Turning to Jesus

[This was shared yesterday morning during both worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21
When our kids were small, the one thing we didn’t abide as parents was whining. Whiners, whether they’re children or adults, are telling the world: “I want to be the most important person in this relationship, this family, this business, this world.” “I want life to go the way I want it to go.” Or, like Adam and Eve in the garden: “I want to be like God.”

Whining is especially galling when it comes from people who repeatedly go down destructive pathways in life, then complain that the rest of the world hasn’t been fair to them. A man I know has been married many times and complains that women are impossible to get along with, not once wondering whether the source of at least half of his marital problems might be found by looking in a mirror.

Today’s first Bible lesson recounts God’s reaction to the whining of His people Israel during their wilderness wanderings from Egypt. They had been slaves there. God miraculously freed them so that they could go to the land He had promised them. Throughout their forty year journey to the promised land, the people repeatedly caved into the common human temptation of wanting to do things their own way and to ignore the will of God.

In Numbers 21:4, we’re told: “They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way…” The Israelites are whining, “Are we there yet?”

Verse 5: “...they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?...’” Talk about gall! Here, in effect, the Israelites were saying, “God, why did you answer our prayers and set us free from slavery in Egypt? Why did you take us from a place where we did back-breaking labor for masters who whipped us, beat us, and owned us?” And they’re saying, “Moses, why did you lead us as God directed you to lead us?”

We Christians can be like this. “Yeah, God,” we seem to say, “I know that Jesus died on a cross because of my sins. I know that through baptism and my belief in Christ, You are saving me for eternity. I know that You’ve given me a new life and that nothing can separate me from Your love. But, really God, when are you going to let me call the shots?”

Even we who bear the Name of Jesus and have the free gift of new life through Him, can be world class whiners!

When we whine it’s because we tend to forget two things in our daily lives. First, we forget that we aren’t God. We didn’t invent this amazing thing called life. We aren’t in charge and never should be! The other thing we forget is that, like the Israelites, you and I haven’t yet reached our promised land. Today, we’re in the wilderness. 1 Peter 2:11, tells we Christians: “Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.”

Christians are foreigners and exiles. We’re not “there,” not in our real home, yet. So, we shouldn't put too much stock in the things has to offer. Everything that we may want that is in this world has an expiration date.

Until we get to our real home, things won’t be perfect. The moment we are baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are no longer citizens of this world. We're just passing through. We can expect to be attacked by the tests and temptations that come from, as Martin Luther puts in The Small Catechism, “the devil, the world, and our sinful selves.” This world isn't perfect and never will be.

Thankfully. our ultimate destination is not in this wilderness. Our destination as believers in Jesus is what the New Testament book of Hebrews calls “a better country,” the eternal kingdom of God. This fallen world, wonderful though it can be, is a faint hint of the perfect, sinless, eternal new creation God is preparing for us. I often think of (and quote) Jesus’ words in John 16:33: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Now, go back to Numbers 21:5. The people are still whining: “...There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!’”

The “miserable food” they’re talking about is the manna that God had been giving them virtually every day of the forty years they were in the wilderness.

To get the manna, they never had to plant a single seed, water a single sprout, or remove a single weed.

Like every blessing that God gives to us and that we take for granted--from breathing all the way to everlasting life for those who trust in Christ--the manna was simply there for the taking. It was a gift of grace.

The Israelites wanted more! In itself, there’s nothing wrong with wanting more good in our lives. But in our wilderness, in this life, God wants to teach us to not let our desires supplant God in our priorities. God wants to show us that nothing this world may offer us can match the gifts God wants to give to those willing to receive them by faith in Him.

God wasn’t happy to hear His people whining yet again. It was a sign of faithlessness and sin. Numbers 21:6-7: “Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ‘We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you...’”

The people had broken God’s commandments. I can think of at least three: They failed to honor God as God (first commandment). They had used His Name for whining, rather than for its intended use in prayer, praise, or thanksgiving (second commandment). They had borne false witness against both God and Moses (eighth commandment). And they had broken these and other of God’s commands repeatedly. That's why God allowed the serpents in the desert to be so deadly to the Israelites.

But the people were awakened by God’s action. In verse 7 says that the people asked Moses to pray for them. Moses did. Now, look at verse 8: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’”

What a weird prescription!

Why was this God’s fix?

In the hymn Amazing Grace, we sing, “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.”

Before we’re ready to receive the undeserved grace of God and the forgiveness of our sins, we have to be aware that we have sin that needs to be forgiven.

Before we can have our relationship with God restored, we need to know that we’re separated from God.

As you've heard me say before, God doesn’t force forgiveness and new life on us. We must receive it by faith. When the Israelites turned to the bronze serpent, they were reminded that their sin was what triggered their situation. Forgiveness, healing, and life could only come to them when they acknowledged their sin and trusted in God.

Now look, please, at John 3:14-15, from today's Gospel lesson. Some 1500 years after the incident in our first lesson, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

In the wilderness, the bronze serpent became the repository, the scapegoat, for the rebellion and sin of God’s people and through their honest repentance, the means God uses to turn their attention and allegiance back to Him so that they could be restored.

In our own wilderness, it’s easy for us to wander away from God, to get caught up in our own agendas, to think that God has wandered from us. It’s easy for Christians to say, “I know what God says about sexuality, or covetousness, or loving others, or trusting alone, but I just don’t agree with Him.” (As though anyone can disagree with God!)

That’s where the Savior on a cross comes in. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says of Jesus: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Jesus volunteered to be the repository, the scapegoat, for our sin.

He calls us to turn our eyes away from the wilderness and turn instead to Him.

Every time we picture Jesus on the cross and remember again that He had no sin, but that our sin--your sin and my sin--put Him there, we’re forced to acknowledge our need of Him.

We confess our sin and we put our trust in Him alone. When that happens, our faith in Him is renewed and the life and forgiveness that only Jesus can give floods us once again!

The wilderness in which you and I live each day can be hard. But God lets us decide whether he or our sin have the last word over our lives. Look at Jesus‘ words to Nicodemus in John 3:16 to 18:

“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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

While we’re here in the wilderness we will never have all of life’s answers. But it’s clear to me that life without Jesus leaves us with nothing to hope for, while life with Jesus is filled with God’s presence now and with hope for eternity with God.

A man rode a unicycle on a taut rope above Niagara Falls. “I couldn’t have done it,” a friend told him. “Every time I pedaled, I’d see 167-feet of churning water below me.”

“If that’s what I’d looked at, I couldn’t have made it across, either,” the unicyclist said. “But I was focused on the solid ground ahead.”*

Keep your focus on Jesus, our solid rock.

He will forgive your sin.

He will stand by your side.

He will lift you up.

And He will give you life, here, now, in the wilderness...and beyond. Amen

[This sculpture, conflating the bronze serpent on a pole about which we read in Numbers 21, with Jesus' crucifixion, is a memorial to Moses on Mount Nebo. Mount Nebo is the place in the last book of Deuteronomy from which Gods allowed Moses to see the promised land before he died.]

*This story is fictional, although several people have walked or taken wheelbarrows on tightropes above Niagara Falls and others have ridden unicycles on ropes strung between skyscrapers. The words of the fictional unicyclist are consistent with what such daredevils often say.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Are you welcoming the stranger?

A woman who, before moving to another community, was a member of a church I once served as pastor, told me that she, her children, and her grandchildren worshiped with a Lutheran congregation in the town where they now live on Christmas Eve. She said that it was wonderful to once more sing Silent Night by candlelight. But she also said that nobody greeted her or her family or asked anything about them.

Reading that broke my heart.

It's sad and ironic that on a night when we remember that the Savior of the world had to be born in a barn "because there was no place for" Him or Mary or Joseph (Luke 2:7), we Christians can forget to be hospitable. (Not to mention forgetting plain good manners.)

If there's any group of people who should be committed to welcoming strangers on Christmas Eve, it ought to be Christians who confess a Savior who had "no place to lay his head" (Luke 9:58) and who themselves are told by God to see themselves as strangers just passing through this world (1 Peter 2:11).

God's Word is clear that, in response to God's gracious acceptance of us in Christ, disciples of Jesus are to practice hospitality toward others.

Referring to an Old Testament visitation experienced by Abraham and Sarah, Hebrews 13:2 tells Christians: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

Jesus takes this command of hospitable behavior even further when He says in Matthew 25:31-46, that when we serve the hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, or imprisoned, we really serve Him. We are then, as Martin Luther put it, to be "little Christs" who serve Christ in others.

The Savior Who welcomes us into His kingdom simply because we trust Him to renounce our sins and place our faith in Him, a gracious welcome we don't deserve and can't earn, commands that, in return, we welcome and reach out to the stranger with His good news.

Of course, many Christians fail to welcome those who are "strangers" to them for fear that they might be embarrassed before people they feel they should have known. I've heard this excuse many times.

But tell me: Before who would you prefer to suffer embarrassment, a person to whom you may have to admit a faulty memory or the God Who calls you to love your neighbor as you love yourself?

Better to suffer a little embarrassment in telling people you encounter, "I'm sorry if I've met you before and can't remember, but Merry Christmas." (Or, "Happy Sunday." Or, "How are you today?")

It's always best to err on the side of love, of grace, of welcome.

It's always best to get over yourself enough to not be afraid of being embarrassed by your humanity.

If you seek to live in daily repentance and faith in Jesus, you belong to God's eternal kingdom. What's a little embarrassment compared to that?

So Christians, greet those who are strangers to you when you see them in worship.

And I want to say to those who aren't church regulars or who are non-believers who may have come to a church worship service and been treated like you weren't there: I beg you to forgive us and to give a church near you another chance sometime soon. We aren't perfect, although we follow a Savior Who is. We're a fellowship of recovering sinners. We pray that you'll worship God with us sometime soon.

And Christians, if you've neglected to greet those who are strangers to you not because you failed to recognize those strangers, but just because you didn't want to talk to someone you didn't know, repent of this failure to love neighbors as you love yourself and ask God to help you to be a loving, welcoming disciple of Jesus the next time you encounter a stranger.

We all fail to do God's will in different ways in our lives. But the Lord Who judges the thoughts and intentions of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12) bears grace for those who seek to love as they've been loved by God.

So, welcome the stranger.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Letting God Be the Star

Genesis 12:1-9
Our first lesson for this morning, Genesis 12:1-9, recounts the pivotal moment when a man named Abram--who would later be known as Abraham--left all that was familiar to him in obedience to God’s call and in response to God’s promise.

On first blush, the central character of the lesson seems to be Abram, the one who picks up stakes and moves to who-knows-where with his wife, his nephew Lot, his possessions, and his servants.

But, in truth, the central character is God. Abram was just a member of the supporting cast.

As his life unfolded, Abram did well and played a critical role in the revelation of God’s purposes in the world--in other words, he was blessed--when he remembered Who was the star and who wasn’t.

Abram made a mess of things--in other words, he was cursed--when he thought that he was the star of his own story.

We would do well to remember this, to trust in God to take the lead and to be good for all of His promises in our lives too. That’s a big part of what the lesson can teach us today.

Let’s take a look at it. Verse 1: “The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you…’”

The first thing to say about this passage and then move on quickly is that, we may think, “Lucky! God gave Abram clear directions.” But not always; one scholar estimates that God spoke to him about once for every twenty-five years of his life.

The truth is that in discerning God’s direction and will for our lives, we have an advantage over Abram.

• We have the Bible, God’s Word; Abram didn’t. If we want God speak to us as God spoke to Abram, all we need to do is read His Word. 
• We also have the Holy Spirit; Abram didn’t. 

Through a few minutes of daily Bible-reading, followed by prayer in Jesus’ name that’s powered by the Holy Spirit, you and I can hear more from God than Abram ever did in his whole life time.

More importantly, consider who takes the initiative in this verse. God calls Abram to leave behind everything he knows in order to go someplace that God will show Abram.

Imagine how crazy Abram’s decision to leave must have seemed to his family and countrymen. They were all idol-worshipers, their lives spent placating all sorts of gods. The whole notion of there being just one God Who created and cared about His creation would have been foreign to them all. So would the idea of leaving family, friends, and the familiar for parts unknown.

But here’s the deal. If God really is the God of all creation, He has every right to be obeyed when He calls us to do things that may not be easy. Things like putting God first in our lives, or loving even those who hate us, or taking the risk of telling others the good news of new life for who turn from sin and trust in Jesus as their Savior and God. Isaiah 45:9 asks: “Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?'” The creatures--human beings--get in trouble when we start to ignore the Creator Who made us.

We knew some folks who, when their kids were in their teens, moved into an area with a number of Lutheran churches. They finally settled on filled with older people and no youth program. "Why did you do that?" their friends asked. "Why be part of a church that has nothing to offer you?" Our friends explained that, first of all, it wasn't true that the church they decided to join had nothing to offer. But, more than that, they explained, "We were looking for a church where we could serve." That couple understood that God doesn't always call us (or sometimes, command us) to the easy path, only the best path.

Of course, God gives all sorts of commands to the human race, commands that we ignore. Just think of the Ten Commandments. Millions of people push to have the Ten Commandments erected in stone on court house grounds, but only a small number of those millions can actually name more the four of five of them.

We're not good at keeping God's commands either. Abram himself would later show a penchant for ignoring God’s commands.

That penchant for sin has been baked into the human DNA since Adam and Eve fell into sin.

God could bark His commands--His Law--at us from now until Jesus returns and those commands wouldn’t cause us to do what God tells us to do. The most that God's Law can show us is where we fall short as human beings and just how desperately we need God's help and forgiveness.

God’s Law can’t change or move us. But God’s promises can.

And, as we’ll see, when he left his home behind, Abram wasn’t just obeying a command given to him by God; he was also responding to a promise. It was that unlikely promise that compelled Abram to call in the moving vans!

Look, starting at verse 2: [God says:] “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Abram, as we’ll see, was seventy-five years old when God spoke these words to him. His wife Sarai, later renamed Sarah, was ten years younger. Abram’s name, which means exalted father, hung over him like a sick joke because Abram and Sarai were childless. In that culture, in those times, you were thought to be cursed if you didn’t have children.

But this God Who has chosen to introduce Himself to the idol-worshiping Abram says that the childless exalted father is going to become the father of “a great nation.” God promises that Abram is going to be the conduit through whom God will bring His blessings to the whole world. You and I know that it will be among Abram’s descendants that God’s Son will be enfleshed and raised, will die and rise. Abram didn’t know that then, though. He just believed and acted on that belief.

As we said earlier, if Abram shared the reason for his departure with his family members or friends, they would have undoubtedly thought that he was crazy. “Why can’t he just accept that he’s not going to father a single child, let alone a great nation? Is he out of his mind?”

Listen: Jesus calls you and I to be Abrams, too. We’re to act as God’s OB/GYNs, overseeing the rebirth of friends, family, classmates, and co-workers as we share Christ with them. What if Abram had turned a deaf ear to God’s call? Chances are, God would have found someone else to act as the father of nations. But Abram did believe! And he did obey! And because believed and obeyed, you and I are here this morning!

Verse 4: “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him…”

Are you and I going where God tells us to go? Are we doing what God tells us to do?

You and I have the promise of God-enfleshed Jesus, “I am with you always…” And we also have the same command as Abram, to “go and make [children of God, that is] disciples of all nations” [Matthew 28:19-20].

This command isn’t just for spiritual superstars. There was never anything spectacular about Abram, nothing in his idolatrous background to commend him to God. But, whenever Abram was able to get out of God’s way and get over himself, God’s word of promise created the gift of faith within him. And through that obedient faith, God was able to set off His salvation plan for the human race. God wants to make us agents of His salvation plan.

God wants to bring His Word of command and promise to the whole world--and to our little corners of it--in and through you and me. God may not call us to pull up stakes and go somewhere He’ll show us on the way. But how can we share God’s Word about Christ in our familiar haunts, places like Dayton, Centerville, Springboro, Miamisburg, West Carrollton, Kettering, ot Lebanon?

In verses 5 and following, we find Abram in the land of Canaan. God is giving Abram a sneak-peak of the land his descendants will one day inherit. “This isn’t your people’s land yet,” God was saying, “but one day, it will be.” Each time God reiterated His promise to Abram, Abram erected an altar to give God thanks and then moved on.

And here’s what Abram learned: This world is temporary. Each of us is mortal and one day, the universe we know will be burned up. As was true of Abram, God calls us to hold onto this world and this life loosely, to be prepared to move on, to do whatever He calls us to do, to live in obedient faith. First Peter 2:11 says: “I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.”

For whatever sin God calls us to repent, we need to repent today because whatever in this world tempts us to sin is going to die.

For whatever good God would have us to do, we need to do it today, because the clock is running out on this world and because the good we do in Jesus' name will have eternal significance.

And in whatever ways we can encourage each other to lives of obedience and faith, we need to do it today. Hebrews 3:13 tells us to “encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.”

Above all, you and I must avoid getting too comfortable with this world or its ways. Like Abram, who became Abraham, we must be prepared to move on to whatever God calls us to next.

The beauty and the comforts of this world are but a glimmer of the eternal beauty that God has in mind for us when Jesus returns and ushers those who have believed in Him into “a new heaven and a new earth” [Revelation 21:1], the place He has prepared for all who believe in Him [John 14:2-3]. That’s the true homeland that Jesus secured for all who believe in Him and in the power of His death and resurrection.

This past week, John Ylvisaker, the Lutheran composer best known for I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry, passed away.

In the next to last verse of that love song from God to baptized believers in Jesus, we sing:

When the evening gently closes in
And you shut your weary eyes
I’ll be there as I have always been
With just one more surprise. 

It no doubt came as an enormous surprise to Abram when God introduced Himself to him, and an even bigger surprise when God told Abram that he would become the father of all who believe in Him.

But, as Ylvisaker’s song reminds us, the greatest surprise of all belongs to those who trust in the God Who revealed Himself to Abram and then ultimately, to all the world through Jesus Christ.

The great surprise is this: Despite our lack of qualifications, despite what we deserve, we are saved by grace through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. To those who believe in Christ, God gives an eternal homeland.

And no matter how long we roam on this earth, God will keep calling us to that homeland.

Let the God you know in Jesus Christ be the central character in your life. Be a cast member in His kingdom. It will be the role of an eternal lifetime!

Let God save you.

Let Him guide you.

Let Him love you.

Let Him free you.

Let Him sustain you with the promise and the certainty of citizenship in His eternal homeland that you received at your baptism.

And keep following Him until that day when you too, awaken to see that God is waiting for you “with just one more surprise.”

Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This is the message from worship on March 12, 2017.]

So Be It Faith (some reflections)

Most mornings, I try to spend quiet time with God, using the format of "stop, look, listen, respond," explained here.

Today, I read Revelation 13, where God spoke to me most clearly in two verses. Here's my journal entry:

Look: “Whoever has ears, let them hear. ‘If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword they will be killed.’ This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.” (Revelation 13:9-10)

This chapter, like much of Revelation, is filled with strange imagery that makes me want to throw my hands up in frustration. I know, of course, that much of the book is taken up with apocalyptic language about the Roman Empire and that it’s not to be taken in the same way as prophetic books of the Bible. (Apocalyptic books of the Bible aren't to be confused with prophetic books of the Bible.)  Revelation shows the ongoing struggle Christians will endure seeking to remain faithful in a fallen and always-falling world.

The verses here are the clearest words in the entire chapter. And their message is absolutely relevant for Christians living in any time.

Christians can expect to be shunned, marginalized, tormented, persecuted, and/or killed no matter the era.

The Christian Gospel with its insistence on God’s ultimate authority, salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, the ethic of love for God and love for neighbor, and the truth of God’s Word will always encounter the enmity of the world’s beasts: our own sin, the sin of the world, the devil. (I’m not suggesting a one-to-one equation between the dragon and the two beasts mentioned in Revelation 13, by the way.)

Listen: Elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus warns Christians of persecution, while reassuring us of His ultimate victory for all who trust in Him, in John 16:33: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

And Peter tells we Christians that if we’re going to get into trouble with the government, for example, we’d better make sure that it’s because we’re being faithful to God, not because we’ve actually committed wrong: “If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.” (1 Peter 4:15-16)

This verse from Revelation tells Christians (tells me) to adopt the attitude of “so be it.” If Christians are to be taken captive for their faith in Christ, so be it. If any are to be killed for their faith, so be it.

This isn’t to say that Christians facing persecution shouldn’t exercise common sense in protecting themselves or their loved ones.

Nor is faith equal to fatalism.

But the passage is saying that we cannot allow ourselves to:

(1) Become so fearful that we grow silent about our faith or shy about practicing it openly. Peter says elsewhere: “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” (1 Peter 3:15-16)

(2) Make the foolish assumption that sin and death won’t continue to do their worst in this fallen world. That’s really the point of Jesus’ words in John 6:33.

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Matthew 24:12-13: “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

This is a call and command to keep following Jesus, to remain in fellowship with His Church, to continue to love God, love neighbor, and make disciples no matter what the trends, risks, dangers, or conflicting worldviews we encounter in the world around us.

In this world, we are “foreigners and exiles [called and commanded] to abstain from sinful desires [desires for things like acceptance, an isolated life, getting our own ways, ease], which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11).

This is hard to remember, but this world is not our final destination. My call as a follower of Jesus is to remember that daily and seek to help as many others to follow Jesus into a life with God as I can.

Respond: God, help me to live for You alone and not for the commendations of the world. Help me to focus on my ultimate destination, not so that I become careless about this world, but so that I can love this world all the more, even in the face of patronizing, condescension, hatred, hostility, indifference, persecution, for my faith. Help me to stand firm with You no matter what. In Jesus’ name.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

So, what is a disciple?

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Springboro, Ohio, this past Sunday.]

Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18
There’s a word we use a lot in the Church. Like many words used in the Church, this one doesn’t get used much in the rest of the world. The word is disciple. 

It must be an important word, because according to Jesus, it describes the only end product that is to be created by the Church, His body in the world. In Matthew 28:19-20, you know, the crucified and risen Jesus gives what we call the Great Commission. He tells the Church: “...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” 

Make disciples. The Church is God’s only enterprise on earth, the only enterprise on earth that will survive the end of the world and live in eternity, and its only task is to move out into the world to produce disciples.

That seems simple enough. The Church has one task. Yet, there seems to be a lot of confusion in Christ’s Church about just what it’s supposed to be doing, about its mission. 

Many people who belong to churches today see the Church as a social organization or a do-gooder society or a make-me-feel-good club. 

And while the Church is composed of people who relate to one another, a social organization, and while it does seek to empower believers to do the good will of God, and the Gospel it proclaims will make us feel good, none of that is central to what the Church is about. The Church’s single aim is to make disciples. 

But what exactly is a disciple? 

The New Testament Greek word we translate as disciple is mathetes. It means student, follower. A student or follower of the God we know in Jesus Christ seeks to live like Jesus: a life of total surrender to God, a life that accepts death--in our case the death of our sinful selves, our sinful desires, our sinful actions--so that from our dependence on Christ, our faith in Christ, Who Himself was sinless, we can rise to live with God, as Martin Luther expresses it in The Small Catechism, “in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as [Christ] is risen from the dead and lives and reigns for all eternity.” 

Disciples understand that no price is too steep when paying it, God empowers them to empty themselves of themselves and of their egos and of their desire for the world to dance to their tunes, so that they can take up the free gift of never-ending life with God. 

Christ calls us to follow Him and die to our old, earthbound ways so that we can live, now and in eternity, with Him. A disciple lives with a commitment to a death to self that clings to Christ for new life, not just once, at some spine-tingling spiritual moment of conversion, but keeps clinging to Christ through every single, often humdrum and unspectacular, day. Even in the tough days, the tragic days, the disciple clings to Christ. 

But, if what I’ve just said serves as a definition of a disciple, today’s first lesson puts flesh and bones on the definition. It tells us a bit of what disciples do, the disciplines or ways of life they adopt, in response to God’s love and goodness, given to you and me in Jesus Christ. 

Our lesson is a portion of the Bible’s recounting of the last days of Joshua, the military commander who succeeded Moses as the earthly leader of God’s people, Israel. Shortly before his death, Joshua gives the people of Israel a word from God. 

In doing so, Joshua exemplifies the first thing a disciple is. A disciple is a person steeped in the Word of God. 

Disciples live and breathe the Bible’s holy air. 

Disciples see the Bible not just as a religious book, but as God’s Word, the preeminent expression of God’s will, grace, and authority over their lives. “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever,” we’re told in Isaiah 40:8. 

Disciples know that when they receive God’s Word with faith, it creates and grows faith in God within them and goes to work, transforming us from people of this dead and dying world into people of Christ’s eternal kingdom. In 1 Thessalonians 2:13, the apostle Paul reminds a group of first-century Christians, “...when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” 

Disciples know that God’s Word comes from God and is designed to enter and change us from the inside out, as we stand under its authority. 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

By imbibing deeply of God's Word, disciples are powered by God to live their faith in Christ. As Pastor Michael Foss writes in his book, Power Surge: Six Marks of a Discipleship Church for a Changing World: "As a [disciple's] experience of God begins to permeate all life, faith becomes a way of being in the world-a way of life-not merely a way of thinking or believing."

As many of you know, over the past year, Living Water has been involved in the first phase of the North American Lutheran Church’s partnership with the Navigators program for creating cultures of discipleship in our congregations. 

The next phase, Year 2, the recruitment and spiritual growth of a Life and Learning Team will come. It's something about which I’m praying right now. In Year 3, this team will recruit and foster the spiritual growth of more Living Water people and others we invite to be part of two- and three-person groups. 

As our bishop, John Bradosky, reminded us all last week at the NALC Convocation in Dallas, the only way for churches to grow is for the disciples who are part of it to grow in their faith in Christ. 

And the primary means God uses on a daily basis to help His disciples grow in faith and in the joy of their relationship with Christ is the Word of God. 

Five days a week, I strive to begin my day by reading a single chapter of the Bible. Then I spend some time considering, sometimes memorizing, often restating the implications for my life, of a single verse or passage of that chapter. I write my reflections down, as my Navigators coach, Bill Mowry, has taught me. This helps me to remember what God is teaching me. 

By spending time in God’s Word, I open the door of my soul to God, so that He can kill the old Mark and let the new Mark rise. 

I’m not where I want to be as a follower of Jesus Christ, but I know that disciples daily seek to steep themselves in God’s Word and I strive to learn from and follow their example.

The second thing our lesson shows us about disciples is that they fear the Lord. 

In a world that, when it gives God a thought, seeks to make God into a buddy, this may seem outrageous. But Joshua tells the people in Joshua 24:14: “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness.” 

The Hebrew Old Testament word, yir’ah, which we translate as fear, is much richer than our English language can convey. It does mean, in part, fear, as in quaking in our boots. And I would suggest that if the thought of coming into the presence of a holy, perfect, immortal God doesn’t fill we unholy, imperfect, mortal human beings with a little quaking, we may be comatose. 

But the Hebrew word for fear here also means “standing in awe or reverence before” God. The disciple who has “the fear of the Lord” has a clear understanding of reality. They know that God is God and they are not. But they also know that the one true God of the universe, filled with a love so great for us that He sent His only Son to die for and rise to set all who repent and believe in Him free from sin and death, is the only King worthy of our praise, honor, allegiance,...and fear. The English Standard Version translation of the Bible rightly renders Psalm 130:4: “with you [God] there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” Experiencing God’s forgiveness incites holy fear within disciples.

Third: Disciples depend only on the God we know in Jesus Christ for life. It’s the same God that Joshua and ancient Israel knew. In Joshua 24:14, he challenged the people: “Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.” Disciples agree with Peter, who, when God-in-the-flesh, Jesus, asked Peter and the other apostles if they wanted to abandon Him as others had, said to Jesus: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God." 

Martin Luther said that whatever is most important to us in life is our god. What is most important in our lives? Disciples get rid of their idols. 

“My family is the most important thing in my life,” some Christians piously intone. But parents who say this--and more importantly, believe this--do their children no favors. Children who think they’re the center or the universe are not only likely to have difficulties in their relationships with others as they grow older, but the selfishness cultivated in them leaves them less susceptible to hearing, or sensing their need for the God we know in Jesus. Not only do disciples divest themselves of idols, they also help those they love do the same.

Fourth: Disciples are willing, if it comes to that, to stand alone with God. They are secure in their relationship with God. 1 Peter 2:11 reminds Christians, they are “foreigners and exiles.” So, they are able to stand firmly in their reliance on God as their only source of wisdom, hope, and life. Joshua says in Joshua 24:15: “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Disciples seek to live out the faith they confess, whatever the rest of the world believes or doesn’t believe.

Fifth: Disciples remember God’s past faithfulness and so are inspired to face each day. Throughout chapter 24, Joshua reminds Israel of God’s past faithfulness to inspire them to face their own lives. When we remember not only what God did for His people in the Bible, but what God has done for us in Christ, the ways in which He supports and encourages us even in the midst of personal tragedy, and how He has answered many of our prayers in His way and in His time, in accordance with His will, our discipleship is deepened and we can declare with ancient Israel after Joshua had reminded of God’s past faithfulness: “We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”

Our call at Living Water is not to be members of a club, but a company of disciples of Jesus Christ who make other disciples, just as Joshua sought to help Israel follow the same God you and I follow through Christ. 

There’s more to being a disciple than we’ve talked about today, of course. But in our encounter with Joshua this morning, we’re reminded that disciples adopt certain disciplines by which God grows our faith in Him and our joy in belonging to Him. 

• Disciples are steeped in the Word of God. 
• They fear the Lord. 
• They depend only on the God we know in Jesus Christ for life. 
• They’re willing to stand alone with God. 
• And they remember God’s past faithfulness and so, are inspired and empowered to face today and the uncertainties of tomorrow. 

May God help us to to adopt these disciplines of discipleship so that God’s grace given in Christ may grow deeply in our lives, so that we may be who God calls us to be, and so that we can make other disciples as Jesus has commissioned us to do. Amen

Lost and Found

[This was shared during both worship services at Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio,  today.]

Luke 2:40-52
Today, our Gospel lesson revolves around an incident that happened when Jesus was twelve years old. This is the only incident from Jesus’ childhood beyond Matthew’s and Luke’s birth and infancy accounts that we have. As Luke tells it, the incident is recounted just after his account of what happened in the temple in Jerusalem eight days after Jesus was born.

In fact, looking at that earlier incident can help to explain much of what is going on in today’s Gospel lesson. 

You remember that back then, the holy family was met by two elderly Jewish believers, Simeon and Anna. Each of them had been waiting and praying for the coming of the Messiah promised by God hundreds of years earlier.

Simeon, you’ll recall, rejoiced when he saw Jesus. But there was a grim follow up to His rejoicing. Please open a sanctuary Bible to Luke 2:34-35 (page 716) to see it: “...Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.’” 

Just in case Mary entertained any illusions that the child conceived in her womb by the Holy Spirit to Whom she had given birth would be a normal son, Simeon was evidently sent by God to remind her that this was not the case. As God-in-the-flesh, Jesus would inevitably arouse the hostility of a world of people--including you and me--intent on being their own gods and lords, their own kings and counselors. 

Simeon thus foreshadows Jesus‘ cross for Mary and Joseph. The freedom of human beings from slavery to sin, death, and futility can only come through the sacrifice of the perfect representative of the human race. It was to offer Himself in this way that Jesus came into our world.

Any parent can imagine how Mary and Joseph must have reacted to Simeon’s prediction. When bad things happen to or are predicted for our kids, when doctors give frightening diagnoses and even more frightening prognoses for them, our first reaction as parents is denial. The second may be anger. In any case, we want to block the unpleasant prospects from our thoughts and shield our kids from them. And, under such circumstances, there’s one thing we crave more than anything else: normalcy, routine, an ordinary life. (Whatever that may be.) That was what Mary and Joseph craved, normalcy, ordinariness. 

So, Mary and Joseph raised Jesus in their hometown. 

The ordinariness of the lives they established there may have lulled the parents into thinking that, as special as Jesus was to them, maybe Simeon was wrong. Maybe the cross could be avoided. Maybe a sword would never pierce Mary’s soul. 

But today’s lesson shows us that neither cross nor sword could be averted. 

Look at our lesson, Luke 2:41-52 (page 716 also). At the outset, we’re told: “Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.” 

Mary and Joseph assumed that their twelve year old was with some of their family members or neighbors from Nazareth. It took them a day to realize that Jesus was missing. Verse 46 says: “After three days they found him in the temple courts...” We’ll come back to “three days” shortly. But, to me, what Luke says here surprises me. It would have taken the two a day to get back to Jerusalem. But they evidently spent a whole day searching in the city before going to the temple. The question is why didn’t they look for Jesus at the temple first? It was the most prominent place in Jerusalem and even before this, Mary and Joseph could see that Jesus, in Luke’s words, “was filled with wisdom...the grace of God was upon Him.”

Maybe the reason they didn't go to the temple immediately was that it served as a harsh reminder to them of Simeon’s prophecy. This may be why they spent a day looking for Jesus in all the wrong places. 

And, I must admit that I too, often look for Jesus in the wrong places. 

I look for Jesus to be where I want Him to be, rather than submitting to the death of my favorite sins or going where He sends me. 

I try to get Him to do my will, rather than surrendering to His. 

Yet the hard fact is that God did not take on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to make us comfortable in our sin, self-will, and life lived on our own terms rather than God’s terms. 

Jesus came to invite us to crucify our old selves in repentance and experience new and everlasting life by believing in and surrendering to Him. 

Even Mary and Joseph, we see from today’s lesson, needed to repent of their sin of wanting Jesus on their own terms and to, instead, believe in Jesus with total surrender. 

Verses 46 and 47 go on to tell us that Jesus was “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.” Then in verse 48, we’re told: “When his parents saw him, they were astonished.” 

We might wonder: How could they have been astonished? 

Had Mary forgotten her conversation with the angel Gabriel who told her that despite never having been with a man, she would give birth to the Savior of the world? 

Had Joseph forgotten the dream in which he was told not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because this child was the Son of God? 

Had they forgotten the shepherds or the wise men or Simeon or Anna? 

Had Mary forgotten that her kinswoman Elizabeth reported that the child within her, John the Baptist, had leapt for joy when he heard the voice of the Savior's mother?

How often have we ourselves had some close encounter with God--an answered prayer, unexpected provision, a word of guidance, comfort, or needed reproach from God’s Word--only to move on as if the encounter never happened, as if God were some distant stranger and not the Lord of our every moment? How often do we take comfort in ordinary certainties rather than remembering our encounters with God and following Him into the unseen and unknown?

Mired in the commonplace realities of this finite world, Mary and Joseph seem to have forgotten their encounters with God.

In her forgetfulness, Mary reproaches Jesus (verse 48): “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” 

Spoken just life the parent of a tween or teen! Can't you just hear her plaintiveness? 

Mary has sunken so deeply into routine, it seems, that she has forgotten Who Jesus‘ real Father is and where Jesus‘ real home is. 

Then Jesus says words that must have seemed like a sword piercing her soul, reminding her that her firstborn Son could never be hers alone: “Why were you searching for me?” [Jesus asks]. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 

Jesus would honor His earthly parents always. But His earthly family would never be His highest priority. As Jesus would later say in Luke 8:21, "My mother and brothers [My family] are those who hear God's word and put it into practice."

Folks: What Jesus says of Himself is no less true for those of we who confess Him to be our Lord and God. 

We may love and cherish our families, we may honor our parents, but when we come to faith in Christ, God becomes our Father. God in Christ is our highest priority. 

And this present world, shrouded in sin and death, is not our home. 

In Jesus Christ, we know that we have a better homeland, with God in eternity. 

And, like Jesus, out of gratitude for His forgiveness and love, no matter what our jobs, we are called to be about our Father’s business: loving God, loving neighbors, making disciples for Christ.  

In verse 50, we’re told that Mary and Joseph didn’t understand what Jesus was telling them. And this is where the “three days” comes in. 

Three days after Jesus’ crucifixion, you’ll remember, two unnamed disciples ran into Him, risen from the dead, on the road to Emmaus. Their minds, it seems, were so fogged by the normal expectations of life--you know, like the normal expectation that dead people stay dead--that they couldn’t believe the reports they’d heard of Jesus’ resurrection. Because of that fog, they didn’t recognize the risen Jesus as He walked beside them on the road! 

But just as the twelve year old Jesus pierced Mary's and Joseph's worldly fog to reveal Himself as the Son of God three days after the two worried parents began a frenzied search for the One they’d come to see as their son, the risen Jesus would reveal Himself as the conqueror of sin and death to those confused followers of Jesus on the first Easter. It wasn't the first time that Jesus had been so revealed to them. I guess that, like us, even Joseph and Mary needed constant refresher courses to keep in mind Who Jesus really was and is.

It’s easy to lose track of Jesus and Who He is. If it happened to Mary and Joseph and to the disciples who had watched Jesus perform miracles and heard His teaching, it can also be true for you and me. 

But it’s not as if Jesus has gone to heaven without leaving us a forwarding address. He wants to be with us now and in eternity.

Like Joseph and Mary, we simply need to know where we can find Him. And so, Jesus gives us reliable means by which we can be in His company twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. 

We can go to His Word, in the Bible, and His Word proclaimed in personal conversations, Sunday School lessons and Bible studies, and from pulpits. 

We can go to the Sacraments--Holy Baptism and Holy Communion--by which He comes to us and fills us with God's forgiveness, new life, and the Holy Spirit. 

We can go to the fellowship of Christian believers who pray with and for one another, encourage one another, hold one another accountable to the truth revealed on the pages of the Bible, and support one another in good and bad times. 

We can go to prayer in Jesus‘ Name.  

We can go to service done for others as though they were Jesus themselves. 

As we begin a new year, it’s good to remember that it is no mystery about where Jesus can be found: in Word and Sacrament and the fellowship of other Christian disciples. 

You don’t have to undertake a frenzied search for Him. Through the eyes of faith, Jesus can be found in these places where He promises to meet us, and, when we do, we realize that it's never Jesus Who is lost, it's us. We simply need to let Him find us. When we do, His grace and love and His power will find us too. Amen 

Set Apart

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, this morning.]

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Advent is a season of anticipation. 

It recalls the centuries when God’s people anticipated the birth of the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Anointed One. 

In Advent, we also anticipate the coming of Christmas day. (Especially if you're about six or seven years old.)

But more than anything, Advent is a season in which we remind ourselves that we need to live each day in eager anticipation of Jesus’ return. 

One of the most ancient liturgical confessions of the Church is simply: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

Over the past two Sundays, the first two Sundays in Advent, we’ve talked about how to anticipate, how to wait, for the return of Jesus, how to get ready to meet Jesus, either at the ends of our own earthly lives or at the end of this world, when He will, as we confess each Sunday, “judge the living and the dead.” We’ve talked about preparing through daily repentance and daily renewal through the forgiveness God gives to those who trust in Christ as their only God and King.

But in today’s second lesson, the apostle Paul gives us a different way of looking at how to anticipate the coming of Jesus. It’s one I like a lot and it can all be summarized by a single word: sanctification. 

The word sanctification is rooted in a Latin word, sanctus, which means holy. The part of the traditional liturgy in which we sing, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God power and might, heaven and earth are full of Your glory…” is called the sanctus. 

The word holy means set apart, special, different. It could even be translated as weird, odd, not like other things.

This book is called the Holy Bible or Holy Book, because out of all the books in the world, this one is set apart. It is the Word of God. No other book can make that claim. 

Holy Baptism is set apart and different from any other baptism, including John the Baptist’s baptism, because Holy Baptism is set apart, the only baptism in which God’s Holy Spirit comes to live in the baptized. 

Holy Communion is unlike any other meal in which people have community with each other because in Holy Communion, we have communion with God, we receive the very body and blood of Jesus, and through it, God's forgiveness and life pulsing within us. 

Now, we’ve mentioned before what the Bible scholars call inclusios or inclusions. An important theme of a particular section of Scripture is underscored when a particular word or idea appears at its beginning and at its conclusion. That signals the reader that everything in between those two markers is about a single idea. These bookends form what they call “inclusions.” 

Pull out a sanctuary Bible, please, and turn to page 825 and then look at 1 Thessalonians 4:3. We’re not going to look at the whole verse right now, just the pertinent start of it. It says, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified…” 

Now, turn the page and look at a line that comes almost at the end of our second lesson for this morning, to chapter 5, verses 23. It says, in part, “May the God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through…”” 

So, the theme of this section of Paul’s first century letter to the Christians in the city of Thessalonica, including today’s second lesson is let God set you apart. 

Give God access to your heart, mind, and will so that He can make you over in Christ’s image. 

That’s God’s will for our lives, to make us more like the One Who died and rose to set us free from sin and death, set us free to be the people God had in mind when He formed us in our mothers’ wombs. 

We’re not supposed to look, act, sound like, or be like the rest of the world. We’re supposed to be set apart, different. 

In 1 Peter 2:11, we’re told, “...as foreigners and exiles...abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.” 

And in Romans 12:1-2, we’re told: “...in view of God’s mercy...offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

It turns out that being open to the process by which God sets us apart from the world and makes us over into Christ’s image is precisely the way we prepare to meet Jesus. 

But what does that process look like? 

Please take a look at our lesson, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 (page 826 in the sanctuary Bibles). Paul writes: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 

Can you imagine anything harder than fulfilling the three imperatives that Paul gives in this one verse? 

"Rejoice always"? 

Even when the gift I’ve been unable to find at the first five stores also isn’t at the sixth? 

Even when my child is in the intensive care unit, his life hanging in the balance? 

Even when I’ve lost my wife or my husband? 

I think that we react in this way often because we don’t understand the difference between joy and happiness. (I know this is hard for me to remember!) 

Happiness is about the things that happen to us: We laugh at a joke, win the lottery, meet a friend. 

Joy is that deep in the bone sense of contentment that comes from knowing that because Jesus Christ died and rose and still lives and because I believe in Him, I have the forgiveness of my sins and life with God forever. 

Happiness happens to us because of our circumstances; joy is ours in spite of our circumstances. 

Joy can’t be taken from us even when we’re unhappy. (I have often found that an important truth to hold onto.)

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, for example, Paul talks about the difference between the grief of those who follow Christ and those who don’t: Those without Christ grieve with no hope; those who trust in Christ still grieve. It would be unnatural not to. But they have an eternity of hope. They have joy.

Back in our lesson, Paul says, to “pray continually.” (Some translations put it, "pray without ceasing.") 

I’d guess that in my years as a pastor, this is the passage about which I've gotten the second greatest number of questions. “‘Pray continually’ or ‘Pray without ceasing,’” someone will ask. “How on earth am I supposed to do that? Don’t I have other things to do in life?” 

Yes, you do. 

And so did Jesus. 

And it’s from Him that we can learn what this means. 

Jesus had intense times when He went off by Himself to pray, of course. 

He also prayed publicly with other people. 

But Jesus was also in continual fellowship with God the Father. In John 5:19, Jesus says of Himself, “...Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

Jesus remained prayerfully connected to God the Father all through His day. And if Jesus needed to pray constantly like this, how much more do we need to do the same thing? 

Trying to live the Christian life without the power God gives to us through prayer in Jesus’ Name is like trying to drive our cars without gas in the tank. It doesn’t work. 

The prayerless person simply isn’t prepared for the inevitable tough times of this life...or for the coming of Jesus. 

I once saw evangelist Billy Graham on a late night talk show. He amazed the host by saying that the whole time he was being interviewed, he was praying, asking God to help him say the right thing, to glorify God even in this interchange. That’s praying continually, even while hard at work.

“Give thanks in all circumstances.” This passage has been the subject of maybe the greatest number of questions I've gotten as a pastor. 

It’s important to note that Paul says to pray in all circumstances, not for all circumstances. Not all circumstances that come into our lives are blessings, you know. Evil things come from the devil, the world, and our sinful selves. Jesus makes clear that all disease is ultimately attributable to the devil. But even in the midst of life's difficulties, even horrors, we have reason to be thankful to a God Who understands us and has conquered for all eternity our enemies, sin and death.

An elderly man, deeply shaken by the death of his wife, told me that every night, amid tears of grief, he fell to his knees and thanked God for the years they’d had together and for the hope of eternity through Jesus Christ that they’d shared. Even in sadness, he was thankful and had God’s peace, what Paul calls elsewhere in the New Testament, a “peace which surpasses all understanding.”

Starting at verse 19 of our lesson, Paul continues: “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all;hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.” 

We live in a cynical time, a time too, in which people doubt the notion that there are any hard and fast truths. So, when people--even Christian people--hear others speaking in the Name of Jesus, claiming that what they say has the backing of God’s Word in Scripture, we tend to be cynical. We tend toward skepticism in the face of witnesses for Christ who display what one Bible scholar identifies as the key characteristics of John the Baptist: “public, certain, and humble.”

Part of our skepticism may be that we don’t know God’s Word well enough to know what “prophecies” spoken in Christ’s Name are true or false. 

A knowledge of God’s Word is just as important as prayer in helping us get through our days, living in hope, or anticipating the coming of Jesus. 

In fact, if prayer is conversation with God, reading and digesting God’s Word is essential to prayer. 

Our words of prayer to God are mere responses to the Word from God. 

We respond to its call to repent, to believe, to trust, to live in the assurance of His love, grace, and provision, to call on God and be saved, and to call on God in every time of need. 

When we know God’s Word, we grow up, no longer, in the words of Ephesians 4:14, “...infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” This is one reason why I hope that you’ll join the journey through the Bible in 2015.

Paul’s words for this morning end in a prayer. Verse 23: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” 

May God grant these things to us as well. 

As we submit to God, allowing Him to set us apart and sanctify us, worship with His people, soak in His Word, thank Him in all circumstances, pray continually, and receive His body and blood, may you and I be ready to truly celebrate Christmas, be ready to meet our Lord face to face, be ready to face life and death and eternity. Amen