Today is the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost. Today is also the third to the last Sunday of the Church Year. In three weeks this Church Year will end and we will begin a new Church Year. As is the case every year as we reach the end of the year, our Scripture lessons point us to the end times. Our Scripture readings remind us that Jesus is coming again and that we need to be ready. This fact also reminds us that every day we live we move one day closer to the Lord’s return, or, as I have often reminded you, even if the Lord does not return during our life, we will go to Him and we do not know the day or the hour that will happen either, so either way, we need to be ready! It will happen, we will meet the Lord and we need to be ready.
In our text for today, Amos brings word to the children of Israel concerning the day of the Lord, that is, the day of the Lord for Israel. There were those among the Children of Israel who were looking for the day the Lord would return, not that He would return as a spiritual Savior, but that He would return to overthrow their captors and make them their own nation again. They thought it was their birthright that would bring them this earthly salvation, in other words they believed that God’s promise had nothing to do with their faith, only with their being born as children of Israel. So they believed that the day the Lord would come would be the day the Lord would judge those who were not from the children of Israel, condemning them and saving those who were born as Israelites.
So, they called on the Lord to deliver them from the nations. Notice that their hope was not in the One the Lord promised to send. Their hope was not in the promised Savior, the promised Messiah, rather their hope was in themselves. Their hope was not in forgiveness of sins and eternal life, but in an earthly kingdom. Their hope was in what they believed to be their birthright. Their hope was in their being children of Israel. And so, in this hope, they called on the Lord to deliver them. They called on the Lord to come and judge their enemies.
The Lord’s response to their call for judgement came though Amos. Through Amos the Lord reminded them that they really were not His people because of their lack of faith. Certainly there were those who exemplified an outward show of faith, that is they went through the motions, offering sacrifices, burnt offerings and the like, but their hearts were far from the Lord. The Lord was more interested in their having hearts of faith than in their outward show of following ceremonial rites.
And so, through the prophet Amos, the Lord proclaims that the day of the Lord would come and it would bring judgement and not necessarily the kind the people would be looking for. The judgement would be on those faithless Israelites.
Fast forward to today, November 12, 2017. We are looking forward to the Day of the Lord, that is we are looking forward to the day the Lord will return, the day of judgement. We know the Lord will return. Jesus fulfilled God’s first promise to come to earth. He fulfilled that promise by being born as a baby in Bethlehem. He fulfilled all God’s promises concerning the Savior He would send. He fulfilled all God’s law perfectly. He took the sins of all people, including our sins, our sins of omission, failing to do what God would have us to do and our sins of commission, doing those things God commands us not to do, He took all our sins upon Himself. He paid the price, He suffered the eternal death penalty for us and He died on the cross. Yet, death and the grave had no power over Him as He rose on the third day.
Before Jesus ascended into heaven, from where He descended to come to earth, He promised He would return on the day of judgement. We know, we believe, we have confidence that as He kept His first promise to come and take care of our sins, so He will keep this promise and He will return on the last day, on the day of judgement to take us and all believers to heaven.
As Christians, then, we look forward, in faith to that day of judgement. Or, as we have been saying, we can look forward to our own passing because we do not need to fear either. By faith in Jesus, faith given to us, we do not need to fear either our own death or the Lord’s return.
However, for those who do not believe, they do not look forward either to their own passing or to the Lord’s return, rather they show their unbelief in believing the Lord will not return. They show their unbelief in not being ready.
The fact is, the truth is, ready or not, the day of the Lord will bring judgement. Just as Jesus first coming brought judgement even to many of the children of Israel, especially to those who failed to look for a spiritual Savior, so Jesus second coming will bring judgement for those who fail to believe in Jesus as Savior. For those who do not believe they will receive eternal spiritual death in hell. For those who do believe they, we, you and I will receive eternal life in heaven.
What Does This Mean? First and foremost, our text for this morning, all our lessons for today, our lessons for the next three weeks will remind us that we will meet the Lord. We will meet the Lord, either at our own passing or at His return. We will meet the Lord, it will happen, and I would suggest that it will happen sooner than we know and sooner than we might expect. Thus, it is important, it is imperative that we are ready.
Our text for this morning reminds us that our salvation is not determined by a birthright. Just as being born as a child of Israel did not and still today does not save a person, so we are not saved simply because we are born from a certain line of descent. Being born of Christian parents will not save us. Having our name on a church membership list will not save us, nor will simply being in church on any number of Sundays.
Our text for this morning reminds us that the Lord takes no delight in outward religion. Being a good person is good, but it will not save anyone. Doing good things is good, but it will not save you. Trying not to sin, trying to be like a saint or even to be like Jesus, all these are admirable, but they will save no one.
The Lord’s desire is to have us, to have all of us, our heart, mind, body, soul and spirit. As we learned in the close of the commandments, God is a jealous God that is He demands that we worship Him and Him alone, that we have no other God’s before Him. God does not want us just on Sunday mornings. He does want us on Sunday mornings, but not just on Sunday mornings. He does not want us just to be in divine service with our minds wondering elsewhere, He want us to be in divine service engaged in listening and in being given the gifts He has to give. God does not want us just to have our names on a membership list of some congregation, He wants us, heart, mind, body, soul and spirit. It is only as He has us, all of us that all these other things will happen.
Actually, we might well say, God does not want anything from us, at least as if we are giving something to Him thinking that He is in need of something from us. God does not need anything from us as if we have anything to offer that He does not have already. God want us, all of us. And unless the Lord has us, we are not saved.
Thanks be to God that He covers us on this as well. It is the Lord who calls us to faith, who gives us faith, who gives us forgiveness of sins, forgiveness earned for us by His Son. He gives us life, and He gets us ready. He does this through the very means He has given us to get us ready, His means of grace. I cannot stress this enough, it is only as we make regular and diligent use of the means of grace that our Lord comes to us to get us ready and to keep us ready, to give us all the good gifts and blessings He has to give.
This morning we are reminded once again, as we will be reminded again next week and week after, that we are to be always ready and watchful. Jesus’ story of the ten virgins in our Gospel reading are His Words of encouragement to us to be watchful and to be ready. We do not know when the Lord will return. We do not know when our last hour on this earth will be and when we will pass on and go to Him. All we really know is that it will happen. And as I have said before it will happen sooner than we know and sooner than we might imagine.
Paul’s words in our Epistle lesson are words of encouragement as well. Paul’s words give us hope, that is a certainty concerning our eternal life. For, even if we pass on before the Lord returns, we need to be ready. And should we be alive when the Lord returns, we should be ready. There is salvation to all those who believe, but only to those who believe, that is only to those who believe in Jesus as their Savior. We have this hope, we have this confidence and Paul urges us to encourage one another with these words.
To summarize our reading for this morning, these are the Lord’s Words. The Lord, through the prophet Amos warns the children of Israel and us for that matter, that His desire is faith and faithfulness not simply an appearance of faith through hypocritical worship. The Lord’s Words, especially to us, are that we are not saved simply because we have our names on a church membership role, nor because we are born of Christian parents of a certain family line, God’s desire is not that we simply attend divine service, in a thoughtless manner, rather His desire is that we, with our whole selves and our whole being engage in divine service, being given the gifts God has to give and responding in faith and living lives as priest in the priesthood of all believers, living lives as a living sacrifice to the Lord. God has given His all for us in the death of Jesus for us for the forgiveness of our sins so that we might have eternal life. In response, God wants us, all of us. My prayer is that the Lord will accomplish His desire. 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.