September 27, 2020                                                                                  Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

Dear Friends in Christ,

            If we pay attention we know what brings our loved ones pleasure.  Maybe they like a certain treat or type of food.  We know they enjoy a good massage or having their hair brushed.  We can bring them pleasure in telling them their team won and a team they don’t like lost.  We see their face light up at receiving a certain gift.  We know what pleases them.

            What gives God pleasure?  What makes God happy?  People worshipping Him consistently.  Trust in his Word.  Prayer.  Faith.  Love. 

            Today we are going to delve into something we probably don’t think a lot about.  The mind of God.  He lets us in through the words of Ezekiel.  What is our Lord thinking?

“WHAT IS GOD’S GOOD PLEASURE?”

            God delights in life.  He has since the beginning.  He took man from dust and put air in his lungs and made him a living creature.  In the Gospel of John He says that whoever believes in Jesus should not perish but have eternal life.  He tells us to have life and have it abundantly, also in the Gospel of John.

            Life was poured out on you at the baptismal font.  You feed on the living self of Christ at the Communion rail.  From this pulpit, the Father speaks into your heart new life.  What is God’s good pleasure?  That you live.

            Why do people die?  Does death give God pleasure?  Never!   People die, we die, because we chase our own pleasures.  “Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin.” (v. 30b) 

            God designed us for life, life like His own.  When we live to make ourselves happy that is the real killer.  “Behold all souls are mine…the soul who sins shall die…” (v. 4)  Turn down God’s gift of life and you’re a goner, gone forever.  “You’re dying because you’re guilty, not because somebody else sinned.”  That makes it very personal.  The fact you will die begins and ends with you.

            We can’t pass that off.  Ezekiel was hearing the blame game.  God heard it in the Garden of Eden.  Do you ever whine, “Life’s not fair.”?  “There wasn’t anything I could have done about it.”  The Lord could just let us wallow in this quagmire of excuse making.  He is heart-struck by the accusation.  God defends Himself even to us:  “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’  Hear now, O house of Israel:  Is my way not just?  Is it not your ways that are not just?” (v. 25)  Ezekiel then quotes the Lord in the next verse, “When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness, and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die.” (v. 26)  There are no excuses.

            Still, God says, “When a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life.” (v. 27)  God wants to forgive.  God wants to give life.  He declares, “Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die.” (v. 28)

            We need to turn away and repent and cast away our selfish desires.  Only the Lord can create a new heart within us.  We turn away from our sin to Christ’s forgiveness.  We cast away the death we deserve and turn to the Lord’s gift of life.  The resurrected Christ has given the good news that changes everyone.  God gives life.

            On April 26, 2006, Newell and Colleen Cerak received a phone call that their daughter Whitney, who was traveling in a Taylor University van, was involved in a crash with a semi.  The van had nine passengers, five were dead.  The Cerak’s daughter Whitney was one of the five.

            That same evening another phone rang in the home of Don and Susie van Ryn.  They were told their daughter Laura had been in the van; she was in intensive care, barely clinging to life.

            More than 1,000 people came to Whitney Cerak’s funeral.  Meanwhile, the van Ryn family stayed at Laura’s bedside.  She came out of the coma.  Five weeks after the crash her sister asked, “What’s your name?”  To the shock of the family, the girl they thought was Laura said, “Whitney.”  The coroner and the hospital had confused the two horribly battered young women.

            The van Ryn family for weeks had believed their daughter Laura was alive.  Devout Christians, the van Ryns now rejoiced to see the Cerak family receive Whitney back from the dead.  The Cerak family were also devout Christians, and four years later, they invited the van Ryns to Whitney’s wedding.  Whitney was married in the same church where her funeral was held.

            God makes no mistakes.  “The soul who sins shall die.” (v. 4)  Because He takes up the whole horrible load of my sin, Jesus dies.  No mistake.  The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.  Why?  The Lord, your God, declares that He has “no pleasure in the death of anyone.”  “So turn.”  Turn to Jesus “and live.” (v. 32)

                                                                                                                                    Amen.         

September 20, 2020                                                                         Text:  Isaiah 55:6-9

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Back in 1981 when President Reagan was shot, Vice-President Bush was not in Washington D.C.  Until he could return to the White House, Alexander Haig the Secretary of State called a press conference at the White House and famously said, “I am in control here.”  The press criticized him for the “power grab” and what they perceived to be his lack of knowledge about the succession of the President, which has the Speaker of the House next in line after the Vice-President.  He clarified his meaning later but the story was already written.

            If you have ever been in a group, on a board, served on a committee, been on a team or played in a band you want someone in charge.  Like my mom, a long-time teacher said, “you have to have a chief.”  If everybody is in charge, then no one is in charge and we know that brings chaos.

            People are looking for guidance in our confused and directionless society.  The problem is and always has been – we look to the wrong chief.  It is not a politician or a branch of government or a sports star or media personality.  The only way to have true meaning in this life is to “seek the Lord.” 

            The world is asking so let’s let God’s Word guide us in answering . . .

“WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?”

            When we look outside of God for the answers we just jumble our life.  When we hear news that agrees with our hypothesis we want to tell others.  If we hear news that scares us, we retreat into our shell.  Every year people in the U.S. leave family and jobs behind to start life with a new identity.  But this too is hopeless without Christ.

            Some souls are so burdened with guilt and shame over past sins or so intertwined in the struggles of living that suicide is the only answer.  Just week or so ago someone took their own life on the property of one of our sister churches.  They lived nearby and ended it on church grounds. 

            When the question is asked, “Who’s In Charge Here?”  Most of us answer, “I am.”  You know the clichés, “master of my domain,” “captain of my soul.”  We trust in everything but the living Lord.  It may be the loudest voice or a buffet religion or science and technology.  Author Fred Brown wrote a short story about an electronic super-computer that was asked the question, “Is there a God?”  The computer replied, “There is now.”  If we took computers and phones away tomorrow, cemeteries would be filled by the end of the week.  “Who’s In Charge Here?”

            Our text proclaims that answers to life and its problems are to be found by seeking God.  To the modern mind that remedy is not simple.  Where is God found?

            God is not dead.  God has not departed from human history.  God reveals Himself in Holy Scripture.  Our text says, “He is near.”  God has entered human life and experience in the person of Jesus Christ, whose name is “God with us.” (Is. 7:14)  Jesus promised, “I am with you always.” (Mt. 28:20)

            He is not found in our thoughts.  “My thoughts are not your thoughts.”  God’s plans and reason are beyond our understanding.  Herman C. Theiss wrote this in Life With God, “The creator of our reason cannot be the product of our reason.  If we worship a god our mind has pieced together we are only worshipping ourselves.”  Our reason and thoughts are corrupted by sin.

            God is near.  God can be found.  Where is He?  Who’s In Charge Here?  God’s Word reminds us that it is “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” (Ps. 119:105)  In Psalm 50 God says, “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”  Have you gone to the man in charge during these troubling days?

            In repentance – turn from these other “gods” you may be trusting in and return to the living God.  In faith – lean on the confidence of Christ and His Word.  In prayer – let Him untangle you from your fear and anxiety and know that the Lord Jesus Christ is in charge. 

            It brings me great joy to know that my ways are not His ways.  Yes, I like to be the chief sometimes, but not without the Lord’s help.  I pray you will turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Lord has the world right where it needs to be so that His ways and His plans can further the work of salvation for all mankind.  In turning to the Man in charge you are receiving grace and mercy and compassion.  God will “abundantly pardon.”  We cannot comprehend God’s ways and thoughts to save fallen mankind. 

            This past week, in preparing for Adult Bible Class, I did a lot of research on the pandemic of 1918-1920.  The God of history enlightened me to see that not much has changed in the hearts and minds of human beings.  We still question.  We still do silly things.  We don’t tell the whole truth.  Despite all this, God brought many blessings 100 years ago and He will in our current times.  In order to see it, we must know Who’s In Charge Here?  “My ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Relax, friend, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has this . . . because we know . . . Who IS In Charge.

                                                                        Amen.