Greetings to you in the name of our Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I have been pretty busy lately, but what is new there. Pastor left on vacation yesterday so I am on my own for the next two weeks. I am also quickly winding down here with only two and a half weeks left until I leave here. I hate that but it is what it is. I am also extremely dreading packing everything up again, but I have next week to do all of that. This weekend I ran down to Nebraska for a friend's wedding on Friday. He was my roommate senior year, and it was good to see him again. Then yesterday, I preached and taught adult Bible study. Then right after church we had our church picnic. It turned out to be a beautiful day at the park. We had a really good turn out and the food was awesome. Then the whole church got a bags tournament going and I and another guy ended up winning the entire thing. Then after the picnic I had orientation on campus for new incoming students. It is really hard cause I am excited to tell these freshman what the group will be doing and excited to get to know them, except then I remember I wont be there to do those things with them or the chance to get to know them. However, I am glad to still be getting some interested freshman to leave for the new vicar. Then I painted more of my house for several hours. We are almost done with the first coat and then will need a touch up second coat. The trim will all need to be painted too, but I told them that since I painted most of the house I am not doing the trim. I also am not a neat enough painter to do that. Then I went and visited a high school member of ours who broke his wrist in baseball Saturday. He and I have gotten pretty close so I spent some time bugging him.
Today we Harvest Table which is where organizations and churches take turns preparing food and feeding the needy of Brookings. I am excited to help with that, but it will be from 1:30 until about 8 tonight I am guessing. Then I have to call my dad since I failed to do that yesterday. I thought of him though if that counts for anything. I have been thinking about my dad a lot lately. There are a few members who are upset that I do so much work around the church that they think is not "my job" to do. I mow quite a bit, helped redo all the pews, did some plumbing, landscaped my house, and now am painting my house. To me though this is where my dad taught me by example that if there is a job to do, you just get it done. It doesn't matter that I am technically not responsible to do it, it needs to be done so I just do it. I can be extremely lazy, but I am getting better about working on things that need to be done instead of just sitting around. People have told me I am a hard worker and I just laugh and tell them they should meet my father. I have never known a harder working guy. I am just thankful a tiny portion of his work ethic rubbed off on my, and yet I wish I could get that up to be even half the worker he is. I remember one time in college I went to work with him on the farm and I loaded a trailer full of square bales and then I crawled up in the barn and as he unloaded them, I stacked them in the barn. I kept falling behind and he would have to slow down and wait for me. Finally, we got done with that load and I crawled out of the barn sweating. This is when dad told me he had already done four loads that size today and the other guy never once slowed down for him. Right then and there I knew it didn't matter how old I got or how old my dad got, I would never be able to out work him. I mean he is going to be 65 this year and he builds fence all day and then goes to his second job of working on the farm in the evening. I sit at a desk all day, and then go paint for a couple hours and I am tired. I don't know how he does it, but I am so thankful for him and everything he has done for all these years. He has worked so hard all his life to provide for our family and make sure us four kids wouldn't have to work like that to get ahead. So thank you dad for being so selfless to always put your family first, but also for being a great role model of a hard worker, never prideful, and a good Christian man.
Here is my sermon from yesterday.
Our text for this morning is the Gospel reading of Matthew 28:16 to 20 “16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit grace and peace be to you.
Our text this morning is a magnificent passage that wraps up the entire book of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus has already died on the cross, been raised from the dead, appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary and told them to go tell his disciples to meet Him in Galilee. His disciples hear the message from the women and go to meet Him on the mountain where He had designated. If you just focus in on Matthew’s post resurrection account, this is the first time the disciples have seen Jesus in the flesh, alive and walking around. They immediately worshipped Him. He is alive and standing in front of them and then He speaks these beautiful words most commonly known as the great commission.
Matthew’s Gospel was written to be addressed to the Jewish population. One of Matthew’s main themes or focus point throughout His entire Gospel is showing that Christ is the Messiah, the true Son of God, the one who has been promised throughout all of the Old Testament, He is the one who God promised to send from the Garden of Eden at the very beginning of the fall. The way Matthew writes his Gospel, the idioms he uses, the references he makes, and some of the certain events that Matthew chooses to include that the other Gospel writers do not, all show us that Matthew wanted the Jews to know Jesus was the true Son of God.
One of the classes I took at the seminary was a class devoted solely to the Gospel of Matthew. For part of the class we were assigned to read the whole book three times a week for seven weeks. So out of the 21 times I was supposed to read it, I accomplished it I think 17 or 18 times. This really did help me see a lot of themes and repetition in the book that you may not see reading it in pieces. However, it was not until this last week as I went back and read the first half of Matthew again that I noticed something quite spectacular. Chapter 1 of Matthew is sometimes tempting to skip over because of all the hard names in the genealogy of Christ that Matthew decided to start with. But I resisted the temptation and read through the names, butchering most of them, and then in the next passage, still in chapter 1, is the birth of Jesus. It is in this passage that we see the angel of the Lord speaking to Joseph telling him to stay with Mary and to name the baby that she will give birth to Jesus. Then, since Matthew is appealing to a mostly Jewish audience, he references an Old Testament prophet. Matthew knew the Jewish people would know the Old Testament scriptures very well, so he refers back to them to show how the things that the prophets prophesied about are being directly fulfilled by Jesus, the Son of God in the flesh, the Messiah. So referencing one of these Old Testament prophets, Isaiah to be exact, he includes in this passage – Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel. Then Matthew includes what Immanuel means, which is GOD WITH US. So already in chapter one, Matthew, using Old Testament scriptures, is highlighting that Jesus, the son conceived in and born of a virgin, is the promised Messiah, the one to be called Immanuel, God with us.
Then Matthew continues through the rest of His Gospel to show the life and ministry of Christ. Through the baptism of Christ, His ministry throughout Galilee and Judea, His teaching in the synagogues with authority, His preaching from the Old Testament scriptures, His healing the sick and lame, and His performing miracles for the crowds, throughout all of these, Matthew continues to use references back to the Old Testament prophets who said that the one who would be the Messiah would do these things. Matthew is trying to make it very clear, very clear to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles, or to anyone reading his book including you and me, that this Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the incarnate Son of God, the Messiah God promised to send to redeem His people from the slavery of their sin.
Matthew of course also includes Christ’s arrest, trial, crucifixion, and burial in great detail. Then in chapter 28 we see His resurrection through the women first finding the empty tomb, and then seeing and worshipping the risen and living Jesus Christ as He tells them to go tell His disciples to meet Him and that brings us right back to our text for today. You see Matthew’s conclusion of these five verses does not only point to Christ’s resurrection, it also wraps the entire book up in a neat and clean ending taking it all the way back to chapter one. The last half of verse 20, the final words of the book is Jesus reminding His disciples, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” He is the fulfillment of the Immanuel, God with us, and now after His death and resurrection He Himself promises to be God with us by saying, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” This is the spectacular thing that I saw for the first time the other day. Matthew bookends His entire Gospel, starting with the Immanuel reference and ending with Christ speaking these words, He bookends His entire Gospel with the fact that God is with His people.
You see Matthew also knew the Old Testament scriptures, that is how he is able to reference them so much in his Gospel. He knew the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He knew the story of the Israelites in the wilderness. He knew the stories of all the kings of Israel, and the story of the people in exile who heard the word of God through the prophets, and he especially knew the story of the disciples who had been with Jesus. Matthew knew there were two things to be true throughout all of the history from Adam and Eve right up to the disciples seeing the resurrected Jesus. First, that God had always been with His people. Second, that people are very quick to forget that fact. The Israelites in the wilderness, the kings, the people hearing the prophets, and even the disciples let the sin of this world distract them, lead them astray, or cause them to question and doubt if God was really with them. The effects of sin can do this to us all. The loneliness, the sadness, the hurt, the pain, the suffering, the struggles, the tragedies, all of these things distract us, lead us astray, or cause us to doubt and ask, “Is God really with me?” or, “If God is with me, how is He with me?” How is God with His people?
Well, this being Holy Trinity Sunday I could answer with the fact that God the Father created us, giving us our bodies and souls, eyes, ears, and all our members, our reason and all our senses and still takes care of them. And the fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has redeemed us, lost and condemned people, purchased and won us from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil with His holy precious blood, innocent suffering and death. And the fact that the Holy Spirit has called us by the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, and kept us in the true faith, daily and richly forgiving us of all our sins. This is all most certainly true. However, on this Holy Trinity Sunday we are reminded that even though there are three persons, there is only one God. As we confesses in the Athanasian Creed there are indeed three distinct persons, each person being uncreated, infinite, eternal, almighty, God and Lord, and yet only one Uncreated, one infinite, one eternal, one almighty, and one God and Lord. So the three persons each have their own roles in the Godhead, they are still only one God and thus whenever and wherever one of the persons of the Trinity is at and working, there also the whole Godhead is working. So as the Father created us, the Son and Spirit were there also. As the Son redeemed us, the Father and the Spirit were there as well. And when the Spirit called and enlightened us, the Father and the Son where there working too. Three persons, one God. This is how God is with us, by creating and sustaining us, by redeeming and saving us, by calling us into the faith and sanctifying us. Through all of this, God is always with us. So it is Christ, who has been given all authority of Heaven and Earth, who tells us He will be with us, but knowing where He is the one Godhead is, we know the one triune God is always with us. What Christ is really saying when He says, “I will be with you always,” is “The one Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is with you always.”
Matthew uses His entire Gospel to show us Jesus Christ is the Son of God the promised Messiah. His gospel begins with Jesus’ birth and the reference to the title Immanuel, God with us, and ends with Jesus post-resurrection pre-ascension promising this very same thing. Yet another reason why I absolutely love how Matthew chooses to wrap up his entire Gospel is because it is open ended. He uses the genealogy in chapter one to tie the life of Christ all the way back to Adam, the first man. He uses 28 chapters to show us the life and ministry of Christ including His death on the cross and resurrection, and then ends his book with this opening ending of the Great Commission. You see Matthew knew that even though this was the end of his written Gospel, it was not the end of the Gospel story. The Gospel story continues through the disciples who he gave this command to, to go and baptize, making disciples of all nations. The Gospel story of Jesus Christ as the one true Son of God, who died for the sins of all mankind, and rose from the dead to give life to all believers, that Gospel story did not end with these words of Jesus, it did not end at His ascension, and it has still not ended. As the one true God, all three persons of the one Godhead work to create new lives and call some of those new lives into the one true faith of Christ’s redemption, the Gospel story continues on. We are still as much a part of the one Gospel story as were these disciples who heard Jesus give them this commission. God is still working through us to make more disciples of all people, bringing them to the waters of baptism, where the name of the one Triune God is placed upon them and the redemption Christ won for all people on the cross becomes their personal and individual justification. Just as His redemption won on the cross became yours and my individual and personal justification through the waters of our baptism when the name of the one true Triune God was placed on us. We are still a part of this ongoing Gospel story, and this conclusion that Matthew uses for his book, that was true for those disciples who heard Jesus speak these words; this conclusion is still true for you and me, and this conclusion will still be true and ever so fitting every day right up until that final day when Christ returns again. This conclusion that Matthew writes for His book is open ended and fitting for every day that the Gospel story continues to last because no matter how long the Gospel story continues Christ will still have all authority on Heaven and Earth and He will always be with His people. The one Triune God will always be with the faithful whom He has created, redeemed, and called into the faith through the waters and the Word of baptism. Whether Christ comes again tomorrow or a hundred years from now or a thousand years from now, these words of the Great commission will always be true, because Christ the Son of God will always have all authority of Heaven and Earth and He will always be with His people until the end of the age. And you are part of that one great Gospel story because the one Triune God created you, won your redemption on the cross, gave you that redemption personally and individually through the water and the Word of baptism, and called you into the faith so that you may know Christ is the Son of God, and He is always with you until the end of the age.
