How Evil Happens, Why It Matters, and How Freedom Comes

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, on Sunday, July 15.]

Mark 6:14-29

With its account of John the Baptist’s execution, our gospel lesson from Mark today is so laced with evil that it’s disturbing.

But when you think of it, what we see in today’s Gospel lesson is a lot like what we see in life on Monday through Saturday. These are the evils—like the inhumane things that human beings sometimes do to one another—which, when you learn of them, make you wonder, “How could this have happened? How can people be so cruel?”

And I’m not talking just about murders or holocausts. I’m thinking mostly of the everyday evils, the cutting, harsh ways in which we all can diverge from the clear will of God for us to love God and love neighbor.

We all are sinners, of course. That’s the burden Jesus came to share with us, the weight He took on His own shoulders on the cross so that all who turn from sin and trust in Him will have life with God forever, a free gift from the God Who loves us. 

As Christians, we’re called to do daily battle with our sin, through daily repentance and renewal. 

The failure to hear what God’s Word says about our sin, acts as a wall between God and us, between life and death. 

We’re called to keep grabbing the strong, outstretched hand of Jesus Christ so that the power of sin and death over our lives can be destroyed by God’s powerful grace and deathless love. That isn’t always as easy as it seems it should be.

Most of you have heard about the frog in the kettle so many times that you’re tired of it. But it gets told a lot because it packs a lot of truth. A frog haplessly plopped himself into a kettle full of water that sets on a stove top. Shortly after he got there, someone turned on the burner underneath the kettle. The frog, being a cold-blooded critter, adaptable to the world around him, didn’t realize he was being boiled to death. 

Only insane people set out to be evil. Yet, like the frog in the kettle, sometimes people who should know better, are capable of evil, of cruelty to others. We allow our kettles--our environments, the world and the people around us, as well as our inborn tendency to think of ourselves first--to dictate how we will act and react in everyday life.

Herod Antipas was a man who should have known better than to fall into evil. He had been schooled in God’s will through a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, what we know as the Old Testament. On top of that, Herod had good political reasons for avoiding evil: Though his family had no legitimate claim on the honor, they had for generations held themselves to be Israel’s royal family. It was so important to Herod Antipas to be seen as the “king of the Jews” that he had undertaken to build a new temple on Mount Zion, the same spot in Jerusalem where, a thousand years before, King Solomon had built the first temple. Both spiritual training and political common sense then should have kept Herod from evil.

But our Gospel lesson for today tells us that Herod perpetrated a horrible evil: Ordering the execution of John the Baptist, a man Herod knew to be innocent, whose only crime was speaking the Word of God. 

How that happened, a piece of history you know well, comprises most of the lesson. It comes in what the moviemakers would call a flashback. Herod gets reports about the miracle-working ministry of Jesus and is convinced that John has come back from the dead. We’re then told about the night Herod threw a birthday party for himself (who throws a party of himself?), how the daughter of his wife—the wife he had stolen from his brother--had danced for him, pleasing Herod, and how—probably a little more than drunk—Herod had promised the girl anything in exchange for the dance. 

How she had asked her mother what to ask for and was given the chilling reply, “The head of the prophet of God on a platter.” 

And how, in spite of what Herod knew to be right, he complied with the girl’s expressed wish. 

It was an act of evil equal to anything you might see in your news feed or on the TV news today. 

But unlike those news items, I believe that Mark’s flashback can help us to avoid falling into evil ourselves.

It does this by helping us to see that evil happens, first of all, when we want what we want more than what we want God wants. That was Herod’s problem. He wanted to please this young woman and appear to be a man of his word, no matter how sick and ill-advised his word may have been, more than he wanted to honor God.

That kind of thing can happen to us, too. Years ago, a man came to see me and explained how he bilked his company for thousands of dollars and got himself fired. I tried to understand how this otherwise upright man fell into this evil. “I just knew what I wanted and saw stealing as the way to get it. I just forgot about God.”

