Thursday, May 18, 2017

You are One of God's Best Sermons


“Shine like stars in the Universe, as you hold forth the Word of Life”
Philippians 2:15b-16a


It is truly amazing all you can learn about God from the stars!  I first heard this from Dr. Steunkel, the President of the College where Linda and I attended.  He was talking about Isaiah 40:26 – “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these?  He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name.  Because of His great power and might strength, not one of them is missing.”  Wow!  There is a lot in those words.  God is the creator of the stars.  He made all of those stars you see in the sky.  They belong to Him, as does all of His creation.   I am told that on a clear dark night you and I can see with our eye only a few thousand of the millions of stars that fill the Universe.  Yet each one of those stars is important to our God and creator.  “He calls them each by name.”  Because of His power they were created and because of His power not one of them is missing.

You get the message.  If God cares that much about each and every star in the sky, imagine how much He cares about you and me.  After all it was for you and me that He gave His Son. It was for your salvation and mine that Jesus gave His life.  Jesus Himself tells us that the lilies of the field preach this same sermon.  “If that is how God clothes the lilies of the fields, which are here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will He cloth you?”  After all, in the words of Paul, “If God did not spare His own son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him, freely give us all things?”  That’s quite a sermon the stars preach.

But did you know that God preaches that same sermon through you to those around you.  That’s what Paul is telling us in Philippians.  “Shine like stars in the Universe, as you hold forth the Word of Life”  Like the stars, He created each of us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Of us the Lord says, “I have called you by name, you are Mine.”  “The very hairs on your head,” Jesus tells us, “ are all numbered.”  He gave His Son for you.  At Baptism He made you His own.  God intends for you’re your life and your words to be a living, breathing sermon about God’s care and grace to all who meet you.  “Shine like stars in the Universe!”

But how can you or I be such a sermon.  This world is a very dark place. How can you and I possibly make any real difference.  That’s precisely the point, my friends,.  Those are the moments when God shines brightest through you and me.  Once again God teaches us through the stars.  When it is bright and sunny outside, you can’t see the stars. The sunshine obscures them.  But when its dark… indeed when its completely dark outside, that’s when you see the stars. That’s when they are at their brightest.  In the same way, it is in the midst of the darkest moments in life when God’s light shines most clearly from your life and mine.  I remember one man named Dwain, dying of cancer.   As the darkness of death encroached his faith shone at its brightest, sharing his faith with his son-in-law while in the hospital waiting to die.  His joy, his hope in the face of death – that was the sermon God preached through Dwain.  That’s what He does through you and me.  He makes us His stars shining with faith, hope and love in the darkness of this world.  For those who know you at home, at work, in various parts of your life - no sermon I ever preach from the pulpit can match up to the sermon God  preaches through you, your faith and your life.  You are one of God’s best sermons. 

Thursday, May 11, 2017

You're Fired!


“’Brothers, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins…”
Acts 2:37b-38a


One of the first things I do when I wake up most every day is get online and check the news, especially the news from America.  Yesterday morning I wasn’t expecting what I read there.  The President of the United States had fired the Director of the FBI.  Now I have tried purposefully to stir this blog away from politics and instead focus on what God’s word has to say to our daily lives.  This week’s blog will be no exception.   

However, as the day went on, I couldn’t get the word’s “You’re Fired” out of my mind.  That’s when it struck me, there is someone in each of our lives who absolutely needs to be fired!  That someone in my life is me.  That’s someone in your life is you – the old sinful you and me.  When God calls you or me to repent, that’s what He means.  That’s what it means to turn away from sin.    Spiritually, this is the first step in the new life God has given us in Christ.  This is the first step of every day of the Christian life – to repent… to fire yourself!

Now I know President Trump seems to make firing someone look easy.  He made a whole career out of sitting across the desk from people on The Apprentice and saying, “You’re fired!”  But anyone who has had to do it at work, can tell you that it’s anything but easy.  I have only had to do it once and I hated it.  Other managers talk about losing sleep when they knew that they had to take this step.

Having to fire yourself is as hard or harder!  Repentance after all means admitting that you have been wrong, that you have been going in the wrong direction, that you can’t set yourself right… that you can’t save yourself.  Most of us spend a lot of time doing just the opposite, trying to hide or deny our failures, trying to convince ourselves and others that we are handling life just fine… that we haven’t done anything wrong.  Why?  Because it’s humbling to admit we’re wrong.  There is shame involved.  We want people to only see the good not the bad in us.  We are afraid of facing the truth about our sin.  Yet go to any 12 step recovery program and they will tell that the first step is to admit you are powerless… that you can’t fix yourself.  They will also tell you that this step, just showing up at AA or Celebrate Recovery, and admitting you need help is the hardest step to take. 

Yet when the people asked Peter what they needed to do, this is exactly what Peter tells them.  “Repent and be baptized…’  “Turn from your ways and live…”  “Fire yourself!”  Why?  Because new life is found only in trusting God’s Son, not in trusting yourself.  Listen to Paul’s words to the Galatians, words of great hope that describe what happens when you fire yourself.  “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.  The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”  That’s what God does every time we repent. He starts a new life in you and me.  “If anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away.”  It’s been fired.  “Behold the new has come!”  Luther says the same thing in His Small Catechism when explaining the meaning of baptism for our daily lives.  “This signifies that the old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sin and evil desires.”  In other words the old Adam should daily be fired.  Why?  “so that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

You know there are mornings for some reason I wake up discouraged.  Linda thinks it’s because I start off with emails and the news.  Maybe she’s right.  Maybe the better way to start the day is to look in the mirror and say to our old sinful selves, “You’re fired!  I don’t need you anymore.  I’m a baptized child of God.  In Christ He’s given me a whole new life to live each day!  He’s all I need.”  Try it tomorrow morning.  I will too.  Amen. 


Thursday, May 4, 2017

Hide and Seek


“And their eyes were opened and they recognized him”
Luke 24:31a


There is an old joke about a man stranded in his home during a huge flood.  First, a boat came along and offered to take the man to safety.  “No need,” said the man.  “I have faith.  God will rescue me.”  A few hours later the waters had gotten higher.  Now the man was sitting on his roof.   Another boat came and offered to take the man to safety.  “No need,” said the man again, “I have faith.  God will rescue me.”   The waters continued to rise until the man was standing on the very peak of his roof.  This time a helicopter came along.  They offered to lift the man off the roof and take him to safety.  “No need,” insisted the man, “I have faith.  God will rescue me.”  Well the man died and went to heaven.  Standing before the Lord, the man asked, “I trusted you.  I was so sure you would rescue me.  Where were you?  Why didn’t you come?”  “What do you mean?” asked the Lord.  “I sent you two boats and a helicopter.”  The problem wasn’t that the Lord didn’t come.  The man just failed to recognize him. 

Sometimes we are like the man in that story.  We look for God yet fail to recognize Him.  We seek for him, but it’s as if he is hiding from us.  I think of the man who committed adultery, who was sure God had left him.  “I pray,” he said, “But I know he’s not listening.  Why would He listen to me, after what I have done?”  There was the woman with cancer. “I pray and pray and pray but the cancer only gets worse,” she said.  “Where is God? Why doesn’t He answer?”  Sometimes, it’s just the routine of life.  Every day becomes so much the same. “How’d my life become so boring? So empty?  Where is God?”  Perhaps you are listening for God’s calling.  One person asked me, “How do you know what God wants you to do?” You pray for His guidance but you can discern no answer.  Where is He?  It’s like God is playing a spiritual game of hide and seek – hiding Himself and trying hard not to be found.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Take the story from the Luke 24, about two men walking to Emmaus on that first Easter.  They were talking with each other about all the terrible things that had happened in Jerusalem – about the crucifixion and death of Jesus.  While they were talking Jesus Himself drew near and walked with them.  At first they didn’t recognize him.  They told him about all the things that had happened.  They even told him about the wild stories of the women, that Jesus had risen from the dead.  Still they didn’t recognize Him.  He started speaking Scripture to them.  Still they didn’t know it was him.  It wasn’t till he agreed to stay with them… until “he took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it them” that “then their eyes were open and they recognized Him.”

Notice that the problem was not that Jesus wasn’t there.  He was there.  The problem was with them.  Like the man in the flood, they were blinded by a lack of faith. 

So where is God?  Is He playing hide and seek, not wanting to be found?   Far from it.  He’s playing hide and seek, the way my grandkids do.  They run and hide but then tell you where they are hiding.  Our God and savior hides Himself so that He can be found.  He hides Himself right where He tells us He will hide Himself.  He comes in a pastor telling us God forgives us as the beginning of our worship.  He comes in water and the word at baptism.  He comes in the words of Scripture read… spoken and preached.  He comes in bread and wine to give us Himself to eat and drink.  He comes in our fellow believers – in their listening ears, their kind words, their acts of service and support – for He lives in His people by His Spirit.  He comes in those in need but He said, “I was hungry and you fed me… I was in prison and you visited me.  I was naked and you clothed me… For whatever you did  for the least of these my brothers, you do it unto me.”  He comes as He did for those two disciples… to open our eyes… Why hide Himself in these ways?  Because He is the Almighty God.  He is too much for us to see face to face right now.  So He hides His glory in places and in ways so that as he did for those two disciples – our eyes might be opened to Him.  Yes, He’s here.  Do you recognize Him?  Amen.