In the name of the one Triune God who is always with you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
Easter 7 Sermon
I am down to only twice left to preach here at Mount Calvary and officially under a month left after today. That is too sad to even think of, let along to think of packing everything back up and moving again. I will just stay busy and keep my mind off of all that right up until it is time to go. Here is my sermon from yesterday.
Our text for this morning comes from the Gospel of St. John, chapter 17 looking specifically at verse 3: “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I went on vacation with two of my friends from seminary last year to Kentucky. While we were there, we had the chance to meet a couple of guys who lived and worked there in Kentucky. We met them in the hotel while playing cards in the lobby, and as we got to know them we realized they all had some pretty rough pasts. Two of the three had been married, had kids, and had been divorced, and all three of them had spent at least a year of their lives in jail. All three of these guys were 22 years old or younger. The one guy who had spent most of his teenage years in either juvenile detention or actual prison told me something I had never thought about before. You see I have always been slightly interested in prison ministry because I figured these men and women who were serving sentences for their mistakes would take great comfort in hearing that when it comes to sin and our eternal mistakes, we have a Lord who paid our sentence for us. However, I have been warned that prison ministry is tough because the person you are ministering to only wants to prove their innocence to you rather than listen to the message you are actually trying to tell them. This guy told me that men or women who are serving sentences in jail do not hear the message of God as a positive thing. He told me that people in jail generally do not hear the message of God as a positive thing because it is one more thing to wait for. You see they are already spending the entirety of their day waiting for that day they are released. All of their thoughts and hopes are directed towards getting out of jail and being free again. So to come in and tell them that if they only believe they will one day be free from all sin and spend the rest of eternity in the presence of the one true God, in their minds it is just one more thing they have to wait for. Already sick of waiting to just simply be out from behind bars, they are not interested in waiting for the day they are free from sin too.
When he told me this, it opened my eyes and I completely understood why that would be a hard message to get excited about in their situations. I mean none of us like to wait for things; we are very impatient as human beings. Maybe you’re a child waiting to be that certain correct age to do the next big thing, or you’re waiting to find the right job, or a significant other, or to have children, or finally retire, whatever you may be waiting for in your life, these situations not only make us very unhappy, but can ever cause extreme amounts of stress in our life. We simply do not like to wait. So it makes sense that for these convicted men and women who are already waiting for one thing do not want to have to wait for another thing, no matter how great a thing it may be.
Our text for today is in a way a conclusion to the previous four chapters of John. In chapters 13 to 16 Jesus has been teaching his disciples some very important truths that they will need to know as they are about to witness His death, resurrection, and ascension. Then in chapter 17, as a conclusion to these teachings, Jesus looks to heaven and prays to the Father. He prays out loud so that the disciples have the opportunity to hear exactly what He is praying for. First, He prays for Himself, knowing what He is about to endure, then He prays for His disciples, and finally He prays for all believers. There is so much in this prayer that we could focus in on, but today I want to focus in on verse three. Verse three is in the first part of the prayer where He is actually praying for Himself, but it is clearly meant for all believers to hear. Now this verse is a little unique in the fact that Jesus refers to Himself in the third person, calling Himself, Jesus Christ; nevertheless, it is a magnificent and amazing verse of pure Gospel. In this verse we hear our Lord define how and when we have eternal life.
Because just like the men and women in jail who do not want to have to wait for one more thing, I think we too, too often think of our eternal life as something that we will gain or inherit sometime in the future. We think only after we die and have gone to heaven, then we have our eternal life. We will begin our eternal life when we come into His presence, but only then at that point in the future. So we are waiting for heaven or waiting for Christ to return, because then at that point somewhere way down the line, then starts our eternal life. And we either take this one of two ways. We either don’t want that day to come for a long time from now because we like our life here and we want to spend as much time here with our loved ones as we can before we go to be in our eternal life. There is even an entire country song sung by Kenny Chesney that says “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody want to go now.” We get this attitude towards our eternal life that we know it is there waiting for us, so we are in no hurry to be there right now cause we are happy here for now. We avoid this idea of waiting for our eternal life by convincing ourselves we are happy here so we don’t have to be anxious about waiting for eternal life. Or on the other hand, we want to be there in our eternal life right now. We wish God would just call us home and take us out of the pains and sufferings of this world and take us to our eternal life as soon as possible. We are tired of waiting for it, we are ready for it now and want it to happen right now.
However, when we go back to our verse today, where Jesus Himself is speaking about eternal life, He doesn’t include anything about death, heaven, or waiting for that time when we will gain our eternal life. Notice what Jesus says about eternal life: “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Eternal life is not waiting to die so we can be in heaven, it is not something that happens when we have done everything we wanted to do in this life time, it is not something that is there waiting for us like a prize if we make it to the end. Eternal life is knowing the one true God. It has nothing to do with waiting, and that is something I think we as Christians need to do a better job of expressing both with our words, but also with our lives. We are not waiting to inherit or gain this eternal life, we already have it right now. We are living our eternal lives right now.
The one true God has revealed Himself to us through His Word and His Word made flesh in the incarnate Son of God. Through the power of His Holy Spirit He has called us with the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, and sanctified us in the one true faith. He has brought us into the faith of believing in one true God, maker of heaven and earth, and His Son Jesus Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. On the third day He rose again from the dead and ascended into Heaven. We know this one true God because He has revealed Himself to us through His Son. That is why it is not really that odd that Christ refers to Himself in the third person in this verse because it is through Jesus Christ we know the one true God. All of Scripture points to Christ because He is the Word made flesh. Through His death, resurrection, and ascension, we know Christ truly is the incarnate Son of God. And yet all of this, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension is what Christ is about to go through as He prays this prayer of our text today, and yet before any of it happens, He includes eternal life. Our eternal life is knowing who our God is and what He has done for us, which He has made very clear to us through His Word.
So we have our eternal life right now, we are living our eternal life already. From the moment He called us into the faith and revealed Himself to us as the one true God and Jesus Christ, we have been living our eternal life. It is not something we have to wait for, it is not something that only comes through death, and it is not something we have to worry about if it will come too soon or not soon enough, it is ours right now, it is yours right now, and it has been yours as long as you have been in the faith. There is no such thing as a life or death situation for a Christian other than to turn away from the faith you have been called into. You are already living your eternal life and no one can take that away from you.
Eternal life is knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ. Now I do need to make one very important clarification about this. When we hear the word “Know”, we automatically assume it means intellectually which can lead to a lot of uncomfortable ideas. It can lead us to wonder if we know enough, do we know everything we have to know and how do we know we know enough, can infants know God, can those with mental disorders or sicknesses really know God? If we try to make “knowing God” an intellectual thing then it becomes something that we are doing and has limitations. However, the Greek suggests one way to better translate it and I really like this translation is not “to know God”, but “learning to know God”. It is not something we can learn once and be good for the rest of our lives, or something that we know about God, it is about learning to know God, in a constant ongoing process. You see that same guy from Kentucky told me he had read the entire Bible cover to cover twice while he was in jail and yet said He didn’t get it or understand it. He could quote passages or stories and knew the Bible, but he did not know God. He did not have a relationship with God where learning the Bible was learning about who his God was and what his God had done for him, instead it was just a book that he was trying to learn the facts of.
When we understand this as learning to know God, it is in a relational way. Just like when you start dating someone or make a new friend, the more time you spend with that person the more you learn about that person. And not just things about them, but who they really are, things about their character, their personality, their habits, their deep fears and needs. This is true with God, the more time we spend learning to know our God in this relationship with Him, the more we learn about Him and everything He is and has done for us. This learning to know God is a constant ongoing process because we will never know everything about our God in this life time, but that doesn’t mean we don’t strive to continue to learn everything in Him we can. Because it is in this learning to know our God that we truly have our eternal life and we have it now. But it is only because He called us into the relationship with Him, He revealed Himself to us through His Word and His Son so that we can always continue to learn to know Him. Through Jesus who died for you, who rose from the dead for you, who ascended into Heaven to reign over you, He gives you the opportunity to learn to know Him who is the one true God. He gives us our eternal life and He gives it to us now through this relationship He called us into and the ability to learn to know Him through His Word and Son. We do not have to wait for it because it is ours now and for the rest of eternity because through the grace and mercy of the one true God, and the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, He freely gives us our eternal life now and for always.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in whom we have our eternal life now and forever, Amen.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I went on vacation with two of my friends from seminary last year to Kentucky. While we were there, we had the chance to meet a couple of guys who lived and worked there in Kentucky. We met them in the hotel while playing cards in the lobby, and as we got to know them we realized they all had some pretty rough pasts. Two of the three had been married, had kids, and had been divorced, and all three of them had spent at least a year of their lives in jail. All three of these guys were 22 years old or younger. The one guy who had spent most of his teenage years in either juvenile detention or actual prison told me something I had never thought about before. You see I have always been slightly interested in prison ministry because I figured these men and women who were serving sentences for their mistakes would take great comfort in hearing that when it comes to sin and our eternal mistakes, we have a Lord who paid our sentence for us. However, I have been warned that prison ministry is tough because the person you are ministering to only wants to prove their innocence to you rather than listen to the message you are actually trying to tell them. This guy told me that men or women who are serving sentences in jail do not hear the message of God as a positive thing. He told me that people in jail generally do not hear the message of God as a positive thing because it is one more thing to wait for. You see they are already spending the entirety of their day waiting for that day they are released. All of their thoughts and hopes are directed towards getting out of jail and being free again. So to come in and tell them that if they only believe they will one day be free from all sin and spend the rest of eternity in the presence of the one true God, in their minds it is just one more thing they have to wait for. Already sick of waiting to just simply be out from behind bars, they are not interested in waiting for the day they are free from sin too.
When he told me this, it opened my eyes and I completely understood why that would be a hard message to get excited about in their situations. I mean none of us like to wait for things; we are very impatient as human beings. Maybe you’re a child waiting to be that certain correct age to do the next big thing, or you’re waiting to find the right job, or a significant other, or to have children, or finally retire, whatever you may be waiting for in your life, these situations not only make us very unhappy, but can ever cause extreme amounts of stress in our life. We simply do not like to wait. So it makes sense that for these convicted men and women who are already waiting for one thing do not want to have to wait for another thing, no matter how great a thing it may be.
Our text for today is in a way a conclusion to the previous four chapters of John. In chapters 13 to 16 Jesus has been teaching his disciples some very important truths that they will need to know as they are about to witness His death, resurrection, and ascension. Then in chapter 17, as a conclusion to these teachings, Jesus looks to heaven and prays to the Father. He prays out loud so that the disciples have the opportunity to hear exactly what He is praying for. First, He prays for Himself, knowing what He is about to endure, then He prays for His disciples, and finally He prays for all believers. There is so much in this prayer that we could focus in on, but today I want to focus in on verse three. Verse three is in the first part of the prayer where He is actually praying for Himself, but it is clearly meant for all believers to hear. Now this verse is a little unique in the fact that Jesus refers to Himself in the third person, calling Himself, Jesus Christ; nevertheless, it is a magnificent and amazing verse of pure Gospel. In this verse we hear our Lord define how and when we have eternal life.
Because just like the men and women in jail who do not want to have to wait for one more thing, I think we too, too often think of our eternal life as something that we will gain or inherit sometime in the future. We think only after we die and have gone to heaven, then we have our eternal life. We will begin our eternal life when we come into His presence, but only then at that point in the future. So we are waiting for heaven or waiting for Christ to return, because then at that point somewhere way down the line, then starts our eternal life. And we either take this one of two ways. We either don’t want that day to come for a long time from now because we like our life here and we want to spend as much time here with our loved ones as we can before we go to be in our eternal life. There is even an entire country song sung by Kenny Chesney that says “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody want to go now.” We get this attitude towards our eternal life that we know it is there waiting for us, so we are in no hurry to be there right now cause we are happy here for now. We avoid this idea of waiting for our eternal life by convincing ourselves we are happy here so we don’t have to be anxious about waiting for eternal life. Or on the other hand, we want to be there in our eternal life right now. We wish God would just call us home and take us out of the pains and sufferings of this world and take us to our eternal life as soon as possible. We are tired of waiting for it, we are ready for it now and want it to happen right now.
However, when we go back to our verse today, where Jesus Himself is speaking about eternal life, He doesn’t include anything about death, heaven, or waiting for that time when we will gain our eternal life. Notice what Jesus says about eternal life: “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Eternal life is not waiting to die so we can be in heaven, it is not something that happens when we have done everything we wanted to do in this life time, it is not something that is there waiting for us like a prize if we make it to the end. Eternal life is knowing the one true God. It has nothing to do with waiting, and that is something I think we as Christians need to do a better job of expressing both with our words, but also with our lives. We are not waiting to inherit or gain this eternal life, we already have it right now. We are living our eternal lives right now.
The one true God has revealed Himself to us through His Word and His Word made flesh in the incarnate Son of God. Through the power of His Holy Spirit He has called us with the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, and sanctified us in the one true faith. He has brought us into the faith of believing in one true God, maker of heaven and earth, and His Son Jesus Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. On the third day He rose again from the dead and ascended into Heaven. We know this one true God because He has revealed Himself to us through His Son. That is why it is not really that odd that Christ refers to Himself in the third person in this verse because it is through Jesus Christ we know the one true God. All of Scripture points to Christ because He is the Word made flesh. Through His death, resurrection, and ascension, we know Christ truly is the incarnate Son of God. And yet all of this, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension is what Christ is about to go through as He prays this prayer of our text today, and yet before any of it happens, He includes eternal life. Our eternal life is knowing who our God is and what He has done for us, which He has made very clear to us through His Word.
So we have our eternal life right now, we are living our eternal life already. From the moment He called us into the faith and revealed Himself to us as the one true God and Jesus Christ, we have been living our eternal life. It is not something we have to wait for, it is not something that only comes through death, and it is not something we have to worry about if it will come too soon or not soon enough, it is ours right now, it is yours right now, and it has been yours as long as you have been in the faith. There is no such thing as a life or death situation for a Christian other than to turn away from the faith you have been called into. You are already living your eternal life and no one can take that away from you.
Eternal life is knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ. Now I do need to make one very important clarification about this. When we hear the word “Know”, we automatically assume it means intellectually which can lead to a lot of uncomfortable ideas. It can lead us to wonder if we know enough, do we know everything we have to know and how do we know we know enough, can infants know God, can those with mental disorders or sicknesses really know God? If we try to make “knowing God” an intellectual thing then it becomes something that we are doing and has limitations. However, the Greek suggests one way to better translate it and I really like this translation is not “to know God”, but “learning to know God”. It is not something we can learn once and be good for the rest of our lives, or something that we know about God, it is about learning to know God, in a constant ongoing process. You see that same guy from Kentucky told me he had read the entire Bible cover to cover twice while he was in jail and yet said He didn’t get it or understand it. He could quote passages or stories and knew the Bible, but he did not know God. He did not have a relationship with God where learning the Bible was learning about who his God was and what his God had done for him, instead it was just a book that he was trying to learn the facts of.
When we understand this as learning to know God, it is in a relational way. Just like when you start dating someone or make a new friend, the more time you spend with that person the more you learn about that person. And not just things about them, but who they really are, things about their character, their personality, their habits, their deep fears and needs. This is true with God, the more time we spend learning to know our God in this relationship with Him, the more we learn about Him and everything He is and has done for us. This learning to know God is a constant ongoing process because we will never know everything about our God in this life time, but that doesn’t mean we don’t strive to continue to learn everything in Him we can. Because it is in this learning to know our God that we truly have our eternal life and we have it now. But it is only because He called us into the relationship with Him, He revealed Himself to us through His Word and His Son so that we can always continue to learn to know Him. Through Jesus who died for you, who rose from the dead for you, who ascended into Heaven to reign over you, He gives you the opportunity to learn to know Him who is the one true God. He gives us our eternal life and He gives it to us now through this relationship He called us into and the ability to learn to know Him through His Word and Son. We do not have to wait for it because it is ours now and for the rest of eternity because through the grace and mercy of the one true God, and the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, He freely gives us our eternal life now and for always.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in whom we have our eternal life now and forever, Amen.
Ascension Day Sermon
Greetings in the name of Christ our King! We made it through VBS last week which is nice to have done and no longer worry about. We did the parable of the sower and how God is at work in our lives to make us the good soil. It was a fun couple of nights and I think the adults enjoyed me in my Bib Overalls as much as the kids did. On Thursday since we had both Ascension day service and our final VBS session, I wore my clerical under my overalls and decided it was actually a great look. If I ever get called to a little country church, Bib Overalls might be all I wear.
This week is busy with so many side projects. I spent almost all day today playing plumber trying to get the sink in the fellowship hall unclogged. Then I think we are power washing the paint off my house this evening to get it ready for painting some time in the next week or so. I am also trying to get my basement dried out as I had water pouring in under the one window. I had to pull back the carpet and get the floor dry, now I am trying to dry out the carpet with dehumidifiers and fans. I also need to finish my landscaping project which I think would have been a huge help in keeping water out of the basement. If I can get the landscaping done, and we get the house painted that will be two HUGE projects done and crossed off the list.
Here is my sermon from Ascension Day. I tweaked it a little as I actually preached it, but then after preaching Sunday's sermon I couldn't remember all the little changes I made. This is the original manuscript though. I will post my sermon from yesterday in a post today too. Enjoy!
This week is busy with so many side projects. I spent almost all day today playing plumber trying to get the sink in the fellowship hall unclogged. Then I think we are power washing the paint off my house this evening to get it ready for painting some time in the next week or so. I am also trying to get my basement dried out as I had water pouring in under the one window. I had to pull back the carpet and get the floor dry, now I am trying to dry out the carpet with dehumidifiers and fans. I also need to finish my landscaping project which I think would have been a huge help in keeping water out of the basement. If I can get the landscaping done, and we get the house painted that will be two HUGE projects done and crossed off the list.
