Saturday, November 30, 2013

THANKSGIVING 2013 November 27-28, 2013 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Deuteronomy 8:10-18 “THE ACTS OF THANKSGIVING”


THANKSGIVING 2013
November 27-28, 2013
Pastor Timothy J. Spaude
Text: Deuteronomy 8:10-18

“THE ACTS OF THANKSGIVING”
1.     Acknowledge
2.     Confess
3.     Trust
4.     Serve

Deuteronomy 8:10-18 (NIV 1984) When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. 11Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." 18But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.”

          Either you are thankful or you are not. You can’t just tell someone, “Be thankful,” and they do it. We’ve all seen our own version of the little boy receiving a gift of underwear or socks he needed instead of the toy or game he wanted, hearing the adult say, “Say ‘Thank You’ for the socks,” and know that such thanksgiving is unmeant and meaningless. So is any forced thank you from us to God. Either you are thankful or you are not. Either you are among the group of people who can see that the list of blessings you enjoy from God far outweigh the in comparison challenges and struggles that you have or you aren’t. If you are not among that group of people who sees so many blessings from God then your presence at a Thanksgiving worship service is hypocritical and probably just done out of family obligation. God knows that and I urge you to repent while you can. I prefer however to believe that the people of God who take the time and make the time as a priority to give worship to God truly are thankful to Him, realize that their thankfulness year round isn’t what it should be and want to take this special time to say Thank You, God. With that in mind I offer to you the ACTS of Thanksgiving because thankfulness, like love, is an attitude that wants to be seen in action.
          Moses helps us to discover and put into place the ACTS of Thanksgiving. He spoke the words of our text to the people of Israel before they entered their new home in Canaan. He would not be able to go with them as a consequence of an earlier sin. He wanted the best for them while they lived there without him and so he warned them, You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." 18But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.” Here Moses points us to the first Act of Thanksgiving. The A stands for Acknowledge. To acknowledge means to admit to something and what we need to and want to admit to is that our gracious God is ultimate source of all of our blessings. Sometimes in Confirmation Class to help the students see this we ask them what they do when they are hungry, where do they get food from. “The Fridge!” Oh do you have a magic refrigerator that keeps itself full? No, our parents fill it. How? They go to the grocery store? Oh do grocery stores give food for free? Where do they get it from? You see where that goes. Food has to be produced and God is in charge of making things grow. Food has to be bought. God gives us abilities so we can have jobs that provide income. Acknowledge God in this process. Fill up your physical blessing box on the insert. Make them overflow and then praise the Lord for all those blessings.
          And do something else. “Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Here is another Act of Thanksgiving. The C stands for Confess. Moses reminded his people to be careful. He looked ahead to a time when the people would get so used to enjoying blessings that they would forget God and His goodness. Sadly that very thing happened. Sadly the same things happen with us. We want God’s blessings and get them and sometimes like 9 of the 10 lepers Jesus healed we forget to back and say Thank you. Let’s confess those sins, own up to our thoughtlessness toward God and in thankfulness for our forgiveness resolve to never do that again. Confession reminds us of spiritual blessings from God. He gave Jesus to be punished for ours sins and so we are not treated as the sinners we are. Each day we get a clean slate. Fill up the spiritual blessing box on your insert and see how it overflows with love, peace, mercy, grace and so many more.
          And seeing those blessings of the past leads us to the T of the ACTS of Thanksgiving.  “He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you.” The T stands for Trust. We show thankfulness to God by trusting Him for our future. Moses reminded his people how God led them and protected them on their journey through the desert. He called to mind the past ways God provided for their need with water from a rock and bread from heaven. God was teaching them to be God dependent in their daily living. Moses was teaching his people to look at past blessings to promote trust in the Lord for the future. A day like Thanksgiving gives us a chance to review the past to see how God has led our lives in the past year. Think! What desert did you walk through? What venomous snakes and scorpions were along your way? Yet here you are. How about God’s provision? Budgeting gurus will tell you that the average family should expect to spend about 32% of their income on housing, 14 % on food, 6 % on healthcare, 20% on transportation, 10% on insurances 5% on clothes and personal items, 10% on savings and for Christians we’d add 10% in thankofferings. Now if you add that up you’ve used 119% of your income. Doesn’t work.  But God does. So much for the experts! Somehow God got all of us through the desert and maybe life even looks a little more like the Promised Land. What about next year? Trust, trust the Lord’s provision as a way of thanking Him.
          And serve Him. That’s the S of the ACTS of Thanksgiving. They are many ways to thank someone. Can you think of any? You can say Thank You. That’s good. We are doing that with God right now. You can give a gift as a thank you. That’s the whole idea behind our regular Christian giving also known as our thankofferings. There is another way. You can live your thanksgiving. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.” Seeing God’s blessings we respond. We feel grateful. We love in return. Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments.” Brothers and sisters our willing obedience to God’s commands becomes then a most meaningful way to show thanks to God. And it’s a way we can show all year long.
Charles Dickens once said that we have things mixed up in America. He suggested that instead of having one Thanksgiving Day each year we should have 364. Use the one day for complaining and griping. Use the other 364 to thank God each day for the many blessings He has showered upon you. He’s close. Truthfully we don’t want to use even one day for griping and complaining. With how good God is to us let’s practice these ACTS of Thanksgiving all year long. Amen.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

