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Far be it from us to neglect such a great salvation

Posted on by nfuller

Therefore is a great word for starting our Epistle because it lets us know that what is read is based on what has been said just a chapter earlier. And the preceding chapter, the first chapter of Hebrews, starts, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” 

In that first chapter Jesus is distinguished from the prophets as the culmination of their life and message. This week’s therefore includes Jesus being Savior and God: “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” By the order of creation and by the order of redemption, Jesus is in all things God, speaking among us in these last days. Hebrews chapter 2 starts by communicating  ‘In light of our knowledge of Jesus as Savior, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard.’

“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard. Lest we drift away from it. For since the message delivered by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?”

Americans neglect the faith all of the time. A significant percentage of college students stop attending church when they go away to college- living on their own, they simply do not keep up the tradition they received from family to attend worship and walk with Jesus.

They may think of themselves as Christians for the time being, but many will never go back to church, and it is unknown what if anything they will teach their own children if God blesses them with such a gift. 

“For since the message delivered by angels proved to be reliable”, This is not just a wishful thinking of what may be the right way to live, God’s Word is true, it has been delivered to us by angels and prophets alike, and it has never been demonstrated to contradict itself or be a fraud. Since we can relay on it, and since we have been saved by it, how unfortunate if we do something so shortsighted as to neglect God’s Word. 

People of all ages are at risk for the practice of neglect of their faith. It can start with attending church less and giving up on hearing and reading God’s Word. With time away from the Word people often develop their own perspective on which parts of God’s Word should be followed and which are not as important anymore.

Some teachings of God’s Word may then feel more inconvenient to hold, as they cause disagreement and hostility from the world. And then in time the heart is hardened to where there is little faith and trust in Jesus, “I am a good person, that is what matters” people then conclude.  The process of neglect of Jesus continues to develop as sin grows.

If you were to buy a new house at the age of 25 and never clean, paint, repair or attend to, it would prove useless to you far before reaching retirement age.  If you were to buy a new car but never inflate the air in the tires when low, never change the oil, how long before the car was ruined?

Or consider the condition of your body if you were to neglect regular hygiene, think nothing of nutrition or how much you rest or exercise you should be getting?             How long could your relationships last if you pay no attention to birthdays or quality time together, or provide no acts of service? 

The neglect of our faith is no different.  How disastrous the results should we give no though to the importance of the care of our faith! Of course the most important risk is that of eternal consequences of God’s judgement.  But just like you normally feel a bad night’s sleep the next day or a bad day of your diet- you no doubt can feel the short term effects of spiritual neglect. Discouragement, hopelessness, anger, resentment, jealousy, self doubt.

How shall we escape this tragic fate of neglect of our faith? The rest of our reading from Hebrews clarifies that it was not to angels, or for that matter prophets that God subjected the world to, but to Jesus. The rest of the reading describes not how great is our neglect of our faith, but how great is the salvation we have in Jesus. 

“At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Jesus has always been the ruler of the world, and Jesus set aside his rule over us by dying on the cross for us. Ruler of all, he made the ultimate sacrifice so that we would not taste death.

We would never design it like that, we would build a kingdom by what we can achieve with brick and mortar. Listen to the words of the Introit:  “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” The Lord builds the house with love and self sacrifice.  The Lord builds the house with our unity.

Often we neglect our faith the most when we are alone. Times when we chose to go a solitary route of selfishness are times when the attacks of Satan are most powerful against us.  Together as the body of Christ, we learn to encourage one another in God’s Word, we build each other up. 

God designed the church to grow from the foundation of families. Eve was created out of Adam and the two became one flesh. This is the picture of marriage that Jesus describes in our gospel lesson, the unity of Husband and wife a mirror of the unity between God and mankind. The love between husband and wife a reflection of the love Jesus has for the church.    

Instead of neglecting our faith, through the power of the Holy Spirit we move forward in courage to train up children in the faith. The scripture describes children as a blessing from the Lord.  This is a continuation of the gift of creation. Children are a blessing for countless reasons, and one reason that is often overlooked is that children resemble our Savior who came to the world as an infant and as a child.  Jesus hallows all children as a reflection of him.

A quiver full of children comes out to five children. Enough children where blessings abound and self sacrifice of parents is a given.  Our culture says it is better to have small families for reasons of selfishness, or a view of children as an economic burden. The richness of God’s creation is so much greater than the riches of the world that it is not even close.

The world tries to tell us that the best riches and blessings in life are what you can buy with money and what benefits you as an individual. This ‘me first’ perspective is clearly a design of Satan, who must love that so many Americans think of child sacrifice in the form of abortion as the means of freedom and salvation and route to realizing their individual dreams.

In contrast we as the church are a voice of truth that speaks about the joy of God’s creation and the gift of life as our great treasure and heritage from the Lord. Putting ourselves above others is the last thing we want to do.

It has been said many times hear and throughout the church, as selfish as we may be, as faithless as we may be, God is more faithful. Jesus never neglects us, but always is pruning us and shaping us to be the branches that connect to him the true vine.

Undoing the effects of neglect may take time in most areas of life, but every time we turn to the Lord in repentance and receive forgiveness all is made right in our lives. Each time we receive the Lord’s Supper in repentance and faith, all is made right, our sinful neglectful spirit is restored to the joy of the Lord’s salvation. This is the plan of the  Father as the master gardener. Rejoice in his wonderful design for you. Amen.

-Summary of the main topic of the sermon or children’s sermon:

-What is a summary or an example of Law that you hear in the sermon?

-Provide your summary of the gospel you heard in the sermon: 

-What personal application can you find in the sermon? What action does the Holy Spirit call you to in this sermon?

Salted with the gospel, given new life in Christ

Posted on by nfuller

The gospel lesson from Mark we have before us this morning has so much in it, so much that we could talk about that it is hard to see how everything fits together. It is a challenging portion of scripture to understand and follow and learn from.

There are teachings of Jesus here that could cause confusion to the hearer- or give the impression that there are works to do such as all in self sacrifice, that we are tasked with in which to which earn our salvation.

But Jesus is not teaching that salvation comes through the right amount of personal sacrifice. A closer look at the scripture helps us to see that our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection gives us an identity of living in Jesus’ name- and a purifying role ,just like the salt that Jesus uses as an illustration of the impact of the Christian’s life in the world.

When it is hard to see the big picture our Collect Prayer comes in handy. In this prayer today we prayed to the Lord for direction and guidance to complete the works God has called us to do.  Complete the works, finish strong, get results. 

Football season has started and a big emphasis of any team at the start of a season is to make the most of opportunities when they are before you. If you are in the red zone, you need to get touchdowns for at least a good percentage of trips. Settling for field goals time after time does not get you very far.

How do we complete the works God has given us to do?  We have a big box in the narthex to play a role as one of 16 boxes which will be collected from churches in our area by Lutheran High and delivered by a semi truck, providing much needed supplies to a relief site of a sister church in Louisiana.

We also can identify the works before us in terms of teaching our young people the Christian Faith, and building the community in Christ in our congregation that will help our church to be healthy and vibrant in faith and works of love to one another and those in our neighborhood.

Completing the works God gives us to do is a challenge, but it is also a gift and a privilege. When the Lord assigns works for us to complete- we can see this as a gift. Completing the works we are given is all about God’s mercy and grace to us.

So how do we finish strong, with these gifts of works to complete?  How do we overcome the potential result of many incomplete tasks? That takes us back to our gospel reading where we hear Jesus speaks about doing things in His name. “For no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.”

