Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are down to two weeks and couple days of the quarter left so I am going to be extremely busy writing two big papers and five shorter papers. I also have to build an art project for my class on the Holy Spirit. I will try to include pictures of it after I spend all day Saturday building it.
I am going to try to do some shorter posts as I will be scrapped for time. Here is my devotion for Psalm 13 that I wrote this last Lenten season while on vicarage. Enjoy.
As I am working on my Lent series of the penitential psalms, I realize Psalm 13 is basically a summary of all the penitential psalms together. In Psalm 13 David is bold enough to call God out on the fact He doesn’t seem to be doing anything. The reason Psalm 13 in not a penitential psalm is because David is not confessing his sins; he is blaming God for letting these evil things happen to him. He is not saying, O Lord, I am a sinful wretch and that is why these terrible things seem to be happening. He is calling God out saying how long are you, the God who is in control of all things, going to keep letting these bad things happen to me? How long am I going to be suffering from sorrow and fear of my enemy, how long must I cry out to you before you do anything about this? Then he basically pleads his case one more time. He calls God out for not listening and not doing anything, then immediately goes to telling God what he wants. Do not let me die, do not let my enemies have the victory over me. Hear me this time God when I cry out to you and do not let these bad things happen to me. Then he ends with how he trusts in God and His steadfast love. Not only does he trust in God, he is going to sing a song to God for how He has dealt bountifully with him. Wait a second?! Is David bipolar? He just went from accusing God of not listening to him, not helping him, not protecting him, to praising God for the bountiful way He has dealt with him. What is going on here? He just made a complete 180 degree turn around in 109 words.
Then as I stop and think about this, I have done this numerous times with things far less important than my life and God. When I used to work all kinds of various jobs, there would be times I would go from complaining about that job and how much I hate it and cannot stand it, to the fact that I can’t think of a better job for me and I can’t wait to go into work tomorrow. Or I get mad at someone and talk about how I disagree with the way they handle certain issues and am not real happy with them, and then as the conversation continues I am praising them for what a great person they are and how much I appreciate knowing them. Maybe I am the one who is bipolar. I think the biggest factor is that our sinful nature just needs to vent some times. It needs to get all the negative blaming and accusing out, so that it can realize that things are not actually as bad as we made them seem. One task of a job may be not fun or just doesn’t make sense so we gripe about it, but then once we have gotten that off our chest we realize that the job as a whole is actually a great job and that one little part that we didn’t like was actually no big deal. There are times where is seems God doesn’t hear us and He is doing nothing to help us through the troubles and trials of this life. But then as you vent about those things and get them off your chest, you realize how much God does do for you and all the times you know He heard you in the way your prayer was answered. Our sinful nature just needs to throw that blame and anger out there, only for us to realize how stupid it was and how wrong we were. This is when we back track very quickly, try to recover our misspoken words, and confess that things are not bad at all. We can throw that blame out at God, but we will realize very quickly how wrong we are, and that it is our own sinful fault these things are happening, and that God is there with us, listening to us, helping us through the whole thing. So we too make a 180 degree turn around and give God the praise He deserves and return our trust in Him. This psalm is not only beautiful for how complex it is even though it is so short, it is so meaningful because it fits our actual life habits of venting before confessing. It also is so powerful because it teaches us God is OK with us venting to Him, taking our stress and anger to Him. He wants us to talk to Him and be honest with Him. And this psalm is a way to give every emotion we have to Him and realize He is always there for us and always listening to us. Praise be to Him who does deal bountifully with us.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Monday, October 27, 2014
Reformation Sermon
Greetings in the name of our Living Lord, Jesus Christ. This is my sermon from yesterday which was in observance of Reformation. Our hymn for the day was obviously "A mighty Fortress is Our God". My text for the sermon was Psalm 46. Reformation is actually Oct. 31st so this Friday. Hope you enjoy my sermon.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I absolutely love this Psalm. Of course I love all the Psalms, but this one is powerful, cheerful, and inspiring. This Psalm is believed to be directly tied to the historical even of the Assyrians attack on Jerusalem in roughly 700 B.C. However, today we are not going to focus on that specific direction of this psalm. If you would like to know more about it, talk to me after church and I would be more than happy o share. Nevertheless, today I want our focus on this Psalm to be on the powerful imagery that is in it. Now there is enough imagery in this psalm that each line itself could be a sermon, so for today I want to focus in on verses one through three. Beginning right away with the first verse the psalmist confesses that God is our refuge and our strength, our very present help in trouble. This verse is the theme verse for the whole psalm and will serve as our theme verse for today as well. Then verses two and three can be slightly confusing if one is not familiar with Hebrew poetry. The psalmist is speaking about the earth giving way, and about mountains and roaring seas. Sure it sounds like pretty scary stuff so it makes sense that because God is our refuge and strength, we will not be afraid. However, when you are familiar with Hebrew poetry and understand truly what the psalmist is saying here, it makes the statement that we will not be afraid even more powerful. You see in Hebrew poetry mountains are very commonly symbolic for being the most solid, most concrete thing in our world. Think about it? If someone asked you for the strongest, best founded, sturdiest thing in our natural world, what would you think of? These huge, majestic rock formations of mountains are probably the most immovable thing in our world. Just to make tunnels and roads through them takes excessive amounts of explosives and man power. There is no way we could ever possibly think about moving a mountain. So mountains are symbolic for being immovable and unchangeable. Then the second image of the sea is another one that becomes more powerful when you know the proper symbolism of it. Water plays a very important part of Hebrew poetry. Now the symbolism that I am about to explain to you is not true 100% of the time when water is mentioned, but it is very common for water to be symbolic for life/life source and chaos/evil. How can it be symbolic for both of these things at the same time? Well the answer is what type of water it is. Flowing water or moving water such as rivers and streams are symbolic for life. Sitting water or still water such as lakes, ponds, or seas are symbolic for chaos and evil. Now in my mind this makes perfect sense because moving water is generally cleaner that still water. Rivers flowing along may be dirty as far as sediment and runoff, but it is always moving so it does not have time to build up with moss and algae. Whereas still water has the same sediment and runoff, but also becomes covered with moss and algae as it sits stagnant. So it came to be used this way in poetry. So these seas are still water which makes them symbolic for chaos and evil.
So now these verses go from a slightly scary image of mountains sliding into the seas, to a horrifying image of the most solid, most immovable foundation, most unchangeable truth in our world being pushed into evil and chaos. And this evil and chaos is not something that is gentle or mild, it is roaring and foaming. These seas are engulfing the mountains, and as they engulf one, the rest of the mountains are left trembling, shaking in their boots because they know they are next. Terrifying! The most unchangeable truth of our world is being engulfed by evil right in front of our eyes, and yet even in the midst of all of this, the psalmist says we will not be afraid, because God is our strength and our refuge, our very present help in trouble. This is the bold confession the psalmist is making.
The powerful imagery of this bold confession is the reason why I think Martin Luther grabbed on to this psalm so easily and wrote the beautiful hymn that we just sang, “A mighty fortress is our God!” As we observe the celebration of the Reformation this Sunday, this psalm gives us a little insight into what Luther was going through during the Reformation. We know of course Luther was a Catholic monk, he had been taught, trained, and even ordained by the Catholic Church. And then through his study of Scripture, he came to realize a huge part of what they had taught him was wrong. Their teachings and beliefs on the core basis of our salvation, or in other terms justification, their teachings and beliefs on the Lord’s Supper, and their beliefs on the pope were not in line with the Word of God. So he stood up for what he believed to be the truth, he trusted his understanding and faith in the Word enough to challenge the Church. Now he found himself standing on opposites sides of the largest Christian group in the world. Talk about everything you knew, everything you had ever known to be crumbling around you. The unchangeable truths of the church that he had learned and known his whole life, were now being taken over by evil and chaos as the pope and bishops desired to serve man and human tradition over the Word of God. The mountains were being engulfed by the seas in Luther’s life as the church was being engulfed by corruption and yet he stood there unafraid, remaining faithful to the Word knowing God was his strength and refuge.
And while we are not being threatened by the Catholic church any more, we are being pressured from the world to change our teachings, pressured to be loyal to men and human traditions instead of staying faithful to God and His world. Our society is constantly telling us to change our believes and views in order to keep up with the times. We should not be allowed to tell people that sexual they are sinners and living a life of sin. We are being pressured to change our worship to be entertaining and what makes people feel good instead of being centered around law and gospel. Even other Christian denominations criticize us for not letting anyone walk up to the communion rail and partake of the Lord’s Supper with us. The mountains of our life, the unchangeable truths of the natural law are moving into the sea. Marriage that has always been between a man and a woman is being redefined and abused, murder of an innocent life is no longer murder under new circumstances, these unchangeable truths are being engulfed by evil and chaos all around us.
And yet, we just the same as Luther will not back down, we will not give in, we will not be afraid because we have the same bold confession as the psalmist that God is our strength and our refuge. It doesn’t matter if the pope, it doesn’t matter if all of society and the entire people of the world, it doesn’t matter if the Devil himself is the one who is pushing the mountains all around us into the roaring sea. It doesn’t matter if literally everything in our life seems to be turning to chaos and evil, we stand firm in our trust in God. We stand tall and strong knowing God is our refuge and our strength. Because you see there is one foundation that will never crumble, there is one solid ground that will never give way, and that is Jesus Christ our Lord. The Savior of this world who was promised to be our solid ground from the very moment evil entered our world, the Savior who came into the midst of our evil and chaotic world in human flesh, the Savior who died on a rugged old cross as the payment for all sin and evil, the Savior who rose from the dead to defeat sin, death, and the Devil once and for all, and the Savior who lives and reigns today on His throne in high is the church’s one foundation that can never be moved, it will never crumble, it will never be over taken by any roaring or foaming sea, any amount of sin and evil cannot prevail over this one true foundation. And it is upon this solid, sturdy, concrete, immovable foundation that we stand firm, on solid footing, trusting in our God who is our refuge and our strength. We will not back down in our beliefs, we will not give in to our enemies pressuring us, we will not step off of our foundation of Jesus, but rather we will remain standing firm, we will remain on our solid footing, we will remain faithful to the Word of God because He alone is our refuge and our strength.
Then verse ten is an amazing conclusion to all of this imagery. 10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” Be still and know who your God is! In the midst of all this evil and chaos, do not go off looking for Him, do not wander hoping to find Him, do not go seeking trying to discover who He is, BE STILL! Be still because you are already standing firm in Him. You are already standing protected and safe on the one foundation of His Son, Jesus Christ. Be still and know He is God, He is your refuge and strength, He is your very present help in trouble. He has found you, He has called you to be His holy child, He has stood you on the most solid ground you will ever stand on, He is your protection and your strength. Be still and know He is God, He is your strength and your protection, He is the immovable foundation that keeps you safe and will keep you safe through all eternity. Be still and know that Christ the Lord is your solid footing in the midst of all evil.
In Jesus Christ name, Amen.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I absolutely love this Psalm. Of course I love all the Psalms, but this one is powerful, cheerful, and inspiring. This Psalm is believed to be directly tied to the historical even of the Assyrians attack on Jerusalem in roughly 700 B.C. However, today we are not going to focus on that specific direction of this psalm. If you would like to know more about it, talk to me after church and I would be more than happy o share. Nevertheless, today I want our focus on this Psalm to be on the powerful imagery that is in it. Now there is enough imagery in this psalm that each line itself could be a sermon, so for today I want to focus in on verses one through three. Beginning right away with the first verse the psalmist confesses that God is our refuge and our strength, our very present help in trouble. This verse is the theme verse for the whole psalm and will serve as our theme verse for today as well. Then verses two and three can be slightly confusing if one is not familiar with Hebrew poetry. The psalmist is speaking about the earth giving way, and about mountains and roaring seas. Sure it sounds like pretty scary stuff so it makes sense that because God is our refuge and strength, we will not be afraid. However, when you are familiar with Hebrew poetry and understand truly what the psalmist is saying here, it makes the statement that we will not be afraid even more powerful. You see in Hebrew poetry mountains are very commonly symbolic for being the most solid, most concrete thing in our world. Think about it? If someone asked you for the strongest, best founded, sturdiest thing in our natural world, what would you think of? These huge, majestic rock formations of mountains are probably the most immovable thing in our world. Just to make tunnels and roads through them takes excessive amounts of explosives and man power. There is no way we could ever possibly think about moving a mountain. So mountains are symbolic for being immovable and unchangeable. Then the second image of the sea is another one that becomes more powerful when you know the proper symbolism of it. Water plays a very important part of Hebrew poetry. Now the symbolism that I am about to explain to you is not true 100% of the time when water is mentioned, but it is very common for water to be symbolic for life/life source and chaos/evil. How can it be symbolic for both of these things at the same time? Well the answer is what type of water it is. Flowing water or moving water such as rivers and streams are symbolic for life. Sitting water or still water such as lakes, ponds, or seas are symbolic for chaos and evil. Now in my mind this makes perfect sense because moving water is generally cleaner that still water. Rivers flowing along may be dirty as far as sediment and runoff, but it is always moving so it does not have time to build up with moss and algae. Whereas still water has the same sediment and runoff, but also becomes covered with moss and algae as it sits stagnant. So it came to be used this way in poetry. So these seas are still water which makes them symbolic for chaos and evil.
So now these verses go from a slightly scary image of mountains sliding into the seas, to a horrifying image of the most solid, most immovable foundation, most unchangeable truth in our world being pushed into evil and chaos. And this evil and chaos is not something that is gentle or mild, it is roaring and foaming. These seas are engulfing the mountains, and as they engulf one, the rest of the mountains are left trembling, shaking in their boots because they know they are next. Terrifying! The most unchangeable truth of our world is being engulfed by evil right in front of our eyes, and yet even in the midst of all of this, the psalmist says we will not be afraid, because God is our strength and our refuge, our very present help in trouble. This is the bold confession the psalmist is making.
The powerful imagery of this bold confession is the reason why I think Martin Luther grabbed on to this psalm so easily and wrote the beautiful hymn that we just sang, “A mighty fortress is our God!” As we observe the celebration of the Reformation this Sunday, this psalm gives us a little insight into what Luther was going through during the Reformation. We know of course Luther was a Catholic monk, he had been taught, trained, and even ordained by the Catholic Church. And then through his study of Scripture, he came to realize a huge part of what they had taught him was wrong. Their teachings and beliefs on the core basis of our salvation, or in other terms justification, their teachings and beliefs on the Lord’s Supper, and their beliefs on the pope were not in line with the Word of God. So he stood up for what he believed to be the truth, he trusted his understanding and faith in the Word enough to challenge the Church. Now he found himself standing on opposites sides of the largest Christian group in the world. Talk about everything you knew, everything you had ever known to be crumbling around you. The unchangeable truths of the church that he had learned and known his whole life, were now being taken over by evil and chaos as the pope and bishops desired to serve man and human tradition over the Word of God. The mountains were being engulfed by the seas in Luther’s life as the church was being engulfed by corruption and yet he stood there unafraid, remaining faithful to the Word knowing God was his strength and refuge.
And while we are not being threatened by the Catholic church any more, we are being pressured from the world to change our teachings, pressured to be loyal to men and human traditions instead of staying faithful to God and His world. Our society is constantly telling us to change our believes and views in order to keep up with the times. We should not be allowed to tell people that sexual they are sinners and living a life of sin. We are being pressured to change our worship to be entertaining and what makes people feel good instead of being centered around law and gospel. Even other Christian denominations criticize us for not letting anyone walk up to the communion rail and partake of the Lord’s Supper with us. The mountains of our life, the unchangeable truths of the natural law are moving into the sea. Marriage that has always been between a man and a woman is being redefined and abused, murder of an innocent life is no longer murder under new circumstances, these unchangeable truths are being engulfed by evil and chaos all around us.
And yet, we just the same as Luther will not back down, we will not give in, we will not be afraid because we have the same bold confession as the psalmist that God is our strength and our refuge. It doesn’t matter if the pope, it doesn’t matter if all of society and the entire people of the world, it doesn’t matter if the Devil himself is the one who is pushing the mountains all around us into the roaring sea. It doesn’t matter if literally everything in our life seems to be turning to chaos and evil, we stand firm in our trust in God. We stand tall and strong knowing God is our refuge and our strength. Because you see there is one foundation that will never crumble, there is one solid ground that will never give way, and that is Jesus Christ our Lord. The Savior of this world who was promised to be our solid ground from the very moment evil entered our world, the Savior who came into the midst of our evil and chaotic world in human flesh, the Savior who died on a rugged old cross as the payment for all sin and evil, the Savior who rose from the dead to defeat sin, death, and the Devil once and for all, and the Savior who lives and reigns today on His throne in high is the church’s one foundation that can never be moved, it will never crumble, it will never be over taken by any roaring or foaming sea, any amount of sin and evil cannot prevail over this one true foundation. And it is upon this solid, sturdy, concrete, immovable foundation that we stand firm, on solid footing, trusting in our God who is our refuge and our strength. We will not back down in our beliefs, we will not give in to our enemies pressuring us, we will not step off of our foundation of Jesus, but rather we will remain standing firm, we will remain on our solid footing, we will remain faithful to the Word of God because He alone is our refuge and our strength.
Then verse ten is an amazing conclusion to all of this imagery. 10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” Be still and know who your God is! In the midst of all this evil and chaos, do not go off looking for Him, do not wander hoping to find Him, do not go seeking trying to discover who He is, BE STILL! Be still because you are already standing firm in Him. You are already standing protected and safe on the one foundation of His Son, Jesus Christ. Be still and know He is God, He is your refuge and strength, He is your very present help in trouble. He has found you, He has called you to be His holy child, He has stood you on the most solid ground you will ever stand on, He is your protection and your strength. Be still and know He is God, He is your strength and your protection, He is the immovable foundation that keeps you safe and will keep you safe through all eternity. Be still and know that Christ the Lord is your solid footing in the midst of all evil.
In Jesus Christ name, Amen.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Class Devotion
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Today was a good day, but a long one. I preached at church today (I plan to post that sermon manuscript tomorrow). It went well and people seemed to really like my Reformation sermon. I also taught adult Bible study on Philippians 3 which led to some very good discussions. Then a member of the church invited Pastor, the other seminary student, and myself out to his house for dinner. He is a widower of three years now. His wife died from ALS. So while she was sick, three of her friends would come over every Sunday to cook a meal for them and help with some of the house work. Now that his wife has passed away, her friends still come over two Sundays a month and cook lunch for him. So these ladies cooked lunch for us and it was delicious. Then Don showed us all around his place and finally his shop. Don used to fly glider planes and then took up the hobby of flying remote control airplanes. He has built several of these planes and is currently working on building an actual size glider. He also has a model A and a model T that he has restored. Between the old cars, the model planes, and the glider he is building his show was full but extremely awesome. I was so jealous of his tools and shop and the other student is into planes so he had a great time showing us around and we thoroughly enjoyed it. However, we didn't leave his place until 4 and then with the drive home it was almost five before we got back from church. So a good day, but again a long day.
