Rejoice! Your Father has Given You His Kingdom (Luke 12:32-40)

Dear friends in Christ.

Throughout the centuries, people have pursued joy in every avenue imaginable. Some have successfully found it while others have not. But to fully understand where joy can be found, perhaps it would be easier to describe where joy cannot be found: It isn’t found in unbelief— Voltaire was an infidel, an unbeliever, of the most pronounced type, and he wrote: "I wish I had never been born." It isn’t found in Pleasure -- Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure if anyone did. He wrote: "The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone." It isn’t found in Money -- Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had plenty of that. When dying, he said: "I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth." It isn’t found in Position and Fame -- Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret." It isn’t found in Military Glory -- Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Having done so, he wept in his tent, before he said, "There are no more worlds to conquer." So where then is real joy found? Well, you already know the answer to that question, because real joy is found in Christ alone! (Adapted from SermonIllustrations.com ) This is exactly what our Savior is teaching us in our lesson this morning! He is teaching to find our joy in the Lord our God. In fact, he is teaching us to rejoice because God our Father has already given us his heavenly kingdom!

Now, if you haven’t already done so, I invite you to open your Bibles to our gospel lesson; to Luke 12:32, which is found on page 1031. There, in Luke 12:32, some of the first words out of Jesus’ mouth are words calling on us to rejoice because our heavenly Father has given us his heavenly kingdom. Luke 12:32 tells us: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32, NIV)

Such beautiful words! Such comforting words! Though they could easily stand all by themselves as words of comfort and joy, in order to fully understand what Jesus is telling us here, we have to take a look back to Luke 12:13, where we find our text from last week; the Rich Fool. Though it was last week we heard Jesus teaching us to find our true wealth in the Lord our God and warning us against all kinds of greed and building our lives on the abundance of our possessions, what Jesus is telling us today is part of his discourse that began back in Luke 12:1. As we heard last week, as Jesus was speaking to his disciples a crowd of thousands had gathered to hear him, and there, already in verse 6, Jesus began teaching them the very reason why we can rejoice in the Lord our God and his gift of the kingdom. Take a look at Luke 12:6-7 with me: Jesus says, 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Luke 12:6–7, NIV)

Skip over the parable of the Rich Fool that we studied last week and take a look at Luke 12:22-24, 27-28: “Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!” Jump to verse 27: “Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! (Luke 12:22-24, 27–28, NIV)

Starting from the very beginning of this chapter, through the parable of the Rich Fool, all the way to our lesson today, Jesus is telling us that we don’t need to worry about food and drink. We don’t need to worry about our house or our home. We don’t need to be concerned about our property, our wealth, our life or even our clothes, because we know that the Lord our God will provide all that we need and even more than that. Because we know that God will provide all that we need for our lives and even more than that, we don’t need to worry, as Jesus tells us in verse 32! Instead, we can rejoice! We can rejoice because we know that the Lord our God has given us the kingdom. We can rejoice because in giving us his kingdom, God our heavenly Father is assuring us that he has called us to faith in him through the working of the Holy Spirit. He is assuring us that because we have been called to faith by the working of the Holy Spirit, we have received the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for us on the cross. Because we have received the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won or us on the cross, we know that our Savior has prepared a place for us in his heavenly kingdom. We know that one day, when Jesus calls us out of this life, he will take us to live by his side forever in those mansions in heaven, the very mansions whose keys God the Father has already turned over to us by calling us to faith in Jesus Christ our Savior through the work of the Holy Spirit through God’s powerful Word.

This is why even now in some of the most frustrating economic times our country has seen for many years, each and every one of us can rejoice! Each and every one of us can rejoice because we know that our God has already given us the gift of his heavenly kingdom. We can rejoice, because if God has given us his heavenly kingdom we know that he will provide for all our needs here on earth. No longer do we need to be obsessed with storing up four ourselves. Instead, knowing that we are members of God’s kingdom through faith in Jesus, our thoughts begin to turn to storing up treasures for ourselves in our heavenly kingdom. Jump back with me to Luke 12:32-34: Jesus tells us: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:32–34, NIV)

Did you notice what Jesus did? In such a simple way he referred back to the Parable of the Rich Fool that we studied just last week. For as Jesus spoke in verse 33 and 34, he is calling on us not to be like the fool who only thought of storing up treasures for himself in this world, but to live in the joyful knowledge that the Kingdom of heaven already belongs to us. He is calling on us to recognize that everything we have is a gift of God, given to us for us to manage. He is calling on us to hang on to the possessions we have with open hands. Rather than clutching our fingers and our hands and our arms and our whole bodies around our possessions and holding on to them as tightly as we can, Jesus is calling on us to hold on to them with open hands, so that when he comes to us and asks for us to return one or more of our blessings, those blessings easily slide right out of our hands. In other words, as we rejoice in the fact that the Kingdom of heaven already belongs to us, we learn to recognize our possessions and wealth for what they truly are! Though we used to see them as something that we sought to possess and hold onto for as long as possible, Jesus is teaching us to see them as blessings from him that he gives us to manage for a time. He is teaching to understand that God is the owner of everything and we are but his servants who use those gifts, blessings, possessions, and wealth as our servants in service to the Lord. When we begin to understand that our greatest possession is not something that we have on this earth, but the keys to the kingdom of heaven that our God has given through his Son, we begin to live our lives in thanks and praise of the Lord our God. When we daily rejoice over the fact that our Savior will one day take us from this life to our home in heaven, we begin to understand that our true treasure lies in heaven, and the only thing we can take to heaven with us is other people.

When we begin to understand that, it becomes all the easier for us to set aside a portion of our income for the Lord before we do anything else with it. It becomes all the easier for us to part with money and possessions to help others who are in need. It becomes that much easier for us to make use of our money in the Lord’s service through extra gifts for our congregation, our synod, missionaries, and even other programs that we are able to support from time to time like Faith Comes by Hearing. When we find ourselves rejoicing in the fact that our God has already blessed us with the kingdom of heaven, then it becomes all the easier for us to live for the Lord, to follow his Words, and to prepare ourselves for our Savior’s return, which is what Jesus talks about in Luke 12:35-40 of our lesson today: 35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Luke 12:35–40, NIV)

Talking about our Savior’s return, a wise man once said, “When you expect him least, that is when you need to expect him most.” This is the picture that Jesus paints in the last verses of our lesson today. Like the servants needed to be prepared for their master to return at any moment, so also we must be ready for our Savior’s return at any time. And we are ready! For through faith in Jesus, we are looking forward to the day when he will return to take us home. Through faith in Jesus our hearts have been washed clean and we have been given the wedding garments of his righteousness which we wear even now as we wait the day when he will bring us to his heavenly kingdom. Through faith in Jesus, we seek to live our lives according to his will, serving him with all that we are and all that we have, because we know that heaven is our home. We know that no matter when our Savior returns, we are ready. We are ready because we are God’s children through faith in Jesus, and we are eagerly awaiting the kingdom to which we already hold the key.

Though there are many people who are seeking joy through many and varied means, as Christians we have found the source of true joy! Our joy is found in Jesus Christ our Savior who called us to faith and bestowed upon us the kingdom of our God.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church -Le Sueur, MN

Find your Wealth in teh Lord your God (Luke 12:13-21)

Dear friends in Christ.

John G. Wendel and his sisters were some of the most miserly people of all time. Although they had received a huge inheritance from their parents, they spent very little of it and did all they could to keep their wealth for themselves. John was able to influence five of his six sisters never to marry, and they lived in the same house in New York City for 50 years. When the last sister died in 1931, her estate was valued at more than $100 million. Her only dress was one that she had made herself, and she had worn it for 25 years. The Wendels had such a compulsion to hold on to their possessions that they lived like paupers. Though they were undoubtedly some of the wealthiest people of their day, they had completely missed out on the true wealth that can only be found in the Lord our God. In fact, as we study our Gospel lesson this morning we will hear Jesus calling on us to find our true wealth in the Lord our God.

To do this, to find our wealth in the Lord our God, we want to take a look at what Luke has recorded for us in our Gospel lesson, so I invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 12:13, which can be found on page 1031. Now, before we begin reading in Luke 12, let me give you a little bit of background. Very recently Jesus had been at the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany which was just a couple of miles to the East of Jerusalem. Jesus had taught his disciples the Lord’s prayer as we heard in our sermon last week, and now Jesus was most likely traveling around the region of Perea, which was the area to which Jesus had sent the 72 disciples in preparation for his coming there. As Jesus traveled through the area preaching and teaching the crowds that gathered continued to grow larger and larger, even as Jesus gave the people many warnings and took the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law to task by pronouncing woes on them—stirring them up and causing them to oppose his message of salvation through faith in him. Now, as we come to the parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12:13 a crowd of many thousands of people had gathered to hear Jesus and Jesus began teaching them to find their wealth in the Lord their God. “13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 “Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:13–15, NIV)

Obviously this man had a problem with his brother and the dividing up of the inheritance from their parent’s estate, and he wanted Jesus’ help in the matter. At first glance this might have seemed like a natural thing for him to ask, after all, Jesus was the Rabbi of Nazareth, and Jewish Rabbis were often asked to act as judges in legal disputes because they were so well versed in the Law. However, when Jesus responded to this man’s request, Jesus revealed that he was not about to encroach upon the work of the legally appointed judges. He was not about to involve himself in the midst of a dispute on the division of inheritance when his mission to the world had to do with much more important things. His mission was to teach the people to find their true wealth in the Lord their God, which is exactly what Jesus did! In such a simple way, Jesus cut right to the heart of the matter calling on those two brothers, along with that crowd of thousands, to guard their lives against greed and find their true wealth in the Lord their God as he began to tell his parable. Take a look at verse 16: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ 18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’” (Luke 12:15–19, NIV)

Did you see what Jesus did with this parable? In such a clear and concise way, Jesus tells us that there is nothing wrong with being wealthy. There is nothing wrong with having a great deal of material possessions. There is nothing wrong with planning for the future and making the most of the money and possessions that you have been given here on this earth. That, in fact, is the very thing that this rich farmer had done. The Lord had blessed him with wealth. He had given this man wisdom and aptitude as a farmer and as a business man, and now the Lord had blessed him with a bumper crop. Because of this bumper crop he had to build bigger barns to store his grain and all his goods. He could see that from this harvest he would more than he needed for a long time, which meant that he could essentially retire, take it easy, and enjoy his retirement. The problem, however, was that though this man had been blessed by the Lord with great wealth, he did not possess the true wealth that comes through faith in Jesus. Rather, his life essentially consisted in the abundance of his possessions. His life consisted in the desire to acquire more and more. His life consisted in an attitude of greed and not in an attitude of trust in the Lord, or thankfulness for all his possessions. Instead, in his pursuit of possessions, he had fallen into idolatry, placing things before the Lord God, which is why verses 20 and 21 are so poignant: 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ 21 “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:20-21, NIV)

Though this man had been extremely shrewd and wise in all of his business dealings and his acquirement of wealth, somewhere along the line he had lost his true wealth; faith in Jesus as his Savior. Though he may have though he had plenty of time to enjoy the finer things in life and then re-establish his true wealth in God, that very night was his last on earth. Not only did he lose everything that he had prepared for himself to others who would claim it, and possibly fight over it when he was gone, but he also found that the result of replacing his true wealth in God with the wealth of the world was that on his death bed he would be cast out of the presence of the Lord and found himself suffering the torment of unbelief forever in hell.

This is our Savior’s warning to us today! He is not warning us against being wealthy! Rather he is warning us against replacing our true wealth of salvation through faith in Jesus with the endless acquisition of things. He is calling on us to understand that our lives as his children do not consist in the abundance of our possessions but in the abundance of his grace. He is calling on us to recognize that everything we have is a gift from our God. It is no ours to possess but ours to manage! Whether he has given us great earthly wealth, moderate earthly wealth, or little earthly wealth, God gifts are for us to manage. They are for our use in providing for our families and for others. They are for our giving back to him.

Yet, how often haven’t we acted just like this foolish rich man? How often haven’t we pushed God out of our thoughts while we planned our financial futures? How often haven’t we put away money for that new car, new house, new computer, dream vacation, or even retirement, yet we couldn’t find anything to give back to the Lord? Or look at it from the other side of things. How many of us are suffering under the weight of credit card debts, because we simply had to have that new toy now and we couldn’t wait until we had saved for it? How many of us are suffering under the weight of car payments because we just had to have that brand new car that we couldn’t really afford? How many of us have found that the money we had planned to give to the Lord has been reduced because suddenly we need it to make ends meet?

If we are honest with ourselves, then we must admit that we have acted like the foolish rich man in the parable on many, many occasions. We must admit that there have been times when even we, Christians, have though that our lives consisted in the abundance of our possessions rather than in the true wealth of God’s Word. But even though we have acted in this very way, our Savior is speaking to us and assuring us that he has forgiven us. He is assuring us that through faith in him we have been washed clean of every greedy longing for more and more stuff. He is assuring us that through faith in him we have once again found the source of our true wealth in the Lord our God. Though we may have to deal with the consequence of our actions that brought the debts upon us, now that we have been reminded of the source of our true wealth, we can give thanks to the Lord our God for all his gifts to us. We can live as managers of the wealth we’ve been given, not setting our hearts on their increase, but setting our hearts on the Lord. In this way, whether our wealth increases or decreases in this life, our focus is on our God and Savior who has made us his own through faith in Jesus Christ.

Though the Wendles completely missed out on the true wealth of salvation through faith in Jesus, today we have been reminded of that very thing. Today we have rediscovered the true wealth that our God has given us—the wealth of salvation that is ours through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior who gives us all that we have. Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN

Raise your hearts in fervent prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)

Sermon Hymn 410: Our Father, Who from Heaven Above
Tune: Vater Unser Im Himmelreich, Der Du: 88 88 88

1. Our Father, who from heav'n above Bids all of us to live in love
As members of one family And pray to you in unity,
Teach us no thoughtless words to say, But from our inmost hearts to pray.

2. Your name be hallowed. Help us, Lord, In purity to keep your Word,
That to the glory of your name We walk before you free from blame.
Let no false doctrine us pervert; All poor, deluded souls convert.

Dear friends in Christ.

A story has long been told about two monks who were discussing the Lord’s Prayer and their ability to pray it completely while concentrating on it fully. The first monk said with sorrow and frustration, “I can’t do it! I try and I try, but invariably somewhere in the middle of the prayer my mind wanders and I start thinking about other things.” “Really,” said the second monk. “I have no problem praying the Lord’s Prayer or concentrating on what I am saying.” The first monk looked quizzically at the second and said, “I don’t believe you! I’ll bet you my horse that you cannot say the Lord’s Prayer without being distracted and thinking about something else.” So the second monk took the bet. He took a deep breath to help clear his mind and focus his thoughts. He folded his hands, closed his eyes, bowed his head, and began praying. But before he even reached the petition asking that the Lord’s will be done on heaven and on earth, he stopped, looked at the first monk and said, “I guess you were right. Everything was going fine. I was focused and concentrating on what I was saying, and then I suddenly wondered if the saddle would come with the horse.”

How often doesn’t the same thing happen to us? How often don’t we begin speaking the words of the Lord’s Prayer when suddenly three or four different thoughts crowd their way into our minds and we simply stop paying attention to the words we are speaking? How often doesn’t it happen that we hear the Pastor say something like, “We join to pray the prayer that Jesus taught, and the next thing we realize is that we are saying, “Amen” and we are continuing on with the Communion liturgy or sitting down to sing the next hymn? How often haven’t we simply taken the Lord’s Prayer for granted? How often haven’t we simply prayed it without considering what we are praying for? How often haven’t we been upset because we were in a church that used that other version of the Lord’s Prayer, the one with which we are not so familiar, and we had to open our hymnals and read it, and think about the words we were saying; instead of simply reciting it verbatim without a care in the world? We’ve all done this! We have all failed to focus on what we were praying as we fervently prayed the Lord’s Prayer. It is for this very reason that we want to take a closer look at the Lord’s Prayer today so that we might grow in our understanding of what we are praying, and so that we might be better able to focus our attention on what we are so fervently praying to the Lord with these words.

To our text! Take a look at Matthew 6:9” “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,’” (Matthew 6:9, NIV). With these words, Jesus himself is inviting us to believe that God is our one true Father in heaven and that through faith in him and his Son Jesus, we are his true children. With these words, Jesus is teaching us that we can pray to the Lord God our heavenly Father as boldly and confidently as children speak to their parents here on earth. With these words, Jesus is teaching us that we can bring any problem, hardship, frustration, concern, item of joy or praise to our heavenly Father at any time and he will hear us, he will listen, and he will answer our prayer as we fervently pray to him and ask that his name be kept holy.

Now, if you think about it, God’s name is already holy in itself, even without our asking. But when we are praying that the Lord’s name be hallowed, we are asking that we too might keep it holy. We are asking for his help and his blessing in keeping his name holy, because God’s Name is hallowed, when his Word is taught in its truth and purity. God’s Name is hallowed when we, as God’s children, live holy lives according to his Word, and as we pray that his name be kept holy, we are asking our Father in heaven to help us do that very thing so that through our lives others might see our faith and have the opportunity to learn about their Savior through the message of the Gospel. This is God’s will for our lives that his kingdom comes to us and many others through the message of his Word. Join me in singing about his kingdom and his will in stanza’s 3 and 4 of hymn 410:

3. Your kingdom come, we humbly pray, That Christ may rule in us today
And that your Holy Spirit bring Still more to worship Christ as King.
Break Satan's pow'r, defeat his rage; Preserve your Church from age to age.

4. Your gracious will on earth be done Just as in heav'n around your throne,
That patiently we may obey Throughout our lives all that you say.
Curb sinful flesh and ev'ry ill That sets itself against your will.

Such beautiful words the hymnist uses to expound what we are praying in those two very beautiful petitions form Matthew 6:10: “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10, NIV). How strange it is that we as Christians should be praying such a petition as, “your kingdom come.” After all, we know that God’s kingdom will certainly come even without our asking, but when we speak these words, we are asking that God’s kingdom would come to us and to many others through the Holy Spirit whom the Father sends into our hearts through his Word and Sacraments. We are asking our heavenly Father to send his Holy Spirit into our hearts and the hearts of many others so that we all might believe his Word and lead a holy and godly life here on earth, through faith, and forever in heaven by God’s grace. This is God’s good and gracious will for our lives!

Again, God’s will would certainly be done without our prayer! Yet, whenever we pray, “Thy will be done;” we are praying that the Lord our God would break down and defeat every evil plan and purpose of the devil, this sin-filled world, and even our own sinful flesh. We are asking the Lord to strengthen us and keep us strong in our faith and firm in his word so that we might keep his name holy with our lives and his kingdom might come to others through our words and actions. That is God’s good and gracious will for our lives, that satan would be defeated, that the Lord would use us to spread his word to the nations, and that he would call many others to faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

This is our fervent prayer to the Lord as we speak the words which our Savior has given. Though the petitions, to this point, have been rather straight forward and easy for us to speak, as we come to the Fourth and Fifth Petitions, we find ourselves in a little more difficult territory. Though these words roll off the tongue so easily without a thought, when we stop to consider their meaning, they become that much more difficult for us to speak. Join me in singing these petitions from stanzas 5 and 6 of hymn 410:

5. Give us today our daily bread, And let us all be clothed and fed.
From hardship, war, and earthly strife, From sickness, famine, spare our life.
Let selfishness and worry cease That we may live in godly peace.

6. Forgive our sins, Lord, we implore, That they may trouble us no more;
We, too, will gladly those forgive Who hurt us by the way they live.
Help us in our community To serve each other willingly.

So how did you feel as you sung the words of these two stanzas? Did you find these words easy to sing or did you find them a little more difficult than you expected as they so clearly expounded on what Jesus tells us in verse 11 and 12 of Matthew 6: “Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:11-12, NIV). But why is it that these petitions are so difficult for us? The answer is quite simple; because we are asking our God not only to teach us to rely on him for all things, but to live in love and forgiveness for each other. In fact, just think about what we are saying when we ask our God to give us our daily bread. We are asking him to provide everything that we need for our body and life on a daily basis. We are asking him to help us realize that he graciously gives us all these things and more, even without our asking, even to those who are wicked. But we are asking him to help us realize that all our blessings come from him and that he will provide all that we need, which is something that so few of us do because it is so contrary to our human nature. All we have to do is look at our budget and calculate how much we are paying in credit card interest and other deferred payments for things that we may not have needed but simply felt that we couldn’t live without in order to find our level of trust in the Lord’s ability to know what we need and provide all that we need every day.

Yet even as we have sinned against the Lord by not trusting him, we are asking him to forgive us. Yet this is also where it becomes difficult for us. Though it is easy to pray that the Lord would forgive our debts, our sins; it is not as easy to pray, as we have forgiven our debtors—those who have sinned against us. This, too, goes completely against our human nature. We long to hold on to our grudges and remember what this person or that person did against us. We see it as a source of pride to withhold forgiveness from someone who sinned against us. Yet we fervently pray for our God to forgive us, we are asking him for the strength to forgive others as well. We are praying that the Lord would neither look upon our sins, nor deny our prayers because of our sins, even though we sin on a daily basis and deserve only his wrath and punishment. Yet, as we approach our heavenly Father, we ask him to act in mercy because of our Savior, forgive us of all our sins, and help us to do the same for those who have sinned against us. We ask him to help us reflect the love our Savior has for us by forgiven others, even as Jesus has already forgiven all of us.

This is the forgiveness in which we all live; the forgiveness that is ours through faith in Jesus, who poured out his blood and took back his life to save us. This is the forgiveness that now moves us to live in his love, love our neighbor as our selves, and forgive those who sin against us. This is the forgiveness that no moves us to pray that the Lord deliver us from temptation and all evil, just as we sing in stanzas 7 and 8 of hymn 410:

7. Into temptation lead us not. When evil foes against us plot
And vex our souls on ev'ry hand, Oh, give us strength that we may stand
Firm in the faith, a mighty host, Through comfort of the Holy Ghost.