In Confirmation class we have been talking about what it means to Hallow God’s name ,and the power of God’s name.  We confessed in the Introit: “Your name of LORD endures forever, Your renown O LORD throughout all ages.” We can only finish strong or find completion when we are living to do all things in the name of our God.  When we live as new creations in Christ.

I mentioned the gospel reading can be hard to follow. However, everything Jesus is teaching is all about whether someone is in His name or is fighting against His name.  The gospel reading begins with almost a repeat of our Old Testament reading from Numbers 11 where Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp but not specifically in the tent of meeting with the seventy men who were appointed as elders.  The disciples find a man casting out demons in the name of Jesus.  This man is not one of the disciples, like Eldad and Medad, he is on the outside of the immediate circle of the disciples.

The disciples reaction is to stop him, because he is an outsider.  Jesus points out that although he is not on the inside, although he may not truly understand who Jesus is, he is certainly not against Jesus. He is the farthest thing from a persecutor of the church.

Jesus then talks about temptations to sin in a way that illustrates what is against his name. Specifically causing a child or a novice in the faith to sin, that is what it looks like to be against Jesus.  Jesus points out it is better to think in terms of self limits and sacrifice than to let sin drive ourselves or others against the name of Jesus.

Whether it is what we see or covet or what ill thought through path we walk, or what we take with our hand- we are better off cutting those things out of our lives. This is like the drug addict realizing the need to throw a phone into a trash compactor, in order to leave behind all of the numbers and contacts that cause trouble.  But of course, the real root of the sin is not with the eye or the foot or the hand, but with our heart. 

We cannot remove our own heart to keep us from sinning.  We need God’s help, we need the cleansing power of God’s Word to curb the evil in our heart.

Jesus talks about the good of entering the kingdom of heaven crippled, lame, and half blind. This is a stark and unpleasant message, but it gets the point home- even if we are humbled in a way that seems unappealing, entering the kingdom of heaven is that which is of ultimate importance.

We are humbled by God’s Word so that we can be holy and pure in His Name.  Jesus summarizes this humbling process with the phrase ‘salted with fire.’  In the Concordia Commentary Dr. Voelz expounds on the meaning of being salted with fire. “These words seem to mean that everyone will have fire applied to him that functions like the application of salt.”  Specifically the purgative function of salt, stopping and limiting putrefaction. (decaying or rotting of organic material)

The force of what Jesus is saying is defined by Voelz as follows: ‘Everyone will have fire applied that will prevent the flourishing of that which is bad or destructive, that is everything that is not congruent with the reign and rule of God in Christ. In other words, whatever holds us back, whatever does not belong, God roots out and destroys for our benefit.

In 1Corinthians chapter 3:12-14  “Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood , grass, straw the work of each will become manifest, for the day will make it clear, because by fire it is revealed. And the fire will test what sort of work each has done for approval. If the work of someone will remain- that which he has built- he will get reward. If the work of someone will be burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but in this way, as through fire.

It seems the fire of the law burns up what is unhelpful in us, and what is left is a person who walks with Jesus and lives in the name of Jesus.  Next Jesus directs the focus of the work of salt as not just a fire that humbles us and purifies us, but as an agent that works against the corruption and leavening of the whole world.  Only when the sin within is burned away, can the evil in the world next be addressed.  

Specifically, it is worth asking what evil in the world is the church to slow and stop- in this agent of change role as the salt of the world?  The church is to curb any teaching that leads people in the world to pride, false idolatry and false worship. 

If the fire of salt curbs all the sin in the believer that gets in the way of our following Jesus, then the role of the church in the world is to prevent people from the decay of their sin, to salt them with the protection of God’s Word and God’s truth, as they try and live as gods unto themselves. 

We as the church are called to the good works of speaking strongly and boldly against whatever are the most popular teachings of the day.  We see that there is no shortage of evil and false teaching in the world.  Only Jesus has the power to fight back the evil of the world, and we are refined in our faith to abide in Jesus, and stand as Jesus against evil. 

This is the good work prepared for us as the church. We praise the lord for all of his gifts to us, and we look to the Lord in faith as He leads us to do mighty works in His name. Amen.

No matter the affliction, Jesus has authority to restore us.

Posted on by nfuller

In our gospel lesson there is a man who has been through so much that he is not even sure if Jesus can help. After telling his story he says to Jesus: “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” His lack of certainty is insulting to the Son of God

And Jesus responded to his language of doubt: “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.

The man had just showed the desperation of the suffering he had seen his son go through. It was not just his son’s suffering, but his whole families’ suffering and his suffering in particular as a father.  How helpless he must have felt! What father am I?

This evil spirit has taken away my son’s voice, and it seizes him- and what unspeakable torment to see your son seized to stiffness, foaming at the mouth. 

How unimaginably helpless it must feel to have a spirit you cannot grab with your hands and wrestle away, a spirit you cannot see, but for its terrible results- The evil spirit did not hesitate to try and destroy ‘let us throw the boy into the fire to burn him and then into the water to drown him.’

There is a Christian addiction recovery speaker who tells her personal life story of incredible suffering and God’s abundant grace and healing. She calls her story “Healing Neen.” Which was a nickname her family gave to her.  It starts terrible and then only gets worse. It starts with a young girl living in an apartment in Baltimore with her siblings and a drug addict mother.  From a young age she begins to care for her siblings far more than her mother, she wears clothes that are never washed, and sleeps in bedding that even if soiled, stays on the bed.  Dangerous people are in her home all of the time.  Once while going out to get some food she is noticed and she and her siblings are taken into child protective services for the first time. However, the full extent of her needs are overlooked and the period of foster care eventually ends. The abusive assaults from house guests during parties and serial boyfriends continue.

She endures assault and violation weekend after weekend and she understands that if she allows herself to be treated in the worst ways possible she can hide her younger siblings and stave off the terrible desires of those in her home so that they would not even bother looking for her siblings.

As the world brings more evil to her, you can imagine how her shame and self hatred grows. Instead of school papers and activities she learned how if she drank the alcohol left over in cups around the apartment after a party that she would not feel her troubles so much. The problem of trying to treat pain through sources besides Jesus only got worse into young adulthood for Neen.

How helpless we feel when we hear such stories. Cannot children have a better fate? 

We have our own experiences of difficult life circumstances.  In some cases, it is what others have done to us that reminds us of how helpless we are, living in this fallen world.  In the midst of the pain and dysfunction of living in a fallen world we wonder, “Jesus, do you have the power to heal me? When we are not sure if Jesus can help us with the full extent of our problems, our uncertainty is the sign of our unbelief.

Jesus told the man that indeed he has the authority to help.  “All things are possible for one who believes.”  All things are possible specifically for those who believe in Jesus. All things are possible because Jesus has the power to heal us and to save us.

The man answered Jesus, and specifically he cried out to Jesus: “I believe, help my unbelief!”

Is this your prayer as well? “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!”  Do you believe that even though life can be full of disappointments and challenges, that Jesus has the authority to save you?

Do you believe in Jesus as your Savior in all things even in the midst of the failures and struggles that bring doubt and bring unbelief? Do you believe that even though your faith is imperfect and filled with too much unbelief, that Jesus loves you and forgives you anyways?

The phrase wait for the LORD is found all throughout the Bible. We heard it in our Introit today: “Be strong and let your heart take courage, all who wait for the LORD!”  And once again in the Gradual we have been hearing this past month: Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. 

If we wait, we can see the LORD’s provision for us in time. This is part of belief, to wait in hope. To believe is to trust in faith that the LORD indeed delivers us out of all afflictions. Unbelief is to assume that God only helps in some ways and not others, to put our own human capabilities in the spotlight as far as our estimation of how many afflictions we can actually be delivered from.

