God is omnipresent, that means that He is always, everywhere present. His spirit covers the entire universe and beyond, and yet He is as personal as to be our very own God, an ever-present help in time of need. Our Old Testament lesson for this morning is filled with God’s Good Word to us for today. Our Epistle and Gospel lessons are both excellent support passages for our Old Testament lesson. I pray that the Holy Spirit will come into our hearts, opening our hearts and minds to hear the Word of the Lord this morning that we might be strengthened in our faith and in our resolve to be children of God.
I want to quickly look at the Gospel lesson and the Epistle lesson before getting into our text from the Old Testament lesson. The Gospel lesson expounds verse twenty-nine (29) of our text, with Jesus speaking about the fire of judgement. God’s Word is the word with which He judges us, our actions as well as our words. His Word is a fire which burns the chaff, all that is not important in our lives, all that is not essential to our faith in Jesus Christ.
The Epistle lesson gives us examples of those who have been tested by God and have prevailed, these are indeed people of great faith. Last week we talked about how God is the prime mover, how He acts first, how He gives faith, strengthens and keeps us in faith. Our Epistle lesson for this morning explains how God goes about continuing to strengthen us in our faith. He does so by disciplining us. He allows us to suffer the consequences of our sins, thus correcting us and keeping us in His grace. Here we must make a distinction between punishment for sins and consequences for sin. Although we may suffer the consequences for our sins, as Christians we will never suffer the eternal punishment for our sins. The eternal punishment for our sins has been taken care of by Jesus. We may suffer some of the consequences for our sins, that is, we may get a ticket for speeding, go to jail for stealing, be given the electric chair for murder, but we will never suffer the eternal punishment for our sins. If we remember back to the garden of Eden, God told Adam and Eve that they may eat from any tree of the garden except the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He told them that the day they eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that they would die. In other words, the punishment for disobedience was death, physical death and eternal spiritual death. Sure enough, they ate from the tree and they died and began to die. They began to die physically and later they did die a physical death as a consequence of their sin, but the punishment of eternal spiritual death they did not suffer, because Jesus died the eternal spiritual death for them. But Jesus did not die only for Adam and Eve, He took all our sins, and all the sins of all people, of all places, of all times upon Himself and He suffered the punishment for all sins on the cross. So you see, we may be disciplined by our Lord through suffering the consequences for our sins, but He does not punishes us with the eternal spiritual death penalty for our sins.
These two lessons, the Epistle and the Gospel, bring us into our text. Our text describes our God as being an omnipresent God. He is not a God who is only nearby, but He is a God who is far away also. Our God is far away. His spirit reaches out to the outermost parts of our universe and even beyond. If you have ever watched Star Trek or Star Wars or any other space odyssey movie you can see what it means that our God is a God who is far away. Here on earth He is a God who is far away, meaning that no matter where you try to run and hide from Him here on earth, He is there. There is no getting away from our God. No matter how far away we try to run from Him.
But He is also a God who is near. Our God is everywhere present. He is far away, and at the same time He is near. He is our personal God. He knows the number of hairs we have on our head. He knows what is happening to us at all times. He does not need us to twitter Him to tell Him what is happening. He is right there beside us at all times and in all places. That could be a bit frightening, because that means that He is with us even when we are in the midst of sinning. He is with us always.
Verse twenty-five (25) I find to be an interesting verse, “25I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’” I find this verse of interest because, and I hate to make this comparison, but we know it is true, as we listen to the news media, we hear our own political candidates say, ‘I have dreams.’ ‘I have dreams.’ They have had so many dreams it makes me think they have been doing nothing but sleeping.
No matter what side of the political spectrum they are on, our politicians sound a lot like the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day and just as the prophets of Jeremiah’s day were reflecting the attitude and desires of the culture, so are our politicians today. So what is it they are trying to tell us? What is it they are trying to tell us they think is important in our lives? They promise in one instance to raise taxes and in another instance to lower taxes. So, I guess they are trying to tell us that money is important.
They tell us that they want to create jobs. They will do whatever it takes in order to put people to work. If you paid attention two weeks ago when we talked about the Ecclesiastes text you will remember what the Teacher said about work, that is too is meaningless, but let us go on.
The great debate of today focuses on family values, whatever that is. One candidate says it is one thing, the other defines it another way. My only question is, have we changed the meanings of the words, family and values?
Finally, our political candidates seem to say whatever they think needs to be said to get our vote. I do not know about you, but I think this is the area where politicians shine. The good politicians are the ones who can convince you that they are for you and everyone else at the same time and make you believe it.
The politicians are trying to tell us a lot of things are important, and in their defense I would suggest that they are merely attempting to reflect what our culture and society believe to be important. At any rate, maybe I should not pick on politicians, but they are an easy target.
But, more importantly, even most importantly, what does our Lord tell us is important? We might say that our God also has a dream. Let us look and see, How does it compare? God does not promise an easy life, nor has He ever made such a promise. He does, however, promise to “cast fire on the earth.” He also promises to discipline those He loves. He even goes so far as to tell us that if we are not being disciplined that we are illegitimate children. In other words, if we do not have times when we suffer because of our faith, maybe we need to wonder about our faith. God does not promise us a job, a house, a car, lots of money, and so on, but He does promise us forgiveness, deliverance from death and the devil, and eternal salvation through Jesus Christ.
God does not promise us riches or prosperity, but He does promise to take care of us. He also promises that His fire of judgement will burn away the straw, that is all our unworthiness and unbelief, as well as, on judgement day our worthless material possessions leaving us with what is important, our Christian faith.
God shows us and tells us that our faith is what is important, and that we are to oppose every evil which is contrary to His Word. God tells us what a complete family is, and what is the responsibility of each member of that family. Dr. Martin Luther outlined this definition in the Table of Duties section in his catechism. Actually, I would suggest as you read through the Table of Duties in your Catechism and these passages can be found in your hymnal on p. 328, you will see that what Martin Luther is talking about is what we call our vocations. Anyway, according to the Table of Duties, passages taken from the Bible, a complete family consists of a husband and a wife who are the parents, and children, who are the responsibility of the parents and who are to love, honor and obey their parents. God knew what He was doing when He gave us families. Sure we have exceptions to what God gave us, but these are the exceptions. And, although there may come a day soon in this country when I may be arrested for saying this, a homosexual family is not an exception and is not what God has given for a family. Exceptions include what we have today with divorce, broken homes, single parent homes, and the like are all due to the consequences of sin. I am not saying that the single parent and even the non-parent families are not families, but I am saying that these are not what God has given to us in the first place. Because of sin we have divorce, children born out of wedlock, broken homes, live-in situations, because of the consequence of original sin, we have single parent families because of the death of a spouse, and the like. These situations are not the rule and are not what God has given us.
The Table of Duties outline the good order God has given us for families and for many areas of our lives, yet just as sin has tainted our family life, so sin has tainted our churches, our government, our work, our society, every area and aspect of our lives. What God had given for our good, because of sin, humanity has taken that good and made it into something evil. And no matter how hard society tries to change the definitions to make what is evil good and what is good evil, truly we cannot change what God has given.
Fortunately our God is a good and gracious God. Our God is a God of love and because He created us to love and because He is the prime mover, first loving us, we have His promise that even when we fail to keep Him first, even when we fail in our faith in Him, His promise is that He will take care of us, supplying us with all that we need to support our body and life. This does not mean that He will supply everything that we want, but He will supply everything that we need. God does know what is best for us and that is what He gives to us.
God does not always say what we want to hear, but what He knows we need to hear. He knows that we often need to be reminded that we are sinners, not in order to condemn us, but in order to help us to see our sin so that we see our need to confess our sins so that we may hear His words of forgiveness. God does discipline us, not because He likes to see us in pain, but because He loves us and wants to help us to grow in our Christian faith.
Unlike politicians who are only vocally everywhere promising everything, our God is almighty. He is omnipresent, that is He is everywhere present at all times. He fills our world as well as our hearts and lives. He is with us every step of the way, guiding, guarding and keeping us in His grace. He knows our every need and supplies us with all that we need. He loves us and disciplines us in order to strengthen our faith in Him. Unlike politicians who want us to believe that our earthly priorities are most important, our God tells us that our earthly priorities, our earthly life is important only in that it is preparation for our heavenly, eternal life, our real life. In other words, when He stirs in us to get our spiritual priorities right, God will take care of everything else. He disciplines us to show us what is important. He disciplines us because He is our personal Father, because He loves us, because He is a God who is near to us. And He stirs in us our response of faith, saying, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
I want to quickly look at the Gospel lesson and the Epistle lesson before getting into our text from the Old Testament lesson. The Gospel lesson expounds verse twenty-nine (29) of our text, with Jesus speaking about the fire of judgement. God’s Word is the word with which He judges us, our actions as well as our words. His Word is a fire which burns the chaff, all that is not important in our lives, all that is not essential to our faith in Jesus Christ.
The Epistle lesson gives us examples of those who have been tested by God and have prevailed, these are indeed people of great faith. Last week we talked about how God is the prime mover, how He acts first, how He gives faith, strengthens and keeps us in faith. Our Epistle lesson for this morning explains how God goes about continuing to strengthen us in our faith. He does so by disciplining us. He allows us to suffer the consequences of our sins, thus correcting us and keeping us in His grace. Here we must make a distinction between punishment for sins and consequences for sin. Although we may suffer the consequences for our sins, as Christians we will never suffer the eternal punishment for our sins. The eternal punishment for our sins has been taken care of by Jesus. We may suffer some of the consequences for our sins, that is, we may get a ticket for speeding, go to jail for stealing, be given the electric chair for murder, but we will never suffer the eternal punishment for our sins. If we remember back to the garden of Eden, God told Adam and Eve that they may eat from any tree of the garden except the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He told them that the day they eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that they would die. In other words, the punishment for disobedience was death, physical death and eternal spiritual death. Sure enough, they ate from the tree and they died and began to die. They began to die physically and later they did die a physical death as a consequence of their sin, but the punishment of eternal spiritual death they did not suffer, because Jesus died the eternal spiritual death for them. But Jesus did not die only for Adam and Eve, He took all our sins, and all the sins of all people, of all places, of all times upon Himself and He suffered the punishment for all sins on the cross. So you see, we may be disciplined by our Lord through suffering the consequences for our sins, but He does not punishes us with the eternal spiritual death penalty for our sins.
These two lessons, the Epistle and the Gospel, bring us into our text. Our text describes our God as being an omnipresent God. He is not a God who is only nearby, but He is a God who is far away also. Our God is far away. His spirit reaches out to the outermost parts of our universe and even beyond. If you have ever watched Star Trek or Star Wars or any other space odyssey movie you can see what it means that our God is a God who is far away. Here on earth He is a God who is far away, meaning that no matter where you try to run and hide from Him here on earth, He is there. There is no getting away from our God. No matter how far away we try to run from Him.
But He is also a God who is near. Our God is everywhere present. He is far away, and at the same time He is near. He is our personal God. He knows the number of hairs we have on our head. He knows what is happening to us at all times. He does not need us to twitter Him to tell Him what is happening. He is right there beside us at all times and in all places. That could be a bit frightening, because that means that He is with us even when we are in the midst of sinning. He is with us always.
Verse twenty-five (25) I find to be an interesting verse, “25I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’” I find this verse of interest because, and I hate to make this comparison, but we know it is true, as we listen to the news media, we hear our own political candidates say, ‘I have dreams.’ ‘I have dreams.’ They have had so many dreams it makes me think they have been doing nothing but sleeping.
No matter what side of the political spectrum they are on, our politicians sound a lot like the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day and just as the prophets of Jeremiah’s day were reflecting the attitude and desires of the culture, so are our politicians today. So what is it they are trying to tell us? What is it they are trying to tell us they think is important in our lives? They promise in one instance to raise taxes and in another instance to lower taxes. So, I guess they are trying to tell us that money is important.
They tell us that they want to create jobs. They will do whatever it takes in order to put people to work. If you paid attention two weeks ago when we talked about the Ecclesiastes text you will remember what the Teacher said about work, that is too is meaningless, but let us go on.
The great debate of today focuses on family values, whatever that is. One candidate says it is one thing, the other defines it another way. My only question is, have we changed the meanings of the words, family and values?
Finally, our political candidates seem to say whatever they think needs to be said to get our vote. I do not know about you, but I think this is the area where politicians shine. The good politicians are the ones who can convince you that they are for you and everyone else at the same time and make you believe it.
The politicians are trying to tell us a lot of things are important, and in their defense I would suggest that they are merely attempting to reflect what our culture and society believe to be important. At any rate, maybe I should not pick on politicians, but they are an easy target.
But, more importantly, even most importantly, what does our Lord tell us is important? We might say that our God also has a dream. Let us look and see, How does it compare? God does not promise an easy life, nor has He ever made such a promise. He does, however, promise to “cast fire on the earth.” He also promises to discipline those He loves. He even goes so far as to tell us that if we are not being disciplined that we are illegitimate children. In other words, if we do not have times when we suffer because of our faith, maybe we need to wonder about our faith. God does not promise us a job, a house, a car, lots of money, and so on, but He does promise us forgiveness, deliverance from death and the devil, and eternal salvation through Jesus Christ.
God does not promise us riches or prosperity, but He does promise to take care of us. He also promises that His fire of judgement will burn away the straw, that is all our unworthiness and unbelief, as well as, on judgement day our worthless material possessions leaving us with what is important, our Christian faith.
God shows us and tells us that our faith is what is important, and that we are to oppose every evil which is contrary to His Word. God tells us what a complete family is, and what is the responsibility of each member of that family. Dr. Martin Luther outlined this definition in the Table of Duties section in his catechism. Actually, I would suggest as you read through the Table of Duties in your Catechism and these passages can be found in your hymnal on p. 328, you will see that what Martin Luther is talking about is what we call our vocations. Anyway, according to the Table of Duties, passages taken from the Bible, a complete family consists of a husband and a wife who are the parents, and children, who are the responsibility of the parents and who are to love, honor and obey their parents. God knew what He was doing when He gave us families. Sure we have exceptions to what God gave us, but these are the exceptions. And, although there may come a day soon in this country when I may be arrested for saying this, a homosexual family is not an exception and is not what God has given for a family. Exceptions include what we have today with divorce, broken homes, single parent homes, and the like are all due to the consequences of sin. I am not saying that the single parent and even the non-parent families are not families, but I am saying that these are not what God has given to us in the first place. Because of sin we have divorce, children born out of wedlock, broken homes, live-in situations, because of the consequence of original sin, we have single parent families because of the death of a spouse, and the like. These situations are not the rule and are not what God has given us.
The Table of Duties outline the good order God has given us for families and for many areas of our lives, yet just as sin has tainted our family life, so sin has tainted our churches, our government, our work, our society, every area and aspect of our lives. What God had given for our good, because of sin, humanity has taken that good and made it into something evil. And no matter how hard society tries to change the definitions to make what is evil good and what is good evil, truly we cannot change what God has given.
Fortunately our God is a good and gracious God. Our God is a God of love and because He created us to love and because He is the prime mover, first loving us, we have His promise that even when we fail to keep Him first, even when we fail in our faith in Him, His promise is that He will take care of us, supplying us with all that we need to support our body and life. This does not mean that He will supply everything that we want, but He will supply everything that we need. God does know what is best for us and that is what He gives to us.
God does not always say what we want to hear, but what He knows we need to hear. He knows that we often need to be reminded that we are sinners, not in order to condemn us, but in order to help us to see our sin so that we see our need to confess our sins so that we may hear His words of forgiveness. God does discipline us, not because He likes to see us in pain, but because He loves us and wants to help us to grow in our Christian faith.
Unlike politicians who are only vocally everywhere promising everything, our God is almighty. He is omnipresent, that is He is everywhere present at all times. He fills our world as well as our hearts and lives. He is with us every step of the way, guiding, guarding and keeping us in His grace. He knows our every need and supplies us with all that we need. He loves us and disciplines us in order to strengthen our faith in Him. Unlike politicians who want us to believe that our earthly priorities are most important, our God tells us that our earthly priorities, our earthly life is important only in that it is preparation for our heavenly, eternal life, our real life. In other words, when He stirs in us to get our spiritual priorities right, God will take care of everything else. He disciplines us to show us what is important. He disciplines us because He is our personal Father, because He loves us, because He is a God who is near to us. And He stirs in us our response of faith, saying, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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