The Only Way to God

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

John 10:1-10
There’s a common belief held by many in our culture these days. You hear it all the time, whether in barber shops, on TV talk shows, or at church meetings. It’s the belief that all religious convictions are equal in their ability to lead people to God. You don’t need to give your sins or your life to Jesus exclusively, some people assert. They say, “All religions are headed to the same place.” Is that true?

Not according to Jesus! And in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus uses two illustrations to point us to Who He is and to the relationship with God that you and I…and every person on the planet…can have only through Him.

But before considering what Jesus has to tell us today, we should set the scene. How is it that Jesus came to speak the words we find in John 10:1-10?

It all started when Jesus gave sight to a blind man in John 9. That caused a controversy because Jesus dared to do this loving deed on a Sabbath day. Jesus’ action made some of Jesus' fellow Jews--the Pharisees--so angry that when the blind man He healed said that Jesus must be from God, they threw the man out of the temple, no longer considering him a faithful Jew.

Of course, at one level, the Pharisees were nothing like people today who claim that all religious beliefs lead to God. The Pharisees believed that only by abiding by their extensive lists of religious rules could one be right with God. But, based on what God has revealed of Himself in both the Old and New Testaments, both the advocates of anything-goes spirituality in the twenty-first century and the Pharisees of the first century have one big thing in common: They are equally wrong. Accepting the assertions of either group will lead us away from God and the life God offers only in Jesus Christ.

Over the centuries, starting with a people to whom God gave a land and a promise, God has revealed Himself and His plan for the human race. From the beginning, the plan for a right relationship with God and for a life with Him that lasts forever has been the same. We are to give our lives back to the Giver of our lives and give our lives only to Him.

Genesis says that Abraham, the patriarch of Biblical faith, believed in God and God’s promises and that God “reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Abraham was right with God because he entrusted his life to God. He believed in God.

The New Testament book of Hebrews tells us that through the centuries, God revealed Himself through the prophets of Israel, but in these last days, God has revealed Himself definitively in Jesus. If we want to live with God, we need to listen Jesus.

All who turn from sin and believe in Jesus, God the Son, have the same blessings enjoyed by Abraham: rightness with God and life with God.

It isn’t because God is an egomaniac or because God wants to establish an exclusive club that the first commandment is, “You shall have no other gods” or that God commands exclusive fidelity to Jesus Christ.

It’s that God wants to give us life and only He can give it. Indeed, He will only give us life and, as Jesus puts it in today's Gospel lesson, life "abundantly," through Jesus Christ and our faith in Him.

All other roads are dead ends, literally dead ends.

So, in today's lesson, Jesus says that He is the shepherd of God’s sheep. Only Jesus can lead us into God’s sheepfold. People who try to get into the kingdom of God by other means are—whether through good works, other religious beliefs, or all manner of cosmic niceness—are, Jesus says, thieves and bandits. Look at verses 2 to 5 of the Gospel lesson printed on the Celebrate insert:

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.

In this illustration, Jesus is the shepherd. God the Father is the gatekeeper.

For just a second, think of God’s kingdom as a show everybody (including you and me) wants to see. The problem is that the gatekeeper—God the Father—will issue tickets to only one kind of customer: People who are absolutely clean and clear of sin.

That would leave us all on the outside, pining for a relationship with God because, as the Bible says, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Standing there in our sins, we would be without hope except for one thing: Jesus, the shepherd of the sheep, tells the gatekeeper, “It’s OK. She’s with me. He’s mine. You can let them in. I paid for their sins on the cross, the sacrifice of a sinless human being who didn’t deserve death on behalf of all other sinful human beings who deserved death.”

All who repent and believe in Christ are ushered into God’s eternal kingdom—long before their lives on this earth have ended, if they dare. Even now--even today--if you dare to trust in Him, you are living in Christ's eternal kingdom. As our second lesson from Peter reminds us, until we rise again, we live in a fallen world where suffering and challenges happen. But if suffering is a reality that can and does come to any of us, it's better to go through this life with Jesus leading us than to try to go it alone.

Those who heed Jesus’ voice live each day knowing that whatever our sins, deficiencies, and shortcomings, we belong to God forever! He is our ticket into eternity!

Like sheep attuned to the shepherd’s voice, when you dial into God through a relationship with Christ, you begin to know His voice. It brings incredible comfort, hope, and energy, straight from God, into your life!

Sometimes that voice will come with direction we'd rather not hear or will call us to do things we'd rather not do. I was the first person in my seminary class to interview for a call. It was for an associate pastor's position. There was another candidate who would be interviewing. Her candidacy made mine a long-shot because she had done her internship at that congregation. But my interview went well and, before Ann and I headed back to Columbus, the senior pastor told me he would be in touch in a few days. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into a month, and still no word from the senior pastor or the congregation.

More than a month after the interview, I was scheduled to be at the district convention, where, along with all the recently graduated seminarians, I would be trotted onstage to be introduced. In the evening, a service of Holy Communion was held in a college auditorium. We had just finished confessing our sins when I looked to see that senior pastor. "Mark," he said, "God wouldn't let me take Holy Communion until I came to apologize to you. I'm so sorry I never contacted you to let you know that the other candidate received the call. I didn't want to tell you that, so I kept putting off contacting you. Would you please forgive me?"

You see, that senior pastor was known by the Shepherd of the sheep, Jesus. And he knew Jesus. So, when Jesus called on him to make things right, that's exactly what he did.

The Shepherd speaks to His children in other ways too.

A member of this congregation recently told me that after her husband died, she was sobbing in her bed one night, seeking comfort, when she sensed a hand on her shoulder. So real was the touch she felt, that she reached around to feel for the unseen hand. No hand was felt, but the touch was no less real. In that quiet exchange, one of Christ’s sheep heard His voice of comfort and healing. She was comforted because she is one of Jesus’ sheep. Jesus knows His own and His own know Him!

A friend of mine has pastored a Lutheran congregation for decades. In spite of his faithfulness and innovative leadership, the congregation hasn’t grown. It’s actually declined in membership, attendance, giving, and activity. Day after day, year after year, he has prayed and worked faithfully, sharing Christ, leading people to deeper levels of faithfulness. But things have only gotten worse.

Then one day last year, after a long time in prayer, he sensed God asking him, “You pray for this renewal to happen, for new people to come to faith in Christ. But have you prayed that all the evil in the world that conspires against that happening be kept from this church, kept from its people, kept from the places where worship and education and planning happen?” No, my friend told God, he hadn’t done that in prayer. “Do it now!” God seemed to tell him forcefully.

And so, my friend went all through the church facility, praying in every room, asking God to take control of all that happened there, to displace Satan and all evil from every inch, and to fill the building and the people of the church with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with the power and truth of the Word of God!

Things haven’t yet changed in that congregation. But my friend now knows they will change. That’s because after he had prayerfully surrendered himself and his congregation and prayed that God would prevail over all evil that assailed them, the good shepherd assured him that all he had prayed for would come to pass.

God gave him a vision of a sanctuary filled with joyful people excited to be in God’s presence, excited to give themselves in worship to God on Sunday morning in anticipation of using their whole lives to worship God through the week. The voice of the shepherd spoke to my friend and he was filled with comfort, renewed hope, and holy energy!

But Jesus uses another image in our lesson to describe Who He is; He says that He is also the gate to eternity.

Years ago, Ann and I went to a party and realized after we got back home that we’d locked ourselves out of the house. Long story short, with Ann’s help I was able to push myself through a first-floor window that we had left partially opened. I was halfway into the house by this route, my arms and torso inside, my legs still hanging outside, when a thought crossed my mind: How would I explain this to a policeman? After all, if you belong somewhere, you don’t have to break in. You go through the front door.

Jesus is the front door, the only door—the only gate—to life with God, to the abundant, everlasting life that God wants to give to all people. You can't get into God's kingdom in any other way! “No one comes to the Father except through Me,” Jesus says elsewhere. “If you know Me, you will know the Father also. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.”

The real quest of the Christian life is to get to know the God revealed in Jesus Christ. This “quest” isn’t an onerous task. It’s a joy like falling in love.

That’s why I hope that every member of Saint Matthew will not only regularly worship and receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, but also join us, even belatedly, in reading the Bible in a year.

I hope that every member will be in Sunday School. (Yes, every member.)

I hope that we’ll all make prayer a daily habit.

I hope that you’ll help us share Christ in a very practical way when we collect those filled grocery sacks next Saturday during our PPSST! Food Drive.

These are all ways to follow the voice of Jesus, ways to enter more deeply into a relationship with God that only comes through Jesus.

This past week, at the graveside of our friend Betty, we heard her confirmation verses. Betty chose them sixty years ago when she was confirmed at the age of 23. They're words of Jesus from Matthew 10:32-33:

"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.” 

Freedom from sin comes only to those who turn away from the dead-end ways of the world and trust the only One Who can give us forgiveness and new life, Jesus, the good shepherd and the gate—the front door—to eternity.

Let yourself get to know Him better.

Trust in Him and in His Word alone.

As you do, you’ll hear His voice over the din of an often-confusing world and He will lead you to a life prepared for you, a life that here will sometimes bring inexplicable challenges, but also a life that never ends, a life filled with the presence of God, today and always.

The Shepherd is calling you today. Follow Him…and live!

Second Pass at This Sunday's Bible Lesson (February 10, 2008)

[The first pass, containing an explanation of what these passes are about, can be found here.]

[General Comments, continued]
14. Romans 5:12-19: Here, I present the brief comments of Chris Haslam, an Anglican priest from Montreal:

Paul has said that Christians, reconciled to God, will be saved, sharing in the risen life of Christ. Two notions are important here:

• the punishment for Adam’s sin was to die both physically and spiritually (“death came through sin”); and
• we both sin ourselves and share in his sin (“spread to all”).

Paul contrasts Adam and Christ, both inaugurators of eras. Adam foreshadowed Christ as head of humanity (“type”, v. 14, precursor). Adam disobeyed God’s direct command (“the transgression”, v. 14, “the trespass”, v. 15). The “free gift”, i.e. Christ, is unlike Adam’s sin:

• “many died” before Christ’s coming but even more so are “many” (indeed all) saved through Christ;
• Adam was condemned to separation from God but Christ brings union with God (vv. 16, 18);
• Adam’s sin allowed “death” (v. 17) to rule through the Devil (“that one”) but we let good rule our hearts (“dominion in life”); and
• Adam’s action led to the sin of many but Christ’s will lead many to godliness (v. 19), to “eternal life” (v. 21).

(Vv. 13-14b are an aside: before God gave Moses the Law, humans were not held accountable for their sins; even so they died.)

Verse-by-Verse Comments, Matthew 4:1-11:
1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
(1) It's interesting that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. In his explanation of the Sixth Petition of the Lord's Prayer, Martin Luther writes in his famous Small Catechism, "God, indeed, tempts no one..." Was Luther wrong?

Notice what Matthew writes here, though. He says that "that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." Is it splitting hairs here to say that God the Spirit didn't tempt Jesus, but pushed Jesus where the devil could do the tempting?

Maybe. But I think that this is a more complicated subject than our desire for facile answers will allow.

The New Testament Greek terms peirazo and ekpeirazo can be translated as either tempt or test. Sometimes we read of God testing people. At other times we read of people being tempted.

I think it's safe to say that if God lures us to sin, then God is a monster and not the "lover of our souls" we see in Jesus Christ.

But I do think it's possible for God to use an event to test us while the devil, the world, or our sinful selves will use the same event to tempt us away from God. God allows certain tests to come our way, tests that may tempt us to walk away from God. God does this to strengthen our faith by increasing our dependence on Him.

God the Spirit apparently believed that, to fortify Jesus for what lay ahead, Jesus needed the test of being tempted by the devil. I don't believe that this is the sort of thing that God does with spiritual lightweights, like me, by the way. In fact, it's been my observation that the closer we get to God, the more our spiritual torments and often, it seems, the likelier our physical suffering. Discipleship isn't for sissies. But it is for those who want to live with God forever.

2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
(1) Talk about understatement. I'd be hungry too, after forty days without food. By the way, some scholars teach that "forty days" may have been a Biblical way of saying, "a long time," like more contemporary phrases such as "a month of Sundays."(I know, it's not that contemporary.)

(2) This makes me think of the Gospel lesson for Ash Wednesday. Jesus assumed that believers would, at tmes when they wanted to clear away the obstructions that get in the way of their relationship with God, would fast. He says there, "Whenever you fast..."

One can fast in many ways. We might want to stop watching TV at night, or spend less time on the computer. The possibilities are endless. But the purpose of fasting isn't to gain bragging rights as a super-Christian. It is, rather, like tuning out the static and allowing ourselves to hear God loud and clear.

3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
(1) Notice that the tempter's temptation isn't inherently bad. Food when you're hungry is a good thing. God made food. God made our bellies. The craftiness of the tempter is that he strives to lure us to take good things and use them in wrong ways. Jesus refuses to be beholden to the tempter even for a few scraps of bread. He will, instead, be totally dependent on God the Father.

(2) One of the ways in which we commonly put God to the test is to challenge Him with prayers like, "If you're really there, then do this..."

God has already done everything He needs to do to warrant our trust.

4But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
(1) There's no way we can face down the temptations presented by the devil, the world, or our sinful selves is to be steeped in the Word of God, the Bible, which reveals God's will for us all. Jesus called on that Word here.

5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
(1) The devil knows the Bible too. For the Christian, knowing the Bible isn't necessarily about memorizing Scripture passages, it's allowing the Word of God to inform our understanding of the God behind it. The Bible reveals God's character.

(2) This is the second time that the devil has said, "If you are the Son of God..." The devil is suggesting that this throwing Himself off of the top of the temple would be a memorable way for Jesus to prove Himself. And Jesus does want us to know that He is the Son of God. But, though capable of the miraculous, He never performed signs at the command of the skeptical or hostile. That's probably because for those who are hostile or indifferent to Jesus, no sign would ever be sufficient to win them over. And besides, if God takes orders from us, who really is God? Unless we see the miracles as signs pointing to Jesus as the Son of God, they're merely parlor tricks.

7Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
(1) "Stupid is stupid," Jesus tells the devil. "God will protect His children for all eternity. But they can't expect to be protected when they take unnecessary risks."

(2) Notice that Jesus once more resorts to Scripture.

8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
(1) The term "high mountain" is also used of the setting of Jesus' transfiguration in Matthew's Gospel. Brian Stoffregen suggests that this may be no coincidence. When you think of it, the high mountain on which Jesus' transfiguration must have also been a setting of deep temptation. It would have been tempting for Jesus to remain on the mountaintop in His glory. It certainly tempted Peter, who wanted to erect those monuments to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. But the voice from heaven and Jesus Himself directed Peter, James, and John, back down the mountain.

(2) Jesus clearly wants the kingdoms of the world. But He won't take them on the cheap. Without His death and resurrection, those kingdoms would always remain under evil's sway, far from God.

10Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
(1) In the final analysis, every sin we commit is a violation of the First Commandment, "You shall have no other gods." To worship God is to put God first in our lives.

11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

First Pass at This Sunday's Bible Lessons (February 10, 2008)

[This may be the only "pass" at the Bible lessons for this week. If so, I apologize in advance. These passes are designed to help the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, where I am pastor, and me to prepare for worship on Sunday mornings. Because we Lutherans use a version of the Revised Common Lectionary, I also hope that these looks at the Bible lessons will help other Christians to get ready for worship when these lessons will be the focus for most of the Christians in the world.]

The Bible Lessons:
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

The Prayer of the Day:
Lord God, our strength, the struggle between good and evil rages within and around us, and the devil and all the forces that defy you tempt us with empty promises. Keep us steadfast in your word, and when we fall, raise us again and restore us through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Some General Comments:
1. The season of the Church Year called Lent began this past week with Ash Wednesday.

2. The forty days of Lent do not include the Sundays. That's because Sundays are always "little Easters," times when we always celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. That's why this will be the First Sunday in Lent. Sundays in Lent then, are outposts of resurrection celebration within a period in which we remember Christ's call to repentance and His death for our sin. Nonetheless, the Lenten movement toward Christ's cross (and resurrection) are marked even on the Sundays of this season.

3. The Gospel lessons for the First Sunday in Lent always revolve around Jesus' being tempted in the wilderness by the devil. (In this year's Gospel lesson, taken from Matthew's Gospel, the tempting power is referred to as the tempter, the devil, and Satan. More on the meanings of those three terms later, I hope.)

4. The other appointed lessons deal with temptation, sin, fall, deliverance, and redemption, hugely important themes. each text worthy of their own full exploration. That won't be possible here.

5. Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7: This lesson recounting the temptation of the first man and woman presents an interesting counterpoint to the Gospel account of Jesus' temptation.

For example, this temptation happens in the comfort of a lush garden in which easy provision is available for the first couple's every need. Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the barren wilderness. (The word eremos in the original Greek of the Matthew text can be translated as wilderness or desert.)

In addition, neither Eve nor Adam evidence any struggle against the temptations of the serpent. Jesus' entire encounter with the devil involves struggle.

In both cases, the temptations involve ignoring the intentions of God the Father.

There are more parallels and contrasts. But those will be addressed later.

6. 2:15: In this verse we see that work was never meant to be seen as a punishment. Only after the fall into sin would futility become part of the human experience of work. But work, in itself, is a good thing. Our capacity to work is part of what demonstrates that we have been made in the image of God, Who worked to create our universe.

7. 3:1: The serpent isn't specifically identified as the devil, although Jesus makes that connection in John 8:44.

Part of the craftiness of the devil, an attribute attributed to him here, is that he doesn't make the mistake of overtly attacking God. He attacks by indirection, asking questions until the time is ripe for making assertions.

(By the way, Jesus also uses indirection to woo people into God's kingdom. His parables are gentle ways of moving beyond our resistance to God's grace and love, engaging us in stories that make us feel what the kingdom of God is like, rather than forcing us on the defensive with religious propositions. That Jesus should employ such methods shouldn't surprise us. After all, in calling His followers to share His call to repentance and new life, He said that they should be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.)

8. Vv. 2-3: The woman accurately reflects God's will. There is no ambiguity about God's will.

9. The perennial question about this tree is, if God was anxious for humans to live in fellowship with Him, why was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden?

Let's do something scientists call a "thought experiment" for a moment. Imagine that you are God. Imagine that as God, you are brimming over with love, so much love in fact that you feel the desire to create living beings to love. But you decide that one being in particular will be sentient, aware of themselves as living creatures and--this is the really important point--capable of loving back.

The only way this ability to return your love will have any meaning is that if your special creatures have the ability not to love you back. Love that is instinctive is, in effect, coerced or forced. But if your creature is free not to love you, their choice to return your love and to live in a fellowship of love with you will be marked with the joy that comes with love that is voluntary.

God allowed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to sprout in the perfect garden wasn't to tempt Adam and Eve to sin, but to make it possible for them to respond to God's love freely and authentically.

9. Vv. 4-5: The truth told in a deceitful way is still a lie. The man and woman didn't die immediately and by eating the fruit, they did see good and evil, as opposed to having only seen good previously. But, of course, being able to see good and evil without the discernment of God is to fall prey to evil's power. The serpent left that part out.

10. V. 6: What tempted the woman was good. The fruit was good. We're never tempted by bad or unattractive things. Sin happens when we take what's good at the wrong time, in the wrong way, for the wrong reason, or in the wrong amount.

11. To merely be tempted isn't a sin. Caving into temptation, even within our minds, is when sin happens.

12. Psalm 32: The first seven verses are addressed to God. Verses 8-11 are addressed to other people. The narrator is one who has sinned, confessed, and experienced God's forgiveness.

13. Sometimes, a good way to try to understand a passage of Scripture is to put it into our own words. Here's a paraphrase of Psalm 32 I wrote earlier today:

My life was hard when my sin went unconfessed, Lord. But when I owned up to my wrongs, You forgave me.

When times are hard, help us find refuge in You. Give us shelter even when times are tough!

I know that even when the flood waters rise, we God-followers won't be swept away. All around me are the glad shouts of people rescued from all that would take us from You and the life You give!

[Looking to our neighbors...]

Having experienced God's charity and care, I will turn to you, my friends, and point out the way of God to you. Don't be stubborn in your egotism, thinking you can get by on your own! Place yourself under God's control.

In the end, things don't go well for those who remain rebels against God. But the endless love of God envelops those who throw the whole weight of their lives--the good, the bad, the ugly, the frightening, the past, present and future--on God's shoulders.

Laugh and fill up with joy, you who trust in God! Give a shout out, all made right with God by the power of His forgiving grace!

This is an exercise you might want to try.

[More tomorrow, I hope.]