When the man asks for help with unbelief, he is not talking about doubt or skepticism as to whether the events of the Bible are true or whether Christianity is a trustworthy approach to life.  Instead, he is describing unbelief as relates to the helpless situation of his son.  It is the unbelief that struggles to see how things in life can get any better.

Do you have things in your life that are so hard where you question whether they can get better, that you question whether Jesus can help? Have you ever wondered what causes you to give up so easily?  What makes the power of Jesus so lacking in your estimation?  What keeps you from being persistent in prayer? Is it a doubt as to whether Jesus has the power to make a difference?

Jesus cast out the evil spirit.  He performed what the disciples were first unable to do.

 This failure was perhaps an injury to their pride and they ask why they could not drive it out.  “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” 

Specifically, prayer to Jesus, as in only Jesus has the power to clean out the most formidable spirits. Prayer is not about having faith in yourself, as in how good you are at praying, or wondering if your prayer would be more effective if you could manage to sin less.

Have you ever concluded your prayer has not been answered because there is something wrong with you? This is not what Jesus means when he instructs us to be diligent in prayer. We are to be diligent for one reason only- because Jesus has the authority to answer our prayers.

1 Timothy 2:5 “Indeed there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”  Through our Lords crucifixion and resurrection any barriers that stood in the way of our prayers has been removed. Although we sin daily, we come before the Lord in prayer with complete righteousness, wearing the robe of Christ’s righteousness given to us in Holy Baptism.

Jesus has the authority to help us and He uses the church to give us this help.  We can know with certainty that the authority of Jesus to forgive sins is carried out by the power of the Holy Spirit through the pastoral office.  After his resurrection Jesus gave the disciples this authority because He cares for us. 

How amazing it is that right here today, as God’s Word is spoken, God’s kingdom is coming to us and changing us.  Right here in our midst the evil spirits flee from the power of Jesus.  

In the beginning of the sermon we heard a small slice of the afflictions experienced  woman called by the nickname Neen.  After going through a series of failed rehab stays she experienced something unprecedented in her life.

A counselor at a rehab clinic cared about her enough to see her, not just as another junkie from off the street, but as a person redeemed by God.  This counselor gave her hope that her life could be defined by more than one reaction after another to abuse and neglect.  

    I watched Neen tell her life story last year through a Zoom video presentation and even though the audience for the presentation was secular, she made no hesitation to talk about the hope the love of Jesus gave her, how Jesus makes all things new no matter the affliction, no matter the sin.

Although the gravity of sin coming from every direction in our fallen world seems so strong, we must never lose sight of the fact that Jesus has overcome Satan and Jesus reigns in this world. By His resurrection Jesus showed that he has authority even over the full weight of all of the sins of the world!

No matter the afflictions we face as a church, we need to keep in mind Jesus has not abandoned his Church, He has not abandoned you.  Your sin does not separate you from Jesus. Our sorrows do not reign in our lives, and they will persist only for a short season. Jesus reigns! 

Remember Revelation chapter 21:4 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, , neither shall there be mourning or crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”  Jesus has the power to help us, and He does and he will help us in all our afflictions. Amen.

Lord unstop our ears to hear Your Word

Posted on by nfuller

“To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.”  Psalm 28:1  Have you ever felt that God is deaf to you? That even if you pray, the Lord does not seem to listen? 

Has it ever felt that God is so silent that you could just die? When we face illness we feel how frail and weak we are and we desire for the Lord to hear us, so we pray be not deaf to me. When disappointments in life pile up and we feel overwhelmed by the challenges before us, we see so clearly that without the Lord’s help we will quickly fail. O Lord hear the voice of my pleas for mercy.

And not only do we fear that Jesus is not listening to us, but we also struggle to ourselves hear God’s Word.  Why else would Isaiah chapter 35 provide a message to those who have an anxious heart, that they should Be Strong and Fear not? An anxious heart hears and sees only what an go wrong and what is dangerous and unsafe. With an anxious heart we may not hear God’s Word, on account of our sin our ears may be deaf to hear the Word.

The message for us in God’s Word today is that especially when we are weak and helpless and when we cry to the Lord for mercy- especially then is the Lord near us. Psalm 146:8 “The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.” 

In our gospel lesson we have before us a vivid picture of the care Jesus has for those who are deaf.   Put yourself there in the gospel narrative. Imagine what the world looked like and felt like for the deaf man in the region of the Decapolis near the sea of Galilee, nearly 2000 years ago who Jesus healed.

The villagers brought the deaf man to Jesus. The man saw the people begging before Jesus on his behalf, asking for Jesus to lay hands on him. The man did not communicate anything himself and before he knew it Jesus took him to a private place away from the crowds.  If you are without hearing it is unsettling to be in a large crowd where without your hearing you rely on your sight for social cues as to what is going on, and you cannot see everyone all at once.

Jesus took him aside from the overstimulation of the crowd and laid his touch on him in the quiet solitude. Jesus placed his fingers in his ears and touched his tongue as well, the very locations where the man’s body was not functioning. As the deaf man saw Jesus right in front of him working on his ears and loosening his tongue he could see and feel Jesus sigh and look up to heaven.

“Ephthatha” The power of God’s Word had immediate result, he could now hear Jesus’ message to him, ears no longer shall you be closed, be open.

There is something extraordinary about hearing restored to the deaf. Where once there was only silence, now a chorus of noise. We attempt to experience the slightest reward of hearing things for the first time in a while. During Lent we stop singing Alleluias. After 6 weeks , when we sing This is the Feast, when the organ sings that familiar melody, we are reminded of the chorus of heaven, the Revelation Song in which the hymn is based.  Imagine the joy of hearing this song for the first time that you have heard anything at all!

After the man received his hearing and had the gift of speech he heard the Son of God tell him to keep this healing miracle a secret. This act of mercy Jesus performed was a sign that the Messiah is here: We heard from Isaiah chapter 35 Then shall the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped, then shall the lame man leap like a dear, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. 

The man appeared to have sung for joy after Jesus healed him as we hear in the final verse of our gospel lesson: “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Jesus says to us in His Word, “Never shall I leave you, never shall I forsake you.”  And yet too often we carry on as if we are all alone in the world, as if Jesus does not hear our pleas for mercy.  We feel as though the burdens we carry belong to ourselves alone. It is like we are wearing headphones and someone in the room says something and you don’t realize someone is talking until they enter your field of vision and wave their arms. We are listening to something else so often and our ears are closed to God’s Word.

In the hardness of our hearts we often do not hear God’s Word, just as Jesus taught about the purpose of parables

12 so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive,  and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”

Have you ever noticed when your ears are stopped up? Have you ever noticed the hardness of your heart?  Maybe there is anger you are holding inside you toward someone and you don’t have a lot of space in the moment to hear God’s Word.  Or maybe there is pride, where you are so busy telling yourself why you are right, that there is not much room for you to hear the correction of God’s Word.

And just as important our ears can be stopped from hearing the good news of the gospel.  When you only hear in your mind how much you have failed everyone, when you see yourself as a disappointment, when you feel you have let God down in so many ways, you may struggle to hear and believe that you are perfectly loved by God.

You see, just as Jesus sighed and looked up into heaven before he opened the ears of the deaf man, Jesus sighed in love for you.  He sighed and groaned in agony and looked up to heaven and said it is finished, as he paid the price of our sins on the cross.

Although our sinful nature seeks to reject God, His love is unrelenting. The Father raised Jesus from the grave, so that our rejection of Jesus would not be the final word.  Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit on the disciples so that their forsaking him would not be the final word. And our Triune God claimed you as His own in the waters of Holy Baptism, so that your sin would not be the final word.

Just as the curtain of the temple was torn at the crucifixion, the barrier that stops us from hearing God has also been destroyed. Jesus has taken the ultimate wrecking ball to the walls we put up.  The hardness of our hearts is broken down layer by layer as we come before Jesus in Word and Sacrament, as we take in His Body and Blood and truly hear in faith that this is his body broken for us, this is his blood shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins.

It has been hard going through the transition from one music director to substitute organists and waiting on who may fill the position, whether someone we have met or someone new that the Lord brings to us. It was also an unexpected road bump to receive information in recent months about the repair of our steeple.  The barriers of keeping our congregation as healthy and vibrant seem overwhelming day in and day out. But we must remember God’s Word is open to us. There is absolutely no barrier that keeps us from hearing his Word. If you do best reading on your own time make sure to clean out what stands in your way.

To prosper as a church must be centered on hearing his Word, because we cannot control how many people attend on a Sunday or how well balanced our budget is. If its just about keeping the church afloat, if that is our only focus we are missing what God has to say to us in our lives here and now. By the Holy Spirit’s power, we can hear God’s Word as if we are hearing it for the first time, with the same joy of the man who heard for the first time. 

So as we come to Jesus this day, We pray, “Lord let your merciful ears be open to the prayers of your humble servants. Lord be our strength, Lord be our Rock when we call to you.”   Amen.          

The Fear o the LORD is the beginning for us.

Posted on by nfuller

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Its such a beautiful phrase, isn’t it?  In just ten words we get a summary of the great first things first principle of life- wisdom begins with a healthy fear of God.  It is not often that fear is used in common language as a virtue, as a good thing, even as the essential thing.  But we know this is not just any use of the word fear.  It is a fundamental topic of any confirmation class to define Fear of the Lord as the healthy sense of awe and respect we have for the God who created us and upholds our being.

The Fear of the LORD in us in not a terror fear at what is dangerous and unpredictable or even hostile to us, but instead a fear that recognizes that absolutely everything depends on God’s mercy to us- and we have nothing we can supply on our own. 

Our recognition of who we are in relation to God, tells us something about who God is. When we see our complete dependence on God, we see God rightly.  In fact, ‘Fear of the Lord’ is equated with knowledge- we need only look as far as the second half of Proverbs 9, verse 10. “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” 

God is referred to as the Holy One.  This is the word the Seraphim use in Isaiah chapter 6 to describe the LORD, Holy, Holy, Holy.  Holy means set apart from anything common. And that includes us. The Holy Spirit has given us the wisdom to confess that Jesus is the holy one of God, both like us as man , and set apart from us as our Holy God.  We fear Jesus because we have been given the knowledge that he alone is holy, he alone posses the wisdom and order that created and upholds the world. It is no coincidence that we sing about our thrice Holy God in the words of the Sanctus, as we prepare to encounter God in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. 

Last year and the early part of this year, I felt in my conscience that it was not right for me to be still in the process of adjusting latex gloves while we were singing to our thrice Holy God. The celebration of the Lord’s Supper is a time when the Fear of the LORD rightly prepares us to come to knowledge of the Lord in the pure gospel gift of the Lord’s Supper.  And of course, adjusting gloves reminds us instead of what we do ourselves for our safety. Together we have learned a lesson of wisdom in trusting in the LORD. Sometimes you need a trial in life to be humbled and refined in knowing what is most important.

Over history some people have put forward wisdom expressions not starting with a Fear of the LORD, but based on principles of humility, learning from experience, and keen observation of how the world works and what is the best way to live in harmony with the laws of nature.

These observations provide some value because they often touch on some aspects of truth already found in God’s Word.

Encouraging statements can be helpful, they may invite us to overcome fears, lighten up, or learn to laugh at ourselves. Some people have daily inspirational quote calendars to serve as an encouragement through challenging aspects of everyday life.  

But expressions of wisdom alone cannot give us the true wisdom that is our worship and dependence on our Lord. If you try and make yourself wise on your own, it may give you worldly wisdom- but it will not give you the wisdom that is of God. Without the fear of the LORD, our idea of wisdom is self centered, and lost in sin.

King Solomon, inspired by the Holy Spirit understood the beginning and end of wisdom:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy one is insight.”   Wisdom always comes back to our relationship with God.  You cannot have wisdom without considering your place in creation and your relationship with God. 

Our Old Testament reading from Proverbs uses imagery to show that God has established all wisdom on the earth. “Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars.”  The earth is the house where wisdom has been built, a giant house with a number of pillars of completeness- seven. In other words, wisdom inhabits the entire world, because all of the world was created by God. 

It is true we can see much foolishness in the world and the book of Proverbs addresses the foolishness of the world “O simple ones, learn prudence, O fools, learn sense.”  Yet the world was not designed this way. The wisdom of God designed the world. Proverbs 8:22 “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.”

Contrary what evolutionary perspectives of science that are taught in public school claims, the world’s beginning was not chaos, it was not a big bang, it was not a hot primordial soup. Instead, the world was created through the order and purpose of God’s design. The Son of God Himself was this wisdom who seeks to rescue our world from the foolishness that sin brought into the world.

In our gospel lesson Jesus makes clear that because the order in the world comes from God, it is only through connection with Him that you can have true spiritual life. And so Jesus build on the teaching we have been hearing the previous two Sundays, that he is the bread of life. ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you.’  And later Jesus reinforces this truth: “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me.” This was a difficult teaching for people to hear.  Jesus uses language about eating his flesh that is naturally offensive to hearers who are not thinking of the big picture of the Lord’s Supper. Any mention of eating of the flesh of a person is disgusting, unthinkable. And Jesus even magnifies the offense by using a word in the original Greek that signifies less eating in a ceremonial ordered way, but instead, feasting on, savoring and relishing the act of eating. It is the difference between eating something to be polite and really digging into something as your chief passion as you would a favorite meal.  To feed on Jesus is to go all in on subsisting on and surviving on Him, to feed on Jesus is to base all of your identity on Him.

This is a hard teaching because it requires that a person give up a claim to enjoy eating other things in life to get by. Feeding on the Son of Man requires that we give up any illusion that our own wisdom can get us anywhere in our life.

As the climax of three Sundays worth of verses in our gospel lesson from John Chapter 6 we hear how after this hard teaching was, as many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. Jesus asks the twelve: “Do you want to go away as well?  And we know quite intimately Simon Peter’s answer. We sing it every Sunday right as we prepare to hear the potentially hard to swallow teaching of Jesus in our gospel lesson.

We sing these words and I pray that as we sing we recognize that there is indeed nobody else we would turn to, that no matter the cost, we turn to Jesus. “Lord to whom shall we go, Peter confessed, You have the words of eternal life.”

This is the wisdom given to us by the Holy Spirit, the Fear of the Lord by which we confess, as the rest of the verse reads and we don’t sing this part, so we could easily overlook: “Lord to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and we have come to know that you are the Holy one of God.”   

Isn’t that amazing, Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit confessed the first and the second half of Proverbs 9:10. He confessed the fear of God, and the knowledge of God as the Holy One.

We see what the hard teaching of Jesus can be like. We know what it means in our sinful nature to wish that following Jesus could be one part of life, that we could put down at times and come back to Jesus when we need him.  And we see brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, friends, co-workers, neighbors among us who turn from walking beside Jesus because of hard teachings.

