8-23-2022

Good Morning All,

      Matthew 6:26; “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

      If you were walking down the street and you saw a penny on the sidewalk; would you stop and pick it up?  Most probably wouldn’t but at what amount would you, a dime, a quarter or does it have to be paper money before you even look?  As I thought about this; I realized how much my actions depend on the circumstances.  If I am in a hurry, I probably wouldn’t even see the penny. 

    If I am not in a hurry, it would depend on the crowd.  If it were crowded, I probably wouldn’t stop to pick it up. I would just keep moving; it is just a penny After all, it is just a penny, and I am too busy and too important to be bothered by them.  I even usually leave them at the counter when I buy something; who really wants to bother with them anyway?

    There are times when I feel like that penny on the sidewalk.  Nobody bothers to pick me up.  Sometimes I get stepped on or worse.  I just lay there not worth the effort to bother with.  My fate as a penny is probably just to be swept into the storm drain during one of the sweeping scenarios that occur in a city.  I feel that way when it feels like I am alone.  There is so much to do, and it feels like more just keeps getting piled on.  I feel the weight of the world and I am left alone; the penny that no one will pick up.  Maybe if I were a quarter, I would be more important and someone, anyone, would pick me up.  Maybe if I were shiny and new, I could catch someone’s eye, but I am old and dull and a little beat up by the way I have been used through the years.  There are times when I feel like that penny; perhaps you do as well.

     The cares of the world, the weight thrown upon us can be unbearable.  Maybe someone has abandoned you, a parent, a spouse or some other loved one.  You just weren’t worth the effort to them; you were only a penny that they wouldn’t pick up.  Maybe your job decided that you weren’t worth keeping.  Maybe it feels like the world has left you behind.  The technology is past you, and you can’t afford it anyway.  Your friends speak of trips to the Bahamas or Mexico, and you can’t begin to afford that.  You feel like a penny, left on the sidewalk, waiting to be swept into the sewers.

    God sees you and knows that you are worth picking up.  God sent Jesus to rescue you, from the streets, even from the very sewer where you ended up.  Jesus reached down and picked you up and claimed you as his.  He claimed you as his own because he values you.  He was not too busy or too embarrassed to pick you up.  You have immense value to him, and you always will.  You have enough value that he sent his Son to die for you.  He will never abandon you or leave you to bear the pain of this world by yourself.  His love for you lifts you up and gives you peace.  He gives you hope.

Father, you sent Jesus to pick me up from the sorrows and pain of the sewers that was my fate but now I wait for his return so that I may have eternal life with him forever.  Guard me until that day.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.  

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-22-2022

Good Morning All,

              John 11: 25-26; “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

    “KISS.”  This is the mantra of every single speech teacher I have ever dealt with at any level of learning.  My first English teacher in high school who taught us “Speech I” emphasized the “KISS” method.  She reiterated it in “Speech II.”  When I got to college it was again reinforced as the preferred method of public speaking “KISS.”  Even when I took “Sermon I” and “Sermon II” it was “KISS.” “KISS;” Keep It Short and Simple.  This is how the current thought in public speaking is going.  The average attention span is shrinking to just a few seconds and then you need to change something; like the pitch or tempo of your voice, move around, use video or audio but do something different or you will lose your listener.  “KISS” 

    When Lazarus died and Jesus was coming to the family, Martha met him on the road.  Jesus spoke to her in a very simple fashion, simple and direct.  He made the statement of faith to Martha and then asked her the simple question, “Do you believe this?”  The statement of belief is short and simple; “if you believe you will live.”  This is pretty straight forward and simple enough for anyone to understand.

    Many of the different religions around the world and throughout time require long and drawn-out rituals and rites.  Some are deadly, like human sacrifices, some are painful, some are expensive, some take years to accomplish.  Manmade teachings are always complicated and confusing; God keeps it simple; “Do you believe?”  Do you believe that when Jesus died on the cross; his death paid for your sins?  Do you trust God when he says that this payment is enough?  Do you believe?  Do you believe that you are forgiven?

    These are easy questions, but the devil does his best to complicate them.  He wants you to think through and try to make God’s way to fit into your logic and your motives.  Our old sinful nature gets in the way and always wants there to be something harder.  This seems too easy; there must be a catch; nothing is ever freely given; somewhere there is a price to pay.  Well, there is a price, but Jesus paid it.  He paid our debt and then turned around and gave it to you because he loves you.  “Do you believe?”  Because when we believe, we trust.  Because when we believe, we grab hold of God’s promise and cling tightly to them.  We can find our comfort in the certainty of his love for us.  Faith can give us a refuge from the sorrows of this life and a hope for a better tomorrow; do you believe?

