Blog Archives
Visions of Peace: An Advent Chidlren’s Sermon and regular sermon based on Romans 15:4-13
Children’s Sermon
Romans 15:4-13
† In Jesus Name †
So every Sunday, part of what I do is play my guitar in the service. Not all pastors do this, but I do. And before I do, I have to tune my guitar.
I have 6 strings here, and each is supposed to be a different note. Each has its own place, and its own sound.
But if they aren’t in tune, there is a problem.
For instance – this string is supposed to be an “A” string. But what if it decides to be something else? And this string, the “B” string, wants to be higher than it is supposed to be? It may sound nice on its own…. But what happens when I play all the strings together?
Does that sound good????
No!!!
That’s why each string has its own specific note. And the gut who plays guitar has the responsibility for making sure they sound like they are supposed to.
So I use my tuner – and I tune my guitar…..
So we are like the strings on my guitar. Each one of us has a special place in life, and a special role. But sometimes we want to be something different, we want to do things our own way. But what does that do to the entire group we are part of?
It messes everything up!
So who is responsible for getting us back in tune?
Jesus!
Except we don’t have pegs we are tied to, we are just always connected to Jesus, who fixes things and makes it right.
And then when we play, or sing, or just live with other people – it works out so much better.
Let’s pray!
Concordia Lutheran Church
December 4.2022
Visions of Peace II
Harmony-Concordia
Romans 15:4-15
† Jesus, Son and Savior †
May the grace f God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ convince you that you dwell securely in the peace of God, which is beyond anything we can understand!
A Vision of Concordia
I’ve been thinking about the changes I’ve seen in my lifetime recently. I mean, growing up, we had one phone in the house, and to call us you only dialed 4 numbers. We had a black and white television that was 13 inches in diagonal, later to be replaced by a massive 20 inch, color television which weighed about 80 pounds!
I wouldn’t say life was simpler or better back then, but it was certainly different.
But one thing is certain, parents then, and parents now want life to be better, more peaceful for their children, and for their grandchildren.
Let’s be honest, we haven’t been a peaceful world, a peaceful country, or even peaceful communities in the last 57 years. Heck, even the internet and social media isn’t all that peaceful!
It’s not a surprise to me then, that the readings for December, as we prepare for Christmas, all deal with peace, giving us a vision for peace, that like the harmony I talked to the children about—all comes down to Jesus.
What Peace Looks like
Paul explains what peace looks like in the church,
5 May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. 6 Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we are back to the lesson on the children’s message – the idea that we should function in complete harmony with each other. We see what happens in the world when it doesn’t happen, when everyone determines what they are in tune with, and what note they want to play.
Paul gives the idea of being in harmony, each in tune, and played together.
When we aren’t tuned to and by God, we really can’t be in harmony with each other. We can “de-tune” our lives from God, rejecting His role in our life. That is the basis of what we call sin, when we think we know better than God
But when we de-tune ourselves, that also breaks the harmony we had with other people.
We need help… and Jesus is there to help us.
The Help to establish Peace
Paul gives one example of how Christ brings together people divided, addressing one of the most critical divides, still today. Hear again what Paul wrote,
Remember that Christ came as a servant to the Jews to show that God is true to the promises he made to their ancestors. 9 He also came so that the Gentiles might give glory to God for his mercies to them.
This divide – racial, cultural, ethnic, was huge in the day. It was violent, it still is, as it is the center of most of the middle east conflicts.
And Jesus, broke down the wall, by dying for all of them,
Paul wrote to another church, this one in Ephesus,
14 For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. Ephesians 2:14 (NLT2)
The cross is the answer to all sin, to all the times where we are out of tune with God, and therefore not capable to be in harmony with each other.
This works with any disharmony, with any dysfunction, where people are able to allow God to come and minister to them, to forgive their sin, to reconcile to God, tuning them, and then creating the harmony that exists, as we live with God together.
This is why we are here, why we have a school, to help people living broken lives to know God is working in those lives, brining healing and bringing peace.
A peace that unites us all, as we are united to Christ in our baptism, and at the communion rail. A peace that goes beyond understanding, and in which God keeps us, for this He has promised.
AMEN!
Resonance! A sermon on Matthew 10
Concordia Lutheran Church
June 28, 2020
Resonance!
Matthew 10:34-42
† In Jesus Name †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ cause you to resonate with the Lord and with His people!
Dechomai God
The more I looked at this passage, the more I think this message is critical.
Not only do you need to hear it, but you also need to hear it in a way you can take it with you, share it with others, and help them see that they are resonating with God.
Of course, that means you need to know what resonance is.
Let me explain it this way If I play a string on this guitar, let’s say the A string. Assuming this other guitar is tuned to the same frequency, the A string on that guitar will start vibrating. The closer they are in tuning, the more the resonance occurs, the more the 2nd guitar begins to play, with no one touching it.
There is another word for resonance – one we are familiar with here. I
It is Concordia. (the name of our Church)
We are and have always been, as a church, about resonating with God. He plays a note, and our hearts and minds begin to resonate with God. Another way to describe this resonance is the Greek word that shows up in the gospel – the word is dechomai – and is translated “receives” in today’s translation. But it means more than that, it means to welcome into agreement, to welcome into a relationship, the kind of intimate relationship where you finish sentences for each other. That is how welcome the person becomes in your life, that is how you receive them.
This is what it means to be Concordia, to resonate, to resonate with God.
That is who we are to be, it is what we need to get back to doing,
We need to resonate with God, we need to let Him tune our hearts so that we can sing His grace. That means we can’t cling to our old tuning… but to let the Holy Spirit tune us, and then we will sing His praise.
What stops this?
So there are a couple of things that stop our ability to resonate with Jesus.
The simplest thing is our taking our tuning peg and twisting it. It is no longer true to what the note really is, and often it isn’t even true to the instrument itself. It is off, and real music cannot be made until it is back in tune.
Maybe we desire to resonate with someone other than God, and we want to put them first. That is what it talks about when it says loving someone more than you love God. Who do you want to resonate with more? Whose approval do you want more, whose love do you need more? What is most important to you. Our lives go out of tune when we make others more significant than God in our lives.
Or maybe you do not want to take up the challenges God has in store for you. You decide not to love the people He has put in your life, whether it is because of any of the reasons we find to disassociate with people or people groups. There are several things God calls us to do that simply don’t make sense to us until we are in tune with God. That is the challenge, we need God to help us see this, but until we do, we turn away from the cross, the challenge God has for us, thinking it ends our life when it actually begins it.
That is the third-way resonance ends, when we cling to life more than we would cling to God. And if we cling to it, we lose it, for life isn’t the way it isn’t supposed to be, and while we may say it can become like hell here on earth, we don’t even realize what that word means. If I grab this string and hold on to it, it will never resonate, it will never make the sweet sounds it was created to make.
All these things – loving someone or something more than God, refusing to walk with Him through life, as He meant for you to live, and when we cling to life, smothering it, are what it means to sin. It means to so mess up our lives that we cannot resonate with God at all. That is the definition of sin, messing up how God would tune our lives.
The Tuner
Inbuilt into this guitar is a tuner, and we have one, given to us in baptism, the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus freed us from our sin, the Spirit comes along and helps us resonate with God, tuning us so that we can make the music in life we were called to make. We begin that tuning in baptism when the Holy Spirit beings to transform us into the image of Jesus.
The Spirit creates in us the music we were meant to make, not just of our life in this life, but eternally. This is what the death and resurrection are all about, this is what we need to remember from today – the work God does in tuning us! Tuning us so that when we hear His voice, our hearts and minds and our entire life resonate with Him. Now and eternally!
As He tunes us we look forward to the resonance more and more, we look forward to the moments when we realize life is so much more than what we would have without that resonance, we realize the resonance is our lives.
Dechomai Community
There is one last thing to the resonance.
As we resonate with God, we begin to see people differently. For we see their ability to resonate with God, and we can see God trying to draw them.
That is why Jesus moves from received Him to receive the Father, to receive those who would bring God’s word to you to receiving other people who have been forgiven. For if we are resonating with God, then those who resonate with Him will resonate with us, and our music and hearts will become more and more united. And that is why we will hand to someone a cup of cold water – in His name – so they will resonate with Him.
That is obviously easier when we are together… that is what ties us together; that is why Paul will say when one of us laughs, we all laugh, when one cries, we all cry…
It is a matter of having received each other in our hearts, where our Lord dwells, it is a matter of resonance together with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and with each other.
It is being Concordia…
And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard our hearts and minds as this happens! AMEN!
