Blog Archives

We Are One In Christ

10/11/2020

This sermon is mostly left in the style & format of the author. Due to having to quarantine for two weeks, the more 'polished into my style version' is on my office computer. This is being sent from home.

19thSunday after Pentecost – A (Proper 23)                                               LSB #’s 814, 761, 730
Text – Philippians 4:10a

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me.

WE ARE ONE IN CHRIST

The last verse of our Epistle lesson for today has to be one of the most misinterpreted Bible passages of all time. Right? “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).  For example…
When I was a young boy, I had a poster in my room. On this poster was a picture of a cartoon boy who was wearing and holding a ton of sports gear. He had both a football and bicycle helmet on, hockey pads, roller skates, cleats, he was holding a baseball bat and basketball in one hand and trapping a soccer ball underneath his right foot, and somehow he was able to hold onto a tennis racquet and golf club at the same time. And at the bottom of this poster it said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
The implication of course being that this cartoon boy can play every sport imaginable through Christ who strengthens him.
Friends, can I just tell you … this is not at all what this text is about!
I find Tim Tebow as fascinating as the next guy, but he can write Philippians 4:13 under his eyes all he wants, this text still is not about scoring touchdowns, or not scoring touchdowns as the case may be.
So, what is this text about!? And in what ways does it fit into our current series on racial healing? Here is what we are going to see in our text: What we believe about ultimate reality shapes our community, conviction, and contentment. OK? That will be our outline today. What we believe about ultimate reality shapes our 1) community, 2) conviction, and 3) contentment.
Before we even get into our text for today, I think it’s important we understand the context of the book of Philippians. See, the book of Philippians is actually a letter written to the church in the ancient city of Philippi. And this letter is written by the Apostle Paul, a leader in the early church. Now, we know that Paul wrote many letters to many churches, we have many of those letters in our Bible. But I would argue that the letter to the Philippians is the most personal.  And there’s a couple of reasons for that.
First of all, this is a church that Paul started. You can read about it in Acts 16. Paul shows up to the city of Philippi and starts sharing the Gospel with folks. And the first person to receive the Gospel is a wealthy businesswoman named Lydia. And then, like immediately after that, he casts a demon out of a slave girl, and then he and his companion Silas save the life of a suicidal Philippian jailer and end up baptizing his whole family. So, by the end of Acts 16, you’ve got a business woman, a slave girl, and a gentile jailer convert to Christianity. Boom. You got a church.
Now, the start of the Philippian church is certainly amazing, but I want us to focus in on how unique this community is, and how unique it is that God would use Paul specifically to start this church.
See, prior to his conversion to Christianity, Paul was a Pharisee, an elite group of Jewish leaders and scholars at this time in history. And every morning Pharisees had a prayer that they would pray that started like this, “God I thank you that you did not make me a woman, a slave, or a gentile…” Every morning Paul would pray, “God, I thank you that you did not make me a woman, a slave, or a gentile.”
But what happens in Philippi?! God uses Paul to share the Gospel with a woman … a slave … and a gentile. That’s the start of this church exactly!  Now, what causes Paul to shift from praying every day, “God, thank you that I’m not like these people,” to starting a church made up exclusively of “these people?!”  Paul encounters the resurrected Jesus. Paul receives the Gospel. See, when that happens, he can’t stay the same.
When you encounter the resurrected Jesus, when you put your faith in Him, when you receive the Gospel, it fundamentally shifts how you view other people. It fundamentally shifts who’s allowed in your community. This is how what you believe about ultimate reality shapes your community.
See, to believe the Gospel means I believe that my fellowship with God has nothing to do with my moral performance, it has nothing to do with the culture I come from, it has nothing to do with my ethnicity or my race. But I get to enjoy fellowship with God, purely because of God’s grace poured out for me in Jesus Christ. Because I believe that’s true of ultimate reality, then I seek out fellowship with others not on the basis of their moral performance, not on the basis of their culture, not on the basis of their ethnicity or race, but I simply seek to extend the grace that God has given me and all people in Christ Jesus.
See, it is our failure to live out the reality of the Gospel that contributes to racial division amongst people. Because if I don’t believe that ultimately I am made right with God purely by his grace in Christ, then I will inevitably seek my righteousness and acceptance in something else, often times in my race or ethnic identity.
Speaking of folks who don’t live in light of the Gospel, Richard Lovelace puts it like this in his book Dynamics of Spiritual Life: “They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger … they fix upon their race, their membership in a party … and their culture as means of self-recommendation. The culture is put on as though it were armor against self-doubt, but it becomes a mental straitjacket which cleaves to the flesh and can never be removed except through comprehensive faith in the saving work of Christ.”
Friends, as we think about the cries for racial justice in our society right now, we see two responses from Christians that fail to live into the community created by the Gospel.
On the one hand, I hear some Christians (mostly white) get very defensive, deny the magnitude of the problem of racism in our society and charge almost anyone who speaks strongly against racism in the church as being overly “woke” or even a “marxist.”
And on the other hand, I hear folks who are (rightly!) speaking about the pervasiveness of racism in our society, but doing it in such a way that they shame and degrade their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Friends, this is not the way of the Gospel. The Gospel frees us to not get defensive, but instead to acknowledge, confront, and repent of the sin of racism in our own lives and in our society. And the Gospel frees us to do this in a spirit of love. The Gospel says that we are one in Christ. The Gospel says that God brought us into fellowship with Him by no merit of our own but purely by His grace in Christ. And we’re meant to show that grace to one another and offer the world a vision of a new kind of community—one united by Christ.
But we’re not just a community, we’re a community with convictions.
Look with me at verse 10 in our text: “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.”
Now, what’s Paul talking about here? Well, the whole reason Paul is writing this letter is to thank the Philippians. See, Paul is in prison in Rome. And in the Roman prison system they didn’t really feed you or clothe you, so the only way you ate or had clothes was if people brought them and gave them to you. And these Philippian Christians did exactly that for Paul. They sent someone upwards of 1,200 miles from Philippi to Rome with a “prison care package” for Paul. This is what he’s referencing in verse 10 here. He’s saying, “Hey, I rejoiced that you showed your concern for me.” He’s saying, “I know you cared about me in spirit, but now that you’ve given me this gift to sustain me in prison, I know you truly care about me.”
Now, this begs a couple questions. Why would the Philippians take the incredible risk of sending one of their own on a long and most definitely dangerous journey in order to bring Paul supplies? And then secondly, why is Paul in prison in the first place?
And the answer to both of these questions is the same … they believe the same ultimate reality, and that shapes their convictions. Both Paul and these Philippian Christians believe that the fundamental truth behind everything is that Jesus is Lord, and that shapes their convictions.
The whole reason Paul is in prison is because he’s viewed as an enemy of the state because he proclaims that Jesus is Lord instead of Caesar. And the whole reason the Philippians sent Paul this gift is because they believe that Jesus is Lord, and they want Paul to continue to share that message even in the face of adversity. They are convicted. And this adversity actually pushes them forward in their conviction.
Now, that may sound backwards, but let’s think about it for a second. Have you ever seen what a group of people who share the same convictions and beliefs do when one of their own faces adversity? They don’t back away but they actually get bolder in their convictions. Right?
On April 12, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and put in jail for his civil rights protests in Birmingham. Did the Civil Rights Movement slow down when he was arrested? Did it stop? No. It was thrust forward. People were emboldened by Martin Luther King’s arrest. So much so that it led to the August 28, 1963 historic “March on Washington,” in which Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a little speech you may have heard of, called “I have a dream.”
When people have shared convictions and beliefs, adversity doesn’t slow them down; it actually thrusts them forward. Brothers and Sisters, may we share that same conviction that Paul, the Philippians, and Rev. Martin Luther King had! The conviction that Jesus is Lord and that that actually means something!
It’s interesting to hear Dr. King’s comments on this in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. He writes, “There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being ‘“disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”’
But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.
Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent—and often even vocal— sanction of things as they are.”
See friends, what we believe about ultimate reality will shape our convictions. And so often I fear that you, me, the Church itself confesses Jesus as Lord with our mouths but fail to confess it with our lives. Instead of Jesus being Lord, we let our politics be Lord, our social media feed be Lord, and perhaps above all, our comfort be Lord.
May we turn away from those idols and instead live in light of the reality that Jesus is Lord, and because of that seek to rectify the deep racial disparities in our society. May the Lordship of Jesus enable us to pursue a church, a city, a country, and world in which ethnic and racial differences are celebrated as reflections of the image of God. Where the color of someone’s skin doesn’t (in large part) determine their lot in life.
May the lordship of Jesus enable us to lower our defensiveness, to be honest about the racial divisions in our society and in our own lives, and to seek to live into the reality that we are one in Christ with our brothers and sisters of all races. May we live with that conviction. And finally, may we live with contentment.
Look with me at verses 11–12 in our text. “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”
Alright, so notice this: Paul says he has learned the secret of contentment. Remember he’s writing this from a prison cell. He says, it doesn’t matter. I can be wealthy, I can be poor, I can be hungry, I can be full. Doesn’t matter. In any and every circumstance, I am content. No. Matter. What. Paul says, “I am content.”
Can you say the same thing? Are you content? Always in a state of satisfaction? Or are you always yearning for more, more, more?  More money,  more toys,  more time,  more promotions, more acceptance, more relationships, more recognition, more status, more success, more love, more whatever, more, more, more. Is it ever enough? Are we ever at a perfectly balanced time in life? When we finally get that “one thing” we need to be satisfied, to be content, are we actually content?  No.   So, what’s the secret? How do we live in a state of satisfaction and contentment regardless of circumstance?
Paul says he’s got the answer, verse 13: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Paul can face anything, because Christ is strengthening him. Paul can be content in any circumstance because Christ is strengthening him.
So the secret to finding true contentment is looking at where you are drawing your strength from. Paul says the secret to contentment is being strengthened by Christ. So, if you’re not content, you should ask, “Where am I drawing my strength from?”
See, the temptation is for us to draw strength from ourselves, or from others, or from our circumstances. Right? If I can be strong enough internally then I’ll be content. If I have the right people supporting me then I’ll be content.  If things are going my way, then I’ll be content.
But, of course, we all know the reality is that none of us is strong enough internally all the time, people will let us down, and my goodness if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that our circumstances are almost never ideal.
So we have to draw our strength from something outside ourselves, our social circle, and our circumstances. We have to draw strength from Christ. Now, that sounds all well and good, but how does that actually work?
It works when I recognize that the biggest problem in my life has already been solved. See, the biggest problem in my life, your life, and our world is that, left to our own devices, we are hopelessly lost in our sin. Turned in ourselves and turned away from the love of God. But God in His grace sent Jesus to take on your sin and the sin of the world and nail it to the cross. And because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, you are forgiven, you are set free, you are welcomed into a restored relationship with the Father for now and all of eternity. When you see that the biggest problem in your life is already taken care of, you can draw strength from that reality, you can rest in that grace, and you can find contentment. And from that place of contentment in the Gospel, we can celebrate the reality that we are one in Christ.
Some of you will remember this: In 1996, a branch of the Ku Klux Klan decided to hold a rally in Ann Arbor. Of course, as Ann Arbor residents heard about this, a counter protest formed to tell the KKK that they were not welcome. The scene was tense as the two sides stood across from one another.
Then suddenly, a woman with a megaphone from the counter protest shouted, “There’s a Klansman in the crowd.” Sure enough, in the middle of this crowd of people protesting racism there was a white man wearing a confederate flag T-shirt and a large Nazi SS tattoo on his arm. The crowd chased after him, knocked him to the ground, began kicking him and hitting him with sticks, amidst shouts of “kill the Nazi.”
In the midst of that, 18-year-old Keshia Thomas threw herself on top of this man’s body to shield him from the blows of the mob. Incredible. A black teenage girl laid her life on the line to protect a man who hated her just because of the color of her skin. Where does that come from?
Well, in interviews that followed, Keshia Thomas cited her Christian faith and said, “When they dropped him to the ground, it felt like two angels had lifted my body up and laid me down.” See, Keshia’s view of ultimate reality is shaped by the Gospel. By her Savior who laid down his life to save her.
Because of that, her view of community and conviction was shaped so she was present to speak out against racism and hatred in society. And her view of ultimate reality gave her the contentment to give of herself even for the sake of one who would be her enemy. Friends, may you look to Christ on the cross and see that in him you are united to brothers and sisters of all races, and may that lead you to live with conviction and contentment. Amen.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee; let the water & the blood, from Thy riven side which flowed, be of sin the double cure: cleanse me from its guilt & power.    Not the labors of my hands  can fulfill Thy Law’s demands; could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; Thou must save  & Thou alone.  Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling.  Naked, come to Thee for dress; helpless, look to Thee for grace;  foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die. Amen. LSB 761:1-3.

19thSunday after Pentecost – A (Proper 23)                                               LSB #’s 814, 761, 730
Text – Philippians 4:10a

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me.

WE ARE ONE IN CHRIST

The last verse of our Epistle lesson for today has to be one of the most misinterpreted Bible passages of all time. Right? “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).  For example…
When I was a young boy, I had a poster in my room. On this poster was a picture of a cartoon boy who was wearing and holding a ton of sports gear. He had both a football and bicycle helmet on, hockey pads, roller skates, cleats, he was holding a baseball bat and basketball in one hand and trapping a soccer ball underneath his right foot, and somehow he was able to hold onto a tennis racquet and golf club at the same time. And at the bottom of this poster it said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
The implication of course being that this cartoon boy can play every sport imaginable through Christ who strengthens him.
Friends, can I just tell you … this is not at all what this text is about!
I find Tim Tebow as fascinating as the next guy, but he can write Philippians 4:13 under his eyes all he wants, this text still is not about scoring touchdowns, or not scoring touchdowns as the case may be.
So, what is this text about!? And in what ways does it fit into our current series on racial healing? Here is what we are going to see in our text: What we believe about ultimate reality shapes our community, conviction, and contentment. OK? That will be our outline today. What we believe about ultimate reality shapes our 1) community, 2) conviction, and 3) contentment.
Before we even get into our text for today, I think it’s important we understand the context of the book of Philippians. See, the book of Philippians is actually a letter written to the church in the ancient city of Philippi. And this letter is written by the Apostle Paul, a leader in the early church. Now, we know that Paul wrote many letters to many churches, we have many of those letters in our Bible. But I would argue that the letter to the Philippians is the most personal.  And there’s a couple of reasons for that.
First of all, this is a church that Paul started. You can read about it in Acts 16. Paul shows up to the city of Philippi and starts sharing the Gospel with folks. And the first person to receive the Gospel is a wealthy businesswoman named Lydia. And then, like immediately after that, he casts a demon out of a slave girl, and then he and his companion Silas save the life of a suicidal Philippian jailer and end up baptizing his whole family. So, by the end of Acts 16, you’ve got a business woman, a slave girl, and a gentile jailer convert to Christianity. Boom. You got a church.
Now, the start of the Philippian church is certainly amazing, but I want us to focus in on how unique this community is, and how unique it is that God would use Paul specifically to start this church.
See, prior to his conversion to Christianity, Paul was a Pharisee, an elite group of Jewish leaders and scholars at this time in history. And every morning Pharisees had a prayer that they would pray that started like this, “God I thank you that you did not make me a woman, a slave, or a gentile…” Every morning Paul would pray, “God, I thank you that you did not make me a woman, a slave, or a gentile.”
But what happens in Philippi?! God uses Paul to share the Gospel with a woman … a slave … and a gentile. That’s the start of this church exactly!  Now, what causes Paul to shift from praying every day, “God, thank you that I’m not like these people,” to starting a church made up exclusively of “these people?!”  Paul encounters the resurrected Jesus. Paul receives the Gospel. See, when that happens, he can’t stay the same.
When you encounter the resurrected Jesus, when you put your faith in Him, when you receive the Gospel, it fundamentally shifts how you view other people. It fundamentally shifts who’s allowed in your community. This is how what you believe about ultimate reality shapes your community.
See, to believe the Gospel means I believe that my fellowship with God has nothing to do with my moral performance, it has nothing to do with the culture I come from, it has nothing to do with my ethnicity or my race. But I get to enjoy fellowship with God, purely because of God’s grace poured out for me in Jesus Christ. Because I believe that’s true of ultimate reality, then I seek out fellowship with others not on the basis of their moral performance, not on the basis of their culture, not on the basis of their ethnicity or race, but I simply seek to extend the grace that God has given me and all people in Christ Jesus.
See, it is our failure to live out the reality of the Gospel that contributes to racial division amongst people. Because if I don’t believe that ultimately I am made right with God purely by his grace in Christ, then I will inevitably seek my righteousness and acceptance in something else, often times in my race or ethnic identity.
Speaking of folks who don’t live in light of the Gospel, Richard Lovelace puts it like this in his book Dynamics of Spiritual Life: “They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger … they fix upon their race, their membership in a party … and their culture as means of self-recommendation. The culture is put on as though it were armor against self-doubt, but it becomes a mental straitjacket which cleaves to the flesh and can never be removed except through comprehensive faith in the saving work of Christ.”
Friends, as we think about the cries for racial justice in our society right now, we see two responses from Christians that fail to live into the community created by the Gospel.
On the one hand, I hear some Christians (mostly white) get very defensive, deny the magnitude of the problem of racism in our society and charge almost anyone who speaks strongly against racism in the church as being overly “woke” or even a “marxist.”
And on the other hand, I hear folks who are (rightly!) speaking about the pervasiveness of racism in our society, but doing it in such a way that they shame and degrade their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Friends, this is not the way of the Gospel. The Gospel frees us to not get defensive, but instead to acknowledge, confront, and repent of the sin of racism in our own lives and in our society. And the Gospel frees us to do this in a spirit of love. The Gospel says that we are one in Christ. The Gospel says that God brought us into fellowship with Him by no merit of our own but purely by His grace in Christ. And we’re meant to show that grace to one another and offer the world a vision of a new kind of community—one united by Christ.
But we’re not just a community, we’re a community with convictions.
Look with me at verse 10 in our text: “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.”
Now, what’s Paul talking about here? Well, the whole reason Paul is writing this letter is to thank the Philippians. See, Paul is in prison in Rome. And in the Roman prison system they didn’t really feed you or clothe you, so the only way you ate or had clothes was if people brought them and gave them to you. And these Philippian Christians did exactly that for Paul. They sent someone upwards of 1,200 miles from Philippi to Rome with a “prison care package” for Paul. This is what he’s referencing in verse 10 here. He’s saying, “Hey, I rejoiced that you showed your concern for me.” He’s saying, “I know you cared about me in spirit, but now that you’ve given me this gift to sustain me in prison, I know you truly care about me.”
Now, this begs a couple questions. Why would the Philippians take the incredible risk of sending one of their own on a long and most definitely dangerous journey in order to bring Paul supplies? And then secondly, why is Paul in prison in the first place?
And the answer to both of these questions is the same … they believe the same ultimate reality, and that shapes their convictions. Both Paul and these Philippian Christians believe that the fundamental truth behind everything is that Jesus is Lord, and that shapes their convictions.
The whole reason Paul is in prison is because he’s viewed as an enemy of the state because he proclaims that Jesus is Lord instead of Caesar. And the whole reason the Philippians sent Paul this gift is because they believe that Jesus is Lord, and they want Paul to continue to share that message even in the face of adversity. They are convicted. And this adversity actually pushes them forward in their conviction.
Now, that may sound backwards, but let’s think about it for a second. Have you ever seen what a group of people who share the same convictions and beliefs do when one of their own faces adversity? They don’t back away but they actually get bolder in their convictions. Right?
On April 12, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and put in jail for his civil rights protests in Birmingham. Did the Civil Rights Movement slow down when he was arrested? Did it stop? No. It was thrust forward. People were emboldened by Martin Luther King’s arrest. So much so that it led to the August 28, 1963 historic “March on Washington,” in which Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a little speech you may have heard of, called “I have a dream.”
When people have shared convictions and beliefs, adversity doesn’t slow them down; it actually thrusts them forward. Brothers and Sisters, may we share that same conviction that Paul, the Philippians, and Rev. Martin Luther King had! The conviction that Jesus is Lord and that that actually means something!
It’s interesting to hear Dr. King’s comments on this in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. He writes, “There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being ‘“disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”’
But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.
Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent—and often even vocal— sanction of things as they are.”
See friends, what we believe about ultimate reality will shape our convictions. And so often I fear that you, me, the Church itself confesses Jesus as Lord with our mouths but fail to confess it with our lives. Instead of Jesus being Lord, we let our politics be Lord, our social media feed be Lord, and perhaps above all, our comfort be Lord.
May we turn away from those idols and instead live in light of the reality that Jesus is Lord, and because of that seek to rectify the deep racial disparities in our society. May the Lordship of Jesus enable us to pursue a church, a city, a country, and world in which ethnic and racial differences are celebrated as reflections of the image of God. Where the color of someone’s skin doesn’t (in large part) determine their lot in life.
May the lordship of Jesus enable us to lower our defensiveness, to be honest about the racial divisions in our society and in our own lives, and to seek to live into the reality that we are one in Christ with our brothers and sisters of all races. May we live with that conviction. And finally, may we live with contentment.
Look with me at verses 11–12 in our text. “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”
Alright, so notice this: Paul says he has learned the secret of contentment. Remember he’s writing this from a prison cell. He says, it doesn’t matter. I can be wealthy, I can be poor, I can be hungry, I can be full. Doesn’t matter. In any and every circumstance, I am content. No. Matter. What. Paul says, “I am content.”
Can you say the same thing? Are you content? Always in a state of satisfaction? Or are you always yearning for more, more, more?  More money,  more toys,  more time,  more promotions, more acceptance, more relationships, more recognition, more status, more success, more love, more whatever, more, more, more. Is it ever enough? Are we ever at a perfectly balanced time in life? When we finally get that “one thing” we need to be satisfied, to be content, are we actually content?  No.   So, what’s the secret? How do we live in a state of satisfaction and contentment regardless of circumstance?
Paul says he’s got the answer, verse 13: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Paul can face anything, because Christ is strengthening him. Paul can be content in any circumstance because Christ is strengthening him.
So the secret to finding true contentment is looking at where you are drawing your strength from. Paul says the secret to contentment is being strengthened by Christ. So, if you’re not content, you should ask, “Where am I drawing my strength from?”
See, the temptation is for us to draw strength from ourselves, or from others, or from our circumstances. Right? If I can be strong enough internally then I’ll be content. If I have the right people supporting me then I’ll be content.  If things are going my way, then I’ll be content.
But, of course, we all know the reality is that none of us is strong enough internally all the time, people will let us down, and my goodness if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that our circumstances are almost never ideal.
So we have to draw our strength from something outside ourselves, our social circle, and our circumstances. We have to draw strength from Christ. Now, that sounds all well and good, but how does that actually work?
It works when I recognize that the biggest problem in my life has already been solved. See, the biggest problem in my life, your life, and our world is that, left to our own devices, we are hopelessly lost in our sin. Turned in ourselves and turned away from the love of God. But God in His grace sent Jesus to take on your sin and the sin of the world and nail it to the cross. And because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, you are forgiven, you are set free, you are welcomed into a restored relationship with the Father for now and all of eternity. When you see that the biggest problem in your life is already taken care of, you can draw strength from that reality, you can rest in that grace, and you can find contentment. And from that place of contentment in the Gospel, we can celebrate the reality that we are one in Christ.
Some of you will remember this: In 1996, a branch of the Ku Klux Klan decided to hold a rally in Ann Arbor. Of course, as Ann Arbor residents heard about this, a counter protest formed to tell the KKK that they were not welcome. The scene was tense as the two sides stood across from one another.
Then suddenly, a woman with a megaphone from the counter protest shouted, “There’s a Klansman in the crowd.” Sure enough, in the middle of this crowd of people protesting racism there was a white man wearing a confederate flag T-shirt and a large Nazi SS tattoo on his arm. The crowd chased after him, knocked him to the ground, began kicking him and hitting him with sticks, amidst shouts of “kill the Nazi.”
In the midst of that, 18-year-old Keshia Thomas threw herself on top of this man’s body to shield him from the blows of the mob. Incredible. A black teenage girl laid her life on the line to protect a man who hated her just because of the color of her skin. Where does that come from?
Well, in interviews that followed, Keshia Thomas cited her Christian faith and said, “When they dropped him to the ground, it felt like two angels had lifted my body up and laid me down.” See, Keshia’s view of ultimate reality is shaped by the Gospel. By her Savior who laid down his life to save her.
Because of that, her view of community and conviction was shaped so she was present to speak out against racism and hatred in society. And her view of ultimate reality gave her the contentment to give of herself even for the sake of one who would be her enemy. Friends, may you look to Christ on the cross and see that in him you are united to brothers and sisters of all races, and may that lead you to live with conviction and contentment. Amen.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee; let the water & the blood, from Thy riven side which flowed, be of sin the double cure: cleanse me from its guilt & power.    Not the labors of my hands  can fulfill Thy Law’s demands; could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; Thou must save  & Thou alone.  Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling.  Naked, come to Thee for dress; helpless, look to Thee for grace;  foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die. Amen. LSB 761:1-3.

19thSunday after Pentecost – A (Proper 23)                                               LSB #’s 814, 761, 730
Text – Philippians 4:10a

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me.

WE ARE ONE IN CHRIST

The last verse of our Epistle lesson for today has to be one of the most misinterpreted Bible passages of all time. Right? “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).  For example…
When I was a young boy, I had a poster in my room. On this poster was a picture of a cartoon boy who was wearing and holding a ton of sports gear. He had both a football and bicycle helmet on, hockey pads, roller skates, cleats, he was holding a baseball bat and basketball in one hand and trapping a soccer ball underneath his right foot, and somehow he was able to hold onto a tennis racquet and golf club at the same time. And at the bottom of this poster it said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
The implication of course being that this cartoon boy can play every sport imaginable through Christ who strengthens him.
Friends, can I just tell you … this is not at all what this text is about!
I find Tim Tebow as fascinating as the next guy, but he can write Philippians 4:13 under his eyes all he wants, this text still is not about scoring touchdowns, or not scoring touchdowns as the case may be.
So, what is this text about!? And in what ways does it fit into our current series on racial healing? Here is what we are going to see in our text: What we believe about ultimate reality shapes our community, conviction, and contentment. OK? That will be our outline today. What we believe about ultimate reality shapes our 1) community, 2) conviction, and 3) contentment.
Before we even get into our text for today, I think it’s important we understand the context of the book of Philippians. See, the book of Philippians is actually a letter written to the church in the ancient city of Philippi. And this letter is written by the Apostle Paul, a leader in the early church. Now, we know that Paul wrote many letters to many churches, we have many of those letters in our Bible. But I would argue that the letter to the Philippians is the most personal.  And there’s a couple of reasons for that.
First of all, this is a church that Paul started. You can read about it in Acts 16. Paul shows up to the city of Philippi and starts sharing the Gospel with folks. And the first person to receive the Gospel is a wealthy businesswoman named Lydia. And then, like immediately after that, he casts a demon out of a slave girl, and then he and his companion Silas save the life of a suicidal Philippian jailer and end up baptizing his whole family. So, by the end of Acts 16, you’ve got a business woman, a slave girl, and a gentile jailer convert to Christianity. Boom. You got a church.
Now, the start of the Philippian church is certainly amazing, but I want us to focus in on how unique this community is, and how unique it is that God would use Paul specifically to start this church.
See, prior to his conversion to Christianity, Paul was a Pharisee, an elite group of Jewish leaders and scholars at this time in history. And every morning Pharisees had a prayer that they would pray that started like this, “God I thank you that you did not make me a woman, a slave, or a gentile…” Every morning Paul would pray, “God, I thank you that you did not make me a woman, a slave, or a gentile.”
But what happens in Philippi?! God uses Paul to share the Gospel with a woman … a slave … and a gentile. That’s the start of this church exactly!  Now, what causes Paul to shift from praying every day, “God, thank you that I’m not like these people,” to starting a church made up exclusively of “these people?!”  Paul encounters the resurrected Jesus. Paul receives the Gospel. See, when that happens, he can’t stay the same.
When you encounter the resurrected Jesus, when you put your faith in Him, when you receive the Gospel, it fundamentally shifts how you view other people. It fundamentally shifts who’s allowed in your community. This is how what you believe about ultimate reality shapes your community.
See, to believe the Gospel means I believe that my fellowship with God has nothing to do with my moral performance, it has nothing to do with the culture I come from, it has nothing to do with my ethnicity or my race. But I get to enjoy fellowship with God, purely because of God’s grace poured out for me in Jesus Christ. Because I believe that’s true of ultimate reality, then I seek out fellowship with others not on the basis of their moral performance, not on the basis of their culture, not on the basis of their ethnicity or race, but I simply seek to extend the grace that God has given me and all people in Christ Jesus.
See, it is our failure to live out the reality of the Gospel that contributes to racial division amongst people. Because if I don’t believe that ultimately I am made right with God purely by his grace in Christ, then I will inevitably seek my righteousness and acceptance in something else, often times in my race or ethnic identity.
Speaking of folks who don’t live in light of the Gospel, Richard Lovelace puts it like this in his book Dynamics of Spiritual Life: “They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger … they fix upon their race, their membership in a party … and their culture as means of self-recommendation. The culture is put on as though it were armor against self-doubt, but it becomes a mental straitjacket which cleaves to the flesh and can never be removed except through comprehensive faith in the saving work of Christ.”
Friends, as we think about the cries for racial justice in our society right now, we see two responses from Christians that fail to live into the community created by the Gospel.
On the one hand, I hear some Christians (mostly white) get very defensive, deny the magnitude of the problem of racism in our society and charge almost anyone who speaks strongly against racism in the church as being overly “woke” or even a “marxist.”
And on the other hand, I hear folks who are (rightly!) speaking about the pervasiveness of racism in our society, but doing it in such a way that they shame and degrade their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Friends, this is not the way of the Gospel. The Gospel frees us to not get defensive, but instead to acknowledge, confront, and repent of the sin of racism in our own lives and in our society. And the Gospel frees us to do this in a spirit of love. The Gospel says that we are one in Christ. The Gospel says that God brought us into fellowship with Him by no merit of our own but purely by His grace in Christ. And we’re meant to show that grace to one another and offer the world a vision of a new kind of community—one united by Christ.
But we’re not just a community, we’re a community with convictions.
Look with me at verse 10 in our text: “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.”
Now, what’s Paul talking about here? Well, the whole reason Paul is writing this letter is to thank the Philippians. See, Paul is in prison in Rome. And in the Roman prison system they didn’t really feed you or clothe you, so the only way you ate or had clothes was if people brought them and gave them to you. And these Philippian Christians did exactly that for Paul. They sent someone upwards of 1,200 miles from Philippi to Rome with a “prison care package” for Paul. This is what he’s referencing in verse 10 here. He’s saying, “Hey, I rejoiced that you showed your concern for me.” He’s saying, “I know you cared about me in spirit, but now that you’ve given me this gift to sustain me in prison, I know you truly care about me.”
Now, this begs a couple questions. Why would the Philippians take the incredible risk of sending one of their own on a long and most definitely dangerous journey in order to bring Paul supplies? And then secondly, why is Paul in prison in the first place?
And the answer to both of these questions is the same … they believe the same ultimate reality, and that shapes their convictions. Both Paul and these Philippian Christians believe that the fundamental truth behind everything is that Jesus is Lord, and that shapes their convictions.
