You will be restored! (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

May 27, 2012

Dear friends in Christ.

Let me take a couple of moments to introduce myself to you this morning.  I am the Prophet Ezekiel.  I was born roughly 2600 years ago, in the year 623 BC.  I was born about 5 years after the Prophet Jeremiah received his call from the Lord to proclaim judgment and the impending Babylonian Captivity on the city of Jerusalem and all the people of Judea.   I was born into the tribe of Levi, and therefore I was a Levite who lived in and around God’s Temple until my 26th year, and I regularly heard Jeremiah preaching that the Lord would destroy Jerusalem and his temple.  Though I didn’t want to believe it, I saw the first phase of God’s judgment against his people as King Nebuchadnezzar came, besieged the city, conquered it, and carried the brightest and the best of Israel into captivity in Babylon.  It was there, in my 30th year, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, that I received the Lord’s call to be his prophet to the people of Israel in Babylon.  It was there, by the river in the land of the Babylonians that I saw a vision of the Lord, seated on a sapphire throne, surrounded by four living creatures.  It was there in Babylon that the Lord commissioned me to be a watchman for the house of Israel.  And it was there in Babylon, seven years later, that we heard how King Nebuchadnezzar had finally defeated and destroyed Jerusalem, along with the Lord’s Temple.  Yet, even in the midst of this sorrow over the destruction of the Lord’s Temple and the City of Jerusalem the Lord gave me the privilege of proclaiming to his people the message that they would indeed be restored!

Now, when the Lord gave me this great message of restoration, the people of Israel were feeling that their hope was gone.  They were feeling that they had been cut off from the Lord.  They were feeling that they had died and their very bones had completely dried up.  This is why the Lord gave me the vision that he did.  For on that day when the Lord’s hand was upon me, he brought me out by his Spirit and set me down in the middle of a valley full of bones, bones that were completely dead and dried out.  He led me back and forth among them so that I might see how dead and dry they were, and then the Lord asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”  I tell you, when the Lord asks you a question like that, you think about your answer.  From a human standpoint, there is no way that these bones could ever live, but when the Almighty God asks you that question, he must have something in mind, so I answered him: “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” (See Ezekiel 37:1-3)

It was then that the Lord called on me to prophecy.  He called on me to prophecy to the bones and say to them: “This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’” …As I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.” (Ezekiel 37:5-10)

Oh, I wish you could have seen the vision that the Lord gave me on that day, because the vision that he gave me was a great assurance that the Lord himself would restore his people Israel!  As the Lord told me, the bones that I saw represented the whole house of Israel.  The restoration I saw was assurance that the Lord would not only deliver the people from captivity in Babylon, but he would restore them to their own land, the land which he had given them.  Not only would he restore them to their own land, but he would restore them as his faithful people by placing the Holy Spirit in their hearts so that they might be strengthened in their faith, know that the Lord was their one and only God, that they might seek to trust in him and follow his ways. 

This was a great comfort for me and for the Israelites as we lived as exiles in the land of the Babylonians.  This was great comfort to all of us because it assured us that even though both Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed and we had been exiled, the Lord our God had not forsaken us.  He had not abandoned us.  He would, one day, restore us by returning us to the Land of Israel, by allowing us to rebuild the Temple, and by calling us his people, once again.  Which is exactly what happened under the guidance and leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, something like 40 plus years after the Lord gave me the vision of the dry bones to assure me that he would restore his People, Israel.

Well in the same way that this message was a comfort to me in the land of exile, so also this message can be a great comfort to you as well.  It can be a great comfort because just as the Lord assured us that we would be restored, so also he is assuring each and every one of you that you too will be restored.  Now, I will admit that at first glance this message might not make all that much sense to Christians living in the 21st Century.  After all, you are not living in some foreign country where you were dragged after an enemy laid siege to your city, conquered it, burned it, and completely destroyed it, together with your church.  But even though you might not find yourself in that type of captivity, the truth is, we have all found ourselves in some type of captivity at one time or another in our lives.

