October 10, 2021                        Text:  Amos 5:6-7, 10-15

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Picture the scene.  You are at home in the middle of the afternoon.  You go to the laundry room or your workbench.  You arrive safely but you can’t remember what you were looking for.  Was it a shirt to be ironed or were you looking for a hanger?  Did you go to the workbench for a crescent wrench or a tube of caulk?  What are you looking for?

    That is a good question to ask this morning as we look at the Book of Amos.  It is a question for emotionally and spiritually restless people.

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?”

    In the large scheme of things we might answer that question with happiness or love or excitement.  We might be looking for a purpose in life or excitement.  If we eventually find some of these things they never seem to last for any length of time.  Looking for our source of life apart from God is not what we were created for.

    The Lord’s people during the time of Amos knew a thing or two about looking for things apart from God.  Amos writes in a time of relative political stability in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.  This external stability is covering up spiritual problems.  The people have calf idols and false gods.  Ultimately they adopt the great false god – they are worshipping self.

    The well to do and connected people start defrauding the common folk.  People are charged unfair taxes and they would pay off judges to maintain their enterprise.  Any of this sound familiar?  Something we might know about as Illinoins in the same state as a large city?  

    Even God’s tolerance goes only so far.  He sends Amos to warn them that their time is coming.  You have a nice house but you will not live there.  You have a wonderful vineyard but you shall not drink the vintage.  Within a generation of this writing Israel would be destroyed by the Assyrians.  

    As we look for the good life we can step on people.  When we look for pleasure we use people.  When we look for power we manipulate.  We are good at worshipping our own self-interests.

    The Lord wants so much more from us.  “Seek the Lord and live.” (v. 6a)  “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live.” (v. 14)  We look for a thousand good things in life when only one can give us the life we need.  “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (Jn. 10:10)

    We didn’t go looking for God.  He came looking for us.  He didn’t stand in the pantry going:  now what was I looking for?  He knew.  He knew He had created us.  He knew that through acts of love and mercy, Jesus bore witness of the life He came to give us.  He knew that Jesus would be given over to die on a cross.  He knew that Son of His would destroy the power of death and that He lives forever to be our life.  He is looking for us to be strengthened in Absolution and Gospel and Sacrament.  

    Firm in our Christian faith and then looking outside ourselves, God allows us to see people rightly, as objects of His love and our love.  We care for neighbor because the Lord cared for us.  With Jesus as our source of life we seek to bless those around us instead of using them for our own ends.

    The prophet Amos had words of hope for his wayward countrymen.  God would look for and seek His people.  God would save His people.  Continuing to follow the story the Lord would bring them home to a land where they would build and dwell and plant vineyards and enjoy the wine.   They would dwell in His presence forever.

    It’s a picture of the new creation for us.  We don’t need to look outside ourselves for fulfillment.  We have an eternal hope through Jesus Christ.  We may not always know what we are looking for but our Savior Jesus does.  We pray that others, especially all the lookers and seekers of our world, will find through the Holy Spirit the Lord being near and dear to them.  This is where true life is found.

                                            Amen.       

October 3, 2021 – LWML Sunday                                Text:  1 Peter 1:22

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Great to have you in worship today.  What motivated you to come to Good Shepherd today?  Worship?  Hearing God’s Word?  Holy Communion?  Visiting with fellow believers?  A less than 10-minute sermon?  Coffee and donuts?

    Maybe it was all of the above.  Churches are always inviting people to come and visit.  This is what we do.  We are privileged to be here.  Led by the Spirit these hours spent together give us a real lift.  Great to have you in worship today.

    Today is Lutheran Women’s Missionary League Sunday.  LWML is an auxiliary organization of our Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.  These women of the church support one another and the missions of the church around the world.  

The theme is based on 1 Peter 1:22 . . .

“LOVE ONE ANOTHER FROM PURE HEARTS”

    Think about a heart in a hand.  Have you ever held a heart in your hand?  Maybe while dissecting in high school or college?  Or a school field trip to a hospital?  If you did it wasn’t beating.  But think about what a transplant surgeon does.  He takes out a diseased heart and puts in a new heart.  That is what God has done for you and me.  In Baptism the Lord gives us a pure heart with all the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection.  A transplanted heart may not last a lifetime.  Our new hearts given through baptism will live forever.

    Why do you and I need heart transplants?  Because within our heart are thoughts and feelings which make us ashamed.  Within our hearts are ideas and urges that are sinful.  Within our hearts are things we never want others to know about us.  By nature our hearts are not pure.  This came with original sin that showed itself in the first two people on earth – Adam and Eve.

    While are hearts are corrupt, we do not have to continue to live that way.  Christ Jesus offers His forgiveness.  His cross transplanted His righteousness to us.  In a heart transplant, new physical life comes to a fatally ill patient.  God has given you this new, pure heart.  You have newness of life and God gives you His love.

    “Having purified yours souls by your obedience to the truth.”  Doesn’t this sound like Peter is advocating we can keep ourselves pure by keeping the commandments?  Peter is not going down that road he is simply talking about faith.  Our new heart, our new birth, makes us children of the heavenly Father who through trust look to Him and want to live holy lives for His sake.  

    At the beginning of the sermon the question was asked what brought you to church?  Part of the answer is coming together in Christ.  During the real isolated times of the virus many of us experienced meetings on our computer.  I remember one morning just working from my bed.  The Internet provided a Zoom meeting, I had my phone and I just propped myself right on the old mattress.  It was a meeting for the circuit visitors of our Central Illinois District led by President Miller.  It was good to chat and hear what everyone was doing.  Did you find this curious – where people would sit in their house for these meetings?  But then again I was in bed.  Showered and dressed but still on the bed.

    Last month for the first time in almost two years we all got to be together in Springfield.  It had a different vibe.  More togetherness.  More interaction.  You could read faces more clearly.  We all left that day knowing why we missed being in person.

    That is true of our worship.  We thank God for technology and the ability to worship safely, but being apart is hard.  Being together, in person around His Word of new birth, of life and love in Christ.  This Word transforms us as we hear it.  This Word transforms us as it is spoken and sung.  This Word transforms us as we receive it physically in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  There are reasons to come to Church but we come to worship because here all our hearts are together, not only together with one another, but most importantly, together with one another in the Lord’s hand.

    This love inside then reaches outside these walls.  “Love one another earnestly from the pure heart.”  That is what we do.  This is what the LWML does.  They give millions of dollars through the district and synodical level for mission projects.  Unless you are really in tune with your church, most people in the pews on a Sunday don’t realize the wonderful outreach that is accomplished by our LWML and the LCMS.  The Word of God is at work.  It is transplanting hearts.  It is transforming lives.  It is a wonderful time to be the church because so many need this message.  Hearts long for something stable.  Brothers and sisters need the love of Christ.  Holy Spirit continue to lead in this direction

    Coming together in worship, God makes us a big-hearted church that extends His hand of love to everyone.

                    Amen.