6-26-2015

Good Morning All!!

            Philippians 4:7; “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

     I have had a few people ask me why I end my devotions with the phrase “God’s Peace.”  Some want something a little “pithier” perhaps do it in Latin like “Pax Vobis” (peace to you) or “Ex Deo Pax” (From God, Peace).  Some think it should be wordier or perhaps a wittier postscript.  I guess I like it the way it is because it is simple, it is what I truly pray that you will have and because it is the one thing that God gives believers that unbelievers never have.

    In this world and in this life there will be trials and tribulations.  All people face pain, trouble and sorrows.  We face life altering and life ending situations.  The unbeliever faces these events with a fatalistic view of “this is it” there is nothing left, nothing greater, nothing beyond today.  So they face these most difficult times with no hope.  As they look at the trials of others, of their family members, or even their own troubles; they know no peace.  They worry all the way through even the good times.  This is what Solomon was writing about in Ecclesiastes.  Nothing in life was worth the effort.  Everything in life was vain and empty, like the mist of a fog early morning.  Without faith, everything is this vanity.

   Yet God shows us his love for us by using the truth of his forgiveness and the promise of eternal life to give us hope.  We have this hope, the certain guarantee of God’s promise and this promise is guaranteed.  No matter what we face, we know that God’s love is for us and this loving God controls all things.  We can take comfort in this; we can find peace in this.  We can find peace because God loves and promises us forgiveness and eternal life.  Nothing in this life, not even the ending of this life, can separate us from God’s love.  So we can have peace, the peace that comes from trusting in God’s love.  Peace that transcends the present because we have the certain promise of a blessed end.

   So we can have peace in this life because our future is secured.  We don’t have to worry about what happens in the end because we have the victory assured to us by God our Father.  We can always rest in peace because we rest in his unfailing love and mercy.  We can rest secure in his loving arms as we are protected from the pain of this world.  This world cannot defeat us, even death is no longer our master for we are the redeemed children of God and we live with the promise of life eternal.  There is nothing the devil or this world can do to destroy us.  We can face each day, each challenge, and each battle with the confidence that we have already won.  So rest in peace; rest in the peace that passes understanding.

Gracious Father you give us the peace that the world cannot give.  You give us peace as we face health scares and even the valley of the shadow of death.  It cannot overtake us.  Your mercy defends and protects me from all danger.  Guide me to live secure in this grace.  Guide me to know your peace as we trust in your most holy promise.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret         

6-25-2015

Good Morning All!!

           1 Timothy 1:15; “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” KJV

     Have you ever engaged with someone else a debate about who is the best or who is the worst?  For example, which was the best baseball team, the 1927 Yankees, the 1955 Dodgers, the 1975 Reds or the 1998 Yankees?  If you get some real baseball guys together; that question is never answered; you can make the case for all of them by taking different parts of the game and different parts of society into factoring your decision.  You can have an opinion and as long as you have some facts; you can hold your own.

     If you are really into this type of game, you ask who the worst was.  Who lost the most games?  Who had the worst record?  This is sometimes easier because it is usually only a matter of numbers.  If team “A” lost 35 games and team “B” lost 40 games then team “B” is the worst.  But arguing over who is the best or what was the best will always get an argument because there are many factors in being the best.

    In our verse, Paul tells his young pupil Timothy that he is number #1!!  Paul tells him that he is the best, the top dog, the king of the hill, numero uno, the chief sinner.  As I read that verse, I am not sure if that is really a “best of” or a “worst of” category.  Usually, we want to be the chief but do we want to be the chief sinner?  We may not want to be the chief sinner but we often times are.  We may not feel like it and in the eyes of the world we may not be.  I have never murdered anyone.  I have never given false testimony in a court of law.  I have never done anything really bad.  But I have been angry at another person and not for good reasons.  I have never given false testimony but I have listened to and shared in some good, juicy gossip at the local Cenex or coffee shop.  I have wished that someone else would fall down so I could get ahead.  All of these are sins and Scriptures says that all sins rise as a stench to God.  All sins are like the carcass of a dead animal on a July day.  All sins are like a porta-potty that has gone without care for the week at the fair.   We are all “chief of sinners” just like Paul.

      But God in his grace solved that.  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, even the worst ones like me and like you.  God sends his Spirit to bring this point home.  When we receive this by faith we have all the joy that we can have.  We are on the journey with the Spirit toward our heavenly home which Christ has gained for us.

      This is how the Large Catechism says it when it is talking regarding the petition for forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer: “For this is the essence of a genuinely Christian life, to acknowledge that we are sinners and to pray for grace.  It depends not on the purity of the confession but on hearing and believing what God wishes to say, namely, that your sins are forgiven.  The disciple concentrates on that and cherishes it, giving praise and gratitude to God.”

      When we acknowledge that we are the chief of sinners and need God’s forgiveness; that is the essence of Christian life.  We need God’s grace; God gave us that grace even before we knew it.  He continues to give it and will always give it.  We only need to trust in his Word and we receive the blessing of life starting with the washing of the stench in the waters of Baptism and nourished by the Word and Holy Communion.  This trust leads us in confidence and boldness to pray to God asking for and believing in his promises.  God promises to hear all who call on him in faith, trusting in his mercy for Christ’s sake.  So maybe being chief of sinners isn’t that bad; especially when we are cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and declared holy for his sake. 

Dear Father in heaven, by nature I am chief of sinners.  Yet in your love you redeemed me and made me your own.  For this and all other gifts I give you thanks and praise.  Continue to cleanse me, to wash me and make me into the disciple that you want me to be, in Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-24-2015

Good Morning All!!

            Psalm 121:1-2: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” 

      Most nights, I stay up late and watch the Western channel.  Most of the good ones are from the late 1930’s until early 1960’s.  The first good guy kisses the horse and rides off into the sunset and the second good guy gets the girl and the bad guys get what they deserve.  It doesn’t matter if it is John Wayne or Glen Ford or Audie Murphy or Lash LaRue (ask your dad or granddad); the basic story was the same in each genre of western movies.  I like the ones that are about the early cavalry riders and the settlement of the west.  One of the biggest impacts on the settling of the west was the introduction of the Sharp’s repeating rifle in the Civil War.  This allowed a mounted soldier to fire multiple shots without reloading.  There are many movies about how the army is trying to stop these repeating rifles from getting into the hands of renegade warriors or banditos or whomever.  At about the ¾ mark of the movie, we always have the good guys pinned down, under fire, in a box canyon, running out of water and ammunition.  One brave soul rides out to get help and just in the nick of time, usually the second good guy is wounded and about to die; you hear the faint sound of a trumpet and then the sound of horses running and then we see a cloud of dust and the cavalry has arrived!!  The bad guys are chased away and all is safe again.

    How many times in your life have you been waiting for the cavalry to arrive?  Most of us have had this experience.  We realize that events are out of our hands and out of our control.  Maybe it was when a loved one was severely ill.  Maybe it was when you looked outside to see it didn’t rain, again.  Maybe your employer is “downsizing” or “going a different direction” both of which means you are no longer working for them.  Then it seems that as one of these happens; other things pile on.  It isn’t raining and your landlord wants more rent.  You lose your job and the car quits running.  You spouse is ill and the insurance isn’t quite as good as promised.  There are times when it seems like we are pinned down, under fire, in a box canyon, running out of water, ammunition and hope.  We look around and where does our help come from?

    Our help comes from the Lord.  It doesn’t come from the cavalry rather it comes from Mt. Calvary.  Jesus supplies us with our needs.  It is at times like these that we best see that our salvation comes from outside of our lives.  It comes from God and is given to us because of his great love and mercy.  We never merit saving; we never deserve the cavalry; we never deserve Calvary but God delivers to us our salvation, our hope.  Situations here on earth and in our lives may change; we may work somewhere else next year.  We may no longer have a living spouse but we always have God’s promise of eternal life and the comfort of His love to surround us.  That is where our help comes from.  The God of grace and mercy provides.

Gracious Father, you save us from the evil of the devil even though we are not worthy of it.  For this we are forever grateful.  Lead us to always look only to you as our source of comfort and hope.  Lead us to lean on you.  Keep us safe and give us that peace that only You can provide and help us to share that peace with those around us.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

6-23-2015

 Good Morning All!!

            Genesis 22:14; “So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

      “I don’t know.” Those are three small words that, when we hear them, can cause us some much pain and so much uncertainty.  If you go to the doctor with a pain that won’t go away and after as many tests as he has he looks at you and says, “I don’t know why you hurt.”  Maybe you finally worked up the courage to talk to that special someone and after you ask them out they say, “I don’t know.”  A loved one is in an accident and when you ask how he is; the response is,” I don’t know.”

     Three little words which sum up all of our human frailty and also all of our human wisdom.  “I don’t know” covers so much of our life that we often just stand there and slowly turn in a circle looking for direction, a hint, any shred of anything that will give us the slightest chance at an answer.  We are even quick to grab the wrong answer over “I don’t know”.  We will even grab hold of man made answers that fail to answer because believing something, even something wrong, is better than “I don’t know”.

     So we stumble around, lost and confused.  It is like we are walking down a path, in the dark, in a fog, with no light or direction.  After a while, we just sit down in total despair and give up because, I don’t know, we have no clue where we are or where we are going.  We are a lost people and a lost person and we have no hope or chance. 

     Into this land of no hope of “I don’t know’ God comes to rescue us.  Jesus came to redeem us.  He came to answer our “I don’t know”.  Jesus came to show us that when we don’t know; he tells us,” I am with you always” “I am the way, the truth and the life”.  When we are lost, we know that “The Lord will provide”.  Just like Abraham, when he felt he had no options left, he saw the ram in the bush and sacrificed it instead of his son, Isaac. God provided for Abraham.  We are like this in many ways.  When we look anywhere else for help, for guidance, for our security; we are lost but God provides for us.  He gives us all that we need to live this life.  He gives us life through the redemptive work of Jesus. 

     Through all our struggles in life, no matter what those struggles are, God provides for us.  He uses the created world to assist us, to protect us, to provide for our needs.  He uses the doctors, the family, the friends, the members of your church; God uses these and more to provide for us.  When we experience support, it is God coming to you.  When you are lost God comes to you and picks you up and puts you back where He wants you to be.  We can feel safe in his arms.  We experience his grace and love even when we feel lost.  God is always there for us, late at night when our fears are great, when we wait for the doctor’s report, when we see no hope or future, God calls us back to him bringing us to himself where we can experience the safety of his grace where he provides everything we need.

Dear Father, we give you thanks for all that you provide.  Too often we fail to trust you to provide for us.  When this happens, we find ourselves lost, and without the comfort of your arms.  Bring us home and cause us to experience the safety of your arms.  Lead us to know that your grace provides all that we need.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret