The newsletter or related items
Birthdays
7/4 Joann Nottingham
7/10 Bob Love
7/14 Nick Henson
7/22 Joann Hart
7/24 Katey Parry
7/25 Andrew Benjamin
7/25 Stephanie Schempp
7/27 David McEleney
Baptismal Birthdays
7/8 Isabella Kessler
7/11 Richard Ross
7/12 Keyyon Pleasant
7/13 Kathy Hitch
7/13 Summer Sheley
7/14 Bryan Reichert
7/16 Jennifer Cloyd
7/20 Ruth Gerike
7/21 Anna Holland
7/24 Finley Mosier
7/28 Eugene Fuller
7/31 Erin Dirks
“I will bless you …, so that you will be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2). The Lord blessed Abraham so that he would be a blessing. How did He bless Abraham? He promised that from His seed would come the Savior of the nations. And Abraham believed that promise, trusted that the Lord would provide it just as He had promised. Thus, everything Abraham did was colored by that promise. He willingly gave of himself and his household in service to the Lord in view of that promise.
Our Father in heaven has richly blessed us. Not only has He given us everything that we need to support this body and life, but He has also provided, that promised seed in His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. He is the Savior of the nations. He is the Redeemer of the world. He is the one who has conquered sin, death, and the power of the devil by His death, resurrection, and ascension.
Just as we are richly blessed, we are also thereby freed to be a blessing. Since God has endowed us with His gifts, we are set to endow others. Thus, we give of the blessings we have received so that others may be blessed. We do this in our homes, our communities, and our churches. We press the blessings God has lavished upon us in service to those around us. We use our time, our talents, and our treasures to be a blessing even as they have been a blessing to us.
The Lord blesses us. And He enlists us to be a blessing to others. So, whenever you put that envelope in the collection plate, when you set out to serve at the local food pantry, when you sit down to help your kids with homework, think of this: The Lord has blessed you, so that you will be a blessing.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Think of the soldier standing in the cold and snow of Valley Forge. The men with their muskets in their bloody hands at Lexington and Concord. They could not see then what we enjoy now, but they were fighting for it – freedom.
We have been blessed to be born into freedom. We are blessed by those who sacrificed to give it to us. We are not in North Korea or Cuba or any other totalitarian government where the state would be our god, and we would own nothing. Leaving the country or even traveling within her borders is not safe.
Freedom is not free. Freedom is responsibility. The Apostle Paul writes, “For freedom Christ has set us free…For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” (Gal. 5:1a, 13) When Paul wrote these words, he was living under a bloody despot, Nero, the Caesar who had become the Roman god. Paul flew no banner but Christ. He knew, as we know, that Christ has granted us the ultimate freedom. Freedom from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Christ gives us strength and reminds us of His presence even as certain freedoms get taken away or limited. We pray for those misguided souls who want to scream and yell the loudest in our country. They need the reminder that having freedom means responsibility. They can only do these things because they live in a place where it is allowed.
Paul gave the warning that we all need to heed in these days of being in everyone’s face and the rampant public discord. “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” (Gal. 5:15)
In Christ,
Pastor
One of the best known and beloved psalms is Psalm 23, the Shepherd Psalm. There we learn that the Lord is our Shepherd. And since He is our Shepherd, we will not want. We will not suffer want because the Lord, our Shepherd, will lead us to green pastures and beside still waters. In other words, the Lord, our Shepherd, will provide for all that we need in both body and soul.
Yet, we live as though this is not the case. We live as though we actually suffer from want, that the Lord, our Shepherd, will not provide for all that we need. And thus, we live as though the Lord is not our Shepherd. And that means that we live as though we are not the Lord’s sheep.
How do we do this? We do it when we put anything else before Him and His provision for us. When we think that going to work is more important than receiving the gifts that He won for us on the cross, a violation of the First and Third Commandments. We do it when we fail to give generously of the first fruits of what the Lord has provided for us because we think we don’t know what the future will bring, even though He has promised that He will lead us to green pastures and still waters. We do it when we think that the Lord is only in the business of helping those who will help themselves, we do this because we have a mind set on earthly, temporal things and not on heavenly, eternal things. We do this because we have stopped hearing the call of our Shepherd, which comes through His Word.
The Word of God is how our Shepherd calls us to himself. Through that Word, the Holy Spirit gathers and enlightens us with His gifts. Through that Word, we are kept holy and nourished in the one true faith, the faith that follows our Shepherd wherever He leads us. He promises to lead you to your true home, to the land flowing with milk and honey, to a better country, not of this world, but a heavenly one.
And so, here’s the good news: The Lord is your Shepherd still, even, and especially, for wayward sheep. For Jesus seeks and saves those who are lost. He finds the lost sheep and carries them back to the fold. He is the Shepherd that lays down his life for His sheep. The Lord is your Shepherd. Let us live then as His sheep.
Birthdays
Paula Hardy 6/2
Jordan Doddek 6/3
Oliver Mosier 6/5
Brad Gerike 6/6
Diane Benjamin 6/7
Deborah Huber 6/7
Eric Orr 6/7
Mike Field 6/8
Kent Warren 6/11
Penny Culp 6/13
Tracee Martin 6/13
William McNeely 6/14
Chris Patterson 6/14
Richard Ross 6/14
Ruth Gerike 6/15
Marlene Hitch 6/16
Isabella Kessler 6/18
Erin Dirks 6/21
Eugene Fuller 6/23
Steve Davis 6/29
Martha Prescher 6/29
Bryan Reichert 6/30
Baptismal Birthdays
Craig Culp 6/1
Dorothy Herberts 6/1
Doris Hoffman 6/1
Harriet Campbell 6/2
Morris Dale 6/3
Brad Gerike 6/7
Diane Benjamin 6/19
Gerald Semelka 6/20
Terry Trost 6/28
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Throughout the centuries, the relation between Islam and Christianity has been a challenge. Within a hundred years after the prophet’s death, Muslim armies had conquered Spain and penetrated into France, only to be stopped at the battle of Tours in 732. We think also of the Crusades to win the Holy Land back from the Muslims. In Martin Luther’s day the Turkish Muslims menaced Europe from the east. In the original German of the hymn “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast In Thy Word,” the Reformer prayed, “put a stop to the murder by the pope and Turk.”
Today the struggle continues. It is not to be won with weapons or money. Rather, victory is in the Word of God and prayer, as Christians are urged to “contend for the faith” (Jude 3) and “take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). We as Christians should also know something about Islam in order to refute some of their beliefs. We might even read the Qur’an so that we better understand their teachings.
The Qur’an urges Mohammad himself, “ask forgiveness of thy sin” (Sura 40:55). Yet nowhere does it mention sin in connection with Jesus. The Qur’an offers a fallible prophet who lies buried in Arabia. The Bible presents a sinless Savior who has conquered death. The Bible presents an eternal home that is given to us wholly through the merits of Christ Jesus. As the thirteenth century scholar Riccoldo da Montecroce wrote in his refutation of the Qur’an (Confutatio Alcorani, which Luther translated into German and which is now available in English), “The fact is: Christ lives, Mohammad is dead.” A former Muslim from Iraq put it this way, “Allah calls on Muslims to sacrifice their sons so that they can go to paradise; God sacrificed His Son so that we can go to heaven.”
In Christ,
Pastor