People want Jesus to perhaps be a good element in their lives, but they do not want to die to everything else. For many it seems that Jesus is someone who can bring joy on Christmas Eve or Easter. But they are not so sure they want the Jesus who talks about picking up your cross and following him.

Or the Jesus who insists that he alone is the one who brings us sustenance and wisdom- as he says my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink. It is discouraging to see others less involved or not involved much at all in following Jesus.  Those who marry someone who does not have a lot of interest in following Jesus completely, often find it is even harder to follow Jesus, as the example is set right in the home to seek an easier path and approach to life where Jesus is not so essential and front and center to life.

The unbelief of others is indeed discouraging. But how great is the gift that Jesus gives to us. He laid down his life for us on the cross to give us true food and drink. He is wisdom born among us who calls our foolish hearts to repentance and life in him.

May the Lord bless you all with a living faith where your fear of the LORD leads you into all wisdom in handling the fast changing world we live in. May the Lord Jesus bless you with an intimate knowledge of his steadfast love for you. Amen.

Love God’s Word more than any human creations.

Posted on by nfuller

Brothers and sister in Christ, we know that it is a gift of the Holy Spirit when we are able to sit here in church and focus and listen well as God’s Word is spoken to us. And sometimes our lives can be such where focus is very difficult.

In our gospel reading there are specific details about how pharisees and scribes feel about ceremonial washings and how Jesus’ disciples appeared  to them to eat with defiled hands- that is hands that were not ceremonially cleansed, or vessels like copper pots that were not ceremonially cleansed.  Without a doubt this is not one of the most exciting or captivating gospel readings. No miracle, no apparent connection to Jesus’ amazing love for us on the cross.  

Yes, there are implication for our Christian life and worship as Jesus talks about the danger of outward acts of piety without love for God in our hearts.  However, it is not the most important gospel lesson we have had this summer.  How relevant can a disagreement about the needs and motivations for ceremonial washing be for us when we have gone through a week as a nation with bitter sorrow, knowing that countless American citizens are essentially hostages under a ruthless and dangerous regime?

Perhaps it is a little difficult to be all that concerned about a disagreement about cleansing with water, when we have every reason to believe that thousands of Afghan citizens who helped the U.S. Army in the last 20 years have a bounty on their head and records from the government in the hand of those who consider it a duty to Allah to exact vengeance on such people. How do we focus on God’s Word when the world we live in is so chaotic- where everyone seems to do what they see right in their own eyes without any fear of God?

Yet the Holy Spirit is present with us as we gather for worship. We have been brought here to die to our old self and any expectations of how secular government should be for us, so that we can be born anew in God’s kingdom-  a kingdom which is not of this world.

Yes it may be hard to focus at times, yet God’s Word is always relevant for us.  Because we always have a choice whether we are to put our hope in the promises of God or in the traditions of man.

In our Introit there is a statement of faith that is as relevant as ever to our lives- regardless of what government should collapse next. “Lord I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells.” 

There are a lot of things that Americans say that they love.”  Chocolate, the blooming onion ring appetizer you can get at some restaurants, going down a water slide at a water park. But usually when we say that we love things we mean we enjoy them.

I enjoy Taco Bell. It probably would be incorrect grammar to say I love Taco Bell.  Or maybe its not grammar that’s not quite right about these things we say, maybe it is our theology. How does what we say compare to what God’s Word says?

The Psalm verse does not say, Lord I enjoy the habitation of your house, Lord I generally prefer the habitation of your house as long as there are not too many things going on in my life.  It says ‘Lord I love.’ 

It is not the building we love. It’s the promise that the Lord comes to us in this building in worship, that His glory dwells with us, we love that He is there for us no matter what when we approach Him in repentance and faith. That is what we love.

We love because He first loved us. By our human nature we are enemies of God.  Yet by faith we can come into the Lord’s presence not begrudgingly, but with love and commitment and passion, because we have been given new life in Christ, because the part of us that fights against being in the Lord’s house has been drowned in Holy Baptism.

Even as we live in our Baptismal New life in Christ, we still face choices about if we are to love the traditions of man, or if we are going to love God’s Word. In our gospel reading we hear how the traditions of man became just as or more important to the pharisees than God’s Word. They challenged Jesus: “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

 As a way of promoting their self righteousness, the people took up traditions such as hand washing and other cleansing of common everyday materials, as if there actions of making things clean could make them all around better people and more holy. And they used their tradition of upholding these practices as grounds to shame and taunt Jesus and his disciples for not practicing them.

Isaiah chapter 29 describes this outward show of allegiance to God while the heart is elsewhere “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men.”

Jesus quotes this passage and correctly applies the meaning of drawing near with mouths and lips as a type of false worship: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”

Jesus then says:  “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”  The traditions of men were more dear to their hearts. Instead of saying Lord I love the habitation of your house, they were saying, Lord I love what we have done with this house and how we do things better than other believers. When they made it about themselves they left the commandments of God.  Instead of loving God’s Commandments and loving where God’s glory dwells they loved how good they were at their own traditions.

We have some good traditions of how we do worship. The traditions are good. But if we only see the traditions and miss the glory of God present with us, we are missing the point.  It is God’s Word that we need to treasure. And may Lord have mercy on us that our traditions communicate God’s Word more than our pride in ourselves. As Dr. Fickenscher of Concordia theological Seminary has observed in our worship theme readings this morning: “There is plenty to love and rejoice over God’s Word, without teaching as doctrine the words of man.”

There is indeed so much joy in God’s Word, that we do not need to ever put our chief focus on how well we practice traditions of piety. The appointed verse for this Sunday comes from Jeremiah chapter 15: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.”

We can be thankful that in our congregation and in our denomination we do not tell people they need to work harder to be saved, or that people need to have the right emotion and feeling within to be saved. Because we understand the clarity of scripture, and the sufficiency of scripture to save us- we do not feel a need to adopt traditions where we are seeking an emotional experience or another word from God by trying to find evidence or seek signs in the world around us that how we are acting as a church is Godly.  

We believe in the power of God’s Word as an instrument of the Holy Spirit to forgive our sins and save us.  Other church bodies may see the Bible as full of important information that we are given so that we can live our lives according to God’s Will. But they do not see the Bible as what has the power to save us.

In this time in our nation when people focus so much on what our feelings tell us, it appears everyone seeks to do what is right in their own eyes. in this time when so few are listening to God’s Word, the traditions of man are more popular than ever.

May we so love your Word that they are for us our joy and delight. May we see that  we are here in worship not to follow the dictates of our hearts, but to follow God’s heart because we have been called by name. As we sung in our hymn of the day, may we treasure the catechism as Luther taught, not to get lost in traditions, but to follow an order of Christian life that always treasures and gladly receives the gift of Jesus to us.

Christ our Living Bread from Heaven for Eternal Life

Posted on by nfuller

Brothers and sisters in Christ, here we are, the second Sunday of August. Although still warm summer weather, we are transitioning toward the cultural experience of Fall. School has started for many of our youth. This is the time when whatever has been suspended for family vacations and summer holiday is on the verge of restarting.  We often as a society collectively look forward to the Fall. 

I remember a few years ago a man I had just met who came to counseling because of depression was excited about the start of the football season, “things are finally back to normal!”  That feeling of things back to normal is really a gift.  You cannot make things come back to normal in the way he meant by force of will or enough phone calls and signed petitions, it just happens with the turning of the calendar.

Our faith, our relationship with Jesus, the bread of life, also comes to us as a gift that we  simply cannot make happen on our own.  We heard in our gospel reading: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.  And I will raise him up on the last day.” We cannot bring Jesus into our lives by the force of our will, and clearly we cannot make Jesus raise us up on the last day- it is his gift and his will for us.

As we are gathered here this morning, I hope you can feel the excitement that the Father brings us to Jesus.  God the Father has prepared each one of us to receive and know the Holy Scriptures, the Bible. In the Bible, we have come to know Jesus as the very Word of God, the living bread from heaven.

Think of how different what we experience as believers is as compared to the secular lifestyle. Many people in our world today say they are spiritual and not religious. Perennial Lutheran speaker on the radio and internet Pastor Bryan Wolfmeuller describes this approach of being spiritual as basically meaning: ‘I don’t listen to any particular message from God in church, I come up with my own message of what God means for me- whatever I want it to be.’  Essentially for the self identified spiritual only population, God is silent.

In contrast we as Christians do not live in a spiritual silence or wishful thinking about our own intrinsic goodness.  Instead, we have a God who speaks to us in the Bible.  Listen to what Jesus says in verse 40 “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”  We know what God thinks and what God wants for us, to look to the Son in faith and live.

How amazing it is that we know what Jesus wants for us, that we can hear day in and day out from the scriptures how it is that we live our lives and how we can feed on the living bread from heaven. We know that it involves hearing God’s Word and receiving the Lord’s Supper in faith and repentance. 

Although the gospel of John does not describe the Institution of the Lord’s Supper as Matthew Mark and Luke do, Jesus’ words about the living bread from heaven foreshadow what he would later teach on the night before his betrayal.  “I am the living bread that came down from heaven, if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  

Remember what Satan said to Eve, as a lie to entice her that she could eat the forbidden fruit and that it would not make her die. “But the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die For God know that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  Satan was enticing Eve- if you eat this you will be like God. Satan made it seem like this is the best thing in the world to possess. You can’t pass this up.   

As it turns out the forbidden fruit was the worst thing in the world to possess. It brought death into the world. How could eating do such an awful thing? But it was not just the eating, it was the disobeying of God’s commands that was the terrible sin. And as  result God himself came to us in Jesus to obey where we have rebelled.

Jesus came to obey, even to the point of his death on the cross, his flesh given for the life of the world.  And now eating is something we are able to do that connects us with Jesus redeeming what was lost in the world. 

This time it is not an eating out of a desire to be like God on our own terms and through Satan’s influence- but now an eating that is a complete acceptance of God’s truth that Jesus came to save us.  As we eat his body and drink his blood present in the Lord’s Supper we are obeying what God has commanded us- to look to the Son as the living bread for our souls. 

Last Sunday as we looked at the beginning of John chapter 6 we explored what it means for us to take an active role in seeking Jesus as our bread of life.  And again today we hear Jesus invite us to come.  “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger.” “All that the Father gives to me will come to me. Whoever comes to me I will not cast out.” And as we started the sermon, we reflected on how it is a gift that Jesus comes to us, it is the Father who brings us to Jesus. 

This gift is given to us because we are loved.  As we hold out our hands to receive the Lord’s Supper we come empty, bringing nothing but our repentance and our sincere need for the life and forgiveness that Jesus brings to us in the Lord’s Supper. 

When you hold out your hands to receive the Lord’s Supper know that this medicine of immortality is given purely as a gift.  CFW Walther reflects that when someone says to a person who is starving, “Come here, sit down and eat!” It is a command in grammar. A command that expects obedience.  But to the hungry it is not a command or a statement of law- it is the sweetest sounding phrase imaginable- pure gospel. Come and eat, come and be nourished with the food that brings life.

May the Holy Spirit continue to bring life to our heavy hearts so that the command to come to Jesus as the bread of life never feels like a burden or an expectation- but instead as a jubilant invitation to take hold of the food in our very mouths that gives us salvation, a food that unlike the manna in the wilderness, never goes bad or has limits.

For those who are younger and not yet admitted to the Lord’s Table, may you look forward in hope to this gift of the Lord’s Supper. And may you know that with all of us here, you already are being fed by Jesus as you hear God’s Word and as the Holy Spirit builds faith in you.

The nourishment we have from Jesus is as broad and deep as His love for us. In our Old Testament reading Elijah was so weary from his journeys and the threat to his life that he was ready to give up fighting- praying and asking the Lord to take his life that day. But in response the angel of the LORD touched him and said one phrase, a command that is also a promise of hope, “Arise and eat.”

We know for elsewhere in scripture that when we hear about the angel of the LORD we are know that God is present in a greater way than an unnamed angel or an angel with a name. The angel of the LORD is the LORD present with us. The Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds seems to be the person of the Trinity who plays this role.

Elijah was nourished two times from the Angel of the LORD and he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights. Elijah was ready for death and instead the living breads from heaven fed him and gave him strength for the journey.

Elijah’s meal of bread and water foreshadowed how Jesus would become for us the bread by which we will not hunger and the living water by which we shall drink and never be thirsty again.

The Fall is coming, change is on the way. Jesus alone is the foundation that makes the Fall a good season. Jesus alone, the rock on which we stand, while we see all around us, all other ground is sinking sand.        

God’s promise of hope for all situations

Posted on by nfuller

“I just want Jesus to rescue me.”  Have you ever thought this? Have you ever felt so discouraged by life challenges, that the prospect of working on one problem at a time seems like too much to bear.  After all problems keep coming up one after another. 

This past week at our church Board meeting I was reminded of some of the problems we face as a congregation. You know the drill: building maintenance costs, people who have left the church a few years ago and how hard it is to operate with less people than before. We also talked about a church steeple repair estimate. If Jesus would just rescue us, we would not need to worry about the inevitable building repair issues.  

Hymn 645 describes this truth: “Built on the Rock the church shall stand, Even when Steeples are falling. Crumbled have spires in every land : Bells still are chiming and calling. Calling the young and old to rest, But above all the souls distressed, Longing for rest everlasting.”  How we long for this rest everlasting that Jesus has for those of us who are weary.

In the meantime, we wait. We wait with the God’s Word strengthening us.  Like the refrain we heard from the Introit: “On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.”

We do not wait as the rest of the world does with fear and trembling. We wait in hope because God’s Word is full of hope.  There are two images of hope in our scripture readings this morning, the Rainbow, and Jesus walking out on the water.

As we heard in Genesis chapter 9 the Rainbow is a sign of the promise of the unbreakable covenant between God and all flesh that lives on the earth. This past Spring and this Summer there have been two or maybe three instances where the rainbow present in the sky in the evening after a period of rain has been remarkably vivid and clear.

It is almost unbelievable looking at how big and colorful in the sky a rainbow can be. Yes we can understand the science behind the light spectrum of why rainbows look the way they do. But the science view of rainbows as common phenomenon does not change the fact that the Lord has given the church an understanding of the meaning of the rainbow.

There is no mistaking a rainbow for something else. Nobody would disagree in what they are seeing. This clear natural phenomenon is what God has used to remind us of the hope that God is faithful to us always and will not again destroy the world by a flood.  The rainbow is God’s promise to the whole world and just as much God’s promise to you. The rainbow reminds us that God has bound Himself to us with the promise of protection.

Sometimes we as Missouri Synod Lutherans mistakenly believe that we cannot get very far witnessing the gospel to people who are on the margins of society. The rainbow helps us to see that the promise of God’s love applies to everyone.

Everyone needs to know Jesus died on the cross for them- even those who would tell us that they would never come into a church because they believe the Bible and the church defines them as sinners. The rainbow can remind us that Jesus has come not just for Israel or to the Jews, but to all people. Jesus came not to save the righteous, but sinners.  

The second sign of hope in our reading this morning is found in our gospel lesson:

It was the fourth watch of the night when Jesus saw that they were struggling. It was dark and they were out at the sea.  Jesus most likely saw them working hard against the wind with his divine omniscience, his divine knowledge. Jesus would not normally show off his ability to walk on water, but in order to help others Jesus did so.  

Jesus was able to see that they were working hard at getting back to the shore. He saw their struggle and came out among them.  The disciples were afraid of him because they did not understand who he was, they thought he was a ghost. A ghost would be terrifying to see, especially in the vulnerable position out at sea.

In response to their fears Jesus speaks: “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.”  Jesus told the disciples he is in control. Because Jesus is in control of this world, we do not need to fear no matter what becomes of the world we live in.  

If we are trusting in anything else in our life to make things ok for us we should be very much afraid.  If we trust in a career or a pension, or our health, or our popularity- these all can disappear in a moment.  

But when we trust in Jesus we recognize that no matter what went on yesterday and no matter what may happen tomorrow, Jesus assures us:  ‘Wherever you are I am, my care follows with you.’  “When it is I, you have nothing to fear”

Jesus is here for you, and that is why the church is here for you. We may need to work to organize the church and keep the building in shape, but ultimately what is important is that we see Jesus is here for us, “Do not be afraid, it is I.”

 When Jesus said ‘it is I’ in the gospel of Mark we are reminded of the promises from the Old Testament about God as the great I am.  ‘The Great I am’ has designed that we should all have a church to belong to.  The church is here for this reason, to bring us to Jesus. 

Fellowship, community, soon a Carillon chime on the hour are all good things we can find here at church, but it is all about Jesus. Without Jesus we have nothing here at church.

Jesus is with us in our everyday lives. Many churches in our nation see the work of the Holy Spirit as playing a role in taking us outside of our normal everyday life activities and moving us toward a calling God gives to us. But we see that the Holy Spirit works right within our normal everyday life. 

We in the Lutheran church understand that the work of the Holy Spirit is to come into our very daily life relationships and vocations. It is not so much about leaving behind who we are, but instead letting the Holy Spirit transform us in who we are and how we live in the context of our very daily life, were Jesus tells us, “Don’t be afraid, it is I”

In the everyday challenges of life He, the Holy Ghost is with us.  The Holy Spirit does not just bring us to believe or bring us to have faith, but also to give life to our faith. Just like the rainbow is a sign that God preserves our lives and his promise remains, so we should also see in the rainbow a sign that our faith will continue to grow to make us more like Jesus as we grow in love, joy, peace, patience kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  Ideally we need to be practicing love toward one another to best grow in these areas.

We may wish Jesus would rescue us in our congregation. But the truth is, Jesus already has. He has already gifted us with the bond of unity as we have all been baptized into one Spirit.  Jesus gives us the faith we need to get through finding our next music director, paying off our mortgage and finding a way to care for one another after all of the changes to our congregation and all of the changes in our world.

The Holy Spirit  nurtures our faith so that we are rescued by God’s power day in and day out. We can face one problem at a time in our lives because with each challenge our faith is refined and we are made more and more like Christ. No matter how old we are, we are always growing through the power of the Holy Spirit.

God’s Word gives us hope. Our role here at Christ Lutheran is to look past everyday struggles and disappointments and see how the love of Jesus changes everything.

Jesus cares for us in the desolate place

Posted on by nfuller

Have you ever had someone lead you astray from the path you were going on? I think of the college student who is all prepared to spend the evening studying for a test until a friend comes along and says, ‘you will have your whole life to study, this party is only going to be tonight.’ Or the desert you are not planning on eating until someone says, ‘are you sure you want to skip it, it is homemade with the best of ingredients.’

We have only ourselves to blame when we are no longer on the path we set out to be on.  But it can be hard to stay focused if you see what others have and you think, ‘why not me, what is the worst that can happen.’ It is like we all have this fear that if we stay on the path of righteousness, then we will miss out on some appealing and enjoyable things.

But the risk of being led astray is not only from that which is within our sinful hearts. Satan is trying us and challenging us to go astray every day. Remember the movie “Back to the Future”, where the one insult that Mary McFly cannot manage to let slide has a way of shaping his destiny. “What’s a matter McFly, Are you Chicken?”

As he chants his rally call that nobody calls him chicken- he has relented from any form of self control or composure that he would normally aspire to.  What might be the weak point that Satan uses to take you off your game? You should probably know what it is, because Satan certainly does.

The world around us also stands as a ever present obstacle to our focus on the way of righteousness.  There are people all around us with the potential to lead us astray.  Some people in our world cannot get enough of opportunities to influence and lead others in their image. Perhaps it serves to validate their sense of identity.

The directions the world pushes us to go is part of what it means to live in a fallen world, everywhere you turn there are going to be people who are looking at what you might bring to them, often seeking their own interests instead of yours.

Have you heard of YouTube channels that people run? You can find people who put on their own content up for hours each day on You Tube channels with the express purpose of getting a following of devoted subscribers.  When people are accumulating followers, we should ask, what influence do they have on their followers?  Are they encouraging their followers to abide in Christ, or is there some other path they are leading people to?

Picture what it would be like if people were following you through every step in life.  What guidance would you give to people? How do you know you if you really have their best interests in mind?

In our Old Testament reading from Jeremiah chapter 23 we hear a pronouncement of severe judgment toward those who lead others astray: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”  Who are these shepherds? Those in charge in society, heads of households, leaders of families, priests scribes, elders.  They have scattered the people in hopelessness. Following the example of Adam, they have cared for themselves before others. And soon there is more division than unity, more discord than peace.

How did the shepherds of Israel get this way?  Did they think to themselves, let’s go as far from the Lord’s guidance as we possibly can.  Not likely. Instead, what happened is that the shepherds of Israel lost sight of the Lord and tried to lead the people out of the reservoir of their own impoverished and empty hearts.  Without a connection to the Lord, they had little to offer to the people they were entrusted to care for.

The Lord spoke through the prophet Jeremiah that this kind of leadership would not go on forever unchallenged. The LORD promised to bring back those who have been scattered, to shepherd those who have not been attended to. Where people failed, the LORD himself acts.

And so the people were promised shepherds who will care for them.  And what is more a promise was made of a shepherd who would come from the branch of David who will bring justice and righteousness to the land.  And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Jesus of course is this shepherd of righteousness. The Lord Jesus is the only one who can shepherd us and give us security. The name ‘the Lord is our righteousness’ helps us to see that when we are in the wilderness of this world, the Holy Spirit connects us to Jesus and makes us righteous. He leads us on the right path, the narrow path of salvation and righteousness. And Jesus does this through love and mercy and kindness.

Jesus does not scatter the people who come to him. Instead, he cares for them and offers hospitality. As we heard in the feeding of the 5,000 this morning, Jesus has compassion on others in a way that could easily change or complicate his agenda for the day.  Jesus’ love puts to shame all of those other paths in life that we may be drawn to. Jesus drives away Satan one lie at a time, showing with God’s Word that His truth prevails over all.

We are much like the shepherds of Israel, the fruits of our self centered agendas in life can easily serve to scatter or destroy the sheep fold. In our human capacity we do not have what it takes to shepherd people. After all, how much provision can we give to others when we ourselves so often struggle to stay afloat- glad if we are at least treading water for the time being. 

But the truth is in Christ we are not just treading water, we are soaring out of the water. Jesus has overcome Satan and the sting of death. Whenever Satan tries to hold us down, it is only a temporary trial. We know in Christ we will soar through the air, and on the last day we will soar into the sky and meet Jesus in the air. 

In the desolate place Jesus provided to the people. We face wilderness day by day as we are tested by Satan and endure spiritual attacks. Jesus alone gives us strength to manage trials of this word- and to care for those who are our neighbors.  Only in Christ as a new creation can we live out our relationships where we care for one another day in and day out, year by year.  

Think of what it would be like to journey through an actual stretch of wilderness and desert. How much water would you need to carry with you? Think of how important it would be to know where you are going so you do not go in circles.  Consider how important it would be to have a supply of food, and how some foods with empty calories would not be worth carrying.

It is the same in the wilderness of this life. How can we afford to go in circles by looking to Jesus one day and looking to the false idol of the week the next day?  How can we afford to pack liquids that does not satisfy or quench our thirst? Only in God’s Word can we find all of the refreshment and strength we need.

We have the gift of the Holy Spirit so that the Lord is our Shepherd wherever we go. As we prayed at the start of our worship  service: “You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

Faith like a Mustard Tree, a Cedar tree, and Wheat

Posted on by nfuller

How do we experience Jesus? How is it that we can be close to Jesus? Does it take a trip to the holy land to feel close to Jesus? Or front row seats at a favorite Christian rock group concert? In the earliest centuries of the church Christians did not make pilgrimages to Nazareth or Jerusalem, because they understood that in the Lord’s Supper they are taken to Nazareth, they are taken to Jesus. 

We experience Jesus as we hear His Word and wait on his Word. If we are looking for an experience that requires we find some feeling locked within ourselves, then we may be seeking something other than the Lord.  “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.” Psalm 62:1 

We experience Jesus as we hold onto His promises and his promises alone. The Collect Prayer talks about how the scriptures were written for our learning. As we immerse ourselves in the scripture- as we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the scriptures we are put in a position to embrace and ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life.

This is the focus of our faith, to embrace and hold fast the hope we have in Jesus. Our focus is not to look like we are good people in God’s eyes or our parents eyes. Nor is our focus to make ourselves feel more righteous than our neighbor or to sit in judgement toward other family members or friends. No the purpose of our faith is to embrace and hold fast Jesus.

And what difference does it make if we embrace and hold fast Jesus in our life on a regular basis? What changes in our life? Is it that important to be in church every Sunday? What if we just keep to ourselves for a while, or maybe a year?

In churches all over our nation there are people who previously attended church as part of their life- and then after a period of time of staying home from the initial scare of Covid, after all the details came together about vaccines and what are and what are not realistic dangers, they decided they are not coming back.

Perhaps staying home proved to be a more attractive focus in life? Or perhaps people just asked, what is the point? Do I really need to go to church to have Jesus in my life- if having Jesus in his life is in fact a priority.

What difference does it make? Why should we as the church gather? We could all just be cultural Christians who may come for a Christmas Eve service once every few years- if there is not too much going on with family visits. What difference does it make that we are here on a Sunday morning in June- during a warm weather, lazy summer weekend?

Notice the contrast described in Psalm 1 between those who delight in God’s Word and those who do not.  The contrast is between those who are wicked and those who are righteous.  There is no in between. Not even close. 

Without the faith to look to Christ and hold Christ up as our shield of righteousness- we would not be neutral or indifferent about spiritual matters, we would walk in the counsel and teaching of the wicked- as in we would walk alongside unbelievers and listen to their counsel.

We might consider other perspectives outside of God’s Word, perhaps convince ourselves that there is a middle ground that can be followed where you can please God and still fit in with a certain compassion toward where the people in the world are today.

With enough exposure to views that contradict God’s Word we can find ourselves standing right there in approval of the ways of the fallen world. We might think we are still following God’s law, but there may suddenly be exceptions and clauses to the rules. Choices in life where God’s Word is left on the shelf. 

Finally with enough time of meditating on the word of man, we could find ourselves sitting in the seat of scoffers- despising the order and of God’s creation, and mocking the love of Jesus shown to us on the cross by saying it is not enough for the salvation of the world.

Blessed are we as we do not walk in the wisdom of man, but delight in the law of the LORD, and meditate on his law day and night.  Day and night, the prayer to start the day and the prayers at close of day give us a routine to meditate on God’s Word. As we face both set backs and periods of gratefulness in our day, we can meditate on God’s steadfast love for us, and our respective vocations to love and serve in the world.

How do we meditate on God’s Word. In Psalm 1 the Hebrew word can mean to murmur, as in to speak softly and repeat, and it can also mean to muse on the word as in amusing ourselves with the Word- to become preoccupied with the Word and ponder it as a source of pleasure.   

Day by day as we delight in the Word, we do not always see immediate results, but we see results in due season. We are supplied with everything we need in God’s Word, we are near to Jesus the living water who invites us to come and drink. 

Like a tree planted by streams of water we will not wither no matter how intense the sun should beat down  on us, no matter how intense the counsel of the wicked is shouting around us,

we have Christ’s righteousness which helps ensure that all that we do prospers. Through the new life we have in Christ we can see our lives gradually transform from selfish and self centered to filled with God’s love so much that we are sacrificing for and giving to others.

In our gospel reading the kingdom of God is described in terms of the power of God’s Word.  Just like in Psalm 1 there is an image of plants growing, this time as a result of seeds scattered on the ground. The wheat grows step by step regardless of what a farmer does to it. Although the steps of how the seeds turn into a plant are not fully understood, the farmer knows exactly what to do when the grain is ripe- at once he puts it to the sickle. When the wheat is mature it is time to harvest, that is the most important thing to know for a farmer.

We are the seeds, and the Father is the one who harvests. Through God’s Word sown in our hearts we are nurtured and we grow. With God’s Word sown in our lives we are noticeably different. We are the ones who chosen by God to bear fruit for the kingdom, and through the righteousness of Christ we are no longer destined for destruction like chaff that the wind blows away.

The Father sows God’s Word in us so that we grow in a way that allows us to endure temptations and trials through the power of Jesus. The purpose of all of the time we spend meditating on God’s Word is not so that we can boast, but so that we may be harvested by the Father as those who put all of their faith and trust in Jesus and are washed clean by the blood of Christ.

We may start off small- you may even feel small and insignificant now, as if your faith makes little difference to others or even your own life, but God’s Word is working in you. And just like after a good rain garden plants can seem to grow up overnight- one sermon you listen to can help you spring up in growth of faith. One scripture verse you meditate on (or confirmands learn and memorize) can help you to flourish with the gifts of the Spirit. 

Through the Holy Spirit’s gift of repentance one quiet hour of study of scripture can get you back on course if you should find yourself going astray, and your faith can grow like a mustard seed. One reception of the Lord’s Supper and a sin that weighs you down can be lifted, never to hold you back again.

Just like Mustard trees and Cedar and palm tress and all of the plants mentioned in our readings today, we as created beings age.  Aging effects all of our bodies year by year we are getting older and more frail. We might even say that what we are capable of steadily decreases with age.

However, this decrease with time is not the case with our faith.  Sure, a voice may get older and you can no longer sing in the choir, or no longer climb a ladder to help paint hard to reach areas, and even the ability to memorize and remember passages of scripture can decrease with age.

But our faith never needs to decrease. We are being made more and more like Jesus day by day. This is how our faith is like the mustard seed- starts out small and grows to the point where birds of the air can make nests in its shade. We are all hear to grow as part of God’s kingdom. You all belong here, because the Holy Spirit has called you by the gospel to be part of the Nobel and great Cedar on the mountain top of Israel, our Lord’s Church. Amen.