Happy Easter - Maundy Thursday Sermon

      Alleluia! Christ is Risen, He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!  Greetings in the name of our Risen and ever-living Lord, Jesus Christ!  We made it through all the stress and craziness of Holy Week and finally got to sing loud and joyfully the Alleluia's of Easter morning.     I preached Maundy Thursday and then two of the seven sermons for the Tre Ore service on Good Friday.  This was my first experience of a Tre Ore service, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  For those of you who may not know, a Tre Ore service is from noon to three on Good Friday, (the three hours Christ is hanging on the cross) and there are seven mini services in this one big service focusing in on the seven sayings of Christ from the cross.  Each service is about twenty minutes with some short readings, prayers, a sermon, and special musical pieces.  Then there are about five minutes between each service for meditation and reflection.  People are allowed to come and go as they are able and attend one or all seven.  We had quite a few people who showed up and stayed for the whole three hours.  We also had quite a few who stopped in for their lunch hour and sat through two or three.  The service was so good though.  It was extremely powerful to focus in that deeply on each one of the sayings; however, it was also neat because there were five pastors and myself who did the seven sermons (since I did two).  So to see the different preaching styles and different preachers that I never get to see preach was a good experience.  Also the special music was all fantastic.  I lost it and broke down in tears as one of the ladies who has an amazing voice sang the Lord's Prayer after the seventh service.  It was a great day.  18 people were involved in the service of preaching, organists, elders, and all the musicians.  And even with that many people, it went smoothly and was done so well.  Then we still had an evening service for Good Friday.
     Saturday I slept in, did some house chores I was behind on, and just spent some time relaxing and trying to catch up on rest from the week before.  It was a beautiful day though so I went for a drive in the country.  In St. Louis I find there are times where I get homesick and almost depressed because I can't just go drive gravel roads with my windows down and see nature and fields and farms.  So I went for a drive and enjoyed being in a rural area.  I also walked some of our hunting grounds looking for shed antlers, but didn't find any.       Then Sunday morning we had sunrise service at 6:30 A.M. The youth served breakfast at 8 and then we have second service at 9:30.  We had trumpets and trombones playing with the organist which I absolutely love.  It was an extremely joyful service with the beautiful Easter hymns I have been craving for awhile now.
Then I headed home and saw the nephews, Tim, JoAnna, Grandma, and Mom and Dad.  It was good to be home even if it was just for such a short time.  Then yesterday I drove back up north.  We had two softball games yesterday.  I sat one because we had too many players, but then played the second one and actually played really well.  I love softball and can't wait to hopefully one day be in one place all summer so I can join a league.
    Today it's back to work, but much more relaxed and stress free as I do my normal stuff and try to work ahead for VBS and such.  Nonetheless, Easter is not over and the joy of Easter continues on into every day as we know and always know our Lord is Risen and living!

Here is my Maundy Thursday Sermon and then I will try to get my two Tre Ore sermons up here this week too.  Enjoy:

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text for this evening is Psalm 143, looking specifically at verses 9 through 12:
“9 Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord! I have fled to you for refuge. 10 Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground! 11 For your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life! In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble! 12 And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant.”

       In the Wartburg Castle, there is a dark stain on the wall in the room where Luther spent his days studying. It is said that Luther threw the ink jar at the Devil who was in the room with him, and the ink jar hit the wall, broke, and left an ink stain that is still there today. Now it is never officially documented anywhere that this is where the stain actually came from. However, Luther did believe and make it very clear that the Devil is constantly around us, tempting us, taunting us, and trying to get us to fall. Both Luther’s morning and evening prayer include the line, “that the evil foe may have no power over us.” Luther knew exactly how dangerous the foe, or the Devil is in our lives.
      In our psalm for tonight, our psalmist is also dealing with the foe or the enemy, and he feels completely surrounded, trapped, and crushed by this enemy. In verse three he states, “For the enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.” The psalmist is crying out to God for refuge from this enemy that has his crushed and sitting in darkness.
     However, I feel that many of you probably do not feel this way on a regular basis. Do you often feel like you are surrounded by the enemy, trapped by his presence, and crushed by his pursuit of your soul? Do you ever feel like the devil is in the room standing right there beside you? In my mind, one of the most dangerous things we as Christians in today’s world do is not acknowledge how real and present the Devil is around us. We know the Devil is an enemy and we know he is able to tempt us, but we don’t think of him as a constant enemy who is always right there lurking around us. We instead blame ourselves for the times when we find ourselves too weak to resist his temptations. We think we are the problem. If I was just stronger in my faith, if I was a more pious person, if I worked harder to fix my bad habits, if I wouldn’t let myself keep making the same old mistakes, I would not give into MY temptations so much. We don’t even acknowledge that the temptation comes from the Devil, but rather simply our sinful nature.
     We need to take a lesson from our psalmist and from Luther and realize we are at war, a very real spiritual war. And we are fighting a real enemy. A real enemy who is right there in the room with us, tempting us, whispering doubts and lies in our ears. I am not ashamed to admit I actually have had times much like Luther where the devil’s presence was so strong I swear I could have actually reached out and grabbed him standing right there beside me. I have yelled out loud at the devil to leave me alone. And there have been times where as soon as I fell to the temptation I knew he was standing right there beside me, smiling from ear to ear. I actually have described this to one of my friends before, but every time the devil tempts me to fall into one of those old sins I commit over and over again, even though I know they are wrong, he gets me again, and I can just picture him kicking his feet up laying back in a big easy chair with a big cigar in his hand, smiling and chuckling, and saying to himself, that was too easy. It’s too easy to get you sinners to sin. Except there is one mistake with this picture. The devil never rests, not for one second. You see the devil knows his time is limited here on earth, he knows if he truly wants to do as much damage as he possibly can with the short time he has, he can never stop, he can never rest, he must work 24 – 7 – 365! The devil is our enemy who is always around us, lurking around every corner, waiting for our weakness to show, waiting for us to give him an opportunity when he knows his strike will hit. And our biggest mistake is to pretend he isn’t there, or ignore the fact that he is a true enemy trying to destroy us.
      To make matters worse, notice in verse 9 the psalmist switches from the enemy to enemies in the plural. The Devil is our real enemy, but the world around us who hates us for Christ name sake, sin, and death are also our enemies. The secular world, the illogical sin, and the ever presence of death are all as much of an enemy as the devil himself. People who bash Christians and persecute them are obviously an enemy, but so are the ones you may not expect. Maybe it’s a coworker who tries to get you to understand that his sinful lifestyle is actually OK because of the situation he is in. Maybe it is a close friend who tries to get you to forget your faith just for one night so you can have a little fun together. Maybe it is even a family member who isn’t in the faith and makes you choose between your faith or them. These are all real enemies who are either intentionally or possibly even unintentionally trying to lead you astray from your faith. Sin and death are also very real and extremely present enemies. Our sinful world that just never seems to make sense can cause us to doubt our faith or question God. An man who has never been a believer his whole life, but who drinks, smokes, cusses, and is mean to everyone lives a long healthy life, but the single mother who brings her children to church every Sunday and works two jobs to support them gets cancer. A drunk driver causes an accident and he walks away without a scratch, but the people in the other car that was hit are either killed or crippled for life. The loss of a loved one at a young age, or a child who dies as an infant. All of these things that seem to make no sense and have no answer other than sin and death exist in our world can cause us to wonder what God is really doing, is He even there, is He really in control or not?! And the devil will use these opportunities to whisper that much more in our ears, stir up our doubts, play off of our anger, let our emotions get the best of us. These are all enemies that face constantly in our world.
        However, our psalmist teaches us how to handle these situations, how to handle all of these enemies. He cries out to God asking God to hear him, he acknowledges that the enemy is too great for him and has overpowered him, but he knows where his help comes from and he knows where his refuge is. In verse 9 the psalmist says, “Deliver me from my enemies, O LORD! I have fled to you for refuge.” God is the one who is able to rescue and deliver us from the enemy and his powers. God is our refuge where we find our relief. He is the one who in His steadfast love cuts off our enemies and destroys the adversaries of our souls.
         God knew the devil would always be an enemy to us. From the very moment he tempted Adam and Eve and caused them to sin, God promised to take care of this enemy, God promised to send His Son to not only defeat this enemy, but ultimately destroy him. God kept that promise by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our refuge and deliverer. Jesus was tempted by the devil Himself in His life, but unlike us who fall to the lies and temptations, Christ did not. Christ used the Word to overpower the Devil and resist His temptation. Christ lived an entire life of resisted the devil. He also resisted the other enemies of sin, the world, and death. When the Pharisees and scribes tried to cause Him to stumble with trick questions, He outsmarted them and remained faithful every time. When the illogical sin of this world presented itself, Jesus showed His power over sin by healing the lame, curing the sick, and forgiving them all of their sins. When death took its turn by taking Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, Christ showed His power over death by calling Lazarus back to life with His Word. Then when the devil, the world, sin, and death all joined forces for one final attempt to get rid of Jesus by having one of His one own disciples betray Him, soldiers arrest Him, the Chief priests falsely accuse Him, all of them beat and mock Him, before finally nailing Him to a cross to kill Him, Christ showed His ultimate power over all the enemies of this world. He did die and it looked like for a short time the enemies had won. But Christ did defeat them, He did overcome them all by rising from the dead three days later. He has defeated them, He has the power over all of them, the devil, the world, sin, and death, all enemies we will ever face, Christ has defeated and has control over. And one day He will lock them all up and they will be gone forever, never to tempt us or harm us again. Christ is our deliverer, He is our refuge because by His death and resurrection He shower His power and authority over all of our enemies.
        Christ is our refuge and our deliverer, but how does this help us when He is in heaven sitting on His throne and we are done here in the battle zone? Well, Christ is not distant, and He has not left us here to fight on our own. He has given us His Holy Spirit to remain in us to give us the strength we need, He gives us His Word to read and be strengthen and to use both as armor and as a sword. And He even gives us Himself. On the first Maundy Thursday when He spoke the words of Institution to His disciples, the very same words we will hear here shortly in our service, He gives us His true Body and Blood in with the bread and wine, for the forgiveness of sins and for the strengthening of our faith. He forgives us of all the times we have been weak and fallen to the enemies temptations, and He gives us Himself in us to prepare us and strengthen us for the next round of battle. By having His Holy Spirit in us, keeping us in the faith, keeping our baptism alive in us, by giving us His Word to hear and be strengthened in our faith, and by giving us His actual body and blood in His Holy Supper, He is our refuge that gives us the strength to remain in the faith, to cling to Him in times of weakness, and to have the power of His Word to use against our evil enemies. He is our refuge and our deliverer who is with us, protecting us, keeping strong in the faith, not letting the enemies overpower us.
        As St. Paul writes in our Epistle for tonight, “If God is for us, who can be against us.” We have the almighty, all powerful, one true God on our side, it doesn’t matter what enemy is lined up against us on the other side, he has already lost! Nothing can separate us from the love of God, because through the death and resurrection our of Lord Jesus Christ, He has defeated all enemies. And by the power of His Spirit, His Word, and His Body and Blood, He is our refuge who is ever present, ever with you, always protecting you, forgiving you, keeping you strong in the one true faith, until the day He calls you home. Christ is your refuge, remain in Him, cling to Him and no enemy of this world can ever harm you!

In the name of our refuge and our deliverer, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Psalm 130 Sermon

       Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Defense.  Last Wednesday evening after church, I and a high school student drove down to St. Louis.  We left at 9:30 P.M., drove through rain the entire way, and got to St. Louis at 8 A.M.  I drove the whole way while Austin, the student, slept.  I had to make several stops to get out and walk around, but we made it safely.  We spent Thursday and Friday touring the seminary, going to chapel and a class, and hanging out with my friends.  I think he got a pretty accurate taste of the sem life and the class we sat in on was an amazing one.  Then Saturday I showed him around St. Louis.  We ate at Pappy's BBQ, then walked around Busch Stadium and under the Arch.  Then Saturday night we stayed at my friend's house who is doing his vicarage in Washington, Missouri.  We had a fun evening with him and his wife playing board games and watching the basketball games.  Then Sunday morning, my friend was preaching, so we attended church there and then drove back.  We got back around 7 P.M. on Sunday evening.  I was back just in time to go to Bible Study at 8.
     Then I unpacked and had to immediately repack.  Monday morning we left for Huron which is only an hour away and had District Pastor's Conference Monday and Tuesday.  It was actually a really interesting presentation on catechizes.  Always good to see the other pastors from the state as well.  It is also unofficially official that Mt. Calvary will be getting another vicar next year from Fort Wayne.  I was happy to hear they were getting another vicar to carry on the campus ministry, but I was hoping it would be from St. Louis purely for the fact that I would know him then.  But I trust the Holy Spirit has the right guy.
     Then Monday and Tuesday while I was gone, I got all new windows in my house.  I love this because now they actually have screens and I can open my windows.  However, the crew that put int he windows left a terrible mess under every window and throughout my whole house.  So I spent five hours on Tuesday night after we got back from Pastor's conference Spring cleaning my whole house.  It is nice to have a super clean house, but the five hours of cleaning was not fun.  Tomorrow with my day off I plan to rake my yard really well and get all the leaves and dead grass off it so hopefully the new green stuff will start coming up.  I also need to fold four loads of laundry from all my travels, take down Christmas lights, finish cleaning the basement, and then finishing sanding and routering my rocking chair pieces.  Hopefully if I get them all sanded and routered, then after Easter I can stain and polyurethane them.  Friday at 2 we leave for Pierre, which is three hours away for Bible Bowl on Saturday though so I will be gone Friday night and all day Saturday.  Then I have three sermons next week for Holy Week!  I am trying to enjoy how busy life is right now because after the first week of May, the college students will be gone, confirmation and Sunday school will be done, and I will have too much free time I am scared.  So busy is crazy but it is still good.
      Here is my sermon from last night on Psalm 130:  

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text for tonight is Psalm 130: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let you ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you these is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen for the morning, more than the watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

      I want you to imagine you are standing in a court room and now realize YOU ARE ON TRIAL! Yes, you heard me right, you are on trial. God the Father is the judge sitting on the bench, and the Devil is the prosecuting attorney. You are on trial for every sin you have ever committed in your life. So as you stand there, the Devil opens his briefcase and pulls out a stack of paper that seems three times as thick as his briefcase. He sets the stack down on the table in front of him and begins to read a list of every sin you have committed. He doesn’t just list general things like told a lie, said a cuss word, hit your sibling…. No, he reads the exact date and time and a very detailed description of each sin. “April 3rd, 7:46 in the morning, you were driving to work when you became very angry with driver in front of you for going ‘too slow’, broke fifth commandment by thinking hateful thoughts of your neighbor and therefore murdering him.” After hearing about three or four of these specific sins listed out in very formal fashion, with the Father the judge sitting there just listening the whole time, you finally decide to speak. You try to excuse or justify the last sin that the devil read with some weak pathetic attempt to make yourself look better, but before you can finish the devil not only yells out “Objection”, he flips to the last page of his stacks of paper and starts scribbling the new offense to use against you.
      You see, in this trial you are going to lose, and you know it. Because every sin the devil reads off, you immediately know you are guilty of it. And in this court there is no jury of peers that you can plead to or try to play off of their emotions or hope they see it your way. In this court room you can’t spin the truth to look less offensive, you can’t use fancy words and an elaborate showing to make wrongs seems right. As you stand there you know that you are guilty and even worse you know the judge, the Father, knows you are guilty. You are guilty to the first degree a million times over. You by yourself have no defense campaign to stand on. You are guilty of being a sinner, 100% sinner, a first degree sinner. And you know that this guilty verdict comes with a sentence of being thrown to hell, cast out of God’s presence, and into the jailhouse of death for all of eternity. You have no defense to stand on. You are guilty, you deserve the sentencing, your only hope is to fall face down and beg and plead for the mercy of the judge. You know He has no reason to give you any mercy, you know you do not deserve your mercy, but your only hope, your only chance at all is if He gives you His mercy and sentences you as innocent.
      This is what our psalmist tells us our God does for us. Our psalmist knows he is in this very circumstance; he is cast out of God’s presence and is begging and pleading for God to hear his cries for mercy. Then he says, “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” He knows that if the devil really were to turn in Exhibit A, the list of all our sins, and God kept that long list, that official record, we truly would have no defense, no hope to stand on. God, being a just and fair God and judge, would have no choice but to find us guilty if He kept that record. However, as the psalmist tells us in the very next line, God does not keep that record. God does not keep that long list of all our sins in front of Him, adding to it every time we fail again. “With you there is forgiveness”. We do have a defense to stand on, but it is nothing we have done. The judge heard our cries for mercy, just as He heard the psalmist’s cries for mercy and He has answered our cries as we heard last week. God knew we would be found guilty, so He sent His Son to be our defense. Christ, took that long list of sins, that official record that has our name on the top of it, He crossed our name out and wrote His own on it. He made every one of our accusations and offenses His. He put Himself on the stand and pleaded guilty to every one of our sins. Jesus, the one who never sinned in His life, pleaded guilty to every sin of all mankind, including yours and mine alike. God being the just and fair judge sentenced His own Son with the sentence we deserved. Christ was sentenced to be put to death and feel the full wrath of God’s judgment. Christ took our sins, that long official list all the way to the cross with Him where the sentence was carried out. As He hung on the cross, bleeding, thirsting, dying, that record of sins was completely covered and stained the blood of our Lord so that it is no longer readable. It no longer is a list of sins we are guilty of, it is a blood stained certificate of our pardon.
      So now as we stand before the Father in the court room, we do have a defense. When the Devil no longer has that list of our sins, he tries to accuse us of old sins that he can remember from the list. But this time it is Christ our defense lawyer who stands up and yells “objection”. Christ objects to the accusation, presenting the record that once listed all our sins, but now is the blood stained certificate that is proof our sentencing has been paid in full. Christ offers His hands and feet where the nail holes are, His side where the spear was thrust into Him as His “Exhibit A”. He is the living proof that all of those sins have been paid for and the sentence has been served in full. Christ claims us as His own, our hearts and our foreheads where the sign of the cross was made on us at our baptism and presents us to the judge, His Father, as completely blameless. The Father, who is a fair and just judge, pronounces us as innocent of all charges. We have a defense to stand on, it is our Lord Jesus Christ and His forgiveness.
      We are freed and clear from the guilty sentence we deserve because of our defense, Jesus Christ. And Christ tells us in our Gospel reading from John 8, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” When we remain and abide in His word, coming to church every Sunday hearing His Word read aloud and proclaimed, when we read our Bibles and have our daily devotions, the Spirit strengthens our faith, ever reminding us of the truth. The truth that Jesus Christ is our sure defense, He is the one who came in steadfast love with plentiful redemption. He is the one who is our pardon from all sin. The truth that the Father heard us sinners who had no defense to stand on, heard our cries for His mercy, sent His Son to claim all sins as His own, to die on the cross to pay for the sin of all mankind, to stain our record of sins red with His blood to be our pardon, and to rise from the dead to be our redemption and new life. This is the truth that His Word teaches us and reminds us of, this is the truth that sets us free.
       So we live our lives now in that pardon from sin, being claimed by Christ our defense, living in the forgiveness of sins. We live in this pardoned life, in His Word which is our hope, knowing one day we will stand in the presence of our Father, and hear Him pronounce over us, “In the name of my Son, Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, I pronounce you as innocent.” Christ truly is our defense, our pardon, and our innocence.

In the name of our Defense and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Psalm 102 Sermon

       Greetings in the name of our Intercessor and Lord Christ Jesus.  The last week has been crazy since I have only been home one or two nights for the whole week.  I am going to post my sermon from last week on this post and then I will give a little catch up on what I have been doing plus last night's sermon on the next post.  So here is my Lent 5 sermon on Psalm 102:

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text for tonight is from Psalm 102 looking specifically at verses 1, 2, 16 and 17. Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you! 2 Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress! Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call! For the Lord builds up Zion; he appears in his glory; 17 he regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer.”

      When I was a kid I had a reoccurring nightmare. I think I only had it two or three times, but it scared me every time. See as a child I was extremely scared of dogs, stupid I know but it was part of my childhood. So my dream was that I was walking down the street we lived on and when I would get to the alley which was about half a block away from our house, a pack of several big, scary dogs would come running at me from down the alley. I would run as fast as I possibly could around our house, into the backyard headed straight for the basement door. As I ran through our yard around the house there were several people from the community, our church, or school, adults from around town that I knew rather well. And as I ran past all of these people I would open my mouth and try to scream as loud as I could for help from them. However, as I tied to scream, nothing came out. I could feel my throat trying so hard to scream but no scream ever came. And it was so frustrating having people right there to help but because I couldn’t get any screams to actually come out, they didn’t notice me or the dogs. This is when I would wake up in a panic though because in my dream I was scared out of my mind that these dogs were going to kill me, and the people who could help me couldn’t hear my cries for help.
      Luckily, it was just a dream and mom would be able to calm me down and get me back to sleep. However, what if it wasn’t a dream? I don’t mean the pack of ravage dogs chasing me, I mean being in a situation where you are utterly distraught and cry out for help with all your might, begging and pleading for help, but it seems like no one is listening. Would that not be a nightmare? Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever actually experienced a time in your life where you feel like absolutely no one is hearing your cry for help?
      In our Psalm for this evening, this is exactly what the psalmist is experiencing. He starts his psalm by saying, “Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you! 2 Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress! Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call!” Notice though who he is crying out to, who is the one not hearing his cries? He is not just calling out to those around him, people he knows who he thinks can help him. No, he cries out to God, the Lord! He calls on the highest power he knows, the creator of heaven and earth, the all-power, almighty LORD! And yet this is the one who he feels is not hearing his cries, he feels that the Lord has hidden his face, looked away from him, not allowing the cries and pleas of distress come to His ears. Have you ever felt THIS way? Have you ever experienced a time in your life where you took your troubles to God, crying out to the one and only Lord of all, and it seems like He is not hearing your cry for help?
     See it normally takes a lot for us to finally turn to the Lord. We let our problems get to the extreme worst before we turn our cries to God. Just like when we looked at Psalm 32 a couple weeks ago where we wait until our sin is eating away us before we finally turn to Him in confession releasing our sins to Him, with problems and difficult situations we do the same thing, letting them build up and lead us farther into the muck and mud before we finally realize we are stuck and have no way out.
      Then we finally decide that we have no other options, nobody else to call on, no one else who could be of any help besides God. Our problem is finally big enough for Him to worry about, so we turn to Him in prayer. Most of the time, we literally hit our knees, fold our hands, and close our eyes. Even though our normal bed time prayers are usually said laying in bed, half falling asleep, this utter desperation of the mess or situation calls for a special prayer. We get on our knees, fold our hands, close our eyes and pray like we were taught as children. Now we let everything out. We confess that we have gotten ourselves into this mess, we acknowledge that we should have turned to Him much sooner than we did, we explain exactly what the situation is, why it is so bad and why we feel so trapped or stuck, our raw emotions are freed and we hold nothing back, giving the entire scenario to Him, placing all trust in His hands, begging for direction, for the wisdom to know what to do, guidance to get us out of this mess in the best way possible. We go to sleep feeling a little better thinking that now God is going to take care of us and fix everything. Only to wake up the next morning and be just as lost and confused as before, just as stuck and helpless as we were. Did God not hear my prayer? Is He hiding His face from me, not inclining His ear to my pleas? I finally turn to Him for help, and now He doesn’t hear my cry? This is as frustrating as my dream where the people are right there in front of me, but with all my might and effort I can’t get them to hear me. God is supposed to always be there, always listening to my prayer, why now at the time I need Him most am I not able to get Him to hear me? What do I do now to get out of this mess? Who can help me if God doesn’t even hear me? Have you ever felt this way like our psalmist?
      However, unlike the dream where I could actually see that the people could not hear me, in real life when it comes to God, we just assume He doesn’t hear us because it seems like He isn’t answering or responding. But why do we assume He doesn’t hear us? Look at what our psalmist, the very one who feels this way says in verses 16 and 17, “For the Lord builds up Zion; he appears in his glory; 17 he regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer.” He knows God hears his prayers. The same way when Jesus prays at the tomb of Lazarus He starts His prayer by saying, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me, I knew that you always hear me.” Christ Himself knows the Father is always listening. God does always hear our prayers. He not only hears them but does not despise them either. God loves it when we turn to Him in Prayer. In Psalm 50 we hear the Lord tell us, “Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you.” He not only hears our prayers but He answers us too. So if God always hears our prayers, and He promises to deliver us, then why does it seem like He is not answering us, nothing changes and we are still stuck in the middle of the same mess or suffering?
      God does always hear our prayers. He does always answer our prayers. He does deliver us when we call upon Him in the day of trouble. However, when He promises to deliver us, He doesn’t promise to make everything immediately perfect, He doesn’t promise to completely remove the mess or situation from our lives. Just like He doesn’t answer the Israelites cry to be saved from the poisonous snakes in the wilderness in Numbers by removing the snakes. No, instead He leaves the snakes, lets the people endure the bites and pain, but He does deliver them. Call upon me in the day and trouble and I will deliver you says the Lord. What He is saying is I will deliver you from being overtaken or over powered by the suffering and pain, I will deliver you from being driven to utter despair and being sent to your own doom or harm. I will deliver you from ever escaping my control and protection. He doesn’t promise to make the messes go away or give us the exact answer to solve the problem. Sometimes he leaves the poisonous snakes in our lives causing us pain and suffering, confusion and helplessness. Nevertheless, He did still deliver the Israelites by giving them the lifted up bronze serpent to look at and be saved. In the same way He delivers us by giving us the Son of Man lifted up to look to and be saved. We may still have to endure the pain of this life, but we know when we look up to the Son of Man who was lifted up, we are saved and God has delivered us. Even Christ Himself asked God to take from Him the cup in the garden of Gethsemane. He asked His heavenly Father to deliver Him from the suffering and painful situation He knew He was about to endure. However, He includes, not as I will, but as you will. Jesus knows the most important thing is for the will of the Father to be done, because He knows best. Christ did not want to have to go through the pain and suffering, but He trusted that if that was the Father’s will, it was what was best. And the Father’s will is not to remove the cup from Jesus. The will of the Father is to let His Son die in order to save all of mankind. He lets His own Son, Jesus Christ, go through the pain and suffering of the crucifixion on the cross to forgive you of all your sins, to give you your salvation, and be the Savior who does indeed deliver you. Our Father does what He knows is best and lets His Son die to save you. He lets His Son be lifted up on the cross so that you have your deliverance from the poisonous snakes in your life. He delivers you by giving you the forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life. That may not include always removing the messes and suffering from your life, but it does include Romans 8, that no suffering, no messes, no poisonous snakes, no enemies, not even death can separate us from the love of God. This is His will that we ask be done. That no matter what we endure in this life time, His will be done not ours. And then when we find ourselves in those messes, in the suffering an pain, we know He hears our every prayer, we know He will deliver us, because we have His Son lifted up to look at and know we are saved and nothing, no amount of messes or pain or suffering can take that away from us.        Our God does indeed hear our prayers, He does always answer us, maybe not in the way we wanted Him too, but we trust that His will is done, that He is in control and knows what is best. We know His will is to deliver us and keep us in His love, and we have the Son of Man lifted up to always look to for that deliverance. Our God who did not spare His own Son, but let Him die for us, will always deliver us from anything this life can throw at us.

In the name of the Son of Man who was lifted up for us, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Double Day Post - Psalm 51 Lent 4 Sermon

Here is my Sermon from this last week on Psalm 51:

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

Our text for tonight is from Psalm 51 with selected verses 3-5 and 10-12: “3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 10Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”

      How many of you have ever seen the show “Home Improvement”. I love this show and a couple months ago I was watching some reruns of it. There was scene that I laughed especially hard at and it stuck with me. Tim the tool man Taylor is talking to one of his friends who is fighting with his wife. Tim tells his friend to just go apologize already. Tim’s friend in a huff still worked up from the fight asks, “Why should I apologize?” Tim responds by saying, “You know what I do every morning first thing when I wake up? I look at my wife and say I’m sorry.” His friend says, “Sorry for what?” Tim says, “Just for being a man.” Now to me this pretty comical that he would just say sorry right away before he has even done anything wrong, especially since it plays off of the difference of men and women which is usually worthy of a little laugh. This might especially bring a chuckle to husbands and wives.
        It’s good humor when you look at it in the relationship of a husband and wife, however; when you look at it from a Christian’s point of view of their relationship to God, it is not so comical. Maybe we should take this more seriously in this setting. When we wake up every morning, first thing before we even get out of bed, as soon the alarm clock is silenced, open your eyes look up and just say “I’m sorry God.” Now you might be wondering, “Why would I do that, I haven’t even had time to sin yet.” Well actually in my case where I want to yell bad words at the alarm clock, I probably have already sinned before I even opened my eyes. But for morning people who wake up refreshed and ready for a new day, they might wonder what they have done to say they are sorry about.
          Well in my mind that is completely the wrong attitude. Why do we think we have to wait until we have committed a sin that we are aware of before we can confess our repentance to God? Why can’t we say, “I’m sorry God, just for being a sinner.” This is how David expresses his view of sins and confession in our psalm tonight. Yes the introduction to this psalm tells us that he wrote this after the Bathsheba incident, so he is aware of certain sin. However, as he writes the psalm he does not focus in on that one sin. He does not confess that has sinned that one time. No he says, I know my transgressions – plural. I know my sin is ever before me. I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. From the point of conception he has been a sinner. Now please do not jump to the conclusion that I am saying or that David is saying that sex is sinful and that’s why we are conceived in sin. This is not at all what David is expressing here. Sex in the right setting and context of marriage is a good thing, a blessing and a gift from God. It is not the act of sex that made David a sinner from conception. Rather, it is because of original sin. Because his mother and father were sinful human beings, living in a fallen state of sinfulness that has existed since Adam and Eve fell, David is conceived and born in this same sinful state of being. He knows his sinfulness, his sinful state of being is ever present in front of him and has been from the moment his life began at conception. And just like David, you and I are entirely and completely in this sinful state of being and are sinners. This is just a cold hard fact, matter of fact truth. As surely as the fact that this pulpit is made of wood, or that those things you are sitting on are called pews, or the fact that you are a man or a woman, you are a sinner. It is as simple as that, as clean cut as that. Everything we do, everything we say, everything we are, is sinful. Even when we thing we are doing the right thing, we are still in this constant state of sinfulness. Isaiah says even our righteous acts, the things we do that we think are our good works, are like filthy rags to God. We are entirely sinful, everything we are, is sinful. It’s just a matter of fact.
           So we live in this constant state of being, this matter of fact truth that we are sinners, we are completely and entirely sinful. Does that mean we just give in, accept we are sinful and keep living a life of sin? Absolutely not! Well if we can’t change the fact that we are sinful from conception to the casket, and we don’t just keep living a sinful life, what are we to do? However, notice David doesn’t ask what he should do or ask God if he should do this or that. No, he does not try to put himself as the subject of the sentences after he confesses that he is entirely a sinner. Hear again verses 10-12 and see who David is putting as the subject. “10Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” See he is asking God to do all these things, he is asking God to create a new heart, renew a right spirit in him. He knows he is completely sinful, he knows he can do nothing about it, and he knows that it is not some small change or little switch God needs to do to save him from being sinful, but a major overhaul. A complete revamping. When David says, create in me a new heart, he is saying he understands that he needs God to give him a whole new heart. In other words, he doesn’t need bypass surgery, no not even quadruple bypass will do; he needs a transplant, a whole new heart! The same thing is true with renewing a right spirit in me. His old wrong spirit can’t be fixed, it needs to be started all over again and made new. This is true for you and me too, we need a whole new heart, we need a brand new spirit. And it is nothing I can do but God is the only one who can give me this new clean heart, God is the only one who can make my entire spirit renewed to be right.
            So how does He do this, well He makes us born again. He changes us from this state of being sinful and to a state of being sanctified. He drowns the old Adam in us completely killing it. You see He doesn’t just scare straight the old Adam in us by holding it under water for a little bit, He is not trying to just wash clean this old Adam. No, He completely kills it by drowning it dead! Then we are reborn, made a whole new creation. Just as Christ explains to Nicodemus in our Gospel reading, we have to be born again. We are in a state of being sinful from conception of the flesh, but we are in a state of being sanctified from conception of the spirit, from our rebirth in our baptism. We receive the Holy Spirit who David is begging God not to take from him, and we now live in a state of being baptized. I cannot stress this next point enough… It is not correct to say you were baptized or I was baptized, but rather that you are baptized and I am baptized because it is just as much of a state of being as the state of being sinful. We are sinners, cold hard truth, matter of fact, but we are baptized warm hard truth, matter of fact!
          God, our heavenly Father, sent His Son to die on the cross for us, to be our forgiveness, and to completely change this state of sinfulness. Christ our Lord died to the same death our old Adam dies every day, and then He rose from the dead, resurrected in the glorified flesh just as we are made a new creation each and every day. Our Father who sent His Son to be our state of righteousness, is the same God who sends His Holy Spirit to us to bring us into this state of being baptized, of being entirely righteous. This state of being baptized means this process of drowning the old Adam in us, killing our sinful flesh, and bring us back to life with a new clean heart and a renewed right spirit in us daily. So when we wake up and say sorry God for being a sinner, we can then immediately say thank you for the fact we are baptized. We know our state of being baptized means the Holy Spirit works this drowning and renewing in us each and every day. God is the subject who completely changes our state of being so that even though we are entirely sinful, we can be entirely righteous. He does keep us in His presence by this work and He does restore the joy of His salvation to us. So in all seriousness we can wake up every morning and say, “I’m sorry God that I am a sinner, but I thank you that I am baptized in your name. I thank you that You do create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me. I thank you that you have given me the joy of Your salvation because I am baptized.”

In the same Triune name of God that we are baptized in, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Psalm 38 Lent 3 Sermon

     Greetings in the name of our Crucified Christ.  I apologize that I am a couple weeks behind.  Now that the weather is turning nice again we have been doing a bunch of work to my garage.  We got it wired up, insulated, sheeted, painted, and not are doing some trim work now.  We built a folding work bench and got the tops done, just have to finish the legs yet.  It is now a work garage though and my car sits outside.  I also got fancy speakers a guy gifted me wired up.  So now I can put on the tunes, spread out all the tools and wood, and have plenty of convenient space to work on my wood working projects.  It is a blessing to be able to work on those projects and clear my mind.  The problem is I have too many hobbies.  I still have this year's deer antlers to mount, I am dying to be out of the golf course, sad ice fishing is probably done for the year, but excited to do some summer fishing with some guys, finish my wooden rocking chair I am building, and thought about starting a cross stitching project.  Plus I am on a intermural softball team which will be starting soon.  All of that on top of fifty hours of church work and then cooking, cleaning, laundry, and house chores too, no wonder I don't get any sleep.  But life is good because God is good!
     I saw the movie Noah last week and was as thoroughly disappointed in it as I figured I would be.   However, I saw God's Not Dead twice and really enjoyed this one.  It has some things that are just to make a drama movie out of it, and there is a touch of bad theology with it; however, for the majority it was a pretty good movie that does teach Christ as Lord and Savior and that faith is important enough to stand up for.
      I am going to post two sermons today to make up for the last two Wednesdays.  I leave Wednesday night for St. Louis with a high school student. I am taking him down to show him around and give him a tour and feel of the seminary.  I will just get back Sunday night and then we have Pastor's conference next Monday and Tuesday.  So basically for a week I will be out of the office.  So I might get behind again and will apologize in advance.  April is going to be so busy with Easter and all the stuff with the college students since they are done the first week of May.  It is hitting home more and more that I have basically just over three months of vicarage left.  It will really hit home at the end of April when we find out if they will have another vicar next year.  But again, God is good and I couldn't ask for more than what He daily and richly spoils me with.
     Here is my sermon from two Wednesday's ago on Psalm 38.

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our Text for tonight is Psalm 38, looking specifically at verses 5-8 and 21-22. “My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness, 6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning. 7 For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. 8 I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart… Do not forsake me, O Lord! O my God, be not far from me! 22 Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!”
      The medical field has made such huge advancements in the last century. From a town doctor who would travel by horse to the person’s house with a small medical bag filled with a few pieces of equipment and a couple bottles of medicine to the hospitals we have now that are filled with numerous electrical devices from heart monitors to MRI machines. They have entire rooms full of supplies and other rooms full of medicines. Pharmacies are filled with thousands of different types of drugs and medicines. Researchers keep coming out with new ones all the time too.
       We as a culture have grown to put great faith in our medical system. We get sick, we go to the hospital and trust they will be able to make us better. We are optimistic for researchers to cure the incurable diseases. The latest break through being the possibility of stopping or at least slowing down Alzheimer’s disease if diagnosed soon enough. What a miracle that would be to be rid of or at least reduce such a terrible disease. We trust doctors have the cure, the right medicines, the ability to heal our sickness, fix our brokenness, or correct our defects. And this is a good thing that the Lord has blesses us with such advancements to live longer healthier lives.
        However, there is one sickness, one brokenness, one defect no doctor, medicine, or surgery can fix. It is the festering and stinking wounds of the psalmist. It is his burning, crushed, feeble flesh. Yes we are all infected with the same sickness and brokenness that this psalmist is describing here in psalm 38. We all have the stinking festering wounds that are causing him so much grief and agony. Sin is the disease, sin is the brokenness, sin is the defect that we all have and are infected with. And no amount of medicine, no team of doctors, no amount of surgery can ever correct, heal, or resolve us of this diagnosis.
       So we receive this diagnosis that we are infected with sin, how do we respond, what do we do about it? Well there are three ways that people tend to treat this diagnosis that are problematic or wrong. This first wrong way is to ignore it. We let ourselves think that we are not infected. They tell themselves, “I am still a good person; I haven’t done anything that terribly wrong.” They compare themselves to others saying, “I am not as bad as him or her. I am not a sinner, you want to see a sinner, look at that guy over there, now there is a sinner for you.” They simply ignore the fact that they have any problem at all, and if there is no problem, then there is no need for a cure.
        The second wrong way to deal with this diagnosis is to think there is a home remedy. People think there is something they can do to heal the disease and fix the problem. They think they can do the right things to reverse this diagnosis. If I live a good enough life, if I do enough good deeds, it will make up for all the wrong deeds I have done. If I pray just the right prayers or go to church enough times, this disease of sin will be cured. I have a sickness, I have a defect, it is up to me to fix it or heal it. This is my problem, I can solve it on my own.
        The third wrong way is to think this diagnosis is incurable, ultimately the end of the end. To think this way is to think there is no cure at all for the disease of sin, there is no solution possible. This way of handling it will drive the person to utter despair. To lose all hope, give up all together, and just let the disease win. If there is no cure, then there is no point in even trying at anything anymore because I have a defect, a sickness that cannot be healed. They have no hope in anything left.
         So these are three ways to handle the diagnosis of sin. Nonetheless, I told you they are three wrong ways, so what is the right way to handle this diagnosis? First, accept that you are infected, you are broken and defected, and you do indeed need special attention to cure you of this problem. Secondly, know there is a cure, there is a solution that heals this disease and reverses this diagnosis. However, it is not a home remedy or anything you can do. It is curable but not by you or your actions. So do not ignore that you are infected with sin, but do not let it drive you despair either. Have hope in the cure, not the cure that you can do, but that you receive.
           Christ our Lord is the physician who can heal our sickness, fix our brokenness, and correct our defect. He alone is the one who is capable of providing the cure for us. In fact, He has provided the cure for us. Christ our physician, healed our disease of sin by taking the disease onto Himself to remove it from us. He was incarnate in our feeble and crushed flesh, He took our stinking and festering wounds, He became broken, infected, and defected for us. He took all sin into Himself to completely remove all sin from us. As St. Peter says in our Epistle for today, “By His wounds, you have been healed.” He became wounded so we could be healed. By His dying on the cross, we have our cure from the diagnosis of sin. Then after He was wounded, infected and killed by our sickness, after He died to take away all of our sins, He was raised from the dead. He himself was healed, brought back to life, and resolved of all sin that He took into Himself on the cross. We have our cure in His death and resurrection. We have our hope that we are cured, we will live forever, the terminal disease of sin no longer is terminal for us. We have life, a clean, healthy life in Him, in Jesus Christ our holy physician.
           So to ignore that you are a sinner is to not believe the Word of God, not to believe the Scriptures that tell us we are indeed sinners and infected with sin. To ignore that we are infected with sin, is to ignore Christ’s command in Mark 1:15 where He says, “repent and believe the gospel.” If we ignore the diagnosis of sin all together, then we have no need for a cure or a savior, holy physician to give us that cure. If we aren’t sinners, we have no need for Christ. However, again His own words confirm that we are indeed sinners and we do need to repent and believe the gospel.
           To think there is a home remedy for the diagnosis is works righteousness. To say that Christ’s death, His cure for us is insufficient. It is to deny the gospel that He died for all sins of all mankind. His death was sufficient for all sins of all mankind. The author of Hebrews writes, “When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” Christ is the single sacrifice, the single cure, the only solution to the diagnosis of sin and to think we still have to do something to gain that cure is to deny Him as the physician.
         Lastly, to be driven to utter despair, to think we have no hope is to deny the Word of God. If we let the Devil whisper in our ear that we are too great a sinner, too awful of a sinner, that God could never possibly forgive someone as terrible as us, then we deny that His gospel is for all people. We doubt that His desire is to save all people. St Paul says in 1 Timothy, “God our savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” In Mark 3, Christ Himself says, “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter.” Christ’s cure is for you, He offers forgiveness to all men and women. Do not doubt but believe. Do not let the Devil drive you to despair, but know our Great Physician has the cure and He gives it to you.
        Don’t ignore the diagnosis, don’t deny the cure is sufficient, and don’t doubt His cure is for you, but believe. Believe God’s Word that you are a sinner who needs to repent, believe God’s word that His death and resurrection in the one and only sufficient cure, believe that His cure is for you because He desires for you to be cured and saved.
        See God did not ignore the problem, no He sent His Son to be born into the feeble flesh. He sent His Son to preach the message of “repent and believe” so we would know that we are infected, we have the diagnosis. He sent His Son to be infected by all the sin of all the world, and die to pay for the sin, be brought back to life to be the cure of all sin once and for all. He sent His Son to be the one and only cure and solution to our diagnosis. He sent His Son to be the salvation of the world because He truly does desire all people to be saved.
         So believe! Believe His Word that you are cured, you are healed, do not ignore it, do not deny it, do not doubt it, but trust in Him, receive His healing forgiveness and know you are cured. Our Physician who gives us our diagnosis also gives us the cure when He tell us in Mark 16, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” To ignore, to deny, to doubt are all not to believe and be condemned. However, if we believe, we will be saved. Through Christ, our great physician, we have our cure. When we believe His Word, when we believe in Christ as the true Son of God, the great physician, the savior of the world, we truly are healed of our sickness, fixed of our brokenness, and corrected of our defect. Repent and believe in the Gospel, believe that “By His wounds, you have been healed!”

In the name of our Great Physician, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Lent 2 Psalm 32 Sermon

       Greetings in Christ's name.  Last week was super busy but i made it through.  I preached Sunday since pastor was gone, preached Wednesday night for Lent, and then preached my first sermon on Saturday.  It went pretty well, and if I get the time I will work with my manuscript to match what I preached and put it up on here.  It was an unique experience though since I didn't know the lady at all, but a good experience for me to have on vicarage.
    Friday I went ice fishing with a member.  We spent all day on the ice to only catch three fish, but it was still a blast.  A day of ice fishing with no fish is still better than a day at home or work or anywhere else.  We got three crappie, but missed a lot of bites.  We might go again this Friday to a different lake for some Perch.  I had a different couple drop off some fresh walleye for me too.  Being a vicar is good :)
      My garage is getting rewired so it has lights and plug ins, then we should be able to insulate and sheet it.  We also plan to build a work bench, so it will be very practical.  And now that the snow is almost completely gone I am getting excited to pick the 1000000000 sticks out of my yard.  I just want to be outside doing stuff again now that it is nice again.
      Here is my sermon from Wednesday night on Psalm 32.  I got a compliment on it from a guy who I would have bet my life savings he wouldn't have given me a compliment in my life, so that was a huge honor actually.  Now I have to go to Bible Bowl, prep for Bible Study tonight, and keep rotating the four tray sof jerky I got going.