Second, evil happens when we’re more concerned with how we appear than with who we are. Herod kept his vow to his wife's daughter because he didn’t want to seem like a welcher to his guests.

A pastor I worked with while I was in seminary taught me a valuable lesson. One week, he made a mistake, one that the congregation needn’t have known about, not a sin, but a failure to do something which cost the church some money. The first thing that pastor did the following Sunday morning during the announcements was stand up and apologize. If that pastor had worried about appearances, he wouldn’t have said a word. But he was willing to admit his imperfections and gained credibility for it.

If to no one else, it’s essential that we own our sins and imperfections before God. It’s only when we’re open with the Lord Who knows about is anyway that He can take His holy scalpel and remove the unrepented sin that blocks His grace from penetrating into our lives. 

In Psalm 32:3-5, King David, tells God: “When I kept silent [about my sin], my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’ And you forgave the guilt of my sin.” 

This is why in another one of the Psalms, David asks God, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24) 

It’s only when we’re open to undergoing the spiritual surgery by which the God we know in Jesus Christ removes the power of sin over our lives and replaces it with Himself as God, Savior, King, and Friend that we can know the healing of His grace!

Third, evil happens when we ignore the Word of God. Herod, in spite of the judgment against his actions he could hear in John’s preaching, liked to listen to it. He knew that John’s words were from God. Yet, at his birthday party, he turned a deaf ear to God’s Word.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us: “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” 

And 2 Timothy 3:16-17 reminds us: “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.” 

When you and I spend time in God’s Word each day, asking God to show us the truth He wants us to see and act upon that day, we’re reassured again that this God Whose love for us is so desperate that He went to the cross, went to hell, and rose from death for us, will never leave us or forsake us. 

God’s Word gives us the power to live in the light of His Good Friday, Easter Sunday love!

But all of this still leaves us with a question: What’s in it for us? At the end of our Gospel lesson, after all, Herod was still alive, still on his throne, and John’s body was taken away by his disciples for burial. Herod had caved into evil. John had remained faithful to God. 

So, what’s in it for us when we resist evil?

Of course, there’s the obvious answer…and the true one. Those who faithfully seek to follow the God we know in Jesus Christ will, in spite of our sins and failings, spend eternity with God. 

But there are more immediate rewards for those who commit themselves to keeping hold of Christ’s hand and resisting the temptation to sin. They’re mentioned in our lesson from Ephesians for today. We’re given, we’re told “every spiritual blessing.” 

Herod went to bed on the night he killed John the Baptist knowing that he had killed an innocent, that he had done evil. That reality, I believe, haunted him and he felt utterly alone, evil, and foolish.

Unlike Herod Antipas, John the Baptist lived and died with the certainty that, even in the midst of things he couldn’t and didn’t fully understand, in resisting evil, in seeking to follow God faithfully, he had a Lord and Advocate Who would never desert him, not even beyond the gates of death.

If you remember nothing else from this morning, please remember this: 

The simple truth is that God is present for all who want God around.

A true story I’ve told before. She was dying and I visited her in the hospital. "Are you angry with God?" I asked her. "I was at first," she answered honestly. "But then I remembered that He's right here with me. Somehow that helped me." 

It can help us too. Knowing that, as we turn to Him and away from evil, God is with us always makes the pain and sacrifices of resisting evil worth it. 

In Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, we know this to be true! Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, and a sinner saved from myself only by the grace of God given in Jesus, in Whom I trust.]

How to really build yourself up

Here are thoughts from my time with God today. To see how I approach this "quiet time," see here.

Look: “But you, my friends, keep on building yourselves up on your most sacred faith. Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and keep yourselves in the love of God, as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ in his mercy to give you eternal life.” (Jude 20-21, Good News Translation)

It seems that Jude, the brother of James, had wanted to talk about the Gospel alone as he wrote to his correspondents. But false teachers had arisen among the Christians in the community where the recipients of this letter lived. Jude felt the need to warn them to stay away from their false and sinful teaching (v.3).

Here, Jude talks about what needs to happen as we wait to see Jesus. Jude had in mind the return of Jesus, seeming to assume that it would happen in his and his first readers’ lifetimes. But, of course, we all are going to meet Jesus when He returns to the world, whether we’ve been long dead or are still living on earth when it happens..

So, the question Jude answers is how are we supposed to live our lives until we meet Jesus?

Listen: First, Jude says, we need to build ourselves up in the faith.

This has several elements, I think. One is that we need to read and become conversant in God’s Word. From experience I know that there have been many times when I would have best avoided sin and saved myself a lot of heartaches if I had kept reading God’s Word, instead of following my own evil desires (v.16). A lot of times, we don’t even recognize our desires as evil; they seem so beautiful and unobjectionable. That makes us just like Eve when she wrestled with the serpent’s sales job (temptations) regarding the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom…” (Genesis 3:6)

Our brains get muddled by our evil desires, which is why we need to steep ourselves in God’s Word. “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.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Another way we build up our faith is by living in vital, accountable connection with the Church. Our faith will die without a connection to the Church, Christ’s body. This is why the preacher in Hebrews says. “...let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Our faith is also built up when we regularly receive the body and blood of Jesus, the Word imparted in, with, and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion. In this sacrament, Jesus promises to meet us, to forgive us our sins, and to to give us His very good and perfect life. In it, we are “remembered” to Jesus in the company of the congregation in which we receive it and in company with all the saints of every time and every place, in eternity and on earth.

Second, Jude says, we need to “pray in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

I’m convinced that most of the “praying” I’ve done and, sadly, still do, is offered in the power of my spirit instead of the power of the Holy Spirit. By that I mean that I try to tell God exactly how He should answer my prayers. Or, I pray, all the while scheming out how I would or will answer the prayer. When I’ve done these things, I likely haven’t been praying at all.

To pray by the power of the Holy Spirit is to pray with complete submission, an acknowledgement my powerlessness and that God knows best how to address whatever it is that I bring to Him. You say, “Your will be done” and mean it.

Ole Hallesby teaches about prayer in his book, Prayer. Authentic prayer is composed of two elements: faith and helplessness.

If I’m not helpless when I pray, then I’m getting in the way of God working. I harbor the secret belief that I know what’s best and God is only a backup insurance policy.

But I must own my weakness and let God’s strength take over: “...when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Paul describes praying in the power of the Holy Spirit: “...the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)

These are the two ways we can prepare to meet Jesus identified by Jude: (1) Growing in our faith; (2) Praying in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Respond: Lord, I try to do too much, think too much, be too much in my own power. I try to think my way through, feel my way through. All of this is the wrong path to my meeting with Jesus. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Proverbs 14:12, English Standard Version). “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure...” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Help me to be ready to meet you each day (Matthew 25:31-36) and at the judgment by growing in faith and praying--humbly, openly, submissively--in the power of Your Holy Spirit and not in my own mortal, sinful power.

Today, help me to accept Your will.

In Jesus’ name. Amen

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

How can we know that the Bible is the Word of God?

2 Timothy 3:16-17
Psalm 1:1-3
In this past Sunday’s gospel lesson, we heard Jesus tell Nicodemus: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

What Jesus was saying is that when God’s Holy Spirit is on the loose in people, we can neither control the Spirit nor, usually, see what the Spirit has been up to until after He’s completed His work. Like the wind, we can’t see the Holy Spirit, we can only see the evidence of His activity in people’s lives.

This, I think, is a good place to start when examining our question for tonight, how can we know that the Bible is the Word of God?

Now, this question is a bit different from the ones asked and answered in books like Mere Christianity, The Case for Faith, The Case for Christ, or How We Got the Bible. They answer questions like

• Who was Jesus?
• How did He understand Himself?
• Is the Bible reliable, is faith logical? 
• Did Christ rise from the dead?

and others. They all demonstrate that the historical evidence and logical cohesion for believing in the truthfulness and reliability of the Bible are overwhelming.

But it’s possible for us to accept the historical truthfulness of Scripture and what it tells us about God and still not believe in Jesus, the Messiah-God to Whom the Bible points as “the way, and the truth, and the life.”

A man I knew once told his sister, “I believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead. So what?”

That man’s belief was no different from that of the devil’s. The devil absolutely believes that God exists. He knows what God has done. And, as his encounter with Jesus in the wilderness shows, he knows the Bible inside out.

But the devil lacks faith. And so did that man.

Faith is what happens when we pull down our shields--shields like self-sufficiency, egotism, fear of losing control over one’s life--to open ourselves to what God wants to give us and do in us, now and in eternity. Faith is about surrender to the God we meet in Jesus.

Second Timothy 3:16 says: “All Scripture is God-breathed…” Now, both the Old and New Testament words for breath--ruach in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and pneuma in the Greek of the New Testament--can also carry the meanings of wind or spirit.

What Paul was telling young Timothy is that while the Scriptures may look like nothing more than words on a page, they’re actually as infused with the life of God as Adam was when God breathed into dust and made the first human being; they’re as filled with the life or Spirit of God as the first Christian disciples were when, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to them on the rush of a mighty wind.

When we are open to it, the Bible is a tornado that we can’t control, that can blow through our lives, tearing down old ways of thinking and living, and empowering us to have, in a phrase that Paul uses in his letter to the Philippian Christians, “the mind of Christ.”

Fine, you may say, the Bible is Spirit-inspired. How do I know that's all true?

We live in a condo. This past week, workers came to the development to clear away the branches that had blown down from the trees and, in at least one case, clear away an entire tree that had fallen, all because of the high winds we’d had a few days before that. Many of you will remember that particularly windy day. But you remember it not because you saw the wind in the same way that you could have seen rain or snow or a bright sun; what you saw was the evidence of the wind from what it was doing.

And this, I think, can point us to how we can know that the Bible is the Word of God: We can see the changed and changing lives of those who are being exposed to the Bible!

The changes wrought in believers by God’s Word in Scripture may happen slowly in some, or come with hurricane force through many aspects of life in others, or in fits and spurts in still others. But when we let the Bible immerse us in the truth God--as we read it on our own, as we receive it in, with, and under the bread and wine, as we hear it proclaimed or taught, as we place ourselves under it as God’s authoritative and life-giving Word for our lives--we see the evidence for the Bible being the Word of God. The Bible is the Word of God first and foremost, because it changes us.

This Word:

• assures us of God’s forgiving grace, 
• imparts God’s guidance for the living of each day, 
• helps us to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, 
• empowers us to live with hope and peace, and 
• sets us free to live as people confident of their Father’s love and certain of their Lord’s presence with them in the good and in the bad, all the way to eternity.

How does it do this?

By creating faith in Christ within us. Romans 10:17 tells us: “...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ…”

The Bible can do this because it’s the instrument of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3 says: “Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit’s imprint is on every letter of Scripture to present the Word about Jesus so that people immersed in its truth have and are strengthened in their faith relationship with Jesus.

This underscores why we can say confidently that the Bible is the Word of God. We can do this when we consider what the Bible means when it talks about “the Word of God.”

For the Bible, the Word of God, ultimately is a Person and that Person is Jesus. John 1:1 tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…”

The Word of God then, is Jesus. This is the Word let loose by God over chaos in Genesis 1 to say, “Let there be light” and there was light, “Let there be land” and there was land. “Let there be stars and sun, moons and planets, and human beings made in My image” and all those things and more came into being.

We can speak of the Bible as the Word of God because, from Genesis to Revelation, it points us to Jesus the Word of God.

The Word about Jesus that God so loved the world He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not be condemned for their sin, but live with God eternally, can be imparted in many ways: over coffee with a friend, in a locker room at school, during lunch with a co-worker, from a pulpit, in small groups studying God’s Word together.

And we will know when we’ve heard the Word of God when it conforms to all that God reveals about Himself in the Bible’s sixty-six books and when it challenges us or comforts us or stretches us to be remade by God to look more like Jesus Himself.

We know the Word of God is in the Bible when we see the impact it has on us or others, how it challenges us to turn from sin, how it incites us to trust in Jesus Christ, how it empowers us to pray, to witness, to serve, all because this Word from and about Jesus sets us free to live for the Savior Who lived and died for us.

The Word of God we find in the Bible is a mighty wind blowing away the old and dead and breathing life into the new and eternal.

The Bible is the Word of God. When we let it have its way with us, we won’t need evidence to prove that. The evidence will be found in what that Word does in us, to us, and for us.

Let the Word do its work in you. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was presented during the midweek Lenten service on Wednesday night.]

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

Matthew 7:1, 15 (A 5 by 5 by 5 Reflection)

In Matthew 7:1, Jesus says: "Do not juge that you may not be judged."

He goes on to illustrate His point by warning us about seeing the speck in our neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in our own. Before you dare remove the speck from someone else, remove the log that's obscuring your own vision, Jesus is telling us.

This passage is often seen as a command from Jesus for His followers to remain placidly indifferent to the behaviors of others. (Or even of ourselves.) When we try to warn friends or family members of the destructiveness of their behaviors--behaviors destructive either to themselves, to others, or to their relationship with God--the first line of defense is usually, "Don't judge me" or, "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

Some Christians clearly have a bad habit of being judgmental, harshly judging the behaviors or motives of others while regarding themselves as models of purity for whom sin is a past reality. In doing so, they disregard the Bible they claim is important to them. Jesus' words here have direct application to them...and to me, when I fall into such judgmental patterns.

But does Jesus want us to avoid making any judgments?

Here, the interpretive principle of letting Scripture interpret Scripture becomes important.

In Matthew 7:15, Jesus warns Christians about false prophets, people who come to us "in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." Inherent in that admonition is the call on Christians to make some judgments about questions like:

• Does this person speaking in Christ's name seem to be speaking the truth based on God's truth source, the Bible?
• Though no human being not conceived by the Holy Spirit (everyone but Jesus, in other words) is sinless or perfectly consistent in matching their words and values with their actions and lives, do the differences between this person's words and actions scream hypocrisy?
• Is this person advocating teachings or actions that are at odds with the Bible, God's revealed Word?

Later, in Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus lays out a process for conflict resolution within His Church for those who feel that another Christian believer has sinned against them. Is the person who forms the opinion that another has sinned against them always wrong? Are they always being judgmental? Apparently not. Otherwise, Jesus wouldn't have established this process.

And so long as the person who deems themselves sinned against is willing to be told they've made a wrong judgment by submitting to the judgment of the Church, Jesus doesn't condemn their judging the fellow believer's behavior as sin.

So, is Jesus talking out of both sides of His mouth? Is He saying, "Don't judge, but judge"?

As I thought about these questions, my mind was drawn to 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

In other words, God's Word is the yardstick by which God calls us to match our walk with our talk.

The first and the main person whose life we need to measure against the teachings of Scripture is ourselves, daily submitting ourselves to the daily judgments of the gracious God we know in Jesus Christ. Like David, we pray, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

We also need to judge whether the behaviors to which our own inner voices are calling us are the right way, right not only in terms of what seems pleasing to God, but also in accord with the wisdom of God.

And there may be times when we sense God calling us to discuss with fellow believers who we sense are walking away from God, speaking to them with Christian compassion and concern. Such discussions will be preceded by "judgments."

The footnote in the Life Application Bible is helpful as it explains Matthew 7:1-5:

Jesus' statement 'Do not judge' is against the kind of hypercritical, judgmental attitude that tears others down in order to build oneself up. It is not a blanket statement against all critical thinking, but a call to be discerning rather than negative...

I think that has it right. There is a difference between judging and discerning. As is usually the case in the Christian life, the key issue is motive:

Is the critical thing I'm about to say or that I feel toward another rooted in God's Word and the concern God calls me to have for others? Or is it born more of my critical attitude, my own desire to feel important or superior?

