January 17, 2021                                                                Text:  1 Corinthians 7:29-32a

Dear Friends in Christ,

            We have some city slickers in our congregation but when I look at the cherubs in the sanctuary and those worshipping at home most of us are familiar with the farm.  We grew up on one, worked on one or lived near one.  So when I use this opening illustration and talk about silos/grain bins you will understand.

            You don’t see as many silos as you use to.  Today you see more grain bins.  Chopped up corn known as silage would be put in a silo to feed the cows.  Hay would be put in the loft of the barn and straw in a different part of the barn.  Grain would be in a grain bin.  Corn in one, soybeans in another.  Everything was kept separate from the other.

            We live lives that look like silos.  There is a family life silo and a work silo.  We have a church silo and a recreation silo.  Here is one for our role as citizens and another for our friends.  They are separate from one another.  The people we know at work are usually not the same people we know at church.  What we do at home is different than what we do at school or at our job.  How we use our money recreationally is different than the offering we leave at church.  Do you see how this works?  We live in silos.

            The problem with silo living is that Jesus is often kept out of parts of our lives.  We go to work and Jesus recedes.  We pull out our credit card quite easily but does our tithe come first.  We get caught up in fun that we neglect worship.  Politics and church do not mix.  We relegate Jesus to a church silo.  He is not guiding all areas of our lives and this is no good.

            We need a better way to conduct our day-to-day living.  The Bible as always has the answer, let’s take a look at . . .

“LIFE AS A WHEEL WITH JESUS AS THE HUB”

            The Apostle Paul writes in our text, “The appointed time has grown very short.  From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they have no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealing with it.  For the present form of this world is passing away.  I want you to be free from anxieties.”

Paul is encouraging that we live every day for Jesus.  Why?  Because the time we have left is “short.”

            Paul isn’t trying to predict when Jesus will return, but one day He will.  What a glorious day!  Tears and sickness gone.  Evil in hell forever.  No more bullying.  No more cancel culture.  Jesus will rise from the grave and a new creation will come forth.  Our bodies will be whole and healthy and we will be in perfect peace and safety.  I can’t wait for that day.  How about you?  Come, Lord Jesus.

            We live with that hope because Jesus has already risen from the dead.  On the cross He took on our death and hell.  He took all the evil and buried it in a tomb.  Then on Easter He burst forth in glory and life.  Be free from anxiety because you know what awaits.  There will be groaning pains as we are experiencing but hang on to the hope that will not disappoint.

            Yes, the world will pass away.  Before that the Lord calls on us to live in this critical time with Jesus in every area of our lives.

            Instead of living in silos, we live as if life were a wheel.  The hub is Jesus.  The cross is empty.  Jesus is present now in our lives.  With Jesus at the center everything revolves around Him.

            The spokes coming out of the wheel are the various areas of life we live every day.  Work is connected to Jesus.  Honesty and integrity.  Our money and stuff are not our own.  It is all a gift of Jesus.  Money decisions are made after the Lord receives what is due Him.  We respect our governing authorities because again He has placed them there.  Our recreational decisions include Him.  We vacation or travel with our children to an event and we ask – where will we worship?  Do you see how it works?  Live life as the wheel with Jesus as the hub.  Eternity is our hope and so every spoke is lived with Jesus and for Him.

            Time is moving on.  Shoveling on Sunday morning two weeks ago reminded me of that.  I’m in-between.  Two months ago a kid asked if I wanted the senior discount.  He got a not so nice look.  Ten days ago I told a man at the funeral I had been a Pastor here at Good Shepherd for 21 years.  He looked at me and said, “What, did you start in the ministry at age 16!”  No matter what age we are or feel the end could come at any time.  I guess as you age these thoughts creep into the mind more and more.

            Jesus could come back tomorrow, wouldn’t that be nice?  Or it could be 125 years.  I could have a lot more years or very few.  You as well.  That is not the key question.  The key question is this?  How do we live when life is so short?  Not as silos but as a wheel.  The hub is Jesus risen from the dead and the end is glorious.  The time now is critical and what an opportune time God is giving us to live with Jesus and for Him.          Amen. 

January 10, 2021 – Baptism of our Lord                                       Text:  Genesis 1:1-5

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Currently we have 5 to 6 of our members who are gone.  Left the area.  Headed south.  Mainly to find warmth but they all are somewhere near water.  Last winter Toni and I took a trip and we just drove until we found significant climate change.  We eventually stopped 100 feet from the Gulf of Mexico – water.  What do we do to relax – hot bath, hot shower, or even better sit in a whirlpool.  Toni and I have stayed at a place with a pool in the room.  Wow!  Even your sound machines and little gadgets that are supposed to calm your nerves revolve around water – ocean waves, a rolling brook, water bubbling and falling down some rocks.  We find comfort in water.

            It didn’t take long for God to put this in place on earth – we’ve got water by the 2^nd verse of Genesis.  He was “hovering over the face of the waters.”  Maybe this calmed God as He was creating the world.   He knew that water was important from the beginning. 

            It seems that week after week our world gets more chaotic.  Sickness and vaccines and special elections and fighting.  Throw in a cloud of fog that enveloped us, homes without electricity, tree branches ready to snap and fall wherever, and the general malaise of winter.  We’ve got to keep fighting our perspective or we are all going to go crazy.  We are on the brink.  Please, help us Lord.

“BREAKING THE CHAOS”

            Water is you and me.  It transports, it dissolves, and replenishes nutrients and organic material while carrying away waste.  We have a brain – 70% water.  Lungs – 90% water.  Blood – 83% water.  We drink water and need water.  The dying person in film always asks for a drink. 

            God knew all this before He started his craftsmanship of world and man.  2 Peter 3:5 says, “the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God.”  The Holy Spirit used water to make things as they are.  Scientifically we know this…there is no life apart from the element of water.  The heavens and the earth came into being, exist now, and are preserved only because God has so commanded and ordered all things.  The heavens and the earth are preserved through the Word of God alone.  The only One who can break the chaos is God because He controls what He has made.

            Don’t let your mind play tricks with your thoughts.  God continues to work in the midst of His creation.  His ways are not your ways.  What is the opposite of chaos?  Order.  We call it the Order of Creation.  God had a plan and He saw that it came to be.  In our text “God saw that the light was good.”  He never said darkness was good.  He doesn’t promote sin or people who want to change what He created.  He doesn’t want to see you and I living in darkness.  He sent Christ to be the “light of the world.”  He had a plan for the chaos.

            In our Gospel lesson John baptizes Jesus.  The same Spirit that was at creation descended on him like a dove.  Then a voice from heaven:  “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  We sin.  Jesus didn’t.  Yet, He is baptized with a baptism for sinners.  Jesus takes our sin upon Himself.  Heaven is torn open.  The Savior breaks the chaos.

            Jesus had to deal with chaos, didn’t He?  The smarter-than-thou crowd always questioning His words.  Chaos in the streets of his hometown.  Confidants turning their back on Him.  Friends and family of Jesus dying.  Politicians who didn’t just want to make His life miserable but who wanted Him dead.  Sickness and disease and is He the Messiah?  Crowds that always surrounded Him and few moments to be alone.  And in some of those alone times where did He find Himself – on or near the water.  He created it.  He enjoyed it.  When it got too rough – He calmed it with just His Word.

            He gives that same peace to you and I.  God’s Word and water when first sprinkled or dumped or dunked into brought us from the chaos of our sinful nature to the peace of forgiveness.  It took us from the scariness of death to the beauty and promise of eternal life.  Paul writes in our Epistle, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rom. 6:4)  This is an everyday pledge that we carry in our DNA.  This water and Word never left your body. 

            Let all of this calm you down.  Let in flow in you and around you, as the chaos is broken.  God created the heavens and the earth.  Not man.  Not some happy accident.  The Creator spoke the Word and it was done.  The void was filled.  He does the same for you.  His Word…His water…all speak to a void you may have.  Order in the midst of chaos.  He’s here.  He has to be because all of this belongs to Him. 

                                                                                                                                    Amen.