Sanctification Sermon

     Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Here is my Sermon from this morning.  I preached it last night and this morning and both times went very well.  Just a little context, we had an adult baptism in the service this morning.  The guy getting baptized is named Joe, so that is who I talking about when I mention Joe in the sermon.  The picture is the visual aid.  The "second mirror" is the bottom left and the "third mirror" is the bottom right.  Hopefully that helps.  God's blessings on your week!  I have to go start and finish quite a bit of homework.

Text: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

       Today I want us to focus in on one part of the text. I want us to look specifically at verses 23. “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The reason I want us to focus on these verses is because of the phrase Paul uses in verse 23. Here Paul uses the phrase, “sanctify you completely.” This passage comes at the conclusion of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. The letter itself is overall pretty positive; Paul is happy with the Thessalonians and dearly cherishes them. Then here in this conclusion he encourages them with the hope that the God of peace himself sanctify them completely. Why does Paul include this? Why does Paul want them to be sanctified completely?
      Well I have a visual aid today that will hopefully help us see why Paul thinks this is so important. I have to admit that while I did not make this visual aid, I did help with the idea of it and then my friend actually made if for a class project. (PULL OUT AID) 

 

      This project represents the process of sanctification. So we start here on top with the first mirror. This mirror is unscratched and unbroken; it’s still a new good mirror. In Genesis 1:26 God made man, male and female, in His own image, His own likeness. This does not mean God has arms and legs and looks just Adam and Eve, but His image is referring to His perfect holiness. Adam and Eve were a reflection of His perfect holiness. They were made perfectly holy with the ability to choose between right or wrong, the ability to obey God or not obey God. They were the perfect, unbroken reflection of God’s holiness like this perfect unbroken mirror.
      But as we know how the story goes, they chose not to obey God and they had lost that image of God, they lost their perfect holiness because the sin that they brought into the world is the hammer that smashed the second mirror to pieces. This second mirror is the state you and I and every human ever since Adam and Eve are stuck in. We can now only see our lives through the brokenness, distortion, and separation of sin. We are no longer that perfect holy image of God; we cannot choose to obey God. We can only choose the sin that keeps us broken and separated.
     That is until God entered our life and went to work. By calling us into our faith, He immediately went to work to fix our brokenness. He sent His Son to be our Savior who died for our sins, but even more importantly who also rose from the dead to be our living and reigning Lord. And our Living Lord sent His Spirit to be with us, to call us into the faith that fixes our brokenness, and to be the one who sanctifies us. The Spirit’s work of sanctifying us is putting all those broken pieces of the shattered mirror back together. He puts the pieces of our broken sinful lives back together so that we can once again reflect that holiness of God’s own image. So here in the third mirror the pieces are all together again as the Spirit is working to sanctify us. However, notice two things. First, the mirror is still full of cracks. That is because we are still sinners even as the Spirit works to sanctify us. We will continue to have the cracks of sins in our lives as long as we remain in this sinful world. Second, notice the WHITE cross painted on the mirror. I emphasis WHITE, because while it is through the cross that Christ died for our sins, this WHITE empty cross represents the victory we have through His resurrection. It is empty because Christ is no longer on the cross, and it white, the color of Easter to show that through the victory of the empty, Easter cross, the victory of Christ’s resurrection we now have the Spirit and are being sanctified.
      However, this sanctification process is not an easy task for the Holy Spirit, because we again and again resort back to our old sinful ways, our old sinful habits. We continue to choose the sinful life of brokenness and distortion. We through our sin put ourselves right back here (point to second mirror) daily. The Spirit works hard and He works daily to keep bringing us back here (point to third mirror), to keep trying to put us back together every time we let ourselves fall back into sin. This cycle of falling into sin, but then through daily confession and absolution being pulled back together, is the Spirit working in us daily.
       The Spirit, who we received in our baptism, is truly daily working to make us the people of God who reflect His holiness. Joe, you today have become one of God’s chosen children, you have received the assured sign of the Holy Spirit of our Risen and Living Lord, and the Spirit immediately went to work in you to put those broken pieces of your sinful life back together. And He will continue to work in your life, sanctifying you every day. Just as the Spirit is working in each and every one of us every day to put those broken pieces back together so that we can reflect the holiness of our God.
      So what does this sanctification look like in real life? What does this sanctification look like in us? Well let’s go back to the text for today. In verses 16 through 18, Paul tells us to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances.” Paul sees these particular things in our lives as the reflection of the perfect holiness of our God in us.
      So this very morning we rejoice that Joe has become an official child of God through the water and the Word. I personally believe any baptism is such a joyous occasion as a pastor, but it is even more joyous in my mind when an adult comes to know Jesus Christ and desires to have the name of our Triune God placed upon him or herself. You will all rejoice next Sunday as you listen to the children retell the story of Jesus being born and hear them sing praises to their infant born king, and as you hear them sing the glorious Christmas hymns. We as the holy people of God reflect His holiness as we rejoice.
      As the holy people of God, we pray. We pray every Sunday to God several times in the service. Hopefully we all pray every morning, before every meal, and every evening before bed. Prayer is such an amazing gift that we are able to go directly to God and talk to him. Luther’s explanation to the introduction of the Lord’s Prayer says that “God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that will all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear Father.” And prayer is powerful, not only because we know God hears every prayer, but because it makes us feel better to have someone else pray for us. This last week in class our professor asked us to split up into groups of two and pray for each other. So my friend that sits next to me and I went to the back corner. He went first and asked, “Kevin, how can I pray for you today.” I shared with him some of the stresses of my life of school work and anxiety for the future. I also shared some things about my parents and siblings and things going on in their lives. Then I asked him the same question and he shared with me some stuff going on with him, his wife, and his kids. And then we prayed for each other. And as I sat there listening to him pray for me and my family, I knew he wasn’t praying for me just because the professor told him to. No, he was genuinely praying for me and sincerely asking God to be with me and my family. I felt comforted and as if some of my burden was being lifted off of me. I hope he felt the same way as I prayed for him. Prayer is such an amazing thing.
      I met an older woman somewhere one time, I can’t remember where I met her, but I remember she told me she tried to pray for everyone in her life every day. However, it was just too exhausting of a task to do every day. So what she learned to do was any time she learned about anything going on in someone’s life, she would go home and write in on a notecard. Then she would place that notecard in the stack of notecards next to her bed. Every morning she would pray for five of the notecards and every evening she would pray for another five. She told me once your notecard goes in her stack, it stays in the stack and that her stack was getting rather large. But every day without ceasing she would pray for ten or fifteen of these people in her life. The Spirit was working in her life to sanctify her to reflect that holy image of our God.
     As the holy people of God we also give thanks. Thanksgiving was now already three weeks ago. But I am sure you can all still remember everything you were thankful for. Hopefully, we are reminded every day of all of the amazing blessings we have to be thankful for and all of the wonderful people that surround us. But notice Paul says to give thanks in EVERY situation. On my road trip with a friend over thanksgiving break, we ended up driving through a blizzard in Michigan and through some high winds in Ohio. Every time we stopped for gas or food, I thanked the Lord we had made it that much further. We give thanks in every situation, because we know God is there with us helping us through it.
      The Spirit works in us to put those broken pieces of our sinful lives back together so that we do rejoice, pray, and give thanks, reflecting the perfect holiness of our God.
    And so as Paul continues in verse 23, “may the God of peace sanctify you completely, so that your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is encouraging them to be assured that the Spirit is working this sanctification in them so that on that last and final day, when Jesus Christ comes again, we may be found blameless. The resurrection of our Lord, that first Easter, the white empty cross, is a glimpse of the victory that will be in our Lord’s Second coming. Then when He comes again, sin and evil will be defeated once and for all, the final enemy of death will be destroyed. Those cracks that remain in the third mirror will be completely removed and you will be made perfectly holy. You will be made wholly holy! You will be made into the top mirror and will reflect God’s perfect holiness. You will be that perfect image of God, just as He made Adam and Eve. This is the good news Paul is proclaiming at the end of the letter and it is the good news I proclaim to you this day: May the God of Peace himself, sanctify each and every one of you COMPLETELY, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our God who made you, our God who called you into the faith, our God who sanctifies you is faithful, and He will surly do it. 

     In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Is Health Biblical?

      Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our King!  I am finding out very quickly that trying to juggle 16 credits of school, several hours of work, and still as much time with friends as possible simply means sleep goes out the window.  I am so ready to be back out in the ministry just so I can have a normal routine and a decent sleep schedule again.
      I only have a short break but wanted to propose what we discussed in class today.  We were talking about creation and how do we take proper care of the creation that has been given to us. Part of this discussion led to the fact that our bodies are a gift of creation that has been given to us to take care of.  However, is it Biblical that we must eat healthy and be in fit shape?  If so, I am curious what passages or verses you go to.  1 Corinthians 6, body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, is specifically speaking about sexual immorality in the context of the whole passage.  So what scriptures tell us we must eat only healthy food and exercise to be in top condition?
     Now obviously, we should take care of ourselves but as this professor (who is in pretty good shape by the way)  pointed out that isn't it more important to follow the two great commands of loving your God with all you heart, soul, and might; and love your neighbor as yourself?  Wouldn't this world be a much better place if we loved our neighbors for who they are instead of worrying about how they are taking care of their body?  I appreciated this because obviously I am a bigger guy, but especially because this is such a first world problem.  Only in America do we spend extra money to buy delicious food in huge amounts, to turn around and spend more money at the gym working off that food.  And in a lot of cases, working out and being fit can become just as much an obsession and sinful as over eating and being lazy.  So I am not telling you to stop exercising or start eating whatever you want, because your body is a gift and we should use common sense in taking decent care of it, but do not judge or condemn your fellow neighbor for being overweight and lazy.  Instead, love them as your brother and sister in Christ and together grow in your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is truly Biblical!
    Just a good discussion we had that I wanted to share.  If you have any feed back or any Scriptural passages you would question about possibly directly speaking about this topic, please feel free to email me.  Otherwise, blessings on your weekend and I will post my sermon on Monday.  In Christ always!

Class review

     Season's greetings in the name of our King to be born, Christ Jesus the Lord.  Time is definitely not on my side for the next week or two.  This quarter is either going to kill me or break me of some bad habits of procrastination and poor time management.  I am already behind and it has only been a week.  But I regress and know everything will get done.
      I preach this Sunday and have some pretty cool ideas floating through my mind, so I will hopefully be posting a good sermon on here next week.  I also wanted to let you know about my classes this quarter.  Two required ones that some times feel like they are not as beneficial as others are my World Religion and Religious Bodies of America classes.  Now, I am not saying these topics are not necessary, but the classes are structured in a way that I was not expecting and does not seem like the most efficient way in my mind.  My other classes though, I am actually really enjoying.  My Biblical Theology class is actually quite fascinating. Other than the fact that I have to read for every class session, I like the structure of it.  We read a portion of some book and then come to class and discuss it.  We have had some awesome discussions so far.  We have read sections of the book titled, Jesus and Israel, One Covenant or Two?.  This book has some great insights into how Jesus is truly the center of both the New Testament and the Old Testament.  If you are even slightly interested, I recommend reading it.
      Then in my Pastoral Theology class we have a similar set up.  We doing the reading, write questions on note cards, and then he uses those questions in the class discussion.  We again have had some really awesome discussions on some very practical issues of the pastoral office.  The coolest thing about this class though in my mind is Fridays.  On Fridays, we set up class as if it were a Circuit meeting, or Winkle.  One student leads the discussion on a topic that has happened to him on vicarage or at field work church.  We then discuss it as if he were going through the situation right now and begin to see how we as fellow pastors can best help and learn from our brothers in the ministry.  I wish more classes were this practical and realistic to what happens in the real world.
      My Creative Homiletics class has also been really good.  We are focusing on how the use of stories and analogies can help us be better preachers.  This has sparked some of the cool ideas for my sermon this coming Sunday.
     Finally, my independent study class of Christ in Film is pretty amazing too.   Here we have 8 guys who get together and watch movies or parts of movies and then discuss how it relates to and can be used to teach a Christological idea.  For the first couple weeks we are focusing on "Jesus" movies where Jesus is an actual character in the movie.  However, after break we get into "Christ" movies where it is simply a Christ character or plot in a secular movie.  Some examples that the professor really likes are The Big Lebowski, Gran Torino, and western movies.  It is just a nice break from books and I love movies.
       I will try to keep putting some smaller posts up as time allows, but for now wanted to include you in the busyness of my class schedule.  Christ is Lord of all, even time, and we simply use the time we have in front of us to strive to serve Him.  In His most powerful name, Jesus, Amen.

"Break"ing news :)

      Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our King!  I had a great two week break.  I covered 8 states and 3651 miles in my travels, but it was totally worth it to see so many friends and family.  I drove through Iowa to stop at mom and dads and get all my hunting clothes.  Then I made it to Seward Friday night since Saturday morning was opening morning of rifle hunting.  I couldn't afford the out of state permit, so I just went and sat like I was still hunting.  It was fun and i still enjoyed being out there even if I couldn't kill anything.  Then after hunting in Seward for the weekend, I cam home and helped a friend move corn shuck bales.  The next part of the trip was a late addition, but was still quite the adventure.  My friend Bill, from Seward, bought a tractor in Ohio, and I agreed to ride along with him to pick it up.  We left Tuesday afternoon and did not get back until Thursday afternoon.  While we safely made it out to Ohio, got the tractor, and safely made it home again, the trip was almost a disaster several times.  On our way through Chicago we were talking and missed I80 and ended up in I94.  So we went north through Michigan, through a horrible blizzard, but eventually made it back to Indiana and out of the snow.  When we got to Ohio, right after we got the tractor picked up, our vehicle broke down and we spent over 3 hours and the most redneck efforts possible to get ourselves fixed and going again.  Then on the way home we got lost in Chicago again and went another 40 miles out of our way.  Finally we got home though.  The funny part is I say we got a tractor, but this thing is a John Deere 650, so a tiny garden and utility tractor.  It was a fun trip and good time spent with a friend though.
      Then about a half hour after I got home from the Ohio trip, I unpacked, repacked, and took off again and headed north to South Dakota.  I made it to Brookings Thursday evening.  Friday I bow hunted.  I sat int he stand Friday morning and had a tiny little buck circling me, and then a nice doe and a fawn also circling me.  The doe at one point was broadside only ten yards in front of me and would have been an easy shot, but I did not want to shoot a doe the first time out.  However, then I never really saw any other thing else close enough to shoot so I probably should have just taken the doe.  But again, I just love being in the stand, watching deer, and enjoying being in nature.  I had a great weekend in Brookings seeing everyone from vicarage again.  It was hard to be there again because I wanted to stay, but Monday morning I headed down to Omaha to my sister and brother-in-laws.  I spent a couple days there for my birthday and had a nice relaxing 26th birthday.  Mom and Dad came out to Omaha Tuesday night for my birthday, mom's birthday, and a mini Thanksgiving with JoAnna and Steven since they were not able to make it to Decatur.  Then Wednesday Mom, Dad, and I drove to Decatur.  We spent the rest of the week there with Nate, Kari, the boys, and Tim.  It was a nice couple days of family time and some awesome football.
     Now I am back in St. Louis and have started my winter quarter.  I have 16 credits on top of work, intramural basketball, and Financial Peace University.  So I will be busy, but I am still managing to have some fun too.  I will try to post some more psalm devotions or possibly even some advent devotions up here the next day or two.  I just wanted to let you know I am still alive since I haven't posted in a month.  I did get all A's last quarter so I was happy with that and made up for the busyness of finals weeks.  Other than that, happy Advent as we prepare for the coming of our King.  In Jesus name, Amen.  

Psalm 14

      Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ who has conquered all things for us.  Today was a long, stressful, just kind of bad day.  And yet even in the midst of such an unpleasant day, I was reminded time and time again of all the blessings I have in my life.  I just have to make it through this week with my head still above water and then things should settle down a little.  Maybe it is just my memory blocking out the bad, but I do not remember even my worst, most stressful day on vicarage being as stressful as today.  I don't know if my mind has decided that it is just done with school or what, but this year definitely seems harder after being out on vicarage actually serving instead of just sitting in a classroom.  However, this year is flying by as we only have two weeks left of the first quarter so I will be back out there serving a church soon enough.
     I am trying to finish another paper tonight so I can go to bed at a decent time, but I wanted to post something up here.  So I will post my devotion on Psalm 14.  I hope and pray your week will be more pleasant than mine and ask that you keep me in your prayers.  We are all in this together and yet not one of us is alone as the Holy Spirit lives and reigns in our hearts just as Christ lives and reigns over the world and all powers, rule and authority.  In His name, Amen.

Psalm 14
      The first verse in this psalm is very appropriate in my mind, because to me you would have to be an absolute idiot or fool to think there is no God. It just has never made sense to me. Now I understand I was brought up in the faith from the time I was a very small child. And yes there was a time in my life when I was small. So I have never really known life without God, but as I try to imagine life without God it just doesn’t make sense to me. I cannot fathom the idea of life without knowing God exists and all of the amazing things He does for me. As a child, I could easily look around at trees, birds, cows, thunderstorms, and everything else in our world and just see that it took a pretty powerful God to create all of this and to design it in just exactly the right way that things always continue to work. I mean trees are amazing how they can turn from a tiny seed into the giant towers that I spent half my childhood climbing in, building tree forts, and jumping out of. I climbed back up into my old tree fort where I spent a huge amount of my childhood just a couple years ago. Now when I say tree fort, I simply mean a few 2x4’s nailed into a “Y” with a piece of plastic from dad’s old work as the seat on top of the 2x4’s. Nothing fancy but it was good enough for this simple minded kid. However, as I climbed back up there I could see the tree growing around the 2x4’s and they were actually being engulfed or swallowed by the tree. Now standing on the ground I would tell you that tree is the exact same size it was when I was a kid, but by this closer look I had to admit it is still growing. And the fact that there is a foreign object in its way of growth was no problem as the bark and new wood will just go around it. Now explain to me how a tree first of all can keep growing even after its already taller than our house, let alone grow up and around a 2x4 with no problems or effects if it hadn’t been created to do so. How can a thunderstorm, clouds in the air produce water, electricity, and a huge boom of a sound that can rattle the windows in a house just by random chance? It just doesn’t make sense to me. And now as I get older, death would just be unbearable if there was truly no God. The fact that this life really has no meaning other than to do what you can while you are alive before you become a pile of decaying bones is just ridiculous. Why live if there is no more meaning to life than that? If man serves no purpose than to try to leave the world a good place for the man who is to come after him, why bother? Why not just use up all the resources and good things now while we are here and make the most of our lives and not worry about the next generations? Sorry, I am rambling nonsense, but that is exactly what life without God is to me, just pure nonsense. It’s not possible, it’s not feasible, it’s not even imaginable to me. Everything I do in this world is affected by the fact that I know there is a God. Now I am not saying I am perfect and do everything right, but when I do something wrong, I know it is wrong because it goes against what God wants, against His will. I still make mistakes, and I still make bad choices that I know are wrong but I do them anyway. However, if I didn’t believe there was a God watching over me, I wouldn’t care if I only did bad because who is around to know or to see? The fact that I know there is a God always watching me is what leads me to feel guilty for those bad choices. However, the fact that I not only know that there is a God, but because I know who my God is and how He works, I know His will and how to choose the right thing next time. I also know there is forgiveness for those wrong choices I did make. I also know there is more to this life than just trying to do everything I can before I end up in a wood box. I know I have eternal life and that one day my body will be resurrected and made perfect in His glory, reunited with my soul to live that eternal life in His presence in the new creation. In a place with trees and thunderstorms and all the things He created only in perfect form this time. Only a fool could say there is no God, and I thank God that He gave me His Spirit to call me with the Gospel and enlighten me with the faith so I am not a fool. I thank Him that He chose me to know there is a God, He is a loving God, and He is the one who creates all and gives us our forgiveness and eternal salvation.

Psalm 13

      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.

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.

 

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?

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.

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.    

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.

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.

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.

Sunday's Sermon

        Greetings in the name of our Lord who put us before Himself.  I am sorry it took me a couple days to get my sermon on here, life is just a busy thing.  I am doing very well and survived the craziness of last week.  I have a little breathing room before the craziness starts over again. Every one at field work really enjoyed my sermon.  I wish I had a recording of it, because some of the phrases that I used in actually preaching the sermon were not the same as the manuscript and I really liked the way it came out.  Then of course by the time I go back to the manuscript, I can't remember those differences.  This is my constant reminder that the Holy Spirit is giving me the words and meditations of my sermons because when I get going on them, they just really come together nicely.  I really do enjoy the amazing opportunity to preach and am so thankful the Good Lord has given me the strength and growth that He has in that area.
        I had my first placement meeting this morning with the Placement Counselor.  It was really good to just sit and talk to him about what type of ministry, what type of setting, and what type of congregation I think would be the best fit for me.  He is such a great guy to just comfortably talk to and it really does help calm some nerves and anxiousness.  Next week I have my interview with the Placement Director and that will be more giving him a chance to really know who I am, my strengths and weaknesses and specialties.  I am looking forward to that too. I need to start my SET form one of these days.  I can't believe this process is even started already let alone going to be coming to a completion in eight months.
       I had coffee with Dr. Saleska today discussing the Psalms.  As you all know by know, I have an extreme love with the Psalms.  He is currently writing the commentary on Psalms 1-50 so it was really fun to pick his brain on how he is going about it.  He appreciated my passion and encouraged me to keep going with my devotions and study of them.  We plan to get together every once in a while and just keep discussing our shared love.
       Well I need to go to work so here is my sermon from this last Sunday.  Hopefully you will understand my challenge to you last week now after reading this sermon.  I hope to write more this week and am definitely motivated to keep working through more psalms with devotions.  Blessings in Christ.

Our text for this morning is from Philippians 2, verses 1-4
“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
       How many of you have heard of the Epicureans? In college, I took a class on philosophy and in this class I learned about several different schools of philosophy and their different world views. One of these schools of philosophy is the Epicureans. The Epicureans entire goal is to live in a state of pure happiness. This seems impossible when you first hear about it, I mean how can someone live in a state of pure happiness all the time? However, they had a unique way of reaching that state in their lives. They strive to always be happy by lowering their standards of their expectations to match their current experience. They believed if you are not happy with something in your life, it is because you think you deserve better than what you are experiencing. If you are unhappy with your job, it is because you think you deserve a better job than the job you actually have. They even take it as far as to say that pain should not cause you unhappiness. Pain is you simply thinking you should feel better than you actually do, therefore if you just accept that you should feel the way you do, not think you should feel better, and you can be happy with your actually experience even in times of pain. This is how they go about trying to live in a state of pure happiness.
       At first, when I heard about this I really liked the idea. I mean I obviously know someone can’t be happy all the time, but it doesn’t mean we can’t try to happy as often as possible. I wake up every day trying to be as happy and positive as possible. I even liked the idea of lowering your standards to make yourself happy. However, the more I thought about this, the more I realized there is one major flaw with the Epicurean view. Do you know what it is? (Pause) The major flaw is that it is entirely focused on yourself in order to be happy. Their whole worldview is only focused on themselves in order to be happy. They take no one else into consideration, they are so focused on their own happiness, they turn all of their attention to themselves.
      When we look at our text for today, Paul is also talking about being happy, being glad. However, he takes a little different approach to reaching this gladness. In verse 1 Paul says, “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” Then immediately he follows up with verses 3 and 4, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Here Paul is inviting the Philippians to join in his joy by thinking of others. By counting all others as more important than yourself, this is how Paul invites them to be happy, to complete his joy.
       However, in our American culture we tend to lean more towards the Epicurean way that Paul’s way, don’t we? It is easier to think of ourselves and our own interests than to think of other people’s interest first. We get so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget to think about others. And I don’t believe it is even that we intentionally focus on ourselves first, it is just our natural habit, our natural sinful habit. We think we since it is our happiness, it must be our interests that we need to attend to. We all are guilty of putting ourselves first. We forget about around us, in order to make sure we are happy, that everything is OK with us. Even worse we blame those around us when things aren’t going our way. We find others to fault for our bad days, for our frustration. Road rage happens because we blame everyone else for going to slow or being a horrible driver, when really it us who is speeding or switching lanes. We get angry with coworkers or bosses at a bad day at work because if they would just do their job better or more efficiently than we would have to do less work, when really we are just being lazy and don’t want to have to actually do the work to get things done. When we are upset with spouses or siblings or family members, we talk about their bad habits or selfishness behind their backs, when really most likely we are the ones who are just being stubborn and unwilling to compromise. When we are angry, upset, frustrated, mad, stressed, irritable, or offended, I think it is safe to say 99% of the time it is because we are only focusing on our own interests. We are thinking about nobody besides ourselves, and we let that selfishness, pride, laziness, or arrogance lead us to not have joy or happiness in our lives.
       So again we go back to Paul’s letter and see how he reminds us to be partakers of his joy by putting others before ourselves. And then I love the example he uses as the main point of his argument in verses 5 to 11. These are probably the most familiar verses from this passage, and while we remember these verses, I think we too often forget the point Paul is trying to make with them. In verses 5 to 11 we hear Paul say, “5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” If there was ever anyone who had the right to put himself ahead of everyone else, it would have been Jesus. The true Son of God, equal to God who is control of all things, did not consider this equality with God as His right to come and be served by all of us mere humans, but rather he emptied Himself to come be our servant in the flesh of mankind. He did not consider himself as the Son of God as more important than us sinners, but rather lowered Himself down to our likeness to put us first. He was willing to put our interest first ahead of His own to the point He was willing to die, even die on a cross, a painful, gruesome, horrible death, so that you and I may have life. He put us ahead of Himself and this is the example Paul is using to remind us to put others before ourselves. Look to Christ, our Savior who took away all our sins, who continues to forgive us even as we continue to live in selfishness, pridefulness, and arrogance. He died to take all of these sins away from us so that we have salvation and life in His name. He did this for us because He counted all of us as more important than Himself.
       Paul reminds us of this amazing Lord who we have who was willing to do this for us, and then reminds us that we who are saved in the name of our Lord, being baptized, holy, chosen children of God, we too are to live this life of putting others ahead of ourselves. We to can share the love of Christ with others by living the servant life He came to live for us. And again in our final verses for today Paul reiterates his point by saying, “14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.” Be the light of the world that shines the love of Christ, be the blameless children of God in the midst of the crooked and twisted generation we most certainly live in. Strive to live each day in this happiness, this gladness that Paul is talking about by putting everyone around you as more important than yourself. Do all things without grumbling because you know through all you do you are serving others just as Christ served those around Him. Can you imagine how happy a place the world would be if everyone followed these words of Paul, doing nothing out of selfishness or conceit, doing all things without grumbling or disputing, but rather in humility counted everyone else as more important, serving their interests rather than your own. The Good news is that through the love of Christ that has been made known to us through the power of the Holy Spirit who called us into the faith, we can live these words and strive to make the world a better place. We can join in Paul’s gladness and rejoice with him. We can be glad and rejoice that we know Jesus Christ is our Savior who did consider us more important than Himself, willing to die for us so that we may be forgiven of all our sins, having salvation and eternal life in His name so that one day when He comes back we may bow and confess He is our Lord. We can be glad and rejoice that we, who have been saved and given this life in His name through the Holy Spirit, we can live this life of serving others.
       So I have a challenge for you for this week and the weeks to come. Any time you find yourself angry, frustrated, upset, offended, or irritated, STOP! Stop because I guarantee you are forgetting at least two people. The first person you are forgetting is Christ who served you, kept you as more important than Himself. The second person or group of people is that person who you are not putting ahead of yourself. Once you have realized who you have forgotten, say a prayer asking for forgiveness of your sin and give thanks that you are forgiven of that sin knowing that in Christ you are forgiven. And then make the proper change or adjustment to put that person you were forgetting as more important than yourself. Do what you need to do to serve that person, and do it in the gladness and rejoicing of Paul. See every opportunity God gives you to serve those around you as an opportunity to rejoice over, because each one of these times is truly a time of gladness. It is a time of gladness because we know in Christ’s service to us we have our salvation and eternal life, and now have the opportunity to serve others and live that life of service being the light of the world. In Christ, in the service of life you have been called into, be glad and rejoice!
In the name of Christ our Lord, Amen.