8. From evil, Lord, deliver us; The times and days are perilous.
Redeem us from eternal death, And, when we yield our dying breath,
Console us, grant us calm release, And take our souls to you in peace.

Just as we sang so beautifully in our hymn we pray so fervently with those words from verse 13 of Matthew 6: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:13, NIV) Though we know that God does not lead anyone into sin or even tempt them to sin, with these words we fervently pray that the Lord our God would guard us and keep us so that satan, this sinful world, and our traitorous-sinful flesh would not deceive us, or lead us into false belief, despair, or any other sins for that matter. Instead, with these words, we fervently pray that with God’s help we may overcome these and other temptations and win the victory over them as God himself delivers us from the evil one—our enemy, the devil.

This, too, is our fervent prayer that God our Father would deliver us from every evil that would threaten our body and soul, even our property and reputation. Not only that, but we also pray that when our time comes, the Lord would grant us a blessed end by calling us out of this life to his side forever in heaven. This is our fervent prayer to the Lord our God who promises to hear us, answer us, forgive us, provide for us, and deliver us from every form of evil.

Thus, we come to the end of the Lord’s prayer as recorded in the Bible. Though it was a little different in the account in Luke than it is in Matthew, there is no place where the doxology is recorded in the Scriptures. So I cannot point to you any specific passage in the Bible where you can read, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.” But even though they may not appear in any specific passage of Scripture, they undoubtedly echo many of the praises found in the Scriptures which describe how the Lord’s kingdom, power and glory shall endure forever. Interestingly enough, these very words were included with the Lord’s prayer in the Didache, which was essentially the Catechism for Christians back in about 100 AD. They were the words that we sang in response to the reading of the Lord’s Prayer during the communion service back when we used The Lutheran Hymnal, and they are words that have stuck. They are words of praise and glory that we proclaim before we say Amen, which is our statement of confidence that the Lord will hear and answer our prayer. Thus we say Amen at the end of our prayer, for this simple word declares, “Yes, it shall be so.” Yes, it shall be so thus declares our confidence in approaching our heavenly Father in this way, for not only has he commanded us to pray and promised to hear us, but these are the very words that Jesus has given us to pray.

So now, as we continue fervently praying the Lord’s Prayer, each and every week, I pray that this brief explanation will help you more thoroughly concentrate on what you are saying as you speak those familiar words that our Savior gave us. Thus, as we bring this sermon to a close, let us join our hearts and voices in singing the Amen from stanza 9 of hymn 410:

9. Amen, that is, it shall be so. Make strong our faith that we may know
That we may doubt not but believe What here we ask we shall receive.
Thus in your name and at your Word We say, "Amen. Oh, hear us, Lord!"

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN

Come and sit at your Savior's feet (Luke 10:38-42)

Dear friends in Christ.

“If you are a dreamer, come in, If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire For we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!” (Silverstein, Shel. Where the Sidewalk Ends,(9) New York: Harper and Row. 1974.)

When Shel Silverstein published his first collection of poems in the book entitled, Where the Sidewalk Ends, he began with the poem I just read to you. He began with an invitation designed to connect to his audience and invite people into his world. He began with an invitation to simply sit by his fire and join him in spinning some flax -golden tails; and his invitation worked! For since 1974, more than 4.5 million copies of Where the Sidewalk Ends have been sold, making it the bestselling children’s poetry book ever. Since 1974 millions, maybe even billions of people have accepted his invitation to come in, to sit by his fire, and to join him in spinning some flax-golden tales. Well, in the same way that Shel Silverstein came to his readers with an invitation, so also our Savior is coming to us with an invitation today. Though Jesus may not be inviting us to sit by his fire and spin some flax-golden tales, he is inviting each and every one of us to come and sit at his feet so that we might be built up in our faith through the better thing, the one thing needful, the word of God.

But even though Jesus is essentially standing before us this morning and inviting us to come and sit at his feet so that we might learn the precious truths of salvation, how often do we actually accept that invitation? Though we have gathered this morning to sit at our Savior’s feet, will we take time to sit at his feet tomorrow and read through his Word for ourselves? Will we take time to sit down at his feet at regular intervals this week and listen to Jesus speak the precious truths of salvation through the Bibles we keep so securely stored on our bookshelves and coffee tables? Will we take time out of our schedules again next Sunday to gather in this place to sit at our Savior’s feet, or will the busyness of Giant Days distract us from time together with our Savior?

Why is it, do you think, that so many Christians are so distracted by so many things that they simply cannot find the time to sit at their Savior’s feet in worship, or in their personal Bible reading at home? Why is it that we can find all the time in the world to watch TV, or get lost in a good book, read the newspaper without distractions, catch up on our blogging, search Youtube, connect on Facebook, and yet we can’t find 5 minutes during the week to pick up the Bible and read it? Why is it that when Sunday morning rolls around 9 AM is too early to gather for worship in the Summer and 10 AM is too late to gather for worship in the Fall? Why is it that we find it so important to send our children to Sunday School, but we can’t be bothered to take time for Bible Study ourselves, or to stay for worship after we’ve picked our kids up from Family Education Hour? Why is it that when we actually make a plan to sit down at our Savior’s feet with Bible in hand, we find ourselves distracted by so many of life’s worries? Why is it that we start off with a good Bible reading plan and yet find it difficult to follow through? Why is it that when we actually begin to make headway in reading the Word for ourselves we get bogged down in books like Deuteronomy, or Chronicles, or Kings, and before we know it we simply stop sitting at our Savior’s feet because we got frustrated with what we were reading in his word?

Why is it? Because the very last thing that satan, our enemy, wants us to be doing, is sitting at the feet of our Savior and learning the precious truths of salvation. He doesn’t want us in church because then we might be strengthened in our faith not only through the word but by all the other believers who have gathered and who are struggling with similar problems. He doesn’t want us reading the Scriptures for ourselves, because we might read something that makes us all the more committed to sitting at our Savior’s feet every chance we get. So he distracts us and does everything he can to keep us from our Savior, just as he did with Martha in our Gospel lesson this morning. Now, if you haven’t already done so, I invite you to open your Bibles to our Gospel Lesson, Luke 10:38 on page 1028. There, in Luke 10 we’ll take a look at how satan worked to distract Mary and Martha from sitting at our Savior’s feet and listening to the precious truths of salvation. As always, a little bit of back ground as you are opening to Luke 10:38. We’re not exactly sure when this event took place other than it was sometime after Jesus sent out the 72 and they returned. It has been thought that this event took place when Jesus came down to Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedication, which took place in late November or early December. But all we really know for certain is what Luke tells us in chapter 10 beginning with verse 38: “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.” She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38–42, NIV)

Though these words are so very familiar to us, they still pack a huge punch today, because they so clearly show how satan seeks to drive us to distraction even as Jesus invites us to sit at his feet and listen. Just think about how satan was at work in the background through this whole account. Luke tells us in verse 38 “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.” (Luke 10:38, NIV)

Now, there really isn’t anything unusual about this. Jesus came to Mary and Martha’s home in Bethany and Martha opened her house to him. Yet, there are some commentators who suggest that this visit by Jesus and his disciples may not have been a scheduled visit. There are some commentators who suggest that the reason for Martha’s distraction was because Jesus had not called ahead to tell them that he and 12 others, at least, were planning to stay at her house this night. They suggest that Martha was so distracted because she had so many things to get ready now that Jesus had dropped in on them. While this may be the case, all we know for certain is that satan used this as an opportunity to keep Martha from sitting at Jesus’ feet as Mary was, and he used it as an opportunity to try to distract Mary who was so quietly sitting at Jesus’ feet. Just imagine the scene, Jesus and his disciples were welcomed into the home. Martha and Mary were probably quite busy making the preparations. Then Jesus sat down in a way that indicated he was going to do some teaching. Mary stopped what she was doing and sat down at Jesus’ feet to listen to what he had to say. However, as verse 40 tells us, “But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.” She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” (Luke 10:40, NIV)

Martha was becoming worried about setting a meal on the table that would be good enough for her beloved Master. Undoubtedly, out of love for her Lord, she wanted to put on the best feast for him and serve him the very best that she could possibly offer, yet doing this meant that she would be giving up the privilege of sitting at the Lord’s feet as her sister was. Can’t you just hear satan whispering in her ear, telling her how she was doing the right thing by forgoing her opportunity to sit at the Savior’s feet? Can’t you just hear satan planting seeds of jealousy and frustration against her sister who was just sitting there? Can’t you just see her going to Jesus, expecting that Jesus will agree with her and tell Mary to stop sitting there and get up and help her? Yet, as verse 41 and 42 tell us, something completely different happened. Jesus answered, “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41–42, NIV)

In such a simply and loving way, Jesus thanks Martha for all the work of preparation that she had been doing, out of love for him. He chides her, even rebukes her for her sinful thoughts and attempt at trying to pull Mary away from sitting at his feet. He assures her that she is his dearly loved child who has been forgiven of all her sins, even this one of keeping Mary form sitting at his feet, and he even invites her to come and join them; to come sit at his feet and listen to the precious truths of salvation.

This is what the Lord Jesus is doing to each and every one of us today. He is chiding us, even rebuking us for being so distracted by all the things in life that we just simply cannot find time to sit at his feet in worship or in personal Bible readings. He rebukes us for our own attempts at keeping others from sitting down at the Savior’s feet by encouraging them not to come to church or read their Bibles as well as for those times when we have simply allowed friends, family members, even children to remain behind as we went to sit at the Lord’s feet. Yet, at the same time he is assuring us that we are his dearly loved children, who have been forgiven of all our sins, even our failure of sitting at his feet. And once again our Lord invites us to come and join him; to sit at his feet here in worship and at home in Bible reading as we listen to the precious truths of salvation that he has to teach us today.

But how do we do that? How do we answer his invitation to come and sit at his feet? The answer to that question is simple. First and foremost, we make the most of every opportunity to gather for worship on a Sunday morning, be it here at Grace, or at one of the congregations in our fellowship while we are on vacation. We make the most of every opportunity to encourage our children to seek out and find a congregation in our fellowship when they are away at school, or work, or have simply left the house. We make the most of every opportunity to sit at our Savior’s feet each day through worship and personal Bible reading each week. Maybe that means we take a paper copy of the sermon home with us, or we re-read it off our sermon site online. Maybe that means we schedule personal time each week when we can sit down and read the Bible for ourselves, or simply listen to it as we are commuting to and from work. Maybe it means that we set up a personal check list for the day including Bible Reading, and make sure that we are spending 15 minutes in the Bible each day, or simply reading through it a chapter at a time.

Now, understand that when you make a commitment to sit at your Savior’s feet, satan will do everything he can to distract you. There will be some days that you face quite a few struggles designed to keep you from sitting down and reading or listening to the word. There may be days when you wake up in the morning and realize that you missed the past day or the past few days, and satan has succeeded in keeping you from sitting at your Savior’s feet. When that happens, forgive yourselves immediately and pick up where you left off and continue on from that day forward. Continue on from that day forward because the more you are in the Word, the more your faith will grow. The more time you spend sitting at your Savior’s feet, the better you will understand the gift of salvation that your Savior has given. The more time you spend reading or listening to the Word, the more enjoyable worship will be each week, because you will begin to see connections you never saw before, like the connections that branch out from this lesson. In just a few months Lazarus will die, and both Mary and Martha’s faith will be intently tested. Yet through all that testing, they will confess their faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior because they spent time on this day sitting at their Savior’s feet.

So, do just that. Make the most of every opportunity you have to sit at your Savior’s feet. If you haven’t been in the habit of reading the word for yourselves, use the 90 New Testament reading plan printed in your bulletins as a starting point for your own personal feet time with Jesus. For this is his invitation to us today. Though it may not be to sit by his fire and spin flax-golden tales, it is an invitation to sit at his feet as Mary did and learn from him. I pray that you would take hold of this invitation and make use of every opportunity you have to sit at the Lord’s feet and learn from him.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN

Listen to the Word of God (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23)

Dear friends in Christ.

When I was growing up, my mom was an avid follower of the TV show M*A*S*H*. Each week she made time to watch the new episodes as they came out, and then, when the re-runs began airing each afternoon on channel 9, she could be found watching them as she had the opportunity. It was because of her love for the show that I found myself constantly watching the show. Though I can’t say I was ever as big a fan as she was, because of the pattern of viewing M*A*S*H* episodes every afternoon, I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen most of the episodes. In fact, of all the episodes aired in the afternoons, the one I remember the most is the episode where Alan Alda’s character, Hawkeye Pierce, temporarily lost his eyesight. At first, he was scared and angry that he had lost his eyesight because a gas from a heater stove had flared back in his face, and he was worried that he might never regain his eyesight. Yet, as the episode went on he began using his other senses in ways he had never used them before; especially his hearing. In fact, in one conversation with his tent mate, he told how he had grown to simply love listening. He had spent the entire morning just sitting and listening to the rain as it fell. As he listened, he heard the different textures of sounds as the rain fell on the canvass of the tent and splashed into puddles. He even spoke about how funny it was to hear the sounds of someone slipping in the mud, falling, and splashing into a puddle. Because he wasn’t able to use his eyes, he began relying on his ears and he focused on intently listening to the world around him.

When it comes to God’s Word, we could take a lesson from this episode of M*A*S*H*. For the truth is, there are times when each and every one of us needs to lose our eyesight for the word of God, so to speak, so that we are forced to pay attention and listen to what the Lord has to say to us in his word. For the truth is, so often we see what the Lord has to say, or we hear what he has to say, but we don’t really pay attention, because in some ways, God’s Word has become something that we take for granted, as many of us take our eyesight for granted. Sometimes, it seems that what we really need to do is take time to close the eyes of our sinful logic and actively listen to what the Lord is telling us with his Word.

As we study the Word of God before us today, I invite you to do just that. I invite you to close the eyes of your logic and reason as you actively listen to the Word of God with me by opening your Bibles to our Gospel lesson today, which can be found on page 968. Now, as we read just a few minutes ago, Matthew 13 is the very familiar account of Jesus teaching the crowds of people by the Sea of Galilee. It was one of those days that so many people had gathered to hear the Word of God that Jesus had to step into a boat and push off from shore a little ways so that he could be certain that the people would be able to hear what he was saying, because as he spoke the words of the parable to them. He was telling them exactly why it was so important for them to listen to the Word of God. We read in verse 3 and 4 of Matthew 13: “A farmer went out to sow his seed and as he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up” (Matthew 13:3,4).

As you know, farmers no longer walk up and down their fields scattering seeds. Instead we see them driving their tractors up and down, planting something like 16 rows at a time. But not even this guarantees complete safety for the seeds as you can often see flocks of birds circling the skies over a field that is being planted. You can watch as those birds start flying right behind the planter, land in the field and snatch up any of the seeds that they can after the planter has gone by. This is the danger that Jesus is warning us against as he calls on us to listen to the Word of God. As Jesus says in verse 19: Jump down to verse 19 with me and listen to Jesus’ explanation. He says, “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path,” (Matthew 13:19).

In the same way that the birds longed to snatch the seeds form the sower, so also satan is always eager snatch the gospel away from us. That is his goal right now, even this morning, as the Word of God is being sown into your hearts. He is eagerly seeking ways to keep you from listening to the Word of God this morning so that he can snatch it away from you. He is looking for ways that he can snatch it away from you so that you will not hear it and will not grow in your faith and be strengthened in your faith. And yet, this is not his only goal. Though satan is patient and constantly seeking ways to distract us and snatch the Word from us, he also knows that he won’t be able to snatch it away from every one. He knows that there will be many in whose hearts the Word of God will be planted because they have listened to that Word, so for them he forms other plans. These are the plans that Jesus explains to us in verse 5-7 of chapter 13: Jesus tells us, “Some [seeds] fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among the thorns, which grew up and choked the plants,” (Matthew 13:5-7).

I’d be willing to bet that you’ve noticed things like this as you drove passed different fields. Perhaps you’ve noticed a spot in a field of corn, or wheat, or soybeans that was a whole lot shorter than the rest of the field. Maybe it was a spot in the field that was simply dead. Though you could tell that the crops had once been thriving there, now there was nothing left, or if there was anything left it was just a huge patch of weeds. Again, these are descriptions of what satan longs to do to our faith when we take time to listen to the Word. As Jesus explains in verse 20-22 of chapter 13: Jesus says, beginning with verse 20: “The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful,” (Matthew 13:20-22).

Because we have listened to the Word of God and faith has been planted in our hearts, our crafty adversary will stop at nothing to destroy that faith. He will do everything he can, use every weapon in his arsenal, as he seeks to scorch our faith with hardship and choke it out with temptations. How often haven’t we felt the scorching heat of sickness, broken bones, terminal illness, job loss, financial troubles, bankruptcies and all the other hardships that seek to cause us to stop listening to God’s Word and doubt his love and promises? How often hasn’t satan sought to wither our faith as even our most trusted friends turn against us and laugh at us for belonging to a church like Grace? How often haven’t we been surprised by how many weeds satan has planted in our hearts; weeds that he hopes will wind their roots around the roots of our faith to choke it out from beneath even as its quick growth is designed to keep our faith from the light of God’s Word? How often don’t those weeds begin as simple little weeds that quickly grow into huge weeds of worries and despair that grow so dense all we hear is the rustling of our problems and we are long longer listening to the Word of God?

These are but a few of the ways that satan is constantly trying to distract us from the Word of God so that he can destroy our faith, and these are the very reasons why we need to be continually listening to the Word of God. We need to be continually listening to the Word of God, because it is God’s Word alone that strengthens our faith in our Savior and enables us to guard against our enemy. We need to be constantly listening to the Word of God for the strengthening of our faith as well as the comfort we receive in knowing that we belong to the Lord who has freed us from our sins, and will one day gather us into the store houses of heaven along with the rest of the harvest. Let’s take a closer look at that very assurance that the Lord gives us in verse 8 of Matthew 13: Jesus tells us: “Still other seed fell on the good soil where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown,” (Matthew 13:8).

If you’ve ever driven through the United States of America, you would have noticed that each state seems to have a different color soil. In Wisconsin the soil color varies from reddish-brown to sandy-brown. Down in Southern states like Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia you will often find soil with a reddish hue. Over in South Dakota they have some good dark colored soil, but I still haven’t found dark rich soil like we have here in Minnesota. Now, you can say that I’m biased, having grown up here, but truthfully, I have never seen any richer soil than what we have right here. This is the kind of soil that produces not merely abundant cops but often times produces a super abundance of what is planted in it. This is the kind of soil that our Savior is speaking about in his parable, and this is the type of soil into which the seed of the word was planted when it was planted into our hearts. Just as Jesus tells us in verse 23, “the one who received the seed that fell on the good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it,” (Matthew 13:23).

Though satan continually seeks to scorch our faith and choke it out with weeds of sorrow and temptation, Jesus assures us that we who have listened to his Word, have had that Word planted in the rich soil of our hearts and it has been growing there ever since. Now that the Lord has planted the seed of faith in our hearts, Jesus calls on us to be constantly listening to his Word, because it is that Word which waters our faith so it will grow. It is God’s Word that pulls out all the weeds that satan plants in our hearts so that our faith might stretch toward the light of the Word and continue to grow. It is the Word of God that continually cultivates the soil of our hearts so that the roots of our faith can grow down deep, so that not even the windstorm of satan’s temptations can uproot our faith in Jesus Christ our Savior.

So as you continue on in your Christian service, continue to listen to the Word of God. Make God’s Word a priority for your lives and set aside time each day to read it, study it, meditate on it, and listen to it. In the same way that Hawkeye Pierce was forced to utilize his other senses, especially his sense of listening, when he was accidentally blinded, so also we need to take time each day to close the eyes of our human logic and reason and open our ears to listen to the sweet message of the Gospel. When we do this there may be times when we will be surprised to hear what the Lord is saying, there will be times when we are shocked. There will be times when we will be convicted. But every time we read we will find comfort in the gospel, assurance of the forgiveness of sins, and the comfort that comes from knowing we are God’s people destined for the harvest home of heaven.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN

Serve the Lord by sharing your faith (Luke 10:1-12, 16-20)

Dear Friends in Christ

The story has been told about the great violinist, Nicolo Paganini, who willed his marvelous violin to Genoa, the city of his birth. The only condition he applied to this bequeathal was that his violin was never to be played. This was a very unfortunate condition because as long as wood is handled and used, it shows little wear, however, as soon as it is discarded it begins to decay. Today Paganini’s beautiful, mellow-toned violin has become a worm-eaten, useless relic in a beautiful case. Well, in the same way that Paganini’s violin fell apart because it did not continue in the service of making beautiful music, so also as Christians, if we do not continue on in our Christian Service, we might find that our capacity for usefulness in the Lord’s kingdom has been seriously hampered if not destroyed. It is because of this very reason that the Lord Jesus our Savior is calling on us as his servants to serve the Lord by sharing our faith.

Now, if you think about it, sharing our faith is the very thing that we were born to do. After all, we are all experts on the subject of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ our Savoir. For the truth is, most of us, if not all of us, have been Christians since the day that we were baptized as little children. Our parents first taught us about Jesus through songs like, “I am Jesus’ Little Lamb.” As we grew, our faith in Jesus grew right along with us as our parents first brought us to church, and then, when we were old enough, sent us to Sunday School. Our knowledge of salvation through faith in Jesus continued to grow as we continued on in Sunday School or as some of you continued on in Lutheran Elementary School. We learned even more about Jesus our Savior when we came to church week after week to study the Catechism under the direction of the Pastor. Even after confirmation our faith continued to grow as we gathered for worship each week and had opportunity to gather with others to Study the Bible every Sunday morning. Whether we’ve been on this earth for a mere 8 months or 80 plus years, we are all experts on the subject of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior. We all know everything we need to know in order to go out and serve the Lord by sharing our faith with others.

Yet, how often don’t we simply fail to do this? Though we know the joy that fills our hearts because our sins have been forgiven, how often don’t we hide that joy deep within our hearts and only take it out to look at when we are in the safety of the church or maybe the safety of our own homes? How often haven’t we run across someone who absolutely needs us to hear the good news of salvation, but we chicken out and don’t say anything about the hope that we have? How often haven’t we seen the sorrowful eyes, the pained expressions, the slumped shoulders as a co-worker trudges through life, looking for the answers he just simply can’t seem to find anywhere and wondering how in all the world he’s going to make it through today when another day just as bad filled with just as many stresses is coming tomorrow, yet we can’t seem to work up the nerve to tell him about the joy we have in Jesus? How often hasn’t it happened that a perfect opportunity to share our faith with a classmate passed us by because we simply didn’t feel prepared to share our faith by in school with so many other people milling about; people who might hear what we were saying and ask us questions we didn’t feel ready to answer? How often haven’t we had a dear friend, maybe even a fellow believer in Jesus, open up to us and emotionally fall apart because so many worries of life had weighed them down, yet rather than encouraging them and building them up in their faith by talking about your Savior, rather than taking time to pray for them that the Holy Spirit would strengthen them and comfort them with the comfort that Jesus himself offers, all we do for them is pat them on the back, offer encouraging sounding words, and tell them, “I’ll be praying for you.”

How many times haven’t we simply failed to serve the Lord by sharing our faith with others? If we’re honest, we have to say that we don’t know. We don’t know because we’ve failed to share our faith on so many different occasions that simply cannot count them all. Though I hate to admit it, I am just as guilty of failing to share my faith in the Lord with others when opportunities came my way. To this day there are faces that haunt my thoughts because I failed to serve the Lord. I was too afraid to share my faith with them, and I still pray that I was not their last or only opportunity to hear the message of salvation. As Don Piper writes in his book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, “If you saw a little kid run out in the street, you’d dash out there and try to save the child’s life. Human nature is like that. We try to preserve life, and I will do that any time I get the opportunity. So would you. Yet, here we are sitting in this [restaurant], surrounded by people, many of whom are probably lost and going to hell, and we won’t say a word about how they can have eternal life. Something is wrong with us…We’re willing to save someone in a visible crisis, but a lot of folks are in a spiritual crisis and we don’t say a word about how they can get out of it.” (Piper, Don. 90 Minutes in Heaven. p. 131)

But even though we may have failed at serving the Lord and failed miserably at sharing our faith, there is hope even for us. In fact, it was just last week that we heard how Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. It was just last week that we heard how Jesus had entered into the last six months of his earthly ministry, and he was heading to Jerusalem where he would step up to the plate of the cross and belt our sins out of the park with the cry of “It is finished!” It was there, in Jerusalem, with the soldiers nailing him to the cross that Jesus prayed, “Father, forgiven them. They do not know what they are doing.” It was there in Jerusalem that Jesus showed how much he loved us. Though people taunted him and tempted him to come down from the cross, it was his love for us that caused him to remain there. It was on that cross that Jesus stretched out his arms and died in our place. For in the same way that the Mighty Mississippi begins as a small trickle from Lake Itasca, so also the river of Jesus’ blood that has washed us clean of every spot and stain of our sins began at that cross in Jerusalem! Though we don’t deserve it by any means, it was the Holy Spirit who immersed our heats in the river of Jesus blood on the day that he called us to faith. It was the Holy Spirit who sealed us as members of the Father’s house through the forgiveness that Jesus won for us. Even now, as we sit here in worship, it is the Holy Spirit who is assuring us that our past failures have been forgiven. Those missed opportunities have been washed away, even those times we were too afraid to speak up or simply didn’t feel prepared enough to speak; they have all been forgiven by through faith in Jesus Christ who now calls us to go out and serve him once again by sharing our faith.

Now, if you haven’t already done so, I invite you to open your Bibles to our Gospel Lesson today in Luke 10 beginning with verse 1; Luke chapter 10, which begins on page 1027. Last week we heard how Jesus set out on his way to Jerusalem, how he was refused lodging in a Samaritan village because he was headed to Jerusalem. We also heard how he spoke to three different people along the road whom either expressed a desire to follow him or whom he invited to follow him. Now, after all those events our text opens with Luke writing in chapter 10 beginning with verse 1: “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. 5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. 8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you.’ 10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’ (Luke 10:1–11, NIV)

Now, when Jesus sent these 72 disciples out to share their faith and proclaim the kingdom of God, Jesus had only 6 months left in his earthly ministry. Jesus didn’t have much time left and he passed that urgency on to his disciples. Their mission, in fact, was so urgent that Jesus wanted them to leave from right where they were. They didn’t have time to go home and grab extra money, pack an overnight bag, grab an extra pair of sandals, or even greet people on the road because that could easily suck them into a long conversation that would delay their mission. Rather Jesus wanted them to simply go and preach the message of salvation showing their complete dependence on the Lord in what they said and how they lived.

The same thing is true for each and every one of us. As Jesus disciples, he is sending us out to serve him by sharing our faith, and just like the mission was urgent for the 72, the mission is urgent for us, because we are living in the last days. We are living in a time when Jesus could be returning at any time. We are living in a day and age when satan seems to be winning the battle and more and more people are falling away from the faith every day. We are living in a day and age where each and every one of us is standing guard on the front lines of the kingdom of heaven as we advance together into a sinful world to share our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Though we still may not feel ready, we are ready through faith in Jesus. Though we may be worried about what to say, Jesus has promised to give us the words. Though there may be times when we are afraid to go on, Jesus has not sent us out alone, for just as he sent out the 72 in pairs of two, so also Jesus goes with us wherever we go. Though we might be afraid of rejection, well, Jesus covers that as well. Jump back up to verse 8 and we’ll continue from there:

“When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you.’ 10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’ 12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. (Jump down to verse 16) 16 “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (Luke 10:8–12, 16, NIV)

Though the disciples could have faced some rejection as they shared their faith in Jesus, Jesus assured them that the rejection they faced was not a mark against them, but a mark against Jesus and his Father. The same thing is true for us today. Though there may be times when people laugh at us or ridicule us when we share our faith, their laughter and ridicule is actually against Jesus. Though we might have to bear the physical brunt of their rejection, the truth of the matter is that they are not rejecting us, they are rejecting Jesus as their Savior and God the Father as their God. Though it may pain us to do so, shaking the dust off our feet and walking away will serve as testimony against them that they had the opportunity to hear the Word and the rejected it. It may even serve as such a testimony that one day they turn from their ways and repent at a later time. But just as time was short for the disciples whom Jesus sent out, time is short for us. As we share our faith in the Lord’s serve, we simply don’t have the time to fool around with those who don’t want to listen, be they friends, relatives, neighbors, or even members. There are so many millions of people who need to hear the Word of God that we simply have to keep going and pray that those who reject today may come around tomorrow.

What else can we learn from Jesus sending those 72 disciples out? Look at verse 17: “The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” 18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:17–20, NIV)

When they returned, they were overjoyed because the demons had submitted to them in Jesus name. Though this was indeed an amazing thing, Jesus immediately refocuses them on what is most important. He tells them to rejoice that their names are written in heaven. As we serve the Lord and share our faith with the people around us, this also is our comfort. Our names are written in heaven and no one can change that. Though we may be mocked, ridiculed, and rejected by those with whom we share our faith, our names are still written in heaven. Through faith in Jesus our names are written in heaven. Our sins have been forgiven by Jesus our Savior. Eternal life is waiting for us when the Lord Jesus calls us out of this life. Until then, we have been given the opportunity to serve him by sharing our faith.

So dear friends, as you leave here today; continue on in your Christian service. Take your personal sermon study sheets with you and during the week consider answers for the last two questions that I chose not to answer today. I’m sure that I could have answered them if I kept on preaching, but I can tell that I’ve already spoken long enough and you are not ready for me to go another 20 minutes or so. But take those with you, continue on in your Christian service, always looking for ways to serve the Lord by sharing your faith.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN

Commit Yoursevelves to the Lord's Service (Luke 9:51-62)

Dear friends in Christ.

What a blessing it is that today is Sunday and that today we are celebrating Independence Day. What a blessing it is that we have the opportunity to gather together in worship of the Lord our God who is solely responsible for bringing about our great nation. Though things could have gone a whole different way some 200 years ago, it was the Lord’s will to birth our nation and give us an annual weekend that we could take time to gather with family and friends for picnics, cook-outs, camping trips, and, of course, fireworks. But did you know that when the Declaration of Independence was signed and the revolutionary war began, only about 2% of the Colonists were behind the cause of revolution? Did you know that the vast majority of the Colonists, though they may have agreed that Brittan was wielding power in a rather unfair and abusive way, the majority of colonists were more content with the status quo than with committing themselves to the cause of independence? Why this was, exactly, I don’t really know. Maybe they were afraid of what they would have to give up. Maybe they were afraid of what they might lose. Maybe they were afraid of fighting a battle that seemed unwinnable. After all, if they committed themselves to the cause of independence, they would guilty of rebellion and high treason against the British crown. They would be worthy of death for their crimes, and, if caught, they would most likely lose their family, their wealth, their possessions, and even their lives, which is the very thing that happened to most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

As you may remember, there were fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and their convictions resulted in untold sufferings for themselves and their families. Of the 56 men, five were captured by the British and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army. Another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships of the war. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships sunk by the British navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts and died in poverty. At the battle of Yorktown, the British General Cornwallis had taken over Thomas Nelson's home for his headquarters. Nelson quietly ordered General George Washington to open fire on the Nelson home. The home was destroyed and Nelson died bankrupt. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their thirteen children fled for their lives. His fields and mill were destroyed. For over a year, he lived in forest and caves, returning home only to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion.

Well, in the same way that these men committed everything they had; their sacred honor, their fortunes, and even their own lives for the cause of freedom, so also, the Lord Jesus, our Savior completely committed himself to the service of the Lord God. He was the one whom the Lord God had chosen to be our Savior, even before the creation of the world. He was the one to whom the Lord referred when he promised that the Seed of the Woman would crush the head of the serpent. He was the one who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, and took on the very nature of a servant when he was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary. He was the one who took on our flesh and blood and was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. He was the one who came to earth to completely and perfectly follow all of God’s Laws before he went to the cross to exchange his life in payment of our sins. He was the one who committed his soul to his heavenly Father before he gave up his life on the cross, and he is the one who took back his life on the third day, rising again to assure us that our sins are forgiven.

Now, as we meet Jesus in our text this morning, Luke gives us a very clear picture of how Jesus commits himself to serving the Lord. It is that very commitment, at which we want to take a look, so I invite you to open your Bibles to our Gospel Lesson, to Luke 9:51. While you’re turning to Luke 9:51 let me give you a little background. Though last week we had heard how Jesus had been staying out in lonely places where he could be alone with his disciples and teach them, that time was at an end. In fact, Luke 9:51 is essentially the beginning of the last six months of Jesus earthly ministry, and from this point on we see Jesus total commitment to the Lord as he now resolutely sets off for Jerusalem. As Luke writes in verse 51: “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them, 56 and they went to another village. (Luke 9:51–56, NIV)

Though it was just last week that we heard Jesus telling his disciples about how we would suffer many things at the hands of the religious leaders; how he would be rejected by them, killed, and on the third day rise again, Jesus was now deliberately traveling toward Jerusalem to make these things happen. So committed was he to serving the Lord, that he willingly began to make his way to Jerusalem where he would lay out each and every one of our sins at the checkout counter of the cross before paying off our debt with his blood and blessing us with the rebate of his righteousness and holiness.

Well in the same way that Jesus willingly committed himself to the Lord’s service, he is also calling on each and every one of us as Christians to commit ourselves to serving the Lord with our lives. He is calling on us to do this right now, because today is the only day we have. Yesterday is already past and gone and we don’t know if tomorrow will ever come. This, in fact, is the very thoughts that Luke records beginning in verse 57: “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Luke 9:57,58, NIV)

This man was truly excited and gung-ho about following the Lord Jesus. He was ready to travel with Jesus, wherever he went no matter what the cost or the concern. But when he conveyed his commitment to Jesus, Jesus answered him in a way that this man may not have expected. What Jesus simply said was, “Think about this.” He didn’t say, “No. Don’t follow me.” Instead he simply said, “Think about this.” In essence Jesus was telling this man to consider the best course of action. Would it be best for this man to follow after Jesus wherever he might go, or would it be best for him to follow Jesus by remaining where he was and committing himself to serving the Lord where he was. Either way he might be forced to give up a few things. He might face mocking and ridicule, but he would be serving the Lord in the best place for himself.

Jesus is saying the same thing to each and every one of us as he calls on us to commit ourselves to his service. He is not saying that we all have to run out and go back to school to become pastors or teachers. Rather, he is calling on us to make the most of every opportunity we are given in our situation in life to serve the Lord with our lives. Though we may face hardship or troubles, mocking or ridicule, Jesus will be with us as we serve him with our lives.

The second example: look at verse 59. He said to another man, “Follow me.” But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:59,60, NIV)

This time it was different. Jesus approached a man and called him to follow as one of Jesus’ disciples. This was a man who had undoubtedly followed Jesus before. This was a man who had been with Jesus and had been instructed by Jesus, as was Jesus’ practice before calling someone to be a disciple. The problem was that this call came at a very inconvenient time. The man had just lost his father, and was going to the funeral. He was essentially asking for a few days delay. But if you think about it, this invitation was coming as Jesus was passing through for the last time. This was the last time Jesus was coming through this village and Jesus is calling on this man to take hold of the invitation to serve today, because tomorrow might never come.

One last example: look at verse 61: “Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.” 62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:61,62, NIV)

Knowing this man’s heart, Jesus was concerned for him. He was concerned that if he went back to his family, they might steal his dream of following after Jesus. They might persuade him to remain at home rather than serving the Lord with his life. They might even challenge his faith or ask him to give up his faith in Jesus all together. The same is true for us. When we commit ourselves to the lord we may have to remove ourselves from some associations lest they seek to remove our faith and our commitment to the Lord, from us.

Though there may be times in life when we face hardships and difficulties because we have committed ourselves to the service of the Lord, we know that our Savior will be with us. Though we may be mocked and ridiculed for what we believe, we know that our Savior will help us through. Though there may be times when we find that serving the Lord isn’t the most convenient, we know that that it is the most important thing that we as Christians can do with our lives. Though there may be times when friend or family seek to lead us astray, we trust that the Lord our Savior will give us the strength we need to continue in our commitment to him. For the truth is, because we have committed ourselves to the service of the Lord, the Lord is always with us. He is the one who is by our sides. He is the one who will deliver us to eternal life.

That is our greatest comfort today. Though today is the fourth of July and the day we are celebrating our nation’s independence, more importantly we are celebrating our independence from sin and slavery to death. For it is through faith in Jesus that we have been freed from sin and death and are now able to commit ourselves to serving the Lord.
Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN