Let me begin by saying “Thank you” for inviting me to be here as you celebrate 150 years of God’s gifts and blessings, His gifting you to be His Church, His congregation, His people here in this place. I was told that your theme for this year was Faith and Family 150, thus the title, “God’s Gift of Faith and Family for 150 Years.” Over the years I have rotated my preaching by preaching through the three year cycle of our churches lectionary, that is the first three years I preach from the Gospels, the second three years I preach from the Epistles and the last three years I preach from the Old Testament texts. I do that for two reasons, first, I have nine years of material and after nine years no one will remember if I preached the same sermon from nine years ago. Second, I preach from the appointed text so that I am not tempted to preach from my own favorite texts. Although this year is my year to be preaching on the Epistles, as I looked at the appointed text for today I noticed that it is the Old Testament reading that is best suited for today. I am always amazed at how God can always give us the right text for the right occasion, so this is our text.
Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to serve as a chaplain, a shepherd to the character development organization to which my children are involved and so I have developed a habit of beginning my messages by laying a firm foundation on which to build my statements. First, I always ask the question, are humans ever wrong? Of course the answer is yes, many times. Humans have been known to get many things wrong and still today there are constant changes in theories, especially in the field of science. Second, I ask the question, is God ever wrong and of course the answer is no. So, when human opinion is contradictory to what God says in His Word, I will always side with God and His Word and figure that humans have made a mistake and perhaps they will eventually figure out their mistake. You may have heard the adage, let the evidence speak, but I will tell you that evidence does not speak it has to be interpreted. One may interpret evidence from a fallible human perspective or from the inerrant Word of God.
Second, I always ask, to what does the designation B.C. point and to what designation of A.D. point and at the same time I ask to what does the Old Testament point and to what does the New Testament point. And we find out that all of time, all of history, all of Scripture points to one place, and one person, Jesus. So, I begin by laying this foundation that we always get it right, no matter what, when we point to Jesus. Thus, our title is “God’s Gift,” pointing to Jesus.
Our text, the Old Testament reading is a reminder to the sinful nation of Israel of God’s steadfast love and mercy. If you study the history of the children of Israel you will notice that theirs was a rather roller coaster ride of God’s calling, their apostasy, God’s discipline, their repentance, God’s forgiveness and deliverance, and back again to their apostasy. They really are no different than we are today. Our world today is a world that is constantly at odds with God. We try to compromise God’s Word, make excuses for our sinful ways, even to the point of actually creating our own gods in our own image. Thanks be to God for His grace and mercy on us.
One more bit of foundation I would like to lay and that is that there are basically only two religions in the world. Man’s religion and God’s religion. Man’s religion is based on one’s character that is that a person is supposed to do something to be saved. Unfortunately, this thought is somewhat espoused or insinuate even in many Christian denominations, but I will get back to that in a minute. Then there is God’s religion, which is the Christian faith that is that we are saved by God’s grace, which is His gift to us, through faith, which is also His gift to us, with nothing necessary on our part. Now, as for some of our Christian denomination, and please do not misquote me, I do believe that many of our brothers and sisters in other denominations are saved. Yet, time and again I come across people who all they hear is what they need to do to be saved. Remember what I said about pointing to Jesus. Yet we hear it preached time and again, “look inside yourself,” “all you gotta do is choose Jesus,” “God’s wants you to be obedient.” All theses point to oneself. Too many people confuse and mingle Law and Gospel and come out with some type of moralism, do and live. Or they will hear the good news of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and then go back to thinking there is something necessary for them to do for salvation. Which is why I love being a Lutheran. We get it right. We are pointed to and we point to Jesus, just Jesus.
Unfortunately, as an aside, there is yet a bit of a disconnect in many of our own sister LCMS congregations in their failure to connect doctrine, what we believe, with practice, how we do what we believe and, again unfortunately their practice often times becomes implied if not outright demanding some action on our part.
As you celebrate 150 years of being a Lutheran Church, I want to talk about the fact that you are a Lutheran congregation. I love being Lutheran. Really, I do. For the past number of years I have had the opportunity and privilege to present a sectional at our confessional Lutheran Higher Things Youth Gatherings on Why I am Lutheran and I get to extol the virtues of being Lutheran. It is great to be Lutheran because we get it right because we point to Jesus and we never let anything get in our way of pointing to Jesus. Lutheran doctrine, that is what we believe, teach and confess is always clear in Lutheran practice, that is in the way we live as Lutherans. So, our lives begin in the Divine Service which teaches our faith and our faith informs our Divine Service. Even our church building is built according to our Lutheran faith. And it too points to Jesus.
Let me pause here a moment and explain that what we do here in this church building is not worship, but is Divine Service. Worship is usually defined as our coming to do something for God. We are the actors and God is the audience. As Paul asked the Athenians on Mars Hill, “What does God need from us?” No, we have Divine Service, that is God service. We come here to be given to, to be acted on by God. God is the one acting and doing and we are the ones being done to and given to. And as He does to us and gives to us, so He stirs in us our response of offering hymns, prayers and first fruits.
So, when we walk into this facility, this church building the first thing we see is the cross. The building points us to Jesus. And this building is even built in the shape of a cross. When we begin our Divine Service we do so with the invocation, a reminder of our Baptism and entrance into the Church, Jesus putting His name on us with the voice of the called Pastor and water with his hands. We look and we see the Baptismal font, Jesus comes to us through Holy Baptism. Our church building and our Divine Service are Lutheran, they point us to Jesus.
Next, in our Divine Service, we confess our sins and we hear the most beautiful words we can hear. Yes, through the mouth of the sinful pastor God speaks and does what He speaks, He forgives our sins. And because it is God’s Word we know that His words does what it says and gives the gifts He speaks, we know our sins are forgiven. We are pointed to Jesus.
As the service continues we hear the very word of God read by our called and Ordained Pastor, as if God Himself were speaking His Word to us. And then, from the pulpit we hear him preach and expound in Law and Gospel those very words. Jesus comes to us through the Word of God. And notice it is the Divinely Called Pastor who has been called to read and speak to us the Word of God and point us to Jesus. As disciples of Jesus we are called to come to the Divine Service and be given to so that we might hear, learn and take to heart these very words of Jesus read and spoken to us by the Pastor. We are pointed to Jesus.
And the Jesus we are pointed to is the Jesus who is glorified in His death and resurrection. The price for sin was set in the Garden of Eden, death, hell. God’s command to be perfect was never rescinded. The only way to heaven is perfection and we cannot be perfect. So, God took care of that for us as well. The fullness of the Gospel is not simply Jesus’ death and resurrection but the fact that He lived the perfect life demanded of us for us in our place because we cannot. Jesus perfectly obeyed all God’s commands and promises, then of His own free will He took our sins upon Himself and allowed Himself to be crucified. No one took His life, He gave it freely for us because of His great love for us. Jesus paid the price for our sins, all of our sins and He gives that forgiveness to us. We are pointed to Jesus.
Following our hearing the Word of God, after we have had an opportunity to respond to the gifts of God through our prayers, our offerings, and our hymns and then our attention is drawn to the altar wherein Jesus comes to us to give us His body and blood in His Holy Supper for the forgiveness of our sins. As the pastor speaks the words of God so the gifts God gives are given to us. God gives and we are given to. We are pointed once again to Jesus.
Finally, our Divine Service concludes with a benediction, the Aaronic threefold putting of God’s name on us benediction. God using the mouth of the pastor speaks His word of blessing on us. We are pointed to Jesus through the objective Word of God. And notice, nothing is in the way of the cross, the pulpit, the altar, the font. And yes I will say it, no drum set or “praise band” gets in front. Nothing draws our attention away to the side or in front of the cross. And yes I will say it, no screens draw our attention away, nor make us think we are going to be entertained with some show. Nothing points us to ourselves, to our emotions, to our experience, to us. We are pointed to Jesus. Our Lutheran doctrine and practice put our focus where we desire it to be, as the Greeks said to Philip, “We wish to see Jesus.” Because it is only as we see Jesus that we are prepared to go out into the world and live as priests in the priesthood of all believers, living our lives as living sacrifices always being ready to give an answer for the hope that we have. I tell you, it is awesome being a Lutheran.
“20Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus’” (John 12:20, 21). What a blessing, to be God’s Church and God’s people in this place bringing others to “see Jesus.” This year we rejoice in the wonderful gifts God gives to us His people, His sinful people, and to you here in Steeleville over the past 150 years. We rejoice in the wonderful doctrine of the Lutheran Church which is on display in the Divine Service and in the lives of God’s people. We rejoice in the answer we have for the hope in Jesus we have, an answer given to us, spoken through us, and used by God to give, strengthen and keep us in faith.
How fitting are the words of our text, “22The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 25The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. 26It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” So, as much as we humans may want to celebrate our successes in life, 150 years, perhaps we would do well to recall that our lives very much reflect the lives of the children of Israel. We are sinners. We sin. Sinning is easy, it is natural, it takes no practice and we are good at it. We even make great excuses for our sinning. God seeks to discipline us. We repent. God forgives and we sin some more. Thanks be to God that He is faithful. Thanks be to God for His steadfast love. Thanks be to God and give Him the credit and the glory for a 150 of His faithfulness and steadfast love and may He give us another 150 years, or better, may He soon gather us and all the faithful and take us to be with Himself in heaven. Come Lord, Jesus, come quickly. To Him be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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