Just think about it!  How often haven’t we been held captive by our own sorrow, able only to focus on the bad things in life, and completely unable to find joy in anything?  How often haven’t we been held captive by depression, finding that we have lost all interest in doing the things that we love, or being with the people we love?  How often haven’t we been held captive by our jobs, feeling that we aren’t able to take any time off because we are so badly needed?  Or feeling that we are so busy that we barely have any time for our friends, our family, or even for the Lord?  How often haven’t we been taken captive by our hobbies, vacations, or other recreation to the point where we are so busy having fun that we completely ignore the time the Lord has given us to gather in worship?  How often haven’t we been taken captive by the feeling that the church either has nothing to give us, or the feeling that we have nothing to contribute to the Church?  How often haven’t we stood in the middle of the narthex just to see if someone would come and talk to us, wondering if anyone would even notice if we just stopped coming to church?  How often haven’t we been held captive by our fears, afraid to be hurt, or mocked, or ridiculed?  How often haven’t we been held captive by our sins, feeling that we simply cannot be forgiven for the evil we have done? How often hasn’t the guilt of something that we have done or left undone weighed so heavily upon us that even though the sin that caused the guilt happened years ago, and we know that we’ve been forgiven, we simply cannot forgive ourselves?  Or how often hasn’t it happened that we’ve found ourselves neglecting worship and Holy Communion because we’ve felt that we must first get our lives in order before we even think about approaching God for forgiveness?

Sadly, we, like the People Israel have been held captive at one time or another, by one thing or another, during our lives!  But even though our enemy, the devil, seeks to hold us in that captivity, it is the Lord who sent me to assure you that you will be restored!  You will be restored, and you have been restored, by the Lord your God who loves you and cares for you.  You have been restored by the Lord your God who sent his one and only Son into this world to suffer the righteous anger our God had over our sins; who sent his Son to spill his blood and give up his innocent life as a payment for our sins.  You have been restored by the Lord our God who sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts and made us children of our heavenly Father.  This is how you have been restored!  For when the Holy Spirit entered our hearts on the day of our baptism, he entered that scarlet chamber, which was filled to bursting with all of our sins, and he emptied those sins into the Portable On Demand Storage container—the PODS of our Gods Grace.  He swept out every nook and cranny of our hearts with the Shop-Vac of forgiveness, and whitewashed the floors, ceilings and walls of our hearts with the blood of our Savior.

It is through this sending of the Holy Spirit into our hearts, that we have been restored to a right relationship with the Lord our God.  Now, just like the Israelites in my day were looking forward to the promise that they would be restored to their own land, we are looking forward to the day when the Lord will restore us to the Promised Land of Heaven.

Though we may still face sorrows, troubles, or hardships in this life, we can be assured that the Lord will carry us through them because the Holy Spirit has restored us, by creating faith in our hearts. Though we may still face depression in this life, and find ourselves stuck in the painful cycle that depression has, we can find joy in the fact that we belong to the Lord, our Savior, who rose again to assure us that we will live with him forever in heaven.  Though we may still feel that our jobs have us so busy that we can’t possibly find time for family, friends, or even worship, when we are reminded how the Lord has restored us, it is the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts and gives us the desire to change whatever we can so that we can make time for what is most important.  Though there may still be times when we find ourselves feeling that we don’t belong at Grace, or there is nothing more the church can offer us, or we even feel guilty that we are not able to accomplish everything we would like for the Lord and his Church, in those times especially, it is the Holy Spirit who reminds us that in worship, we have the finest meal of God’s Word set before us on a weekly basis.  Each week we drink in the pure, clean, and refreshing waters of his truth from the wellspring of salvation. Though there will still be times when our sins and guilt make us feel that we are cut off from the Lord and that our very bones have dried up, it is the Holy Spirit who assures us that our loving Father has already given life to our dried up bones, our loving Savior has already knit our bodies back together with the forgiveness that he won for us on the cross, and it is the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who has breathed into us the breath of life and made us heirs of heaven through Jesus Christ our Savior.

What greater assurance could the Lord give us than this!  For He who restored the house of Israel and brought them back from captivity so that they might continue as the nation from which the Savior would come; He is the one who has restored us to himself, brought us out of the very things that have held us captive, washing us clean with the blood of his Son, and giving us the absolute assurance of deliverance to life everlasting.  Though I lived some 500 years before our Savior walked the earth, I was privileged to proclaim God’s message of restoration to the Israelites, and again to you today; for just as the Lord restored his people Israel to their own land, he will one day restore you and me to the heavenly land where we will live with him forever.  This is our comfort and our assurance.  Continue to look forward to that day when the Lord will bring you to his full and complete restoration forever in haven.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN

Salvation is yours through faith in Jesus! (John 17:3)

May 13, 2012

Dear friends in Christ.

For the past few years I have made a habit of assuring my children of my love by telling them a simple truth.  From time to time I will take them in my arms, sit them on my lap, or simply sit down next to them and tell them, “if all the children of the world were lined up together, and I could only pick two of them to take home and be my own, I would search and search until I found you.  And when I found you I would take you home to be my children.”  Though I don’t remember where I first heard this, I have spoken these words, or a variation of them to my children on a regular basis for the past few years, and they have loved it.  They have loved it, because by saying these words I am able to assure them of my love for them.  I am able to assure them of my pride in them, that we belong to each other, and that we are part of a family together.  Though my children have heard these words on many different occasions over the past few years, I know they enjoy hearing this because these words assure them that they are indeed loved by me. 

Well, in many ways, this is what the season of Easter is all about.  For it is during the season of Easter that we are continually assured of our Savior’s love for us.  We are regularly assured that it was through Jesus’ innocent suffering, death, and resurrection that all of our sins, mistakes, wrong doings, missteps, call them what you will, they have been washed away.  We are assured that in the same way that Jesus was raised from the dead through the Glory of God the Father, our bodies will also be raised from the dead by Jesus when he calls them out of the grave on the Last Day.  We are assured that just as Jesus ascended into heaven, as we will celebrate next Sunday, we too will ascend to our Savior’s side, one day when Jesus calls us home.  But of all the assurances that we receive during the season of Easter, the greatest assurance is the assurance that eternal life is ours through faith in Jesus Christ, our Savior.  Eternal life is ours through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior, who died and rose again to free us from our sins and give us the gift of everlasting life by his side forever in heaven.  In fact, this is the very assurance that Jesus gives us in our lesson today, in John 17:3 where Jesus says, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, NIV84)

These words are truly words of great assurance for us as Christians, for with these words Jesus is assuring us that eternal life is ours because our knowledge of God goes much, much deeper that just simply knowing that there is a god.  Our knowledge of God encompasses who our God truly is, as he has revealed himself to us in the pages of the Scriptures.  This is very important knowledge because there is a great deal of confusion in our world today about who the true god is and how we attain salvation.  For example, if you conducted a nation-wide survey and asked Americans what they thought or believed about God and who God is, you would find that just about every person would have a different idea or opinion.  If you asked someone who claimed to be Agnostic, he would tell you that you can never really be sure if there is a god, and if there really is a god, then there is no way that you could never really know him.  If you asked a Muslim, he would tell you without hesitation that there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet.  If you asked a Jehovah’s witness, he would tell you that there is no god but Jehovah.  If you asked a Mormon, his answer would sound very Christian as he would probably tell you about God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Yet, by taking a closer look at the Mormon faith you would find that a Mormon’s idea of God is different than our idea and concept of God.  Though this list could go on and on, it is clear from these examples that there are quite a number of people in our own country that simply do not know who the true God is.  Though they may have all sorts of different ideas about him, when their beliefs are compared to the Scriptures, it can be said that they personally know the true God about as well as we personally know the President of the United States.  Though we could easily pick him out of crow because we are constantly seeing his picture on TV, I doubt that there is any one of us here who knows him or is even remotely acquainted with him.  But even though there are many people in our country and even in the world who do not know who the true God is, as Jesus is speaking today he assures us that we have eternal life because we know who the true God is!

We know who the true God is because we have come to know the true God through Jesus Christ our Savior who has revealed him to us through the pages of the Scriptures!  We have come to know the only true God as the God who created the heavens and the earth in six twenty-four hour days; resting on the seventh.  We have come to know him as our good and merciful Father in heaven who watches over us and richly and daily provides us all that we need for our body and life.  We have come to know him as our loving Father who graciously sent his one and only Son to bear the curse of sin for us.  We know Jesus Christ, the Son, our Savior, who took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows.  We know Jesus Christ our Savior who was stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.  We know Jesus who was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.  We know Jesus Christ, whom God the Father chose to crush and cause to suffer so that we might be free to live for him through faith in the one who freed us from our sins.  We know the true God; God the Father who sent his Son to save us.  We know Jesus, the Son of God who freed us from our sins, and we know the Holy Spirit who was sent to us by both the Father and the Son so that he might create faith in our hearts, which believes in the true God as the Scriptures reveals to us.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit, who came into our hearts on the day that we were baptized.  This is the Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts and strengthens our faith through the power of God’s Word and Sacrament.  It is through his work, calling us to faith and encouraging us to grow in our faith by gathering with other believers in worship and making time to read God’s Word that we come to a deeper knowledge of who the true God is.  It is through the work of the Holy Spirit and we are assured that we have eternal life because we believe in the true God who has revealed himself to us in the pages of Scriptures—three persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, yet only one God!

How wonderful it is to be reminded of this very fact, for it is through this regular reminding that we are built up in our faith and assured that we have the gift of eternal life to look forward to because, as Jesus said, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, NIV84)

Though we heard this truth time and time again, as Jesus speaks these words to us he is taking just one more opportunity to assure us that eternal life is ours through faith in him and not because of anything that we have done.  For in the same way that my children thrive on the assurance of my love, and even ask me to tell them again and again how I would choose them, so also Jesus knows that we constantly need to be reminded and assured that eternal life is ours through faith in him.  Jesus constantly reminds us and assures us that eternal life is ours through faith in him and not because of anything we have done, because he knows that we are constantly receiving a different message from the world.  He knows that satan is constantly working overtime to make even the strongest Christians feel that either they need to do something to attain eternal life, or that their faith has nothing to do with gathering with other believers to receive Jesus assurance.  This is why Jesus tells us, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, NIV84) 

Now, as Jesus speaks these words to us, he is simply laying the truth of our salvation out before us so that we can clearly see and be assured that eternal life belongs to us only trough faith in Jesus, who is the Son of God, our Savior.  He is the one who was born on this earth as true God and yet true man.  He is the one who lived a perfect, sinless life, completely and perfectly doing what we could never hope to do—obeying each and every one of God’s commandments perfectly.  He is the one who willingly shouldered the mountain of our sins and slowly stumbled on his way to the place of the skull so that he might surrender his life over to death in our place.  He is the one who willingly endured the puncture wounds of the nails through his hands and his feet.  He is the one who suffered the pains and punishment of hell and damnation as he was rejected by his own God and Father, all so that we would never have to face that rejection.  He is the one who laid down his life so that he might die in our place and appease his Father’s righteous anger over our sins.  He is the one with whom we have been buried through baptism so that just has he has risen from death we too might live a new life.  He is the one who is speaking to us today, to assure us that we have eternal life in him because through faith in him we know the true God.

Now, as I’ve shared this assurance with you, I haven’t told you anything that you didn’t already know.  I’ve simply reminded you and reassured you that eternal life is yours through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior.  This is what our Church does!  This is why you called me to be your Pastor, so that I might weekly remind you and assure you of your salvation through faith in Jesus.  And this is what Jesus, our Savior, is doing for us today.  He is the one who is standing before and assuring us that we are heirs of eternal life through faith in him!  Though there may be times when this news simply seems too good to be true, you can be certain that it is true.  Though there may be times when your emotions simply cannot accept this message as true, Jesus continues to tell us and assure us that it is true so that we can find comfort in this truth.  Though there may be times when we simply don’t feel that this can be true of us, Jesus assures us that it is.  He assures us that eternal life is already ours through faith in him.  For in the same what that I regularly assure my children that if all the children of the world were lined up together, and I could only pick two of them to take home and be my own, I would search and search until I found you.  And when I found you I would take you home to be my children.  In the same way that I regularly assure my children with these words, today our Savior has once again assured us that salvation is ours through faith in him.  As he has told us, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, NIV84)

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN

God Chose you to be his own (Acts 8:26-40)

May 6, 2012

Dear friends in Christ.

If you’ll permit me, I’d like to tell you a story this morning.  It’s not a story about car chases or gunfights, though one of the characters does chase after a chariot.  It’s not a story with a western setting, though there are some horses involved with it.  It’s not even a science fiction story in which two different species of aliens have to learn to coexist, instead, it’s simply a Bible History story that many of you have undoubtedly heard before.  It’s the story about the Philip, the deacon, and the Ethiopian eunuch and how God chose that eunuch to be his own.  Now, I admit, at first glance this might not seem to be the most interesting story that I could have told you this morning!  But even though this might be the case, I guarantee you that by the time I’m done, you’ll be thankful I did tell you.  You’ll be thankful, because through this simple and completely true Bible History story, you will be reassured that it was God who chose you to be his own.

Though I know that you already know that it was God who chose you to be his own, this is a fact that will become that much clearer as we study the account of Philip and the Eunuch.  As our story opens, Philip was working with a number of the other disciples in the region of Samaria, and in the city which was also named, Samaria.  This city of Samaria was about 30 – 40 miles north of Jerusalem, and it was there that an angel of the Lord suddenly came to Philip and told him to “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”" (Acts 8:26, NIV84)

Even though the Lord was greatly blessing the work of the disciples in Samaria and quite a few of the Samaritans were coming to faith, Philip simply obeyed the word of the Lord.  Without a second thought he started out on his journey, and as he traveled, somewhere on that road leading to Gaza, Philip met up with this Ethiopian eunuch.  Now, this was no ordinary Ethiopian!  This was an important official in the government.  He was basically the Secretary of the Treasury for all of Ethiopia.  On top of that, he was a convert to Judaism and had recently been in Jerusalem to worship the Lord God.  On top of that, as he was traveling back to Ethiopia, he was reading from the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah.

Now, when Philip saw him, the Holy Spirit told him to go up to the chariot and stay near it.  So Philip ran along side and heard the man reading.  As he was reading Philip asked a very simple question.  Luke tells us: “‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ asked Philip. ‘How can I,’ [the eunuch] said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture: ‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.’ The eunuch asked Philip, ‘Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?’  Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” (Acts 8:30-35).

This is why the Lord pulled Philip away from a very successful ministry in Samaria and sent him down to a lonely desert road south of Jerusalem!  He did it so that this eunuch might have the opportunity to learn about Jesus through Philip’s teaching!  He did it so that this eunuch might be brought to faith in Jesus and become a child of God!  He did it, because this eunuch was a soul whom God had chosen to be his own, and God made sure that he had the opportunity to hear the gospel and come to faith.  Well the same thing can be said about each and every one of us here today!  For the truth is, each one of us is a soul whom God has chosen to be his own.  For you see even before we were even a sparkle in our mother’s eyes, the Lord knew us and knew what he had planned for our lives.  Before we were even born, the Lord loved us and chose us to be his own.  When we were born, he was the one who saw to it that our parents had us baptized.  He is the one who saw to it that we were taught the precious truths about his Son.  He is the one who saw to it that we learned our Bible History lessons and our Catechism lessons so that our faith in him might be strengthened. Now he is the one who continues to strengthen our faith through his Word and Sacrament so that we might remain faithful to him throughout our lives no matter what troubles or frustrations we might face. 

What greater comfort could we receive today, than the comfort that comes from knowing that it was the Lord God who chose us to be his own!  It was the Lord our God who counted us as his precious souls and saw to it that we were made his children!  This, in fact, was exactly what the Lord did for that Ethiopian eunuch in our lesson today!  For after Philip had thoroughly explained the word of God to him, the eunuch was baptized.  Luke tells us: “As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea." (Acts 8:36–40, NIV84)

As they road together, the Holy Spirit created faith in the heart of this eunuch—faith which trusted in Jesus as his Savior, and faith that longed for the assurance that Baptism could give him.  When they stopped, Philip baptized him, assuring this eunuch that he was indeed a child of God through faith.  But when they came up out of the water, it was the Lord who suddenly took Philip away.  He suddenly took Philip away, and he wound up at Azotus, where he began to preach the Word of God, traveling north until he reached the town of Caesarea.

Why the Lord took Philip away like he did, we will never know!  But there is great comfort and assurance for us in the way this story ends.  For even though Philip suddenly disappeared from the eunuch’s side, never to be seen again, the eunuch went on his way rejoicing.  He returned to his homeland as a child of God, and it is very likely that he began teaching others about their Savior, Jesus Christ.  It is quite possible that he brought this news to the queen and all her officials and the leadership of Ethiopia came to know Jesus as their Savior.  It is even possible that this man became a missionary and went around his country and even throughout Africa preaching and teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Though this is the only part of the Bible in which this man is mentioned, though we are never told anything more than, “the eunuch went on his way rejoicing,” we take great comfort in the fact that it was the Lord who chose him to be his own.

Well, just as we take great comfort in the fact that the Lord chose this particular Ethiopian eunuch to be his own, we also take comfort in the fact that the Lord has chosen us to be his own.  For the truth is, as we sit here today, we know that it was the Lord who chose us to be his own.  We know that it was the Lord who saw to it that we were baptized into the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We know that it was the Lord who not only created the faith that trusts in Jesus as our Savior, but we also know that he is the one who sustained that faith through the regular use of his word and sacrament.  But even more than that, we also know that it is the Lord who now uses us to call others to faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior.  He is the one who now uses us to proclaim that beautiful message of the gospel so that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved.  This is the gospel message that proclaims to believers from every nation, kingdom, tribe and people, that Jesus has chosen them to be his own. 

Though sometimes it might be difficult and a little scary for us to speak to people about our faith, this is what the Lord wants us to do.  Though it may be difficult for some of us to recognize the importance of filling this church with all sorts of different colors and unfamiliar faces, this is the mission that the Lord has set before us in brining the Gospel to all nations.  But while the very thought of going out and proclaiming the Gospel can be quite terrifying, you don’t need to be frightened or even alarmed.  For now that the Lord has called you to be his own, he uses you to bring others into his fold every hour of every day. Sometimes it happens when someone simply notices how you live your life, and from that they start to wonder about your beliefs.  Other times it happens when people notice that foul language isn’t a normal part of your every day conversation and they remember you belong to the Lutheran Church.  Sometimes it happens in the midst of a conversation when suddenly you find yourself talking about Jesus and other times it transpires in a simple invitation to worship on Sunday morning.  But no matter how it might happen, we know that it is the Lord using us to spread his word to others, just as he used Philip to share God’s Word with a precious soul whom the Lord had chosen.

So then, here we are, we’ve come to the end of our story.  But even though it doesn’t end with trademark, “happily ever after”, or with a hero riding off into the sunset, it ends on a very comforting note.  For this account ends with the assurance that it is the Lord who has chosen us to be his own.  It is the Lord who called us to faith and it is the Lord who uses us to share that faith with others who need to know.  Take comfort in that fact as you leave this place today, and don’t ever forget that it was the Lord who chose you to be his own.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN