October 31, 2010
Dear friends in Christ.
This morning I’d like to begin with a question. It’s a question that most of you have probably never been asked. It’s a question that many of you may not be ready to answer. It’s a question that some of you may not even be certain of how to answer. Yet it is a question that I submit to you for your consideration as we begin this morning, and my question is this: “What is your love language?” What is your love language? In other words, how is it that you express love to your spouse, or your children? How is it that you feel loved or receive love from your spouse, or your children? For most people, this is a question that they have never considered. For most people, this is a concept that they have never explored. Though each of us naturally expresses our love in a specific way, when it comes to feeling loved, or receiving love, our spouse and even our children might be used to receiving love in a different way than we are used to expressing it. It is because of this that Dr. Gary Chapman wrote his New York Times Best Selling book entitled, The Five Love Languages. In his book—which I began using in my pre-marriage classes about 4 years ago, and which I recommend to everyone—Dr. Chapman clearly tells readers that “We must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love.” [Chapman, Gary. The Five Love Languages. (13) Chicago: Northfield Publishing (2004).] In fact, Dr. Chapman’s conclusion, after 30 years of marriage counseling is that there are basically five emotional love languages—five ways that people speak and understand emotional love. These five ways, according to Dr. Chapman, are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.
However, the problem is that it sometimes happens in a marital relationship that two people who love each other have difficulty showing it. They have difficulty showing their love to each other simply because they are speaking completely different love languages. For example, I am good friends with a couple who struggled with this very thing. Though the husband regularly showed his love to his wife with acts of service, such as keeping the yard beautifully mowed, raked, and the driveway shoveled, as well as by keeping the car clean and well serviced, all she really wanted was a little quality time with her husband where the two of them could sit and talk over coffee, or even just five minutes on the sofa without the kids around. (No, this is not Laura and me, this is an actual couple I know.) They struggled with showing love and feeling love until they finally understood their spouse’s primary love language. Though they have yet to perfectly master this concept, since they learned it they have grown closer to each other, they are better at sharing their love and receiving it, and their relationship has greatly improved because of it.
Thus, Dr. Chapman’s words that we must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love, continue to ring true, even in our lives. But even though we may need to take some time to learn our spouse’s primary love language, the Lord our God is already an expert at speaking to us with our primary love language! Even before we were born, the Lord knew exactly how he needed to communicate his love to us, and to this day he continues to communicate his love to us in the very way that we need to hear it. In fact, let’s take a look, together, at our lesson for today and see just how the Lord our God continues to do this. Turn with me, if you would, to 1 John 3:1-2. Now, as your turning to 1 John 3:1-2, let me give you a little back ground. The year was somewhere between 85 and 95 AD, we really don’t know for sure. But we do know that when John wrote this letter, he was the only Apostle who was still alive. He was the only Apostle who was not murdered for his faith, but died a natural death at a good, old age. Now, as the First Century was coming to a close, John wrote this letter to assure the second and third generation of Christians of the great love that the Lord had lavished upon them. Take a look at what John writes in 1 John 3, “1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1–2, NIV)
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Could there be any greater Words of Affirmation for us, anywhere in the Bible! How great is the Love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are! We are the children of God because God the Father has lavished his love on us! Though we had been his enemies! God made us his friends! Though we were born as spiritual orphans, not knowing the Lord God our true Father, he showered his love upon us by making us his children. In fact, here is a passage you may want to write down and look up later. Galatians 3:26-29: “26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:26–29, NIV) Or how about this one! Ephesians 2:4-7: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4–7, NIV)
What greater Words of Affirmation could there be for us to hear today that the words that John gives us when he says in 1 John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” This is what the Lord our God made us! This is the gift that the Lord our God bestowed upon us! For it is through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior that we have Received the Gift of the forgiveness of sins! No longer do we need to fear punishment for our sins, or eternal suffering because we cannot please God by our actions, because Jesus has blessed us with the gift of the forgiveness of sins. We have Received the Gift of Adoption, through which we have become children of our heaven Father. We have received the gifts of Salvation and Eternal life, all because the Father has lavished his great love upon us. Look with me, once again, at the two beautiful verses of our lesson today. In fact, if you have your Bibles open, read it with me: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1–2, NIV)
Nearly 1000 years before Christ was even born, King David spoke about these gifts in Psalm 16:11. In fact, if you go home and read the whole Psalm you will see that with these Words King David was prophesying about the coming Savior. In fact, Peter even quoted these words in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:24 and following: But it was in Psalm 16:11 where David said, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalm 16:11, NIV) Paul spoke about the gift of the Spirit that we received in Romans 8:15-17: “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Romans 8:15–17, NIV) And again in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9, NIV)
How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are! In his great love for us, our Savior did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28) Jesus himself told us that God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son that whoever should believe in him would not perish, but would have eternal life. (John 3:16) Even John tells us in the very next chapter, in 1 John 4:9-10, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:9–10, NIV)
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Though the world in which we live does not know us or even understand the love in which we live, we understand that it is because they did not know him when he walked the earth, and they still do not know him today. Though this can be a very difficult thing for us to deal with as we walk through this life, our Savior continues to shower his love on us through the Quality Time that he spends with us day after day. For every time we lift our hearts and voices in prayer to the Lord, the Lord Jesus sits beside us and quietly listens to everything that we have to say. Each time we sit down to read and study his Word, our Lord Jesus communicates with us, speaking to us through those pages, even as he conveys his great love to us. Each time we gather in worship, we spend our time in quality communication with the Lord our God and Jesus Christ our Savior. For it is here in worship that we speak to him with our hymns, in our prayers and through our praises as we worship him; and it is here that he communicates with us through the lessons and even the message of our sermon. Each time we gather here we spend Quality Time with the Lord our God who continually lavishes his love upon us.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Though we have not had the blessing of physically seeing and touching our Savior as the Apostles did, that is not to say that we have not felt the Physical Touch of our Savior’s love. For each time that we come forward to celebrate the feast of the Lord’s Supper, we feel the physical touch of our Savior’s great love for us. Each time that wafer touches our tongue, and we ingest that bread together with our Savior’s body, we are clearly reminded of Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross. Each time we taste the wine, knowing that we are absorbing Jesus’ blood together with the wine; we feel our Savior’s forgiving hand holding our hearts and washing them clean, once again, from every spot and stain of our sins!
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” How great is the love our Father has lavished upon us that he continually communicates his love to us in each one of the five love languages that Dr. Gary Chapman has identified through his 30 years of marital counseling! Our God knows exactly what our primary love language is, and he lavishes his love upon us through it, but have we taken the time to learn what our God’s primary love language is? Have we taken the time to learn his primary love language so that we might communicate our love for him in it? If you had to guess, what might you say God’s primary love language is? Would you say Words of Affirmation? Would you say Quality Time? Would you say Receiving Gifts? Would you say Acts of Service? Would you say Physical Touch?
Though in reality you could argue that when it comes to God all five of the love languages work together hand in hand, I would argue that God’s primary love language is Quality Time, and his secondary love language is Acts of Service. I would argue this from what Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37–40, NIV) Loving the Lord requires that we put him first in our lives; that we spend quality time with him in reading and studying the Word, meditating on it, praying about it, and gathering to worship him. Loving our neighbor suggests that we allow the Lord’s love for us to flow through our lives as we show our love for our neighbor in the things that we do for them. Though you may not agree with me on this what is truly important for us today is that we grow in the love that our Lord has lavished upon us. As we have learned today: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
Showing posts with label Our Love for God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Our Love for God. Show all posts
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Return Your Love to the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
Dear friends in Christ.
This morning I want to share a story with you. It’s a story that I told the students of Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School when I conducted chapel there this past Thursday. It’s even a story that I have permission to tell, because I asked Joshua if I could tell it. I asked Joshua if I could tell it because it’s his story. It’s the story of our son and how he started having seizures when he was just two years old. Though Laura and I knew something wasn’t right, at the time, we didn’t know that he was having seizures. Though from time to time we would see him just stop doing what he was doing, stare off into space and start smacking his lips, almost as if he was trying to breath like a fish, we really didn’t understand what was happening at the time. Though we saw his lips turn blue while this was happening, we thought he might be holding his breath through the pain of something like acid reflux, because the lip smacking instances happened mostly during meal times. (It was only later that we would learn that those are text book symptoms of seizures.)
So, we did what any parent would do when something isn’t right with your child, we took Josh to our local doctor. Though our local doctor was actually a Physician’s Assistant, he had always taken good care of us and we trusted him. Though I remember him saying something about seizures, there was something in what we said to him that suggested these symptoms might be heart related. So we started Josh out on a range of tests for his heart, which he passed with flying colors. He was given a clean bill of health, and his lip smacking episodes even stopped, that is, until around his 3rd birthday; for it was around his 3rd birthday that the seizures began again. However this wasn’t the lip smacking we had seen a year earlier. This time his eyes would move to the left corner, his face would grow slack, and he would simply be unresponsive for anywhere between as little as 30 seconds and as long as 3 minutes. After a series of tests, an EEG and an MRI, the Doctors discovered that it was a brain tumor, a brain tumor that he had been born with, that was causing Joshua’s seizures. You might remember the whirlwind of activity as we quickly set everything in motion and headed up to Children’s Hospital where Joshua was scheduled for a 3 – 3 ½ hours surgery. He spent a day and a night and part of another day in the ICU, and then 3 more days in the hospital. Though these were some traumatic days for our family, we cannot help but thank the Lord and return our love to him for all the love that he showed us even through those difficult days.
We cannot help but thank the Lord and return our love to him for all that he has done for us! If you think about it, what better theme could there be for a Christian’s life! My life is all about returning my love to the Lord, because of all the love that the Lord showed me. For the truth is, when it comes right down to our natural born condition we were not much different than my son. In the same way that he was born with a tumor growing in his brain, we were all born with the tumor of sin, so to speak, growing in our hearts. Each and every one of us, were, at one time controlled by our sinful nature in the same way that my son was controlled by his seizures. But unlike my son who was controlled for only a few minutes, we were controlled for every second of our lives. There was no relief for us! There was no nope for us! We were residents of the hospital ward of this sinful world, being wheeled down the hallway of life on our way to our rooms, the rooms of eternal death and damnation that were prepared for us at the end of the hall. There was nothing we could do to change our condition! There was nothing we could do to change our fate! We needed radical surgery, and that is exactly what Jesus provided when he went to the cross.
As we’ve been taught since we were little children, God’s solution to our inborn problem of sin was to simply remove it; completely! When God our Father sent his Son to the cross, our surgery was begun as the Father applied the suction of his grace removing every single sin from our hearts. Those sins of lying, cheating, stealing, cursing, swearing, speeding, and every other sin we ever committed; they were removed from our hearts and placed on our Savior Jesus. Every single sinful thought and sinful action—all of them!—were removed from our hearts and placed upon our Jesus our Savior! Each and every sin that we had ever committed, are committing even now, or will commit until the day we die; every single spot and blemish of in within us was removed and placed upon our Savior’s shoulders! Our Savior, who, without any form of anesthesia endured the punishment of hell itself, in our place, so that we would be forgiven. In his grace, God, our Father, burned his Son at the stake of the cross, with the flames of hell so that our sins might be forever burned away forever, and we would be declared not guilty in the eyes of the Lord our God. However, that is not the end of the story. For when the Lord our God made his exchange, removing our sins and placing them on Jesus, he did not leave us empty. Rather, the Lord our God filled us with our Savior’s righteousness, innocence, and holiness. He filled us with our Savior’s holiness so that through faith we would be declared not guilty of any of our sins, we would marked brothers and sisters of Jesus our Savior, and known as God’s righteous children through faith in Jesus.
This is the love that the Lord Jesus our Savior poured out on us, and this is the love that now moves us to return our love to Jesus Christ our Savior. This, in fact, is the love about which Paul is writing as he writes in our lesson today, “Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
As Christians, who all their lives have been taught about what Jesus did for us, we cannot help but be moved by the Love that Christ Jesus our Savior poured out upon us. We cannot help but be moved to live for our Savior now that he has freed us from our sins and brought us into a right relationship with our heavenly Father. Though we were once residents of the hospital of this sinful world, being wheeled down the hallway of life to the room of eternal death and damnation that had been prepared for us, because of the surgery the heavenly Father performed on our hearts, we have been moved to the recovery ward. We are free to move about the hospital. We are free to talk to those who have not yet received the surgical message of Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and resurrection. We are even looking forward to the day when we will be completely healed by death so that we might finally leave this hospital and return home to the rooms that Jesus, himself has prepared for us in the halls of heaven.
This is the great love that the Lord our God has poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who called us to faith in Jesus our Savior. This is the great love that now burns within our hearts as a great fire, heating the boiler of our actions until the Holy Spirit throws the throttle and the locomotive of our love begins its return journey to our Savior. For the truth is, the love which Christ has poured out on us is the very love that compels us to return our love to him by making the most out of Sunday morning; sending our children to Sunday School, gathering for Bible Study, and gathering together in worship. Even though activities like this might take 3 – 4 hours on a Sunday morning, it is through these very activities that we hear the Word of God and are strengthened in our faith. It is Christ’s love for us that moves us to return our love for him by watching our words and our actions, whether we are here in church, walking down the street, talking on the telephone, texting, facebooking, emailing, youtubing, playing with our friends, or simply sitting in the comfort of our own homes watching TV. It is Christ’s love that moves us to return our love for him by folding our hands in prayer to thank him for all the blessings he gives us day after day, to express to him our joys, our sorrows, our hardships, our heartaches, our frustrations, and yes our thankfulness. It is Christ’s love for us that moves us to open the Bible for ourselves to read what is recorded on those amazing pages so that we might grow in our faith all the more. This is the love that Christ poured out on us when he went to the cross. This is the love that now burns in our own hearts, kindled by the love our Savior has given us, and this is the love that we long to return to the Lord in everything we say, think, and do.
This is the kind of love that Laura and I have expressed to the Lord on many occasions for returning to us a healthy, energetic, and loving son. Though his surgery was completed over four years ago, every time I see that mark of victory, that beautiful mark of God’s love and faithfulness on the side of his head, I cannot help but thank the Lord for all that he did for our Son. A surgery scheduled for 3 – 3 ½ hours was done in 45 minutes. A hospital say that was scheduled for 7 days lasted only 5. All the complications and problems that could have arisen, because of your prayers and the Lord’s blessings they were all put to rest as the surgeon was easily able to access and remove the tumor completely. Though I know that some of you have been through even more difficult things than we I pray that you, like we have seen our Savior’s love, revealed in those situations. I pray that you have been moved, like we have been, to return your love to your Savior. I pray that in the same way that we see our Savior’s love in the victorious scar that now adorns the left side of Joshua’s head, you see all your Savior’s love in the arms of the cross. I pray that each and every time you look at this, or any cross, you are reminded of the amazing love that the Lord poured out on you through Jesus’ death and resurrection. I pray, that moved by that love, you continue living your life, making every effort to return your love to Jesus Christ, your Savior.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church -Le Sueur, MN
This morning I want to share a story with you. It’s a story that I told the students of Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School when I conducted chapel there this past Thursday. It’s even a story that I have permission to tell, because I asked Joshua if I could tell it. I asked Joshua if I could tell it because it’s his story. It’s the story of our son and how he started having seizures when he was just two years old. Though Laura and I knew something wasn’t right, at the time, we didn’t know that he was having seizures. Though from time to time we would see him just stop doing what he was doing, stare off into space and start smacking his lips, almost as if he was trying to breath like a fish, we really didn’t understand what was happening at the time. Though we saw his lips turn blue while this was happening, we thought he might be holding his breath through the pain of something like acid reflux, because the lip smacking instances happened mostly during meal times. (It was only later that we would learn that those are text book symptoms of seizures.)
So, we did what any parent would do when something isn’t right with your child, we took Josh to our local doctor. Though our local doctor was actually a Physician’s Assistant, he had always taken good care of us and we trusted him. Though I remember him saying something about seizures, there was something in what we said to him that suggested these symptoms might be heart related. So we started Josh out on a range of tests for his heart, which he passed with flying colors. He was given a clean bill of health, and his lip smacking episodes even stopped, that is, until around his 3rd birthday; for it was around his 3rd birthday that the seizures began again. However this wasn’t the lip smacking we had seen a year earlier. This time his eyes would move to the left corner, his face would grow slack, and he would simply be unresponsive for anywhere between as little as 30 seconds and as long as 3 minutes. After a series of tests, an EEG and an MRI, the Doctors discovered that it was a brain tumor, a brain tumor that he had been born with, that was causing Joshua’s seizures. You might remember the whirlwind of activity as we quickly set everything in motion and headed up to Children’s Hospital where Joshua was scheduled for a 3 – 3 ½ hours surgery. He spent a day and a night and part of another day in the ICU, and then 3 more days in the hospital. Though these were some traumatic days for our family, we cannot help but thank the Lord and return our love to him for all the love that he showed us even through those difficult days.
We cannot help but thank the Lord and return our love to him for all that he has done for us! If you think about it, what better theme could there be for a Christian’s life! My life is all about returning my love to the Lord, because of all the love that the Lord showed me. For the truth is, when it comes right down to our natural born condition we were not much different than my son. In the same way that he was born with a tumor growing in his brain, we were all born with the tumor of sin, so to speak, growing in our hearts. Each and every one of us, were, at one time controlled by our sinful nature in the same way that my son was controlled by his seizures. But unlike my son who was controlled for only a few minutes, we were controlled for every second of our lives. There was no relief for us! There was no nope for us! We were residents of the hospital ward of this sinful world, being wheeled down the hallway of life on our way to our rooms, the rooms of eternal death and damnation that were prepared for us at the end of the hall. There was nothing we could do to change our condition! There was nothing we could do to change our fate! We needed radical surgery, and that is exactly what Jesus provided when he went to the cross.
As we’ve been taught since we were little children, God’s solution to our inborn problem of sin was to simply remove it; completely! When God our Father sent his Son to the cross, our surgery was begun as the Father applied the suction of his grace removing every single sin from our hearts. Those sins of lying, cheating, stealing, cursing, swearing, speeding, and every other sin we ever committed; they were removed from our hearts and placed on our Savior Jesus. Every single sinful thought and sinful action—all of them!—were removed from our hearts and placed upon our Jesus our Savior! Each and every sin that we had ever committed, are committing even now, or will commit until the day we die; every single spot and blemish of in within us was removed and placed upon our Savior’s shoulders! Our Savior, who, without any form of anesthesia endured the punishment of hell itself, in our place, so that we would be forgiven. In his grace, God, our Father, burned his Son at the stake of the cross, with the flames of hell so that our sins might be forever burned away forever, and we would be declared not guilty in the eyes of the Lord our God. However, that is not the end of the story. For when the Lord our God made his exchange, removing our sins and placing them on Jesus, he did not leave us empty. Rather, the Lord our God filled us with our Savior’s righteousness, innocence, and holiness. He filled us with our Savior’s holiness so that through faith we would be declared not guilty of any of our sins, we would marked brothers and sisters of Jesus our Savior, and known as God’s righteous children through faith in Jesus.
This is the love that the Lord Jesus our Savior poured out on us, and this is the love that now moves us to return our love to Jesus Christ our Savior. This, in fact, is the love about which Paul is writing as he writes in our lesson today, “Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
As Christians, who all their lives have been taught about what Jesus did for us, we cannot help but be moved by the Love that Christ Jesus our Savior poured out upon us. We cannot help but be moved to live for our Savior now that he has freed us from our sins and brought us into a right relationship with our heavenly Father. Though we were once residents of the hospital of this sinful world, being wheeled down the hallway of life to the room of eternal death and damnation that had been prepared for us, because of the surgery the heavenly Father performed on our hearts, we have been moved to the recovery ward. We are free to move about the hospital. We are free to talk to those who have not yet received the surgical message of Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and resurrection. We are even looking forward to the day when we will be completely healed by death so that we might finally leave this hospital and return home to the rooms that Jesus, himself has prepared for us in the halls of heaven.
This is the great love that the Lord our God has poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who called us to faith in Jesus our Savior. This is the great love that now burns within our hearts as a great fire, heating the boiler of our actions until the Holy Spirit throws the throttle and the locomotive of our love begins its return journey to our Savior. For the truth is, the love which Christ has poured out on us is the very love that compels us to return our love to him by making the most out of Sunday morning; sending our children to Sunday School, gathering for Bible Study, and gathering together in worship. Even though activities like this might take 3 – 4 hours on a Sunday morning, it is through these very activities that we hear the Word of God and are strengthened in our faith. It is Christ’s love for us that moves us to return our love for him by watching our words and our actions, whether we are here in church, walking down the street, talking on the telephone, texting, facebooking, emailing, youtubing, playing with our friends, or simply sitting in the comfort of our own homes watching TV. It is Christ’s love that moves us to return our love for him by folding our hands in prayer to thank him for all the blessings he gives us day after day, to express to him our joys, our sorrows, our hardships, our heartaches, our frustrations, and yes our thankfulness. It is Christ’s love for us that moves us to open the Bible for ourselves to read what is recorded on those amazing pages so that we might grow in our faith all the more. This is the love that Christ poured out on us when he went to the cross. This is the love that now burns in our own hearts, kindled by the love our Savior has given us, and this is the love that we long to return to the Lord in everything we say, think, and do.
This is the kind of love that Laura and I have expressed to the Lord on many occasions for returning to us a healthy, energetic, and loving son. Though his surgery was completed over four years ago, every time I see that mark of victory, that beautiful mark of God’s love and faithfulness on the side of his head, I cannot help but thank the Lord for all that he did for our Son. A surgery scheduled for 3 – 3 ½ hours was done in 45 minutes. A hospital say that was scheduled for 7 days lasted only 5. All the complications and problems that could have arisen, because of your prayers and the Lord’s blessings they were all put to rest as the surgeon was easily able to access and remove the tumor completely. Though I know that some of you have been through even more difficult things than we I pray that you, like we have seen our Savior’s love, revealed in those situations. I pray that you have been moved, like we have been, to return your love to your Savior. I pray that in the same way that we see our Savior’s love in the victorious scar that now adorns the left side of Joshua’s head, you see all your Savior’s love in the arms of the cross. I pray that each and every time you look at this, or any cross, you are reminded of the amazing love that the Lord poured out on you through Jesus’ death and resurrection. I pray, that moved by that love, you continue living your life, making every effort to return your love to Jesus Christ, your Savior.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church -Le Sueur, MN
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Grow in the forgiveness that Jesus bestows (Luke 7:36-50)
Series: Cultivate your faith in the Lord.
Week 3: Grow in the forgiveness that Jesus bestows (Luke 7:36-50)
Dear friends in Christ.
As I’ve been riding my bike through the country side getting in shape for the ever nearing TRAM, I’ve been surprised at how much the crops in the fields have been growing. I’ve ridden past corn that is already at or above knee high. I’ve seen wheat that looks like it is nearly ready to start turning that beautiful golden color and be taken into harvest. I’ve even seen soybeans that looked like they were right on track and growing at a pace that will make them ready when harvest time comes. Though I suppose it shouldn’t be such a surprise to see how much everything has been growing already, with all the rain and cloudy weather we’ve had so recently, it can be easy to forget that we have nearly come to the beginning of July. Yet, when it comes right down to it, growth is the very thing that we expect plants to do whether they are crops planted in a farmer’s field, or vegetables planted in our own garden. Well, in the same way that we expect growth in our fields and gardens, so also the Lord looks for growth in the fields and gardens of our faith. In fact, as we have been cultivating our faith in the Lord for the past few weeks, we have been preparing for our faith to grow. Just two weeks ago we learned a lesson about faith from the example of the Centurion. Last week we planted our faith in Jesus as the one who holds power and authority even over death. Today we will have the opportunity to grow our faith as we grow together in the forgiveness that Jesus bestows on us.
Now, for most of us, growing in the forgiveness that Jesus bestows on us might seem like a pretty easy assignment, if you will. After all we have all been growing in Jesus’ forgiveness since the first day he bestowed it upon us at our baptism. From the very moment the water was applied to us as God’s Word was spoken over us, the seed was planted and a sprout appeared. That sprout soon became a shoot as we entered Sunday School or even Lutheran Elementary School. That shoot quickly became a definite stem as we entered into Confirmation Class and grew in our knowledge of the Lord’s forgiveness through a deeper study of the Lord’s Word. Even now we continue to grow in our Savior’s forgiveness as each week we are clearly reminded of how our Savior came to visit us in the prison of our sins, how he quickly exchanged his clothing for ours, switched places with us and allowed us to walk past the guards as free men and women while he went to his death in our place. Twice each month we are given the opportunity to participate in our Savior’s meal; his meal of bread and wine which are connected with his body and blood in a mysterious way that we cannot understand but merely accept by faith, through which Jesus himself places his hand on our hearts to assure us that we have been washed clean of every spot and stain of our sins by his blood; by his death and resurrection.
Each week we have the opportunity to grow in the forgiveness that Jesus has bestowed upon us through the very faith that he created in our hearts in one way or another. So by this time you might be asking yourselves, “Why, in all the world is Pastor calling on me to grow in forgiveness, when I’m already doing it?” Well, the answer to that question is simple. How often haven’t we simply began to take our forgiveness for granted? How often haven’t we simply taken the attitude toward sin that it doesn’t really matter what I do now because I can repent of it later? How often haven’t we sought out those dark and twisting trails that lead us off the path of righteousness and lead us into our favorite and most comfortable sins? How often hasn’t satan, the accuser of the brothers, accused our hearts of sins to the point we didn’t feel worthy to come up for Holy Communion? How often hasn’t so vehemently accused us of a particular sin that we feel that we have been separated from our God, that we are standing on a precipice ready to fall into the pit of eternal darkness, while our enemy accuses us and tells us that God couldn’t possibly forgive us for what we have done, even as we are being tempted to commit that same sin one more time? How often haven’t our sins piled up in the garages of our hearts until all the shelves are filled with gossip, lies, slander, anger, frustration, malice, and even grudges against other people? How often hasn’t it happened that these very sins have hindered our growth in forgiveness, because even though we regularly approached God’s throne for forgiveness we continued to hold on to at least some of these sins and we never really allowed God’s forgiveness to permeate our lives?
If you have ever felt this way, or have been dealing with issues like these in your lives, I can tell you that you are not alone. In fact, it is because each and every one of us has dealt with issues like this that the Lord included the comforting words of Luke 7:36-50. I invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 7:36-50 and we’ll take a look at them together. As we heard when I first read these words as our Gospel Lesson, this is the account of a sinful woman who came to Jesus in sorrow over the many sins she had committed. Luke writes beginning with verse 36: “Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38 and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.” (Luke 7:36-38, NIV)
Now, to fully understand what’s going on, we have to remember that in Jesus’ day when people ate, they didn’t sit at a table like we do. Rather, they had a table that was near to the ground and they lay on a cushion that was something like a bean bag with their head near the table and with their feet facing away from the table. So, when this woman came up to Jesus, she was standing beside him. As she began weeping and her tears began falling, it seems that she quickly knelt behind Jesus in sorrow and repentance over her many sins. As her tears began to wet Jesus’ feet, she uncovered her hair in public, which was something that just wasn’t done, and began to wipe Jesus’ feet. She kissed them again and again and finally poured perfume on them in sorrow over her sins and in thanksgiving for her forgiveness. Verse 39:
39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” 40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. 41 “Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. 44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” 48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” 50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:39–50, NIV)
When this woman came to Jesus, she was like the debtor who owed 500 denarii. She carried a weight of sin that she could never pay. She knew the debt of righteousness that she owed to the Lord. She knew that there was nothing that she could do to make things right between her and her God. Yet, when she left Jesus she left in peace because she had grown in the forgiveness that Jesus bestowed upon her, and her actions were evidence of her love for the one who had forgiven her. For in the same way that we will say the ground is wet because it rained last night, so also Jesus said that her sins were forgiven because she loved much. In other words, her great love for her Savior was clear evidence of the forgiveness that Jesus had bestowed upon her. These were not things she had done to earn her salvation; rather these were evidence of her love for Jesus who had bestowed his forgiveness on her.
In the same way that this sinful woman grew in forgiveness that Jesus bestowed upon her, so also, each and every one of us can continue to grow in this same forgiveness that Jesus himself bestows upon us. Even though there are times when satan so vehemently accuses us of our sins that we don’t even feel worthy to approach the Lord’s house for worship or his table for his forgiving meal, Jesus turns to us and says, “Your sins are forgiven...your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Even though we may have felt that we sinned so badly that we can’t possibly be forgiven, our savior reminds us that in the same way the money lender canceled an un-payable debt of 500 denarii, so also the Lord has canceled and forgiven the un-payable debt of our sins. Though our satan, our enemy, continually seeks to lead us down those dark and twisting trails that lead us into our favorite sins; it is the Lord Jesus, himself, who comes to our aid, leading us back to the path to heaven, and helping us to grow in the forgiveness that he has won for us. Though there have been times when we have sat here wishing that so and so was here, never really allowing God’s Word to permeate our own hearts, today is the day that the Lord is looking us square in the heart, calling on us clean out the garages of our hearts, throw out all boxes of gossip and lies. Toss out those bags of slander and anger. Sweep out the dust of frustration and malice, and tear down those shelves filled with grudges. In this way you will be free to live and grow in the forgiveness that Jesus himself has bestowed upon you.
What an amazing sight that would be! What an amazing thing that would be if each and every one of us would show our love for the Lord by cleaning out our own hearts and growing in his forgiveness. What an amazing thing that would be if each and every one of our members would grow so completely in his forgiveness that we were moved by his love for us to release our grudges and anger with each other and live in his forgiveness! Can you imagine what this church would look like? I venture to say that we would look like the church recorded in the book of acts, where Luke tells us, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. ” (Acts 2:42–47, NIV)
So let me encourage you, as we come to a close, to grow in the forgiveness that Jesus bestowed upon you through his death and resurrection. Let the knowledge that he loved you enough to give his life for you permeate your heats so that Jesus love for you begins to move you to love each other and forgive each other. Let the love of Jesus and the assurance of his forgiveness which we hear every week be your motivation to show your love for your Lord in giving him the first and the best of your offerings. Let it move you to seek greater growth in his forgiveness as you pray to the Lord to help you forgive each other and release whatever grudges you may not even realize you are holding. Let your growth continue as you gather regularly for worship, bring your children to Sunday School in the Fall, and gather yourself for Bible Study before worship, only do not let your faith in the Lord grow stagnant or grow backward. Rather continue to cultivate your faith in the Lord as you continue growing in the forgiveness that he, himself, has bestowed upon you.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Week 3: Grow in the forgiveness that Jesus bestows (Luke 7:36-50)
Dear friends in Christ.
As I’ve been riding my bike through the country side getting in shape for the ever nearing TRAM, I’ve been surprised at how much the crops in the fields have been growing. I’ve ridden past corn that is already at or above knee high. I’ve seen wheat that looks like it is nearly ready to start turning that beautiful golden color and be taken into harvest. I’ve even seen soybeans that looked like they were right on track and growing at a pace that will make them ready when harvest time comes. Though I suppose it shouldn’t be such a surprise to see how much everything has been growing already, with all the rain and cloudy weather we’ve had so recently, it can be easy to forget that we have nearly come to the beginning of July. Yet, when it comes right down to it, growth is the very thing that we expect plants to do whether they are crops planted in a farmer’s field, or vegetables planted in our own garden. Well, in the same way that we expect growth in our fields and gardens, so also the Lord looks for growth in the fields and gardens of our faith. In fact, as we have been cultivating our faith in the Lord for the past few weeks, we have been preparing for our faith to grow. Just two weeks ago we learned a lesson about faith from the example of the Centurion. Last week we planted our faith in Jesus as the one who holds power and authority even over death. Today we will have the opportunity to grow our faith as we grow together in the forgiveness that Jesus bestows on us.
Now, for most of us, growing in the forgiveness that Jesus bestows on us might seem like a pretty easy assignment, if you will. After all we have all been growing in Jesus’ forgiveness since the first day he bestowed it upon us at our baptism. From the very moment the water was applied to us as God’s Word was spoken over us, the seed was planted and a sprout appeared. That sprout soon became a shoot as we entered Sunday School or even Lutheran Elementary School. That shoot quickly became a definite stem as we entered into Confirmation Class and grew in our knowledge of the Lord’s forgiveness through a deeper study of the Lord’s Word. Even now we continue to grow in our Savior’s forgiveness as each week we are clearly reminded of how our Savior came to visit us in the prison of our sins, how he quickly exchanged his clothing for ours, switched places with us and allowed us to walk past the guards as free men and women while he went to his death in our place. Twice each month we are given the opportunity to participate in our Savior’s meal; his meal of bread and wine which are connected with his body and blood in a mysterious way that we cannot understand but merely accept by faith, through which Jesus himself places his hand on our hearts to assure us that we have been washed clean of every spot and stain of our sins by his blood; by his death and resurrection.
Each week we have the opportunity to grow in the forgiveness that Jesus has bestowed upon us through the very faith that he created in our hearts in one way or another. So by this time you might be asking yourselves, “Why, in all the world is Pastor calling on me to grow in forgiveness, when I’m already doing it?” Well, the answer to that question is simple. How often haven’t we simply began to take our forgiveness for granted? How often haven’t we simply taken the attitude toward sin that it doesn’t really matter what I do now because I can repent of it later? How often haven’t we sought out those dark and twisting trails that lead us off the path of righteousness and lead us into our favorite and most comfortable sins? How often hasn’t satan, the accuser of the brothers, accused our hearts of sins to the point we didn’t feel worthy to come up for Holy Communion? How often hasn’t so vehemently accused us of a particular sin that we feel that we have been separated from our God, that we are standing on a precipice ready to fall into the pit of eternal darkness, while our enemy accuses us and tells us that God couldn’t possibly forgive us for what we have done, even as we are being tempted to commit that same sin one more time? How often haven’t our sins piled up in the garages of our hearts until all the shelves are filled with gossip, lies, slander, anger, frustration, malice, and even grudges against other people? How often hasn’t it happened that these very sins have hindered our growth in forgiveness, because even though we regularly approached God’s throne for forgiveness we continued to hold on to at least some of these sins and we never really allowed God’s forgiveness to permeate our lives?
If you have ever felt this way, or have been dealing with issues like these in your lives, I can tell you that you are not alone. In fact, it is because each and every one of us has dealt with issues like this that the Lord included the comforting words of Luke 7:36-50. I invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 7:36-50 and we’ll take a look at them together. As we heard when I first read these words as our Gospel Lesson, this is the account of a sinful woman who came to Jesus in sorrow over the many sins she had committed. Luke writes beginning with verse 36: “Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38 and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.” (Luke 7:36-38, NIV)
Now, to fully understand what’s going on, we have to remember that in Jesus’ day when people ate, they didn’t sit at a table like we do. Rather, they had a table that was near to the ground and they lay on a cushion that was something like a bean bag with their head near the table and with their feet facing away from the table. So, when this woman came up to Jesus, she was standing beside him. As she began weeping and her tears began falling, it seems that she quickly knelt behind Jesus in sorrow and repentance over her many sins. As her tears began to wet Jesus’ feet, she uncovered her hair in public, which was something that just wasn’t done, and began to wipe Jesus’ feet. She kissed them again and again and finally poured perfume on them in sorrow over her sins and in thanksgiving for her forgiveness. Verse 39:
39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” 40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. 41 “Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. 44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” 48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” 50 Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:39–50, NIV)
When this woman came to Jesus, she was like the debtor who owed 500 denarii. She carried a weight of sin that she could never pay. She knew the debt of righteousness that she owed to the Lord. She knew that there was nothing that she could do to make things right between her and her God. Yet, when she left Jesus she left in peace because she had grown in the forgiveness that Jesus bestowed upon her, and her actions were evidence of her love for the one who had forgiven her. For in the same way that we will say the ground is wet because it rained last night, so also Jesus said that her sins were forgiven because she loved much. In other words, her great love for her Savior was clear evidence of the forgiveness that Jesus had bestowed upon her. These were not things she had done to earn her salvation; rather these were evidence of her love for Jesus who had bestowed his forgiveness on her.
In the same way that this sinful woman grew in forgiveness that Jesus bestowed upon her, so also, each and every one of us can continue to grow in this same forgiveness that Jesus himself bestows upon us. Even though there are times when satan so vehemently accuses us of our sins that we don’t even feel worthy to approach the Lord’s house for worship or his table for his forgiving meal, Jesus turns to us and says, “Your sins are forgiven...your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Even though we may have felt that we sinned so badly that we can’t possibly be forgiven, our savior reminds us that in the same way the money lender canceled an un-payable debt of 500 denarii, so also the Lord has canceled and forgiven the un-payable debt of our sins. Though our satan, our enemy, continually seeks to lead us down those dark and twisting trails that lead us into our favorite sins; it is the Lord Jesus, himself, who comes to our aid, leading us back to the path to heaven, and helping us to grow in the forgiveness that he has won for us. Though there have been times when we have sat here wishing that so and so was here, never really allowing God’s Word to permeate our own hearts, today is the day that the Lord is looking us square in the heart, calling on us clean out the garages of our hearts, throw out all boxes of gossip and lies. Toss out those bags of slander and anger. Sweep out the dust of frustration and malice, and tear down those shelves filled with grudges. In this way you will be free to live and grow in the forgiveness that Jesus himself has bestowed upon you.
What an amazing sight that would be! What an amazing thing that would be if each and every one of us would show our love for the Lord by cleaning out our own hearts and growing in his forgiveness. What an amazing thing that would be if each and every one of our members would grow so completely in his forgiveness that we were moved by his love for us to release our grudges and anger with each other and live in his forgiveness! Can you imagine what this church would look like? I venture to say that we would look like the church recorded in the book of acts, where Luke tells us, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. ” (Acts 2:42–47, NIV)
So let me encourage you, as we come to a close, to grow in the forgiveness that Jesus bestowed upon you through his death and resurrection. Let the knowledge that he loved you enough to give his life for you permeate your heats so that Jesus love for you begins to move you to love each other and forgive each other. Let the love of Jesus and the assurance of his forgiveness which we hear every week be your motivation to show your love for your Lord in giving him the first and the best of your offerings. Let it move you to seek greater growth in his forgiveness as you pray to the Lord to help you forgive each other and release whatever grudges you may not even realize you are holding. Let your growth continue as you gather regularly for worship, bring your children to Sunday School in the Fall, and gather yourself for Bible Study before worship, only do not let your faith in the Lord grow stagnant or grow backward. Rather continue to cultivate your faith in the Lord as you continue growing in the forgiveness that he, himself, has bestowed upon you.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Live in Your Savior's Love (John 13:31-35)
Dear friends in Christ.
Back in 2005, a 92 year old man named Dick Hillis went home to be with the Lord. Now, I don’t know about you, but Dick Hillis was a man I had never heard about until this past Friday when I ran across something he had written. After doing a little research into who he was, I learned that he was a man who lived in his Savior’s love and his love for his Savior. From a young age, he served as a missionary in China. He faithfully founded and formed partnerships with a number of missionary societies for the purpose of proclaiming salvation in the Nation of China. He wrote books about his experiences which revealed how he daily lived in his Savior’s love.
In one of his books entitled Love is a Costly Thing, Hillis writes about a woman who willingly paid the ultimate price out of love for her little girl. Hillis writes, “She was lying on the ground. In her arms she held a tiny baby girl. As I put a cooked sweet potato into her outstretched hand, I wondered if she would live until morning. Her strength was almost gone, but her tired eyes acknowledged my gift. The sweet potato could help so little -- but it was all I had. Taking a bite she chewed it carefully. Then, placing her mouth over her baby's mouth, she forced the soft warm food into the tiny throat. Although the mother was starving, she used the entire potato to keep her baby alive. Exhausted from her effort, she dropped her head on the ground and closed her eyes. In a few minutes the baby was asleep. I later learned that during the night the mother's heart stopped, but her little girl lived.”
Because of her great love, this woman gave up her own life so that her little baby might live. In the same way, it was because of his great love for us that the Lord our God did not even spare his one and only Son, but graciously gave him up for us all. It was because of his great love that Jesus Christ our Savior orchestrated the events of his life so that they would lead him to the cross where he willingly laid down his life for his people. This is the very love that our Savior is revealing to us today. This is the love that led Jesus toward and through his passion, and this is the very love in which our Savior is calling us to live today. Just as he tells us in our text: “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:31–35, NIV)
Now, when Jesus spoke these words, he was in the upper room with his disciples. It was Maundy Thursday evening and Jesus had only a few hours left with his disciples. What a special time it must have been as Jesus had so clearly revealed his love to his disciples in everything that he said and did, from the washing of their feet to identifying Judas as his betrayer. In fact, just before Jesus spoke these words, he gave Judas the bread he had dipped in the dish and Judas went out, setting into motion the very events that would lead to Jesus’ death. Yet even as Judas goes out into the night to put his nefarious plan into action, Jesus sees himself and his Father as glorified by what Judas does. The painful scene with Judas is replaced by a blessed scene in which Jesus shows the eleven the glory that is his as the Scriptures are being brought into fulfillment, and his love for his disciples as well as all of fallen mankind now leads him to go forward stepping through his passion, his suffering and his death so that through it he might free us from our sins.
This is the very love that we remembered during the Season of Lent as weekly we reviewed the Passion History. This is the very love that Jesus revealed as he spoke to Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane, calling him friend, even as he betrayed Jesus. This is the love that Jesus revealed as he stood silently before the courts allowing himself to be mocked and ridiculed, whipped and beaten, convicted of death and finally crucified. In the same way that the mother in the introduction willingly sacrificed herself so that her baby could live, so also Jesus’ love for us led him to sacrifice himself for us so that we might live. This is the reason we have a cross in front of our church. We have it as a reminder of our Savior’s love for us; the love that led him through his passion. We have it as a remember of our Savior’s great love for us, the love in which we now live—the love that now leads us to put our own love into action by loving each other as we live in our Savior’s love for us.
Let me illustrate that point with another story. In his book, Dad, The Family Coach, Dave Simmons writes, “Two weeks after the stolen steak deal, I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo." The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?" "Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. …A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong. She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto…"Love is Action!" She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. She had watched Sandy take my steak and say, "Love is Action!" She had watched both of us do and say "Love is Action!" for years around the house and Kings Arrow Ranch. She had heard and seen "Love is Action," and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her. What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it, because she knew the whole family motto. It's not "Love is Action." It's "Love is SACRIFICIAL Action!" Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another's account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action.
As we live in our Savior’s love, Jesus calls on us to love each other, which is exactly what he is doing in our text as he says, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” ” (John 13:33–35, NIV)
In the same way that Helen showed her love for her brother by giving him her quarter, so also our Savior desires to see his love for us lead us to love each other, yet, how often don’t we do the exact opposite? Even though we are a close knit community of believers, how often don’t we allow gossip and juicy stories about this person or that person permeate our minds and seep into the stories we tell to each other. How often aren’t we more ready to go to our friends and complain about what Pastor said here, what the council did there, what a member did or said in your hearing, but we are not even willing to go to the person who offended as Scripture calls us to do and make things right. Or just last week; how many of you compared your own confirmation with this year’s confirmation class? How many of you compared what you had to learn, memorize, recite and answer with what they were required to do, and how many of you found fault with it because in your opinion it wasn’t nearly enough? Or you felt that they hadn’t been pushed hard enough or simply felt that more could be required of them. How many of you, if you had been in the same situation as Helen and Brandon, how many of you would have insisted that you get the quarter so that you could go in to the petting zoo, grudgingly given your quarter away, or simply kept your quarter in your pocket figuring that if you couldn’t go, neither would your brother?
So often we allow our own sinful attitudes get in the way of letting our Savior’s love for us lead us to love each other. So often we have walked in these doors and sat in these pews weighed down with the burden of our sins. So often we have come here knowing our failures and cried out to our Lord begging his mercy and his forgiveness, and that gentle whisper of the Gospel assures us of his love and his forgiveness. So often we have come up to this altar to receive our Savior’s body and blood and have left with tears in our eyes because we have been overwhelmed by his love and his mercy and his forgiveness. So often we have come bruised and battered almost ready to give up, and something in one of the lessons, or the sermon, or one of the hymns stirs in our hearts and we are strengthened and assured of our Savior’s love, and we are ready to go out those doors and continue living in his love. We are once again moved to action by our Savior’s Sacrificial love for us, by his crucifixion and resurrection, by his work in our lives; we are moved once again to love each other in all that we say and all that we do. We are moved to give our first and our best offerings to the Lord so that we might continue on serving him in this location. We are led to work along side of each other, as I saw so many people doing at our clean up day yesterday. We are led to defend each other, speak well of each other, and take each other’s words and actions in the kindest possible way. For when we are assured of forgiveness and feel that burden lifted, we are once again ready to live in our Savior’s love and reveal ourselves as his disciples as we show our love to one another in every aspect of life.
This is the love that our Savior has for us, and this is the love in which we live. I pray that as you continue to live in your Savior’s love you would always recognize just how great that love is! For in the same way that the woman in our introduction willingly sacrificed herself so that her baby might live, so also our Savior’s love for us led him to the cross and death in our place. In the same way that Helen put her love into action by giving her brother her quarter so he could get into the petting zoo, so also our Savior’s love for us now moves us to put our love into action as we love each other in the Lord. May the Lord build you up in his love so that his love continually overflows in your live and extends to those around you so that through your words and actions, others might know your Savior in whose love you continue to live.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
Back in 2005, a 92 year old man named Dick Hillis went home to be with the Lord. Now, I don’t know about you, but Dick Hillis was a man I had never heard about until this past Friday when I ran across something he had written. After doing a little research into who he was, I learned that he was a man who lived in his Savior’s love and his love for his Savior. From a young age, he served as a missionary in China. He faithfully founded and formed partnerships with a number of missionary societies for the purpose of proclaiming salvation in the Nation of China. He wrote books about his experiences which revealed how he daily lived in his Savior’s love.
In one of his books entitled Love is a Costly Thing, Hillis writes about a woman who willingly paid the ultimate price out of love for her little girl. Hillis writes, “She was lying on the ground. In her arms she held a tiny baby girl. As I put a cooked sweet potato into her outstretched hand, I wondered if she would live until morning. Her strength was almost gone, but her tired eyes acknowledged my gift. The sweet potato could help so little -- but it was all I had. Taking a bite she chewed it carefully. Then, placing her mouth over her baby's mouth, she forced the soft warm food into the tiny throat. Although the mother was starving, she used the entire potato to keep her baby alive. Exhausted from her effort, she dropped her head on the ground and closed her eyes. In a few minutes the baby was asleep. I later learned that during the night the mother's heart stopped, but her little girl lived.”
Because of her great love, this woman gave up her own life so that her little baby might live. In the same way, it was because of his great love for us that the Lord our God did not even spare his one and only Son, but graciously gave him up for us all. It was because of his great love that Jesus Christ our Savior orchestrated the events of his life so that they would lead him to the cross where he willingly laid down his life for his people. This is the very love that our Savior is revealing to us today. This is the love that led Jesus toward and through his passion, and this is the very love in which our Savior is calling us to live today. Just as he tells us in our text: “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:31–35, NIV)
Now, when Jesus spoke these words, he was in the upper room with his disciples. It was Maundy Thursday evening and Jesus had only a few hours left with his disciples. What a special time it must have been as Jesus had so clearly revealed his love to his disciples in everything that he said and did, from the washing of their feet to identifying Judas as his betrayer. In fact, just before Jesus spoke these words, he gave Judas the bread he had dipped in the dish and Judas went out, setting into motion the very events that would lead to Jesus’ death. Yet even as Judas goes out into the night to put his nefarious plan into action, Jesus sees himself and his Father as glorified by what Judas does. The painful scene with Judas is replaced by a blessed scene in which Jesus shows the eleven the glory that is his as the Scriptures are being brought into fulfillment, and his love for his disciples as well as all of fallen mankind now leads him to go forward stepping through his passion, his suffering and his death so that through it he might free us from our sins.
This is the very love that we remembered during the Season of Lent as weekly we reviewed the Passion History. This is the very love that Jesus revealed as he spoke to Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane, calling him friend, even as he betrayed Jesus. This is the love that Jesus revealed as he stood silently before the courts allowing himself to be mocked and ridiculed, whipped and beaten, convicted of death and finally crucified. In the same way that the mother in the introduction willingly sacrificed herself so that her baby could live, so also Jesus’ love for us led him to sacrifice himself for us so that we might live. This is the reason we have a cross in front of our church. We have it as a reminder of our Savior’s love for us; the love that led him through his passion. We have it as a remember of our Savior’s great love for us, the love in which we now live—the love that now leads us to put our own love into action by loving each other as we live in our Savior’s love for us.
Let me illustrate that point with another story. In his book, Dad, The Family Coach, Dave Simmons writes, “Two weeks after the stolen steak deal, I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo." The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?" "Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. …A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong. She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter." Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto…"Love is Action!" She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. She had watched Sandy take my steak and say, "Love is Action!" She had watched both of us do and say "Love is Action!" for years around the house and Kings Arrow Ranch. She had heard and seen "Love is Action," and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her. What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it, because she knew the whole family motto. It's not "Love is Action." It's "Love is SACRIFICIAL Action!" Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another's account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action.
As we live in our Savior’s love, Jesus calls on us to love each other, which is exactly what he is doing in our text as he says, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” ” (John 13:33–35, NIV)
In the same way that Helen showed her love for her brother by giving him her quarter, so also our Savior desires to see his love for us lead us to love each other, yet, how often don’t we do the exact opposite? Even though we are a close knit community of believers, how often don’t we allow gossip and juicy stories about this person or that person permeate our minds and seep into the stories we tell to each other. How often aren’t we more ready to go to our friends and complain about what Pastor said here, what the council did there, what a member did or said in your hearing, but we are not even willing to go to the person who offended as Scripture calls us to do and make things right. Or just last week; how many of you compared your own confirmation with this year’s confirmation class? How many of you compared what you had to learn, memorize, recite and answer with what they were required to do, and how many of you found fault with it because in your opinion it wasn’t nearly enough? Or you felt that they hadn’t been pushed hard enough or simply felt that more could be required of them. How many of you, if you had been in the same situation as Helen and Brandon, how many of you would have insisted that you get the quarter so that you could go in to the petting zoo, grudgingly given your quarter away, or simply kept your quarter in your pocket figuring that if you couldn’t go, neither would your brother?
So often we allow our own sinful attitudes get in the way of letting our Savior’s love for us lead us to love each other. So often we have walked in these doors and sat in these pews weighed down with the burden of our sins. So often we have come here knowing our failures and cried out to our Lord begging his mercy and his forgiveness, and that gentle whisper of the Gospel assures us of his love and his forgiveness. So often we have come up to this altar to receive our Savior’s body and blood and have left with tears in our eyes because we have been overwhelmed by his love and his mercy and his forgiveness. So often we have come bruised and battered almost ready to give up, and something in one of the lessons, or the sermon, or one of the hymns stirs in our hearts and we are strengthened and assured of our Savior’s love, and we are ready to go out those doors and continue living in his love. We are once again moved to action by our Savior’s Sacrificial love for us, by his crucifixion and resurrection, by his work in our lives; we are moved once again to love each other in all that we say and all that we do. We are moved to give our first and our best offerings to the Lord so that we might continue on serving him in this location. We are led to work along side of each other, as I saw so many people doing at our clean up day yesterday. We are led to defend each other, speak well of each other, and take each other’s words and actions in the kindest possible way. For when we are assured of forgiveness and feel that burden lifted, we are once again ready to live in our Savior’s love and reveal ourselves as his disciples as we show our love to one another in every aspect of life.
This is the love that our Savior has for us, and this is the love in which we live. I pray that as you continue to live in your Savior’s love you would always recognize just how great that love is! For in the same way that the woman in our introduction willingly sacrificed herself so that her baby might live, so also our Savior’s love for us led him to the cross and death in our place. In the same way that Helen put her love into action by giving her brother her quarter so he could get into the petting zoo, so also our Savior’s love for us now moves us to put our love into action as we love each other in the Lord. May the Lord build you up in his love so that his love continually overflows in your live and extends to those around you so that through your words and actions, others might know your Savior in whose love you continue to live.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Let your love for God show in your life (1 John 4:1-3)
Dear friends in Christ.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1) Even though we were sinners who wanted nothing to do with God or his Son, it was God himself who showed his love for us by sending Jesus to be our Savior. It was Jesus himself who showed his love for us by laying down his life for us when he went to the cross, just as Jesus told his disciples when he said, “Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) For it was Jesus who willingly took our sins upon himself. He allowed himself to be whipped and beaten and mocked and scourged so that he might be our Savior. He painfully watched as the soldiers drove the nails through his hands and feet knowing the pain and suffering that was yet to come. On top of all of that, he endured the rejection of his Father and the pain and torment of damnation that we deserved for our sins! In doing so, Jesus taught us what true love truly is, just as the Scriptures tell us, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10) It is this very love, the love that moved the Lord our God to hand over his Son to death for the payment of our sins and the love that caused Jesus to rise from the dead in assurance that our sins have been completely washed away that moves our hearts today. For today, as we study the great love our Father has lavished upon us, we will be moved to let our love for the Lord and his Word be revealed in all that we do! This, in fact, is the very thing that the Apostle John is encouraging each and every one of us to do as he writes in our text, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.” (1 John 4:1-3)
Though at first glance these words seem to say nothing about letting our love for God and his Word sine out in our lives, if you think about it, what better way is there for us to show this love than by following the Lord’s word and testing all the teachings of this world by the standard of his Word so that we will not be led astray. For the truth is, you and I are surrounded by false teachers on every side. We are living in a world where false prophets are leading countless Christians into the sprawling seas of unbelief by teaching them false truths wrapped up in Christian ideas. We are living in a world where opinions are more important than fact, where truth is seen from different points of view, and where countless false prophets are subtly but effectively twisting God’s Word into a license to do as we please rather than a message for our salvation. In short, we are living in a world where satan is doing everything he can to sweep us into the dustpan of half-truths so that he might drop us into the dustbin of Christian unbelief. This is why John is calling on us to reveal our love for our God and his Word by testing every teaching to make sure that it comes for God, just as cashiers are trained to test our money when we pay them with a $20.00 bill, a $50.00 bill or even a $100.00 bill. Though in some ways this may seem like a waste of time and a completely loveless act for a cashier to test our money and judge it according to the standards set by the banking industry, it is actually an act of love. For the truth is counterfeiters are just like false prophets, they are passing off worthless paper in the form of legal tender. So, if a cashier should simply take a counterfeit twenty, or a fifty or even a one-hundred dollar bill without testing it, that merchant would lose. However, by testing it, the cashier lovingly makes certain that the employer receives the money that he deserves and needs to continue growing and expanding his business.
This is the kind of love that the Lord wants us to show him and his word by testing the spirits. Rather than simply believing what you hear and figuring it must be right, he wants us to go back to his word to make sure that it is right! For the Bible is the manual the Lord has given us to determine if a teaching comes from him or not. Just as cashiers have special marking pens to make sure that a specific bill is legal tender, so also the Bible is our manual telling us exactly what God says. So, when you are in your home and you are watching one of those religious type shows on TV, don’t just assume they must be right because they are religious! Rather, check your Bible to make sure they are proclaiming the truth. If they aren’t either stop watching it, or constantly be prepared to correct it for yourselves. When you are listening to those religious broadcasts on Sunday mornings, be discerning listeners. In others words, listen carefully to anything that is proclaimed and if something doesn’t seem right pull out your Bible and check it out so that you can see if it is right or wrong. Even here in church, don’t just believe everything I tell you simply because I am your Pastor and I must be right! For the truth is, I am human just like you. I make mistakes just like you. Even though I spent eight years of my life training to be a Pastor, I am by no means perfect, and that is why you need to be checking up on me from time to time to make sure I am faithfully proclaiming God’s Word to you! You see, even though God has given me the responsibility of faithfully teaching you his word, he has given you the responsibility of remaining faithful to him.
So do just that, remain faithful to the Lord by studying his Word. Show your love for him and his word by reading through the Bible every year. Search in your closets and bookshelves until you find your old Catechisms. Then when you find them, study them from time to time to remind yourselves of the things you promised to die for rather than give up. Take time out of every day to read the one-page devotions in your meditation booklets and pray to God! Only make God’s Word a priority in your life and set aside time for it every day. For in doing this, you will not only be strengthening your faith in Jesus Christ your Savior; you will also be preparing yourself to recognize false teaching no matter how subtle it might be. When you do this you will find it easy to go back to the Bible to test whatever teaching you might come across to see whether it agrees with God’s Word or not. When you do this you will in effect be giving thanks to God for all the great things he has given you in his Word. When you do this you will be showing your great love for the Lord and for his Word which he has given you.
Only let your love for the Lord and his Word shine out in your lives as you reflect the love that the Lord your God has lavished upon you. For in the same way that the Lord showed his love to Saul by calling him to faith and sending him off to preach the Word to Jews and Gentiles alike, so also the Lord showed his love for you by calling you to faith. In the same way that the Lord showed his love for his disciples by appearing to them on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, so also the Lord Jesus has shown his love for us by appearing to us in the pages of Scripture for our learning. God’s love for us is boundless! Though we were once his enemies, he made us his children though Jesus Christ our Savior. Though there was a time when we hated him, though the work of his Son, we have come to love him. We have come to love him for what he has done for us and we have come to love him for all that he tells us in his Word! So then continue to make your love for him known to all the world by gladly hearing his word and always being ready to test whatever teaching might come your way to see whether or not it comes from him.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1) Even though we were sinners who wanted nothing to do with God or his Son, it was God himself who showed his love for us by sending Jesus to be our Savior. It was Jesus himself who showed his love for us by laying down his life for us when he went to the cross, just as Jesus told his disciples when he said, “Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) For it was Jesus who willingly took our sins upon himself. He allowed himself to be whipped and beaten and mocked and scourged so that he might be our Savior. He painfully watched as the soldiers drove the nails through his hands and feet knowing the pain and suffering that was yet to come. On top of all of that, he endured the rejection of his Father and the pain and torment of damnation that we deserved for our sins! In doing so, Jesus taught us what true love truly is, just as the Scriptures tell us, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10) It is this very love, the love that moved the Lord our God to hand over his Son to death for the payment of our sins and the love that caused Jesus to rise from the dead in assurance that our sins have been completely washed away that moves our hearts today. For today, as we study the great love our Father has lavished upon us, we will be moved to let our love for the Lord and his Word be revealed in all that we do! This, in fact, is the very thing that the Apostle John is encouraging each and every one of us to do as he writes in our text, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.” (1 John 4:1-3)
Though at first glance these words seem to say nothing about letting our love for God and his Word sine out in our lives, if you think about it, what better way is there for us to show this love than by following the Lord’s word and testing all the teachings of this world by the standard of his Word so that we will not be led astray. For the truth is, you and I are surrounded by false teachers on every side. We are living in a world where false prophets are leading countless Christians into the sprawling seas of unbelief by teaching them false truths wrapped up in Christian ideas. We are living in a world where opinions are more important than fact, where truth is seen from different points of view, and where countless false prophets are subtly but effectively twisting God’s Word into a license to do as we please rather than a message for our salvation. In short, we are living in a world where satan is doing everything he can to sweep us into the dustpan of half-truths so that he might drop us into the dustbin of Christian unbelief. This is why John is calling on us to reveal our love for our God and his Word by testing every teaching to make sure that it comes for God, just as cashiers are trained to test our money when we pay them with a $20.00 bill, a $50.00 bill or even a $100.00 bill. Though in some ways this may seem like a waste of time and a completely loveless act for a cashier to test our money and judge it according to the standards set by the banking industry, it is actually an act of love. For the truth is counterfeiters are just like false prophets, they are passing off worthless paper in the form of legal tender. So, if a cashier should simply take a counterfeit twenty, or a fifty or even a one-hundred dollar bill without testing it, that merchant would lose. However, by testing it, the cashier lovingly makes certain that the employer receives the money that he deserves and needs to continue growing and expanding his business.
This is the kind of love that the Lord wants us to show him and his word by testing the spirits. Rather than simply believing what you hear and figuring it must be right, he wants us to go back to his word to make sure that it is right! For the Bible is the manual the Lord has given us to determine if a teaching comes from him or not. Just as cashiers have special marking pens to make sure that a specific bill is legal tender, so also the Bible is our manual telling us exactly what God says. So, when you are in your home and you are watching one of those religious type shows on TV, don’t just assume they must be right because they are religious! Rather, check your Bible to make sure they are proclaiming the truth. If they aren’t either stop watching it, or constantly be prepared to correct it for yourselves. When you are listening to those religious broadcasts on Sunday mornings, be discerning listeners. In others words, listen carefully to anything that is proclaimed and if something doesn’t seem right pull out your Bible and check it out so that you can see if it is right or wrong. Even here in church, don’t just believe everything I tell you simply because I am your Pastor and I must be right! For the truth is, I am human just like you. I make mistakes just like you. Even though I spent eight years of my life training to be a Pastor, I am by no means perfect, and that is why you need to be checking up on me from time to time to make sure I am faithfully proclaiming God’s Word to you! You see, even though God has given me the responsibility of faithfully teaching you his word, he has given you the responsibility of remaining faithful to him.
So do just that, remain faithful to the Lord by studying his Word. Show your love for him and his word by reading through the Bible every year. Search in your closets and bookshelves until you find your old Catechisms. Then when you find them, study them from time to time to remind yourselves of the things you promised to die for rather than give up. Take time out of every day to read the one-page devotions in your meditation booklets and pray to God! Only make God’s Word a priority in your life and set aside time for it every day. For in doing this, you will not only be strengthening your faith in Jesus Christ your Savior; you will also be preparing yourself to recognize false teaching no matter how subtle it might be. When you do this you will find it easy to go back to the Bible to test whatever teaching you might come across to see whether it agrees with God’s Word or not. When you do this you will in effect be giving thanks to God for all the great things he has given you in his Word. When you do this you will be showing your great love for the Lord and for his Word which he has given you.
Only let your love for the Lord and his Word shine out in your lives as you reflect the love that the Lord your God has lavished upon you. For in the same way that the Lord showed his love to Saul by calling him to faith and sending him off to preach the Word to Jews and Gentiles alike, so also the Lord showed his love for you by calling you to faith. In the same way that the Lord showed his love for his disciples by appearing to them on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, so also the Lord Jesus has shown his love for us by appearing to us in the pages of Scripture for our learning. God’s love for us is boundless! Though we were once his enemies, he made us his children though Jesus Christ our Savior. Though there was a time when we hated him, though the work of his Son, we have come to love him. We have come to love him for what he has done for us and we have come to love him for all that he tells us in his Word! So then continue to make your love for him known to all the world by gladly hearing his word and always being ready to test whatever teaching might come your way to see whether or not it comes from him.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
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