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Oct 23, 2016 – humbled

In the OT lesson and the psalm, we hear echoes of those whom the Pharisee represented in the story Jesus told in the gospel lesson. In the Old Testament lesson, Amos says in the 1st verse, woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria. Indeed, the Pharisee’s first words reveal what’s in his heart when he says, I thank you God I’m not like others. That’s a man who feels secure in himself.

There’s no humility in those words. And then in the psalm it says the arrogant cannot stand in the presence of God. And yet here is the Pharisee standing in the temple with nothing but arrogance on his lips. He compares himself to those whose sins are outward and generally easy to spot, robbers, evil doers, adulterers and then the tax collector.

This Pharisee’s a man easy to dislike and easy to separate ourselves from. We can easily get caught up in this trap as did one little boy in Sunday school. After doing some very fine teaching on this parable with his class, the teacher asked the boys to each say a prayer before they left. One little boy’s prayer was, ‘we thank thee God that we are not like that Pharisee!’

And while it may be cute, that prayer is in fact at the heart of Jesus parable. That boy’s prayer was the Pharisee’s prayer right? That’s because we generally like to identify with the tax-collector when we hear this story since he leaves the temple justified before God through his humble confession. After all we have made our confession today so we’re like the tax-collector. Easy – peasy, lets go home, right? Not so fast.

Why did the tax collector go home justified? Because he confessed his sin, his sin! He not only confessed his sin, he was not even able to look upon the altar of God because of his fear of his sin and the wrath of God. Remember in our opening hymn we sang: Savior, when in dust to Thee – Low we bow the_adoring knee; When, repentant, to the skies     Scarce we lift our weeping eyes. Those words call to mind this tax collector.

If you’ve ever watched the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, there’s a character in the second and third movies called Davy Jones. And Davy Jones’ job is to take those who die in shipwrecks at sea down to his ‘locker’ – to death. But very often before he does that, if there are any survivors in the wreck, before he kills them and takes them away, he very coldly and cruelly spits out this question to each one, ‘Do ye fear death?’

Do you fear death? If you wish to identify with the tax collector and not the Pharisee, then your answer better be yes. After all it was his sin and the fear of God’s punishment of death on sin that lead him to confession.  Let me see if I can help each of us with identifying with the sins of the tax collector.

Isn’t it true you’ve been petty this week? How about jealous or mean? And of course, you haven’t ‘stretched the truth’ at all this week, have you? You really were feeling bad, really and going to work just wouldn’t have been right. And then again there’s that person you just really can’t stand. So what if what I said wasn’t really the nicest thing about them, it’s trruuue after all, isn’t it? And I am a truthful person!

Have you gotten the idea yet or do you need more? Perhaps lets listen to Luther:

For if someone is not a murderer, adulterer, or thief, and abstains from external sins, as that Pharisee did, he would swear, being possessed by the devil, that he is a righteous man; therefore, he develops the presumption of righteousness and relies on his good works. God cannot soften and humble this man or make him acknowledge his misery and damnation any other way than by the Law. Therefore, the proper and absolute use of the Law is to terrify… and crush that brute which is called the presumption of righteousness. Thus says Luther.

Back in the psalm from today it says of God, that – you hate all who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies. Lies to himself and about himself are why the Pharisee left the altar still condemned in his sin. And Jesus didn’t use the tax collector because he was so noble. Jesus used him because he was so humbled by his sin. He was such a wreck of a person that he only had God’s mercy to rely on to relieve his guilty conscience.

I once told you about a man who died and went to heaven and St Peter met him at the gate and said, here’s how it works, you need a million points to get in. You tell me the things you’ve done and I’ll tell you how many points their worth. So the man starts – I was a faithful husband for 37 years. Great St Peter says, that’s worth 3 points. 3 points, the man thinks, oh wow! Ok, he says, I attended church nearly every Sunday, that’s got to count, right? Sure, says Pete, that’s 2 points. You’re kidding, the man says, how about this, I helped start a soup kitchen ministry and paid for most of it myself… and besides I was a regular tither to church. Wonderful, says Pete, that’s a point and a half. The man is sweating now and cries out, ‘at this rate the only way I’ll get in is by God’s mercy!’ ‘Now you’re catching on’, says St Peter. That’s the tax collector.

The tax collector knew, knew for certain that he had done wrong against God and His will. His burden of sin brought him to his knees. That is what it means if we’re to identify with the tax-collector. To him the Pharisee was better than he was, because it was true, as far as the tax-collector was concerned. And the tax collector knew it in his soul. That, that is why he feared death; He feared God’s wrath because he knew without a doubt that that was all he deserved at God’s altar.

Again, back in today’s psalm it says, Banish them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against you. Who of us hasn’t rebelled against God? Who has not succeeded in sinning? So, what are we to do? Where are we to turn in our despair and fear of death?

Listen again to what Jesus said at the end of His parable, after the tax-collector had gone home justified, Jesus said, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Did you catch the mood of the verbs here? That’s important for us. Those who humble themselves, active mood will be, passive mood, lifted up.

And back in the psalm today again it says, “But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy.” Refuge is what God grants us here at His altar. That is why we come here. That is what we seek… because of our sin – because of our desire to presume our own righteousness. And the fear that that brings.

Jesus by His blood from the cross and by His resurrection from the dead has become for us our refuge and protection. Yes, we fear death. Yes, we fear God’s judgment.

But, yes we also trust in His mercy and rely on His grace to redeem us from death which we know, like the tax-collector, we deserve. Like him and the psalmist, we trust in God and His righteousness that is made ours, (passive on our part), through Christ’s all sufficient death for us. So, we can join the tax collector in being lifted up… by the mercy of Christ alone. We do not exalt ourselves, that is done for us.

Again that’s passive on our part. A true humbling is all we bring. We humble ourselves in faith, in trust, that God and God alone through the sacrifice of Christ will exalt us. Our closing hymn will remind us of this when we sing, my faith looks up to thee, and then in the second verse, may thy rich grace impart, Strength to my fainting heart. Reminding us again, that it’s God’s work to grant us righteousness, faith and strength. We need only to trust in His work. And in that work of God we have, like the tax collector, our hope and peace.

We come to this altar each week and we declare His death to be the death we deserved. We don’t come expecting that we deserve His mercy, but that we come humbled by our sin in the light of His righteousness. And here, every time we gather at the altar of refuge we gratefully receive His gift of forgiveness that exalts us to the heights of heaven, made ours by Christ love. We have come in His name and like the tax collector, we leave justified by Jesus grace alone. In His name, amen.

Sermon #850 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

Old Testament Reading                                            Amos 6:1-7

1 Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria,        you notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come!

2 Go to Calneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath,        and then go down to Gath in Philistia.        Are they better off than your two kingdoms? Is their land larger than yours?

3 You put off the evil day and bring near a reign of terror.

4 You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches.        You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves.

5 You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments.

6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions,        but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.

7 Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.

Epistle                                                                            2 Timothy 4:6-8
6 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure.

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Psalm 5 (is read responsively)                                                                                     antiphon v. 11a

L  But let all who take refuge in you be glad;         let them ever sing for joy.

L  Give ear to my words, O LORD,         consider my sighing.

C  Listen to my cry for help,         my King and my God, for to you I pray.

L In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;        in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.

C  You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil;         with you the wicked cannot dwell.

L  The arrogant cannot stand in your presence;         you hate all who do wrong.

 C  You destroy those who tell lies;          bloodthirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors.

L  But I, by your great mercy, will come into your house;         in reverence will I bow down toward your holy temple.

C  Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness          because of my enemies— make straight your way before me.

L  Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with destruction.         Their throat is an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceit.

C  Declare them guilty, O God! Let their intrigues be their downfall.         Banish them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.

L  But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy.          Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.

C  For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous;          you surround them with your favor as with a shield.

L  But let all who take refuge in you be glad;          let them ever sing for joy.             

Holy Gospel                                                                         Luke 18:9-17
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself:
‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—
or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven,
but beat his breast and said,
‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
15 People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them.
16 But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
17 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

 

 

Oct 16, 2016 – Tenacious Prayer!

C.S. Lewis once said: “A person cannot remain ‘a good egg’ forever. One must either hatch or rot.” In the gospel lesson we just read there is another ‘either / or’ sort of thing. Luke tells us that the parable that Jesus tells is about prayer and tenacious faith. Luke sets up this parable in such a way that we learn we either pray or we give up.

The point Jesus is making about praying is, it’s an ‘either / or’ condition. We either pray, tenaciously or we give up and lose heart. When we pray we receive encouragement because we understand and believe that God hears our prayer.

It may be that what drives us to prayer might be that we’re sad, tired or weary, but if we pray we have not lost heart. We can’t give up when we pray, because we have hope in God through Jesus Christ.

If we didn’t have that we wouldn’t pray!

Sometimes we face situations that leave us lost or bewildered and thinking we want to give up. When we face exhaustion or unhappiness we can give in to it; we can spend sleepless nights trying to figure our own way out of whatever the situation is. Either of these responses leads us into a downward spiral.

However, God alone has the power to deliver us from our despair. And He does that by His promise to hear us and by granting us the faith to move forward in Him. God is the content of our faith (X2) and He never gives up on us. The cross of Christ proves that.

Jesus died in order that we might realize and know God’s tenacious love for us. And He rose from the grave to guarantee to us the restoration of our relationship with God. So, when we pray to God, we do so in the name of Jesus and that Name alone sustains us through any and all trials of life. Why? Because He’s the proof that God is for us.

I have seen the poor begging from the rich, refusing to go away, and persistently reaching out their hands to receive charity. But who ever saw the rich following the poor with a hand filled with gold, refusing to go away, persistently pressing them to accept the gift, even begging them to receive it? Yet, to the amazement of both angels and demons, our holy and righteous God does this very thing with sinful human beings – holding out to us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life in His Son.

The hope and promise of that, assures us that God – God in heaven above – hears our prayers. God is madly in love with us and provides His comfort, compassion and strength through any and all circumstances that come our way. But, when we refuse to turn to God in prayer – in those times when we’re frustrated or angry or despondent – and we refuse to pray, then we deny to ourselves God’s care.

But as we turn to God, in Christ alone and pray, then we cannot give up or lose heart because, with that change, we’re focusing on and trusting in the character of the One who loves us; Who loved us so much that He sent His Son to prove it.

In the gospel parable, the woman persists in seeking justice from the judge. It’s a daily thing for her. The daily, hourly, moment-by-moment habit of prayer that we, like she with the judge, cultivate is for our benefit, not God’s. God knows our needs and hopes. We’re the ones who need to tenaciously speak our needs to God so we can be clear about what we are asking God for. Only with that clarity will we then learn to trust Him for those needs.

As we remember that we’re speaking in to the ears the living God of heaven and earth, the Creator of all that is; as we remember that, we learn that we don’t come to Him to ask for those things that help us just to keep up with our neighbors. No, we learn to ask for the things that we truly need.

Things like hearts of repentance – of trust – of the desire to know more of the righteousness of Christ in our lives. ‘Yes’ you might say, ‘but I need help with my rent’. True, and such things the God of heaven knows when you ask Him. He will provide, though how He will, I can’t stand here and tell you.

What I can tell you is that you cannot pray to ask God for help with your rent without believing that somehow He will help. Otherwise why would you be praying? Prayer is what God has promised to hear for the sake of Jesus who died to restore us to Himself. Our focus in prayer is not on pestering God till He gives in to our whims; it is tenaciously trusting in the content of God’s character as revealed in Jesus Christ to provide for all our needs of body, life and soul.

In the parable the judge is unjust. But justice is not within the person of the judge; it is external to the judge though it’s in his power to grant it. (X2) That judge is nothing like God – in whom is all justice.

St Paul says to Timothy today, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead. God, as our judge, grants us by grace alone, what we don’t deserve, mercy. We pray to Him persistently because His character is what we put our hope in. We don’t put our hope in our desires. Often our prayers and our trust falter if God doesn’t respond immediately like we think He should to what we desire!

We tend to lack the persistence that we hear about in today’s Old Testament lesson. But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And here, in the bulletin, someone is missing a ring and we’ve kept it in to find out who it is.

Remember this story from a couple months ago, A woman telephoned the manager of a concert hall asking about a valuable diamond pendant she’d lost there the previous night. The manager asked her to hold the line, and he went to where she thought she might have dropped it. He found the pendant, and returned to the phone, only to discover that she had become impatient and had hung up. He had no way of reaching her because she hadn’t left her name. Her lack of persistence cost her dearly.

So often people quickly question God’s love and care if He doesn’t immediately respond in the way they desire. Remember God is always going to do what is best for us, and when it is best for us. That’s because of His character, because of Who He is! We trust in Him, not in our own timetable.

Waiting on God is something that is learned. Again as St Paul said to Timothy today, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15^ and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Prayer, too, is learned. Prayer is learned through doing.

Let me give you something you can use in your prayer-life. Write the word ACTS in a column. Now out to the side of each letter write these words. For A write Adoration. For C, Confession. For T, Thanksgiving, and for S, Supplication.

Using these 4 elements in our prayers can help guide us in grasping hold of, and focusing in prayer, on the character of God as we pray. First, as we take time to focus on God in Adoration – that is praising Who He is, giving Him glory and honor – as we do that, we grow in our appreciation for God’s mercy and grace.

Next as we allow ourselves to Confess our faults – our sins – that too helps us to more clearly focus on God’s grace to us. When we acknowledge our sins to God we do so in full confidence of His forgiveness to us in Christ. Confession frees us up to then return honest Thanks to Him.

So then, in Thanking God for His gifts and grace to us we can find a new heavenly perspective on what is confronting us in our daily life. When our heart focuses on truly giving God thanks, whatever is troubling us, it can now be seen in a different light. It may not remove our troubles or pain, but allowing ourselves to concentrate on giving thanks to God for His mercy to us in Jesus, puts that pain and sorrow into a less all-consuming position in our lives.

Now comes Supplication. Asking God to supply our needs. When we give adoration to God, confess our sins and acknowledge His forgiveness to us in the blood of Jesus, and return true thanks to God; when we do those things first, we put ourselves in a frame of mind that makes it easy to share all our true needs with God. We are also now in a posture to receive what God supplies.

Yes of course He knows our needs, but now, after A, C & T, when we come to S – Supplication, we now have a fresh and new perspective on what is troubling us. As we approach God appealing for our needs, we can perhaps ask that they be met in a way we had not considered before spending time in the ACT of prayer.

Again, as we started out talking today, when we pray we are not losing heart, neither are we giving up. Jesus told this story so that we might learn to pray. Our view of life is changed when we pray. Not because of any so called ‘power in prayer’, no the power is in the One Jesus teaches us to pray to! In praying we’re coming to the Father in heaven above. Such a thing is a great gift that is ours only through the blood of Jesus Christ. And through that blood we have access to the very ear of God. Can anything in our lives be too much for Him to hear about? No.

And in building the habit of prayer we learn to lean more and more on the character of God, on His great mercy and kindness. In doing that, through whatever pain, trial or hurt we face we are tenacious and do not lose heart, because God hears us, for Jesus sake. In His name, amen.

Sermon #849 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

First Reading                                           Genesis 32:22-30
22^ That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23^ After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24^ So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25^ When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27^ The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28^ Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
29^ Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

 Second Reading                                                            2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
14^ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15^ and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16^ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17^ so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2^ Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3^ For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4^ They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5^ But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

Holy Gospel                                                                        Luke 18:1-8
18 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2^ He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4^ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5^ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7^ And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8^ I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

 

 

Oct 9, 2016 – Healed!
Today’s gospel lesson is a bit different than the several previous ones. We’ve had Jesus preach and teach on a lot of things this last month of Sundays: lost coins and sheep, the wasteful manager, the rich man and Lazarus and last week His teaching about repentance and absolute and total forgiveness. (Remember the whiteboard?) And this week is something different, now Jesus is healing.

And today He’s not just healing one person, He healed 10. 10 lepers – all at once. We tend to think in terms of the one because only one came back to give thanks, but Jesus’ healing was for all ten of these lepers. And all at the same time!

Amazing! Back when I was in the book business in Seattle I got to help a man over the phone on a few occasions. He was retired and his name was Dr. Paul Brand. He’d written several books having to do with healing and pain. You see as a missionary doctor he had worked with lepers in Hawaii and South Africa for many many years.

I’ll never forget that in one of his books, when he is describing the ‘gift of pain’ he tells the story of arriving at the leper colony in Africa. When he’s needing to get into an old building he finds that he can’t open the door because the lock is old and rusty and he simply can’t turn the key, it just won’t budge.

Along comes this 10 or 12-year-old boy with leprosy and tells the doctor he can open it, and he steps up, grabs the key and with a swift twist opens the lock. The boy smiles up at Dr Brand and, as the Dr is thanking him he notices that boy has gashed his hand all the way down to the bone with the key.

You see leprosy; known today as Hansen’s disease, kills off nerve endings. So this little boy had no experience of pain to prevent him from cutting himself on the key. The boy knew that and was able to cut himself without feeling pain. The obviously bad thing about that is, that the boy can deliberately choose to injure himself for something as petty as unlocking a door and smile about it. The infection and disease that can result from deliberate injury could kill the boy, but because he did not have the gift of pain, due to leprosy, he didn’t know to stop himself from injury.

Leprosy is a disease that can harm and kill the person who has and it can infect an entire community because it is communicable. Now today it can be treated, to some degree, thanks in part to the work of Dr Brand. But leprosy is still a disease that has both individual and social consequences, as sin also does.

Sin is individual and social. You know what sin is in your life and how it infects you personally. Things like wicked thoughts and bad desires, self-indulgence and toying with temptation are just some of the personal aspects of our own sinfulness. These can lead to distrust of, and anger toward, God as well as bringing on personally self-destructive behavior, not unlike the leprous boy and the rusty key.

Lies, deception and gossip too are our sins. And so sin can isolate us from others. Short tempers, impatience, and rash reactions can lead to gossip, jealousy, and unkind words that ruin relationships. Selfishness, silence and adultery ruin marriages. Disrespect, distrust and indifference cause rifts between children and parents. So sin is social too in that it infects our relationships with others.

And again, like the little boy, sometimes we choose sin thinking that we’re not really hurting anyone because we don’t perceive the pain of our sin. We continue to choose sin because we don’t think there is pain with it since, after all Jesus died for it – not us. Such choices are ways the disease of sin separates us from God. And that is true pain.

Sin isolates us from God. We are the lepers standing far from Jesus. Our sin does separate us from our Lord. And, left untreated, just like leprosy can kill, so sin can damn us forever and eternally separate us from God. So, we, like the 10 lepers, cry out to Jesus.

The lepers didn’t presume to rush up to Jesus or grab him and demand healing. They didn’t ‘study’ Jesus and ‘meditate’ on His teachings and make a conclusion to trust Him. No, they were desperate but humble, recognizing their leprosy; the thing separating them from Him and from others. They call out from a distance, they cry out, and beg. Luther said as much of us in his final recorded words – “we are beggars, it is true.” We, as sinners, do the same thing as the 10 men.

We also come before our Lord, acknowledging our sin; like we talked about last week, when we spoke about repentance and total forgiveness. We don’t come to Jesus and presume anything or demand anything. Nor do we come to Jesus and try to earn His mercy or show Him by our good works that we deserve His mercy. We know better. We are sinners. All we can do is beg and cry out for mercy. In our worship we demonstrate this for ourselves.

What comes early in the liturgy – in our worship – Distance! We acknowledge we’re far away from our Lord when we confess our sin. We come asking God for forgiveness. And when we use the Kyrie, we use the same words spoken by the lepers: “Lord, have mercy.”

And how, then, does Jesus react to our cry? Does He keep His distance? Does He avoid defiling himself, as would a pious Pharisee?

No! Remember from the epistle lesson what Paul says – The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself.

Neither leprosy nor sin pushes Jesus away from us. Jesus will not deny what He has done for us in His dying on the cross and rising again to new life, a new life that He gives to us just as He gave healing to the 10 lepers. To them He speaks words of healing and forgiveness: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

Meaning they will have been made clean and healed. “I will make you clean” is His promise. To us, Jesus says the same thing through the words of absolution: “I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins.”

Sin doesn’t push Jesus away; instead, rather He comes to us, and He takes away our sin. As Dr. Brand went to the lepers to help them, in a greater way Jesus comes to us. He came to earth to take our sin away: to bear for us the pain of sin even when, like a leper, we don’t feel our sin. And, no matter how disgusting our sin is, no matter how it has disfigured us or Him, Jesus takes it to the cross. And there, bearing our disfiguring sin, He dies for it: All of it.

Even sin done after we’ve been healed and forgiven through baptism, confession and absolution or after Holy Communion. Even sin we choose, like boy choosing to injure himself with the rusty key. Still we repent and still He forgives. Like we spoke of last week, how often to you return to the doctor’s office (?) as often as needed. Sin does not keep Jesus away from us.

Jerome was one of the great fathers of the early Christian Church who translated the Bible into the language of the people. One night Jerome had a dream that Jesus came to visit his home. In the dream he collected all of his money and gave it to Jesus as a gift of love. The Lord said, “I don’t want your money.” So Jerome rounded up all of his possessions and tried to give them to Jesus. Again the Lord said, “I don’t want your possessions.” In his dream Jerome turned to Christ and asked, “Lord, what can I give you? What do You want?” Jesus replied, “First, give me your sin – that’s what I came for. I came to take away all your sins. Give me your sin!”

Sin does not push Jesus away, even our sin of choice like the boy; Jesus truly wants us to cry out to Him in confession and give Him all our sin so that He may forgive us with His absolution. Again, that happens as we gather each week in worship together. Just as sin is both individual and corporate, so also forgiveness can be received corporately and individually. These ten lepers were all healed, and yet they each received the healing personally.

But now we have the issue of the one who alone returns to give thanks. There is only one. And he is the only one to hear Jesus words. “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Only this man, a foreigner, not a Jew, comes back to Jesus after showing himself to the priest and discovering that he was cleansed; only this man returns to give thanks to Jesus.

When we don’t return the gratitude we should by forgetting to worship, or by mumbling through our prayers, or by not gratefully returning to Him our tithes, offerings and talents, even these things don’t keep Jesus from us. But what they do is keep us from hearing what Jesus would say to us.

When we forget to return thankfulness to God for the grace of Jesus Christ, we’re the one’s who lose out. Just as the 9 lepers never heard Jesus’ personal words to them, so when we skip worship, withhold our prayers or get stingy with our time talents and treasures, we lose out on a closer relationship with Jesus that He has set us free for.

So then, in Jesus healing of us we have an opportunity, an invitation, if you will, to get closer to Jesus. Failing to give thanks is missing out on that invitation to be closer to Him. Because giving thanks is really about being close to Jesus. He has done the work that has brought us to Him by His healing and forgiving us through His death and resurrection.

Now we’re free to spend our daily lives being close to the One who has given us reason to praise Him and too long to know Him better. It’s like standing on the seashore. Where sea and land meet is a place that reminds me of being close to God.

I’ve spent my life on land, but there are a few times when I’ve been to sea on great ships. It’s a different life at sea than it is on land. But when you stand on the shore, with your feet being lapped at by the sea, you experience something of both places. You have a longing for both the safety of land, and yet you are drawn to the vastness of the sea and its foreign richness. The distance between the two is bridged there at the shore. You are part of both worlds there. And the cross of Christ does that for us between here and heaven. It brings us to the shore of heaven and we experience both longing and peace and we have, at the cross, the opportunity for praise.

The distance between God and us is indeed removed by that cross of Christ and His words of forgiveness. We are like Ruth in the Old Testament lesson, who clung to her mother-in-law Naomi and said, May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.

Having been made clean we can now return to Him, freely, in praise and thanksgiving and worship, with no fear of death, no boundaries or disease separating us from Him. Day-by-day, moment-by-moment we can draw close to Jesus in joyful gratitude and live our lives that way. We can be absolutely confident and joyful that He is always (x2) with us; that nothing can separate us from His love. The story of the ten lepers is our story. The one leper who returns is, by the grace of God, who we’re called to be. This worship that we take part in each week, is a worship of thanksgiving and praise for our Lord’s healing works and His words spoken to us that totally remove the leprosy of our sin.

As beggars of the Lord we’re made clean, forgiven, holy, and free! We’re free to come to Him and praise Him, thank Him and to celebrate that He has made us one with He and the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. Through His work we are cleansed of our leprous sin, both now and always. Thanks be to God! Amen!

Sermon #848 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

Old Testament Reading                                                                Ruth 1:1-19a
1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2^ The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

3^ Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4^ They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5^ both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7^ With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. 9 May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10^ and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

11^ But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— 13^ would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

14^ At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

15^ “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

16^ But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17^ Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19^ So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem.

Epistle Reading                                                                     2 Timothy 2:1-13
2 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. 3 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. 5 An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. 6 It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. 7 Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

8 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, 9 for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 11 The saying is trustworthy, for:

If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.

Holy Gospel                                                                                         Luke 17:11-19
11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

 

 

Oct 2, 2016 – Forgive!

Garrison Keillor, in one of his monologues from Lake Woebegone, remembers a headline following a tornado that read: “First Lutheran Church Destroyed; Town Unaffected!” What a thought! Can you imagine a disaster completely destroying Zion Lutheran Church, and seeing the headline: “Zion Lutheran Church Destroyed; Bolivar Unaffected.” Would Bolivar notice if we disappeared? Would the loss of our influence be felt? Would the loss of our witness matter?

“You are my witnesses” is what the banner for this LWML Sunday reads. But what is it we’re to witness to? And what is the influence of our witness to look like. That is something we can hardly ever predict or anticipate.

Like this story from the mission field back in the ‘50’s. Johnnie Hasegawa was the houseboy of a Lutheran missionary in Tokyo. The missionary taught Johnnie the good news of Jesus Christ. Johnnie was so overjoyed with the good news of forgiveness and life in Jesus that he had to find a way to share it.

His father had a large office in the farmer’s cooperative in Totsuka. All on his own, and unknown to the missionary, Johnnie started a Sunday School in his father’s office. In just a short time more than 100 children were attending. With the room busting at the seams, Johnnie asked for help from the missionary and a larger space was provided. Imagine how overjoyed the missionary was to discover that his witness to his houseboy had resulted in a Sunday School of more than 100 students.

As we remain faithful witnesses to God’s love and mercy we simply can’t foresee how God may use our influence. And it’s important in our witness to proclaim, as Jesus tells us in the Luke passage on the banner, “repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” That is the influence we bring to Bolivar. We bring a witness to the repentance and forgiveness that comes to us in Jesus Christ. That is what influenced little Johnny to start a Sunday school class. Jesus makes that clear in the words on this banner and also in the words from the gospel lesson today.

“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

Confession and absolution are God’s only remedy for the sickness of sin that we carry. That remedy is what God has prescribed for our relationship with Him and our relationships in our congregations, communities and homes.

In the gospel lesson today Jesus is referring to relationships that need the healing of forgiveness. “if your brother sins… comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” Those are Jesus words to us about how we care for one another in this church and this town.

Are there offenses and hurts that need to be healed between brothers and sister here? What about in our own families? Are there hurts between spouses or siblings, between parents and children that need the soothing balm of forgiveness applied to them? I’m not talking about something that’s a ‘one-time’ cure-all either.

No, forgiveness is our lifestyle as Christians. We’re in the ‘business of forgiveness’. That is our ‘family’ business. Our business is the reconciliation we share with one another which stems from the reconciliation we’ve been granted from God through the work of Jesus Christ alone. And telling that, letting others know that that forgiveness is for them as well, is our family business. Like Johnny the Sunday school leader.

Forgiveness is an act of will, not of feeling. Forgiveness is an intentional choice that does not deny the hurt, does not excuse the sin or pretend the offense never happened, rather it allows the blood of Jesus to cover, cleanse and wash away the guilt of the offense. It frees both parties to move beyond the hurt to the restoration and rebuilding of relationship, no matter how many times forgiveness is asked for.

The only other alternative is to remain closed-off and hurt. That means we deny that God has first forgiven us. And who among us has suffered hurt to the extent that God has suffered? Who has suffered their own creation rebelling and turning against them as God has? For us to hold onto our hurts and to deny forgiveness to others, is to tell God that our hurts are greater than His.

That brings us right back to the Garden of Eden where we again tell God that He is not God but we are. When we refuse to forgive, we say that God’s way of restoring relationships is not valid for us. And so we deny God. So how then do we see the forgiveness God has given us? Perhaps we can think about how often and how to do forgiveness this way – from something St Cyril of Alexandria said,

“We must… imitate those whose business it is to heal our bodily diseases and who do not care for a sick person once only or twice, but just as often as he happens to become ill. Let us remember that we also are liable to infirmities and overpowered by our passions… It is our duty, having common mutual infirmities, to bear one another’s burdens, so we will fulfill the law of Christ.”

You don’t go to the doctor only once when you’re sick do you? No. You go as many times as needed to receive the healing medicine or care that they provide. That is true for us with repentance and forgiveness. We forgive others as often as we’re asked. And what if repentance is not forthcoming?

Then Jesus makes it clear we seek out the other person and let them know we’ve been hurt. This is no less than what God has done with us in the law. God’s law is one way He tells us how we’ve offended and hurt Him. And with Him there is no end to His forgiveness as we come to Him in repentance. So also with each other, we are to put no limit on our forgiveness toward one another.

Why do you think after saying, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” that the apostles said, to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” ?

That’s because as good Jewish boys they learned from the Pharisees that forgiveness is something that you are not to be too free or too generous with. In fact, it was the common understanding that 3 times, three times was the limit to a person granting forgiveness in a day. So when Jesus said, to forgive up to 7 times, He was blowing the doors off their understanding of forgiveness.

That was unheard of, to forgive not just twice ‘the limit’; but twice the limit plus 1. The point of what Jesus is saying and the reason the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith is that God’s forgiveness is total and complete and is without limit.

Let me give you two examples of forgiveness: 1. You sin (scribble on a clean sheet of paper) and ask for forgiveness. I wad up the paper and throw it in a wastebasket. You sin again and I do the same thing. (Repeat this) 2. Now the second picture. You sin (scribble on a chalkboard) and ask for forgiveness. I erase the sin and forgive you. You sin again and I do the same thing. (Repeat this)

Which way does God forgive? They’re not the same because in the first example I can go to the wastebasket and count the number of times I forgave you. But on the chalkboard the evidence is gone. We cannot keep count of how many times we forgive because forgiveness is the complete removal of guilt. There is no record of the previous sin.

That is how God forgives us, completely and with no record of it. And that is what we are given by the blood of Jesus Christ shed from the cross. God forgives us completely because Jesus has paid the price completely for us. So in our relationship with God, God has provided, through the death on the cross and resurrection of Jesus for our forgiveness.

We are called to repent, that is, admit and confess our sin, turn from our sin, and and trust God’s work in His Son Jesus Christ that has atoned for our sin and our sinful nature. We now have no shame or guilt and instead, possess the promise of God in the forgiveness of God. That forgiveness is now our life and cannot be taken away from us.

I’ve read, “The society of the forgiven has no meaning if those who are forgiven are themselves unforgiving.” (X2) Forgiveness now becomes our default position with each other because that’s how God has treated us. We’re given forgiveness both to sooth and comfort us in our broken relationship with God and then we turn and use that same forgiveness to sooth and comfort each other. In the Lord’s Prayer we say ‘forgive us our trespasses… as …we forgive those who trespass against us.’ We can say that because forgiveness is what God has first given us. We’re then in the position of passing that on. We’re not in the position to judge others, but to be sympathetic toward them knowing our own sin and God’s forgiveness.

Remember as Christians, our business is forgiveness. As the first missionaries among the Eskimos in North America sought to translate the Scriptures, they often had difficulty finding Eskimo terms equivalent to biblical words. One such word was ‘forgiveness’. They could find no single term that was identical in meaning, so they made a compound noun which literally meant “Not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore.” That is how God treats us.

And that is how we are called to treat each other. You and I, have been treated so much better than we deserve by God, the One who, for the sake of the blood of Christ is-not-able-to-think-about -(our)- sin-anymore. As the banner reminds us You are His witnesses… of forgiveness.
Go and do likewise, in Jesus name. Amen.

Sermon #847 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

Old Testament Reading                                                              Habakkuk 2:2-4
2 I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

2^ Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.

3^ For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come     and will not delay.

4^ “See, the enemy is puffed up;     his desires are not upright—     but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness.”

Epistle                                                                                                   2 Timothy 1:7-10
7^ For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 8^ So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10^ but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Holy Gospel                                                                                     Luke 17:1-5
17 Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. 2^ It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3^ So watch yourselves.

“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

Sept 25, 2016 – Listen!

Waiting to be interviewed for a job as a wireless operator, back in the days when Morse code was used for telegrams, a group of applicants paid little attention to the sound of the dots and dashes which began coming over a loudspeaker. Suddenly one of them rushed into the employer’s office. Soon he returned. “I got the job!” he said.

“How did you get in ahead of us?” they asked.

“You were busy talking so that you didn’t hear the manager’s coded message,” he replied. “It said, ‘The man I need must always be on the alert. The first one who interprets this and comes directly into my private office will be hired.'” This man listened while the others didn’t.

‘If they do not listen’ is a key phrase to understanding the gospel lesson today where Jesus tells us the story of the rich man and Lazarus. To hear the word of God and believe the gospel, that’s key to what Jesus is driving at today.

“Faith comes by hearing” so Romans 10:17 tells us. A person hears the gospel and so believes. People aren’t argued or convinced into faith. In the story Jesus tells, the man in torment seems to say that he would have lived life differently – that he would have ‘believed’ – if he’d heard from someone who had been where he was now, in hell, and had come back from the dead and told him about it.

The truth for us is that Jesus has done that very thing the rich man wanted. Jesus has been through death, He has gone to hell as we profess in the creeds, and has resurrected in triumph. And still today what Jesus said, ‘they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ remains true. Though He has gone there and come back again, still many people will not listen to Him.

However, if they will listen to the gospel; if they will hear what the law and the prophets say then, then by hearing God’s good news they may believe. Jesus said through the parable that we have Moses and the prophets to listen to and they tell us of God’s love.

We don’t have to argue anyone into the kingdom of God. Knowing that makes what we do easier; we have to convince no one of anything. Sometimes I think our fear of witnessing stems from trying to convince ourselves. Rather faith is its own conviction without need of being propped up by some sense of a man-made or people-pleasing argument.

What God did in sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross and rise is, arguably, not rational or reasonable by any person’s standards. The gospel is not reasonable, rather it is fanatical. That’s because God’s love for you is that of a fanatic. God gave His only Son’s life to save yours.

That’s the act of someone desperately in love and no amount of logic or human reasoning was going to stop God from doing what He did. That’s not say that faith is not reasonable. It is… on its own terms. And those terms are love and love alone. What does John 3:16 say, for God so loved the world that He gave His only son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

It is trust in Jesus being the Son of God that is both the object of and content of our faith. Faith is not magic, voodoo or some vague “spirituality”. It is firm trust that what God has spoken, stated and proclaimed in His word is true. That which is declared by His word, as it is heard, that is what grants us faith. When we hear what God has done in Jesus Christ, we respond to that and that alone.

Now does it help that nothing in archeology has ever contradicted scriptures? Sure that’s helpful, but that fact alone will not convince anyone to believe in God or His word, any more than someone rising from the dead would convince them. That’s what Jesus said in the gospel lesson through the parable. No, it’s God’s promise, that, when believed and trusted in, it’s His promise that grants us peace with the Father in heaven.

God has forever been about the forgiveness of peoples’ sin and the restoration of all people. The warnings in Amos today are meant as that, warnings that to distrust or to disbelieve God is to place yourself outside of His restoration, forgiveness and love. But placing ourselves outside of God’s love that’s a choice we make when we refuse to hear His word. When we choose, as did the ancient Israelites to ignore the love and mercy of God we remove ourselves from the protection of His love. We are then left in the grip of sin, fear and uncertainty.

As opposed to that, Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession so says St Paul to Timothy today. Timothy wasn’t coerced, or argued into belief, he was called – by the word of God, by hearing the word of God proclaimed to him since he was little child as we’ve come to understand it from these letters. St Paul makes reference to the faith of Timothy’s mother and grandmother. The conclusion being that Timothy was raised hearing the word of God, and through that hearing he was called to faith. And by the gospel and in response to that gospel, Timothy went on to be a pastor and continue that process of giving others the opportunity to hear the word of God.

What does it mean for you to hear the word of God proclaimed to you – here and now? What value is it to your life this week to have heard the good news proclaimed? There must be something of value for you here, so let me ask you. If this gospel is so valuable to you, don’t you think that others you know would also find value in the hearing of it? Why would we want to keep this most valuable thing quiet and hidden away from others in our life? Surely we find comfort and hope, joy and forgiveness, strength, peace and guidance from hearing God’s word. What kind of friend keeps such a treasure to themselves?

Toward the end of his life, the famous painter Renoir had great difficulty holding his brushes. Crippling arthritis threatened to steal his ability to paint at all. A fellow artist asked, “Why do you paint with such pain?” Renoir replied, “The pain usually passes, but the beauty always remains.”

I tell you this story because you have the opportunity to be Renoir. You have the beauty and comfort, the strength and peace of the gospel to describe to others. In our closing hymn we will sing these words, “The day of Resurrection, earth, tell it out abroad…” You don’t have to convince them of the truth, you have only to tell what the gospel means to you and how you see the world as a result of the good news of Jesus Christ dying on the cross and rising again from the tomb.

What Renoir did was paint, and he did this out of his need to share the beauty that God had given him sight to see. Painting a picture of what God has done for you in Christ is what telling the good news, the gospel, is all about. Jesus painted a rather bleak picture today of a man in torment, but Jesus said that by listening to the good news and believing it people are saved from this man’s torment.

Make no mistake – though Jesus is telling a parable, the reality of hell is every bit as bleak and forbidding as this scene describes, in fact I’m sure it’s quite a lot more. For us who have the gospel – to keep it from others is embarrassing at best and shameful as well. Since by withholding that good news, of Jesus’ resurrection victory over sin, death and Satan, withholding telling others about that, that can allow others to suffer the rich man’s fate in Jesus parable.

Again our job is not to convince someone that what we say is true. But our calling, our mission here is what? Hearing, Sharing and Living the Gospel.

Right it’s to simply say what we know to be true, that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, died on the cross and was resurrected from the dead to give peace with our Heavenly Father to all who trust in Jesus name.

We have the assurance that by the blood of Jesus Christ, we will be welcomed into the Father’s bosom at the close of our lives on earth, according to the picture Jesus painted to today.

Let us, like the Morse code operator, be ready and alert to seize what opportunities we may have to share with others the joy of being welcomed into heaven. Let us, like Renoir, paint that picture for our friends and family so they too may hear, may listen, and let the word of God call them as it called Timothy… to make the good confession that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. In His name, amen.

Sermon #846 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

Old Testament Reading                                                                        Amos 6:1-7
6 Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
you notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come!
2 Go to Kalneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath, and then go down to Gath in Philistia.
Are they better off than your two kingdoms? Is their land larger than yours?
3 You put off the day of disaster and bring near a reign of terror.
4 You lie on beds adorned with ivory and lounge on your couches.
You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves.
5 You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments.
6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions,
but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.
7 Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.

Epistle                                                                        1 Timothy 6:11-19
11 But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.                                   17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

Holy Gospel                                                                   Luke 16:19-31
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

 

Sept 18, 2016 – Servant or Slave?

We just sang – the captive to release, to God the lost to bring. Have you ever been a captive? Or who has been a slave? Think about what a slave is. Slavery isn’t easy for us to get, is it?

That’s a difficulty for us with Jesus analogy today. When He was talking in the gospel lesson about serving God or money He used a word that also gives us the word for slave. That idea, of truly and fully being a slave, is one that we find difficult to get our heads around today.

Since that’s hard for us to see in our own experience, let’s put it into terms we can better relate to. Think of it in terms of serving. So, how is serving different than slavery? To serve is to offer help; to be willing, not, forced or bound to help. By the way notice that Jesus makes the assumption that you will serve or be a slave to either God or the things of this world. 13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” That idea also is hard for us to hear, but it is true. We are bound to serve, but who we serve that is what Christ has set us free for.

To serve is to give of yourself to help another person. It’s a gift when you serve. Serving one another is action – not ‘stuff’ – and its action that’s a gift of love. Service is love made visible. (2X)

Serving out of obligation, as under the law, or out of a sense of debt –with an unwilling heart – rather than love, that’s only giving half a gift, and the lesser half at that. The greatest gift, St. Paul tells us in 1 Cor 13, is love. And service is wonderful when it’s motivated by love.

Here another thing about serving; it means you are able. That is, 1 – you have a body that is capable. 2 – a mind that can grasp what another person needs. And 3 – a willingness to do for them what they can’t do for themselves.

Regarding #1 – I heard an amazing story. A young man was injured in a diving accident. He’s now bound to a wheel chair for the rest of his life. Using a joystick with his wrist he’s able to move in his motorized wheelchair. After living in that wheelchair many years, he married a very special lady and together they have parented 21 handicapped foster children. 21 children think he’s the greatest father who has ever lived. God healed his spirit after his body was broken… and he / serves, motivated by love, not in the limitations of his flesh.

To serve is not asking you to do what you can’t do. Remember – Service is love made visible. As to #2 a mind that can grasp what another person needs. A pastor friend of mine said this: To the extent that I understand Christ’s sacrifice for me, in the same measure and to the same degree will I show and exhibit that Christ lives in me.

So we cannot serve someone without first understanding that their most basic need is to know the love of Christ. Serving seeks something for others that have a need that you can understand. As you understand the love of Christ that lives in you, you can serve to share that very love with others.

Remember – Service is love made visible.

And 3 –a willingness to do for them what they can’t do for themselves. Now, if you are able but not willing, that’s a different matter. Remember – Service is love made visible.

That gets us back to both the gospel lesson and the epistle lesson. Jesus said, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. Being trusted with what we’ve been given – our capacities, our money, our time, our abilities; these are things that God has entrusted to us. Jesus puts it to us today to consider how we use what we’ve been given.

And as He’s given Himself totally into death on the cross for our eternal benefit, so He calls us to give of ourselves for the benefit of others in the here and now. When we sang hymn 344 On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry verse 2 says, then cleanse be every life from sin; make straight the way for God within and let us all our hearts prepare for Christ to come and enter there.

Christ has entered into our hearts by grace through faith alone. He lives there as the One Who gives us the sight and strength to serve others and their needs. To serve others needs is not the same thing as solving their problems. It’s not up to us to solve another person’s problem. But to refuse them aid when we’re able is to remain selfish and closed.

Remember – Service is love made visible. That brings us to what Paul was saying in the epistle lesson he – and we – have been given the gospel, the good news of Jesus death and resurrection for the sin of the world, not for us to sit on or hide away selfishly; but for us to give away so that, as he referred to it in verse 4 – all people might be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth according to God’s will.

One writer identifies two kinds of Christians, those who wear a bib and those who wear an apron. Immature Christians view the church as a place that’s supposed to serve them. Mature Christians view the church as a place where they can serve others. Immature Christians tend to ask, “What are you going to do for me?” Mature Christians ask, “How can I serve my Lord and His people?”

Rightly serving God according to what Jesus pointed out today means not being a slave to anything or anyone on earth but to serve God.

A missionary in the interior of China was telling the story of Jesus to a group of people.  After a few stories from the Scriptures, one of the Chinese people said, “Oh, yes, we knew this man; He used to live here in this city!”  Somewhat surprised, the missionary corrected the man, “No, Jesus lived almost two thousand years ago in another land.”  The man insisted, “No, He lived in this village and I knew Him!”  Then the man led the missionary out to the village cemetery and showed him a grave – the grave of a medical missionary who had lived in that village, who lived among the people of the village and taught them, served them, healed them.  After many years of ministry, he died in the village.

That medical missionary is just one example of serving others from the heart of Christ. Remember – Service is love made visible. The medical missionary lived so that others could see Jesus through his life. We don’t need to leave our homes and travel overseas to serve others.

During his years in the Senate, Senator Robert Dole made a covenant with his home church that every week he would write a short note of concern to every member of his church family that was hospitalized or sick. He kept that covenant the whole time he served in the senate.

Then there’s a story about King Henry of Bavaria. The duties of his office once became so demanding that he decided to relinquish his crown and enter a monastery where he could live a quiet and simple life of service God. He humbly presented himself to the Prior, the head of the monastery. The Prior told the king that if he wished to serve God as a member of that order, he had to promise to be absolutely obedient. The king agreed. The Prior then gave this order: “Go back to your throne and serve God as King of this land. God will give you the strength to serve Him in your calling.”

Whatever your calling in life, seek to serve God in it to the very best of your ability, in that way you show others how Christ has first served you. And how it is that Christ continues to come serve us daily through His word and sacraments.

Let me close with something else St Paul said today. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men. Jesus, dying on the cross, served us by doing for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. Don’t forget, we’re not called to serve others with what we can’t do. We couldn’t save ourselves from our own sin – only Jesus could do that and so He came and served us by becoming the ransom for all. Remember – Service is love made visible.

Today we rejoice in our salvation because it is a free gift to us that we neither earned nor deserved, but rather we’ve been served with. By Christ coming to earth and granting us that gift of eternal life He first serves us. He put love into action for us on the cross and by His resurrection from the grave. He served us because we needed it. We then put on our aprons and serve others only because we have first been served – by Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Sermon #845 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

First Reading                                                                                                Amos 8:4-7

4^ Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land,

5^ saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”— skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, 6^ buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

7 The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.

 

Epistle Reading                                                                                   1 Timothy 2:1-7 2 I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2^ for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5^ For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6^ who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7^ And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.

 

 Holy Gospel                                                                                   Luke 16:1-15

16 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2^ So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

3^ “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

6^ “‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

7^ “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

8^ “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9^ I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

10^ “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12^ And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

13^ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

14^ The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15^ He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.

 

Sept 14, 2016 – Rejoice!

We just sang, in the words from Amazing Grace, about praising God and what that’ll be like in heaven.  In heaven we will do that, we will rejoice. And all the bible readings tonight call us to the topic of rejoicing. Today’s scripture readings are what cause us to focus on rejoicing. So let me ask you…What causes you to rejoice? Name some things that spring to mind for you when I say the word ‘rejoice’? Those are good things aren’t they? They give us feelings of joy, and perhaps fun and excitement.

In the gospel lesson today that’s what Jesus is saying, ‘Rejoice with me. Rejoice with God’. And that ‘God rejoices over you!’ We do what the shepherd did over his lost sheep and the woman with the lost coin did – we go / and / seek. We bear fruit in keeping with the repentance Jesus speaks of regarding sinners. That’s so that we may spread the good news of Jesus Christ having died on the cross and risen again for our restoration to God. And when someone joins us in worship, we rejoice.

That’s where Jesus calls us today to focus; on the joy that comes from those whom Jesus calls and brings into His flock; those who were lost and have been found – by the love of Jesus.

Notice that this is in great contrast to the Old Testament lesson today where there is much said about how God was unhappy, ‘un’-joyful, if you will. He was un-joyful over the state of things with His lost, scattered and uncared for sheep and how He Himself will take care of them and bring about justice and salvation for them. In just those 13 verses in Ezekiel, 18 times God says, ‘I will’. It’s all about what God will do. Not the sheep.

By the way, notice that all that the sheep do is muddy the water, trample the grass and push and shove aside the weak, injured and lame. The sheep are not so good with the justice, mercy and care. That’s all in the hands of the shepherd, of God, who says what He will do. Listen to the list of things He will do, He will: search and look and rescue. He will: bring and gather and pasture the sheep. He will: tend the sheep and bind up the wounded and strengthen the weak. That is what He has promised to do.

And that is what God has accomplished, in the wounds, works and words of Jesus, the Chief Shepherd. He has done the work of calling the lost and scattered. And through the innocent death of Jesus Christ on the cross and by His resurrection from the grave, God has done and accomplished all that He said He would do in the Old Testament lesson.

The Lord wants to draw all people to Himself – we know that. And He does that through His word / the bible / and through the sacraments He’s given us – baptism and communion. Through these He touches us with the promise of His grace and the fulfillment of the promises He made in Ezekiel. Those sacraments are His work of gathering and feeding, of caring for and binding up our wounds.

God, seeking out the lost and scattered is what we focus on here at Zion. We spend time in the Word so that we can give an accounting of the hope that is ours to anyone who asks us. We spend time building each other up here through, Sunday school, the LWML, the various groups that meet here, the Tuesday bible study, the preschool, the council and elders, and Worship in Wednesdays. All of these efforts are what we do to care for one another and to nourish each other ultimately on the word of God.

If we’re not here for the Word of God, then we’re really not ‘here.’ The Word of God is what gives us all that God has promised us – life and hope and faith through Jesus Christ. That Word is what we gather around and what we’re fed and watered by.

You’re like a water tower. If you keep opening the spigot at the bottom of the tower to give water, without filling the top of the tower with fresh water, you soon run dry. Then you can quench no one’s thirst for the love of God. We do well to take advantage of the classes and Bible studies and worship that refresh us with gospel so we, in turn, can supply that gospel in the dry and desert world around us.

Remember in the two stories Jesus told today there was much rejoicing. The rejoicing came because that which was lost had been found. That’s in keeping with what the Old Testament lesson today, where God Himself said He will do all that’s necessary to seek and save the lost.

Let me close with a story of my own instance of rejoicing. Most you’ve never seen this ring. It was my father’s ring that he earned for many years of safe driving for the Frito-Lay Company. I used to wear it all the time. But then one day I lost it. In fact, when Dana I were packing-up to move from Albany Oregon where we’d been for a few years, I thought I’d find it but never did.

One day, about year or so after we’d left Albany I got a call from the pastor I’d worked for there as his youth director. He said he found something that was mine and it turned out to be this ring. Pastor Anderson was mucking out the stalls where they kept the horses they raised. And there on the end of the pitchfork in a pile of fresh manure was this shiny object, my ring.

You see 2 years before, when they were on vacation, Dana and I looked after the horses and that meant carrying heavy buckets of water for them. Well, I’d taken off my ring and put it in my jeans pocket as the bucket handles pinched my hand where my ring was. It turns out I’d missed my pants pocket and the ring apparently ended up on the stall floor where one of the horses ate it. You see it’s bent on one side and what with it having been found in the manure, and not on it, Pastor concluded that it had gone through the horse’s intestines over the 2 years.

So yes, I rejoiced to have that which I’d lost returned to me, even though it took some time for it to get through its ‘unique’ journey. I’d given it up for lost but when it was returned to me, I had such a sense of wholeness and peace and joy, which could only come from having what was missed, restored.

This ring is you and I. We’ve gone missing from God; we’ve been lost among the muck of our sin. Like Paul said to Timothy we are among the chief of sinners. And yet Jesus has come and found us, He has called us away from our sin, to repent of it. By His blood, Jesus has made us clean and whole and new, and He has restored us to God. He kept His promise made in the Old Testament lesson today. He has saved us from our separation from God. As St Paul said today, Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

And because of what Jesus has done to accomplish that, God rejoices over you and me. We are the sheep that God rejoices over because He has done for us what He said He would do: search and look and rescue: bring and gather and pasture: tend and bind up and strengthen. All this He’s done for you and I through Jesus; rejoice in His name, amen!

Sermon #844 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

First Reading                                                                              Ezekiel 34:11-24
11 “‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 13^ I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. 14^ I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15^ I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. 16 I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

17^ “‘As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. 18^ Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? 19^ Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?

20^ “‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says to them: See, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21^ Because you shove with flank and shoulder, butting all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them away, 22^ I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. 23^ I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. 24^ I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken.

Epistle Reading                                                                 1 Timothy 1:12-17
12^ I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. 13^ Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14^ The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

15^ Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16^ But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. 17^ Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Holy Gospel                                                                         Luke 15:1-10
15 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3^ Then Jesus told them this parable: 4^ “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5^ And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6^ and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7^ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

8^ “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9^ And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10^ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Sept 4, 2016 – Terms of Peace!

On my last trip to Hawaii I got to spend some time on the deck of the battleship Missouri. On that ship is the place where, 71 years ago Friday, the document was signed ending WWII in the Pacific. The terms of peace involved the unconditional surrender of the Japanese to the allied powers in the Pacific Theatre. There was no negotiation that was involved in arriving at this.

It was really a very straightforward document that was signed that day. You can read a copy of it in a case next to the spot on the deck that has a bronze marker at the place where it was signed. Those terms of peace brought to an end the fighting, death and destruction that many of our fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers endured for the years of struggle to get to that point.

Without those terms of peace being met, the fighting and death would have continued. But by agreeing to those terms, the Japanese made it possible to end the war. They laid down their arms, took up the pen, and signed the agreement. In doing that they satisfied the terms of peace.

In the gospel lesson today Jesus outlines the terms of peace needed to end the hostility between God and us. Jesus spells out in plan language that those who wish to follow Him, and thereby put an end to the fight with God that had been going on since Adam and Eve, that these terms must be agreed to. Vs 33, in the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciple.

Those are the terms of peace. Those terms are what must be met for us to have peace with God. And these terms echo what we heard in the Old Testament lesson today where God, speaking through Moses said in vs 16 For I command you today … to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase

The terms of peace encompass all of life. There is no part of our lives that God exempts from obedience in order to have peace with Him. Again in the Old Testament lesson He says, This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life… that is what God says to do. There is no negotiation.

Just as with Japan in WW II the surrender was unconditional, so also the demands of peace with God are unconditional. The problem for us however is that we cannot simply lay down our weapons, that is, our sin and rebellion, our waywardness and deceit. We’re like some of those Japanese soldiers who, after the war was over, could not give up fighting and instead killed themselves. They refused the terms of peace. That’s what we’re like, in our fallen human nature – we, each of us, reject God’s terms of peace.

And so, God did for us what we cannot or will not do for ourselves. He sent His only Son to meet all the demands of peace. Jesus came to earth, becoming fully human, one of us, and having done that, He then accomplished what we could not. In the words of the Old Testament lesson today, Jesus did, walk in obedience, and kept his commands, decrees and laws.

There is nothing that God required for the terms of peace to be met that Jesus did not do. And in so doing, God did what Jesus said in the gospel lesson today must be done. Those of you who do not give up everything you have.

That’s exactly what God did to satisfy those terms. He gave up everything – His only Son – to death, in order that we might have peace with Him.

Toward the end of World War II, in a Japanese concentration camp in the Pacific, the guards learned that the American army was fast approaching. Fearful for their lives, they unlocked the gates and fled into the woods. The prisoners, however, were unaware of this, so they stayed in their compounds, even though no one was guarding them and the gates were wide open. When the American liberators arrived on the scene, they simply announced to the prisoners that they were already free. That was good news to those prisoners; they / were / free. And though they were free, they didn’t know it and they had to have it announced to them.

That is what the good news of the gospel is for us. God telling us we are free. The gospel is the announcement to us that the terms of peace have been met. We no longer live under bondage to the demands of the law – the demands we could not meet for ourselves.

And now, in turn, what God has done with the gospel is what we get to do with the good news of Jesus. We get to announce to those whom we know that they are free! They simply don’t know it yet!

We’re called to do that, as St Paul said in his letter to Philemon today in verse 6, “I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every / good / thing / we / share for the sake of Christ.”

Having a good understanding of everything we have in Christ calls for us to share that good news. What we possess in Christ is freedom from sin, death and Satan. To keep that to ourselves is the height of selfishness. So we share this good news of God’s great grace.

How do we apply that grace of God to our lives? And how do we let others know that the terms of peace with God that applies to you, apply to them as well?  That’s what Jesus is saying today, that we’re to live with those peace terms as our own. As He has given His all for us, we too give our all for Him. But, again, how do we do that?

Just as the United States, their allies and the Japanese took on responsibility for living in peace and forging a new way forward after the instrument of surrender was signed, so we also find a way forward in our own lives to live in God’s peace here and now. The Japanese had to make fundamental changes in their culture and way of life if they were to abide by the peace terms. That’s what we do by the power of the Holy Spirit living in us.

We too find a way to live here and now in the peace that God has bought for us at such a huge and painful cost. Our life, our personal culture, is changed by the power of the Holy Spirit here and now. So how will you respond to the peace that has been given you by the grace of God? Again, no, you didn’t earn it, and no, you didn’t do anything to make that peace happen. Jesus did all that was necessary for the terms of peace to be met when He died on the battlefield of the cross. He spilled His holy blood to secure the ultimate and complete victory that was demanded for the terms of peace to be met.

That He did. And then, by the power of the Holy Spirit He gave that victory to you. It is yours. It is complete and can never be taken from you. But how you live as a result of it, that is in your hands.

There’ve been stories of Japanese soldiers found months or even years after the war who were still fighting, still manning their posts faithfully and diligently. They continued to fight on, without knowledge that peace was theirs. And some of them after being discovered and told the truth, some would not accept that peace as their own. They refused to live with the peace they had been granted. How many of us are like those soldiers who refused to acknowledge what had been done for them?

God has given you peace with Him – the gates of your prison have been opened for you. How will you share that news with those in your family – in your neighborhood and school and work?

You, you bring the influence of God to them by the peace that He has given to you. Have you ever known someone who had a tremendous influence on other people, someone who could influence others simply by being in the same room?  Bishop Eivind Berggrav was such a man.

He was the leader of the Norwegian Lutheran Church during WWII.  The Nazis feared his influence, so they made him their prisoner during the war.  Very quickly they learned that they had to constantly change his guard.  It didn’t take long for a guard to be drawn under his strong spiritual influence and even converted. The Bishop is one example for us in how we live in, and share with others, the peace of God.

All of this is summed up in Jesus’ words today, in the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciple. We have been made His disciples by the peace won for us on the cross, now we live our lives in the freedom He has died in order for us to gain.

Let me close with this very important reminder. It is true that how we live is important but how we live does not change the fact that what God alone did for us is what gives us peace with Him. As your pastor I make mistakes. As you go through your day and life, you too make mistakes. My mistakes and sins, and your mistakes and sins, do not change the mistake-free, sin-free, life of Jesus Christ. That is the life He sacrificed to death to make our peace with God.

Our peace with God does not change based on how we live. That peace is guaranteed because of the sin-free life that Jesus lived and gave up for us on the cross. And it’s because of that that we do try to live to honor Him the best we can. And when we fail, as I so do often, we are forgiven.

That is where we live. We live… live in that forgiveness, in that peace … here… and now!! My mistakes and sins do not reduce or diminish my salvation. And neither do yours. We live forgiven and set-free from our bondage, not because we’ve done anything to deserve it, but because our Liberator came and defeated the power that held us captive.

The terms of peace, that have been met by our liberator Jesus Christ, never change because of how we act. No, how we act is changed because He has done that for us. We are free according the peace of Christ, which is ours in His Word. In Jesus name, Amen.

Sermon #843 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

First Reading                                                         Deuteronomy 30:15-20

15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

 Epistle                                                                                                    Philemon 1-25
1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker— 2 also to Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier—and to the church that meets in your home:

3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

4 I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, 5 because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. 6 I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. 7 Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.

8 Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, 9 yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus— 10 that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.

12 I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. 13 I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. 14 But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. 15 Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever— 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.

17 So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. 18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. 19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back—not to mention that you owe me your very self. 20 I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. 21 Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.

22 And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers.

23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. 24 And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers.

25 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Holy Gospel                                                                                           Luke 14:25-35
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

 

Menelik, a former leader of Ethiopia, was a good leader who accomplished many things for his country. However, he was a bit of a religious fanatic with strange ideas. He believed the Bible was a magical book with healing powers. Whenever he felt sick, he would eat a page of scripture. One time he felt really sick, so he ate the entire books of 1&2 Kings. The “magic” didn’t work of course. The autopsy revealed that he died of an intestinal obstruction.

In order to be truly healed the leader of Ethiopia would’ve been better served to seek healing from the pure living word of God who is Jesus Christ. Instead he treated the word of God superstitiously, as the world does and as false teachers do. Under the dominion of darkness, those whose worldly agenda does allow scripture to speak clearly, do not allow people to see true healing and wholeness as God alone provides us with – through Jesus Christ. Though the world doesn’t want us well and healthy Jesus disregards this world’s standards and does us the honor of healing anyway. As we just sang twice, Jesus is the source of life and truth and grace. Jesus wants us whole and pure. The Old Testament lesson says today Remove the dross from the silver, and a silversmith can produce a vessel.

Jesus produces vessels by His righteousness and His healing power. Today, in the gospel, Jesus does His healing in spite of the Pharisees, in spite of what this world thinks is right or correct. It’s not the standards of the world that Jesus has come to meet. Those are low and false anyway.

Jesus came to meet the standards of holiness and righteousness set by His Heavenly Father. That standard is perfection and pure righteousness.

It’s only the pure, like pure silver, who will have the honor to stand before God. And there’s no other way to be pure than to be purged of all the dross – the sin, the filth and false humility that we so easily possess. And sometimes we even forsake the false part of humility and we pursue our own agenda or seek to promote ourselves above others.

This is pointed out in all three lessons today. All of them speak of not seeking the highest place for yourself but rather letting the host come and find you and He brings you up to the place of honor where He would have you be. If we’re honest, we see in our sin and pettiness that we indeed have no reason to think we deserve any honor anyway. I have only to look into my heart and life to realize and be in terror of my sinfulness. Heavens!…

Not only do I have no standing to seek a place of honor, I don’t even deserve to be at the banquet! The stain and shame of my sin is as the wickedness of the wicked officials in Proverbs that keep the King’s throne from being established in righteousness. That’s me that wickedness is what I am.

How often – just using the things in the epistle lesson – how often do I love money / am immoral / or refuse to show hospitality? And how often, when I do give any thought to those in prison, is it a self-righteous thought that they deserve it anyway. Truth is that’s where you and I belong in our sinfulness.

What about those who’re mistreated? Again how often do I even give them a thought, let alone seek to, in some small pittance of a way, help them. And then it’s more out of guilt rather than gratitude that I do even that! No, I am not fit to be at the banquet.

However, and that’s a huge ‘however’, however by what Jesus does with the man in the gospel who was misshapen, so my misshapen form under my old nature – the old man – the sinful self that I was born with, is changed. I am given grace to be made, not just acceptable, but pure and righteous. I’m given a new form and a new nature. The nature I am given is that of Jesus.

It’s New Life that He gives me. It’s only by His mercy and grace that I’m not just spared, but by His doing, I’m given a totally new life. It’s an honor given to me that I don’t deserve. Honor is something you don’t take for yourself, honor is given to you.

The rumpled, brown‑paper package was addressed simply to “Monsieur Kipling.” Rudyard Kipling, celebrated British author and Nobel Prize winner, opened it, his curiosity aroused by the painstaking scrawl on the package. Inside was a red box containing a French translation of his novel, Kim. It had been pierced by a bullet hole that stopped at the last 20 pages. Through the large bullet hole, tied with string, dangled the Maltese Cross of the Croix de Guerre, France’s medal for bravery in war. The book had been sent to Kipling by a young French soldier named Maurice. He explained in a letter that had this book not been in his pocket when he went into battle, he would have been killed. Maurice asked Kipling to accept the book and medal as a token of gratitude. Kipling felt more moved than he had been by any other honor he’d received. Through him, God had spared the life of this soldier.

Like this soldier, so we too have been given new life from a Book. It’s the word of God that gives us life. And like the honor given to Kipling, it’s a pure gift. It’s an honor bestowed by grace and not because of anything we’ve done or said. It is pure gift. And it’s not from being superstitious like Menelik.

Jesus gives me, in spite of this world and its desire to block my healing; Jesus gives me New Life – that restoration to wholeness that puts a new nature within me. At the baptismal font and the banquet of Holy Communion and by the gift of faith, Jesus gives me purity and true holiness.

Again as the epistle lesson says, Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. His blood shed outside the city gate on the cross, that alone, is what changes me. That blood and perfect sacrifice was done so that, like the man healed in the gospel lesson as everyone was watching to see if Jesus would do it, I too am healed. I am healed through His gift of faith to me. At the font and at the altar rail I am healed with everyone watching. No, not watching me but watching to see what Jesus does here (pointing at the font) and here (at the altar) and here in our hearts.

Remember in Hebrews, God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” 6 So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”

Who cares if the world watches? The Lord is our helper! We cannot be constrained by the world, the devil or our own sinful flesh – the Lord is our helper. Say it with me, the Lord is our helper!!

Knowing that, living in that, and allowing that truth to fill us, we then can hear vss 15 and 16, Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

We are free of the world, free to do good and to share with others. Though the world watches us and even judges us, just as they did with Jesus, it’s the thanksgiving of our hearts for being made holy and pure that now flows from our lips and in our actions. That’s because as Jesus said in vs 11 of the gospel, those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Jesus is the One who has exalted us. He has brought us up to the highest place of honor. We’ve been brought into the wedding feast of the lamb in the kingdom of God. By the blood of that same Lamb of God, He has taken away our stain and shame of sin and He has exalted us by His grace and mercy alone.

So what will we show to the world, the world that seeks to hold us down and drown us in our sin? As they watch, what will we show them?

We have the great honor to show them good and to share with them the healing, wholeness and restoration that we, though underserving, have been gifted with. We go from here today in Jesus name truly Hearing, Sharing and Living the Gospel, amen!

Sermon #842 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

First Reading                                       Proverbs 25:2-10
2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. 3 As the heavens are high and the earth is deep, so the hearts of kings are unsearchable.

4 Remove the dross from the silver, and a silversmith can produce a vessel; 5 remove wicked officials from the king’s presence, and his throne will be established through righteousness. 6 Do not exalt yourself in the king’s presence, and do not claim a place among his great men; 7 it is better for him to say to you, “Come up here,” than for him to humiliate you before his nobles. What you have seen with your eyes 8 do not bring hastily to court, for what will you do in the end  if your neighbor puts you to shame?

9 If you take your neighbor to court, do not betray another’s confidence, 10 or the one who hears it may shame you and the charge against you will stand.

 Epistle                                                                      Hebrews 13:1-17
13 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. 2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. 3 Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

6 So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”

7 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so. 10 We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.

11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

17 Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.

Holy Gospel                                                                                   Luke 14:1-14
14 One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” 4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.

5 Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” 6 And they had nothing to say.

7 When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: 8 “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10 But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

 

 

Aug 21, 2016  Nice Discipline???

A group of 40 Hell’s Angles roared into the parking lot of a church in Concord, California, just before the worship service was to begin.  One of the bikers got off his bike, walked into church, and sat down in the back.  The whole congregation watched fearfully, wondering what would happen next.  But the rest of the bikers just stood by their bikes in the parking lot and smoked their cigarettes, waiting for the service to end. When the service was over, a few brave members talked to the bikers and invited them to stay for coffee.  The bikers accepted the offer.  Then the members learned why the one biker had sat through worship.  He had broken their ‘code’ in some way and, as punishment, had to go to church.

Sitting in church, for that Hell’s Angel, was meant as a correction for some wrong done against the code of that group. He was obliged to go to church as a consequence for his behavior in the group. By going to church he was enduring a type of punishment (not, of course, like any of you!).

His going to church was intended as punishment, though hopefully the sermon gave him the gospel! Punishment and discipline are related, but they’re not the same thing as payment or atonement. That comes out in a couple places in today’s epistle lesson from Hebrews. In one place it actually it comes out of Proverbs chapter 3 originally. The writer of Hebrews is quoting God from the book of Proverbs in verses 5 and 6 today. Look at those verses with me please and read them out loud together.

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, ⁶ because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”

Now don’t miss that earlier in vs. 5, the writer of Hebrews says that this discipline is a word of encouragement. And it is encouragement direct from God. God is addressing His family, His children, with these words and actions we’re told. That’s great news because that means we’re being told that God’s discipline is meant to benefit us. Can there be such a thing as ‘nice discipline’?

Discipline is meant to teach, to correct wrong behavior, so that a person improves who they are and how they act in the world. It’s about learning to act in helpful ways. It’s meant to teach proper actions. And I can think of no discipline that’s easy to endure or pleasant to get through. Punishment is done to learn that actions have consequences and require justice. But don’t confuse that with atonement. Punishment is not the same thing as atonement – as the payment for the guilt of sin.

That’s important for us as Christians to be sure we’ve got a good handle on. We never want to think that God is demanding atonement from us for our sins. God doesn’t do that. He does not demand that we now pay for the guilt of our sins in any way and so justify ourselves. I heard someone say that when we sin God might ‘punish’ us to make up for it – to make us pay for our sin – by having something bad happen in our lives. That is just not right. If it were, then Jesus died on the cross… for nothing. God may use punishment for our discipline, but never for atonement or justification.

Consider Leland Wangs’ mother. Leland Wang, a Chinese evangelist, tells of an incident in his childhood which vividly illustrates the work of Christ. Once Leland had been very naughty and his mother, with a stick in her hand, called him to her to be punished. But he ran off, taunting his mother because she couldn’t catch him. She had little chance of catching her small, lively son.

So she stood still and said, “I feel ashamed of myself that I have brought up a boy who is not willing to be disciplined by his mother when he does wrong, so I must punish myself,” and she began to whip her bare arm. This so touched Leland’s heart that he ran back to his mother, threw himself into her arms, and pleaded with her not to hurt herself, but to punish him. But no further punishment was necessary.

Mr. Wang says that, as he grew older, this memory helped him to understand the great love of the Lord Jesus Christ who willingly took our place in death on the cross. It was Christ’s work, and His blood that made atonement, that paid the complete price for our sin. His work on the cross, met the demands of God’s justice totally and completely. His innocent blood, shed on the cross in your place, is better than the shedding of your own blood for your own sins. It’s true that blood needs to be shed to obtain forgiveness – atonement – and blood has been shed, just not yours.

The word of God in Hebrews today tells us that Jesus’ blood was shed so ours wouldn’t need to be. Vss 23-24, You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood

When God’s love claims us, we become God’s followers, and we are to live in obedience to Him and His word. To help us in that, God gives us, along with the Holy Spirit and His many various and marvelous gifts, He also gives us His discipline. And in truth God’s discipline is ‘nice’. Oh I don’t mean that the correction we endure is pleasant, but it is ‘nice’ in that God treats us as His children when He disciplines us.

So when it says in verse 6 that we are punished, that is said in the context of discipline and does not stand alone to mean that we are made to pay for or atone for our own sins. If that were true, then Jesus death on the cross would need our effort to help satisfy God’s demand that we be righteous. No, that demand has been met in full when Jesus was put to death in atonement for all sins on the cross.

God’s discipline is something none of us, unfortunately, ever outgrow the need for. It’s one of those things I always hoped I could get past or beyond. But in order to grow as an obedient Christian I need to be corrected by God in how I live. Correction is what comes through discipline and punishment, correction – not payment.

A father sits in his lawn chair, watching his young daughter play in the yard. Her friends are across the street. She steps to the curb and runs, never looking either way, never seeing the on-coming car. Father’s out of his chair like a shot. He grabs her and scolds her, then puts her in her room for an hour despite her many tears and excuses. He explains that he doesn’t want to see her get hurt. Several days later the father again sees his little girl start across the street. This time, though, she stops, looks both ways and crosses. He smiles. The discipline has worked. It was hard on her at the moment of her punishment, but so much better for her welfare in life.

Her actions were changed by the discipline of her father. Her father didn’t punish her in order for her to make-up for some offense to dad. This was correction. For her, for that hour in her room apart from her friends, she perceived her own suffering, but in truth she was learning to correct her behavior to keep herself safe.

God’s correction of us is never meant to replace the suffering of Christ for our sin. We do not make-up for our sin, or pay any of the price for our sin by means of God’s correction – however harsh it may seem to us. It may be hard to endure God’s correction, but it’s important to bear in mind that this discipline is because we are God’s own children and not illegitimate offspring. We are God’s family and as such we get the benefit of ‘Dad’s’ wisdom.

It’s out of His heart of love that His correction is sometimes visited on our backsides. This isn’t done because God’s mad at us, He cannot be. His anger and wrath and vengeance and malice toward our sin have been poured out on, and paid for in, the cross of Jesus.

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t still have much to learn in what it means to be His obedient children. And God’s discipline is meant for that reason and for no other. We together here are God’s children and with one heart we care for one another and help one another when we each endure God’s loving affliction that’s for our benefit and growth. We do not get to heaven any easier by what we suffer on earth. And we do not suffer because of God’s anger.

Think about what you’re going through in your life right now. What training and discipline is the Lord taking you through that perhaps not too many other people even know about? What street are you trying to cross that Jesus is holding you back from so you won’t get smacked by the car that you can’t even see coming? Maybe asking God why, “why am I going through this” is not the only question to ask Him. Perhaps in addition you can ask Him; what? “What are you teaching me?” “What training are You giving me in what I’m going through right now?”

Compare what you’re going through with the little girl and with the biker. The biker was being punished and the little girl was being disciplined. They were being trained to act correctly so they would live. What you may be going through might be discipline or punishment that’s meant to correct behavior or perhaps to give you a different form of training in new ways, but never to exact payment.

And also remember Leland Wang’s mother and what she teaches us about Christ, taking our atonement on Himself. Bear in mind, you can never sin and make God angry so that He wants atonement from you. Our sin, all our sin, has been paid in full on the cross. And never doubt that our Father’s correction and discipline will be given to us for our benefit and training in righteousness. Discipline never comes from God in anger… but in love.

His discipline is ‘nice’ because it reminds us that we are His true children. And according to verse 11 only His discipline, for the sake of Christ, produces in us a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. In the name of Jesus, the One who took the guilt of our sin away, we pray, amen.

Sermon #841 Rev. Thomas A. Rhodes, Pastor – Zion Lutheran Church, Bolivar, MO

First Reading                                                                                        Isaiah 66:18-23 18 “And I, because of what they have planned and done, am about to come and gather the people of all nations and languages, and they will come and see my glory.
19 “I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations. 20 And they will bring all your people, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the Lord—on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels,” says the Lord. “They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings, to the temple of the Lord in ceremonially clean vessels. 21 And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,” says the Lord.
22 “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the Lord, “so will your name and descendants endure. 23 From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the Lord.

Epistle Reading                                                               Hebrews 12:4-24
4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”  7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.                                                                           12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
14 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. 16 See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.                                                                             18 You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; 19 to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, 20 because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” 21 The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

 Holy Gospel                                                                                            Luke 13:22-30
22 Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23 Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”
He said to them, 24 “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25 Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
“But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
26 “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
27 “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’
28 “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. 30 Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”