8-26-2015

Good Morning All!!                       

       Acts 17:32; “When the people of the court heard that a person had come back to life, some began joking about it, while others said, “We’ll hear you talk about this some other time.”

     This verse comes at the end of one of Paul’s more famous sermons; the one in Athens preached about “the unknown god.”  Paul told the Athenians, who would listen to him, about how Jesus was this “unknown god” and that he came, died and rose again to save lost men.  While I was attending a pastor’s conference a few years ago we had a professor from one of the seminaries speak on writing and delivering “good sermons”.  He asked the question about this sermon, “Was this a good sermon?”  Most answered that it was weak, it lacked certain elements that are necessary for a good sermon and, in fact, some believe that even Paul thought this was a poor effort from what he wrote in later letters.  But there wasn’t total agreement.

    One older pastor said he thought it was a great sermon.  That got everyone’s attention so he continued with his thoughts.  He asked, “How many sermons have been preached by the people in this room?”  There were approximately 100 pastors in the room so the number preached within the last year would have exceeded 5000.  If the average years of experience was 10 years, that is over 50,000 sermons!  He asked, “How many of you have had a member of the congregation, as they leave the service, ‘wonderful message’ or ‘great sermon’ or ‘thank you for your message’ or something like that?”  Everyone raised their hand.  Then he asked his next question, “How many of you had a visitor or guest say “I’d like to hear some more of this’?”  No one raised their hand.  He said, “This is why that is a great sermon; it drew someone to Christ.”

    As you live your life and witness your faith, you will encounter this verse.  Either people will shake their head and laugh or they will be intrigued and want to hear more.  They might not say it out loud but this is the reaction to the Gospel of Jesus; either denial or a willingness to listen.  So understand that when you witness to those who do not know Jesus, we can usually only hope to keep the conversation going.  We want them to say, “I’d like to hear more about this.”  They might say it with their mouth or their actions but they say.  It might not be an immediate response for the Spirit works in his fashion and time.  So we continue to witness knowing that we are following God’s desire to spread his kingdom.

Father, lead me to witness your truth to the world.  Help me to respond when someone asks to know more.  Give me the words to say, even if all I do is point to the one to ask.  Help me to bring those who are lost and hurting to your magnificent light.  In the precious name of Jesus, I pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret      

8-25-2015

        Good Morning All!!                 

       Romans 5:8; “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

      Earlier this week we welcomed the newest member of our family.  A grandson named Cole filled a hole in the heart we didn’t know was there.  Ten little fingers and ten little toes and bright blue eyes, all the things that melt your heart and make you smile.  When you hold your little grandson, you get a glimpse of the type of love that God has for us.

    Little Cole didn’t do anything.  He didn’t buy us something.  He didn’t offer some type of payment to join the family; he simply is.  Yet we love him deeply and cannot imagine how we could not love him.  There may come a time when he saddens us or causes us some type of pain but we will love him.  The kind of love that we feel is not dependent upon his actions; the love we feel for him is dependent upon our love.  It depends on us.

     This is a fraction of the love that God has for us.  God displays his love for us by sending Jesus to die in our place, to take the punishment that we deserved.  The debt that we owed; Jesus paid.  God’s love goes beyond anything that we can comprehend.  Jesus died, not for family members or good friends but for enemies, people who hated him.  It was while we were still filled with anger and hatred of God that Jesus came to rescue us.  He came to bring healing and to end the tyranny of the devil.

    As sinners, we are the enemies of God, rebels, under his divine displeasure. Through the gospel of the Crucified Redeemer, we obtain peace with God. We turn to him, and are reconciled to him, obtaining forgiveness through faith. God is not reconciled to us, but we to him. His love ever shines, and is shown in his gospel.  We are brought into God’s holy and loving family.  Through Baptism we leave the reign of the devil and are brought back under God’s benevolent reign. We, once again, can come into God’s presence like a child comes to see his loving father or grandfather. 

    The greatness of this message is that we do not have to worry about measuring up.  God does not look at us and decide if we are too bad or too far gone.  His love for us does not depend on us; God’s love for us depends on God.  We can always rely on God to embrace us as his child because he has promised that he would.  His love for us will not end.  He will not walk away from us, he will not abandon us.  God’s love endures forever.

Gracious Father, your incredible love sustains me through all things.  Lead me to trust fully in your mercy.  Guide me to see that your compassion never fails.  Be with those who miss your love.  Send your Spirit to revive and enliven the hearts of all people.  Breathe on us that we may grow closer to you.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-24-2015

        Good Morning All!!

        Matthew 9:27; “And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”

    They were just two men.  They were probably brought together by family members and then pretty much left on their own.  Two blind men, out on the streets in Capernaum, all alone fending for themselves.  Their only way to survive was to beg.  They would beg for food, money, something to drink; basically anything and everything they had was given to them.  They probably rarely had much more than what they would eat for today.  Sometimes they would go for a day or two without anything to eat.  They were always at risk of being robbed, beaten or attacked.  Their hearing was probably keen but they always sat in darkness.  They never saw the man or woman who stopped and talked to them.  They never saw how many people passed by them on the other side of the road.  So how did they know that the person they were following was Jesus, and know enough to hail him as the “Son of David?”

    They probably lived by the same beggar code that exists in most of the world today.  A different beggar told them.  A different man, who probably witnessed one of Jesus miracles, told them, “Here comes Jesus!”  Others had told them about the wonders of this rabbi from Nazareth.  He had calmed the storm and drove demons out and healed others all around Galilee and the region “across the sea.”  There was a very strong discussion about Jesus; was he a prophet?  Was he truly the Messiah?  Some even claimed he was the Son of God!  The two blind men probably didn’t get into the argument too much; they only sought some type of relief.  Perhaps it would be a meal or two and maybe, just maybe, he would heal them.

    As he passed by, he stopped and healed them.  Jesus had compassion and showed them mercy and healed them.  In all aspects and respects of our life, we are like these two blind men.  We have nothing except what is given to us by God.  We are blind to all hope; we only have God to give us all we need.

    Martin Luther wrote it the best; “before God we are all beggars”.  I am a beggar and you are a beggar.  We have no other hope and like beggars all through history; we share what we know.  What I know is that Jesus saves us, Jesus heals us and we have no other hope.  He speaks his words of forgiveness and redemption through his Word and through his sacraments.  He nourishes us and he gives us hope.  He heals our blindness to his great truth of salvation.  He heals us of our pain and releases us from our fear.  He gives us this freely because he loves us.  He gives this to me and he will give this to you.  Trust his love and share in his loving kindness.

Father, we beg you for your mercy, yet even before we ask, we have received it.  Guide us by your Spirit that we may always know to rely on you.  Lead us to share this wonderful news with all the beggars we meet.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-23-2015

 Good Morning All!!

        Psalm 119:103; “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

     Most people enjoy the taste of something sweet.  We like the way the taste of sweetness enlivens our tongue and our senses.  It makes bitterness tolerable if we mix the two.  Most of us probably agree with the old Mary Poppins adage that “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”  We tend to sweeten many of our drinks and we often look for ways to incorporate it into our cooking and baking.  In the biblical times, there was no sugar.  The only natural sweetener was honey.  In ancient Palestine, honey was greatly treasured so for the psalmist to say that God’s words are sweeter than honey means he places high value on God’s Word.  The psalmist finds greater joy in God’s Word than anything else.

    The psalmist explains why he believes this throughout this entire psalm.  He speaks of God’s Word as renewing our life, giving us hope, bringing joy to our heart.  Through God’s Word we receive the message of our salvation through Jesus.  This simple yet wonderful news fills us with hope based on God’s enduring promise and truth.  It brings joy to our heart as we look forward to the completion of God’s grace in our life.  For we can hold that simple truth; God’s grace is but glory begun and glory is God’s grace completed.  We live renewed in the truth of our redemption through the blood of Jesus.

    In our life here in this world, God’s Word gives us understanding and shapes our values.  We truly are what we believe; and if we truly believe that Jesus died and rose to pay for our sins we are different from those who do not.  For we know that the Word of God, in the hearts of men (and women), changes lives.  We are different because of our faith.  Our world view changes from one of self-centeredness to one of care and concern for our fellow man and for all of creation.

   Because we have this certainty of hope, we have confidence that in all things God hears and answers our prayers.  We know that in all things we can turn to God and he will answer us.  This can produce within us an inner delight that fills us with joy, with praise and thanksgiving for God’s abundant love and mercy.

   For many of us, we need to be reminded of God’s great goodness and we can find this reminder and reassurance in God’s Word.  We need that little boost and we receive that boost when we turn to God’s Word in all diligence and truth.   

Father, your Word is sweeter than honey.  Lead me to taste and see that it is good.  Lead me to savor your Word as I hear those words of comfort and hope.  Guard me and protect me from all harm.  Be with those who do not know the sweetness of your Word.  Lead them by your Spirit to trust in you. In the precious name of Jesus I pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

8-22-2015

 Good Morning All!!

         Colossians 2:14: “He did this by erasing the charges that were brought against us by the written laws God had established. He took the charges away by nailing them to the cross.”

     It is probably one of the least enjoyable tasks in the average household.  It can be the source of stress, arguments, tears and regrets.  It is the time of the month when you sit down and pay the bills.  It always starts out on a rather positive note.  “If my grandfather saw how much money I make, he would be amazed.”  “I bet I make as much in a month as he did in six months.”  We start off smiling then the smile slowly settles until our lips are pursed and our brow is furrowed and we remember that country song “Too much month at the end of the money.”

   The mortgage is due; I thought our interest rate went down a couple of years ago.  The electric bill is due; holy cow those are big numbers.  The credit card bill is due; it has to be hacked.  Then there are those unplanned bills that spring up at you like a rattlesnake in the desert.  I really don’t know what a “strut” does but it is expensive and the car shop guy said I needed them.  Who is spending all the money?  Well, if I give up the coffee on the way home and take a sandwich for lunch that will help a little.  What happened to thinking about your grandfather?   He would probably shake his head.  As long as nothing really big happens, you can hold on until next month.

    Wouldn’t it be nice if one time, just one time, you would open the bill and read “paid in full?”  If you could have two bills paid off, wow, we could go out for supper and if you could open all your bills and they said paid in full; well pick me up off the floor and let’s dance the happy dance!  Then suppose you look and see that the bills were all paid by your neighbor; how would you respond?

   Jesus paid our bill; the bill that was due for our sins.  The charges against us are erased from our account because Jesus took those bills and nailed them to the cross and that is where they remain.  We are no longer indebted to the cost of our sin; we are freed.  We are free to live our life from this point forward, but how?  Hopefully, we see that our life should show our thanks to the one who paid the bill.  This is really how we should view our life and our actions; they say “thank you” to Jesus for what he has done, paid every bill we owe.  Our actions are not payment; there is nothing to pay for.  Our actions are thank you to the one who frees us from our debts.

Father of all mercy, we give you thanks for freeing us from our debt.  Lead me by your Spirit to always show my thanks to you.  Guide me to see the many ways that you place in my journey to say thank you.  Lead me to have compassion on those who are in need.  Lead me to those who need to hear your loving Word.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret