2-9-2015

Good Morning All,

         Luke 24: 5-6a; “And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”

    While the battle of Waterloo was fought between Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington in 1815, the people of England waited for news of the outcome. Messages were sent by means of flag signals. One of the stations was the tower of the Winchester Cathedral. Late in the day, a signal was flashed from the tower that spelled out “Wellington defeated . . .” and then a thick fog covered the tower so that nothing else was seen. The message spread throughout the city that Wellington had lost the battle. There was gloom and despair. Suddenly the cloud of fog lifted and the remainder of the message could be read—”Wellington defeated the enemy!” Sorrow immediately turned to joy, defeat to victory, despair to rejoicing.

     What a difference the whole message gives.  When you stop half way through it we see only sorrow and pain.  The same is true of our faith life.  Too often, we stop at half of the message.  Too often we focus on “Jesus died.”  We see it all over, “Jesus died for you.”  That is our message.  We use it to comfort those who are hurting.  We tell them that Jesus died for you and then we wonder why they don’t get a lot of comfort from that fact; Jesus died for you.  Perhaps it is a sense of guilt.  We spend a lot of time looking at the suffering, the pain and the death of Jesus.  It is hard to be a joyful Christian when you focus on “Jesus died.”

    But just like the story of Wellington, don’t stop in the middle.  Use the whole message.  “Jesus died and rose for you.”   Yes, it is true that Jesus died but that was only the beginning of the event in which death, the devil and sin was defeated.  Jesus died; his body ceased to function but it knew no decay or corruption; it was waiting for the final step.  It was waiting for Christ to rise up victorious.  In his victory over death, he gives us victory as well.  Our enemies of sin, death and the devil are defeated as well.  We have the victory; we have begun the healing.  We have God’s incredible love giving us all that we need.

    The devil and sin will continue to snarl and attack.  They will continue to cause us guilt and pain but they will not be victorious.  We know that we are more than conquerors!  We have God’s promise of life eternal.  We have his promise of comfort.  We have his promise for reconciliation and we can use this to reach out to our brothers and sisters.  God gives us the chance to heal the splits and chasms that exist between our neighbors and us.  It is his total message of good news; “Jesus died and rose again” that gives us the victory.

Father, we give you thanks for the victory that we have through Jesus.  We give you thanks that we can live a life full of joy because of your great love and mercy.  Guide us to share this message with those around us especially those who are in most need of your freeing message of grace.  Lead us to be shining lights in this world.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

2-8-2015

Good Morning All,

         Ephesians 2:14; “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility”

     For many people, working with or spending time with someone who is different than you are is difficult.  We see it when immigrants try to settle into a neighborhood.  Our first reaction is often “there goes the neighborhood.”  In the sporting news this past week, there has been a lot of talk about a professional basketball player who was fined for criticizing a referee.  The referee is one of the very few women to referee professional basketball.  They are trying to decide if it is a sexist comment, a racist comment or if it is just a ballplayer complaining about a foul that was called. 

    We look for lots of ways to place people into categories.  We use age, sex, skin color, wealth, height, weight, level of education, national origin, and religion, just to name a few.  We can pigeonhole and divide a whole roomful of people into a whole lot of groups, sub- groups and sub-sub-groups.  We can have balding, overweight, myopic, left handers in this corner.  We can have poor, skinny, old men who worship trees in that corner.  We tend to look for the differences that we can use to divide and separate us.  Even if we have nothing in our history that causes us to think we are right.

    But God has intervened in Christ.  He has reconciled us to Himself, breaking down “the dividing wall of hostility.”  He has opened the path to rapprochement.  He has taught us and shows us the beauty of atonement of being “at-one-ment” with God.  God is at one with us because of Christ.  Our alienation is removed.  We are at one with our heavenly Father, we are united with God.  This is what Jesus brought about by his death and resurrection; we have unity with God.  We are one with God through faith in Christ.  We are no longer separated, the division is healed.  We are reconciled.  Our God, Immanuel, comes to be with us, to dwell with us, to make his home with us and in us.

    Now that we are reconciled with God, the path is clear for us to be reconciled with one another.  Paul points this out in the next verse after ours, in verse 15 Paul writes, “His purpose was to create in Himself one man out of the two (Jew and Gentile), thus making peace.  There is no distinction in God’s eye, we are all the same.  Through faith in Christ, we are one.

   So those differences should be celebrated as part of the joy of diversity.  They are ways to bring new thoughts and ideas to old problems.  We are reconciled to God so we can be reconciled to one another.  We are free to see our diversity not as a source of division but rather as a source of delight.

Heavenly Father, you reconciled us to you so that we would have the path to reconcile with one another.  Give us the strength to heal the wounds between our brothers.  Help us to provide the balm to the wounds that exist.  Guide us by your Spirit to bring about hope in this broken world.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret              

2-7-2015

Good Morning All,

          Luke 18:13; “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

     When you preach a sermon, you include and incorporate two parts of church doctrine; the Law and the Gospel.  We use the law to show the fact that we are sinners and in need of a Savior.  We use the Gospel to offer the comfort that God gives to us because of Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension.  The goal is to afflict the comfortable and give comfort to the afflicted.  The goal is to make the person who feels he has no sin; thus no need for a Savior to realize that he definitely needs to be redeemed and saved from sin.  The person who feels totally weighed down and despondent because of their sin; they need the Gospel.  They need to know that God has forgiven them.

    The interesting thing is that when one thinks he has no sin; it can be tough to get them to see they truly are sinners.  Many will simply think, “I am not that bad” or “I am not as bad as the other guy” or “It isn’t a sin anymore; it is different now”.  It can take a lot to convince someone of their sin; the world and the devil will tell them that everything is fine and dandy.  We preach and preach; we witness and witness but sometimes they just don’t listen.

    The ones that you really aim for are those who are afflicted.  Like our verse, this person feels the entire weight of the law on their shoulders.  These are the people who will tell you that the reason they don’t go to church is because they are beyond help.  They may speak in a joking manner but you can see it in their eyes and you can hear it in their voice; you can even hear it in their breathing, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”  The sad thing is that the devil is telling them the exact opposite of what he tells the proud sinner.  To the one who feels the weight on his back the devil tells them how bad they are; how hopeless life is; how no one will ever want them around when the full story comes out.  The devil adds guilt and misery with a dose of pain and sorrow.

    There are many parts of the job of being a pastor that are really amazing to experience but for me the absolute best part is when you can look into the eye and tell them these simple words, “In the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ; I forgive you all of your sins.”  There are no better words to speak; there is no greater truth to share.  God is merciful; God is loving; God has heard your cry of pain even before you sighed that first sigh or cried that first tear.  God forgives your sins and in doing so has given you the power to tell the devil to go away and leave me alone.  The devil cannot harm you; he cannot control you.  You are God’s beloved and redeemed child and you are safe.

    There is no sin too bad, too horrible, too heinous that God does not forgive.  God frees you from the past so that you will have a glorious future.  God is merciful to me, a sinner.

Father, your mercies are new every day.  Renew in me the knowledge of your grace and favor.  Keep safe from the devil’s lies ad free me from the guilt of sin.  Help those who are especially burdened at this time.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

2-6-2015

Good Morning All,

          Genesis 12:2; “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

      Just when we thought it was over, it starts again.  The politicians are in Iowa and the race for president of the United States has begun again.  The media talking heads are picking the front runners, the way out of the running guys, the ones that need to fine tune their message.  So we will hear the people who run for president make a lot of promises.  They will promise to reduce your taxes, increase government spending on things that are important to you.  They will change the laws so that your views are considered and you will have great prosperity.  There will many promises made and usually very few, if any, are kept.

    In our verse, we see part of the promise that God made to Abraham.  We call it the Abrahamic covenant.  It is THE promise.  God promised Abraham that he would have many descendants, he would be a great nation and that through him all the world would be blessed.  This was made to Abraham by God and is unconditional and unbreakable.  Unlike the promises of politicians, this one means every word.

    It is the promise that, because of Jesus, is our promise.  Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are now the heirs, the heirs to this great promise; we are the heirs to this great undeserved, unbreakable covenant.  We are a great nation.  This is what Peter was talking about when he said, “once you were not a people but now you are God’s people (1 Peter 2:10).  We are God’s chosen people.  We have his blessings and his grace poured out upon us.  He took us, a lost bunch of lonely, destroyed sinners and made us his chosen, holy people.  He made us into a great nation.  We are a nation where we are freely forgiven by God and given the inheritance of life everlasting and the certainty of this eternal life with God in the perfected creation.

    We are blessed in that we have this promise to love out right now.  We have God’s promise to love us, to listen to us, to protect us.  We are his people and we are blessed by him right now with his love showered upon us.

    We are his people and we are to continue the work which Jesus started.  When Jesus came into this world, he brought healing; he brought about the reconciliation of man to God.  He began the process of restoring the broken and the wounded, making them whole again.  We are to be a blessing to the world by bringing about healing and restoring the lost and the broken, the hurt and suffering.  We are to bring God’s Word of healing to the lives and struggles of those around us.  We are his people and we are to be a blessing to those around us.

Father of all joy and peace, in you we have hope.  Through your love we have the blessings of this life which you so luxuriously shower upon us.  We are your people; guide us by your Spirit to bring about hope and healing.  Lead us to be the blessing in this world that you desire us to be.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret   

2-5-2015

        Good Morning All,

         John 3:17; “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

    Most Christians are familiar with the 10 Commandments and how they speak of how we are to act or interact with each other, with our own body, even with respect to how we view and act toward God.  Many see these as a list of duties to perform and that, somehow, if and when we are able, God will see the way we keep these commands and reward us greatly.  We often hear these folks speak of their struggles and how God “convicts” them of their sin.  Others see the commandments and then amend the statements so that keeping them is easier.  If we re-interpret them so that they are in tune with modern ways, well then I can keep them better.  Some think the commands are just suggestions or guidelines and not much more.

    Scriptures reveals why we have the 10 Commandments.  God gave us the law so we would know that we were sinners (Romans 3:20).  We can look at the law and clearly see one very stark and bold truth; I have failed to keep them and I continue to fail to keep them.  There is no way that I can possibly keep them well enough so that God is impressed; I can’t even keep them so my neighbor is impressed.  I definitely need someone to keep them for me or else I am sunk.

    God could have come into this world to condemn the world, but He didn’t.  He came to free this world from a law that we could never keep.  We are free, not because of anything we have done or attempted to do and certainly not because we’ve changed the law to make it easier.  We are released only because of what God has decided to do for us through the Word that became flesh, Jesus Christ.  Through the sacrifice of Jesus, God speaks a new Word to you.  He speaks forgiveness to you.  He speaks mercy to you.  He tells you that you are free, that He loves you, that He really does forgive what you have done in your life.  He forgives and releases you even if you have trouble releasing and forgiving yourself.

    God chose to love you.  God chose to forgive you.  We can hold onto this great truth.  I cannot keep the law; the 10 Commandments glare with my failures.  Yet the empty cross and the empty tomb show me God’s love has triumphed over my failures.  Because of his love, I cling to him for my salvation and go out and try to live the loving, serving life that God has laid out for me.  My goal is to love others just as I am loved by God.  I will never achieve this level but every step helps bring healing into this world.

Father, your love for me is overwhelming.  Your love overcomes all my failures and you lift me up to be your child.  Strengthen my desire to serve you.  Guide me on the path so that I may share the love that you give to me with others.  Lead me in joyful celebration of your incredible mercy.  In the precious name of Jesus, our Risen Savior, we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret