The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” A right can best be defined as my doing something that does not infringe on someone else’s right, in other words, my right to life is only my right if it does not infringe on the right of life of someone else and the same is true for liberty and my pursuit of happiness. Whenever my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness infringes on the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of someone else, it is no longer my right. The reason I am bringing this up is for the simple fact that in our country today we have become like the Children of Israel, especially in our complacency and in our pursuit of perceived entitlements. We have become a nation with a false sense of self-security as well as a perverse sense of self-indulgence.
Before we get to our text, as we usually do, let us take a brief look at the other lessons. In the Gospel lesson we have the account of Jesus telling the story of Lazarus and the rich man. The rich man’s self-indulgence and self-security amounted to a false sense of security and accomplishment and sounds and looks an awful lot like the same false sense of security and accomplishment of too many in our own country today.
In the Epistle lesson we also have God’s warning concerning self-indulgence and security. We have Paul’s words reminding us that, “6Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Tim. 6:6-10). Paul’s words are quite contemporary and speak well to the self-indulgent, entitlement seeking, complacent world we live in today.
Getting to our text, we have God’s warning to Israel and truly His warning to us today. The first part of His warning is against the self-security of Israel. “1Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes! 2Pass over to Calneh, and see, and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater than your territory, 3O you who put far away the day of disaster and bring near the seat of violence?” (v. 1-3). God is warning His people concerning their “ease” and their “feeling of security.” Their “ease” and “feeling of security” were not because of their faith and trust in the Lord, rather they were because of their faith and trust in themselves and this is where the Lord was concerned, that they traded their true security for a false security.
The Lord also warned Israel concerning her self-indulgence. “4Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, 5who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, 6who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!” (v. 4-6). The people had it so good that they no longer recognized the Lord as the Giver of all, nor were they thankful for any of the blessings of which they had received. They believed themselves to have earned what they had and so they were entitled to be as self-indulgent as they wished.
The “bottom line,” the “summary of it all,” the biggest failure of Israel was that she was no longer concerned about her spiritual well-being. She was no longer concerned about her relationship with the Lord, when He would come or when they would go to Him. “Eat, drink and be merry” was her motto.
So, first this morning we ask, what does this mean for us? How often do we get complacent in our own lives? How often do we forget that God provides for our care and protection? As we mentioned last week, we are born into this world with nothing and we take nothing with us when we leave. God brings us into this world. God protects us and provides for us while we are in this world. And certainly as we read God’s warning to His people Israel we know that His warning is to us as well as He warns against our failure to recognize His provisions.
God provides all that we need. Again, as we noted last week, especially as we heard Luther’s words of explanation to the three articles of the Apostles’ Creed, how God provides us with all our needs, our physical needs, beginning with creation; how God provides for our salvation, through the innocent blood of Jesus; and God provides for our spiritual needs, our being given and kept in faith through His means of grace, His Word and Sacraments. And so, again, God warns against our failure to recognize His provisions.
The “bottom line,” the “summary of it all,” our biggest failure today is that we continue to fail at recognizing our first priority, our spiritual well-being. We continually refuse and reject the good gifts and blessings God has to give by our half-hearted divine service and Bible Class attendance as well as our half-hearted acknowledging that God is the giver of all in our poor stewardship not only of our treasure, but also of our talents and time, living for ourselves instead of for the Lord. Our motto might be, “Live and let live,” or “The one with the most toys wins,” or it might be the same as the children of Israel, “Eat, drink and be merry.”
Which brings us to our second question this morning, how do we change? The obvious answer to that question is that we do not change ourselves. Any changing we do must begin by coming from outside ourselves, it must come from the Holy Spirit working a change in and through us. Another big obstacle in the way of our changing is the fact that, unless we see any need for changing, we will not change. So, how do we change? We change with the help of the Holy Spirit. We change as the Holy Spirit, working through the means of grace and in particular the Word of God, moves us to see our need to change, and stirs in us to change.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we change our perspective from an earthly, this world is all there is perspective to an eternal, this world is nothing compared to eternity, perspective. We realize that our life of a hundred years or less is nothing compared to our forever eternity in heaven. Certainly we are here in this world for a reason and certainly we are to enjoy our time in this world, but our focus is always to be heavenward, not earthward.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we change our earthly perspective. We recognize that we are born with nothing and we leave this world with nothing. Everything that we have while we live in this world is simply being loaned to us by its true owner, God and after we pass on and die, it will simply be passed on to someone else, even someone else who did nothing to earn it and it may be squandered and recklessly spent by some ungrateful wretch.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we change our understanding and we recognize all God gives especially all the physical blessings He gives. Again as we talked about last week, our real needs are clothing, food and shelter. And as we opened this morning, we understand that we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In order to help us in our pursuit of the blessings God gives, He also gives us gifts, talents and abilities, He gives us a job and perhaps a career, He even gives us the vocations through which we live and serve Him and others. To recognize that all these physical blessings are gifts from God we rejoice and give Him thanks, even returning to Him an offering from what He has first given to us, including our time, our talents as well as our treasure.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we recognize all God gives especially concerning our spiritual blessings. Faith, forgiveness, life and salvation are indeed all gifts from God. Just as an apple tree does not go out and plant itself, neither do we go out and plant faith in our hearts. Faith is a gift, given by God, through the means of Holy Baptism and His Word. We do not go out and earn our forgiveness. The price for forgiveness is death, eternal spiritual death. The price for forgiveness had to be paid and it was paid, by Jesus, by His suffering on the cross and by His suffering eternal spiritual death for us, in our place. His forgiveness is ours through the means of Holy Baptism, Confession and Absolution, His Holy Word and His Holy Supper. Through these means we have faith, forgiveness, life and salvation, given to us from outside ourselves.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we recognize the importance of regular and diligent use of God’s means of grace. God has indeed blessed us so much in this country. How easy it is for us to take it easy, to sit back and enjoy our wealth and security. How easy it is to take for granted all that we have because we have never felt true hardship, physical or spiritual poverty. How easy it is to refuse the gifts God has to give, “No gifts for me this week Lord, I have enough to last for several weeks.” Thanks be to God that we have His warning to us through Amos to not be complacent, but to see the importance of making regular, meaning every Sunday and whenever offered, use of the means of grace and diligent use, meaning reading and learning His Word.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we recognize the importance of being given the gifts God gives! We do not take from God, but He freely gives us all things. We do not deserve the gifts and blessings our Lord gives, but he gives them freely, by His grace, because of His love for us. And although there is “great gain in godliness with contentment,” our Lord would have us desire, continually to be given the gifts and blessings He has to give.
This morning, I would encourage you, do not look inside yourselves, but look outside yourself. Do not sit on your grace at least not as a false sense of security, rather always look to the cross of Christ. This world is temporary. This world is fast and fleeting. Yet, this world is a gift from God and while we are in this world, as He has in the past, so He will continue to provide for us in this world, for all our needs, physical and spiritual. Only with the Lord can we have security and godliness with contentment. May the Lord give you that security and contentment. To Him be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Before we get to our text, as we usually do, let us take a brief look at the other lessons. In the Gospel lesson we have the account of Jesus telling the story of Lazarus and the rich man. The rich man’s self-indulgence and self-security amounted to a false sense of security and accomplishment and sounds and looks an awful lot like the same false sense of security and accomplishment of too many in our own country today.
In the Epistle lesson we also have God’s warning concerning self-indulgence and security. We have Paul’s words reminding us that, “6Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Tim. 6:6-10). Paul’s words are quite contemporary and speak well to the self-indulgent, entitlement seeking, complacent world we live in today.
Getting to our text, we have God’s warning to Israel and truly His warning to us today. The first part of His warning is against the self-security of Israel. “1Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes! 2Pass over to Calneh, and see, and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater than your territory, 3O you who put far away the day of disaster and bring near the seat of violence?” (v. 1-3). God is warning His people concerning their “ease” and their “feeling of security.” Their “ease” and “feeling of security” were not because of their faith and trust in the Lord, rather they were because of their faith and trust in themselves and this is where the Lord was concerned, that they traded their true security for a false security.
The Lord also warned Israel concerning her self-indulgence. “4Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, 5who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, 6who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!” (v. 4-6). The people had it so good that they no longer recognized the Lord as the Giver of all, nor were they thankful for any of the blessings of which they had received. They believed themselves to have earned what they had and so they were entitled to be as self-indulgent as they wished.
The “bottom line,” the “summary of it all,” the biggest failure of Israel was that she was no longer concerned about her spiritual well-being. She was no longer concerned about her relationship with the Lord, when He would come or when they would go to Him. “Eat, drink and be merry” was her motto.
So, first this morning we ask, what does this mean for us? How often do we get complacent in our own lives? How often do we forget that God provides for our care and protection? As we mentioned last week, we are born into this world with nothing and we take nothing with us when we leave. God brings us into this world. God protects us and provides for us while we are in this world. And certainly as we read God’s warning to His people Israel we know that His warning is to us as well as He warns against our failure to recognize His provisions.
God provides all that we need. Again, as we noted last week, especially as we heard Luther’s words of explanation to the three articles of the Apostles’ Creed, how God provides us with all our needs, our physical needs, beginning with creation; how God provides for our salvation, through the innocent blood of Jesus; and God provides for our spiritual needs, our being given and kept in faith through His means of grace, His Word and Sacraments. And so, again, God warns against our failure to recognize His provisions.
The “bottom line,” the “summary of it all,” our biggest failure today is that we continue to fail at recognizing our first priority, our spiritual well-being. We continually refuse and reject the good gifts and blessings God has to give by our half-hearted divine service and Bible Class attendance as well as our half-hearted acknowledging that God is the giver of all in our poor stewardship not only of our treasure, but also of our talents and time, living for ourselves instead of for the Lord. Our motto might be, “Live and let live,” or “The one with the most toys wins,” or it might be the same as the children of Israel, “Eat, drink and be merry.”
Which brings us to our second question this morning, how do we change? The obvious answer to that question is that we do not change ourselves. Any changing we do must begin by coming from outside ourselves, it must come from the Holy Spirit working a change in and through us. Another big obstacle in the way of our changing is the fact that, unless we see any need for changing, we will not change. So, how do we change? We change with the help of the Holy Spirit. We change as the Holy Spirit, working through the means of grace and in particular the Word of God, moves us to see our need to change, and stirs in us to change.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we change our perspective from an earthly, this world is all there is perspective to an eternal, this world is nothing compared to eternity, perspective. We realize that our life of a hundred years or less is nothing compared to our forever eternity in heaven. Certainly we are here in this world for a reason and certainly we are to enjoy our time in this world, but our focus is always to be heavenward, not earthward.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we change our earthly perspective. We recognize that we are born with nothing and we leave this world with nothing. Everything that we have while we live in this world is simply being loaned to us by its true owner, God and after we pass on and die, it will simply be passed on to someone else, even someone else who did nothing to earn it and it may be squandered and recklessly spent by some ungrateful wretch.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we change our understanding and we recognize all God gives especially all the physical blessings He gives. Again as we talked about last week, our real needs are clothing, food and shelter. And as we opened this morning, we understand that we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In order to help us in our pursuit of the blessings God gives, He also gives us gifts, talents and abilities, He gives us a job and perhaps a career, He even gives us the vocations through which we live and serve Him and others. To recognize that all these physical blessings are gifts from God we rejoice and give Him thanks, even returning to Him an offering from what He has first given to us, including our time, our talents as well as our treasure.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we recognize all God gives especially concerning our spiritual blessings. Faith, forgiveness, life and salvation are indeed all gifts from God. Just as an apple tree does not go out and plant itself, neither do we go out and plant faith in our hearts. Faith is a gift, given by God, through the means of Holy Baptism and His Word. We do not go out and earn our forgiveness. The price for forgiveness is death, eternal spiritual death. The price for forgiveness had to be paid and it was paid, by Jesus, by His suffering on the cross and by His suffering eternal spiritual death for us, in our place. His forgiveness is ours through the means of Holy Baptism, Confession and Absolution, His Holy Word and His Holy Supper. Through these means we have faith, forgiveness, life and salvation, given to us from outside ourselves.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we recognize the importance of regular and diligent use of God’s means of grace. God has indeed blessed us so much in this country. How easy it is for us to take it easy, to sit back and enjoy our wealth and security. How easy it is to take for granted all that we have because we have never felt true hardship, physical or spiritual poverty. How easy it is to refuse the gifts God has to give, “No gifts for me this week Lord, I have enough to last for several weeks.” Thanks be to God that we have His warning to us through Amos to not be complacent, but to see the importance of making regular, meaning every Sunday and whenever offered, use of the means of grace and diligent use, meaning reading and learning His Word.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we recognize the importance of being given the gifts God gives! We do not take from God, but He freely gives us all things. We do not deserve the gifts and blessings our Lord gives, but he gives them freely, by His grace, because of His love for us. And although there is “great gain in godliness with contentment,” our Lord would have us desire, continually to be given the gifts and blessings He has to give.
This morning, I would encourage you, do not look inside yourselves, but look outside yourself. Do not sit on your grace at least not as a false sense of security, rather always look to the cross of Christ. This world is temporary. This world is fast and fleeting. Yet, this world is a gift from God and while we are in this world, as He has in the past, so He will continue to provide for us in this world, for all our needs, physical and spiritual. Only with the Lord can we have security and godliness with contentment. May the Lord give you that security and contentment. To Him be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.