March 27, 2011
Dear friends in Christ.
Dr. J.B. Gambrel tells an amusing story from General Stonewall Jackson's famous valley campaign. Jackson's army found itself on one side of a river when it needed to be on the other side. After telling his engineers to plan and build a bridge so the army could cross, he called his wagon master in to tell him that it was urgent the wagon train cross the river as soon as possible. The wagon master started gathering all the logs, rocks and fence rails he could find and built a bridge. Long before day light General Jackson was told by his wagon master all the wagons and artillery had crossed the river. General Jackson asked where are the engineers and what are they doing? The wagon master's only reply was that they were in their tent drawing up plans for a bridge. Though it is true that the engineers got right to the work of planning for the bridge, as a man of action the wagon master accomplished the job as quickly as he possibly could. Well when Jesus was on the earth, he too, was a man of action. As it was, Jesus always made the most of every opportunity to preach the Word of God. He was always traveling from town to town and village to village so that he could proclaim the message of the kingdom of heaven to as many people as possible in his three short years. He was always ready with a word of comfort. He was always ready to heal the sick. He was a man of action who revealed his authority as the Savior in everything he said and did. In fact, this is the very thing that we will discover as we take a look at the lesson before us from John 2:12-22.
Now, if you haven’t done so already, I invite you to open your Bibles to our lesson for today, from John 2:12-22 and we’ll see how Jesus took action in this lesson. Now, as you are turning to John 2, let me give you a little bit of background. It was early in Jesus’ ministry. He had recently gone head to head with satan in the wilderness. He had traveled up to the wedding in Cana, where he performed his first miracle and his disciples put their faith in him. Now, Jesus had traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover feast, as John tells us, beginning with verse 12: “When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, ‘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.’”(John 2:12-17, NIV 84)
Now, imagine with me for a moment what it would have been like if you found a livestock sale going on when you arrived at Church this morning. Even though you might have been expecting to take your regular parking spot, you would have found yourselves parking quite a ways away because of all the other vehicles. After you parked and came closer you would have seen the pens and corrals set up on every side of the church to hold and display the animals that were going to be auctioned off. You would have encountered crowds of people milling around trying to get a good look at the cattle, and the auctioneer practicing his trade. Then, once you finally forced your way in, you wouldn’t have found any room to hang your coat because of all the people in the entryway taking care of all the money that was changing hands. Though you had come for worship, by the time you finally made it into the sanctuary, worship would be the last thing on your mind. Though you would normally be able to sit down and concentrate on the service, even with all the doors and windows closed, you’d still be continuously distracted by all of the racket outside.
This is what Jesus found when he came to the temple on this day! Gathered in the outer court of the temple, the court of the Gentiles, were all sorts of merchants selling all sorts of different animals. There were cows and bulls, sheep and goats, pigeons and doves all crowded together and doubtless making one huge racket. But on top of that, it wasn’t that these merchants were doing business right outside the temple, rather, they had all their livestock in the outer courts of the temple complex. The gentiles who had come to the temple to worship would have found that their worship space was completely taken up by all the animals and the merchants. The Jews who were going in to worship would have had to pass by this confusion on their way to the inner court, and even though they would be separated from the noise by a wall they would still be disturbed by all the commotion on the other side. That is why Jesus took the action he did, take a look again at verse 15: “[Jesus] made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!’” (John 2:15-16, NIV 84).
Now, there are some that say that in doing this, Jesus sinned. There are some that say that Jesus was wrong for what he did. But let me ask you, how would you react if you came to church this morning and there were a livestock sale going on right outside these walls? Would you have come in, sat down and try to ignore it? Would you have come in, sat down, and complained about it? Or would you have done everything you could to drive them away before you even came into church today? Well if it were me, I would have done everything I could to get rid of them before I even came into church. I would yell and scream and holler until I had finally gotten rid of them all. But would I be wrong? Absolutely not! For this place is a place of worship. It is a place of prayer and meditation. It is not a place for the buying and selling of cattle. The same was true in Jesus’ day. He didn’t sin in driving people out of the temple; rather, he was returning the temple to the purpose God had intended it for. In fact, when Jesus cleared the temple, there wasn’t anyone who said he had done wrong. Everyone who was present knew that Jesus had done what was right. Even the Jews who opposed Jesus never once said that he shouldn’t have done this. Rather, they came to him asking for a sign to prove that he had the authority to do this. They knew that Jesus had done what was right, however, they wanted to justify themselves. They wanted to put themselves back on top and expose Jesus as a false prophet, that is why John tells us in verse 18: “Then the Jews demanded of him, ‘What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’” (John 2:18)
That’s how it was when Jesus took action to cleanse the temple, the Jewish leaders refused to believe him even though he had already demonstrated his authority to do such a thing by all that he said and did. For when the dust finally settled and the Jews came running to Jesus demanding that he perform a sign to prove his authority, what they saw should have stopped them in their tracks. For there, standing before them was not some ordinary man, but the righteous Son of God. There, standing before them was the man who had just forced them to remove their merchandise from his Father’s house. There, before them, was the Son of God standing in the outer courts of his own temple, and the Jews still had the gall to demand that he prove his authority to do what he had just done.
Can you imagine the look of righteous indignation that must have crossed Jesus’ face? Can you imagine Jesus turning to look at them and spreading his arms out as if to say, “Look around! Here is your sign!” For the truth is, the simple fact that Jesus, the Son of God, was standing in his own temple was demonstration enough to show he had the authority to do this. But if that were not enough for those Jews, by his actions, Jesus powerfully brought to fulfillment two different prophecies form the Scriptures. The one, which the disciples remembered, was spoken by the Psalmist David who said in Psalm 69, “I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons; for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.” (Psalm 69:8-9). The other was recorded by the Prophet Malachi, who wrote: “‘See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the LORD Almighty.” (Malachi 3:1)
But this wasn’t enough for the religious leadership! They wanted to see a miraculous sign done by Jesus in which he would thus prove his authority to them. However, because he knew the unbelief in their hearts, Jesus gave them a sign they would have to wait for. He said in verse 19: “‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple he had spoken of was his body.” (John 2:19-21)
When Jesus gave this sign to the Jews, they did not understand what he was talking about. Because of their unbelief, and their absolute refusal to believe that Jesus was the Messiah who came into the world, they missed out on the salvation the Lord had planned for them. But even though the Jews didn’t understand what Jesus was saying, we do, and it is through these words that Jesus brings us comfort and assurance as his believers. For just as Jesus’ disciples recalled these words and believed after Jesus was raised from the dead, we also believe. Even though we never witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion, his death or even his resurrection, we believe from the Scriptures that these things did indeed take place. Even though we have never seen Jesus our Savior in the way the disciples did, we believe that he came to earth as the Son of God just as the Bible tells us he did. Even though we have never heard Jesus speak, we have his words before us today, and these are the words that assure us that we too have the forgiveness of sins. For with these words that Jesus spoke, he was indicating already the kind of death he was going to die. He was, in effect, telling the Jews that when they destroyed his body by nailing it to the cross, three days later he would take back his life. Three days later he would rise from the dead as the Savior of the world.
This is the action Jesus preformed, which gives us comfort and assurance as believers. For we know the sins we have committed. We know how we have failed the Lord. We know how we have allowed ourselves to be distracted form God’s Word on a regular basis. We all know how easily we can convince ourselves that we are too busy or too tired to come to church. We know how easy it is to pick up the Bible and start reading one day, and then leave it unread for the next two or three weeks. We know how easy it is to start the day intent on following the Lord’s will and living in a way that is pleasing to him, but at the end of the day we can’t even count how many different ways we failed him. This is why Jesus’ actions today are so assuring to us. For through his actions of clearing out the temple and demonstrating his authority to the Jews, we are assured that Jesus is the one who has done everything right. We are assured that Jesus is the one who fulfilled all of God’s law. We are assured that when Jesus went to the cross to die and rise again, he took away our sins. This is our comfort and assurance as believers that Jesus through his actions has freed us from our sins and given us his salvation.
What a comfort to know that Jesus was a man of action. He was always moving, always preaching, always proclaiming, always comforting. Jesus was always ready to act in whatever way was necessary to bring the Word of God to his people so that they might come to faith in him as their Savior. Though his actions weren’t always popular among the religious leaders, Jesus did what needed to be done to call sinners to repentance. He was a man of action who demonstrated his authority as the Son of God, our Savior, as he cleared the Temple on that day before the Passover.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church -Le Sueur, MN
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
We Are Saved by God's Grace! (Ephesians 2:4-10)
March 20, 2011
Dear friends in Christ.
If I were to ask you the question, “What is the most beautiful portion of the Scriptures?” What would your answer be? Would your answer be a simple, “Job 19:23-27” where Job confesses his knowledge that his redeemer is living and that one day Job himself will see him standing upon the earth. Would your answer be, “Psalm 23” or, “Psalm 46” where the Psalmists speak of the Lord as our Shepherd and the Lord as our Fortress? Would your answer be, “Isaiah 53” Where Isaiah prophecies about the coming Christ? Would your answer be, “Luke 2” where Luke speaks about all the events surrounding Jesus birth? Or would your answer be, “Ephesians 2:8-9” because there is such great comfort in knowing that our salvation comes by God’s grace and it is not based on anything that we have done! Well, if you’re like most people, these words from Ephesians 2:8-9 are very familiar to you. Even if they are not your favorite section of Scripture, they are words that we have learned since we were little children. They are words that we learned over and over in Sunday school, Confirmation class, and they are words that regularly come up in Bible Study. In fact, these very words that Paul includes in our text, are words that assure us beyond that shadow of a doubt that we have been saved, not by anything we have done! Rather, we have been saved by God’s great love for us. We have been saved by God’s grace!
We have been saved by God’s grace! Now if you really sit down to think about it, that is a very powerful statement! That is a very powerful statement, because by telling us that we have been saved by God’s Grace, the Apostle Paul is assuring us that our salvation did not come by anything we had done! Rather, it was motivated out of God’s great love for us, as he tells us in verses 4 and 5 of our text. Paul writes, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4-5)
Even though we didn’t deserve it, our God saved us by his grace. Even though we were at one time dead in our transgressions and sins, our God made us alive in Jesus Christ, our Savior. Even though we were nothing but his enemies who wanted nothing to do with him, our God loved us so much that he willingly sent his son to be our Savior. Even though we were once nothing more than a lifeless corpse lying on a mortician’s table, unable to do anything for us because we were thoroughly and completely dead, the Lord God loved us and cared for us. The Lord God in his mercy treated us in a way that we did not deserve. The Lord our God looked upon us poor, reached, dead, damned and detestable sinners, and he showered us with his grace when he sent his Son to make us alive. Though we were dead in our trespasses and sins and couldn’t reach out to our God, couldn’t turn to him, cry out to him for help, or even turn our eyes toward him because we were powerless, in his great grace, the Lord Jesus came to us and made us alive in him by creating faith in our hearts. Through his great grace, the Lord Jesus, our Savior, breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, and through faith in him we became his living children!
But that isn’t the end of the story! For Jesus didn’t simply make us alive in himself and then leave us trapped in the tomb of our own sinfulness! Rather, in his great grace, the Lord our God raised us up with Christ, as Paul tells us, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:6-7)
What an incredible picture Paul is painting for us! For here, with these very words, Paul is assuring us that in the very same way that Jesus was raised from the dead through the glory of God the Father, we too have been raised from the death of our sins to life in Christ Jesus our Savior. In the same way that Jesus escaped the prison of the tomb that sought to keep him in, so also Jesus released us from the tomb of our sins when he raised us up with him through his grace. In the same way that the angel rolled the stone away so that all the world would see that Jesus was no longer dead, but risen, so also the Lord has rolled the stone of our transgressions away from the tomb of our iniquities so that all the world might see that by his grace, we have been raised from the death of our sins to life with Christ!
Now, just as Jesus has been seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly realms, our God has seated us there with him! Not that we are actually and physically sitting with our God in heaven or that our faith has projected us to that place as if we were holograms, rather this is simply another assurance for us as forgiven children of God’s grace, that because we have been raised with Christ, heaven is our home. Because we have been raised with Christ, heaven is the place where we will spend eternity. In fact, we can go so far as to say that we have crossed over from death to life because of God’s grace! Though here on earth we will always be plagued with sin and tempted to do evil, because we have been saved by God’s grace, we have already been declared not guilty. We have already been declared citizens of heaven, and we are simply waiting until the day when the Lord Jesus himself will open the door of death so that at his invitation, we can step from this life into our eternal life with him!
What a comfort! What a great comfort it is to know that we have been saved by his grace! What a great comfort it is to know that Christ Jesus, our Savior, has raised us from the death of sin to life by his side, here on earth and forever in heaven! What a comfort it is to know that our salvation has absolutely nothing to do with us, but everything to do with God and his grace! Just as Paul tells us in the last few verses of our text: “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Now, let me illustrate that point with a brief video.
Just like this simple little video showed, we are saved by grace through faith. We are not saved by anything we have done. Rather, we are saved only by the works and the merits of Jesus Christ our Savior. Now that we know that we have been saved by Grace through faith, it is our faith that moves us to go out and show our faith in everything we say and do. Just as Paul tells us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)
What better way could there be for us to show our love for God than the way that Paul just suggested! What greater honor could our God have given us than the honor he gave us in creating us to do the very good works which he himself prepared in advance! What greater thanksgiving could we show the Lord our God who saved us by his grace than the thanks we show in serving the Lord with our lives! For it is true! The Lord our God created us to do good works! Not good works designed to earn us eternal life, as some people believe and teach! But good works that flow out of hearts that are thankful to their God for saving them by his grace.
These are the works that you and I do so naturally as an expression of our faith and our thankfulness to the Lord our God who saved us. These are works that you and I do so naturally that more often than not we don’t even realize we are doing them. These are the works that spring out of our eagerness to serve the Lord with our lives, our willingness to support his work with our gifts, offerings, and our prayers. These are works that spring out of our excitement to tell others about the Lord who has saved us! For now that we have been saved by God’s grace, our love for our God moves us to serve him as we serve each other. In fact, these are the very things that I see in our congregation on a regular basis. I see it in the way we give our gifts and offerings to the Lord. I see it in the way that so many of you give gifts to each other, spend time with each other, volunteer and help in the church, and simply pray for each other. These are but a few of the ways that we accomplish those good works which God prepared for to do to show our great love to him, and there are many, many more.
So then, let us live our lives out of love for our God. Let us be moved by the Lord God who so graciously saved us, and show our love for him in all that we do. Let us go out those doors today and take every opportunity we have to show our love for the Lord by the things we do for him. Not motivated by a need to procure our salvation! Rather moved by our God’s love for us that in his great grace he made us alive in Christ, raised us up, with him, and created us in Christ Jesus to do good works out of love for him.
Though this may not have been one of your favorite sections of Scripture when we began our sermon, has its status changed? I wouldn’t be surprised if it had! After all, what greater news could there be than the news that we have been saved by the Grace of the Lord our God!
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Dear friends in Christ.
If I were to ask you the question, “What is the most beautiful portion of the Scriptures?” What would your answer be? Would your answer be a simple, “Job 19:23-27” where Job confesses his knowledge that his redeemer is living and that one day Job himself will see him standing upon the earth. Would your answer be, “Psalm 23” or, “Psalm 46” where the Psalmists speak of the Lord as our Shepherd and the Lord as our Fortress? Would your answer be, “Isaiah 53” Where Isaiah prophecies about the coming Christ? Would your answer be, “Luke 2” where Luke speaks about all the events surrounding Jesus birth? Or would your answer be, “Ephesians 2:8-9” because there is such great comfort in knowing that our salvation comes by God’s grace and it is not based on anything that we have done! Well, if you’re like most people, these words from Ephesians 2:8-9 are very familiar to you. Even if they are not your favorite section of Scripture, they are words that we have learned since we were little children. They are words that we learned over and over in Sunday school, Confirmation class, and they are words that regularly come up in Bible Study. In fact, these very words that Paul includes in our text, are words that assure us beyond that shadow of a doubt that we have been saved, not by anything we have done! Rather, we have been saved by God’s great love for us. We have been saved by God’s grace!
We have been saved by God’s grace! Now if you really sit down to think about it, that is a very powerful statement! That is a very powerful statement, because by telling us that we have been saved by God’s Grace, the Apostle Paul is assuring us that our salvation did not come by anything we had done! Rather, it was motivated out of God’s great love for us, as he tells us in verses 4 and 5 of our text. Paul writes, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4-5)
Even though we didn’t deserve it, our God saved us by his grace. Even though we were at one time dead in our transgressions and sins, our God made us alive in Jesus Christ, our Savior. Even though we were nothing but his enemies who wanted nothing to do with him, our God loved us so much that he willingly sent his son to be our Savior. Even though we were once nothing more than a lifeless corpse lying on a mortician’s table, unable to do anything for us because we were thoroughly and completely dead, the Lord God loved us and cared for us. The Lord God in his mercy treated us in a way that we did not deserve. The Lord our God looked upon us poor, reached, dead, damned and detestable sinners, and he showered us with his grace when he sent his Son to make us alive. Though we were dead in our trespasses and sins and couldn’t reach out to our God, couldn’t turn to him, cry out to him for help, or even turn our eyes toward him because we were powerless, in his great grace, the Lord Jesus came to us and made us alive in him by creating faith in our hearts. Through his great grace, the Lord Jesus, our Savior, breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, and through faith in him we became his living children!
But that isn’t the end of the story! For Jesus didn’t simply make us alive in himself and then leave us trapped in the tomb of our own sinfulness! Rather, in his great grace, the Lord our God raised us up with Christ, as Paul tells us, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:6-7)
What an incredible picture Paul is painting for us! For here, with these very words, Paul is assuring us that in the very same way that Jesus was raised from the dead through the glory of God the Father, we too have been raised from the death of our sins to life in Christ Jesus our Savior. In the same way that Jesus escaped the prison of the tomb that sought to keep him in, so also Jesus released us from the tomb of our sins when he raised us up with him through his grace. In the same way that the angel rolled the stone away so that all the world would see that Jesus was no longer dead, but risen, so also the Lord has rolled the stone of our transgressions away from the tomb of our iniquities so that all the world might see that by his grace, we have been raised from the death of our sins to life with Christ!
Now, just as Jesus has been seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly realms, our God has seated us there with him! Not that we are actually and physically sitting with our God in heaven or that our faith has projected us to that place as if we were holograms, rather this is simply another assurance for us as forgiven children of God’s grace, that because we have been raised with Christ, heaven is our home. Because we have been raised with Christ, heaven is the place where we will spend eternity. In fact, we can go so far as to say that we have crossed over from death to life because of God’s grace! Though here on earth we will always be plagued with sin and tempted to do evil, because we have been saved by God’s grace, we have already been declared not guilty. We have already been declared citizens of heaven, and we are simply waiting until the day when the Lord Jesus himself will open the door of death so that at his invitation, we can step from this life into our eternal life with him!
What a comfort! What a great comfort it is to know that we have been saved by his grace! What a great comfort it is to know that Christ Jesus, our Savior, has raised us from the death of sin to life by his side, here on earth and forever in heaven! What a comfort it is to know that our salvation has absolutely nothing to do with us, but everything to do with God and his grace! Just as Paul tells us in the last few verses of our text: “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Now, let me illustrate that point with a brief video.
Just like this simple little video showed, we are saved by grace through faith. We are not saved by anything we have done. Rather, we are saved only by the works and the merits of Jesus Christ our Savior. Now that we know that we have been saved by Grace through faith, it is our faith that moves us to go out and show our faith in everything we say and do. Just as Paul tells us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)
What better way could there be for us to show our love for God than the way that Paul just suggested! What greater honor could our God have given us than the honor he gave us in creating us to do the very good works which he himself prepared in advance! What greater thanksgiving could we show the Lord our God who saved us by his grace than the thanks we show in serving the Lord with our lives! For it is true! The Lord our God created us to do good works! Not good works designed to earn us eternal life, as some people believe and teach! But good works that flow out of hearts that are thankful to their God for saving them by his grace.
These are the works that you and I do so naturally as an expression of our faith and our thankfulness to the Lord our God who saved us. These are works that you and I do so naturally that more often than not we don’t even realize we are doing them. These are the works that spring out of our eagerness to serve the Lord with our lives, our willingness to support his work with our gifts, offerings, and our prayers. These are works that spring out of our excitement to tell others about the Lord who has saved us! For now that we have been saved by God’s grace, our love for our God moves us to serve him as we serve each other. In fact, these are the very things that I see in our congregation on a regular basis. I see it in the way we give our gifts and offerings to the Lord. I see it in the way that so many of you give gifts to each other, spend time with each other, volunteer and help in the church, and simply pray for each other. These are but a few of the ways that we accomplish those good works which God prepared for to do to show our great love to him, and there are many, many more.
So then, let us live our lives out of love for our God. Let us be moved by the Lord God who so graciously saved us, and show our love for him in all that we do. Let us go out those doors today and take every opportunity we have to show our love for the Lord by the things we do for him. Not motivated by a need to procure our salvation! Rather moved by our God’s love for us that in his great grace he made us alive in Christ, raised us up, with him, and created us in Christ Jesus to do good works out of love for him.
Though this may not have been one of your favorite sections of Scripture when we began our sermon, has its status changed? I wouldn’t be surprised if it had! After all, what greater news could there be than the news that we have been saved by the Grace of the Lord our God!
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Learn from Jesus' Lessons on Avoiding Temptation (Matthew 4:1-11)
March 13, 2011
Dear friends in Christ.
I think it was about 10 years ago when I first heard of the Do It Yourself, the DIY, Network. I remember being intrigued by the different levels of projects that they displayed, and being especially impressed at how they laid it all out so simply for people so that they could do it themselves. Since then, DIY has grown. All you have to do is type DIY into an Internet search engine and you will have millions of results in about 1/10 of a second. So if you need to know how to do something, with just a few key strokes you can find instructions on any topic under the sun. Well, in some ways, you could say that our lesson today is a bit of a DIY project, because as we study this section of Matthew, we will see Jesus showing us exactly how to resist and avoid temptation. Now, understand, this is not Jesus teaching us how to be holy, perfect, or sinless! Rather, this is Jesus teaching us by his word and his example how to live in our faith and avoid temptation. In fact, I invite you to open your Bibles to our Gospel lesson, to Matthew 4:1-11 and we’ll take a look at the lessons that Jesus is teaching us on avoiding temptation.
Now, as you are turning to Matthew 4, let me remind you of the events that took place just prior to our lesson today. John the Baptist had been preaching and preparing the people for the coming of Jesus. Then suddenly, without warning, Jesus had appeared at the Jordan requesting Baptism by John. After Jesus was baptized God the Father spoke from heaven and the Holy Spirit descended on him as a dove, and immediately Jesus went out into the wilderness. This is where we begin with Jesus’ lessons on avoiding temptation. We begin with lesson 1: Listen to the Lord your God. Take a look at what Matthew records, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’ ” (Matthew 4:1-4). It was just after Jesus’ baptism when this event took place. For after the Holy Spirit had descended on Jesus he led Jesus out into the wilderness where he was to be tempted by the devil. As part of his preparation, Jesus had been fasting for the past forty days and forty nights. He had not eaten anything for over a month! He was undoubtedly being wracked by intense pangs of hunger, and was surely growing weak from lack of food. This was the opportune time the devil wanted, and this was when satan came to Jesus to tempt him!
But did you notice what satan did as I read the text for you? He appealed his temptation to Jesus’ hunger, but he disguised the temptation with religious talk. For he came to Jesus saying, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” With these words, satan was playing to Jesus’ human nature trying to get him to doubt that he truly was the Son of God, and trying to get him to doubt that the Lord God would take care of him. He was in effect trying to suggest that it was beneath the Son of God to go without food! After all, if Jesus really was the Son of God, he would have had the power to create food out of nothing and eat rather than wander around this wilderness starving himself simply because his Father in heaven had commanded him to. Basically, with this temptation, satan was trying to play to what he perceived as a weakness for Jesus.
This is the same thing that the devil does to us. When he tempts us, he always plays to our weaknesses. He focuses on our pet sins, entices us, and makes us want to do something we know is absolutely wrong. Even when we are wise to his temptations, and feel that we are ready to contend with him, he disguises his real temptation, as he did with Jesus, and leads us right around the defenses we’ve set up until we are wallowing around in the pool of the sins which we had hoped to avoid. This is when we need to learn a lesson from Jesus’ examples and listen to the Lord our God as he did. For on our own, we will constantly fall into temptation, but when we follow Jesus’ examples, he will help us stand against our enemy. This is what Jesus did when he was tempted. He didn’t use his almighty power to send satan packing, rather, he used God’s Word. For when satan tempted him to turn those stones in to bread, Jesus simply replied: “Man does not live on bread alone, but every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” In effect, Jesus was saying, “I will listen to what the Lord my God commands, and not you.”
This is the example that Jesus gives for us to follow. For when we are tempted, we have the Word of our Lord to which we also can listen. We have his Word recorded for us in the pages of Scripture, and when we are daily reading our Bibles, we are that much better prepared to face temptations. For when satan comes to tempt us, we can listen to the Lord by simply reminding ourselves of what he tells us in his word. When satan tempts us to steal, we can remember that the Lord says no. When satan tempts us to lie, we can remember how the Lord tells us to let our yes be yes and our no, no. When satan tempts us to do anything, we can listen to the soft, still voice of the Lord our God as he speaks to us through the Bible. Then, as we listen to the Lord our God, we can avoid the temptation into which satan is trying to lead us. Though there will still be times when satan’s temptations get the better of us and we fall into sin, when we turn to the Lord in repentance he will forgive us. When he forgives us he also equips us to listen to him all the more carefully, as we use his word to avoid temptation.
However, the problem is that this is never a onetime battle! The problem is that satan and all his evil angels are crafty individual who are always looking for a way around our line of defense, and just as the Germans marched right around France’s Maginot Line during World War II, satan’s forces quickly find a way to flank our fortifications. This is exactly what satan was trying to do to Jesus after his first temptation failed, and it is this second temptation that leads us into Jesus’ second lesson on avoiding temptation. Let’s take a look at what Matthew tells us, “Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is written:’ “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” ’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is also written: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” (Matthew 4:5-7).
As satan lead Jesus to the highest point of the temple he tried to lead Jesus in to a false trust in God. Though Jesus had brilliantly proven he was the Son of God by listening to what the Lord said and trusting that the Lord would sustain him, satan was now trying to maneuver around that defense by getting Jesus to prove his trust. Quite simply, satan was playing on Jesus’ trust in the Lord and trying to use that trust against him. But Jesus’ trust never once wavered, because Jesus, the Author of the Scriptures recognized that satan was setting one Scripture against another. Yet, even as satan did this, Jesus demonstrated his trust in the Lord by placing one Scripture along side of another when he answered satan for Jesus basically responded, “It is true that the Lord has charged his angels to take care of his children, but it is also written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test!’ ”
Well, just as satan used this ploy against Jesus in the wilderness, so he also uses it against us on a regular basis. In fact, it is because we have placed our faith squarely in the Lord that satan constantly seeks to make us doubt that decision, by seeking to make us doubt the Lord himself. Just think about how satan tries to chip away at our trust when bad things happen in our lives. He subtly begins to plant doubts in our minds about the goodness of our God. He makes us wonder, “Why is this happening to me?” “What have I done to deserve this?” He even goes so far as to remind us that the Bible assures us that God loves his children, but we must not be his children if all these things are happening to us. He is right there telling us that the Bible says that God watches over those he loves, but he must not love us, if we are going through such frustrating hardships. And in doing this, satan is seeking to drive a wedge between us and our Lord. He is seeking to weaken our trust in the Lord our God. He is hoping to make us doubt the Lord’s love and give into the temptation to trust ourselves and turn away from the Lord. Though there are times when he succeeds in weakening or even breaking our trust in the Lord, when we turn to the Lord in repentance, it is the Lord who forgives us. It is the Lord who renews us. It is the Lord who reestablishes our trust in him and gives us the ability to trust him all the more. In fact, it is the Lord who assures us that when we completely place our trust in him, satan is not able to tempt us, because the Lord is on our side and fighting for us.
But once again, the problem still remains! Satan does not give up easily. He will continue to tempt us and tempt us as long as he is able. That is why Jesus’ third lesson to us is this: resist the devil and he will flee from you. When satan came tempting Jesus, this is exactly what Jesus did. Just as Matthew tells us in our lesson: “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” ’ Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.” (Matthew 4:8-11).
When it came to the last temptation of the day, satan pulled out all the stops. He took Jesus to a high mountain, and because the Lord allowed him to, he showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor. Then he simply said, “All this can be yours if you simply bow down to me and worship me.”
With these words, satan was trying to tempt Jesus with an easy way out. He was trying to tempt Jesus with an easy way out because he knew why Jesus had come to the earth. He knew that Jesus had come to the earth to suffer and to die for the sins of the world. He knew the horrors that Jesus would endure as he hung on that cross suffering under the weight of all those sins. He knew that in his human nature this would be something that Jesus just wasn’t looking forward to, and with this temptation, he was trying to get Jesus to take the easy way out. In effect he was saying, “Why go through all that pain and agony and suffering to attain the glory which the Lord has promised, when I can give you all that glory right now if you just bow down and worship me.” But what was Jesus’ response? “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.” (Matthew 4:10-11).
How often doesn’t satan do the same thing to us? How often doesn’t he tempt us to take the easy way out? How often doesn’t he whisper in our ears, “You know it’s so hard to get up in the morning to get to church on time, maybe you should just sleep in today.” How often doesn’t he try to convince us, “You know, God will understand if you miss church from time to time. He understands that you are busy and that you might want to go to church but your job has to take precedence over worship.” How many times doesn’t he try to convince you that you get more out of worshiping God in nature than you do from sitting in church and listening to the Pastor drone on and on about nothing. How often doesn’t it happen that he succeeds and we take the easy way out? Though there are times when we give in and take the easy way out, when we turn to the Lord in repentance, it is the Lord who forgives us. It is the Lord who builds us up, and it is the Lord who reminds us that when we resist the devil, he will flee from us. Sometimes it may happen with a single rebuke to our enemy. Other times we may have to stand our ground five, six, seven, or even more times as satan comes at us with stronger and stronger temptations. Yet, as Jesus taught us today, we know that when we resist satan, by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, satan must flee from us
Yet, while these lessons should be aptly learned, there is one final lesson we need to keep in mind. In fact, it is the very lesson that has been intertwined with the three we have learned here today and that lesson is simply this: when we do fall into temptation, turn to the Lord in repentance for forgiveness. Though by listening to the Lord our God, by placing our trust squarely in him, and by resisting the devil, we will avoid temptation, we are not perfect like our Savior, and we do fall into temptation. But when we do, we don’t need to beat ourselves up over it, because Jesus Christ our Savior, who endured all of satan’s temptations and never once fell into sin, is the one who forgives us. This is our comfort when we do fall Jesus Christ has forgiven all of our sins, and we can rely on his salvation.
What greater lessons could Jesus be teaching us today than these lesson on avoiding temptation. For it is through his example we have learned that through faith we are able to avoid satan’s temptation by listening to the Lord our God, by placing our faith squarely in the Lord, and resisting the devil until he flees from us. But best of all the lessons is the assurance that when we do fall into temptation all is not lost. Rather we can always turn to the Lord our God in repentance and he will forgive us. he will forgive us, strengthen us, and give us yet one more opportunity to learn from his lesson on avoiding temptation.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Dear friends in Christ.
I think it was about 10 years ago when I first heard of the Do It Yourself, the DIY, Network. I remember being intrigued by the different levels of projects that they displayed, and being especially impressed at how they laid it all out so simply for people so that they could do it themselves. Since then, DIY has grown. All you have to do is type DIY into an Internet search engine and you will have millions of results in about 1/10 of a second. So if you need to know how to do something, with just a few key strokes you can find instructions on any topic under the sun. Well, in some ways, you could say that our lesson today is a bit of a DIY project, because as we study this section of Matthew, we will see Jesus showing us exactly how to resist and avoid temptation. Now, understand, this is not Jesus teaching us how to be holy, perfect, or sinless! Rather, this is Jesus teaching us by his word and his example how to live in our faith and avoid temptation. In fact, I invite you to open your Bibles to our Gospel lesson, to Matthew 4:1-11 and we’ll take a look at the lessons that Jesus is teaching us on avoiding temptation.
Now, as you are turning to Matthew 4, let me remind you of the events that took place just prior to our lesson today. John the Baptist had been preaching and preparing the people for the coming of Jesus. Then suddenly, without warning, Jesus had appeared at the Jordan requesting Baptism by John. After Jesus was baptized God the Father spoke from heaven and the Holy Spirit descended on him as a dove, and immediately Jesus went out into the wilderness. This is where we begin with Jesus’ lessons on avoiding temptation. We begin with lesson 1: Listen to the Lord your God. Take a look at what Matthew records, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’ ” (Matthew 4:1-4). It was just after Jesus’ baptism when this event took place. For after the Holy Spirit had descended on Jesus he led Jesus out into the wilderness where he was to be tempted by the devil. As part of his preparation, Jesus had been fasting for the past forty days and forty nights. He had not eaten anything for over a month! He was undoubtedly being wracked by intense pangs of hunger, and was surely growing weak from lack of food. This was the opportune time the devil wanted, and this was when satan came to Jesus to tempt him!
But did you notice what satan did as I read the text for you? He appealed his temptation to Jesus’ hunger, but he disguised the temptation with religious talk. For he came to Jesus saying, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” With these words, satan was playing to Jesus’ human nature trying to get him to doubt that he truly was the Son of God, and trying to get him to doubt that the Lord God would take care of him. He was in effect trying to suggest that it was beneath the Son of God to go without food! After all, if Jesus really was the Son of God, he would have had the power to create food out of nothing and eat rather than wander around this wilderness starving himself simply because his Father in heaven had commanded him to. Basically, with this temptation, satan was trying to play to what he perceived as a weakness for Jesus.
This is the same thing that the devil does to us. When he tempts us, he always plays to our weaknesses. He focuses on our pet sins, entices us, and makes us want to do something we know is absolutely wrong. Even when we are wise to his temptations, and feel that we are ready to contend with him, he disguises his real temptation, as he did with Jesus, and leads us right around the defenses we’ve set up until we are wallowing around in the pool of the sins which we had hoped to avoid. This is when we need to learn a lesson from Jesus’ examples and listen to the Lord our God as he did. For on our own, we will constantly fall into temptation, but when we follow Jesus’ examples, he will help us stand against our enemy. This is what Jesus did when he was tempted. He didn’t use his almighty power to send satan packing, rather, he used God’s Word. For when satan tempted him to turn those stones in to bread, Jesus simply replied: “Man does not live on bread alone, but every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” In effect, Jesus was saying, “I will listen to what the Lord my God commands, and not you.”
This is the example that Jesus gives for us to follow. For when we are tempted, we have the Word of our Lord to which we also can listen. We have his Word recorded for us in the pages of Scripture, and when we are daily reading our Bibles, we are that much better prepared to face temptations. For when satan comes to tempt us, we can listen to the Lord by simply reminding ourselves of what he tells us in his word. When satan tempts us to steal, we can remember that the Lord says no. When satan tempts us to lie, we can remember how the Lord tells us to let our yes be yes and our no, no. When satan tempts us to do anything, we can listen to the soft, still voice of the Lord our God as he speaks to us through the Bible. Then, as we listen to the Lord our God, we can avoid the temptation into which satan is trying to lead us. Though there will still be times when satan’s temptations get the better of us and we fall into sin, when we turn to the Lord in repentance he will forgive us. When he forgives us he also equips us to listen to him all the more carefully, as we use his word to avoid temptation.
However, the problem is that this is never a onetime battle! The problem is that satan and all his evil angels are crafty individual who are always looking for a way around our line of defense, and just as the Germans marched right around France’s Maginot Line during World War II, satan’s forces quickly find a way to flank our fortifications. This is exactly what satan was trying to do to Jesus after his first temptation failed, and it is this second temptation that leads us into Jesus’ second lesson on avoiding temptation. Let’s take a look at what Matthew tells us, “Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is written:’ “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” ’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is also written: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” (Matthew 4:5-7).
As satan lead Jesus to the highest point of the temple he tried to lead Jesus in to a false trust in God. Though Jesus had brilliantly proven he was the Son of God by listening to what the Lord said and trusting that the Lord would sustain him, satan was now trying to maneuver around that defense by getting Jesus to prove his trust. Quite simply, satan was playing on Jesus’ trust in the Lord and trying to use that trust against him. But Jesus’ trust never once wavered, because Jesus, the Author of the Scriptures recognized that satan was setting one Scripture against another. Yet, even as satan did this, Jesus demonstrated his trust in the Lord by placing one Scripture along side of another when he answered satan for Jesus basically responded, “It is true that the Lord has charged his angels to take care of his children, but it is also written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test!’ ”
Well, just as satan used this ploy against Jesus in the wilderness, so he also uses it against us on a regular basis. In fact, it is because we have placed our faith squarely in the Lord that satan constantly seeks to make us doubt that decision, by seeking to make us doubt the Lord himself. Just think about how satan tries to chip away at our trust when bad things happen in our lives. He subtly begins to plant doubts in our minds about the goodness of our God. He makes us wonder, “Why is this happening to me?” “What have I done to deserve this?” He even goes so far as to remind us that the Bible assures us that God loves his children, but we must not be his children if all these things are happening to us. He is right there telling us that the Bible says that God watches over those he loves, but he must not love us, if we are going through such frustrating hardships. And in doing this, satan is seeking to drive a wedge between us and our Lord. He is seeking to weaken our trust in the Lord our God. He is hoping to make us doubt the Lord’s love and give into the temptation to trust ourselves and turn away from the Lord. Though there are times when he succeeds in weakening or even breaking our trust in the Lord, when we turn to the Lord in repentance, it is the Lord who forgives us. It is the Lord who renews us. It is the Lord who reestablishes our trust in him and gives us the ability to trust him all the more. In fact, it is the Lord who assures us that when we completely place our trust in him, satan is not able to tempt us, because the Lord is on our side and fighting for us.
But once again, the problem still remains! Satan does not give up easily. He will continue to tempt us and tempt us as long as he is able. That is why Jesus’ third lesson to us is this: resist the devil and he will flee from you. When satan came tempting Jesus, this is exactly what Jesus did. Just as Matthew tells us in our lesson: “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” ’ Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.” (Matthew 4:8-11).
When it came to the last temptation of the day, satan pulled out all the stops. He took Jesus to a high mountain, and because the Lord allowed him to, he showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor. Then he simply said, “All this can be yours if you simply bow down to me and worship me.”
With these words, satan was trying to tempt Jesus with an easy way out. He was trying to tempt Jesus with an easy way out because he knew why Jesus had come to the earth. He knew that Jesus had come to the earth to suffer and to die for the sins of the world. He knew the horrors that Jesus would endure as he hung on that cross suffering under the weight of all those sins. He knew that in his human nature this would be something that Jesus just wasn’t looking forward to, and with this temptation, he was trying to get Jesus to take the easy way out. In effect he was saying, “Why go through all that pain and agony and suffering to attain the glory which the Lord has promised, when I can give you all that glory right now if you just bow down and worship me.” But what was Jesus’ response? “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.” (Matthew 4:10-11).
How often doesn’t satan do the same thing to us? How often doesn’t he tempt us to take the easy way out? How often doesn’t he whisper in our ears, “You know it’s so hard to get up in the morning to get to church on time, maybe you should just sleep in today.” How often doesn’t he try to convince us, “You know, God will understand if you miss church from time to time. He understands that you are busy and that you might want to go to church but your job has to take precedence over worship.” How many times doesn’t he try to convince you that you get more out of worshiping God in nature than you do from sitting in church and listening to the Pastor drone on and on about nothing. How often doesn’t it happen that he succeeds and we take the easy way out? Though there are times when we give in and take the easy way out, when we turn to the Lord in repentance, it is the Lord who forgives us. It is the Lord who builds us up, and it is the Lord who reminds us that when we resist the devil, he will flee from us. Sometimes it may happen with a single rebuke to our enemy. Other times we may have to stand our ground five, six, seven, or even more times as satan comes at us with stronger and stronger temptations. Yet, as Jesus taught us today, we know that when we resist satan, by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, satan must flee from us
Yet, while these lessons should be aptly learned, there is one final lesson we need to keep in mind. In fact, it is the very lesson that has been intertwined with the three we have learned here today and that lesson is simply this: when we do fall into temptation, turn to the Lord in repentance for forgiveness. Though by listening to the Lord our God, by placing our trust squarely in him, and by resisting the devil, we will avoid temptation, we are not perfect like our Savior, and we do fall into temptation. But when we do, we don’t need to beat ourselves up over it, because Jesus Christ our Savior, who endured all of satan’s temptations and never once fell into sin, is the one who forgives us. This is our comfort when we do fall Jesus Christ has forgiven all of our sins, and we can rely on his salvation.
What greater lessons could Jesus be teaching us today than these lesson on avoiding temptation. For it is through his example we have learned that through faith we are able to avoid satan’s temptation by listening to the Lord our God, by placing our faith squarely in the Lord, and resisting the devil until he flees from us. But best of all the lessons is the assurance that when we do fall into temptation all is not lost. Rather we can always turn to the Lord our God in repentance and he will forgive us. he will forgive us, strengthen us, and give us yet one more opportunity to learn from his lesson on avoiding temptation.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
One of the Mob; a Follower (Matthew 27:20-23)
Mach 9, 2011
Ash Wednesday
Preached from the perspective of one of the Mob on Good Friday
Dear friends in Christ.
Were you there when they crucified the Lord? Where you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they crowned his head with thorns? Were you there when the crowds cried, “Crucify”? Though I know that none of you were there on that dark day so many years ago, I can tell you that I was. I was there as one of that mob. I was there as a follower. I was there, and I can remember the details of that day as clearly as if it happened yesterday. I remember all the sights and sounds from that day. I remember how the sun seemed almost tentative as it warmed my skin that morning and how the breeze almost seemed to hold its breath when Pilate brought Jesus out before the crowd.
Funny thing, isn’t it, I can remember all those details. I can remember exactly how Jesus looked; bruised and beaten with blood trickling down his face from the crown of thorns pressed into his head. Yet I simply, for the life of me, cannot remember why I was part of the crowd in Pilate’s courtyard that morning. I can’t remember if I had gone there out of curiosity to find out why Jesus was on trial or if I had simply been swept along to the palace by the mentality of the mob gathering there. After all, I wasn’t a follower of Jesus at that time. Oh, I had heard him preach. I had seen some miracles, I liked what he had to say, but the Holy Spirit had not yet created faith in my heart to trust in Jesus as my Savior. Though I now know exactly why I was there as part of that mob that day, at the time when Jesus was on trial, I was merely following the crowd.
Yes, I do remember exactly what Jesus looked like when Pilate brought him out before the crowd. I remember Pilate’s booming voice as he asked the people, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” (Matthew 27:17) And I remember seeing the Chief Priests and the Elders circulating through the crowd persuading the people to ask for Barabbas and to have Christ crucified. (Matthew 27:20). I probably wouldn’t have noticed it except for the Elder who came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder, looked me straight in the eye, and told me that if I considered myself and Israelite, I would demand Jesus’ execution and Barabbas’ release. It was in that moment that time seemed to stand still as a saw the Chief Priests and Elders, essentially the entire Sanhedrin—the ruling body of the Israelites—milling through the crowd; turning the people against Jesus. I wondered what I should do! Should I stay and ask for Jesus? Should I do what my leadership told me? Should I just leave and go somewhere else? I didn’t know what I should do. I was frozen with indecision as I heard Pilate ask, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” (Matthew 27:21)
It took a few seconds before my mouth started working again. I heard some shouting for Jesus, but I heard others shouting for Barabbas. Then I heard more and more people taking up the cry for Barabbas, and before I knew it, I joined right in with all the people chanting Barabbas’ name and drowning out any other voices crying out for Jesus. When Pilate asked, “Why? What crime has he committed?” (Matthew 27:23) I didn’t even hesitate. I was right there shouting with the crowds, “Crucify!” “Crucify!” I was fully part of that mob now. I was following every direction that the collective mentality of crowd was giving me. My eyes were gleaming with evil intentions. My stomach hungered for the deed to be done. My blood was boiling with lust to see Christ’s blood spilled on the ground. Every fiber of my being demanded to see him nailed to the cross and crucified. Every part of me needed to see it happen, because I was caught up in the frenzy of the mob that day. I was following the crowd demanding that the governor give the order, so that we could go out to the place of the skull and see it come to pass.
Now, I’m not proud of what I did by any means. But, before you judge me too harshly, let me ask you a question. How often haven’t you done the same thing? How of then haven’t you been part of the mob; a follower of the crowd when it came to sins? How often haven’t your own temptations led you to a mob mentality as you quickly rushed in to your favorite and most comfortable sins with an ever increasing hunger for more? How often haven’t you simply followed the bread crumbs of temptation in to the courtyard of the palace of sin, joining with other sinners as a mob of people trying to justify their actions to each other by comparing their sins to other worse sinners in the world? How often hasn’t our blood boiled with lust as the TV screen, movie screen, or computer screen flickered before us? How often haven’t our mouths cried out with curses upon others, oaths sworn to get even with the person who wronged us in some way, foul language, lies, hatred, gossip, slander, or other sins? How often haven’t you acted just as I did in that crowd, following the mob mentality of sin that moves us to rush forward into more and more greater sins as we hurtle ever forward moving closer and close to the cliffs of damnation?
That’s where I was! I was hurtling through those gates, moving as one; following the mob of people as they led me behind Jesus, out toward the place of the skull. I was there, standing, watching, desiring, and needing to see the nails driven through his hands and feet! I was there needing to see him raised up, dropped into place, and left to die! I was there as part of that mob, following every move until I heard something that began to separate me from them. As they were crucifying him, I heard him pray, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:32–34) In that moment my heart seemed to stop beating as I came back to my senses. When I heard the exchange between one of the thieves and Jesus, and heard Jesus promising the thief that he would be in paradise with Jesus today (Luke 23:39-43) I began wondering if this Jesus might be the Messiah for whom I had been waiting. When the sun stopped shining and darkness covered the land for three hours, I knew there was something special about this Jesus. When I heard him cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) I was immediately reminded of what David had written about the Savior in Psalm 22. Then, when I saw how he died, how he declared everything to be finished, how he committed himself to his heavenly Father, and how the earth shook and the rocks split, I knew that this Jesus had to be the Son of God, the Messiah for whom I had waited, my God who saved me from my sins. Now, I told you that when I was part of that crowd in Pilate’s courtyard I wasn’t a believer. However, I can tell you that if I had not followed the crowd out to Calvary that I may not have had the opportunity to come to faith in Jesus as my Savior. Though I am not proud of my part in the mob, I know I am forgiven. I know that I am forgiven through my Savior who poured out his blood upon the mercy seat of God to atone for my sins.
The same thing is true for each and every one of you who have gathered here today! Though you may have given into a mob mentality when it came to your sins, your sins have been forgiven! Though there have been many occasions that you have rushed head long into your favorite and most comfortable sins, with an ever increasing hunger for more, your Savior’s blood has not only washed you clean, but gives you the desire to turn your back on those sins. Though you may have felt your blood boiling with lust, or your mouth on fire with vicious and sinful words, even these sins have been taken away! They were all nailed to the cross with Jesus your Savior. They were atoned for by his death. They were erased from your record by his blood poured out for you. But best of all, through the faith created in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, you all have been separated from the mob barreling its way toward the cliffs of damnation. Instead you are traveling with the group of believers, following after your Lord and Savior who redeemed you by his blood, made you his own, and has given you the guarantee of eternal life in heaven through faith in the one who poured out his blood for you.
Though none of you were actually there when the crucified our Lord, each time we review the events of that day, our Savior’s love is brought home to us all the more clearly. I pray that through my witness today that you have grown in your faith and your assurance that you have been forgiven by the Blood of the Lamb. I pray that you won’t find yourselves as I did, part of a mob; a follower. Rather, I pray that you will continually be found as a follower of Christ, your living, loving, and forgiven Savior. In his Name.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Ash Wednesday
Preached from the perspective of one of the Mob on Good Friday
Dear friends in Christ.
Were you there when they crucified the Lord? Where you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they crowned his head with thorns? Were you there when the crowds cried, “Crucify”? Though I know that none of you were there on that dark day so many years ago, I can tell you that I was. I was there as one of that mob. I was there as a follower. I was there, and I can remember the details of that day as clearly as if it happened yesterday. I remember all the sights and sounds from that day. I remember how the sun seemed almost tentative as it warmed my skin that morning and how the breeze almost seemed to hold its breath when Pilate brought Jesus out before the crowd.
Funny thing, isn’t it, I can remember all those details. I can remember exactly how Jesus looked; bruised and beaten with blood trickling down his face from the crown of thorns pressed into his head. Yet I simply, for the life of me, cannot remember why I was part of the crowd in Pilate’s courtyard that morning. I can’t remember if I had gone there out of curiosity to find out why Jesus was on trial or if I had simply been swept along to the palace by the mentality of the mob gathering there. After all, I wasn’t a follower of Jesus at that time. Oh, I had heard him preach. I had seen some miracles, I liked what he had to say, but the Holy Spirit had not yet created faith in my heart to trust in Jesus as my Savior. Though I now know exactly why I was there as part of that mob that day, at the time when Jesus was on trial, I was merely following the crowd.
Yes, I do remember exactly what Jesus looked like when Pilate brought him out before the crowd. I remember Pilate’s booming voice as he asked the people, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” (Matthew 27:17) And I remember seeing the Chief Priests and the Elders circulating through the crowd persuading the people to ask for Barabbas and to have Christ crucified. (Matthew 27:20). I probably wouldn’t have noticed it except for the Elder who came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder, looked me straight in the eye, and told me that if I considered myself and Israelite, I would demand Jesus’ execution and Barabbas’ release. It was in that moment that time seemed to stand still as a saw the Chief Priests and Elders, essentially the entire Sanhedrin—the ruling body of the Israelites—milling through the crowd; turning the people against Jesus. I wondered what I should do! Should I stay and ask for Jesus? Should I do what my leadership told me? Should I just leave and go somewhere else? I didn’t know what I should do. I was frozen with indecision as I heard Pilate ask, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” (Matthew 27:21)
It took a few seconds before my mouth started working again. I heard some shouting for Jesus, but I heard others shouting for Barabbas. Then I heard more and more people taking up the cry for Barabbas, and before I knew it, I joined right in with all the people chanting Barabbas’ name and drowning out any other voices crying out for Jesus. When Pilate asked, “Why? What crime has he committed?” (Matthew 27:23) I didn’t even hesitate. I was right there shouting with the crowds, “Crucify!” “Crucify!” I was fully part of that mob now. I was following every direction that the collective mentality of crowd was giving me. My eyes were gleaming with evil intentions. My stomach hungered for the deed to be done. My blood was boiling with lust to see Christ’s blood spilled on the ground. Every fiber of my being demanded to see him nailed to the cross and crucified. Every part of me needed to see it happen, because I was caught up in the frenzy of the mob that day. I was following the crowd demanding that the governor give the order, so that we could go out to the place of the skull and see it come to pass.
Now, I’m not proud of what I did by any means. But, before you judge me too harshly, let me ask you a question. How often haven’t you done the same thing? How of then haven’t you been part of the mob; a follower of the crowd when it came to sins? How often haven’t your own temptations led you to a mob mentality as you quickly rushed in to your favorite and most comfortable sins with an ever increasing hunger for more? How often haven’t you simply followed the bread crumbs of temptation in to the courtyard of the palace of sin, joining with other sinners as a mob of people trying to justify their actions to each other by comparing their sins to other worse sinners in the world? How often hasn’t our blood boiled with lust as the TV screen, movie screen, or computer screen flickered before us? How often haven’t our mouths cried out with curses upon others, oaths sworn to get even with the person who wronged us in some way, foul language, lies, hatred, gossip, slander, or other sins? How often haven’t you acted just as I did in that crowd, following the mob mentality of sin that moves us to rush forward into more and more greater sins as we hurtle ever forward moving closer and close to the cliffs of damnation?
That’s where I was! I was hurtling through those gates, moving as one; following the mob of people as they led me behind Jesus, out toward the place of the skull. I was there, standing, watching, desiring, and needing to see the nails driven through his hands and feet! I was there needing to see him raised up, dropped into place, and left to die! I was there as part of that mob, following every move until I heard something that began to separate me from them. As they were crucifying him, I heard him pray, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:32–34) In that moment my heart seemed to stop beating as I came back to my senses. When I heard the exchange between one of the thieves and Jesus, and heard Jesus promising the thief that he would be in paradise with Jesus today (Luke 23:39-43) I began wondering if this Jesus might be the Messiah for whom I had been waiting. When the sun stopped shining and darkness covered the land for three hours, I knew there was something special about this Jesus. When I heard him cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) I was immediately reminded of what David had written about the Savior in Psalm 22. Then, when I saw how he died, how he declared everything to be finished, how he committed himself to his heavenly Father, and how the earth shook and the rocks split, I knew that this Jesus had to be the Son of God, the Messiah for whom I had waited, my God who saved me from my sins. Now, I told you that when I was part of that crowd in Pilate’s courtyard I wasn’t a believer. However, I can tell you that if I had not followed the crowd out to Calvary that I may not have had the opportunity to come to faith in Jesus as my Savior. Though I am not proud of my part in the mob, I know I am forgiven. I know that I am forgiven through my Savior who poured out his blood upon the mercy seat of God to atone for my sins.
The same thing is true for each and every one of you who have gathered here today! Though you may have given into a mob mentality when it came to your sins, your sins have been forgiven! Though there have been many occasions that you have rushed head long into your favorite and most comfortable sins, with an ever increasing hunger for more, your Savior’s blood has not only washed you clean, but gives you the desire to turn your back on those sins. Though you may have felt your blood boiling with lust, or your mouth on fire with vicious and sinful words, even these sins have been taken away! They were all nailed to the cross with Jesus your Savior. They were atoned for by his death. They were erased from your record by his blood poured out for you. But best of all, through the faith created in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, you all have been separated from the mob barreling its way toward the cliffs of damnation. Instead you are traveling with the group of believers, following after your Lord and Savior who redeemed you by his blood, made you his own, and has given you the guarantee of eternal life in heaven through faith in the one who poured out his blood for you.
Though none of you were actually there when the crucified our Lord, each time we review the events of that day, our Savior’s love is brought home to us all the more clearly. I pray that through my witness today that you have grown in your faith and your assurance that you have been forgiven by the Blood of the Lamb. I pray that you won’t find yourselves as I did, part of a mob; a follower. Rather, I pray that you will continually be found as a follower of Christ, your living, loving, and forgiven Savior. In his Name.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Lord Has Blessed You! (Numbers 6:22-27)
March 6, 2011
Dear friends in Christ.
How have you been enjoying exploring God’s Islands of Adventure? Personally I have loved this Bible reading challenge, because so many of you are reading and studying the Scriptures for yourselves on a regular basis. Though only a few people have added their names to ships that have been anchored on the different Islands, so many of our members have told me that they are reading on a regular basis. More and more people are coming to Bible Study to study the Word of God together and discuss different things they have learned, and I have enjoyed preaching on different lessons from the Chronological schedule of readings that so many of you are following. I have enjoyed it, because I have seen just how the Lord has begun blessing us as a congregation through this Bible Reading challenge, for that is what the Lord does as we grow in our faith through his Word.
In fact, this is the very thing we want to study as we take a look at the Aaronic blessing recorded for us in Numbers 6:22-27. I invite you then to open your Bibles to our first lesson, to Numbers 6:22-27. Now, as you are turning to Numbers six, let me give you a little bit of background. The Nation of Israel had been camped at Mt. Sinai for roughly 10 months now, and during their time there they had seen amazing things, been unfaithful to the Lord, forgiven by the Lord, blessed by the Lord and accomplished great things for the Lord. They had seen the Lord appear to them in a fiery cloud on the top of Mt. Sinai. They watched as Moses climb the mountain and disappeared into that cloud of fire and smoke. They grew impatient for Moses return and persuaded Aaron to fashion them a new god, a golden calf. They felt the sword of the Lord’s judgment when Moses returned from the Mountain. They repented and were forgiven. They watched as Moses again returned to the top of the Mountain for another 40 days. But this time, when he came down, there was no golden calf. Rather, whIen Moses returned to them with his radiant face glowing with the glory of the Lord, they set to work constructing the Tabernacle. Now, as the Lord speaks to Moses in our lesson for today, the Lord bestows upon his people, both Israel and all of his followers, what we have come to know as the Aaronic Blessing: Take a look at verse 22: “The LORD said to Moses, 23 “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: 24 “ ‘ “The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ’ 27 “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:22–27, NIV84)
In such a simple way, with such well chosen words, the Lord our God bestows the gift of his blessing upon his people Israel; both physical descendants of Israel as well as spiritual Israel, people like you and me who are now Israelites through faith in Jesus. What a comfort it is to know that whenever we hear these words of blessing spoken to us, it is as if the Lord himself is speaking to us, placing his name on us and blessing us! Though it could be said that this is a blessing that we take for granted because we hear these words spoken so often, they are still filled with great comfort. Though it could be said that we have emptied the word bless of all its meaning by constantly using it after people sneeze, when we take a close look at the word bless, we find that it is an amazing word filled with layers if meaning.
For example, if you turn to the Dictionary, you will find that the word bless means, “to invoke divine favor upon someone”; to convey well-being or prosperity on someone”; or “to endow, as with a talent.” This pretty much describes how we view blessings in our lives, yet, if you dig a little deeper and take a look at the Hebrew word in our passage, you would find that the Hebrew word for bless is barek or barak depending upon how you pronounce it. Hearing that, many of you are probably thinking that our President’s name must mean “bless”. Interestingly that is exactly what it means, in Swahili, which I understand is the language either his Father or Grandfather spoke. However, based on what I could find, when it comes to Hebrew it seems that his name means lightning. This is all based on the length of the vowels and which Hebrew letter is used for the K sound. Anyway, as I was saying, the Hebrew word for bless is barek or barak, depending on how you pronounce it and it is a word that carries the idea of conveying favor upon a person. But it also carries the idea of kneeling down on the knees, either with a straight back, or bent over with your face toward the ground as in a position of worship or humility. This paints the picture that the person who is blessing you is greater than you and you are showing appreciation to that person by humbly accepting his gift of favor upon you. But the thing that is even more interesting is what you discover when you take a look at the etymology or the Word History of our English word bless. When we do this we find that it is a word that comes to us from the Old English which conveys the meaning of wishing happiness upon someone or consecrating someone. If we look back even farther we discover that the word can be shown to derive from a Germanic root that literally means “to consecrate with blood”
Though the Hebrew word itself may not convey the idea of consecrating with blood, when we take a look at how the Lord our God has blessed us, we quickly realize that it is the Lord who blesses us with his favor through the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for us by washing us clean with his blood and setting us apart as his brothers and sisters, children of God through faith in him. Thus, when we hear those words, “The Lord bless you and keep you” we are assured that it is the Lord our God who is not only continually bestowing his favor upon us, but he is also the one who is keeping us, and guarding us because we belong to him. Just as he assures us in Psalm 91:11, “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;” (Psalm 91:11, NIV84)
How often hasn’t the Lord done this for us? How often hasn’t the Lord blessed us when we least expected it or simply needed it the most? How often hasn’t the Lord provided for you exactly what you needed in the very moment you needed? How often hasn’t the Lord protected you from harm? How many situations can you point to in your life that you can see the Lord’s protecting hand keeping you safe from trouble and danger? This is how the Lord our God has blessed us in the past and will continue to bless us into the future as he promises when we hear those beautiful words, “ ‘ “The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;” (Numbers 6:24–25, NIV84)
What is the first thing that you do when you walk into a dark room? You flip the light switch and turn on the lights so that you can see where you are, where you are going, and what is in the room! This is something that is so ingrained into our nature that we do it without thinking about it. We often do it when we walk into a room on a sunny day. We even do it when the power is out. Though we know the power is out, we naturally reach out and flip the switch to illuminate the room, only to stand there, befuddled for a moment or two, until we realize that the power is out and there can be no light. The Lord our God works in much the same way, each time we hear that the Lord is causing his face to shine upon us, we understand just how greatly he is blessing us. For throughout the Scriptures, whenever the Lord hides his face from his people they face suffering, hardship, destruction and even death. However, when he shines his face upon them he graciously blesses them with his loving presence.
The Lord has done the same thing for us! In fact, each week as we hear this blessing, we are assured that the Lord our God will continue to cause his face to shine upon us and be gracious to us! Each week we are reminded of how the Lord our God did that for us through his Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior. For Jesus, our Savior is the shining light of the Lord’s grace to us. As the Scriptures tell us, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being,” (Hebrews 1:3, NIV84) Jesus is the one who came to us, revealing his gracious love for us in all that he did. Though we had done nothing to earn it or deserve it, Jesus willingly carried the concrete slabs of our sins to the execution chamber of the cross. As the crowds gathered expecting to hear his final confession or pleas that he was innocent, they only heard him whisper, Father forgive them. As they taunted him, expecting him to reply, they heard only silence. Though they expected only to hear the strangled gurgle of suffocation when Jesus died, they heard him cry out in a loud voice, they felt the earth quake, and the rocks split. This is how the Lord our God has blessed us, how he has caused his face to shine upon us and been gracious to us! Though we had been lost in the dark midnight of sin, the dawn of the Lord’s grace rose upon us and the Light of Christ our Savior was shown in our hearts. Though we had done nothing to deserve it, it was Christ our Savior who: “redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood, and innocent suffering and death. All this he did that I should be his own and live under him in his kingdom and serve him with everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as he has risen from death, and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.”
How greatly the Lord has blessed us that he should make his face shine upon us and be gracious to us, or that he should even turn his face toward us and give us peace. (Numbers 6:25–26, NIV84) Yet this is exactly what the Lord our God has done for us. He has blessed us not only by causing his face to shine on us but by turning his face toward us and giving us peace. Now I realize that the final clause of the Lord’s blessing sounds very similar to the second clause. Interestingly the same Hebrew word is used in both verses when speaking of the Lord’s face. Yet while verse 25 speaks about the Lord causing the light of his face to shine upon us, verse 26 speaks about the Lord fixing his loving gaze upon us; not only fixing his loving gaze upon us, but giving us his undivided attention. In such a simple way the Lord is assuring us that he is intensely interested in each and every one of us, and he will give us the individualized attention that each and every one of us needs!
What a comfort it is to know that the Lord our God cherishes us so much that he blesses us with his peace, which is the peace that goes beyond all understanding, the peace of the forgiveness of sins! This is the uplifting peace that the Holy Spirit pours out in our hearts as he assures us of the forgiveness of sins won for us by our dear Savior Jesus. This is the peace that builds us up when we are weak and sustains us when we cannot stand. This is the peace through which the Lord our God assures us that we have been completely forgiven of all our sins, that our slates have not only been washed clean but have been completely replaced without any chalk to keep a record of wrong, and that continues to assure us that we are, once again, in a right relationship with the Lord our God.
What greater blessing could there be than this blessing that the Lord our God bestows upon us each and every week! For it is through this very blessing that the Lord our God places his Name on us and blesses us as his people. It is through this blessing we are assured that he is watching over us, guarding us, and protecting us. It is through this blessing that we are assured of his peace and that we are in a right relationship with him through the forgiveness of sins. Though there are times when we take this blessing for granted, as you hear it one more time, let it wash over your heart and mind as you hear it one more time: “ ‘ “The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ’ (Numbers 6:24–26, NIV84)
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Dear friends in Christ.
How have you been enjoying exploring God’s Islands of Adventure? Personally I have loved this Bible reading challenge, because so many of you are reading and studying the Scriptures for yourselves on a regular basis. Though only a few people have added their names to ships that have been anchored on the different Islands, so many of our members have told me that they are reading on a regular basis. More and more people are coming to Bible Study to study the Word of God together and discuss different things they have learned, and I have enjoyed preaching on different lessons from the Chronological schedule of readings that so many of you are following. I have enjoyed it, because I have seen just how the Lord has begun blessing us as a congregation through this Bible Reading challenge, for that is what the Lord does as we grow in our faith through his Word.
In fact, this is the very thing we want to study as we take a look at the Aaronic blessing recorded for us in Numbers 6:22-27. I invite you then to open your Bibles to our first lesson, to Numbers 6:22-27. Now, as you are turning to Numbers six, let me give you a little bit of background. The Nation of Israel had been camped at Mt. Sinai for roughly 10 months now, and during their time there they had seen amazing things, been unfaithful to the Lord, forgiven by the Lord, blessed by the Lord and accomplished great things for the Lord. They had seen the Lord appear to them in a fiery cloud on the top of Mt. Sinai. They watched as Moses climb the mountain and disappeared into that cloud of fire and smoke. They grew impatient for Moses return and persuaded Aaron to fashion them a new god, a golden calf. They felt the sword of the Lord’s judgment when Moses returned from the Mountain. They repented and were forgiven. They watched as Moses again returned to the top of the Mountain for another 40 days. But this time, when he came down, there was no golden calf. Rather, whIen Moses returned to them with his radiant face glowing with the glory of the Lord, they set to work constructing the Tabernacle. Now, as the Lord speaks to Moses in our lesson for today, the Lord bestows upon his people, both Israel and all of his followers, what we have come to know as the Aaronic Blessing: Take a look at verse 22: “The LORD said to Moses, 23 “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: 24 “ ‘ “The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ’ 27 “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:22–27, NIV84)
In such a simple way, with such well chosen words, the Lord our God bestows the gift of his blessing upon his people Israel; both physical descendants of Israel as well as spiritual Israel, people like you and me who are now Israelites through faith in Jesus. What a comfort it is to know that whenever we hear these words of blessing spoken to us, it is as if the Lord himself is speaking to us, placing his name on us and blessing us! Though it could be said that this is a blessing that we take for granted because we hear these words spoken so often, they are still filled with great comfort. Though it could be said that we have emptied the word bless of all its meaning by constantly using it after people sneeze, when we take a close look at the word bless, we find that it is an amazing word filled with layers if meaning.
For example, if you turn to the Dictionary, you will find that the word bless means, “to invoke divine favor upon someone”; to convey well-being or prosperity on someone”; or “to endow, as with a talent.” This pretty much describes how we view blessings in our lives, yet, if you dig a little deeper and take a look at the Hebrew word in our passage, you would find that the Hebrew word for bless is barek or barak depending upon how you pronounce it. Hearing that, many of you are probably thinking that our President’s name must mean “bless”. Interestingly that is exactly what it means, in Swahili, which I understand is the language either his Father or Grandfather spoke. However, based on what I could find, when it comes to Hebrew it seems that his name means lightning. This is all based on the length of the vowels and which Hebrew letter is used for the K sound. Anyway, as I was saying, the Hebrew word for bless is barek or barak, depending on how you pronounce it and it is a word that carries the idea of conveying favor upon a person. But it also carries the idea of kneeling down on the knees, either with a straight back, or bent over with your face toward the ground as in a position of worship or humility. This paints the picture that the person who is blessing you is greater than you and you are showing appreciation to that person by humbly accepting his gift of favor upon you. But the thing that is even more interesting is what you discover when you take a look at the etymology or the Word History of our English word bless. When we do this we find that it is a word that comes to us from the Old English which conveys the meaning of wishing happiness upon someone or consecrating someone. If we look back even farther we discover that the word can be shown to derive from a Germanic root that literally means “to consecrate with blood”
Though the Hebrew word itself may not convey the idea of consecrating with blood, when we take a look at how the Lord our God has blessed us, we quickly realize that it is the Lord who blesses us with his favor through the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for us by washing us clean with his blood and setting us apart as his brothers and sisters, children of God through faith in him. Thus, when we hear those words, “The Lord bless you and keep you” we are assured that it is the Lord our God who is not only continually bestowing his favor upon us, but he is also the one who is keeping us, and guarding us because we belong to him. Just as he assures us in Psalm 91:11, “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;” (Psalm 91:11, NIV84)
How often hasn’t the Lord done this for us? How often hasn’t the Lord blessed us when we least expected it or simply needed it the most? How often hasn’t the Lord provided for you exactly what you needed in the very moment you needed? How often hasn’t the Lord protected you from harm? How many situations can you point to in your life that you can see the Lord’s protecting hand keeping you safe from trouble and danger? This is how the Lord our God has blessed us in the past and will continue to bless us into the future as he promises when we hear those beautiful words, “ ‘ “The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;” (Numbers 6:24–25, NIV84)
What is the first thing that you do when you walk into a dark room? You flip the light switch and turn on the lights so that you can see where you are, where you are going, and what is in the room! This is something that is so ingrained into our nature that we do it without thinking about it. We often do it when we walk into a room on a sunny day. We even do it when the power is out. Though we know the power is out, we naturally reach out and flip the switch to illuminate the room, only to stand there, befuddled for a moment or two, until we realize that the power is out and there can be no light. The Lord our God works in much the same way, each time we hear that the Lord is causing his face to shine upon us, we understand just how greatly he is blessing us. For throughout the Scriptures, whenever the Lord hides his face from his people they face suffering, hardship, destruction and even death. However, when he shines his face upon them he graciously blesses them with his loving presence.
The Lord has done the same thing for us! In fact, each week as we hear this blessing, we are assured that the Lord our God will continue to cause his face to shine upon us and be gracious to us! Each week we are reminded of how the Lord our God did that for us through his Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior. For Jesus, our Savior is the shining light of the Lord’s grace to us. As the Scriptures tell us, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being,” (Hebrews 1:3, NIV84) Jesus is the one who came to us, revealing his gracious love for us in all that he did. Though we had done nothing to earn it or deserve it, Jesus willingly carried the concrete slabs of our sins to the execution chamber of the cross. As the crowds gathered expecting to hear his final confession or pleas that he was innocent, they only heard him whisper, Father forgive them. As they taunted him, expecting him to reply, they heard only silence. Though they expected only to hear the strangled gurgle of suffocation when Jesus died, they heard him cry out in a loud voice, they felt the earth quake, and the rocks split. This is how the Lord our God has blessed us, how he has caused his face to shine upon us and been gracious to us! Though we had been lost in the dark midnight of sin, the dawn of the Lord’s grace rose upon us and the Light of Christ our Savior was shown in our hearts. Though we had done nothing to deserve it, it was Christ our Savior who: “redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood, and innocent suffering and death. All this he did that I should be his own and live under him in his kingdom and serve him with everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as he has risen from death, and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.”
How greatly the Lord has blessed us that he should make his face shine upon us and be gracious to us, or that he should even turn his face toward us and give us peace. (Numbers 6:25–26, NIV84) Yet this is exactly what the Lord our God has done for us. He has blessed us not only by causing his face to shine on us but by turning his face toward us and giving us peace. Now I realize that the final clause of the Lord’s blessing sounds very similar to the second clause. Interestingly the same Hebrew word is used in both verses when speaking of the Lord’s face. Yet while verse 25 speaks about the Lord causing the light of his face to shine upon us, verse 26 speaks about the Lord fixing his loving gaze upon us; not only fixing his loving gaze upon us, but giving us his undivided attention. In such a simple way the Lord is assuring us that he is intensely interested in each and every one of us, and he will give us the individualized attention that each and every one of us needs!
What a comfort it is to know that the Lord our God cherishes us so much that he blesses us with his peace, which is the peace that goes beyond all understanding, the peace of the forgiveness of sins! This is the uplifting peace that the Holy Spirit pours out in our hearts as he assures us of the forgiveness of sins won for us by our dear Savior Jesus. This is the peace that builds us up when we are weak and sustains us when we cannot stand. This is the peace through which the Lord our God assures us that we have been completely forgiven of all our sins, that our slates have not only been washed clean but have been completely replaced without any chalk to keep a record of wrong, and that continues to assure us that we are, once again, in a right relationship with the Lord our God.
What greater blessing could there be than this blessing that the Lord our God bestows upon us each and every week! For it is through this very blessing that the Lord our God places his Name on us and blesses us as his people. It is through this blessing we are assured that he is watching over us, guarding us, and protecting us. It is through this blessing that we are assured of his peace and that we are in a right relationship with him through the forgiveness of sins. Though there are times when we take this blessing for granted, as you hear it one more time, let it wash over your heart and mind as you hear it one more time: “ ‘ “The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ’ (Numbers 6:24–26, NIV84)
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
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