bust: miracles convert people. Even in hell the rich man still believes this myth. He’s concerned about the fate of his brothers who apparently were accustomed to despising the Word just like he was. He asks Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth to warn them. He thinks like far too many Christians do today: that you need more than the Gospel to save people – maybe not someone rising from the dead but at least some kind of supernatural wake-up call.

Is that true? No. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Abraham. Abraham states point blank that if they reject the Word of God, even if Lazarus were to suddenly show up on their doorstep and shout “Hell is Real and your brother is there!” they wouldn’t be convinced – that is, they wouldn’t believe. Miracles don’t convert people. There are plenty of miracles recorded in the Moses and the Prophets (the OT), including people being raised from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:18-37; 13:20-21). Moreover, Jesus did raise another Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38-44) and it only made the Jews want to kill him (and Lazarus, again) even more (John 11:45-57; 12:9-10). And, ultimately, when Jesus himself rose from the dead, they paid the guards to keep it quiet rather than repent and believe (Matthew 28:11-15).

Don’t fall for the myth. Don’t think that God isn’t doing everything he can to save the people you love. He is. He’s still sending his same powerful, faith-creating Word to every corner of the earth. The same Word that created the universe (Genesis 1), converted a murderous Pharisee like Saul into the missionary named Paul (Acts 9), that calmed stormy seas (Luke 8:22-25) and fed thousands (John 6:1-15) – is still being proclaimed. God is still working the extraordinary miracle of conversion and repentance through the completely ordinary Word. And you have this Word. The Word of God spoken by you to the people you love is far more powerful than any miracle – even someone rising from the dead – because miracles don’t change hearts – the Word of God does.

Hell is no myth. Jesus has busted that myth. People do go there. But no one has to. The gates of heaven are open today for the rich, the poor, the obviously sinful and the secretly guilty. No one is so good that they can get into heaven without hearing the Word of God, but no one is so bad that the forgiving Word of God can’t bring them to repentance and faith. Mythbusters busted myths in order to entertain. Jesus busts myths in order to save souls. Don’t believe the myths. Believe the One who is telling this story; the One who suffered hell for your sake so that you might be carried by angels to heaven when you die. Amen.

Luke 16:1-15 - The Bottom Line - September 18, 2022

Today we’re going to talk about Money. I know…nobody wants to talk about money – especially at church. Church is supposed to be for “spiritual stuff.” But today Jesus doesn’t give us a choice. Plus, the reality is that Money is spiritual. Why? First and foremost because all Money belongs to God. But that’s not the only reason. It’s no secret that Money is one of the most important things in our lives. It keeps us busy during the day and awake at night. It guides many of our life choices. As Paul made clear, the love of Money lies at the root of all sorts of evil (1 Timothy 6:10). The love of Money has destroyed marriages and families and churches and led people to wander from the faith. Today we’re going to talk about Money, and the bottom line is this: You cannot serve both God and [money].

First, I want to make sure that you heard that right. Jesus isn’t making up an 11th commandment. He didn’t say “do not serve both God and money.” He said: “You cannot serve both God and money.” It’s not a choice but a fact. The question is: which do you serve? Here’s the lesson we all must learn – sooner than later – about money. It’s a merciless master. I know, it doesn’t appear that way, at least not at first. Money looks like those glamorous celebrities promoting the newest credit card that promises you all kinds of free miles and cash back; like the well-dressed investment advisor who guarantees to make your money work for you; like the dream education that leads to the dream job with the dream salary that promises to make all your material dreams come true. But that’s only half the story. The dark side is that when you don’t make your credit card payments on time, you don’t get any miles but you do get an astronomical interest rate. The investment advisor can’t do much for you unless you keep handing him your money. The dream education may result in debt that you will be paying for decades (or that others will be forced to pay for you) and the dream job with the dream salary may end up costing you your mind, body, soul, marriage or family. Even in the church, the laws of money can’t be broken. We confess that faith alone saves, but budgets can’t be balanced by faith alone. Money is merciless.

Why? Because no matter how you talk about it, Money management is always a matter of the Law. And, as a result, we can always be accused of mismanaging our money. We see this in our parable. The manager was only accused of wasting his [master’s] possessions. Jesus doesn’t provide any evidence and he doesn’t state whether the manager was actually guilty or not. The point is that no matter how careful, how diligent, how generous you are with your money, you can always be accused of sinning in your use of it.

And I can prove it. I think that I can make you feel guilty about your money management – without a shred of evidence. The average American spends almost 5% of their income on various forms of entertainment [1] and, in comparison, the average WELS member gives only about 2.5% of their income in offerings. [2] That’s the average – where do you stand? What does your budget reveal about who or what has first place in your heart? We live in relatively nice homes, drive nice cars and take nice vacations. Just imagine if, instead of spending those thousands of dollars on ourselves, how many missionaries could be sent to foreign lands, how many churches could be built here in America, how many more pastors could be trained. See! I have no proof that you’ve mismanaged your money, yet you’re squirming anyway. But that’s not the point. The point is that no matter how you spend your money, no matter how frugal you are, no matter how much you give, you could still be accused of fiscal mismanagement. Money is a merciless master because serving Money is slavery to the Law.

Sadly, if we’ve never thought of Money that way, as a merciless idol, it might be because of the church. At some point the church decided that it could help people navigate the impossibly narrow road between serving God and Money; teaching that there is a way to find peace in money management, that you can serve both at the same time. You’ve heard the sermons, right? “God commanded his OT people to give 10% of their income and if you do too, then you’re off the hook.” “If you just prioritize your spending in this order: 1) Church; 2) Family; 3) Taxes; 4) Charity – then you can relax, you’re good.” In general, the impression is given that as long as you give God his cut, as long as you serve Money under God’s rules, then you don’t have to feel guilty.

But it’s a lie. You can’t stand before God’s omniscient audit and be found innocent based on your money management no matter how you’ve spent your money. Why not? Because the moment you begin to believe that you have satisfied God with your money management, then you’ve fallen into an even worse sin: the sin of self-righteousness. If you hope to stand before God and say “I’ve given enough, spent my money wisely, never wasted it, spent every penny perfectly,” then you’ve placed your hope for salvation in yourself. You are lost now and will be damned on the Last Day. But what’s the alternative? And that’s the problem with serving money, isn’t it? There is no alternative. Do whatever you want with it: keep it, save it, invest it, spend it, give it away, burn it up – it will never justify you before God. See what I mean about Money being merciless?

So what’s the answer? How do you escape Money’s tyrannical grip on your heart and life? Through repentance. By repenting of ever giving Money the place in your heart and life that belongs to God alone. Money is an inanimate object; it is not God; it did not create you; it does not preserve you or provide for you; it cannot accuse you; it cannot damn you; it cannot forgive you; it cannot save you. Recognize that Money is merciless and in the end, powerless, because it is an idol.

So what’s the good news? Here’s where some might say that the good news is that Jesus died to free us from our slavery to Money so that we can now serve the Lord with our Money – and then send the offering plates shooting down the rows. After all, that’s what most people think the Church is after, right? God needs us to come here so that he can get our money and our time and our energy in order to make his Kingdom come. Is that true? Does God need anything from us in order to do what he wants? Is God angry with us unless we give him a few bucks to get him off our backs? It’s sheer blasphemy to suggest that God’s grace depends on something we do, or that God can’t possibly sustain the church without our help. God didn’t have much patience for that kind of attitude in either the Old or New Testaments. In Malachi God begged someone to close the doors of the Temple so that the priests would stop offering their sacrifices – because they thought that by merely going through the motions they were going to win God’s favor (Malachi 1:10). Paul told the idolaters in Athens point blank that God [is not] served by human hands, as if he needed anything (Acts 17:25).

So what’s the real bottom line, then? Remember that Jesus told parables to teach spiritual truths, not moral behavior – or here, proper money management. In parables, earthly things stand for heavenly things. So the point of comparison is not between the right and the wrong way to spend Money, but between the shrewdness with which unbelievers use the means at their disposal (their money) to give themselves comfortable lives in this world and how believers, the children of the light, use what is really valuable to ensure their eternity. Jesus himself gives this interpretation: the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the children of light are. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon, so that when it runs out, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.

So where’s the real good news? The good news in Jesus’ parables is often found in the detail that doesn’t make sense – that isn’t true to life. Is there anything like that in this parable? For a rich guy, this master was pretty stupid, wasn’t he? He heard that his manager was wasting his possessions, but he didn’t immediately have him thrown in jail. He allowed him to go free to settle his outstanding accounts. It doesn’t work that way today. If you get caught stealing from your boss, security tosses your stuff into a box, walks you to your car and your access to anything financial is immediately cut off. That’s how things normally go. In fact, spiritually speaking, that’s how it should go for us. When we leave here with the true riches of God’s forgiveness and continue to feel guilt and shame over past sins, when we fail to find comfort and peace in the Sacrament, when we hear God’s promise to provide our daily bread but continue to lay awake at night worrying about money – we are wasting what is really valuable. We deserve to have them taken away. But God doesn’t do that. Like the master in the parable, our Lord lets us use and receive and give away his most precious possessions for free, demonstrating an almost foolish level of mercy to us.

And our only hope for passing God’s final audit is that he will remain merciful. That was the only hope of the shrewd servant, too. And so, far from suddenly toeing the line, he doubled down on spending his master’s money to secure his own future. And how does the master respond? [He] commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. This manager had forced his master into a corner: either drag his former manager in for punishment and then demand the full amount from his debtors – and be known as an unforgiving tyrant – or allow his manager’s actions to stand and be known throughout the community as a merciful and gracious lord. Of course, the punchline is that it will cost him significant revenue to be seen as merciful. But apparently, he figured that this loss to his bottom line was worth it to maintain his reputation.

That’s the thing about mercy: it doesn’t cost the recipient anything, but it costs the giver dearly. The master in the parable had to suffer a significant financial loss to be merciful. God is merciful to us, but it came at a steep price. It didn’t cost him 20% or 50% but 100% of his only beloved Son. Rather than send us to destruction, he sent his Son to earth. Rather than demand a perfect, flawless life from us, he demanded a perfect life from his Son. Rather than demand that we maintain hearts free from greed and covetousness – which we could never do – to earn heaven, the LORD demanded that his Son be content to live in poverty for 33 years on this earth. Rather than send us to hell to pay off our debts, the LORD sent his Son to hell on a cross to pay our debts in our place. The LORD, your real master, preferred to suffer the loss of his one and only Son and be merciful than be just and lose you forever in hell. So be shrewd – serve him by relying on his mercy – trust his Word with all your heart, live in his forgiveness and let your heart rest in his peace.

This parable isn’t really about how to spend your Money but about who your Master is. The manager was commended because he knew his master’s mercy and shrewdly used what belonged to his master to ensure his future. How much more should we freely use and spend the true riches God has given us – the Gospel in Word and Sacrament – the only wealth which can secure us a place in eternal dwellings. Here’s the bottom line: You cannot serve both God and [Money]. Money is merciless – in the end, the most it can do is purchase a nice plot of dirt to put your corpse in; but God, God in his mercy gave up his only Son to save you. That’s a merciful Master, that’s the only Master worth serving. Amen. 

[1] https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/personal-finance/articles/american-households-spend-2900-per-year-on-entertainment-5-ways-to-have-fun-without-breaking-the-bank/#:~:text=It%20turns%20out%20that%20entertainment,average%20household%20spends%20on%20groceries.

[2] https://wels.net/faq/church-and-expenses/

Luke 15:1-10 - This Man Welcomes Sinners - September 11, 2022

You may have noticed a trend over the past several weeks – that our sermons have been focusing on Jesus’ parables. Parables aren’t what they seem to be. Just as the parable two weeks ago wasn’t really about wedding banquets and last week’s wasn’t about how to build a tower or go to war – so the parable this morning isn’t really about how to find lost sheep and coins. Then what is this parable about? What spiritual truth is Jesus teaching us? Sadly, many see parables as an opportunity to serve their own agendas. For example, if you’re trying to raise money, you could talk about how precious even one coin is to God. Or, even more common, is the idea that these parables are outreach oriented: we are the shepherd and the woman and that it is our responsibility to get out there and beat the bushes of this world and find the lost and save them. Now, I’m not saying that the Bible doesn’t say anything about stewardship or outreach; but the context makes it crystal clear that Jesus is not talking about those things here. These parables are Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ complaint: this man welcomes sinners. These parables about primarily about Jesus. He is the main character.

But how did we get here? Well, in context of Luke 15, the “lost” are the tax collectors and sinners who were flocking to Jesus. Throughout his ministry Jesus had a regular policy of welcoming and associating with these societal outcasts. He even called one of those hated tax collectors – Matthew – to be his apostle (Matthew 9:9-13). And later, he invited himself to the home of another tax collector named Zacchaeus where he declared that the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost (Luke 19:10). As the Good Shepherd, it was only natural for Jesus to go out of his way to seek and save these poor, lost souls.  

The problem was that Jesus’ natural love for the lost filled the religious elite with disgust. The Pharisees and teachers of the law – who were supposed to be the spiritual shepherds of God’s flock on earth – didn’t care about the lost. They didn’t preach about God’s grace but his wrath; they emphasized Law not Gospel. In other words, they taught the people that you needed to clean yourself up, stop sinning and reform your life before God will accept you. They despised and ignored these poor, lost sinners; figuring that they were simply getting what they deserved. In fact, the Jewish historian Alfred Edersheim preserved an especially appalling saying of the Pharisees: “There is joy before God when those who provoke him perish from the world.” [1] It’s hard to imagine anything more blasphemous than alleging that God rejoices when someone perishes in hell (Ezekiel 33:11).

In this parable, then, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law are the ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent. It’s not that they didn’t need to repent, they – like everyone else – had fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:22-23) – it’s that they imagined they didn’t need to. They thought they were right with God because outwardly they were better and holier than these open and obvious sinners. The real tragedy in this text is not that Jesus was associating with known sinners but that these self-righteous Pharisees didn’t see their need to join them!

Jesus drives this point home by telling two parables: Which one of you, if you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that was lost until he finds it? Sounds like common sense, right? You lose a sheep – you go and look for it. Here’s the twist: no good shepherd would do that! You can almost picture the shepherds in the crowd whispering to each other, “This guy better stick to carpentry – because he doesn’t know a thing about shepherding! You don’t risk your entire flock to save one. You write that sheep off as dead and cut your losses.” Or what woman who has ten silver coins, if she loses one coin would not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? Do you put your life on hold and turn the house upside down if you lose, say, a ten-dollar bill, even though you still have nine in your wallet or purse? Well, maybe for few minutes, but there comes a time when you forget about it and get on with your day.

So what’s the point? The point is that Jesus doesn’t see things the way the religious elite did. Jesus didn’t come to earth to seek out the good, the righteous, the powerful – those who appear to have their lives together, the good who are getting better; he came to seek out the weak, the sick, the lost. He doesn’t consider the cost vs. benefit analysis of abandoning the flock to seek out just one lost sheep. Again, this parable is not really about shepherding, finding lost coins, financial stewardship, or even outreach. It’s about Jesus’ irrational, outrageous grace that seeks and saves the lost without regard to the cost or the logic. He seeks those who don’t want to be found. He loves the ungodly, the unrighteous, those who are lost in sin and can’t find any way out. He dies for sinners, not saints; for his enemies, not his friends (Romans 5:10). Jesus is the Good Shepherd who doesn’t stop searching; he’s the one who turns the whole house upside down, moves the furniture and tears up the carpets until he finds that lost coin. The lost are the sole object of his attention. Nothing else matters to him.

While these parables applied most directly to Jesus’ ministry to the tax collectors and sinners of his day, the underlying truth of these parables transcends time and space. In a way, it takes us all the way back to Eden. The lost sheep is Adam, the first representative of mankind, who brought sin and death into the world (Romans 5:12). He was the lost sheep and coin, the one who wasted the perfect life God had given him, who was so lost in shame and guilt that he tried to hide in the bushes and cover his guilt with fig leaves. And yet, God searched for his wayward child and didn’t give up until he found him and brought him to repentance (Genesis 3). And, like it or not, we are all like Adam. We all have gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way (Isaiah 53:6). We are all the lost children of God. We fall for Satan’s deceptions daily. We think and do and say things that violate God’s Law. We have strayed from the path of life and stumbled onto the wide road that leads to destruction. Left to our own devices we are and would remain lost.

You can sense this lostness in the world around you, can’t you? You see people desperately trying to “find” themselves, to find life’s meaning in their careers, their treasures, their accomplishments, their fame and popularity and good works. You can see it in the distractions and medications mankind has invented for itself – all designed to silence the voice of conscience, to dull the persistent drumbeat of guilt and shame and fear of future judgment. And yet, after it all, they’re still lost – because they’re still not right with God. But it’s not just out there in the world, either, is it? We feel that lostness too, don’t we? Yes, even believers feel it, perhaps more acutely because we know better: we know we should be perfect – and we’re not; our consciences agree with the Law’s verdict that we deserve nothing but pain and punishment (Romans 2:15); we know that there is nothing we can do to take our guilt away. Most of all, we long for the peace and safety our Father’s home but we can’t get there. And some days, we just want to sit on the ground and cry like a lost child, our lost condition leaves us depressed, despairing, weak and helpless.

And that’s what makes this chapter – which some have called the heart of Luke’s Gospel – so beautiful! We got ourselves lost. We have no one else to blame. Jesus would have been perfectly justified in writing us off as a lost cause, as not worth his time or effort. But he didn’t! Jesus came to our wilderness, leaving behind the glory of heaven to seek and save our lost race from sin and death. He came as the second Adam (Romans 5:19), taking on our flesh, wandering in our wilderness, suffering our temptation, dying our death. He lost himself, his blood, his life to find us. To be clear: Jesus found us, not the other way around. He wasn’t lost, we were. Jesus didn’t come to earth to be welcomed by righteous and powerful leaders, he came to dig through the gutters and search through the trash to find his sheep who didn’t even know they were lost. So great was his love for us that he didn’t care what condition we were in when he found us. He wasn’t worried about what he could gain or benefit from us. He didn’t wait for us to meet him halfway, to make a decision for him, to shape up and straighten up our lives before he would welcome us. He found us like Hosea’s unfaithful wife and loved us anyway (Hosea 3:1). He found us in the filth of our sin and brought us to his house to clean us up with his forgiveness. He searched for us with his Word and Sacrament before we even knew we were lost; often, when we didn’t want to be found. And every time Jesus finds another lost sinner all of heaven rejoices over the ridiculous, irrational, outrageous love of a Good Shepherd who loses himself to find the lost.   

Which leads to our final question: what does it mean to be “found”? What is it that causes heaven to rejoice? Is it your commitment to living for God? Is it when you bring him a generous offering? When you do more good than evil? That’s not what Jesus says. He says there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. We don’t see it in translation, but in the original Greek repents is a present participle – which means that heaven rejoices when sinners are continually repenting, repeatedly coming to Jesus for forgiveness and peace. Here, it’s not your good works that makes heaven rejoice but the confession of your sins. That sounds backwards, doesn’t it? Who is more pleased with their child when they confess that they broke the lamp than when they report that they’ve done their homework and cleaned their room? Again, Jesus doesn’t see things the way we do; he shows that in God’s kingdom everything is upside down. Heaven rejoices when we come regularly and repeatedly to lay our sins at Jesus’ feet because that’s why he came. As Paul says Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15) – NOT those who think they have done enough, served enough, given enough to please God on their own. There are no parties in heaven for the proud and self-righteous who don’t think they need Jesus’ forgiveness because they can please God on their own – but for sinners who know they can’t!

And so, if you heard this text and figured that these parables are about the people out there who don’t go to church, who lead openly wicked lives, or perhaps a member who hasn’t been here in some time, you still don’t understand. Jesus’ parables often invite us to find ourselves in them. Where do you and I fit? Are we the owners of the sheep and coins? No, Jesus claims that role for himself. This text is not about us seeking and finding the lost! Are you the lost sheep and the lost coin? You might not want to think of yourself as lost – but here’s the thing – if you don’t see yourself as the lost sheep and coin, there’s only one role left. Then you’re one of the ninety-nine righteous people who don’t think they need to repent. If that describes you, then I have only bad news: you’re the one who’s truly lost. If you’ve become so comfortable in yourself, your goodness, your lifestyle compared to others that you don’t think you need to repent, then you’re no different than those Pharisees who sneered at the tax collectors and sinners, because the hymn was right: Jesus receives sinners not the self-righteous (CW 304).

It’s become common in some circles to teach that Christians aren’t sinners anymore and that they shouldn’t call themselves sinners. Heretics like Joyce Meyer openly declare that they are no longer sinful and that to suggest otherwise is a lie from hell. [2] They would be horrified by our confession of sins, disgusted that only confessed sinners are welcome to receive the Lord’s Supper. She would say that we need to think like winners if we want to attract winners and if we keep talking about sin we will only succeed in drawing the world’s losers. The fact is that heaven doesn’t throw parties for winners, but losers; those who are eager to lose their sins in Jesus’ outrageous, irrational mercy and forgiveness. So if you identify as a lost, despised, wretched sinner – that is, if you are penitent – then I have good news: Jesus is here for you! Amen.  

[1] Edersheim, Alfred The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (U.S.: Hendrickson Publishers) 652

[2] https://carm.org/joyce-meyer "I am not poor. I am not miserable and I am not a sinner. That is a lie from the pit of hell. That is what I were and if I still was then Jesus died in vain. I'm going to tell you something folks. I didn't stop sinning until I finally got it through my thick head I wasn't a sinner anymore. And the religious world thinks that's heresy and they want to hang you for it. But the Bible says that I am righteous and I can't be righteous and be a sinner at the same time." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dmHJdM63hk)

Luke 14:25-33 - But Who's Counting? - September 4, 2022

“But who’s counting?” is a phrase often employed in a sarcastic or passive aggressive manner. For example, your spouse might say, “I’ve washed the dishes five times this week to your zero…but, hey, who’s counting?” Your boss may say “that’s the 3rd day in a row you’ve been late…but who’s counting?” That’s the way this phrase is normally used: sarcastically, passive aggressively, to not-so-subtly expose someone’s failure. But today we’re going to steal that phrase and change it a bit. Instead of asking it passive aggressively, we’re going to ask sincerely: who’s counting? There’s no question that the cost of discipleship – that is, following Jesus – needs to be counted and paid for. The question is: who’s responsible for the counting and paying?

If you were simply reading this text at home, what would you understand Jesus to be saying in this lesson? What would your takeaway be? I am willing to bet that you would read this as the third use of the law. The third use of the law is as a guide – to show Christians how they ought to live out of gratitude for everything God has done for us in Christ. If you read this text through that lens, you end up hearing Jesus saying that if you don’t hate your family, carry your cross, calculate the full cost of a lifetime of following Jesus, fight and win every battle against spiritual enemies that have you vastly outnumbered, and give up everything you own – and do it perfectly, you can’t be his disciple. If that’s what Jesus is saying this morning, would you even waste your time trying? I’m not sure I would, because it sounds impossible.  

I’m not denying the legitimacy of the third use of the Law. The Bible itself establishes and validates this use. Psalm 119 says your words are a lamp for my feet and a light for my path (Psalm 119:105). Paul was applying the Law in its third use when he appealed to Philemon to take Onesimus back as a brother in faith (Philemon 8-10). The third use of the Law is like a set of “how to” instructions. It’s like when you open a box from IKEA and, seeing the instructions, think, “Instructions, who needs instructions?” And after six frustrating hours you finally and shamefully pick up the instructions in order to figure out which pieces go where. C. S. Lewis compared the third use of the Law to stepping onto a firm road surface after being bogged down in a muddy field. [1]

And in that sense, like a clear set of instructions or a firm place to walk, the third use of the Law does provide necessary guidance to Christians as they navigate life in this world. It lights a path through the darkness of this world. It teaches us how to live and think and act. It clearly defines right and wrong, good and evil in a world which is lost in a fog of demonic gray. But because there’s a little part of us that imagines that the entire Bible is a ‘how-to’ guide, we are tempted to read these words that way. Here’s Jesus’ guide for discipleship: first, hate your family and your life; then, pick up your cross and follow me. And if that’s the way you understand these words then you would rightly expect worship to be a spiritual pep rally where we chant “Onward Christian Soldiers” and the role of the sermon is to verbally smack you on the butt and tell you to get out there and win one for Jesus. For those who would have that interpretation of this text, the main objective of the Church is to tell people how to build a Christian life and how to win on the spiritual battlefield. But is that what Jesus is really saying here? No.

The first tip-off is in the very first verse: large crowds were traveling with Jesus. In other words, Jesus isn’t only or directly addressing his disciples, believers; but potential disciples, including unbelievers. As we learned in confirmation class, the third use of the Law is only for believers, not unbelievers (2 Corinthians 5:15). The second tip-off comes in the two parables. He’s telling potential disciples to sit down and consider whether they have what it takes before they make the commitment to the building or battlefield, not after. Jesus is not using the law in its third use but its first use. Not as a guide but as a mirror. If paying the cost of discipleship and salvation is up to you and me – then Jesus is telling us what it will cost and demanding that we examine ourselves to see if we have what it takes to pay the price.  

So let’s be very clear: if you intend to follow Jesus under your own power to heaven, this is what you must do, without fail, for your entire lifetime: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. You must not allow anyone in your family, at any time or for any reason come before Jesus in your life. Neither their words nor their lifestyles can ever lead you to doubt or question God’s Word, falter in your faith or fall into sin. You must fear God’s wrath more than your spouse’s rage or your child’s temper tantrum. You must love your relationship with God more than your relationship with your siblings. You must trust God’s Word more than your own wisdom, experience, and emotions – when it doesn’t make sense, when it’s hard, when it’s unpopular, and especially when it doesn’t feel right. But that’s not even the hardest part. You must hate your own life. You must be ready and willing to sacrifice anything: your job, reputation, health, wealth – yes, even your life if faithfulness to Jesus demands it. Sound daunting? It is. Which is why Jesus continues: whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciples. Today we fashion bright and shiny crosses to decorate our homes and hang around our necks. But in the Roman Empire, the cross had only one purpose: to kill. That’s Jesus’ point here. If you want to follow him you must put to death everything that belongs to your sinful flesh: your thoughts and feelings and desires and pleasures – yes, even your natural affection for your family and your close attachment to your life. All of it must die. The particulars will be different for each of us, but one thing remains the same: Jesus expects you to carry this cross – without question and without complaining. So the question is: having counted that cost, are you even going to start building the tower? Are you going to run onto the battlefield or surrender before the battle has even begun? Do you have what it takes to be Jesus’ disciple?

If the third use of the Law is like stepping onto solid ground, then the first use of the Law is like a knife through the heart. It kills everyone it touches. It exposes the sins in my heart and life that I would rather not see. We could recite these words every day of our lives and we still wouldn’t be able to carry out these demands, would we? How many times have we determined to build a magnificent tower of a Christian life – only to realize that we don’t have the resources to complete it? How many times have we committed to keeping our words and thoughts pure only to have that commitment go out the window the moment we get on the Beltline or step into the office or start swiping on our smartphones? How many times have we resolved to be different, promised to never do that again, sworn to try harder, be better, make the right decisions? How many unfinished towers are lying in ruins in our past? And what does our record on the spiritual battlefield look like? How many times have we said that we’re not going to let the devil, the world, or the flesh trick us this time – only to surrender by giving in to temptation? How many times have we let our natural affection for our families and friends lead us to break our commitment to our Savior? (Let’s get specific here: if you are tolerant or accepting of a loved one leading an immoral lifestyle or willfully and persistently neglecting the means of grace – you’re not only not doing them a favor, you are disobeying your Savior’s command (Luke 17:3); you are loving your family more than him!) If I read these words as a guide, then there’s always hope for me, I can always do better tomorrow (which is why we’re drawn to that interpretation). But if I read them the way my Lord intended me to – as a mirror – all hope is dashed. Jesus can tell me “how to” be his disciple until his kingdom comes and I still wouldn’t be able to do it.

So what should we do? Just give up? Well, yes. Seriously. Isn’t that what Jesus said in the last verse: any one of you who does not say farewell (or give up) to all his own possessions cannot be my disciple? (He’s not really referring to your stuff, but your everything, including your determination to follow Jesus and all the blood, sweat and tears you’re willing to put into discipleship – because everything you have will never be enough!) I believe the main reason so many people misread these words is that there is an altogether false definition of what it means to be a “disciple” in the church today. The tendency is to think that a “disciple” is someone who does what Jesus commands. Is that true? If it is, who here qualifies? Who does everything that Jesus commands? No, as the account of Mary and Martha makes clear, a disciple is not someone who does everything Jesus commands but rather someone who believes that Jesus has done it all (cf. Luke 10:38-42)!

Give up trying to follow Jesus under your own power and listen to the good news of what he has done for you. Sometime in the hidden depths of eternity Jesus sat down and counted the cost of saving humanity (Ephesians 1:4). Jesus calculated what it would take to save the unsavable, to redeem the unredeemable, to take people who were fit only for hell and make them suitable for heaven. What was that cost? I think Jesus spells it out pretty clearly in these words. Did Jesus hate his family? Well, he left his Father’s side in heaven and then abandoned his mother as he hung on a cross because he loved you more. His family thought he was crazy (Mark 3:21) and his own brothers didn’t believe in him while he was alive (John 7:5) – but that didn’t deter him from carrying out his work of redemption. Did Jesus hate his own life? Well, he had no reputation, no friends he could count on, no place to lay his head (Matthew 8:20) and soldiers divided up his only earthly possessions in the shadow of his cross (John 19:23-24) – he certainly didn’t place much value on his life compared to our eternal life. Jesus shouldered a cross that was weighed down with our sins, our guilt, our shame, our repeated failures to take up our crosses and follow him. Jesus stepped onto the battlefield against enemies that seemed to have him outnumbered and overpowered – sin, death and the devil – and he refused to surrender, even though the devil offered him an easy way out (Matthew 4:1-11). Jesus gathered up his infinite resources as the Son of God and built the only tower that reaches to heaven. Jesus counted the cost of our discipleship and – knowing that it would cost him nothing less than his life – he willingly paid it.

If you want to be a disciple, then give up. Give up the idea that discipleship is all about you: you getting better, working harder – and everything that belongs to that mindset: your determination, your pride, your power, your self-righteousness. You can never build the tower of a Christian life; that’s the whole reason Jesus came to earth: to build it for you. That’s what Luther meant when he paraphrased Psalm 46 and wrote a mighty fortress is our God (CW 200:1). When you think it’s all about you and your effort – you do not qualify as a disciple. In fact, true disciples do just the opposite, they retreat regularly to the fortress Jesus built. When you run back to your Baptism, the fortress gates open for you because you are clothed in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Proverbs 18:10). When you run to hear the Absolution which offers you forgiveness for your sins, you’re taking shelter inside the walls of God’s grace. When you run to Holy Communion you run into a tower built of Jesus’ sacrificial body and blood. And no one, not even the gates of hell (Matthew 16:18) can ever blow this tower down.

So if you want to be a disciple of Christ, there’s really only one thing you have to do: give up. Give up thinking that Jesus might have cracked heaven’s gates open – but that the rest is up to you. Give up the illusion that you can pay the high price of discipleship yourself. Stop trying to defeat sin, death and the devil with your own paltry resources and strength. You can’t do it – and neither can I. We can’t even accurately calculate the cost of discipleship, much less pay it. Thank God that Jesus both counted the cost and paid it in full by his life, death and resurrection. This is the only counting left for us to do: count Jesus as your substitute, your righteousness, your Lord and your Savior – because that, that faith, is precisely what it takes to be his disciple. Amen.

[1] Lewis, C.S. Reflections on the Psalms (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2017) 72

Luke 14:1-14 - You Don't Understand - August 28, 2022

“You don’t understand” might come off as a rather condescending theme for a sermon. The truth is that I was just reminiscing about my teenage years – you know those years when you were smarter than your parents? My parents never understood why I had to play my music so loud, why I had to stay up late and wake up even later, why these hands were made for playing video games and throwing baseballs – not washing dishes or taking out the trash. Know what I mean? Parents never seem to understand anything when you’re a teenager. In the Word of God before us, Jesus reveals that we don’t really understand our God.

The thing you have to understand about this text is that there’s more here than meets the eye; it’s not really about showing mercy to the sick or proper party etiquette or that if you’re proud you’re going to be humbled and if you’re humble, sooner or later you will be exalted. How do we know that? First, because Jesus’ miracles are never about the miracle – they are always signs pointing to something bigger (John 20:30-31). Second, Luke explicitly says that Jesus was teaching them by means of a parable. A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. But before we get to the parable, we first have to understand the context. The context is that of a Sabbath day dinner party thrown by a Pharisee. There are two things you should understand about this dinner party: 1) the Pharisees weren’t being kind to Jesus, they were trying to catch him breaking God’s law, they were watching him closely; and 2) they apparently sat Jesus next to a man who was suffering from swelling of his body as bait for their trap. Would Jesus heal this poor man – even on the Sabbath? He’d done it before (Luke 13:10-17; John 5:1-15). Now they’re daring him to do it in front of plenty of witnesses. Jesus exposes their trap by voicing the question that’s on their minds: is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they were silent. So Jesus answers his own question by [taking] hold of the man, [healing] him, and [letting] him go. Unlike his other Sabbath day healings, this time he puts his hands on the man, making it clear that he was doing “work” on the Sabbath.

Why? Why did Jesus throw this allegedly Sabbath-breaking miracle right in the Pharisees’ faces? To show them how wrong they were about God – specifically God’s heart. They believed that God was an unforgiving slave-driver who found his joy in telling his slaves what they could and could not do. They believed that they could earn God’s favor by doing nothing on the Sabbath. Jesus came to expose their misunderstanding. He teaches them that the 3rd Commandment is about God’s compassion, not his judgment. This miracle shows that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). He came to show them that God gave the 3rd commandment for their sake, not his; a day to physically rest without fear that they would starve; a day to find rest and peace in God’s Word; a day to remind them of the eternal rest the Savior would bring.

I think we too have a hard time understanding God’s heart. We tend to think that God has commanded us to come to worship each Sunday to appease his anger and earn his favor. And maybe pastors are partially at fault here. There were some pastors who made laws regarding worship attendance when you were going through confirmation class. No worship – no confirmation. And it worked, right? 7th and 8th graders were in worship every week. But then what happened? Not long after confirmation they stop coming. (It’s hard to blame them; what’s the first thing you did when you didn’t have an assigned bedtime? Stay up as late as you wanted!) It’s the same reason why it’s so tempting to believe that attending worship and Bible class and receiving the Lord’s Supper are things we do for God. If that’s what you think, then you don’t understand! In fact, you need to repent; to change your mind. Sermons and Bible classes and communion are not ways in which you please God – they are ways in which God comes to serve you to strengthen your faith and save you from your sins! The 3rd Commandment and the means of grace they direct us to reveal the pulsating heart of our God – that he wants to meet you here to give you his mercy, not demand some kind of sacrifice (Matthew 9:13).

The Pharisees misunderstood God’s heart. They didn’t understand that God’s way of looking at everything was different from theirs. It’s different from ours, too. We naturally read the Bible through the lens of the Law – that it’s about what we should do – rather than about what God has done for us. That’s why we have trouble with Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet. This parable cannot be about seating etiquette at wedding receptions. Why not? Well, first, if you take the lowest place fully expecting to be upgraded, isn’t that obviously false humility – the sin of hypocrisy? Second, if this parable that being humble in this life will earn yourself a place of honor in heaven – isn’t that just work-righteousness? Parables are many things, but they are not guidebooks for life in this world. Jesus didn’t tell the parables of the lost sheep and lost coin to teach us what to do when we lose something (Luke 15:1-10). He didn’t tell the parable of the shrewd manager to help us find a new job after we’ve been fired for negligence (Luke 16:1-18) – and he didn’t tell this parable to teach us how to choose a seat at a wedding reception.

How can I be so sure that this parable isn’t really about what we should do? Well, let’s go back to the text. After healing the man, [Jesus] noticed how they were selecting the places of honor, tells the parable, and then proclaims this axiom: everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. The point is not that your humility now earns your exaltation eternally – that’s just legalism cloaked in piety. The point is that God’s kingdom operates in a way that is radically different from the way the world works – God humbles the proud and exalts the humble. I could cite many examples from Scripture, but just consider this one: where was Jesus seated at this banquet? Right across from a man who was suffering from swelling of his body. (Incidentally, at that time, dropsy, or the accumulation of fluid in the body was viewed as a punishment for sexual immorality (Numbers 5:11-28). Would you want to sit next to someone with monkeypox today?) Do you think the Pharisees – who prided themselves on their ceremonial purity (John 18:28) – would even consider sitting next to him? They picked seats as far away from him as they could – but not Jesus. Jesus wasn’t ashamed to sit next to this man and then, without even being asked, Jesus healed him. He exalted him from the shame of a stigmatized physical malady. That’s grace. God exalts by grace, not merit. He exalts freely, unreasonably, outrageously.

Do you understand that? Do you understand that God doesn’t think in terms of merit but in terms of grace? (Note that even in the parable, the person who is invited to move up to a seat of honor did nothing to deserve it – his exaltation was a free gift from the host!) By way of application, we might say that God’s greatest pleasure is not in exalting those who boast of their perfect worship attendance, their generous offerings, their selfless service in his kingdom. Nope, God’s greatest pleasure is in exalting the one who is terrified to even step through those doors because they are painfully aware of their unworthiness, who know they really have nothing to offer God than their sins, who willingly acknowledge that they have not served God as his dear children.

And that’s because God exalts only people for Jesus’ sake. God exalts worthless sinners only because his sinless Son humbled himself. Jesus, who rightfully deserved a place at the head of the table, humbled himself to take the lowest place – the place we deserved; a place of shame, sin and punishment in hell; a place on a cross. But then, as Paul says, God then exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name (Philippians 2:9). Because Jesus took the lowest place, God comes to us and freely offers us forgiveness and life and salvation, saying, in other words friend, move up to a higher place. This is what you have to understand about God’s grace: he doesn’t grant it to those who deserve it, but those who don’t; to those who realize that not only don’t they deserve the place of honor – but that they don’t even deserve an invitation. Understand that only those who confess that they deserve only punishment now and forever will ever be lifted up to a place of honor in heaven – because that’s how grace works.

We don’t understand God. Our thoughts aren’t his thoughts; his ways aren’t our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). We think Law, he thinks Gospel; we think works, he thinks grace. Which leads us to the third and final act of this little dinner party. He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you make a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbors, so that perhaps they may also return the favor and pay you back. But when you make a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.

Now, at first glance, you might think that Jesus is legislating a new law: invite to your parties only those who can’t repay the favor. But, again, Jesus didn’t have to teach the Pharisees about good works – they had that down pat (Matthew 23:13-39). Jesus isn’t teaching us about how to formulate our guest list for next week’s Labor Day party – he’s teaching us about God. Specifically, he’s teaching us about the one thing God fears above all things. God is afraid? What’s he afraid of? Payback. God is afraid of people trying to pay him back for his gifts and his grace. That’s not only unnatural and unreasonable to us; we would probably consider it not only impolite but unjust. We expect to be paid back. Our world revolves on the principle that if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. We don’t understand this seemingly irrational fear because we tend to believe that what’s true in this world is true in God’s kingdom. We think God invites us here to his house just so that we can be instructed and directed on how we are to go out there and work for him. That God is like a slave owner who only feeds his slaves well so that he can get the most out of them. If this is how you understand God, then no wonder coming here each week to feast on Word and Sacraments feels like such a burden!

Certainly, we confess with Luther that in view of all of the blessings God has given us we “ought to thank and praise, to serve and obey him” (Luther’s Explanation of the First Article). But that’s not the main reason God invites us to take time each week to come here, to come to his table. He invites us for our sake, not for his. Consider how you’re dismissed after you have received your Savior’s body and blood in communion. Do you hear: “Now get out there and serve God better!” No! “Now this body and blood will strengthen and keep you steadfast in the one truth faith to life everlasting. Amen.” Or consider the words that close our services. It’s not “Now get out there and heal the sick, feed the hungry, make this world a better place” but “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord look on you with favor and give you peace” (Numbers 6:22-26). You come to this banquet to be served, not to serve.

God has a fear of being paid back, and this is comforting. If God doesn’t want to be paid back for his grace to you, then you don’t have to feel guilty because you can’t. If you feel that you have nothing to give to God but your sins and needs and worries, the fact that you come here each Sunday begging for forgiveness, expecting him to listen to your prayers and petitions, and pleading for his blessing – that’s ok! In fact, that’s good! That’s the way God wants it. You should view coming to church like coasting into a gas station on only fumes; hoping and pleading to be filled up – because the whole reason God wants you to stop and sit and rest and listen is to refill you with his grace.

While it’s probably true that parents don’t understand teenage logic, it’s even truer that we don’t really understand our God. We don’t understand his heart – that the 3rd commandment, the Sabbath, is not for us to serve God but for God to serve us. We don’t understand his grace – that God doesn’t exalt those who deserve it, but those who don’t. We don’t understand his fear of being repaid – because he gives the greatest gifts to those who can’t. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying that you should – or can – understand God. But I do hope you understand – and believe – that he is even better than you ever imagined! Amen.

Luke 13:22-30 - The Narrative of the Narrow Door - August 21, 2022

According to the internet, the first recorded use of the phrase, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” was in a book written by a man called Herman Koerner in 1898. It’s first recorded use as the set-up for a joke was in 1966. [1] It’s usually framed as a choice: “do you want the good news or the bad first?” Today, I have good news and bad news, but I’m not giving you a choice.

First, the good news. According to Jesus, there is a feast going on in the kingdom of God. Well, Jesus doesn’t literally call it a feast, he calls it [reclining] at the table in the kingdom of God. In the first century, people didn’t normally recline when they were eating a typical meal; they sat upright like us. When one has the time and security and provisions to “recline” for a meal, you’re not just eating, you’re feasting. What’s the point? You can stop thinking about heaven as something completely alien from life here on earth. You can stop imagining what it will be like to float around on a cloud playing a harp all day. You can stop thinking about it as one endless church service. From the descriptions of heaven we have in Scripture, it would be more accurate to picture heaven as a giant wedding reception, a feast with good food and fellowship (Isaiah 25:6-9; Luke 14:15-24; Revelation 19:6-10).

That’s good news. But there’s more. It’s good news that those who have been invited and are in attendance aren’t only the heroes of faith. Sadly, sometimes we think that way, don’t we? “Sure, the famous, outstanding heroes of faith – those who contribute lots of time and effort and money, those who teach Sunday school and play the organ and preach the sermons – will be there; but what about me – who doesn’t know the Bible as well as I could or should, who hasn’t led a squeaky-clean life, who struggles with sin and faith and doubt?

There are two reasons you should be comforted today. First, Jesus says that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets [will be] in the kingdom of God. They may sound like super-heroes of faith; but 1) if you know your Bible history, you know that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were hardly paragons of virtue – they were cheating, lying, dishonest sinners just like us; and 2) Jesus emphasizes that people will come from east and west, from north and south. This is one of the major themes of the book of Revelation. People of every nation, tribe, people and language will be in heaven – both the extraordinary and the absolutely ordinary (Revelation 7:9).

There’s one final piece of good news: not only is there a feast going on in heaven and not only will people from all walks of life be there, but there’s an open door to this feast – a door that is not an “it,” but a “he.” Jesus is the door into the kingdom of God. He says so himself: I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me (John 14:6; John 10:9). Now, many hear that verse and think, “Well, that’s pretty narrow, pretty exclusive, pretty intolerant of other philosophies and faiths.” Yes, it is. But it’s just as inclusive as it is exclusive. No one can enter heaven except through Jesus – but anyone and everyone can gain entrance through faith in him.

That’s the good news. Ready for the bad news? It boils down to one blunt reality: a lot of people aren’t getting into heaven’s banquet. But before we get there, let’s step back for a second. Someone asked Jesus a question that has intrigued people for centuries – especially people who want to appear very spiritual and theologically wise: Lord, are only a few going to be saved? It’s a question that could only come from a proud and presumptuous heart, right? From someone who presumes they are “in” and so has the spare time to speculate about everyone else. Notice that Jesus doesn’t answer the question that was asked, instead, he answers the question that should have been asked: “Will I be saved?” He does this by answering in a very direct, very personal fashion: He said to them, “[You (plural)] strive to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able…And he will say, “I don’t know where you come from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

People elbow and hip-check others to be first in line to eat, to board a plane, to get into a Brewers game or a Black Friday sale. But is there the same urgency in people striving (literally: “agonizing”) to get into the feast in God’s kingdom? And I’m not talking about the people you saw walking their dogs or towing their boats to the lake or sipping their coffee on their porch as you drove in this morning. I’m talking about you; to you. Do you agonize, do you suffer and sacrifice and prioritize entering this narrow door by daily confessing your sins and pleading for forgiveness? Do you organize your life around getting through this narrow door – not just your Sunday morning, but all your mornings and evenings, your career decisions and where you choose to send your child to school? Striving to enter through this narrow door to heaven is agonizing because it means defying and denying the desires of our sinful flesh. It means prioritizing God and his Word above everything else in life – and it’s not easy.

The devil will make it seem like this striving isn’t all that important – at least not now – that there will always be time later to prioritize Word and Sacrament, but consider this: Jesus does here what the Holy Spirit chose not to do in Genesis. Genesis 7 does not describe what must have been a horrifying scene outside of Noah’s ark as thousands of people pound on the door until their knuckles bled as the flood waters rise around their necks. We don’t hear their anguished screams, the desperate pleas for a second chance. We don’t see the torrential rain sweeping them away to certain death. As horrific as that must have been, the scene on Judgment Day will be even worse. Not only will they face an eternity of torture, they will see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown outside. In other words, on Judgment Day, many will see people they knew streaming into heaven while they are locked out. The despair they will experience in that moment is unimaginable.

Martin Luther said that this text is enough “to frighten the greatest saints.” [2] Are you frightened? Not in the haunted house sort of way where fear is fun, but in the way where your heart is racing, your throat tightens up, your stomach clenches. Well, if you’re not frightened yet, then the finer details of this account might send you over the edge. First, the door is narrow. If you think that you’re guaranteed entry because you come to church faithfully, because you’ve been confirmed, give your offerings, try to do good and love others, or are Lutheran – you won’t fit. No one who tries to pack all that stuff on their backs will be able to squeeze through this door. That’s what Jesus meant when he said some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last. Many who appear to be “in” because of their good lives will be left out and many who appear to be “out” because of their sinful lives will be welcomed in. Second, you never know when this door will shut. Sure, the Lord may give us 70 or 80 years on this earth (Psalm 90:10) – but he may not. One or more of these chairs might be empty next Sunday. We might not wake up tomorrow morning. And anyone who hasn’t entered through the narrow door through faith before death will find it closed and locked forever. If that thought doesn’t frighten you, then nothing will.

Do you still remember the good news? Probably not. It’s not because the bad news negated the good news but because I made the mistake many preachers make: I talked about the Gospel but I didn’t proclaim the Gospel. What’s the difference? The difference is that the Gospel is only truly good news, news that will create and sustain saving faith, when it applies to you. For example, for years now politicians have been tossing around the idea of forgiving student loans. Is that good news? Well, clearly yes if you’re still paying of your student loans. But if you didn’t go to college or if you managed to either pay your way or pay off your loans – that’s not really good news, is it? In fact, it might sound like bad news; it make you resentful of the fact that your tax dollars are going to pay off someone else’s loans. Good news is only really good news if it applies to you.

Thank God then that I have really good news that applies to all of us. Jesus is the door to the kingdom of God; to the feast in heaven – and that door isn’t closed to anyone, not even to you, not even to me. No matter where you’ve been; not matter what you’ve done; no matter how many times you’ve put other things before this open door – as long as your heart beats, this door is still wide open to you. But I thought the door was narrow? It is. The door to heaven demands perfect obedience to the Law; it’s impossibly small – but Jesus came from heaven to keep the Law and squeeze through that door on your behalf. When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law (Galatians 4:4-5). Whenever the devil, your conscience or someone else tries to remind you of all the good you should have done but did not do – remember that Jesus has done it all for you, in your place, for your salvation.

What about the death and hell we deserve for all the commandments we’ve broken, all the people we’ve hurt or let down, all the times we’ve imagined that we’ve earned or deserved heaven? The good news for you is that Jesus paid that price in full, too. He willingly carried all your sins through the wide gate to hell where he paid for them and then, having left them there, he came back through a door so narrow that only one person could fit; only a perfect person; only a man who is also God. Jesus, and Jesus alone, earned the right to pass through the door from death to life. This fact – the fact of the resurrection – is the door stop that props heaven’s feast wide open. Make no mistake: this door is narrow. It’s as narrow as one person: the God-man Jesus Christ. But it’s never been too narrow for anyone who confesses their sins and trusts in Jesus’ blood and righteousness to get through – not even you, not even me!

But I saved the best news for last. You may have noticed in Jesus’ story that it didn’t matter if those pounding on the door claimed to know the master as much as it does whether the master knew them. The master, of course, is Jesus. Does he know you? Yes! I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how comforting this is. The infants and little children we hold in our arms can’t confess their faith – but Jesus welcomes them into his arms and blesses them – he washed them in baptism, he knows them (Mark 10:16; 16:16). There are times in all of our lives when we forget all about Jesus, we stray from the narrow path, and we can start to think that he could never forgive us for what we’ve done, we can begin to think that we are beyond saving – but when Jesus through his called servant forgives your sins, they are forgiven (John 20:23)! We might think that, covered in the tattered robes of sin as we are, we are unfit to recline at heaven’s banquet. In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus tells us, “here, take my robe of righteousness” (Revelation 22:14). The day may come when we don’t know our spouse, our children, or even what day it is. Even then, Jesus says I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep…I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand (John 10:14, 28). Does Jesus – the door into heaven’s feast – know you? Through these means of grace – through baptism, absolution and communion – he assures you that he does!

The narrative of the narrow door contains both good news and bad news. As those who are simultaneously sinners and saints, we need to hear both. But most importantly, I pray that you cling to the best news – that even though the door to heaven may be narrow, through faith in Jesus, you’re in! Amen.   

