Midweek 3 LSB #’s 435:1-3, 435:4, 433:1-4
Text – Job 3:25-26 What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil. Learning to Lament There are parts of the United States that some people call “fly-over” country because they do not see these areas as being very exciting. You have to fly over them to get to other, more exotic places, like New York or LA. Without stepping on too many toes, I suggest that Iowa, Nebraska & Kansas are the top three fly-over states. And, living in between cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago & Cincinnati, we must admit that Indiana is definitely in the top ten. Likewise, there are portions of the Bible that are considered “fly-over” books. Perhaps one of yours is Leviticus with all of its priestly jargon, or Numbers with all of its, well, numbers! 1 Chronicles is right up there in my list of “fly overs.” Why? It begins with nine chapters of genealogies. And then of course, for many, there are the OT laments. Laments begin early in the OT. Rebekah cries, “If it is this way, why should I live?” (Genesis 25:22) Moses cries out, “O Lord, why have you mistreated this people?” (Exodus 5:22) Gideon complains, “If the Lord is with us, why has all of this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13) Sixty-five of the 150 psalms are psalms of lament. Then there is an entire book in the OT called Lamentations. Heart-wrenching questions permeate. Why did this happen? Is there any order in the world? Where is God in all of this? Laments regard the abyss as bottomless & never ending. Hopelessness defines everything. Our collective response to all of these laments – Fly over! We’d rather live by words like these: “Keep your chin up!” “No pain, no gain.” “Think positively.” “Big boys don’t cry.” Don’t tell that to Job. After the numbed shock of 7 silent days & nights, as with a massive shriek, in chapter 3 Job breaks his silence. He uses words like darkness, shadow, night, blackness, death & grave. Five times Job cries out “Why?” “Why did I not perish at birth?” (Job 3:11) “Why were there knees to receive me?” (Job 3:12) “Why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child?” “Why is light given to those in misery?” (Job 3:20) “Why is life given to a man?” (Job 3:23) Job ends his lament with these words: “What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.” (Job 3:25–26) After chapters 1 & 2 Job’s livelihood is in ruins. His family is dead. His health is broken & crushed. For relief, he scrapes his sores with shards of broken pottery. He has become an object of horror & a sickening sight. In chapters 1 & 2 Job is the model of godliness & patience, but in chapter 3 this man of God lets it all hang out. He looked at all his hardship & hell yet he refused to “fly over.” We have much to learn from Job. I wish I could tell you that we can get past our sorrow by going around it, tunnel underneath or take a big jump over. But that’s not true. We cope with our sorrow by going through it. Notice that I’m not saying we get past our sorrow. If the sorrow is deep enough, in this life we will never get past it. But we can get through it. That’s tough, though. Real tough. So we stuff it inside. We deny it. We try to survive life’s losses without lamenting. Grief is unpleasant & messy & ugly so we avoid it. There are things that happened to us as children; there are things that happened to us at school; there are things that happened to us in marriage; & we have not grieved over the pain. We are stuck. Some of us are stuck at age 14 or age 28 or age 42, because we didn’t grieve a major loss in life. Now, we wonder why we have anxieties & phobias & fears, topped off with low self-esteem. That happens because we have not learned how to lament. Unresolved, un-mourned grief causes a boatload of problems! Many people are stuck in all kinds of bad behavior because they never grieved – over an alcoholic dad or an unloving mother, prejudice or mistreatment or bigotry. Rather than actually feeling it, actually grieving over it, actually going through the season of mourning, it’s so easy to just put our heads down & ignore it: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” Doctors say a lot of illnesses come from unresolved grief, unresolved regrets & unresolved resentment. That pain in the back or that pain in the rear or my aching neck, a lot of it is caused because we take emotions inside of us that God never intended for us to keep bottled up. He wants us to let them out. Jesus says in Matthew 5: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (v. 4) Who gets comforted? Those who have the courage to mourn. What’s Jesus saying? Cover-ups don’t get comforted. If I cover up the pain, if I ignore the pain, if I deny the pain, or pretend it does not exist, if I’m too afraid of my emotions, then I cannot receive comfort. David prays in Psalm 23:4, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .” Note the phrase, “Walk through.” We walk through it. Don’t go around it, tunnel underneath, or try & take a big jump over it. Walk through it. How? C – A – R – E. C – Complain. It’s ok not to be ok! In chapter 3 Job is so low he feels death is better than life. He complains, “Why should I have to go on living if living involves so much pain!” A – Appeal. The 2nd thing I do is appeal to God’s nature. I appeal to God’s character & who He is. His attributes, the character, the nature of God. R – I complain, I appeal, then I Remind. I remind God of His promises. I remind God of His truth. I remind God of what He said. I remind God of His reputation. E – I Express trust in God’s wisdom & the things I do not understand. No matter who it is in the Bible, when they are lamenting to God, they follow this pattern. I could take you to psalms & prayers throughout Scripture. Complaining, appealing, reminding, expressing. That’s how we C – A – R – E for ourselves. I’m not saying that we wallow in our weeping. We go through it but also look past it. We look past our sorrow to see Jesus who knows what it’s like to lament. Oh God, Jesus knows! Our Lord complained & appealed & reminded & expressed trust in His God. Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, & am not silent. I am a worm & not a man, scorned by men & despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: ‘He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him. Let Him deliver him, since he delights in Him.’ I am poured out like water, & all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands & my feet. They divide my garments among them & cast lots for my clothing.” Look past your sorrow. Look straight to Jesus. My all-time favorite is Psalm 30:5, “Weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” As your pastor who loves you & cares for you, I encourage you to weep during the long nights of life. Refuse to “fly over” your pain, but also affirm that joy will come in the morning; because of the 1st Easter morning when our Lord’s own lament was turned into a song of everlasting deliverance. First the cross – then the glory! Amen. Glory be to Jesus, Who in bitter pains poured for me the lifeblood from His sacred veins! Abel’s blood for vengeance pleaded to the skies; but the blood of Jesus for our pardon cries. Lift we, then, our voices, swell the mighty flood; louder still & louder praise the precious blood! Amen. LSB 433:1, 4, 6. 2nd Sunday in Lent – A LSB #’s 908, 915, 698
Text – Romans 4:16b-17 Abraham is the father of us all, as it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” In the presence of God, Abraham believed that God makes the dead live & calls into being that which does not exist. (NIV) IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD Some things you have to see to believe; like the Grand Canyon. It’s just too big for any photograph to capture. Even having hiked from the top of the canyon to the bottom, & back out again, I still can’t do justice to it with mere words. You have to be there in order for your mind to get a hold of how enormous it is. And then, if being there & looking at it from the top down still doesn’t allow you to grasp it, hiking all the way from the bottom to the top, will absolutely allow ever muscle in your legs to grasp the enormity of that hole in the ground. I was seriously concerned about whether or not I would make it out alive. When I made it to the top, finally, I felt as if God had truly made the dead live. But I was young & my body recovered quickly. The physical suffering & the emotional doubt I struggled with that day was really nothing more than a small lesson in the much larger picture of life. Still, my view of how invincible I was had changed in the presence of the Grand Canyon. Abraham’s life changed in the presence of God. The OT reading for today records the call of Abraham. “The Lord said to him, ‘Leave your country, your relatives & your father’s home, & go to a land I will show you.’” (Genesis 12:1) That is a drastic, open-ended request. It says nothing about where he’d be going, & they didn’t have twitter in those days for keeping in touch once you moved away, let alone cell phones or the US Mail. But Abram went as the Lord told him. How often has God asked any of us to make that drastic a change in our lives? Not very often, has He? We don’t have to move away from our country, our relatives, or even our parent’s home in order to be in the presence of God each Sunday. Yet, in our culture today, that seems to be a monumental task. To many it’s unreasonable. And gathering together with God’s family only once a week doesn’t necessarily keep your head above water, let alone get you safely back to shore. The society we live in now is working to remove God wherever possible. Our souls are drowning in it. It’s suffocating them to death. It’s even been referred to as a “culture” of death, because more & more people are promoting death as a solution to problems. The words “pro-choice” are used to disguise the fact that the death of an unborn child is considered a solution to someone’s mistake. Euthanasia is trumpeted as a way to die with dignity & with independence. If a person’s quality of life doesn’t meet some arbitrary standards then it’s presumed that death, administered to the patient, is the better option. Each of those deaths is encouraged because people have given up hope of life. They do not believe that God makes the dead live. Or they’re afraid to believe, because if you truly believe in something it’s inevitable that a call for commitment will follow. And commitment is never the quickest solution, since by definition it means you are in for the long haul. Once I was tired, & only half way out of the Grand Canyon, it was a constant battle to keep my mind off of how hopeless things appeared. To a woman who’s pregnant & in poor economic circumstances, the situation is a lot more serious than that of a wimpy hiker climbing out of the Grand Canyon. To a person struggling with all the issues that come along with a terminal illness, it’s easy to understand how commitment can seem very pointless. To the child whose parent has been in the nursing home & unresponsive for several years, it’s not difficult to sympathize with the fact that they’ve grown weary of the ordeal. With no hope for the future in this life, in a sense, death has already occurred; at the very least, death to hopes & to dreams. So what’s the point? The point from our text is not that God will always work miracles as He did with Abraham & Sarah. As far as having a child of their own, they were old enough for their hopes to be dead. Abraham was cited for his great faith in that he believed God actually makes the dead to live. Abraham & Sarah finally did have a child, but not all of our struggles & suffering in this life will have such a happy ending, or such recognizable results. The key to the sermon text for this morning, & to peace in a Christian’s life, is this: In the presence of God, Abraham believed. Just as my view of how invincible I was had been changed, in the presence of the Grand Canyon, so Abraham was changed in the presence of God. Sarah & Abraham had no logical reason to believe that they would ever have a child. Yet Abraham believed anyway. Some things you do have to see in order to believe, like the scope of the Grand Canyon. But with the things of faith you have to believe first, & then God will enable you to see. None of us chooses to believe on our own. No unbeliever ever makes a decision for Christ. Faith & belief are always the work of God for only He can create anything pure & holy. Unbelief can never be the source of good. Unwanted pregnancies, terminal illnesses & taking ten years to die in a nursing home do not occur because of God’s design. They happen in this life because of our sin, not because of our God. Yet He is able to take the evil designs of man & of Satan & turn them for good. In the presence of God, evil can be changed. In the presence of God, even you can believe. But apart from His presence each & every one of us is lost & damned. And there will be a day in history when every single person will kneel in the presence of God. On that day it will be too late to begin to believe. Romans 14:11 tells us, “It is written: ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me…’” (NIV) The question you might consider is this: Will you bow to the Lord before it’s too late? PAUSE In the presence of God, Abraham believed that God makes the dead live. Each & every day of life on this earth, we awake with unbelief & with death in our heart. And they aren’t just lying there dormant. They’re actively at work trying to destroy your soul. Daily they need to be suffocated & drowned, because daily they draw us into sin. Daily we see the ugly result. It’s no wonder some people kill themselves. They’ve reached the point where they can no longer live with the pain of the death they see within them, but our Lord calls us to see in a different way. In His presence, through the power of His Word & through Baptism, He causes us to believe. And because we believe, then we can finally see what it is that our Savior sees. When Jesus reached the spot, He looked up & said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once & welcomed Him gladly. All the people saw this & began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”[1] The only thing the people saw in Zacchaeus was the greedy sinner, but Jesus, He saw the saint. The text continues, “Zacchaeus stood & said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.’”[2] The sermon text began, “Abraham is the father of us all, as it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations.’” Zacchaeus, though a sinner, was a child of Abraham in fulfillment of God’s promise. In the presence of Jesus, Zacchaeus believed, & this very moment every one of you is in the presence of God. At your baptism you were brought into the presence of God so that you might believe. In Holy Communion you are in the presence of God so that your faith might be strengthened, & where two or three have gathered together in His name, Jesus says, “there am I with them.” He has promised to be here this morning, so that our unbelief might be drowned & die with all sins & evil lusts, that our belief might come forth & arise to live before God in righteousness & purity forever. Daily, God does make the dead live, but we see that with the eyesight of faith, & with no other. So we come into His presence again in order that our faith & our eyesight might be strengthened & renewed. We need that because what we see in this world with our physical eyes often breaks our heart. We come into His presence in order that we might believe that God makes the dead to live, because that kind of believing is truly seeing. Won’t you come along & see what it is that Jesus sees? Today, salvation has come to your house, & your Savior wants to change you by His presence there. In spite of the Grand Canyon of your sins, in each of your struggles, your Lord & Savior is calling you to believe so that you might see. Amen. Today His mercy calls us to wash away our sin. However great our trespass, whatever we have been. However long from mercy our hearts have turned away, His precious blood can cleanse us & make us white today. Amen. LSB 915:1. [1] Luke 19:5-7 NIV [2] Luke 19:8-9 ESV Midweek 2 LSB #’s 420:1-3, 420:6-7, 524
Text – Job 1:20-21 At this, Job got up & tore his robe & shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship & said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, & naked I will depart. The Lord gave & the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” SWEET SURRENDER You all know Murphy’s Law, right? Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy’s First Corollary is: Nothing is as easy as it looks. Murphy’s Law of Mechanical Repair is: After your hands become coated with grease, then your nose will begin to itch. Murphy’s Law of Insurance Rates & Taxes is: Whatever goes up, stays up! On Ash Wednesday we began a nine-part sermon series on the book of Job. On the Wednesdays through Easter, we will be looking at Job’s life. And Job’s Extension of Murphy’s Law is: Nothing is ever so bad that it cannot get worse. One moment all is calm, the next moment everything is chaos. In what has all the ingredients of his worst nightmare, Job’s life is totally devastated. First, he loses his wealth to marauding bandits. Gone are his oxen needed for farming, gone are his donkeys & camels needed for transport, gone are his sheep & all his workers are massacred. Job’s financial empire lies in ruins. The market crashes. His assets tumble. What has been up goes down. Shell-shocked & dumbfounded; Job looks out the window into a sky that seems to be getting darker by the minute. He starts praying, thinking that things can’t get any worse. Yet, that is exactly what happens. While still reeling from the shock waves of economic catastrophe, news arrives of an even greater personal tragedy, a storm has taken the life of each of his dear children. All ten of them are gone. “It never rains. It pours.” Like Job, we have three choices when something catastrophic happens. We can let it destroy us. We can let it define us. Or we can let it develop us. I want to share how to allow even the worst things in life to develop us & grow us through the act of surrender. It’s what Job did: “At this, Job got up & tore his robe & shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship & said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, & naked I will depart. The Lord gave & the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’” The temptation in our grief is to turn away from God. The temptation is to run from Him. The temptation is to go as far in the other direction as we can. We’re tempted to think that God, is in some way, responsible. If He has allowed this to happen, we’re mad, we’re angry, we’re shocked, we’re heartbroken & we run. All those emotions are natural, & expected, but they don’t benefit us in the long-run. We have to figure out how to be in worship again; how to be reconnected with our Creator. Job found it: “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” or, in Hebrew, “Blessed be the name of Yahweh,” God’s most common name in the OT, used over 6000 times. Job surrendered to Him. Another one of God’s names in the book of Job is “El Shaddai,” occurring 31 times in Job, & only 16 more in the rest of the OT. Job loves the name El-Shaddai! It reminds us that God is in control & we are not. That’s where surrender comes in. Usually, if you tell somebody some really bad news, they’ll start by saying: “No. No! It can’t be. I don’t believe it. It’s not real.” Because our minds reject bad news, the 1st reaction will often be, “This can’t really be happening!” Surrender is accepting reality. No matter what the loss is, we need to say it’s over, it’s done. I accept what cannot be changed. I surrender not as a victim, but not with a grudge. Not with a hard heart. I surrender with acceptance, though acceptance does not mean I stop caring. Acceptance doesn’t mean it does not hurt. Acceptance does not mean I think what happened was good. None of that is acceptance. Acceptance simply means I can’t change it. God is El Shaddai, & I am not. Tonight, what do you & I need to accept that’s over? Maybe it’s a relationship. You keep hoping they’re going to call. They’re not coming back. It’s over. Some of us had a dream which hasn’t been fulfilled. It’s over. We need to get a new dream. We need a new vision. We need to get a new goal for life. The 2nd step is surrendering with acceptance. When we experience a devastating & catastrophic loss it’s normal to feel like the end has arrived. Life is over. I’m done. I’m ruined forever. Nothing good can ever come from this. All is lost. Hope is abandoned. Still, the book of Job presents us with yet another name. Job gave us Yahweh & El Shaddai. Then, he gives us Eloah. The name Eloah appears 41 times in Job & only 16 times elsewhere in the OT. Most scholars believe Eloah is related to the verb “go up.” This God takes people who are down & raises them up. He takes people in the pit & sets their feet on level ground. Eloah takes what is dead & brings it back to life! This name of God means – whatever we’re going through, it’s not the end of the story. Eloah promises that He will bring beauty from ashes. We might remember the ashes placed upon us during the service last Wednesday. The ashes of repentance will be turned to beauty. Another way people respond to disaster is to suggest there are two equal & opposite forces battling it out in the world – good & evil, God & Satan. The good that happens comes from God & the bad comes from Satan. The result is that God bears no responsibility when it comes to suffering because it’s not really his fault. All the blame belongs to the devil. Instead, Job presents us with a God whose name is Eloah, whose final word in the midst of death, whether emotional, relational or physical, is always & forevermore resurrection. Although Satan is involved in our world, he is not a 2nd god; a dark force equal to the light force. He is defeated by Eloah who, on Easter Sunday, brought beauty from ashes; brought life from death; & brought resurrection after crucifixion! That means you & I can surrender to our present circumstances in hope because even disaster & catastrophe are not the end. Sadness, sorrow & sickness will never, ever, be the last word. Not ever! February 6, 1870, George Mueller of Bristol, England lost his wife Mary, who died of rheumatic fever. They’d been married for 39 years, but the Lord gave him the strength to preach at her memorial service. Mueller said, “I miss her in numberless ways, & shall miss her yet more & more. Still, as a child of God, & a servant of the Lord Jesus, I bow to the will of my heavenly Father. I pray, ‘Thy will be done.’ And so I kiss continually the hand that has afflicted me.” Does that sound to you like surrender? And how is that possible? Followers of Jesus surrender to circumstances we can’t control because we have these names of God – Yahweh, El Shaddai, Eloah. And all of them are found in His greatest name – Jesus. After disaster we reconnect to our Lord by allowing the Holy Spirit to humble us in worship of Him. So I thank God for His gifts while they are mine & I release them when the time comes to let them go. “The Lord gave & the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” That is how we allow God to develop us even through catastrophe. Amen. How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear! It soothes our sorrows, heals our wounds & drives away our fear. How weak the effort of my heart, how cold my warmest thought! But when I see Thee as Thou art, I’ll praise Thee as I ought. Till then I would Thy love proclaim with every fleeting breath; & may the music of Thy name refresh my soul in death! Amen. LSB 524:1, 5, 6. 1st Sunday in Lent – A LSB #947
Text – Matthew 4:3 And the tempter came & said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” IF YOU ARE THE SON OF GOD The challenge before us this morning is not so much the identity of Christ Jesus, but what will the Son of God do with His identity. It’s a challenge that every one of us faces in some way or another. If you enlist in the navy you take on the identity of a sailor. What will do with that identity? Will you obey your commanding officer, or not? If you get married, you take on the identity of husband or wife. Will you remain united to your spouse as long as you both shall live, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness & in health? When you become a parent you take on the identity of father or mother. What you do with that identity has a tremendous impact on the eternal future of your child. Immediately after Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit leads Him into the wilderness to 40 days & 40 nights of fasting. Knowing that Jesus will be hungry & weaker than usual, Lucifer ramps up his attack, as he presents Jesus with the opportunity to be His own man. What will this Son of God do with His identity? Will He trust & obey His heavenly Father, or not? As we heard in the lesson from Genesis, the very 1st son of God chose not to obey his heavenly Father. So Adam’s entire world came crashing down upon him. Jesus was sent to lift that world up again, to restore all of creation to its original holiness. To do so, this Son of God must endure every temptation we do in order to fully take the place of the entire human race. Jesus was sent to do right what you & I can only do wrong. To say Jesus was hungry, after fasting in the wilderness for 40 days & nights, does not even begin to touch on the misery any of us would feel. Yet, Jesus then faces the temptation to give up on trusting in His Father to provide all that He needs. Satan tempts Jesus to take matters into His own hands. Forget your Father’s plan. Create His own food. In effect, Lucifer is saying, “Since you are the Son of God, prove it. Do something about your hunger instead of suffering for who knows what reason.” Any of us would have turned those stones into loaves of bread in a heartbeat. Yet our Savior simply states: “…Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4 ESV) After 40 days & nights of fasting, while being tempted during that entire duration, Jesus is still able to obey, & wait patiently for, His Father in heaven to provide everything that He needs. If we were in His place, not a one of us would have a problem rationalizing, “How can turning stones into bread be a sin?” And that way of thinking reveals how far the human race has fallen from the perfection of God. You & I are totally unreliable even when it comes to recognizing sin, so we’re absolutely incapable of being the children God designed us to be. That is the context to the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The reason God’s children celebrate Christmas is that the Child born in Bethlehem is the answer to our inability to trust our Lord under all circumstances. Jesus doesn’t fast in the wilderness for 40 days & nights to set an example for us. He does so in order to fulfill the covenant we cannot begin to keep. Our Lord created Adam perfect & holy. Adam failed. Then, Abraham was called to follow God. His descendants were given the mission to be the people through whom everyone in the world would come to know their heavenly Father’s love. An entire generation of Israelites chose not to obey their heavenly Father. Their bodies were left in the wilderness. After King Solomon died the people of Israel fragmented into two kingdoms. Eventually both of them disappeared as nations, all because they refused to obey their Creator. History is littered with congregations & nations who have forgotten the almighty God, & failed to be the light of the world as Yahweh created them to be. They no longer exist as a testament to mankind’s inability to save itself. People who live in wealthy cultures always end up blinded to their desperate need for a Savior. The material blessings we have in the United States cover up our need for Jesus. That’s why the story of the shepherds at Christmas rings so true. They were the bottom rung in their society. They had nothing of the material blessings we know to disguise their helpless & desperate situation. So when they hear the announcement of the Savior’s birth, do you remember how they responded? “When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’ They hurried to the village & found Mary & Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger.” (Luke 2:15-16 NLT) After they told everyone about the angels & what was said of the Child: “The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying & praising God for all they had heard & seen.” (Luke 2:20a NLT) In that day, the occupation of shepherd was filled by such reprobate characters, they weren’t even allowed to testify in court. Yet, God chose them to hear the announcement of the Savior’s birth by the angel chorus. The shepherds, due to their poverty & lowly status, recognized that they had no such thing as equal opportunity. They weren’t going anywhere in life of their own accord. There was only one way they were going to move up in the world. Someone with extraordinary power would have to come & take their place & move up for them. Adam was a failure. The nation of Israel was a failure. The shepherds were failures. All of us in this room are failures, because the Word of God commands us, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48 ESV) God would have zero integrity if He cut anyone slack when it comes to living up to His perfect holiness. Yet, our Father in heaven also loves us so much that He found another way to satisfy His justice. His only begotten Son was sent to take our place & to live the perfect life we could not live. He had to fulfill every aspect of what it is to be human, so He took on human flesh & was born into this world as a peasant child. Jesus then fulfilled every single commandment perfectly on our behalf. That perfection & righteousness has been given to us as a gift. Josephine Kirkpatrick received that gift here today. It is the gift of total freedom, from fear, from anxiety, from doubt. It’s not an easy gift to use. She’ll need a lot of training in how to use it, yet, with that gift of righteousness she can impact other people’s live for all of eternity. Josephine was given a new identity this morning. She is now the child of the Creator of the universe. What will she do with that identity? Shawn & Darcy, God has given you the privilege & responsibility to teach & train your daughter so that she knows what to do with her identity. It will not be easy, yet it can be the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do in life. Both of you now have a new identity as well. You are the parents of one of God’s children. What will you do with that particular identity? Josephine will be tempted to take advantage of your love for her. You will need wisdom beyond imagination to raise your daughter well. There’ll be many temptations to put your trust in your own wisdom & strength. Christ Jesus calls you away from that trap. He’s defeated every temptation that Satan can muster, so you never have reason to be afraid. Because Jesus lived a life without sin, when God the Father looks at you, He sees the robe of Jesus’ righteousness draped over your shoulders. You will be tempted to pride & you’ll be tempted to despair. When the devil attacks you with either attitude, remember the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. It was not for the purpose of setting you an example. Jesus endured it so that you would have credit, before the Heavenly Father, of having lived the perfect life that God’s justice demands. If you trust in Him, then, when the temptation is over, the God who created you will certainly send His angels to care for you & to provide for you. He will do this for you Shawn, & for you Darcy, & for your daughter Josephine as well. It’s all the rave today, to suggest that we can each create & craft our very own identity. The world wants us to believe that we can choose which gender we want to be. And more dangerous than that, Lucifer wants us to believe that we can choose to live independently of the Father, the Son & the Holy Spirit. Jesus taught that we should put our treasure in heaven rather than in the fleeting things of this world. Knowing that our identity is in Christ provides shelter from Satan’s temptations. It helps us to avoid chasing after the devil’s lies, & when we fall for them, as we so often do, Jesus provides healing as well as the peace that surpasses all human understanding. Amen. All glory be to God on high & thanks for all His favor; no harm can touch or terrify a child of God forever. God shows His good & gracious will & grants His peace, the world to fill – all strife at last has ended. O Jesus Christ, the only Son begotten of the Father, Your saving death has made us one with God & with each other. O Lamb of God, to You on high in our distress we sinners cry, have mercy on us, amen! O Holy Spirit, our delight & source of consolation, protect us from the devil’s might through Jesus, our salvation, Who by His death upon a tree has rescued us from misery: to this we hold forever. Amen. LSB 947:1, 3-4. Ash Wednesday – 2017 LSB #’s 440:1-4, 440:5-6, 750:1-4 & 7, 878:1 & 6
Text – Job 1:12 “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.’” FLYING BLIND In 2007 Jim O’Neill was flying from Glasgow, Scotland to Colchester, England when his vision failed. Initially he thought he’d been blinded by the sun, but soon O’Neill realized it was much worse. He had suffered a stroke. It gave new meaning to the expression, “flying blind.” O’Neill groped around, found the radio & issued a Mayday alert. Paul Gerrard of the Royal Air Force quickly took off &, finding O’Neill, began talking to the blind pilot. “Keep coming down. A gentle right turn. Left a bit. Go right now.” Gerrard hovered within 500 feet, guiding him to the nearest runway. O’Neill would have to land the plane flying blind. We’ve all been struck, perhaps not with a stroke, but with divorce papers, a crippling expense or a cancer-ridden body. Not midair, but mid-career, mid-semester, or midlife. Losing sight of any safe landing strip, we’ve issued our fair share of Mayday prayers. Who of us does not know that feeling of flying blind? And so does Job, the man who wrote one of the Bible’s greatest wisdom books. Nine sermons will help us dig into the central message & supporting truths. We begin with Job 1:1–12, & what do we learn? We learn the skill of flying blind. There are some times we know why bad things happen. I run a red light. The cop pulls me over. He writes a ticket. I’m out $275. Why did that happen? Because my nickname is “lead-foot pastor!” Job’s suffering, on the other hand, was undeserved, unjust & unwarranted. Job 1:1 & 8 describe him as “blameless & upright, a man who fears God & turns away from evil.” This doesn’t mean he was without sin, but that Job was a godly man. And just in case we miss that, Job 2:3 also describes him as “blameless & upright, a man who fears God & turns away from evil.” Job was an innocent sufferer. He didn’t earn or deserve any of his human hell. In Job 1:6 the curtains are lifted for a moment to provide us with a glimpse into the invisible spirit world where, behind the scenes, a wager is being made between God & Satan, whose very name means “accuser.” Like a vindictive lawyer or a corrupt policeman, Satan is on the lookout for someone to drag before the judgment seat of God in order to condemn: “Then the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job?’” (Job 1:8 ESV) It’s sort of like a diamond thief coming into a jewelry store & the owner says, “Have you seen my most prized diamond? It’s the most valuable one we have, the most precious diamond in our store. Let me show it to you.” Thanks a lot God! Satan then asks the key question in the book: “Does Job fear God for nothing?” (Job 1:9 ESV) In other words, Lucifer knows that every man has his price so he thinks Job is only good for what he can get out of it. Satan thinks that Job loves the gifts of God more than God himself. Satan bets the farm that if God removes the gifts, Job will curse the Giver. “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.’” (Job 1:12 ESV) Job is about to become Ground Zero as the devil gets ready to launch his assault. We see this conversation in heaven between God & Satan. But Job? He has no clue. When all hell breaks loose Job repeatedly, with increasing intensity as the drama unfolds, cries out, “God, where are you?” Job was being forced to learn the art of flying blind. Why? Because all of this points us to Jesus. Let me say that again. All of this points us to Jesus. Luke 4:13 tells us, “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Jesus until an opportune time.” St. Luke gave us another bird’s-eye view of spiritual realities. Jesus, like Job, is “blameless & upright, a man who fears God & shuns evil” – only Christ was without sin in the fullest & the most complete sense imaginable. Jesus is the ultimate innocent sufferer. Like no other, Jesus didn’t earn or deserve any of His human hell. With Job, God did not allow Satan to test him to the point of death. But with Jesus, Satan was allowed to marshal all of his weapons of mass destruction. If Job was reduced to living on the local ash heap, Jesus was stripped naked & nailed like a scarecrow to a cross in a God-forsaken garbage dump called Golgotha. When you cry out, from the depths of your suffering, “Where are you, God?” Jesus says: “I’m here, on the cross, suffering with you & suffering for you. I’m here, bleeding for the sins of the world. I’m here, feeling every last ounce of your pain. I’ll always be here for you as together we long for the New Jerusalem, when I will wipe away every tear from your eyes. In that place & from then to eternity, there will be no more death, no more grief, no more crying, no more pain. For the old order of things will pass away.” And if we want to hear how unbelievable suffering like Job’s can be transformed into infinite good, then we journey from the cross to the empty tomb where the crucified Conqueror stands, with the palms of His hands outstretched, offering the gift of eternal life. It is there that we find courage & strength to say again, “I know that my Redeemer lives!” On that day in 2007, on his 1st try Jim O’Neill hit the runway & bounced up again. Paul Gerrard continued to speak calming words of assurance & hope. Finally on the 8th try the blinded pilot managed to make a near-perfect landing. When you & I are flying blind many voices will clamor for our attention. The talk show host says not to worry. The financial advisor says buy now. The friend says read this book. Then we add our own voice which asks, “What’s the use?” The end result, too often, is that we crash & burn. As the season of Lent begins, we want to remind ourselves that it’s time, again, to listen to the only voice that really matters. Maybe for Lent, we should give up listening to all the voices of our broken culture. It would be far healthier to focus on the voice that matters most as Jesus speaks to us with tenderness & love, “Keep coming down. A gentle right turn. Left a bit. Turn right now.” At the altar Jesus gives us these words for the ages: “Take, eat, this is my body. Take, drink, this is my blood.” With this voice guiding us we will land safely in His loving arms, today & forevermore! Amen. If Thou but trust in God to guide thee & hope in Him through all Thy ways, He’ll give thee strength, whate’er betide thee, & & bear thee through the evil days. Who trusts in God’s unchanging love builds on the rock that naught can move. God knows full well when times of gladness shall be the needful thing for thee, when He has tried thy soul with sadness & from all guile has found thee free, He comes to thee all unaware & makes thee own His loving care. Amen. LSB 750:1, 4. |
AuthorPastor Dean R. Poellet Archives
April 2024
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