The whole reason Paul is in prison is because he’s viewed as an enemy of the state because he proclaims that Jesus is Lord instead of Caesar. And the whole reason the Philippians sent Paul this gift is because they believe that Jesus is Lord, and they want Paul to continue to share that message even in the face of adversity. They are convicted. And this adversity actually pushes them forward in their conviction.
Now, that may sound backwards, but let’s think about it for a second. Have you ever seen what a group of people who share the same convictions and beliefs do when one of their own faces adversity? They don’t back away but they actually get bolder in their convictions. Right?
On April 12, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and put in jail for his civil rights protests in Birmingham. Did the Civil Rights Movement slow down when he was arrested? Did it stop? No. It was thrust forward. People were emboldened by Martin Luther King’s arrest. So much so that it led to the August 28, 1963 historic “March on Washington,” in which Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a little speech you may have heard of, called “I have a dream.”
When people have shared convictions and beliefs, adversity doesn’t slow them down; it actually thrusts them forward. Brothers and Sisters, may we share that same conviction that Paul, the Philippians, and Rev. Martin Luther King had! The conviction that Jesus is Lord and that that actually means something!
It’s interesting to hear Dr. King’s comments on this in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. He writes, “There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being ‘“disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”’
But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.
Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent—and often even vocal— sanction of things as they are.”
See friends, what we believe about ultimate reality will shape our convictions. And so often I fear that you, me, the Church itself confesses Jesus as Lord with our mouths but fail to confess it with our lives. Instead of Jesus being Lord, we let our politics be Lord, our social media feed be Lord, and perhaps above all, our comfort be Lord.
May we turn away from those idols and instead live in light of the reality that Jesus is Lord, and because of that seek to rectify the deep racial disparities in our society. May the Lordship of Jesus enable us to pursue a church, a city, a country, and world in which ethnic and racial differences are celebrated as reflections of the image of God. Where the color of someone’s skin doesn’t (in large part) determine their lot in life.
May the lordship of Jesus enable us to lower our defensiveness, to be honest about the racial divisions in our society and in our own lives, and to seek to live into the reality that we are one in Christ with our brothers and sisters of all races. May we live with that conviction. And finally, may we live with contentment.
Look with me at verses 11–12 in our text. “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”
Alright, so notice this: Paul says he has learned the secret of contentment. Remember he’s writing this from a prison cell. He says, it doesn’t matter. I can be wealthy, I can be poor, I can be hungry, I can be full. Doesn’t matter. In any and every circumstance, I am content. No. Matter. What. Paul says, “I am content.”
Can you say the same thing? Are you content? Always in a state of satisfaction? Or are you always yearning for more, more, more?  More money,  more toys,  more time,  more promotions, more acceptance, more relationships, more recognition, more status, more success, more love, more whatever, more, more, more. Is it ever enough? Are we ever at a perfectly balanced time in life? When we finally get that “one thing” we need to be satisfied, to be content, are we actually content?  No.   So, what’s the secret? How do we live in a state of satisfaction and contentment regardless of circumstance?
Paul says he’s got the answer, verse 13: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Paul can face anything, because Christ is strengthening him. Paul can be content in any circumstance because Christ is strengthening him.
So the secret to finding true contentment is looking at where you are drawing your strength from. Paul says the secret to contentment is being strengthened by Christ. So, if you’re not content, you should ask, “Where am I drawing my strength from?”
See, the temptation is for us to draw strength from ourselves, or from others, or from our circumstances. Right? If I can be strong enough internally then I’ll be content. If I have the right people supporting me then I’ll be content.  If things are going my way, then I’ll be content.
But, of course, we all know the reality is that none of us is strong enough internally all the time, people will let us down, and my goodness if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that our circumstances are almost never ideal.
So we have to draw our strength from something outside ourselves, our social circle, and our circumstances. We have to draw strength from Christ. Now, that sounds all well and good, but how does that actually work?
It works when I recognize that the biggest problem in my life has already been solved. See, the biggest problem in my life, your life, and our world is that, left to our own devices, we are hopelessly lost in our sin. Turned in ourselves and turned away from the love of God. But God in His grace sent Jesus to take on your sin and the sin of the world and nail it to the cross. And because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, you are forgiven, you are set free, you are welcomed into a restored relationship with the Father for now and all of eternity. When you see that the biggest problem in your life is already taken care of, you can draw strength from that reality, you can rest in that grace, and you can find contentment. And from that place of contentment in the Gospel, we can celebrate the reality that we are one in Christ.
Some of you will remember this: In 1996, a branch of the Ku Klux Klan decided to hold a rally in Ann Arbor. Of course, as Ann Arbor residents heard about this, a counter protest formed to tell the KKK that they were not welcome. The scene was tense as the two sides stood across from one another.
Then suddenly, a woman with a megaphone from the counter protest shouted, “There’s a Klansman in the crowd.” Sure enough, in the middle of this crowd of people protesting racism there was a white man wearing a confederate flag T-shirt and a large Nazi SS tattoo on his arm. The crowd chased after him, knocked him to the ground, began kicking him and hitting him with sticks, amidst shouts of “kill the Nazi.”
In the midst of that, 18-year-old Keshia Thomas threw herself on top of this man’s body to shield him from the blows of the mob. Incredible. A black teenage girl laid her life on the line to protect a man who hated her just because of the color of her skin. Where does that come from?
Well, in interviews that followed, Keshia Thomas cited her Christian faith and said, “When they dropped him to the ground, it felt like two angels had lifted my body up and laid me down.” See, Keshia’s view of ultimate reality is shaped by the Gospel. By her Savior who laid down his life to save her.
Because of that, her view of community and conviction was shaped so she was present to speak out against racism and hatred in society. And her view of ultimate reality gave her the contentment to give of herself even for the sake of one who would be her enemy. Friends, may you look to Christ on the cross and see that in him you are united to brothers and sisters of all races, and may that lead you to live with conviction and contentment. Amen.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee; let the water & the blood, from Thy riven side which flowed, be of sin the double cure: cleanse me from its guilt & power.    Not the labors of my hands  can fulfill Thy Law’s demands; could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; Thou must save  & Thou alone.  Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling.  Naked, come to Thee for dress; helpless, look to Thee for grace;  foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die. Amen. LSB 761:1-3.

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Bringing the Fruit of His Steadfast Love

10/4/2020

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18th Sunday after Pentecost – A (Proper 22)                                                 LSB #’s 689, 691, 644
Text – Matthew 21:43

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you & given to a people producing its fruits.

BRINGING THE FRUIT OF HIS STEADFAST LOVE

Servants of God, set apart & made holy in Christ Jesus: Grace to you & peace from God our Father & the Lord Jesus Christ. Please pray with me.
Heavenly Father, bless us today with the presence of Your Holy Spirit. Prepare us to hear & take to heart Your Holy Word. Redeem us from our sinful fruit & produce the good fruits You desire to harvest in our lives. Strengthen our faith in Christ, so that we may let go of our earthly pride which labels others as our enemies. Control us by the love of Christ, displayed for us in the shedding of His precious blood, so that we might forget what lies behind & strain forward toward the goal of being worthy of the upward call of God. Through Jesus Christ, the true vine. Amen.

Wild grapes … wild grapes are spoken of in the OT reading for today [Isaiah 5:1-7]. They are not spoken of kindly. They are the undesired, unexpected fruit of the LORD’s vineyard, which is His people.
Have you ever had the chance to drink homemade wine?   There is a pastor who, while serving as a vicar, had an experience in wine tasting he will not soon forget. One of his congregation members dabbled in the art of enology, otherwise called wine making.
This member had several homemade bottles on hand of a few different varieties. On one visit to the member’s home, the vicar was sent home with two bottles of wine. One of them was made from grapevines the man had purchased & planted & cultivated in his garden. However, one of the bottles he marked as being “wild.”
He told the vicar that he found some grapevines growing wild along the fences of his property & decided he’d try making wine with them. He had quite a few bottles of the “wild” wine, & the vicar was more than happy to take a bottle off of his hands to sample something that promised to be a unique experience.   Well, unique it was. The “tame” variety was tasty enough. Not the best wine the vicar had ever tasted, but enjoyable. The “wild” wine, however, was a different story. The vicar was not easily put off or offended by most wines. That being said, this was made from “wild” grapes & he was not prepared for it. The wine was bitter. It was sour.
It was … well, you know how sometimes people describe certain foods as having an “earthy” quality or flavor? Usually they mean it in a good way. This had a “dirty” quality to it, in the worst possible sense. And none of this should reflect poorly on the winemaking skills of the congregation member. The vicar had the “tame” wine to compare it to.
They were night-and-day different. There was not one redeeming quality of the “wild” wine. What is the point of this story? Simply put, wild grapes are offensive. They are utterly sickening, disgusting & undrinkable.   They have no redeeming quality.
When you’re the winemaker expecting something special, something enjoyable; when you’ve worked hard preparing the soil, pruning & harvesting; when you’ve pressed & filtered & prepared your wine for fermentation; when you have waited long weeks or months for your creation to come into its own, to have it turn out a complete & utter waste – a waste of time, a waste of effort – that is an embarrassment & an offense!
Wild grapes don’t make for a proud winemaker, & those who partake of them aren’t too happy either. But we’re not talking about wine here, folks. We are not talking about actual wild grapes. We’re talking about God’s people – God’s people & the fruit produced in our lives.
In the Isaiah passage, wild grapes are held up by the prophet in his parable to represent the bad fruits produced by God’s people; fruits of injustice & of bloodshed. The prophet cries out against their evil ways. The people of God had abandoned His ways & as a result they had proclaimed war on God & on His righteousness. They had made themselves enemies of God.
Similarly, in the Gospel reading we heard Jesus rebuking the religious leaders of God’s people. They were set in place by Yahweh to tend the vineyard of His people. They were to cultivate & grow their faith, protecting them from the attacks of the devil & the tempting, sinful draw of the fallen world.
They were to help produce the fruit God desired to see & then present Him with the bounty. However, in their sin, the religious authorities pitted themselves & God’s people against God & His ways. They’d become drunk on the desire to be honored – drunk with the power God had placed into their hands for the good of the people.
They craved the comfort the world offered over the righteousness of God.   They allied themselves with the ways of the devil & the world, seeing God & His ways – His very Salvation – as their enemy. The same sinful pride is described in the Epistle lesson as Paul explains all the reasons he has for boasting in the flesh.
Paul was a Jewish man trained as a Pharisee under Gamaliel, the most notable rabbi of his day. Paul had every reason to boast in that earthly pedigree. We see early on, before his conversion, as Paul took great offense at any who believed in Jesus or followed His teaching.
The way of Christ threatened the pride of Saul; it threatened the pride of the Pharisees & the scribes & the chief priests. It threatened the pride of the Jews, & Samaritans, & Gentiles alike. It threatened everyone from kings & governors to tax collectors & beggars. And why was that? Because Christ’s way – God’s way – is no respecter of persons.
God gives authority & influence not so people will be honored, but that people would use the authority & influence to honor & glorify Him. God gives knowledge & wisdom not for people to be big-headed but to reveal Himself as the giver of all that is good & true. God gives His Law & Gospel not to puff up His people, but to reveal our need for salvation & to reveal Jesus as our means of Salvation. All of these gifts from God are given to us for His glory & honor. Which brings us back to this time & moment in our world. In our culture, issues of prejudice & injustice based on skin color & ethnic origin are in the spotlight once again. These deeply personal issues have caused people to take a stand & choose sides.
People have made enemies of one-time friends, & allied themselves with others they once considered enemies. It is easy to look around & see examples of self-professed followers of Christ doing very un-Christ-like things, & this is true of Christians on all sides of these issues.
Christians are identifying enemies of their cause &, as they do, they keep finding themselves on the wrong side of the battle line. They stand up for & rally behind injustice on one side of lawlessness or another, prejudice on one side or violence & destruction on the other. All the while Satan is laughing & mocking us as the world falls apart – as we help to tear it apart.
Yes, we have an enemy in this world, but as we rally behind the causes of the world, we end up mistaking our real enemy. And where does this misidentification come from? It comes from our own desire for glory & honor. It has its root in our own sinful inability to see people the way God sees them. It grows out of our sinful rebellion against the will of God.
In session 2 of the Bible study titled One Nation Under God: Healing Racial Divides in America, Rev. Haney not only identifies Satan as our true enemy when dealing with issues of prejudice, injustice & earthly divisions, he also helps us to see how God has equipped His people through the Word & Spirit to address these issues in Christ-like, godly ways.
Like Isaiah’s wild grapes, or Christ’s vineyard tenants, God’s people today are under real threat of finding ourselves opposing God, regardless of what earthly stance we may take on the issues of our day. Yet, God’s desire for us (His NT vineyard) is still the same as it was for His OT people. God chose us to reveal His will & salvation to a world in need. The heavenly Father wants us to live according to His will & ways, trusting in Him. He wants us to live in just ways. He wants to see us use whatever power or influence we have to help bring about justice & peace in the world. He does not desire to see us standing by, allowing innocent blood to be shed. He does not want us to be the reason for people to cry out.
He wants us to promote what is right & to do what is right in our lives, no matter what position or influence we may be jeopardizing, or what power we may lack. He surely does not want us to be the ones inflicting violence, insult & injury onto others. He does not want us to promote such behavior in others or to justify others for doing so.
No. Regarding hatred, God calls on His people to stand in the gap, bringing the fruit of His steadfast love. Regarding injustice, God calls on us to stand in the gap, bringing His faithfulness to bear. This is the good fruit He desires to see in the vineyard of His people, but it will make us a target for Satan. It will make us hated by those set on division & destruction.
By remaining in the Word of Christ (connected to the true vine) God will clothe & equip us with His spiritual armor to withstand all that comes against us. Yes, through us God will be glorified even in these contentious times. You see, God works in our world, not through magic, but through means like people, to communicate His steadfast love & faithfulness.
In His grace & mercy, He chose to use the people of Israel, & when those grapes went wild He continued with His faithful plan to reveal Himself to the world & redeem all who would put their trust in Him through Christ. After all, this was His plan all along: to reveal Himself & produce His salvation through the life, death & resurrection of Jesus Christ – God in the flesh.
Yes, God works through means. He worked salvation for us in the flesh & blood of Christ. He uses the Word & Sacraments to produce & strengthen our faith in Him. And just as He formed & raised up the people of Israel to reveal Himself to the nations, He has cut off the fruitless branches of Israel & grafted into the ancient vine of Christ a new people, the Church. We are the branches whose purpose it is to produce the good fruits that our Vinedresser desires to see in our world. Does He need us to reveal & accomplish His will? No! But He chooses to use us for this good & gracious purpose.
During the opening devotion of a confirmation retreat, a pastor gave an interesting object lesson. He invited three youth to each enjoy a brownie. After tasting it they were asked to describe how it tasted, to describe the experience of eating that piece of chocolaty goodness. They each described it differently, but all of them agreed it was delicious.
Try as they might, however, nothing they could say would make anyone else in the group experience the sheer joy that was going on in their mouths. The point is this: God’s people are called to be doers of the Word, not just faithful hearers of it. Not just speakers of it, but doers of it.
Like those children eating the brownies, the fruit of God is not meant to be only looked at or described. It is meant to be experienced. The blessings of God are meant to be enjoyed by those who receive them. They are meant to nurture & strengthen the ones who receive them.
The most impactful & meaningful way for Christians to heal the sinful divides in our society is through faithful, fruitful living. This is faith that others can taste. It is not tasted by explaining the grace of God to others, but by letting people experience the goodness of God through us.
It is not tasted through our warring against those we disagree with, but by being loving, just, humble, & forgiving; through this kind of faithful living by God’s people, the world will be able to “taste and see that the LORD is good.” (Psalm 34:8)   Standing up for what is right is important, but it is meaningless without right living. We are the branches of Jesus, the true Vine. God has created & cultivated the Church of Christ so that we might produce the good fruit of His will. He planted & cultivated you so that you might bear the fruit of His grace, mercy & forgiveness; applying it in the lives of those around you.
In a few minutes we will be invited to receive God’s grace & mercy applied to each of us in the bread & wine given as Christ’s very Body & Blood for the forgiveness of our sins.   Even those who come up simply to receive a blessing are being given the sure Word of God; the promise & assurance that through Christ you are forgiven.
In Him, you have the sure promise of redemption from death here on earth & eternal life in the world to come. This Gospel of peace applied to us in this service is for sharing with all people, every day, in your lives. It is to be shared in word & in deed. It is to be applied to those who call you friend & to those who see you as their enemy.
May God prune each of us   that you & I would produce His good fruit more abundantly in our lives. Through each of us, may people taste & see that the LORD is Good. In the name of Jesus Christ, the true vine. Amen.

Fruitful trees, the Spirit’s sowing, may we ripen & increase, fruit to life eternal growing, rich in love & joy & peace.    Laden branches freely bearing gifts the Giver loves to bless; here is fruit that grows by sharing, patience, kindness, gentleness.      Rooted deep in Christ our Master, Christ our pattern & our goal, teach us, as the years fly faster, goodness, faith & self-control.    Fruitful trees, the Spirit’s tending, may we grow till harvests cease; till we taste, in life unending, heaven’s love & joy & peace. Amen.   LSB 691.

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