Monday, I plan to work in the office for my boss most of the day. Then Tuesday classes begin again. I will try to write another blog Monday, letting you know how preaching and the weekend went. Here is my manuscript for the sermon I am preaching tonight. It is from the Old Testament lesson from Palm Sunday: Deuteronomy 32:36-39.
Have you ever observed someone working and you thought to
yourself “there has to be a better way to do that?” I have worked many jobs over the past nine
years of my life. From janitor to bank
teller, from road crew to a cook, and through all of these jobs I have had many
experiences. The one thing almost all of
these jobs had in common was trying to find the best way to get the job
done. I would be assigned a task and
then either shown or told how to do it.
I would begin doing the task, but would immediately begin to try to
think of an easier or faster way of doing the job. Most of the time these were pretty tedious,
mind-numbing tasks, such as painting, mowing, spraying, etc. Now I am not trying to say that I was smart
enough to come up with some grand solution for everyone of these situations. I am just simply saying that I occupied my
time by trying to think of a better way to do the task. The truth is it was my laziness that would
cause me to want to be done with the job and therefore my mind would begin
thinking of every possible solution to getting done faster. I always wanted to do a good job and an
efficient job, but if there was a way to do this in a faster manner, I always
figure why not. However, even if I was able to come up with some better to do it,
my boss or co-worker would normally not let me do it. They told me to do it how I was told to do it
because that’s how it is suppose to be done.
While this was frustrating, it was what I was told to do, so I did
it. Plus I was getting paid by the
hour! The point is the job got done, but
the work seemed counterintuitive.
Our text
for today comes from Deuteronomy 32 as I just read. This chapter is towards the end of
Deuteronomy when the forty years of wandering in the desert is coming to an end
and the people of Israel are about to cross into the promise land. Moses knows his time is almost up. He knows he will not enter the promise land,
he knows Joshua is the one he will hand the reins over to. This speech is one of Moses last parting
speeches to the people of Israel, and this song is both a hymn of praise but
also a way for them to constantly be reminded of all that God has done for
them. After he speaks the words of this
song, he tells them,
Take to heart all the words by
which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that
they may be careful to do all the words of this law, For it is no empty word
for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land
that you are going over the Jordan to possess.
This beautiful song includes so much if you go read the
whole chapter. But this morning I want to focus in on the one line in verse 39
where it says, there is no god besides me, I kill and I make alive. You see Moses at this particular point in the
song is reminding the people that their God is the one true God. The very same God who promised to deliver
them out of Egypt and He did just that.
The very same God who made the original covenant with Abraham, promising
that his seed would be the seed of blessing for all nations. He tells them this is the God who has promised
to be with His people, to deliver them, and to free them from their sins. Then we get this line that we are looking at
today and Moses shows us how God works.
He is telling us that this is the way God has chosen to fulfill those
promises. God kills and God makes alive,
this is how He will complete the task at hand, this is how He will get the job
done.
But this is
where people get frustrated and they think to themselves that God has chosen a counterintuitive
way about accomplishing His work. Like
me painting a classroom, their minds begin to wander and they think there has
to be an easier way God could do this. You
see the problem is mankind disobeyed God’s word and broke the relationship we
had with Him. We are all sinners and are
no longer able to have the relationship God had with us before the fall. When mankind fell to sin and destroyed this
relationship, God now had several options.
He could have just destroyed all of creation. Erased everything He created and just started
all over, but we know that’s not what He did.
So now He had to find a way to fix that broken relationship. This is where some people try to come up with
their own way of fixing the problem.
Some suggestions I have heard are:
Why didn’t God just kill the devil when he fell away from God? I mean the devil was created as an angel, but
then rebelled against God and lead his rebel army away with him. And it is true God could have just killed the
devil and his demons before they had the chance to tempt Adam and Eve. But He didn’t. Or another suggestion I have heard is: Why
didn’t God just forgive Adam and Eve, just let that one mistake be a onetime
free be and let them continue to live in the garden? Again, He is God, He could have done this,
but He didn’t. There are many, many more
of these suggestions that human minds have come up with that seem like a better
way for God to fix the broken relationship.
But God doesn’t do any of them.
And it doesn’t matter if it seems non-logical, or counterintuitive, or
backwards to us, God has chosen His way of fixing this relationship.
But then I
have to stop and wonder why are we so quick to judge how God works? After all, we are the ones who broke the
relationship. And not just Adam or Eve,
but all of us, you, me, and the like. We
are all sinners that go directly against God’s word, disobey Him, rebel against
Him, and sin day in and day out. We do
not fear, love, and trust in God above all things. We fear things that can hurt or kill the body
like dangerous animals or evil men with weapons, but do not fear the one who
can kill the soul. We love ourselves,
our possessions, or our money, but do not love the one who first loved us. We trust in superficial things like karma,
horoscopes, or the basic principle that all humans are morally good, but do not
trust in the one who provides all things for us. We do not love the Lord our God with our
heart, soul, and mind. We do not love
our neighbors as ourselves. Instead of
uplifting and protecting our neighbor’s reputation, we deliberately gossip and
talk badly about them. Instead of
honoring our father and our mother and others in authority, we think that we
know better so we can just do whatever we want anyway. We lust, cheat, steal, lie, and then justify
it all with excuses at the end of the day so we can sleep at night. We are the ones to blame, we are the ones who
are guilty, we are the ones who turned away from God. And yet we still think we know better than
God and think if only God had done it this way or that way it would have been
better. His way just doesn’t make any
sense!
Well you
know what; God did not choose to do it this way or that way. He chose to do it His own way. He is God, He can do whatever He wants, and
instead of critiquing His work, we should be thanking and praising Him that He
did it His own way.
This text
is perfect for Holy Week. Last Sunday
was Palm Sunday, the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem as the triumphant king. People shouted out and sang loudly, Hosanna,
to the son of David, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna
in the highest.” This is how Holy Week starts, at the pinnacle of Jesus’ ministry. However, as we move forward to today and the
rest of this week we see God’s chosen way of fixing this relationship in
action. We are the sinners that Jesus
died for, but God the Father is the one who ordered Jesus to be killed. This was His plan of fixing the relationship
from the very beginning. He had His Son killed
on Good Friday in order to pay the price for all of our sins. But then only three days later on that very
first Easter morning, God made Him alive again.
Jesus, fully resurrected in the flesh walked out of that tomb, is now
truly the triumphant king. God killed
His own Son, and then He made Him alive again and this is the way he chose to
do His work. This is how He chose to
give you and me the life we don’t deserve.
However,
God’s work is still not done. He is
still working to fully fix and restore our relationship to Him. Just as God put His own Son to death but then
brought Him back to life, all those who were here Sunday witnessed God working
this exact same way again as He put His son Lucas to death and brought him back
to life by the water and the word. He
did this to us all at our baptisms. By
the water and the word we die the same death Christ died on the cross, but
through the same water and word we are made alive and live the same life that
Christ lives. This is how God works to
bring us our salvation and make us His holy children. This is how He gives us our eternal life that
only God is able to give to us because this is how He chooses to redeem His
people from their sins, and this includes all who believe in His name and have
been made His through baptism. It
includes you, it includes me, and today it includes Lucas.
So as we continue
ahead through this Holy week, we left Sunday morning singing loud hosanna to
our king. Then today and tomorrow as we
come back, we grieve the suffering and death of our Lord, knowing it was for
our sake He was killed. But we remember
this verse from Moses’s song that reminds us that our God who puts to death,
brings back to life. And on Easter
Sunday we sing our Alleluias as loud as we possibly can, thanking Him and
praising Him for bringing His Son back to life through the resurrection and
bring us back to life through our baptism.
And on that Final Day, when God’s work is finally finished, and every
knew bends and every tongue confesses Him Lord as we heard in the Epistle
reading today, that is when our relationship with God will finally be restored
back to perfect. We will be resurrected
in the flesh just as Christ was when He walked out of the tomb, and spend the
rest of eternity in His presence. Moses
told all of Israel in that this is how God works, and we know this truly is
God’s life saving work for all His children.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
BLESSINGS ON YOUR EASTER!!!!! HE IS RISEN, HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!!
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