Here is my sermon from Ascension Day. I tweaked it a little as I actually preached it, but then after preaching Sunday's sermon I couldn't remember all the little changes I made. This is the original manuscript though. I will post my sermon from yesterday in a post today too. Enjoy!
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text for this evening comes from the Epistle Lesson of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This opening section of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is very complex and he manages to say so much in just these few verses. Paul is using prayer to give thanks for the faith of the Ephesians, and he clearly states everything he is praying for. Now we are not going to look at everything Paul is praying for today, rather we are going to focus in on one small, but very important, part of Paul’s prayer. Since this is Ascension Thursday I think it is only appropriate that we focus on the ascension that Paul includes in this prayer. Paul does not just flat out re-tell the event of the ascension, but we heard that in both the readings from Act’s and Luke’s Gospel. Paul does however include the ascension in verses 19 to 21, which will be our focus: “according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” This is the ascension of our Christ that Paul adds to the opening of his letter. However, as simple as it is, it paints a picture that may not be seen unless you stop and really think about this event. I want to verbally paint this picture for you, and then as I continue through my sermon, hopefully the picture will become clearer and clearer for you until you are able to leave here with its full beauty in your mind. The picture of ascension that I want to paint for you is the same picture that I have in my mind every time I recite the Apostle’s Creed. When we confess that “He ascended in heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead”, I see Jesus our Lord, or a better title for this picture is our King, our triumphant King, in all his glory and majesty, glorified in the flesh but still has the scars on His hands, feet and side, dressed in the whitest robe we have ever seen, sitting on a beautiful majestic throne of gold, His throne which is attached to the throne upon which the Father is seated, and Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, reigning above all other powers and dominions both of this earth and of all spiritual forces, and as He sits upon this throne in glory. He is our King, our victorious King reigning over all of creation from His throne.
Paul sent this letter to the Ephesians. The Ephesians are a relatively young church when Paul send them this letter and they have a mixed crowd of newcomers to the faith and those who have been in the faith for quite awhile. However, they are not a church in the way we think of today. They do not have a firm established tradition of how things have always been done, they do not have generations of more elder Christians leading and guiding the younger Christians, they do not have boards and committees to keep organized structure in their faith life. They are really just a bunch of believers who gather to worship or in this case hear Paul’s letter. Nevertheless, they are all going to have to deal with sin and death. It is part of our sinful world and Paul knows this. The devil tempts these Christians to try to drive them away from their faith. The devil’s ultimate goal is to drive these newly faithful people to complete and utter despair, leaving them feeling completely abandoned and alone. Then he is able to get them to doubt God, and they may even be foolish enough to reject their faith. The devil will use tragedies, their persecution, natural disasters, and unexplainable deaths to bring about their despair. He is constantly lurking in the shadows, waiting for one of them to be alone and weak. He is constantly a threat to their faith because he is able to use their sinful nature to get them to stray from God and His ways. The devil, sin, and death in this world are their enemies. These things are what shake the faith of the Ephesians and make these followers of Christ question what they really believe.
Paul, however, has the same picture I began to paint for you in his mind as he writes this letter to the Ephesians. He can see the Son of God sitting on His throne and this is why He includes Christ’s Ascension in the opening to his letter. He includes the resurrection and ascension because this is the victory our king has won for His people. The devil, sin, and death are the enemies, trying to constantly make Christians fall away from their faith and essentially away from God. But this is the entire reason Christ took on flesh. Through His death, His resurrection, and His ascension, He completely defeated these enemies of His people. Christ won the victory over sin, death, and the devil by being the perfect sacrifice, by paying the price that no human ever could, and by being the King who triumphantly won the battle. Paul, knowing the troubles and strife’s that these new believers are going to face, and he is reminding them that they can put their trust in their triumphant king who reigns above all other powers and dominions, including sin, death, and the devil.
So these Ephesians hear the good news of their triumphant king from Paul in his letter to them, and this allows them to put their trust in Christ. But what does that mean for us? Many of you are probably saying to yourself, “Come on Vicar, of course we know Christ won over sin, death, and the devil. We hear this message every week.” And knowing you all, I do honestly believe you do know that Christ is our Savior. However, just because we know the message, does not necessarily mean we always believe it in its full entirety. Because you see it is almost impossible for us to wrap our human minds around the fact that God sacrificed His own Son, in order to save us horrible sinners. We are his fallen race that He should have damned to hell, but instead He sent His own Son to receive His wrath and the full wages of our sins. This is where the fourth use of the law comes into play. Now since you are all good Lutherans, you may have thought you heard me wrong when I said the fourth use of the law. Because every good Lutheran knows there are only three uses to the law. However, the honorable Dr. Kolb a professor at the seminary and also one of the two men who translated the Book of Concord, talks about a fourth use of the law. The fourth use is also sometimes called the demonic use of the law. Because when faithful people know and understand the first three uses of the law, and they use the three uses to repent often, the devil does not like this. So he tempts them to sin, but even when he can get them to stumble, they immediately turn to Christ and receive His forgiveness. So the devil, tricky as he is, tries a different approach. Instead of tempting them to keep sinning, he simply whispers in their ears, “You really think the Lord forgives you. You of all people, who sin daily, you think you are good enough for Him? You cannot be serious, you cannot really believe that you, you dirty rotten sinner, are saved from everything you do wrong!” And maybe at first we do not listen to him, but the devil is a persistent guy, and he just keeps getting us to stumble and then immediately whispers the lines of doubt in our ears. Haven’t you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt so dirty of your sins, or so guilty about something you did, and were just so plain ashamed that you did not want to pray to the Lord? I know I have felt this way at times. I think we have all had those times when the devil tricks us into believing that yes we know the price Christ paid, and we know He forgives sins, but His Gospel, His grace cannot possibly be for us personally. It cannot really be that easy to just be free from all our sins by confessing them and receiving the words of absolution. This is how the devil gets us. And even though we are an established church with a rich history and firm foundation of tradition and structure, we still have new believers and young believers in our midst just like the Ephesians. And if we, who have been faithful members of this church for years, can fall into the devils trap of doubt and questioning, just think how easy it is for them to question if they are truly forgiven.
