Be Unburdened!

[Below you'll find live stream video of both worship services from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio for July 9, 2023, as well as the text of the message shared during the services. WARNING: The video titled "11:00 AM Modern Worship" actually the "8:45 AM Traditional Worship" and vice versa. Got that? Have a good week. God bless you!]





Matthew 11:25-30

Jesus tells you today, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

This is the Gospel, the good news, in today’s gospel lesson that Jesus gives to you, that He does to you and does for you today. Literally, Jesus says, “Come to me, all those toiling and being burdened and I will give you rest.”

Many, if not all of you, are toiling and burdened today.

Some of you toil to be “good” people under the burden of old sins that you confessed and God forgave through Christ long ago.

Some of you toil under the weight of sins perpetrated against you, sins of which you either cannot or will not let go.

Some of you toil under the burden of thinking you must create a “best life” for you, your kids, or your grandkids.

Some of you are working to placate God, trying to pile up enough credits to get yourself into His eternal kingdom.

To you and me Jesus says today, “Let go of your burdens–all your guilt and shame, all your pride and self-righteousness, all your self-promoting or self-destroying religiosity–and I will give you rest. I will give you peace.”

Not everyone finds Jesus’ invitation compelling. In fact, it’s true to say that most of the people who have ever encountered God’s gift of new and everlasting life and of rest with Him through Jesus, most, have repudiated it, ignored it, walked away from it. Even derided it or tried to kill it off.

Jesus first spoke these Gospel words–come to me and I will give you rest–in the face of mass rejection of Him by His own people.

Earlier in chapter 11 of Matthew’s gospel, we’re told that as Jesus preached to crowds of people, disciples of John the Baptist, reflecting their leader’s skepticism, ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3) Jesus points them to what they are hearing and seeing Him do: giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk, causing the deaf to hear, raising the dead, and preaching His good news–His gospel–to the poor, to all who can admit that they are not self-sufficient, all who, on hearing Jesus’ word, realize that without Jesus, they can do no good thing. (John 15:5)

Also in Matthew 11, just before Jesus’ words in today’s gospel lesson, He denounces cities whose people have refused to repent–that is, to turn away from sin and the burdensome lie of self-sufficiency.

It’s in the face of this rejection and earthly failure that Jesus, God the Son, prays to God the Father. “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.” (Matthew 10:25-26)

The Gospel, the good news from God that gives us rest, peace, and life with God is hidden from some people and it is seen and heard and trusted by others.

Now, anybody can see, hear, and trust in Christ’s Gospel. God is not a monster! God doesn’t pick winners and losers of salvation.

God’s message to the people of ancient Israel is His message for us today: “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11)

God wants to forgive our sins and give us new and everlasting life with Him.

But most people, thinking themselves “wise and learned,” unwilling to admit their need for forgiveness, or reconciliation, or peace, soldier on under the burden of self-rule. They refuse to daily turn away from the dumpster fire of sin, bitterness, and selfishness that rages in each of us descendants of Adam and Eve and cling to the lie that they (or we) can “be like God.”

These are people like Lot’s wife. Remember her? At the moment she was being graciously delivered from the hell of Sodom, told to not look back but to look ahead to the future into which God was taking her, she looked back anyway.

She may have thought to herself, “If I go back, I can make it better.”

Or, she may have thought, “I know what life was like back there in Sodom. I have no experience of the life God is taking me too.”

The wise and the learned are those who hear the Gospel promise of life and rest with God, but like, in the words of Proverbs, dogs returning to their own vomit, will not give up on the idea that they can be in control, or that they can make their lives right in their own power. (Psalm 26:11)

Jesus says though that “little children” are people who are open to His Gospel.

Don’t misunderstand Jesus here. Jesus doesn’t idealize childhood. The Bible is clear: We are all born sinners, intent on being masters of the universe, disinclined to love God or love neighbor. One of the favorite first words of children is still “No!”

What Jesus is saying is that when children are loved, they credulously and openly receive that love.

When some people hear the Law of God telling them that they were sinful at birth, they take in this truth from God and acknowledge it. (Psalm 51:5)

And when they hear Jesus say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17)--or “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls,” (Matthew 11:29) their resistance is melted. Their wills are overruled. They trust in Christ.

Now, friends, you know that if you are one of Christ’s little ones, trusting in Christ, turning from sin, receiving His promised rest, it isn’t because you’re superior to those still caught up in the lie of their own supposed wisdom or learnedness.

The Bible says “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.” (1 Corinthians 12:3)

The rest that you have in God’s grace, given in Jesus, is a gift borne to you by God’s Word: preached, taught, read, heard, and received in the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. The Bible reminds us that “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…” (Ephesians 2:8)

What does all of this mean?

Quite simply, it means this: Today Jesus wants to make a trade with you.

He wants your sins, your death, and all that you try to conceal about yourself from God, the world, even yourself. He wants you to put all of these things on Him. That’s what we do when we repent.

In exchange, He wants to give you all His righteousness, rest, peace, life, hope, joy.

Little children, receive all these gifts from Jesus today.

He tells you again now: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Give Jesus your burdens and He will give you rest in Him.

Amen

The Old Testament Book of Ezekiel, Part 31

Where to Turn in the Crisis

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Luke 12:49-56
During the recent Lutheran Week in Indianapolis, I tried to eat a sandwich made with the kind of crumbly, disintegrating bread that used to give gluten-free a bad name. After lunch, Wayne asked me about the diet I had to keep in light of Celiac Disease and a heart attack I had nine years ago. As we rode down an escalator, I told him, “You know, some days I can’t wait to be with Jesus in eternity, partly because I’ll be able to eat whole wheat bread and run and play baseball again.” 

Some people near us on the escalator giggled when they heard me say that. And it is funny. I chuckled too. But don’t all Christians sometimes fantasize about the things we’ll do in eternity with Jesus once we’re free of the constraints of sin, death, and darkness that pervade this life?

But there’s a danger to our lives as Christians in focusing too much on eternity: It may cause us to ignore what Jesus calls the crisis of living each day in this world, in this life, as followers of Jesus Christ. 

We can get so accustomed to thinking that Jesus is on our sides, taking Him and the free gift of eternal life with God He gives to all who believe in Him, for granted, and thus, feeling free to do, say, and live any way we decide to. 

Listen: Jesus has not set us free from sin and death so that we can ignore His will. 

He has not set us free from sin and death so that we can ignore the needs of our neighbors or the injustice, bigotry, or hatred with which the world treats them. 

Jesus has not set us free from sin and death so that we can view our church membership as a get-out-of-hell pass while ignoring the need our neighbors have for Jesus’ salvation, ignoring that about a quarter or more of our neighbors have zero religious belief.

This means that every day a Christian lives on this earth faces a crisis. I’m using that word as Jesus does in John 12:31, where He says, “Now is the time for judgment on this world,” which is more literally translated from the Greek in which all the New Testament writers originally composed their books: “Now is the crisis [κρίσις] of this world.” 

Here, Jesus is saying that, in this life, in each moment of this life, you and I deal with a decision point, a moment when we must make a judgment. And the judgment we must make is this: 

Will we turn to Jesus or will we turn away from Him?  

Will we turn to the world, to what’s easy, to what’s socially acceptable, to what’s safe, to what’s advantageous to us if heedless of the needs of my neighbor, to go along to get along or will we turn in repentance and faith to Jesus?

Our gospel lesson for this morning, Luke 12:49-56, finds Jesus turning abruptly from answering questions about the end of earth’s days after which all who have trusted in Him will live in His fully perfected kingdom, to the crisis the confronts us each day: the judgment you and I must make as to whether in this moment--at work, in our relationships, at home, in the world--we will turn to Jesus and live or walk away from Jesus and experience death.

Take a look at our lesson, please. Jesus begins: “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” 

These words don’t fit with the world’s usual image of Jesus, the Jesus of the sentimentalists who think Jesus was a wonderful guy, but not someone they have to answer to. 

Fire, an image that Jesus and the early Church used in talking about the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of judgment and of cleansing. 

Jesus, to be sure, has come into the world to bring salvation and peace with God to all who believe in Him. 

But He has also come to singe us in the purifying flames of God’s judgment, to burn away all that’s evil, unwholesome, and unloving, in order to refine us like precious metals, separating us from sin and death. 

To truly trust in Jesus begins with truly understanding, daily, that we are sinners who need to confess our sin, divesting ourselves of our addiction to sin. Then, purged of death and darkness, we can rise to newness of life. 

This is what happens to us in Holy Baptism: first, our old selves are drowned, then our new selves, God’s brand new creatures, rise. 

Because the old self still lurks until the days of our physical deaths and resurrections, the Christian life is composed of returning each day to the Lord of the baptismal font for this same death and resurrection to happen again and again. 

Romans 6:4 reminds us, “We were therefore buried with [Jesus Christ] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” This new life is what God wants to give to all people through faith in Jesus every single day!

Then Jesus says: “But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” 

Jesus wants to bring each person who hears His name to the crisis point to which we all need to come in order to receive Him and the life that only He can give to us. 

But before that could happen, Jesus had to undergo the baptism of death on a cross. 

His mission on earth would only be fulfilled when He did this and could say, “It is finished.” 

On the cross, Jesus shares the death that belongs to every human being from the moment we are born: the death of separation from the One Who gives life. It was from this place of separation that Jesus cried from the cross, “My God! My God! Why have You forsaken me.” 

But because God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, in the waters of Baptism, we share in Jesus’ death so that the Father too, can raise those who trust themselves and their whole lives to Jesus. It was to accomplish this for you and me that Jesus couldn’t wait--He felt constrained to go to the cross, set His face for Jerusalem--that Jesus went to the cross.

Jesus then says: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

In this life, anyone who dares to follow Jesus, who daily turns to Jesus to seek the death of their old selves and the creation of their new selves, who live in what we Lutherans call “daily repentance and renewal” can expect that even members of our own families will turn against us. 

Or that, at any rate, they won’t understand us. 

Likely, everyone here has taken shots for following Jesus from someone in their family: siblings, cousins, parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren. Or, they have experienced not being understood. I know that I have. It’s just part of following Jesus.

At this point in our lesson, Jesus addresses the end of this world when He will return to judge the living and the dead in light of how we address the crisis--the judgment points--we face every day. “He said to the crowd: ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, “It’s going to rain,” and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, “It’s going to be hot,” and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?'”

Where Jesus lived in the first century AD, if people saw clouds in the west, they knew that rain was coming in from the Mediterranean and if they felt hot winds coming from the Negev to the south, they knew were in for a heatwave. People knew how to read those meteorological signs. 

But here is Jesus, God the Son, standing right in front of these people, His identity as God and Savior repeatedly confirmed by miracles, signs, and wonders, by His words, by His compassion, by His sinlessness, yet they ignore all these signs. 

They don’t see that they need to turn to Jesus now and believe in Him. 

It’s as though they’re holding out for more proof, which will soon come in His death and resurrection, though most of the crowds who thronged to Jesus during His life on earth would never believe in Him even after He rose from the dead. 

It’s as though too, the crowd is waiting for a better offer. “Maybe,” they seem to think, “we can follow Jesus, but from a distance, getting just enough of Him to get the blessings He offers, but not close enough to actually have to give up the old sins we love so much, not close enough to actually hear Him call us to a life of love of God and love of neighbor, of worship and prayer, of witness to others for Jesus. Maybe we can have Jesus without being changed by Him, without being His disciple.” 

Folks, it doesn’t work like that. As you’ve heard me say before (and as I need to be constantly reminded myself): We will either have all of Jesus or we will have none of Jesus at all.

I’m guessing that the hesitation of the crowd surrounding Jesus that day is no different from the hesitation felt by most people in most churches in North America. They don’t perceive the crisis of each moment, the need to turn to Jesus for life and forgiveness right now in every right now of life because life in this world can end in the blink of an eye and then there will be no more opportunity to turn to Jesus and live. 

It’s because of this hesitation in the churches of the US, Canada, and Europe that, 

Today, there are nearly as many Lutherans in Ethiopia as there are in the U.S. There are now more Baptists in Nagaland (an eastern state in India) than there are in [all of] the southern states of the U.S. There [are] more Christians worshipping in China [on this] Sunday than there [are doing so] here in the U.S. or in all of Europe! 

Christians in America have largely lost their sense of urgency about being and making disciples--about turning to Jesus and inviting others, despite the possibility of rejection, to turn to Jesus too. 

We have forgotten the moment to moment crisis that is the permanent state of being in this fallen world.

But Jesus’ call is still urgent, folks. He says: “The time has come...The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” 

There isn’t a better moment to follow Jesus than right now, in this moment in which God allows you to live on this earth. 

There isn’t a better moment to share Jesus with others than right now on this earth. 

Because Jesus saves us by grace through faith in Christ alone, may this always be our prayer: 

Jesus, what do you want me to do or say, who do you want me to listen to, pray for, or serve right now?

And then may we do what He calls us to. 

We don’t have to wait for a perfect time to live in the freedom Jesus gives to His disciples.

In the crisis moments--the decision points--of each day, may we always turn to Jesus. Amen

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

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.]