Sermons

 

January 31, 2016                                                       Text:  Jeremiah 1:4-10

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

For you adults I want you to think back to your childhood.  For those of you who are young think of the current thoughts you may be having.  Do you remember or are you hearing these lines?  “You are too young to play.”  “You are too young to wear that.”  “You are too young to date.”  “You are too young to stay out that late.”  It goes on and on and you look forward to the day when you can make your own rules.

Today in our text, God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet.  But it is Jeremiah who is telling God that he is too young.  God called Jeremiah anyway.  In Christ, God calls you too, your shortcoming notwithstanding.  In doing so, God equips you, so that . . .

“EVEN A CHILD CAN DO IT”

This is a biblical story that I can certainly relate to.  I was always the young one.  Kindergarten at age 4, college at age 17, and at age 25 the youngest man to graduate from my class at seminary.  I get a call to serve as a Pastor in Texas and as I go to the hospital or the nursing home or get introduced around the community, I hear the same thing over and over, “You are too young to be a Pastor.  You look like you should be in high school.”  Oh, to hear those words again!

I never thought I was too young because the Lord knew me and He had equipped me for the work that I had to do.  Once people got to know me and my skills, the comments about my age stopped most of the time.

God knew Jeremiah.  Before Jeremiah was even formed in the womb God knew that he was going to be a prophet to the nations.  God knew you before you were born.  He knew the plans He had for you.

By giving each child a soul at conception, God has created an individual person with a special destiny – a plan divinely “appointed” from eternity.  And because every unborn child has a divine destiny assigned by the Creator, every unborn child has divine dignity and infinite worth.

Therefore, no life can ever be considered an accident or a mistake.  Even when a child is conceived in a manner not as God desires.  God still has a plan for the child.  Any attack on the developing child is simply genocide and murder, a human life sacrificed for the sake of expediency.  Worst of all, it is refusal to let God fulfill His intentions for every child He creates.  Any nation that permits such injustice and evil to continue  – and even consider it a good and positive thing – has certainly earned God’s judgment.

God knew Jeremiah.  God knows you.  So intimately, so fully.

God consecrates his children.  God consecrated and sanctified His Son, Jesus, for ministry.  His ministry was fulfilled in His death and resurrection.  He is the Lamb of God, who by his death on the cross takes away the sins of the world.  Jesus ever lives now to make intercession for us.

The God, who consecrated Jeremiah, consecrated you.  He has sanctified you by the means of grace for your holy tasks.  I was consecrated at a young age to carry out the sacred office of the public ministry of Word and Sacrament.  What might God have in store for you?  What have you been consecrated to do?  Is God calling you for some task that fits your abilities?

God appoints His children.  Jesus was ordained for ministry at His baptism.  He was filled with the Holy Spirit to minister to the Jews and the Gentiles.  He did that even at a young age.  Remember Him at age 12 in the temple?  Christ’s atoning blood offers the forgiveness of sins by grace through faith.  By that blood, the God who appointed Jeremiah has appointed you.  Whether a farmer, a teacher, an office worker, an insurance employee, a retiree or a child God has given you a task to share His Good News with others.  Don’t be afraid, God will give you the words.

That is what He did with Jeremiah.  The God with Jeremiah is the God with you.  The presence of God is in His Church.  The presence of God is in the Holy Supper – “My body.  My blood.”

God uses weak, sinful servants to preach and teach His Word.  He uses every child of God to share His Word in daily life.  “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.”  Oh, this is so true.  Many times I did not know what to say in certain situations but through prayer and the Spirit’s leading I did not need to worry because the words were given to me.  It is the same for you.  God provides the power through His Word.  A Word of power to destroy and overthrow.  A Word of power to build and to plant.

When a Pastor is ordained or installed, the fellow Pastors at the service are invited to place their hands on his head and say a verse.  I always use Jeremiah 1:17, which reads this way in the King James.  “Gird up thy loins, arise and go, and teach them everything I have commanded you.”  I love the phrase “gird up thy loins” for various reasons but it always reminds me and the Pastor that the Lord is giving the power, He is the “gird” that allows for the task to be completed.

God is calling you His children to do impossibly difficult things.  “Gird up thy loins.”  You are a child of God, like Jeremiah.  Perhaps you have a hard assignment.  Be of good cheer.  In Christ, even a child can do it.

Amen.

January 24, 2016                                       Text:  1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

Have you ever put a jigsaw puzzle together?  At our house we have put 4 or 5 together and a couple of them are framed in my office.  One of those puzzles is a picture from the “Andy Griffith Show.”  It shows Andy and Opie going fishing along with frames of some of the other main characters like my all-time favorite Barney Fife.  As with most jigsaw puzzles this was going to take time and patience.

We usually spread our puzzles out on our cardboard table and work on them when we have time or even as we pass by and see where a piece might go.  Each piece would get us closer to a finished product.  The closer to completing the puzzle the easier the pieces were to find.  What was at first a conglomeration of confusion was now a harmonious symphony of order.

Then the symphony struck a sour note.  There it was a missing piece.  All this labor for naught.  The family searched everywhere – on the floor, in the box, behind the sofa cushions, under the chair.  The search was futile.  The puzzle was incomplete, it was not whole.

Our lives can be like that jigsaw puzzle.  Young people who are just beginning their lives have a difficult time fitting all the pieces together.  Teenagers don’t know where they fit in as they find themselves between childhood and adulthood.  The elderly at times feel as if they have been taken out and replaced and forgotten.

What we want to do this morning is focus in on a deeper level.  The missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle means that the puzzle is not whole, it can never be until what is missing is found.  Today then . . .

“THE MISSING PIECE”

Paul uses an interesting metaphor in our text, He states that “the body is one and has many members…if one member suffers, all suffer together.” (vs. 12a, 26a)  I know that when my back hurts, the rest of my body suffers as well.  If you get a sore throat or migraine the rest of your body “suffers” with your head.  You don’t feel like doing anything until that part of the body that is suffering has time to heal.

Paul, however, sees a deeper meaning to his metaphor.  He sees us, Christians, as the many members that make up the body, the church.  We are members of the body with Christ as the head.  Just as any body cannot function without the members working in perfect harmony, so too the body of Christ, the Christian Church.  The church cannot function in perfect harmony unless all its members work together.

Does the church work in harmony?  Do we make an effort to welcome a visitor or make another member feel comfortable in worship?  Do you call on a member who has not worshipped with us?  My experience has been that people who have not been here in a while want to be called, they want to be missed.  Do you make an effort to seek out the pains of other members of this body?  If we just look inward then the missing pieces are not missed.  When the members of the body are not here, the picture is incomplete, there’s a hole in the church.

When our bodies become injured we take care of it.  We visit a doctor to get a shot or a prescription to relive the pain and quicken the healing.  We take care of the injury until it is healed.

Is it any wonder that we refer to our Lord Jesus Christ as the “Great Physician?”  He alone is the One who has taken our sin of self-centeredness upon his shoulders to the cross of Calvary.  He is, as the Gospel lesson states, “sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering sight to the blind.”

Unlike the parts of our body suffering, Christ suffered in order that the entire body might not suffer.  Upon His shoulders were the infections of our souls.  By his cuts and bruises we are whole.  St. Paul writes in Romans 5:8 that “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  By way of His forgiveness He wraps us and heals us to such an extant that there is no scar, no reminder of our sins.  The healing balm of the empty tomb bursts forth in glory to each and every one of you as you come to his throne of grace and forgiveness.  Each time we take the Lord’s body and blood the soothing ointment of grace heals the suffering of sin.

Paul in our text is calling us a family; the many-membered body of Christ.  We have family members that need to be reached. We don’t have to travel thousands of miles to see them.  They may be in your family, under your same roof, or those you have become friendly with.  They need the good news of the Resurrected Christ.  They need the same love that Christ has shown you.  They need to know they are missed.  They suffer if they don’t hear about the healing of God’s grace.  Is there a missing piece or two that you notice as you look around the pews this morning?

Paul gives the direction in our text.  “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”  In other words, no one is more important than another.  We have an equality in the body of Christ.  It is like the Trinity:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  All are equal in majesty, divinity and eternity.

So it is with us.  We have the same baptism and an equality of purpose.  The Council is not more important than the Elders, the Treasurer is not more important than the Trustees, the LWML is not more important than the Sunday School teacher.  All work together for the unity of the body, for the good of the body, for the glory of the body, Christ Jesus our Lord.

We never did find the missing piece.  Go into my office and there toward the upper left hand corner it stares you in the face, the puzzle is incomplete.  May God grant us all the strength to work as a body, in unison with one another in love, to bring back our missing pieces.

Amen.

January 10, 2016 – Baptism of our Lord                            Text:  Romans 6:1-11

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

Water can be very relaxing.  Lying in a raft floating along a river.  Listening to a stream bubbling through the woods.  Even relaxation CD’s use water as a sound to find peace and tranquility.  Our bodies wound tight by life’s tensions can unwind in water or to the soothing melody of a creek bed of flowing H2O.

Think of Holy Baptism in the same way.  The tension of our sin that can bring much misery to our lives is swept down the river so to speak as the waters of Holy Baptism flow down our forehead.  How comforting to recall that special day in our lives.  We live anew through water and the Word.

“LIVING BY DYING – THROUGH THE WATERS OF HOLY BAPTISM”

As good as all of this sounds, don’t think that everything is a picture of serenity.  Satan is always looking for a way to extricate us from our faith in Jesus.  He and his minions will stop at nothing until they’ve accomplished their mission.  He entices with the thought that if we sin more we will be showered with more of God’s grace.  Paul takes up the question in our text:  “What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (v. 1)  Continue you living the way you want because The Lord is there with His grace.

We fall for the lie.  “I know marriage is supposed to be between one man and one woman, but God’s grace covers that, right?  I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.  God wouldn’t really send someone to hell if they don’t repent, would He?”

“I know sex is supposed to be just in marriage, but what we do isn’t like, horrible.  We really like each other and we will probably get married someday.  God is gracious and loving.  He won’t really send us to hell if we don’t repent, right?”

What’s wrong with the picture?  Satan is talking, not the Lord.  Satan doesn’t listen to Holy Scripture, doesn’t honor Holy Scripture, hates Holy Scripture.  He tries to get us to question its authenticity.  He will twist the Word so that we will buy into his twisted logic.  This never holds water with God and His Word.  God’s judgment on unrepentant sin is real and exactly what He says in Scripture:  eternal suffering in hell.

Paul says we can’t even think about continuing in sin.  We are dead to all this nonsense.  “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?  By no means!  How can we who died to sin still live in it?  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death.” (vs. 1b-4a)  Mankind is satisfied to live and function in this perverse thinking and doing.  But Paul reminds the Roman congregation that this kind thinking has no power over us.  Our sin has been drowned.  We have been set free from these sins, not because they don’t matter, but because Jesus died for them.  Forgiven because they were taken to the cross.

Our sexual sins, our sins of silence when we should be defending marriage, our failure to keep our marriage vows, all were nailed to the cross.  Therefore, when we turn away from these sins, we no longer bear the punishment they deserve.  We are delivered from hell to heaven.  “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”  Christ’s death was on the cross, ours is in Baptism, which gives the benefits of His work on the cross.  New life has already begun for the child of God.  When Christ returns our bodies will be raised to life again.

How then does the Church, God’s people, continue to live in this world?  How do we not let the world’s authority take over our life?  How do we live having ben drowned and buried with Christ in Baptism?  It is a matter of “reemerging” to new life.

A Pastor Fuqua tells the story of his work as a scuba diver in Wichita, Kansas.  He would sometimes be called to search for a body in the water of a sandpit.  He’d gear up, test his regulator and him and a buddy would dive into the dark waters to search for the deceased.  It was sad duty.  After completing the work, they’d emerge from the dark waters and once again breathe God’s air!  Their hope was always that the one who had drowned emerged from death to God’s fresh air of heaven.

Kind of like what happens in Baptism, isn’t it?  We dive into the depths but reemerge again to breathe fresh air.  We’ve died to sin and are brought back to life.  This new life is different because the power of God’s Word has taken over our lives.  How we conduct our daily life is different.  We will still sin but we will not be taken in by the falsehoods of Satan.  We reflect the glory of the Father – made available through a cross and empty tomb.  We reflect this new life – like Paul did after his Damascus road experience – and do it gladly and willingly.  We don’t live back there.  We share the resurrection of Jesus!

Breathe your new life and live it to the fullest in Christ Jesus!

Amen.

January 3, 2016 – Epiphany                                                 Text:  Matthew 2:1-12

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

“Star light, star bright/ First star I see tonight,/ I wish I may, I wish I might,/Have this wish I wish tonight.”  And then there’s the Jiminy Cricket version:  “When you wish upon a star/Makes no difference who you are/Anything your heart desires/Will come to you.”

Stars.  There are numerous poems about them.  But the one star that always stands out most for us is the one in our text:  “For we saw His star when it rose and have come to worship him.”  His star?  Jupiter?  Venus?  A comet?  And the speculation goes on every year.  How about supernatural?  How about miraculous?  How about a question . . .

“WHAT STAR DO YOU FOLLOW?”

Today we celebrate “Epiphany”.  The word comes from a Greek word meaning, “to show, to reveal, to make manifest.”  It’s the time we celebrate the wonderful news that Christ reveals Himself to the Gentiles, the non-Jews.

So the Wise Men see his star and rise to go worship.  In this section of Scripture we always get caught up in the periphery of the story than the importance of the story.  Were there three wise men?  Nobody knows – only God.  There could have been thirty-three.  What is important is that they are Gentiles and God has guided them to that place and time.

“When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.” (v. 3)  Disturbed at God’s presence?  Why?  Because God’s presence says something about sin, death, and judgment.  That would mess up Herod’s little heaven on earth.  He wants to be the star and somebody is pushing their way past.  Herod is a picture of many in the world.  They focus so much on themselves that they miss the Word in the flesh – Christ the Savior.  They excuse themselves from any judgment because they can do what they want – just like Herod.  How often are we guilty if this offense?  Looking out for #1.  “Hey, I’m the star here, don’t close the curtain.  Lord, I’ll do better next time.”

What comes next is down right fascinating.  We’re told, “…assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.” (v. 4)  Wow!  Herod knew enough and had enough confidence in the Old Testament Word of God to believe it contained information about the birth of Christ.  He knew the Messiah was coming into the world but wanted no part of it.  He knew- He had knowledge!

Herod is like so many today; those in the church and those outside the church who hear the Word of God and somehow conclude it doesn’t apply to them.  It’s post-modern math:  2 plus 2 equals 5.  They kick at the word.  They hate the word.  Why do atheists fight so hard to remove God’s Word from everything if they don’t believe anything about that Word?  Because down deep in places they don’t want to talk about at parties they are just like Herod.  They know the truth is there.  They know who the real star is.

So do the Magi.  Our text again, “After listening to the king, they went on their way.  And behold, the star they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the Child was.  When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.  And going into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshipped Him. (vs. 9-11a)

There is that star again.  God is pulling the heartstrings of the Magi.  Nothing must get in the way of their journey.  Most people around them could care less about the star.  The fact that the Kings of kings is born in this backwater town does not stop them or cause them to doubt.

Today people are fascinated with stars.  Why are many Internet sights so popular?  Because they deal with the famous.  They deal with the important.  We have made stars out of people who otherwise would not have been noticed.  We love to watch TMZ and read “People” magazine.  We follow them on Twitter.

And if we are not getting caught up in that mess, then we must be following the latest rash explanation for the star.  Let’s see, now, is it the History Channel or the Discovery Channel which always wants to explain it rationally?  Isn’t the star really a reminder that no matter how long and rough and sin struggling the road of life is, God is always there directing and guiding His people?  Isn’t that it?  Word and Sacrament.  God coming to us over and over again, guiding and directing us to the place where God says, “Your sin is forgiven.  You belong to me.”

This star we follow – this Star of Jesus – is not just for us, it is for others.  Those caught up in the wrong type of star gazing.  Those with no hope.  The Light of Christ – The Star – that will finally lift all who believe to eternal life and Light!

Amen.

December 31, 2015 – New Year’s Eve                                 Text:  Luke 2:21-40

 

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

Life is full of surprises.  Some we enjoy, some we could do without.  You be the judge:  “The doctor would like to discuss your x-rays.”  “Class, take out a sheet of paper.  We are having a pop quiz!”  “Congratulations!  You made the team.”  “The tumor we feared was malignant is actually benign.”  “Would you like to go to the winter dance with me?”  “Sure, I’d love too.”  “The boss wants to see you.  No need to take off your coat.”

Life is full of surprises, good and bad.  What will happen in the New Year?  What will be good?  What will be bad?  The thing is, we don’t know.  Except…right here.  There is one sure thing in all the universe, and it is given to us.

“THE SURE THING OF JESUS”

For centuries, Hebrew parents had brought their infant to be circumcised and named on the eighth day of life.  So Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the temple as the Law required.  The name Jesus means “Savior” or “the Lord saves!”  That was also a confession of faith for his parents.  Remember the angel of the Lord had announced what his name would be because he would “save his people from their sins.”  God’s people were expecting someone to come with impressive power; instead, God comes in weakness, in a baby, laid in a manger.

Simeon confessed Jesus as his Savior from sin.  The Lord told him he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ.  So the Lord made sure Simeon was in the temple that day.  Right there, before Simeon’s eyes, Jesus was beginning the work of saving us, even while only an infant.

Consider all your failures, all your mistakes, all your shortcomings.  Consider all those words and all those actions of the past year that you’d love to take back.  Right there in the temple, as an infant, Jesus began to make up for them.  Right there, Jesus began to be what his name says he is, our Savior from sin.

Yes, life is full of surprises, both good and bad.  But the one sure thing is this:  Jesus means “Savior”, and that name applied to us brings blessings.  Eternal blessings!

With that blessing God surprised an old woman named Anna.  She had been waiting and hoping and waiting.  And just when it seemed as if she should give up, God came through.  God showed her the Savior.  God brought her the blessing.  She gave thanks to God and told everyone that God had come for his people.

We have the surprise also for us.  Sometimes when we least expect it.  When things look their worst.  When we think that life has dealt us a bad hand, God comes through with a big surprise.  In fact, the whole nature of the Gospel is a big surprise.  We normally expect that nothing is free, everything has to be earned, worked for.  And that’s absolutely true…of all except this:  God’s free gift of eternal life in Jesus.  Blessed surprise!

Think about all the surprises in the Bible.  When Noah’s neighbors realized that it was beginning to rain.  When the up in years Sarah told her husband Abraham that she was going to have a baby.  When Moses saw a burning bush and the voice of God coming out of it.  When the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.  When the angel came to Mary, and then to Joseph to tell them they would have a baby, conceived by the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus grew up to be nailed to a cross and the one whom his disciples had believed in now lay stone-cold dead in a grave.

But soon followed that great and grand surprise when Mary saw him again in the resurrection.  He was alive!  Wonderfully and gloriously alive.

And there is the surprise of our guilty lives when we hear the Lord Jesus tell us again and again, “Your sins are forgiven.  You didn’t earn it, you can’t earn it, but I give it to you.  You are free.  Go in peace!”

There will be one more surprise that comes to us who confess Jesus to be our Savior, who live under his blessing.  This will be a big one.  He’s coming back!  It didn’t happen last year, but he could come this year.  And when he does, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he will raise us to life, to gather us together to meet him and to be with him forever.

That will be the greatest surprise of all, saved for last.  For those of us who know Jesus it will be the greatest occasion to celebrate.  The greatest miracle of all is that I will be there rejoicing.  You will be their rejoicing.  All who believe in him will be there rejoicing.  It is a sure thing.

What is coming for you in this New Year?  What surprises are in store?  The only sure thing we have is this:  the name of Jesus.  That name we confess, the name placed on us at our Baptism.  He is our Savior from sin.

Amen.