This evening I helped my friend put together baby furniture for their nursery and hung out with some guys in the dorm. Overall a good day.
I am going to post a devotion I gave in class the other day. The class is an elective on the Holy Spirit. We have to do a devotion in class for a specific group and the point is obviously to be on some work, point, or focus of the Spirit. It was supposed to be a ten minute devotion but I got so excited about it I wrote a full fifteen to eighteen minute sermon. So I am going to post the whole thing on here, but when I actually gave it in class I cut it down on the fly and shortened it up to ten and a half minutes. The guys really liked it and I am hoping the professor liked it as well. It is intended for a men's club so I apologize if you ladies do not feel included but the one lady we have in our class told me she still liked it a lot. Hope you enjoy it too.
Group that my devotion is addressed to: A Men’s Club group that meets one evening a month to have a Bible study, discuss the group’s business, and end with a meal together. The group is made up of about 20 guys ranging in age from early twenties to late eighties. Their careers range from blue collar to white collar work.
Tonight I want to talk about something I think all of us men have in common. Now I am going to be making some broad generalizations so I apologize in advance if you feel like I am not including you in these or you think I am way off base with my perceptions, but I am speaking from my limited 25 years of life’s experience. I think all of us men have a sense of pride about us. Now I don’t want you to jump to the conclusion that I am saying you are full of sinful pride because this is not what I said. I am not talking about being arrogant or egotistical, that kind of pride as in breaking the first commandment to make yourself God. No, am talking about a sense of pride, which I think is not a sinful thing at all. Actually I think this is a good quality of us men, maybe even a great one. We have this sense of pride in the fact that we want to be the best we can be. We want to be the best employee or boss, we want to do the best job we can so that people know we are the type of person who can and will get the job done and done right. And this sense of pride carries over into so many aspects of our lives. As good husbands, we want to provide for our families best we can, as a friend or brother we want to be loyal and trustworthy, as a citizen we want to be respected by being respectful to others. Now I know we are not all perfect at this all the time, but we have this sense of pride about us and how we live our lives. We want to be dependable, trustworthy, and responsible. We want people to be able to count on us and know we won’t let them down. Not a bad thing is it? And I truly think this comes into play in every one of relationships with people. We never want to hurt someone, let someone down, or even worse have someone give up on us.
A short personal example of this would be when I was in middle school; I had this football coach who was a real hard nose kind of guy. He yelled at us for every little mistake. He made us run more than I had ever run before and he made sure we did everything perfectly. However, he told us very early on in the year that if he yells at us, not to take it personally. If he is yelling at you it is because he knows you can be better than what you are showing. He told us if you make an obvious mistake and he doesn’t yell; that’s when you need to be worried. When he stops yelling, that is when he has decided you can’t be any better – that is when he has given up on you. I was the starting center for the team and one day in practice I made a horrible, just plain stupid mistake. I knew it, the rest of the line knew it, everyone knew it. However, when I looked over at our coach, he just calmly told us to do it again. I went into internal panic mode. I thought for sure he had given up on me, that he had just come to expect mistakes from me because he didn’t think I could be any better than that. I really thought he was done with me. It was a horrible feeling. It was a horrible feeling because I honestly thought I had let him down, and my mind told me the worst thing I could hear; he had given up on me. This is not a pleasant thing for us men and our sense of pride.
Now who would you guys say is the manliest man in the Bible, besides Jesus of course? (Ask and let them respond). Now there are a lot of answers to this because there are a lot of manly men in the Bible we can look up to, but for me my mind always goes to King David. He killed Goliath with a stone as a child. He lived life on the run with a band of soldiers hiding from King Saul. And yet, this manly man of a shepherd, a soldier, and a king gives us so much of his thoughts, feelings, and emotions in the psalms. We get a deeper look into the make of this manly man by reading the psalms he wrote. And the psalm I want to look at specifically today is psalm 51. David writes this after the whole Bathsheba incident. After he has committed adultery, murder, and an innocent child dies because of his sin, he writes this psalm of confession.
[READ Psalm 51:1-12]
We hear David’s begging, pleading, graveling for God’s mercy in these verses. We hear his deep confession that he has been sinful from conception and has continued to live that sinful life style. He asks God to completely change him, give him a whole new heart. But verse 11 is where I really want us to pay attention. Even though he knows he has been sinful since conception, even though he knows he has really messed up and committed an awful, heinous sin, he begs God not to leave him, not to give up on him. I thought I felt bad when I was questioning if my football coach had given up on me, can you imagine how David felt questioning if God had given up on him. Take not your Holy Spirit from me! What a powerful statement! We hear very often the different psalmists asking God not to turn His face from His people, not to hide His presence from them, but here David asks God specifically not to take His Holy Spirit from him. We know David did indeed have the Spirit of God with him from 1 Samuel 16:13 where the Spirit of God departs from Saul and is given to David as Samuel anoints him. David is asking God not to take that Spirit from him. Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt that you had done something so awful, so heinous, so wrong that God might give up on you? Or maybe it’s not one major sin, but just so many little sins all added up together that God might give up on you? God would just say enough with you, turn His presence from you and even worse take His Holy Spirit from you?
As men who do not want to let people down, this is the ultimate let down, this is the extreme low for us, the bottom of the barrel of complete helplessness and hopelessness to think God has given up on us, He has taken His Spirit from us. And to make matters even worse, we can’t fix that. You see as men, we also like to fix things. Our sense of pride tells us even when we do let someone down, there is something we can do to make it up to them, we can actively do the right thing to make up for the wrong thing. If we let our spouse down, we can get her a gift, apologize, make intentional effort to show her we have learned, we can do something to fix it and hope she will count on us again. But if God has given up on us, what can we do to fix that? What could we possibly do to make up for being a wretched sinner our entire lives from conception to show God we are worth not giving up on? The answer is nothing! We can do nothing ourselves to fix our relationship with God. And that leaves us truly and utterly helpless and hopeless. This is the horrible feeling David is feeling, that God has given up on him and there is nothing he can do about it. This is the horrible feeling we may feel at some point in our lives. Maybe you already have felt this way, maybe you feel this way right now, or maybe it won’t be for a while yet until you feel this way, but sooner or later I think it is a safe bet to say we will find ourselves at some point under this extreme despair. So what can you do when you feel this way, when you find yourself as hopeless or helpless as David does?
We do exactly what David did, we beg, we plead, we gravel for God’s mercy confessing all the horrible sins we have done, confessing that we have been sinful since conception and through our entire life, and we place all hope that He will grant us His mercy, that He will forgive us. We place the only hope we could possibly have in that situation that because He sent His Son to die for us, to forgive us of all of those sins, that He will not give up on us, that He will not take His Holy Spirit from us. We know we have His Holy Spirit in us and with us because we have been baptized. We trust He will not take that Holy Spirit from us because He has redeemed us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But how can we really be sure? How can we know God hasn’t given up on us, how can we know He hasn’t taken His Holy Spirit from us? Because of the words St. Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. (Read 1 Corinthians 12:1-3). We have full assurance God has not given up on us, that He has not taken His Holy Spirit from us because it is by the power of the Spirit alone that we can say “Jesus Christ is Lord”. Can you say Jesus Christ is Lord? Say it with me, “Jesus Christ is Lord”. Do you believe it? YES! Then you know the Holy Spirit is still in you and still with you. You know God has not given up on you, but instead has forgiven you of all your sins through the redemption in Jesus Christ who truly is Lord. And actually it is by the power of the Spirit alone that we come pleading and begging for God’s mercy in the first place. Without His presence still being with us, we would not feel guilty of sins or scared that God has given up on us. It is the presence of the Spirit in us that keeps us in the faith that keeps us coming back to begging for God’s mercy, and it is the Spirit in us that allows us to know God has forgiven us.
You see it was only a couple plays later in that same practice that I made another mistake and my coach lit into me and yelled good and loud at me, and I secretly wanted to smile. I wanted to smile because I knew he hadn’t given up on me. The same way, when we can say Jesus Christ is Lord and truly believe it, we know God has not given up on us, He has not taken His Holy Spirit from us.
Then, with this assurance that God has not given up on you, He has not taken His Spirit from you, you can now use that sense of pride to live every day knowing that the Holy Spirit is with you, assuring you that you are forgiven and not forgotten by God. So I challenge you with this, how are you going to use this sense of pride that comes from knowing God has forgiven you and given you your salvation, to live a life that shows the Holy Spirit is still with you and God has not given up on you?
This evening I helped my friend put together baby furniture for their nursery and hung out with some guys in the dorm. Overall a good day.
I am going to post a devotion I gave in class the other day. The class is an elective on the Holy Spirit. We have to do a devotion in class for a specific group and the point is obviously to be on some work, point, or focus of the Spirit. It was supposed to be a ten minute devotion but I got so excited about it I wrote a full fifteen to eighteen minute sermon. So I am going to post the whole thing on here, but when I actually gave it in class I cut it down on the fly and shortened it up to ten and a half minutes. The guys really liked it and I am hoping the professor liked it as well. It is intended for a men's club so I apologize if you ladies do not feel included but the one lady we have in our class told me she still liked it a lot. Hope you enjoy it too.
Group that my devotion is addressed to: A Men’s Club group that meets one evening a month to have a Bible study, discuss the group’s business, and end with a meal together. The group is made up of about 20 guys ranging in age from early twenties to late eighties. Their careers range from blue collar to white collar work.
