Monthly Archives: June 2023
Regretting the Neessity….But Love Demands It.
Concordia Lutheran Church – Cerritos, Ca , at dawn on Easter Sunday
Thoughts which drive me to Jesus, and to the Cross
So then, my brothers and sisters, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer. 2Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God—what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect. Romans 12:1-2 GNT
Those who have been cast down in terror should not despair, or flee before God, but rise again and be comforted in God. God wishes to have it preached and published that he never lays his hand upon us in order that we may perish and be damned. But he must pursue this course to lead us to repentance, else we would never inquire about his Word and will. If we seek his grace, he is ready to help us up again, to grant us forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit and eternal life.
Oh, if we would only stop trying to make the Holy Spirit our servant and begin to live in His life as the fish lives in the sea, we would enter into the riches of glory about which we know nothing now. Too many of us want the Holy Spirit in order to have some gift—healing or tongues or preaching or prophecy.
Yes, these have their place in that total pattern of the New Testament, but let us never pray that we may be filled with the Spirit for a secondary purpose!
Remember, God wants to fill you with His Spirit as an end in your moral life. God’s purpose is that we should know Him first of all, and be lost in Him; and that we should enter into the fullness of the Spirit that the eternal Son, Jesus Christ, may be glorified in us!
In WEB Griffin’s masterpiece about the US Army, and officer responds to a question about a combat decision with, “I regret it was necessary”. The phrase always stuck in my mind. I can’t even remember when Captain Parker (that name stuck in my mind) said it, or in which book it was said.
It came to mind while reading Luther’s quote this morning, as I think God thinks something like that every time He has to discipline us, whether individually, as a community, as the world. Does God enjoy it? Never! Even for the wicked who die in bondage to their sin God weeps over. Its not His plan, and He works through His people, through the word and sacraments they share, to constantly to lift up those who realize how broken they are.
This is what St. Paul is describing to the church in Rome, encouraging people to stop fighting God, to simply let Him transform them into the image of Christ – as He planned. This will be uncomfortable at times, it will be disappointing at other times, but you cannot reshape and repurpose something without some changes being made. Embrace those changes!
The changes are necessary, completely necessary–even if we regret that they are needed.
That is where Tozer’s quote comes in, as too often people come to God with their own agendas. In this case it is referring to charismatics, but it is applicable to all who claim to follow God. It isn’t about the gifts, the theology, the worship style, about our pleasure (because we are living sacrifices) it is completely about being lost in Christ, having the Holy Spirit envelop us, knowing God in all His glory.
That is what this religion called Christianity is all about – nothing less than this…
The Lord is with you!
Martin Luther and John Sander, Devotional Readings from Luther’s Works for Every Day of the Year (Rock Island, IL:
A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Mornings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008). Augustana Book Concern, 1915), 229–230.
My Precious!!!! – A Sermon on Exodus 19:2-8 with help from LOTR
My Precious!
(People)
Exodus 19:2-8
† I.H.S. †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ convince you how passionately God desires you to be part of His life!
- Gollum’s Passion
In the books and movies based on J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, there is an odd character named Gollum. Some people find him disgusting and pathetic, and others pity him.
All of his life has been spent guarding or chasing after a ring, a treasure he calls his “precious” When it is lost and found by others, he will do anything to get back this ring, this treasure whose value is beyond the value he places on his own life.
As Frodo the Hobbit tosses the ring into the volcano, Gollum is so intent on getting his precious back, he dives after it…. His passion so strong that even death can’t stop it.
Now Gollum’s obsession with the ring was not healthy, it was about gaining power. God the Father’s obsession is healthy; it is the passion which He chases His people with is just as strong…
Even to the point of His Son’s embracing death, if it means His precious will be His, again.
One perverted passion, one Holy passion, both seeking to make a treasure their own….
- The Set up – look at these two
In the Old Testament reading from Exodus this morning, Moses climbs Mount Sinai to talk with God…. And is given a message to share with the sin-plagued people of God who await him at the base of the mountain.
They are a people in the midst of change, having left the burden and slavery of Egypt, dwelling in the presence of God, but not yet in a place they could call home. They haven’t even been given what we call the 10 commandments yet, nor have they sinned in a way that resulted in a generation of wandering in the wilderness…
Yet they are God’s people… trying to learn what that means…. Just as we are this morning. We need to hear the message that He gave them for ourselves, and come to embrace Him as He embraces us…or….
- Response #1 The Egyptian Route
God plays it pretty hard to start the message,
‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians.”
Not long before, the Egyptians had suffered through the ten plagues because their King was stubborn. They chased after the Israeli’s, unable to learn to listen to God.
And like Gollum, they perished, drowned not in a volcano, but in the Red Sea. Neither way sounds all that fun, but sin eats us up that way. It creates a hunger, and obsession that is not quenchable until it destroys us.
God has to let us know the consequences of our actions, and even more, the cost of walking away from Him. It is what the Egyptians did… and were drowned because of it.
That is the power of sin, but the option is incredible…
- Response 2 – your flight is boarding
The second group God describes – is the people of God…
You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
God promised Abraham that he would save his descendants in Egypt, and He did, carrying them away to Sinai where He met with them. That is where they are at, well aware of the miracles, for they witnessed the Sea dividing, they saw these miracles happen before them, much as we see it when someone is saved as God baptizes them, or strengthens them as He gives them the body and blood of Christ at the altar.
He has saved us from so much – as he did the people of Israel. But He brought us into His presence, revealing that we dwell in His presence.
Everything we are, and everything we do has to be based on this incredible truth. We are His, that we dwell in His presence.
We need to be reminded of this, at least I do, for life. That is the point of the rest of the message
5 Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. 6 And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation
That phrase, “my own special treasure” is also translated as my peculiar possession. Peculiar in the sense of very different, very special. Or as I simply prefer it—precious.
Both peculiar and precious seem like olde words. Words that aren’t used all that much anymore…. And since the Lord of the Rings, people look at you a little strange when you call something “precious!”
But that is the relationship we have with God, this idea that out of all creation, God treasures us more than anything.
And He proved it by heading to the cross in the same way Gollum dove off the precipice after the ring.
Setting aside the shame – but for the joy set before Him, Hebrews tells us – Jesus endured the cross.
But there is a difference…
Alleluia! Jesus is risen!
And therefore, we are risen indeed.
- Give this message to the people!
We are God the Father’s peculiar, precious treasure.
This is what Israel struggled to understand in the desert. They couldn’t understand a God who desired to be their God, to be present and active in their lives.
They couldn’t see a God who would embrace agony because He treasured us. Who would do everything in His power to rescue us, and bring us out of where we were… to be with Him.
God told Moses, “this is the message you must give to the people of Israel”
Moses told them it all about God making them His people–then…and they responded with great joy…and the promise to live in this relationship.
We have an advantage over them. We have the cross and knowing what happened there. Our relationship is based on so much more!
It is based on the Jesus who died, and rose… and having risen, walks with us today. AMEN!
So now I’ve told you—what are you going to do?
Tips on Getting the Best Deal…. don’t
Thoughts that draw me to Christ – and to the Cross
20 You have nothing to do with corrupt judges, who make injustice legal, 21 who plot against good people and sentence the innocent to death. Ps 94:20-21 GNT
Yet popular Christianity has as one of its most effective talking points the idea that God exists to help people to get ahead in this world! The God of the poor has become the God of an affluent society. We hear that Christ no longer refuses to be a judge or a divider between money-hungry brothers. He can now be persuaded to assist the brother that has accepted Him to get the better of the brother who has not!
Too often, individuals and organizations look to get the best deal. How can their actions benefit themselves, or the group that they owe allegiance too. Even within orgranizations, there is competition between divisions and departments. It exists in churches and denominations as well. We want ours to get what it needs, even at the cost of others. Even if it means they shut down.
There is a name for this in scripture,
Covetousness.
We can justify it all we want, but covetousness is contagious. It starts out small, like the man who tells the pastor that he doesn’t care what happens to the church – as long as it is their to do his and his wife’s funerals. There is little care for the people around him. It then extends out to churches and denominationals that see other churches as places to prey on – and so welcome and recruit people from other churches, offering them “more” of this, and ‘more” of that–to meet their perceived needs. It can go on, to people pushing agendas that prey on needed ministries to fund those agendas.
THis isn’t new, Tozer’s words acknowledge it 30 years ago.
You see it in the scriptures as well, as people go against the work of Ezra and Nehemiah, as the Kinsman passes his right to Boaz (who gets to slap him in the face with a sandle!) so his son gets the full inheritance. In the apostles who are jealous of others ministering in Jesus’ name.
Here is the option.
The word cHesed in Hebrew, often translated as love, loving-kindness, has the sense of loving loyalty. It is the word used in conjunction with a covenant, to express the attitude that one should do everything in their power, not only to keep their end of the covenant, but to help the other party keep their end of it.
Even if it means death.
This is what compelled Jesus to die on the cross, the promise ot help mankind receive all the promises made to Adam, and to Abraham, and the promises given to all naitons through Moses.
This is the heart of the matter in Luther’s understanding of the 7th commandment as well. In explaining it to dads, so they can explain it to their children, Luther wrote, “but help him to improve and protect his income and property.”
To do otherwise is to disobey God by stealing from one’s neighbor.
But when we do help them, when we invest in them, when we strive on thier behalf, we see God at work in them and we see God’s blessings upon them, and we get to share in their joy.
Is such easy? no!
Is such perhaps met with suspicion and reluctance? yeah… because of past history.
Is it worth it? Was it worth it to Christ.
Our being in Covenant with God means we are in covenant with all of mankind, and so cHesed – this loyalty/love/kindness compels us to these kinds of actions. May we welcome such compulsion, and turn our back on coveting that which God gave to someone else.
A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Mornings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008).
Martin Luther, “The Small Catechism: The Ten Commandments”, Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959), 343.
The Struggle of Wanting Things… the Way it Used to Be…
Thoughts that draw me to Jesus, and to the cross:j
They sang the LORD’s praises, repeating the refrain:
“The LORD is good, and his love for Israel is eternal.”
Everyone shouted with all his might, praising the LORD, because the work on the foundation of the Temple had been started. 12Many of the older priests, Levites, and heads of clans had seen the first Temple, and as they watched the foundation of this Temple being laid, they cried and wailed. But the others who were there shouted for joy. 13No one could distinguish between the joyful shouts and the crying, because the noise they made was so loud that it could be heard far and wide. Ezra 3:11-13 GNT
To experience anguish on account of the punishment of sin is not real repentance. Staupitz calls it “gallows repentance” (Galgenrew, attritio). True repentance is created by a contemplation of the vicarious sufferings of Christ for our sins. The love of God as revealed in these sufferings of the Savior kindles in our hearts a love for Him and a true sorrow over sin and all that is displeasing to Him.
This mroning Facebook in its wisdom showed me pictures from 44 years ago, the pictures of friends when we were all in Junior High School. My immediate reaction was I wish I could transport back to those days, because life was so much more simpler and joyful back then.
Well, it wasn’t. I got into serious fights with George, and a girl crushed my heart, telling me she would be my girlfriend one night – then changing her mind before school the next morning! My friends and I did things that should have gotten us into trouble. (are the statutes of limitations passed? There was stress… and lots of it. God was surely with me then, butHe is surely with me now.
Thden I came across the Bible passage of rebuilding the Temple and the reading about Martin Luther’s mentor/confessor, Staupitz, and I had to think for a while to see a correctation. There is one, and it has to do with what I did…. looking back at the past.
The elders in Ezra remembered the glory of the Temple Solomon built, something that could never be matched. THey also knew – for they wrote about to to Empoeror Darius, that it was their sin that caused God to no longer protect the Temple, or the people. Betweent he romantic remembrance of the good old days, and the knowledge the actions of their people lost it, the wailing was huge.
It was like Staupitz’s “gallows repentance.” They were “repentant” because of what their sin cost them. Their sorrow caused the desire for a transformation, for soemthing new to occur.
The people who were younger, who didn’t know the old Temple were free to see what God was doing for them in the present. How God arranged to rebuild the Temple – how He was providing, according to the promises made to Hezekiah and Isaiah and others. The transformation in them was because of what they saw God doing-the building of a place where they could fellowship with God, a place they could come and pray, a place where they could experience forgiveness.
SO bring that forward to today, to the people and pastors who grieve that church isn’t as full as it used to be. They don’t know who to blame, (or perhaps they do!) But things aren’t the wya they were…. and someone has to be to blame. But it just doesn’t seem right anymore, and then the search begins for what will restore the church, or who wreck it.
Perhaps we need to look to the present, and see what God is doing, and what He’s restoring. Focus in on the minsitry, through word and sacrament, and rejoice in their being restored. That is why churches and altars are put in places, in the first place – for the ministry that occurs through the people God, to people the Spirit is drawing to that place to be the church.
Rejoice, the Lord is with you!f
Uuras Saarnivaara, Luther Discovers the Gospel: New Light upon Luther’s Way from Medieval Catholicism to Evangelical Faith (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003), 23.
Good News! He’s Gonna Tear Us to Pieces!! A Sermon on Hosea 5:15-6:6
Good News!
He’s Gonna Tear Us to Pieces!
Hosea 5:15
† I.H.S. †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ encourage you to accept the work of the Holy Spirit, who purifies you and makes you holy!
This News is Awesome!
In the middle of the lesson from Hosea this morning, there is some of the greatest news I can share with you!
God is going to meet a critical need this morning…if He hasn’t already!
As surely as the sun came up, He has either done this, or He is about to do it.
Here is what Hosea credits with God with doing,
“He has torn us to pieces…
He has injured us…”.
Like I said, if God hasn’t done this to you, He will… and that is good is a good thing.
And if you need God to tear you to pieces, I hope this sermon will make you look forward to it!
- A Need to Be Met!
- Self-inflicted, here and Ezekiel 6:9
Let’s go back to the first verse of the reading, the last verse of chapter 4, “Then I will return to my place until they admit their guilt and turn to me. For as soon as trouble comes, they will earnestly search for me.”
God tells the prophet Hosea that he’s going to let Israel realize their need for Him. He’s just going to wait for them until they realize they need it!
I think that is what they call “tough love.” Letting someone walk away as a prodigal, knowing the pain and suffering they would endure.
It is an amazing thing to see God be that patient with us, I mean how patient are we with everyone around us? God has the advantage of being God, and knowing that as Father, Son and Spirit, they had planned to redeem us all, but still, we, every human from every language, culture, age group, have walked away… and chosen sin at times.
But the response is more challenging, ““Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces; now he will heal us. He has injured us; now he will bandage our wounds
It takes a lot to say this! Not only to realize that God will heal us and bandage our wounds, but that He was the One who disciplined us, and did so in a way we might consider harsh.
Though what it often is, is not God’s intent, but what He warned us about. HE won’t always withhold the punishment that we earn with every sin, He will let us experience the consequences.
That is something each of us has to face, to come to the realzieation of the prodigal – that I had it better back home.
What God promised in regard to sin is true, but so is what He promises in regard to grace.
One leads to pain, punishment
- The Doctor is In!
- Heal, Bandage, Restore
But when we come to our senses, God is right there.
That same verse says he will heal us, that He will bandage our wounds providing long term healing and growth to health and He will restore us to the image of Christ that He created us to shine into this dark world.
This all became true for people starting at Pentecost – and it comes true for us this day as well.
If we are running from God, its time to come home.
It’s time to stop being torn to pieces, its time to stop getting injured by the consequence of sin, it’s time to stop, and let God finally restore us to His image.
- Best News
- He wants this as much as we do!
The good news in this was that the Lord loves us enough to tear us to pieces, to allow ourselves to be wounded by the sins we so easily choose over him.
The better news – that God will welcome us back, heal us, bandage us,
But here is the best news, a response to the prophet’s plea to his people,
3 Oh, that we might know the LORD! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.”
That is a critical example of faith, this ability to cry out to know God better, this encouragement to get to know Him, and the confidence that we shall – because we know He shall respond to us, even as we come back to Him.
And here is His response,
4 “O Israel and Judah, what should I do with you?” asks the LORD. “For your love vanishes like the morning mist and disappears like dew in the sunlight. 5 I sent my prophets to cut you to pieces— to slaughter you with my words, with judgments as inescapable as light. 6 I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.
That God responds to us, knowing what we’ve done, knowing how much we struggle and how our love can be there one moment and not the next, is incredible.
Yeah – He did hit people hard judging them, but doing so with the purpose of reconciling us to Himself – of drawing us back to the only place, to the only One who loves us enough to heal and restore us…
And why?
Because He wants us to know Him, more than anything else.
He wants us to know Him,
Knowledge not is academics, knowledge as in experience, as in understanding how much love there is, of knowing how much He cares, and thinks of us, and wants the best for us, and designed and formed us specifically (mentally, physically, socially, intellectually) to interact with Him.
This is our God, let us return to Him, and dwell in His peace. AMEN!
Repentance and Worship
Thoughts driving me to Jesus, and to the Altar/Cross:
For seven days all the people of Israel who were present celebrated the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. 18Since the days of the prophet Samuel, the Passover had never been celebrated like this. None of the former kings had ever celebrated a Passover like this one celebrated by King Josiah, the priests, the Levites, and the people of Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem 19in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign. 2 Chron. 35:17-19 GNT
True penitence or contrition flows out of love for God and righteousness. Without such love it is impossible for man to hate and detest sin and to repent of it. An important problem in the doctrine of repentance, therefore, is the question of the origin, or creation, of such love in the human heart. Is it the result of man’s own efforts, or is it the work of God?
Staupitz answers the question by saying that such a love for God and His will is the product of two factors: (1) the revelation of the love of God in Christ and in His suffering for men, and (2) the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man. “The love of Christ kindles the spirit of the bride (that is, man).” “Love for God is created by the revelation of the love of God toward us.”56
The event that resoluted in the marvelous celebration of the passover was the finding the word of God, reading it, and realizing not only that the people of God were guilty of sin, but that there was a way that resulted in the people being free of the bondage created by that sin.
A freedom that was foretold in the story of the passover, a story that Israel was commanded to keep, that they would remember the love of God that assured them of His work in their lives.
It is with this hope, that they celebrated the freedom won for them, and the ultimate freedom that would occur when the Messiah came. And even only with hope of the future, the people of God threw a party that would be memorable throughout history!
How much more should we, who have that hope fulfilled in Jesus, celebrate the love of God, show to us in Christ Jesus? We have the two things necessary to love God – His love fully revealed, and the love of the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts! We should be as excited to see God at work in our lives as the bride is, as she looks down the aisle to see her about to be husband.
The key to worship is not found in the band or organ, the type of music or when it was written. The key is the gift of repentance, the work that the Spirit does in transforming us, as we learned we are love, as we learn to love. The result is worship like hasn’t been experienced before, for it changes from being based on the future, to being based in the present.
It all boils down to the relationship and realizing what God is do in this relationship…
Amen!
Uuras Saarnivaara, Luther Discovers the Gospel: New Light upon Luther’s Way from Medieval Catholicism to Evangelical Faith (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003), 22–23.