[1] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/258235/origin-first-known-use-of-the-phrase-ive-got-some-good-news-and-some-bad-news

[2] Lenski, Interpretation of St. Luke’s Gospel (Columbus, Ohio: The Wartburg Press. 1946) 755

Luke 12:22-34 - Anxious? - August 7, 2022

When you’re really anxious or worried about something, what’s the last thing you want someone to tell you? And I’m not talking about some silly thing that might cause anxiety, like the possibility that the Packer’s kicker will miss the game-winning field goal or that it might rain on your party. No, I’m talking about those times when you’re seriously anxious about a very serious thing: when your child has spiked a fever in the middle of the night, when you’ve lost your job, when the bills seem overwhelming, when the doctors don’t have any answers. Have you ever been anxious about these things and had someone tell you, “Don’t worry about it”? How do you want to respond? “Oh, just shut up.” But today it’s not just anyone telling us not to worry, it’s Jesus. And he’s not just offering up empty words or a useless cliché, he’s telling us; commanding us: don’t worry about it – but please fight the urge to tell him to shut up, because unlike anyone else who says those words, Jesus has answers for our anxiety.

Why is the worry, the anxiety that plagues us all in one way or another such a serious problem? I could point to studies that document the harmful psychological and physical effects anxiety has on a person: the sleepless nights, panic attacks, heart disease, inability to focus. Ours is an anxious culture. It’s probably no coincidence that anti-anxiety drugs are among the most prescribed medications in our country and the leading OTC medications are for sleep and stomach disorders. Anxiety is ruining our minds, our stomachs and our sleep. But I’m not a doctor or a psychologist. We’re here to deal with the far more serious spiritual effects of anxiety. Spiritually speaking, anxiety is idolatry. It is the worship we offer to false gods, the idols that promise us health, wealth, happiness, identity, security and meaning for our lives – and the liturgy consists of sleeplessness and restlessness and ulcers (among other things). Like all other idols, the idol of anxiety consumes its worshipers. Anxiety is a cancer of the soul.

How did we get here? Our text follows the Gospel lesson from last week: the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21). Knowing that his disciples likely suffered from the same misplaced focus on earthly wealth and security as the rich fool did, and who were likely wondering how a person living in this fallen world could possibly not worry about those things – Jesus addresses the problem directly: “For that reason I tell you, stop worrying about your life, about what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. Why not? Certainly life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Jesus’ logic is bulletproof, isn’t it? Food might energize and sustain life – but it’s not life itself (people die every day surrounded by food). Clothing covers and protects us, but you are not what you wear, no matter what social media or the fashion industry says.

Worry is illogical for believers. Consider the ravens, Jesus says, they do not sow or reap; they have no warehouse or barn; and yet God feeds them. The birds of the air don’t plant or harvest their own food; they don’t store it up in pantries or bank accounts – they are utterly reliant on God for their food on a daily basis. In this way, they are a picture of faith. Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these. The flowers of the field don’t spend hours shopping online, trying to find just the right article of clothing at just the right price. They don’t carry wads of Kohl’s cash around. They don’t have walk-in closets bigger than many 3rd-world homes. And yet God makes them more beautiful than any fashion designer ever could. Like the birds, they are a picture of faith.

From these illustrations Jesus draws his grand conclusion: if this is how God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith? Do not constantly chase after what you will eat or what you will drink. Do not be worried about it. (It’s kind of tempting to just tell him to shut up, isn’t it?) But just think: does your anxiety put food on the table? Does it clothe you or your children? Can it add one minute to your life? (It might shorten your life, it that were actually possible (it’s not – Psalm 31:15), but does your anxiety add anything to your life except sleepless nights, restless days, headaches and heartache and heartburn?) Up here, we get it, right? Intellectually, we understand that worrying is foolish and useless. It makes sense that the God who takes such good care of birds and flowers would take even better care of us, the crown of his creation. But the question still stands: why, then, are we so anxious about food and drink and clothing and shoes?

Jesus’ question contained the diagnosis. Did you catch it? Little faith. Our anxiety symptomatic of the littleness of our faith and the largeness of our unbelief. That’s what really doesn’t make any sense, right? We trust God for the big things – forgiveness of sins, resurrection from the dead and eternal life. Those are things so big we can’t wrap our minds around them – much less do anything to achieve them (which is probably why we trust him with those things – kind of like we trust airline pilots to know what they’re doing, because we don’t have a clue). But what doesn’t follow is that we don’t trust the same God who has taken care of the big things for the little things; for food and clothing and shelter. Why don’t we trust him for these small things? Why do we let anxiety crowd God out of our hearts?

First and foremost, it’s because we lack true repentance. Now stick with me here. Because worry and anxiety are so ubiquitous and universal – everyone worries about something – we are tempted to not even view it as sin; “Everyone is doing it, it can’t be that bad.” We may confess it as foolish and pointless, but how often do we recognize it as a sin against the 1st Commandment. Anxiety is the very worst kind of idolatry – that of idolizing ourselves in place of the one, true God. Anxiety is the idolatry of raising ourselves above God; of exalting ourselves as gods when we imagine that our daily bread is provided by our blood, sweat and tears rather than by our good and merciful Father in heaven (James 1:17). The sin of anxiety is no less serious than the sin which got Satan kicked out of heaven and banished to hell forever (Jude 6; Revelation 12:7-9). It’s a form of pride. It’s faith in ourselves rather than faith in God – and for that we must repent.

But that’s just one side of the coin. It’s not just that we fail to recognize anxiety as a sin against the 1st Commandment; as the sin of idolatry – but that we fail to trust that our Father in heaven really loves us and will really provide for us. As Jesus said, we get caught up with the rest of the world in chasing after all these things – failing to recognize that [our] Father knows that we need them. God really does love us and really will care for us! That’s a promise that we can stake our lives on. More than anything in the world, that is what we should be sure of even though we may not see it the moment (Hebrews 11:1). But there’s still a problem, isn’t there? We may understand logically that we are more valuable than the birds of the air and the flowers of the field; we may confess our anxiety and worry as idolatry and know that we should trust our Father’s promises – but…the worry and anxiety are still there, aren’t they? Why? Because the antidote for anxiety isn’t found in our minds, our lips or our hearts. (Just consider our introduction – when someone tells you not to worry, isn’t the result that you end up worrying more?) The law can diagnose the problem, but it can’t solve it.

So what is the perfect prescription? Let’s rewind for a minute, back to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. While they don’t sow or reap or store up or labor or spin or worry – that doesn’t mean they’re lazy. The birds are constantly busy flying around gathering the food the Lord provides. The flowers of the field reach down into the soil and up to the sun – gathering in the nourishment the Lord provides. In other words, faith (which is the opposite of anxiety) isn’t idle. It’s living and active. Ironically, you could say that the cure to worrying about the wrong things is worrying (or focusing on) the right things. And Jesus points in two directions in which this faith is living and active.

First, continue to seek the kingdom of God. Two questions arise: 1) what is the kingdom of God; and 2) how do you seek it? God’s kingdom not a nation with borders and laws and armies. The kingdom of God is his rule in the hearts of believers. And God’s reign is focused on Jesus, on how he broke into this anxious and worried world and conquered it with perfect faith in his Father. Consider how many things Jesus could have been worried about. To the naked eye, he was born out of wed-lock (Luke 3:23) – he could have worried about his image and reputation. He lacked food in the wilderness for 40 days while he was tempted (Luke 4:2) and he never really had a place to lay his head, a place to call home (Luke 9:58). Jesus could have worried about how severely his friends would be tempted and whether or not they would fall from faith – just as we do with friends and family – but instead, he prayed (Luke 22:31-32). Unlike us, Jesus knew exactly how he would suffer and when he would die – and yet instead of idly worrying about it, he poured out his heart to his Father (Luke 22:39-46). In other words, Jesus had every reason we do to be anxious and worried – but he wasn’t – and his worry-free life is now yours. When God looks at you he doesn’t see an anxious idolater who has wasted countless hours trying to knock him off his throne – but his Son’s life of perfect fear, love and trust.

And when the King of creation ascended the throne of the cross, not only did he have nothing to eat, but he thirsted for just a drop to wet his tongue (John 19:28). He was stripped of every scrap of clothing, so that, unlike the flowers, he had no attractiveness and no majesty (Isaiah 53:2). And yet, in allowing everything to be stripped, ripped and taken from him, Jesus gave us everything; everything the kingdom of God contains: forgiveness, life and salvation. For Jesus’ sake your Father is pleased to give you [this] kingdom. And you seek and find these blessings in God’s kingdom right here. In baptism he gives you the passport which proves your citizenship in his kingdom. In Absolution he rips off the tattered rags of your anxiety and worry and clothes you with the fabulous robe of Jesus’ righteousness. In the Lord’s Supper he feeds you with food that will never perish or run out. And if your Father gives you those big, eternal things, how could you ever doubt that he will take care of the little things like clothing and food and shelter?

But I mentioned that anti-anxiety faith is active in two ways – rather, Jesus did. Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide bags for yourselves that do not become old, a treasure in the heavens that will not fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. Now, it seems counterintuitive that giving your things away could alleviate anxiety, but the last sentence explains the preceding. By your charity and generosity you are exercising your faith, your trust that your true treasure is already locked away safely in heaven. When you can allow earthly possessions to pass through your hands like water or wind, trusting that your Father will continue to provide day by day, then it will become clear to you that God has double-vaxxed and boosted you against that deadly virus called anxiety; that you believe and trust that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I don’t know about you, but when people tell me not to worry, I usually want to tell them to shut up. Today is different. Jesus diagnoses why we worry and explains why we shouldn’t. We worry because we lack repentance and faith. Worry is looking inward instead of outward to the God who loves us and has promised to care for us. But we shouldn’t worry and we don’t have to – because our Father has not only proven his love by caring for birds and flowers but by sending his Son to take the root cause of our anxiety – our sins – away. This doesn’t mean that sources of anxiety won’t continue to surround you every day; it just means that you don’t have to worry about them. Amen.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-2; 2:1-11, 17-26

Have you ever tried to catch the wind? Sure, maybe you’ve caught some of the things carried by the wind: butterflies, lightning bugs, Covid-19 – but catching the wind itself; that’s impossible. Wind isn’t the only thing rushing past us in this life – pleasure, wealth, accomplishments are all rushing past us every day – have you ever chased after them, tried to grab on to them and store them up, thinking that at some point, when you have enough of them, you will finally be happy and satisfied? In the Gospel Jesus taught that it doesn’t matter how big your barns are and how much stuff they are filled with – because when God comes for your soul, someone else will get all that stuff you worked so hard to gather (Luke 12:20). I would argue that this text from Ecclesiastes goes even further, arguing that apart from God all earthly pursuits are meaningless. “Nothing but vapor,” Ecclesiastes said. “Totally vapor. Everything is just vapor that vanishes.” Havel havelim [1], declares King Solomon. When Hebrew writers repeat a word, it’s a superlative; “the vaporiest of vapors.” Emptiness. Nothingness. Worthless. What’s he talking about? Anything and everything; life itself. And if anyone would know, it would be Solomon – because he had it all and more – and yet, probably writing as an old man, he looks back and calls it all meaningless, as meaningless as chasing after the wind. Aren’t you glad you rolled out of bed this morning to hear that? Why would the Lord inspire Solomon to tell us that everything we do, work for, strive for in this life is as meaningless as vapor? It’s because our Lord loves us too much to let us chase the meaningless winds of this world now and learn the truth only when it’s too late, when our eternity is already determined.

While Solomon appears to have learned this truth by the end of his life, each generation must learn it for itself – and in our generation, these are fighting words. Whether we realize it or not, we’ve been conditioned to measure our lives based on wealth, fame, power, beauty, accomplishment – and a host of other worldly measures. We’ve been taught to study hard so that you can get a good degree with which you can find a good job which will make you appealing to a good spouse who can help you find the perfect house in which to raise the perfect children until you enroll them in the ideal college and find them an ideal spouse – at which point you can crack open that giant nest-egg you worked so hard for in retirement, take it easy. Eat, drink, and be merry (Luke 12:19). That’s the basic American dream, right? But on a deeper level, this is the delusion spawned by our sinful nature – that true happiness is out there, just around the corner, you just need to find it, work for it and grab ahold of it. And it’s not going to let go of its delusion easily. The sinful nature can’t be persuaded or converted – it must be killed. And that’s the job of the Law – to expose the sin in our hearts and put it to death (Colossians 3:5). It’s an ugly and painful death – but it must be done to escape the hellish eternity which awaits all who set their hearts on worldly things. So, for the sake of your soul, listen as Solomon drains the life out of the American dream.

I thought in my heart, “Go ahead, test yourself with pleasure to see what is good.” But, oh, that too is vapor. About laughter, I said, “Madness!” About pleasure, “What good is it?” As my heart kept guiding me with wisdom, I put it to work researching how to relax my body with wine and how to grasp why people do stupid things…I acquired male singers and female singers for myself, and what gives great pleasure to men – one concubine after another. “Work hard, party harder” is not just a slogan found on T-shirts and bumper stickers, it’s the philosophy many – maybe even many of us – live by. And it’s not new. The Lord condemned the Israelites for lounging on their ivory-embroidered beds and drinking wine by the bowlful (Amos 6:1-7). The Epicureans of Paul’s day lived by the motto let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (1 Corinthians 15:32). There’s no doubt that the hedonistic, Hugh Hefner philosophy of chasing pleasure is attractive – the question is: does it work? Does it satisfy? You can fill your belly with the very finest food and drink – and make no mistake, these are good gifts from God (Psalm 145:15) – but if these gifts are enjoyed apart from thanksgiving to the Giver, then you’re no different than livestock; you’re just a well-dressed food processor. Well, sex then. Sex is satisfying, right? Not outside of the boundaries God has drawn around marriage – color outside of these lines and all you get is loneliness and emptiness, broken hearts and broken families. Younger generations are known for pursuing pleasurable “experiences” – thus the rise of adventure vacations, escape rooms, and Airbnb’s. Does it work? No, there’s always one more adventure to have, one more niche restaurant to “experience” and one more exotic place Facebook says “you just have to visit.” Chasing pleasure is just chasing after the wind.

Ok then, how about accumulating stuff? I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself. I planted vineyards for myself. I made gardens and parks for myself, and I planted every kind of fruit tree in them. I made reservoirs of water for myself to irrigate a forest of sprouting trees. I acquired male and female servants. I also had slaves that were born in my own house. Livestock too! I had more herds and flocks that anyone before me in Jerusalem…But when I turned my attention to everything that my hands had done and to how hard I had worked for it – note this – it was all vapor, all chasing the wind. There was no benefit under the sun. Can piles of wealth give meaning to life? Jesus calls the person who believes that a fool who has forfeited his soul (Luke 12:20). Sooner or later, everyone realizes that death will rob you of every last penny you worked so hard for. But it’s even more important to see that wealth doesn’t bring happiness even when you’re alive. To the illusion that says “If I can only make enough to buy this, to find financial security, then I’ll be happy,” Solomon responds, “don’t bother, I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work.” Have you ever known anyone who earns enough? Who has saved enough? Has a car that’s new enough? Gadgets that are cutting-edge enough? You may not be a king, but you build your own little kingdom only to have someone eventually give it all away to Good-will. It’s meaningless: as meaningless as chasing after the wind.

Well, if it’s not the destination, then it must be the journey: life’s meaning must come from work. To this proposal, Solomon responds, what does a man gain through all his hard work, through all the turmoil in his heart, as he works so hard under the sun? Pain fills all his days. His occupation is frustration. Even at night his heart does not rest. This too is vapor. Ah, but that’s not what that seductress named “the American Dream” wants you to believe. She transforms the quiet wisdom of “work ethic” into the shrill scream of a slave-driver: “Work, work, work. Learn, earn, compete, build your resume, plan, sacrifice, worry, lose sleep, skip vacations, add hours, climb the corporate ladder, scratch the right back, invest, buy low, sell high, save, risk, work, work, work!” After all this, your life will have meaning and fulfillment – right? Wrong! Solomon says that all the hours he worked, all the plans he made – even after building a temple for the Lord and a palace for himself – all his toil brought him nothing more than frustration and sleepless nights. And if you think his experience was unique, consider that 13% of Americans take medication to fight off depression and anxiety [2] and over $800 million dollars per year is spent on sleep aids. [3] What will all your hard work amount to after you retire, after you hand it over to someone else who tears it all down and starts over? Nothing. Apart from God, even work is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

It’s depressing, isn’t it? It’s depressing to think that all your hard work, all the blood, sweat and tears you’ve spilled to acquire wealth and experience pleasure is nothing more than chasing after the wind. But it’s the soul-crushing truth. It’s why many people today struggle to summon the energy to get out of bed in the morning, why others just live for the weekend when they can drown their despair in meaningless activities and substances, why so many need the constant distraction of music, movies, and social media – anything to escape the dark, silent emptiness of life under the sun. That’s idolatry for you, and idolatry when viewed from that perspective is pretty horrifying, isn’t it? It’s empty. It’s hollow. Idols consume their worshipers from the inside, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell. This is life without God, life without Christ at the center. Why? Because it’s not who you are. You are not the sum total of what you own and what you’ve done. You’re so much more than that. You were created by God, redeemed by God, adopted by God to live forever with him. But without God at the center of your life, your being, your identity, all you do and all you have under the sun is utterly meaningless. Thankfully, God offers us a better way. In spite of our futile attempts to find meaning and happiness apart from him, God graciously gives us a new way of life. He enables us to see beyond the horizon of life under this sun, to find the true meaning of life in his Son, Jesus.

In the final verses of our text, Solomon points us in the right direction: There is nothing better for a man than to eat and to drink and to find joy in his work. This too, I saw, is from God’s hand. For who can eat or enjoy himself apart from him? Hang on, I thought Solomon just established that pleasure, wealth and work are meaningless; now he says that there is nothing better than eating and drinking and working? Did you catch the key phrase? Apart from him – apart from God – no one will find contentment or happiness, but with him we can be joyful whether we are rich or poor, whether the meal is the chef’s special or Chef Boyardee, whether we are running our dream business or just counting the minutes to 5 o’clock. Why? How? Because Jesus did the most meaningful thing of all by taking up the seemingly most meaningless task of all (Isaiah 49:4). Because Jesus came specifically to destroy the one thing that makes it all meaningless: death. He left his place at his Father’s right hand, he emptied himself of his glory and power as the Son of God, he became poor so that we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). He despised all other earthly pursuits apart from his pursuit of your salvation; which led him to the cross where he willingly suffered the horrifying wrath of God and the miserable, meaningless death and hell we deserved for our sins of idolatry, greed, gluttony and lust. The blood he shed won for us the greatest treasure of all: the forgiveness of sins. When you have this treasure, then death is not the end, but the beginning of true life. When you have this treasure you can be certain that – unlike the rich fool – you will pass the test on the night God summons your soul (Luke 12:20) – because you have Christ and his righteousness. Through baptism this treasure is yours – which means that you don’t have to waste your time chasing your best life now because your best life is still to come, when you will finally be free from sin and the futility of chasing the wind of meaning in this life.

And that’s the secret to a meaningful life here and now. The secret is not having a better life, but rather a better perspective on life. Knowing that Jesus has secured eternal life in heaven for you frees you to actually enjoy life now. While the unbelieving world tries to squeeze meaning out of pleasure, wealth and work, believers understand that the good things of this life are just that: things of this life – to be used, enjoyed, and, eventually, left behind; just like the wind. Don’t believe the lie that happiness is something that lies just over the horizon, after just a little more work and a few more years of saving – because if you do, you won’t just find yourself continually disappointed – you will miss the wonderful gifts God has already given you. Instead see that the meaning of the pleasure and wealth and work you have today lies in the simple fact that the God who created and redeemed you has given it to you – nothing more and nothing less.

The meaning of life isn’t the sum total of the pleasure we’ve experienced, the wealth we’ve accumulated or the hard work we’ve completed. The meaning of life is that God loved us so much that he gave us life, gave us his Son, gave us faith to believe in him, and has promised to give us a place in his heavenly mansion. Try to grasp hold of what this life under the sun has to offer and you will find yourself empty handed, like trying to catch the wind. But open your hands to receive Christ in faith and God promises to fill those hands with everything you need for this life and more (Matthew 6:33). The Christian life is the simple life: 1) trust in God to take care of the big picture – now and forever – and 2) enjoy the life under the sun he has given you – because Jesus has already earned the one thing we could never catch for ourselves: the never-ending joy of eternal life in heaven. Amen.

[1] Incidentally, havel was the name of Adam and Eve’s second son (Abel), whose life was so meaninglessly cut short by his brother Cain (Genesis 4:8)

[2] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jul/22/new-study-challenges-value-antidepressants/

[3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11058925/Experts-warn-melatonin-use-America-control.html

1 Timothy 2:1-6 - First of All: Pray - July 24, 2022

In my Bible, the heading for this section of 1 Timothy is Instructions about Worship. If you were to write a list of instructions regarding Christian worship, what would be at the top of your list? That the setting, the building, the chairs all be clean and comfortable? That the music is pleasant and the sermon is captivating? That Jesus be at the center of everything? That the service lasts no longer than 60 minutes so you can get on with your day? Paul says: First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. Now, I’ll admit that when I was younger, I didn’t really understand why we spent so much of the service in prayer. It seemed like an awful lot of standing and listening, and very quickly my mind began to wander to thoughts of what was for lunch and my eyes to the people around me. But wandering thoughts and eyes are not at all what Paul has in mind when he urges us to pray when we gather for worship. Paul considers prayer an absolutely essential part of Christian worship. He says, first of all, pray.

Why? Why is prayer so essential to our worship services? Because prayer is a reflection of reality; it’s a reflection of the reality that we are powerless, that we have little or no control over anything, that we are all beggars coming to God with empty hands pleading with him to give us what we need. Paul uses four words to bring out the wide-ranging nature of Christian prayer: petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings. We are to bring to God our petitions – that is, we come to God like a child comes to his father to ask for whatever we need both physically and spiritually. Prayers is a very general term indicating any kind of devotion or praise to God – it can be as simple as praising God for his glory, for his works, for his gifts. When we make intercession to God, we are boldly asking God to guide and protect and bless others. For example, when our children go off to school or get their driver’s license or start dating – we parents tend to flood God’s throne with intercessions (but don’t worry, Jon and Breanna, with two big brothers, I’m sure you won’t have to worry about Addison). When we see others suffering or in pain, we ask God to intervene on their behalf. Finally, Paul says, we offer thanksgiving: this brings our prayer full circle, so that the blessings we have already received from God return to him again in the form of appreciation.

Paul is primarily talking about prayer in public worship – but his guidance for what we do here on Sundays is also helpful for our personal prayer lives. Sometimes we get into a rut that is anything but model prayer. We treat prayer like a right rather than a privilege. We pray for ourselves but forget to pray for others. We ask God for earthly blessings but neglect the spiritual ones or fail to thank him for the family, house, car, job he has already given us. Our prayers can begin to sound like a child’s Christmas list: God, I want this and this and that. (Or as we noted last week, like Martha we can be tempted to arrogantly tell God what to do, rather than humbly ask according to his perfect will.) One easy way to remember the basics of God-pleasing prayer is to follow what is called the A-C-T-S model. Adoration. Confession. Thanksgiving. Supplication. Following this simple outline helps us to keep our focus and serves as a reminder to first bow in humility and praise before our holy God, then confess our sins, and offer thanksgiving before we present whatever requests we may have.

When we pray, our leading thought is: “what should I pray for?” Paul’s answer is not what but who: for all people. That’s kind of overwhelming – how can we possibly know what almost 8 billion people need, how would we ever have time to intercede on behalf of every one of them? But the fact is, that this prayer is fairly straight-forward. We pray that God would carry out his will for all people, a will which Paul spells out: God our Savior…wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Whether you know it or not, you’ve already been doing this, you’ve already been praying for all people. Whenever you pray the Lord’s Prayer you are praying that God’s name, kingdom and will would come to everyone on earth. At the same time, if you are aware of certain people who continue to stumble in the darkness of unbelief – and you can and should name them in your prayers. In either case, our prayer is that God would bring everyone to a knowledge of the truth. What truth? The two-fold truth that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:23-24).

Praying for everyone obviously means that we exclude no one. But Paul encourages Christians to specifically pray for kings and all those in authority. I don’t think I’m alone in confessing that government officials haven’t always been at the top of my prayer list. And yet, Paul tells us to make the conscious effort to pray for the leaders God has appointed (Romans 13:1). This was certainly no easy task for those early Christians. Those Christians saw their friends and family dragged into coliseums throughout the Roman Empire where they were tortured and sacrificed as entertainment for pagan Roman crowds. Those Christians found themselves targeted for persecution by the Roman government which falsely blamed them for all kinds of problems in society. Given the situation, you’d think that Paul would tell Timothy to call down hell-fire on the governing authorities, or at the very least urge civil disobedience. But Paul encourages Timothy to do just the opposite: he urges those Christians to pray for the very leaders who hunted them down and tortured them for their Christian faith. 

Even though the governing authorities in America are not hunting us down or banning Christianity…at least not yet…it’s still not always natural or easy to pray for our national, state and local leaders, is it? It doesn’t seem right to us to ask God to bless leaders who create and enforce laws that contradict God’s will – who not only condone but praise violence and sexual immorality and the murder of the unborn. It’s hard to pray for politicians who are revealed to be corrupt and immoral in their public and personal lives. But Paul supplies a very good reason for us to pray for all those in authority – even for the unbelieving and immoral ones: so that we might live a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and dignity. History teaches that it is far easier for Christians to lead quiet, God-pleasing lives when there is peace than when there is strife and war. Examples abound: think about how Jeremiah encouraged the Israelites exiled in Babylon to pray for their city of exile – rather than rise up against it – because then they too would have peace and prosperity (Jeremiah 29:7)); remember how Peter folded under the pressure when mob-rule overtook the rule of law (Luke 22:54-62); think of how hard it would have been to live for God during the Revolutionary or Civil Wars. Consider our Christian brothers and sisters who are enduring unspeakable horrors in Ukraine this very moment. Wars and rebellions and anarchy and unrest – even those undertaken with seemingly righteous motives – can lead Christians to do some terrible, evil things – to live anything but godly and dignified lives. Worst of all, times of war and unrest can lead us to doubt God’s love and care. We pray for the leaders God has placed over us so that we might live peaceful and Godly lives, and at the same time, we pray that God would shine the light of his Gospel into their hearts so that they too might know Christ as their Savior. Why? Because this is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior. There are many good reasons to pray – but the most important one of all is that God wants us to. It pleases God when we bring all our thoughts and concerns and praise and thanks to his throne.

But, as important as it is to understand how to pray and whom to pray for, it’s even more important for us to understand that the power of prayer isn’t the how or the who. Prayer is not powerful because our prayers are so frequent and eloquent and proper – because quite often, they’re not. No, prayer is powerful because of the One we pray to. Paul says that there is only one God. We don’t pray to some unidentified, mysterious being. When we pray, we pray to the omnipotent Creator of the heavens and the earth. We pray to the God who orders the sun the shine and the rain to fall and numbers the very hairs of our heads. We pray to the God who raises and crushes leaders and nations like pawns on the chessboard of history. Practically speaking: we are praying to the One who can and will watch over little children like Addison, even when you can’t, even when you’re sleeping; the One who can provide food and fuel and shelter even when the bank account says you can’t; to the one who has the power to control inflation and disease and conflict – when the smartest and most powerful people in the world seem powerless. When we pray, we bring our petitions before the throne of the king of Heaven and the Judge of all the earth (Genesis 18:25).

But…sometimes we forget that, don’t we? We forget that when we pray, we aren’t shooting the breeze with a friend or posting our stream of consciousness to social media – we are addressing the one, true, holy God. We sometimes forget that when we come into church – we are daring to walk into God’s presence. We’re not walking into a movie or a concert – we’re walking into a courtroom where we know that the verdict ought to be guilty as charged. When we come here we stand before God, and the only thing we bring to the table is our sins, and the first thing we do is openly and honestly confess how sinful, how unworthy we are to be here. It is an awesome and awful thing to come before the one, holy God. Throughout Bible history, people were shaken to the core when they witnessed the glory of God. The people of Israel shook with fear when God descended on Sinai with flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder (Exodus 19:16). Isaiah recognized that he deserved to be ruined because he was a man of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5). Peter, James, and John fell on their faces when Jesus was transfigured before them (Matthew 17:6). Even the mob in the Garden of Gethsemane fell on their knees when Jesus told them who he was (John 18:6). When we come here to stand before God and then dare to call on him by name, it should be with all humility and sorrow, because we know our sins and how they have ruined our relationship with Him. May we never forget that on our own, we cannot pray to God or expect that he will hear us; we cannot even stand in his presence dressed as we are in the tattered rags of our own sinfulness (Isaiah 59:2).

That’s what makes the last verse of our text so important. Paul writes: there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all. We cannot come to God on our own, and – the good news is – we don’t have to. We come in Jesus’ name; at his invitation and with the guarantee of his mediation. We come dressed in the robes of holiness that Jesus earned for us by his perfect prayer life as our substitute. God answers when we knock because Jesus reestablished our line of communication with his Father by his death which served as the ransom price to free us from our sins – symbolized by the tearing of the curtain in the temple the moment he gave his last breath (Matthew 27:50-51). God hears our prayers because our risen and ascended Savior still stands before him as our mediator – pleading our case and pleading for mercy. Knowing that, knowing what it cost our Savior to give us access to God, will remove any reluctance or selfishness or arrogance or presumption from our prayer life. It will instill in us a sense of awe when we come before God and will cause us to overflow with praise and thanks for all that he has done.

So, what should be the priority when we gather for worship? The building, the music, the pastor, the length? Paul says: prayer. We should offer petitions and prayers and intercessions and thanksgiving for all people – because it is God’s will that all people be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. Pray for our nation’s leaders and government that they might either be converted or that their evil intentions may be thwarted so that we may live peaceful and Godly lives. Pray at all times and in all places to our Almighty God in heaven, confident that he has the power to do whatever you ask. Pray, because Jesus lived, died and rose to give you that privilege. It’s in his holy name we pray today and every day. Amen.