So what do we do? Do we just keep saying that we believe in Christ’s grace and forgiveness of sins, push the doubt to the back of our heart, and hope that on judgment day it is not enough to keep us out of heaven? To use Paul’s famous answer, Absolutely Not! We hear in this text today, Paul telling the Ephesians, but it is still true for us also that all authority and all dominion are under Christ’s feet. The devil still roams this world, we still stumble to sin, and these bodies of ours will wear out and death happens. However, Christ who is our king has power and dominion over all of these. Our king came to earth to fight the good fight. He fought the battle against sin, death, and the devil. And He WON! How do we know He won? Because of this special day we are here to celebrate today. See if Christ had just died, He would have paid the wages of sin, but He would not have defeated death. And even if He had been resurrected and defeated death, if He had not ascended into Heaven, we would not have the hope of life with Him in heaven. In our Hymn of the day we sang the line “On Christ’s ascension I now build the hope of my ascension!” See when Christ ascended into heaven He officially proclaimed that His work was complete. Everything He came to do on earth, He had accomplished. And it is because He ascended into Heaven as the victor, that we too are able to have the hope of eternal life with Him in heaven. He is our victorious king who went home to sit in His throne.
See in the Old Testament when an enemy would be a threat or be attacking the people, the king of the people would go out with his troops to battle. He would watch the battle to know if he had won or not. Then when he won, he would return to his city and sit in his throne which was on the gate of the city where everyone could see it from the city. He would come back and sit in this throne to let everyone know that the battle was over, the victory was won. His sitting in that throne was the sign to all the people that He had been victorious and had kept them all safe from their enemies. He was back in his throne reigning over them, watching over them because they were now safe with their enemies being pushed back and wiped out. This is the same message we get after Christ’s ascension. Christ came to earth to fight the battle. When He had officially won and completely defeated the enemy, He returned home to His city again. And He sat in His throne at the right hand of the Father, where He still sits today. He is sitting on His throne over the gates letting all of His people, you and me and all the baptized faithful children of God, know that He is back from fighting, He was victorious in His fight, and His people are safe from their enemies as He reigns and watches over us. We do not have to doubt if His forgiveness is for us or if His grace is really for us. Our King sitting in His throne where we can see Him, knowing He was victorious and His victory is ours because we are His people, that is our assurance that His grace and forgiveness truly is 100% for you individually.
So you see that picture of Christ sitting in His throne at the right hand of the Father is not just a simple picture. It is a sweet and beautiful proclamation of the Gospel truth that assures us He is our victorious king, He has defeated our enemies, and He does reign over us, watching over and protecting us. Jesus Christ, our King reigns over all powers, authorities, and dominions, as He sits in His throne at the right hand of the Father, because He was victorious in the great battle against all enemies, and now as He sits in His throne, we never have to doubt that His victory is for all His people, including you and me.
In the name of our Triumph King, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Our text for this evening comes from the Epistle Lesson of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This opening section of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is very complex and he manages to say so much in just these few verses. Paul is using prayer to give thanks for the faith of the Ephesians, and he clearly states everything he is praying for. Now we are not going to look at everything Paul is praying for today, rather we are going to focus in on one small, but very important, part of Paul’s prayer. Since this is Ascension Thursday I think it is only appropriate that we focus on the ascension that Paul includes in this prayer. Paul does not just flat out re-tell the event of the ascension, but we heard that in both the readings from Act’s and Luke’s Gospel. Paul does however include the ascension in verses 19 to 21, which will be our focus: “according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” This is the ascension of our Christ that Paul adds to the opening of his letter. However, as simple as it is, it paints a picture that may not be seen unless you stop and really think about this event. I want to verbally paint this picture for you, and then as I continue through my sermon, hopefully the picture will become clearer and clearer for you until you are able to leave here with its full beauty in your mind. The picture of ascension that I want to paint for you is the same picture that I have in my mind every time I recite the Apostle’s Creed. When we confess that “He ascended in heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead”, I see Jesus our Lord, or a better title for this picture is our King, our triumphant King, in all his glory and majesty, glorified in the flesh but still has the scars on His hands, feet and side, dressed in the whitest robe we have ever seen, sitting on a beautiful majestic throne of gold, His throne which is attached to the throne upon which the Father is seated, and Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, reigning above all other powers and dominions both of this earth and of all spiritual forces, and as He sits upon this throne in glory. He is our King, our victorious King reigning over all of creation from His throne.
Paul sent this letter to the Ephesians. The Ephesians are a relatively young church when Paul send them this letter and they have a mixed crowd of newcomers to the faith and those who have been in the faith for quite awhile. However, they are not a church in the way we think of today. They do not have a firm established tradition of how things have always been done, they do not have generations of more elder Christians leading and guiding the younger Christians, they do not have boards and committees to keep organized structure in their faith life. They are really just a bunch of believers who gather to worship or in this case hear Paul’s letter. Nevertheless, they are all going to have to deal with sin and death. It is part of our sinful world and Paul knows this. The devil tempts these Christians to try to drive them away from their faith. The devil’s ultimate goal is to drive these newly faithful people to complete and utter despair, leaving them feeling completely abandoned and alone. Then he is able to get them to doubt God, and they may even be foolish enough to reject their faith. The devil will use tragedies, their persecution, natural disasters, and unexplainable deaths to bring about their despair. He is constantly lurking in the shadows, waiting for one of them to be alone and weak. He is constantly a threat to their faith because he is able to use their sinful nature to get them to stray from God and His ways. The devil, sin, and death in this world are their enemies. These things are what shake the faith of the Ephesians and make these followers of Christ question what they really believe.