Tonight I want to talk about something I think all of us men have in common. Now I am going to be making some broad generalizations so I apologize in advance if you feel like I am not including you in these or you think I am way off base with my perceptions, but I am speaking from my limited 25 years of life’s experience. I think all of us men have a sense of pride about us. Now I don’t want you to jump to the conclusion that I am saying you are full of sinful pride because this is not what I said. I am not talking about being arrogant or egotistical, that kind of pride as in breaking the first commandment to make yourself God. No, am talking about a sense of pride, which I think is not a sinful thing at all. Actually I think this is a good quality of us men, maybe even a great one. We have this sense of pride in the fact that we want to be the best we can be. We want to be the best employee or boss, we want to do the best job we can so that people know we are the type of person who can and will get the job done and done right. And this sense of pride carries over into so many aspects of our lives. As good husbands, we want to provide for our families best we can, as a friend or brother we want to be loyal and trustworthy, as a citizen we want to be respected by being respectful to others. Now I know we are not all perfect at this all the time, but we have this sense of pride about us and how we live our lives. We want to be dependable, trustworthy, and responsible. We want people to be able to count on us and know we won’t let them down. Not a bad thing is it? And I truly think this comes into play in every one of relationships with people. We never want to hurt someone, let someone down, or even worse have someone give up on us.
A short personal example of this would be when I was in middle school; I had this football coach who was a real hard nose kind of guy. He yelled at us for every little mistake. He made us run more than I had ever run before and he made sure we did everything perfectly. However, he told us very early on in the year that if he yells at us, not to take it personally. If he is yelling at you it is because he knows you can be better than what you are showing. He told us if you make an obvious mistake and he doesn’t yell; that’s when you need to be worried. When he stops yelling, that is when he has decided you can’t be any better – that is when he has given up on you. I was the starting center for the team and one day in practice I made a horrible, just plain stupid mistake. I knew it, the rest of the line knew it, everyone knew it. However, when I looked over at our coach, he just calmly told us to do it again. I went into internal panic mode. I thought for sure he had given up on me, that he had just come to expect mistakes from me because he didn’t think I could be any better than that. I really thought he was done with me. It was a horrible feeling. It was a horrible feeling because I honestly thought I had let him down, and my mind told me the worst thing I could hear; he had given up on me. This is not a pleasant thing for us men and our sense of pride.
Now who would you guys say is the manliest man in the Bible, besides Jesus of course? (Ask and let them respond). Now there are a lot of answers to this because there are a lot of manly men in the Bible we can look up to, but for me my mind always goes to King David. He killed Goliath with a stone as a child. He lived life on the run with a band of soldiers hiding from King Saul. And yet, this manly man of a shepherd, a soldier, and a king gives us so much of his thoughts, feelings, and emotions in the psalms. We get a deeper look into the make of this manly man by reading the psalms he wrote. And the psalm I want to look at specifically today is psalm 51. David writes this after the whole Bathsheba incident. After he has committed adultery, murder, and an innocent child dies because of his sin, he writes this psalm of confession.
[READ Psalm 51:1-12]
We hear David’s begging, pleading, graveling for God’s mercy in these verses. We hear his deep confession that he has been sinful from conception and has continued to live that sinful life style. He asks God to completely change him, give him a whole new heart. But verse 11 is where I really want us to pay attention. Even though he knows he has been sinful since conception, even though he knows he has really messed up and committed an awful, heinous sin, he begs God not to leave him, not to give up on him. I thought I felt bad when I was questioning if my football coach had given up on me, can you imagine how David felt questioning if God had given up on him. Take not your Holy Spirit from me! What a powerful statement! We hear very often the different psalmists asking God not to turn His face from His people, not to hide His presence from them, but here David asks God specifically not to take His Holy Spirit from him. We know David did indeed have the Spirit of God with him from 1 Samuel 16:13 where the Spirit of God departs from Saul and is given to David as Samuel anoints him. David is asking God not to take that Spirit from him. Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt that you had done something so awful, so heinous, so wrong that God might give up on you? Or maybe it’s not one major sin, but just so many little sins all added up together that God might give up on you? God would just say enough with you, turn His presence from you and even worse take His Holy Spirit from you?
As men who do not want to let people down, this is the ultimate let down, this is the extreme low for us, the bottom of the barrel of complete helplessness and hopelessness to think God has given up on us, He has taken His Spirit from us. And to make matters even worse, we can’t fix that. You see as men, we also like to fix things. Our sense of pride tells us even when we do let someone down, there is something we can do to make it up to them, we can actively do the right thing to make up for the wrong thing. If we let our spouse down, we can get her a gift, apologize, make intentional effort to show her we have learned, we can do something to fix it and hope she will count on us again. But if God has given up on us, what can we do to fix that? What could we possibly do to make up for being a wretched sinner our entire lives from conception to show God we are worth not giving up on? The answer is nothing! We can do nothing ourselves to fix our relationship with God. And that leaves us truly and utterly helpless and hopeless. This is the horrible feeling David is feeling, that God has given up on him and there is nothing he can do about it. This is the horrible feeling we may feel at some point in our lives. Maybe you already have felt this way, maybe you feel this way right now, or maybe it won’t be for a while yet until you feel this way, but sooner or later I think it is a safe bet to say we will find ourselves at some point under this extreme despair. So what can you do when you feel this way, when you find yourself as hopeless or helpless as David does?
We do exactly what David did, we beg, we plead, we gravel for God’s mercy confessing all the horrible sins we have done, confessing that we have been sinful since conception and through our entire life, and we place all hope that He will grant us His mercy, that He will forgive us. We place the only hope we could possibly have in that situation that because He sent His Son to die for us, to forgive us of all of those sins, that He will not give up on us, that He will not take His Holy Spirit from us. We know we have His Holy Spirit in us and with us because we have been baptized. We trust He will not take that Holy Spirit from us because He has redeemed us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But how can we really be sure? How can we know God hasn’t given up on us, how can we know He hasn’t taken His Holy Spirit from us? Because of the words St. Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. (Read 1 Corinthians 12:1-3). We have full assurance God has not given up on us, that He has not taken His Holy Spirit from us because it is by the power of the Spirit alone that we can say “Jesus Christ is Lord”. Can you say Jesus Christ is Lord? Say it with me, “Jesus Christ is Lord”. Do you believe it? YES! Then you know the Holy Spirit is still in you and still with you. You know God has not given up on you, but instead has forgiven you of all your sins through the redemption in Jesus Christ who truly is Lord. And actually it is by the power of the Spirit alone that we come pleading and begging for God’s mercy in the first place. Without His presence still being with us, we would not feel guilty of sins or scared that God has given up on us. It is the presence of the Spirit in us that keeps us in the faith that keeps us coming back to begging for God’s mercy, and it is the Spirit in us that allows us to know God has forgiven us.
You see it was only a couple plays later in that same practice that I made another mistake and my coach lit into me and yelled good and loud at me, and I secretly wanted to smile. I wanted to smile because I knew he hadn’t given up on me. The same way, when we can say Jesus Christ is Lord and truly believe it, we know God has not given up on us, He has not taken His Holy Spirit from us.
Then, with this assurance that God has not given up on you, He has not taken His Spirit from you, you can now use that sense of pride to live every day knowing that the Holy Spirit is with you, assuring you that you are forgiven and not forgotten by God. So I challenge you with this, how are you going to use this sense of pride that comes from knowing God has forgiven you and given you your salvation, to live a life that shows the Holy Spirit is still with you and God has not given up on you?
Let us pray,
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you so much for never giving up on us. We know we are sinful beings, we have been sinful since conception, and yet instead of giving up on us, instead of taking Your Holy Spirit from us, You allow Your Spirit to bring us to our knees, to plead for Your mercy. And through the forgiveness of sins that comes from Your Son’s death and resurrection, You do give us Your mercy, You forgive us, You create in us new hearts and renew our spirits, you wash us to be white as snow. We beg of you that You would always keep Your Spirit with us and that through the power of Your Spirit, we may live our lives in a way that shows Your love, grace and mercy to others. In the name of Your Holy Spirit who is with us but also lives and reigns with You and Your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you so much for never giving up on us. We know we are sinful beings, we have been sinful since conception, and yet instead of giving up on us, instead of taking Your Holy Spirit from us, You allow Your Spirit to bring us to our knees, to plead for Your mercy. And through the forgiveness of sins that comes from Your Son’s death and resurrection, You do give us Your mercy, You forgive us, You create in us new hearts and renew our spirits, you wash us to be white as snow. We beg of you that You would always keep Your Spirit with us and that through the power of Your Spirit, we may live our lives in a way that shows Your love, grace and mercy to others. In the name of Your Holy Spirit who is with us but also lives and reigns with You and Your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Monday, October 20, 2014
The One Gospel
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. I had such a nice weekend in Indiana at my friend Logan's place. We only left his apartment twice for food and once for church. The rest of the time we just sat around and watched football, both college and pro. It was the relaxing, completely stress free weekend I needed. I have not had a single weekend since I got back to St. Louis that I didn't have to work, and do homework, and do field work church stuff. It just so happened that this weekend was the right one to leave too because there were two major events on campus and they both had things go wrong. Apparently guys were frantically trying to get all the corrections done. So if I had been here this weekend, I would have felt compelled to work way to many hours Friday night and all day Saturday. I can't tell them no for some strange reason, and they know that so when they need something done they come to me. So I was more than happy to be away from campus, out of town where they could not contact me even if they wanted to. I got to sit through church with no duties or responsibilities, and got a lot of great sleep. Anyway, all of this babbling adds up to it was a great weekend and a much needed rest.
This morning I went to breakfast with a couple friends at a little mom and pop diner. It was great food and a good way to start my day. Then after my first class and chapel I spent almost two hours scrubbing and deep cleaning the kitchenette in the dorm. Since we have all 54 guys living in the dorms in one dorm building now, things get messier faster. The mini kitchenette was disgusting and when warned that it would be taken away, it only got messier rather than cleaned up. So I threw away all dirty dishes, utensils, silverware, and anything at all that was in the cupboards. The clean dishes and stuff that could be reused, I took to the Re-Sell It Shop on campus. Then I scrubbed with all the elbow grease I could muster, the cupboards (inside walls, shelves, outside walls and doors), the drawers (both inside and underneath the drawers), the outside of the fridge, the shelves, the microwaves, and everything in there. I was dripping with sweat, but it is night and day difference. Now with it being completely empty and the cleanest it has been in a long time, my boss is going to send an email warning the students that it had better stay that clean. That has been my day so far.
We worked through a really fascinating point (at least to me anyway), in my first class this morning. The class is on the Bible in the Early Church and is my favorite class this quarter oddly enough. We are looking at how the "new" Christians and early church fathers used the Old Testament with the new fulfillment of Jesus. We look at how manuscripts we written, copied, and used, and then today we began our discussion on the canonizing of the Bible. In simple terms how we came up with the 66 books of the Bible that we have today. The point I want to share with you is on the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There are several versions of a codex (ancient form of a notebook) that include all four Gospels together. Now there is a little difference in their sequence. The east uses the order of Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. The west uses the order of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Our Bible comes from the west's version obviously and this is the reason our four Gospels are in the order they are in. However, no one is really sure why or how either one of those orders came about. However, the important point I want to make is that every time these codexes are titled in the Greek, they do so in a significant way. The codex would use the Greek work for "good news", "good message", or as we translate it "gospel". However, the important part is that the Greek word for good news or gospel is singular. The ONE good news, the ONE good message, the ONE gospel. Then when it came to the four books, they would title these books, The Gospel according to Matthew, The Gospel according to Mark, the Gospel according to Luke, the Gospel according to John. The point that these editors of these codexes wanted to get across is that there is only one Gospel message. There may be four books that give account to Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, but there is only ONE gospel message. The ESV does a good job of bringing this across by using these titles at the beginning of the book. If you have an ESV translation of the Bible, open to the beginning of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John and you should see the title, "The Gospel according to Matthew, or Mark, etc." That is because even though we have four separate accounts of the Gospel message, there is only ONE Gospel message. The reason we say we have four Gospels, is because the term Gospel began to be used for the genre of these books rather than the title of the four together. So it is not wrong to say the four gospels, but it expresses a better message to say the Gospel, the ONE Gospel, according to these four accounts. This way we do not have to stress over slight details that may not exactly line up between the four books, because they are all making up the ONE Gospel message. We truly do believe in the One True Gospel message that Jesus Christ, the Son of God took on flesh, lived a life in this world teaching, preaching, and healing, before dying on the cross to pay for all the sin of mankind, only to rise again to defeat all enemies of God once and for all. This is the ONE Gospel message that all four accounts testify to and it is the ONE Gospel message we teach and preach as the church. So hopefully that is as interesting to you as it was to me, if not at least now you know a fun fact about the title of each Gospel.
Praise God for the ONE Gospel message we have, taught to us through the four accounts of the Gospel books, so that through through the Holy Spirit we may believe that ONE Gospel message of Jesus Christ our Lord.
This morning I went to breakfast with a couple friends at a little mom and pop diner. It was great food and a good way to start my day. Then after my first class and chapel I spent almost two hours scrubbing and deep cleaning the kitchenette in the dorm. Since we have all 54 guys living in the dorms in one dorm building now, things get messier faster. The mini kitchenette was disgusting and when warned that it would be taken away, it only got messier rather than cleaned up. So I threw away all dirty dishes, utensils, silverware, and anything at all that was in the cupboards. The clean dishes and stuff that could be reused, I took to the Re-Sell It Shop on campus. Then I scrubbed with all the elbow grease I could muster, the cupboards (inside walls, shelves, outside walls and doors), the drawers (both inside and underneath the drawers), the outside of the fridge, the shelves, the microwaves, and everything in there. I was dripping with sweat, but it is night and day difference. Now with it being completely empty and the cleanest it has been in a long time, my boss is going to send an email warning the students that it had better stay that clean. That has been my day so far.
We worked through a really fascinating point (at least to me anyway), in my first class this morning. The class is on the Bible in the Early Church and is my favorite class this quarter oddly enough. We are looking at how the "new" Christians and early church fathers used the Old Testament with the new fulfillment of Jesus. We look at how manuscripts we written, copied, and used, and then today we began our discussion on the canonizing of the Bible. In simple terms how we came up with the 66 books of the Bible that we have today. The point I want to share with you is on the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There are several versions of a codex (ancient form of a notebook) that include all four Gospels together. Now there is a little difference in their sequence. The east uses the order of Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. The west uses the order of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Our Bible comes from the west's version obviously and this is the reason our four Gospels are in the order they are in. However, no one is really sure why or how either one of those orders came about. However, the important point I want to make is that every time these codexes are titled in the Greek, they do so in a significant way. The codex would use the Greek work for "good news", "good message", or as we translate it "gospel". However, the important part is that the Greek word for good news or gospel is singular. The ONE good news, the ONE good message, the ONE gospel. Then when it came to the four books, they would title these books, The Gospel according to Matthew, The Gospel according to Mark, the Gospel according to Luke, the Gospel according to John. The point that these editors of these codexes wanted to get across is that there is only one Gospel message. There may be four books that give account to Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, but there is only ONE gospel message. The ESV does a good job of bringing this across by using these titles at the beginning of the book. If you have an ESV translation of the Bible, open to the beginning of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John and you should see the title, "The Gospel according to Matthew, or Mark, etc." That is because even though we have four separate accounts of the Gospel message, there is only ONE Gospel message. The reason we say we have four Gospels, is because the term Gospel began to be used for the genre of these books rather than the title of the four together. So it is not wrong to say the four gospels, but it expresses a better message to say the Gospel, the ONE Gospel, according to these four accounts. This way we do not have to stress over slight details that may not exactly line up between the four books, because they are all making up the ONE Gospel message. We truly do believe in the One True Gospel message that Jesus Christ, the Son of God took on flesh, lived a life in this world teaching, preaching, and healing, before dying on the cross to pay for all the sin of mankind, only to rise again to defeat all enemies of God once and for all. This is the ONE Gospel message that all four accounts testify to and it is the ONE Gospel message we teach and preach as the church. So hopefully that is as interesting to you as it was to me, if not at least now you know a fun fact about the title of each Gospel.
Praise God for the ONE Gospel message we have, taught to us through the four accounts of the Gospel books, so that through through the Holy Spirit we may believe that ONE Gospel message of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Psalm 12
Greetings in the name of our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Another day of rain! I do not normally mind cloudy days, but these misty rainy days that seem to be the norm now are getting a little old. I would like to see the sun shine again even if for only part of the day. Nevertheless, I am still walking around campus in shorts, tshirt, and flip flops because the temperature is perfect. Everyone else in their jeans, long sleeves, coats or sweatshirts are giving me some weird looks or witty comments, but until it actually gets cold I am not going to dress like it is.
Not much else to report on my end. I spent most the day on the phone with insurance companies and medical supply companies. I do not, I repeat I do not like this whole idea of being grown up. I told some one I didn't like being an adult and they replied, "Well that's good because you aren't much of one." I had to laugh since they were quick on their feet. I have my Bi-PAP machine for my sleep apnea and receive new supplies for it every three months in the mail. I was with one company when I first started but then when mom and dad got new insurance they went out of network so I switched to a new company. Now that I am on my own insurance that first company is back in network. Long story short I switched back to the first provider. However, whenever trying to do something like that, you have to make a minimum of 6 phones calls and sit on hold for each one. Anyways, I am thankful for the technological advancements we have because without my breathing machine I might as well be dead. Before I got my machine, I slept through everything, even if I woke up and went to class, I would fall back to sleep in class. So life is much better when you actually breath all night in your sleep. So I am thankful for it, but at times like today this sort of thing is just a pain.
Here is my devotion for Psalm 12. Hope you enjoy and hope wherever you are reading this the sun is shining on you!
Psalm 12:1-2
As you read the first two verses of Psalm 12, it would be easy to think this was written about our culture today. Now we know that it was written by King David during the days of Israel still being a united kingdom. However, as Ecclesiastes states, there is nothing new under the sun. The sin of mankind that seems to prevail in our culture and our time is the same sin of mankind that seemed to prevail in David’s time. Think about it though, the faithful have vanished from mankind, everyone utters lies to his neighbor. Now being Christian and going to church with other Christians, you might think that the faithful have not vanished but are simply out numbered. However, I’m not afraid to throw out the question are today’s “Christians” really the faithful people of God? We say we are Christians, we go to church, we try to do what is right most of the time; but can people tell we are Christians just by simply observing us. Do our actions and deeds really reflect our Christian beliefs? Are we really living as the sanctified, faithful people of God?
We try to be nice, I try to hold the door for people as they come into a building behind me, maybe we try not to use foul language, or we say hello to everyone we walk by. These are good things don’t get me wrong, but are we really the faithful people of God? Do people feel like they can trust us? Do people believe what we say as the truth? Because when I read the first line of verse two, “everyone utters lies to his neighbor”, I automatically agree with it. I think of all the TV shows I watch that are entirely focused around people lying to people. I think of my own friends or people I know who when they tell stories I simply listen for entertainment because I do not believe everything they are saying is cold hard truth. I think of times I have lied to get out of trouble, or cover up a mistake, or simply just to not look stupid. Then I wonder, do people listen to my stories and what I say with a half doubt of whether it is true or not. Christ says in Matthew 5:37, let your yes be yes and your no be no. And then in 12:37 He says by your words you will be justified or by your words you will be condemned.
Do people see us as the faithful people of God who they know they can trust and take their yes as yes or no as no because we have lived a life that proves we are trustworthy, honest, and reliable? Or are we living like the rest of the world, do we allow ourselves to blend in with all the ungodly who boast on their flattering lips and tongue? Are we OK being just like everyone else, not standing out as trustworthy because nobody trusts anybody today anyways? Are we OK with not standing out as honest, because everybody just assumes everyone is lying? Are we OK with not standing out as reliable because then people will ask us to do everything if they know we always come through for them? Are we OK blending in with the rest of the world, giving the appearance that the faithful have vanished? Or do we truly want to be the faithful people of God, and stand out among the ungodly? Do we want people to know that our God reigns, and our lives are proof that His people are faithful to Him?
Our morning devotion this morning was on sanctification. In the prayer, it included praying that we not only be sanctified outwardly at church, or home with our family, but also inwardly that our every thought, word, and deed, even those not seen by anyone else would be sanctified too. If we truly want to be the faithful people of God, we need to beg the Holy Spirit to ever remain in our hearts, give us the strength to live a more sanctified life, and take intentional actions in making sure we do indeed stand out as the holy, faithful people of God. And then as David states in verse 7, the Lord is the one who will keep us and guard us. With evil on every side of us, it is the Lord who will guard us from this evil generation forever. From the time of David until this very present day, the Lord is the one guarding His faithful people from the evil ways of the world. So no matter how bad our world seems to get, strive to be faithful and live a sanctified life for the Lord who keeps you and guards you.
Not much else to report on my end. I spent most the day on the phone with insurance companies and medical supply companies. I do not, I repeat I do not like this whole idea of being grown up. I told some one I didn't like being an adult and they replied, "Well that's good because you aren't much of one." I had to laugh since they were quick on their feet. I have my Bi-PAP machine for my sleep apnea and receive new supplies for it every three months in the mail. I was with one company when I first started but then when mom and dad got new insurance they went out of network so I switched to a new company. Now that I am on my own insurance that first company is back in network. Long story short I switched back to the first provider. However, whenever trying to do something like that, you have to make a minimum of 6 phones calls and sit on hold for each one. Anyways, I am thankful for the technological advancements we have because without my breathing machine I might as well be dead. Before I got my machine, I slept through everything, even if I woke up and went to class, I would fall back to sleep in class. So life is much better when you actually breath all night in your sleep. So I am thankful for it, but at times like today this sort of thing is just a pain.
Here is my devotion for Psalm 12. Hope you enjoy and hope wherever you are reading this the sun is shining on you!
Psalm 12:1-2
As you read the first two verses of Psalm 12, it would be easy to think this was written about our culture today. Now we know that it was written by King David during the days of Israel still being a united kingdom. However, as Ecclesiastes states, there is nothing new under the sun. The sin of mankind that seems to prevail in our culture and our time is the same sin of mankind that seemed to prevail in David’s time. Think about it though, the faithful have vanished from mankind, everyone utters lies to his neighbor. Now being Christian and going to church with other Christians, you might think that the faithful have not vanished but are simply out numbered. However, I’m not afraid to throw out the question are today’s “Christians” really the faithful people of God? We say we are Christians, we go to church, we try to do what is right most of the time; but can people tell we are Christians just by simply observing us. Do our actions and deeds really reflect our Christian beliefs? Are we really living as the sanctified, faithful people of God?
We try to be nice, I try to hold the door for people as they come into a building behind me, maybe we try not to use foul language, or we say hello to everyone we walk by. These are good things don’t get me wrong, but are we really the faithful people of God? Do people feel like they can trust us? Do people believe what we say as the truth? Because when I read the first line of verse two, “everyone utters lies to his neighbor”, I automatically agree with it. I think of all the TV shows I watch that are entirely focused around people lying to people. I think of my own friends or people I know who when they tell stories I simply listen for entertainment because I do not believe everything they are saying is cold hard truth. I think of times I have lied to get out of trouble, or cover up a mistake, or simply just to not look stupid. Then I wonder, do people listen to my stories and what I say with a half doubt of whether it is true or not. Christ says in Matthew 5:37, let your yes be yes and your no be no. And then in 12:37 He says by your words you will be justified or by your words you will be condemned.
Do people see us as the faithful people of God who they know they can trust and take their yes as yes or no as no because we have lived a life that proves we are trustworthy, honest, and reliable? Or are we living like the rest of the world, do we allow ourselves to blend in with all the ungodly who boast on their flattering lips and tongue? Are we OK being just like everyone else, not standing out as trustworthy because nobody trusts anybody today anyways? Are we OK with not standing out as honest, because everybody just assumes everyone is lying? Are we OK with not standing out as reliable because then people will ask us to do everything if they know we always come through for them? Are we OK blending in with the rest of the world, giving the appearance that the faithful have vanished? Or do we truly want to be the faithful people of God, and stand out among the ungodly? Do we want people to know that our God reigns, and our lives are proof that His people are faithful to Him?
Our morning devotion this morning was on sanctification. In the prayer, it included praying that we not only be sanctified outwardly at church, or home with our family, but also inwardly that our every thought, word, and deed, even those not seen by anyone else would be sanctified too. If we truly want to be the faithful people of God, we need to beg the Holy Spirit to ever remain in our hearts, give us the strength to live a more sanctified life, and take intentional actions in making sure we do indeed stand out as the holy, faithful people of God. And then as David states in verse 7, the Lord is the one who will keep us and guard us. With evil on every side of us, it is the Lord who will guard us from this evil generation forever. From the time of David until this very present day, the Lord is the one guarding His faithful people from the evil ways of the world. So no matter how bad our world seems to get, strive to be faithful and live a sanctified life for the Lord who keeps you and guards you.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Confession and Absolution
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This last weekend was a blast! We had Octoberfest on Friday and fun was had by all. The food was good, the beer was plentiful, and many memories were made. Then Saturday I went to the baptism of my friend's son, and then worked the rest of the day. Sunday I went to church and led liturgy and then taught adult Bible Study. After that our "usual" gang of three married couples and another single guy and myself all hung out, ate dinner, and played games. It was a nice weekend.
This next weekend I am going to run over to Indiana to see an old college friend. I am looking forward to that, but have to get all my homework done this week so I am not worried about that looming over me. It has been rainy here for four days straight now. I do not mind the cooler and cloudy weather, but the rain does make a nuisance for a lot of things. Also, because it slightly cooled off, they turned on the boiler system for heat. The only problem with this is the system is so old and inefficient that the only options are to turn it on full blast or shut it off. So in my morning class this morning, it was extremely hard to stay awake because I didn't have coffee, didn't shower to wake up before I went to class, and it was 80 degrees in the classroom. However, I made it through, and have now showered and got my cup of coffee.
I am going to share with you today a paper I wrote for Systems IV on Absolution. We were asked to write a response to a church member who came in to our office and told us about this website he had found regarding absolution and wanted to know our opinion on it.
The website is: http://www.lawspublishing.com/quest4.htm
Read the website and see what you think about its stance on absolution. Then if you would like you can continue by reading this short paper. I got an A on it so I must be fairly accurate on the Lutheran stance on absolution.
This website on forgiveness is not a hundred percent wrong; however, it certainly has its flaws. I agree that the disciples were to be ambassadors of peace, I agree that the disciples were to continue the work that Christ had begun, and I agree that the message they were to take to the world was the Gospel. However, where I begin to not agree with him is where he changes the Gospel that these disciples are supposed to take to the world. He changes the Gospel from being the message of Christ dying on the cross for the sins of all mankind, graciously and freely giving forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life to all who believe in Him, to Christ dying on the cross for the forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life to all who obey God’s will. He makes the Gospel message something we do rather than the free and merciful gift is from our Lord. This author then continues to very strongly and boldly keep using this idea of us “obeying” God’s will. He correctly states that it is God who saves not man, but then immediately puts man back in the subject as the one who renders obedience to his newly defined “gospel”. By changing the definition of the “Gospel” that these disciples are supposed to be taking out to the world, forgiveness is earned by living faithfully and obediently by the man.
I also agree with his point that Jesus is the Son of God, and in the passage of Mark 2 only God has the authority to forgive sins. That is because at this point The Father has sent the Son and has given Him authority to forgive sins, but the Son has not yet given that authority to His disciples. This is what is happening in John 20 where Jesus does give His disciples the authority to forgive sins and now man does have the authority through the name of Jesus to forgive sins just as Christ did in Mark 2.
The final line of this article which blows my mind is the clear marker that this does not line up with Lutheran teachings on absolution. The apostles, who are supposed to be telling the world the Gospel of Jesus Christ, are now telling the world God’s will. This is his new definition of “gospel”. The “gospel” is God’s will that man is suppose to obey with the end result of forgiveness of sins, except for the fact that the true Gospel of Jesus dying on the cross is forgiveness of sins. God’s Gospel message is that He sent His Son to die for our sins, because He knew we could never live faithfully and obediently to His will. We cannot by any amount of effort live obediently to God’s will or otherwise known as His Law, the Ten Commandments. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This is the whole reason Jesus, the true Son of God, was sent to die on the cross, for the forgiveness of sins of mankind who could not live obediently. The forgiveness of sins is the Gospel message that the apostles were sent out to tell the world. The end result per se is the salvation and eternal life that come through the faith in Jesus Christ being the true Son of God who died for the forgiveness of sins.