Father, I believe.  I believe that Jesus died and rose again and that this is sufficient to pay for my sins.  Keep me strong in this faith.  Father, I believe that your Holy Spirit is with me to go with me and walk with me on my journey in this life.  Father, I believe that Jesus will come again to complete what he has started and end all the pain and sorrows of this world.  Father, I believe in your love.  In the precious name of Jesus our risen and living savior I pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret  

8-21-2022

Good Morning All,

                    Psalm 56:3; “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you”

     “FAIL;” it is an internet sensation.  It shows pictures photographed at just the right time to show someone having a little misfortune.  It might show a person walking down the street being splashed by a passing car.  It might show a person slipping and falling while carrying cake.  It might be the sign that is misspelled.  There are limitless options to this viewing.  Some are more painful than others, some are funny; some are cruel, but comedy is often in the eye of the beholder. We can see failure everywhere we look; often we feel it our own lives.

    Perhaps you feel that you could sum up your life in that one word; “FAIL.”  There are many people who do feel that way.  Does your mind swirl with thoughts of inadequacies and confusion?  Do you look at what is going on in your life and, according to your measurement, it failed?  “What did I do wrong?”  “Maybe I simply cannot do this; or anything right!”   I remember dealing with a preacher who would plan an event for his church.  He would spend months working on it.  He would totally immerse himself in the project, getting very excited about it.  Soon his expectations about the event began to climb.  He was expecting hundreds.  When the event occurred, there were only a few more than the 80 members who usually showed up.  To him, it was a colossal failure.

   Maybe you do that as well.  Maybe you are the parent who feels they have failed if your child isn’t a straight “A” student.  Maybe you are the woman whose house isn’t as clean as you would like it, with three kids, a dog, and a fulltime job.  The people on TV get it done; why can’t I?  Maybe you’re the dad that can’t get to your son’s game this week while everyone else does and you haven’t called your mother in two weeks but then you will only hear about your perfect sister.  The world seems to define you as a failure and often times; you are your worst judge.

    You are not alone in this feeling.  The devil does his best to make sure you know of all your inadequacies.  He wants you to always remember those times when you came up short.  He wants you to think that God will view you in the same light, as a failure.  Yet God does not view you as a failure.  He views you as a parent views his child.  He views you through the eyes of love; a perfect love that knows no bounds or limits.  He loves you and then tells you to trust in that love.  We can be confident of God’s mercy for us.  When we think of confident, we should think in terms of "set in place, make secure, to be made ready, be attached" like an anchor in a storm.  When we fear, whether it is life, death, failure, rejection or loneliness, God is there to comfort us and to give us hope for a certain tomorrow living in his grace.  Trust in his promises; he has never failed you.

Father, your mercies are new every day.  Give me courage to see that, because of Jesus, I am not a failure.  Give me wisdom to hold onto the fact that I am your redeemed, beloved child.  In your hands we are safe and secure.  In the precious name of Jesus our risen Savior we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret 

8-20-2022

Good Morning All,

          Matthew 14: 16-17; “But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”  They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.”

    So, are you prepared?  Are you prepared for the unexpected?  I can remember as a kid that, more often than not, my mom would keep a John Morrell ‘easy cut’ ham in the freezer.  That way, if company showed up on day, she could feed them.  It might have been baked or sliced and fried or just sliced for sandwiches, but she could always feed them ham.  She was always ready to feed someone who showed up at dinner or suppertime.  She loved it so you usually had enough “reserve resources” to manage a houseful when she needed to.  Perhaps your mom is or was like that as well.

   In our verses, from the Feeding of the 5000, one might be tempted to think that these disciples needed a Lutheran mother to be ready to feed a crowd of unexpected company.  The disciples and Jesus had sought out a quiet out of the way place so they could take a breather for a moment.  They had just gone out on an evangelism program and came back to tell Jesus.  As they were coming together, they received word that John the Baptist had been executed.  So, they desperately wanted some quiet alone time.

    But the people recognized Jesus and began to gather.  First it was dozens, then hundreds and finally thousands of people; perhaps as many as 25,000 people.  It was approaching the supper hour, so the disciples went and asked Jesus to send the people away to find food on their own.  They had looked around and saw nothing for food for the people to eat.  They were away from the cities and even then, didn’t have that much money.  The disciples figured the only way to resolve this was to send the people away before they got too hungry and restless. 

    Yet Jesus gave them a different and a direct command, “you give them something to eat.”  The disciples scrambled and found two fish and five small loaves, roughly two McDonald’s fish filet sandwiches for 25,000 people.  They panicked and were lost and confused.  The problem was that they looked to themselves for their answer and supply rather than to Jesus.  Eventually they came to Jesus for the supply that they needed.

    One thing that comes through to us is this simple fact; our source is always Jesus.  When the need arises, we can look to him first knowing that he will provide for our needs or we can wait, try it on our own, suffer from fear, anxiety, worry and discomfort then look to Jesus.  It might seem somewhat strange, but it is our decision.  Do we look to Jesus right away or do we bear a burden that we do not need to bear?  Which is it for you?

Father, the eyes of all looks to you and you furnish their meat in due season.  Lead us by your Spirit to look to you as our only source of hope, joy, and peace.  Be with those who are trying to bear the burdens of this life on their own.  Lead them to see that all things come from you and our help is in your hands.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-19-2022

Good Morning All,

                 Hebrews 10:23; “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

     “The situation is hopeless.”  There is probably no more painful message than this.  Whether it is a light situation like a basketball game where the one team is behind by 10 points with 25 seconds to play or a serious situation that involves life and death; this message brings about discomfort and pain.  Sometimes, this message comes late like when the firefighters were climbing the stairs in the World Trade Center after the 9/11terrorist attacks.  When they were told to get out that the situation was hopeless; it was already too late.  A few years ago, we came upon an accident.  We began to perform CPR until the ambulance showed up.  It was apparent that the man was dead, but the deputy refused to quit giving CPR.  The situation was hopeless, but he refused to accept it.

     There are times when we face events that seem hopeless.  A car accident, where the vehicle sinks into some water and after a few minutes of being submerged; the situation is hopeless and those on shore watch, worry, fear then despair.  When you watch someone who has cancer and they begin to fade away, first losing a lot of weight, then the color of their skin goes ashen, they can’t get around very well and soon they are bedridden; the situation is hopeless.  We usually don’t see situations as hopeless unless death is involved.  If we suffer estrangement from a friend or a loved one, we figure, eventually, we’ll fix it but when that someone dies, the situation is hopeless.  Hope is about life; hopelessness is about the end of life.

    Once sin entered the world so did death and so did hopelessness.  Once the enormity of the cost of their sin began to sink in, Adam and Eve experienced hopelessness.  Their perfect world was no more.  They knew pain, sorrow, suffering and hopelessness.  So, God gave them hope, hope for life.  He told them that he would send one to destroy the devil and death.  This One would redeem them and give them life.  It was the same promise that God made to his people throughout the Old Testament.  It was a promise that held out hope.  It held out hope that death and the devil would never be the final victor.  It was a promise that said those who believed and trusted in that promise would live forever.

    That promise was kept on a hill called Calvary.   It was there that Jesus defeated the devil and death.  It was there that the promise was completed, and we only have to wait for the final few ticks of the clock to run out and the victory is completely ours.  Death no longer has hold of us; it is but a door for us.  No matter what life throws at us, it can never take away the victory that Christ gives us.  We will always have hope; we will always have life.  This is the promise that God has made and kept to us.  We always have hope.

Father, in you there is life. You give us hope.  Guide us to always rely on your delivered promise.  Teach us to always hope in you.  Be with those who feel they have no hope.  Open the darkness so the light of your truth may enter.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-18-2022

Good Morning All,

      Genesis 3: 17-18; “And to Adam he (God) said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field.”

   Thorns: it always gets back to thorns.  While Adam listened to God tell him part of the price that his sin was going to cost, he heard things that most people don’t want to hear.  He heard “cursed” “in pain” “thorns and thistles.”  Talk about a list that you don’t want to have; that list probably is just about as bad as it gets.  Adam was told that the ground, and his life, was not going to be fun.

   I grew up on a farm.  I spent a lot of my years farming.  Most of the members of my churches are farmers.  Most of the people I went to school with are farmers.  Most of the people I know are farmers.  I know what it feels like and what it looks like when you think the ground is cursed.  I know what it is like to have the ground refuse to yield its bounty, even in a meager fashion.  I know what it looks like when thorns and thistles rob the land of moisture and nutrients and leave nothing to harvest.  Even in the direst of years, when a single sprout of grain refused to grow; thistles and thorns grow with a voracious and destructive ire.  They will take what little is there and, with a mocking smile, look to the farmer and laugh.  The emptiness and the meagerness hollow the farmer out leaving a pit in your soul larger than life.  Thorns and thistles cause pain beyond the simple prick of the finger or the scrape of an arm; thorns and thistles suck the marrow from your spirit.

   If you have never farmed, you have probably felt the same way at other times of your life.  A loving relationship that dries up and blows away is just as painful.  False accusations and false stories that harmed your reputation or your standing with your family and friends gone.  Drugs or alcohol can hollow you out just as easily.  Sin looks at us and mocks us leaving us feeling cursed, in pain, dealing with thorns and thistles that never go away.

   Jesus faced our thorns. God’s own Son was “cursed” “in pain” covered with “thorns.”  He took it all; all the cursedness, pain, and thorns that God’s wrath, for you but directed at Jesus, so that you and I would be blessed, be healed, and live without thorns.  It started with thorns, so it is probably poetic that it ends with thorns.  Yet it is not some poetic justice that we read; it is God’s incredible love poured out upon you and upon me.  We have God’s blessing, not his curse upon us now.  We have a life filled with love and hope and no thorns waiting for us because Jesus took our cursedness, pain and thorns and gives to us love, hope, peace, and salvation.

Father, we deserve all the pain and cursedness yet in your amazing grace and mercy, you poured it out upon Jesus in order to give us life.  Move us to live our life in total thanksgiving to you.  Keep us in your loving arms and lead us to reach out in love to those who are stuck in the cursed, pain and thorns to hear your words of life and hope.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-17-2022

Good Morning All,

                  Hebrews 11:1; “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

     During one of my high school English classes, we spent a fair amount of time doing some pre-journalism class stuff.  We looked at what it took to be a good journalist.  A good journalist didn’t go into a story with a preconceived idea of how the story was going to flow.  When you did this, it was too easy to find the “evidence” that supported your idea and also too easy to discard “evidence” which showed your idea to be false.  A good journalist would always try to answer the following questions: who, what, where, when how and why?  Once these questions were answered, the story to be told would unfold naturally.

    As we look at these questions, the first four are pretty standard and are really only informative.  We can know who is involved in the story; we know what the story is, and we know where an event occurs, and we can know when it occurs.  These are elements of the story that are very observational.  The evidence can exist for many years allowing us to look back in time and to see the events unfold.  Yet these four questions provide only the body of the work, they only answer the rudimentary questions.  The difficult questions are often how and why.

   The questions of how and why probe into the internal mental and spiritual thoughts, plans and desires of the event.  The how and why can and are at times difficult to imagine.  If you were in a car accident a year ago, you have answered three of the four questions in those 10 words.  Why did the accident happen and how will you go forward after it?  Will you be able to drive again?  Can you go forward?  How will you go forward?  These are the questions you ask.  Sometimes the questions are harder to answer.

    If you are sitting at the funeral of a loved one, like a spouse or a parent; how will you go forward?  How will you go on to the next day or week or month?  What if it is that you are experiencing a very severe sickness, it may take months to recover, if ever?  How do you make it through tomorrow or even the next hour?  How do we go forward?

   Going forward always requires faith.  Going forward is unseen; going forward requires us to trust that it will work out.  How will it work? We have to trust God to keep his promise to us.  We have to trust God to keep the promise that he made to us in our Baptism to love us and to claim us as his children.  This is what faith is.  Faith is trusting in God’s promise even when we cannot see the path or the method of accomplishing this.  Faith is taking one more step.  Faith is turning one more page.  Faith is knowing that, through it all, God goes with us protecting us from harm and danger and giving us hope for the better tomorrow that he has promised.

Father, strengthen my faith.  Lead me forward by your great mercy.  Uphold me in your hand.  Keep me safe from the terrors of uncertainty.  Lead me to trust in your promise of love and salvation.  Lead me to know that in all things you are in control.  Give courage to those who are facing challenges at this time.  Give them the faith they need to see them through.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret