Sermon Texts

Sermon – December 24, 2023                                                                      Text:  Romans 16:25-27

Dear Friends in Christ,

            How many of you enjoy logic games?  I recently did one that had 10 logical questions.  With questions like this, the thinker is control.  They are using deductive reasoning to answer the question.  I remember this question from the 10.  “Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?”  Got your answer?  Mt. Everest.  It didn’t need to be “discovered” before it was the highest mountain. 

            With the mystery of the Gospel, deductive reasoning may help communicate it, but it can never reveal the mystery of the Gospel.  St. Paul says in our text that the mystery “was kept secret for long ages.”  No one could deduce that God would create human beings perfect, that these same humans would rebel and do nasty things and He would take upon Himself the painful work of saving them.  No one could ever deduce that God would sacrifice His Son for man’s insults and demand no kind of payment from them.  No one could deduce that God would achieve all this through the humble birth, deprived life, and agonizing death of His own Son.  This mystery could only be revealed in God’s written Word and his incarnate Word, Jesus Christ the beloved Son of God.  But now, all this has been revealed so we say . . .

“TO GOD ALONE BE GLORY”

            God’s glory is so great but human beings have always been trying to understand it.  We think of glory as might and power and prestige that serves the glorious one.  Glory is about the one who has it and the others around them are weak and inferior.  An athlete’s glory is in winning – which means he beats someone else.  A businessman wants to be on the cover of Fortune magazine thus lifting him further.  An actress goes on stage at the Oscars with her trophy and thanks “all the little people.”

            If God’s glory were that way, we would give it grudgingly because it would humiliate us.  In that way it would still be a mystery and we wouldn’t understand it all.  Because . . . God’s glory is an entirely different kind.  God’s glory is an attitude toward us that we can’t understand.  Toward God we are rebellious and loud and obnoxious and yet He delights to favor us.  We smash His commandments like a spoiled child, and He takes the punishment and the hell that goes with it – really?  God’s glory wants to declare us righteous.  Does that make sense?  We shame Him in the way we talk about Him and He says we are not guilty because of Jesus.  Go figure!  God considers it His glory to give us a gift.  We have Christ’s righteousness by believing it, through verse 26, “the obedience of faith.”

            To God alone be glory, because He did not keep it a secret from us.  His glory became clear when Jesus came into the world.  “The preaching of Jesus Christ” is what we are about to celebrate.  In these last days God “has spoken to us by His Son.” (Heb. 1:2)

            Jesus is the full and final revelation of the mystery.  “God in man made manifest.”  Jesus is the incarnate Word.  The “prophetic writings”, the Old Testament, always spoke of Christ, long before He came.  They are connected and were the texts used by the apostles and Jesus Himself.  Those prophetic writings with the Word of fulfillment in the New Testament, make the mystery of God’s glory known to all nations.

            To God Alone be glory.  In praise, we say “thank you.”  The whole letter to the Romans unveiled God’s plan of the Gospel.  Enemies of God to forgiven saints.  Helpless sinners to righteous men and women.  Like the Romans, all we can do is say thanks. 

            Soli Deo Gloria.  To God alone be glory.  Let us say it in everything we do.  God considers it His glory to save us.  When that is the way He sees things, there is no reason to claim any glory for ourselves.  Because of Jesus, His glorious death, His glorious resurrection, this is what we’ll say forevermore.  Glory to God!

                                                                        Amen.

December 17, 2023         Text:  John 1:6-8, 19-28

Dear Friends in Christ,

In small town life you have characters.  By now, most of you know I grew up in Argenta, 45 minutes southeast of here, population around 1,000.  In our town was a mentally challenged young man named Lyle.  His parents owned the local filling station, and the town just took care of him.  They bought him a riding lawn mower and made him an honorary deputy.  My dad’s cabinet shop was next to his parent’s gas station, so Lyle would pop in periodically just to visit.  One day he came in to talk with my dad and he had a citation and a fine for $10.  He told my dad it was because my dad had given him the finger.  Not sure if my dad ever paid the fine, but it has become a part of small-town lore.

John the Baptist barely had a town to live in, he made his home in the wilderness.  But he was known to give the finger.  He used his to point to a Savior, but this didn’t make the locals none too happy because John the Baptist was . . . 

“GIVING THE FINGER”

Ancient Christian art depicts John with an overly large mouth and a hyperextended index finger, pointing to the Lamb of God.  John is an authoritative witness, one who tells exactly what he has seen and heard.  Scripture says that every matter must be established by at least two or three witnesses for it to be considered true.  John lines up seven that testify that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the God, the Savior of the world.  They are John the Baptizer, the Holy Scriptures, the works the Farther does through Jesus, Jesus himself, the Holy Spirit, the apostles, and St. John’s Gospel.

John is sent to give the finger.  John was sent by God to give testimony.  “He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.” (v. 8). John wasn’t the light that gives life to the world.  Nor are we, though we think we might shine a little brighter than the world.

We tend to confuse witness with the testimony, the message with the messenger.  We pay more attention to the person than the office.  Toni and I know a congregation relieving their Pastor of his duties because they don’t care for his sermons or his interactions with the congregation.  How would John fare today with his camel’s hair and leather, picking honey-coated grasshoppers from his teeth and preaching repentance and baptism?

“We do not preach ourselves,” wrote the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, “but Jesus Christ as Lord.”  The religious leaders of Jerusalem were stuck on the messenger, but didn’t hear the message.  Expectations in Israel at the time of John were higher than a five-year-old a week before Christmas.  John had created quite a stir.  So, a committee was sent to ask, “Who are you?” or more like this, “Who do you think you are?”  Religious institutions don’t care for wilderness prophets.  

It’s time for John to give this call committee the finger.  “I am not the Christ.”  “I am not Elijah.”  Then they ask, “Are you the prophet?”  John could have grabbed a little glory.  He wasn’t the prophet, but he was a prophet.  He uses his finger to point to the Light.  He wants to talk about Jesus, not himself.

This is what witnessing is about.  Witnessing is not “Jesus loves me, this I know.”  That’s boasting – true and holy boasting, but boasting nonetheless.  “Jesus loves you, this I know.”  That is witnessing.  Pointing the finger to the Savior.

Who then are you?  The priests and Levites needed to take something back to headquarters.  John wasn’t going after a bunch of internet followers.  He was using his digit to show the way of Jesus.  Jesus overshadowed him.  Quite a concept, that didn’t fly back then and is even worse today.  He wouldn’t even get into a big discussion about baptism.  He just kept giving them the finger.  Jesus.  Jesus.  Jesus.  He would extend that finger the next day for the crowd as he pointed in the direction of the lone figure coming toward him, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”  

The Church today is still giving the finger in today’s wilderness of sin and terror and death – a voice to proclaim repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’ name – a finger pointing to Jesus.  There is your salvation and forgiveness and life.  There is your Baptism.  There is Holy Communion.  Earlier, the Holy Spirit pointed us to our Absolution of our sin.  We point out all of these gifts to others when we share the love of Jesus with others. 

A small word of warning.  The word for witness is the same word from which we get “martyr.”  You might not lose your head, as John did.  But don’t worry, you have already died in Jesus, you have been baptismally buried into his death.  You are in the ultimate witness protection program, embraced by the death of the Son of God who loved you and gave himself up for you.  No disguise needed.  We can just tell the truth about our sin, and even more about our Savior, the world’s Savior.  Let’s give everyone the finger, pointing people to Jesus. 

Amen.        

December 13, 2023 – Advent     Text:  Acts 2:37-41

Dear Friends in Christ,

It can be difficult to find the gift that fits perfectly, and I just don’t mean clothes which can be inconsistent in their sizes.  Books might be safe, but what kind of book does the person like – fiction, non-fiction, mystery or biography?  Food can make a nice gift, but what if they have an allergy to something, and your gift leads to them having difficulty breathing?  That sure doesn’t fit perfectly.

Last year I did some ladies sweater shopping for someone in our family.  It turned out to be the gift that fit perfectly.  How do I know?  First, they told me.  But secondly, whenever we would see them they were wearing it.  It makes you feel good.

Tonight, as we continue with the theme of “gifts,” we are going to look at a gift that is beyond good, it is eternal.  It is mentioned in our text, “the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  That gift was put on us at our baptism and it is . . . 

“THE GIFT THAT FITS PERFECTLY”

Let’s go back to the birth of Jesus, Luke tells us that he was wrapped “in swaddling clothes.”  Ever wonder what are swaddling clothes?  They have been around for centuries and are still used for babies today.  After the baby has been born, the baby is bathed, maybe some lotion is put on and then they are wrapped in soft cloths.  Both of our boys came to us this way shortly after their birth.  The only thing sticking out was their head.  They were wrapped tightly and what a gift!

Before Jesus was wrapped up as the gift that fits perfectly, Matthew tells us about the work of this same Holy Spirit.  “Joseph, Son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:20b-21)

The people in our text it says were “cut to the heart.”  This was a deep emotional wound.  What emotional wound has cut to your heart?  A relationship that is not what it used to be?  A Christmas celebration missing a dear loved one?  Words said, that you still regret years later?  What is deep inside you that still causes a hurt? 

Then they asked the question, “Brothers, what shall we do?”  Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (v. 38-39)

We need to recognize our desperate state, confess our sins and be washed by God.  The chief blessing of our baptism is the forgiveness of sins.  This gift of the Holy Spirit which fits perfectly is a gracious promise to all people regardless of age or race.  

Many of us were baptized as infants.  When we were brought to the font by our parents, they saw us as the perfect gift.  We were probably wrapped in a nice little package, especially if your baptism was in the Midwest winter.  Our parents and congregation confessed the faith for us.  Our sponsors diligently took an oath of their responsibility.  Then it happened, you were placed by the font and the Pastor took the water and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  And thanks be to God that fit you perfectly.  Sins washed away.  Called child of God.  On the road to the eternal life that awaits you. 

Can you recall that one Christmas gift that fit you perfectly?  For me, it was either late high school or early college.  I wanted a VCR.  At the time it cost about $200.  But I told my parents one gift would be fine, because that is what I really wanted.  I received it and it lasted for years.  I even learned to program it so it wouldn’t flash 12:00 all the time.

The one gift the Holy Spirit gives is the greatest gift.  While I enjoyed the VCR it did very little for my faith.  Even the one gift that fit you perfectly, unless it was a Bible or devotional book, could not do anything to save you.  But the gift we hear about tonight, the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, would break free of those clothes, he would use his arms to wrap us up in His love as He went to the cross for the gift of our salvation.  Haven’t we said it many times over the years at gift opening – “What a gift, it’s perfect.”  It sure is.

Amen.       

December 10, 2023       Text:  Mark 1:1-8

Dear Friends in Christ,

Just over a century ago, in 1919, a young lieutenant colonel and two hundred and fifty soldiers made the first road trip across the United States.  The caravan traversed 3,242 miles through eleven states in sixty-two days, and average of fifty-two miles a day.  Poor roads, rough pavement, winding routes – the message was clear:  for our nation’s security, to move forces and equipment in case of attack, to say nothing of ease and comfort, there needed to be a better way.  The young lieutenant colonel was Dwight Eisenhower.  Forty years later as president, Eisenhower instituted the Interstate Highway System that allows us to make the same trip in well under a week.

John the Baptist entered a world where the way for the Lord’s arrival was as rough and winding as that first American road trip.  John is the advance man who comes to prepare, to make straight, the way for the greater One following.  As he proclaims a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, the way is opened and prepared to meet the Lord Jesus Christ.  John the Baptist is . . . 

“A ONE-MAN ADVANCE TEAM”

This one-man advance team is foretold by Isaiah.  He is the last prophet of the Old Testament.  He lives in the wilderness with camel hair clothing and has a diet of locusts and wild honey.  John’s message was urgent and unmistakable.  The long-expected Messiah is coming.  Now is the time to prepare.

This wilderness/desert locale is an appropriate place to begin his work.  In the desert the Lord had molded His people into a nation once they left Egypt.  It was in the wilderness that God comforted Elijah from the fury of Ahab and Jezebel.  The harsh reality of the land stands in contrast to the lush paradise of Eden.  It is a picture of sinful degradation of God’s once perfect creation.

John the Baptist, this one-man advance team, had to let people know that he was not the Messiah.  He deflects attention from himself and directs it all to Jesus.  He is humble.  Jesus is the center and focus of this advance man.  John prepared for Jesus by pointing away from himself to Christ.

That works for us too.  John prepares for Jesus by turning us from our sins to Christ.  John could have reveled in the attention – what a great preacher he was, and how about his faithfulness to God’s calling – after all, he was the one spoken of centuries before as the guy who would be a special messenger for God.  Pretty seductive.  Maybe the advance man wanted to become the star attraction.

We can relate.  We think we are the show.  We walk out of Meijer and we don’t just throw a few pennies in the kettle, we fold up a bill and push it downward…what a good boy I am!  After a little office party imbibing, your co-workers come up to you and tell you that you are the one in the office they have always admired, and you believe it.  People are gracious to complement us on a sermon and we think we are John the Baptist.  Everyone gushes over your Christmas sugar cookies, and you are the next Betty Crocker ready to hand out your recipe with a wink and a smile.  John comes preaching a message of repentance and we think we would have done a good job with that.

None of us though can properly prepare ourselves to meet Jesus.  It is the Lord that graciously calls and comes to us.  No sinner can stand in God’s presence with his own strength or character.  Look at Moses when he saw God, or Peter, James, and John on the mountain with the Lord.  They were overshadowed with His being.

This one-man advance team boldly proclaims a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  This is a gift of God.  Many of us can misunderstand and think that repentance is our own doing.  John’s baptism is unique.  One must first be washed to be able to repent and be forgiven.

People from all over came out to John.  They were baptized in the Jordan, confessing their sins.  They were told to turn from those sins and cling to the one that John was proclaiming.  Though they didn’t know His identity yet, they were trusting that their sins were being forgiven by the Christ, the Messiah.  And they were.  Our sins are being forgiven because Jesus took them from his own Baptism by John in the Jordan to the cross.  Our sins of pride are washed away as we trust the Christ and Him crucified.  

The focus today of the Christian Church should always be on the One this advance man proclaimed.  John’s work was completed, and he is numbered with the martyrs who gave their life in service to the Savior.  He enjoys the eternal life that we are looking forward to.

The advance man did his job . . . here comes the King!

Amen.   

December 6, 2023 – Advent         Text:  Galatians 5:22-23

Dear Friends in Christ,

Have you made your lists for your relatives?  I still write mine on a piece of paper but then Toni has to transfer it to a spreadsheet or Google doc put together by a brother or a niece.  Do you feel the way I do that it gets harder and harder to come up with things on your list?  I already have clothes in four different closets at home, Spotify so no CD’s needed, and most of the sports equipment I need, though golf balls are always accepted.  Cologne and Page-A-Day calendars are always winners, but I have to think outside the box.  Ah, going to Germany next year so there are some ideas.  Would like a lava lamp, always enjoyed those.  Should I add bell bottom jeans, a headband, and doorway beads?  Far out dude!

What goes on your list?  What should be on our list?  Our text for tonight is a good beginning.  It is a list that tells of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Our theme this year for Advent is “Gifts”, and it has to start with a list.  So, let’s do that . . .

“GIFT GIVING LISTS”

I don’t know if you have every broken down this list into the threes, but it fits quite nicely.  The first three gifts on the list are love, joy, peace.  These all come directly from God.  He is love.  God loved the world, understood all its depravity and purposed to remove it.  He sent His Son Jesus to cleanse it.   

With this love goes joy.  “Joy to the world, the Savior comes, the Savior promised long.”  Enduring joy should be bubbling up in our heart from all the grace of God in our possession.  It is a joy undimmed by tribulation.  This joy ever beams for the believer and merges into the joy of heaven.

Peace is the quietness of the soul, the opposite of dread and terror.  The feeling of all who walk in the Spirit of God.  We have peace between ourselves and God because of the gracious work of Christ.

The second trio is composed of gifts that appear in our contact with men and women.

Patience.  A good word for this time of year.  Children wait patiently for gifts.  We wait patiently in lines.  Headphones while waiting in lines do wonders.  Take yourself away with Christmas songs, hymns or your favorite tunes until you hear, “Can I help the next in line!”

  Our world can always use our kindness.  In our being kind to one another it benefits our society.  

Goodness is not our moral excellence, but as goodness doing good to others.  Instead of a self-indulgent life how can we share goodness with those God has called into our sphere of influence?  

Faithfulness could go with these last three in this sense.  Can men and women trust us?  Will we make a faithful commitment?  Do others see you as someone they can count on?  But because of its active nature in the original Greek language, it is better positioned to think of it as something God gives to us.  We receive the faith which in turn leads to our faithfulness when it comes to God’s Word and his will.  

Our gentleness helps when a calm voice is needed.  Maybe that will be yours at your Christmas gathering.  It comes through in how you speak to little ones and your spouse.

Self-control brings up the caboose in our list.  This is one where I think most of us have one area where this is a struggle.  We make a list in our head where self-control is always there, but then there’s that one thorn in flesh that gets us every time.  “Lord, I want to do better.”  May the Holy Spirit help us in that endeavor.

In my Christmas Eve gatherings with my extended family when I was a child the list of gift openers was really long.  We opened one person at a time.  Kids first by age, grandma, and then my aunts and uncles by age and finally my mom and dad.  Doug Lueck might sit there for three hours or more to get to his gifts.  Who was paying attention?  Certainly not the kids or the uncles setting up the kid’s toys.  For all of us gathered around the Christmas tree these gifts of the Spirit were on display.  It was a spectacle of wrapping paper and my mom explaining every gift she got for somebody.  But what joy it was.  It is hard to replicate that memory.

We don’t have to.  The Lord remembers us.  We made his list before the creation of the world.  We wait in patience for that ultimate gift home.  The Lord has explained His saving act in the pages of Scripture.   Naughty or nice, it doesn’t matter.  Forgiven and redeemed through no merit of our own, that matters.  Making the list?  You are on it.  Thanks be to God whose gift we possess.

Amen.      

November 26, 2023             Text:  1 Corinthians 15:20-28

Dear Friends in Christ,

The concentration camp at Dachau was liberated on a Sunday in April 1945.  One week later, Greek and Serbian Orthodox prisoners celebrated Easter in the camp barracks.  Priests wore makeshift vestments over their blue and white striped prison uniforms.  They sang the liturgy, read the Scriptures, and even recited a sermon by St. John Chrysostom – all without texts, all by memory.  During the long years of suffering and anguish, these prisoners had never forgotten Christ’s resurrection victory over death and that it also set them free from death.  Whatever was happening in their lives, they always knew that Easter meant something was still coming for them.  Today, a Russian Orthodox chapel at the Dachau Memorial houses an icon of the resurrected Christ leading the prisoners out of the camp gates.  

Every Sunday is a celebration of Easter, of Christ’s glorious victory over sin and death for us.  But today, the Last Sunday of the Church YearI, is especially so, because the Last Sunday, pointing us to the Last Day, shows us where Easter is headed.  What do I mean?

“WHERE IS EASTER HEADED?”

Easter brought forth the firstfruits.  Jesus raised to life again.  Yes, Jesus died on the cross, but his resurrection is an accomplished fact.  What good news.  But where is it headed?  In the Old Testament Israel would offer the first gathering of wheat as a sacrifice to God.  Still, they knew an entire harvest was still to come.  The firstfruits were just the first of many fruits.

In the same way, Jesus’ resurrection will inevitably lead to the resurrection of all flesh.  “In Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (v. 22). That’s Last Day, Judgment Day, the focus of this Sunday.  All people will be gathered before Christ, the believers through Christ will have bodies raised, reunited with their souls, the resurrection of all flesh.  What a day that will be for those, Paul says, “who belong to Christ.”

Christ was one of us.  Walked in the way of human beings.  The ancient Greek writer Callimachus once composed an epigram in which he commented:  “Being a thief myself, I know the tracks of a thief.”  Being a man himself, Jesus knew the tracks of a man.  He knew work and rest.  He experienced joys and sorrows.  He understood that we humans have a problem with sin, and we can’t solve it.  He knew sin would destroy humanity.  So, He took the destruction on Himself.  He knew the tracks of man led to death, and Jesus did, in fact, die.  But being the Son of God, His tracks did not end in death, but rather out of the tomb to life again.  He was raised up, and all those who belong to Him will also walk in tracks leading to eternal life.  

Our resurrection to life will mean that death and all its allies are destroyed under Jesus’ feet.  Death couldn’t hold Christ.  Death cannot hold us.  If death has no power, then on the Last Day, all enemies will be defeated.

Christ has defeated sin.  Christ has defeated the devil and his demonic forces.  The evil forces of the world are no more with the return of Jesus.  We have nothing to fear.

But some do.  Judgment will be horrible for those on the outside of the faith.  An eternal fire prepared for Christ’s enemies.  Their deeds will not save them.  Their accomplishments mean nothing.  They stand condemned.

For those of us belonging to Christ, death is defeated.  Death is the last fruits of sin.  Christ, the firstfruits of life, changes the end of the story.  Is that where this is headed?  Almost.

Finally, even Christ will be subjected to the Father.  For Christ, the mission will be accomplished.  Every need of God’s people in a fallen world met.  Every enemy conquered.  Christ will lay it all at His Father’s feet.  Then things will once again be like they were at the beginning.  God will be “all in all.”  Will we need food, clothing, shelter?  No, we will have God.  Will we need love, comfort, relationships?  No, we will have God.  Will we need protection and deliverance?  No, we will have God.  Verse 24, “Then comes the end, when (Christ) delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.”  

This is where Easter has been headed.  On this Last Sunday of the Church Year, a blessed fulfillment of Easter to you!

Amen.