Keep it simple stupid.

Keep it simple, stupid! I think we all remember that phrase from many years ago. So how many of you out there live complicated lives? How did they get complicated? Did you over time get yourself involved in so many things that now you feel trapped? Take heart, you have a lot of company. Americans are some of the busiest people on the planet and now if we could just figure out why? Christians are unfortunately no exception to that rule. Are you sometimes confused by the church when it tells you that you should spend more time with your family and out living your faith in front of your friends and neighbors, and then it schedules four events during the week which you are expected to be at? Is there just something wrong with that picture? Yes, I think we can say that there is.
Some churches confuse activity with getting things accomplished. And some churches confuse getting things accomplished with spiritual growth and discipleship. Unfortunately spiritual growth is measured by the number of hours you spend at the church. Particularly if you are not quite sure why you are there in the first place. Isn't there a better way? Isn't there a more practical way to meet with God, grow in faith and share his love with unbelievers around you?
Yes, yes there is! Keep it simple, stupid! Sorry didn't mean to call you stupid, it's just a phrase. My point is you can do more sometimes by doing less. Okay now, you say, that made no sense. Well maybe it just takes a whole new way of looking at things then.
I put to you that you can accomplish more by doing less if you center your focus and only do those things that fit what you are called to do. In other words do less, but do it much, much better than you did before. Get rid of all things that you don't need to do in the church, in life for that matter, and just concentrate on what you actually need to do. Make every move count.
Paul compares it someone running and boxing to win the prize. He tells us to not run aimlessly or swing at the air, but focus as someone who wants to win. My brother is an eigthth degree black belt in Karate. He has told me that as he has gotten older he is a little slower than he used to be, but he is twice as accurate. In other words he doesn't throw as many punches and kicks anymore but when he does, he hits his target everytime. He doesn't swing aimlessly.
Now think about the church. We haven't lost any of our speed at all, now if we could hit the target everytime and not just swing at the wind. Think how effective we could be by doing less to accomplish more and have a bigger impact.
Something to think about as look at the Revitalization Process.

Pastor Fred

The 911 Psalm

I was reminded this morning as I took my children to school that the perfect psalm for this day of Remembrance is Psalm 91:1 and following, and not just because it is the numbers 911. So I have decided to put this Psalm in my blog today to remind us that no matter what God is with us, even when we face terror and war.

Psalm 91:1ff

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place - the Most High, who is my refuge - no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. "Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation."
(The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers)

Pastor Fred

The Countdown has started for new beginnings

We are 15 days away from a new beginning. I know everybody is always talking about change now. It is said that everyone hates change but at the same time everyone seems to want it. It is kind of confusing. People want change for a variety of reasons. Some want change because they are bored with the present, they just want something new and they don't care what it is. Other's want change because someone else told them that it is the thing to be doing, if you are changing you are doing something right. Others want change because what they are doing right now is not working. That last reason is probably the best reason so far for change. But there is an even better reason for change. How about change so that you can start doing what you should have been doing in the first place? Change so you can do the right thing, the thing you were designed to do. Now there is change worth having. We are about 15 days away from starting that kind of change.
Actually we have already started the process. We have entered into an agreement with The Transforming Church Network. They are going to help us go through a congregational revitalization process. We have also begun writing a 20 year history of the congregation and putting other things in place. When this process is complete in about two years hopefully we will be a congregation that is fully integrated into our community taking worship outside of our walls and into our community. I am not talking about holding worship services in the park here. No I am talking about a church that is engaged in its local community, serving it and bringing it inside the church through interest groups and community events. A church whose people are found in different community organizations spreading their faith through their words and more importantly their deeds.
There will be a lot of training involved in this process both for me as the pastor and for the congregational leaders and even for the average member. We are starting that process the week of September 13 with new small groups studying "Why Are We Here? Motivation for Mission." This is a six week small group study. Then on October 30 through Nov 1 we will have a consulting team here to interview and train us for work in our community. It will be change at its hardest and best. No longer will we sit as a church and wait for people to come to us, instead we are going to go to them. Everyone in the congregation will be involved in small group ministry and everyone in the congregation will be working. No more pew, or chair sitting allowed.
Scared? I am. It is change from being a church with a sign out front to being the church that is found in the book of Acts. In other words this is a change to do and to be what God has called us to do and be. The countdown has started.

Pastor Fred

Cook off Challenge this Sunday at 9:30 service

Come one, come all we are having a food thrown down or challenge during the 9:30 service. Wisdom and Folly are the names of the two cooks. Both of them will be preparing a banquet of food, the question is which one is serving the best food? The basis for judging of this contest will be Proverbs 9.

Pastor Fred ( who will be intrepreting the results)

And a Little Child will Lead Them

This morning we had our first Wednesday morning chapel for the school year. We had lots of singing and Bible stories and puppets talking about God's creation. The best moment of the chapel though came without any planning. A video is always shown of a foreign country where most the population is not Christian. The video is shown to get the children to pray for the children of that country and get them interested in doing missions throughout their life, whether supporting them financially or going themselves as missionaries. After the showing of a video on Uzbekistan Miss Sue our director asked the children to pray for the children of that country tonight that they would come to know Jesus as their Savior. Out of the blue a little four year girl's hand went up and she asked if we could pray for them right now! So Miss Sue said sure and asked the four year if she would lead us in prayer. And she did, praying that God would lead the children of Uzbekistan to faith in Jesus.
Jesus said in Mark 10:14ff, "Let the little children come to me; and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Jesus knew who had the most faith in the community, and it wasn't the grown up adults.
What a fantastic way to start a new school year, led by a little child of God. May we be little children of Jesus this year.

Pastor Fred

Back to School

As a parent I am really excited about school starting next Monday. I love my kids but I also love it when they are in school and I can exhale a little bit. Today at Family of Christ is Staff Development Day. Which means all the staff and teachers get together and talk about the coming year. I will be doing a devotion on how we surrender to God and rely on his strength through the Holy Spirit to carry out the tasks he has for us this year. We will go over all the regulations and have a lot of time for prayer. Then we will have lunch. I'm really excited about that! I do love to eat. This is a time to re-focus though and remember why we are here and why we do what we do. We do not just exist to provide education so that our kids are ready for elementary school, but we also exist to share the good news about Jesus' love for us. We will do that in earnest this year. The children will hear the message of what Christ has done for them on the cross every day in the classroom. On Wednesday morning we always have a chapel service where the children worship God with passion. If you have never attended one of our chapel services you need to.
We have a really great staff this year. We also have re-started our Kindergarten. We are all looking forward to a school year of learning more about Jesus and rejoicing in his death and resurrection and the forgiveness and salvation that he has given us. Come and join us!

A Summer with the Old Testament

During this past school year we have had a number of sermon series, some better than others. As I write this we are finishing up a sermon series on the 40 Days of Love. Sermon series are a great way to get deeper into a subject than if you just preached one sermon on it. It focuses everything and connects everything together. But sometimes we need a break from series. So this summer the sermons will be on the Old Testament text for that Sunday. That means that every sermon will be a stand alone sermon, but there is some advantage in that. If you didn't like a particular Sunday's topic well next week will be totally different.
I choose the Old Testament because it is not something I preach from a lot. I spend most of my time preaching on the Epistle's and the rest on the Gospel. I have tended to stay away from the Old Testament through the years for a number of reasons. When I preached on the readings for a particular Sunday I found that most of the time the Epistle and the Gospel had something in common, where the Old Testament reading never seemed to connect with either one. Many times the Old Testament reading is kind of the odd man out. The second reason I didn't preach on the Old Testament was, to be honest, because it was harder to do. There is many times a depth and richness to the Old Testament that is hard to get your mind around. The Old Testament is a challenge because in some ways you have to connect it to the New or show how it is fulfilled in the New.
So I am taking this on this summer as a challenge. I am trying to wrap my mind around some of these Old Testament texts and bring out what they have to say to New Testament people like us in 2009. I hope that you will join me on this journey starting June 7th with Isaiah 6:1-8.

Learning Center Children Leading Worship

On Palm Sunday the children from our Learning Center will be leading our contemporary worship service. They will be presenting the Biblical story through a series of plays. As this is being put together it looks like it is going to be very exciting. The question of the service is, "What are You going to do with Jesus?" In their plays they will present the answer to that question by showing us what the Bible says. There is no greater faith than the faith of a child so this will not be service you will want to miss. Come and join us as God speaks through his youngest disciples.
Also mark your calendars for Thursday April 9th at 7 p.m. for our Maundy Thursday service with communion around the table. On April 10th at 7 p.m. we will have our Good Friday service followed by a showing of the movie, The Passion of the Christ at 8:15 p.m. It all comes to a climax on Easter morning when we will have a Sunrise Service at 6 a.m. and then breakfast at 7:30 followed by an Easter Egg hunt and then worship again at 9:30 a.m. See you there!

Pastor Fred

Sermon for coming Sunday Feb 8, 2009

Here is the sermon for tomorrow. I am posting it on the blog, because I will not be preaching in it in church. It is just too boring. In fact as I have looked back at the entire sermon series so far, it is all too boring to continue it. I never usually apologize for anything that I preach but I am apologizing for this particular sermon series, it has been awful. Thankfully Friday night I realized that as I was practicing it. It is also very long. So I decided to not preach it at all. I have no idea what I am talking about tomorrow I am just going to wing it. So you might want to come and watch, it could be interesting, hopefully for me in a good way. Again my sincere apologies for a very boring series. You guys are too long suffering at times. Well here it is in all its unedited unpolished glory.

THE PROPHECIES CONCERNING HIS LIFE
DEUTERONOMY 18:15, 18-19
FEBRUARY 8, 2009

If you look at a typical gravestone you see the date of the person’s birth and the date of their death and usually between those two dates is a dash. That simple dash represents that person’s entire life. But on the grave marker it looks pretty insignificant. The emphasis seems to be on the beginning and the end with no attention to the in-between. If you listen to many Christians and most of the messages coming out of Christian churches you hear much of the same thing. There is a real emphasis on his birth, the Christmas season. And there is a real emphasis on his death and resurrection, the Lent and Easter season. But all the stuff that happened in between is in many cases simply ignored or always put in the context of his birth and death and resurrection. In fact if you ask the typical Christian questions about Christ he can tell you in great detail the facts about Jesus’ birth and his death and resurrection but is not so sure or informed about what happened in between. It is as if it wasn’t that important. You know his birth well yeah that’s big, his suffering and death and resurrection, well yeah that’s huge. But his life, well maybe interesting but we need to keep our eyes on the big stuff. But Jesus life, the dash in-between is of huge importance for us today.

The Old Testament prophets certainly thought it was important, because they talked about it a lot. The New Testament writers certainly thought it was important because they wrote a lot about it. Paul certainly thought it was important as he stressed that Jesus living the perfect sinless life in our place was a must for our salvation. The birth yes important, the death and resurrection, yes important, but none of them would have meant a thing if Jesus had not lived the law perfectly for us, if he had sinned for instance then his death and resurrection wouldn’t have meant anything, he would have just been saving himself. Also there were many things that the Old Testament prophets said were important in the life of the Messiah, that he had to do these things to fulfill what God wanted. So today we are going to look at the Old Testament prophecies concerning the life of the Messiah and their fulfillments in the New Testament life of Jesus. There are tons of these but we are just going to look at the most important ones.

Moses is the first guy we run into this morning with something to say about the Messiah. Moses of course was the leader of the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. He was the guy God has personally selected and sent to the people. Under his leadership the people were liberated from four hundred years of slavery under the Egyptians. It is said that no one has ever had a relationship with God like Moses did. God spoke directly to him in person and he was God’s man on earth to the people. In the book of Deuteronomy though he is getting ready to leave the people, in other words die. And this was a very traumatic event for God’s people. Moses had been the go to guy all these years, he had done everything, knew how to solve every problem, he was the one who God talked to and who God listened to when they had a problem. So what were they going to do? God understood their fears and so through Moses he makes them a promise, one that they can count on and know that they are going to be alright. In Deuteronomy 18 Moses says, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.”

The immediate fulfillment of this prophecy is of course in the line of the prophets that follow Moses in Israel’s history. God always provided them for the people but the ultimate fulfillment is found in Jesus. In Luke 7 after Jesus raises the widow’s son from the dead the people were all filled with awe and praised God. A great prophet has appeared among us,” They said, “God has come to help his people.” And in Luke 24 after Jesus’ resurrection he is walking with some the believers on the road to Emmaus; they don’t recognize him yet but are telling him about Jesus, about himself in other words. They say, “About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.” The people themselves realize that Jesus is a prophet from God. And we see he is also very much in the way of Moses. Like Moses, Jesus delivers his people. Moses delivered the people from slavery in the land of Egypt and Jesus delivers his people from slavery to sin and death. He leads them out of the land of darkness and into the kingdom of God.

Jesus throughout his life though acted as a prophet. He proclaimed God’s word to the people and he warned them of the coming judgment and told them to repent. He also told them about God grace which was found in him and he told them what was going to happen in the future, both about the destruction of the temple and the second coming. In his baptism God the Father reiterated his command to the people about listening to his prophets. He said, this is my Son with him I am well pleased, listen to him.” Unfortunately many people of this day and of our day don’t listen to Jesus and his message of salvation. Just like the ancient Israelites used to ignore the prophets or even persecute them so it is today. Even sometimes in the church we don’t pay close attention to his words. For those that do though, there is comfort and good news.

Jesus was also very much not only the Son of God, but also a Jew. And because of that he will dedicated to his Father’s house. In Psalm 69:9 we read, “For zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.” Then in John chapter 2 we read about Jesus clearing the temple of the money changers. He overturns their tables and drives them out with whips. He says, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The house of God represented the presence of God among the people and that it would be defiled was like God himself was being defiled and for Jesus as God that was a personal insult to both him and more importantly to his Father who he loved. It’s like the story about Bob. Bill White of Paramount Washington tells this story. “Our church is in the heart of the city, so along with the great opportunities come some challenges. For example, our church building has been “tagged” a number of times – spray painted with local gang signs or the initials of the culprits involved. A few years ago our worship leader, Bob Olson, was in his office at the back of the sanctuary when he heard strange noises in the alley. Tired of having bad things happen to his place of worship, he decided to act. He burst into the alley through a barred door that hadn’t been opened in years. There stood two teenagers holding spray paint cans, initialing the building. “What are you doing?” he yelled, despite their being only fifteen feet away. They stood up and acted tough. One answered back, “What are you going to do about it, old man?” Bob’s hair is thinning, and he’s in his sixties. There were two of them, and they were young and strong. But as the Scripture says, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Bob started walking right at them. The guys stood their ground for a moment, but then they turned and sprinted down the alley. And Bob gave chase! He chased them around one corner, down a residential street, across a yard, and down another street. But Bob didn’t stop. After a two-block chase, he leapt at the slower of the two guys, grabbed his jacket, and pulled him to the ground. The guy struggled free, and made off – but not without leaving behind his jacket and his spray paint. Although the police caught the two of them on the next block, they might have been relieved to be away from the passionate worshiper with the thinning gray hair.”

All that zeal that Jesus has in our text comes from the fact that he truly is the Son of God. In Psalm 2 we read this prophecy, “I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” We see this prophecy explained as applying directly to Jesus in Matthew chapter three. As Jesus was being baptized God spoke. It says, “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” In Luke chapter one as the angel Gabriel is explaining Jesus coming birth to the Virgin Mary he says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” This is that incarnational fact that we celebrate every Christmas. God become man and yet remaining fully God. Jesus is more than just a mere man. He is more than just a prophet; he is God himself in the flesh living among us. That in itself is mind blowing, but it also leads us to some very important things. This Jesus has the power to do what he has set out to do, namely save us from our sins and give us salvation. In the midst of world of uncertainly and anxiety. In the midst of hard times that seem to get harder every time we check the news and see more lay offs, new diseases, death in of all places peanut butter. That this Jesus, our Savior is truly the Son of God, God himself is of great comfort. That God would go to the extreme lengths of actually become man shows us how much he loves us and that he will preserve us no matter what. And that leads us to the real gospel concerning the Old Testament prophecies about his life.

The first one is that the Messiah will be anointed to preach liberty. In Isaiah 61 we read the prophet saying this about the Messiah, ‘The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.” This describes in wondrous detail what the Messiah was going to do when he came. He was going to preach the gospel to the poor, and that was not just the physically poor, but the spiritual poor. He was going to proclaim freedom, freedom from sin and death and release sinners from their bondage to sin. He was going to proclaim the final coming of his kingdom and the end of the ages and was going to comfort all who mourn no matter what they mourn about. This was a fantastic promise that the Old Testament people held onto. It was something that they looked forward too. This Messiah was going to take care of everything. And so it was great amazement that in Luke chapter four we read that Jesus visits the synagogue and is given the scroll to read, and it just happens to be this particular passage that he reads that day. After he gets done reading it in front of the people it says, “Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” There is no way to take the shock out of what they must have experienced at these words. Some rejected what he said but others it seems came to faith in him, and believed that he was that Messiah they had been waiting for. Here was the answer to all their prayers. He is the answer to all of our prayers and searching for help, deliverance and comfort.

These words of Jesus are a great comfort, but Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy with more than just words but also with his actions. For instance in Isaiah 35 we read this about what the coming Messiah will do in his life here on earth, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” This prophecy said that the Messiah will heal people from various ailments, that in fact that would be a sign that he was the true Messiah. It was a clear way of identifying him. Then we read in Luke chapter seven about John the Baptist who is now in prison sending some of his disciples to confirm that Jesus really is the Messiah that John thinks he is, “Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who has come, or should we expect someone else? When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’ At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” In other words, “Yeah John I am it, there isn’t anyone else coming. I am the Messiah fulfilling those identifying prophecies in Isaiah. The life of Christ here on earth touched many people in very practical ways, but more importantly it gave a demonstration of the real healing and raising from the dead that he was going to do on the cross at the end of his life. Those other miracles were only temporary. Eventually all these healed people were going to die anyway, and even the ones he raised to life were going to die again some day. But the healing and life that won through the cross is forever, it is eternal healing and eternal life.

The last prophecy I want to look at today has to deal with Christ’s coming in victory in our world and in our lives. In Psalm 118 we hear the prophecy, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. From the house of the Lord we bless you.” This is talking about a victorious king returning from victory, the one who has defeated his enemies with God’s help in other words. We see this fulfilled in Matthew 21 when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday. “A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ “Hosanna in the highest!” When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, ‘Who is this?” The crowds answered, “This is Jesus the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.’” The crowd was welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem like a conquering king. Maybe they thought he was going in to kick out the Romans, to set up a new kingdom of Israel that would be as powerful as it was in the past. If they thought that they were wrong.

Jesus did enter Jerusalem that day like a conquering king. He was coming into the city to get rid of the people’s enemies, but it wasn’t the Romans. Instead the enemies that he was going to defeat were Satan, sin and death. He would achieve victory not man’s way but God’s way through suffering and death. By the end of the week the victory would be his as he hung bleeding and dying on the cross. He had truly come in the name of the Lord and he had done God’s work. That work of God extends down to us today as we benefit through the forgiveness that receive through Christ’s death and resurrection. But that would not be the final fulfillment of this Old Testament prophecy in fact you could say were are still waiting for it to happen. Jesus himself prophesied that this prophecy would again be fulfilled in the future. In Luke 13 Jesus expresses he is great sorrow over Jerusalem. He foresees that the Romans are going to completely destroy it in 70 A.D. and it pains him to know the suffering that they are going to undergo because of that. So he says this, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” This if course is referring the second coming of Christ that is talked about in Revelation chapter one, “Look, he is coming with the clouds and every eye shall see him, even those who pierced him, and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be. Amen.” That is a day that we are still looking forward to with great anticipation. That day as we talked about a couple of weeks ago.

The life of Jesus Christ was more than just a dash between his birth date and his death on earth date. It was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy identifying who he was and what he was called to do for you and I. His life was also the perfect life for us. Where the first Adam had fell into sin and dragged us down with him. The second Adam, Jesus Christ was without sin, lived the perfect life in our place, fulfilled the law for us and then through our faith in his death and resurrection gave us his righteousness and holiness and perfection. Like Moses he led us out of the land of slavery and into the land of freedom and perfection. This Jesus is our Messiah, our Christ, our Savior; he is the fulfillment of prophecy in this age and in the age to come. Amen.

Prophecies about His Birth - Sermon for Feb 1, 2009

THE PROPHCIES OF HIS BIRTH
ISAIAH 7:14
FEBRUARY 1, 2009

The other day a woman had eight babies at once. She was supposed to only have seven but apparently there was an eight one stowed away in there somewhere that the ultra sound didn’t pick up. Eight kids at once. And now it turns out that she had six kids before that to go from a family of two to a family of eight and the instantly to a family of fourteen is simply amazing. The birth of one child is drama enough. The coming birth of a child is something that people wait for with great anticipation. Even to the point of parents asking right after a couple gets married when they can expect to be getting grandchildren. And once conception has happened there are months of getting ready. Trying to figure out names and colors for the nursery. Trying to organize the baby shower, doctor visits and all kinds of tests. Some people even start making plans for future schools and setting up college fund accounts. The mother is given tons of attention and as the due date gets closer schedules of grandparents and friends are rearranged so that they can be a part of the whole big event. Then the day finally arrives and what ever else was going on, no matter how big, it all comes to a screeching halt as the mother is hauled into the delivery room and the birth takes place. After the event there is much celebrating and in the days or weeks that follow there is usually a big baby shower and friends and family pitch in to help in any way that they can as adjustments are made in the family. The anticipation of and the birth of a child are a big thing in our lives. But they are nothing compared to the anticipation of The birth. The birth of God among humanity. The anticipation for that birth was over the top and the events of that birth although in normal circumstances were astounding.

It all started at the beginning, where most things start. It begin with a promise, a promise of life. We have all heard that quote from someone I can’t remember that a baby is the promise that life goes on. Well this particular baby would be the promise of eternal life for everyone who would believe in him. Man had fallen on hard times. Hard times that were his own fault. Man had made a really bad decision to disobey God and as a result fell into sin, lost his property in the garden and got kicked out into the streets East of Eden. Everything was lost. The Garden property was the least of it. Man now had developed a terminal disease called sin. He was going to suffer for years and then die of it. The image of God, his righteousness that had been put into him at creation was gone, and without it he was going to die forever, there was no hope, nothing he could do it about.

And then God, his creator stepped in and said that he was going to send a child to save him. A child that through his suffering and death was going to give him a transplant. He was going to take out the sin of man and transplant his righteousness, the righteousness of God back into him. We hear unfortunately today of the possibility of babies being born for the purposes of providing organs for transplant. In other words babies full of spare parts. In a sense that is what this child of the promise of Genesis 3:15 was going to be born for as well. He was going to be the second Adam who would save us by dying for us and giving us his holiness and righteousness. This was a baby that was to be born for the purpose of dying so that we could once again be united with God. Through this Child man would once again be able to have that same relationship with God that the first Adam had in the garden before the fall. As I said this promise was given to our first parents in Genesis 3:15 when God said that he would send a Savior from the seed of the woman who would crush Satan’s head as Satan struck his heal. That promise would later be expanded upon and further explained.

In Isaiah 7:14 we get some more information on how this child would be born. Isaiah says, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Isaiah very clearly prophesies that the mother of this promised child will still be a virgin when she gives birth to him. And of course we see in the New Testament that Mary the mother of Jesus is a virgin when she gives birth to Jesus. In Matthew one we find, “An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins,” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel which means God with us.” We hear a somewhat expanded account in the gospel of Luke where we read, “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The Virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

The virgin birth of Jesus has been debated about for years, but Scripture is very clear that this is the way it was. Some people totally disregard the doctrine and say well why is it important anyway? But the fact is it is important for a number of reasons. One if she wasn’t a virgin then Jesus had a human father and therefore was not the Son of God. He was just a man. Without the virgin birth there is no Christ, there is no Savior. Secondly without the virgin birth Jesus is born in sin. Therefore he is not sinless and not God therefore he is totally useless as a Savior and even if he does die on the cross he dies for his own sins and not ours. So the virgin birth was of upmost importance. Jesus is yes born of a human mother and takes on her flesh, but he is also pure and sinless and is the Son of God. That is the only way that he can be our Savior. As a human he can identify with us and put himself under the law and die for us. As God he can live the perfect life and in his death defeat Satan, sin and death and rise from the dead declaring victory. So the fulfillment of this prophecy from Isaiah is very important and we see that Jesus does just that through Mary.

Another very specific prophecy about his birth is that he would be born in Bethlehem. We read in Micah 5, “But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, thought you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Then of course we read in Matthew 2, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “For this is what the prophet has written: “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.”

And of course we all know that story very well especially after having celebrated it just a few weeks ago. Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth but because of the census they had to go to the city of their lineage and register. Bethlehem was that city of David for them and so they loaded up and took off. Sometime during their stay there Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Son of God, thereby fulfilling this Old Testament promise. What is interesting about it that it was not Mary and Joseph that planned for it happen this way. They went to Bethlehem not for the purpose of fulfilling a prophecy but for the purpose of fulfilling a government responsibility. The Roman ruler made the fulfillment of this prophecy a reality. It is to say the least an interesting way for the King of the Universe to enter his universe. Not coming down in glory in the clouds, not in a royal palace, but in a small no account town, in humble surroundings with absolutely no fanfare except for that surrounding some peasant shepherds out in the fields.

The next prophecy actually takes back to the first one from Isaiah 7:14 where it says that he will be called Immanuel or God with us. There is more significance to that then first meets the eye. We look at it and we say well yeah God becoming one of us and living like us, yes he was God with us. But again there is more to it than just simply that. Remember why the Son of God came down in the first place. He came in response to the promise of Genesis 3:15. God and man had been united in the Garden, they were like this. That was the way that God had designed that relationship. But after the fall man and God were not only separated from one another, they were at war with one another. The purpose of Genesis 3:15 was the promise that one day man and God would be united again in a harmonious relationship. And that is exactly what this Jesus; the Son of God had come to do. Not only would be he be God with us for 33 years of his life here on earth, but his later death and resurrection would mean that God and us would forever be together again. Jesus is God with us even today.

There is also another major prophecy concerning Jesus birth. This is the one concerning the star out of Jacob. This actually comes from an oracle of Balaam who was commissioned by an enemy of Israel. Balak king of Moab wanted Balaam to pronounce curses upon the Israelite army, but instead Balaam finds himself time and again pronouncing blessings upon them. In Chapter 24 he prophecies this about Israel’s Savior, “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.” The prophecy finds immediate fulfillment in King David but is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In Matthew 2 we read, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod; Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” Then we read a little later, “After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” The result, a baby shower for the Savior of the world. Talk about some expensive gifts! Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh wow! Everything that a new family could want and more. Gifts that literally would set them up for what was coming next. This was also where the gentiles come into the picture. They, we are part of the promise as well. These gifts are symbols of our gratefulness to God.

These gifts as I said would help them out as the next prophecy around his birth came true. That would be the flight into Egypt. In Hosea eleven we read, “”When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” This is first of all referring the Exodus of the children of Israel from the country of Egypt during the time of Moses, but Matthew looks upon that exodus as a picture pointing forward to the picture of Jesus’ coming from Egypt. We read in Matthew 2, “So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Egypt reminds of the slavery to sin that we were born into. Just as Israel was captive to slavery during their time in Egypt so were we captive to sin which pervaded us through and through. And just as Moses leads the children of Israel out of that slavery and eventually into the Promised Land. Jesus leads us out of slavery to sin and death through the blood he shed for us on the cross. He leads us out of death’s grip, makes us his and eventually when we die leads us into the promised land of Heaven. All of these things added together present us an amazing picture of the prophecy and its fulfillment in the birth of Jesus Christ. This was not just a happenstance event, it didn’t just happen out of the blue. It was planned from the beginning and talked about from the beginning and talked about through the years leading up to it. The promise of the coming Messiah filled the Old Testament world with anticipation, they couldn’t wait, it was on their minds constantly. Then one day they saw it all fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. God had kept his promises to his people. He truly had come to save us from our sins and make us his forever. God is not slow in keeping his promises but he does do it in his own time and way.

And that leads us to the last major prophecy concerning the events surrounding his birth. That is the prophecy concerning the murder of the innocents. In Jeremiah 31 the prophet says, “This is what the Lord says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.” Then in Matthew 2 we read, “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled, “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” Now why would we include that in the prophecies about the birth? Well first of all because it is one of them, but also it points to some very important things. Most of the birth narrative is a very feel good story. It is shapes our view of the Christmas story that we celebrate and act out each year. But it was a narrative with a larger purpose than that. Yes everyone likes babies and the gifts of Christmas but the setting of this story is actually really messy. And I not just talking about being laid in a feeding trough for a bed either. No the reason that this child was born was very bloody. And here in the fulfillment of this Old Testament prophecy we see just how bloody and brutal it is going to get.

Lots of blood flowed that night of the massacre of the little children. A scene we don’t really even want to think about really. But it would point forward to another miscarriage of justice some thirty years later when another innocent person would be killed to satisfy the hatefulness of another group of leaders. Except that the blood that flow down from the cross would leave more than loss and death, but would also cleanse us from our sin. Why both deaths, the death of the children and the dead of Christ would be horrible, in the death of Christ you and I would find life everlasting. We would be reunited with God in a relationship similar to what we read about in the garden before the fall. Christ’s death reconnects us with God the Father and guarantees us a place in the real Garden of Eden, Heaven.

The prophecies concerning Jesus birth were fulfilled in the New Testament in Jesus Christ. He is the one that was promised back in Genesis 3:15. He is the Savior of mankind, and more importantly the Savior of you. But his birth was just the beginning of the cosmic adventure. Jesus would now spend the next 33 years fulfilling even more Old Testament prophecies as he lived his life. We will look at those next week. Amen.

The Day of the Lord - Sermon for January 25, 2009

THE DAY OF THE LORD
MATTHEW 24
JANUARY 25, 2009

Will Willimon tells this story. “Early in my ministry, I served a little church in rural Georgia. One Saturday we went to a funeral in a little church not of my denomination. I grew up in a big downtown church. I had never been to a funeral like this one. The casket was open, and the funeral consisted of a sermon by their pastor. The preacher pounded the pulpit and looked over at the casket. He said, “It’s too late for Joe. He might have wanted to get his life together. He might have wanted to spend more time with his family. He might have wanted to do that, but he’s dead now. It is too late for him, but it is not too late for you. Today is the day of decision. Then the preacher told how a Greyhound bus had run into a funeral procession once on the way to the cemetery, and that that could happen today. He said, “You should decide today. Today is the day to get your life together. Too late for old Joe, but it’s not too late for you.” I was so angry at that preacher. On the way home, I told my wife, “Have you ever seen anything as manipulative and insensitive to that poor family? I found it disgusting.” She said, “I’ve never heard anything like that. It was manipulative. It was disgusting. It was insensitive. Worst of all, it was also true.”

If you have hung around certain church denominations a little bit you have heard some sermons like that. Although I have to admit, I have never heard one like that at a funeral. But I have endured my fair share of ones like it on a typical Sunday visiting one of my friend’s churches growing up. I was Lutheran and he was fire and brimstone Pentecostal, talk about a cross-cultural experience. The preacher would get up and talk about how God as Judge knew exactly what was going on in our lives and that if we didn’t repent like right now, he might take us tonight, you know we wouldn’t see that car coming, or some other bad accident would occur, and it would be too late and we would spend eternity burning in hell. And then of course there would be an altar call where dozens of scared wide eyed people would head toward the altar seeking fire insurance. I was one of those people a couple of times. When you’re a teenage kid you always feel guilty and have plenty of sins to confess, especially when your Lutheran and then you add in the Pentecostal guilt factory, and there were a couple of times I just knew I wasn’t going to see that car coming or that something was going to happen to me later that night and God was going to mete out his punishment on me for all of eternity. I don’t know exactly how many times I prayed the sinner’s prayer during my later teen years, but I know it was more than a couple of times. And it was always based on the fear of hell; it had nothing to do with actual faith in Christ. And then of course the Lutherans always made me feel guilty telling me that good Lutherans don’t pray the sinner’s prayers. I couldn’t get a break.

But I very clearly remember the fear that the preacher put in me about the coming judgment, about that day. It was a day to be afraid of. I have watched through the years as certain portions of the Christian community have continued to spread that fear. Preachers on TV and on the Radio have spread it around the globe. Christian authors such as those who wrote the left behind series, have taught such a fearful convoluted heretical view of that day that most Americans think that is what the Bible actually teaches. The main result, fear. I have people in a pretty regular basis ask me questions about the last days and usually there is always some fear of it involved. So what about that day, that day of the Lord? Where did the teaching come from? And what is it all about? The Day of the Lord is an Old Testament prophecy that talks about the end of the world. It talks about its destruction and also the destruction of humanity, in particular God’s enemies. And throughout the Old Testament it is presented in very fearful terms. This is something that people needed to worry about. This was not going to be a pleasant event. And yet it was also a day of great prosperity for God’s people. So in most circumstances it is presented as a day that unbelievers need to be afraid of, they are going to get theirs. At the same time God’ people are not let off the hook either. If they do not repent they too will be punished. For instance in the book of Amos chapter 8 God says, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer. In that day, declares the Sovereign Lord, the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies – flung everywhere! Silence! Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat? The Lord has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: I will never forget anything they have done.” Then he proceeds to tell them all the horrible, terrible things he is going to do to them if they don’t repent. In Chapter five of Amos he says this about the day of the Lord, “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness not light. It will be as though as man fled from a lion only to meet a bear.” Or there is Isaiah 13:9, “See the day of the Lord is coming – a cruel day with wrath and fierce anger – to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.”

Pretty scary picture. Makes you want to come up and throw yourself across the altar and beg for mercy. Makes you wonder what is waiting for me after I leave here this morning. Maybe there is a bus with my name on it. But thankfully the day of the Lord is more than just a day of wrath and retribution. It is also a day of great promise. A day full of God’s glory, a day of full of God’s light. Zephaniah and Zechariah point out that God is preparing a sacrifice which will consecrate the people and remove their sin. There is a remedy for this wrath; there is a way to avoid God’s retribution. Zephaniah 1:7 we read, “Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near. The Lord has prepared a sacrifice; he has consecrated those he has invited.” And in Zechariah 13:1, “On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.” Wait a minute the Lord has prepared a sacrifice? He has invited people? There will be cleansing from sin and impurity? Does this mean there is hope? Yes not only is there hope there is a promise of a sure and certain hope. God is not going to hold back his wrath to punish sin mind you but there just might be a way to avoid being the one taking it on the backside. The day of the Lord will be a fearful day for many, but for others it will be a day of great joy and blessing. It will be a day that was promised back in Genesis 3:15 that would come from the seed of the woman.

In Luke 4:18-21 we see this Seed of the woman, Jesus talking about what he has come to do for people on that day of the Lord. He visits the synagogue and gets up to read publically from the scroll. He reads to them, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Whoa! Now that is a strong claim of authority and fulfillment. He is quoted directly from Isaiah 61 which talks about the work of the Seed of the woman, of the Messiah, the Savior of the world and he ends by saying standing before you, is the fulfillment of this prophecy, I’m it. The one and only, simply the best, better than all the rest. A bold claim, but true. Jesus has come on a saving mission to get people ready for the great day of the Lord. He is not here to bring it to its end yet as he says in John 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” And that is exactly what he would do.

After living the perfect life here on earth he would go to the cross for our sins and die in our place and as his blood flowed our sins were washed away forever. The wrath of God was carried out on Jesus on Good Friday. He suffered every pain we deserve to suffer. In the end he suffered our death for us. He was in the words of Zephaniah the sacrifice that God has prepared. He was in the words of Zechariah, that fountain that was opened to cleanse away our sin and impurity. He was the light in the midst of the darkness. The hope in the midst of despair. He was the answer to people’s fear of that coming day of the Lord. He was the good news in a world of bad news. That is why we call it the gospel. Deliverance had come. Which also meant that there was still something to be delivered from. The coming of the Messiah did not mean that the great day of the Lord was cancelled it just put it in a different light. But the day well it is still on its way.

In Matthew 24 and 2 Peter 3 we hear Jesus and Peter say things like this about it, first that it will come like a thief in the night, ‘Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house by broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” Or “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” Jesus and others also warn about wars, famines, and natural disasters that will lead up to it. “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.” Jesus also indicates that the gospel will be preached to the entire world, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Jesus also warns of much satanic evil, “So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” At that time the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect form the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” And again in the words of Peter, “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.”

Some very dire warnings there. But the warnings have more than just the purpose of scaring us or alarming us, although sometimes we need that, no they are there to point us back to Jesus and the fact that we need him in our lives to face all of this. That is because Jesus has already faced all of this for us. He has endured God’s wrath for us. He has endured God’s destruction for us. So all this scary stuff about the day of the Lord, we don’t need to be worried about. Yes it will happen on a perfectly normal ordinary day, yes he will come like a thief in the night, but through our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we are already prepared for that. And when he does come it will be not to punish us or make us suffer but to take us home to be with him forever in heaven. Jesus explains it this way in Luke 21, “Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” In other words while the unbelieving world is passing out in terror of what is happening as a believer you can without fear stand up and lift up your heads because its just the bus coming to take you home. There is nothing to be worried about if you have faith in Jesus Christ.

The day of the Lord is going to be a frightful day for those who do not believe in Jesus. But for those who do believe in Jesus it is going to be a glorious day full of wonder and excitement as we see heaven opened and Jesus returning in all his finery to take us to be with him. There is nothing to be worried about if we are prepared and the only way to be prepared is to have faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you have that you are ready to go. Let me end here with a story of another funeral which was totally unlike the funeral at the beginning. Tony Campolo tells this story about a funeral he went to when he was a kid. He says, “I went to my first black funeral when I was 16 years old. A friend of mine, Clarence, had died. The pastor was incredible. From the pulpit he talked about the resurrection in beautiful terms. He has us thrilled. He came down from the pulpit, went to the family, and comforted them from the fourteenth chapter of John. “Let not your heart be troubled,” he said, “You believe in God, believe also in me,’ said Jesus. Clarence has gone to heavenly mansions.” Then, for the last 20 minutes of the sermon, he actually preached to the open casket. Now, that’s drama! He yelled at the corpse: “Clarence! Clarence!” He said it with such authority. I would not have been surprised had there been an answer. He said, “Clarence, there were a lot of things we should have said to you that we never said to you. You got away too fast, Clarence. You got away too fast.” He went down this litany of beautiful things that Clarence had done for people. When he finished – here’s the dramatic part – he said, “That’s it, Clarence. There’s nothing more to say. When there’s nothing more to say, there’s only one thing to say. Good night. Good night, Clarence!” He grabbed the lid of the casket and slammed it shut. “Good night, Clarence!” Boom! Shock waves went through the congregation. As the preacher then lifted his head, you could see there was a smile on his face. He said, “Good night, Clarence. Good night, Clarence, because I know, I know that God is going to give you a good morning!” The choir stood and starting singing, “On that great morning, we shall rise, we shall rise.” We were dancing in the aisles and hugging each other. I know the joy of the Lord, a joy that in the face of death laughs and sings and dances, for there is no sting to death, on That Day!” Amen.

Faith forming politics or politics forming faith?

First of all let me say that I did not vote for Obama for President in November. Secondly let me say that I fully support him as our president, I hope that he is successful and I pray for him daily. I also know that some people nodded their heads in agreement with my first statement and then lost all faith in me when they read the second. I also know that some people shook their head in disapproval when they read the first statement and are thinking I had a conversion when they read the second statement. Thankfully I really couldn't care less how anybody feels about my politics and also refuse to conform to any norms that people might expect of me. There is no Christian or non-Christian party. No party has a monopoly on faith or on morality, or on compassion.
Faith is certainly not divorced from politics. When people say that it should be they exhibit a complete ignorance of American history and attempt to put God and Christians in a box. As Lutherans we do teach a separation of Church and State, but not a separation of our faith and how we vote and act in the public square. Although churches and church leaders should not endorse political candidates, faith should help form our political thoughts and ideas and it should influence how we vote and who we vote for. As Christians we need to look at the moral issues of our day and vote the way our faith, informed by Scripture, leads us to. We should also examine candidates and their stand on major issues and using God's Word sort out who best represents God's will. In doing so we also must realize that there is much room for disagreement even among Christians concerning many of these things. Just because person A votes for this guy and person B votes for the other guy does not mean that one of them is not a Christian or didn't vote their conscience. We as Christians are called to use our faith in making political decisions.

The problem I have noticed lately though is that this has been completely turned around. Far too many Christians are letting their politics form their faith. Many people spend more time listening to talk radio than they do reading or listening to their Bibles. I do not know anything about the faith of those in talk radio but I do know they are not the conveyors of Scriptural truth. It has been disheartening to me to listen to and read about Christians making racist statements about Hispanics because of illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is something that needs to be addressed because, well, its illegal. I think we can all agree on that. But it is unchristian to be racist, plain and simple, there is just no excuse for it. I have heard Christians say that they will not pray for President Obama because they don't like him or maybe his policies. Again everyone has the right to vote for who they want to, and to write letters, protest and do other legal things to make their thoughts known. But to not pray for the president of the United States is unscriptural. God commands us to pray for our rulers, and it has nothing to do with whether we like them or agree with them.

It is time for Christians to turn off the radio and pick up their Bibles and start reading what God actually says about these issues. Many of them will be surprised at what they find and realize that they need to repent. God calls for us to take a strong stand for our faith and for moral issues. He calls for us to be a light to the world and that involves standing for the truth but also doing it with compassion and love. If not done with compassion and love than the truth is just mean useless dogma, and as we read, especially in the Old Testament, God is not pleased with it. As I said at the beginning I did not vote for President Obama in November and I do not regret that, I think I did the right thing. I probably will not vote for him in 2012 either, but right now he is the duly elected President of the United States and therefore I pray for him, that he will be safe, that God will fill him with wisdom and lead him to make the right decisions. I wish him well and support him because that is the Scriptural thing to do.

Pastor Fred

The Eternal Dynasty Sermon from Jan 18, 2009

THE ETERNAL DYNASTY
2 SAMUEL 7:11-16
JANUARY 18, 2009

Craig Brian Larson writes, “Since 2004 Time magazine has each year recognized 100 people as the most influential in the world. As heady a thing as it would be to find your name on such a list, the recognition also highlights the fragility of life and power in this world. In May 2008 Time recognized journalist Tim Russert as one of the 100 most influential people for the power he wielded over politics on the program Meet the Press. In June of 2008 the respected and beloved Russert suffered a heart attack at age 58 and died. Also named among the most powerful in the world were the three candidates still in the race for president: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain. One month later, Hillary Clinton ended her campaign, and before the year was out McCain had lost the election. Follow the others on the top 100 list and you can depend on it: their influence will pass, some in fading glory like the leaves of autumn, others overnight like a towering tree felled by a lumberjack. Even for the most tenacious, life and power are brief.” No one lasts in power forever. No type of government last forever. Just think of the changes that have happened in your own lifetime. Even the things and monuments we think are forever are not. Even the pyramids of Egypt which are thousands of years old are slowly being eaten away and if not constantly preserved will eventually disappear. When we think of ourselves it can be even scarier. In a hundred years no one is probably even going to remember us or anything that we did. In the words of Scripture we are but a breath.

Yet in the midst of this transitory world there are some eternal things. And there was one person in Scripture that was told that his kingdom would last forever. That his throne would be part of an eternal dynasty. That would be King David. In 2 Samuel chapter seven we see Nathan telling David what God has revealed to him. He says, “The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will rise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.”

God is telling David that the throne that he occupies will always be occupied by one of his descendants. That is quite a promise when you think about it. What if for instance you had started a family business and you wanted to pass it down to your children but you were always nervous about whether it was going to make it or not and God told you that not only would your business survive but that generation after generation of your descendants would inherit this the business and build it up, that at some point in the future it would become the world’s largest business. How would that make you feel? Well that is exactly what David is being told here. Except he is being told that it is going to be eternal. What we see here in this promise, remembering that the Seed of the woman also goes through David, is that the promise of the Seed from the first week and the promise of the eternal kingdom are tied together. In fact there is an eternal kingdom for David because the eternal king is going to come from his seed. Not only will kings come from his loins but so will the ultimate king, the Messiah, the Savior of the World.

In Psalm 89 we have a prayer that mourns the downfall of the Davidic dynasty and yet pleads for its renewal. And so there is a reminder that thought there will be bad kings and there will be punishments meted out to them that the promise of the eternal kingdom will endure. The individual kings will be punished but the covenant will not be torn up. We read, “If his sons forsake my law and do not follow my statues, if they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands, I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging; but I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered. Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness – and I will not lie to David – that his line will continue forever and his throne will endure before me like the sun; it will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky.” Again this is an everlasting kingdom, no matter what happens to it through the years, it will endure forever.

In Psalm 110 David talks about his kingdom and how strong and victorious it is and will be. “The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” The Lord is at your right hand; he will crush kings on the day of his wrath. He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing rulers of the whole earth.” This will not only be an enduring kingship but a victorious triumph one.

This is again promised along with some very specific prophecies about the coming the king, the Messiah who will be the ultimate fulfillment of this promise in Isaiah 9:6-7, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” This Messiah will reign forever; he will be the eternal king. So these are some very interesting promises and prophecies we see running throughout the Old Testament. I say throughout because I just gave a small sampling of the many references we could go and on about this morning. This is a huge theme in the Old Testament. But what we are really concerned about this morning is how that is fulfilled in the New Testament. And more importantly, who fulfills it.

The Jews were definitely looking for this king. They were in fact living in great expectation of him. Unfortunately they were thinking too small. They were looking for a king that would simply deliver them from their Roman occupiers. But the King that Scripture was talking about was going to deliver them from much more than that. He was going to deliver them from Satan, sin and death and give them eternal life in an eternal kingdom. And before we get too judgmental on them for that, we many times do the same thing. We focus on immediate deliverance from the problems right in front of us. Especially the ones that threaten to immediately overwhelm us. Whether it is a relationship problem or a financial one or a health one or a tax one or you name it. All these real problems that we deal with in real life. And God is not unaware of or unconcerned about those things either. He cares about everything that goes on in our lives. But he also has a much bigger plan and has much bigger things to deliver us from than just those things. He will get us through that stuff, but he also has much bigger fish to fry. The Israelites were always worried, like us, about what was around the next corner. That, like with us, sometimes became so much of their focus that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. If you read through the Old Testament you see that God let them go through suffering but he always rescued them in the end or got them through it. He didn’t forsake them and he won’t forsake us today either. He will get you through that stuff but in the process he doesn’t want you to get so focused on it that you lose sight of the big picture. The big picture which contains your real problems, sin and death and that fact that he is going to deliver you from them. Sin and death make the rest of our problems look small in comparison.

Jesus stresses this fact by beginning preaching in Mark 1:15, “The time has come, the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” In other words the physical kingship of David is not here to physically continue, no we are beyond that. This is the kingdom of God baby! This is the eternal kingdom; this is the real eternal of the eternal kingdom. It is time to turn your hearts to God, this is good news. This is time to look beyond your immediate circumstances and see that you are included in God’s eternal kingdom and the king has arrived. He makes this very clear in Matthew 12:28 where he says about himself, “But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” He said this after the teachers of the law questioned by what authority he was casting out demons, admitting that he did it by the way but asking how. Jesus says well either it is by the power of the devil, but then why would the devil be casting out his own people, so it must be by the power of the God’s Spirit. And if that is the case, which it obviously is, then guess what the kingdom talked about in 2 Samuel, the kingdom talked about in Psalm 89, Psalm 110. The kingdom prophecies in all the prophecies throughout the Old Testament, well guess what guys he’s here, I’m the man!

He points this out directly to the Pharisees in Matthew 22 when he applies the words of Psalm 110 directly to himself, “While the Pharisees were gathered together Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” “The Son of David,” They replied. He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord? For he says, “The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” Then David calls him Lord, how can he be his son? No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.” What Jesus is saying that is that He is more than just a descendant of David but that he is also superior to David, that he is David’s Lord as well. We also see numerous other fulfillments as well. Matthew 8:16-17 records this about Jesus, “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.” Jesus is king over all things even disease and sickness. In fact as the eternal king he is head of everything, Colossians 2:15, “and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” And Philippians 2:9, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave them the name that is above every name.”

Jesus is the king that God talks about the in Old Testament. He is the King that first of all comes and suffers for his people. That is why the prophet Isaiah talks about his suffering on the cross and his death and resurrection. This is not just a king that puts on a crown and grabs a comfortable seat on a throne. This is king that becomes one with his people, lives like them, suffers normal everyday suffering with them, and goes through what they go through, what we go through. And then even though he is innocent he declared guilty of all of man’s sin and is put on a cross to die a slow painful death in our place. In doing so he pays for all of our sins and wins us forgiveness. And then in the end rises victoriously from the grave declaring that Satan, sin and death have been defeated. This is a warrior king like his forefather David, except where David defeated earthly enemies Jesus defeats the bigger spiritual ones. And he is a king who reigns on high, whose name is above every other name.
In two days we are going to inaugurate a new President in this country, a new leader. A leader who is normally thought of as the leader of the free world. He will be the leader for at least 4 years, but that the most 8 years. And then he will become just another former president like all the others before him. His hold on power you could say will be brief. In contrast Jesus leadership will never end. He is clearly the ultimate eternal king that is talked about throughout the Old Testament. A king that is yes concerned about your everyday problems and needs. A king who has promised not necessary to remove you from them, but to get you through them. But more importantly a king who has promised you eternal deliverance and eternal things. Deliverance from Satan, sin and death. And the promise of his continual forgiveness and salvation. A king who has promised you a place in his eternal kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. To echo the words of Jesus the Kingdom is near, in fact the kingdom is here in our faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Raising Charlie

I love both of my kids the same, but there is something unique about a father-daughter or a father-son relationship. As I dropped my close to four year old son off at school today I realized how blessed I am to have him. He insisted on me taking him to school. Usually mom takes him but since I was home he wanted me to do it and wouldn't take no for an answer. So I got him dressed and made sure he brushed his teeth and had his backpack and out the door we went. We keep the car seats in the van so that is the vehicle that the kids always ride in. Very rarely is there a car seat in my car, but apparently when there is it is a special treat. Charlie saw my car and wanted to ride in it instead of the van, I couldn't figure out why but remembered the pure joy he exhibited the last time he rode in my car, but we didn't have time for a car seat change so he had to settle for the van today.
His desire to ride in my car brought back an old memory from my own childhood when I was maybe just a little older than he is now. My dad had an old pickup that I always loved to ride in. It was different from the family car so it was special when you got to go someplace in it. Now for years I always thought it was the truck itself, but now I am not so sure that was it. I remember soon after getting Charlie thinking about getting an old truck because of that memory, but the money was never really there and it just wasn't a reasonable thing to do. I wanted the truck because I wanted Charlie to have that same wonderment that I had. But after today I don't think it was so much the truck itself as it was that it was my dad's truck. It was his truck, only he drove it. To ride in the truck meant to be alone with dad in his terrain. I say that because Charlie seems to have that same fascination with my simple every day car. He gets a real kick riding in it with me, especially when it is just him and I. Maybe the kid just likes being with his dad in something that is dad's domain.
I thought about that as I was pulling into the school parking lot and I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that smile. We weren't in the car but it was just me and him taking a ride. And that seemed to bring him great joy. In that smile I could see my smile from forty years ago. I have to go pick him up from school in a couple of hours, so I think I am going to go out and move one of those car seats into the back of my car and create some memories.

Pastor Fred

A Blessing To The World - Sermon from Jan 11, 2009

Christopher Wright in an article in Christianity Today entitled, "An Upside-Down World," writes, "The map of global Christianity that our grandparents knew has been turned upside down. At the start of the 20th century, only ten percent of the world's Christians lived in continents of the south and east. Ninety percent lived in North America and Europe, along with Australia and New Zealand. But at the start of the 21st century, at least 70 percent of the world's Christians live in the non-Western world - more appropriately called the majority world. More Christians worship in Anglican churches in Nigeria each week than in all the Episcopal and Anglican churches of Britain, Europe, and North America combined. There are more Baptists in Congo then in Britain. More people in church every Sunday in Communist China than in all of Western Europe. Ten times more Assemblies of God members in Latin-America than in the U.S." And I would add that there are many more Lutherans in Africa then there are in the United States now, also Latin America. The promise given to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 and 22 has been fulfilled in ways that no one could have expected. Who would have ever thought that the center of Lutheranism would end up being Africa instead of Germany or Scandinavia or America? But that is what has happened. Who would have thought that there would end up being more Chinese Christians than European ones? But that is what has happened. Who would have thought that Africa would start sending Christian missionaries to America to bring the gospel to people who at one time were the dominate force in Christianity? But that is what is happening. Abraham would have bowed down in worship if he had seen this for himself. God has been true to his Word.

Abraham, a blessing to the world is today's theme. You could almost say that this is a sermon about the history of missions in the church. In Genesis 12:3 we hear God say to Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse: and all people's on earth will be blessed through you." God here is singling out Abraham to start a line of people that will be his people, his nation. These would end up being the Israelites or as a smaller group of them would later be called, the Jews. But here he points out that, that is just an intermediate step that in the end all peoples on the face of the planet will be blessed through him. Later in Genesis 22 God reissues this promise. The plan was that the Nation of Israel would draw other people around them to God. When people saw how the Israelites were blessed they would desire to have what they had. We see this start to happen in the book of Exodus. We see that some of the people listen to Moses' warnings about the plagues and take actions to protect themselves. In Exodus 12 we see that when the Israelites finally do leave Egypt that a number of the Egyptians go with them. They had come to the realization that this God was the one true God, they had become believers.

We see this promise continue to be talked about throughout the Old Testament. We also see many Gentiles brought into the Israelite nation. Gentiles like Rahab the Canaanite prostitute in Jericho and Ruth the Moabitess. We see God continues to send out his Word promising salvation for the Gentiles. In Isaiah 49 he says, "I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth." In Isaiah 52 we see that the Messiah suffers for all men's sins. It reads, "So will he sprinkle many nations." This is alluding to the high priest sprinkling the blood on the mercy seat in Leviticus 16:14. The servant doing the sprinkling of his own blood is of course Jesus Christ. The sprinkling brings forgiveness of sins and redemption. And it is for all people, for all nations.

Unfortunately God's people are not so generous at times. Sometimes we tend to want to limit God's promises to people like us. For instance in the book of Jonah, Jonah is ordered to go and witness to the gentiles in Nineveh, but he does everything he can to avoid it. Eventually he ends up going and is very angry when they do repent and God forgives them. He does not think they deserve to be forgiven. But that is what God does because he desires that all men be saved.

This line of promises about the gentiles continues throughout the Old Testament. The prophets Jeremiah, Zechariah and Malachi also look forward to the time when all the gentiles surround the throne and worship hm as Lord and king. The most remarkable thing we see about this is that God always seems to use humans to do his work in this area. He usually doesn't just bring people to faith he generally works through other people to do this. We really see this in the New Testament. In Matthew and Luke all Christians are given the directive to out and baptize and teach all nations about Jesus Christ. And we see this happen for instance in Acts 8 where the Ethiopian eunuch is brought to faith through Philip explaining Isaiah to him. In Acts 10 we see Cornelius, a gentile and centurion in the Roman Army brought to faith through the ministry of Peter. All of this by the way resulted in much consternation in the church at first. They did not like the idea of the gentiles coming into the church. They were unclean and didn't follow the traditional customs. But in Acts 12 we see Paul saying that he and Barnabus will bring the message of salvation to the gentiles. In Galatians 3 Scripture talks about the gentiles being justified by faith in Christ alone. In Ephesians it talks about how the gentiles and the Jews are united in one church. Finally in the book of Revelation we see the multitude praising the Lamb and counting him worthy to open the book. This multitude is from every tribe, tongue, people and nation.

The book of Revelation is book that looks into the future which means we are also part of the process of getting this blessing out to others. You could say that this is a promise that is not completely fulfilled yet and that we have a part in filling it. We are included in that directive of Matthew 28 to go out into all the world and baptize and teach about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The history of missions is impressive to say the least. Through the past two thousand years Christians have risked life and limb and even died doing missionary work in the hardest of circumstances. Yet there is much work yet to do.

At the same time we have many Jonah moments when it comes to missions. Most of those Jonah moments have to do with local missions in our own backyard. There are certain people that some do not want in their churches. In one of my previous ministries I was at a function where an elder in another Lutheran church, which was in the inner city, told me that some people in his church wanted to call an African American pastor because most of the community was African American, but he said he was against that, after all the good African Americans went to the Baptist church and we didn't want the other kind. When I started doing developmentally disabled ministry I found that 80 percent of that population had no church, not because they didn't want to go but churches didn't want them because they made too much noise and sometimes messed up the carpets. So much like Jonah we don't care if someone burns in hell as long as we have good people like us in the church and our carpets are clean. When God told Abraham that through him all peoples would be blessed he meant just exactly that, all peoples, even Ninevehites.

The fulfillment of this promise though has been nothing short of amazing to watch, whether it has been following it through the Old Testament and into the New or whether it has been looking at the history of missions in the couple of thousand years that have followed it. God has succeeded in keeping his promise and he did it through us, humans. Whether it was the Israelites witnessing and demonstrating their faith, or the Apostles spreading the Word or modern missionaries covering the planet. God has kept his promise. Through the Seed of Abraham we have the Messiah dying on the cross for us and rising from the dead, paying for our sins and redeeming us and also through the blessing given to Abraham we have the message shared with everyone, no matter their tribe or language. We as Gentiles have been the recipients of that blessing. The early church did not want our kind in their church with our non-Jewish ways and unclean habits, but God through his Word brought us in any way. And thank God for that. Thank God that the Lamb of God sprinkled his blood on the altar for the healing of all nations, because that means we are the forgiven and saved people of God. And it also means that now we have the joy of sharing that with all the others that Christ died for as well. Amen.

The Seed - Sermon on January 4th, 2009

People pass down a lot of things to their children. They pass on their appearance, their attitudes, their property, their businesses, their money among other things. That is why some businesses have been in the family for years, why people in certain professions also have had dads, granddads and even great-granddads in the same profession. Scripture is also full of things being handed down through the generations, things being given to their seeds. Land in the OT was one big thing that was handed down. The biggest thing that was handed down though was the Promised Seed. I am not talking about plant seeds here but human seed, offspring would be another way to put it. What we are talking about here though is not just any offspring but the one offspring that had been promised clear back in the Garden of Eden. Immediately after the fall God pronounced judgment on Satan. That judgment would include the seed of the woman crushing Satan's head and Satan's offspring striking his heel. God does not reveal who that seed is at the time, just that he will come from the woman. We of course know that Seed as our Savior Jesus Christ.

What we have here is the greatest promise ever given to mankind bar none. Man had just lost everything and had been kicked out of the Garden of Eden and was told that now he would die. The ground was cursed because of him and he was forced to work it. Nothing would ever be right again. Because of that sin we now have death and disease, conflict you name it. But in the midst of it all God made a promise that one day paradise would be restored. The people were to look for the Seed of the woman which would bring it all to pass.

Well Eve did not have that promised man herself instead generations of people came and went and time passed on, but God had not forgot. The next major time we hear of the promise is in Genesis 17 and 22 where God promises Abraham that he will be the Father of many nations and that all people on earth will be blessed through him. The seed was going to pass through Abraham. Then in Genesis 49 we hear Jacob blessing his children and when he comes to Judah he tells him that the scepter will not pass from him until the one to whom it belongs comes. This messianic prophecy was fulfilled in two ways. David fulfilled it in the short run as the first king of Israel who was after God's heart. Ultimately though it would be fulfilled again in Jesus.

The next big mention is in 2 Samuel chapter seven where David is promised by God through the prophet Nathan that his throne will be established forever. The final inheritor of that throne is of course Jesus who came from the line of David.

Paul takes up the prophecy of the Seed in Galatians 3:16 where he says, "The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say, "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ." This was the Seed that Adam and Eve had been promised. Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of that promise. He was the one who would crush Satan's head by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead.

In conclusion, the promise that was given to Adam and Eve that their seed would crush Satan's head was fulfilled at Christmas when Jesus was born to Mary. Eve would not have the promised seed, instead her descendant Mary would literally thousands of years later. It is the most important promise ever fulfilled in all of Scripture. People pass down a lot of things to their descendants. Adam and Eve passed down sin and death to us. But thankfully God in his mercy had his Son Jesus Christ, the promised Seed, passed down to us. Through his life and death and resurrection he brought forgiveness for those sins and he brought us back to life with him. That is truly something worth inheriting. May it be yours in Jesus Christ. Amen.

If you missed the sermon

If you missed the sermon there will be a cliff notes version of it on this blog the next week. I am not going to put my whole sermon on because it is just too long. But if you want just the main points then this will be the place to come to. Those of you out there in churches that follow the church year, well I don't. At least not much of the time I should say. Right now we are doing a series on Old Testament prophecies and how they were fulfilled in the New Testament.
For those of you interested in Bible study, this coming Sunday we are starting a new Bible study on the book of Daniel in the Adult Sunday School class which is at 9:30 a.m. in room 9. This is an important book in the Old Testament and is also important for understanding the book of Revelation in the New Testament. So come and join us.

Pastor Fred