The key question to ask ourselves before we make a critical statement or harbor a critical attitude may be this:

Is this from God or is this from me?

God teach me to ask these questions before I open my trap or entertain judgmental thoughts about others. In Jesus' name. Amen

5 Things to Do When You Get Bad News

Whether it's learning that someone at work has betrayed you, that you're being downsized out of a job, or that strange symptom you've been suffering has yielded a frightening diagnosis from the doctor, we all get bad news. What should you do when you get bad news? Here are five suggestions, gleaned from the Bible.

1. Talk it over with God. As a Christian, I believe that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ in order to take the punishment we deserve for our sins--death--and to rise again in order to open up eternity with God to all who turn from sin and turn to Jesus as their only hope. Jesus says: "Come to Me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).

Whenever we receive bad news, we can churn with frenzy, a sure recipe for making bad decisions. Instead, go to the God we know through Jesus. Tell Him what you're going through. Spend time with Him. The bad news won't go away. But God will give you the peace and power you need to face it.

Talking things over with God when we get bad news isn't just about dumping our woes on Him. Prayer isn't a monologue. To pray also means spending time reading God's Word, letting Him speak to us. In the New Testament we're told: "All scripture [which we now know as the Old and New Testaments] is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God [that happens through faith in Christ] may be proficient, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

2. Seek the advice of faithful Christian friends. Proverbs 15:22 says: "Without counsel, plans go wrong, but with many advisers they succeed."

God has especially granted to every member of the local church particular spiritual gifts. He does this, we're taught, "To each [Christian believer] is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (1 Corinthians 12:7). So, if you're a Christian, remember that in your local congregation, whatever its size, there's likely to be someone gifted by God to help your or advise you on how best to address your bad news.

But even when there are no ready strategies, God gives the fellowship of the Church to lighten our burdens. Referring to the second portion of Jesus' great command that we love others as we love ourselves, Paul tells Christians: "Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2).

When we share and bear each other's burdens, those burdens get easier to bear and we draw strength from one another. "Two are better than one...For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help...A threefold cord is not easily broken" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).

3. Make plans, but don't let your planning turn into worry about tomorrow. The Bible tells us that it's wise to make plans (Luke 14:31), but we should be ready for the curve balls that come at us in this imperfect world. We also need to be ready for God's vetoes of our plans.

James writes in the New Testament: "...you do not even know what tomorrow will bring...Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that'" (James 4:14-15).

Jesus says, "...do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today" (Matthew 6:34).

Make plans, but take each day as it comes.

4. In the midst of troubles, let God love you. Jesus' death and resurrection were for you. The good news that Jesus wants to give you life with God, not just after you die and leave this world, but right now, trumps all bad news. You may feel powerless; but when you let God love you, bad news is powerless to destroy your hope, peace, or joy.

When you surrender your life, including all your troubles and your sins, to Jesus and let them be covered by His grace and goodness, you'll live each day in the assurance that nothing can separate you from the love God gives through Jesus Christ (Romans 8:31-39).

5. Remember that God won't let go of you; so, don't you let go of God! Millions of believers in Jesus Christ have endured all sorts of troubles, experiencing what the Bible calls "the peace that passes all understanding" (Philippians 4:7).

You can know that peace too. In Deuteronomy 31:6, God promised His people, and in Hebrews 13:5, He promised again to all people who believe in Him through Jesus Christ, that He will never leave or forsake us.

That promise is like a blank check from God written to be used you whenever you get hit by bad news. Cash it!

A Book Like No Other

If we prayerfully read the Bible with our wills open to God, God will give us a deepening faith in Christ and will build our characters.

Conversely, when I fail to read God's Word and pray each day, the wheels pop off my life, my priorities are put askew, I more readily fall prey to temptations and sin, my ego gets out of hand, and I panic in the face of life.

The Bible is like no other book. It is, as the New Testament book of 2 Timothy says literally, "God-breathed," inspired by God, filled with the same grace and power God used to call the universe into being and that He used to raise Jesus from the dead.