So by redefining the term “gospel”, this article makes forgiveness of sins a result of works righteousness. Since forgiveness is a reward for the man’s works or obedience, then it makes sense that only God can give that “reward” since man cannot reward himself for his own actions.
I have already in my own words rightly defined the term Gospel. Therefore from here on out, in explaining how absolution works in the Lutheran beliefs, it will be under that definition of Gospel. So what is the Lutheran view of absolution? Absolution is the forgiveness of our sins that we confess. As Luther says in the Small Catechism, “we receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in Heaven.” I highlighted three parts of the quote in bold to compare how our view is different from this article. The first part, I am certain the author of this article would say he would agree with me on, even though I do not think he actually does. “We receive” absolution, it is one hundred percent passive, something given to us. The author would most likely say that yes we receive it, after we have been obedient to the will of God. However, I say in the Lutheran understanding we receive it when we confess our sins. When we admit that we have not been obedient to God’s will and have lived according to our sinful nature rather than God’s will, this is when we receive forgiveness. The second part is where we differ the most. We receive absolution from the pastor who is speaking the words, just as certainly as if Christ Himself were standing there speaking the words over us. This is the authority that Christ gave to the apostles in John 20:21-23. The authority to forgive sins that the Father gave to Christ to use during His life and ministry on earth, Christ now gives to the apostles to continue to do after Christ ascends and returns to the Father. Christ gave this authority, otherwise known as the Keys, to the apostles or better understood as the leaders of the church. The Keys do not belong to one certain person, or one certain type of person, rather they belong to the Church, the people of God to use responsibly and reverently. The apostles were the first leaders of the church and after them, the Church continues to hold the Keys, having the authority to forgive the sins of repentant sinners. So when a pastor speaks the words of absolution over a repentant sinner, it is just as if Christ Himself is standing over that repentant sinner speaking the words of absolution. Likewise, if a pastor withholds the absolution of an unrepentant sinner, it is just as if Christ Himself is standing over the unrepentant sinner withholding the words of absolution. Christ began this work in His ministry and He gave that authority to the apostles or to the Church to continue to do after He is gone. This is why we say that the pastor speaks these words and we believe them as if God Himself was saying them to us. The final part is the phrasing of “our sins are forgiven before God in Heaven”. This author says that it is only God who forgives sins, so I assume he would be uncomfortable saying our sins our forgiven before God. He would most likely want to change that to “our sins are forgiven by God”. However, because the Church holds this authority to forgive sins, and then gives that authority to Her pastors, it is actually the pastor who is forgiving your sins in the stead and by the authority of Christ. Therefore your sins are forgiven by the pastor and are now forgiven before God who acknowledges the pastor’s forgiveness as His own.
These three parts that are different from this article hopefully help show that we as Lutherans believe fully in the Office of the Keys as a very serious and powerful thing. Mere men hold the authority of Christ, which is the authority of the Father, to forgive or withhold forgiveness of sins. This is no light matter and needs to be taken very seriously and reverently so that one will always do so faithfully. However, on the same side, for the one who is repentant of his or her sins, he or she may take great comfort in knowing that the words the pastor is speaking over her or him is the true authority of Christ and that his or her sins are one hundred percent forgiven. He or she does not have to wonder if God has forgiven him or her, because the pastor has pronounced that he or she is forgiven and therefore his or her sins are absolutely and certainly forgiven before God.
The main Scriptural text for our view of absolution is John 20:21-23. After Christ has resurrected from the dead, is glorified in the flesh, and about to return to the Father, He gives the authority He brought with Him from the Father to His Church through her first leaders of the apostles. This is why in John, which is post-resurrection, the verb “to give” is in the perfect passive indicative. It is a completed action with an ongoing result. Christ has given His authority to the apostles. Whereas in Matthew 16:19 and 18:18-19, which are both pre-resurrection, here the verbs are future perfect passive indicative. This action will happen in the future with an ongoing result. So before His work is done on the cross and through the empty tomb, Christ tells His disciples that they will, future tense, receive the keys to the kingdom, the authority He has to forgive or withhold forgiveness of sins. Then in John after His work is done and completed, and He appears to the disciples, He gives them the Holy Spirit and then has given them, perfect tense of already has happened, the keys to the kingdom. However, since both are perfect and have the ongoing result tense, this is not something they have the power to do once and done. They will hold the keys to the kingdom, having the authority to forgive sins as assuredly as Christ Himself, until Christ returns. That is also why these keys do not belong only to the apostles in their lifetime, but rather to the Church for the entirety of Her lifetime until Her Lord comes again. This is also why Christ “breathed the Holy Spirit” on them. It was not as if they did not already have the Spirit working in them before this moment, but Christ used a physical action of breathing on them, something they could see, hear, and feel, to be assured that now that they held these Keys, they had the Spirit with them to guide, direct, and protect them as they began to use this new very serious and powerful authority.
The Gospel is Christ died for the sins of all mankind and He gives this to us freely and graciously. We can never be obedient to God’s will, which is why He gives us the forgiveness of our sins out of His grace, mercy, and love for us. This Gospel message is to be preached to the world, not so that they can be obedient and earn God’s forgiveness, but rather so that they may realize they are sinners who need a savior, and they may believe that the forgiveness Christ offers all people through His death and resurrection is assuredly for them individually and personally. Therefore, Christ gave the authority to forgive sins to His Church, so that Her leaders may speak those words of forgiveness over the people so that they may be assured and wholeheartedly believe that they are forgiven before God and have salvation and eternal life in His name. This is what Scripture tells us, and this is what we preach and practice in the Lutheran Church.
This next weekend I am going to run over to Indiana to see an old college friend. I am looking forward to that, but have to get all my homework done this week so I am not worried about that looming over me. It has been rainy here for four days straight now. I do not mind the cooler and cloudy weather, but the rain does make a nuisance for a lot of things. Also, because it slightly cooled off, they turned on the boiler system for heat. The only problem with this is the system is so old and inefficient that the only options are to turn it on full blast or shut it off. So in my morning class this morning, it was extremely hard to stay awake because I didn't have coffee, didn't shower to wake up before I went to class, and it was 80 degrees in the classroom. However, I made it through, and have now showered and got my cup of coffee.
I am going to share with you today a paper I wrote for Systems IV on Absolution. We were asked to write a response to a church member who came in to our office and told us about this website he had found regarding absolution and wanted to know our opinion on it.
The website is: http://www.lawspublishing.com/quest4.htm
Read the website and see what you think about its stance on absolution. Then if you would like you can continue by reading this short paper. I got an A on it so I must be fairly accurate on the Lutheran stance on absolution.
This website on forgiveness is not a hundred percent wrong; however, it certainly has its flaws. I agree that the disciples were to be ambassadors of peace, I agree that the disciples were to continue the work that Christ had begun, and I agree that the message they were to take to the world was the Gospel. However, where I begin to not agree with him is where he changes the Gospel that these disciples are supposed to take to the world. He changes the Gospel from being the message of Christ dying on the cross for the sins of all mankind, graciously and freely giving forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life to all who believe in Him, to Christ dying on the cross for the forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life to all who obey God’s will. He makes the Gospel message something we do rather than the free and merciful gift is from our Lord. This author then continues to very strongly and boldly keep using this idea of us “obeying” God’s will. He correctly states that it is God who saves not man, but then immediately puts man back in the subject as the one who renders obedience to his newly defined “gospel”. By changing the definition of the “Gospel” that these disciples are supposed to be taking out to the world, forgiveness is earned by living faithfully and obediently by the man.
I also agree with his point that Jesus is the Son of God, and in the passage of Mark 2 only God has the authority to forgive sins. That is because at this point The Father has sent the Son and has given Him authority to forgive sins, but the Son has not yet given that authority to His disciples. This is what is happening in John 20 where Jesus does give His disciples the authority to forgive sins and now man does have the authority through the name of Jesus to forgive sins just as Christ did in Mark 2.
The final line of this article which blows my mind is the clear marker that this does not line up with Lutheran teachings on absolution. The apostles, who are supposed to be telling the world the Gospel of Jesus Christ, are now telling the world God’s will. This is his new definition of “gospel”. The “gospel” is God’s will that man is suppose to obey with the end result of forgiveness of sins, except for the fact that the true Gospel of Jesus dying on the cross is forgiveness of sins. God’s Gospel message is that He sent His Son to die for our sins, because He knew we could never live faithfully and obediently to His will. We cannot by any amount of effort live obediently to God’s will or otherwise known as His Law, the Ten Commandments. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This is the whole reason Jesus, the true Son of God, was sent to die on the cross, for the forgiveness of sins of mankind who could not live obediently. The forgiveness of sins is the Gospel message that the apostles were sent out to tell the world. The end result per se is the salvation and eternal life that come through the faith in Jesus Christ being the true Son of God who died for the forgiveness of sins.
So by redefining the term “gospel”, this article makes forgiveness of sins a result of works righteousness. Since forgiveness is a reward for the man’s works or obedience, then it makes sense that only God can give that “reward” since man cannot reward himself for his own actions.
I have already in my own words rightly defined the term Gospel. Therefore from here on out, in explaining how absolution works in the Lutheran beliefs, it will be under that definition of Gospel. So what is the Lutheran view of absolution? Absolution is the forgiveness of our sins that we confess. As Luther says in the Small Catechism, “we receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in Heaven.” I highlighted three parts of the quote in bold to compare how our view is different from this article. The first part, I am certain the author of this article would say he would agree with me on, even though I do not think he actually does. “We receive” absolution, it is one hundred percent passive, something given to us. The author would most likely say that yes we receive it, after we have been obedient to the will of God. However, I say in the Lutheran understanding we receive it when we confess our sins. When we admit that we have not been obedient to God’s will and have lived according to our sinful nature rather than God’s will, this is when we receive forgiveness. The second part is where we differ the most. We receive absolution from the pastor who is speaking the words, just as certainly as if Christ Himself were standing there speaking the words over us. This is the authority that Christ gave to the apostles in John 20:21-23. The authority to forgive sins that the Father gave to Christ to use during His life and ministry on earth, Christ now gives to the apostles to continue to do after Christ ascends and returns to the Father. Christ gave this authority, otherwise known as the Keys, to the apostles or better understood as the leaders of the church. The Keys do not belong to one certain person, or one certain type of person, rather they belong to the Church, the people of God to use responsibly and reverently. The apostles were the first leaders of the church and after them, the Church continues to hold the Keys, having the authority to forgive the sins of repentant sinners. So when a pastor speaks the words of absolution over a repentant sinner, it is just as if Christ Himself is standing over that repentant sinner speaking the words of absolution. Likewise, if a pastor withholds the absolution of an unrepentant sinner, it is just as if Christ Himself is standing over the unrepentant sinner withholding the words of absolution. Christ began this work in His ministry and He gave that authority to the apostles or to the Church to continue to do after He is gone. This is why we say that the pastor speaks these words and we believe them as if God Himself was saying them to us. The final part is the phrasing of “our sins are forgiven before God in Heaven”. This author says that it is only God who forgives sins, so I assume he would be uncomfortable saying our sins our forgiven before God. He would most likely want to change that to “our sins are forgiven by God”. However, because the Church holds this authority to forgive sins, and then gives that authority to Her pastors, it is actually the pastor who is forgiving your sins in the stead and by the authority of Christ. Therefore your sins are forgiven by the pastor and are now forgiven before God who acknowledges the pastor’s forgiveness as His own.
These three parts that are different from this article hopefully help show that we as Lutherans believe fully in the Office of the Keys as a very serious and powerful thing. Mere men hold the authority of Christ, which is the authority of the Father, to forgive or withhold forgiveness of sins. This is no light matter and needs to be taken very seriously and reverently so that one will always do so faithfully. However, on the same side, for the one who is repentant of his or her sins, he or she may take great comfort in knowing that the words the pastor is speaking over her or him is the true authority of Christ and that his or her sins are one hundred percent forgiven. He or she does not have to wonder if God has forgiven him or her, because the pastor has pronounced that he or she is forgiven and therefore his or her sins are absolutely and certainly forgiven before God.
The main Scriptural text for our view of absolution is John 20:21-23. After Christ has resurrected from the dead, is glorified in the flesh, and about to return to the Father, He gives the authority He brought with Him from the Father to His Church through her first leaders of the apostles. This is why in John, which is post-resurrection, the verb “to give” is in the perfect passive indicative. It is a completed action with an ongoing result. Christ has given His authority to the apostles. Whereas in Matthew 16:19 and 18:18-19, which are both pre-resurrection, here the verbs are future perfect passive indicative. This action will happen in the future with an ongoing result. So before His work is done on the cross and through the empty tomb, Christ tells His disciples that they will, future tense, receive the keys to the kingdom, the authority He has to forgive or withhold forgiveness of sins. Then in John after His work is done and completed, and He appears to the disciples, He gives them the Holy Spirit and then has given them, perfect tense of already has happened, the keys to the kingdom. However, since both are perfect and have the ongoing result tense, this is not something they have the power to do once and done. They will hold the keys to the kingdom, having the authority to forgive sins as assuredly as Christ Himself, until Christ returns. That is also why these keys do not belong only to the apostles in their lifetime, but rather to the Church for the entirety of Her lifetime until Her Lord comes again. This is also why Christ “breathed the Holy Spirit” on them. It was not as if they did not already have the Spirit working in them before this moment, but Christ used a physical action of breathing on them, something they could see, hear, and feel, to be assured that now that they held these Keys, they had the Spirit with them to guide, direct, and protect them as they began to use this new very serious and powerful authority.
The Gospel is Christ died for the sins of all mankind and He gives this to us freely and graciously. We can never be obedient to God’s will, which is why He gives us the forgiveness of our sins out of His grace, mercy, and love for us. This Gospel message is to be preached to the world, not so that they can be obedient and earn God’s forgiveness, but rather so that they may realize they are sinners who need a savior, and they may believe that the forgiveness Christ offers all people through His death and resurrection is assuredly for them individually and personally. Therefore, Christ gave the authority to forgive sins to His Church, so that Her leaders may speak those words of forgiveness over the people so that they may be assured and wholeheartedly believe that they are forgiven before God and have salvation and eternal life in His name. This is what Scripture tells us, and this is what we preach and practice in the Lutheran Church.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Simplicity
Greetings in the name of our Living Lord. I think I am finally getting a handle on the balance of work, school, homework, and friends. Classes are going well and I am especially enjoying my one on the Bible in the Early Church. It is with Dr. Kloha and I just really appreciate how he puts things. The other day in class I had a moment that is forcing me to admit something my friends have been trying to get me to admit for quite some time now. The Lord has given me a gift for taking deep theological ideas and putting them into very simplistic ways of speaking. I am just a simple man with a simple mind, and so I for my own benefit must understand the complicated things we are talking about in class in a more simple way. However, it is then easier for me to explain these simple concepts to others to help them see the more complicated things as well. We were discussing how one of the early church fathers described the Bible as pieces of glass. Each verse or passage is a piece of glass, and when you fit all of these pieces together you get a mosaic picture of a king (or Jesus). So the whole of Scripture is working together to show us this picture of Jesus, the King. However, this church father said that early heretics were using the same pieces of glass, the same scriptures, and rearranging them to make a picture of a fox or a dog. So we were discussing this idea of how do we make sure we are properly interpreting scripture to still show the picture of the King. We also discusses some of the church writers who were not heretics but still had a few things that just went a little different route. So sticking with the same analogy, we were trying to figure out how to talk about how these guys were moving pieces around so that the picture of the King was still there but just not as clear. The most simple idea came to my mind and so I spoke up. I said that if you have this picture of the king, you will most likely have a background to give the picture of the king some context. I said this fits with scripture because not every word of the scripture points directly to Christ. These are a lot of historical records and stories that are included as well. So I said what some guys or writings, like the Epistle of Barnabas, are doing is trying to take the pieces of the background and force them into the king, which then distorts the picture of the king. My friend Stein who sits next to me and is a literal genius, looked at me in shock. To me this was so simple I don't know how no one else didn't think of it, but I guess I just have to admit that the Good Lord uses my simple-mindedness to help explain some things in a unique way.
Other than that I am just taking life one day at a time. I have now had my first two placement interviews. I was beginning to get anxious and nervous of the whole process and thought of being an actual pastor; however, these interviews really helped to calm my nerves and realize, one it is still several months until May and that the Lord is with me wherever I go, and in whatever I do.
I do have to admit fourth year is just a weird year of my life. I miss vicarage and want to be back out in the ministry just working instead of being in classes, and yet I can't actually imagine what life will be like once I know I am completely done with classes and am no longer a student. It is good to be back with all the guys both from my class and the new guys of the 1st and 2nd years. The brotherhood that is formed in this place is like no other I have ever found anywhere. Vicarage also helps you learn how important those relationships are and how strong they need to be once you leave this place and are out doing full time ministry. It is a unique part of our formation.
I am just going to leave you with this idea for the day, just something to keep int he back of your mind and ponder on. Who has been the biggest influence on you as you strive every day to live your Christian faith in your actions and words? Who is that one person (or maybe a couple people) who just lived life in such a way that you stopped and told yourself, "Now that is a Christian man or woman"? It is something I have been thinking about a lot lately and it is a good thing I believe to remember all those special people God puts in your life to be a blessing to you and your faith. Blessings on your week as you try to be a person that can influence others in their faith. In Christ our Lord, Amen.
Other than that I am just taking life one day at a time. I have now had my first two placement interviews. I was beginning to get anxious and nervous of the whole process and thought of being an actual pastor; however, these interviews really helped to calm my nerves and realize, one it is still several months until May and that the Lord is with me wherever I go, and in whatever I do.
I do have to admit fourth year is just a weird year of my life. I miss vicarage and want to be back out in the ministry just working instead of being in classes, and yet I can't actually imagine what life will be like once I know I am completely done with classes and am no longer a student. It is good to be back with all the guys both from my class and the new guys of the 1st and 2nd years. The brotherhood that is formed in this place is like no other I have ever found anywhere. Vicarage also helps you learn how important those relationships are and how strong they need to be once you leave this place and are out doing full time ministry. It is a unique part of our formation.
I am just going to leave you with this idea for the day, just something to keep int he back of your mind and ponder on. Who has been the biggest influence on you as you strive every day to live your Christian faith in your actions and words? Who is that one person (or maybe a couple people) who just lived life in such a way that you stopped and told yourself, "Now that is a Christian man or woman"? It is something I have been thinking about a lot lately and it is a good thing I believe to remember all those special people God puts in your life to be a blessing to you and your faith. Blessings on your week as you try to be a person that can influence others in their faith. In Christ our Lord, Amen.
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