November 13, 2022 – Stewardship Sunday                            Text:  Luke 12:13-21

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Almost everyone in the world from Alaska to Australia, from Siberia to South African observe a general festival of thanksgiving.  In Bible times both Pentecost and Succoth were such festivals.  The idea did not originate with the Pilgrims.  We mark the completion of seedtime and harvest.  In reality, we usually spend the weekend overeating, oversitting and overspending.  Prayerfully, we remember our many blessings.  We have a total dependence upon God.  It is Stewardship Sunday, and this question is posed . . . 

“DO YOU HAVE A LASTING BLESSING?”

    Stewardship Sundays are usually on one of three topics – our talent, our time, our treasure.  Looking at sermons of the past on this day they have usually been on time and talent with a little treasure thrown in.  That is my fault.  I don’t like people telling me what do with my treasure so I have shied away from preaching on it.  But that is ridiculous as this is a biblical topic.   When we sent the letter out earlier this year on the state of the church’s finances you brothers and sisters are so amazing you thanked us for it.  You want to know.  It’s your church.  We are in this together.  This sermon like the letter is not an “open your pocketbooks” more Law sermon.  It is a reminder of what good fortune we have been blessed with.  It is that reminder that all good gifts come from God.  It is that reminder that what we have is temporary in one way but what the Lord provides is eternal.  

    Only about half of you who are in the pews this morning will stay for our meeting today.    I don’t need to reiterate the challenges we faced at the end of last year and beginning of this year.  It has made…well 2022…a good exercise in frugality.  But as always, along the way the gracious hand of our Lord has been a constant.  We approached a few tipping points and then boom….thank you Lord!  

    Do you know the most surprising part of the pandemic for those of us in the clergy?  The offerings given.  Never expected it.  75-80% of LCMS churches saw higher offerings in 2020.  Studies have been done as to why, but the main reason…God is good.  Most churches have seen the opposite in 2022.  Why?  Because people are scared.  Why did people build bomb shelters in the 1950’s or why did those who lived through the Depression horde food?  Fear.  It paralyzes us.  As I said earlier in a sermon and it has borne itself out in our giving, $5 gas scared us.  You then add on the cost of energy, food, sundry items and we all start to look inward instead of outward.  Why can’t we in the 21st century figure out a way to have new cars on the lots?  Cars are being made, we all know that.  When life doesn’t make sense where do we go?

    God’s Word.  It is really that simple.  Today’s text has been called “The Parable of the Rich Fool.”  However, he wasn’t a fool for being rich.  He was probably a great farmer or good business manager.  The man was a fool because of the wrong conclusions he drew from being rich.  His riches were foolishness because they were wrongly used.

    His biggest problem was that he his didn’t realize his riches had no lasting value.  “Fool!  This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (v. 20)  He had a temporary blessing.  Sooner or later, it would be taken away.

    Look at all the pronouns in this text they are almost all “I” and “my”.  It is the same way we speak.  My house, my car, my money, my clothes.  Are they really ours?  Does the farmer cause the seed to germinate and the rain to fall and the sun to shine?  That all comes from the hand of God.  God entrusts us with many things, but they are really His because He provided them.

    Do you have a lasting blessing?  Today people are not buried in a shroud.  It is usually a nice suit or dress.  In earlier times a shroud was used.  But it lacks one thing – pockets.  The reason?  We take nothing with us when we go, even as we brought nothing with us when we came.  Jesus came into the world with no home, no fancy clothes, no comfortable bed.  Still, on the Last Day, every knee will bow before Him.  Why?  Because he was poor?  No, because He faithfully carried out the Father’s will to save us.

    You see the Lord knows you are sacred.  He made you.  You are the crown of His creation.  He provides you with the greatest riches.  Your fear is replaced with hope.  Your inward cocoon now sees outward possibilities.  He unfolds your tight fists with percentage giving.  It is all made possible through His love and grace.  A Calvary Cross.  An empty tomb.  A promise to always be with us.  What is there to be frightened of?  Read your history.  Really, everything in His hands.  We have a priceless inheritance with Christ in heaven.  I can’t wait for that lasting blessing to be an eternal joy.  Are you there, with me?  I look forward to seeing you.

    Today is again a reminder that we are all rich.  In a way the world doesn’t understand.  May God grant us such a faith in Him, that our hearts and eyes will be fixed where true joys are to be found.  That we will be grateful stewards of the material things entrusted to us and use them for God’s glory and the welfare of others. 

                            Amen.           

October 30, 2022                            Text:  Revelation 14:6-7

Dear Friends in Christ,

    We all can be disagreeable.  What disagreements are worth it?  In my anecdotal evidence collecting of the last 30 years there is one thing that stands out this time of the year especially among spouses.  What temperature are we going to set the thermostat at for the winter months?  There seems to be a lot of disagreement among spouses.  One of you likes it   cooler, one of you likes it warmer.  Most of us end up compromising and set it at a temperature we can live with.  The same thing tends to happen with the summer thermostat setting.  At the Lueck household we have learned that we are not going to agree.  I prefer sauna.  Toni prefers igloo.  We have found the disagreement is not worth it.  With the price of natural gas this winter, I am willing to concede another degree or so.  How does it play out at your home?  We even have the same challenge here at church with competing voices.  

    Today is Reformation Sunday.  Was the disagreement Martin Luther and the reformers had against the Roman Catholic Church at the time worth it?  Is the disagreement still worth fighting for today?  Let’s see where we land as we answer . . .

“WAS (IS) THE DISAGREEMENT WORTH IT?”

    Our text is from Revelation 14.  “I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.” (v. 6)

    Having been Lutheran my whole life I learned for the first time this week that many Lutherans thought for years that the angel or messenger referred to here is the reformer, Martin Luther.  C.F.W. Walther, the first president of the LCMS preached in a sermon just 177 years ago this, “The angel, the one sent from God, who flew through the midst of heaven is Luther, and the eternal Gospel that he preached is Luther’s doctrine.”

    For the last one hundred years not a single Lutheran can be found who still believes this way.  But it is not far-fetched that many felt this way for so long because Luther, by the power of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, had set them free from utter bondage.  And that was no small thing.

Walther characterizes it this way:  “Before (Luther’s Day), nearly a thousand years of spiritual darkness had settled over all of Christianity…The light of the pure Gospel was lost nearly everywhere…the Holy Scriptures lay in dust, right in the midst of Christianity…Christianity languished in fearful despair and anxiety.  Thousands had, in their previous predicament of sin, cried out in vain, ‘What must we do to be saved?’ but there was no answer.”

It was really bad.  It does not get more desperate or worse in this life, than when a man does not know, cannot find, the gracious God revealed at last in the Gospel that Luther discovered in the Scriptures and proclaimed so clearly.

This idea of infused grace, conditional penance and mitigated forgiveness could not satisfy his yearning to know that God was his friend and not his enemy.  The Roman Catholic system at the time was good at raising money but had little to deliver man under the burden of the flesh a clean conscience and confidence with God.  

Luther with a great desire to understand the Bible and with God’s grace found that Christ is his Savior from sin.  God the Father declares him righteous in love.  Christ is your Savior.  His death on the cross has taken away your sin, given you eternal life, despite your sin, entirely apart from any works of yours.  No credit belongs to us poor sinners, but all the glory for our salvation, our standing, and our confidence belongs to God alone.  This is what Luther preached.

So is what he did worth it?  Was the disagreement worth everything that he gave up, including his freedom for a time?  We have to respond yes.  His grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone preaching and teaching was and is important.  We no longer have to worry about doing enough.  Christ has done it all in our place.  This is a free gift given to us by our gracious Lord.  This message is still important.  It transforms lives.  Both in Luther’s Day and in our day.  

We continue to battle for the truth of the Bible.  The inspired, inerrant Word of God does not change.  We preach and teach the Law and Gospel.  Yes, we struggle in our sin but we are saved through forgiveness that comes through Christ Jesus.  We are strengthened in the Word and the Sacrament.  

The thermostat may not be worth the battle, but the Word of God always will be.  It needed to be reformed in Luther’s Day and so many believers came back to what our text says, “Fear God and give him glory…worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”  Our text also says, “the hour of his judgment has come.”  Therefore, we continue to stand for the truth of His Word.  We desire, through the Holy Spirit, as Scripture declares, “that all people be saved.”  We still have work to do.

The Reformation disagreement was and is worth it.  We do well to remember it with thanksgiving to God.

            Amen.