Sermons

August 30, 2015 Text: Ephesians 6:10-20

Dear Friends in Christ,

On our recent trip to Holden Beach, North Carolina I pulled out my University of Illinois flip-flops. I had not worn them very much but knew I would need them for the beach. After a few days of the trip from house to beach and back my feet were hurting and getting red on the top where the flip-flops were rubbing. I needed a change in footwear. I bought a pair of slides and was more comfortable the rest of the trip.
Footwear. We may not always give it a lot of thought until the fit or style or performance is not what we expect. In the Epistle for today, Paul is outfitting the Christian from head to toe. Since he does not neglect footwear, neither shall we.
“A BOLD CHOICE IN FOOTWEAR”
Soldiers knew the importance of shoes. Whether it was a forced march or needing to hold the line they needed good footwear. Think of the movies that depict Valley Forge or the Civil War when the boots are literally falling off the soldiers’ feet in the cold and snow.
Shoes – or lack of them – can turn the tide of battle. Scotland’s national flower is the thistle, but do you know why? In order to take the sleeping Scots by surprise, and army of Norse invaders was ordered to remove their shoes so they could approach in silence. What the commanders hadn’t anticipated was that the field they had to cross barefoot was filled with thistles. Instead of a stealth entrance, the Norseman’s cries of pain sounded the alarm that led to their defeat. Scotland has honored the thistle ever since.
Shoes and stance go together. Athletes and soldiers realize this. It makes you prepared. Martial artists know the importance of a proper stance. Footwear makes the difference. The Duke of Wellington thought most of the shoes of his soldiers.
It’s the same for the Christian soldier. It may surprise us that Paul mentions shoes at all. But remember he had ample opportunity to contemplate Roman boots as he traveled to Rome in chains and then lived under house arrest.
How can the Gospel, the Good News about Jesus Christ, serve as footwear for the Christian soldier? Remember the command to the Christian soldier is very simple: “Stand!”. Not “Attack!” or “Retreat!” but simply “Stand!” This whole armor of God he has given to the Christian enables one to stand his or her ground and to withstand the assaults of the enemy.
What soldier can stand firm and steadfast with wounded feet? We must make sure that our feet are not vulnerable. Just as the shield of faith can protect us from the fiery darts of the enemy, so does the Gospel’s promise of forgiveness by Jesus death on the cross protect our stance from the shots of the attacker.
Our Christian footwear needs traction. Christ’s reconciling death banishes worry from our mind. We are not slip sliding along in life with anxiety and turmoil but through Christ we plant our feet firmly. We can meet the attack without trembling. If we get knocked to the ground the helmet, breastplate, sword, and shield can do little but minimize the damage. We must firmly stand on our feet, and it is none other than the Gospel of Jesus’ cross and resurrection that allows us to stand.
All of this then allows Paul and you and I as Christian soldiers to stand with boldness. To speak boldly is to speak freely. It means not holding back. It means not worrying about offending a hearer. This takes courage, which comes from Christ. Like Paul we want to present the gospel fully and naturally. If we are bold there is no “Don’t take this the wrong way.” We do not want to hold back the joy we get when sharing this message of salvation.
Paul had this solid stance – without wavering or stumbling – as he boldly shared the gospel with emperors and political leaders. He was secure in who he was as God’s instrument. He prayed to stay alert and persevere and He did because he was standing securely in the love of Christ.
Our stance is secure because of the mercy, grace, and compassion of our God. In its peace we are ready for the attack – and ready to proclaim. Our feet are protected. So let’s get on our feet and proclaim boldly the same good news to others. No weapon, no strategy, and no insult can shake our stance when we remain fitted in the bold footwear of the Gospel of the Lord.
Amen.

August 16, 2015 Text: Proverbs 9:1-10

Dear Friends in Christ,

One morning the young new president of a bank made an appointment with his predecessor to seek some advice. He said, “Sir, could you provide some of the insights you have gained from your years here that have been the keys to your success.”
The older man looked at him with a stare and replied: “Young man, two words: good decisions.” The young man responded, “Thank you, but how does one come to know which is the good decision?” “One word, young man: experience.” “But how does one get experience?” “Two words, young man: bad decisions.”
Do you agree with that? Have you learned more from your bad decisions than your good decisions? And that wisdom you have been gaining throughout your lifetime, where does it come from? The wonderful Old Testament Book of Proverbs is going to help us answer the question . . .
“WHAT IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM?”
The Book of Proverbs, God’s instruction book to bestow the Lord’s wisdom through King Solomon and others is filled with gems like this: “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” (Prov. 3:7-8) “Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.” (Prov. 17:14) “A man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” (Prov. 10:9) And then this beauty as we get into the text: “If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you; if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer.” (Prov. 9:12) Those are pretty good, aren’t they? And there are 31 chapters of such wisdom.
We are focused on the beginning of chapter 9. The beginning verses are the invitation to wisdom. Everyone is invited to come and gain wisdom. Verse 6, “Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” The life wisdom gives is more than our health and well-being. It is the life that God gives, life that is meaningful, satisfying, and God-pleasing.
There are going to be roadblocks as we live this life of wisdom that the Lord grants. Verse 7 identifies such. “Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.” How true! How true! I have shared my own stories over the years at ballgames and other places how this happens. Now sometimes you might think your semi-old Pastor is a little over the top with some of this and then this recent story from my father. It seems my niece was driving on the Beltline in Madison, Wisconsin recently when a male on a motorcycle starting following her and shouting profanities at her. What had she done? Flipped him off? Cut him off? No. As she exited the Beltline and he continued his pursuit, he was yelling at her because she had an ichthus on her car, the Christian fish symbol and he didn’t like it. He actually got off his ride and was going to confront her when she was able to drive away safely. “Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you.”
So we need the Lord’s wisdom as we battle the evil. The wisdom of God is personified in Jesus. He came to give us life to the full. He gave His life on the cross to restore us to God and by teaching us God’s wisdom for our lives.
The text tells us that we gain wisdom by eating Wisdom’s food and drinking Wisdom’s wine. How we do this is clarified in verse 10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” There is the answer. Wisdom flows from a right relationship with God characterized by trust in His love, awe of His greatness, and fear of offending Him.
Too often we think we know it all. As a result, we live dangerously and hurt others and ourselves. We can easily become smug and self-righteous and cut ourselves off from God. We discover that we have a lot to learn and a lot of growing to do. We desperately need what Jesus has to offer.
Jesus has freed us from our foolishness and bad decisions. His life, death, and resurrection take away the guilt. As the Word made flesh, Jesus came into the world with grace and truth. The truth of His Word guides us into wisdom and knowledge and helps us make good and right decisions. Jesus is the giver of God’s life for wise and godly living to all who believe in Him.
Look to Jesus, the wisdom of God and the power of God, to learn and live wisdom. He enables us to fear and love God so that we live wisely. He teaches us and empowers us through His Word and nourishes our faith and life in Him through the banquet of his body and blood until we eat and drink with Him in the heavenly kingdom. Until then, we happily learn and live wisdom and find meaning, purpose, and satisfaction. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
Amen.

August 23, 2015 Text: Ephesians 5:22-33

Dear Friends in Christ,

“Jack and Diane two American kids doing the best that they can.” Except this Jack and Diane are not the ones immortalized in the John Cougar Mellencamp song.
Jack and Diane had a storybook romance. Two young believers who meet at a Christian college and get married. Surrounded by family and friends and in the front of the Lord’s altar they promise to love each other until death parts them. Chapter 1.
I think you know where this sermon is taking us. Marriage. Something that has been around for thousands of years and something we still don’t understand even as many of us live it. It’s too simplistic to just say God made us differently. But He did. I could wow you with sociological statistics that have been consistent since creation. Couples that stay married through Christ improve society, community, the country and the world. It helps raise children and gives better economic advantages. Yes, it is all true. But why? Well, as Christians, our answer always comes from Holy Scripture. 9 human beings in black robes do not define it. The media or talking heads does not draw it up. It’s simple really, marriage is . . .
“GOD’S DESIGN”
Jack and Diane’s marriage in chapter one was typical of most marriages. But the first chapter is never the whole book. Lurking beneath the surface was a darkness affecting Diane. Some of it was past experiences; some of it was a body chemistry out of balance. In the darkness, nothing was right in the world. She started verbally attacking the man she married. Cutting words sliced Jack’s heart to pieces.
Diane was not giving Jack the respect that men need. She would say things like, “Why don’t we have money to do fun things.” “You never listen to me.” “My mother told me I should never have married you.” No matter how good he was at things it was never good enough for Diane. She always found something small to criticize. These words were crushing to Jack’s spirit and resentment set in.
Diane had forgot the words of our text, “let the wife see that she respects her husband.” (v. 33b) She does this not in servitude, but in love for Christ. God calls wives to respect their husbands, knowing that in Christ’s forgiveness the husband is made perfect. Each wife can know that Jesus Christ loves her completely. If a woman has failed in this matter of respect, Jesus Christ has already taken that failure to the cross. In the same way that Christ takes responsibility for our eternal salvation, wives are called to let their husband take responsibility for their physical safety and provision.
The hardest chapter to live was the one where Jack no longer had the strength to endure. His heart had been sliced so many times; he couldn’t piece it back together. He almost gave up everything. Everything.
But then the Holy Spirit sent this thought to him, one he had known from childhood. “Jesus loves me. He gave himself to the cross for me. He always speaks well of me. He loves me without reservation.”
It was hard work rather than magic. In the power of the love of Jesus, Jack began to serve Diane.
God said in Genesis 16 that sin would result in husbands ruling over their wives instead of tenderly loving them. God is calling husbands to put the needs of his wife above his own – “to love his wife as himself.” (v. 33a) A husband can do this in honor of Christ, who gave his life for him. If a husband has failed in this matter of loving his wife, Jesus Christ has already laid down his life for the husband’s failure.
Marriage is a Gospel picture of Christ and the Church.
Jack and Diane began to realize this. Slowly and with the help of medication (also a gift from God!), Diane responded to Jack’s love. She encouraged him with her words, “I’m proud of all you do to take care of our family.” “You are such a wonderful money manager.” As Jack served Diane and Diane in turn respected Jack the darkness slowly receded. A new chapter was written. The love of Christ and the beauty of God’s design for marriage were restoring their life-long union. “Jack and Diane two American kids doing the best that they can . . . by God’s design.”
Amen.

July 12, 2015 Text: Amos 7:7-15

Dear Friends in Christ,

          Sometimes in sermon preparation you get what I like to call a layup, a pitch right down the middle, a tap-in birdie. Last week and this week in our Old Testament lessons we have had words from our Lord that have been right in the sweet spot. Last Sunday it was Ezekiel and his taking the word of the Lord to the rebellious Israelites. Today it is the prophet Amos and a similar message. It is no coincidence that we would have these readings in the Sundays following a court ruling that goes against “Thus says the Lord God.” My fellow Pastors and I mentioned at this week’s convention how the Lord placed these readings on a tee in light of what is swirling around us.
Last Sabbath we were “Up Against It.” Today we want to focus in on one of our thoughts. We feel that life is coming at us at warp speed and we are being run over. We long for the days of old and for the times to be “like when I was a kid.” We look at the days and figure that the Lord has to be returning soon. It cannot go on like this. These are the same thoughts of Amos and his contemporaries. The plumb line is out of whack, the building is going to fall, the culture will crash to the earth. We get these crazy notions in our head that it has never been this bad. Well, yes, it has. Over and over again. Check your history and it will become clear. Our theme then will be a statement and a question.
“THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’ – OR ARE THEY?”
The Lord always has a plan even if we don’t always understand it. In our text a herdsman and dresser of sycamore figs named Amos would execute this plan. “Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, ‘Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words.’ For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’” (vs. 10-11)
Simply put, God sent Amos to speak his Word – without compromise – to address the gross idolatry of His people. He sent Amos to preach repentance and to draw them to God’s love. The statement by Amaziah stands out, “The land is not able to bear all his words.” You see, the land cannot bear the Word of God. It can’t stand the truth. The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Or Are They?
“And Amaziah said to Amos, ‘O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.’” (vs. 12-13)
Amaziah does not give a sound refutation of God’s Word spoken by Amos. There is nothing to show that Amos had misrepresented God. Amos is branded a hatemonger. A troublemaker. A narrow-minded man of God who doesn’t understand how humans are “supposed” to think – according to humans. He is in the wrong place at the wrong time doing what is not accepted by social convention. The Times They Are A Changin’ – Or Are They?
The way it was for the church at the time of Amos is the way it is for the church today. For all the changes we see, in so many ways nothing changes at all. And so, as we consider the hatred of God’s Word down through the centuries, what do we do?
“For God so loved the world.” I pray you and I know those words well. The truth of that has not changed since Jesus spoke it. The truth of it is rooted in Genesis 3:15, the first promise of the Christ. In spite of its rebellion and anger and hatred of God’s Law, He loved the world – you and me and all those who think they have changed our society for the better – so much that He gave his One and Only Son to bear the punishment and payment for every sin of every human. “Whoever believes will not perish but have eternal life.”
C.S. Lewis said something that is appropriate here. “We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.”
Lewis realized the battle going inside our souls. We struggle and strive to seek God’s will and ways. Though sin is still very much in us and we fail miserably, the battle against our sin doesn’t cease until the grave. And though we fail daily, God daily forgives our sin for the sake of Jesus.
The world doesn’t like that message because it forces the world to humble itself and confess its sin. That’s a real affront to human self-righteousness. But it doesn’t make any difference. It is still the message entrusted to us, regardless of how it’s received. And there is no way to soften its impact without compromising it.
Yes, we get caught up in lots of things on a daily basis. Nothing though is more important than how the Love of God in Christ Jesus touches our lives, helps and gives us strength in times of challenges and is preparing us for our eventual end here. There are lots of things about people we know and love and even those we don’t care for that are momentarily important, but none more important than the fact that when they cease to breathe, they will walk into eternal bliss or eternal damnation. No door will open and bring them back. There are no second chances. We need to pray on that each day as the Holy Spirit works through His means.
Even as things seem to progress and change the Word of our Lord and His love for us will never change. What a comfort and blessing for you and I.
Amen.