Paul, however, has the same picture I began to paint for you in his mind as he writes this letter to the Ephesians. He can see the Son of God sitting on His throne and this is why He includes Christ’s Ascension in the opening to his letter. He includes the resurrection and ascension because this is the victory our king has won for His people. The devil, sin, and death are the enemies, trying to constantly make Christians fall away from their faith and essentially away from God. But this is the entire reason Christ took on flesh. Through His death, His resurrection, and His ascension, He completely defeated these enemies of His people. Christ won the victory over sin, death, and the devil by being the perfect sacrifice, by paying the price that no human ever could, and by being the King who triumphantly won the battle. Paul, knowing the troubles and strife’s that these new believers are going to face, and he is reminding them that they can put their trust in their triumphant king who reigns above all other powers and dominions, including sin, death, and the devil.
So these Ephesians hear the good news of their triumphant king from Paul in his letter to them, and this allows them to put their trust in Christ. But what does that mean for us? Many of you are probably saying to yourself, “Come on Vicar, of course we know Christ won over sin, death, and the devil. We hear this message every week.” And knowing you all, I do honestly believe you do know that Christ is our Savior. However, just because we know the message, does not necessarily mean we always believe it in its full entirety. Because you see it is almost impossible for us to wrap our human minds around the fact that God sacrificed His own Son, in order to save us horrible sinners. We are his fallen race that He should have damned to hell, but instead He sent His own Son to receive His wrath and the full wages of our sins. This is where the fourth use of the law comes into play. Now since you are all good Lutherans, you may have thought you heard me wrong when I said the fourth use of the law. Because every good Lutheran knows there are only three uses to the law. However, the honorable Dr. Kolb a professor at the seminary and also one of the two men who translated the Book of Concord, talks about a fourth use of the law. The fourth use is also sometimes called the demonic use of the law. Because when faithful people know and understand the first three uses of the law, and they use the three uses to repent often, the devil does not like this. So he tempts them to sin, but even when he can get them to stumble, they immediately turn to Christ and receive His forgiveness. So the devil, tricky as he is, tries a different approach. Instead of tempting them to keep sinning, he simply whispers in their ears, “You really think the Lord forgives you. You of all people, who sin daily, you think you are good enough for Him? You cannot be serious, you cannot really believe that you, you dirty rotten sinner, are saved from everything you do wrong!” And maybe at first we do not listen to him, but the devil is a persistent guy, and he just keeps getting us to stumble and then immediately whispers the lines of doubt in our ears. Haven’t you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt so dirty of your sins, or so guilty about something you did, and were just so plain ashamed that you did not want to pray to the Lord? I know I have felt this way at times. I think we have all had those times when the devil tricks us into believing that yes we know the price Christ paid, and we know He forgives sins, but His Gospel, His grace cannot possibly be for us personally. It cannot really be that easy to just be free from all our sins by confessing them and receiving the words of absolution. This is how the devil gets us. And even though we are an established church with a rich history and firm foundation of tradition and structure, we still have new believers and young believers in our midst just like the Ephesians. And if we, who have been faithful members of this church for years, can fall into the devils trap of doubt and questioning, just think how easy it is for them to question if they are truly forgiven.
So what do we do? Do we just keep saying that we believe in Christ’s grace and forgiveness of sins, push the doubt to the back of our heart, and hope that on judgment day it is not enough to keep us out of heaven? To use Paul’s famous answer, Absolutely Not! We hear in this text today, Paul telling the Ephesians, but it is still true for us also that all authority and all dominion are under Christ’s feet. The devil still roams this world, we still stumble to sin, and these bodies of ours will wear out and death happens. However, Christ who is our king has power and dominion over all of these. Our king came to earth to fight the good fight. He fought the battle against sin, death, and the devil. And He WON! How do we know He won? Because of this special day we are here to celebrate today. See if Christ had just died, He would have paid the wages of sin, but He would not have defeated death. And even if He had been resurrected and defeated death, if He had not ascended into Heaven, we would not have the hope of life with Him in heaven. In our Hymn of the day we sang the line “On Christ’s ascension I now build the hope of my ascension!” See when Christ ascended into heaven He officially proclaimed that His work was complete. Everything He came to do on earth, He had accomplished. And it is because He ascended into Heaven as the victor, that we too are able to have the hope of eternal life with Him in heaven. He is our victorious king who went home to sit in His throne.
See in the Old Testament when an enemy would be a threat or be attacking the people, the king of the people would go out with his troops to battle. He would watch the battle to know if he had won or not. Then when he won, he would return to his city and sit in his throne which was on the gate of the city where everyone could see it from the city. He would come back and sit in this throne to let everyone know that the battle was over, the victory was won. His sitting in that throne was the sign to all the people that He had been victorious and had kept them all safe from their enemies. He was back in his throne reigning over them, watching over them because they were now safe with their enemies being pushed back and wiped out. This is the same message we get after Christ’s ascension. Christ came to earth to fight the battle. When He had officially won and completely defeated the enemy, He returned home to His city again. And He sat in His throne at the right hand of the Father, where He still sits today. He is sitting on His throne over the gates letting all of His people, you and me and all the baptized faithful children of God, know that He is back from fighting, He was victorious in His fight, and His people are safe from their enemies as He reigns and watches over us. We do not have to doubt if His forgiveness is for us or if His grace is really for us. Our King sitting in His throne where we can see Him, knowing He was victorious and His victory is ours because we are His people, that is our assurance that His grace and forgiveness truly is 100% for you individually.
So you see that picture of Christ sitting in His throne at the right hand of the Father is not just a simple picture. It is a sweet and beautiful proclamation of the Gospel truth that assures us He is our victorious king, He has defeated our enemies, and He does reign over us, watching over and protecting us. Jesus Christ, our King reigns over all powers, authorities, and dominions, as He sits in His throne at the right hand of the Father, because He was victorious in the great battle against all enemies, and now as He sits in His throne, we never have to doubt that His victory is for all His people, including you and me.
In the name of our Triumph King, Jesus Christ, Amen.