Author: TechCommittee

Sermon 3-05-2017 “That Sneaky Old Snake.”

March 5, 2017                                                                       Text:  Genesis 3:1-21

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

The marquee of a theater showed a man dressed as the devil because the current movie was about Satan.  The man was dressed in red, had a long tail, pitchfork, and horns.  A little girl, walking by with her mother, looked at the figure and was frightened.  “What’s that?” she asked her mother.  “Oh,” mother replied, “don’t be afraid.  That’s only the devil.”

That is our world.  Make the devil a caricature and he becomes less real, less frightening, and does he really exist?  Hell and damnation are not on many people’s radar so they can easily live the life they want.

Adam and Eve know the devil is all too real.  He comes to them today in the form of a snake created by God.  Do you ever think to yourself, “How could they be so dumb?  They had perfection as husband and wife.  No arguing about finances or who takes out the garbage or where on earth will we vacation this year.”  Would you or I have given in?  10 chances out of 9, we would!  Satan’s temptations are hard to resist.  That sneaky old snake is a forceful factor in the world.  He can deceive and seduce the best the human race has to offer.  Until Christ comes again this is our predicament.  Let’s take him seriously . . .

“THAT SNEAKY OLD SNAKE”

Satan has several descriptions in Scripture:  accuser, slanderer, adversary, enemy, opponent.  Jesus calls him a murderer, a liar, and the father of lies.  The Catechism reminds us that the devil was once a holy angel but then fell away from God.  He and his cohorts were created holy, sinned and are forever rejected by God.  They are great in number.

“That sneaky old snake” still challenges and seduces. Talking snakes?  Are you serious?  Who would be dumb enough to believe that?  That’s just some writer’s way of explaining how this world ended up as it is now.  Besides, do you believe Adam and Eve were real people and the only people in the world?  That’s just a way of describing the origins of the human race.  Satan doesn’t seduce today?  Satan laughs and laughs and laughs if we think like that.

What he did in the garden was to get our first parents to doubt God’s Word.  He lies to them.  The lying continues in our day.  People brought up in the church and who know God’s Word still think living together before marriage is not a sin.  Wake up!  Satan is winning.  He lies and tells men and women that gay marriage is just about love, not unnatural relations as described in the Bible.  Wake up!  Satan is winning.  He slithers past us and mentions we can be like God, because what does He really know anyways.  Wake up!  Satan is winning.  He turned Cain against Abel and he did quite the number on David and Bathsheba.  No one is off limits.  He even tries his seduction with Jesus as we see in today’s Gospel.

Be on guard, because he attacks all Christians, including you and me.  The noose of sin strangles and suffocates.  Take the sneaky old snake seriously.  Adam and Eve didn’t and it cost them and us death.  I’m naked, where can I hide?!

When preaching on this text it always is a reminder that we want to make the message of how to overcome simplistic.  Things like, “resist Satan’s assaults. Don’t do what Adam and Eve did.  Be strong against the wily one.”  Does this ever work?

We need help.  We need powerful, perfect help.  We need the strongest of the strong.  We need someone who overcame the sneaky old snake.  What’s that, someone did triumph over the devil?  Someone did resist and watched the devil walk away with his head in shame.

Isn’t the symmetry of the Scripture lessons beautiful this day?  Christ met the foe and he slithered away.  In His human nature he resisted the taunts and the goading and the challenge.  In His human nature He took the verbal punches and the subversive tactics to a place called Golgotha.  There for all the world of sinners to see He gave His life so that the old evil foe would be defeated.  Before His glorious resurrection, He took a little trip to tell Satan that He had won.  Satan would still have power but it would be limited and it would not last forever.  Through the one man free grace and righteousness is ours.  Grace reigns eternal.  While Satan is winning small battles here, the Eternal One passes on the eternal victory to us.

To resist this sneaky old snake we daily need these reminders.  Where are those found?  In the Holy Book.  Jesus used it.  Each time Satan came to attack him he said, “It is written.”  It is not enough to know the Scriptures so well that you can quote them.  Anyone – including Satan – can do that.  We must know what the Scriptures say and mean for us.  We must believe their message.

Take the devil seriously.  He is not some goofball in a 10 cent costume straight from a Hollywood back lot.  He is a formidable foe and his crafty and cunning seem to be working the world over.  Remember Christ holds the power.  Christ lived the perfection.  Christ is the ultimate snake handler and this belly crawling despot has met his match.  Good riddance sneaky old snake – now crawl away from here – I’ve got a Savior watching over me!

Amen.

Elder, Usher, and Acolyte Schedules March 2017

Elder and Usher Schedule

Date
8:00
Elder
10:30
Mar 1
Ash Wednesday		7pmMike FieldCraig Culp, Daryle Schempp, Jeff Piper
Mar 5Ben Holland, Gene Fuller, Richard RossNathan KluenderHolden Lueck,
Theron Noth
Mar 8
Lenten Service		7pmNathan Kluender
Mar 12Joshua Parry, Steve ParryBarry HamlinBud Kessler, Curt Kessler
Mar 15
Lenten Service		7pmBarry Hamlin
Mar 19Jeff Piper, Mike Field,
Nathan Kluender, Paul Gerike		Curt KesslerBryan Reichert,
Greg McNeely
Mar 22
Lenten Service		7pmCurt Kessler
Mar 26Ben Holland, Daryle SchemppCraig CulpBrian Dirks, Holden Lueck, Mike Huth
Mar 29
Lenten Service		7pmCraig Culp

Acolyte Schedule

Date
8:00 AM
10:30 AM
Mar 1
Ash Wednesday		7pmChloe Hitch
Mar 5Summer SheleyPastor/Elder
Mar 12Pastor/ElderWilliam McNeely
Mar 19Tanner HitchPastor/Elder
Mar 26
Pastor/ElderJessica Isaac

Celebrating March 2017

Birthdays

3/1 Michael Anderson
3/1 John Isaac
3/2 Kyryth Kessler
3/3 Anita Contois
3/3 Halle Sheley
3/4 Vanessa Biddle
3/4 Steve Parry
3/6 Greg Sheley
3/18 Ruth Alvis
3/25 Jennifer Cloyd
3/29 Mary Anne Kirchner
3/31 Robert Bier

Baptismal Birthdays

3/1 Lucas Schempp
3/3 Jennifer Parry
3/4 Betty Bier
3/8 Matthew Holland
3/11 Linda Dirks
3/11 Pat Orr
3/13 Mollie Hitch
3/13 Ryan Hitch
3/16 Johana Kirchner
3/18 Ruth Alvis
3/20 Luanne Huth
3/24 Carol Schroeder
3/29 Vanessa Biddle
3/31 Carin Henson

Stewardship Corner March 2017

Lent is a season of repentant joy.  There is joy in repentance because in repentance, God, through His Word, turns us away from our sins — our failures of thought, word, and deed — to believe in the forgiveness and new life He has accomplished for us in the death and resurrection of His Son.   For our God is our Father, and fathers discipline their children.  He loves us enough to point out when and where we have erred, so that we are not weighed down by false belief, despair, and other great shame or vice.

Thus we do well to listen to God’s Word, His own teaching, about giving.  St. Paul exhorts: “Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor” (Gal 6:6).  This means that the local congregation is primary.  In other words, everything else that we might give to during the year — laudable and worthy charities —are to be on top of what we give to our local congregation. For the local congregation is the place that serves us with the gifts of Christ’s death and resurrection.  The local congregation is where our spiritual needs are met when Christ’s atonement is preached, when the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed, when we were baptized into the name of the Triune God, and when we partake of the body and blood of the risen and living Lamb of God.

But how much are we to give to this local congregation?  His instructions are these: to give regularly (1 Cor 6:1–2), proportionally (1 Cor 16:1–2; 2 Cor 8:12), and generously (2 Cor 8:20) of our first fruits (Gen 4:4; Prov 3:9; Lev 27:30) with a spirit of eagerness (2 Cor 9:2), earnestness (2 Cor 8:7), cheerfulness (2 Cor 9:7), and love (2 Cor 8:23).

Thus, giving to the church is not to be an afterthought, given after everything else is spent.  In this way, it is deliberate.  We give it regularly, whenever we have income.  We set it aside beforehand, before anything else is spent.  From those first fruits, we set aside a proportionate and generous amount.  Ten percent was the standard for the Israelites.  Tithing was a command for them.  St. Paul never mentions a tithe.  Since a tithe was the bare minimum for the people of Israel in the Old Testament, perhaps St. Paul had more in mind.  That aside, however, ten percent is an easy way to figure out an amount.  You simply move your weekly, bi-weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, or yearly income one decimal point to the left.  And that’s it.  That’s what you put in the Offering plate to support your local congregation so that you may continue to be a hearer of God’s Word by sharing all good things with those who teach it to you.

And how are we to give it?  We give it with eagerness and earnestness.  We give it cheerfully and with love, not out of compulsion.  For through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, God has made us His children, forgiven us all our sins, given us grace upon grace, promised us life everlasting with Him in His kingdom, and filled us with His own Spirit, the Holy Spirit.  This makes giving a joy.  For it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).

In repentant joy, then, do we hear God’s Word on giving, and we let that Word dwell in us richly.  We let that word wash over our ears and seep into our hearts, to turn us away from our own selfish desires and turned toward Him in faith and love.  We love the Lord and His Word.  And we desire to do it.  And when we have failed, that Word reproves and corrects, forgives and consoles.  It calls us back to Him who is our God, our Savior, our Father.

Pastor’s Notes March 2017

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

When Manhattan criminal defense attorney John Jacobs died, his wife, Marion Seltzer buried him with his cell phone fully charged.  It has been a few years now but she still pays the monthly phone bill and she still leaves him frequent voice mails.  Marion actually went so far as to have John’s cell phone number engraved on his headstone, so that people stopping to visit the grave site can ring him up and leave a message.  He, of course, never gets the messages.  The phone’s battery – not to mention operator – stopped working years ago.  But Marion is hardly alone in this.  Being buried with one’s cell phone has become commonplace in our tech-savvy culture.  It is just one more way that society tries to cope with death.

Jesus offers a better way, a way that works.  He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn. 11:25-26).  Can we hear Jesus now?  Yes!  And forever!

In Christ,

Pastor

 

LENTEN SCHEDULE IN MARCH

 

Mar. 1, 7:00 pm – Ash Wednesday worship with Holy Communion and Imposition of Ashes

 

Mar. 8, 5:30 pm – Lenten Meal

Mar. 8, 7:00 pm – Lenten Worship

 

Mar. 15, 5:30 pm – Lenten Meal

Mar. 15, 7:00 pm – Lenten Worship

 

Mar. 22, 5:30 pm – Lenten Meal

Mar. 22, 7:00 pm – Lenten Worship

 

Mar. 29, 5:30 pm – Lenten Meal

Mar. 29, 7:00 pm – Lenten Worship

 

The theme for our messages during Lent is “The Ironies of the Passion.”  See you in church during this penitential and humbling season of the church year.