Psalm 122 - “Let Us Go to the Kingdom of the Lord”

First Sunday in Advent (Year A - Lutheran Service Book readings)
Sunday, November 28, 2010

This Advent we’re going to be focusing on the psalms appointed for each Sunday, looking to see how the psalms, the hymn book of the Old Testament, how these psalms prepare us for the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Of course, Advent is more than just about waiting to celebrate Christmas. Advent is also a season that reminds us that we’re waiting for Christ to return again, waiting for Him to return and bring us to eternal life with Him. Advent means “coming” or “arrival,” and so Advent prepares us to celebrate when Jesus came the first time, arrived at Christmas—His first Advent. But Advent is also about waiting and watching for that Second Advent, waiting for Christ to return to bring this world to an end and bring us to the new world, the eternal life, a promise we have because of what Jesus did on the cross, a promise of living forever with God because our sins are forgiven.

With all of that in mind, we could decide that Psalm 122 is a good psalm for Advent because of verse 1: “I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD.’” It’s a verse to encourage people to go to church, and Advent certainly is a time of encouraging people to come back to church if they’ve been away, it’s a time to be in church and prepare for Christ returning, a time to be in church not just for Christmas but also a part of your weekly routine. Advent is a time to renew your commitment to church, and so maybe that’s why Psalm 122 is chosen: “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

But then that would mean the original meaning of the psalm was just about going to the temple, was just about going to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at the feasts. And that doesn’t seem quite right, because if you look at Psalm 122, it does talk about Jerusalem, the focus is on being in Jerusalem, but there seems to be something more going on. The psalm identifies Jerusalem with joy, justice, peace, and security. That’s more than a city can offer.

Joy, justice, peace, and security. We’re not just talking about the city of Jerusalem. This psalm is talking about what it means to come to God, what it means to have faith in God. This psalm is pointing to Jerusalem as a symbol for coming to God. Joy, justice, peace, and security, those are things that we can only truly find in God.

So if Psalm 122 isn’t just talking about going to Jerusalem, if Psalm 122 is really talking about having faith in the true God, then when it comes to our lives, Psalm 122 isn’t just about going to church in Advent. It’s about faith in Jesus. It’s about finding joy, justice, peace, and security in Jesus. It’s about having faith in Jesus as we wait for Second Advent. When the psalm says that we have joy when people say, “Let us go to the house of the Lord,” we’re talking about something deeper. We’re talking about what it means to have faith in God, to go to God in faith, to have a relationship with Him. So it’s more than saying, “Let’s go to church.” It’s saying, “Let’s go to God in faith.” It’s saying, “Let’s go to the eternal house of the Lord.” “Let’s go to the Kingdom of God.”

That’s the promise that comes to you. That’s the promise we celebrate every day, but we especially can see this in Advent. We celebrate the promise of the eternal house of the Lord in Advent, in knowing that there’s a Second Advent. We celebrate that because Jesus came the first time, so then we’ll go with Him when He comes a second time. We celebrate that there’s forgiveness and mercy for us at the Last Day. We celebrate that we do not need to be afraid of the Last Day. We can rejoice in the Last Day, rejoice that Christ is coming to take us to be with Him forever.

That’s the promise that comes to you, and that’s the promise that we can hear in the words of Psalm 122. More than being about the earthly Jerusalem, it’s a hymn of rejoicing about the heavenly Jerusalem. It’s a hymn of rejoicing about the true joy, justice, peace, and security we will have in the New Jerusalem.

This seems good and right to me, because I’m not interested in people coming to Bethel Lutheran Church. I’m not interested in growing the congregation.

You heard me right. I, your pastor, am not that interested in growing Bethel Lutheran Church. I’m not that interested in growing the congregation.

I’m not interested in that as much as I am interested in Kingdom Growth, more people becoming part of the Kingdom of God, more people having faith in Jesus. I want people to be in the New Jerusalem, the new world, the life after death that they can only have if they have faith in Jesus.

I know, it’s a whole different way to think. We’re kinda programmed to think it terms of how we can grow our congregation, get our congregation to be bigger, and honestly, I do think about that, too.

But what I see in Psalm 122, what I see in Advent is that this shouldn’t be our primary goal. Our primary goal can’t be getting people into Bethel Lutheran Church. Our primary goal has to be seeing that people hear about Jesus, hear about how to be in His Kingdom. Our primary goal is telling people that they can have that joy, justice, peace, and security in Jesus Christ.

Remember: Psalm 122 is not about going up to the temple; it’s about faith in God. And our message isn’t just about coming to Bethel Lutheran Church; it’s about faith in Jesus, being a part of the Kingdom of God.

It’s a whole different way of thinking. It’s Advent thinking. It’s rejoicing to be in the house of the Lord—and really we mean, it’s rejoicing to be in the Kingdom of God.

Do you know what I mean? Our first priority isn’t Bethel Lutheran. Our first priority is that people are in the Kingdom of God. That’s why we support missionaries including Heather Wickstrom who will be going to Greece. That’s why we support our District and Synod, the missions that happen through the District and Synod. None of those things helps Bethel Lutheran Church get bigger. But we do them because we’re most interested in making sure that people get to know Jesus, and if there are some missionaries out there spreading the Word of God, well, we come along and support them in their work.

Do you know what I mean? We’re interested in Kingdom Growth, not Church Growth. We’re interested in people coming to the eternal Jerusalem, coming to the eternal house of the Lord, more than we’re interested in having them come to Bethel Lutheran Church on Grand Avenue. That’s why as much as I want you to invite friends to church, and inviting friends to church may be one of the best ways to introduce someone to the faith, and in the process, your friends may get to know Jesus, as much as I will keep encouraging you to invite friends to church, your primary goal should be helping your friends find a place to worship Jesus. Not everyone will find that Bethel is going to be their place of worship, but we certainly want our friends to know Jesus, to be involved somewhere in their faith, to be someplace where they are hearing the Word of God on a regular basis. That’s Advent thinking; that’s being focused on the Kingdom.

That’s why when people stop coming to Bethel or when visitors don’t keep coming to Bethel, we’re disappointed, but our biggest concern is whether those people are worshipping elsewhere. Our concern has to be on their eternal spiritual life—and not just their temporary spiritual life, whether they are at our congregation or not. We want to know that those people who are not coming to Bethel are involved in a church somewhere, are still in the faith, still have the promise of eternal life.

It’s a whole different way to think; it’s Advent thinking. It’s rejoicing to be in the house of the Lord—and really we mean, it’s rejoicing to be in the Kingdom of God.

Because let me be direct for a moment: as Christians, we want other people to also have faith in Jesus. That’s the bottom line. No matter what other things we might do as Christians and as a congregation, the bottom line is that we want people to believe in Jesus so that they too can go up to the eternal house of the Lord, so that they can have true joy, justice, peace, and security in Jesus.

That bottom line affects how I read Psalm 122, so that I don’t just see it as being about going to Jerusalem. It’s about going to the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city.

That bottom line, wanting others to believe in Jesus, that bottom line affects how I see Advent. Advent isn’t just about preparing to celebrate Christmas; Advent is a reminder that the clock is ticking, the time is coming closer, that Jesus is going to return, that people who don’t have faith in Jesus will go to hell, that there are people around us who don’t have true joy, justice, peace, and security in their lives.

That’s what I mean by Advent thinking. That’s what it means to be more concerned about Kingdom Growth than Church Growth. That’s what it means to be read Psalm 122 through the eyes of Advent, through the eyes of faith.

And Advent thinking begins with rejoicing in what you have in Christ, rejoicing that you have been invited to the New Jerusalem, rejoicing that you will go to the eternal house of the Lord, rejoicing that you have true joy, justice, peace, and security in Jesus.

Advent thinking, Kingdom Growth thinking means rejoicing in what you have and then remembering that you want others to have that same thing, that you want others to have that hope of eternal life, too. It means remembering that Christ is going to come back, that Christ will return, there’s a Second Advent, and you want the people around you to go to the eternal house of the Lord, too.

And Advent thinking, Kingdom Growth thinking begins with remembering that bottom line, remembering that you want people to have life after death, remembering that you have the promise of life after death, remembering that you have true joy, justice, peace, and security in Jesus. Advent thinking starts with remembering what you have, and then seeing how God calls on us to share this with the world, share this with the people around us.

So go and invite someone to church. Go and tell them the joy you have when you go to church. But more than that, go and invite someone to go to the eternal house of the Lord, invite someone into the Kingdom of God, invite someone to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, invite someone to know true joy, justice, peace, and security in Jesus. And when they come with you, or when they go somewhere to worship, sing Psalm 122 together, rejoice together that you have the New Jerusalem through Jesus Christ.

Psalm 95:1-7a - “Crash of Words”

This sermon was inspired, in part, by a quote from Marvin E. Tate’s Word Biblical Commentary XX (Psalms 51-100) where Tate says: “The Psalm opens with a crash of words: The psalmist calls upon his hearers to ‘shout’ and ‘sing aloud.’”

Thanksgiving Eve
Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.

Praise, sing, praise,
Shout to the rooftops with all your voice,
Speak up, sing out, shout out, lift your voice.
Blast the horn,
blast, blare, burst, boom,
bombastic sound with all your horns and drums and things to rattle.
It’s a crash of words, a crash of words and sounds, a crash for our Lord.
This praise, this thanksgiving, this hymn of praise we offer,
It’s a crash of words ringing and singing the Name of the Lord
Forever to be praised.

There’s joy from knowing our Lord,
Joy from knowing that He is our Lord and we are His people,
So let us speak up, sing out, shout out, lift our voices,
Let us shout the Name of the Lord for He is the Rock of our Salvation—
Christ the Rock, Jesus the Savior, Immanuel the Redeemer,
The Rock of our Salvation who died upon the cross,
Died and rose again,
Died and rose again to the shouts of great rejoicing in heaven,
So now, so now, let us lift our voices, too.

Thank, praise, extol, raise,
Sing with all our might,
Sing with all our hearts,
Sing with all our soul,
For the Lord has been good to us—so good to us,
The Lord has done everything we need for salvation,
The Lord has brought us back from the depths of death,
Certain eternal death,
Has brought us back so that we have the promise of forever life with Him.

Thank, praise, extol, raise,
Declare, sing, echo, ring,
Let everything that is in us praise the Lord.

This crash of words,
This hymn that crashes words together,
This psalm of praise,
This psalm is on our lips for this evening of thanksgiving.
Praise, sing, praise,
Shout to the rooftops with all your voice,
Speak up, sing out, shout out, lift your voice.
Blast the horn,
blast, blare, burst, boom,
bombastic sound with all your horns and drums and things to rattle.

Praise, sing, praise,
Come on, let’s go, let’s go before the Lord, let’s go before our Maker,
let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.
Let’s go and thank Him for all that He’s done for us—
From the creation of the world until now,
Let’s thank Him for all of the ways He provides for us,
Let’s thank Him, praise Him, raise His Name to the heights of sound.
This crash of words is cranked to 10,
The volume cannot be higher,
Blow out the speakers trying to raise enough praise to match what He has done—
And we’ll never match it—
But we’re gonna have a good time trying.
We’re gonna shout out, speak out, sing out,
Let our lives shine with the joy that we have in Christ.
We’re going to shine with praise, shine and beam and smile and laugh and rejoice.

And when have shouted with all our might,
We’ll collapse in a good kind of exhaustion,
Exhausted from dancing and singing and ringing
and drumming and making noise to the Lord,
We’ll collapse in exhaustion,
And then we’ll bow down before the Lord—

Take a breath.

Relax.

Rest in Him.

We’ll collapse in a good kind of exhaustion,
And then we’ll kneel before the Lord our Maker—

Take a breath.

Relax.

Rest in Him.

We’ll collapse in a good kind of exhaustion and stop and pray,
Stop and pray and listen,
Listen to what the Lord has to say,
Listen to the ways that the Lord is working in our lives,
Listen to what God has to say in His Word.
We’ll collapse in exhaustion, that good kind of exhaustion,
And the Lord will be there, too.

But that good kind of exhaustion also leaves you vulnerable,
Leaves you open to reflecting on your life,
Leaves you open to seeing just what God has done in your life,
Leaves you open to the pains that are still there,
Leaves you open before the Lord, realizing just how much you need Him.
You need the Lord.
All of that singing and ringing and drumming, all of that noise to the Lord,
Well, it brings you to that point again of realizing just how much you need the Lord.
And in this moment of vulnerability,
In this moment of taking a breath and relaxing before the Lord,
In this moment of listening to the Lord,
You hear the word that you need,
You hear that the Lord is our Shepherd and we are His sheep,
We are His flock,
We are under His care,
We can rest and be assured of His constant care.
When we find ourselves vulnerable, open, and honest about who we are,
Just when we realize just how fragile and broken and sinful and forlorn we are,
Just then, we find ourselves in His flock.
And no matter what happens to us, no matter what danger we’re open to,
We’ll still find ourselves in His flock.

You see, we don’t praise the Lord today because everything is always so great,
Because certainly we know everything isn’t always great.
We aren’t thankful for everything that happens in our lives,
There’s plenty of things that we’d rather not see, rather not experience,
There’s plenty of things that we’re not adding to our thankful list,
There’s plenty of things that we’ve seen plenty of—take them away Lord!
So we don’t praise the Lord today because everything is always so great,
We praise the Lord because through all things, in all things,
He is still our Lord,
He is still our Shepherd,
He is still our Maker,
He is our sustainer, provider, caretaker,
He will be our guard on high.
So when we have come to the limit of our strength and energy,
So when we take a breath and rest and look up,
We will find the Lord watching over us, caring for us, guarding us.
And it’s from that moment of being in His flock, being safe under His guard,
It’s from that moment that our praise arises.

His care picks us back up.
His care raises our spirits.
His care renews our energy.
His care calls us back to where we started this whole song.
His care calls us back to make noise unto the Lord for all that He has done.
We’re under His care—Give Thanks!
He is guarding us, body, mind, and soul—Give Thanks!
We are the sheep of His flock—Give Thanks!
Give Thanks! Let the song begin again.

Praise, sing, praise,
Shout to the rooftops with all your voice,
Speak up, sing out, shout out, lift your voice.
Blast the horn,
blast, blare, burst, boom,
bombastic sound with all your horns and drums and things to rattle.
It’s a crash of words, a crash of words and sounds, a crash for our Lord.
This praise, this thanksgiving, this hymn of praise we offer,
It’s a crash of words ringing and singing the Name of the Lord
Forever to be praised.

Praise, sing, praise,
Come on, let’s go, let’s go before the Lord, let’s go before our Maker,
let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.
Let’s go and thank Him for all that He’s done for us—
From the creation of the world until now,
Let’s thank Him for all of the ways He provides for us,
Let’s thank Him, praise Him, raise His Name to the heights of sound.

Colossians 1:13-20 - “Reconcile”

Last Sunday of the Church Year (Year C - Lutheran Service Book readings)
Sunday, November 21, 2010

I was sitting on a bench outside the bank in Evanston. This was my senior year at Northwestern, I was saving up money to buy Susan’s engagement ring, and I had just found out that I had overdrafted my bank account for the second time in a month. It was time that I started taking math seriously. It was time to actually reconcile my bank statements and my checkbook.

This was in the days before overdraft protection. This was in the days of needing every dollar I had between buying textbooks and buying that engagement ring. This was in the days when an overdraft charge really, really hurt. This was in the days when two overdraft charges in a month really, really, really hurt.

I was sitting on that bench outside of the bank, and I was feeling pretty glum. The big bank building was at my back. I didn’t want to look at the bank. I didn’t want to look at my checkbook. I didn’t want to face what I had done. I didn’t want to reconcile my bank statement and my checkbook, but it was time to do some reconciling. It was time to make sure things were adding up. It was time to stop just fudging the math and hoping it would work out alright. It was time to take reconciling accounts seriously.

Sometimes when we hear about the end of the world, it feels like we’re sitting outside the big bank wondering how we’re going to reconcile our account. When we think about Jesus coming back to bring an end to this world, we start wondering how we can possibly reconcile our account with Him. We’ve made so many overdrafts, we’ve sinned so much, we’ve gone against Him in so many ways, and well, it’s hard to believe that we’ll be able to reconcile this. It’s hard to know how we could possibly make the situation right.

But when we hear about the end of the world, we think that we must reconcile with God, we must be the ones to take action, we must make the situation right.

Except with God, there’s true overdraft protection. You have sinned, you have overdrawn your account, and He makes it right, He reconciles your account. With banks, with overdraft protection, usually that just means you’re borrowing from your own savings account or borrowing from the bank. The bank isn’t giving you anything for free.

But with God, with our spiritual account, it is a true overdraft protection. He gives us a righteousness and holiness to fill up our account, a righteousness and holiness that isn’t ours but He gives it to us to keep. God takes the initiative. He takes action to make us right. He takes action to reconcile us to Himself.

Look again at Colossians chapter 1, verses 19-20. See how it is God’s action that does the reconciling, the balancing of accounts, God does the overdraft protection.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Or if we go on in Colossians, because Paul continues there talking about reconciliation. In verses 21-23, he says:

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.

God reconciles our accounts. He makes the empty, overdrawn accounts to be full again. He makes the sinners to be righteous again. God does the action. That’s true overdraft protection.

But man, it’s hard. We hear those end of the world passages, we hear about Jesus coming back, and we think that we’ve got TO DO something in order to make sure that Jesus will take us to be with Him. We think that we have to get right with God. You and me, spiritually, we find ourselves sitting outside the bank, wondering how we’re going to reconcile our account, thinking of all the actions we’re going to take to get right with God.

In 2001 country singer Lucinda Williams won a Grammy Award for her song, “Get Right with God.” It’s a country Gospel song whose chorus says just that, “I’ve got to get right with God.” The whole song talks about ways that people try to get right with Jesus in some off-the-wall ways, by handling snakes and walking on hot coals and sleeping on beds of nails. We’ll start to believe that getting right with God is like that, that you have TO DO some out of the ordinary things, that you’ve got to prove your faith, that you’ve got to put yourself on the line in order to reconcile yourself to God.

The song, I don’t know, I don’t think the song actually supports the idea, but rather is kind of second-guessing this idea that snakes and coals and beds of nails can make you right with God, but the chorus, the chorus seems to speak of the true desire, the desire to be right with God. Sure, these off-the-wall ways might be the wrong ways, but the desire is still there, the desire to be right with God, the desire to make ourselves reconciled to God.

It’s like the people surrounding the Colossians in the days when Paul wrote his letter to them. The Colossians were surrounded by a culture, a Greek culture, that had always focused on people taking action to get right with the gods. The people had to do something to be right with the gods, to keep the gods from being angry. That was how you got reconciled with the gods. You did something—you sacrificed something, you gave up something, you did something, you followed some ritual, you did some action.