Enjoy these thoughts on the Bible from today's installment of Our Daily Bread.

Who is the Word of God? Why Should You Read His Book?

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church during worship this morning.]

John 1:1-3, 14
2 Timothy 3:16-17*
As you know, on Ash Wednesday, March 9, we begin a yearlong emphasis at Saint Matthew: Read the Bible in a Year.

The response to the announcement that we were going to read the Bible together in a year’s time has been gratifying! Some of our overachievers have already started reading the Bible. Several people have gotten or are looking at new Bibles, in translations that are more accessible. And I hope that those who, because of the current conditions of their eyes, find reading difficult will be able get an audio edition of the Bible, either through a vendor or at the library. (If you'd like help finding an audio Bible to purchase, let me know, and I'll try to help you with your selection.)

With Read the Bible in a Year coming in so short a time, I’m departing from my usual practice of preaching on the appointed lessons and instead today, focusing on two important passages of Scripture. I hope that they’ll help motivate and inspire you to join in reading the Bible this year. My aim is to do that by talking about two important questions:

• First, what do we Lutheran Christians mean when we speak of “the Word of God”? 
• And second, why should we bother reading the Bible?

So, let’s get to it. Please pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 611. There, you’ll find what’s known as the Prologue to John’s Gospel, John 1:1-18. We’ll consider just a few passages of the Prologue, verses 1 to 3 and verse 14. Read along with me silently, please.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” [Now, slide down to verse 14.] “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Long before the universe was created, there was the Word of God. This Word of God is not an “it.” Unlike an impersonal force, the Word of God can be known in the same way you know your family or your friends or your neighbors.

That’s why John says of the Word of God, “He was in the beginning with God” and “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made” and “We have beheld His glory.”

I’m not emphasizing the maleness of those pronouns. What I am emphasizing is that the Word of God is a Being with passions and preferences and a personality.

It’s this Personality that the Old Testament book of Genesis tells us spoke to chaos and brought the universe into being: “’Let there be light’ and there was light.” It was the Word of God that made the light and you and me and everything else.

The New Testament book of Colossians says of the One John refers to as the Word of God: “In Him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible…all things have been created through Him and for Him.” And it says that in Him “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” 

This Word of God, the One Who created the universe, took on flesh and, as John’s Prologue says, “dwelt, lived” among us.

The Bible confesses that Jesus is the Word of God.

God, it turns out, is the Great Communicator. He used His Word to communicate all that was needed to bring the universe into being.

And from the very beginning, He has communicated with His personal favorites, the apples of His eye, the pinnacles of creation, the only beings made in His image: the human race.

We human beings have often turned a deaf ear to the Word of God, of course. But God has never tired of communicating with us.

The Word of God ultimately came to us when He took on flesh, became one of us, bore our sin on the cross, and rose from the dead so His Word of forgiveness and new life could come to all who repent and believe in Jesus.

When we Lutheran Christians speak of the Word of God, we mean first and foremost, Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, Who sits on the right side—the power side—of God the Father. The Word of God is, above all, God the Son.

Some people claim to see a different God in the Old Testament than they see in Jesus in the New Testament. Lutherans never have seen such a difference.

And for good reason. When Jesus walked on this earth, He said that He and the Father were one. He quoted Old Testament Scripture and He said that He came not to abolish God’s Old Testament law, but to fulfill it. Everything He did and said was consistent with the Personality of God revealed in Old Testament times. The New Testament writers show how the law and the grace that Jesus communicated for all the world, Jews and Gentiles, was precisely the same law and grace God communicated to His people Israel in the Old Testament. The preacher of the New Testament book of Hebrews says of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh: “[He] is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

As Lutheran Christians, we believe that God speaks and has spoken to people with the same simple message through the centuries, one composed of two parts: Law and Promise.

The Law is the moral law as embodied in the Ten Commandments, which God has never rescinded, revoked, or amended.

The Promise is God’s promise of forgiveness and new life to all who will repent and believe in Him.

God has personalized that promise for the whole human race in Jesus. This is why Jesus has given us the great commission to make disciples of all the world.

It was in response to Jesus' great commission and to help people know the Word of God personally and so, have the chance to repent and believe in Jesus, that John wrote his Gospel. “Jesus did many other things in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book,” John writes near the end of his Gospel. “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in His Name.” 

Jesus is the Word of God and the Bible is the Word of God because, through the Holy Spirit, the Church has learned that the Bible perfectly reflects the message the Word of God has been communicating since Adam and Eve: Turn from sin, trust in Me, and live. The Bible is God speaking law and promise to us: the law to drive us to Him, the promise to reconcile us to Him for eternity.

So, if the Bible’s message can be summarized in a few minutes, why spend a year reading it?

It’s simple, really. The crush of life—what The Small Catechism calls, “the devil, the world, and our sinful selves”—can turn us into amnesiacs. We can forget all about Jesus, the Word of God, hurtling through our lives without a clue of how to live or what to do.

But in the Bible, God helps us to remember. God knows we need reminding.

That’s why Luther said that the born-again Christians of his day weren’t born-again enough. They thought of repentance and faith in Christ as a one-and-done deal. But Luther said, rightly I think, that if we don’t keep coming back to God each day to repent and be renewed in His forgiveness and love, we can drift away from God and from eternity with Him.

Reading the Bible regularly can help correct our courses through life.

That leads to a second passage of Scripture I’d like to ask you to look up in the New Testament, 2 Timothy 3:16-17. It’s on page 690 in the pew Bibles. It says:

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God [literally, it says all scripture is God-breathed; God invests His very life into the pages of this book!] and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the [person] of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

In the Bible, the Word of God—Jesus—gives us a treasury of tools by which God empowers us to live with faithfulness and to share God’s Word of law and promise that can bring eternity to all who believe in Jesus.

True story. Monique Govender grew up in a Hindu home in Durban, South Africa. Her family regularly worshiped numerous idols.

Then, in the space of twenty days, two of her siblings died. Monique’s mother became fearful and, maybe just to cover all her bases, began going to a church to secretly pray to the One the Christians said was the one and only God of the universe revealed in Jesus.

Monique’s father, an alcoholic and a physical abuser of his family, hated Christians. Maybe he’d met the kinds of counterfeit Christians who give Christianity a bad name. However it happened, he misunderstood Christian teachings.

Over the course of her childhood though, Monique encountered the Word of God at different times, each time having an impact on her. Once, at age four, she attended “a memorable church activity.” At seven, buying booze for her dad, she saw street performers do two skits: one about Jesus’ parable of the ten wise and foolish virgins and the other about Joseph, the son of Jacob from Old Testament times. Most influential of all was when she learned that her grandparents, lifelong Hindus, had come to faith in Jesus Christ and joined a local church.

At age 15, Monique herself came to faith in Christ. Then, her brother, after reading a Bible he had been given, came to believe in Jesus.

At first, Monique’s father was angry at his two children and refused to let his daughter worship at church. But, trusting in Jesus, the Word of God, Monique began to pray for her family, asking God to let her worship with other Christians and to help her father recover from his alcoholism and to stop being an abuser. “Eventually, she was allowed to go to church, and [amazingly] in time both her parents came to know Christ as well.”

Monique reflects on the goodness of God. “I am not sure of what God’s thoughts were for me, but in looking back, it seems like He’s been thinking about me. And it’s [amazing] to think that I was just an unknown girl…[But] God knew me, and even as a little child, I could feel that God was there with me.”

Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is His book, written so that, no matter how “unknown” or alone or adrift or overwhelmed you may sometimes feel, God loves you.

God wants to be in relationship with you.

He wants to give you an abundant life here and in eternity.

He wants to guide you with His wisdom and love.

Read the Bible every day and let Jesus, the Word of God, speak His grace and truth into your life all the days of your life!

*The renderings of these two passages, as linked here, are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible. The Bibles in the pew racks of the Saint Matthew sanctuary are the New King James Version (NKJV).