Why Celebrate Our Sanctuary? 60th Anniversary of the Sanctuary of First Lutheran Church

Acts 2:42-47

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Overview of the Windows

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ. Amen. Over the past several weeks, we've been working through a sermon series based on the stained glass windows of our sanctuary. The very first one, we did a quick overview, and so now is time for the test. So I'm going to point No, so we'll do a quick reminder of the stained glass windows that we've been looking back. If you start over in the back on the far left, when you're looking back that way, that is the Bethlehem window. Next to it is Jesus in the manger. Then we have the Jordan river next to that, the one with the cross and the Bible is the one that represents Jesus' ministry of the word. Next to that is Golgotha, the place where Jesus was crucified. The cross with the Crown represents his crucifixion. Right next to that, we see the Sea of Galilee, the blue with a boat on there. It's a boat, if you didn't know that's a sailboat, right? The lily is a symbol of resurrection, and then right next to that, we have the city of Jerusalem descending, as in Revelation on the day that Jesus returns. Let's take a look at the other side. Shall we? We'll go left to right over here as well. On the left side is the Garden of Eden. You can see the flowers and the trees with one great big tree in the front. Next to that is a symbol of God, the Father. He has his fingers up the symbol of the right hand of God is a symbol of power, but he has them in the hand of blessing. We have a pasture scene with the shepherds, with the shepherd's crook next to that is the crown with a cross representing the son. So far we have father, then son next to that, we have the wilderness where Jesus was tempted by Satan. Next to that is a symbol of the Dove, representing the Holy Spirit with the glow over his head, showing us that it is holy. Now what's really exciting is next to that, we have a window that I can't see from here, but I believe it is the tree of life next to a river. The Trinity window is the window with the triangle and the half circles around it, the subject of our sermon this morning. And then finally, we have heaven. That's where the trees are now, that leaves one window, the big one that you may overlook every time you enter the church or every time you leave the church, it's also the one that is right there. I'm going to make you wait to find out about it until we talk just a little more. 

Why This Celebration?

Actually, I think the reason I'm going to make you wait is I have a question to ask you. Why this celebration Now you might think pastor, we have been planning this celebration for months. Is now the right time to ask that question? Maybe that should have been asked 345, months ago when we scheduled the pot luck and we decided to do special music and the choir pulled their stuff out of the filed cabinets to get ready. Still, it's a good question, right? Why this celebration? Why are we here at all, celebrating the 60th anniversary of this sanctuary? Why this celebration? Is it? 

Is This God’s House?

Because this place is God's house. Perhaps in my first church, I did preschool chapel all the time. Every week I would do a number of them, and one of my most embarrassing times was when a young, two year old mistook me for God. I would come in and I would do the chapel, and I would do my stories and the singing, and she would raise her hand and go, God, God. You know that happens often. Usually they think of us as Jesus. They don't think of us and call us God. I quickly told her that I wasn't. Of course, kids believe the strangest things, one of the things they also sometimes believe is that the pastor lives in the church. And so when I told this same girl that I would be taking a call to another congregation and leaving that first church. She said, Where will you live? Right? That kind of understanding is a little bit like calling this place God's house, because God really doesn't live here, does he? If he does, his bed sure is hard to find. We know that God doesn't need a house or a building or any kind of structure to live in. In fact, one of the greatest structures ever built, Solomon's temple. It was filled with gold. It had the Holy of Holies. It had the Ark of the Covenant in there, the place where God said that, that's where he was. You know what Solomon said when he dedicated it first Kings, chapter eight, he said, but will God indeed dwell on earth? Behold, Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built. So if the God did not need a temple to dwell in to make his house, I think it's the same now in our sanctuary, if you look at Acts chapter two, the apostles are gathered together. Right after Pentecost, the church is coming together, and it says, And they devoted themselves to a capital campaign so they could build a church. Oh, wait. No, that's not what it says. They devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. They didn't need a house or a sanctuary for God to come down and dwell with His people and give them his grace. Even the big churches like the one in Corinth, they met in a guy's house. It was a big house, but it was still his house. What God wants to give, what he needs in ministry is His word and Sacraments, the things that have gathered us all here together so that you can receive His grace through the message that He has given us of His Son, Jesus Christ. That's what the apostles gathered around, the teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread, Holy Communion and their prayers. They didn't need a particular kind of building to do it. 

Is It The People?

So we ask, why this celebration? Is it because of all the people we've have a long history here, don't we? 60 years is a long time. We have memories of wonderful people who put the put the building together, who made the plans. We've got the plans and the contract. If you came here this morning, you got to see all that stuff laid out in a display. There's even a design for that great big window in the back already laid out colored pencil. It's kind of cool. We have memories here. Weddings have happened, funerals, confirmations, preschool, sing alongs, all sorts of cool stuff, right? And we're just getting ready for our annual Christmas concert. So much great stuff has happened here. Is it the people? That's not why we built a building like this. Is it because the people who gather here were just sinners, and they didn't come here because the congregation is just filled with amazing people, and we all have stuff in common, right? We came here because there's a message Jesus Christ, who died on a cross for you, and that's what actually made this congregation possible because God took by the power of the Holy Spirit people who are very different from each other, like I don't know a guy born in northern Wisconsin who said that Chicago was too far south and.

People like us, different places and different ideas and different ways of thinking, and he gathered us all together into the body of Christ. It's not because we are amazing, but because the gospel of Jesus Christ has power to save. So maybe it's not the peak. 

Is It The Architecture?

So why this celebration? Is it because of the architecture? Now I have to say, this place is pretty cool. If you tell someone who knows anything about church history, and you bring them to our church, they will walk in and they'll say, oh, yeah, 1960s because it definitely looks like that. But it is built beautifully the way the roof slopes, the way the the symbols of our stained glass window have been designed the effort and love that our congregation put into all of this. It is wonderful. But you know what they call places that we celebrate because of their design. Museums, I've been to churches that are like that, where there are more people walking around looking at the art on the walls, having to be told, No flash photography. There's a service in project process that's not what we want to be, is it where there are more people looking at our windows than worshiping our Savior and receiving His grace? No, we're not here to celebrate the beauty of the building, though it is beautiful, we're here to celebrate that the Holy Spirit has called a congregation out of darkness into the light of Christ by the death and resurrection of our Savior to give us eternal life. That's what our building is for. 

The Ministry of the Word and Sacraments

So we ask why this celebration now we get to talk about that window. See the designers of this church knew exactly what this building was for. They place in the very center of this window, as soon as you walk in, you see it the cross of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and it shines like a light, the light that goes out into the world and gathers people together for eternal life. And right next to it is why we come together on Sunday. One on each side, you see the word right up there, the Bible on the stand, the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed to the whole world for the salvation of everyone who believes. And on the other side the chalice, the bread of Holy Communion that is Christ's Body and Blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. They put that window there to remind you that this is what this building is all about. And if you just miss that, if you walk in and you're just like you forget it, it goes into the background. You can't miss it up here, can you? Because the altar is right there, reminding us that Christ sacrificed himself and offers himself to us through His Word and Sacraments. That's what we're celebrating today. That's why we call this place God's house, not because he needs to live here, but because he comes to us and delivers himself to us through the means of grace. That's why we celebrate this people, not because we are great, but because God has bound us together in the body of his son. That's why we celebrate the architecture, because everything in here pushes our minds and our souls to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for your salvation. You us. We celebrate because this is the place we have set aside for the gospel of Jesus Christ to save souls, you and me. And it's 60 years. Years of God's word being proclaimed, 60 years of the sacraments delivered. That's what we're celebrating, Jesus Christ, who died and rose for you and delivers that to you here every week in Jesus name amen, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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A Simple Triangle or a Call Into God's Love? Isaiah 6:1-8 Sermon for Sunday, November 10th, 2024

Isaiah 6:1-8

“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory!”

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

Celebration of God's Blessings and Introduction to the Sermon

Greetings and blessings in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, it is my honor and my privilege to be with you today, and I bring heartfelt greetings from our English district Bishop, Reverend Jeffrey miscus, and also from all of your sister congregations of the English district. We get together, we celebrate this day with you, and we're thankful to our Triune God for all the blessings that He has granted through this building to those over the years who have worshiped or have visited here. It is indeed a good it is good to celebrate God's gifts in our lives. In sharing with me about today's service, Pastor Huenink informed me that your congregation is in the midst of a sermon, a series of Sunday messages focused on the different stained glass windows in your sanctuary, and looking around, they are indeed beautiful and many part of the blessings which is celebrated today, he specifically asked me to focus my message on on that one over there, just a second from the end, on that side, you can rub her neck if you want to look at it, but I think it's also up on the screen right. 

Exploration of the Holy Trinity and Its Symbolism 

The essence of that stained glass I saw the picture, and it was just breathtaking to see it in Live is just even more spectacular when you see the total context of it. This one with the triangle, this symbol and the three half loops intertwined with it. They are Christian symbols. And Christian symbols often are intended to carry with them a meaning and and many times, actually started off as a teaching tool in the early church. I mean, you didn't have to have PowerPoint back in the day when, when the disciples were wandering around, or the early church was around, you could just bend down and draw a triangle in the ground, you know, in the sand, and start talking about it. The triangle in the stained glass window is a graphic representation of our one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the stylized circles are intended to teach us that there is complete unity in these three people. Now there's many different variations of this. This image in on the internet, you can go look it up. But this complete unity is important because the thought often comes to us that if there's three persons, then there must be three gods. And that's not true, one God. Now there are many other graphics which have been used over the years to help teach about the Holy Trinity, but today I just, I just want to focus on this one, this glass in your sanctuary, because it's something you see on a regular basis. So being here this morning and having pointed out that specific window, I have to ask, is this a simple triangle, a symbol of the Trinity, or can we also see in it a call into God's action of love

Isaiah's Vision and the Concept of Repentance 

In our Old Testament. Reading for this morning, we hear that in the year that king Isaiah died, the prophet, Isaiah saw a Prophet SAW, sorry, saw a vision. I don't mean he saw a vision like a dream. He saw a vision. It was breathtaking. It was overwhelming. Angels and and an earthquake and the Lord himself speaking and smoke and fire and a voice that could bring the house down. You know, not, not a vision, a vision that was huge and breathtaking. And so what is, Isaiah reaction to all this? He is overwhelmed. He is awestruck. He does not take being in God's holy presence as a light, casual thing, nor does he think how special he must be cuz he's there, I get to see this. Aren't I special? No, quite the opposite. In the presence of this holy God. Isaiah becomes keenly aware of his own unworthiness. He cries out. Out. Woe is me. I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the Lord of hosts,

Isaiah confesses his sinfulness in the presence of our holy God. This is repentance. This is what repentance is supposed to be. And now Isaiah may have been a better man than most, but, and he probably was, in many ways, but still, still the awareness of his own sin causes him to cry out as he mourns his woeful estate, and what effect does that have on his heart? He despairs. He despairs as we speak of the Holy Trinity this morning, we must share with each other the fullness of what this symbol in the stained glass is really conveying to us. Our God is a holy God, and He calls us to be His holy people, but we are not holy. We are far from it. We come into the presence of our holy God. And are we not condemned? Do not our sins leap up before our eyes. I'm unworthy. Woe to me, and we are like Isaiah. We mourn our sinfulness. Isaiah was moved to confess Woe to me. Woe is me. I am lost from a person of unclean lips. What about us? Have our lips been unclean? Have we been grumbling and complaining? Have we been have we even using our lips to speak about God to our neighbor, or have we been using our lips to speak ill of our neighbor, or to bring into question actions that our neighbor may have been doing, and what about our fellow church members? Do we put the best construction on everything? If not? Maybe we do have unclean lips that are in need of cleansing.

The Role of God the Father and Jesus Christ in Salvation 

For this morning. Let's call that upward corner of the triangle, God the Father. Can you see that title there? It's not written there, but can you imagine it there? God the Father. Is the is the corner at the top, Isaiah was brought into the Father's presence, and he, as well as all of us, become aware of our sins and failures. And we ask, Who will save us, oh Lord God, who will save us from the judgment and wrath that we deserve. Let's name the corner in the lower right hand, Jesus Christ, looking into our gospel reading today from John three verses, 16 to 17 we heard read for us by Pastor. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, whoever that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Good news, great news, it's absolutely amazing. News, God the Father, has given us the way of salvation. He has given us the way out of despair. It's not our own making, nor is it our own ability or power. This way of salvation is his, and it's his gift to us alone. Nothing. Can we add nothing? Can we subtract from it? We are told in in John moved by his deep and profound love for the world, and I just have to stop there, because I I'm the mission executive district as well. And I just want to say, the world everyone, no one's left out, no one's excluded everywhere. There's no geography that God's word is not wanting to work in people's hearts. It. In all time. That's what is meant here.

God gave us Jesus Christ to gain for us forgiveness for our sins, a true love that casts out all fear and the promise of eternal life. Now there are some who would say that Jesus came to teach us the way of holiness, to provide a manual to guide us in performing a list of behaviors intended to obligate God to love us. In other words, we have to earn his love

that is not the witness of Scripture, and clearly not the teaching of the apostle John, nor of our confessions. Jesus was not sent to condemn or judge our actions, but that the world would be saved through Him in

now, while the the window that we are looking at this, the symbol that we're looking at this morning, doesn't specifically have a cross in it, I see that there are several of your windows that do have crosses in them. And that's important, because that is the more of the story that our symbol of the Holy Trinity is telling us, God did not give Jesus to walk among us. Teach us, show us that God the Father's heart, no, he came to be the one to give his life for us. He came to be the one who redeems us from all sin. If you are baptized, all of your sins are forgiven completely, the ones of the past, the ones you can remember, the ones you can't remember, the ones of today, the ones of tomorrow, the ones of 10 years from now, all covered by the blood of the Lamb.

He came to be the one to give his life for our life. He came to be the one who redeems us from our sins. He came to be our Savior. In fact, He is our Savior. He is the one and only Savior of the world. And the only way to accomplish our salvation was for Jesus Christ to take our place to take all of our sins upon himself and make payment for them as he died on that cross, Jesus Christ was crucified for you and still today.

It humbles me almost 30 years later, for me to recall being in a small village up in the northern part of the country of India. I was on a mission trip, and we were sitting in the middle of the village. It was after dark, and we were watching the Jesus film in the language of the tribe that we were at. I didn't understand the language. I knew the delay of what was happening on the screen. It seems that all the people the village had come out to watch this film projected on the large white cloth that has been stretched out at one end of the street. So it was a block party, the story of Jesus. And when the story arrived at the trial of Jesus, something happened that I have never before experienced in my life, the villagers started yelling at the screen, crying out in anger at the clear injustice of the events that were taking place in the trial, and they cried out even more when Jesus was whipped and When the story move forward to the crucifixion. That is when I I first heard the sound of muffled weeping coming from the villagers, not from any of the of the missionaries. The villagers, as a soldier, stabbed the spear into the side of Jesus body. Both men and women were now loudly crying for Jesus.

The Work of the Holy Spirit and the Message of the Stained Glass Window 

So the message of the stained glass triangle takes us from woe is me to tears of sorrow. So to see what our salvation cost Jesus, and it brings us to a place of joy and celebration for the third and final triangle. Corner of the triangle in the stained glass window frame, there are We are, of course, going to name it the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Triune God, the apostle Paul, in our reading from Romans, tells us in verse 16 that the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, that is the work of the Holy Spirit to reveal to us our spiritual condition before God, the Father, like Isaiah, we despair, to reveal to us our desperate need for a Savior, and put into our hearts of faith to know that Jesus is our only Savior, so we know hope and then reveal to us the heart of God for the world. I was visiting a family that had a wall of pictures. I mean, there must have been 100 pictures on this wall. It wasn't that big a wall, but it was just packed with these pictures, all in frames. They all had frames, all meticulously hung on the wall. And it was truly amazing to look at all the different people in the family. They were all family pictures, all the people in the family, all the people in the extended relatives, all the different events they've been to and been part of. And as we looked at the pictures, I asked, How often do you do this? Take the time to really look at these pictures? And I was not shocked at all by the reply. They said, not often they're there. We know they're there, but we don't. We don't like look at them that often. We don't pay attention to them every single day or every time we pass them. We don't stop and say, whoo. Look at that picture. I understand their experience. I I think we can all relate to pictures we have on display in our homes. We see them. Sometimes they catch us. Sometimes they don't, but otherwise, they're just another piece of furniture in the living room or bedroom or wherever. This family also had a digital picture frame. I don't know if you're aware what that is, but it's a basically, it's a screen, and you plug in a memory card into it, put power to it, and it rotates through the pictures on the memory card. Every so often, it changes the picture. It's like a new picture. It's revealed every few moments. And I was sitting in the in the family room, talking to the family, and it was so hard not to look at that screen. It kept changing pictures, you know? It got my attention. It kept my attention. Although I'd probably seen many of those same pictures on the wall, right? It's hard to ignore pictures that that are in motion. So in closing, this morning, I thought that I would share with you the back side of my business card, which also has a Trinitarian triangle on it. So you want to change the picture, there we go. That's my business card, not, not the name, number side, the other side, okay, but it has a Trinitarian triangle on it. So what I would like to try to do here is, I like to have you imagine in your mind's eye that you take the stained glass window and you lay it over the picture of my business card. Can you kind of imagine that?

The Movement of God's Love and Salvation 

So there's connection to the two, for ref, for reference. Remember that the three corners still have the same names we've already given to it, but now there's motion. There's movement, starting with the Lord left, Holy Spirit corner. We were in the world. We still are, but we were in the world before we came to know Christ and God and the Holy Spirit drew us in to relationship with God, the Father. And of course, that first place we came to was a recognition that we are sinners and we cannot save ourselves. You. We were convicted, and we were in live, and we were enlivened within us the need for a Savior. And that's a green line. The green line arrow moving us from from that corner up to God the Father at the top. And when God, the Father, then gifts us with faith again through the Holy Spirit, but he draws us into relationship through the Word and the sacrament, he draws us to recognize not only knowledge that we are sinners and that we can't save ourselves, but also that Jesus was the one who died for us and paid for our sins. Again, it's God's action in us, and we are drawn along. So now you'll see that green line, that green line arrow moving us from the to to the lower right hand Jesus Christ corner and drawing us into himself and into unity with his body. And that's why I have a cross on my card, because I want people to know it's Jesus. That's that's our Savior. Jesus is the one who we walk with each and every day, he also draws us into relationship with each other as the body of Christ. So in Jesus, you are my sisters and my brothers. I used to joke with my guy friends. I'd say you're just a brother from another mother. Well, true enough, you are my brothers and sisters from other parents, from another place, but we are one in Jesus,

Conclusion and Call to Action 

God's desire is always and has always been, that all the people the world come into relationship with Himself. And so there is a third green line. And this green line arrow moves us where back out into the world by the power of the Holy Spirit. Being the children of God, we get to bring his love to all the people we have relationship with in the world, neighbors, fellow employees, people that we we know even stranger. And of course, our message, it's about Jesus. He is, of course, our message for all the people around us, all the people who are broken, all the people who are in sorrow or despair or poor or tormented or lost or and you can go on forever here, because there's so many variations of being broken, and that's why I have this cross on my business card, because we have movement from the Trinity, and we are God's movement. We are the ones who now participate with him and taking his message and his salvation into the world, brothers and sisters, we have so much to celebrate today, and I and I encourage you, do not allow that stained glass window to become one more static picture in your life, taking the time, taking notice of it only occasionally see in that image, that triangle, the movement of God, first for you and then for everyone, everyone around you, without exception, hear the call of God, the Father, upon your life, and take what you have received here in the divine service out into the world with you. This symbol is not just a triangle. It is a message of God's love for you and the world, amen. And now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ, Jesus, our Lord, amen. Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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The Holy Spirit Bears Witness to Christ: John 15:26-27, 16:12-15 Sermon for Sunday, November 3rd, 2024

John 15:26-27

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

John 16:12-15

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Our Grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we often admire the stained glass windows surrounding our sanctuary. The three today I'll talk about briefly. Are three moments the exalted Christ crowned with glory and honor because of the death he suffered. The Spirit descending as a dove when he was baptized, and Jesus in the Jordan River when he began, began his earthly ministry. Each of these shows us how God works as a Father Son and Holy Spirit. Today, we look at our text. In the Gospel of John, Jesus gave us a promise about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the life of the church. In our passage, Jesus is speaking to His disciples just before his crucifixion, preparing them for what lies ahead his death, resurrection and ascension. He promises that He would not leave them alone, but would send them a Helper, the Holy Spirit, to bear witness to him, lead them in all truths and glorify Him. Today, we see how the promises apply to us and to how the Holy Spirit actively works in our lives, even in the church, even now, the first role of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus explains, is to bear witness to Christ. The Holy Spirit is a great testifier of Jesus, always pointing back to Him as our Savior and Redeemer. In this the Holy Spirit is unique. He doesn't draw attention to himself, but always directs our gaze to Christ through the Word and Sacraments. The Holy Spirit is constantly revealing Jesus to us, affirming our faith and enabling us to believe and confess that Jesus is Lord, as it says in First Corinthians, chapter 12, verse three, when the gospel is preached, it is the Holy Spirit who opens our hearts to receive it, drawing us to faith in Christ. Think about the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. The Holy Spirit led Philip to the man in the chariot. He was reading the book of Isaiah, but didn't understand it. Through Philip, the Holy Spirit opened the eunuchs eyes and heart to see that the prophecy pointed to Jesus, and the eunuch was eunuch believed and was baptized. It's recorded in Acts chapter eight. The spirit continues to work the same way today, revealing Christ through the scriptures and through the preaching of the gospel. But this witness isn't something that we passively receive. It's something that we want to actively join. The Holy Spirit invites us to be a part of bearing witness to Christ through our words and actions, we are called to testify to this saving work of Jesus, the witness isn't done by our own strength, but through the power of the Spirit. Luther Small Catechism tells us that the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth equips us to share the gospel in confidence, knowing that he is working through us. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would teach and remind the apostles of all things, and this promise extends to us as well. When we share Christ with others, we can trust that the Holy Spirit is guiding us, helping us and working. In the hearts of those who hear in our passage in John chapter 16, Jesus acknowledges that his disciples were not ready to grasp all that he had to say. There were still things they couldn't understand, especially about the necessary necessity of His death and resurrection. There are mysteries for us, also mysteries of God that we cannot fully comprehend. But Jesus assures us that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth will guide us. He does this through the Scriptures, helping us to see Jesus in every page and understand God's will for our lives. The spirit guides you and I into all truth through the means of grace, the word and sacraments in baptism, the Spirit enables Christ's death and resurrection to give applies Christ's Resurrection and death to us, cleansing us from sin and making us heirs of eternal life in the Lord's Supper, he brings us Christ's true Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins and strengthening our faith. And through the preaching of the Word, the Spirit works faith in our hearts, Bringing the truth of the gospel into our lives. Through these means, the Holy Spirit not only calls us to faith, but also sustains and strengthens our faith. We don't have to rely on our own understanding or strength. We trust that the Spirit will keep us rooted in the truth of the gospel. One of the special aspects of the Holy Spirit's work is that he does not speak on His own authority. Jesus tells us in John, chapter 16, verse 13, that the Spirit speaks only what he hears from the Father and the Son. This reflects the perfect unity that the Trinity has. The Spirit's role is to direct us to Christ, not to create new doctrine or teaching everything he reveals to us points back to Jesus, confirming the truths that Jesus has already given us. Finally, the Holy Spirit's role is to glorify Jesus. Jesus says in chapter John, chapter 16, verse 14, He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to to you.

Spirit. Doesn't seek His own glory, but points to us to Jesus, helping us to see the completeness of his redemptive work. The Spirit continually draws us to the cross and to the empty tomb, where Christ glory shines both brightly, most brightly, we are reminded of Paul's words in Philippians chapter two, where Christ is exalted because of his humanity and obedience, even to death on the cross, the Holy Spirit doesn't just give us knowledge about Jesus. He brings that knowledge to life within us. He takes the grace, forgiveness and salvation that belongs to Christ, and applies them directly to our lives. This is not just head knowledge, but a transformative work of the heart. As a Spirit makes us new creations in Christ through the Word and Sacraments, the Spirit brings Christ's salvation to us personally, making us recipients of His grace. We are constantly sanctified by the Spirit who leads us to live holy lives in response to Christ's love. In verse 15 of John. 16, Jesus speaks of the deep unity within the Trinity. He says, All that the Father has is Mine, therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. This shows us that the Holy Spirit is not working independently, but in perfect harmony with the Father and the Son. Everything the Holy Spirit does points us to Christ. As believers, we are called to project this unity bearing witness to Christ in all that we do and trusting that the Spirit will guide us in truth and empower us to live our life in faith. The Holy Spirit is our personal helper and comforter who bears witness to Christ and guides us to all truth, glorifies Christ in all things, and draws us closer to Jesus and strengthens our faith in Him. As we leave today, let us remember that we are never alone. The Holy Spirit continues to work within us and within the church, pointing us to Christ and grounding us in His truth and empowering us to live lives that glorify Him. Amen in.

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The New Jerusalem: Revelation 21:1-8 Sermon for Sunday, October 27th, 2024

Revelation 21:1-8

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ. Amen, today is Reformation Day, but we're not talking about the readings we would normally do or doing a sermon on that theme, because we are in the middle of a series based on the windows that you see up in our sanctuary. We've worked through a number of them, and I have the photos of some right up there that we're talking about today. Two of them are over there. One is the lily, and then next to it is the New Jerusalem descending from heaven. And then the last window is the one that you see all the way in the back on the other side, it's the one with the really tall kind of tree Bush thing. So that one back there represents heaven. That is the scene that is heaven. The scene over on this side is New Jerusalem, descending down to earth. And the lily represents the resurrection. And we have all seen the symbolism of the lily representing the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I think every church I have ever been to on Easter gets a whole bunch of lilies and puts them up front and and we get to see their beauty, and the people who are allergic to them get their noses filled, and they're glad that they don't they only last a couple of weeks. The lily represents the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a reminder of the joy that we have that after Christ died on the cross as a triumph over sin, he rose to new life to bring light and life to light for all of us that it leads us to the resurrection, our own resurrection. Today, I want to focus in on the window that is the scene, however, the New Jerusalem descending from heaven because it is the resurrection of Christ and His ascension to Heaven, which means that he is coming back. And John gives us this vision of the city of Jerusalem descending from heaven onto a new earth and from the new heavens as the final resting place for us all eternal life and the joy that we have to look forward to. He writes, then, I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven, and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. This is the promise that we look forward to as Christians, the new heavens, the new earth, and the city, Jerusalem descending to create eternal life for us in this majestic thing that we have a promise of in the resurrection. I'm going to take a look at a couple of those promises and a couple of those things and highlight some of what John says. The first one I want to see is this phrase, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. This is the goal of the entire plot of the Bible. If you go all the way back to the very beginning with Adam and Eve, the goal is, God will be with his people. He will live with them, and they will be his, and he will be theirs. And Adam and Eve had that. When they were walking in the garden, until they ate from that forbidden fruit. And the rest of the story is about God trying to be with his people. You can see it in the story of Moses. When God brought them out of slavery in Egypt, he brought them out into the desert. He gave them the 10 Commandments, and he said, I will be your God, and you will be my people. And he tried to dwell with them. He had them build a tabernacle for his presence, with the Ark of the Covenant in the center. And when He wanted them to move. He would lead them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and he gave them a very complicated set of rituals that needed to be done to make sure that his holiness would not destroy them because of their sin, he wanted to be with his people and live and dwell with them. But it just didn't work out, because a holy God and an unholy people don't mix. So we tried it. We see it failed over and over again. Solomon tried it too. He took the tabernacle and turned it into a temple this big and beautiful and impressive building. Not even that would work. God's people continued to sin. They treated him like the pagan gods around them, and so God sent prophets. He sent prophets to go into the land of Israel to tell them, return to the Lord your God. He is faithful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. They repeated the promises of the law. They called the people to faithfulness. God wanted to be their people, and they refused. And so the place where God dwelled was destroyed and the people ejected from the land, which is why God sent a new temple His Son, Jesus Christ, who entered into Herod's temple and said, Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days. Meaning his body. He lived among them. He died for them. He rose for them, just as he does for us. And yet, that beautiful vision that John has, that God will actually come down and dwell among us, has not been fully realized has we cannot shake Jesus's hand or give him a hug. We have something though that calls us to mind of his presence among us. God still wants to dwell amongst his people, which he does through Holy Communion, as we eat his body and drink his blood, we become temples of him where his presence is, but even that is just a shadow of The amazing beauty of Christ dwelling with his people on the last day. Later on, in Revelation 21 John writes, And I saw no temple in the city for its temple. Temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. When the New Jerusalem descends from heaven, we won't have to look for these small earthly signs of God's presence. We won't have to take his body and his blood to be reminded that he is among us with power and grace and mercy. We will actually see him in all his glory and dwell with Him in perfection, all our hoping, our yearning, our believing and trusting that he is coming will finally be realized.

What a glorious day. Can't wait God among us. Forever.

There's another thing that I think it reminds us we have to take a look, and especially as we are heading towards November of 2024 is that it is a city descending from heaven, right? I saw the whole holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. How many of you have been receiving texts 50 times a day telling us who to vote for. Initially, I started with the rule, if you text me, I won't vote for you. But that rule, pretty much means I don't vote. Now it's stressful and annoying. What's going on with our election, especially as much as the people keep playing it up and telling that everything depends on this moment. If you're like me, you wish there was a registry that could say already mailed in my ballot. Stop bothering me, but this passage helps us to remind us that our true citizenship is not in the United States or California or El Cajon lakeside, la mesa, wherever it is that you call home, our true citizenship is the New Jerusalem as Paul says, but our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever your opinions on the politics of today, whoever happens to get elected, my vote is that they all lose. Whatever happens. Just remember, the end is the New Jerusalem. What we have now is temporary. The final thing I want to take a look at is this phrase, He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. I love the image of God wiping away every tear from every eye. We just think about that. What is it? What does it depict? You see the hand like coming up to a face right. And to do that, you have to put your your thumb or your finger right up intimately with every single individual person. That's a closeness that you don't get very often. How many times does someone actually have your trust to put their hand on your face and wipe away the tear from there, much of the time we in the Lutheran church, emphasize the communal relationship of God, that we all gather together and we receive the same body and blood of Christ. We hear the same word proclaimed, and hear the joy and promise is God will wipe away every tear from every eye. It's this intimacy, this individuality of God coming down and soothing every person, and each one of us has something that makes each of us cry individually. As I get older, I find that I tear up more at the weirdest things, you know, that's kind of a thing guys do. As we get older, we start to tear up at certain things, but it's always the weirdest things, not the things that are supposed to be, the tear jerkers, they make me roll my eyes. I remember watching this movie. It's called Brittany runs a marathon. I'm sitting there in the movie theater with my wife. We're in the final scene. It's the marathon scene. They've gone through all the training and the difficulty, and Kristen sitting there, and she's like, Yeah, isn't it great? And I am bawling like a baby. It was so bad, I didn't even try to hide it, just like

and we all have things that are. Are putting tears in our the pains and the hurts that each of us face. It's individual to you. And John chooses this image to show that individuality of God's care in the community of the saints. He says, I will wipe away every tear from every eye, whatever it is that you're facing that makes your heart swell with pain and sadness brings that tear to your eyes. When the New Jerusalem descends from heaven, God himself will wipe away every tear from your eyes, every tear from every eye. And that's the promise of the resurrection, when our Savior returns, all things will be made new in Jesus. Name Amen. You.

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The Crucifixion: Colossians 2:8-14 Sermon for Sunday, October 20th, 2024

Colossians 2:8-14

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Amen, Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ. Amen, we're continuing in the sermon series that we've been working on for the past month or so, talking about the symbols of the stained glass windows that we have lining our walls behind you, and then the big one, that's what we're going to finish with all the way in the back. These windows were put in in the 90s, and each one has a meaning and explanation, one that sometimes we don't know about and so each Sunday, we're taking a look at a couple of windows. Today, we are looking at two windows that you'll see right over there. Hopefully there is a slide with them on them too, so you can see them right up in front. So we have a scene window and a symbol window right back there, if you want to see them, are up here the window with the big tree on a rock that is the scene of Golgotha, the place where Jesus died on the cross. Golgotha means the place of the skull, which is, you know, where they killed people, the Romans, the other one, the symbol window is the cross with the crown of thorns around it. We all know what the cross symbolizes. It's the crucifixion of Jesus, but it's a specific color up there. It's the color black. They did this on purpose to show us that the cross isn't just a wooden object, but that all our sin is there paid for on the cross. The black color symbolizes that sin. This is actually very similar to the Luther Rose who has the He who has the cross black as well, to symbolize that the sin of the world is there on the cross. The other thing that you'll notice is that the crown of thorns is also the wrong color, right? It should be wood, it should be brown. It will not surprise you that this has symbolism too, because the crown of thorns is not just an instrument of torture, but the crown of the King of the universe, who was enthroned on the cross. And so it's not brown, but gold to show that the cross of Christ is the glory of the salvation of God and something that we celebrate rather than being sad about. And today, as we consider this symbol, what I'd like to do is look at a short passage of Colossians, chapter two, where it says and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with all its legal demands, this he set aside nailing it to the cross. The cross is the place where our sin was defeated. St Paul tells us that Jesus nailed our sin to the cross, the debt, our trespasses, all of that, all of the legal demands, nailed there. And this has a couple of implications. The first one that I want to talk about is that the cross is a triumph and not a thing of sadness. The Crucifixion is how Jesus disarmed the rulers and powers and authorities and destroyed the power of sin over us. His crucifixion means that sin and death were nailed to the cross for us, and we don't always think about the cross. Cross this way. Sometimes we think about the cross as just a declaration of judgment on the sinner. Now I know that this has been preached to me many times when I was growing up in the church. The idea behind that is you. You, especially on Good Friday, you all get together, and the pastor stands up and says, God had to do this for you. You made him. It was your sin. You ever heard that before? Yeah, and I think the idea is to to give us all of the fields right to be like, Oh no, I am a horrible sinner. This window reminds us that it is not just a thing that is there to cause us pain and repent, but the cross is primarily the triumph of Jesus Christ and the Bible talks about this all over the place. I've got a couple of places that I want to point out to you. John. The Gospel of John especially shows the cross of Jesus Christ as the place of his glory. John, chapter 13 is right at the beginning of Jesus's movement to the cross in Jerusalem, and he says this, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. It is during that moment of this beginning of the journey to the cross that he finally declares, now is the time for glory or elsewhere. St Paul says in First Corinthians, one, but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. But I think my favorite example of this comes from the Gospel of Mark. Is it on the way to Jerusalem, James and John come up to come up to Jesus, and they do that thing that happens in all the Gospels where they say, Master, we want you to do whatever we ask. And Jesus goes, What do you want? And they say, I want. We want to sit one on your right hand and one on your left when you come into your glory. And Jesus lets them know that they don't know what they're asking for. Because in the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus comes into his glory, we read that he is crucified with two thieves, one on his right and one on his left, because that is the moment where Jesus was crowned king. That is the moment when he came into his glory. The throne was the cross, and it was his triumph, not a defeat. And we sang about that too, in the cross of Christ I glory towering over the wrecks of time, all the light of sacred story gathers round its head, sublime the cross we glory in, because this is where sin, death and the devil were defeated. What that means then is that we have some comfort that can come from the defeat of the trespasses, sin, death and the devil on the cross, means we don't have a debt to pay back to God. We actually don't owe God any amount of payment for what he has done for because what he did on the cross was take away the debt that we owed and instead nail it there. What does that mean? When Jesus nailed our debt to the cross, it means that God loves us for the sake of Christ, we don't have anything to pay back to him. We don't have to impress God by our works or our actions. We don't have to try to fill up some sort of empty Treasury or get God to love us. God does it because of Jesus.

That's what the black cross represents, right? Sin is there and not on us. We don't have to make up for it, or try to earn it back or get out of a hole we dug for ourselves. Jesus has done it, as Colossians says, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross, our God and King Jesus Christ paid for every sin you have committed and every sin you will commit, the cross is like a sin black hole, right? You know how black holes work. There's so so much gravity. There's so dense that not even light can escape it, and it all gets sucked in. That's the cross for our sin. There is no sin too powerful or too exciting or too scary to escape the cross. Jesus paid for it. There. He took everything so you don't need to impress God. You don't need to try and work your way towards his love. It has already been done for you. But that leads us to the third implication. If the cross is the defeat of sin in the world, it has been nailed there, it also means that sin has been defeated in your life, too. And so it gives us a new way to look at how we can live as Christians, because our service to God is not about paying a debt, because it is not about impressing God. It means that our our lives, our life of service in the world to serve each other. We don't have to impress God. We don't have to to do things that simply because we think he wants them. We do things to love and serve our neighbors. It isn't about earning because our sin has been atoned for. As St Paul says, We were buried with Christ and we were raised with Him, all of that is taken care of. So sin does not rule our lives. What it means then is, instead of serving under threat. We serve for the joy of helping one another. I have two cats. They're pretty great, but when I first got cats, I went about disciplining them the wrong way. Lots of people do this, you think you can tell cats what to do with a spray bottle, right? That's what that's what you do the first time. Until you realize how wrong you are. You go up the cats like, jump on the counter, and then you spray them. They're like, get out. They have no idea. They just know that somebody sprayed them because they're not they're not like dogs. You can't train them that way. And so what ended up happening is the cats would see me, and they would hop down, but as soon as I went away, they were back up on the counter, right or anything that I didn't want them to do. They were just scared of me not of doing the thing I didn't want them to do. And I realize you have to set up your house so the cats will naturally do the things you want them to do and not do the things you don't, because that's the only way to keep your your cats behaving, because they just don't listen. And I think the Christian life is actually a lot like that. Not that you are cats and don't listen, you're actually a whole lot better. But punishment isn't the way to love and serve. Hitting people every time they sin, like spraying the cats isn't the way to get us to be joyfully, loving and serving the way our Savior wants us to. It's only for the joy of Christ looking at the love he gives. Us that changes us, that motivates us and drives us to live as people who are not ruled by sin, but whose sin is nailed there to that cross. It's not guilt that drives us, but the Holy Spirit through Christ's sacrifice that causes us to love our neighbor and serve our God, and what that means when we look at the sin nailed to the cross is we don't have to look at it and say, Oh no, I'm so guilty. I better go out and do something. What we can say is, what a joy that Christ nailed our sin to the cross and gave me the freedom to love and serve my neighbor when he buried me with him and raised me to new life with him, so that I can live freed from sin, no longer bound by to love the way Christ has loved Me In Jesus name, amen. Amen.

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Jesus' Ministry: Mark 1:29-39 Sermon for Sunday, October 13th, 2024

Mark 1:29-39

And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Jesus ministry, stained glass is our theme today, and we'll be working with the text of Mark chapter one. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus, they were written down when the first generations of eyewitnesses were dying off so that we could have forever access to the real Jesus. The first of these books is Mark. Is the first biography about Jesus that we have in Mark is very to the point, very straightforward and focused on showing Jesus unfiltered and in action. In Mark, we see Jesus on the move from one place to the other. Here in the first chapter, we have what someone called a typical day in the ministry of Jesus, what his calendar looked like, if you will. And as we examine these things that Jesus did in a regular basis, we learn a few things, beautiful things that Jesus was engaged for us every day. First of all, take a look verse 35 where we learn about the richness of Jesus, Imperial life with God. It says very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed, Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed, everyone is looking for You. When people learn that Jesus had miraculous power. The response was overwhelming. Everybody wanted an appointment. Peter says, Everyone is looking for you, Jesus. Response to a time of extreme business, a time of tremendous opportunity. Jesus response to that time is very different than what most do, because when you and I come into a time of incredible popularity, opportunity to get so much done, to do so many things we always wanted to do, the first things that go are quiet, solitude and prayer squeezed

out. Am I right?

Jesus? See, the busier he gets, the more he prays. That's a lesson on prayer, right off the bat, the priority of prayer in Jesus ministry. Early in the morning was still dark. Jesus got up, went to a solitary place, to a desert place, and from the time that he went out there to the time that the disciples woke up, realized that he wasn't there, and went on a search and found him. We're talking at least a couple of hours. That's something. What does that mean to begin with? If you and I are full, weak people, and he's the son of God, and he taught he needed prayer, the busier it got, how much more we would need it. Or put it another way, when you and I when, when we come into those seasons where we have all of these opportunities in front of us, maybe families coming to visit, maybe it's a business opportunity, maybe it's a church event, and it's so busy and everybody want a piece of us. What are we accomplishing in those seasons. Maybe, maybe we are building more relationships, maybe we are making some money, and that's great. Maybe we're helping people, and that's all great. Jesus was standing in the middle of the opportunity that was going to change the world. So his opportunities were literally going to change the world, the course of history, and he still taught that prayer was too important to let

be squeezed out to

one degree or another. We all need to pay attention of this beautiful interior life of Jesus with God, the beautiful prayer life of Jesus. Why pastor? Because our fast paced world demands it. We now have computers in our pockets and purses, and they're always there close to us with a new sports score to note, a new status update to be read, a picture to be taken, an urgent text or email to address our culture has long venerated business and freneticism, we even humble brag about how busy we are, don't we, sometimes. And here's Jesus, the busier he gets, the more he pray the supreme priority of prayer in his ministry, it seems to him that nothing else is more important to This encounters that he has daily with God in prayer. Not only Jesus had this beautiful and rich interior life with God, His prayer ministry where he prioritizes spending time with God, not only for his own sake, but especially praying for us on our behalf. There is also on Jesus, a beautiful external life. There's beauty in his external ministry. And as you can see in the text, he ministers in both word and deed, Jesus had been doing miracles in Capernaum. He's healing the sick. He's driving out demons. He's doing incredible things. The people of the area were asking, stay here, don't leave us. Meet my needs through your miraculous beads. Just get up after prayer and says, No. First, I have to keep moving. I have to go to other places, to everybody else too. And secondly, what he says is, I am not here just to meet your needs or to meet the needs that you know you have in your body through my deeds. I'm also here to meet the deeds that you don't know you have through preaching of the Word, and that's why we have a Bible in the Jesus ministry stained glass right there, I am going to preach the gospel, says Jesus, I am going to call people to repent. I am not go. I am not just going to feed the hungry and heal the sick. I'm also going to minister and preach God's word. We recognize easily our physical needs in Jesus cares about them, but we don't always realize our spiritual need, how much we need God, how much we need grace, how much of a sinners we are. We don't like to hear that, but Jesus was like I came to help with that too. I want to you will not be loving for me not to try to I have to go after your soul, not just your body, but then again. Look at the text after he says, Let us go somewhere else so I can preach for that's why I've come next thing you see him doing? He heals a man with leprosy. What does that mean? No words without deeds. No deeds without. The word, look at the richness, look at the fullness of the salvation. The work of Jesus. He insists on calling people to personal repent and to believe in the gospel. Yet he also pour out himself and call his disciples to pour themselves out sacrificial love through deeds to meet and heal all other needs someone has. That's what Jesus did. There was ministry to him. He preached the gospel, and he helped people too. It does not have to be one or the other. It can be both, and that's what Jesus have done all the way to the cross. Your physical needs, but also, and most importantly, your spiritual needs. Do you know what's that? It's absolute beauty, absolute commitment, absolute sacrifice. That's the ministry of Jesus to these people, but also to us. You know, when Peter says in verse 37 Jesus, everyone is looking for you, he spoke more truth than he knew, because in the end of the day, everyone in the world is looking for Jesus, whether they know it or not, because the world is craving for this type of ministry, for this type of character, for this type of beauty and richness of a life of someone like Jesus, for a kingdom of God that comes this way. And if the world miss Jesus, they will not find it this beauty

anywhere else.

Pastor, okay, now us. What do we do with that? And I will leave you with these two things. How do we respond to that stained glass, to Jesus ministry. What we do with that first, my brothers and sisters, we keep receiving daily from his ministry, from his love, grace and mercy, everything that Jesus did back then. He did it for us, and he continued to do so prayer. He continued to pray for us. His prayer was not only back then, if you continue reading your Bible, you see that one of the ministries that Jesus do for us right now is that he's at the right hand of the Father, real close to God, the Father doing what, speaking on your behalf, interceding on your behalf, you can count on that, that you when you pray, you are not praying alone, and when you forget to pray, Someone, the Son of God, is praying for you. Word. He didn't only preach the gospel back then. He continues to preach the gospel today, every time our Bibles are open, every time you are listening to a message on radio, on on your computer, on YouTube here at the church. Why? Now, through my voices in weird, thick accent, Jesus is ministering to you. He is talking to you, preaching that love and grace and calling you to examine your life and keep walking with him, so keep receiving that, and know that he also ministers to us, indeed by blessing us with the Father and the Trinity. He's our Prophet teaches us. He is our priest. He intercedes to us, and he feed us with His Body and Blood. Work for us, and He is our king. He continue to rule and govern and lead us to. Eternal life. The second so first thing we do, we respond. We appreciate this. We say, Thank you, God. We sing in the choir for him. We embrace that, and we keep feeding ourselves again and again to everything that Jesus did and does for us. The second thing, we grow in it. We grow in Jesus. Ministry in Jesus work for us. Paul has the audacity to say that we can be formed in Christ, that He can be formed in you and me. Mark has the audacity to say, follow him, learn from him, imitate him. And you say, How in the world can I do that? I believe that we have a hint right in this chapter of Mark, right after we finish the reading today, we see Jesus healing Peter's mother in law. You know the story. We don't have many details. We have only two verses to tell us what happened. But it was. It must have been very important, because not only mark, but Matthew and Luke also give us that account, and maybe that's why the series The chosen made a big deal of that story, you know, and what happened to Peter's mother in Law after being healed by Jesus, being saved by Jesus, the fever left, and she began immediately to serve them. She began to wait on them, the serious the chosen. Imagine her waking up after the fever is gone, and immediately asking everyone around if they would like something to eat or something to drink. Peter, mothers in law responds to Jesus. Ministry is our model. How can we grow in Jesus ministry? We embrace it, we give thanks and we respond. We wake up every morning a fever or not fever. We wake up to serve, to bless others, to ask, What can I do to serve you? We respond to the healing that Jesus brought into our life, to his sacrifice on the cross, we were also sick. Actually, we're more than sick. We were dead in our sins. And Jesus did not only stretch his hand to lift us from a fever, he stretches his arms to be nailed so we could have been forgiven. And because of that, we respond as Peter mother in law, did we respond serving whoever shows up in front of us, in our workplace, in our family, in our circle of friends, we will not do it perfectly. We still live with sin and sickness. As followers of Jesus, we have to grow that day by day. But here we have it. Jesus ministry to us, beautiful, and we respond, and we go with him to serve others. Easy, not always, but God's people, these are the instructions. I'll

finish with that. Amen. Let.

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The Birth of Jesus: Micah 5:2-5 Sermon for Sunday, October 6th, 2024

Micah 5:2-5a

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
    one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
    from ancient days.
Therefore he shall give them up until the time
    when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the rest of his brothers shall return
    to the people of Israel.
And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,
    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
    to the ends of the earth.
And he shall be their peace.

We thank you for gathering us here today. Open our hearts to Your Word as we reflect on your promises fulfilled through the birth of Jesus. Help us to understand the deeper meanings of the stained glass windows, symbols that draw us closer to you. May Your Holy Spirit guide us so that our faith grows stronger as we reflect on your love and grace in Jesus. Name we pray amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, together today, we gather to reflect on the beautiful stained glass windows that adorn our sanctuary. These windows are more than just art. They are a visual representation of our faith and God's word. Each symbol, each color, speaks volumes about God's love for his unfolding plan for salvation. Let's take a moment to observe some recurring symbols in the windows at the top of each theme window, the theme window is the one with the circle that to the top we see a symbol familiar to many, a fleur de lis history, historically has been represented the Virgin Mary and Church's nature. It reminds us of Mary, chosen by God to carry Jesus, and it points to Christ, who took on flesh to dwell among us and to redeem us. Below the Florida lay we see vines and branches. This imagery comes from John 15, verse one where Jesus said, I am the true vine and you are the branches. The green symbolizes life, growth and nourishment we seek we receive from our Savior. Jesus is our life source, and through him, we grow in faith and in grace. Finally, we notice a red circle in the center of the windows. The circle with no beginning or end, represents the eternal nature of God. The red color symbolizes the sacrifices of Christ, the blood Christ shed for us, and the fire of the Holy Spirit that enlivens us and sustains our faith, the circle is divided into seven parts, and that may represent divine perfection, God's perfect plan for redemption. Each of these symbols speaks to us about the core truths of our faith, but today we focus on the windows that point us to Bethlehem and the Beth and the birth of Jesus. So let's turn our attention to the Bethlehem window. It is up on the screen, or if you want to turn around, look to your right, back behind most of you, there is the Bethlehem window. The window portrays Bethlehem, the birthplace of our Savior. It depicts a small, dark, domed, humble city hidden in the hills, almost too insignificant to notice. This imagery reflect the words of Micah two, verse five, but you O Bethlehem, ephrathah, who are too little to be among clans of Judah, from you shall come forth from me, one who is to be ruler in Israel. Ephrata means fruitful. Bethlehem, a small town surrender surrounded by Brown hills, much like the hills we see here in Southern California might seem insignificant, but through this humble town, God chose to reveal His great plan for salvation. Micah's prophecy spoke of a ruler whose origins are from ancient days. Bethlehem was the chosen place where the long awaited Messiah would be born, a reminder that God works through the humble and the lowly. Above Bethlehem, we see a shining star that guided the three wise men to Jesus, the newborn king in. The star represents God's revelation, the light that shines in the darkness, leading all nations to the Savior, just as a star shone brightly over Bethlehem, the light of Christ shines in our lives, guiding us to the truth. The light of Jesus shines in the darkest places of our lives today. Now let's look at the window of Jesus birth, which is beside the first window. In the center of the window to is the Bethlehem. We see the babe Jesus wrapped and lying in a manger. Surrounding his head is a halo symbolizing the holiness and Divinity of Jesus, though born in humble circumstances, Jesus is no ordinary child. He is Emmanuel, God with us, even as a babe, Jesus is set apart as holy, marked as the promised Savior. The prophecy from Micah five two points to the humble origin of Jesus. Micah lived hundreds of years before Christ, but He foretold the coming of the ruler whose origins were from ancient days rooted in eternity. This ruler would come from Bethlehem, a place of seeming insignificance, but chosen by God to be the birthplace of the King of kings, this prophecy reminds us that God's plans often defy human expectation. God exalts so lowly and brings salvation from unexpected places. Matthew confirms the fulfillment of this prophecy. In Matthew, chapter one, verses 18 to 22 he traces Jesus' lineage back to David and Abraham, establishing him as the Promised Messiah. The birth of Jesus occurred just as the prophets had said, fulfilling God's promise made centuries before. Matthew also recounts the story of Joseph, who initially wanted to quietly have Mary or leave Mary when he discovered she was pregnant, but an angel appeared to him, telling him that the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The angel confirmed the prophecy from Isaiah, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a child, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. This is in Matthew one verse, 23 God's promise to save his people was coming to pass through the birth of Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophecies in the Old Testament, in all these windows and word of Scripture, we see the faithfulness of God. God is sovereign. His plans cannot be thwarted, and his promises never fail. God's sovereignty is displayed in his perfect plan of redemption, bringing salvation from a small town like Bethlehem through humble beginnings to the ends of the earth, from the ancient days of the prophets to the miraculous birth of Jesus, God orchestrated history to bring about our salvation. What God says He will do this is the assurance we cling to in our lives. When we face uncertainty or doubt, we remember that God is faithful. His promises to you are true, and his problems plans for you are good. God remains faithful to all his promises to you today, Micah, five states, and he shall be stand and shepherd his flock and the strength of the Lord in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now, He shall be great to the ends of the earth, and He shall be their peace. These verses show Jesus is a shepherd king who leads his people, provides them with security and brings true peace and. What does the prophecy of Micah five and the scripture of Matthew one mean for us today?

It shows that God promised. God's promises never fail, just as Micah foretold, Jesus came as a ruler who would Shepherd his people bring peace and security. Micah five tells us that he would stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, and they would dwell securely because he's he is great to the ends of the earth. This means that Jesus leadership, care and protection over his people are constant and unfailing. You can count on his promise of forgiveness and eternal life. This brings great comfort. Jesus is not just a ruler. He is our shepherd. He cares for each of you, individually, tending to your needs, guiding you and protecting you with divine strength, just as a Shepherd leads his sheep to safe pastures. Jesus leads you through the uncertainties of life. When you feel lost, burdened or overwhelmed, remember that Jesus is your shepherd, standing watch over you, guiding you through every valley and challenge. Micah's prophecy also tells us that Jesus will be your peace. The peace you seek is in this chaotic world comes only through Jesus as a prince of peace, Jesus doesn't offer a temporary peace, but a lasting one, rooted in reconciliation with God. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus has made it possible for us to dwell securely, knowing that nothing can separate us from His love and care. In this peace, you find the security to face life's trials without fear, even when the future feels uncertain or when the burden of sin weighs heavily upon you. You can trust in Christ. He stands firm as our shepherd and King, offering us peace that surpasses our understanding. His peace is for you, and his presence bring calm in every storm. If you feel weary or burdened today, know that Jesus, your Shepherd, offers you rest. He brings peace to your soul, securely for your future. In conclusion, as we think about the stained glass windows depicting Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus, we are reminded of the fulfillment of God's promises in the coming of the shepherd King Micah's prophecy. From Micah five points us to a ruler who would not only come from the humble town of Bethlehem, but who would also stand as the shepherd of his people, bringing them peace and security. The rule that ruler is Jesus Christ, as you look upon these windows, let them remind you of God's faithfulness and his deep care for you. Just as the light shines through the stained glass windows over here, bring your the light also shines in your heart, bringing you peace and security. Trust in Him, rest in His promises and let his peace guide you every day. Jesus is not the only the holy ruler who came from Bethlehem, he is the shepherd who cares for your soul, lead you to dwell securely in his love.

Let us pray, Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of your son, our Savior, Shepherd and our peace help us to trust in his care and to rest. His security he provides. May he remember your faithfulness as his face. Let life as we face life's challenges, and may your peace fill our hearts and guide us daily in Jesus name we pray amen.

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Christian Community: James 3:13-4:10 Sermon for Sunday, September 22nd, 2024

James 3:13 - 4:10

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

We continue in James this week a book that explores how the message of Jesus impacts our everyday lives, while the text talks about all kinds of things, it's central message focused on the relationships and commitments that we are called to practice as the church. Some I wonder, Is it really necessary to focus our message on this? But if you really think about it, we realize that true connection real fellowship in a church or in any community, no matter how nice it looks on screen or in theory, isn't always easy. It certainly doesn't happen on its own. It requires effort and willingness to commit to what it takes to nurture that connection, and that's what we're going to be talking about this morning. Let's start by remembering the importance of Christian Fellowship. Verse 18 says in a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. What is James talking about here? Righteousness is a special word in the Bible. To be righteous, justified is to have been declared reconciled with God, and this righteousness, this reconciliation with God, also affects our relationship with our neighbors. Now that we have been reconciled with God by Jesus, we seek reconciliation with others. We try to make peace with our brothers and sisters. In Christ, to make this point, James uses this metaphor of a crop in seeds, in fruits, in harvest, the harvest of our righteousness, He says, The fruits the consequences of being reconciled with God becomes a seed called peacemaking. Christ for us, Christ in our lives, generates a seeding that makes us work for unity, harmony, building bridges, dialogs and relationships. Again, the importance of this we live in individualistic societies today. It's ingrained within us, me, me, me, I am. I decide the problem with this is that it doesn't work because we have been created by God to be social, to live in community, to depend on others. Nobody is isolated. No one is an island. How many of us maybe haven't said, especially as teenagers, I won't be like my father, I won't be like my mother, like this family, like these people, and for a while we live this illusion. The older we get, the more we realize the profound influence they have on us, how community impacts someone, and it's the same in our faith, after God's word and after the sacrament and alongside them, nothing has more powerful power, according to Luther, than the fellowship we experience here. Here someone could raise their hand right now and say, But Pastor, I've been going to church since I was I was a child, and I haven't felt this power of fellowship. I don't think I have why. I could say that it may just be our superficial perception that deep down, and sometimes we don't realize it, but we have, we have experienced the power. We have been tremendously influenced and blessed, and we also have influence and bless others. Uh, or I could say too that maybe, if we haven't experienced this, maybe we write, but the problem lies with us, because when the Bible talks about fellowship in the body of Christ, in the church, and the Bible talks a lot about it. The Bible doesn't talk about coming to church, sitting down, getting up and maybe having a coffee and living and that's it. Oh. The Bible talks about confessing our sins to one another, encouraging one another, investing your time and your life, in your care, in your love, on one another, counseling one another, eating with one another, sharing our blessings with one another, honoring one another. And the list goes on and on. There's no There's no single book in the New Testament without his expression one another. Maybe you've seen every page, and we cannot do that just by coming to church. It's more than that. It takes commitment, it takes generosity, it takes courage, it takes risk. And I know your pastor and your pastors have always invite you to this kind of community. And I know that this congregation facilitate as more as she can these things, and this is what the sacrament of holy supper is all about too. As we allow ourselves to practice this type of fellowship, it's impossible not to be blessed by the power and the beauty and the grace of fellowship, Christian Fellowship. So what hinders Christian Fellowship? According to James in chapter four, he talks about two main causes. The first one we see in the very beginning, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you. It is not this that your passions are. Are at war within you you desire and do not have. So you fight and Quarrel. James is talking about us when we want something only for ourselves. We are obsessed with our pleasure, my comfort, my convenience, my preferences, my control is more important than anybody else. My needs are more important than the needs of the people around me. I am here to get the music that I want, the coffee that I want, the type of Men's Ministry that I want, the type of preaching and pastoring that I want. I am here to get what I want, and you are here to serve me your life for mine. And we fall into this all the time, because it's in our sinful nature, my brothers and sisters, and because it's in our sinful nature, trying to fight this, putting the needs of other people in front of ours feels like a sacrifice, like a small death, death death of my time, death of my privileges to let someone else. Preference be prioritized, when we forgive someone in church, when we volunteer our time, when we are part of our team trying to organize something when we don't insist on getting on our own way. These are like small deaths, like sacrifices, the number one barrier to Christian Fellowship, according to James, everybody is fighting like the disciples in the Gospel to be number one, to be the greatest, and the second cause is what James talks about here in verse six. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Pride is our pride

that makes us more aware of other people's fault than our own. Is our pride that leads us, when we speak of the sin of others, to have an air of satisfaction and disdain you kneel. Reality means that when we speak of someone else's fault, we do that with compassion and mercy. Is our pride that leads us to distance ourselves from the people we criticize or who criticize us. Humility makes us to remain close, even when the relationship is difficult, because we don't want to give up on them. Pride is the first enemy of true fellowship, says James, pride can make us too convinced that we know everything about everything is pride that makes us want to be right every time and win every argument, and all of us have those tendencies. How can we repeat of this daily and let the Holy Spirit in us so we can bear the fruit of peacemaking and be someone who comes to church and is a member of a church eager to fight for peace and unity and fellowship. How can we face these barriers? That's my last point, there are two things in our text that help us to fight these barriers. First of all, right, after James talks about pride and humility, he says, submit to God, but resist the devil, and he will flee from you, the devil. You heard me right. The devil does not only attack us individually, but he attacks Christian Fellowship. He is involved in fights, in quarrels and misunderstandings in our communication with one another and grudge he is on he the devil is on provoking our snobbish attitude. He is on provoking our hypersensitivity to being offended by anything he is the middle of provoking us to come to church, demanding, where are my rights? Resist sister, resist brothers, because this comes from hell. Have no doubt when you are struggling to get involved in the church, to relate with one another. The devil is behind it. He knows how powerful community can be. He knows that is much harder to keep you off the path if you are connected, surrounded and protected by the body. Resist the devil. Resist the devil because he's not greater than the Holy Spirit who lives in you. Resist the devil and watch this Holy Spirit produce in you, the fruits that James talks about, humility, gentleness, patience, courage, commitment, a desire to participate and contribute in the church, resist the devil and witness the Holy Spirit. Produce the fruit of repentance daily, that, as James says, makes us to weep for our sins, that we cause against communion, for the toxin that we spread when we fail to spread the perfume of Christ. The other thing that James is going to tell us, in order to face these barriers, the most important thing that prevent Christian communion, is to remember that the source of our strength is God's love for us. Where does James says? Says this pastor pay attention to this verse is the hardest place in the text of all the serious words that James uses to encourage us to live our lives in peace with one another. He gives a severe rebuke to the church. He calls the church, you adulterous people. You see that James is touching in one of the greatest. Themes of the Bible, how God loves us, not just the way a shepherd loves his sheep, how God loves us, not just the way a father or a mother loves their child, how God loves us, the way a husband loves his wife. God is our husband, spiritually speaking, and when we sin, when we are harmful in the church, when we don't create fellowship, that is spiritual adultery, we are the unfaithful wife towards our husband. That's why God is jealous of us, by the way, it says in the in the verse, and he's jealous of a husband who longs to have the love of his beloved. The Holy Spirit has called us, through our baptism, to be part of God's family, and when we don't value this family. When we don't show peace in this family, we are saying to the Holy Spirit, to Jesus, to the Father, to the Trinity, I don't want this relationship. I don't want to be in the family. I don't want this marriage. I am alone, not married to God alone. We are not married to God. I am not God's bride. Together, we are God's bride. The church is God's bride. Together, we are also the adulterers. We have all sinned against the family. We all have failures in communion, fellowship. We all deserve to be abandoned, divorced. But what has our groom done? Has he divorced us? What did the love of God, our husband do for us. James says it came from heaven. James says the wisdom comes down from heaven. Jesus is the Wisdom, you see, our bridegroom came from heaven, embodying sacrifice, the death that is necessary to create community. He lost control, he lost his independence, he lost his preference and privileges and his power. He lost his life so that we could have ours back, so that we could have been forgiven by our spiritual adultery. Here we are. It's my life. Where are my rights? And then Jesus looks at us and says, Oh, that's it. No, he says, it's my life for you, and that's how you should live your life, as well as I gave my life for you. That's the size of the our guru's love. Now you go and you come to Sunday worship service, or you come to every meeting and every thing that you have with your brothers and sisters. You show up with this attitude, my life for yours. Before Jesus, Christ died on the cross on mounted Thursday, Jesus prayed to God, knowing how difficult it would be. He prayed, and he still prays today, for us to live in fellowship, to live as one in the prayer. He said, John, chapter 17, I have done, Father, the work that I needed to do. Now, Father, may the disciples be one as I and you are, so that the world may know that you send me in that you love them as you love me, the beauty of that may they know, Father, that because of what I have done, you not only love me, you love them. We are treated by God, adulterers as we are as faithful,

because Jesus died in our place. That's the extent of God's love for you. That's what you get when you trust him. Let this soften your heart. Let this renew your commitment to first Lutheran Church. Church. Let this renew your seeds of peacemaking among one another. Let it take fruit the blessing of being together.

Amen,

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The Power of Words: James 3:1-12 Sermon for Sunday, September 15th, 2024

James 3:1-12

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.

How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

James three is our text for today. Last Sunday, James two, we heard that faith without works is dead. James wants to help us live out our faith in love, in ethics, in practice, and today he talks about the use of words, the power of words, how the gospel affects the way we communicate. Interestingly, when we go to the doctor, the doctor often examines our thong to see what's inside. That's what we're going to talk about. It in a way, our tongue reveals a lot about what we have inside of us, inside of our soul. There are some things that the text tells us about words, and let me begin just pointing to the power of words, because that's how James starts. In verse one, he says that the teachers, especially the teachers of faith, will be judged more harshly the more we talk, the more we're held accountable by God. God takes very seriously our use of words. Verse two points out that we all struggle with our speech. None of us can control it perfectly. We can try for a week, not complaining about anyone or anything, not bragging about anything, not gossiping, not cursing, not manipulating, just encouraging and uplifting others. How would that be, right? And then in verse three, four and five, James used three metaphors. He compares our speech to a bridle on a horse, a ruler on a ship in a tiny spark that can ignite a huge fire. Our words are much more powerful than we realize, and where does that come from? This power? I think we can trace it back from God, from the beginning, from creation. If we look at the beginning of Genesis, we see how communication started. God said, Let there be light. And there was light. God's words create reality. And since we are made his imagey, our words also have some sort of creative power. For example, our self image, how we see ourselves in how it shapes our lives. It's built from words. It's shaped by all the things people have said to us over the years, like feedback from our parents, from our teachers, from our friends, if children are told they are stupid, those words can have a profound impact on them. We all know how words can deeply affect our self esteem. We often spend our lives dealing with consequences of what others have said to us, the power of words. Words have a huge impact on a society too. If we can trust the words of our leaders, the media or experts, it can create big problems for us. A country can fall apart when trust breaks down. A great example of this is that Oscar winning film the lives of others, 2006 which tells the story of the last days of East Germany. No one trust anyone back then, because people's words meant nothing. When words mean nothing, there is no society, there's no relationships, because they depend on words. A well placed compliment can get you a friend, it can get you a date, maybe, or it can destroy your chances, because words have power that is almost irre. Parable once you utter them, if you stab someone with a sword and then apologize, you might remove the weapon, but the wound remains. If you cut someone with words and say, I'm sorry, well, you're sorry, it's okay, but the wound doesn't come out. It stays there, hurting. Proverbs says that life and death are in the power of the tongue. Then we understand Jesus in Matthew chapter 12, when he told us that on the Day of Judgment, people will give an account for every useless word they utter. Jesus wasn't exaggerating. Every word will be considered on the Day of Judgment. It is a serious matter. Let's press a little bit on that. My second point the poison of words. Words definitely have the power to build up or tear down, they kill or make live. James refers to the tongue as poisonous in verse eight, highlighting how damaging words can be, and the Psalm 140 already spoke in these terms, rescue me from Lord, from evil doors. Protect me from the violent who devise evil plans in their hearts. They make their tongues as sharp as serpents. The poison of vipers is on their lips. That's where it comes from. This idea of the poison on a tongue. So what? Exactly? What exactly makes words poisonous? James does not dive into specifics in chapter three, but he does give us some clarity in chapter five, James identifies two main types of harmful words, lying and unloving speech. In verse 12, James says that it's absolutely critical to tell the truth. He's recalling Jesus on the sermon of the mouth, don't swear. Let your yes be yes and your no be No, like in a courtroom. As followers of Jesus, we're always under a commitment to tell the truth, nothing but the truth. And in verse nine, James writes, do not complain about one another. He's talking about not being compassionate to others, unloving words, words of criticism. Paul captures the essence of what James is talking about, but he frames positively. If the poison is lies in hatred, then Paul writes, you know this, you speak the truth in

love like two wings on an airplane. Truth and love both are essential for balance and flight. Truth is essential because lies are damaging. They distort reality, they uphold information. When we lie, which we exploit others by keeping them in a false reality. And why is love important? Because the poison is not just in the lie, but in the insensitive, angry, hateful words, words that are not loving. We are called to speak the truth always, but always in love. Proverbs 2515, tells us that a soft tongue breaks bones, which is a fascinating way of saying, that gentle, loving words can penetrate even the toughest defense. If you're trying to say something to someone that they do not want to hear, and you come across as harsh or ironic, this attitude will only increase. Their resistance. What Proverbs is telling us is at the best way to break down a person. Resistance to the truth is being kind, finding the best time to speak. Sometimes we say things to someone, you know, we can help. We can solve and they and then we say, I told the truth. I try. I did my part. No, we did it. We didn't do enough. If we didn't, if we didn't speak the truth in love. Truth without love is poison. Loving, but lying words are poison too, only when our words are true and loving at the same time, we can rest assur that we have done our part, that we have created life in healing with them. Now let's find a solution for this dilemma, the here for the poison. What are we going to do? How can we control somehow, somewhat our tongue? James doesn't give us a recipe, but he points the way at the end, once again, James points to the teachings of Jesus, my brothers can the fig tree produces olives or divine figs. Likewise, a spring of salt water, cannot yield fresh water. Remember how Jesus spoke about the relationship between the tree and the fruit. A good tree bears good fruit. Before thinking about the fruit, we need to think about the tree before James said that the tongue controls the body, but now he says that the heart controls the tongue, the tree controls the fruit. The mouth speaks from the heart. The key is the heart. Guard your heart. The mouth speaks what the heart is full of, and that raises the question, what fills our hearts? We all have something that fills our hearts, what we love in life, if it is our reputation, our name, then when someone criticizes us, we won't know. We do not know how to react with our words, we will strike back. If what fills our hearts it's people's approval. Then that I want to people to like me, then I will be a coward. I will not open my mouth to say something for the fear of hurting someone. If it's money that fills my heart, if it's status, we'll go around and around and exaggerating with our words to get that contract. It won't be real if what fills my heart is to be right, to always have the last word on a debate, then I will never know when to shut up. I will not let others speak. I will not abstain from any discussion, because I have to have to have to give my opinion the world deserves to know my latest tweet, that discussion people are having on social media or out there will not go unanswered. They will have to listen to me if what fills our heart is not God, His kingdom, His grace, His commandments, we will always find ourselves at a dead end, because we will fall again and again into the error of using our words for evil. How can we fill our hearts with God's love? The answer is simple. It's all over the Bible, but it's kind of hidden in the text. At one point, James tells us that the tongue is a fire. The tongue is a fire that has been set ablaze by hell itself. In other words, James tells us that the devil feels our tendency to sin with our words, what James doesn't say, but we can add from another text. Is that our tongue is not only set on fire by hell. There are two kinds of fire, two kinds of fire that set a tongue on fire. One is the fire of hell, but the other one is the fire of heaven. Our tongues can be set on fire with a fire that worms not burns, that enlights not frightens, the fire that comes down from heaven. That's how it was for the first disciples. It's been that way since that day. Pentecost, remember, in Acts chapter two, fire came down from heaven in the form of flaming tongues that rested on the heads of each of this Jesus followers there, their tongues were healed. They were enabled to speak so that everyone could understand words that didn't kill but saved, brought life healing to people, and they spoke the truth about everything, about our sin, about our our need for salvation, about what God had done through Jesus Christ, how Jesus was the only way the truth and the life and they also the disciples spoke of love. Pentecost filled their hearts with faith, courage, understanding, moderation, self control, gentleness, kindness, meekness, patience, Pentecost hear the poison in their tongues, And from that day on, disciples, the church, us. We live our lives to use words to bear witness of the gospel, how to fill our hearts with God's love. The cure for the poison of words is called the Holy Spirit. He is our counselor, our teacher, who can fill our hearts with God's love and heal our tongues, the fountain that James speaks of, the fountain of fresh water, water of life. It's the Holy Spirit. It's another symbol for the Holy Spirit. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, you don't know what you were saying, but when you drink from that fountain, you will learn you will be different. Jesus was announcing the Holy Spirit, the source of good, the source of life, and he is yours. You have received him abundantly since the day that you have been baptized. How does the Holy Spirit do this on us? He does that through the word that you are right now hearing,

and he does that through the Holy supper every time we receive, on our mouth, on our ears, bread and blood and the word of God, the Holy Spirit is filling you, feeling your hearts, feeling your tree. He's highlighting the word of Christ, the work of Christ, because he's drawing us closer and closer to the love of Jesus, and making us little by little with ups and downs more and more, like Jesus, the Holy Spirit is producing as we speak, the fruits according to the tree. They speak according to what it is what lives in your hearts. Look again and look always to Jesus, how he uses words. He's the perfect example of keeping quiet when is necessary to keep quiet and speaking when it's necessary to speak, and how to speak and why to speak, and look to at the most dramatic and important moment of Jesus life, when Jesus was on Good Friday, being judged and condemned, how Jesus uses words, how he didn't respond with. And they attacked him and accused him unjustly how he didn't strike back with his tongue in the face of the worst insults. Why? Because, as well as being our example, Jesus was also being our substitute. He was paying for our mistakes, for every nasty, ignorant and stupid word uttered out of our mouth, for our silence when we should speak, for every poison. Jesus is our model. Let's imitate him, but Jesus is our Savior. If any sinful word escape us, let us run into him in sincere repentance and open our mouths to do the most important thing there is to confess. Lord, have mercy on me, forgive me, and he forgives you, and He forgives us. With our tongues, we bless our Father, and with our tongues, we curse other people. Blessings and curses come out of the same tongue, my brothers and sisters, says, James, this should not be the case with you, because Jesus lives in your hearts, because the Holy Spirit is at work in you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Amen.

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The Garden of Eden: Genesis 3:1-15 Sermon for Sunday, September 29th, 2024

Genesis 3:1-15

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the coolof the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
    cursed are you above all livestock
    and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
    and dust you shall eat
    all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ. Amen. Today, we are beginning our series on the windows, the stained glass windows of our church. So I figured I'd get started with an overview many of us, these windows sort of fade into the background, and they just become a part of the scenery. They're here and beautiful, but you don't really notice them. So I'm willing to bet most of you don't know exactly what they depict. So we're going to do an overview today. Our windows are divided into two different kinds. Some of them are scenes, and the others are symbols, or what they called theme Windows starting from the back, right over there, you can see the first window is the scene of Bethlehem. There's some roofs of a town, and then the night sky, and with a star right up above that is Bethlehem, the city where Jesus was born. Next to that is a symbol well known. It is the birth of Christ. You can see the manger, and there's a little child's body with his head, and then the halo that marks the sacred Son of God. Right after that is the Jordan River. That is the scene where Jesus was baptized and began his public ministry, the one with the cross and the Bible represents Jesus's ministry of preaching. This is when he went out into all of the regions of Galilee and beyond, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. Next that, you see some rocks and a tree that is Golgotha, the place of the skull where they crucified Jesus. Then is a cross with a crown of thorns. This represents Jesus's crucifixion. Next to that is the Sea of Galilee. You can see the blue water. And then there is a boat of brown and a sail made out of gray with the sun coming up. That is the site of many of Jesus's miracles and much of his ministry. The lily, the Easter Lily, is a symbol for Jesus's resurrection. And then right next to that is the holy city of Jerusalem coming down from heaven like a bride ready for a groom, symbolizing the coming of our eternal life on the last day from Revelation, chapter 21 now if you switch to the other side, starting all the way up in The front, we have the Garden of Eden. There is a tree with a number of trees in the background are the explanation does not tell us whether this is a particular tree or not, but it is the Garden of Eden. Right next to that is the symbol for God the Father. The Hand of God is commonly the way they depict God, the Father. You can see it is His power and His might the right hand of God. This hand is in the form of a blessing. You can see there are three fingers pointed up and two fingers pointed down. If you notice, that is the hand sign I use when I bless you. The three fingers pointed up represent the Trinity Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the two that are down are the two natures of Jesus Christ, both God and man. The scene with the shepherd's crook are the grazing lands of Palestine. They help us to see that Christ is the Good Shepherd and reflect Psalm 23 the next theme window is the cross with crown. This is God, the Son, representing Jesus Christ and His His death on the cross and the crowning that happened there as he was raised onto a throne, not of gold, but of wood. Next to that is the wilderness where Christ resisted temptation. After that is the Holy Spirit, where we see as a dove that came down on our Savior when he was baptized. After that is the river and the tree of life from Revelation chapter 22 in the center of the city of the New Jerusalem is a river of life and the Tree of Life in. The triangle is the Holy Trinity, representing our Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three and yet one. And the final window is heaven, the holy place. And last, of course, but not least, is the largest of our stained glass windows, which is behind the central doors. You can better see it on your way out, where we see the cross of Christ and the means of grace, baptism, God's word and Holy Communion. Over the next few weeks, we are going to take these windows individually, culminating with that final window in the back. Today we're taking a look at two of them together, the Garden of Eden all the way in the front on this side, and the hand of the Father over against the cross. So like I said, we don't know what tree is represented there in the Garden of Eden, whether it is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life, or any random tree. We just know that that represents the scene of God's creation and his goodness. God, the Father, made the Garden of Eden and the two humans that he put in it, and it was a perfect place for his people. They were provided with every need, everything that they could possibly want. It was beautiful. The father then is represented by that symbol of the hand up against a cross, a hand of blessing, and that blessing is there with the cross, because it's only by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross that the Father's hand is blessing and not judgment. And we can see this in the comparison of the trees that I think are the most important trees in all of Holy Scripture, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden and the tree of the cross on which Christ died. There is a prayer that we often pray in in the season of Lent that helps us to see how these two trees are so important in our life. In Christ, this prayer goes, it is truly good, right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you holy Lord, Almighty Father everlasting God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who accomplished the salvation of mankind by the tree of the cross, that where death arose, their life also might rise again, and that the serpent who overcame by the tree of the garden might likewise by the tree of the cross be overcome. This prayer helps us to compare these two trees. That the tree in the garden of Eden was the place where the serpent won a battle, and the tree of the cross is where Jesus Christ won the war and delivered us eternal life, that from the fruit of that tree we may live forever. So I'd like to take a look at this tree in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and it begins with a well known story of temptation. God placed Adam and Eve in a perfect garden. Food was all around them. Their only job was to take care of this place that was so wonderful and magnificent, so innocent that they didn't even know that they were naked. They had no cares, no concerns. God took care of everything. And when we look at the Garden of Eden and this temptation story, we often want to talk about placing ourselves in this and what lessons can we learn about temptation, what lessons can we learn about sin? But it's not just that. What we see is the beginning of a conflict between Satan and God over humanity, because the serpent comes in, not just as a tempter, but as an enemy, a rebel trying to take God's creation away from him, trying to claim us as his own.

And this war begins with a serpent going to the woman. And offering this well known temptation. We're not going to rehearse the whole story, but one thing I want to point out is something I think is interesting in verse six. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired, to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. It's interesting to me that the Bible describes the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as something beautiful. It is a wonderful tree, a part of God's good creation. The food looked delicious and tasty, and it was part of making things, making Adam and Eve wise, what Satan did was he took part of God's amazing creation in this beautiful garden, and he wanted to twist it for his own use, to turn us away from a God who loves us, an almighty Father who gives us life, and by eating the fruit of that tree, Adam and Eve brought sin and death into the world. This beautiful garden where nothing was wrong, where they had everything they could possibly want, brought about the worst things, sin and death in our lives. And yet, God offered a promise, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This is the promise of a coming Savior who would defeat the enemy, the serpent, destroy his power and give God's people eternal life. Let's compare that, that scene of beauty and perfection and wonder turned to death and sin with the scene that we see Jesus in on his journey to the cross. In Matthew chapter four, we see a different kind of temptation. Satan uses the same playbook that's all he knows, headlong run into the guy and give temptation. But where is Jesus in a wilderness, no trees, no fruit, nothing to provide for him. He has fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and he is hungry, alone in this terrible place, and Satan does his old game, no trick plays. He uses the goodness of God's creation and tries to tempt Jesus with it, with food, with God's protection and Christ's reign and rule over all the earth. He attempts to tempt our Savior, but Jesus, without all of the things that Adam and Eve had on their side, he defeats Satan in the wilderness. And then he goes to another tree, to the tree of the cross. Now this tree is not beautiful. This tree is ugly and terrible. It is not like the sanded down wooden crosses that we have, or the golden ones that sit in the front of sanctuaries. This is a rough cross filled with splinters threatening death. Its leaves are not green. Its leaves are nails, and its fruit a crown of thorns. It is horrifying. It is death. But the amazing thing is that this terrible, sad, excruciatingly miserable image of a man nailed to a cross is the death that brings about life. This is how Jesus crushed the head of that old serpent. This is how our Savior defeated the enemy Satan, not with something beautiful, not with an amazing new tree, but with something horrible, a death on a cross. That tree is now the tree of life. That tree is what won us the victory over sin, death and the devil, and gives all of us life everlasting. And it's the fruit of that tree given to us in the church that makes us steadfast and faithful and feeds us on this journey toward that everlasting life that we receive here in worship. This is why we can have a hand up there in blessing. This is why the Father is not in a fist, one of judgment and pain, why he does not threaten to kill us and drive us from His paradise. He can put his hand up in blessing, because it's on the cross that Jesus won us this blessing and gave us life. That is why Christians have, for centuries, centuries, used the crucifix as the image of salvation, not an empty cross, but a cross with a Savior who died there. Because it's not a defeat, it is a victory. It is not shame. It is glory. It is the tree of life that our Savior erected for us that we might live forever. It's the reason we can have life forever, and the Satan is defeated in Jesus name, amen. Amen.

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God Is Coming: Isaiah 35:4-7 Sermon for Sunday, September 8th, 2024

Isaiah 35:4-7

Say to those who have an anxious heart,
    “Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God
    will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
    He will come and save you.”

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
    and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
    and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
    and the thirsty ground springs of water;
in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,
    the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

Mercy and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ, Amen, Our Old Testament reading has some words in it that may well we don't normally associate with God, and may make us a little uncomfortable the words vengeance and recompense. Let's take a look. It says, Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong. Fear not behold your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God, He will come and save you. Those words are not words that we typically like to associate with God, especially when we're talking about salvation. That is what's going on here, right? It's vengeance and recompense, those things he will come to save when I saw that, I thought for a moment. I figured it would be a good idea to dive deep into those words and see what they actually mean. So I pulled out the old dictionary and looked up all the Hebrew and found out, yep, that translation is pretty good. Vengeance means vengeance paying back for a harm. Somebody has harmed you. You harm them. Recompense is paying back what is owed. It is evening the scales. If an injustice has been done, justice is done right. These words exact mean exactly what you think they mean. One of the ways that we're used to seeing them, well, we used to see them in the old westerns, right vengeance and recompense when things are set right. In the end, these old westerns, you always knew who the bad guys were and the good guys were, because one would wear the black hats and the other would wear the white hats. And the white hat guys were the good guys and the black hat guys were the bad guys, and the white hat guys would always shoot the black hat guys. In the end, things were made right. Justice happened. Vengeance was done. This is the vengeance, the recompense that this is talking about. An injustice has occurred and things are made right. We don't usually associate that with God. We like For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. There's no vengeance in that, no recompense. We're used to hearing things about love and salvation and forgiveness. How do these words from Isaiah fit into into our faith. Well, first we need to look at the situation in isaiah's day. Isaiah, chapter 35 is right in the middle of of a couple of things that are very important in the passage. Right before this, Isaiah has just finished doing an Oracle against all of the nations. He is telling the people of Israel and especially the nation of Judah, those nations do not have power, not Egypt, not Assyria, not Babylon, not Nineveh, not Syria, none of the none of the Big Bad guys around have any power. God is the one who will win in the end. Then we have this section about God coming and making things right. And the very next chapter is a story about King Hezekiah, and the story opens with Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, coming down with his massive armies. Assyria is the really big bad guy of the age. They have been going around, conquering empires, taken down countries, and they are expanding the largest empire in the region. And they keep going, and Hezekiah has made the mighty error of trusting that God will protect Judah, at least according to what Sennacherib thinks. He thinks that it is a huge. Error. So what you get sennacheribs armies have destroyed the fortified cities of Judah. They have come against everybody, and now they are just outside the walls of Jerusalem, and you can see Hezekiah looking out over a field filled with hundreds of 1000s of soldiers, and Sennacherib sends a messenger, and the message is this, hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus says the king, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for He will not be able to deliver you. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, Surely, the Lord will deliver us, for this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah, For thus says the king of Assyria, make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat his own vine and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water in his own cistern until I come and take you away to a land like your own, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, The Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who, among all the gods of these lands had delivered their lands out of my hand that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? Do you hear what he is saying. He's saying, I am stronger than your God, Jerusalem, none of the gods of the nations have prevented that. Prevented me from conquering. None of the gods have stopped me before. Why should your God be any different if you trust Him, you trust someone who can't save you. In response to this, Isaiah comes to King Hezekiah and tells him that the king is going to leave. He will hear a rumor and go off and fight elsewhere. And this is what happens. He goes off, fights elsewhere, and as he is getting ready to return, this story happens in Isaiah 37 and the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians, and when the people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Can you imagine what that would be like to be in the camp of the Assyrians? You go to bed an army, you wake up a graveyard. God was defending his people. But it doesn't stop there. Then Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh and as he was worshiping in the house of NIS rock his God, adramalek and sharizar, his sons struck him down with the sword, and after they escaped into the land of Ararat s hardan, his son reigned in his place. Where was he when he died as he was worshiping his false god in nizrok, it's funny, Sennacherib came against the city of Jerusalem, insulted the one true God, said he could never save and what happened? Well, the opposite God defended his people by striking the enemy down, and he killed the king while he was worshiping his God. It's pretty easy to see the vengeance and recompense of God here as he defends his people from an army and keeps them safe from the mockery of this king and shows them that He is the one and true God. They were defended by God's mighty power, saved by this recompense and.

But for us, we're in a different situation. We don't have a Sennacherib coming at the doors of our church with spears or swords or guns or anything like that. None of us are fighting a military that is out to conquer the church. There is no messenger that is saying the things that the messenger of the king of Assyria came to say. How does this work in the life of the church today? One of the places that is most like that is Revelation chapter six, and we can see it rather clearly. Revelation six says, When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the Word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete who were to be killed, as they themselves had been,

for the martyrs, those who had been killed, hearing About the salvation of God as recompense, writing injustice, this would certainly make them feel better, strengthen their anxious heart. For those who were walking into an arena in the Roman days hearing the roar of the lions that would eat them and the crowds that would jeer at them, the recompense of God was good news. Things would be made right. They would be raised from the dead, and those who are on the side of the enemy would be judged. Good news, the same is true for those who face persecution today. If you go to the underground churches in China that get bulldozed to the Christians in places like Iran, the recompense of God, the vengeance of God, is their defense. They cling to the idea that when Christ returns, He will make all things right, the suffering, the face, the pain they see. That is not the last word. They can trust in the might and power of God. He will come and save them. He will pay what is owed, and then on the last day, all things will be made right. The people who trust in the Lord for their salvation will be saved. But what about us? We're not in a situation like that. Are we our congregation? This building has been standing here for 60 years with no threat of bulldozers coming from the government. No one is coming in to kill us, but many of us, we are in a world where sometimes our God gets insulted. I talk with you and I hear you tell stories about this. We see it on the news. We see it on TV commentators. We hear it on our radios or podcasts or whatever, all sorts of people will say things about our God that is well, sometimes insulting sometimes they'll even say it to our face. Just the other day, I was going over to do a nursing home visit, and I walked past the door of an elderly gentleman, and he saw me in my clerical collar. I walked up, I said hi, and his face scrunched up in anger, and he started shouting all sorts of crazy things at me. I think he thought I was a Catholic. So he started telling me about how the how wicked and horrible the people were there, how they were like doing terrible things to other people, just so that he would shock me and. Then finally I as I was leaving, he said, you know, there is no God. And what did I say? You'll find out, right? That's what this says. Well, you'll find out the recompense of God, salvation that Christ promises us, means that we don't need to fight guys like that, right? I didn't need to challenge him or tear him down, or say, ah, you've insulted my God. God can take care of himself, right? He can handle it all on his own. He will take care of his own name, just as He will take care of you when he comes. He will make all things right so we don't have to fight when our God is insulted or get our hackles up or be angry. We can do what the apostles did when they were arrested or imprisoned. They didn't go out and shout or yell. They just served, preached the gospel, proclaimed it to the very people who hurt them. And we can do the same because we're actually no different than the people who shout the insults. Right? We're not chosen by God because we're extra good, or because we did faithful actions of love and service, or because we're better people. The only thing that makes us different is that we are Christians, that we have faith in Jesus, Christ and His death and resurrection, that his work on the cross rescues us from sin and makes us right with God, and because of that, we know that They can just as easily become one of us, so we leave it up to God to defend himself, to protect his name, to bring about the vengeance that he calls for on the last day, and make all things right. Because we know he's better at it than we are, isn't he? So we can just keep our heads down and love and serve, knowing that Christ is coming and that he will do all the things that he promised to do in Jesus name, amen. Amen.

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Armor of God: Ephesians 6:10-20 Sermon for Sunday, September 1st, 2024

Ephesians 6:10-20

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

Heavenly Father, we come before you today. Help us realize the reality of the spiritual warfare that surrounds us. We ask for your guidance and strength as we delve into your Word. Equip us with your armor so that we may stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Grant us wisdom, courage and faith to rely on your protection and to live out our calling as your children in Jesus name, amen, the battle is real. Ephesians 610, through 12 says, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over which this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places live. This passage is part of the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus. In these verses, Paul emphasizes a need for Christian Christians to recognize the spiritual nature of their struggle and the importance of relying on God's strength. Ephesians six is Paul's exhortation to believers to put on the whole armor of God, a metaphor for spiritual preparedness and defense against the evil with saving protection from God. The reality of the spiritual battle is often overlooked or underestimated. How many of you wake up each morning and think of the spiritual battle ahead for you that day in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it is easy to forget that you are constantly amid a spiritual struggle. The demands of work, family and other life responsibilities can distract you from that reality that every day you are in the battle for your soul, faith and witnesses. As Christians, our enemies are not merely physical or visible. They are spiritual forces that seek to undermine your faith and lead you astray. Thankfully, the ultimate victory over these spiritual forces has already been won through Jesus Christ, first, Corinthians, two, verse 15, says, says His death and resurrection defeated the power of sin, death and the devil with God's armor and the victory won by Christ, we are equipped to stand firm, trusting in his protection and provision as we navigate The challenges of this spiritual battle, my hope is that you remember two things from today's sermon, the first that you recognize that there is a spiritual battle going on, and second, that God saves you From the devil's schemes with his armor Satan's attacks are real. Think about the many ways the devil tries to attack you, through temptations that entice you to stray from God's path, deception that distorts the truth, discouragement that causes you to doubt your worth and God's promises. We see spiritual blindness and resistance to God's truth manifest in both individual lives and cultural influences. Persecution and cultural shifts try to lead you away from your Christian values. Your battle is not against people flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers. God is your saving protection. God's protective armor is. Crucial in your battle, it is God's strength and protection that empowers you to withstand the spirits Second Corinthians, chapter 10, verse three to six, tell us, For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh, For the weapons of our welfare are not the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lot of opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete, God fights for you and enables you to remain steadfast in your faith. Let's take a closer look at the six pieces of the armor of God. Number one, the belt of truth. Truth is the foundation of the life of a Christian. The belt of truth represents the certainty of God's Word and Christ's teachings, which ground believers in reality, not dreams, wishes, thoughts or feelings, and protect against deceptions in a world where Subjective Truths are promoted, the objective truths found in Scripture provides provides clarity and stability. God's truth enables you to discern and reject lies coming from the devil and the world number two, breastplate of righteousness, the breastplate of righteousness protects your heart from guilt and accusations. This piece of armor represents the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to believers through faith. It guards the heart the center of emotions and desires against the accusations and temptations of the devil, your righteousness is secured not by your own efforts, but by Christ's perfect obedience and sacrifice. This reminds you that you are justified before God, through Jesus work, not your own work, and helps you to live in alignment with his standards. Number three, choose of the gospel of peace. The gospel of peace provides stability and confidence. The gospel of peace gives the Christian a firm footing in the midst of spiritual battles, in moments of anxiety or fear, you are reminded that God's peace, given through Christ, surpasses all understanding. This peace assures you of your reconciliation with God and replaces fear with hope. Number four, the shield of faith. The shield of faith is your defense against the attacks of the devil. As Psalm 18, verse 30, says this God, his way is perfect, the word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield for all those who take refuge in Him. Our faith, grounded in God's promise and his word helps you maintain, remain secure in God's protection. Faith acts as a shield, protecting believers from the fiery darts of the evil one, such as temptations, doubts, fears and spiritual attacks. Number five, the helmet of salvation. The helmet of salvation assures you of your identity in Christ. It guards against the doubts and despairs that the devil may try to instill in you. Your salvation is secure, not in your fluctuating feelings, but in the objective reality of Christ's redemptive work. This assurance protects your minds from doubt and despair, affirming your place as children of God. Provide. You with hope and confidence to withstand any mental or spiritual assault.

And finally, number six, the sword of the Spirit. The sword of the Spirit, this is the word of God. It is our only offensive weapon against the devil's lies. Just as Jesus used scripture to counter attack the Satan's temptation in the wilderness, you are empowered to confront and overcome falsehoods with the truth of God's word the living and active nature of the word brings conviction, guidance and strength to in advance, to advance. The scripture spiritual battle, the word is powerful, serving as both defense and offense in spiritual warfare, allowing Christians to counter the lies and of the devil and to proclaim the truth of the gospel. Let's consider God's protection and actions. Let me share a personal experience to illustrate how God's protection works in our lives. One Wednesday afternoon, I was driving home after going with pastor to hold a church SERP to hold a church service at Stillwater post acute care facility on Washington Avenue over here. As usual, I had my clerical shirt on and just came from the service. The traffic was stopped over here on avocado Avenue, going south, where it goes from two lanes to one lane. I was sitting there with the car or with the windows down, waiting for the traffic to move, I started hearing a voice from the car beside me. The car had about four people in it, maybe in their 30s. Anyway, a young man was making rude comments about God, I think he saw my clerical shirt. The other men and women in the car. Thought his comments were very funny. I didn't know what to do, other than to become afraid of where this encounter might go. I thought, number one, should I ignore them? Number two, should I reply from a lesson from a Bible or number three possibly go over to their car and show them their ways with words and physical action. Just Just kidding about number three, even in seemingly mundane situations, God is present and actively protecting his people. My experience on avocado Avenue illustrates that God watches over us and provides guidance in how we respond in challenging situations, in moments of confrontation or ridicule, the natural human reaction might be to respond in anger or fear. However, in trusting in God, I was able to exercise restraint. Sometimes the best witness is God to God's love and protection is how we conduct ourselves, even in difficult situations. The situation also underscores the reality of spiritual warfare, where believers face temptations to respond sinfully to provocation. God protected me from what could have been a serious outcome. Thank you, God, recognizing God's hand in your life deepens your faith and encourages others to trust in His protection as well. In conclusion, standing firm in faith, the spiritual battle you face daily is serious and demands your full attention. To stand firm in this battle, you must rely on God's strength and put on the full armor he provides by equipping yourselves with his truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and word, you were empowered to resist the devil and remain steadfast in your faith. An interesting thing about the armor of God is. There is no mention of what kind of protection we have if we are retreating from the spiritual battle the armors is situated toward some threat always attack, because that is where God's protection is located. Again, please remember the two things from to God from today's sermon. Number one, the serious spiritual battle is going on. And number two, God saves you from the devil's schemes with his armor. Let us pray, Heavenly Father, we thank you for the armor you provide to protect us in this spiritual battle. Help us to put on each piece of your armor daily and to stand firm against the devil's schemes. Strengthen our faith, grant us wisdom and protect us with your truth, righteousness, peace and salvation. We trust in Your strength and protection, knowing that you are our field, shield and defender. In Jesus name, we pray amen.

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Wisdom for the Wise: Proverbs 9:1-10 Sermon for Sunday, August 18th, 2024

Proverbs 9:1-10

Wisdom has built her house;
    she has hewn her seven pillars.
She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine;
    she has also set her table.
She has sent out her young women to call
    from the highest places in the town,
“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”
    To him who lacks sense she says,
“Come, eat of my bread
    and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Leave your simple ways, and live,
    and walk in the way of insight.”

Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse,
    and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.
Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you;
    reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;
    teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
    and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God, our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ, Amen, our Old Testament. Reading today depicts wisdom. Wisdom has built her house. She's getting ready for a feast. She's prepared animals for eating. She's got wine all mixed and ready, and she goes out to the world and says, Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight. This is a message that wisdom sends out into the world to invite people to partake of what she has to offer. And as we look at this, I think it is interesting to note that for the people who lack sense or the simple this is not a moral judgment. If I were to walk up to someone and say they were simple or simple minded, that person would say, stop being so mean, right? Nobody here wants to be called simple or that they lack sense. I don't think that is what the proverb is doing. The simple those who lack sense in this are just it's a condition someone who just simply hasn't been educated, like if we went to a three year old and discovered that that three year old can't read. We wouldn't say, How dare you, right? We would just say, Well, it's pretty normal for someone who hasn't been taught to read to not be able to read. Right? I think that's the condition here to those who have not been educated, who are not taught, who are not aware. Wisdom is offered to all those who want. And so we ask with the proverb, what is this wisdom that is being offered to the world? Come to the feast. Come eat and drink. Come be filled with the wisdom of God. I think this section defines it right at the end, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. We often think about wisdom or knowledge as a secular concept, something that the world has, and we come here for spiritual things. But this reminds us that wisdom begins with the fear and knowledge of God. First, Corinthians, chapter one has something similar, where Paul says Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. And so when the Bible speaks of wisdom, the Bible is inviting all to come hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and the amazing gifts he has to offer us, because He is the wisdom of God and the power of God, and sometimes we need to take a moment to simply reflect on the power and beauty And goodness of the wisdom that we have been given. How beautiful. How powerful. How amazing is the wisdom of God in Christ? How crazy is it that our God became a human being? That's kind of nuts, isn't it? All powerful God, the Son from the beginning of creation, before creation, decided to leave his heavenly throne and become one of us, a human being, he would live through the same things we live through the pains, the hurts, the emotional turmoil, grieving, sickness, the whole thing, and then he suffered and died on a cross. For you. It was placed in a tomb. He rose from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and he promises to return to raise you from the dead, that by his death, death is no longer the end, but the doorway to eternal life in how amazing is that? How crazy is that that our God came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for you, this is the knowledge and wisdom of God that we have been given, the feast that wisdom invites all to partake of. And how amazing is that? What amazing wisdom that we have been given through our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ, and we have something even more on top of the gift of salvation. Through our Savior, we have been given a wisdom that means we don't have to question whether this event that happened 2000 years ago is for us or not. God has given us a way to apply this salvation from the outside to you through His Word and Sacrament. How amazing is it that you don't have to wonder whether Jesus came and died for you. The Word of God proclaims it to you right now, and you are filled with the Holy Spirit as you hear it. You don't have to wonder whether you are a part of God's family. You were chosen when the water hits your head in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and adopted into the family of God, made co heirs with our Savior, Jesus, Christ of all creation. How beautiful is it that when you come forward to eat Christ's body and drink his blood, you get the promise of life, that, because Christ is united with you, you know you will be raised up on the last day that his flesh is true food and His blood is true drink to give you life, that when you hear the words, I forgive you in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit, it's not a wish, it's done, And you don't have to question or worry or wonder. Am I praying hard enough? Am I doing enough? No, the amazing gifts of God come to you, freely given here. What joy, what wisdom, what power we have been given, the feast that wisdom offers to the world, what amazing wisdom there is that God uses that these means of grace to bind us together as a community. Isn't it amazing how all of these things come together to make a congregation that is like ours, this wonderful community of believers, this family of God. Because if you look around, very few of us would be here and know each other without this gospel, right, we can come in through these doors and be welcomed into the family of God for one simple reason, we believe in the same Savior who died and rose for us, and all it takes is to come in and join together with us in this common confession and your family. That's it. That's weird, right? I grew up in a small town in northern Wisconsin. It was actually kind of a big town for the area. We had 2000 whole people, huge. The town's near us, much smaller.

My wife grew up in a town of 500 and when you're in a place. Place like that, everyone knows everyone, and nobody leaves. So that means you get things like the mayor met the chief of police in kindergarten, and they have been playing with each other ever since, and there is no way the guy who moves into this town and has lived there for only 15 years is going to be able to get in right when the principal and the teacher grew up next to each other, you'll be an outsider, even if you've lived in that town for decades. But not so here, right when you walk in and join our congregation, you're part of the family, and we've seen this as our congregation has grown over this year, as more and more people come and take the vows of membership, they are just one of us, as if they always have been. There aren't many communities like this. And how amazing is it that God does that through his means of grace to gather us together? How powerful. How beautiful. How glorious this wisdom of God that then, after gathering us into this community and filling us with His grace, He sends us out to live like Christ. Because the weird thing about us is that we believe that our life is not about personal fulfillment, but about serving as Christ served us. Our goal is not to be out there gathering things in, but to live a purposeful life of love and care, and sometimes that means that the rules of God, His law, push at our boundaries and make us do things we'd rather not, but it's part of God's purpose for us. He gives us this clear vision of wisdom that is good for us and for the world. How beautiful, how powerful, how amazing, this wisdom of God given to us in Christ. This is the thing that wisdom calls. She invites the whole world to gather together, hear and partake of this feast and then wisdom says something interesting in verse seven, it says, Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you, reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser. Teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. Kind of an odd thing, right? What is this saying? When you correct a scoffer, you get abuse. When you give instruction to a wise man, you get love. You've heard it another way, haters gonna hate. You've heard that. I'm sure it is. It is just old enough so that uncool people like me can say it, but it's true. Haters gonna hate, scoffers gonna scoff. There are those who will hear the wisdom and power of God and respond to it with anger or hostility or indifference, right? That has always been a fact of life. There are people who will hear this amazing thing that is the center of our lives, this beauty, this power, and simply say, No, thank you. And that has always happened ever since this gospel message first went out, and we have this amazing thing that all should hear, and yen some will hear this amazing. Amazing and beautiful message and respond with joy, as if scales have fallen from their eyes, and all the sudden they understand what this proverb says, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight, and they will welcome and become wise and saved by the gospel message of Jesus Christ. And we know that. Why? Because you're here. I don't know if you know how weird it is that you come back every Sunday, because it's really weird, and you want to know why, because you come here and this guy dressed in green tells you that you are a sinner and deserve nothing but punishment. And then you come back the next week. It's weird. Who else would do that? And yet, you hear it every week, over and over and over again and keep coming. Why? Because you know you need it, just as I do, that is through this, this proclamation of this wisdom of our sin and the grace of Christ that calls us to eternal life. Correct a wise man, and you will get wisdom and love. He will love you teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. You're not just gluttons for punishment or people who like to whip whip themselves. What you are is people who know you need Christ. We do it with the full wisdom of God, all of his counsel. And what this proverb is encouraging us to do is very simple. Let us not be ashamed of this power and beauty and wisdom. Let us proclaim it to the whole world. Sure scoffers going to scoff people might hear it and turn away, but some will not. Some will see the beauty and power of what we have and love it, and their eyes will be opened. They will hear and learn and come to love our community because of it and their savior, Jesus Christ, no apologies. We don't need to water it down. People are hungry for the truth. Let's be proud of it. We have the wisdom and power of God here in this community. Why not share it? It actually reminds me a little bit of what was going on with Jesus, because Jesus said something kind of crazy in this Gospel reading, right? He says, My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink, and if you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. And that's weird, right? Especially before he begins the Last Supper. Nobody knew about Holy Communion, how his body and blood would be here as true food and true drink for us, that's why it says the disciples turned away and left and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the 12. He said, Do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and as the wisdom and power of the gospel message goes out, some will scoff and turn away, some will hear and become wise. Let's simply be proud of the wisdom we have, proclaim

it everywhere, not water it down, because we want them to share what we have, this amazing feast of wisdom that is the power of God for your salvation and for the world you. In Jesus name amen, amen.

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Elijah and Depression: 1 Kings 19:1-8 Sermon for Sunday, August 11th, 2024

1 Kings 19:1-8

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

Elijah was having a really bad day. You can tell from the reading. He says it pretty much right out loud in as clear language as you can get, without turning to us and saying, Hey guys, I'm having a bad day. What he says is this, it is enough now. Oh, Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my father. Yikes, right? Elijah, he's out in the wilderness all by himself. Seems like no food, no water, and he says, God, I am done. I can't do anymore. This is the end. Kill me. That's a rough day. And it's this, this emotion of Elijah's that I'd like to look at, both in the story and around us and say, How do Christians respond to this kind of depression. So let's back up a little bit and see what is happening. Elijah is coming off one of the best moments of his career. Our reading begins with Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. This is my favorite story in the entire Old Testament, the story of Elijah on the top of Mount Carmel. Cuz it's so cool. Elijah decides that he wants to have a contest between the prophets of Baal and between him, the contest is very simple. They will both set up an altar, ready a sacrifice, and the God that lights the altar on fire is the real God, and both sides agree. The prophets of all they do some dancing and singing, and they work on it, and they even start to cut themselves. Nothing happens. Elijah waits until they exhaust themselves. He even makes fun of them a little bit. And then it's Elijah's turn. He has some people pour enough water on the altar that the trench around the altar is a giant puddle. And then he prays, and fire from heaven comes down and engulfs the altar. How cool, right? Can you imagine? Like, why a guy like me, sci fi, fantasy guy that I am would love fire from heaven coming down and doing this. It's awesome. Following that, Elijah leads a band of warriors to kill off all of those prophets of Baal. And that is the story. Ahab goes to Jezebel and tells her what Elijah has done, and she decides that she wants to kill him. She says, So May the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. And it's the strangest thing, what happened, this amazing moment. And you gotta say, it's pretty amazing fire from heaven, a clear demonstration that the prophets of Paul are not real, and that that God has no power and nothing has changed. Now, if we looked at that story, we would tell Elijah. Elijah, come on, dude, this is the best moment of your career. Huge victory, and you're still upset. Come on. But nothing changed. We've been looking at the Olympics, many of us watching. The events, lots of people are winning medals, right? I get to see all these clips of people like holding up their gold medals and chomping on them. Pretty cool, right? But one of the things I think we forget is that, what happens when these athletes return home with a gold medal, right? They'll put it on a stand, they'll set it up in their house somewhere, and then they have to go back to their lives. And you know, maybe a month, you know, gold medal, maybe six months before the excitement fades and you're back to your normal life, except this time, you don't have the Olympics to train for, this thing that you've been working for, this purpose that you've had, all of a sudden, it's gone. And if your life was sad before, it'll be sad after. Except you'll have a reminder on your wall that you should be happy.

Nothing really changes except you've got a piece of gold hanging up in your house. And you might say to yourself, I should be happy, but I'm not. The gold medal might actually make things worse, if your life is depressing, if you were sad before, you'll be sad after, and so maybe even this moment, this high point of Elijah's life, he goes and he says, why is they are things not better?

And he's in the same situation. Jezebel isn't overthrown. Ahab is still king, and the soldiers are still trying to kill Elijah. So he runs out into the wilderness. He leaves behind his assistant. He goes off on his own. He's under a broom tree, and he says, Just kill me. God, I'm done. I'm at my lip. I can't do it. We might look at this and say, is Elijah depressed? Like that's what we would think about, right? Is this clinical depression? We can't make that diagnosis, least of all me, I know more about Hebrew than I do about psychology, but he seems pretty upset. Seems like he's at his limit. So he lies down in the wilderness, no food, no water, no protection, expecting not to wake up the next

morning. Elijah. Is the greatest prophet of the Old Testament, right? He is the model for every prophet that came after him. He is so important in the Old Testament that we have prophets predicting he would come back before the Messiah come. He is so important in the Old Testament that when Jesus is on the top of the mountain, Moses appears to next to him, and the other god is Elijah, most famous prophet in the Old Testament, And yet ready

to die. This is contrary to everything we think, about happiness, about purpose, Elijah is at his end. So how does God respond? God sends down an angel to Elijah, and he says, Get up. Be a man. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Oh, wait, I think I read that wrong. Sorry, let's, let's see. How about this, Elijah, pray harder and you won't be upset. I'm really not very good at reading today. What? What about this one? All you need to do is read your Bible more, and you'll you'll live in the healing that God has won for you. No, how about I? Right? One more time you healed others. Why can't you heal yourself? We know that's not what he says. What does the angel do? Taps him on the shoulder, get up and eat. This isn't really a command. The angel has come down and said, Hey, Elijah Here, have some food. We know how big a deal that can be. How many times has someone been in the hospital and a member of the congregation shows up at their house with a casserole, and that's all you need, not just because it's a little bit of food, which you do need, but because of all the love and care and concern that are baked into that pot, right? That's what Elijah needs. He goes to sleep again, and the angel says, Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you. So Elijah gets a little bit more food, and this time, this food is so amazing that he can walk with it on the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights. Kind of miraculous fact. I'd really like to be able to find that grocery store. But here's the thing, God realizes that Elijah needed something. He was at his limit, and Elijah needed more than just a pep talk God provides for him physical food and rest. He sends an angel to show him that he is on his side. And then, once Elijah reaches the mountain of God, God tells him that he is not alone, but there are 5000 people who have remained faithful, and that there is a Prophet that he can go anoint a guy named Elisha who will be with him. He gives him physical, spiritual and emotional support in the face of this difficult now for us, when we face difficult moments like this, maybe even clinical depression, we know God is likely not going to send an Angel to bake us bread, and that bread will not last us 40 days, but I think there's a good number of things we can learn from God's interaction with Elijah about our own mental Health. And I think the first thing is that we have to realize that depression is not a fault in the Christian when you reach your limit, when you have been pushed to the edge, when life is just bad, and maybe even you are suicidal. It is not because you don't have enough faith. It is not because you didn't pray hard enough. Sometimes that just happens. The reason I'm preaching on this today is because yesterday, when I was out running, I heard snippets of a sermon where a preacher said exactly the opposite. This preacher said that God Jesus died on the cross to provide us the promises of the Bible, and if you just walk in them, you will have healing, which, if you look at that, says that if you don't, if You're not healed physically and mentally, it's your fault, and that is crap. Most of us here in this room do not believe the physical part of that you've heard me preach about this long enough, I. It. But sometimes Christians who think that that it's in a little crazy that people would be healed by their faith physically, might have questions about their mental health and faith. And I want to tell you that there is only one person in the history of the world, who had enough faith that he was never pushed to the limit, that he was never questioned, that he never lacks trust in God, and that one person is Jesus Christ, he is the only one who has so much faith that he was never pushed to his limit, and that every moment of his life he had faith that his father would send him to the cross and raise him from the dead. And the only person who can say that is Jesus. And I have to ask you, are you Jesus? We all know the answer. None of us is the rest of us, all of us. We are not God and man. We do not have the Holy Spirit empowering us like Jesus did. We are not perfect in the way that Jesus was. He's the only one whose faith was strong enough to get him through. The rest of us were sinners. We face pain and hurt and loss, and we have limits to our power and strength, means we will face moments like Elijah. We will face pain. We'll face depression and hurt, which is why the gift of Christ's faith is so important. When you were baptized, he united himself to you to make his faith in operation for you, which means that trusting in God is not a thing that you have to build up in yourself. It's Jesus faith at work in you, whether you are happy or sad, whether you will feel like strong today or you're like Elijah lying down in bed at home, the faith of Jesus is a gift given to you that works no matter what to give you the promises of Jesus Christ. And so when you're feeling depressed or the people around you are, we have to say it is not because you are have any special lack of faith. And I think the best example, the best way of saying this is, is Elijah, the kind of guy that you would say wasn't faithful enough. Remember, only a few moments before this, he called fire down from heaven. Kind of cool, big things going on. Prior to that, he raised a man from the dead. I have to say, if anybody seems to be faithful. It might be the prophet Elijah. He even spoke to God, and yet he despaired of his life. Means sometimes Christians hit their limit.

So then, when a Christian is depressed, when we're facing these limits, what do we do? Well, God provided for Elijah's physical needs, his emotional needs and his spiritual needs in this world, and we can see that these things are all important as part of that, all things that God does through his Christian community when there is need, sometimes we just need to take A break. That was actually me a while ago, covid was really hard on me, back when I was in Chicago that very first year when the lockdowns were at their worst, it was rough, and the hardest part for me was that members of my congregation were dying, not from the. Disease, but from lack of personal contact, these people were locked in their nursing homes, and I was prevented from visiting them to give them holy communion, pray with them, just to have somebody who would talk to them, who wasn't the staff of the nursing they were dying because that hit me really hard, so much so that I went to the doctor for my normal checkup. You know what doctors do these days? They run you through the Depression checklist and they ask you, how you feeling? What's your mood like? And I answered honestly, and at the end of it, he said, you want something for that? I said, Whoa. This is worse than I thought. So I took a week off. I really took a week off. Basically sat on the couch playing video games for seven days straight. It was awesome, and it's exactly what I needed, just a break, and I came out of it pretty refreshing, but sometimes we need more than that. Sometimes what we need is emotional care. God has provided all sorts of people to take care of us when we're in that state. That's you, right. The Body of Christ gathered together to love and care for each and so we visit, we offer help, and sometimes that means also professional help, through counselors or psychologists. God also provides for us spiritual aid, the bread of life, Jesus Christ through the word, proclaimed through his body and his blood to sustain us in grace. But I think the biggest challenge that many people face when they're in this time is that emotional problems, depression especially, causes us to withdraw from all of these support we stop going to church, we stop letting people visit us and drop off those casseroles, or when I call up and say, Hey, I hear things aren't going well, I'd love to come over and give you communion, they say, No, my house isn't very clean. Or no, I'm kind of upset, or no, I'm depressed, or I'm injured. And I say, yeah, that's why I call. But the temptation is to turn away from the love and support that God wants to offer. It's okay be in need. It's okay to need help. God has a way of delivering that to you, because every once in a while we will get sick or hurt or depressed, and God knows this, and he has offered us the bread of life to feed our soul and this Christian community to care for our emotions and our bodies. He knows this, and he sends us, today, and we need to be willing to accept in Jesus name Amen. Amen.

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Manna to Messiah: John 6:22-35 Sermon for Sunday, August 4th, 2024

John 6:22-35

On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Grace, mercy and peace come to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Today we explore Exodus 16 and John six. We started our journey in the wilderness with Moses and the Israelites, who relied on manna from heaven. This story highlights how God satisfies physical hunger that dates back to around the 14th to the 13th century BC. Fast forward to the first century AD, John, the beloved disciple, recounts how Jesus fed the 5000. This miracle led the crowd to seek more from him. They pursued Jesus, desire more physical food, and fish, but he redid directed their focus to the need for spiritual food. through the Scriptures, God reveals His unfailing provision for his people, both physically and spiritually. In Exodus 16, verses two through 15. The Israelites recently freed from slavery in Egypt, journey through the wilderness and begin grumbling against God, and are Moses and Aaron because they lacked food. They reminisce about the abundance in Egypt, where they had their fill of food and response God promised to provide for them, the Lord teaches them to rely on Him. The Lord tells Moses that he will rain down bread from heaven. For the people. This bread, known as manna, appears every morning, and the Israelites must gather it daily, taking only what they need for that day, the daily abundance gathering to test their obedience and trust in God. On the sixth day, they are together twice as much, because on the seventh day, it is the Sabbath, which they must rest. In the evening, God also provides Manna or quail, I should say, to cover the camp, offering meat for them to eat. The next morning, the Israelites find a man on the ground, described as a fine flaky substance. Like frost, Moses explains that is the bread the Lord has given them to eat. This miraculous provision demonstrates God's care and faithfulness in meeting the physical needs of his people in the wilderness. This manner miraculously meets their physical needs. Instructions on gathering mana appetizers, obedience and trust in God's provision. highlighting our day, daily dependence on God for both physical and spiritual needs. Just as the Israelites depended on God daily for mana. We must also trusting God for our needs. Our physical life and sustenance, jobs, homes and daily bread come from the grace his gracious hand. Every meal we eat, and every breath we take is a gift from our Creator. When we pray from Matthew six, verse 11, give us this daily bread. We acknowledge our dependence on God for everyday needs, and trust in His continuous provision for all aspects of our lives. The story of Elijah and the widow of Xero fath powerfully illustrates God provision and faithfulness even in dire circumstances. The story occurs during a severe drought and famine in Israel. A judgment brought about by God because people led by King Ahab had turned away from the Lord, to worship false gods. The false god all Elijah, a prophet of God had declared that there would be no rain except of His Word, causing great suffering. Bring in the land. After a while, the brook zero fats where Elijah had been hiding and receiving food from ravens stopped flowing. God then instructed Elijah to go to the town of zero path inside and outside Israel and the homeland of Jezebel, Ahab's wicked queen. God told Elijah that he had commanded a widow there to provide for him. As Elijah arrived at the gate and Sarah path, he encountered a widow gathering sticks. The widow was destitute, and the family had left her with very little. Elijah ask her for a drink of water and a piece of bread. The widow, likely astonished, replied that she had only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. She was preparing to make a final meal for herself and her son, after which she expected they would die of starvation. Despite the dire situation, Elijah asked the widow to first make him a small cake of bread, promising that God would provide her and her family. He declared that the jar of flour would not be used up, nor would the jug of oil run dry until the day the Lord had set rain up on the land. This bowl request required the widow to use the last of her resources on a stranger, trusting in God's provision recorded in First Kings chapter 17. The widow obeyed Elijah's word, demonstrating great faith. She made a small cake for Elijah, and then prepared food for herself and her son. Just has Elijah had promised the jar of flour and the jug of oil did not run out. They had enough food every day throughout the duration of the famine. This miraculous provision continued unto rain finally fell upon that land, ending the drought. The widow's willingness to obey Elijah's request, despite her desperate situation, exemplifies great faith. She treated God's promise. trusted God's promise through Elijah and her faith was rewarded with miraculous provision. God's provision extended beyond the borders of Israel to a Gentile woman in a foreign land. This foreshadows the includes tivity of God's salvation and care for all people, regardless of nationality, or status. Let us now reflect on what happened after Jesus fed the 5000 with the five barley loaves and two fish. The next day, the crowds sought Jesus and found him on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Like question him about how he arrived there. Jesus responded by putting, pointing out that they sought him not because they saw the miraculous signs, but hunger, but because they ate the lows and were filled. He urged them not to work not for perishable food, but for the food that he endures to eternal life, which he, the son of man would give them. Jesus has declared, I am the bread of life, Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. The emphasis that he is a source of spiritual sustenance and eternal life. Contrast thing the temporary satisfaction of physical food, an enduring fulfillment found in him. Unlike the man that sustained physical life temporarily, Jesus up for eternal life through faith in Him. As we seek Jesus, we must look beyond our immediate physical needs to a spiritual hunger

Christ invites us to believe in Him to true bread from heaven, who satisfies our eternal hunger. Our faith in Jesus, nurtured through the Holy Spirit sustains us spiritually, offering us hope and eternal life. We trust God for our spiritual nourishment found in His Word and Sacraments, which sustain our faith and life in Christ. In Exodus, God's provision in physical manner, meeting physical hunger. This emphasis emphasizes our daily dependence for physical needs. The manner in miraculous food, sustain Israel's physical life. And the response involves physical actions such as gathering mana. Our physical needs are real. Philippians chapter four, verse 19, says, and my God will supply every need of yours, according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. By faithfully, God faithfully provides for them each meal, every breath is a gift from our Creator. As the Israelites gathered daily, we should cultivate a habit of gratitude and reliance on God for our daily needs, trusting his continuous provision. In the Gospel of John, Jesus presents himself as the bread of life, providing spiritual and eternal life. He fulfills and surpasses the provision of manna, offering himself as a true bread from heaven, giving eternal life to believers. The response involves faith and belief in Jesus, which the Holy Spirit brings about. Second Corinthians chapter four, verse 18, says, and we look not to the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient. But the things that are unseen, are eternal. Jesus calls us to shift our focus from merely physical substance to spiritual nourishment. Faith in Jesus is paramount. And through him, we receive eternal life. Embrace the Bread of Life participating in the means of grace. The word and sacrament through which the Holy Spirit strengthens our faith and assures us of salvation. Jesus promise of eternal life provides a perspective that transcends our earthly existence. It assures us that despite physical death, we have an everlasting life with God. This hope reorients our lives, encourage us to live with an eternal perspective. Despite God's miraculous provision of mana in the desert, it was temporary, and eventually, those who ate it died. The physical mana sustained live for a time but could not prevent death. This teaches us to prioritize or spiritual nourishment. We are invited to partake in the word and Sacraments where Jesus, the bread of life is present. Our spiritual well being is essential. And in Christ, we find a true fulfillment that goes beyond our physical needs. Just as a Bread of Life offers something far greater than physical food, eternal life. Those who are partaking those who partake in this bread will live forever. For Christ's gift transcends earthly limitations. Jesus promised that eternal life offers hope, peace and assurance beyond this life. faith in Him assures that even though we die, we will eternally in him. Our ultimate god or ultimate hope lives not in earthly provisions, but in the eternal life promised by Jesus. This shapes our perspective and priorities, urging us to seek first the kingdom of God. By trusting in Jesus, the bread of life, we received not just as a sustenance for today, but the promise of eternal life, sustaining us through all life's trials and beyond. As we reflect on God's provision, for manna to the Messiah, let us remember his faithfulness in meeting both our physical and spiritual needs, our daily bread, an earthly salvation or gifts from his gracious hand. We trust in His provision, seek the true bread from heaven and find our ultimate fulfillment in Christ alone. God God's provision often manifests itself through community of believers. Just as the Israelites gathered mana together, let us support one another in our Faith Journeys. The church community provides a space where we share in God's provision, encouraging and uplifting each other. This communal, communal aspect of faith helps us all see God's provision through the care and support of fellow believers. As recipients of God's grace. We are called to be contoured conduits of His grace to others. This means being generous with our resources, showing compassion to those in need, and sharing the gospel message. Our faith in God's provision should inspire us to act in ways that reflect His love and care for the world. In conclusion, God provides both physical and spiritual needs temporary and eternal. Jesus the Bread of Life fulfills our deepest needs and offers us eternal life. We trust in God's provision daily, live with gratitude and support one another in the faith community. Our ultimate hope lies in the eternal life presented by Jesus which shapes our perspective and priorities. Let us pray. Dear God, as we journey from manna to Messiah, remind us that you provide for both our physical and spiritual needs. Our Daily Bread and eternal salvation are gifts from your gracious hand. Let us trust in your probation. Seek the true bread from heaven and find our fulfillment, ultimate fulfillment in Christ alone. In Jesus name, Amen.

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Noah's Covenant and Baptism: Genesis 9:8-17 Sermon for Sunday, July 28th, 2024

Genesis 9:8-17

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. There are a number of stories that are really popular to tell Sunday school children. The stories typically are ones that involve things like animals, or kids. Many of them are pretty neutral or actually kind of cute. I think one of those is the story of the calling of Samuel. Right Samuel is, is a young man, often depicted in Sunday school as a child. And he hears the voice of God and He's excited to be a prophet. And typically the end of the story before it gets to the sad part, where God tells him that his adopted father is going to die. And he has to tell Eli that him and Eli's children, we leave that part out. But a couple of the stories are kind of horrifying. And one of the favorite Sunday School stories is David and Goliath, right? Again, he is pictured not like what he was probably like a 16 year old, but he's usually pictured as a young child, and he runs out, and he's got the sling and God will protect me. And then they like they stopped the story there. Because the story ends with David like, shooting the sling, hitting the guy in the forehead. And then he takes Goliath sword out, and he cuts his head off. And he's like, Hey, everybody, look at this. Not very Sunday school, right? Perhaps the most famous Sunday School story is the story of Noah and his ark. Because we really liked the image like the cartoon image that I'm sure all of you have seen. It's with Noah, on the on the 2d boat, with the lions, like sticking their heads up over and the drafts pop out of the little top right. And then you've got the sheep on the other side, and everyone is smiling and happy and all their cartoon awesomeness. And you know what, they don't draw all of the bodies floating in the water. Right? Because the flood is not a cutesy story. The story of Noah and the ark is a story of God's judgment on the earth. And we're talking about this story. From the very end. Our reading from Genesis chapter nine, is right after Noah gets off the ark with him and his family. They build an altar and they offer a sacrifice to God, and God presents this covenant, that he will never again flood the entire earth to destroy all flesh. And then he puts a rainbow in the sky as the sign of the covenant. So that when we would look up and we see all the beautiful colors of the rainbow, we remember God will never flood the entire Earth. Again. That is the sign of His covenant. But there's a whole lot behind the story. Right? You'd have to go all the way back to the very beginning of Noah's story to get what was going on before. Genesis chapter six, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, continually. And the Lord regretted that He made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will block out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. So the story goes, God tells Noah to build his very famous Ark, the animals get on board, God closes the door, and then it rains. And the floodwaters come up from the deep end, and everything that breathe fresh air dies. And Noah and all of the people on the ark and all of the animals are on there for months and months and months. It rains. But then the floodwaters have to go away. And then they hit the mountain And the floodwaters have to recede, and they wait before the mud turns to grass. And then finally the bird brings back the olive branch showing the plants have grown, and you can get out and eat things that are growing. And they get off the earth is desolate. There are a total of eight people alive on the entire planet. Imagine that you can't Canyon, the destruction, the judgment and the power of God. What we see is that God uses water to destroy and judge the sin of the world. But he also uses water to preserve the faithful family, Noah and his children and their wives. And so God gives them this covenant, so that he would never again do what he just did, and flood the entire Earth and kill everything all. Right. Now you might be wondering, What in the world do Christians get from this other than a promise that God will never have a worldwide flood? And that's a great question. Because on its own, that's all there is. No flood. That's it. Until you get to how the New Testament reflects back on more on Noah and his family. In First Peter, where it says, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in whichever view that is eight persons were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven, and is that the right hand of God with angels, authorities and powers having been subjected to him. Peter picks up on a theme from the Old Testament about water being used both to judge and to say, both to cleanse from evil and to make alive again, in many Lutherans when we do a baptism, we pray what is called Luthers flood prayer, which really highlights this theme. It says, almighty and eternal God, according to your strict judgment, you condemned to the unbelieving world through the flood. Yet, according to Your great mercy, you preserved believing Noah and his family, eight souls in all of you drowned, hardhearted Pharaoh and all his hosts in the Red Sea. Yet lead your people Israel through the water on dry ground prefiguring this washing of Your Holy Baptism, through the baptism in the Jordan, your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, you sanctified and instituted all waters to be a blessing flood, and the lavish washing away of sin. So the New Testament uses Noah and the flood, as an example, a metaphor for what God does in our baptism. And so what we see and baptism through this lens, is that it one judges the sinner. To makes the saint come alive. And three, gives us a sign of the promise that God gives each and every Christian. Let's take a look at those three things. So first, baptism judges, the sinner in each of us. It's pretty clear how that happened with Noah and the ark, the waters of the flood came down and it judged the whole world the devastation would have been terrible.

Especially those first few moments as the the noise that would come outside of the ark, as the people who realized that they were too late to join Noah found the waters rising. As we consider the Florida and reflect on our own baptism, we can see within ourselves some of those things that God complained about when he looked at the whole earth and found that well, their hearts and thoughts were only about evil, as it says, evil continually. And we still have a little bit of that inside of us, don't we wear our hearts and our thoughts, even when we don't like it. Consider evil first. Consider the hard things that we don't like to do. First, until our consciences and the Holy Spirit bat them away and say, No, we're supposed to be doing something else. And yet very often, our first reaction is hostility, anger. And even if we let it go, it would be violence, right? Our life is not, and our hearts are not as pure as we would like them to be. And that is why Jesus came and died on our cross. He came to bring judgments to that kind of sin. Because the thing that we deserve actually is the floodwaters of the earth and even more than that, Death and Hell. And what we see in the cross is not just the salvation that Jesus wins for us. But him taking the wrath of God into his body. He drinks fully the cup of God's wrath on the cross, and takes that punishment for us. The cross is the judgment on sin given to the sinless one, so that we would not have to take. The amazing thing is that in baptism, the judgment that is on Christ is brought into the sinner in us. We Die with Christ, when the water is placed on our heads. That is what St. Paul says in Romans chapter six, when he tells us that in our baptism, we die with Christ, and we rise with him. Which means back when you were baptized, the sinner in you was killed by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came down and nailed that evil guide to the cross with Jesus Christ. Which is pretty cool, right? It means that when your heart has it first reaction to sin, or violence or evil or anger, those things that you hate, and that the Holy Spirit bats away. Those are just the dying gasps of the executed one. He's on his way out. He's been destroyed by the power of God in Baptist. That's the gift that God gave you all that time ago, when he poured the water on your head. He united you with Jesus Christ in the judgment on the sinner. So that the sin in you could die. But he also makes alive, the st. That is in you. Because in baptism, we do not just die with Christ, we rise with him. Peter reflects on this as part of the story of Noah. He tells us that God preserved Noah eight souls and all and it corresponds to our own baptisms that save us. God's judgment on the earth cleansed it and he preserved a faithful family, one that would get off the ark and offer a sacrifice that pleases God. One that would be the father of all the generation. We see it also in Jesus, who after dying on the cross was placed in the tomb. And after three days rose from the dead, as the very first of all of those faithful who would follow him. His new body, the resurrected body is the image of our own body, on the day that we rise, and because he is alive, our heavenly Father gives us life to. So in your baptisms, not only did the sinner die, but the Saint Rose from the dead, to live eternal life for you at that very moment. Which means eternal life is not just a future thing that we look forward to the moment when Christ returns, and he raises our bodies from the ground, but a gift that you have now. Because you died with Christ, and you rose with Him, and His resurrection lives inside of you. So he empowers you to live, as the saint would want you to do, empowers you to walk, as St. Paul says in Romans chapter six, to walk in newness of life. So in baptism, God judges the sinner, and raises a saint to new life. And third, he gives us a sign of the promise that he made in our baptism. God did something like that with Noah, with the rainbow. When God made his promise, he said, I would make a covenant with you that I will never flood the earth and destroy all flash. And he said, his bow in the heavens, the rainbow. And it was supposed to be that anytime the rain fell, and the sun shines through it, we would look up and see a good, God will never again flood the whole earth. A nice reminder, right? And we get beautiful rainbows that are a part of that. Now, it's pretty popular amongst Christians to say, oh, when you look at the rainbow, you can see a sign of God's love for you. Which is not true. At all. Right? All you got to do is look at this. It's just a sign of this promise way back when the covenant with Noah, he's just not going to flood the whole earth. Again. He's got all sorts of other things he could do. Just not this flood, right? If you are looking for a sign that God loves you with sign of his great covenant with you, and his promise, you're not supposed to look up into the sky, no matter how beautiful that rainbow is. You look to the moment of your baptism. Because it is not just the power of God at work in you, to kill you and make you alive. It is also a physical sign of His promise, because when it happened, people saw it. Right? There were people who were there. And if you're like me, it was your parents, who were likely holding you at the time. And then someone was there when they splashed the water on your head and said I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You might have a certificate that says it happened or photos of people in in white clothes and suits standing next to the pastor, right. If you're really lucky, your parents saved your baptismal candle. Or like me, you have this little silver cross that your parents saved as this tiny little cartoon child kneeling in prayer that I still have in my office, sitting behind my desk is I've had this since the day I was baptized. And what you can do is instead of looking at the clouds remember your baptism because this is an external and physical sign of the inward and spiritual covenant that God made with you. That at the very same time the water splashed on your head, the Holy Spirit killed you and made you alive again, destroyed the sinner and raised the saint and made you one with Jesus Christ forever.

So when you doubt or worry, or doesn't seem like the saints is doing that great a job. All you got to do is look back and remember the covenant that God made with you in that sacrament. Because he made a promise. He made a promise that he would save you that he would give you life. And you can remember that every time you see the photos, look at their certificate, or just think back. Yep, I was baptized. Because God does these things on the outside to give us incontrovertible evidence that you are saved. In Jesus name, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Politics and the Good Shepherd: Jeremiah 23:1-6 Sermon for Sunday, July 21st, 2024

Jeremiah 23:1-6

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. To the prophet Amos comes during a busy time in the Old Testament story. Amos is a prophet of judgment against the northern kingdom of Israel, and understand what's happening in our story, we need to understand some history. So we're gonna go back all the way to King David. So you know, King David, he was the one to basically unite the kingdoms, kingdom of Israel, all 12 tribes, and finally conquer the area that was supposed to be the promised land. He brings it all together under his rule. And then when his son Solomon takes over the kingdom, Solomon begins the long line of kings that start to stray away from God and His promises of Solomon, because of this gets judgment from God, that when his son takes the throne, God is going to split the kingdom into two, there will be the two tribes of the South, and the 10 tribes of the North, the North becomes Israel, and the South is called Judah. This happens under Solomon son, Rafa Boehm, a Prophet goes to another man named Jeroboam, who was promised that if he follows God and His promises and keeps his law, he will get the 10 tribes of the northern kingdom for him and for his family. So, Jeroboam rebels, the 10 tribes go their own way Rehoboam in the south, Jeroboam in the north. And then Jeroboam says, you know, it's not a great idea for me to send all of my people down to Jerusalem, to worship, because they're all going to someone else's kingdom. It's not mine. So against God's law, he builds to sanctuaries. The one that's important for us is the city of Bethel, where the king's sanctuary is, and the priest Amaziah. Comes out against Amos. During this time, King Uzziah comes to power in the south, and we get several prophets. Amos is the one that we are looking at. He is likely around 750 or 760 BC. It's about the same time as Jonah, who goes out to the city of Nineveh, capital city of a Syria, the ones who will be the big bad guys very soon. And then only a little while later is the prophet Isaiah, who comes shortly after Amos after uzawa in Judah dies. And so we what we get are prophets, Amos to the northern kingdom, Isaiah to the southern kingdom, and Jonah to Nineveh or a Syria, who would soon come in and destroy the northern kingdom of Israel, kill off Jeroboam xline, and take them into exile. Those are the characters of our day. Amos, the prophet actually comes from the southern kingdom, a city of Tekoa, which is just on the other side of the border, which means that when he comes into this northern kingdom, he is an outsider. He is from Judah. It's almost like an enemy Prophet, coming into your territory. And that is the situation we get when we get to the beginning of our reading. Amos has been coming out with Oracle's against everybody. But in this chapter, he is now starting to speak to Israel to the northern kingdom. And what I'd like to do today is contrast his message to Israel and the results with Jonah, who goes to a foreign kingdom in Nineveh With a similar message, and different results. So let's look at Amos first. And then we'll look at Jonah. Amos goes to this northern kingdom. And he gives them a message. God says, Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel, and I will never again pass by them, the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. Now, if you are like me, and have never built a single thing in your life, you read the words plumb line, and you go, Hmm, I wonder what that is. I found out it's a string with a weight at the bottom that you set up so that it goes completely vertical. And that's how you build a straight wall. You compare the wall to the line, and then you get straight. Easy enough. That makes sense, right. And God is using this metaphor as a standard of behavior for the northern kingdoms. He says, I have a standard. And if your wall is curved, it's going to be destroyed. And that is what he then says, about the northern kingdom, the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. God has sent a message of judgment to this northern kingdom. He says, If you violate my laws and my standards, and continue to do so there will be judgment. For that kingdom, that judgment meant the violence and destruction of the mighty armies of Syria, who are some of the worst conquerors in all of history, in their savagery and anger. Now, you can imagine, what would happen if someone walks into the White House, from say, I don't know Russia, and said, Guess what? God's going to destroy your kingdom and your country. I don't think whoever it was, we would listen to them simply because of their identity, where they came from. And that's a big piece of the rejection of this message. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel sees Amos, and he rejects this message for a couple of reasons. The first reason is, Amos is from Judah, an enemy kingdom. And he thinks the prophet is just there to stir up trouble. He says, Go flee away to the land of Judah, back to your home country and prophesy there. But don't come here with your divisive words and all of your bad news. rejects the message because of who Amos is. The second reason he rejects the message is because it is not in the plan. He says, this is the king's sanctuary. You can't say this about the king. Here we have one message. We support our kingdom. We do not say bad news. How dare you come out against our temple and our sanctuary. And what he says is, but never again prophesy at Bethel for it is the king sanctuary and it is the temple of the kingdom that none of this dis information and and conspiracy theories. We are all on message here. And then finally, he accuses Amos of selling out of doing it just for money. That's what he said. He says when he says flee to the land of Judah and eat bread there and prophesy there. He thinks that Amos is just a professional Prophet, who was there to stir up trouble and get YouTube subscriptions.

Notice what Amaziah doesn't do He doesn't actually attend to the message. He simply says, Amos, you're a bad guy. So I don't have to listen to you. Instead of hearing what God says, judgment is coming. And so they totally avoid the entire thing. God warns them says turn, and they reject it. And we know what the result is. Syria does come, they come with their armies, and they destroy the northern kingdom of Israel during the time of Isaiah. And the people go into exile, Jeroboam his family falls under the sword, and everything that Amos predicted, comes true. Now, you can understand why this might happen. You can understand why Jeroboam and Amaziah would reject a message like this. Nobody wants to hear bad news. And in fact, when news is contrary to what we expect, we find all sorts of ways of getting around it. Explain it away. We talk about something else. And it's even worse when it's an accusation. Jeroboam you have been unfaithful to God's promise. And that's a hard thing to hear. Whether you're a king, or a Christian 1000s of years later, you are someone who is hearing the message of God for the first time. If you are a sinner, and unfaithful. It's hard to hear. And one way to react to that is to do it Amaziah and Jeroboam did. Say, you're totally wrong. I've got it all set. We're all rights, and you're just a bad guy anyway. That's what Israel did. And that's what many people do. Instead of turning, repenting and receiving forgiveness, the bad news of God's judgment, they respond with anger. But there's another way. This is the way that happened with the prophet Jonah. Jonah was alive at just about the same time. And God went to him and said, to go to Nineveh with a very simple message. Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. That's a whole lot shorter than Amos is vision, right? Amos gets this beautiful thing of the plumb line and the wall and all of that. And there's Oracle's and Jonah gets one line. 40 days. That's it. Now, if you know the story, Jonah didn't want to go and after much goings on, and he eventually makes it to the city of Nineveh. And he says 40 days, and Nineveh will be overthrown. And what's amazing about this is what happens next. Nineveh does not have the history with God. The northern kingdom does. They don't have Moses and the prophets. They don't have the great confession that God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love that he forgives those who turned to him. They have none of that. A profit from an enemy city comes to them and says 40 days and destruction. That's it. And what does Nineveh do? These foreigners who do not know the true God they hear the words and repent. In fact, it is such a repentance that the king of the city commands that every person all the way down to the animals to put themselves was in sackcloth and ashes and fast with the hope that this God who only offered one line would turn from his anger and relent. What a different response from people who had no idea who God was just some foreign prophet of a foreign god. And yet they hear the word of judgments, and they repent. And you know how the story goes, and God sees their repentance. And he turns to Jonah and he says, I will relent of the disaster, that I was going to bring them. Which makes Jonah really mad. He wants a Syria destroyed, because they're the big bad. They're the ones who will not so very long from now come in and kill that northern kingdom, with all of their violence, and wrath. And God sends Jonah to preserve this city from His judgment, so we could use them against Israel. What a difference in their reaction is to the message of judgment from God. Jonah comes and says, You will be destroyed if they don't react in anger, or accusations, or accuse him of disinformation to repent. And God, forgive. This message is a good example for everyone who hears a message of judgment from God. Because without a message of judgments about our sin, there is no forgiveness. without accepting the hard news that comes from God's Word, we will never know that we needed a Savior, who would take the penalty for our sins onto his body and give us forgiveness. And we all know this because well, we are here. You have heard this message and believe. But for the Christian, this message is ongoing, and sometimes surprising. Because sometimes the piece of our life that is filled with sin we overlook. And we need to hear the message again. And it's hard. But accepting that means a path to forgiveness. responding with anger means we turn aside from the gospel. hearing the message of judgment, and saying I repent is the only way to move through it to the forgiveness and reconciliation that Christ offers. That's what Jonah helps us to see. And it's the same thing for the world, right? God did not send Jonah out into the world or to the northern kingdom with smooth words and kind offers. He said, judgment is coming. And that always came with the offer of repentance, and forgiveness. And it's only through that message of judgment that the world can have the forgiveness we enjoy. When they run into their sin, and see that they need a savior, just like us. Sure, they may react like Amaziah or King Herod for that matter, with anger with hostility. But it still means it's the only way to bring the people we love to the gospel. It's a hard pill to swallow this judgment. But it's the only way for salvation

because To understand and know that you need a Savior knows that you need to need. It means that you need to know that you lack this message, just like amis, just like Jonah, just like John the Baptist or Jesus. This message of our sin needs to be believed and accepted, even when it's hard. Salvation only comes on the other side of it by the grace of Jesus Christ, in response to our repentance. In his name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

He's to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Today we're talking about the reading from Jeremiah, about shepherds. This Sunday is kind of a good shepherd Sunday, we have a couple of them during the church year, where we talk about Christ as the shepherd of his church. One comes during this time in the season of Pentecost, and we have another one during the time of Easter, pointing to Jesus as our shepherd. Both times we read Psalm 23. And look at other Shepherd readings. And so we have one from Jeremiah. And Mark, that points to this Good Shepherd idea. Now you might be looking at Mark and you're saying, there's no shepherd there. You have to read into what Mark is doing. He takes them to a desolate place. They are like sheep without a shepherd. And he sets them down in the green grass, which points us to our song. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul to reading from Jeremiah, though, has some harsh words for the shepherds of God's people at the time. It says, Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. I think it is likely that Jeremiah the prophet is not talking about the appropriate ways to gather a flock of sheep, and raise them to the best effects that these shepherds are likely metaphorical. Right? Who are the shepherds Jeremiah is talking about? Normally, when we think of the Good Shepherd, we think about this pastoral scene, where you've got this lonely Shepherd out with the flock, he's got the cool staff and the robe. Maybe you've seen the stained glass window with Jesus picking up the lamb over his shoulder, and he's walking them in. It's usually out in the field, right? Or there's a forest or something like that. It's a rural scene. Because we think of sheep, as rural, we often don't get the idea that Shepherd was the predominant metaphor for the kings of Israel. And they're a political class. This is because the great king, David, came from being a shepherd, to being a king. Second Samuel chapter five says to David, and the Lord said to you, you shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be Prince over Israel. Similarily Matthew two verse six quotes Micah, when it says, Oh Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. It's a fun note, that in the old red hymnal, they had Latin titles for all of the psalms that they would read, because it's the old red hymnal and why not? Most of the Latin titles came from the first line, except for Psalm 23. The Latin title for that one is dominate ragged May, which is the Lord rules me. The Lord is my king, is the title for Psalm 23. One of our hymns points that out to the king of Love, My Shepherd is His goodness fail if never. That's the summary a him version of Psalm 23. In the Old Testament, kings were the shepherds of God's people. And their political leaders and rulers were like that. So Jeremiah is pointing to the political class of his day, and saying, Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my past. Drew, and you have scattered my flock and driven them away, and you have not attended to them, the whole, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. This is the kind of proclamation that was going out in the Old Testament at this time, Jeremiah was a prophet during the exile in Babylon had come in, destroyed the kingdom. And he and Ezekiel were around the same time pointing out all of the bad things that those kings had done. And Ezekiel Similarily, comes out against the shepherds of God's people who instead of protecting them, and destroy them, and use them for their own benefit. Jeremiah is saying, Woe to you who scattered the flock and divide them and cause them to fight against each other. Woe to you, who don't treat them like you should, as a shepherd, who should love and care for the sheep. They didn't care about their nation. They didn't care about their people. And most of all, they didn't care about the covenant that God had made with their nation, Israel. And instead, they use their power for their own good, scattered the people, and enriched themselves. Sounds a little bit like politics, doesn't it? It's a little bit like what every political age has ever done. The leaders of the people use their power and their authority and their positions to divide, scatter and consumed. Race for it in today's sermon is about politics. And we're about to head into an election season. And I'm sure that you will hear that it is the most important election in US history, just like the last one, and the one before that. Our politicians, the metaphorical shepherds of our day, and the industry that is around them. They have the same ends and goals, generally, as those great shepherds of Jeremiah's day, their rhetoric. Their message is division, and fear. They want to divide us and put our hope in them. Their goal is to turn us from the bad guys, which is the red or the blue team, depending on who you listen to. And put your hope in there guy, which is the other side, the red team, or the blue team, depending on who you listen to. The problem is that they are so strong in their way of speaking of that our temptation in this season, is to turn our hearts away from our true shepherd, Jesus Christ, the only one who provides the only one who gives peace, the only one who can truly take care of us by His death and resurrection. They want us to think about them as the providers and them as the protectors. They do it in two ways. The first one is they play on our fears. Politics, at least lately has become mostly about the really big problems. Right? If you flip on your favorite or at least favorite cable news station, they will constantly be talking about the big issues. wars on the other side of the world. I don't know if you know that but there are wars going on. Climate change, education, the economy, inflation and don't you know it? Red team

or Blue Team whichever The one is responsible for it all. And this is especially true. If you spend time looking at news media. Their entire goal is to get your eyeballs and your clicks, to get you to spend time really worried about things that are far away. Because then you will read more, then you will watch more. And then they can monetize it. And sometimes that creates huge amounts of anxiety. And it gets us to worry about things that are far away, things that we can't control. And that anxiety turns us from the peace of God that passes all understanding and causes us to fear our human enemies. And that fear. Well, it just can't go away when it's constantly talking about these big things. Because the problem is that all of these really big things that nobody can control. There's simply a symptom of the big problem underneath it all. Sin and death. Because if we solve one problem, another will come up. If we take care of one thing, another big one will come up with wars don't stop. They are always here. Where does the Christian find peace and our Savior, Jesus Christ. As it says, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul. See, we have a shepherd and King, Jesus Christ, who is the only one who actually rules over all of creation. He is the only one who can truly govern all things, who takes care of all things. He is the one who sits on the throne at the right hand of the Father way up in heaven. And all things are under his feet. And we know that he will take care of you. Because he came and he sacrificed his life on the cross for you. And he rose from the dead for you. And it's that love that motivates him from his place in heaven until the day that he returned. Which means we can let God worry about that stuff. Right? All the big things that you and I can't control that the politicians say they can go hand wave away, if you just elect them. That's God's job. He will take care of our job is to focus on what we can control the people around us that God has called us to serve. Don't let this election steal the peace of God that passes all understanding. Put your hearts and your hope and your trust in Him. So that's the fear, right? Our politicians and our political class want us to fear the enemy and the big issues. They also want us to love them. And they do it by turning things into a team sport. Right? You've heard me say red team and Blue Team. Have you noticed that the way people talk about our campaigns is a little bit like they talk about the Super Bowl. They've got like a pregame show. And they talk about this candidate his speaking style and what's this campaign strategy and how are they going to do this and who are they talking to? And it's all like X's and O's on the football field. And none of it is actually policy. They've turned it into team sports. Because we love our teams. We love our tribes. And you know this because some of you are Padres fans. And you love your team, and you're willing to cheer for them, you are willing to put on their clothes and wear their hats because you identify with the place you're from, and you'll love it. And when we turn politics into that, it becomes a little bit about your identity. And about your heart, instead of what will the candidates do. And then they build on that by saying, I am the only one who can save you. elect me, I will take care of you, the other team, they hate you, but I, I alone am your Scion.

They can't do it. They're not our team. They don't have the power. They don't actually care. They don't have the power to take care of the problems. They'd say they do. They don't actually speak for you. They don't love you. They are just using you to get elected. There is only one who can actually fight for us. There is only one who can actually solve the big problems that we are facing. And you guessed it, it's our King, Jesus Christ. He is the one who protects us against sin, death, and the devil. As it says, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me, your rod and your staff. They comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Our King, Jesus Christ is the one who promises to solve the big problem to take care of us both now and on the day when he returned. So if you are worried about inflation, guess what? When Jesus comes back, that will be solved, I promise. If you're worried about things in Ukraine and Israel, and when Jesus comes back, that war will be over. If you're worried about climate, and climate will be iMovie made new. On the day he returned back to all our problems will be over. Because when he does, he will call us from the grave and make all things new. He is the only one who can solve all of those problems. And he gives you a promise that you can trust him with a promise that we know we can keep. When he prepares the table before you here in this place. The table we will eat very shortly. This is God with you. Seal and sign of His presence so that you know the shepherd will never leave you. See, God has established a great shepherd. He says I will set shepherds over them who will care for them. And they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed. Neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. Our great shepherd Jesus Christ is the only one who can do that. As we consider this election season, vote for the person you want to vote for or not. If that's your choice, advocate for the policies that you want, or not, if that's your choice, but just remember, we have one king who can actually do something one king with real power, who died for you and rose for you. He is our peace. In Jesus name. Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

God's Prophets- Jonah and Amos: Amos 7:7-15 Sermon for Sunday, July 14th, 2024

Amos 7:7-15

This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,

“Behold, I am setting a plumb line

in the midst of my people Israel;

I will never again pass by them;

the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,

and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,

and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Amos Accused

Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said,

“‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword,

and Israel must go into exile

away from his land.’”

And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”

Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. To the prophet Amos comes during a busy time in the Old Testament story. Amos is a prophet of judgment against the northern kingdom of Israel, and understand what's happening in our story, we need to understand some history. So we're gonna go back all the way to King David. So you know, King David, he was the one to basically unite the kingdoms, kingdom of Israel, all 12 tribes, and finally conquer the area that was supposed to be the promised land. He brings it all together under his rule. And then when his son Solomon takes over the kingdom, Solomon begins the long line of kings that start to stray away from God and His promises of Solomon, because of this gets judgment from God, that when his son takes the throne, God is going to split the kingdom into two, there will be the two tribes of the South, and the 10 tribes of the North, the North becomes Israel, and the South is called Judah. This happens under Solomon son, Rafa Boehm, a Prophet goes to another man named Jeroboam, who was promised that if he follows God and His promises and keeps his law, he will get the 10 tribes of the northern kingdom for him and for his family. So, Jeroboam rebels, the 10 tribes go their own way Rehoboam in the south, Jeroboam in the north. And then Jeroboam says, you know, it's not a great idea for me to send all of my people down to Jerusalem, to worship, because they're all going to someone else's kingdom. It's not mine. So against God's law, he builds to sanctuaries. The one that's important for us is the city of Bethel, where the king's sanctuary is, and the priest Amaziah. Comes out against Amos. During this time, King Uzziah comes to power in the south, and we get several prophets. Amos is the one that we are looking at. He is likely around 750 or 760 BC. It's about the same time as Jonah, who goes out to the city of Nineveh, capital city of a Syria, the ones who will be the big bad guys very soon. And then only a little while later is the prophet Isaiah, who comes shortly after Amos after uzawa in Judah dies. And so we what we get are prophets, Amos to the northern kingdom, Isaiah to the southern kingdom, and Jonah to Nineveh or a Syria, who would soon come in and destroy the northern kingdom of Israel, kill off Jeroboam xline, and take them into exile. Those are the characters of our day. Amos, the prophet actually comes from the southern kingdom, a city of Tekoa, which is just on the other side of the border, which means that when he comes into this northern kingdom, he is an outsider. He is from Judah. It's almost like an enemy Prophet, coming into your territory. And that is the situation we get when we get to the beginning of our reading. Amos has been coming out with Oracle's against everybody. But in this chapter, he is now starting to speak to Israel to the northern kingdom. And what I'd like to do today is contrast his message to Israel and the results with Jonah, who goes to a foreign kingdom in Nineveh With a similar message, and different results. So let's look at Amos first. And then we'll look at Jonah. Amos goes to this northern kingdom. And he gives them a message. God says, Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel, and I will never again pass by them, the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. Now, if you are like me, and have never built a single thing in your life, you read the words plumb line, and you go, Hmm, I wonder what that is. I found out it's a string with a weight at the bottom that you set up so that it goes completely vertical. And that's how you build a straight wall. You compare the wall to the line, and then you get straight. Easy enough. That makes sense, right. And God is using this metaphor as a standard of behavior for the northern kingdoms. He says, I have a standard. And if your wall is curved, it's going to be destroyed. And that is what he then says, about the northern kingdom, the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. God has sent a message of judgment to this northern kingdom. He says, If you violate my laws and my standards, and continue to do so there will be judgment. For that kingdom, that judgment meant the violence and destruction of the mighty armies of Syria, who are some of the worst conquerors in all of history, in their savagery and anger. Now, you can imagine, what would happen if someone walks into the White House, from say, I don't know Russia, and said, Guess what? God's going to destroy your kingdom and your country. I don't think whoever it was, we would listen to them simply because of their identity, where they came from. And that's a big piece of the rejection of this message. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel sees Amos, and he rejects this message for a couple of reasons. The first reason is, Amos is from Judah, an enemy kingdom. And he thinks the prophet is just there to stir up trouble. He says, Go flee away to the land of Judah, back to your home country and prophesy there. But don't come here with your divisive words and all of your bad news. rejects the message because of who Amos is. The second reason he rejects the message is because it is not in the plan. He says, this is the king's sanctuary. You can't say this about the king. Here we have one message. We support our kingdom. We do not say bad news. How dare you come out against our temple and our sanctuary. And what he says is, but never again prophesy at Bethel for it is the king sanctuary and it is the temple of the kingdom that none of this dis information and and conspiracy theories. We are all on message here. And then finally, he accuses Amos of selling out of doing it just for money. That's what he said. He says when he says flee to the land of Judah and eat bread there and prophesy there. He thinks that Amos is just a professional Prophet, who was there to stir up trouble and get YouTube subscriptions.

Notice what Amaziah doesn't do He doesn't actually attend to the message. He simply says, Amos, you're a bad guy. So I don't have to listen to you. Instead of hearing what God says, judgment is coming. And so they totally avoid the entire thing. God warns them says turn, and they reject it. And we know what the result is. Syria does come, they come with their armies, and they destroy the northern kingdom of Israel during the time of Isaiah. And the people go into exile, Jeroboam his family falls under the sword, and everything that Amos predicted, comes true. Now, you can understand why this might happen. You can understand why Jeroboam and Amaziah would reject a message like this. Nobody wants to hear bad news. And in fact, when news is contrary to what we expect, we find all sorts of ways of getting around it. Explain it away. We talk about something else. And it's even worse when it's an accusation. Jeroboam you have been unfaithful to God's promise. And that's a hard thing to hear. Whether you're a king, or a Christian 1000s of years later, you are someone who is hearing the message of God for the first time. If you are a sinner, and unfaithful. It's hard to hear. And one way to react to that is to do it Amaziah and Jeroboam did. Say, you're totally wrong. I've got it all set. We're all rights, and you're just a bad guy anyway. That's what Israel did. And that's what many people do. Instead of turning, repenting and receiving forgiveness, the bad news of God's judgment, they respond with anger. But there's another way. This is the way that happened with the prophet Jonah. Jonah was alive at just about the same time. And God went to him and said, to go to Nineveh with a very simple message. Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. That's a whole lot shorter than Amos is vision, right? Amos gets this beautiful thing of the plumb line and the wall and all of that. And there's Oracle's and Jonah gets one line. 40 days. That's it. Now, if you know the story, Jonah didn't want to go and after much goings on, and he eventually makes it to the city of Nineveh. And he says 40 days, and Nineveh will be overthrown. And what's amazing about this is what happens next. Nineveh does not have the history with God. The northern kingdom does. They don't have Moses and the prophets. They don't have the great confession that God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love that he forgives those who turned to him. They have none of that. A profit from an enemy city comes to them and says 40 days and destruction. That's it. And what does Nineveh do? These foreigners who do not know the true God they hear the words and repent. In fact, it is such a repentance that the king of the city commands that every person all the way down to the animals to put themselves was in sackcloth and ashes and fast with the hope that this God who only offered one line would turn from his anger and relent. What a different response from people who had no idea who God was just some foreign prophet of a foreign god. And yet they hear the word of judgments, and they repent. And you know how the story goes, and God sees their repentance. And he turns to Jonah and he says, I will relent of the disaster, that I was going to bring them. Which makes Jonah really mad. He wants a Syria destroyed, because they're the big bad. They're the ones who will not so very long from now come in and kill that northern kingdom, with all of their violence, and wrath. And God sends Jonah to preserve this city from His judgment, so we could use them against Israel. What a difference in their reaction is to the message of judgment from God. Jonah comes and says, You will be destroyed if they don't react in anger, or accusations, or accuse him of disinformation to repent. And God, forgive. This message is a good example for everyone who hears a message of judgment from God. Because without a message of judgments about our sin, there is no forgiveness. without accepting the hard news that comes from God's Word, we will never know that we needed a Savior, who would take the penalty for our sins onto his body and give us forgiveness. And we all know this because well, we are here. You have heard this message and believe. But for the Christian, this message is ongoing, and sometimes surprising. Because sometimes the piece of our life that is filled with sin we overlook. And we need to hear the message again. And it's hard. But accepting that means a path to forgiveness. responding with anger means we turn aside from the gospel. hearing the message of judgment, and saying I repent is the only way to move through it to the forgiveness and reconciliation that Christ offers. That's what Jonah helps us to see. And it's the same thing for the world, right? God did not send Jonah out into the world or to the northern kingdom with smooth words and kind offers. He said, judgment is coming. And that always came with the offer of repentance, and forgiveness. And it's only through that message of judgment that the world can have the forgiveness we enjoy. When they run into their sin, and see that they need a savior, just like us. Sure, they may react like Amaziah or King Herod for that matter, with anger with hostility. But it still means it's the only way to bring the people we love to the gospel. It's a hard pill to swallow this judgment. But it's the only way for salvation

because To understand and know that you need a Savior knows that you need to need. It means that you need to know that you lack this message, just like amis, just like Jonah, just like John the Baptist or Jesus. This message of our sin needs to be believed and accepted, even when it's hard. Salvation only comes on the other side of it by the grace of Jesus Christ, in response to our repentance. In his name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

God's Grace is Sufficient in Weakness: 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 Sermon for Sunday, July 7th, 2024

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses— though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

mothers and sisters in Christ. Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you today, acknowledging our weaknesses and seeking your strength. Open our hearts and minds to Your word. May Your grace be sufficient for us in all our trials, in Jesus name, amen. Today we look at a message from the Apostle Paul and second Corinthians chapter 12. Seven through 10. This passage teaches us about the importance of relying on Christ strength in our weaknesses. As we look at this scripture, we will find the great truth that God's power is made perfect in our frailty. As we explore this passage, we'll see how Paul's experience serves as an example, for us today. It encourages us to embrace our weaknesses and depend wholly on Christ, recognizing that it is in our vulnerability, that his strength is most evident, reminding us that our sufficiency is not found in ourselves, but in Christ alone, who won the victory over Satan for us on the cross. Paul speaks of a thorn in the flesh. He calls it a messenger of Satan sent to torment him and keep him from becoming conceited due to the extra ordinary revelations he had received. Scripture does not specify what Paul's thorn was, was. And scholars have speculated about possibilities, a physical ailment, a persistent temptation, or maybe persecution, whatever it was it called Paul significant, it caused Paul's significant distress. He might have seen it as a hinderance to his ministry, a constant reminder hubbas human limitations. It played a key role in shaping his reliance on God. We will learn from Paul's experience that God's strength is sufficient through Jesus Christ, death and resurrection. Even in his and our most trying circumstances, instead of being a barrier, the thorn became came a means through which Paul could most fully more fully trust in God's providence and grace. This has been completely dependent on God, which is ours already in Christ. Paul wanted to get rid of his problem. His Thorn. Paul did what any of us would do in this situation. He prayed fervently three times for God to remove the thorn. Paul shows us the faithful response of a believer facing trials. We communicate with God in prayer, expressing our needs, desires, and sufferings. Paul's prayer and our prayers reflect faith and trust in God's power and mercy. However, God did not grant Paul's prayer request. We might wonder if Paul was disappointed. It's natural reaction to feel disheartened when our prayers are not answered in the way we hoped. Like Paul, we can face disappointment. When our prayers seem to be unanswered. We pray for relief, healing or change. And when it doesn't come. May maybe we feel abandoned or ignored. But like Paul, God may be giving us a much better gift than what we requested. Paul's pride, a manifest station of his and our human nature would have hindered Christ from living in him if he had not for the transformative power of Christ, death and resurrection. Section, Paul learned that God's power is made perfect in weakness. This insight for Paul and for us, reassures us that our weaknesses and sufferings are not in vain, but are opportunities for God to demonstrate His power and faithfulness. We are encouraged to persist in prayer, trusting that whether God chooses to remove our Thorn or not, he will provide the grace necessary for us to sustain us. This reliance on God's grace is central to our faith and hope as believers. With the thorn Paul realized that human efference efforts and adherence to the law was insufficient for salvation. The Gospel reveals God's grace demonstrated most clearly in Jesus sacrificial death on the cross. Instead, it is through God's grace given freely through Christ's atoning sacrifice that believers are saved. He feels Ephesians two nine tells us that He lavished his grace on us. Also, the resurrection of Jesus which followed his crucifixion, confirmed his victory over sin, death and the devil. Paul saw the cross as a turning point in history, where Jesus triumphed over the powers of evil, providing eternal life to all who believe. First Corinthians 15 Verse 57 says, But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. God had a much better gift for Paul than a thorn removal. God gave Paul something far more valuable is grace. The removal of the thorn would have provided temporary relief. God's grace offers something far more valuable and eternal. In our human frailty, God's strength shines through. It is when we acknowledge our weaknesses that we can fully rely on God's strength. God's grace is sufficient for all our needs, no matter how overwhelming or try our trials may be in our times of pain and trouble, God's grace is our source of strength and comfort. The gray supervised can be better than the specific request we make. It equips us to face not just one challenge, but all the thorns that come our way in life. God's grace is not a one time gift. It is continual source of support, available to us in every moment of need in every day. God's power is made perfect in our weaknesses. It's in our moments of greatest vulnerability that His strength is most evident. Paul's Thorn forced him to depend on God. And in doing so, he experienced the fullness of God's power. Through God's strength, Paul was able to endure and even thrive during his storm. God's power is there to carry us through. When we recognize our own weaknesses, all learn to boast in his weaknesses, for it was through them that Christ's power rested upon him. This is a lesson for all of us as well. Rather than lamenting and storm all began to boast in it, knowing that it was an opportunity for Christ's power to reveal be revealed in his words, and his world. When we realize we are broken, God responds with His grace. our brokenness is not a cause for despair, but a chance to experience God's grace more fully. We can then boast about our weaknesses and Christ power resting in us. Embracing and living with our weaknesses means accepting our limitations, and trusting in God's strength. God gives us the grace to accept our weaknesses and to see them as opportunities for his power to be displayed. With God's help we can move from denial and frustration to witnessing his power at work in our lives. God's power is active in our lives, helping us to navigate and overcome our weaknesses. Once we realize what God does for our thorns, we don't need to hide.

When, when we understand how God uses our thorns, we face them openly and competently. God Sufficient Grace is available. It's available to us in our daily struggles. Every day, God invites us to rely on His grace which is always sufficient for our needs. Praying for our date, during our daily struggles, seeking God's Sufficient Grace is pleasing to God. relying on God is pleasing to Him as we seek his strength and grace. We can give thanks and boast about the grace and care God shows each day to us. As we go about our lives and contacts with others. You may have heard of a fellow named Martin Luther, the founder of the Reformation. He often spoke of his struggles, anxieties and feelings of unworthiness. He emphasized that it is not through human strength or merit, that one is saved, but through faith in Christ alone. His writings are filled with acknowledgments of his own weaknesses, and the sufficiency of Christ Grace. Jesus victory over sin, death and the devil is complete and eternal. His ascension to Heaven signifies his ongoing reign and intercession for believers. This belief provides comfort and assurance that Christ strength is not just historical, but active and available in believers today. Take heart, your Christian friends, and knowing that God's grace is always sufficient in our weaknesses. His power is made perfect and God sufficient. Grace, power and grace will come during our thorns and weaknesses. No matter what thorns we faced, God's power and grace will be there to sustain us. Through Jesus death, resurrection and ascension, believers are empowered by a strength that transcends human capability, enabling them to live out their faith with competence in Christ all sufficient grace. God will help us live out this truth in our daily lives every day and all day. May we embrace relying on God's strength and all things. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Sufficient Grace. Help us to accept and boast in our weaknesses and rely on your strength. May your power be made perfect in our lives as we turn to you each day. In Jesus name, amen. Made the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen. Please stand

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Peace in the Storm: Mark 4:35-41 Sermon for Sunday, June 23rd, 2024

Mark 4:35-41

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

We gather to explore a profound and comforting truth from the Gospel of Mark. Jesus is our peace in the storms of life. We journey with Jesus and his disciples across the lake, a simple trip that turns into a profound lesson of faith and trust in our Savior. In this story, we see the disciples tested, their faith shaken, and we learn a vital truth. Who is with us? Jesus is, even if it seems he is silent, or inactive in our lives. In our lives, we face various storms, trials and tribulation that test our faith and challenge our trust in God. It's in these moments we must ask ourselves, who is with us? It is Jesus. He is with us even if it seems he is silent, or inactive in our lives. Jesus initiates the journey across the lake, leading his disciples into what seemed like a routine journey. However, life often brings us unexpected. Proverbs 27 verse one says, Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. As they sail, a terrible storm arises. The winds howl the waves crash against the boat, threatening to capsize it. The disciples even though they are seasoned fishermen are filled with fear. They are terrified of drowning and feel abandoned in their plight. In their terror, they turn to Jesus who is asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat. Their fear manifests into an accusation. They say Teacher, don't you care if we drown? They perceive his calmness as indifference, questioning whether he is ignoring their plight. This question echoes the doubts we often voiced when we face our own storms. We cry out, God don't you care about our suffering? This fear just isn't about the thing. physical danger. It's also a spiritual and emotional crisis. They feel that Jesus their master, who sleeps through the storm has abandoned them. When we doubt we have any emotional and spiritual crisis. Doubt can challenge our core belief or faith leading to feelings of uncertainty, anxiety and spiritual turmoil. Jesus comforts our fears and doubts even when we are not aware of his help. Jesus was calm authority rebukes the wind and says to the waves, Peace be still. Immediately the storm ceases and there is a great calm. His power over nature assures us of His divine authority and control over all creation. The immediate stop of the storm at Jesus command is a powerful demonstration of His dominion over nature. Amid the chaos and fear of His disciples, He remains calm and composed. The story reassures us of His presence in our lives, and its ability to bring peace in any situation. reaffirming our faith in His power and love. By calming the storm Jesus is not only fighting immediate relief to His disciples, but also symbolically asserting his mastery over chaos and disorder. The stories encourages us to trust in Jesus control over all situations. Just as he calmed the storm for his disciples. He is capable of bringing grace and peace and resolution to the storms in our lives. This trust is not in a distant, indifferent deity, but in a compra passionate savior who is ultimately and intimately involved in our lives. Have and with us right now. Jesus enter turns to his disciples and question them. Why are you so afraid? Do you still not have faith? Even though they have been living with Jesus, witnessing his miracles, and hearing his teachings, they still falter in their faith. Just like the disciples, we often feel fear in the storms of life. And our faith may falter despite knowing Jesus is with us. This passage presents an insight into the human condition and the nature's of faith. It captures a moment when Jesus disciples, despite being in the physical presence, presence of Jesus, and having witnessed his miraculous deeds, find themselves gripped by fear when faced with a storm. Jesus knew that his father would protect them and see them through the storm. It was an indifference to the disciples. It was confidence by Jesus. His sleep amidst the storm chaos signifies a profound trust in God's providence. The same assures assurance is available to us today. We all face storms in life. These storms are real and can be terrifying. They can take many forms, illness, financial troubles, loss, relationship issues, and more. During these times, we might feel like the disciples fearing and feeling alone, these storms can shake our faith and make us questions God's God's presence and care. In times of crisis, it's natural for faith to be tested. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod emphasizes the importance of turning to God for strength and guidance. During these moments of doubt and uncertainty through prayer, scripture, sacraments and the support of fellow believers individuals can find solace and reassurance in the midst of life's storms. During these challenging times, it is natural to feel abandoned. However, we are called to be faithful and trust in Jesus the Son of God. The same Jesus who called a storm is with us in our struggles. Who is with us? Jesus is even at CMC of silent or inactive in our lives. His presence is constant, and His love is unending. Let me share a few stories. Think of a mother who prays for her sick child, feeling helpless but finds peace and knowing Jesus is with her. Or a man who loses his job and fears for his family's future, but find strength in Jesus promise of provision. These are real stores, storms and then each Jesus is present providing peace and assurance. We have the story of Moses and the Red Sea. Exodus 14 When the Israelites were trapped between the Red Sea and the advancing Egyptian army, Moses trusted God's command to stretch out his hand over the sea. God came through and parted the waters allowing the Israelites to escape, and God will come through for us also. How about Daniel in the lion's den, Daniel six. Daniel remains faithful and continues to pray to the one true God despite a royal decree that forbids it. As a result, he is caught and he is thrown into a lion's den. Daniel is afraid but praise to God. God came through with his mercy and power and sent his angel to shut the lions bounds protecting Daniel so that he emerged on harm. God comes through with faithfulness and deliverance for his people. Showing that he is always present and active in the lives of those who trust in Him. And finally, story of a Roman century It approaches Jesus, Matthew eight, asking him to heal his servant to Centurions afraid for the life of his servant, despite being a Gentile and a soldier of an occupying government, that this demonstrates faith by acknowledging Jesus divine authority and showing confidence that Jesus can heal merely with a word. Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my house in church and Centurion says, but only say the word and my servant will be healed. God comes through and heals the servant from a distance solely through His Word. Who is with us? Jesus is, even if it appears, he is silent and inactive in our lives. God came through for Moses and Israel, for Daniel and for the centurion, God will come through for us also. We have the assurance of Jesus care, protection and peace and every storm through the sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper. Jesus is tangibly present with us. In baptism, we are reminded that we are marked as God's beloved children. In the Lord's Supper we receive Christ's true Body and Blood, strengthening our faith and assuring us that His presence in times of turmoil or distress, participating in the Lord's Supper, can serve as a source of solace and reassurance for us. Through this sacred meal, we encountered the living Christ in a tangible way, experiencing His love, grace and peace amidst live storms. Through these means of grace, we are continually reminded of God's unfailing presence and His steadfast commitment to us. providing us with the insurance we need to navigate the challenges of life with faith and confidence. Who is with us? Jesus is even if it seems he is silent, or inactive in our lives. Whatever you are feeling, fear, doubt, abandonment. Remember, Jesus is with you. He understands your struggles and stands by your side. Jesus still the storms in our lives and calms our fears. He may not always remove the storms, but it gives us peace amidst them. Who is with us? Jesus is even though it seems he is silent, or an inactive in our lives, his promises? Sure, I am with you always to the various very end of the age, Matthew 2820. Matthew encapsulates a foundational truth, the unchanging presence of Christ with His people throughout the ages. It is promised that brings hope, assurance and strength to believers as they navigate the challenges of life and fulfill their mission in the world. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for being our peace during life's storms. Help us to trust in your presence and your power. Knowing that you are always with us, guiding us and calming our fears. strengthen our faith, that we may always look to you in our times of need. In your holy name we pray, amen. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai