1 Corinthians 2:6-16 - “The Gift of the Holy Spirit”

1 Corinthians: 1 Faith, 1 Love, 1 Focus (2nd Sunday after Epiphany – B)
Sunday, January 15, 2012

• Have volunteer come forward.
• “No eye has seen” – put blindfold on person
• “No ear has heard” – put headphones on person
• “No mind has conceived” – put hardhat on person
• We just don’t know what God has prepared for us.

• Ask for a second volunteer
• Put a sign on person that says “Spirit”
• Tell person to remove items from first volunteer in backwards order.
• But God has revealed it to us by His Spirit.

• Let’s hear it for our volunteers.
• Let’s hear it for the Spirit.
• Volunteers sit down.

• The Spirit has revealed the plan of salvation to us
• Revealed it to us through the Word—the Bible
• The Spirit has come into our lives by Word and baptism
• Revealed that we were created by God to be in relationship with Him
• Revealed that that relationship was broken by sin
• Revealed that Jesus came, died, and rose again to heal that relationship and bring us back to God the Father.
• Those are things that weren’t revealed to you by man
• Those are things that were revealed to you by the Holy Spirit.

• Here in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul is developing even more the idea that the wisdom we have isn’t a natural wisdom, a wisdom the world recognizes.
• It’s a spiritual wisdom; it comes from the Spirit.

• But like Paul says in chapter 1, all of this Christian stuff just looks foolish.
• Without the Spirit, we call the cross foolish.
• Without the Spirit, we call Jesus foolish.
• Without the Spirit, no eye can see, no ear can hear, no mind can conceive—can realize what God has prepared for us.
• Without the Spirit, we’re wearing a blindfold, headphones, and hardhat.

• When I was in college at Northwestern and had decided to become a pastor, I started taking a bunch of Religious Studies courses.
• Those Religious Studies Department professors really knew the Bible—they could quote it, they knew its background, they knew how it connected to other parts of Scripture
• But they didn’t believe
• They said it clearly, almost proudly—they didn’t believe in Jesus, maybe didn’t even believe in God.
• They were curious about religious things but they themselves weren’t religious.
• They could handle the Word of God every day, they could know it so well—on one level,
• But really it remained a closed book to them.
• Because they didn’t have the Spirit.
• Or maybe better yet—they were resisting the Spirit.
• Because I am confident that the Spirit works through the Word of God.
• Therefore, those professors were in contact with the work of the Spirit every day.
• But they resisted the Holy Spirit.

• But how do you know if you have the Holy Spirit?
• How do you know that you’re not resisting the Holy Spirit?
• Your faith.
• If you believe in Jesus as Savior, as the One who brings you back into relationship with God the Father, that’s because the Holy Spirit is in you and with you and working in your heart.
• Even if your faith wavers sometimes, you struggle to believe, still if you believe in Jesus and the cross and the resurrection, that’s because the Holy Spirit is with you.
• In order to know that the Spirit is with you, do you have to have some grand experience or great awakening?
• You might have had that experience.
• You might be able to point back to a moment in your life when you realized your faith in a very real way.
• That is the work of the Spirit.
• But many of us don’t have that single moment, that single moment of recognizing the work of the Spirit.
• Rather, we have many small moments, many ways that the Spirit has worked in our lives.
• We can point back to our baptisms as a time when we’re sure the Spirit began working in our hearts, but otherwise, there’s just a series of ways that the Spirit has come to us through the Word of God.

• So how do we know that we have the Spirit?
• Our faith in Jesus.
• We cannot believe in Jesus without the Spirit.
• If we feel like our faith is weak and small, well, even so, that weak and small kernel of faith was planted by the Spirit.
• And if I believe in the Lord, the Spirit gets all of the credit.
• If I don’t believe in Jesus, if I reject Him, I am to blame. That’s to my own damnation. I’m resisting the Holy Spirit.

• Of course, you may feel as if you’re struggling to believe, as if you’re unsure about this whole Jesus thing.
• You may be here because you’re curious, you’re wanting the spiritual in your life, but a part of you remains skeptical, aloof, can’t quite let yourself go whole hog for Jesus.
• I was studying this week for a class I’m taking through the Seminary
• The book I was reading tells this story:
• Theologian/evangelist Michael Green was at an evening hosted by Christians to reach out to the community.
• At one point, a woman professor leaned over to Michael and whispered: “You know, I don’t believe any of this.”
• Michael then replied, “Yeah, I know, but wouldn’t you like to?”
• With that remark, tears welled up in the woman’s eyes. Her head told her no, but her heart yearned to hear. (Preaching to a Postmodern World, p. 136).


• Her heart was yearning for the Word of truth.
• In fact, I’d say that’s even evidence of the Spirit working in her, awakening her to the yearning inside of her, awakening her to her need for a Savior who brings grace and forgiveness and love.

• So when we struggle to believe,
• When we wrestle with our doubts and thoughts all day long,
• We rejoice that the Spirit steps up His game
• We rejoice that the Spirit comes into our lives full of grace and truth, full of the power of God to restore us to God the Father.
• When we say, “I don’t know if I believe any of this,”
• When we say, “I’d like to believe,”
• The Spirit comes to grant us faith.
• The Spirit wades through our doubts and struggles, wades through the mess to get to our hearts and work faith in us.

• And you may be here today, rejoicing in the fact that the Spirit has come into your life, but you’re saddened and concerned about family and friends who aren’t believers.
• What does this passage tell you about your loved ones who don’t believe?
• They need the Spirit.
• Pray that they receive the Spirit.
• Pray that the Spirit works through you to share God’s love and forgiveness with them.
• Pray that the Spirit would remove their blindfold and headphones and hard hat.
• Pray that they wouldn’t resist the Spirit but receive the gift of faith.


• As we move forward in this series on 1 Corinthians,
we remember that a theme of the letter is the unity we have through the cross of Jesus.
• The Church is one in Jesus.
• To us who are being saved [the cross] is the power of God for salvation.
• How does this chapter fit into that theme?

• Well, in chapter 2 Paul is continuing to remind the Corinthians and us that we cannot be puffed up, we cannot think we’re here because we’re so great, we’re so wise and sophisticated.
• That’s not why we’re here.
• We’re here through the power of the Spirit.
• It’s the Spirit that has revealed these things to us.
• The Spirit gets all of the credit.

• So our unity is preserved.
• This isn’t a contest to see who is the wisest or smartest;
• this isn’t a competition to see who figured it all out by themselves
• This gathering of believers, this fellowship of the faith, this congregation is brought together, unified by the power of the Spirit
• The Spirit is the One who draws us to the faith.
• The Spirit is the One who keeps us in the faith.
• The Spirit is the One who gets all of the credit for us being here.
• Our unity is preserved; our unity is in the Spirit.
• So there’s no reason anyone should be puffed up, should brag, should boast in their own spiritual abilities. The Spirit gets all of the credit.
• I think that was the toughest part about figuring out what to say about chapter 2 today: How to tell you that you have the Spirit without making it sound like we’re cocky about having the Spirit.
• I don’t want you going out bragging about the Spirit as if you’re doing that old cheer:
• “We’ve got Spirit, yes, we do, we’ve got Spirit, how ‘bout you?”
• Do that to someone who is outside of the faith and they’ll see it as bragging?
• Do that to someone who is struggling spiritually and it’ll cause to them question and wonder if they have the Spirit?
• Brag about having the Spirit, and we’re likely to alienate those who aren’t believers in Jesus.

• So I want you to rejoice in having the Spirit.
• I want you to know that the Spirit is with you and in you.
• I want you to praise God for the Spirit who has created faith in your heart.

• But then go out quietly into your world
• Go out humbly, remembering that the Spirit is a gift
• Go out to your family and friends who need to know Jesus, go to them prayerfully, asking the Lord to send His Spirit into their hearts
• When you realize that God wishes to take up residence in every single person’s heart, you realize God aches to be in relationship with all people
• God ached that my professors resisted the Spirit when they were so close to His Word.
• God aches for our family and friends who don’t know Jesus.
• God aches for them—and continually is looking for ways to bring His Spirit into their lives.
• God wants to remove their blindfolds and headphones and hardhats.
• God wants to work faith in their hearts
• And when He does, the Spirit will get all of the credit.

• You’ve heard that the right answer to any question the pastor asks is probably Jesus, right?
• Today, though, the right answer is the Spirit.
• So let me ask you:
• Who put faith in your heart? The Spirit.
• Who helps you when you struggle in the faith? The Spirit.
• Who do we need when we resist faith? The Spirit.
• Who can help our family and friends believe? The Spirit.
• Who unites us as a fellowship of believers? The Spirit.
• Who gets all of the credit for our faith? The Spirit.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25 - "But Hey, At Least We're in This Thing Together"

1 Corinthians: 1 Faith, 1 Love, 1 Focus (Baptism of Our Lord – B)
Sunday, January 8, 2011

• Fools.
• Freaks.
• Insane.
• Dim-witted.
• Hopelessly misguided
• Uninformed.
• Naïve.
• Out of touch with reality.
• Not firing on all cylinders.
• That’s how the world sees us.
• Fools.
• That’s what the world thinks about people who take Jesus seriously.
• Fools.

• They think we’re wasting our time.
• They find it extremely strange that we decorate our buildings, decorate ourselves with the cross—a sign of an execution

• Of course, calling us fools, that’s nothing new. It started with Jesus Himself.
• One time Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers come to where He’s preaching and try to stop Him, they figure Jesus is “beside Himself,” not well, not thinking straight (Mark 3:21).
• Another time, after Jesus says that He’s the Good Shepherd, well, the Jewish leaders don’t embrace Him and paint portraits of Him with sheep. They say he’s demon-possessed and raving mad. (John 10:20).

• People who become followers of Christ, they, too, are labeled as fools.
• Paul, the apostle, the great missionary, the writer of 13 books of the New Testament, well, he was told that he was “out of his mind” when he was on trial.

• Then later as the Church grew, the critics continued to call it foolish. In the second century, a philosopher named Celsus said that Christianity is absurd because they are “actually worshipping a dead man.”

• Absurd.
• Foolish.
• Insane.
• Crazy.
• Woo-hoo.

• But hey, at least we’re in this thing together.
• If you’re going to be a fool, at least you’re not alone.
• We’re all considered fools for taking our faith seriously.

• Yet, what unites us is that we don’t consider Jesus to be a foolish belief.
• What unites us is that we believe that Jesus is the power of God for salvation.


• That’s what Paul’s saying in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians.
• When Paul says that the world thinks believing in Jesus is foolishness, when Paul says that, he means to unite the Corinthian church.

• Paul says: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

• “To us who are being saved,” to us who believe in Jesus, to us who believe in the cross—the death of Jesus, to us who believe in the resurrection—Jesus rising from the dead, to us—this is not foolishness. This is the power of God for salvation.

• So the world may call us fools, freaks, or clueless,
• but hey, we’re in this thing together.
• We’re united by the power of God in the cross.

• That verse in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, it’s verse 18, that verse is said to be the theme of Paul’s letter.
• And if it’s the theme of Paul’s letter, well, then it’s the theme for our series on 1 Corinthians, these 13 weeks before Easter where we’ll take one chapter a week through the 13th chapter of this letter of Paul.
• And so that’s the meaning behind the series title:
1 Corinthians: 1 Faith, 1 Love, 1 Focus.
• We are united by this one faith in Jesus.
• We are united by this one love of Christ.
• We are united by this one focus on Jesus and the cross.
• That faith, love, and focus may seem like foolishness according to the world’s standards, but for us, for us it’s the power of God working in our world to save us, to forgive our sins, to give us new life, to rescue us from eternal death.
//
• Now maybe you’re thinking: Christianity doesn’t seem so foolish. Christianity seems pretty normal.
• If so, it’s probably because we’re just so used to it.
• We spend so much time in the church and around Christians that it’s hard for us to realize what our faith looks like from the outside.

• But think of how strange it seems to those outside of the faith.
• Like I said, we decorate our buildings with the cross.
• We wear the cross as jewelry and on our t-shirts.
• And in the process, we’ve forgotten that the cross was a tool for execution, a tool for a gruesome torture and death, a tool to make an example out of the worst criminals, the lowest of the low.
• The world looks at us and sees us rallying around a symbol of death.
• The world sees us stating our belief in a Jewish manual laborer from Galilee who was killed on the outskirts of Jerusalem among the lowest criminals.
• The world sees this, and well, it’s no wonder they think we’re fools.
• It’s no wonder they think that God’s plan of salvation in Jesus sounds pretty weak, like a failed enterprise, like something completely powerless.

• Yet, we know through faith that the cross is the power of God.
• Through faith, we know that the cross is empty, the tomb is empty, Jesus lives and reigns and rules over all things with grace and love and forgiveness.
• Through faith, we don’t see the cross as a symbol of death. It’s a symbol of life—Jesus dying and rising again. It’s a symbol of life—putting our sinful lives to death and bringing us new life.
• Through faith, we don’t see this as foolishness; we see it as the power of God for our salvation.
//
• But what’s this have to do with unity—bringing a congregation together?
• What’s it have to do with encouraging the Corinthians—and us—to have one faith, one love, one focus?

• Well, it seems that the Corinthian church was arguing about which leader to follow—Paul or Apollos or Peter or just simply Christ.
• They were arguing about which way was wiser.
• They were arguing about who was right.
• Their unity was being torn apart because each faction was trying to outdo the other, trying to be the smartest, wisest, most well-spoken.
• So Paul reminds them of who they are:
Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
• In other words, God called fools to the faith.
• God’s building His Church with fools.
• Freaks.
• Dim-witted.
• Uninformed.
• Naïve.
• Not firing on all cylinders.

• But hey, at least we’re in this together.
• Unless we’re not.
• Unless we’re not sticking together.
• Unless we’re arguing over following Paul or Apollos or Peter or Christ.
• Unless we’re trying to outdo one another.
• Unless we’re trying to be seen as wise according to the world’s standards.
• And then, well, then we’re just pulling away from each other, we’re competing, we’re losing sight of the unity we have in the power of God.
• We’re thinking that our power unites us.

• That’s the situation the Corinthian church found themselves in about three years after Paul had founded the congregation.
• So word got to Paul about these troubles, and he wrote this letter (and eventually 2 Corinthians) to address these issues and encourage the Christians in Corinth to remain focused on Christ and Him alone.

• And so through the centuries this letter from Paul comes to us, comes to address issues we might face, comes to encourage us to remain focused on the cross, comes to unite us in the power of God.

• Now the first reason I picked 1 Corinthians for our theme these weeks is because readings from 1 Corinthians appear anyway in the lectionary during this time of the year, the lectionary—the assigned readings for each Sunday in the Church Year. We would’ve been covering part of the letter already, so why not expand it and cover 13 chapters of it.


• So that was the reason initially for picking it
• But then as I started to study for this week, I realized God had led me to the right book for our fellowship of believers, the right book for us to study.
• I say that because we need the encouragement to be united.

• I don’t mean that I’m concerned that we’re not united now, or that there are factions, or that we’re pulling away from each other.
• I don’t mean that at all.
• I think Bethel is in a great place—what with a real missional energy in this place, an eagerness to reach out to our community.
• What with the reFocusing process helping us to discover who we are as individuals and as a congregation.
• I can see God’s power at work in this place.

• So what do I mean that we need the encouragement to be united?
• We need it, because as we move forward, as God’s Spirit moves in this place, as the energy builds, as we step forward into the community, we’re going to be under attack—spiritual attack.
• The devil would love to see us fail.
• The devil would love to see us get tripped up.
• And a great way to trip us up would be to get us to do it to ourselves, to get us to go against one another.

• It’s not so much that the world’s going to call us foolish—that’s not the first danger.
• The first danger is that we’ll call one another fools.
•
• Fools.
• Hopelessly misguided.
• Uninformed.
• Wrong.

• Have you ever been a part of an experience in a congregation when people have been picking at each other?
• Have you ever been called a fool by a fellow brother or sister in Christ?
• Have you ever watched as people pulled away from one another, took positions of being right, and calling everyone else wrong?
• Have you ever run away or been tempted to run away from the church because you couldn’t stand how people were treating each other?

• Well, that in-fighting, what’s it really about?
• Isn’t all of that in-fighting about trying to be the wise one, the smart one, the one who has it all figured out?
• Isn’t it about calling someone else foolish?

• That’s what seems to be happening in the Corinthian church:
• “You’re foolish for following Paul because Apollos is the right one.”
• “No, it’s not Paul or Apollos, it’s Peter.”
• “You’re all wrong, We should only follow Christ, and I, of course, am doing just that.”

• Pride was rearing its ugly head.
• Pride was pulling apart the unity of the congregation.

• But before we’re too quick to set ourselves above the Corinthian Christians and start calling them fools, let us remember how pride comes to play in our lives together as well.

• Have we ever acted out of pride in the church?
• Have we ever closed our ears to someone else because we were trying so desperately to be right?
• Do we need to confess to a brother or sister that we were wrong to treat them like a fool?

• And when we realize this, when we realize our own pride, our own temptations to pride,
• That’s when we realize how much we need the power of God for salvation, the power of God in the cross.
• The very thing that seems so foolish
the foolish word of Christ crucified
comes to forgive us for our pride.
• Christ forgives us and restores us and sets us back in His grace and brings us back to others with love.

• That experience of being restored to a brother or sister in Christ. . .
• Admitting a sin to a fellow Christian and having them forgive you. . .
• Seeing the hurt and anger melt away because there’s power in God’s Word of forgiveness. . .
• There’s nothing like that experience.
• I experienced that with a dear friend, and it’s remarkable—remarkable to be forgiven for my sin, remarkable to be back in relationship with him, remarkable to see God’s hand at work, His Gospel coming to work in my day-to-day life.
• And it was only the power of God that could do this.
• This is the hope that Paul has for the Corinthians.
• He’s writing to them about lots of things, but the theme is restoring their unity, helping them to set aside pride, and rally around the foolish word of the cross.
• And hey, we’re in this thing together.

• This is my hope for us as well.
• I pray our unity will be strengthened, that we’ll all see ways we might need to set aside pride, and that we’ll rally around the foolish word of the cross.

• Together we are fools.
• Freaks.
• Insane.
• Dim-witted.
• Hopelessly misguided
• Uninformed.
• Naïve.
• Out of touch with reality.
• Not firing on all cylinders.
• That’s how the world sees us.
• Fools.
• That’s what the world thinks about people who take Jesus seriously.
• Fools.

 
• But hey, no matter what, we’re in this thing together.
• We’re in this together because the cross of Jesus brings us together.
• We’re in this together because we’ve been forgiven by the death and resurrection of Christ.
• We’re in this together because we realize we’re not any better than anyone else—we need Christ for salvation.
• We’re in this together, together with Christ.

• So, Fools, rally around the foolish word of the cross.
• Rally around the cross and be united in Christ.

Mark 1:1-8 - “A Voice of One Calling in the Wilderness”

2nd Sunday in Advent (Year B - Lutheran Service Book readings)
Sunday, December 4, 2011

Whistle: pure sweet Canada Canada Canada (2X)

A voice of one calling in the wilderness.

Whistle: pure sweet Canada Canada Canada

A beautiful, rich bird song which fills the woods. You look up into the canopy of trees, searching for the bird singing so sweetly, and you’re amazed at the beauty of the forest, amazed at the many different birds busy flying and eating and chattering, but none of these birds appears to own the song you heard. When you hear the song again, it does not look like any of the birds that you can see have stopped what they are doing to make such a song.

As you sit down on a log, it is only through careful observation that you find the singer—on the ground. You hear a rustle of leaves in the undergrowth and then from behind some broken branches lying on the ground not far from you a bird just barely appears. This bird breaks into that wonderful song. It is the white-throated sparrow.

You realize that in looking for this singing bird you have observed so much more of the forest, so many more birds than you would have. The white-throated sparrow has a voice that causes you to stop and watch and see the wonders of God’s Creation. The white-throated sparrow has a voice that calls your attention to rest of the woods—not to himself. A voice not unlike that of John the Baptist, who calls our attention to Jesus—not to himself.

John the Baptist says he came to speak about one more powerful than himself, one who is so righteous and holy that John is not even worthy to be His servant, not worthy enough to untie His sandals—a very humble thing to do. But John says that he’s not even good enough to do that humiliating task.

Yet, we learn from another Gospel, the Gospel of John, that the Jews will come to John the Baptist asking what he has to say concerning himself. John the Baptist does not really say anything concerning himself. He is true to his mission and turns his answers to those questions into answers that are concerning the Messiah, concerning Jesus. John the Baptist has a voice that causes us to stop and watch and see the coming One, the Savior of the world. A voice that calls our attention to the Savior—not to himself.

So we learn about John the Baptist in order to learn about Jesus. We talk about John the Baptist during Advent because He points us to Jesus, and Advent points us to Jesus. We don’t learn about John the Baptist to believe in John the Baptist. We learn about John the Baptist so that we can learn his message about Jesus as the Christ. John the Baptist has a voice which calls our attention to the Savior—not to himself.

That John the Baptist should call attention to Jesus not himself, the group of Jews are baffled by this. They expect to be able to have some definite answers to give to the leaders concerning who John the Baptist is and what he says concerning himself. They cannot understand someone who has such a following, who has such a clear voice and who does not speak concerning himself. John the Baptist will not talk about himself.

In the Gospel of John, we hear the Jews ply John the Baptist with questions. Every set of questions from the Jews is thwarted with a “no.” “I am not the Christ.” Are you Elijah? “I am not.” Are you the Prophet? “No.”

John turns around every question from the Jews, turns them around so that he might proclaim the Messiah. What do you say concerning yourself? “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for our Lord.’”

Every inquiry John takes as an opportunity to point to someone else, to the coming Messiah. Why then do you baptize? “I baptize you with water, but the Messiah will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

John the Baptist has one purpose: to witness to Jesus the Christ. He is not distracted from this purpose. He is not tripped up in his witness. His voice is a beautiful, rich song which causes us to look not to him but to our Savior. A voice not unlike that of the white-throated sparrow.

Whistle: pure sweet Canada Canada Canada

A voice of one calling in the wilderness.
But don’t you think that the white-throated sparrow is ever tempted to call attention to himself? Don’t you think that he gets tired of hiding out in the underbrush seeing the flashy cardinals and bluejays and hawks get all of our attention? Don’t you think he’s ever tempted to light upon a rock, lean back, puff up his chest and sing some jazz tune, to dance around and hog our attention, to cry out and turn our attention to himself?

Don’t you think that John the Baptist was ever tempted to call attention to himself? Don’t you think he got tired of always downplaying himself and making sure that the Messiah got all of the attention? Don’t you think he was tempted to talk about himself? So people would ask, “Who are you?” and he would say, “Well, I’m glad you asked. My name is John, son of Zachariah and Elizabeth, a Jew from the land of Judah. I travel around preaching, and man, let me tell you, it’s tough. Oh, yeah, it’s nice when the crowds show up, but you’ve got to wear camel hair and eat locusts. And the deal is, I’m supposed to introduce some Messiah, and I don’t even know what he looks like. I’m guessing by all the pictures I’ve seen that he’s white, long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a beard, but who knows? This preaching bit is tough.”

Don’t you think that John the Baptist was tempted to talk about himself because aren’t you? Aren’t you tempted to let conversations turn to yourself? Aren’t you tempted to complain about how busy Advent and Christmas are for a church-goer? Aren’t you tempted to spend more time talking to people about how you dealt with a certain sin as if you’re the example of how to live rather than helping them turn their eyes to Jesus when they’re tempted? Aren’t you tempted when in Bible study to spend more time talking about yourself than talking about the Messiah? Aren’t you tempted to turn the attention to yourself instead of Jesus?

It’s so tempting. . .and we’re encouraged to turn this whole Christmas thing into being about ourselves. Aren’t we? I mean, take for instance Target’s Christmas Champ. You know who I’m talking about? The woman in the TV commercials for Target who goes crazy getting ready for Target’s 2-Day Sale. We see her doing workouts to get ready to shop. She cries hysterically over the 2-Dale Sale ad. She’s officially known as the Christmas Champ; even has her own Twitter account. (Meanwhile, she gives me the creeps.) But anyway, what’s Target trying to say? Christmas is all about shopping, all about bargains, all about. . .you. It’s all about making your Christmas perfect with the right decorations and the right shopping. We’re encouraged to be thinking about ourselves on Christmas.

So that’s the message you get in between your favorite TV show or during the Bears game. That’s the message you get from so many places: think of yourself this Christmas.

And then we come here on Sunday morning, and we see just the opposite in the ministry of John the Baptist. If you’ve been tempted at all to be making Christmas about yourself, well, it’ll make your head spin when you hear John the Baptist say that it’s not about himself; it’s about the Savior.

Whistle: pure sweet Canada Canada Canada

A voice of one calling in the wilderness.
A voice of one pointing to the beauty all around us.
A voice of one getting us to stop thinking that Christmas is about us.
A voice of one pointing to the Savior.

If John the Baptist ever succumbed to the temptation to talk about himself, we don’t see it. Rather, the Gospel of Mark shows us an example of focusing our witness solely on Jesus. We don’t see John the Baptist talk about how tough it is to be the second Elijah. What we see in John the Baptist is Jesus.

We see that Jesus is coming. We see that Jesus is the One who was promised, the One who was coming to give the Holy Spirit to all people. We see that Jesus is coming in His greatness, in His awe-inspiring greatness, in His righteousness and holiness, and that John and everyone else is unworthy to untie His sandals. What we see in John the Baptist is Jesus.

We see Jesus as the One filled with love and compassion, the One who healed the sick and cared for the outcasts. We see Jesus as the One who came to overcome all evil. We see Jesus who conquered death and rose again. What we see in John the Baptist is Jesus.

And may the same be said about our Christmas celebrations: what we see in Christmas is Jesus. May we see that Jesus is coming into our lives. May we see that Jesus is the promised Savior, the One who has come to give us the Holy Spirit. May we see Jesus in His greatness, in His awe-inspiring greatness, in His righteousness and holiness. May we see Jesus coming with love and compassion, to bring healing, to care for the outcasts, to live, die, and rise again. May this be true: What we see in Christmas is Jesus.

And yet, when we see Jesus, something else dawns on us, something that reacts against Him, something that cowers in fear. We cower because in Jesus, we see our sinfulness, how we do not match up to the expectations of God. We see how we do not keep our focus on Jesus but focus on ourselves. We are humbled by the perfection of Jesus, and we are caused to wonder: how then can we be saved?

And the thing is, Jesus focuses on us. Even while John the Baptist has shown us that our focus needs to be on Jesus, even while we need to turn the attention of others to Jesus, the attention of Jesus is on us. Even when Jesus talks about Himself, it is because He came to save us and He wants us to know and believe this. Jesus focuses on us, because He knows we fail to focus on Him. He focuses on us, because He knows our sinfulness and knows we need salvation. He focuses on us and says, “I forgive you for focusing on yourself. I forgive you for not focusing on me. I forgive you for your pride.”

John the Baptist understood this: concentrating on himself, that’s not where salvation’s at. Concentrating on Jesus, that’s where salvation is. In concentrating on Jesus, we see that He has our salvation in mind, that He’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He came to focus on us and give us eternal life.

And so, in our life together as a congregation, as a fellowship of believers, we concentrate on Jesus, focus on Him, call attention to Him, put it all on Him. Then we are following in the footsteps of the white-throated sparrow, and we have a voice which causes others to stop and watch and see the coming Savior. Then we are following in the footsteps of John the Baptist, and we have a voice which calls attention to Jesus—not to ourselves.

Today’s Instantaneous Performance at Gurnee Mills is a good example. This Flash Mob—oh, yeah, the mall told us we can’t call it a mob—this group that will show up and sing at Gurnee Mills will be pointing to Jesus. They’re going to sing “Prepare the Way,” a reminder to prepare your hearts for Jesus to come into our lives, a reminder that these days of preparation are about preparing for Jesus. Yes, in the process, hopefully people will find out that we’re from Bethel Lutheran Church. But, in the process, hopefully people will realize we’re a church that’s focused on Jesus. We want others to care about Jesus—whether at church with us or at their own church. We want others to focus on Jesus. Today’s Instantaneous Performance is like the White-throated Sparrow—singing and calling our attention to the beauty in the woods. Today our White-throated Sparrows will sing and call attention to the beauty that came into our world through Jesus. And then we are pointing to the One who has taken His stand in our midst for us.

The One who came into our midst as the baby born in a manger, He came for us.

The One who is in our midst through the Word, through Baptism, through the Lord’s Supper, He is here for us.

The One who will come again into our midst in His Second Advent, He will come again for us.

So we pray, “We have sinned, even so, come, Lord Jesus, come and save us. We fail to focus on you, even so, come, Lord Jesus, come again and keep your focus on us!” And that He will do. Amen.

Psalm 80:1-7 - “Lament Number 223”

1st Sunday in Advent (Year B, Lutheran Service Book readings)
Sunday, November 27, 2011

• Start putting black pieces of cloth into a box marked with David Sweeney’s “Lament Number 223,” saying one word per piece of cloth.
• Sadness, grief, despair, fights, war, shame, hurtful words, hurtful actions, sickness, death, loss, pain.
• Tape up box and put it under a chair in the corner.

• Ask congregation: Where are my laments?
• “In the corner, boxed up, taped up, hidden”
• Ask congregation: Where are your laments?

• Somewhere along the way we get the idea that we need to box up our laments, our sadnesses, our distresses, box them up during the season of Advent—which really has become known as the season of Christmas—what with everyone preparing for Christmas and talking about Christmas and good cheer and eggnog and what not.
• We get the idea we need to box up all of that dark stuff and hide it in the corner during Advent.
• Like putting away the normal decorations in the house to make room for the Christmas decorations, we box up our laments, mark the box, and put it away until January.

• That’s what David Sweeney’s art piece got me thinking
• The stenciled word “lament” over and over again
• Like marking a box, marking a box that contains all of our dark stuff
• It’s “Lament Number 223,” another in the series of laments by David Sweeney.
• Rather than giving his work titles, Sweeney numbers them, but to me it’s another reminder of how we treat our laments—especially during this season—we mark them like just something else to be numbered, we box them up, shove them in a corner, and try to stop thinking about what’s in there.

• My Grandpa died during Advent in 2000.
• We spent those last couple of days with him in the hospital, we grieved and had the funeral, but I’ll admit that as soon as I returned to my congregation, I got right back to work, preached the next week, talked about Grandpa and grief but really I put the lament in the corner and went on with what I had to. The lament was boxed up, labeled and numbered, and left there to gather dust.
• I suppose I thought it wasn’t appropriate to keep my lament, my grief around during the season of Christmas.
• I suppose I thought I’d take out my lament when it was more appropriate in January.

• Ask the congregation: Where were my laments?
• “In the corner, boxed up, taped up, hidden”
• Ask congregation: Where are your laments?

• So now what?
• Do we really just leave those laments in the corner?
• Today’s Psalm reading, the Psalm reading appointed for the First Sunday in Advent won’t let us leave the laments in the corner.

1 Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel,
Awaken your might;
come and save us.
3 Restore us, O God;
make your face shine upon us,
that we may be saved.
4 O LORD God Almighty,
how long will your anger smolder
against the prayers of your people?
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears;
you have made them drink tears by the bowlful.
6 You have made us a source of contention to our neighbors,
and our enemies mock us.
7 Restore us, O God Almighty;
make your face shine upon us,
that we may be saved.
• O Lord God Almighty, how long will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people?
You have fed them with the bread of tears;
You have made them drink tears by the bowlful.

 
• Psalm 80:1-7, the reading for the First Sunday in Advent stops us short. There’s the psalm making the request to the warehouse: “Bring out the box marked ‘Lament.’”

• Bring box back.

• There’s the psalm looking past the way in which we tried to hide our lament under the cover of starkly stenciled words. There’s the psalm not letting the lament be hidden until a more convenient time. There’s the psalm causing us to see that lament is most crucial to our understanding of Advent.

• Psalm 80 calls on God to act: “Restore us.” It does not let God go quietly into the Christmas celebration as if that was enough; instead it says: “Save us.” It does not settle for the glow of Christmas lights, but instead pleads for God’s benediction: “Make your face shine upon us.”

• Psalm 80 remains aware of the urgent wondering and the blank stare we get when we look up into the sky. “O LORD God Almighty, how long will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people?” How long until you come to save us?
• Even now with the knowledge of salvation through the cross and resurrection of Christ, we still wonder how long until the skies open up to reveal Jesus returning. And until He returns, we lament. We cry out. “Restore us, save us, make your face shine upon us.”

• Psalm 80 invites us to bring out the box from the back shelf, gently dust it off, open up the lament, and let God have it.

• Open box up, start pulling out fabric pieces and reading the words.
• Sadness, grief, despair, fights, war, shame, hurtful words, hurtful actions, sickness, death, loss, pain.

• Psalm 80 invites us to take those laments back out and bring those laments to God.

• We were never meant to warehouse those laments; we were meant to take them to God who promises He will save us.

• Put fabric pieces back in box, (don’t tape it shut), and put it under the altar.

• We take those laments to God, because He promises to hear our laments and promises to save us through Jesus, save us from the laments of this world.
• We go to God, because He promises to shine His face upon us, look upon us with His grace and warmth, promises to lift us up out of this darkness.

• We may have gotten the idea along the way that Advent, this season of preparing for Christmas, this season of shopping and parties, that this season means that we should box up our laments.
• But really Advent was made for laments.
• Advent means “waiting,” and we’re certainly waiting for the Lord.
• Yes, the Lord came as a babe born in Bethlehem, the Lord has come.
• But we’re still waiting, waiting for Christ to return, waiting for Jesus to rescue us from this place of laments, this place of darkness
• Jesus didn’t just come die on the cross and rise again and ascend into heaven and now He’s done.
• Jesus promised that He would return, return to take us to be with Him forever, return to give us eternal life.
• So we’re still living in Advent times—always.
• We’re still living in Advent times when we’re waiting for Jesus to return, waiting for Jesus to restore us, to save us, to rescue us, to bring us to be with Him forever.
• We have the promise that through faith we will have eternal life. Through believing in Jesus, through believing that He died and rose again, through believing that He is our Savior, we have the promise of eternal life.
• But now we wait.

• And while we wait, we live through darkness and laments.
• We live through sadness, despair, fights, war. . .

• But we can take those things to God, put them at His feet at the altar.
• We can leave our laments with God.
• We can ask God to walk with us through the darkness.
• And He promises that He hears our cries and will be with us through all things.

• So this Advent season, there’s no reason to box up your laments, to box ‘em up and tape it shut and shove it into a corner.
• Instead, bring those laments to God, bring them to the altar
• You can bring them to God by praying—talking to God very frankly about what’s going on in your heart.
• You can bring your laments to God by singing to God in worship during Advent, letting the hymns and the Scriptures call to mind your laments, and bring them to God in your worship of Him.
• You can bring your laments to God by talking to another Christian—talking very frankly about your laments and asking that person to pray for you.
• And if you’re having trouble imagining bringing your laments to God, if this idea is a challenge to you, please come and talk to me. That’s why I’m here. Sometimes people think I’m too busy to hear your concerns and talk to you, but that’s why I’m here. So if it would be helpful to talk about your laments with me, call me or email me or Facebook me. Let’s find a time to take your laments to God.

• And when you’re talking to me or when you’re talking to another Christian or when you’re singing the hymns or when you’re praying to God, use the words of Psalm 80, the words that get the laments off the shelf and bring them to God.
• Psalm 80 calls on God to act: “Restore us.”
• God will not go quietly into the Christmas celebration as if that was enough; instead Psalm 80 says: “Save us.”
• It’s not about the glow of Christmas lights, but instead Psalm 80 pleads for God’s benediction: “Make your face shine upon us.”

• The Lord hears your prayers—the prayers that echo the words of Psalm 80:
• Restore us, O God Almighty;
make your face shine upon us,
that we may be saved.

• Come, Lord Jesus, come and restore us.
• The Father shines His face upon you
• You are saved from your laments.
• You have eternal life in Jesus.
• Even so, Come, Lord Jesus, come and restore us!

• Get box back out from under the altar.
• As I name these laments again, silently name your laments before God. Name your laments and see that you don’t need to box them up and hide them.
• You can name your laments and bring them to the altar, you can bring them to God.
• Sadness, grief, despair, fights, war, shame, hurtful words, hurtful actions, sickness, death, loss, pain.

 
• Close box and put it under the altar again.
• God hears your cries.
• God will restore you from your lament.
• Even as you wait in this Advent life, God promises to send Christ again to bring you to eternal life.
• As you wait, as you lament, know that the Lord hears your cries, hears your prayers, takes your laments to heart, and sends you a comfort by His Holy Spirit—a comfort that goes beyond words and understand, a comfort that gives us strength in the darkest of days.

• And God promises through Jesus Christ that He will indeed make His face shine upon us.
• He will look upon us with His grace and comfort and mercy and forgiveness and love.
• He will show us His great warmth and bring us through this lament and bring us to eternal life.

Psalm 67 - "Benediction"

This Thanksgiving Eve sermon took the form of a poem compiled and edited from various sources. You can view the sermon in its entirety by clicking here.

Malachi 3:6-12 - “Principles of Giving”

Excel in the Grace of Giving (Week 3)
Sunday, November 20, 2011

• I’ve been making a lot of phone calls lately, trying to check in on people who we have listed as members but maybe who haven’t been in worship for a while, a long while.
• Now when I’m not talking to voicemail, every once in a while I actually get to talk to a real, live person, and I explain why I’m calling.
• I’m Pastor Squires, been making my way through the membership lists, calling people that maybe I haven’t met yet. I’m calling you because you haven’t been in worship for a while, and I’m wondering if there’s any way I can be supporting you in your spiritual life.
• The responses to that opening are varied, but sometimes I get this response: “I know I should be in church. I should really get back there.”
• It makes me cringe.
• Why would someone saying that they should be in church make me cringe?
• Because it sounds like it’s just a duty, it’s just a requirement, it’s just a hoop to jump through, it’s just an obligation.
• It makes me cringe, because I’m not just calling, hoping that the person will come to church once in a while.
• I’m calling to check on the person’s spiritual life.
• It’s not just about showing up for worship a few times.
• It’s about what’s going on in the heart.
• It’s about a heart relationship with the Lord.
• That’s the principle behind calling people: we want people to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

• That principle also comes into play today when we’re talking about stewardship.
• Stewardship is about the heart.
• It’s about a relationship with Jesus.
• People think that the pastor’s just talking about money because the congregation needs more money.
• That makes me cringe.
• It makes me cringe, because I’m not talking about money just so that you’ll give to church once in a while.
• It makes me cringe like I used to cringe when I used to know a member of a church who never went to worship but every 3 months would stop by to drop off his 3 months of accumulated offering envelopes. That man had no interest in worship, no interest even in meeting me as the pastor there. It didn’t appear to be about a relationship with Jesus; it only appeared to be about some kind of obligation. It made me cringe.
• It made me cringe, because I wanted that man to have a relationship with Jesus. I should’ve given his offering envelopes back to him, because really I didn’t want his money if it was just to fulfill some obligation that didn’t have anything to do with the rest of his life.
• So in talking about stewardship, in talking about money, it’s not just about giving offering a few times.
• It’s about what’s going in the heart.
• It’s about the heart relationship with the Lord.
• That’s the principle behind stewardship: we want people to have a relationship with Jesus Christ—a relationship that spills out into everything that we do in our lives—including how we use our money.


• Malachi the prophet sent to the people who lived in the days after the Babylonian Exile.
• These were the days when the temple had been rebuilt, but it wasn’t nearly the grand structure that Solomon had made generations before, the temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians.
• These are the days when the people had been brought back from exile, but when Jerusalem was still ruled by a foreign empire, taxed heavily, and not coming into the prosperity that everyone had imagined would come for God’s people.
• Malachi was sent to bring God’s Word to a grumbling people, a people who still hadn’t seen the glorious promises of the earlier prophets be fulfilled.
• People were more interested in making a good living than in following the commandments of God, especially commandments like bringing sacrifices to the temple and offering their tithes, ten percent of their livelihood given to the temple.
• People ignored God’s regulations and practiced idolatry. They did not pay attention to God’s command to love others and act justly.
• So when Malachi brings up the tithe, he’s not bringing that up because that’s the only problem.
• No, there’s a deeper problem, a spiritual problem, a problem of disobedience, a problem of not trusting in the Lord, a reluctance to trust the Lord completely
• The people were robbing God of the full tithe, because their hearts were in the wrong place, their hearts were only partially turned towards the Lord
• It’s about the heart, a relationship with the Lord.
• The lack of bringing the tithe to the temple storehouse, that’s a symptom of a spiritual problem that needs to be confessed and forgiven.
• In fact, there were those who heard Malachi that day, those who feared the Lord, who believed and honored the Lord, and they were cut to the quick, they were cut to the heart, and the Lord saw that.
• He promised that day that they would be forgiven, they would be brought into His loving presence in His kingdom.
• It’s about the heart, and God comes to heal the heart.

• And that promise comes fully true in Jesus, as He comes to bring forgiveness to the people,
• as He comes to restore our hearts, as He comes to bring us sinners into His kingdom.
• It’s about the heart, and Christ has done something about the heart. He’s forgiven and healed us.
• The principle behind all of this stewardship talk is that we want you to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
• But your relationship isn’t dependent on your stewardship.
• Your relationship with Christ is dependent on what Christ has done in your life, the faith He works in your heart by His Holy Spirit.

• But today as we wrap up our stewardship emphasis, as we bring our commitment cards forward today, I do want to mention the mechanics of tithing, because I want you to tithe, to give a percentage of your income to the Lord.
• But as I talk about those mechanics of giving, I don’t want you to lose sight of the fact that it’s about a relationship with Jesus Christ. It’s about the response of your actions to the love and grace that Jesus has already poured out into your life.
• I’m not talking about the mechanics of giving just so that you’ll give to the church once in a while.
• I’m talking about the mechanics of giving because it’s about how your faith in Jesus transforms your entire life—including how you use the money that you’ve been given as a gift from God.
• Don’t make me cringe and just drop off your offering envelope and think that’s the only thing I want.
• Above all else, I want you to continue in your relationship with Jesus Christ, and I want His love, grace, and forgiveness to fully transform your life.

• Let’s say there’s someone who refuses to give anything to the church. I’d love to talk to that person.
• But we’d only talk about giving as a symptom, a symptom that might be signaling that there’s something else going on in your faith life.
• Why are you refusing to give to the church?
• That’s really what Malachi was doing by bringing up the tithe. He was concerned about the people’s relationship with God, and the lack of tithing was a signal that something much more serious was going on, serious trouble in their faith.
• Like when I call people who haven’t been in church for a while, the real conversation isn’t about their action or lack of action. The real conversation that I want to have is: how’s your faith in Jesus?

• So stewardship, it’s about the heart.
• It’s about a relationship with Jesus.
 
• That said, do I want you to tithe? Do I want you to give ten percent of your income to the work of the Lord here and in other places? Yes.
• I want you to figure out a percentage you’re going to give to the Lord, and stick with that percentage throughout the year
• I want you to see that the Lord will bless your dedication to giving to Him, bless you in ways you may not imagine, ways that go beyond material things, bless you in spiritual ways
• I want you to be regular givers.
• I want you to be in the habit of giving to the congregation and other ministries.
• Some people tithe from their income before taxes; some people tithe from their income after taxes.
That decision, I feel, is up to you.
The point is, give regularly, give to God first, live on the rest of what He provides for you.

• A few years ago a study was done in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod about congregation members and their attitudes about giving to the Church.
• It was found that three-fourths of people do not realize that their pastors favor giving and tithing.
• Three-fourths of the people don’t realize that the pastor believes that people ought to give to God and tithe from their income
• In other words, the pastors believe something about giving and stewardship, but the congregations aren’t picking up on the message.

 
• So let me be clear:
• I believe you ought to give to the Lord.
• I believe in tithing, giving ten percent to the work of God in the world.
• I agree with Malachi that if we short-change God then we are robbing Him.
• I agree with the very direct words of Malachi:
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse.
Bring the whole tithe into the congregation and other God-serving agencies.
• But I also believe that tithing is something we work towards, that we look for ways to grow in our giving, that we begin with a percentage and then work towards giving ten percent.

• But now that I’ve been clear about that, let me be very clear about something else:
• I want you to have a relationship with Jesus.
• My first concern is your relationship with Jesus.
• If you’re not giving to the Lord, my concern isn’t about getting your money.
• My first and foremost concern is: how’s your faith in Jesus?

• If you feel like you’re struggling in your faith, if you feel like you have symptoms of a struggling faith,
• then praise God that you’re here. Praise God that you’re here and receiving His Word of forgiveness and grace in Jesus Christ.
• Let’s say all of this stewardship talk is making you wonder about your spiritual health—well, then you’re getting to the heart of the issue.
• It’s not about pulling out an extra $20 bill from your wallet today.
• It’s about recognizing that God has called you into a beautiful relationship with Him, a relationship that gives you the sure promise of eternal life, a relationship that can flow into the rest of your life.
• Let’s say all of this stewardship talk is making you realize how much you’re struggling in your faith today, struggling to remain focused on Jesus.
• Well, praise God that you’re here. Praise God that you’re getting to the heart of the matter.
• Praise God that you’re here to receive the gift of Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, the body and blood for the strengthening of your faith.
• Praise God that He has done everything necessary to bring you into a right relationship with Him.
• Praise God that stewardship can be a response to that right relationship, not a way of proving yourself or making yourself right, but that stewardship can be a reflection of the loving relationship you have with God through what Jesus did on the cross and in His resurrection.
• Praise God that you’ve gotten to the heart of the matter today, that stewardship talk has gotten you thinking about your faith in Jesus.
• And praise God that when you think about your faith in Jesus, you get to hear again that it’s all about what Jesus has done for you, it’s all about the fact that Jesus has died for you and forgives you and calls you into a beautiful relationship with Him.
• Praise God that you can bring your commitment card forward today as a response to your faith in Jesus.
• Praise God that it’s not just about dropping off some money at church.
• Praise God that first and foremost you have a relationship with Jesus.

1 Chronicles 29:10-17 - “Outrageous Giving”

Excel in the Grace of Giving (Week 2)
Sunday, November 13, 2011

• Children’s Message: Bring up children and explain we’re going to get the adults moving, too, to help everyone think about who God has made them to be
• Ask adults to get up and move to one of the spots on the edge of the seating area—Worship/Music, Administration/Leadership, Education/Discipleship, Fellowship, Community Service, Maintenance/Hands On Labor
• Encourage people to move as they are able, to locate their most natural talent area, and then meet others who are there.
• PRAY
• Send adults back to their seats; then children.
• Ask people to turn to Old Testament reading.

• “Praise be to you, O LORD,
God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
12 Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
13 Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.
• In our Old Testament reading from 1 Chronicles, King David is praising God, especially because the people had just gathered a tremendous offering to make the temple.
• But on this day when we’re thinking about Time and Talents, I want you to see how these words could also apply to the giving of our time and talents.
• “Praise be to you, O LORD,
God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
EVERYTHING WE HAVE IS FROM GOD—INCLUDING OUR TIME AND TALENTS, OUR ABILITIES, OUR PASSIONS.
• Everything we have is a gift from God.
• Jesus comes into our lives to connect us with those gifts through His Holy Spirit.

• Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
GOD IS HEAD OVER ALL THINGS, INCLUDING OUR TIME AND TALENTS, LEADING US TO USE THOSE THINGS FOR HIS KINGDOM.
• Last week we talked about how God invites us to be His coworkers in bringing His blessings to our neighbors, the people around us.
• Well, this is true with time and talents as much as our money. We’re invited to share our time and talents for the sake of building up God’s kingdom, building up His people, bringing blessings to others, bringing Jesus to others.
• 12 Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
HERE DAVID MENTIONS SPECIFICALLY THAT HE’S PRAISING GOD ABOUT TREASURES, BUT NOTICE WHAT HE SAYS NEXT:
• In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
ALL STRENGTH AND POWER IS IN GOD.
HE IS THE ONE WHO LIFTS US UP AND GIVES US STRENGTH.
• God giving us strength; strengthen us through Jesus Christ—that goes beyond giving us money, treasures. That includes giving us our strengths—our talents, our abilities, our passions.
• And it includes giving us our time—a very precious commodity, the time to enjoy His blessings, the time to serve Him and serve others.
• God gives you your time and talents, and that’s what we celebrate today.

• So everything we have is from God.
• God is head over all that we have.
• God lifts us up and gives us strength.
• What’s the result of that?
• Well, according to David’s prayer, the result is:
13 Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.
WHEN WE REALIZE THE GIFTS THAT GOD HAS GIVEN US, OUR RESPONSE IS TO PRAISE HIS GLORIOUS NAME, PRAISE HIM FOR WHAT HE’S DOING IN US AND THROUGH US.


• Because of reFocusing, the process that the congregation is involved in to discover our individual and congregational calling in the Lord, because of reFocusing, and because of other things I see happening at Bethel, I really sense that we’re in a season of discovering who we are in the Lord.
• That’s why I wanted to have you get up and move today.
• That’s why I wanted you to meet others who share a similar talent or passion.
• That’s why I want those words of David to be on your lips—God, we give You thanks and praise Your glorious Name.
• I really sense that God is calling us together to serve Him, helping us to see ways to serve Him and serve each other and serve our community.
• I really sense God’s Spirit moving in this place to call us to recognize the gifts that He’s placed in us, gifts that He desires to use for His kingdom, His kingdom of grace, love, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

• Now I don’t say this lightly.
• I don’t always talk in these ways—about sensing God’s presence and movement.
• I’m not saying this just because it works for the sermon.
• I’m saying this because looking at what’s happening, hearing what people are saying, seeing people’s passions starting to bubble up and come together—well, I’m very confident that God’s moving in this place
• I believe so much that Jesus has loved us and forgiven us, but that He’s also sending us, calling us to serve Him and serve others.

• And this train’s leaving the station.
• Things are happening; things are beginning to move forward.
• I want you to be on this train.
• I want you to be recognizing your talents and how they could fit into serving God, serving Bethel, and serving our community.
• I want you to be on this train.
• I want you to be rejoicing in how God lifts you up and strengthens you.
• I want you to see that everything you have is a gift from God for the sake of His kingdom.
• I want you to be on this train.
• I want you to serve Him with your time and talents.

• Now next week we’ll talk more directly about how we use our money, how giving to the Church serves our neighbors.
• Usually that seems like the biggest step, it seems like a big step to speak directly about money.

• But honestly, today’s the big step, a big step in telling you that this train’s leaving the station, that I want you on this train, that I want you to serve Him with your time and talents, that I want you to see ways in which God is calling you to serve Him, serve Bethel, serve the community.
• It’s a big step, because I’m asking for your time and talents, I’m asking you to make a commitment to serve, I’m asking you to step out of your comfort zone, I’m asking you to serve Him beyond one hour on Sunday, I’m asking for you to see the countless ways that God has blessed you in how He has made you.
• It’s a big step. . .
• But I so much want to see all of you recognize the tremendous people that God has made you to be.
• I want you to see that God can use you in many different ways.
• I want to have spiritual conversations with each one of you—conversations which call us to remember that God made you, God is shaping you, God can use you for the sake of His forgiveness and love in Jesus Christ.
• You are a gift from God.
• May you rejoice in that!
• I want you to be on this train—this train of God’s forgiven people responding to Him by serving others.

• Now we’re going to give you a few minutes to fill out the Time and Talent Survey.
• Now you don’t have to only mark down things under the category that you went to when we walked around. We’ve all got many different kinds of talents and passions.
• But I also don’t want you to mark down things just because you think you should. That’s following some kind of obligation; that’s not following your passion.
• Mark down the things that seem to grab your attention right away—even if it’s something you’ve never done before. Mark down the things where you feel a passion welling up inside of you, an interest that goes a little deeper, things that strike a chord with you.
• If you’re visiting with us, use this time to think about how you might serve in your congregation or see the ways you could serve at Bethel.
• As you finish, pray for Bethel during these minutes.
• Close the sermon by praying for the congregation before giving them a few minutes to fill out the Time & Talent survey. Give to ushers when you finish.

2 Corinthians 8:1-15 - “Why Christians Give”

Excel in the Grace of Giving (Week 1)
Sunday, November 6, 2011

• Set up half of the pipe, send coins down
• This is God sending down His blessings to us and to others
• Except that’s not quite the whole picture

• Ask for a volunteer
• You be God. (give them the jar of coins)
• Set up top half of the pipe with Y-joint in middle
• Meanwhile, you give me some blessings and encourage me to share those blessings with others (Volunteer pours some coins into a smaller jar)
• So God keeps sharing blessings with people (Volunteer keeps putting coins in the top of the pipe)
• Meanwhile, I as His child am encouraged to share blessings with others also (start putting coins in middle of the pipe through Y-joint)
• The blessings of God come to us by grace, by gift
• We are companions of this grace
• We are coworkers, encouraged by God to join Him in this sharing with others.

• How many of you are thinking putting coins down this pipe looks fun? Oddly relaxing?
• That’s the kid in us.
• And that’s kind of how stewardship can work: God shows us what He’s doing—then invites us to try it out
• (Volunteer sits down)

• Borrowing a phrase from another preacher: “The stewardship invitation is not about moral obligation to pay God back or even to express gratitude, but to engage with God in love in the world” (William Loader).
• I think it still has to do with returning a portion of what God has given us.
• I think our offerings are still a way of expressing thanks to God.
• But the whole idea of being companions of God in the grace of giving—that idea is revolutionary to me.
• It’s amazing to think that God is inviting us to be stewards of our time, talent, and treasure, invites us to be good stewards, because He wants us to be His coworkers in sharing blessings with the world
• So it’s really about our neighbor, about taking part in God blessing our neighbors, blessing them materially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

• Notice in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, notice how Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to give to the church in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was going through a famine, and so Paul had been raising funds from all of the churches in the region, raising support for the Christians in Jerusalem.
• Notice how Paul spurs on the Corinthians by telling them about the faith and action of another church—the Macedonians. The Macedonians who begged to be a part of the collection for Jerusalem. The Macedonians who saw that they could be a part of something bigger than themselves, they could be part of what God was doing for the Church—big “C,” the Church of all the brothers and sisters in the faith.
• Stewardship was about loving their neighbors.
• Using the example of the Macedonians, Paul is urging the Corinthians to follow through on the commitment they had already made to Jerusalem, encouraging them to finish the collection and send it to Jerusalem.
• He commends them, compliments them, recognizes how the Spirit of God was already working in them through their faith, speech, knowledge, complete earnestness and love. The Corinthians were excelling in all of these ways.
• But now Paul encourages them to also excel in the grace of giving, the gift of giving, to excel in being God’s companions in passing on blessings to others.
• In other words, excel at putting coins in the pipe.

• So according to this pipe image, why do Christians give?
• Do we give because that makes us better Christians?
• No, God’s already delivering the blessing of salvation! That blessing comes from Him.
• It’s the grace of giving. It’s God’s graciousness.
It’s always about the gifts from God.
• So do we give because we need to make up the difference between what God provides and what’s still needed?
• No, because notice that God continues to give blessings whether or not I take part.
• I mean, notice what Paul is saying to the Corinthians. He’s saying that the Macedonians and others are already giving to support Jerusalem. He doesn’t lay it on the Corinthians that they make or break the operation.

 
• So according to this image of the coins in the pipe, why do Christians give?
• It’s fun.
• We’re being invited to be a part of something fun, beautiful, incredible that God is already doing.
• We’re being invited to be God’s companions.
• We’re being invited to be a part of God’s mission to love all people.
• We’re being transformed into people who are part of God’s mission.

• Now if I keep my jar of coins to myself, if I decide that
I’m not going share, I’m not going to join in the game,
I suppose there’s a sin there.
• I might be selfish, greedy, not trusting God
• There could be a lot of sinful reasons for holding onto the coins in my jar.
• For those sinful reasons, I need God to shower His forgiveness on me.
• And if this talk about stewardship has conjured up guilt for you, if you’re thinking about some sin that stands between you and sharing with others, well, then be assured that there is plenty of forgiveness for you in Jesus Christ.
• Jesus Christ died for all of our sins—even our sin of keeping the coins to ourselves, keeping His blessings to ourselves.
• Jesus Christ conquered death and rose again so that there’s this gift of salvation, there’s a gift of eternal life that we don’t need to earn.
• It’s a free gift.
• And being a good steward doesn’t earn you a bigger piece of eternity. You’ve got eternity through what Jesus did and what Jesus is doing in you.

• But when we think about the Corinthians keeping their coins to themselves, Paul isn’t condemning them. In fact, Paul even says, “I am not commanding you.” This isn’t Paul shaking his finger at those Corinthians.
• No, what we see Paul saying in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 is that the Corinthians are missing out if they keep their coins to themselves, they’re missing out on being a part of what God is doing
• They’re missing out on being a part of that movement in the Church—big “C” church—the movement bringing funds from all over the region to support the Christians in Jerusalem. If they keep their coins to themselves, they won’t be a part of this incredible thing, this thing that God’s invited them to be a part of.
• They won’t get the fun of putting the coins down the pipe.

• That’s the same for us—God doesn’t want us to miss out on the fun of sending coins down the pipe, sending on blessings to our neighbors, doesn’t want us to miss out on being His companions in this grace, His gifts to His people.

• How many of you have heard of Compassion International?
• Support children around the world so that they get food, clothes, and education.
• You sign up to sponsor a child, pledging to sponsor them hopefully until they graduate from the program
• Well, a youth group I worked with heard about Compassion at a Christian concert, they got excited about it, and they asked me, “Pastor, can we sponsor a child? You know, the youth group together sponsor a child.”
• They pleaded with me that evening, and maybe against my better judgment, I said they could sign up. They assured me that they would take offering each week at Bible study and that’s how they’d come up with the money each month—because I explained that the funds couldn’t come from the church budget. It had to be something they did as the youth.
• Well, a couple of months passed, we were paying the pledge each month—out of the youth budget
• The offering plate would get passed, but not much was going in it—a few dollars, a few coins, and a couple of pencils since someone thought it was pencil basket.
• Finally, I had to sit down with a few key youth who had asked to do this, and I said that they’d either have to get the youth to donate more or they were going to have to stop sponsoring a child.
• After a couple more weeks of no one bringing offering, they decided that they’d have to stop.
• I told them that they’d have to write the letter to Compassion and explain that we couldn’t sponsor this child anymore.
• That was a tough lesson for those youth, but it was about following through on their commitment, following through on their pledge.

• That’s kind of what is happening here in 2 Corinthians—Paul is having to tell those Corinthian Christians that they either needed to follow through on their commitment to the Jerusalem church or that they should write a letter saying they couldn’t keep their pledge.
• Except Paul does it all much more graciously than I did with those youth.
• With the youth, I kind of laid out the Law, showed them how they weren’t meeting their commitment, told them to go out and drum up more support.
• Paul, though, paints a picture for the Corinthians. Paints a picture for them to see what it means to be companions of God, what it means to join God in loving others.
• Paul paints a picture like the pipe
• OK, so he doesn’t talk about PVC pipe and coins, but the principle is there—join in what God is already doing, be God’s partner, excel in the grace of giving

• Now I’m probably still stumbling over how best to talk about stewardship.
• I’m still learning when it comes to talking about giving and blessing others and the needs of the congregation and the chance to participate in the mission of the Church through our giving
• I’m still learning

• But I’ll tell you what: the image of getting to put coins down a pipe that God’s already using, the image of getting to join God’s work, that image that arises out of Paul’s words to the Corinthians, that image speaks volumes to me
• It speaks volumes, because it centers it back on God
• It centers it back on what God is already doing in our lives through Christ, already delivering blessings

• (Volunteer comes back up, add second volunteer)
• Remember: God’s sharing blessings with us constantly
• We’ve been invited to be a part of that process
• We can share from our coin jars, we can share with our neighbors
• But if we stop, if we hold onto our blessings—God’s still blessing others
• He doesn’t stop if we stop
• He’ll simply look for other ways to deliver blessings
• He’ll invite others to be His companions
• meanwhile, meanwhile—we’re missing out on the fun

• So excel in the grace of giving
• Join the fun (2nd volunteer starts putting coins down Y-joint)
• Excel in the grace of giving

• Join the fun of sharing your blessings so that others are blessed materially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually
• What Paul said about the Corinthians I would say about you here at Bethel: you excel in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us
• Excel now also in the grace of giving
• Celebrate that you’re God’s partners, companions, coworkers
• See yourselves right here at the Y-joint, right here getting to step and send your blessings onto others

Psalm 46 - “Medieval Knights”

Reformation Day (Year A)
Sunday, October 30, 2011

• (Repeat after me)
• Above the chaos
• God is with us
• God brings peace

• The theme for this year’s Gurnee Days was Medieval Knights—that was back in those warm days of August
• So our Gurnee Days chair Matt Messmer assembled a team of people who brainstormed and came up with the theme for our float: “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”
• It worked perfectly—the image of a castle fitting in with the medieval/middle ages theme of the parade
• the image of a castle tying in with Luther’s hymn inspired by Psalm 46,
• Luther’s hymn that talks about God being our refuge and strength, God being our fortress
• In fact, the float worked so well it won first place!
• But I’m still wondering: Can we see things like this as being more than telling people about Bethel Lutheran Church?
• Could we see being in the community as our chance to tell people about GRACE?
• Could we see being in the community as our chance to tell people that God is our strength?
• That God is the strong One, the One who saves us
• Psalm 46 and “A Mighty Fortress” tell us that:
• Above the chaos
• God is with us
• God brings peace
• Churches—even non-Lutheran churches—sing “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” to celebrate Martin Luther
• But may it really be about celebrating God’s grace
• May it be to celebrate that the Church once again recognized God’s grace in the Scriptures
• “A Mighty Fortress” inspired by Psalm 46
• Connects Psalm 46 with Christ, lifts up the grace
• Luther took comfort in Psalm 46 for the way it points to life and salvation in God, life and salvation that come to us by grace—as gift
• Took comfort because tells us that God is our strength

• Above the chaos
• God is with us
• God brings peace

• Above the Chaos – first verses
1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
• (MSG) We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom
Courageous in seastorm and earthquake
Before the rush and roar of oceans,
The tremors that shift mountains.
• Above the Chaos—that’s SALVATION
• because Christ lifts us up, gives us courage, trust in what He has done in the cross and resurrection
• Bring us out of the chaos; that’s GIFT/GRACE
• Above the chaos
• God is with us
• God brings peace
• Withness
• Refrain: “The LORD Almighty is with us;
• the God of Jacob is our fortress.”
• He is WITH us
• His Withness is so central to what He has revealed about Himself
• He sent His Son to be WITH us—Immanuel
• Withness—LIFE WITH GOD
• Because Jesus is with us—lives in us by His Spirit

• Above the chaos
• God is with us
• God brings peace

• Desolations of peace
• “Come and see the works of the LORD,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.”
• Expect scenes of destruction but what do we have?
• He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
he burns the shields with fire.
• Desolation to our destruction
• Brings an end to our way of doing things
• Desolations of peace—LIFE
• Because Jesus brings peace through His forgiveness

• Above the chaos
• God is with us
• God brings peace

 
• Bob Lenz has spoken to hundreds of thousands students, including National Youth Gatherings
• Spoke to our Northern Illinois District pastors
• Bob’s not Lutheran but has a great way of emphasizing that we are saved by grace through faith
• A tremendous set of stories that show our strength, our salvation, our hope, our comfort, our refuge in God
• At the pastors’ conference, Bob encouraged us, almost pleaded with us Lutherans to SHARE THE GRACE
• Share the message we have
• Share this hope we have that we’re saved by what Jesus does and not by what we do
• Not by our own strength; saved by the strength of God

• Above the chaos
• God is with us
• God brings peace


• That’s what we have to share with the world
• That’s what Bob Lenz was urging us pastors to share
• This thing called GRACE; salvation as GIFT
• The power of salvation is in what God does;
• The power is in what God does in Christ

• Above the chaos
• God is with us
• God brings peace

Leviticus 19:1-2,15-18 - “Cones”

19th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 25) (Year A)
Sunday, October 23, 2011

• People outside of the Church are watching us
• They’re watching to see if we take the words of Jesus seriously
• They’re watching to see if we really love our neighbors as ourselves—words from the Old Testament book of Leviticus but words that Jesus repeated as He summarized the Law
• The people outside of the Church realize that those are radical words—love your neighbor as yourself
• They’re radical words because it’s a whole different way to live.
• It’s a call to live without revenge, without payback
• It’s living without retaliating, hitting back
• And they’re radical words, because they call on us to love people, all people, not just people in our tribe, they call on us to love people outside of our friends, outside of our family, outside of our community.
• As Leviticus later says in chapter 19, God’s calling on us to love the alien, the stranger, the person completely different than us
• That’s radical, that’s not how most of the world operates
• The people outside of the Church are watching to see if we’re going to be that radical
• The people outside of the Church resonate with these words, resonate, respond to this beautiful, radical love
• But they haven’t always seen this in the Church
• They haven’t always seen Christians as loving neighbors as themselves
• They’ve seen the Church standing off to the side, taking care of their own, judging those outside of the Church
• That’s the perception that many people have—we’re judgmental, we condemn others, we don’t show love
• That’s how we’re seen

• And frankly, we stand accused
• We’re caught in the act of being unloving
• We’re caught not following the radical love of Jesus

• I mean, aren’t they right?
• We don’t always love our neighbors as ourselves
 
• Here’s how it works:
• I’m traveling along in life and come to a moment when I am called to show love to a neighbor (cone)
• Instead, I step aside and take care of myself (bypass cone away from people)
• But here’s what those outside the Church might not realize:
God comes to me, convicts me of my sin (points back to my action), and forgives me in Jesus Christ
• Then He sets me up another moment to love a neighbor (cone)
• Again, I step aside and take care of myself (bypass cone away from people)
• God comes to me, convicts me of my sin, and forgives me in Jesus Christ
• Then He sets me up another moment to love a neighbor (cone)
• This time I follow the Holy Spirit’s leading, I am moved by the love of God to love my neighbor (turn towards congregation)
• Life is a series of cones, a series of moments where sometimes I follow His leading and sometimes I turn my own way
• But at every step of the way, God loves and forgives me
• God is committed to me and to my neighbors
• When I turn to love my neighbor, I’m not trying to earn my salvation—my salvation is secure in Jesus
• Yet, even though my salvation is secure, God is constantly prompting me to live out my faith
• That’s what it means to love my neighbor—I live out my faith, I respond to salvation
• I let God’s love for me flow through me

• So people outside of the Church will be watching us
• Watching us as we get to know our neighborhoods
• Watching to see if we love our neighbors as ourselves
• They’ll be watching to see if we’re as radical as Jesus
• And what will they see?
• They’ll see a series of cones
• They’ll see us take some correct turns and love radically
• They’ll see us take some wrong turns
• They’ll see us be convicted and admit our sins
• They’ll see us rejoice in God’s love and forgiveness
• They’ll see us return to the cones, move forward to try again by God’s power to love our neighbors

• But above all of this, what we pray they see is the love of God
• After all, it’s not really about our love
• It’s about the love of God
• The love of flowing through us to them
• We want them to see Jesus
• We want them to see the beautiful, radical love of Jesus

 
• The Go! Project is one of these cones
• Find a way to love our neighbors as ourselves
• Find a way to love our neighbors by sharing the Gospel with them
• Describe the Go! Project (thegoproject.org)

• The reason we need the Go! Project is because we don’t naturally love our neighbors as ourselves
• Our sinful instinct is to love ourselves and ignore the needs of others
• Despite the fact that we know the Gospel, still our sinful nature gets the best of us and we keep this Good News to ourselves
• We don’t love our neighbors as ourselves
• We don’t tell our neighbors about Jesus
• We need the Go! Project to jump start us on loving our neighbors
• It’s training us, forming us, giving form to our actions, calling us to live out the Gospel, calling us to live for God

• Of course, it’s not really the Go! Project that jump starts us on loving our neighbors
• I mean, it’s a tool used by God to help us love our neighbors

 
• What really jump starts us is the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts
• God comes to us, convicts us of our sin, tells us that we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves
• But then God comes to us with a grand word of forgiveness, a grand word of removing that sin from us

• In Jesus, we are forgiven for not loving our neighbors
• In Jesus, we have the promise of eternal life despite our sin
• In Jesus, we are healed from our sinful ways
• In Jesus, we are transformed
• In Jesus, sent back out to love our neighbors, jump started, energized by the love of God
• In other words, when we turn away from loving our neighbors (bypass the cone),
• We find ourselves in front of Jesus
• And He confronts our sin, calls us to repent, and offers us forgiveness—then sends us back to our neighbors
• So either way—on either side of the cone, there’s Jesus
• If I turn away from loving my neighbor, there’s Jesus to confront me and forgive me and send me back
• If I love my neighbor, there’s Jesus, His love flowing right through me
• Either side of the cone, there’s Jesus

Psalm 96:1-9 - “Preaching to the Choir”

18th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 24) (Year A)
LWML (Lutheran Women’s Missionary League) Sunday
Sunday, October 16, 2011

• Climbing up on the shelves in the warehouse, counting how many Bible studies are still left in open boxes
• Small way I was helping the families of the world ascribe glory to the Lord

• Dollar bills in a mite box
• Small way that you are able to help the families of the world ascribe glory to the Lord
• Because of those dollars add up to a lot of money used to support mission projects in districts across North America, including Northern Illinois, and around the world
• With a goal of raising $1.8 million for grants to places like Haiti, Dominican Republic, Kansas, and Detroit
• In our district, LWML supports places like Voice of Hope prison ministry and Voice of Care developmentally-disabled ministry

• But what is the LWML setting out to do? What is any mission society aiming to do? What are we at Bethel trying to do?
• We’re inviting the families of the world to sing the new song of Psalm 96 with us.

• Psalm 96, I suppose, could just sound like another hymn, a hymn to the Lord—


• Sing to the LORD
sing to the LORD,
Sing to the LORD, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
Declare his glory
• They’re words of praise calling on us to honor the Lord

• But notice something else about those first lines
• Notice how it’s addressed to the nations, to all people,
• It’s a mission psalm

1 Sing to the LORD a new song;
THE PEOPLE DIDN’T HAVE THIS SONG BEFORE
sing to the LORD, all the earth. NOT JUST ISRAEL
2 Sing to the LORD, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

4 For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
he is to be feared above all gods.
ABOVE WHAT OTHERS BELIEVE IN
5 For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but the LORD made the heavens.
ALL PEOPLES ALL CALLED TO PRAISE GOD
6 Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and glory are in his sanctuary.
7 Ascribe to the LORD, O families of nations,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
8 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;


• It’s what one author calls a psalm of “new orientation” (Brueggemann)
• It’s a psalm that calls the hearer to have a new orientation to the world, a new way of looking at the world, a changed perspective
• The psalm’s calling on the hearers to turn and ascribe glory to the Lord, only to the Lord


• In your bulletins, you have a logo I made for Psalm 96

• When I hear the later verses from today’s reading, the verses about ascribing glory and strength to His Name, this is what came to mind
• The LORD’s Name, God the Father’s personal Name is Yahweh in Hebrew,
• To His Name we ascribe, we give to His Name, we grant to His Name—glory and strength.
• Glory—His Name is above all else
• Strength—His Name is far stronger than anything else
• In His Name, there is glory and strength

• What’s His glory? What’s His strength? Where do we see this most clearly?
• In Jesus Christ—His cross and resurrection
• The cross is His glory—the mercy, grace, and forgiveness He won for us
• The cross is His strength—going to death for us
• The resurrection is His glory—conquering death
• The resurrection is His strength—mighty to save us
• The LWML, other mission societies, our mission as a congregation, our calling as individual Christians, it’s to invite others to ascribe glory and strength to the Name of Yahweh, to the Name of Jesus Christ

• But that calls for reenvisioning the world, reenvisioning the people around us (Robert Foster), because we can’t just think of them as enemies
• Psalm 96 invites us to see the families of the world as potential choir members who will sing praise to Yahweh
• Psalm 96 is preaching to the choir—but that choir’s not just the insiders anymore

• What will we do to make room for new choir members?
• Will you start making room for new people in small ways—a handshake, a smile, a warm greeting on Sunday morning?
• Will you see the need for the LWML, for mission societies, for outreach in our community?
• What will we do to give people a new song to sing, replacing their old songs of despair with a song of hope in Jesus?
• What will we do to help others ascribe glory and strength to the Lord?

• Because that’s what it means to preach to this choir—this growing choir, this growing group of followers of Christ
• calling on others to ascribe glory and strength to the Lord
• calling on others to declare that Jesus is Savior