And here Paul comes along with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, comes along with something that turns that completely around, makes reconciliation to be God’s action. That’s what God Himself had promised in Jesus Christ. We aren’t able to reconcile ourselves; we aren’t able to make ourselves right with God; we’re not capable of saving ourselves, so God steps in, so God sends His Son, so God does the action to make us right with Himself, does the action of living and dying and rising again.

Again, it’s what Paul says in Colossians:

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.

That’s true overdraft protection. That’s no snake-handling, walking on coals, sleeping on beds of nails kind of theology. That’s Gospel. That’s Good News. That’s a promise from heaven that God will take care of us, will make our accounts right, will fill us up where we’re empty, will make us righteous where we’re sinful.

So the question is: when do you find yourself trying to get yourself right with God? What do you think you need to do to get right with God? What do you find yourself thinking and doing that makes it seem like being reconciled is your action? Do you find yourself bargaining with God—you’ll do some spiritual actions if God will just fill you up the rest of the way? Do you find yourself planning spiritual steps to take to get back to God? Do you think of your actions as a Christian as actions that get you right with God?

I mean, we talked about this in the last class I had this week with some of our new adult members. The last class is about what it means to live as a Christian. And I said that sometimes you’ll hear Christians talk as if living for Christ means taking the right steps so that we become God’s children. If we do the right things, then we’ll be in God’s family.

But really it’s the opposite, and that’s what this passage in Colossians is showing us too. God has already made us to be His children. God has already taken us into His family. You are righteous and holy in His sight because of what Christ has done for you. Your account is reconciled.

The rest of it, the rest of your life, the part about living for Jesus, that’s all a response. That’s all about rejoicing. That’s all about living as the person God has made you to be.

So when you live for Christ, when you follow Christ with your life, that’s you responding to reconciliation, that’s you responding to what Christ has already done in you. You’re not trying to prove anything. You’re not trying to get right with God. He’s already taken care of that. Now you’re simply living as the person God has made you to be.

For instance, we’re not going to look at those Time and Talent surveys that you filled out today, we’re not gonna look at them and see whether you’re proving yourself to be a Christian. We look at those to see who God has made you to be, how you want to respond with your life, how God is going to use you in the work of His kingdom. It isn’t proof of your status; it’s a response to your status. You are God’s child, so now let’s see how He’s going to use you.

So when you hear talk about the end times, about Jesus coming back, about this world coming to an end, about Judgment Day, I don’t want you think that you’re sitting outside the bank with too many charges against your account and no one to pay them back. I don’t want you to think that you’re got to do a bunch of stuff including off-the-wall things in order to get right with God.

I want you to know that you’ve got a true overdraft protection in Jesus Christ. That your account is reconciled. That you are right with God. That you are righteous and holy in His sight. That He has taken you to be His child. That everything that needed to be done was done by Jesus on the cross.

You have been reconciled to God. Rejoice in that with your life!

Malachi 4:1-6 - “Jump Like a Calf”

25th Sunday after Pentecost(Year C - Lutheran Service Book readings)
Sunday, November 14, 2010

Picture courtesy of www.wildnatureimages.com

This is a rough draft of what I eventually preached. The beginning got people answering the questions, seeing that fattening up a calf in a stall meant it was destined for slaughter.

Why did they put a calf in a stall?

So why would a calf leap and rejoice to be let free from a stall?

This passage in Malachi isn’t a passage for vengeance or judgment or punishment or condemnation or damnation. This passage in Malachi is all about helping the calves see that they can be set free. It’s all about helping the calves see that they are no longer destined to be slaughtered. It’s all about opening that gate and setting those calves free.

You see, Malachi wasn’t sent as a prophet just to announce doom and destruction. Malachi was sent to the people of Israel, sent to bring them back from their sinful ways, sent with a word of warning and a word of hope, sent to cause the people to repent and turn back to God. Through Malachi, God addressed the people, His people, addressed them as His own people. He had not yet given them over to destruction and damnation. There was still time. There was time for them to repent. There was time for them to return to Him.

The passage we have in Malachi today comes from a section where God is pronouncing judgment on the people, but He’s also offering them hope. Notice, if we read it again, notice that instead of saying that the people will be condemned, notice how God speaks to them as God-fearers, as people who fear the Lord, as people who honor and revere Him. Notice what God is doing here. . .

Notice what God is doing here in His speech. He isn’t lumping them all into one heap that’s destined for the fire. No, He’s offering them hope, offering that they are not in that group that will be condemned, He’s offering them the promise of salvation. It’s like the people are calves in stalls and God is pointing out the fact that the gates have been opened. They can go free. They can leap for joy.

Why does God have to point this out? Why does God have to point out His promise of salvation to people who already knew it? Why does God come to the people of the Old Testament over and over again to tell them that He loves them and forgives them and will give them life? Why does God have to tell the calves that the gate is open?

Because from where the calves are, it looks like they’re still trapped. To the people of Israel in the day of Malachi it looked like God wasn’t coming to their rescue. They were under oppression from a foreign empire. Their economic state was in question. They lived in a country that was no longer their own. Their society wasn’t theirs. Their society was overrun by outsiders. AND The Messiah, the Promised One, the Savior of the nation had not shown up yet to save them from the empire.

So the people stared at the fence. They stood in their stalls. They looked at the fence that surrounded them, and they kept forgetting to look behind them, kept forgetting to see that the gate behind them had been opened, and so they stayed in their stalls, stayed like fattened calves destined for slaughter, stayed and never noticed their freedom. Why did God have to tell the calves that they were free to go, free to leap in joy? Because the circumstances of the people’s lives kept them from believing that God was keeping His promise, the circumstances clouded their vision, the circumstances made it seem like God wasn’t going to show up.

But meanwhile, God had been there all along. God had kept that gate open. God had made a way for His people to go free and be saved and be kept from slaughter.

To me, it sounds a lot like where you and I might be today. There’s so many ways in which the fences around us could seem to be our only reality. There’s so many ways that could cause us to easily forget that the gate’s open. There are so many circumstances in our lives that could keep us from believing that God has worked out salvation for us.

You know, we say we trust in God in all things. We say we believe that God will come to the aid of those who love Him. But don’t our circumstances sound a lot like the circumstances that the people of Israel faced, the same questions they had are on our lips. They wondered about the political situation, whether they would be able to continue in their faith, and sometimes it seems like the politics of this world will threaten our faith. The people of Israel suffered under economic uncertainty, and we’re definitely facing those questions today in our country, in our world, in our families. The people of Israel may have felt like society was no longer their society, and as Christians, we may wonder what happened to our voice, where can our faith still be expressed, where has society gone.

The more and more we look around, the more and more it seems like there’s fences all around. The more and more we look around, the more and more it seems like God isn’t showing up, God isn’t keeping His promises, God isn’t watching over His people.

And just when you’re starting to get caught up in all of that worry, caught up in the circumstances, caught up like calf in a pen, caught up and unable to see a way out, caught up in all of those questions, caught up in asking each other where God could possibly be, just when you’re caught up in all of this, God enters your world with this word from Malachi.

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.”

Just when you’re getting caught up in thinking that there’s no possible way out, God comes and again points out that He has opened the gate, that He has sent Jesus who said I am the gate, that Jesus has opened the way to paradise, that through Jesus, through His death on the cross and through His resurrection, through Him we have access to eternal life. Just when you’re getting caught in feeling as if there’s no hope, God thankfully comes with a message of hope.

1 John 3:1-3 - “All God’s Children”

All Saints’ Sunday (Year C - Lutheran Service Book readings)
November 7, 2010

1 John 3 is a vision of the now and a vision of the future.

I want you to look at this vision with me this morning. Take out the yellow insert in your bulletin. There you have 1 John 3 printed again. Hear the passage again and hear how it’s a vision of the now and the future.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

It’s a vision of the now and a vision of the future.

It’s a vision of now—because now we are children of God. It’s a vision of the future—because in the future, in the great day of Christ’s return we will really see who God has made us to be.

Thinking of that vision, I want you to listen to a portion of a song by the Christian band Delirious? You’ve got the lyrics on your insert. The song, “All God’s Children,” helps paint that vision of the now and the future, the vision of what it means that we are God’s children, the vision of what it means that God has taken us to be in His family.

Light will come to those who wait;
From the shadows, souls awake;
For these are the days when the nations will bow at the coming king.

All our kingdoms fall with the mountains,
And our empires crash into the sea;
For these are the days when the nations will rise for the coming king.

All God’s children, we will sing hallelujah,
All God’s children, we will sing hallelujah.

Hope will come to those who wait
As the heart of heaven breaks;
For these are the days when the least of us all see the coming king,
For these are the days when injustice will fall at the coming king.

All God’s children,
we will sing hallelujah,
All God’s children,
we will sing hallelujah.

The song is a vision of the now. Now we wait for the light. Now we wait in the shadows. Now we wait for the kingdoms and empires of this world to fall. Now we wait in hope. And now all God’s children sing Hallelujah

The song is a vision of the future. One day the light will dawn on all people. One day we will wake from the shadows. One day all nations will bow before Christ. One day the kingdoms and empires of this world will fall, replaced by the kingdom of heaven. One day the nations will rise in honor of Christ the King. One day hope will break wide open. One day the least of us will see the king. One day the injustice will be over.

We wait in this vision. We wait for Christ to return again. The ultimate fulfillment of this vision will come the day that Christ returns to bring this world to an end, to bring a new world, to bring us to eternal life. The ultimate fulfillment of this vision from 1 John comes in the vision that John writes about in Revelation 7, the vision of the uncountable multitude being with Christ for eternity, that’s a vision of God’s children after Christ has returned.

We wait in this vision. We wait and sing in hope—hallelujah. We wait and tell others about this hope—they are God’s children, too. We wait and find others who are waiting—find others searching for the light, searching for hope. We invite others to come and sing hallelujah. We invite others to come and watch for His returning.

1 John 3 is a vision of the now and a vision of the future. It’s a vision for now about the future. It’s a vision for the days when you are overwhelmed by the sin and evil surrounding you. It’s a vision for the days when your own sin scares you. It’s a vision for the days when you feel as if God couldn’t possibly still be present or paying attention or real. It’s a vision that goes against everything this world is telling you. It’s a vision that holds out hope, holds out the light, holds out the future, holds out the great and wondrous hope that God is true and real and present and victorious.

It’s a vision of the now and a vision of the future. It’s a vision for now about the future. It’s a vision when you’re aching in your spirit now. It’s a vision to spark hallelujahs about the future.

Today, as we celebrate All Saints’ Sunday, celebrate our loved ones who have died in the faith, we celebrate that they wait in hope also. We celebrate that they now sing hallelujah in the presence of Christ. We remember that one day we will all be gathered together to celebrate the King, sing hallelujah.

This vision in 1 John isn’t just a vision of the hope we have of dying in the faith, this vision in 1 John is a vision of hope for the Second coming of Christ, that’s the ultimate fulfillment of all these promises.

But until that day, there’s a way in which our songs sound like this Delirious? song—hopeful but mournful, radiating with praise but still subdued in waiting. We wait in hope. We wait for the light. We wait to be awoken from the darkness of this world. We wait for the kingdoms of this world to be conquered. We wait in hope.

But until that day, still we sing hallelujah because Now we are God’s children. Now we are His people. Now we have salvation. Now we have hope. Now we have forgiveness. Now we have peace. Now we are God’s children. We don’t have to wait until that day to sing hallelujah because right now we have much to sing about. Right now we have much to praise Him for. Right now we are His children.

So do not be disturbed by the things you see around you—they will not last, they will not win. Do not be disturbed by the sin you see in yourself—your sin will not separate you from God forever. Do not be disturbed as if somehow by your sin you are no longer God’s children.

What you can’t see is that being God’s child is the permanent thing, the thing that will last. What you see right now are the ways you’re separate from God, the ways your actions go against God, but that will not last forever, that’s not who you will always be. God has given you a new status, has made you to be His child, has taken you into His family forever, that’s your permanent, eternal status, that’s the status that’s hard to see but is yours right now.

Revelation 14:6-7 - “Gospeling the Eternal Gospel”

Reformation (Year C - Lutheran Service Book readings)
Sunday, October 31, 2010

This is an outline and rough draft of the sermon.

• Today is the result of the angel’s message
o The angel had the eternal gospel to proclaim
o Gospeling the eternal Gospel

• Today,Reformation Day, is the result of the angel’s msg
o Chosen b/c some thought Luther was the angel
o I don’t think. . .
o Angel, though, working overtime in Luther’s day
o Gospeling the eternal Gospel
o Today is celebration of angel’s message

• Today, me being here, is result of angel’s msg
o I’m here in a Lutheran church b/c Grandma went to a Lutheran church
o Pulpit
o Gospeling the eternal Gospel at H.E.
o Not about Grandma, not about being Lutheran
o It’s about the angel’s message

• Today is the result of the angel’s message in your life
o Consecrated Stewards process asked to think about this also
o But important to think about it again
o Who did God use for the angel’s msg in your life?
o Who gospeled the eternal Gospel?
o Celebration of the angel’s message

• Today is the result of the angel’s message
o Fear God, glorify Him & worship Him
o Fear God – Law
o Glorify Him – Gospel, salvation
o Worship Him – response


In today’s reading from Revelation chapter 14, we hear about an angel who proclaims the eternal Gospel. Another way of translating that passage would be to make Gospel into a verb, so then the angel is gospeling the eternal gospel. The action is the message, the message is the action, the Gospel goes out in a Gospel sort of way, the gospeling delivers the Gospel, the Good News.

Today is the result of the angel’s message.

Today, Reformation Day, is the result of the angel’s message.

Now some people used to say that this angel in the 14th chapter of Revelation was Martin Luther. They said that this was a prophecy of Luther, pointing to how Luther gospeled the eternal Gospel.

I don’t really think that Revelation chapter 14 is a specific prophecy about Martin Luther. I think when it says that an angel is gospeling the eternal Gospel that it means an angel, one of those special creatures of the Lord, one of His heavenly beings who go forth into all the Earth as His messengers.

But there is a way in which to still say that today, Reformation Day, is the result of this angel’s message, a result of the angel mentioned in Revelation 14:6-7. It’s a result of this angel, because this angel is a servant of the Lord who works in the world to make sure that the eternal Gospel is proclaimed.

So when Martin Luther in 1517 nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, when Luther started a discussion about whether the Church was teaching the true Gospel according to the Scriptures, when Luther pointed back to the fact that the Bible teaches that we’re saved through faith alone, when that all began on October 31, 1517, well, that was the result of the angel’s message, the result of the angel working overtime in Luther’s world, the result of the angel gospeling the eternal Gospel in ways that Luther could hear.

So today, celebrating 493 years since the Reformation began, celebrating today is about the angel’s message, celebrating the ways in which the angel has been gospeling the eternal Gospel throughout the generations, gospeling the message so that God’s people can hear it and repeat it, gospeling so that the truth can be heard.

If you think about it this way, if you think of the angel being active in every generation, if you don’t try to match up the angel with one person but rather see how God keeps sending this angel to each generation in many and various ways, well, then it’s no surprise to say that today is the result of the angel’s message. Today, not just Reformation Day, but today, you and me being here to hear God’s Word. We’re here because the angel has worked in our lives. The angel has been gospeling that eternal Gospel, and somehow that Gospel has come down to you, to your heart, to bring you to today when you’re hearing the Gospel once again.

For me, it starts with this pulpit. I know it doesn’t look like much of a pulpit, but the top here is the top of the pulpit from home congregation’s old church in Minneapolis. And before they moved to the suburbs, Joe Hibben’s family made sure to keep this top of the pulpit, kept it for years until the day I was ordained and they gave it to me, to help me remember where I came from, to help me remember the people who had gone before me, the people who had passed on the faith to me.

And when I looked at that pulpit this week, I thought about the ways in which that angel was gospeling the eternal Gospel in my church years and years before I was born. And one of the people that heard the message in that church was my Grandma. The angels were working in that place, the preachers were gospeling the eternal Gospel, and my Grandma received that message, received it by faith through the Holy Spirit, received it and kept it through the years.

My Grandma kept the faith and together with my Grandpa passed on that faith to my mother. And my mother, together with my father, passed on the faith to me. My Grandma, my Grandpa, my Mom, my Dad, they all in their own ways gospeled the eternal Gospel, so that I, too, came to believe.

Now I don’t think that Revelation chapter 14 is a prophecy about my Grandma, but she’s one person I can point to as someone who was used by the angel to make sure that the message came to me. The angel gospeled the eternal Gospel through my Grandma, so that the faith could come to me. Today, me being here, me believing in Jesus, today is the result of the angel’s message.

Today is the result of the angel’s message, and hear the angel’s message: “Fear God, give Him glory, and worship Him.”

This message in Revelation chapter 14 is a great summary of the message of God, the message of Christ, the message of the angel, and now the message of the Church.

It begins with “fear God.” Fear, not in the sense of being afraid of God, but fear in the sense of awe, reverence, of seeing Him as completely holy—which leads to us confessing our own sinfulness, the ways in which we fall well short of the idea of holy. So the message begins with the Law, pointing our sin, helping us to see that we need a Savior.

But the angel’s message doesn’t stop there. The angel continues: “Give Him glory.” Give God glory—not just because He’s holy, but we give Him glory because He saved us, He sent His Son, Jesus, to live, die, and rise again for us, He saved us from the Law that condemns us, saved us from death which is our punishment. We give Him glory for His plan to save us.

And then the angel’s message continues: “Worship Him.” Worshipping God is our response to what God has done. Worshipping is the response to the angel’s message of Law and Gospel. Worshipping is the response to knowing that we have been saved and have the promise of eternal life.

So then, today is the result of the angel’s message: “Fear God, glorify Him, and worship Him.” We have heard this message, and the Spirit has worked that message in our hearts. We have heard that we are sinful and need a Savior. We have glorified God, praised Him for how He has saved us through Jesus. And we worship Him today in response to this great message, in response to this great news.

But now I want you to go back with me to the pulpit from my home congregation, I want you to go back with me to thinking about my Grandma, and I want you to think about who God has used in your life to make sure you heard the message, where has the angel been gospeling the eternal Gospel in your life, where have you heard the message: Fear God, glorify Him, and worship Him?

We asked similar questions during the Consecrated Stewards process, but I wanted to ask again today, because I want to make sure you realize that today’s celebration of the Reformation isn’t about Luther. It’s about the angel. It’s about God making sure His message got out into the world. It’s about the angel gospeling the eternal Gospel through many people, many ways, and Luther has been just one of those messengers. There is an angel proclaiming the Gospel, and every time we hear the Gospel, that’s the result of the work of the angel, the result of the work of the Holy Spirit, the result of the work of God to make sure His message goes out to all people for all time in all places.

Today, Reformation Day, isn’t about just celebrating Luther. It’s about celebrating the Gospel message. It’s about celebrating how that message comes down to us. It’s about recognizing the people who have gospeled the eternal Gospel in our lives.