August Newsletter

One of the biggest differences between Bible-believing Lutheran Christianity and the rest of Christianity is our teachings on good works, and why they’re done. 

For many Christian denominations (most of them, in fact), good works are a requirement:  you must do them if you want to earn or achieve a place in heaven.  Heaven then is up to you.  You must pray hard enough, you must care for the poor and the sick you must give a certain amount to the church, you must invite Jesus into your heart, etc. because those are all good works.  All these good works throughout your life add up.  If, upon your death, the number of good works you’ve done have passed a certain threshold, then you get to go to heaven.  If they haven’t, then something else will happen, perhaps a purging away of sin, or even worse, the eternal punishment of hell. 

This idea is common in our world, but never found in Scripture!  Really, if we understand good works in this way, they are really rather self-serving.  It would be like this, “I’m caring for you while you’re sick so that I can get myself into heaven (not because I actually care about you or your problems).” 

Good works don’t save us.  In fact, Scripture says the exact opposite.  St. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works.”  In other words, it is God’s good works that save you.  The good work that saves us is nothing other than the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf.  Jesus bled and died as a good work for you. 

It is Jesus’ good works, not yours, that save you. 

So what does that mean for us?  If we don’t need to do good works to please God or earn our salvation, why should we do them at all?  Why don’t we just take care of ourselves?  Why don’t we just work for our own good?  Let’s live for ourselves and our own desires. 

Except for one thing:  good works are necessary – not to serve God but to serve your neighbor.  You do good works to care for the people around you.

God allows some to be sick so that others might do the good work of caring for them. God allows us to grow old so that the younger generation might care for them.  (As an aside, when we are the one who needs the caring, we are also learning that we must rely only on the grace and mercy of Christ and others, but that’s another topic.) In all of these things God is teaching us what it means to live as a Christian, following in the path of Jesus. 

Paul writes to Timothy that God “who has saved us and called us to a holy life-- not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.”  Did you see what he says?  God calls us to a holy life (of good works) because of the grace of Jesus.

We do these good works in our everyday lives in something we call vocation.  Vocations are the jobs we have in relation to our neighbor.  For example, I am a father to my children, a husband to my wife, a pastor to you, and son to my parents.  We all have jobs in relation to our “neighbors” (those closest to us).  We have special duties in all these jobs.  We change diapers for our children – and God sees that as a good work.  We mow the lawn – and God sees that as a good work also.  In fact, everything we do in these various jobs is a good work in God’s eyes when we do it – not because we are so great and good, but because we do them in faith trusting in God’s word and mercy. 

In the Small Catechism, there is a chart that explains many of these vocational duties that we have.  It’s called the “Table of Duties.”  I’d encourage you to take a look at it.  When you do those things in faith, it is pleasing to God, not because you are earning your way to heaven, but instead because you are showing God’s love to your neighbor. 

There’s much more I could say, and perhaps we should have a study on this topic, but I’m going to bring it to a close, because right now I need to spend a bit of time fulfilling my vocation as a father and spend some time with the kiddos.  

Proper 12 - G - 2014 - A Purchased Prized Possession

The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

July 27, 2014- Pastor Adam Moline

Deuteronomy 7:6-9        Romans 8:28-39          Matthew 13:44-52

Hymns LSB 765, 746, 554  Communion LSB  728

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.  Our text today is from the Gospel lesson just read, especially these words, He “went and sold all that he had and bought it.”  Thus far our text for today. 

Dear friends in Christ.  Three parables in our text for today.  The first says that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, buried in a field.  A man, upon finding that treasure, sells all that he has so that he has money to buy that field, and keep it for himself.  The second is the same scenario, only with a pearl of great price.  Again, upon finding it, the man sells all that he has to keep the pearl for himself.  Finally, a net full of fish, and men collecting the good fish and throwing away the bad.  Thus, in three one sentence parables, Jesus reveals to us a great mystery about the kingdom of God. 

But what is that mystery?  What does this mean?  What kernel of theological value can we take from these parables?

At first glance it seems simple – Its up to us to find God’s kingdom, wherever it is that God has hidden it.  Its our job to find that treasure, buried somewhere beneath our noses.  And when we find it, finally, we ought to give all we’ve got to it!  We ought work, work, work, to please God.  We need to obey whatever he says, we need to throw out the bad things in our life, and leave only the good.  Because if we don’t we’ve neglected the kingdom, we’ve left it to the swine of this world, and we can’t have that!  So we need to pray harder, sing louder, and be more worthy of God than anyone else. 

And when we believe this to be our duty – to find and earn God’s kingdom, we have no choice but to lie to ourselves, to tell ourselves that we are more deserving than others, that we are a little bit holier than others.  To deny that there is as much sin in us as in our neighbor who hasn’t found that treasure yet.  Oh yes, we are very pious and pray that they might find it soon, so that they might be as worthy as we are, but we know that at this time, we’re atleast a little better than those others. 

Do you see the problem with this interpretation of the text?  It makes this beautiful gospel lesson all law.  “You must find God’s kingdom!”  “You must be worthy!”  “You must throw out the bad things in your life, and only do good!”  In other words, the parable is all about you, you, you!

Dear friends, are we really so egocentric as to think its our responsibility to find God’s kingdom?  Are we really so self-righteous as to think we are even capable of living a good life, and pleasing God.  Look at the reality of your life.  If you cut away the excuses and the baloney that you tell yourself, the truth is you are so terribly sinful that it is impossible for you to please God.  Despite what we tell ourselves, God is not pleased with our excuses to sin.  He is not happy when we break his law or throw out his word. 

We will not by our own ability find the treasure of the kingdom of God, or the pearl of Great price.  We even confess in the catechism that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus or come to him.  If its up to us, and our goodness to find God, we will fail, and spend eternity in the punishment of hell where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

And thank goodness, that’s really not what the parable is about. 

In fact it is the other way around completely.  Dear friend, you are the pearl of great price, and it is Jesus who finds you.  He loves you, he cares for you, he wants to be with you forever in the joys of heaven.  And so he gives up all that he has to purchase and win us. 

It’s the same with the treasure, you are God’s treasure, as it says in our Old Testament lesson.  “You are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. ⁷ It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, ⁸ but it is because the Lord loves you.”

And this is God’s love for you, not to throw you out or forget about you because of your sin.  But rather to purchase and win you through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Though you may be buried in the sin of this world, Jesus gives up all to make you his.  You are more precious than any pearl, so precious that God is willing to spend his own life in Jesus to make you his. 

And it is precisely because of that fact, dear friends, that you have the promise of eternal life.  It is because God loves you so much that you have hope for tomorrow, and even for ever more.  It is because Jesus suffered, bled and died for you that you can be absolutely and completely certain that your sins are forgiven.  All of them, every last one of them. 

And because God’s love for you is so great, because you are the great treasure and the pearl of great price, because you are the good fish Jesus has caught in the net, there is nothing in the world that will take you out of his hand.  As it is written in our epistle lesson.  We are “sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  You are God’s prized possession. 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.  

Proper 10 - E - 2014 - Fleshly Sin and Spiritual Life

The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

July 6, 2014- Pastor Adam Moline

Isaiah 55:10-13           Romans 8:12-17          Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Hymns LSB 686, 594, 790 Communion LSB  662

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Our text today comes from the Epistle reading, especially these words written by St. Paul.  “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the actions of the body, you yourselves will live.”  Thus far our text today. 

Dear friends in Christ.  Our text today really has to be fit into the context of what has come right before it.  Paul cuts right to the chase, several times, with these words, “those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh,” not on God.  .  And “to set the mind on the flesh is death.  For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”  And finally, the first part of our text today, “If you live according to the flesh, you will die.” 

We hear these words, and we let them just pass through our brains, as if they don’t really matter, as if they don’t apply to us.  As if we are spiritual and holy people, and its everyone else who is fleshly and sinful.  We condemn all those around us and feign innocence. 

But innocent we are not. 

We, each one of us, so often live according to our flesh, and not according to God.  We, yes you, want what is best for you in this world.  You want what serves you most at this time, at this place.  You at times, are not concerned with eternity, but only with the here and the now.  We are fleshly, according to Paul’s thinking, because we care about ourselves so very much. 

Paul, in chapter one of Romans, describes what sorts of fleshly debauchery we fall into.  He writes, that we are “filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.  We are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.  We are gossips, slanderers, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”

Those things, dear friends do describe us, faithful, church attending Christians, just as well as they describe those who haven’t darkened the door of our building in many years.  We Christians are not better than those whom we so often judge.  We are just as guilty, just as sinful, and live in fleshly thinking just as much as any other person on this earth.  We live according to our flesh, our own wants, and our own desires.  So hear again the Words of St. Paul, in our text “If you live according to the flesh, you will die,” and know that those words apply to you, dear friends, just as much as to any other.    

But, Paul also writes in the very first part of Romans chapter 8, “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” “For you have been set free from sin and death.”  How?  Not by your doing, not by your holiness of life, for as St. Paul wrote, you are incapable of keeping God’s law.  No, you are set free from sin, you are released from condemnation by the work of Jesus Christ on your behalf.  He lived the life apart from sin.  He lived perfectly, and wonderfully.  He went to the cross to suffer the death fleshly sin deserves.  He died, and was buried, all in your place and for your sin. 

Jesus paid your sentence.  Though you had earned death, Jesus suffered it, in your place.  He took your punishment upon himself, your guilt into his own body.  For your “Fleshly” living, your sinful living that is, he died. 

And in his death, God the father adopted you as his child!  It says so in the text.  You have received the spirit of adoption as sons and daughters, so that when you speak and pray to God you may call him, “Abba!” “Father,” Dad, if you will.  We use those very words in the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven.”  Trusting that He is our true father, and that we are his true children, so that boldly we can ask him to love and care for us in this world and forever more.  And as we ask him, we know that he will. 

We are adopted children of God in the blood and death of Jesus.  We receive that adoption in water and the word, in baptism in to the name of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  In that one act, our fleshly nature begins its death throws, and our spiritual life begins – the spiritual life that will never end.  You are an heir of the spiritual blessings of God.  His own child, we gladly say it now, and even forevermore.  We are forgiven, and we live, all because of Jesus, who has adopted us as heirs.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.  

Proper 9 - E - 2014 - Sinner Saints

The Fourth Sunday After Pentecost

July 6, 2014- Pastor Adam Moline

Zechariah 9:9-12         Romans 7:14-25a        Matthew 11:25-30

Hymns LSB 707, 684, 752 Communion LSB 662, 965, 717, 718

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, “I do not understand my own actions.”  Thus far our text today. 

Dear friends in Christ.  St. Paul, the great apostle and follower of Jesus, who even was beheaded for his faith by the Emperor Nero in the late 60’s AD, makes a bold confession in our text today.  “Wretched man that I am,” he says, “Who can save me from this body of sin?”  It is a good question isn’t it?  And it needs to be a question that we ask all the time, because, dear friends, we too are wretched with sin. 

Yes, you.  You are wretchedly full of terrible, horrible sin.  It infects you, and every person in Hankinson to their very core.  Its within you, in your selfish wants and desires.  It shows its ugly head when you hurt your neighbor because you are more concerned about yourself.  You’ve not loved your neighbor who is on the street suffering and hurting.  You’ve failed to give compassion to everyone in every place that needed it. 

You’re wretched in sin so that you’ve driven past cars stalled on the side of the road because you’ve been late.  You’ve honked at cars that you’ve felt weren’t driving the right way as it if was your job to police them – and then a few moments later you’ve sped off as if speed limits don’t apply to you. 

You’ve become wretched in sin.  So wretched that you would rather watch filthy reality T.V. shows that read your bible for five minutes.  You’d rather go out fishing that come in to church on a nice Sunday morning – and what’s worse, when you do so, you justify yourself by saying ridiculous things like “Well God’s in nature so its ok for me to spend time here instead of where His word is proclaimed for my salvation.” 

You’re wretched in sin, so much so that you do things even when you know they are wrong, even when you know that they are wrong.  You continue in sin as if it doesn’t really matter.  You keep on in wretched things, because you enjoy them.  You act as if you don’t know they’re wrong.  You get angry when someone else tells you that the things you’ve done are sinful, to the point where you begin to judge the other person, comparing your sin with theirs, and deciding that theirs is worse than yours – which is in fact a lie. 

Yes, because all are wretched.  Even the person who seems the most holy outwardly is a terrible rotten sinner inside.  All of sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God.  All have failed in their thoughts words and deeds.  It’s the truth – each one of you is wretched. 

So what should you do?  Resolve today to change your sinful life?  To no longer sin?  To only be holy and gracious?  To do what is right in all times and all places?  Go ahead and try – you will fail.  Your sin is not a decision – it is a reality that is beyond your comprehension.  And since it is not your decision to be infected with sin, it is not your decision to be rescued from it, but it is only God’s grace that can take it away.  You do not do the good you want to do, but instead you do the very things you hate.  Wretched people that you are, who will save you from this body of sin?

The answer comes from the very Word of God.  While you were still a sinner, God saved you, not by righteous things that you have done, but instead by the washing of Water and the Word, so that being justified by his grace, we might heirs of the hope of eternal life.  Yes, in baptism your sinful self was drowned and died.  In baptism, all the wretchedness that infected you was killed.  It was destroyed along with death and the devil in baptism.  You poor miserable sinner became a holy blessed child of God.

Its true.  When you were baptized you died with Jesus, and your sin died with you.  You became a participant in Jesus death.  You died when water was poured on your head in the name of the only true God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  You were dead in a tomb with Jesus, and as Jesus rose from the dead victoriously sin free, so too did you.  And because Jesus rose, so too do you rise.  Wretched man that you are, Jesus died and rose to rescue you!

We watched it happen this morning.  A tiny baby, already sinful by nature, came to the font, and with the power of the Word in and with the water was made righteous in God’s sight.  All the sin that the baby had already committed was taken away.  All the sin that the baby would commit was already forgiven.  The baby was already promised eternal life.  The baby was made well in the blood of Jesus. 

And the same happened to you, a forgiven wretched sinner.  Yes, your sin was made well, by the water of baptism that connects you to Jesus.  Your sin, all of it, has been paid for, forevermore.  You are free from the bounds of sin.  You are God’s own Holy Child. 

That doesn’t mean sin won’t be apart of your life.  You will still sin.  You are still wretched for as long as you are in this world.  Its reality.  But at the same time you deal with your sin in this world, you are a forgiven wretch.  You are sinner and saint.  You are guilty and not guilty.  And you will be that way until finally your sinful nature dies for good at the end of your earthly life, when all that will be left is your new, forgiven, perfect and holy for Jesus sake self.  Then the reality of your baptism will be made complete – you will be forgiven and with God, even forever more. 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.