Three Days Transformed by Christ Each Week

Hebrews 13:8

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”

In my devotional reading this week, one author put forward the idea that there are two days each week that we shouldn’t worry about – yesterday and tomorrow.  Yesterday, he wrote, with all its mistakes and blunders, successes and failures, aches and pains is over.  You can’t bring it back.  You can’t do it over.  Its done.  Quit worrying about it. That’s all true. However, what he forgot is that sometimes yesterday’s mistakes, decisions (good and bad) can still have an impact on today and tomorrow.  Tomorrow, he wrote, is beyond our control. The sun will rise, or rain will fall with or without us.  Until tomorrow comes, quit worrying about it.  That is all true.   Jesus even says as much, “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”  However, what about planning?  Shouldn’t we plan for tomorrow, so we use it well?  That’s not the same as worrying.

I have been thinking about all that.  I think the author was right – we shouldn’t worry about either yesterday or tomorrow.  What he didn’t mention is why we shouldn’t worry.  That’s what I want to look at in this week’s blog. Why not worry about yesterday or tomorrow?  Quite simply because there are three days transformed by Christ every week – yesterday, today and tomorrow.  Think about what the scriptures tell us “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” 

Think about yesterday. Yes, it’s gone.  You can’t undo it or relive it.  And yes, yesterday’s mistakes and sins often live on and impact our lives for a long time.  That’s why it is such good news that yesterday is transformed about Christ.  Whatever sins we committed, or mistakes we made… whatever harms we did to others yesterday – Jesus has already paid the price with His suffering, death and resurrection. God has already forgiven all of yesterday’s failings.   That means that we too can forgive others, forgive ourselves and be forgiven by others.   In Christ, we can learn from what happened yesterday live for Him today and tomorrow.  God in Christ has transformed every yesterday.

He has also transformed tomorrow.  No, we can’t live tomorrow until it comes. We have no control over it.  But He does.  And He promises, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  We do not know what tomorrow holds but we do know the God who holds all our tomorrows.  We have no control over tomorrow right now, but our God does.   He has secured for us an eternal future by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.   Nothing in this life can compare with all the blessings God has prepared for us in Christ.  He who loved us and gave Jesus for us promises He has plans to prosper us… to give us a hope and a future.  In Christ God has transformed all our tomorrows.

In doing He has thus transformed today as well.  Because of what Jesus did about our yesterdays we need not live today weighed down with guilt and shame.  He has taken all that away.   We need not fear tomorrow.  Even with all the unknown, we can pray, make our plans and then look forward to whatever God has for us tomorrow… even if He changes our plans.   Because of what God has done to yesterday and tomorrow, we are free each and every today to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles…” and then to run today “with perseverance the race marked out for us” by our loving God. 

Think what is possible because God in Christ transforms three days of your life every week – all your yesterdays, todays and tomorrows.  

Have You Been Vaccinated?

2 Timothy 3:5 (ESV)

^“ having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”

A vaccine!  That seems to be what everyone is hoping for - a vaccine that works against the Corona Virus. The pharmaceutical companies can’t work fast enough to develop one.  Will they?  Who knows? Most everyone seems to be hoping and waiting for it to happen.  The politicians are certainly promising one. Some day in the future perhaps we will be asking one another, “Have you been vaccinated?” 

Reading about the potential for a COVID 19 vaccine reminded me of something Pastor Ray Schade one said at a seminar on stewardship.  He told the group that sometimes he is concerned that some Christians have been exposed to just enough Christianity that they have become immune to it.  What did he mean? He was concerned that people knew just enough about the Christian faith that the message no longer penetrated to their soul… that faith no longer took hold or caught fire in their heart. 

What would that look like?  Paul describes it as “having the appearance of godliness but denying the power of it.”  Jesus in Revelation 2 says this is what happened to the Christians in Ephesus.  “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”  In other words, you do all the right Christian things on the outside – belonging to a church, going to church, giving to others, singing the right hymns and so forth.  But it’s all on the outside, not on the inside.  You are like a store that advertises a product for sale, but when you go to that store you find that they don’t have it.  Your religion has become a show, nothing more than window dressing disguising a spiritual emptiness inside.  Your faith has become like a fire that has grown cold and gone out.

Is there a cure for the vaccine?  Is there a way to relight the fire?  Yes.  St. Paul told Timothy to “fan into flame the gift of God that is within you.  Jesus told the Christians in Ephesus, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen and repent…”  With a fire that has gone out, you would get some more wood and light it again.  You would fuel the fire.  Well Jesus and Paul are telling us to add fuel to our faith.  A fire needs wood and oxygen.  Faith needs God’s grace and His word.  Repent, Jesus tells us.  In other words, return to God with your heart.  Come back to His Word.  That’s how His Spirit promises to work in our heart.  “Faith comes through hearing the word, the word about Christ.”  “My word,” God promises, “My Word will not return to me empty but will accomplish the purposes for which I gave it.” 

There were times in the cold Milwaukee winter when my old Chevy Nova wouldn’t start. So, we would get out of the car, spray some ether into the carbonator, get back in the car, turn the key and step on the gas.  That ether was just the spark needed to get the engine going again.  God’s Spirit, working through God’s Word to bring you back to Jesus – that’s the spark needed to get faith going again in your heart and mine.  

I Always Do it in the Wrong Order

Philippians 4:6–7 (ESV)

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Most people worry and fret before they make a big, life changing decision.  For some reason, I always do this in the wrong order.  I tend to make a big decision with great boldness… then worry and fret that I did the wrong thing.  I have done this all my life.  I asked Linda to marry me. It was exciting.  Then three weeks later it suddenly set in that this was a big decision.  This was for life.  What did I know about being married?  Nothing?  I spent three weeks panicking over the decision we had already made.  The same thing has happened with pretty much every call I have taken.  I make the decision.  I announce that I am taking the call.  There is no going back.  Then I worry.  I fret.  Panic sets in.  On a smaller scale this has happened with every most purchases I have made – buying a house or a car.  Then I worry – how can we afford this?  Some would call this buyer’s remorse.  I just call it worry or fear, or self-doubt. 

Now you need to know that yes, I did take all those decisions seriously. I prayed for each one.  Also they all turned out to be right – Thank God.  He was guiding.  He took care of me and of us through it all. Linda, was and is the best decision I ever made. 

So why did I worry?  The answer is, because I didn’t know the future.  I had and still have no control over the future.  Venturing out, not knowing how things will turn out, is scary.  That’s true whether you panic before you make the decision, or if you do it backwards like me.  That’s why I wanted to share with you all today something I read this morning by an author named Walt Wangerin Jr. in a book called As for Me and My House.  He was writing about couples deciding to get married, but what wrote fits with anytime we have a big choice to make –

“He is at the birthing of our children, blessing the event. He is at the tragedies to come (but he's there, by virture of his timelessness, now), supporting and consoling us— therefore, we can go forward trustingly, even to tragedies. God joins the times for us. God comforts and enables us despite our ignorance—and to trust absolutely in him who knows the future is as good as though we knew the future ourselves…

Once when I was a tiny child my father put me on a train bound from Chicago to Grand Rapids. I didn't like the idea, and twice I ran off the train before it left. I was homesick already. I was terrified to be thrust alone into the dark tunnel of the future. If I had my way, I was not leaving home and my haven. But this is what my father had to say about it: “I'm going ahead of you. Do you think I would leave you alone? I'll meet you at the station in Grand Rapids. Wait, wait, and see if I don't.” And I was comforted, and I was set free to travel. I knew no more about the trip there; neither did I know how Dad would beat me there (he had to leave later and was flying). But in place of knowledge I had the promise of the one who loved me. He who hugged me now would hug me then. And so long as I loved him and believed in him, I could be liberated to go alone.”

That’s what I have learned and am learning – no matter what the future holds God goes with us, goes ahead of us and is already there when we arrive.  We may not know what the future holds but we know the God who holds the future.  So the best thing to do before and after you make a big choice is to put it all in God’s hands… to do what Paul told the Philippians to do - “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

How do we Know Who or What to Believe?

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God…”

1 John 4:1

This has been a confusing time for many of us.  I have experienced it in the ever-changing news and advice about how to handle the COVID19 pandemic.  You hear so many rumors, so many conflicting, even contradictory news reports, that it’s hard to know who or what to believe.  All of that has made re-opening the church extremely challenging.  That’s why I am so thankful for the people from our congregation, especially those who serve in the Medical profession.   

I was reminded this week that this is also true in the area of faith.  Sometimes there are so many different voices and opinions out there that we don’t know what or who to believe.  The other day a friend shared with me an article and a video by a pastor claiming to have received a prophetic vision from God about terrible things that are happening right now and, this pastor claims, are about to happen.  What he wrote, scared me.  I can imagine it scared others too. 

How do we as Christian evaluate something like that?  Is this real or crazy?  Can God give visions like that to someone?  Of course, He can.  God can do whatever He wants.  Well, then how do we as believers evaluate such modern day “prophecies?”

There is only one way.  Compare all  such claims and teachings against what is taught in Scripture.  That’s the only way to judge what anyone teaches as words coming from God.  That’s the way you should evaluate everything I teach and preach.  After all, we believer’s trust that the Bible is the word of God.  If someone claims something is a word from God but it contradicts what God teaches us in the Bible, then it’s not from God. 

The Scriptures themselves tell us to do this.  Listen to these words from 1 John 4

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.  They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error."

There you have the most important test to apply – What is being taught about Jesus?  In the case of the video/article that was sent to me, this is what troubled me.  I heard no message of Jesus Christ or the Gospel in the video or the article.   Think of the Book of Revelation.  That book was not written to terrify Christians but to comfort them in times of trial and persecution with the certain message of hope that Jesus Christ will triumph!  I didn't find that message in this article.  Perhaps I missed it. 

The Scriptures do proclaim that in the last days terrible times will come.  But they do not go on to say that we should respond, as this prophecy seems to imply,  by going out to buy guns and store up food.  They tell us to get out there and fearlessly tell people about the love of God and the salvation He offers in Jesus Christ.  Again, maybe I missed it, but I didn't find that urgency about the mission of the church in the video/article that was shared with me.

That’s how we discern and evaluate the many voices claiming to speak God’s word – mine included.  That’s how we know what or who to believe. Judge everything according to the Bible, God’s inspired Word.

As to the worries and fears we are all experiencing right now - Are we living in terrible times of turmoil and upheaval?  Yes.  That means that right now it is time to firmly cling to Jesus, to courageously proclaim Him to everyone and to earnestly pray to him in the words that end Holy Scripture (Revelation 22:20-21) - "He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!  The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen."

The Importance of Being Average

John 1:40 (ESV)

^“One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.”

When did being average become something bad?  All that being “average” means is that you are normal.  Yet we live is such a highly competitive culture that to say someone is “average” at something that is seen by many as a huge insult.  Everyone wants to be thought of as “above average.”  When I taught at Concordia, when someone earned a “C” grade that was often a huge catastrophe in that student’s eyes.  I was like that too. In my fourth year at the Seminary I received a “C” on a sermon I had written.  Prior to that I had always received an “A.”  You would have thought the world was coming to an end.  I went up to the professor after the class… so worried about “what I had done wrong.”  He simply looked at me and another student and asked us, “What? Your last year at the seminary and you think you should already preach like the Apostle Paul?”   

Think for a moment with me.  If everyone is “above average” that becomes a meaningless statement.  After all, if everyone is “above average” then there is no such thing as average.    If everyone has to be considered “above average” then it becomes almost impossible for anyone to admit they have a weakness or struggle or addiction in some area of their lives.  Then you find it hard to admit that struggle or to seek help.  Why?  Because you think you are the only one who has that struggle.  Then, instead of getting help with whatever our particular struggle is we deny it, hide it, cover it up.  The more we hide our struggles the worse they become.  Shame only grows when kept in hiding.  The sad thing is that such suffering and isolation is needless… because to have struggles, and weaknesses is normal.  It’s average.  Everyone of us has them in different areas of our lives.  For such people, the discovery that you are normal is one of the most freeing, healing moments in life.  “I’m normal.  I have the struggle.  So do a lot of other people.  It’s okay to admit it.  It’s okay to get help.” 

Being average is actually a good thing.  It’s average people, like you and me, whom God uses to make life happen in this world.  A great example of this in the Bible is the Apostle Andrew.  Did you know he is the first disciple to follow Jesus? Yet He was not one of the leaders.  There are no great, outstanding sermons by Andrew recorded in Scripture.  In fact, almost every time Andrew is referred to in Scripture he is called “Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.”  He was so “ordinary” that he only stood out because of his relationship with Peter.  Otherwise people took little notice of him.  Most of us chafe at being referred to as the brother or sister of… We want to be noticed because of who we are, not because of who our sibling is.  Yet Andrew never seems to complain.  He seems fine with being average.  And Jesus seems fine with having average Andrew as one of His disciples.  Indeed think about this, without average Andrew, there would be no Apostle Peter.  Andrew is the one who says to Peter, “We have found the Messiah.”  He is the one who introduces Peter to Jesus.  When the disciples are worried about feeding the huge, hungry crowd, Andrew is the one who tells Jesus about the boy who has some bread and fish.  When the Greeks come wanting to meet Jesus, Andrew is the one who brings them to Jesus. 

My point is, being one of God’s “average Andrews” is a blessing.  God does most of His work through ordinary believers like you and me, not the Billy Grahams or the Apostle Paul’s of the world.  Attention is so often focused on the Pastor who preaches or the soloist who sings.  But it’s the ushers, the altar guild members, the lay readers, the acolytes… the “Andrew’s” of the church who make the service happen.  Where would the great doctor be without the nurses, the lab techs and the receptionist?  It used to drive me crazy when the “professors” took for granted all the staff people who make the University run.

Yes there is something special about each one of us.  But none of us is above average or exception at everything, or even at most things.  In most areas of life you and are average.  We are simply “normal.”  For all of us there are also areas where we are weak and perhaps “below average.”  Just ask me about chemistry. It’s okay.  God loves, calls and makes great things happen through average people like you and me… gave His son for us… has prepared a place in heaven for us… knows our names and counts the hairs on our heads.  Indeed the Bible tells us that by working through average people like you and me, God makes it crystal clear that “the all surpassing power is from God and not from us.”  Being average, normal people in God’s service means God gets all the glory He deserves.  That’s the importance of being average. Amen

Thank You to Those who Serve

Romans 13:4 (ESV)

^“for he is God’s servant for your good.”

I want to say right off, this is not intended to be anything more than what the title says – a “thank you to those who serve.”  Obviously. I, like most of you, have been horrified by the racist deeds we have as a nation been witnessed to in recent weeks.  There are bad policemen, just like there are bad pastors, bad doctors, bad lawyers. Indeed, we are all sinners capable of evil.  I do not intend to deny that.

However, I want to say very clearly, that I believe that 99% of those who serve in the police force, in the fire department, as EMTs and in all other professions who seek to protect us – that 99% are good honorable women and men, of every race, color and creed.  They seek with all their hearts to serve and protect us.  Now, I am not one who likes to speak or write in in generalities, like the one I just shared with you.  So, I will speak from my own personal experience.  I am an Uncle to one police officer.  Over the years I have been a friend, neighbor and pastor to many who serve as policemen, policewomen, firemen, EMTs, soldiers and more.  Everyone one of them is a good honorable person, who seeks to serve and protect the rest of us.  I have one friend, a fireman, who last year propelled down an elevator shaft in a skyscraper to rescue someone stuck in that elevator.  Last year, I met a policeman who, in response to a school shooter, ran towards the shooting while everyone else was running away.  He did that to protect the teachers and students of that school.  Where would you and I be without such courageous men and women?   I have grave doubts that I would be capable of doing either of those things. 

I was reminded of all this by something I read this morning. The following quote is from a book on Christian vocation – God at Work - by Gene Edward Veith.  Here is what he wrote –

“When the planes smashed into the World Trade Center, thousands of office workers rushed out of the building. Against the stream, police and firefighters were rushing inside. When the towers collapsed, hundreds of them, who had gone into the doomed buildings to rescue whoever they could, lost their lives. Afterwards the firefighters, police, and rescue workers worked round-the-clock in the wreckage, desperately trying to find someone alive, engaging in backbreaking, exhausting physical labor to find clues and recover the bodies. Here is real heroism, everyone agreed. Professional athletes and movie stars, accustomed to adulation, said with one voice that they are nothing—those cops, firefighters, and other workers at Ground Zero are the heroes. Interestingly, when the heroes took a break long enough to be interviewed, they modestly put aside the praise. They said, “We are just doing our jobs.” That is the doctrine of vocation. Ordinary men and women expressing their love and service to their neighbor, “just doing our jobs.”

Paul’s words about those in authority, written to the Roman Christians seem so appropriate – “for he is God’s servant for your good.”  I would challenge all of you to find a way to say thank you for this service.  Therefore, to all the good, honest, honorable men and women serving to protect us – especially to those I know – Thanks be to God and thank you for “just doing your jobs!”  

The Only Way to Change the World

1 John 1:8–9 (ESV)

⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I have been very frustrated the past couple of weeks – angered by the terrible acts of racism and violence and looting we have seen, as well as upset by the way the press and the politicians exploit all of this.  I have wondered, “What’s wrong with all these other people?  Has everyone gone crazy?”  Its been easy to point fingers of blame and judgment at others. Its been easy to throw up my hands in exasperation, wondering, asking, “What after all can I do about all of this?”

Then yesterday someone showed me an article about the names of some of the streets in the neighborhood where I live.  There are  streets in my neighborhood with names like  “Plantation Drive” and “Confederate Drive.”  The point of the article was that these street names should be changed because they were an example of systemic racism.  I am sharing this with you, not in order to advocate one way or the other for changing or keeping those names, but rather because of the thoughts this article raised in my mind.  I began to wonder, “How come I never noticed that some of the streets in our neighborhood had names related to the old confederacy?  Why did it never occur to me that such names might be offensive to those who have been victim of racism?  For that matter, why did I never think that naming a team “the Redskins” might be offensive to native Americans?”

Those thoughts brought me back to one point that I have shared before in this blog.  There is only one way to change the world – that is if God fist changes me.  It’s the same with you.  While it may or may not be a good idea to tear down statutes in Richmond, Virginia or to change street names in Richmond, TX – such actions will not erase racism or end violence or stop injustice in the world.  That kind of change can’t happen in the world, until God first works that change in me (and in you.)  Pointing fingers, blaming, judging others, pointing out faults in others, means nothing until I recognize, confess, repent of my own sin and with God’s help daily become a new man in Christ.  Jesus tells us this in the sermon on the Mount, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Until I recognize the logs that I have in my own eye, I do more harm than good trying to pick out the specks in the other person’s eyes. Apart  from that confession, I am being arrogant and hypocritical in judging others.  I am simply lying to myself, to others and to God.  That’s the point of 1 John 1.  “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

You have heard of the “Serenity Prayer” – “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”  Let me share with you a little different version of that prayer that illustrates what I am writing about here – “God grant me the serenity to accept the person I cannot change, the courage to change the person I can and the wisdom to recognize that I am the only person I can change.”  Changing the world starts and is only possible if God first changes me.  Changing the world starts with this – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Before we start pointing fingers of blame at statues or at other people, stop first and ask God to remove the log from our own eyes.  He will.  Indeed that is why Jesus was born.  Amen.