Author: TechCommittee

DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, THERE IS A DELAY IN POSTING BOTH THE COMPLETE SERVICE AND SERMON IN VISUAL FORM.  WE WILL BE ATTEMPTING TO REPAIR THE PROBLEM.

March 11, 2018                                                                     Text:  Numbers 21:4-9

Dear Friends in Christ,

What does the word snakebitten mean to you?  Literally it can mean someone bitten by a snake, but more times than not that is not how we use it.  We use for it someone who has a run of bad fortune.

The washing machine springs a leak, a child is suspended at school and the flu hits the day you have a presentation at work.  That person is snakebitten.  In sports, the basketball shot is not falling, the hard hit balls in baseball are caught and the hockey puck is just missing the net – snakebitten.

Let’s journey with our Old Testament ancestors and see how this word affected them and how it affects us . . .

“SNAKEBITTEN”

The Israelites described in our text were snakebitten in both ways.  Literally and figuratively.  Egypt?  Come on God.  Moses, we have no food or water, what are you doing to us?  This then led to one of the great sins of all time when the Lord does not do things in a timely manner – impatience.  Impatience then turned to complaining and complaining turned to self-pity and self-pity turned to rebellion.

If you know Scripture, you know that God will not tolerate rebellion.  So he sends poisonous snakes to punish their open rebellion and these snake bites cause the death of many.  He also sends these snakes to show them their sin and lead them to repentance.

As we examine our forefathers this is where we enter the story.  We often become impatient with God’s timing, don’t we?  Marriage challenges, job upheaval, children decisions, chronic pain, recovery from surgery, political expediency and church building challenges.  We want to take all these matters into our own hands without first seeking God’s direction through His Word and prayer.

The British/American rock band Fleetwood Mac sang it so well in the 1970’s with “Go Your Own Way.”  We are our own mapmakers.  We are the cartographer for our life.  “Where’s Waldo?”  Where are we?  Taking a path right into the den of snakes?  Rebelling against God and complaining about His directions and accommodations along the way.

God sent those snakes to induce repentance and bring them back to faith in Him.  The incredible part of this story and most of the Old Testament is how the Lord continued to love them in spite of their open rebellion!

To this very day, God continues to use adversity and the various problems that we have to draw us back to Him or keep us by His side.  And, by the way, many, not all, but many of those problems we actually bring upon ourselves – just as did the Israelites.  But God will see us through them.

God had a solution for the rebellious Israelites.  Those dying of snake bites were to look at the bronze snake that He had directed Moses to lift up on a pole.  Those who looked at the bronze snake, not as a god, but as a symbol of God’s promise and protection, were saved.  Those who were dying were given life.  Their faith in God – that He still loved them in spite of their rebellion – healed them and saved their lives.

Out of that same love, God also provided a solution for our rebellion and us.  The words of Jesus in our Gospel:  “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Jesus was lifted up on a cross to suffer the punishment, the condemnation, the eternal death that each of us should have received for our own rebellion.  We, who were snakebitten with sin – and were dying from those wounds, are now saved from an eternal death in hell just as surely as the Israelites were saved from death in the desert.

Two things we’ve discussed today go beyond human reason:  the bronze serpent lifted up in the desert and Jesus’ being lifted up on His blessed cross.  Neither action makes sense.  But that’s the whole point.  Jesus forgives your sin of impatience and going your own way and gives you eternal life solely by grace through faith in the unlikely, improbable, but totally true fact of his death on the cross in your place.  God would have us look at him alone for life and salvation.  Therefore, by his grace in the cross of Christ, God saves his snakebitten people.

We’ve talked about things being raised in today’s sermon, but there is another thing yet to be “raised up.”  We should say there is another person yet to be “raised up.”  You and I and all believers in Christ are that person.

Paul describes it in our Epistle lesson.  “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

Fellow snakebitten believers, by God’s grace through faith in his one and only Son, you and I will be “raised up” from the dead on the Last Day.  We will not only be raised from the dead, but as God promises, we will be raised up to heaven, where we will live with him forever.  Thanks be to God!

Amen.

March 4, 2018                                                                        Text:  John 2:13-22

Dear Friends in Christ,

Who likes to upset the status quo?  Who of you gets involved when an injustice is done?  When do we not follow the guidelines?

My last year at the seminary we were to have a banquet for those that would be graduating.  We were called to a meeting of the administration that was run by the interim president.  He was interim because the previous president had been let go unceremoniously and without cause.  We were told at this meeting that we could invite anyone we wanted to be our banquet speaker except the former president.  After the meeting my class gathered and took a vote.  We overwhelmingly voted for the former president of the seminary.  The administration was quite shocked.  We had literally turned over tables and they didn’t like it.  Ultimately the banquet was cancelled and the money saved was given to each man to use in the bookstore.

If you watched the recent Olympics you saw a female half-pipe skier who played by the rules but upset the Olympic powers that be by qualifying without really doing any tricks in her discipline.  She just skied down the hill and social media was up in arms.  I love things like that.

Today in our text Jesus is in the temple and things are not right.  What will our Lord do?  Will He take action or as some want to claim . . .

“IS JESUS A WIMP?”

Part of our society want to see Jesus as a wimp.  You know how it goes.  Jesus loves everyone and it doesn’t matter what kind of sick behavior you indulge in because when you die we are all going to look to the sky like you have been saved though your life never showed any kind of Christian faith.  Jesus can be portrayed as mealy-mouthed and compassionate and a little wimpy.  Let’s see if that description really fits.

In our text Jesus is going to the temple in Jerusalem and instead of worshippers He finds a flea market.  Does He just walk away?  Does he try to explain these people’s behavior away?  Does he think He has to love them even if they are doing wrong?  No, no, and no!  He creates a scene and offends.  Finding his Father’s House being misused and abused, Jesus has to burst out into action.  This is no wimpy Jesus.  This is the Son of God calling people out for their poor behavior and choices.  “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” (v. 16b)

Where might Jesus’ anger burn today?  How about with the church that built a water slide for baptisms?  How about with those who are trying to change his gift of marriage?  Or those killing babies for convenience.  Does His heart burn for those who find excuses to stay away from His House?  Would He like to overturn the tables on those who use his name as exclamation points?  How about with worshippers who long for a person-centered service of good feelings rather than a God-centered one?  Is He patient when our thoughts wander in worship or if the service goes a little longer than we like?  Like we are doing God a favor. . when really it is the other way around.

Only God’s perfect person can meet our pitiful person.  No bowing to decorum, if it means compromising God’s house.  No playing it safe, blending in, even though this sort of outburst will get him killed.  No greater love or mercy or humility could be shown us sinners than what we see in the person of Christ.

Jesus is no wimp.  He is authentic and genuine.  Unlike the money-changers and sinners like us, he offers more than a fair exchange.  He exchanges our guilt for his acquittal.  He exchanges our crosses of damnation for his cross of salvation.  He exchanges our weaknesses for the strength of his resurrection.  He exchanges the weak things of our world for the strong world of heaven.  He exchanges, on the Last Day, our vile bodies for his victorious, resurrected one.

This was no weakling Christ, no coward wielding that whip.  And the grossly offended powers-that-be in the temple weren’t seeing the half of it.  This was almighty God!  The power of Christ is unmatched and his church will prevail.  Even the gates of hell cannot overcome against this lowly yet mighty body of believers.  Christ’s zeal, though seemingly destroyed on the cross, was instead raised in power on Easter.  And because He lives, we live forever.

Christian brother and sister today is another good reminder that we come from a long line of table turners.  Jesus, Martin Luther, the early Christians in America.  What are we doing about the money-changers and Scripture changers and post-modern blowhards of our day?  Being a wimp is not an option.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit we are reminded, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation.” (Rom. 1:16)  That was written by St. Paul who was transformed from a Christian hating zealot to a servant of Christ Jesus.  That is the Lord’s power through the Holy Spirit.  Lives can be changed and transformed but not if we just sit idly by.

Come out of the temple.  The world needs to hear the Gospel message from you and I.  Do we have the zeal?  I pray that we do.

Amen.