Pentecost 7 - Amos 7:7-17

One benefit of living in Central Ohio is that we are blessed with one of the best zoos in country – if not the best.  The Columbus Zoo offers lots of great animal exhibits that are always plenty of fun to visit if you have the time  to go spend for a day at the zoo.  Whenever we go, we usually find that one day is never enough time to see all that there is to see. 

It’s always fun to see the animals; they are wild and exotic and they come from all sorts of remote places around the world.  But, what always makes the trips more fun and exciting is when the animals are up and active and moving around.  Often they are lazily sleeping the afternoon away.  But every once in a while the lions and tigers will be up prowling around, and putting on a show for the zoo patrons.  That always makes the trip that much more enjoyable.

It happened on one occasion that we were at the zoo visiting the gorilla exhibit.  The visit started off with observing a group of very sleepy and lazy looking gorillas.  But as we stood there watching, one of them, the largest one got up and began to move around his cage.  He climbed up to the top of the trees, he climbed down, he sauntered across from one side to the other and back again.  We were standing observing through a large glass pane and we suddenly saw him begin to run around the circumference of the enclosure.  Will was kneeling down directly in front of me at the glass as we were both taking the whole thing in.  And as the gorilla ran past at full speed, he reached out his hand and pounded the glass right in front us.  Needless to say, we were startled.  I nearly jumped out of my skin.  Both of us were grateful for the strength of the plexiglas that stood between us and the gorilla. 

That’s the way it is when you go to the zoo.  It is fun to see the animals.  It is especially fun when they are swimming or diving or flying or prowling or snarling or roaring – but always behind the glass, always inside the cage, always safely and securely locked away.  Because, as Will and I discovered, powerful and un-tamed animals can be frightening even behind the glass, let alone in front of it.  Imagine, how frightening would it be if the animals every got free?

Sad to say, it is entirely true that this exact “keep him close, but always behind bars” approach that people employ with gorillas and lions at the zoo is the exact same approach that people take with their God.  They want to keep him close.  They want him near by so they are able go to see him when they want, to spend time with him when it suits them.  But always in a cage.  Always behind bars.  Always under surveillance.  Because a God who is permitted to roam free, who acts according to his own nature and his will just isn’t safe.  We want a god, we even need a god, but it is a tame god we are after.  A God much like a gorilla behind a pane of plexi-glass. Fun to see.  Fun to watch him as he prowls around doing his God thing.  But always under our control, under our watchful eye, making sure he doesn’t do anything for which we do not approve.  Anything more just wouldn’t be safe.

There is that old adage, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  We want a god we can keep under supervision.  The Old Testament Israelites felt the same way.  They wanted to believe in the Lord, to practice their religion and keep their faith; but they wanted to do it in a way that suited them, that suited their needs and their lifestyle and their choice.

Jeroboam was King of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  He wanted a god.  His people wanted a god.  But they wanted a tame god, a god who didn’t think too much for himself. A god who let them decide those complex and complicated issues of morality and justice.  Things that are too complex to leave in the hands of a black and white, over simplifying god.  Right and wrong is so contextual, after all.  Right and wrong can be defined and determined by so many different criterion.  You shouldn’t limit yourself to such a narrow understanding.  You shouldn’t paint with such broad brushes.  There are times after all when you need to fudge a little. To expand the boundaries of justice so you have the freedom to say and do the things that need to be done. 

And so he did.  Right and wrong were defined to allow for advantage to be taken of the widows and orphans, the poor and the destitute.  Servants were made from the less fortunate.  Purses and wallets were lined from with the excess gleaned from those lacking the power to speak for themselves.  And what about the Church?  Where was the voice of the church to speak up on behalf of the poor?  To speak against the injustice of the powerful?  They said nothing.  They did nothing.  Amaziah the priest in Bethel was little more than Jereboam’s yes man.  The colleges and seminaries to train the prophets were little more than propaganda houses for the status quo. 

So God sent Amos.  Amos was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet.  This was not his profession or paid vocation.  He was a herdsman and a farmer.  But God called him and sent him to speak his Word faithfully, in all its truth and purity against the injustice of the day.  The God whose teeth you have tried to remove, who you have locked away in a cage – to keep him near by but always on your terms, the god who you have tried to tame, to make more palatable to your lifestyle and your choices is no tame lion.  He does not wear your muzzle.  He does not fit in your cage.  He cannot be contained by your bars.  He is not restrained by your chains.

In chapter 1:2 Amos declares:

“The LORD roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of Carmel withers.” (Amos 1:2 ESV)  The Lord roars and Amos is his mouthpiece.  He can only be marginalized and pushed out and pushed away for so long.  He can only be ignored and kept on your terms for so long.  The Lord is God.  And like a lion roaring and prowling around in the streets, he is powerful.  And he must be heard.  To ignore him means your death.

The word that the Lord gives this morning in our text is a metaphor.  The Lord gives Amos a vision and Amos tells us what he sees – the Lord is holding a plumb line, measuring the wall, testing to see if it is true.

This is a plumb line – a weighted piece of string or twine.  A relatively simple device, but it always hangs straight up and down.  A stone mason constructing a wall could use this to check his work, to see how well he had done his work, could see if the stones have been placed straight up and down.  Crooked stones make for weak walls.  The metaphor follows like this: the Lord has tested the strength and quality of Israel and has found them to be less than true.  He has compared them to the plumb line of His Holy Word and they have not measured up.

And so says the LORD in our text.  “I will never again pass by them; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.” (Amos 7:8-9 ESV)

You see, this is the 3^rd vision that the Lord had given to Amos.  In the first two, the Lord promised to relent.  He expressed his anger at the sins of the people; but he was merciful.  He did not destroy the people for their sin even though they deserved to be destroyed.  He gave them another chance.  We take God’s mercy for weakness.  We take God’s mercy to mean that we are in control, that we have the right to determine right and wrong, truth and falsehood.  We take God’s mercy to mean that we call the shots and so foolishly we place all kinds of muzzles and restraints on the Lord as though we have the power to decide what he can and cannot say and what he can and cannot do.  We would like to believe that we are God.

Have you seen Jurassic Park?  A movie about a zoo for dinosaurs.  T-Rexes and Velociraptors in cages to be viewed for fun by zoo patrons.  One of the classic scenes takes place just after the T-Rex excapes.  He is pounding his way through the rain soaked park cause the earth to vibrate.  When we see him he lets out a tremendous roar.  If t-rexes cannot be caged and kept in a zoo, how much less can our God?  In his mercy, He puts up with our foolishness.  He permits us to dismiss him and ignore him and minimize and contextualize His Word and His Law.  But he is not a tame God.  He is not a trifling God.  He is powerful.  He is willful.  He is the one who decides right and wrong and truth and morality.  He has revealed that will and that power to us in His clear Word.  People say all the time that the Bible is so complicated and so complex; you can’t really know for sure what it means.  People say all the time that you have to just read it for yourself and decide what it means for you.  God’s Word is clear.  God’s Word reveals God’s will.  God’s Word reveals his clear teaching.  He is not obliged to confine himself to the cages we would make for him.  And so the Lord breaks free and like a lion, like a liberated T-Rex, He roars with a deep, deafening, earth shaking roar.

What do you think He would say, Dear Christian?  What words would come from this terrible and powerful and un-tamable Lion?  Where would he sink his teeth and flare his nostrils?  At you? 

He could.  After all, you have tried to tame him.  You have refused to hear him.  You have built your wall with your own blueprints and his plumbline would show your lack of craftsmanship.  He could roar at you.  But he won’t.  At least not yet.

For now, the Lion of Judah roars, but not at you. The Lion of Judah roars but at the Devil.  Because the devil is roaring at you.  Peter tells us that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  He has no right to do that.  He has no power to do that.  He cannot destroy you.  He cannot harm you.  The Devil is a liar, a charlatan, much like the Great and Powerful Oz who pretends to roar and snarl and snap but in reality has no greater authority than you or I.  And so the Lord, the Lion of Judah comes to put that other, that false lion in his place.  To back him off and back him down.  Satan slinks away with his tail tucked between his legs.  And so does death.  Utterly defeated by the great and powerful Jesus.   

And what about Sin?  He takes it into himself.  He eats it up – bite by putrid and stinking bite.  He takes it all. He consumes it all so that it is forever gone, never to be seen again.  Jesus.  The Lion of Judah destroys our enemies and keeps them at bay.  Jesus, the lion of Judah, roars.

People are people; we have been ever since the beginning.  We want to minimize and marginalize the Lord so that we can make the rules and we expect the Lord to obey.  But the Lord is far from tame.  He is far from restrained by the parameters we might create for him.  He is great and he is powerful.  And He uses that power for you. 

Amen.

Pentecost 6 - Boast in Your Weakness

Dear friends in Christ,

The world is preparing for the Olympics.  Athletes will gather in a few weeks in the city of London to test their strength against one another.  They will compete in all sorts of events to see who is the strongest runner, the strongest swimmer, the strongest basketball or volleyball or soccer team.  And when they have decided through competition, they will crown the winner and we will all celebrate theirs strengths.  Because that is what we celebrate…  Strength. 

While that works fine in athletic competition, when it comes to our spiritual lives, strength is a liability.  We think it helps us.  We think it gives us a leg up.  We think it keeps us moving in the right direction.  We are wrong.  Our strength gets in the way.  Our strength messes things up.  People are proud of their strength, but when it comes to things spiritual, the mature and healthy Christian boasts with the Apostle Paul in their weakness. 

We really want to think of ourselves as strong, spiritually strong.  When we think of Christians we admire, we always evaluate them according to their strength.  We say things like, “Do you know so and so – he is a really strong Christian.” Or “What about her? She has a really strong faith.” Or maybe you think to yourself, in your own mind, “I have missed church a few times, but it’s okay. My faith is still strong?”

That is what we would like to think.  The question is, how do you know?  When you are trying to measure the strength of your faith, what criteria do you use? 

It often has to do with the way that we feel about ourselves.  “I feel like I am a Christian.  I feel like I have a strong faith.  Therefore I must have a strong faith.”  That is a dangerous way to evaluate your spiritual health.  How many people, after all, have claimed to have felt fine, with not even a symptom only to go to the doctor and discover they have some terminal sort of sickness or disease.  They felt fine when they were actually quite ill.  Feeling fine, feeling strong doesn’t mean you are strong.

A second way we measure is by how much good stuff we do.  Do we help people?  Do we follow all the rules?  Do we volunteer? Do we pray enough?  Read our Bibles enough?  Or maybe we haven’t and think we should, with the understanding, of course, that it will make us strong.  We measure our strength by the things we do.  This is good works theology.  This is legalism.  It doesn’t make us strong.  That’s what they Pharisees did, the way they acted.  They followed lots of rules and thought that by doing so they were undergirding their strength.

But what did Jesus say?  “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17 ESV) Jesus called them white washed tombs who looked good on the outside and were full of death and deceit on the inside.  (Matthew 23:27-28)

Hypocrites we call them.  They deserve what they have coming.  We can’t stand hypocrites.  People who say one thing but do another.  Isn’t that what you do? You strong Christian?  Don’t you overlook your sin, push it back, push it down to keep it out of sight and out of mind?  You have to.  There is no other choice.  Otherwise it will take away your strength.  It will make you weak.  It will destroy you.  And so you deal with your sin on your own – you deal with it by pretending it isn’t there.  You deal with your weakness by trying to compensate for it with a self manufactured yet will artificial strength. 

Hypocrites and pretenders – that is what we are!

But God has another way.  A better way.  And it starts with repentance.  It starts with taking an honest look at ourselves. An honest look into the mirror of God’s law.

In Psalm 53 David writes:

God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. (Psalm 53:2-3 ESV)

God look in on us.  He sees not just our outward actions, not just the way we want to be seen by others, God measures us exactly as we are.  He measures our hearts, our motives, our innermost thoughts, and he sees that we are full of sin.  God sees behind the put on and pretend righteousness that we use to fool others and especially ourselves.  And God says that we are all in the same boat – no one who does good, no one who is righteous, not even one.  Strong Christians?  Not even close.  There’s no such thing. 

Paul knew that.  He knew the truth about himself.  He knew he was weak, he knew he was a sinner but he knew that his sin was washed clean by Jesus.  Paul knew that Jesus was strong for him.  Jesus was strong on his behalf to overcome his weakness.  Paul could look to Jesus, could lay his weakness at the feet of Jesus.  Could lay his fear at the feet of Jesus, could lay his doubt at the feet of Jesus, Could lay his sin at the feet of Jesus.  Paul could claim to be even the chief of sinners. Because Jesus was his strength. 

Sometimes, when patients are brought in to hospitals they are desperately in need of medical care and attention, but they don’t want to be helped.  They are so insistent that they are fine by themselves that they are a danger to themselves.  When the doctors and nurses care for them they resist so they need to be restrained.  Sometimes they even need to be sedated, given medications to put them into a sleep so they will submit to the treatments.  Friends you and I don’t need restraints, we don’t need sedation, we are so bad off that we need to die.  God takes one look at us and says, “It’s time to start over.”  And so he puts us to death, in baptism, where we are buried with Christ through baptism into death. And there he rebuilds us, from the inside out.  He pours us out.  He pours out our sin and self-centeredness, out natural narcissism, and he pours in Christ, through the Spirit and the Word to make us brand new. 

When this happened to Paul - God had given to the Apostle great revelations.  In our text Paul says that they Lord had taken him to heaven to give him great revelations – things too wonderful to be spoken.  This was God’s gift to Paul, a gift given for his encouragement and edification and for his understanding as he was to be a teacher and apostle to God’s people.  But Paul still had his sinful nature to contend with, a sinful nature that feels pride when it receives God’s gifts, that takes credit for the good gifts that God gives.  And so the Lord gave Paul a thorn in his flesh to remind him of his weakness. 

God does the same for us.  We have that same struggle – we take credit for God’s generosity.  We convince ourselves that we deserve the good things, the blessings we have received.  So God sends us little reminders of our weaknesses.  They don’t seem little, they don’t feel little, they can often feel like they are pretty big and imposing.  But they are God’s way of reminding us that we need him, that we don’t stand on our own strength, we don’t live by our own merit, we live by the grace of God.  We have that in truck loads. 

Luther talked about faith as an empty sack. Going to Jesus as a beggar, hoping only to receive.  Lord, I need what you have to offer.  I need the gifts you bring.  Fill me to the full so that I can be filled.

God fills us.  He gives us more than we could hope for.  He gives us exactly what we need.  We can look at ourselves in the mirror, even in God’s mirror of the law and see ourselves for who we truly are but still say with confidence that we are saved because of what Jesus has done for us.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Pentecost 5 July 1 2012 - 2 Daughters

"My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live." Could those words be your words? Imagine yourself in Jairus' shoes. Daughter on the verge of death. Only hope for life is to lay her at the feet of Jesus, to have Jesus lay his hands of mercy and healing on her dying body. If only we were so desperate for Jesus. Jairus was desperate for Jesus. His little girl was sick. On her death bed. Breathing her final breaths. At any moment the end could come. Imagine the heartbreak as a parent watching your daughter suffer with an illness. Imagine the feelings of helplessness knowing that nothing you could do would change her predicament. You were watching her slip away from you moment by moment. Imagine the heartbreak. But then hope. Jesus was in town. He had gone across the lake earlier that day and was nowhere to be found, But someone ran in to the house with a report that His boat just landed and he was walking down by the shore. Leaves you with a predicament - what should you do? Do you leave the side of your dying daughter. Do you miss the chance to see her through to her last breath and comfort her as she passes, or do you risk going to find Jesus on the chance that Jesus might come, that Jesus might heal. The possibility of the positives outweighed the definitiveness of the negatives and so Jairus went, frantically in search of the Lord. If only we were so desperate for Jesus. Jairus was a good man. He did everything right. He always did. You didn't get to his place in the community by doing the wrong thing, by doing things the wrong way. Jairus was successful. He was well off. His contributions kept the synagogue running. We know men like that - serve on every board the church has to offer, sometimes twice. Sometimes two at a time. The first to show up on a Sunday morning, the last to leave. Helps the pastor, visits the sick, cares for the needy, active in the Lutheran Layman's League, visits with those who haven't been to church in a while to gently encourage them to return, adopted an orphan in Africa, even has plans to go on a mission trip. A real churchman. And as a man of faith, when his daughter got sick he did the right thing. He prayed. He went to the one who has the power and the ability to help. Jairus had faith. His faith was active and involved. He believed not just in word but also in deed. Someone for us to look up to. And Jairus was desperate for Jesus. If only we were so desperate. Jairus found Jesus, explained to him his need and Jesus came. Imagine the relief at finding Jesus. Imagine the frantic rush that must have ensued as Jairus would have hurried Jesus through the streets on his way home to the bedside of his daughter. But then Jesus stopped dead in his tracks. "Who touched me?" Jesus asked. Well, that's a dumb question, you think. Who didn't touch you? Everyone touched you. It's a crowded street. There are people pressing in all around you." The disciples say what you are thinking. But Jesus persists. He scans the crowd, while precious seconds tick by, looking for that phantom of a person who Jesus insists touched him. And then she emerges. Jairus barely even knew her name. But everyone knew who she was. Probably crazy. No one ever saw her at church. People said she had some sort of a disease - made her bleed a lot. Her skin was always pale and gaunt. Kept to herself. You just ignored her, passed to the other side of the street when she came by. Everyone did. And now this was the woman taking Jesus away from the task at hand. Your daughter lay dying. You were close now, just around the next corner. You were almost there. If only this woman would wait her turn. You did not know this woman's quiet suffering. Your daughter lay with death a moment away threatening to rip her from the prime of her life. This woman has been dying every day a quiet, lonely death for the past 12 years. Her sickness made her an outcast. the Law of Moses said that because of her flow of blood she was unclean. Even if she wanted to go to church she could not. And so she stayed home when God's people gathered. Overlooked and ignored and quietly judged by the every sunday crowd. She could feel their stares and hear their comments muttered under their breath. So instead of going to church she looked for a cure, hoped for a cure, followed every lead to every new doctor and every new treatment. Each one promised a cure but delivered only a bill that she couldn't pay. She spent all she had and now had nothing. She too heard Jesus was in town, just back from his trip across the lake, and she thought to herself, "This is my chance. If only I touch his garment I will be healed. If only I touch his garment - that way I can sneak up behind him, quietly, unnoticed, outside the judgmental stares of the crowds." She could be free from this quiet, lonely and painful hell that she had been living for these 12 years. Desperate for Jesus she reached out her hand to touch his cloak. If only we were so desperate for Jesus. She touched the cloak of her Savior and in a moment her suffering ended. she felt it immediately. No waiting to see if this treatment would work, no need for multiple treatments. As soon as she touched him her sickness was gone. And her plan had worked. She found Jesus, touched the hem of his robe, received what her faith was seeking and could go back to her quiet life pain-free and whole. She could start again, start over, start fresh. But then Jesus stopped, right in his tracks. She only wanted a quiet exchange, no confrontation, no face to face meetings, just back door and behind the scenes. But Jesus stopped. Dead in his tracks. And turned around. And so did she. She knew what she had done. She knew she had been caught. She hoped the urging of the disciples would distract him and get him off her trail but he insisted. "Someone touched me. I felt power go out from me. Who? Who touched me?" The game was up. She turned herself in. What would Jesus do? Yell? Command? Curse? Would he give her back her illness? Would her new hell be worse than the first? No. "Daughter." said Jesus. "Go in peace. Your faith has healed you. Be free from your disease." In a word and in a moment Jesus restored her. Her body had been healed, but now also her soul. In front of everyone. All the crowds. The disciples. Jairus. Jesus restored her. If ever there was "a moment" this was it. But it was a moment Jairus couldn't spare to lose. In the next breath someone came from Jairus' house. This one Jesus had called "daughter" would cost you your daughter. "Don't trouble the teacher any more. Your daughter has died." Your worst fear has just come true. Overwhelmed with grief, you turn your head and your eyes fill with tears. You know you shouldn't, but you can't help feel in your heart anger at this woman who stole from the Healer those last precious moments. Now it is too late. This daughter is healed. Your daughter is dead. But Jesus turns to you. "Do not fear" he says. "Only believe." With that he presses on. When you round the corner to your street you see exactly that scene you have been dreading. Your front yard bustles with commotion and none of it is good. These days we would see an ambulance, a stretcher, rescue workers. Not one of them going in to help, all of them coming out the front door with heads down knowing that day they failed to save a life. As they exit, they are passed by the coroner ready to claim the body and take it away to be prepared for burial. Thoughts of a funeral, feelings of emptiness fill your head and your heart. You barely even hear the cries of the mourners. It's like you are in a dream. But Jesus pushes past. "She isn't dead." says Jesus. "She's only asleep." This is a cruel game. One that you have no stomach to play, but you follow. The professional staff treats your little girl with the coldness of their professionalism. They act like Jesus had never seen a dead person. But they knew. What's dead is dead. There is no going back. And so they laugh. Their laughter stings. But Jesus insists. With quiet authority he dismisses "the professionals" and he takes over, almost as if he were the professional, almost as if he was the authority when it came to matters of life and death, and he walked up to your daughter. Your broken and beloved daughter and he picked up her hand and he looked into her still, lifeless stare and he spoke to her. He said, "Little girl, I say to you get up." The blank stare on your dead daughter began to change. The eyes that had been fixed somewhere in the distance on nothing in particular suddenly came into focus, first on the face of Jesus. Then her eyes looked around. First to your wife, then to you. Then she sat up. You are filled with disbelief. It's like a dream. That disbelief quickly gives way to joy. Your daughter was dead. No breath no life in her young body. Jesus brought her back. Jesus made her alive. Jesus healed not just a disease. Jesus cured death. This is what Jesus does. Jesus heals. He undoes those things that take away from us our life. Jesus heals the sick. He raises the dead. He comforts the grieving. He gives hope to the hopeless. He hears and answers the call of those who are desperate to receive him. Dear friends and fellows saints, learn here what it is to believe. Learn here what it is to have faith. We live in a world that is so enthralled with its own ingenuity. that is so convinced of its own ability to find and discover and create solutions to any of life's problems. But for every solution, life creates a bigger problem, a problem for which there is no solution. Every promise only fills or fixes "for now" and never "for good". But Jesus fixes for good. For real. For ever. Because Jesus treats not just symptoms, Jesus treats sin. He pays for it on the cross. He overcomes it in the empty tomb. He gives life that lasts forever. Two daughters. One poor and at the end of her rope, one privileged and at the end of her life. Both healed and restored. Both loved and cured by Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Pentecost 2 - Set Free

Jesus said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. (Mark 3:23-27 ESV)

Grace mercy and peace be to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Our text is the Gospel text from Mark 3.

Dear friends in Christ,

There are two things that we should learn from our text.

The first is that Satan is very real.  This is important for us to know and understand.  Because many today do not take the Devil seriously.  They think of him as a trifle, or a made up being, a boogey man, a thing that goes bump in the night.  Many people today believe that Satan is only a psychological projection, a personification of fear.  He is neither of these things.  He is entirely real; just as real as you and me.  A part of our Lord’s creation.

But he is different from you and me.  Satan is not part of the Lord’s visible creation; rather he is one of the Spirit beings that our Lord created.  One of the angels who God created and made and was good and perfect and holy.  He was made without the wickedness and evil that is today his calling card.  The Lord created him to be without sin.  The Lord also created him with great power and beauty.  But he coveted the Lord’s power.  He wanted that power for himself.  He hated God for what God did not give him, what he felt God should have given him, and so He rebelled against the Lord.  For all his power and wisdom and glory, he foolishly over calculated his strength.  He could not defeat God; so instead he decided to destroy the perfect world God made. And he would do it by leading the man and his wife to commit that same sin that he committed.  He took the form of a serpent and he tempted Adam and his wife to believe that the Lord hadn’t given them all that there was to receive, that the Lord held back in his gifts and if they would only rebel they could be like God.  Wasn’t that what Satan wanted?  Wasn’t that the same temptation that destroyed him?  And now it has taken hold of us.  A desire to be like God, a desire to be our own God, free from the true God.  We don’t need him.  We are okay without him.  He hasn’t exactly lived up to our standard anyway.  That is what Satan wants you to believe.  And so he pushes you.  Oh so subtlely, so subtlely in fact that we don’t even know he has been there.  His temptations are so easily and naturally slipped in to our own thoughts that we don’t even perceive him.  We are so quick to agree with him that we don’t recognize him.  We have a lot in common with him, after all.  We fell for the same sin.  He wanted to be like God.  We want to be like God.  There is solidarity between us and the devil.  And so we have the words of Jesus.   

No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man.

Satan is the strong man.  His house where he lives, his kingdom, is the world of men.  He is the prince of this world.  He is the ruler, the authority, the Lord of this present darkness. (Eph. 6:12)

In the Large Catechism, Luther writes, “Let me tell you this, even though you know God’s Word perfectly and are already a master in all things: you are daily in the devil’s kingdom [Colossians 1:13–14]. He ceases neither day nor night to sneak up on you and to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts against the commandments.” [LC I p.100]

So far, here is what we know.  Satan is real.  He is part of God’s creation.  He was created to be perfect but then fell into wickedness because he wanted to be like God.  He failed in that attempt and so he set about destroying God’s creation and taking control of God’s creation by convincing us to fall for that same sin.  He succeeded with Adam and Eve our first parents and he has, ever since, been repeating that same temptation with us so that this world of wickedness and sin is his kingdom.   We live in the house of the strong man.  We are the possession of that strong man – the trophies that sit on his mantle.  God’s beloved creation that have been stuffed and mounted as evidence of his victory.

But there is another thing for us to know, a more important thing for us to know.  It is one thing to know that Satan is real.  It is one thing to know who he is and what he does and how he does it.  But if that is all you know, then that will only terrify you.  Jesus was not in the business of terrifying people.  Jesus came to bring comfort.  It is as he said when he went to visit the folks in his home town of Nazareth.  Luke records for us in chapter 4 that he had just been out in the wilderness doing battle with the devil.  He defeated Satan and his temptations and then he began to teach; not a do it yourself gospel.  Not an, “I’ve done it and you can too” gospel.  Instead, Jesus came to preach I’ve done it.  I have gone toe to toe with the Devil and I won.  He came after me with everything he had and I didn’t budge.  I have done what you couldn’t do and I did it for you.  I defeated the Devil, I am about to defeat death, and I have done it for you. And so Jesus opened the scroll of Isaiah and began to read,  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”  (Luke 4:18-19 ESV)

In our text from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said that the only way to plunder the house of a strong man is to tie him up.  The first thing you have to do is overpower him.  The way to defeat a strong man is that you have to first find a stronger man.  It’s kind of like all those big summer movies that are in the theaters these days – The Avengers or Spiderman or Batman.  There is a villain, a “strong man”, if you will who is bent on chaos and destruction.  The human race is in peril and the only way for us to survive is for a hero, a man stronger than the villain to come to our aid, to fight on our behalf and to defeat this enemy for us so that we can be free.  Satan is the strong man.  Jesus is the hero.  Jesus is the one who fights the battle for us in our place and overcomes the strong man, who restrains the strong man, who ties him up and then plunders his house.

 In Revelation 20, John sees a vision.  He writes: “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended.” (Revelation 20:1-3 ESV)

John tells us of a time when this very thing has occurred!  When Satan, dragon, or from Jesus’ parable, “the strong man”, is tied up so that he can’t hurt you and so that his captives can be set free.  John tells us that he saw an angel come down from heaven with a chain, he seized the devil and tied him up for a thousand years. 

And so the question for us is who is that angel and when will that devil be tied up?  When will it happen that he is restrained so that his house can be plundered?  When will it happen that the saints of God can be set free from the chains of the devil?

Dear friends, do you remember that word that Jesus spoke to his disciples.  He said it first to Peter.  Peter you are the rock, and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.  And I tell you that whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.  (Matthew 16:18-19)

But that Word was too good to only say once!  Jesus had to say it again.  And he did.  It was in fact the first thing he said to his disciples when he saw them after he had been raised from the dead.  He had suffered, he died, he was buried.  On the third day he was raised again and his disciples were locked up, terrified of what would happened next and Jesus came to set them free.  To untie them.  To unlock them.  I hold the keys of sin and death.  I hold the chain that binds the devil and I give that chain to you.  I give the key that binds Satan to my church.  Jesus breathed on them. Jesus gave them His Holy Spirit so that their words were His Words and he said, “As the Father has sent me so I am sending you.  If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven.  If you withhold forgiveness it is withheld.” (John 20:20, 23)

Dear friends, Satan is a strong man who has taken control of God’s world.  He has enslaved all of humanity, every man, woman and child.  But God made a key that unlocks each and every one.  A master key that when inserted into their chains unties them and sets them free.  And then God made another chain.  A bigger chain, an enormous restraint that wraps around that strong man’s neck and binds him and holds him fast so that he cannot escape.  And the Lord has given the power, the keys to that chain into the hands of his church.  And I speak that key that sets you free and that ties up the devil so that he cannot touch you, I speak that Word of God to you now.  Your sins are forgiven.  Jesus has set you free.  Satan cannot touch you.  He is locked up, locked away.  Satan is bound. Bound by the promise.  Bound by the blood.  Bound by the name of Jesus.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen

Day of Pentecost - Psalm 139

Dear People of God

The Lord loves you.  That is the clear message of our text today.  Psalm 139 poetically draws out of those things that our Lord does to be with you and to have you be with him.    There is nothing that stops him or stands in his way; so great is His love for you.

The text is beautiful, wouldn’t you say? 

O Lord you have searched me and you know me.  You know when I set and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

As you read, you might get the image in your mind of two star crossed lovers.  Newlyweds.  A man and a woman who are so enamored with each other that they don’t care about one another’s faults.  They still have that newly married glow about them.  And in their love for each other they dote over one another.  They attend to every word spoken by the other.  They long to always be together.  They are deeply and genuinely concerned about and for the other.  We think of the genuineness and the purity of this sort of love.  Many of us have gotten burned by our hopes for love, taken advantage or discovered the imperfections in the one we have love.  This love is love apart from all of that cynicism.  It is love without being jaded.  It is true, honest, open and sincere.  All the best with none of the worst.  This is how our Lord loves us.

Our text tells us that the Lord discerns our thoughts from afar; in other words, the Lord knows what we are thinking.  Our text says that the Lord knows the our words even before they are on our tongue.  The Lord knows our words and he understands our thoughts.  Has it ever happened that you have not been understood?  Have you ever tried to describe what you have experienced and how you have felt because of it and no one has understood?  That is frustrating.  It is lonely. 

It happens in human relationships that even when we try to understand one another, often we fail.  A young husband does his best to read the thoughts of his bride by reading her expressions.  He knows what she is thinking by the tone in her voice or some expression on her face.  He relies on his knowledge of her tell-tale signs to know the thoughts in her head.  And he can at times be quite good at reading these thoughts.

But he is not perfect.  As any husband can tell you, no matter how well you know your wife there are those moments when you just don’t know what it is she needs.  You can try everything and still have it be the wrong thing because, we just can’t read a person’s thoughts.  We cannot perceive someone’s thoughts from afar.  We cannot know the words on a person’s tongue before she has spoken them.  Even when we try, we come up short.  But God does not.   

God knows it all.  God does know our thoughts.  There is not one thought that goes through our hearts or our heads that is lost to his attention.  He sees them all.  He knows them all.  He is attentive to them all.  Unlike that star crossed lover whose bride weeps for a reason he cannot discern, God does know.  He does understand.  There is no need for us to feel loneliness and fear because God discerns our thoughts and understands our words.

To read this and to understand this is glorious and so comforting, but it is also terrifying. Wouldn’t you say?

The Lord does know our thoughts.  He does know the deepest and darkest secrets that are hidden away in our hearts.  No matter how pure the love between the husband and wife, there are thoughts that they would each prefer to not share with the other.  There are thoughts that they are glad to keep hidden.  Moments when one’s heart is faithless, or spiteful, or resentful.  Thoughts that would hurt or anger or offended the other. 

Yet all those thoughts are laid bare before God.  As terrifying as it would be for your husband to know what you really think of his hobby that you pretend to love, as frightful as it would be for your wife to know where your eyes wandered when she was not looking, consider the fact that God does know.  God sees what your spouse does not.  God understands about you those things that your spouse does not.  And while your husband or wife can certainly cause you pain and grief and suffering, and believe me, so often they do, remember the words of the Lord, “Do not fear those who can destroy the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”  (Matthew 10:28)  Fear God.  God who knows and sees the thoughts in your head even before you know or see or understand them.  God who hears the words in your tongue even before you speak them.  Fear God.

Our Psalm is comforting.  It is beautiful.  It is reassuring.  But only with Jesus.  Only with Jesus can we find rest in these words.  Only with Jesus can we be at peace in knowing this about God; in knowing that God knows these things about us.

We believe the Bible to teach that God is omniscient – that he knows everything.  We believe the Bible to say that God is eternal – that he has no beginning and no end.  We believe the Bible to say that God is transcendent – that he is not bound to time and space but fills all of time and fills all space.  We say that God is omnipotent – that he has all power in heaven and on earth.  These things are affirmed by our text.  And the implication is that if truly eternal and if he is truly all knowing, then God knew your sin long before you were ever born.  He was aware of the thoughts in your head and the struggles of your heart long before you even had them.  And it was for this reason that the Lord sent to us His only Son Jesus. 

Jesus is the solution for humanities sin.  Jesus is the solution for all the suffering of the human race.  Jesus is the solution for the evil that happens in the world around us.  Jesus is the solution for the evil that happens inside of us – in our hearts and minds.  Between you and me and us and our relationships with each other.  Jesus is the solution for those sins that turn newlyweds into old married people.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day; a national day of remembrance for our soldiers who died to sacrifice themselves for us.  These men and women have served honorably in a God pleasing vocation.  But this is a stark reminding for us of how far the human race has fallen.  In order for there to be peace on earth among governments and nations there must be that threat that we stand ready to go to war.  We must be ready to kill and we must be ready to die.  To take away the our armed forces is to invite violence. So far has the human race fallen away from God.

And it is precisely for this reason that the world needs Jesus.  There is violence and death in the heart of man.  God perceives it from afar.  Not only that, the Lord hears the words on our lips and he hears us breathing out violence and murderous threats against each other.  He sees the hatred in our hearts that we have against each other.  And so He sent Jesus.  He sent his only son to be the sacrifice for that sin, for that hatred, for that violence. The Lord comes to pay for that sin that creates war between nations but also that violence and hatred that leads to disruptions in our homes, in our marriages, in our friendships.  There is violence in our hearts and so the Lord pays for it with violence.  Violence against his son. Violence against Jesus.  Jesus is beaten and bloodied.  Jesus is broken and abused.  Jesus is murdered and slain.  And the Lord has done this for us.  The Lord has permitted us to do this to him so that he could save us.  So that he could save us from each other and so that he could save us from ourselves.

And so this is done.  The work of forgiveness is accomplished and sin is washed away.  Its price is paid and its guilt atoned for.  And having accomplished the work of salvation, the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven having conquered sin and death, having overcome the things that overcome us.  He took his place on the throne of heaven and the first thing he did was send to us His Spirit.

On the day of Pentecost the Lord sent His Spirit to his disciples so that they preached and their preaching led to baptizing and faith and to new Christians and to a new church.   And the number of the Lord’s faithful grew.  Because now, the violence and sin that separates us from each other and from God has been done away with and a new fellowship could arise.  Fellowship with God and fellowship with each other as we all gather together around the gifts of the Gospel.  God’s Word, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper that tie us to the Lord and that tie us to each other.

Love is a wonderful emotion, a wonderful feeling, a gift from God that he gives between friends and family; a husband and wife. Yet sadly a gift that is misused and undone by the violence and sin that lives in the heart of each one of us.  This sin breaks apart the unity and the fellowship but God restores it.  He rebuilds it.  He recreates it in Jesus so that this love is once again ours to enjoy.  And with Jesus our relationship to each other, but also and especially with God is remade to the specifications of our Psalm. 

                O LORD, you have searched me and known me!

                You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

                                you discern my thoughts from afar.

                You search out my path and my lying down

                                and are acquainted with all my ways.

                Even before a word is on my tongue,

                                behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

                You hem me in, behind and before,

                                and lay your hand upon me.

                Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

                                it is high; I cannot attain it.

(Psalm 139:1-6 ESV)

Easter 6 - John 15/1 John 5

We have two texts before us this morning - both of them written by, John the Apostle.  Both address the topic of Love.  In his Epistle John talks about the Love of God that is shared between Christians.  He says that "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him."  In other words, within the gathering of those who have come to know God and believe God as he has been shown to us in Jesus, there is love between them; love that unites them and ties them together.  God gives love, we receive love, we show love.  That is the Church.

The Gospel text also talks about the love that Christian share among them.   The words of our text are spoken by Jesus himself.  And he says that love is God’s command.  He says that we love one another as He has loved us.  We should recognize that God’s commandments here have gotten stronger.  Jesus commands are tougher than the ones God gave through Moses.  Thou shalt not kill is easy enough to follow.  Thou shalt love thy neighbor is a much bigger challenge…

Our texts are about love.  Today is a good day to talk about love.  After all, today is Mother's Day.  Today is a day that we are encouraged to honor our mothers, to show them our thanks and gratitude for the way they love us.  And our mothers do show love.  Our mothers show us their love in the way they care about us; after all who else would so gently and lovingly clean a skinned knee or wipe a tearful eye? Who else serves the way a mother serves; cleaning up our mess, making sure we do our best at school, giving us advice on life's tough questions.  A mother's love is one thing that we can count on to be steady and secure in the unsure and unforgiving and hard world.  Moms love no matter what.  Today is good day to talk about love.

Or what about that other “love” that everyone has been talking about this week.  Twice the news has had headlines addressing national opinions about married love – who is eligible and who is not.  North Carolina passed a marriage amendment to legally define marriage as between one man and one woman.  Yet on the flip side, President Obama has publicly stated that he believes marriage should be open to anyone who loves anyone - the whole topic of "gay marriage".  Those who Mr. Obama agrees with tell us that this is all about love.  They tell us that if we don't agree with them then we do not love, that we are anti love.  You and I have been attacked as bigots in the media.  Some say this is an issue of love.   But Paul tells us that “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”  (1 Corinthians 13:4-6 ESV) 

We have seen those who claim to be champions of love doing those things that love does not do – insisting on their own way at all costs, rejoicing and celebrating that which is wrong, lashing out and attacking those who hold opposing viewpoints.  This issue is not about love.  It is about power. 

           

With all this discussion of love in the news and of course love as it relates to our mothers, it is easy to lose sight of what true love is and what true love should be.  We are tempted to think of love as something that we do.  Love is the way a man loves a woman and a woman loves a man.  Love is the way a mom loves her child.  Love is the way that child returns her mother’s love.  Sure, these are all examples of love, these are places that we see love and that we experience love.  But this is not love.  Love is not something that is created in us or by us or that simply flows out from us.  Love is entirely of God.  It is something that begins in God and that ends in God.  Love is something that God does and that God gives and that God creates.  When it comes to our love and the love that we might have for each other, the best we can hope to do is just to imitate love or be a reflection of God’s love as it given in God as much as we are able, even if that is only a little bit.  Love, true love, real love is what God does for us. 

Our Epistle text gives us a means to measure our love.  To know if love is there in the things that we say and do.  John says that "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments."  John adds on that "His commandments are not burdensome." 

Now this is good.  It is good to have a point of comparison.  Our love is measured by whether or not we keep the commandments.  Our love is measured by those things that we find written and recorded for us in the Scriptures.  We don't define love, God does.  We don't decide whether or not we have demonstrated love, whether or not our love has been sufficient, whether or not our love has been true and pure.  God does.  God measures our love by the commands of His Word.  And when we use the Word of God as the measuring stick for our love, we find that it  falls short.  The type of love matters not.  A husband's love for his wife, a mother's love for her child.  All have fallen short, all have missed the mark. All human loves falter or waiver.  Our love is not perfect love.

But, and here is the problem, generally speaking, we are okay with that.  To err is human after all... Right?  We well ourselves that is ok.  Sure, we might go off track every now and then, but who doesn't?  We are all sinners.  We all have our moments.  That’s okay as long as your heart is in the right place.  Right? 

Wrong.  The standard we have for ourselves and for each other is not the same standard that God has.  Remember the commandments.  Moses says don’t kill, Jesus cranks up the expectation when he commands that we love one another, even our enemies!  For us the standard is good enough.  For God the standard is perfect.  God says that we have sinned. God’s word says that we have failed.  We are like the prisoners in Plato's cave – chained to the wall in a dark cave all their lives they so that all they have seen is darkness and shadows.  When they are finally released to go out into the light, they could not bear it.  It was not what they were used to so they went back in and lived where they were comfortable, in the shadows.  That’s like us.  We have lived all our lives in the darkness and corruption of sin.  We are used to seeing it and living with it.  It’s there when read the news or pick up a magazine or go to the movies.  It is all around us.  We see how bad the world has become and we have never known the world without it.  Our normal is not normal.  Our normal is sin and corruption.  We can’t even imagine a world without sin.  And so when we judge ourselves we see in ourselves the same sin that is in everyone else and we assume we must be okay.  We are measuring with a crooked ruler.  Only God’s Word gets it right.  Only God’s Word draws the line correctly.  And God’s Word says we are sinners.  God’s Word says that we don’t show love.  We don’t even know what love is.

But God does.  God knows love.  God is love.  God shows love and God  gives love.  “Greater love has no one than this, that he should lay down his life for his friends.” 

These are words of Jesus.  Words that are exemplified by Jesus.  He not only says them, he does them.  There is no greater love than to give all you have to give, even your life, even your death for the life of others.  Jesus gave that gift.  Jesus gave his life, laying it down for you.  There is no greater love than the love of Jesus.  There is no greater love that the love of Jesus for you.  And Jesus has called you friend.

14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another. (John 15:14-17)

We live in a world where we do our best to love, where we do our best to understand love and define love and live love.  Mom's love their kids, kids love their moms, and sometimes it seems that love is as close to perfect as one could hope to expect.  But our love, our loves, are only shadows, imperfect and poor reflections of the true love, the great love, the greatest love that anyone could have or show and that is the love of God, the Love of Jesus for you as he gives his life for you, life for life, death for death, so that your sins could be washed away and so that you could be forgiven.

Jesus gives that love to you.  Jesus gave that love today - to Nevada.  She was washed, she was cleansed, she was raised to new life to new faith and to new hope that won't perish spoil or fade.  this is God's love in action, given and demonstrated perfectly and flawlessly.

Amen.

Now may the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ jesus,

Amen. 

Easter 5 John 15:1-8

I would make a terrible farmer. As I was reading on line about keeping orchards and fruit trees I discovered that it is tedious work. I like low maintenance gardening, put a seed in the ground and maybe water it a few times and hope for the best. Vine dressing is as much art as it science; training the branches to grow in the direction you want them to grow, making certain there is not an overgrowth that stifles maturity, removing the dead and diseased branches. There is work involved in maintaining an orchard or a vineyard. Constant continuous work that requires and demands a dutiful agrarian to get the utmost in production, but also beauty out of his plantings. Dear friends, this is our Lord. One who tends and shapes but who also prunes us the branches so that we grow into full maturity and so that we produce good fruit. This is the devoted care our Lord gives to his vineyard. But our Lord who tends and cultivates and nurtures also prunes. Those branches who are dead and diseased are not left on the vine to corrupt the whole vine. They are cut off then gathered up and thrown into the fire to be burned. There is judgment in our text. The question is, are you an unfruitful brach? To answer that question we must understand this: what does it mean to be unfruitful? St Peters second epistle offers us some insight. In chapter one we read this: For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8 ESV) To remain in Jesus begins with faith, faith that hears the Word of God, that receives the good news of God’s salvation – Jesus dead on the cross and raised to new life to the glory of the Father – faith hears that Word and says Amen! That Word is for me! And so we are members of Jesus the true vine. So that is faith. But faith gives way to love. And love includes that list that we heard from Peter. Virtue, knowledge, self control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love. Peter says that these things keep you from being unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So to be fruitful is to be virtuous, knowledgeable, self controlled, steadfast, godly, filled with brotherly affection, and love. If we truly desire to please our Lord we are wise to meditate on these qualities and characteristics. And so you might ask yourself, am I virtuous? By virtuous our text intends to say that we are moral in our lives but also in our thoughts, not tolerating sin-filled thoughts. Zeroing in on honesty and purity in all that we think, say, and do. Putting away from ourselves all the ways of the world. Are you virtuous? Are you knowledgeable? Of course we don’t mean knowledge of general truth; we mean knowledge regarding the truths of scripture. Have you devoted yourself to understanding the Word of God and have you studied it and meditated upon it? Have your turned it over and over in your mind to glean from it every truth that it has to offer? Are you knowledgable? Are you steadfast? Once you have latched on to that truth do you hold on to it at all costs? Do you stand firm in the face of temptations to sin or temptations to dilute God’s Word with man-made conventions? Are you one who will stand firm even when you are challenged to let them go? Are you steadfast? Are you godly? Do you meditate on God’s Word day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment so that God’s Spirit permeates your life, your heart, your mind and so that the Words you speak are words of mercy and grace and love the way God speaks with you? Or are your words harsh and judgmental or crass or rude? Are you godly? Is your godliness matched to brotherly love and affection? Do you reach out to others with the same love that you have received? Are you eager to overlook the faults of others, eager to help and eager to serve? Or are you unkind? Are you steadfast, not in God’s Word but in your own will to power? Do you display brotherly love and affection? If you meditate on these things, if you pray that the Spirit open your heart to understand what these things entail, you will know that you are not. You will pray and you will repent. You will beg the Lord for his forgiveness and you will ask that he not hold your sins against you. Why? Because that is what a Christian does. Because that is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. The alternative is to be too busy. The alternative is to be too offended. The alternative is to be too self righteous. The alternative is to be a withered branch. Jesus tells us that those who remain in him, that is to say, those who receive his Words with gladness, who take them to heart and pray for the Spirit’s active instruction for them and in them, those who pray with David, “Lord search me and know me, see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23) those who pray that prayer will be rewarded with the thing they seek. The Lord will give his Spirit abundantly (Luke 11:13) and you will be like a branch that is grafted in to the vine. The refreshing and rejuvenate Spirit of God will flow to you so that you will bear fruit. That is the image of the vine, is it not? A branch that is grafted to the vine will be lush and green, fed with living water (John 7:39) that carries nourishment for each branch to be fruitful. So that a harvest can be found growing on its branches. But the sick and diseased branches, the dead branches who care nothing for the water of life flowing from the vine, they are snipped off, they fall to the ground, they shrivel up and die. They will be gathered up and thrown away, burned in the fire. Jesus here tells us of God’s judgment against the unrighteous and their destruction in hell. So what is the Christian to do? Remain in Christ. How do you do that? Receive His Word. Jesus gives to you his word. Receive it. Be nourished by it. Our Bible class is studying Deuteronomy. Last week we examined chapter 6. We read a passage that the Hebrews refer to as the great Shema; the great “Listen”. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV) We are to keep the scriptures close by. Keep them always with us and always beside us and always on our hearts and minds and on our lips. We are often in danger of treating our Bibles like an encyclopedia. We don’t use encyclopedias much any more. These days we have the internet at our finger tips, but it used to be that the encyclopedia was the place you would check when you had a question. A big bunch of information that was otherwise obtuse and unnecessary, but it could answer the occasional tough question. Sometimes that is the way we treat the Bible. Information, handy as an occasional reference. The Word of God is not information. Those words are truth and they are life. Jesus tells us that it is by the Word that we are grafted in to the vine. And it is by the Word that we fed and nourished. It is also by the Word that we are pruned. To be pruned is to have the dead leaves cleaned off. The leaves that hinder growth and that get in the way of the fruitfulness of the branch. To abide in the word is to be clean. It is to have those dead leaves cleared away so that the only thing that remains is good and green and growing. Jesus cleans you. He takes away your sins. He takes away your poor thoughts, your dead works, your selfish ideals. And he replaces them with those things that are fruitful, that result in virtue and knowledge and self control and brotherly love and affection. This is what God does for you. On our own we are branches destined for destruction. But God has picked us up and grafted us into Jesus the true vine. And by that vine we receive life and faith and we produce fruit and a harvest that is useful to our Lord and Master. He prunes us. He makes us grow. He cleanses us so that we are useful to him. May the Lord find you fruitful and growing and alive as you remain in Christ and as He remains in you. Amen.