November 23/24/25, 2013 Christ the King Sunday
Sermon by Pastor Paul Eckert
Sermon text - Colossians 1:9-20

    In our Gospel reading at the lectern before we heard about a scene
that appeared to be far from joyful.  Nor could the people be thankful
as they stood around the cross looking at Jesus.  And what about
Jesus?  He was in agony on that cross, agony beyond what we can
understand because He was loaded down with each and every one of
our sins and the world’s sins.  Joyful thanksgiving on Calvary?  It
would not seem so at all.
    How about us?  Will this coming Thursday be a joyful
Thanksgiving Day?  None of us will have the physical agony of being
on a cross.  But might we have some other problems, like some family
members missing from our Thanksgiving Day table whom we would
like to see with us, like heartaches we are dealing with, like financial
difficulties, like physical and health problems limiting us so that we
can’t do what we want to do?
    But even if we had all such situations and many more, the fact is
that we can - not only this coming Thursday - have joyful
thanksgiving.  Why?  First of all, because even such situations are
under the purpose and control of our heavenly Father.  But above all,
even if now we don’t understand the how or why in our lives, we still
can and should have joyful thanksgiving because of God’s Son who
didn’t look like a king on the cross, but who truly is Christ the King
who has a kingdom which He called Paradise. 
CHRIST THE KING AND JOYFUL THANKSGIVING
I    MARVEL AT WHO HE IS.  (15-20)
    1. Appearances can be deceiving.
        a) Could that possibly be a king one thief saw up on that cross?
        b) Listen to the description the Prophet Isaiah by inspiration gave
about Jesus many years before the crucifixion.  “He had no beauty or
majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we
should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man
of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.  Like one from whom men
hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
    2. But listen to this description of Jesus in our text.  (15-17)
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all
creation.  For by him all things were created: things in heaven and
on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers
or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is
before all things, and in him all things hold together. 
        a) That helpless appearing person on the cross was God’s eternal
Son!  He was before the beginning with the Father and the Spirit.  He
was involved in the creation of our world.
        b) Listen to what Scripture says about Him also in the opening
words of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in
the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him
nothing was made that has been made.”  This is the Word, Jesus,
who at the fullness of time was made flesh in Bethlehem.
    3. Look at His total supremacy.  (18)
And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning
and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he
might have the supremacy. 
        a)  Death stops everybody else.  But not Jesus.  He did not stay
dead in the tomb.  He arose from the dead!  He has supremacy.
        b) And He, no church official or other human being, is supreme
as the Head of the holy Christian church, all true believers.  And why?
    4. Look at what He did.   (19-20)
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and
through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on
earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood,
shed on the cross.
        a) Sin separated us from God and all of God’s eternal blessings.
        b) Jesus, God’s eternal Son, removed that curse of sin by
substituting for each and every one of us and with His innocence
atoning for us the guilty, reconciling us to God, making peace through
His blood shed on the cross.
        c) Yes, God’s eternal Son crucified for us, Christ the King, has
given us every reason for joyful thanksgiving.
II    BE FILLED WITH AND LIVE HIS WILL. (9-11a)
    1. We have His revealed will.  (9)
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not
stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the
knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and
understanding. 
        a) For this reason - We have been reconciled to God; we have
the knowledge of His will.  Many, if not most of us, have been blessed
to learn it from little on in our homes, to be filled with the knowledge
 of God’s will in our school, in our church services.  And nobody,
except maybe ourselves,  is keeping us from opening our Bibles at
home to continue being filled there with the knowledge of God’s will.
        b) Yes, let’s be joyfully thankful for having God’s revealed will.
    2. Our lives should make that evident.  (10a)
And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the
Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every
good work.
        a) Look at everything God has done for us, promising us finally
Paradise.  Surely we want to honor Him for that, have His approval.
.          b) But are we doing that by being misbehaving children of God?
Do we do that by despising His Word?  Is it by lives that have time for
everything, especially sitting in front of a television set, but not time for
regularly sitting in church to worship and hear from God?  Do we
consciously strive to live our Christian faith, to bear fruit in every good
work, to thank and please our King with lives following His will?
    3. We need to keep on growing in the Word.  (10b)
- bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of
God, - 
        a) After Sunday school, St. Jacobi grade school, confirmation
instructions and a confirmation ceremony, do we - or some of our
family members - stop growing in the knowledge of God?  Do we
gradually stop going to church?  Do we neglect the Lord’s Supper
which assures us that Jesus’ death is our forgiveness and life?  Do we
spend hours with texting and with earbuds for music and textbooks to
gain earthly knowledge for our jobs, but let our Bibles gather dust?
        b) Sad to say, that probably describes many.  We all are sinners. 
    4. Go to God’s knowledge to be strengthened.  (11a)
- being strengthened with all power according to his glorious
might so that you may have great endurance and patience, -
        a) Nobody says being a Christian will always be easy.
        b) But strength for endurance and patience for living a Christian
life will come from God and His Spirit’s working through the Word.
        c) So be filled with and live God’s will as we wait for Heaven.   
III  JOYFULLY GIVE THANKS FOR HIS KINGDOM. (11b-14)
    1. God’s kingdom is our inheritance.  (11b-12)
- joyfully  giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to
share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.     
        a) This inheritance of the saints, the Paradise Jesus referred to
from the cross, is not yet ours.  We aren’t there yet.
        b) But we are in God’s will, written with Jesus’ blood, that
promises us that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.
    2. God qualified us for this.  (11b-12)
- joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to
share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
         a) We sinners could never qualify ourselves.
        b) God did the qualifying, did everything necessary, including
giving us His Holy Spirit, so that our names could be written in the
book of life.
     3. He did that to rescue us.  (13)
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought
us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, -
        a) See the climax of  the rescue effort with Jesus’ innocent death
on the cross, a death that God used to cancel out the sins against us.
        b) That rescue from hell’s dominion, guaranteed by Jesus’
resurrection from the dead, promises us the kingdom of Christ our
King. 
    4. Give thanks for what this means. (13-14)
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought
us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have
redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
        a) Now we have redemption, the forgiveness of all of our sins.   
        b) Then, at the end of our journey time here on earth, we will
receive the inheritance God has promised.
        c) For that we surely want to bring our joyful thanksgiving.

    May this Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day be a good one for all of us.
But a far more important day is coming.  It is the end of our lives and
the end of this world.  What then?  Not what we deserve, but what
Jesus our Savior deserved for us with His life, death, and resurrection.  
    Knowing that, believing that, let every day be a joyful
thanksgiving day because of Christ our King who has promised us,
“You will be with me in Paradise.”

Monday, November 18, 2013

November 16-18, 2013 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17 “STAND FIRM!”


SAINTS TRIUMPHANT
November 16-18, 2013
Pastor Timothy J. Spaude
Text: 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17

“STAND FIRM!”
1.     God chose you.
2.     God encourages you.
3.     You’ll share in the glory of Jesus Christ!

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17 (NIV 1984) But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. 16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”

          I think I may regret doing this. I understand it is not a good idea to air your dirty laundry but it’s something we need to talk about. It’s my wife. Chris. She cheats! Here’s what she does. She doesn’t want to read a book unless it turns out the way she wants so she reads the last chapter first. She wants to know how the movie ends before watching the movie so she watches the ending before beginning. I guess that’s no big deal if she only does that for herself but I have to draw the line with the Packer games. We don’t like watching all the commercials so we usually record the game on DVR, start late, skip the commercials and half time and try to finish when the game normally ends. But you know what she does? We’ll be watching, it’s a close game at the point we are watching. All of the sudden she has to “go to the bathroom” or something, then she sneaks to another TV and checks the score real time! And when she comes back there’s no poker face. I can always tell how the game is going. All because she has to know how it’s going to end. Are you like that? Do you like to know how things are going to end before you start them? I kind of like the surprise for things that don’t really matter like books and movies and Packer games. But when it comes to what does matter it’s good to know how things will end. I guess maybe that’s why Saints Triumphant Sunday in the church year has always been one of my favorites. I like the readings. I like the hymns. But I especially like the message. We win! With Jesus we win. Saints Triumphant! All the Saints Triumphant have already won. One of them is the Apostle Paul. Through his words to the Thessalonian Christians we can hear this encouraging cry: STAND FIRM!
          The Thessalonian Christians needed that encouragement. One thing they were good at was expecting the end of the world, Jesus to come, at any moment. Something they were bad at was knowing how to live while they waited. Some of them stopped working and expected their church to take care of their needs. Some of them were growing tired of waiting and were kind of giving up. Most of them were going to start experiencing rough treatment for staying faithful to Jesus and His teachings. Kind of sounds like us a little doesn’t it? We believe Jesus will come at any time. We sometimes struggle with the right way to live while we wait. We can grow tired. We wonder where God is and why He is taking so long to come and help us. Kind of looks like the going is going to get a little rougher for Bible believing Christians in America. Hear the cry of those who made it, the Saints Triumphant, Stand Firm. Why?
          Because God chose you for this! But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 He called you to this through our gospel.” The Bible’s teaching on God’s choosing or election from the beginning of the world can cause us Christians confusion if we think too hard. It’s meant by God to give comfort and joy. God chose us. That we’ve heard the Gospel is proof. It calls us to believe the truth. It tells us we have purpose. Have you ever seen those science fiction movies where the world’s been destroyed and the survivors are trying to figure out what different things were used for? Or the Little Mermaid where Ariel has her gadgets and gizmos? We don’t have to wonder about or figure out our purpose. God chose us to be saved and to be living testimony to His truth. So Stand Firm in that truth. Why leave it behind for the empty promises of sinful pleasures, choosing to be lazy or sexually immoral or greedy. Stand firm because God chose you.
          Stand firm because God encourages you. “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” There are basically two ways to motivate people. You can use positive motivation or negative motivation. Negative motivation is when the football coach says, “You block that guy or I will kick you so hard you won’t sit down for a week!” Positive motivation is when the coach says “Way to go. Good job. That’s just what I wanted you to do.” Now let’s understand something here. God is God. He is just and holy and He has the right to do anything. He could, when we do wrong, kick us so hard we couldn’t sit down for a week and He has the right to do a whole lot worse than that. But He doesn’t. He encourages us. Look at the Sacraments. He wants us know we are His children, that we are able to live as his children, that He loves us dearly so He gives us our Baptism to be a daily encouragement. He wants us know we really are forgiven, to have something solid to chase our doubts away, to be positively encouraged to go out and fight again against the sinful desires that war within us so He gives us the Lord’s Supper for as often as we eat the bread and drink the wine. He gives us His Holy Word in the Bible with the power of the Holy Spirit in them to change us and build us up and lead us to lives of repentance. He gives us the church. You know God doesn’t need us here. If he wanted our pews to stay warm He can do that all on His own. No by providing a gathering place for believers He gives us a place where we can see we are not alone, that there are others with it and as long as we pastors don’t really blow it, you get to leave encouraged, encouraged to stand firm. “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” Make no mistake about it, the Devil is trying to get rid of Jesus. He wants Jesus out of our country, out of our world. With no Jesus there is no salvation. Just like with the Old Testament people of God and with the Thessalonian Christians we have been chose and encouraged by God to stand firm. To be the ones who hold on to the true Gospel no matter what and hold out the good news to others not matter what. Like them we get to serve as the honor guard for the word and all of its teachings. You may think that the battle is for Biblical marriage vs. gay marriage or the protection of life vs. the right to murder in abortion, but it’s really a battle against the devil’s attempts to get rid of Jesus and so we stand firm and we hold to the teachings passed down to us.
And as if the honor of doing that for the Lord isn’t enough listen to this! “He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” There are many parts of God’s Word that I’m just too feeble to grasp what it fully means. This is one of them. I could understand getting the crumbs of Jesus’ glory, or maybe the leftovers, but God says we will share, yes share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. How can this be? No matter. God says so. It is true. What an awesome future He has in store for us. Shall we give it up because the going is getting rough? Will turn away because it takes going through many tribulations to enter the kingdom of God? Is there any kind of sinful sex, booze or drugs that’s worth turning our backs on Jesus Christ? No way! So stand firm, hold to the teachings, hold to Jesus Christ.
And some day your name will be among those who were blessed to be transferred from the church militant (that’s us) to the Church Triumphant. Since our last Saints Triumphant the following have made it safely home: Robert Drews.  Lois  Guenther.  Earl King. Rhonda Kutz. John Martin. Audrey Matt. Leo Petersen. June Schaefer.  Jim Witt. Clarence A. Zastrow.  Now think of your moms and dads and grandpas and grandmas and whoever else made it. If they could they would look down to you today and join their voice to God’s in Scripture. All the Saints Triumphant cry. Stand firm! Amen.

Monday, November 11, 2013

November 10th, 2013

Jeremiah 26:1-6  Early in the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came from the Lord: “This is what the Lord says: Stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s house and speak to all the people of the towns of Judah who come to worship in the house of the Lord. Tell them everything I command you; do not omit a word. Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from their evil ways. Then I will relent and not inflict on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done. Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: If you do not listen to me and follow my law, which I have set before you, and if you do not listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I have sent to you again and again (though you have not listened), then I will make this house like Shiloh and this city a curse among all the nations of the earth.’”
WHO ARE YOU LISTENING TO?
I.                    Those who think the Lord will not judge?
II.                  The Lord who wants to forgive?
In the name of Jesus who is coming soon, dear fellow redeemed children of God,
     Just a few plays into last Monday night’s game and Packers fans were wincing.  Since that awkward fall of our quarterback’s shoulder, Packer fans have been listening- listening for any word about Aaron Rodgers’ injury.  We listened for reports from the sideline.  We listened to the coach after the game saying something without saying anything.  I even went to the extreme measure of listening to Chicago sports talk radio early on Tuesday morning where they said without qualification that the Green Bay quarterback had broken his collarbone which was interesting because they somehow had that news before anyone in Packerland.  We’ve been listening to “experts” speculating all week about how long Aaron Rodgers will be out.  Some say 3 weeks- other much longer.  It is hard to know who to listen to.  Who do we listen to about matters of heaven and hell and life and death?  That’s the question we ask ourselves today as we go through the Church Year Season of End Times on this Last Judgment Sunday.  WHO ARE YOU LISTENING TO?  I.   Those who think the Lord will not judge?  II.    The Lord who wants to forgive?
     Imagine having a “Brussels sprouts” stand right next to an ice cream cone stand sunny warm day.  You could call out,  “Brussels sprouts! Ice cold Brussels sprouts” all day long, but my guess is that most of the customers are going to be going next door to the ice cream store.  In Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s time, Jeremiah must have felt like he had the Brussels sprouts next to the stand that was giving away ice cream. He was offering God’s healthy spiritual food but nobody was listening.  Everybody was listening to the false prophets who were telling the people what they wanted to hear.
     That was really a symptom of the people God sent Jeremiah to serve.  Everyone was moving away from the true God.   Jeremiah served as a prophet for 42 years.  He was just a young whippersnapper when God called him.  In  fact when the Lord called him he complained that he was only a child.  God told him, “"Do not say, 'I am too young.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.   When Jeremiah went to the palace in Jerusalem the first time it was the home of good King Josiah and he was welcomed there.  Josiah was a God fearing King and had been working at pointing the people back to the true God for 13 years when Jeremiah came along.  God’s prophet and the king of God’s people were on the same page.  But then Josiah died.  All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for him.  Jeremiah wrote some funeral hymns. Josiah’s sons now walked up the steps of the palace.   It wasn’t like Father like son. Josiah listened to the word of the Lord.  His sons did not. Four evil kings followed.    The first son of Josiah lasted only three months.  He was wicked.  His brother took over and that’s when we hear, “Early in the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came from the Lord: “This is what the Lord says: Stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s house and speak to all the people of the towns of Judah who come to worship in the house of the Lord.  Tell them everything I command you; do not omit a word. Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from their evil ways”        
     Jeremiah spoke in the courtyard of the Lord where everyone could hear.   But more and more the people began to listen to the people who said what they wanted to hear-people who said that God would not judge.  One of those voices came from the king.  Once, years later,  Jehoikim the king was so upset with Jeremiah warning the people about God’s judgment of sin that he called for a scroll of God’s word to be a read and then “whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire.” 
          There were many other voices saying that the Lord would not judge-that he would let sin and wickedness pass.  In fact after Jeremiah said what the Lord told him to say we are told, “But as soon as Jeremiah finished telling all the people everything the Lord had commanded him to say, the priests, the prophets and all the people seized him and said, “You must die! Why do you prophesy in the Lord’s name that this house will be like Shiloh and this city will be desolate and deserted?” And all the people crowded around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.” 
     Are you feeling a little like Jeremiah in your life right now?  Do you feel there are fewer and fewer people in your life who are listening to the Word of the Lord? “ Do you feel like you are going out on a limb when you talk with family members or friends? Are there people in your life who are saying that the Lord will not judge?  Look around the world-listen to what they are saying.  Doesn’t it seem like many are saying, “Don’t judge me!”  I can do what I want.  It is true we don’t want to judge people with a holier than thou attitude or write people off on the basis of what they look or sound like.  But when God has clearly spoken then we have say what God says, “Tell them everything I command you; do not omit a word. Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from their evil ways.”    With Jeremiah I’m sure there was a temptation to pull some of the law “punches” of God’s Word.  How easy isn’t it for us to not speak all the words the Lord has spoken.  It’s easy to come up with excuses. “ Oh I’m too close to the situation” or “I don’t know the person well enough” or “he never listens to me anyway.”  When we don’t say anything don’t we become like the people who in Jeremiah’s day were saying that sin is OK -the Lord will not judge.    
        But what if we have been listening to those voices that the Lord will not judge in our own lives?  What if we have been thinking that our sin is OK because we have good reasons for it?  What if I’m the one grinding my teeth when I hear the word of the Lord?  God’s Word says, “Be not deceived, Gos is not mocked.”  We need to listen, “This is what the Lord says: If you do not listen to me and follow my law, which I have set before you, and if you do not listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I have sent to you again and again (though you have not listened), then I will make this house like Shiloh and this city a curse among all the nations of the earth.”   God’s judgment is coming for those who refuse to heed his call.  Shiloh had once been a busy worship and commerce center but now it was deserted.  Jeremiah’s message was that Jerusalem would be the same way if they refused to listen to God.  The truth is we deserve to be deserted too.
      But God sent one who was deserted for us.  He is the one to listen to.  He is the one who wants to forgive.
     Listen to His voice, “Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from their evil ways. Then I will relent and not inflict on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done.”  As one reads through Jeremiah sometimes a person might hear God talk and say “Bring the hammer down already!”  But God doesn’t want to bring the hammer down.  He says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked person should turn from his way and live.  Repent, repent of your evil ways!  Why will you die?”  The Lord doesn’t want to bring his judgment.    The Lord said it.  He sent the prophets again and again.  He sent His Son who would be Shiloh for us.  He was deserted for us.  Remember Jesus words from the cross?  “My God my God why have you forsaken me?”  He did that for us.  God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 

    I read a quote from movie actress Marilyn Monroe about listening at Hollywood parties.  “I've often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people.”    What she said is true.  Apart from God’s truth human beings become self-centered dull and little.   Who are you listening to?  Listening to those who say that the Lord will not bring judgment on sin will bring only desolation and disappointment.  Let’s listen to the voice of the one who loves us enough to die for us- the one who wants to forgive.  Amen

Monday, November 4, 2013

November 3rd, 2013 Reformation

God Is Our Refuge And Strength, A Very Present Help In Times Of Trouble.
Jeremiah 31:31-34
God Has Given You A Reformation Day Present
I.                   We Wrecked His First Present.
II.                God Gave Us A New Present With Jesus.
In the name of Jesus, God’s new covenant, dear fellow redeemed children of God,
     Did you spend quite a bit of time decorating Reformation Day cookies this week?  Did you make hot cider and sit in front of the Reformation Tree?  Make your own calligraphy copy of the 95 theses?  Or did you exchange names to exchange Reformation Day presents.    I’m guessing that you probably didn’t.  We didn’t at our house either.  But God got your name for Reformation Day and he gave you a present. It’s a present we celebrate not just on Reformation Day but everyday.   God has given you a Reformation Day present.  I.  We wrecked his first present.  II.  God gave us a new present with Jesus.
     I saw a picture this week with the title “determination.”  It was a picture of  a  tree but this tree was growing just on the lip of a steep cliff. There wasn’t much room to grow anymore. That’s a pretty good picture of what things were like in the Promised Land at the time of the Lord’s spokesman to His people, Jeremiah. The Civil War in Israel had already taken place. The Northern Kingdom had already been gobbled up by the Assyrian Army.  All that remained was the little area around Jerusalem. Sad to say, the wickedness and rebellion against God  that brought God’s judgment on the North remained too.  God had a sad message for His prophet Jeremiah to bring.  The sad song would remain the same because of the rebellion of God’s people-God’s judgment was coming. The prophet Jeremiah became known as the "weeping prophet."
     Like father like son, the people at Jeremiah's time were doing what their forefathers had done who also rejected the Lord despite the kindness God showed.   But along with the judgment there would be a present. "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
      Can you hear the disappointment in God’s voice?  Remember that God rescued the Children of Israel from their slavery in Egypt by forcing Pharoah to let Israel go. Remember how God protected his people from Pharaoh 's army by parting the water of the Red Sea,. Remember that when God gave his ten commandments from Mb. Sinai, the people all responded in one voice, "Everything the Lord has said, we will do." But before Moses had even cone down from the mountain with the tablets of stone, God's people were being unfaithful to him by worshipping the Golden Calf they had made. This whole sad story was played out again and again in Israel's history.  Like an unfaithful spouse, Israel's unfaithfulness to God caused problems, hurts and heartaches only God could ever mend.   Israel's unfaithfulness had ruined God's first covenant with his people.
     Unfortunately unfaithfulness runs in the human family.  Unfaithfulness to a loving God runs through my family history and my life history and in your family line and the record of your life.  We have shown ourselves to be just as unfaithful to God and His commandments as Israel was.   How do we get out of this mess?   We could not do a thing to get out of this mess.  But God did.  He got you a present.  It was a present bought and paid for long before the first reformation day.   We we're powerless to save ourselves. But God did it himself.  God replaced His Old Covenant of the Law with Jesus, the New Covenant.
       Let's take a look at God's new covenant. God told his people through Jeremiah, "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts." During the time of the worst of Israel's kings, the book of the Law was lost in the palace library and nobody knew where it was. God was going to be sure that that did not happen with his new covenant. God was going to write this new covenant, not in tablets of stone but rather in human hearts like yours and mine. Through the power His Word, the Holy Spirit imprints the message of the Gospel co our hearts.
      "I will be their God and they will be my people," Did you notice that the new covenant which God set up was a covenant where he does all the work.? God did not say," I will be their God if they will be my people." God said, "I will be their God and they will be my people." God replaced the Old Covenant of the Law with Jesus. Under the new covenant or agreement, God sent Jesus to do what we could not do. Jesus came to live a perfect life and die a perfect death as the substitute for the whole world.  Jesus is the one who brings healing for sin.   In South Africa there is a new orphanage for baby rhinos.  Hundreds of little rhino calves have been brought there stilling calling out for their mothers after their mothers were killed by poachers.  The poachers hunt down the rhino parents to kill them and cut off their horns.  Rhino horn is thought to have healing powers and is sold for much more than gold on the black market.  Through the years there have been poachers in the church.  Some have made up their own way of getting right with God.  Others have been trying to buy and sell God’s forgiveness.  Add to that,  the time of the reformation, it was thought that the details of God’s forgiveness were to be handed out by only a select few who were members of the clergy.  But one of the reasons we celebrate the reformation is that God made it possible for you and me to hear and read the details of God’s plan and promise- that Jesus died and rose for you and me and now out of thankfulness we  let that truth shine forth in their lives.  "No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.”
     I remember a man who belonged to the congregation I served in Michigan.  His name was Steve. He always said he was a shirt-tale relative of President Reagan.  He told me one time that he like to come to church on reformation day because he said that he felt like Reformation Day was a “Bash the Catholics Day.”  Maybe I didn’t always do a good job of pointing to God’s grace while pointing our false teachers and false teachings. He didn’t see the joy that God gave him and us a present.  In His grace, God made sure that a sinful flesh and blood monk in Germany had a front row seat with unobstructed view to see that gift in Jesus Christ.  We thank God that by His grace he has given sinners like us a front row seat in his word and cleared away the obstructions to show us Jesus, the only way to heaven.   
     We pray that God will continue to give us a view of the present he gave us in Christ Jesus.  It is a present that we don't ever have worry about God taking back or  renegotiating this new covenant.  It is a covenant which stands forever by which as Luther says "God daily and fully forgives all sins to me and all believers. Amen.