March 12th, Lent 2
Psalm 32 (Sorrow/rejoicing)

      I think it’s a safe bet to say a majority of high schoolers all go through a similar experience at least once in their high school career. The experience starts by them doing something wrong. Maybe its cheating on a test, maybe its wrecking their car, maybe its vandalism, maybe its stealing something… its something that they know is wrong and no matter how they try to justify it, deep down they knew it was wrong as they were doing it. Most of the time, it takes them getting caught by a teacher, boss, cop, or somebody of authority besides their parents. They have done something wrong, they have been caught and faced with reality that they are in trouble, now they have to go home and tell mom and dad. But of course they don’t just walk through the front door and blurt out that they messed up. They think it’s better to wait for just the right time. So they come in and when mom asks how was your day, they feel the weight of their guilt double and sink inside them. Everything she continues to ask just makes the shame and guilt seem worse and worse. Dad comes home and starts talking to them and it only gets worse. They squirm in their chair as the burden of it all is so uncomfortable, finally they just want to burst and yell out their confession because at this point the punishment of hiding this secret seems worse than any punishment they will get from mom and dad. Have you had an experience like that, or been the parent in an experience like that? Maybe not through that exact experience, but you still know what it’s like to feel the burden of shame and guilt eat you alive from the inside out.
        This is the feeling our psalmist is experiencing in our psalm for this evening. He states that his bones are wasting away as he remains silent. The longer he sits there just letting the guilt of his sin stew and stir inside him, the more it eats away at him, draining his strength. He knows his sins, he knows his sins are against his Heavenly Father his God. And the longer he tries to hold them in the more they weigh him down. I love the imagery he uses that his strength is dried up as by the summer heat. Working summers out on the road crew, this hits at home that the summer heat does physically drain you to exhaustion. Holding your sins, trying to bury them down deep, trying to hide them, or fix them on your own, does exactly this it drains you of energy, it eats you alive from the inside out.
        So what are we to do with all of this shame, guilt, and remorse? We do exactly what the psalmist does, we confess our sins, and we do not cover our iniquities. The reason sin causes us so much shame and guilt is because we know we have messed up again, we know we have failed again, we have once again let God down, disappointed Him in the fact that we continue to sin, we continue to fall short of His glory. By going to Him in confession we have to admit that we cannot do it, we have failed again. We hate to have to admit that we failed, it hurts our pride, it hurts our ego, and it makes us feel insufficient. However, when we look at how the psalmist views confession we see it is not such a shameful thing at all. Yes, it is still admitting that we have done wrong, but we see that God does not rub it in our faces or shun us or make us feel like the failures we are. No, He forgives us. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and then without a doubt, without a pause, the psalmist writes, and you forgave me.
          Confession is a gift because we are allowed to go to God and confess our sins, letting all our faults and wrongdoings out of us, the burden, the shame, the guilt that eats away at us and drains us is all taken off of us and replaced by His forgiveness and His love. He gives us Absolution, the forgiveness our of sins, removing those sins from us as far as the east is from the west. He doesn’t hold them against us or keep track of them to bring back up later, He completely takes all of our sins away, gone forever, forgotten, and we are clean little children who have done no wrong again n His sight. He takes all of that burden and shame from us. He took it from us before we were even born and placed it on the shoulder of His Son Jesus as He hung on the cross. He put all of those sins in the tomb with the dead body of His Son Jesus, and when Christ rose from the dead and walked out of that tomb, those sins were gone forever, never to be found again. This is the gift He gives to you and me in our confession, He gives us the newness of a fresh start, a clean life, a perfect child of His again.
         When we look at our Gospel reading in the parable of the prodigal son, we see this same idea. The son who leaves the father, thinks he knows how to live best, quickly realizes what a mistake he has made. He has blown his inheritance, squandered it all away on a sinful lifestyle, and instead of admitting his mistake right away, he tries to “fix it” himself. He gets a job feeding pigs, but in envious of the pigs for their food. He waits until he has hit absolute rock bottom, he tried to bury the shame and guilt of his mistakes and keep his pride by trying to fix the problem himself. This eats away at him and drains his strength. Finally, when he hits rock bottom, he realizes that His father can help him. He goes home ready to confess his sins, beg and gravel for the smallest amount of mercy from his father, willing to be a hired man working for him, knowing he no longer deserves to be his son. But the fathers’ reaction is he amazing part. He sees the son coming from a distance, and he doesn’t stand there with his arms crossed and a scold on his face making the son feel his judgment the rest of the walk in, he doesn’t even wait to hear what the son has to say for himself. No, the father runs out to his to meet him, and buries him in love with a huge bear hug.
         This is exactly what our heavenly father does for us, he doesn’t want to hear our confession to make us feel insufficient or like failures, He waits for us to confess, to unload that burden and buried guilt so He can bury us with His huge bear hug and shower us with His love. He comes running to us every time we come to Him in prayer. Just as the father was waiting and watching for the return of his son, our Father is always there waiting and watching for us. As soon as we decide it’s time to stop and pray, confess those sins, He is there running to us, hugging us and embracing us in His loving arms.
          So why do we wait until we have hit rock bottom, why do we wait at all? If we truly know the love our Father has for us, the gift of absolution that is there ready for us, and that all that guilt, shame, and sin will be complete removed from us, washed away from us, why do we try to hold on to it for so long? Why do we let that sin eat away at us instead of just going to our Father in prayer and letting Him give us His forgiveness and love?
         Now if you feel like you have confessed your sins in prayer numerous times and you are not feeling His embracing arms around you, you have confessed your sins in church with the public general confession each Sunday and you still feel burdened by a certain sin, even after receiving the Lord’s supper knowing your sins are forgiven, but there is still a certain sin that will not leave you alone, then its time to go to private confession. Pastor Wurm not only gave me permission but encouraged me to include this in tonight’s sermon, that he will gladly do private confession with anyone whenever they desire to do so. Let the words our Father has to offer, words of absolute forgiveness, entirely cleansing forgiveness be spoken over you from the mouth of Pastor Wurm knowing it is as certain as if our Heavenly Father was Himself standing over you telling you He forgives you and loves you because you are His chosen daughter or son who he will always love and is always there when you need Him.
         Then after we have received the gift of absolution, that free forgiveness and complete removal of our sins, that cleansing shower making us completely a new creation again, what is left to do but what the psalmist says in verse 11. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. You see upon hearing the words of absolution, upon feeling the Father’s loving embrace, His arms bear hugged around you, knowing you are completely forgiven, you are now truly and entirely righteous and upright in heart. He has made you holy and righteous through His Son Jesus. So rejoice, shout for joy, and be glad in the this fresh start, this new life, this amazing undeserved love you receive again and again from your Father. That sorrow we feel in our shame and guilt, that is the sorrows of the wicked and the unbeliever, but we who surrounded by the steadfast love of our Lord, we rejoice! Rejoice because you are a holy precious child of His, be glad in the Lord who loves you so dearly to forgive you again and again.

In the name of our Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the one Triune God who loves us, forgives us, and makes us righteous and upright so that we may rejoice, Amen.

Sunday's Sermon

         Greetings in the name of our Lord.  I have never seen so much snow melt so fast.  We went from three feet on the ground to seeing grass in numerous spots in the yard in two days.  Pretty soon, only piles will be left.  This is the time of the year I do not really enjoy because the snow is dirty and gross looking.  The grass is not yet green and everything is muddy.  I had a dream about golfing last night so I think even this winter lover is ready for spring and being outside again.  I cleaned my garage, fixed the lawn mower that someone (cough*** pastor**) broke.  Then yesterday I took my old wooden rocking adirondack chair apart.  It is falling apart, so I am going to use the pieces as patterns to build a new one.  That is going to be my next project as the weather gets nice, I want to spend some time working on that.  I need something like that to free my mind and is just for me.
        This last weekend was crazy busy, but I survived the youth lock-in.  I ended up covered in chocolate sauce by the kids, but got my revenge when I got to wake them up at 5:45 in the morning by yelling as loud as I could and pulling their blankets off.  Then we went to the state dart ball tournament which was a blast.  I got on base twice and even had a home run but we ended up losing to tie for fifth.  Still a great day of fun.  Then Sunday, everything went well with my first services all by myself at Mt. Calvary. I have done other services all by myself but this was the first time here.
       I did hear from my field work supervisor that he hasn't retired yet and should still be there when I get back.  I am glad about that because I look forward to another year of working beside him and continuing to build our relationship.
       Here is my sermon from Sunday, enjoy:

Grace Mercy and Peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our sermon this morning focuses in on the Gospel reading from Matthew Chapter 4 the temptation of Jesus, but our focus text comes from the Epistle reading of Romans chapter 5 verses 18 and 19, “Therefore , as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to the justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”

        When I played football in high school I played offensive lineman – big surprise right?! I loved being a lineman, especially being center because got to touch the ball every play. But one thing I had to learn very quickly is that as an offensive lineman, you will get blamed much more often than you will get praised. I can remember one game in the first half the line was playing terrible, myself included. The coach took a timeout to come chew us out, and as he was yelling at us I leaned back from the huddle and realized the entire crowd of fans was yelling negative insults at us linemen as well. Second half, we came out, turn things around and our offense was back to making big plays and scoring. We won the game, but afterward all I heard was, “Man that line almost cost us the game tonight” or “It is a good thing our running back is good enough to play without a line blocking for him”. All we got was the blame for the first half, not the credit for the second half.
I assume there are times we have all felt this way. Maybe at work you make a mistake and get blamed for messing up the whole project, so you work twice as hard to fix it but somebody else still gets the credit. Times when you feel like no matter how hard you try, you are only seen as the one at fault instead of getting the credit you feel you deserve.
        In our Old Testament reading for today, we heard the account of the fall of Adam and Eve. This is a story we are taught from a very young age. In order to know why we believe in Jesus, why we need Jesus as our Lord, we have to know the story of the fall. The reason our entire world and all of creation is in the sinful state that it is in, goes back to the garden and those two bites of fruit that would change everything for the rest of time. As Lutheran’s we believe in original sin that goes back to Adam and Eve. Sermons will reference the garden or the fall in the garden trying to preach the whole council of God. This part of humanities story cannot be ignored because it was such a defining moment. It brought sin into our world, and with that sin came all the pain and suffering, tears and grieving, and death. Looking at the curses God gives to Eve and Adam, we see pain in childbearing, jealously, pride, hard work, sweat, and death. All of this, along with all other curses and symptoms of sin, entered our world because the first two humans disobeyed God and fell into sin, pulling all of humanity and creation down with them.
        Now it is very easy for us to quickly put the blame on Adam and Eve. They are the ones who brought sin into the world. If they hadn’t fallen we would still be living in the paradise of the garden. We would still have God walking among us and there would be no pain, suffering, pride, jealousy, mourning, or death. The world would still be perfect if they could have just followed that one rule. I mean after all they only had one rule to follow and they couldn’t even do that. It is entirely their fault that we have to suffer because they made one wrong choice. Adam and Eve are to blame.
        Or maybe you are willing to forgive Adam and Eve for their slip up, but you blame the devil. If he wouldn’t have tempted Adam and Eve, they would have never fallen. If he wouldn’t have fallen away from God himself first, he would have been evil and wouldn’t have caused all of mankind to fall too. The devil should have remained a good faithful angel and then we would have never had any of these problems. It is entirely the devil’s fault for rebelling against God, tempting Adam and Eve, and bringing sin into the world. The devil is to blame.
       Or maybe you even go so far as to blame God. If He would have destroyed the devil as soon as he rebelled, he wouldn’t have been able to tempt Adam and Eve and sin would have never come into our world. If God is all knowing, He had to know the devil would tempt Adam and Eve and they would fall into sin, so why did He let this happen? Why did He let the devil live even after his rebellion, why did he let the devil in the garden to tempt Adam and Eve? Why did He even create the devil in the first place? If God really is all knowing, He had to know the devil would rebel before He even created him, so why did He create him? God knew the devil would become evil and rebel and tempt Adam and Eve and cause them to fall into sin and bring the entire creation into a fallen sinful condition, and He let it all happen. God is to blame for all of this.
         However, as we are in the season of Lent, which is a penitential season, maybe this would be a good time to stop trying to blame others and examine the sin of our own life. When we look at our own life, do we really have any right at all to even begin to try to play the blame game? Yes, Adam and Eve sinned first. Yes, through original sin their sinfulness is inherited by all humans. Yes, the devil tempted them and led them into sin. Yes, God knew this all would happen and allowed it to happen. However, God created the devil, Adam and Eve all as good creatures. After He had finished creation, it was all good. The devil rebelled, we are not told how or why but he started as a good angel like all the other angels. Yes the devil tempted Adam and Eve, but God gave them the gift of free will which allowed them to choose whether they would remain faithful to God, or disobey and fall into sin. He made the one command He gave them very clear and told them the consequences of what would happen if they did break the command. The devil tempted them, but they made the choice on their own to listen to him. They chose to break the command knowing full well they were not supposed to. So Adam and Eve sinned first, but can you say with full confidence that if you had been put in their position you would not have fallen? The point is God did allow it to happen, the devil did tempt them, and they did break the command and fall into sin. Stop blaming them! Stop letting your pride puff you up into thinking you would have done the right thing had you been there. In this penitential season of lent, stop trying to figure out why you are a sinner, and admit that you are indeed a sinner. Admit that you are a sinful being, yes because of original sin, but even more so because of the fact that you sin each and every day. In Romans where St. Paul says all sin came into the world through one man, he continues with and so death spread to all men because ALL sinned. We are all sinners and we are all to blame that sin exists in the world. That is what this season of the church year is for; it is set aside for the special purpose of truly reflecting and examining your own life and realizing how much a terrible, rotten, and filthy sinner you truly are. Stop pointing your finger at others and look at yourself, look at your own life, and confess your sins that you know you are guilty of.
         We are to blame. We are the ones who deserve no credit but purely the fault. It is your sins, and your sins, and your sins, and your sins, and my sins that put our Lord on the cross. He died to pay for the sins of Adam and Eve, all the Israelites, the Pharisees and scribes, the disciples, but even more importantly He died to pay for the sins of you and of me. We are the ones to blame for Him being born in the flesh, we are the ones to blame for Him living a life in the midst of this sinful condition, we are the ones to blame for Him laying down His own life by being nailed to the cross and hanging there in pain until He breathed His last. After all, we see in our Gospel reading for today that Christ was tempted and He DIDN’T fall. He didn’t make the wrong choice, give into the devil, or disobey the Father. He didn’t sin. The only human being to ever not sin, is the one who dies for the price of all sins. We are the ones to blame, the ones at fault, and deserve absolutely none of the credit or praise.
         Jesus Christ our Lord, who allowed Himself to be tempted by the devil to prove He would live the perfect life we never could, Jesus Christ our Lord, who gave His up His perfect life as the sacrifice for all the sins He never committed, the sacrifice for all the sins we committed, He is the one and only one who deserves the credit and the praise. He alone deserves the credit and praise for our life we have in Him, because it is by His actions alone we can ever claim to be righteous or holy. St. Paul continues in the Epistle lesson by saying, “Therefore , as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to the justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” See Christ could not have been the atoning sacrifice to pay the price for all sins, if He had not been obedient. If He had not resisted the devil’s temptations and fallen into sin, He would not have been the unblemished lamb that would be the perfect sacrifice. Christ lived a perfect life resisting the devil, remaining obedient to the Father, knowing this was the only way He could truly pay the price for all sins. This one man’s obedience is how the many will be made righteous. Through the perfect obedient life of Christ, through His atoning death, and His victorious resurrection, now you have been made righteous. Your forgiveness for all those sins you have committed, your forgiveness of your original sin you inherited, your holiness and righteousness your salvation, and your eternal life all are because of Christ the Lord who remained obedient and paid the price for you. He alone is the one who deserves the credit. He alone is the one who is worthy of the praise. All credit and praise be to the one who never sinned, but took away all sin of the world with His perfect and precious life.

In the name of our Savior who is to credit for our righteousness and salvation, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.