Month: November 2014

Nov. 30, 2014 Text: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Dear Friends in Christ,

Can you think of times in our world when people were not prepared? How about these: The German invasion of Poland in 1939. The Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Islamic terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. The tsunami that roared across the Indian Ocean in December 2004. Hurricane Katrina that devastated the Gulf Coast back in 2005. Tornadoes that come without warning. The recent snowstorm in New York State.
Waiting is one thing when we’re prepared. Waiting is quite another when we’re unprepared. And how can we possibly be prepared when we don’t know what’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen?
Today begins the new church year and the season of Advent. This liturgical season is all about preparation and . . . waiting. I’ve titled the sermon after a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song from the 1980’s. Even though it was probably not meant to be theological this is the line in the song right before the title. “You take it on faith, you take it to the heart . . .
“THE WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART”
Paul as he writes to the Corinthians acknowledges that they lack nothing. They were enriched in speech and knowledge. They have been given grace through Jesus Christ. The testimony of Christ was confirmed among them.
We also lack nothing. We have been enriched through God’s good gifts. Christ revealed, salvation completed, surrounded by the grace and mercy of the Savior.
Yet we are waiting. We are waiting for “the day.” (v. 8) When I say that, what do many of you immediately think of? You think of the day that is still twenty-five days away. You think of the preparations that still have to be made. You will not be caught unprepared. You know it’s coming so why worry.
It is true that many of us are waiting for Christmas and the blessing of celebrating and worshipping Jesus Christ, the revealed Son of God the Father, born in Bethlehem. But Paul is not writing about Christmas. He is writing about the Greater Day. The return of Jesus Christ. And so we wait. Strangers in a strange land.
While many may agree that “waiting is the hardest part” when it comes to Christmas, do you feel the same way about the return of Christ? Is waiting the hardest part? Or is it not knowing when this will occur the hardest part? Do you take it on faith? Do you take it to the heart? Is the waiting the hardest part?
With Christmas we have a fixed date. Even though we may flitter around wondering how we will accomplish all that needs to get done, we can look back on a record number of years where we accomplished what we wanted. The worry melts away like the spring snows because we have been through it before. The rhythm of life helps us to be prepared.
The opposite can happen with the return of Jesus. Since we do not know the date, we can worry about whether our faith life is in the right place. Do I fully trust Christ as Savior? Has my heart been prepared for His salvation? We may even begin to join the scoffers of the day who insist that Jesus isn’t ever going to return, because after all, where has He been as the world falls apart?
And still, we are ready. We are prepared. This is not we scurrying to the mall to get eternal clothes for Jesus’ arrival. We are not the ones hanging the stockings by the chimney in hopes that Christ would soon be here. Paul writes, “as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (vs. 7b-9)
We are not sustaining ourselves to the end. God is. He is preparing our hearts and our minds for the expected arrival back to earth of our Savior. We are not always faithful. God is always faithful. We are no longer guilty of our offenses but through the death and resurrection of Christ we are guiltless. “Jesus has cleansed His church by removing the sins of believers through His own blood on the cross. This cleansing has been applied to Christians through Holy Baptism.” (Eph. 5:26) When Jesus returns the church will be blameless because God who is faithful keeps it in the cleansing flow of His grace. It all God’s doing through the Word and the Sacraments. He has prepared us. Yes, the waiting is the hardest part because we cannot wait to experience the joy of being with the Lord forever.
Take it on faith. Take it to the heart. The return of Christ our Savior is the blessed part.
Amen.

(Video Unavailable)
Nov. 23, 2014 – Stewardship Sunday Texts: Deut. 7:7-8, Rom 5:6-8, John 2:1-10

Dear Friends in Christ,

Two men crashed their private plane on a South Pacific Island. One of the men brushed himself off and proceeded to run all over the island to see if they had any chance of survival. When he returned, he rushed up to the other man and screamed, “This Island is uninhabited and there is no food or water. We’re going to die!”
The other man leaned back against the fuselage of the wrecked plane, folded his arms and responded, “No we’re not, I make over $100,000 a week.” The first man grabbed his friend and shook him. “Listen, we’re on a deserted island. We’re doomed!” Still unfazed, the man looked the other guy in the eye and said, “It’s OK. I make over $100,000 per week and give 10% to the church. My Pastor will find us!”
It’s Stewardship Sunday. Time to take inventory of how we use God’s precious gifts to us. It’s all about Him – the Savior, Jesus. He makes what we do for Him and His kingdom worth it.
“WHY YOUR LIFE IS WORTH HIS LIFE”
Our first text from Deuteronomy, “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
That same truth applies to us. We are a chosen people that belong to God. And please know that we are not chosen and made His because we are all great and wonderful. Scripture says we are sinful people like filthy rags. We are his enemies because of our sin.
Christ through His grace has saved us. We are saved from the terrors and torment of hell. We are saved from having to prove ourselves to God. We are saved from the culture we want to adapt to. We are saved through a beaten, bloodied, spiked to a cross, facing the depths of hell Savior who loved us enough to bear the punishment for our filthy rags. Your life was worth His life.
Our Epistle lesson spells it out even more clearly. Paul writes, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
We are weak, aren’t we? Struggling with our sin. Giving into temptation and the devil. Sometimes making a real royal mess of our lives. Going after the self-helps of the world only to find that makes it worse. We need Jesus. We need His love, forgiveness and guidance through His Word every day. That changes how I live and how I treat others. It is worth everything. Your life was worth His life.
Our last text is the first miracle Jesus every performed. Commonly known as “changing water into wine.” Our focus today is on verse 10, “(The master of the feast) said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.’”
The master of the feast recognized the wine’s high quality, giving witness to the miracle’s greatness. The Lord always gives the best.
Think of the good wine you have been granted in this life. Financial blessings showered up on you. A country where you can come to worship without fear of retribution or imprisonment. The amazing abilities that the Creator God has given unto you. The time granted on this earth to serve God and your fellow man. The children on loan to you to shepherd in the faith. Do you recognize the good wine that comes from the hands of your Redeemer?
Sometimes though we drink from the poor wine and wallow in our self-pity. “I don’t have what my neighbor has.” “Why can’t I do ________ as well as so and so?” “Where is the time Lord to get done what needs to get done.” All this does is make us whiners filled with the poor wine of our own making.
We forget we are the ones chosen to attend the wedding feast and given the good wine. The miracle worker Jesus makes this all possible. The guests at the wedding didn’t do anything to deserve this gift. They were the blessed recipients.
What we tend to do in the church is turning away from the eternal truths of God’s Word and focus on human fulfillment. This guts the central tenet of the faith once delivered to the saints, namely God’s one-way love in his Son Jesus Christ.
Last year Tullian Tchvidjian, Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post deploring this capitulation of churches toward expressive individualism. He wrote:
“The hub of Christianity is not ‘do something for Jesus.’ The hub of Christianity is ‘Jesus has done everything for you.’ And my fear is that too many people, both inside and outside the church, have heard our ‘do more, try harder’ sermons and pleas for intensified devotion and concluded that the focus of the Christian faith is the work that we do instead of the work God has done for us in the person of Jesus.”
He cares for you. He loves you. He died for you. Your life is worth His life.
Amen.