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God’s Plan! Revealed and Finally Realized! The Plan Reveals Who We Are! A Sermon on 1 John 3:1-3
God’s Plan! Revealed and Finally Realized!
The Plan Reveals Who We Are
1 John 3:1-3
† In Jesus Name †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ help you to accept that you are His child and that you are pure and holy!
I am Your Father!
On Friday, I was over at the retreat Bob was heading up, with the purpose of meeting the team, and giving a 20 minute talk about what it meant to be friends with God.
The format that they gave me required some pretty deep thought about my identity and who I was, and what I’ve went through in life. The basic idea – was that God was there, in the midst of the trauma, in the midst of it all…
Jesus no longer called us slaves or servants, He calls us His friends.
Which means something we can hear and know with our minds, but it will take a lifetime to really, really understand with out heart and our soul…
Think about how long it took Luke Skywalker to comprehend that Darth Vader was his dad—no I have a better illustration, a real one. Rather than being a reunion with a dad, it was one with a mother, my birth mom. (and it didn’t cost me my hand!)
In July of 2006, at 10:16 in the lobby of a casino in Vegas, I met the lady who gave birth to me 41 years before. It was an awkward, confusing, joyful, amazing time as we gave each other a hug and talked for 4 or 5 hours.
Over the next few days, I learned a lot, had a number of questions answered that gave me insight into who I am, and oddly enough, enhanced the other relationships I have in my life, including those with my adopted parents.
My point is simple here… whether we are talking about Jesus calling us his brothers, or the Father calling us His sons and daughters, there is a lot to think through, a lot to understand this truth here in our head, and then it boil in our hearts and souls as this truth begins to affect out life.
The world can’t help us! They have it all wrong!
The first challenge to this, the transforming truth comes from the world. The Apostle John describes it with these words. “But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.”
I first read this with a sense that the people of this world were antagonisticly evil, that they were opposed to us so viciously, and so violently because they didn’t like God, and therefore they didn’t like us.
But then I thought of my birth mom and my conversation, finding out that our families ate at the same restaurant on Sundays, that her mom was a nurse where I often was a patient, and fifty other times and places where we could have been a couple of feet apart.
But we didn’t know…
In the same way, people don’t understand what it means to be a Christian and child of God, because even though they are close. They don’t see a God who loves us as a good Father loves His children, but instead they see God as a Darth Vader type character, who will cut anyone in half, if they don’t do what He expects.
Using our theme for October and November, they didn’t know the plans God has for them, they didn’t even have a clue about God’s love, so they are without a future and a hope, which is why sin doesn’t bother them in the same way as it does us.
Or the way it should bother us…
John wrote, “3 And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.
If you don’t know God’s plan, if you don’t understand the relationship we have with God, then you can’t understand the doctrines affecting holiness, the doctrine of having a pure, unmarred, unmarked by sin.
If the relationship matters, even if we don’t comprehend it completely, then our attitude toward sin is different. We realize the division sin causes in the relationship with God, and we dread the consequences.
And when we are thinking properly, we communicate about sin that way – talking of being saved from it and wanting people saved from it, rather than being in bondage to it and the condemnation it carries with it.
The love of a parent
That is why it is so essential to see God as our heavenly Father, or even better, as our Abba – our daddy. The one who cares for us so much that He sent His one and only begotten Son Jesus, to join with us.
Martin Luther described this passage with these words, As if he were what we are, he makes whatever concerns us to concern him as well, and even more than it does us. In turn we so care for Christ, as if we were what he is, which indeed we shall finally be—we shall be conformed to his likeness. As St. John says, “We know that when he shall be revealed we shall be like him” [1 John 3:2]. So deep and complete is the fellowship of Christ and all the saints with us. Thus our sins assail him, while his righteousness protects us. For the union makes all things common, until at last Christ completely destroys sin in us and makes us like himself, at the Last Day. Likewise by the same love we are to be united with our neighbors, we in them and they in us.[1]
This was God’s plan, to reveal to us in Christ what the transformation, that’s what God’s plan has always been, to make us like Jesus… to unite us to our Dad, God the Father, and all our siblings AMEN!
———
[1] Luther, M. (2012). Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (W. R. Russell & T. F. Lull, Eds.; Third Edition, pp. 190–191). Fortress Press.
If We Expect Others to Come to Repentance…
Thoughts which carry this broken pastor to Jesus, and to the Cross
“During the day when the people are watching, bring out the things you would pack as captive. At evening, with the people watching, leave your place like those who are taken away as captives from their country. Dig a hole through the wall while they watch, and bring your things out through it. Lift them onto your shoulders with the people watching, and carry them out in the dark. Cover your face so you cannot see the ground, because I have made you a sign to the people of Israel.”” (Ezekiel 12:4–6, NCV)
For the Gospel does not preach the forgiveness of sin to indifferent and secure hearts, but to the “oppressed” or penitent (Luke 4:18). And in order that contrition or the terrors of the law may not end in despair, the proclamation of the Gospel must be added so that it becomes a “contrition that leads to salvation” (2 Cor. 7:10).
28 That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. (1 Corinthians 11:28 (NLT2))
3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye. Matthew 7:3-5 (NLT2)
One of the men I trained for ministry, first as a deacon, then as a pastor, was excellent at stating the profoundly obvious. He did it in a fun, but also deeply challenging way. Perhaps his best observation was a couple of years into preaching regularly as he said, “we preach the same thing every week, we just use different words.
But another deep thought he caused, when he asked, “why are my best sermons the ones where God forces me to apply the passage to my own life all week long.” If we were preaching about God lifting up the humbled, we would be humbled. If we talked about God being there with those who were broken, something would break us. If we were preaching about worshipping the God who came near and rescued us…. we would get to worship, only if we had to be rescued from something.
It seems like we aren’t the first to notice it, Ezekiel had to be a model of what God needed to teach Isreal, more than the one time in today’s devotion. Jeremiah is often frustrated by this as well, as are others, even Hosea. Our lives as leaders in the church (not just pastors – all leaders) are broken in the ways our congregations are, and we need to let God address them–and then appropriately worship and praise Him.
Moving through my devotions to my reading in the Lutheran Confessions, this hit a little close to home. If I am going to preach the gospel, the forgiveness of sins, that means I have to let the Spirit circumcise my own heart. I have to recognise how sin oppresses, I have to learn (again!) to trust God to take action in my own life, that I may hear with joy the forgiveness that comforts this broken soul.
Mark was right – we need to let God preach our messages into our hearts first, to let the words that cut and heal have their way.
Then we rejoice when we share them with the flock entrusted to us, the ones we are tasked with guiding towards the Healer of their souls…as ours have begun healing. That is the other advantage to being the exmaple, we recognize the healing they join us in…as we are all ministered to, by the Ho.y Spirit.
Formula of Concord: Solid Declaration: Law and Gospel, Tappert, Theodore G., ed. 1959. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
The Hands, washed and innocent? A Lenten Sermon about Jesus… and Pilate
By My Hands, for My Sake
The Hands, Washed and Innocent?
Matthew 27
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ help you understand what it means to have clean hands, and therefore no guilt or shame….
- Who was Pilate kidding?
Barabba’s hands were freed, Judas’s hands threw back the money, Nicodemus’s hands took the Lord Jesus, down from the victorious cross. Adam’s hands would not die, but would work the ground…While their sin was the factor in Christ’s death, only one set of hands could had done anything about it…
And he decided to wash his hands.
As if that would remove the blood that was shed, as the spikes entered the wrists and ankles, and the blood and water which poured out as the centurion’s spear entered Christ’s sacred side…
Who the heck did Pilate think he was kidding?
He wasn’t fooling the Jewish leaders, they realized that with enough voices shouting, they could get him to back down.
He wasn’t fooling his army, they would go ahead, and crucify him according to Roman standards
He wasn’t fooling his wife, who told him to have nothing to do with the holy man.
And he wasn’t fooling Jesus… for God knew his heart.
While Pilate claims he isn’t guilty of the death of Jesus, he needed Jesus to die as much as any of us.
Paul will write of Pilate and his friend Herod,
“7 No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. 8 But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. 1 Corinthians 2:7-8 (NLT2)
Pilate, no matter how hard he tried, was as guilty as any of the death of Jesus…it was by his hand the order was given to crucify Jesus….
He didn’t fool anyone… it was by his hands… and ours.
- Do We Try to Duck Responsibility for our Decisions?
Over the years, I have heard people talk about Christ’s death, and “who killed him.” Even today some people want to blame the Jews, or at least the Jesus leaders. Others want to blame the soldiers, or the Roman politicians.
Like so much of what goes on in this world, we want someone to blame! Someone to hold responsible for causing the mess, so that we have someone to hold responsible for cleaning up the mess caused by the sin.
I don’t care if it is a big issue, like wars and homelessness. Or something in your home, like who left the garage door open, or who forgot to flush the toilet.
We all know the name of the guilty person, some illusive guy named “not me!” or perhaps, “not us!”
Pilate’s answer would work to- “I am innocent – you are responsible!” And so more damage is done, as sin breaks apart another relationship.
Some of us even have the nerve to blame God for the mess, the sin, the decision.
And we like Pilate – try to wash our hands to prove we are innocent!
- It was for Our Sake…
In researching this sermon, I came across an interesting passage about Pilate. It was written by an early church writer and leader named Tertullian, who wrote, “All these things Pilate did to Christ; and now in fact a Christian in his own convictions, he sent word of Him to the reigning Cæsar, who was at the time Tiberius[1]” Other writers insist that he was a martyr, who was killed because he wouldn’t give up on his being a witness to Jesus’ death… and came to believe he rose from the dead.
I hope these testimonies are true!
The man who tried to wash his hands of the sin of signing the death warrant, cleansed of the sin by being united in baptism with the Lord?
The hands that once tried to place the responsibility in other hands accepting it, and having it forgiven! What an incredible story!
It is almost as good as our sins, which we blamed on others, being forgiven!
We don’t have to pass the buck anymore, and the buck doesn’t stop here. It stops there – Paul says it is nailed to the cross, where Jesus took on its incredible burden.
That’s the point – Jesus died at our hands, but He died for our sake.
He washed us, as He did the disciples’ feet, and to quote what He said to Peter,– you are clean indeed.
This is true for all who have confessed their sin, seeking not to justify it, but to accept and receive God’s promise of forgiveness.
[1] Tertullian. “The Apology.” Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, edited by Alexander Roberts et al., translated by S. Thelwall, vol. 3, Christian Literature Company, 1885, p. 35.
The Only Way to Start the Year….
Thoughts which bring me to Jesus, and to The Cross
The LORD said to Moses, 27 “The Day of Cleansing will be on the tenth day of the seventh month. There will be a holy meeting, and you will deny yourselves and bring an offering made by fire to the LORD. 28 Do not do any work on that day, because it is the Day of Cleansing. On that day the priests will go before the LORD and perform the acts to make you clean from sin so you will belong to the LORD.
29 “Anyone who refuses to give up food on this day must be cut off from the people. 30 If anyone works on this day, I will destroy that person from among the people. 31 You must not do any work at all; this law will continue for people from now on wherever you live. 32 It will be a special day of rest for you, and you must deny yourselves. Lev 23:26-32 NCV
Happy is the person whom the LORD does not consider guilty and in whom there is nothing false. 3 When I kept things to myself, I felt weak deep inside me. I moaned all day long. 4 Day and night you punished me. My strength was gone as in the summer heat.
Selah
5 Then I confessed my sins to you and didn’t hide my guilt. I said, “I will confess my sins to the LORD,” and you forgave my guilt. Ps. 32:2-5 NCV
36 Finally, it was very foolish of our opponents to write that men who are under eternal wrath merit the forgiveness of sins by an elicited act of love, since it is impossible to love God unless faith has first accepted the forgiveness of sins.
All that exterior activity is a waste if tune, if you lack love. It’s like sewing with a needle and no thread.
What a pity if in the end you had carried out “your” apostolate (mission) and not “His” apostolate.
Every three or four years, I choose a translation to read through that was designed for younger or simpler readers. What benefit usually comes is when familiar “church” words are replaced with words that describe what is actually going on. In this case, the “Day of Atonement” is replaced with the “Day of Cleansing.” The day when all sin is erased, a day of great joy, a day that means, in the truest sense of the word–freedom.
In that moment, in the Mosaic period of the Covenant, all the people of God (Israel AND the foreigners that dwelled with them) could rejoice. Every sin, every bit of its buddies shame and guilt was removed from the people. It was a special day of rest, not because of the hard work prior to it, but because of the great blessing of God’s mercy.
It was, and is today, a life changer. And it should be prepared for with eagerness, for great joy awaits. And then, it should be followed with restful, joyous contemplation, for the weight that has been removed is beyond description.
The cost and consequence of all sin, the incredible burden of shame, the crushing power of guilt…is gone.
And we are free to love–and that love gives meaning and depth to everything we do. And it is good to take an hour, a day, a week, even a year, contemplating our forgiveness, found in our relationship with Jesus.
In these days, in the New Covenant, we have to be careful not to dismiss the “Day of Cleansing.” It is not a yearly occurrence, but one that happens as the people of God gather. as they minister to each other, and when the pastor/priest tells people. “you are forgiven in Jesus’ name.”
If we are to begin a new year correctly, it needs to start with that cleansing and rest. It needs to start with love, and that love requires the freedom that cleansing/absolution/mercy brings to the table.
So find times to think about what you’ve done, how God has healed the brokenness, and how you are made whole. DO this often, and see what God has freed you to do, next.
Godspeed, and God’s peace
Phillip Melanchthon, “The APology of the Augsburg COnfession: Article IV Justification'” Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord: the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959), 112.
Josemaria Escriva, The Way. no. 967
Time To Stop Carrying ALL that Weight; The Power of the Sacrament of Reconciliation
Thoughts which drive me to Jesus–Christ crucified for us.
Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends! 2 Corinthians 5:20 (TEV)
You should get into the habit of admitting your sins to each other, and praying for each other, so that if sickness comes to you, you may be healed. James 5 (Phillips NT)
Concerning confession it is taught that private absolution should be retained and not abolished.[1]
“The genuine sacraments, therefore, are Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and absolution (which is the sacrament of penitence), for these rites have the commandment of God and the promise of grace”
The Christian story of Christ’s merciful love for sinners teaches us to trust in God. This allows us to have the courage to acknowledge and confess our sins. Confession takes courage. When we go to the priest in the Sacrament of Confession, we are exhibiting courage, a courage based on the merciful love of God. Too often men fail to face their sins and faults out of fear—fear of who they are and what they have done. But this need not be, as Jesus Christ has come to free us from the bondage of our shame and sin and remake us through His grace and the life of virtue.[1]
It happens maybe once or twice a year. One of our preschoolers will come up to me with a big smile on their face and point (or rub) my stomach and ask, “Pastor, why are you so fat?” The parents, usually shocked by their kids sincere curiosity, tell their children, “Don’t say that–Pastor is not fat!”
I look at them in a moment of sheer shock. Not because of what their children observed, but by their denial of the obvious truth. I carry well over 100 pounds of weight I don’t need to carry. I know it, it can’t be hidden, it is what it is–and I and my doctors really want me to shed it.
Spiritually, we do the same thing, far too often. We either are carrying to many burdens, are weighed down by guilt and shame, or we are telling people (and ourselves) that the weight we carry means nothing, it’s not really there–it is not crushing our relationships with people, and destroying our lives.
And the solution God has given us is so simple. The church and its shepherds (whether pastor or priest) are agents of reconciliation. Luther adored–I can find no other word to express his feeling towards it–the results of being absolved of sin.
Over and over in scripture, the promise of forgiveness is made, and then delivered at the cross, in baptism, in the Lord’s Supper, and as we confess our sins, and hear a dear brother, speaking for God, tell us we are free. As a pastor, I have to tell you the weight I’ve seen lifted off of people is.. beyond words. And I’ve felt that weight lifted off myself.
Some may say they simply confess to Jesus, and He takes care of it. That is fine and good, and that kind of confession and absolution, or that in a church service works for many people. But there are sins we commit, that haunt us, that stop us from interacting with a person, or group of people. That stop us from praying, or spending time with God. Those are the sins we need to hear are forgiven–audibly, looking in the eye someone who says, “God put me here to tell you this one thing. Your sin is forgiven! In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Go in peace!”
And so you shall!
I urge you , Let God change you, from being His enemy, to being His friend. AMEN!
“Augsburg Confession: Article 11 Confession” Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 44.
“The Apology of the Augsburg Confession” Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000),
[1] Tim Gray and Curtis Martin, Boys to Men: The Transforming Power of Virtue (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2001), 54–55.
Does God Really Know Everything? You might be surprised the answer is NO!
Thoughts that draw us close to Jesus Christ and His Cross:
25 “I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.Isaiah 43:25 (NLT2)
I, the LORD, made you, and I will not forget you.22 I have swept away your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free.”23 Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done this wondrous thing. Shout for joy, O depths of the earth! Break into song, O mountains and forests and every tree! .Isaiah 44:21b-23 (NLT2)
Now, on the basis of grace as taught in the Word of God, when God forgives a man, He trusts him as though he had never sinned. God did not have mental reservations about any of us when we became His children by faith. When God forgives a man, He doesn’t think, I will have to watch this fellow because he has a bad record. No, He starts with him again as though he had just been created and as if there had been no past at all! That is the basis of our Christian assurance—and God wants us to be happy in it.
The great privilege of contemplatives is that we are invited to share first in our own redemption by accepting our personal alienation from God and its consequences throughout our lives, and then to identify with the divine compassion in healing the world through the groanings of the Spirit within us.
One of the standard theological characteristics of God is that He is a know it all.
The technical term is omniscience, and it is a logical progression. He is all powerful, created and sustains everything, therefore He knows everything–right?
Not so fast, for scripture says something contrary. For those that are in a relationship with God, there is one thing He chooses not to know.
our sin.
If only it was so easy for us to not know them!
SO many of us live in the dark shadows caused by our guilt and shame for those sins once committed, yet which we still can’t dismiss from our hearts and our souls.
We need to learn to! While we have to recognize our sin, it is equally important to realize God is healing us. We can’t do the second without the first, and more than you can add gas to an empty fule take without realizing your need for it. Without God’s grace, we are dead.
But with grace, those sins become non-existent. He knows them no longer, and since He is still omniscient, they are not history..
That is why Jesus talks of being born again, and Paul talks about the renewing of our mind, and Ezekiel talks about a heart transplant, so the Holy Spirit begins to reside there.
God doesn’t know those sins, so let them slide away, even as they were once removed and live life free of them! You find that other sins and temptations will lose their grip on you as well..
God is with you, and He sees you as innocent.
Just think on that for a moment – and then love the Lord and this life He is sharing with you!
A. W. Tozer, Tozer for the Christian Leader (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2015).
Thomas Keating, The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., Sacred Scripture, and Other Spiritual Writings, ed. S. Stephanie Iachetta (New York; London; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2009), 278.
How to be Holy…How to See Revival Begin
Thoughts which draw us to Jesus!
Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed* and he himself* will be saved on the day the Lord* returns.
6 Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.* 8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread* of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread* of sincerity and truth. 1 Cor 5:5-8 NLT
11 For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. 12 He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. Psalm 103:11-12 NLT
I would like to see a church become so godly, so Spirit-filled that it would have a spiritual influence on all of the churches in the entire area. Paul told some of his people, “ye were ensamples to all that believe” and “in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad” (1 Thessalonians 1:7–8).
“This ought especially to be taught, that confession’s not made to man but to Christ. Likewise it isn’t man who absolves but Christ. But few understand this. Today I replied to the Bohemians,134 who insist that God alone remits sins and are offended by my little book on the keys. Wherefore one should teach that men make confession to Christ, and Christ absolves through the mouth of the minister, for the minister’s mouth is the mouth of Christ and the minister’s ear is the ear of Christ. It’s to the Word and the command that one should pay attention, not to the person. Christ sits there, Christ listens, Christ answers, not a man.”
The fundamental theological principle of the spiritual journey is the Divine Indwelling. The Trinity is present within us as the source of our being on every level.
Too many “experts” have given up on the church.
Some find the answer for Chirstianity in starting new groups of believers, some suggest having present small churches die, so that their legacy is not one of faith handed down, but property and financial treasures. Doing such is meaningless at best. For the new ministries planted because there are money start off on, they soon to will age, and not having the example of fortitude that leads us to survive during the lean times.
The key to a nation finding itself in revival is not the redistribution of funds. The key to revival is the spread of revival from a city to the country. The key to a city is found in a church experiencing revival.
And a church experiences revival when its people know God has forgiven them, and dwells in their midst.
When a person knows the purest joy as God lifts their sins away, and they no longer have anything to fear, nothing to feel guilt or shame over, no resentment hidden deep within scars caused by others.
There, revival is found. and the church grows without thinking about it, for the presence of the Lord is undeniable. No one needs to say “share” this.. or “invite a neighbor,” The joy they know, forgiven and free, the presence of God that comforts, empowers and compels them to live in the truth that is thiers, is tangible.
That is why private and public confession is so important. People need to hear they are forgiven.
We have to know this – both in general, and in specific to the sins which have haunted us for years, and decades.
Knowing we are forgiven, knowing the presence of God in our lives also develops the eternal perspective we need, developing in us a desire to see God come.
When this happens, the church explodes… then the community, then the nation….
Sp of you are dealing with resentment, with guilt or shame, go talk to your pastor or priest… and find out God has forgiven you!
A. W. Tozer, Tozer for the Christian Leader (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2015).
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 54: Table Talk, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 54 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 394.
Thomas Keating, The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., Sacred Scripture, and Other Spiritual Writings, ed. S. Stephanie Iachetta (New York; London; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2009), 182.
The Question about Ministry…
36 The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! 37 You know the saying, ‘One plants and another harvests.’ And it’s true. 38 I sent you to harvest where you didn’t plant; others had already done the work, and now you will get to gather the harvest.” John 3:36-38 NLT
5 Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Interlude 6 Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment. Psalm 32:5-6 (NLT2)
That person sitting across from you in your study or lying in a hospital bed is just another wayward child of God the Father, each in their own way yearning to return to the Father’s house. Baptismal therapy is nothing more and nothing less than a return to baptism and the ongoing application of the gifts bestowed once in that sacred bath by which sins are forgiven and life restored.
The heart of the Easter mystery is our personal discovery of intimacy with God which scripture calls “innocence.” It is the innocence arising from easy and continual exchange of the most delightful kind with God.…
This morning I received official notice that my Ph.D. dissertation was fully accepted – the writing can “officially” begin. But it is something that has been forming in me for the last 28 -30 years. The readings this morning echo that concept. The nature of the ministry is bringing people into the glory of God. They are restored to dwell in that place!
Ministry is the work of reconciliation – the workers are sent out to gather people in the harvest – bringing them into eternal life. Doing that work only happens in the way the Psalmist experiences. When I know my sin is forgiven when I stop trying to hide my guilt. The response is simple. I want others to experience
the freedom, the peace, the life that comes in knowing Christ Jesus!
Senkbeil describes this revelation as the forgiven sinner sees the person as another prodigal – another wandered who is lost, trying to find their way in the world. The ministry then reminds the person what God has done in them as He cleansed them in baptism. If the person hasn’t been baptized, sharing the news of God’s mercy and compassion on those in bondage to sin. Yes, we desire; we hope and pray that they experience the intimacy with God that Keating talks about as he describes the sinner’s innocence.
This is what drives ministry – at its basic and best, it is the desire for others to experience the love of God that is unexplainable. A love that is beyond measure that leaves us experiencing innocence, righteousness, justice, and holiness, all because God loves us, and He is here.
This is ministry, as we have freely received – we freely give… This leaves you – and those around you with a question to ask. Do you need to hear that God loves you – and is merciful to you…. Or do your need to be the one that helps others find a deep, intimate, healing relationship with Jesus?
(I can help you either way!)
Heavenly Father, send forth Your Spirit on all believers, that they may realize how deeply You love them. As they experience the innocence that comes with salvation, help them share Your love with those around them. We pray this in the name of Jesus, your Son, our Savior and Lord! AMEN!
Senkbeil, Harold L. 2019. The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Keating, Thomas. 2009. The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., Sacred Scripture, and Other Spiritual Writings. Edited by S. Stephanie Iachetta. New York; London; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury.
Know Someone Struggling with Sin? Are You? Here is something to think through….
Devotional Thought of the Day:
8 My enemies, don’t be glad because of my troubles! I may have fallen, but I will get up; I may be sitting in the dark, but the Lord is my light. 9 I have sinned against the Lord. And so I must endure his anger, until he comes to my defense. But I know that I will see him making things right for me and leading me to the light. Micah 7:8–9 (CEV)
11 Our people defeated Satan because of the blood of the Lamb and the message of God. They were willing to give up their lives. Revelation 12:11 (CEV)
It is comparatively easy for most of us to do something difficult for a day or two, but it is less likely that we will be faithful to our resolution for a month or two. And very few indeed will sacrifice comfort and ease for years on end—unless they are deeply in love, real love.
It is the herd of elephants that are in the room.
It is the sin in our lives, the sin that so easily ensnares us, breaks us down, isolates us from people.
We know that God is our light, but yet sin still has a grip on us. We are afraid to admit it, afraid to tell our pastor/priest, afraid to tell them, even though we know they are there to help us realize we are forgiven.
We would rather bury it, deny it, act as if it wasn’t there. Pastors make this easier, when we talk about “their” sin, rather than yours (never mind ours) And in this false comfort, we will glide along, oblivious to the crap we surround ourselves with, and praying, not for forgiveness, but that it never comes to light.
In the midst of this, we have Micah’s words that will encourage us to face the discipline of God. Words that encourage us to endure His anger, the pain our betrayal caused. To do so, knowing it is temporary, to endure knowing that the One who is angry WILL COME TO OUR DEFENSE!
He will make things right! He will declare us righteous. His anger will pass, (it was at the cross) and He is making us new.
The Blood has been spilled, poured out for us to take and drink, as we eat His Body. We have His word, His promises that tell us how the Spirit is the guarantee of His dealing with our sin, and restoring us.
This is our hope… if you are struggling with sin, even you are feeling God’s discipline, know He is dealing with it. Know He loves you, and the proof is that discipline that precedes the healing.
And dwell in His peace.
Thomas Dubay, Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 105.
