Reformation - E - 2011 - Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Christ Alone

Reformation Sunday Joint Service 9:00 am

10/30/2011

46

Revelation 14:6-7

Romans 3:19-28

Matthew 11:12-19

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.  Our text today is the Epistle lesson just read, especially these words, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.”  Thus far our text. 

Dear friends in Christ.  Our world is a world of law.  Everywhere we turn, there are laws that govern our lives.  If we want to receive a paycheck, we had better go to work.  If we want to avoid speeding tickets, we better go the speed limit.  We spend millions of dollars every year in elections to determine who will write our laws, and who will not.  Laws make us pay taxes, help us build roads, help us stop crime and more.  Laws are everywhere. 

But these laws, are merely human laws.  They can change at almost any time.  And these laws are ones that most of us don’t worry about too terribly much.  We know we shouldn’t speed, but we do anyways.  We know it is illegal to not pay our taxes, but we only worry about that every April.  Most of the time, we just live our lives without any fear of worldly laws.

But there is another set of laws, a set of laws that we must obey, a set of laws that are always around us, a set of laws that always displays its terrible consequences.  These laws are God’s laws, laws that we are expected to keep perfectly, laws that tell us how we ought to live our lives – in love towards God and neighbor.  These laws of God are demanding and difficult, for if we disobey them, we receive the just punishment of death. 

But we don’t obey God’s law do we?  We don’t even come close, for obedience involves perfection, something none of us, not a one, can fulfill.  For, hear again the words of our Epistle lesson today, “no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law”  No one will obey God’s law, for they can’t.  No one will perfectly love God, for they are sinners.  No one will care about all their neighbors, for they are too selfish.  Yes friends, even me, EVEN YOU, “sin and fall short of the glory of God.”

Look at your life, look at your hate, your anger, your shortcomings, your selfish deeds, your pride and false piety.  You too have sinned.  You too have fallen short of God’s glory.  You have become a slave to a law that you just cannot fulfill.  And to be honest, we don’t always want to fulfill God’s law, we don’t want to always obey what God teaches, because frankly sometimes the sinners are just more fun. 

The problem is that all these laws of God we break, all these sins we commit, all this sin does lead to suffering for us.  We have friends and family who are sick and dying.  We have people who we will no longer speak to because we are angry.  People call us names behind our back and we return the favor.  We sin daily.  We are sinful to our very core, there is no good left inside of us.

And God is a just judge.  Just as if we broke the speed limit enough times or stole a car from someone we would go to trial and be found guilty, so too does God judge us.  He looks at our care for others and say, you have fallen short.  He looks at the acts we do alone in the privacy of our homes, and says you are guilty.  He tells us that we have not lived up to his perfect expectations, and so we deserve the just punishment for those sins.  We deserve death.  We deserve an end.  We deserve what we fear in our lives.  Sickness and punishment, for we have turned against the God who gave us all that we have.

And yet, we hear in our text today, that not only have all fallen short of God’s glory, but that we have also been justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ.  In other words, though you are guilty, God declares you innocent because of Jesus.  Instead of us standing before our God and Judge as guilty sinners, we stand before him in the Righteousness of Christ.  It is that righteousness that has won us away from our sin, won us away from death, and now gives us eternal life.  It is that righteousness that was given to us as Jesus hung on a cross, suffering and dying for the very sin that we committed.  And so when God looks at you he doesn’t see you sin, he sees Christ’s forgiveness, Christ’s blood, Christ’s holiness. 

For God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.  In that we are made God’s children. 

Today we celebrate that hope and good news.  Today we remember that it is our faith that looks to Jesus that saves us, that we are justified or declared innocent by his grace.  Reformation Day is all about that message, of remembering that Jesus face God’s wrath so that we might not have to.  Reformation day is about boldly declaring that I cannot by my own reason or sense come to Jesus my Lord, but that he has called me by the Gospel, the good news that he took away my sin on the cross, so that I may be his own and live under him in his kingdom.  Reformation day celebrates the fact that because of Jesus, your are free.  Because of Jesus, you may enter heaven.  Because of Jesus you are saved. 

By Grace alone, through faith alone, have you been saved.  And these through Jesus alone.  In Him, you have your salvation.  Amen.  

Proper 25 - G - 2011 - The Law of Love

Pentecost 19/Proper 25

10/23/2011

1

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18

1 Thess. 2:1-13

Matthew 22:34-46

Grace, Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text today is the Gospel lesson that was just read, especially these words, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And the second is like it:  You shall love you neighbor as yourself.”  Thus far our text.

Dear friends in Christ.  In our text today, Jesus tells us how we might fulfill the law, and the answer he gives us is love.  Love God with all your heart your soul and your mind.  Love your neighbor as you love even your own self.  If you do these things, you will fulfill God’s law, and fulfill it perfectly. 

It sounds easy doesn’t it?  And it is what we want to do in our lives too right?  I can do what God wants.  I can love the people who are around me, and I certainly can love God.  How hard could it be?  But the truth is, it is hard.  The truth is we can’t and don’t want to fulfill this law of love that Jesus speaks of in our text today.  We don’t love the people that are around us, and we don’t really love our God either.

Love is defined as a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.  To love our neighbor we need to feel tender compassion for them, we need to have affection from them.  But instead we don’t even like being around the people we know best.  We have fighting and bickering in our families.  Neighbors yell at neighbors for silly things like the way they keep up their yard or the loud noise that is made at what I deem to be too late a time.  We scornfully talk about the problems that other people are having in their day to day lives openly, not affectionately.  We gossip about people, we tell lies about people, and worst of all we work to always put other people down, and to put ourselves in the advantaged position. 

We like putting others down don’t we?  We like to put others down, because then we feel better about ourselves.  But friends, this is not love for our neighbor.  This is not what Jesus has in mind in our text.  This is the opposite.  Instead we love our neighbors less than we love ourselves.  Much less.  And friends, according to Jesus, this is the second most important law in scripture, the most important is to love God with all our hearth, all our soul, and all our mind. 

And this first important law is even harder than the first.  It is hard for us to be affectionate towards a God that we really can’t see.  It is hard to care about a God who sometimes seems to let all sorts of trouble befall us.  We struggle with sickness and disease, and we wonder, are you there Lord?  Are you taking care of us?  We have friends and family that we actually love the most die, and we get angry at God for allowing them to leave.  We find all sorts of other things to do on a Sunday morning, during Bible Study, during voter’s meetings, during any church event. 

This is not love for God with all our heart and minds.  Once again, this is love for our self.  Imagine you were in God’s shoes, and people were telling you the excuses that we tell God.  “I have a hair appointment, and can’t make it on Sunday.  I can’t hang out with you, because I am extra tired this morning.  I have a little too much on my plate now Lord.  How about later?”  We don’t like being friends with people who always have excuses, why should God be any different?

But friends, God is different.  He does things differently than we can possibly imagine.  Instead of staying angry with us for our own self-centeredness, he forgives us and loves us the very way that he would have us love him.  He loves each one of you, more than he loves himself.  If you doubt it, look at what He did for you. 

He left heaven behind for you.  There is no better place than heaven, and Jesus gave it up to come to this crummy little sinful world because he loves you.  He lived a life here, showing care and compassion for the people who were around him.  He came for the purpose of dying on an old rugged cross for your sins, for your unlove, for your guilt.  He came and died because he loved you.  And because he loved you so much, he forgave you with his own blood.

Scripture is clear friends, “No greater love is there than this, that one give up his life for his friends.”  And that is exactly what Jesus did for you.  He bought you, because he loves you, “not with Gold or Silver, but with his holy innocent suffering and death, so that you might be his own, and live under him in his kingdom.  And in loving you, he fulfilled the most important law.  He loved his neighbors, and He loved his God. 

Now friends, we are called to love the people around us, and our God.  We show compassion on the people we run into every day.  We care about the person who is struggling, we care about the person who can’t put food on the table. We give of our time and talents to take care of people.  We do all this, because it is precisely what Christ has done for us.  He loved us, and so we too love. 

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Its what Jesus has done for you.  Its what we do as Christians because of Jesus.  Amen.  

LWML Sunday 2011

LWML Sunday 

Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our texts for today, LWML Sunday, are the ones just read. 

Dear friends in Christ.  The story is told of the young pastor, fresh out of the seminary, who has it all figured out.  He knows the answers to any question he is asked.  He knew the confession, he knew the bible, he knew why we do what we do.  He had it figured out.  Or at least he did until he arrived at his first parish.  There, he realized that his education hadn’t been as complete as he thought it had been.  Going to his first winkle, he asked the other pastors in the area how he the church worked, how he could actually get things done.  One of the other pastors, wise beyond his years, looked at him, and plainly said, “have you asked the LWML?”

You see, nowhere are there ladies more willing to work.  The LWML is always ready to serve, and to provide for those who are around it.  If a church needs to raise money to paint the church, the LWML can raise it.  If the LWML wants to increase bible study attendance, the pastor best order more chairs.  The LWML gets done what it needs to, all the while pointing not to themselves, but to the basis for our faith, Jesus Christ Crucified.

It is a message that needs to be spread throughout the world, it is a message that people need to hear and believe.  For this world is one that is in need of a kind word.  It is a world that is in need of a helping hand.  For this world is full of the darkest of sin.  It is a world where God is not revered, but spat upon.  It is a world that thinks the message of Jesus Christ is foolish.  It is a world where those who believe in Jesus are scorned, threatened, persecuted, and killed.  It is a world hostile to God.

It really isn’t a surprise is it?  We aren’t shocked that the world reacts that way to us, for we know how we sometimes react to the message of Christ.  How we too sometimes have our doubts, how we choose which parts of God’s word we should obey and which parts we should ignore.  We too are sinners, guilty, miserable, destined for death. 

And so this world which we so want to be wonderful, instead is difficult.  Instead of a lifetime of joys and happiness, we have pain and sorrow.  This world is corrupted by sin to the core, and so are we who live in it.

But we know that is not the end for us.  We know that there is a solution beyond all this sin.  A solution on which we keep our eyes firmly affixed.  A solution that promises life in the face of death, hope in despair, and peace in chaos.  We have a solution in the person of Jesus Christ.  He who loved us so much that he came to this sin filled world to die for that sin.  He came in human flesh to live with us in our sinful life.  The punishment that brought us peace, we upon him. 

For he went to the cross.  He had his hands and feet nailed to a tree.  He was pierced with a spear, he gave up his spirit so that you might belong to him forever and ever. 

And ever since Jesus died, and then rose again on the third day, people have faithfully witnessed this message.  It is on the shoulders of faithful witnesses that our church exists.  WE all heard about the faith from our parents, who heard it from their parents and on back thousands of years.  Our texts today speak of faithful witness, Witness by Moses, witness by John and Peter, witness that tells us the Gospel message.

That witness goes on still today.  It goes on, as the LWML faithful serves our congregations.  As they give of themselves to bring the message of life to those in a hurting world. It goes on, as they give millions of dollars every year to organizations within the church allowing them to function and serve.  The LWML faithfully witnesses to Jesus.  And friends so too do you.  You witness as you help your neighbor, as you smile at people on the street, as you care about someone besides yourself. 

In all of these things, Jesus is proclaimed, in all of these things we tell of Jesus to the world.  “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, Jesus says, “the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, ⁹but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.”

Dear friends, we are God’s witnesses telling any and all who would listen, the wonderful blood-bought truth which saves:  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed.  Amen.