Sermon Hymn 410: Our Father, Who from Heaven Above
Tune: Vater Unser Im Himmelreich, Der Du: 88 88 88
1. Our Father, who from heav'n above Bids all of us to live in love
As members of one family And pray to you in unity,
Teach us no thoughtless words to say, But from our inmost hearts to pray.
2. Your name be hallowed. Help us, Lord, In purity to keep your Word,
That to the glory of your name We walk before you free from blame.
Let no false doctrine us pervert; All poor, deluded souls convert.
Dear friends in Christ.
A story has long been told about two monks who were discussing the Lord’s Prayer and their ability to pray it completely while concentrating on it fully. The first monk said with sorrow and frustration, “I can’t do it! I try and I try, but invariably somewhere in the middle of the prayer my mind wanders and I start thinking about other things.” “Really,” said the second monk. “I have no problem praying the Lord’s Prayer or concentrating on what I am saying.” The first monk looked quizzically at the second and said, “I don’t believe you! I’ll bet you my horse that you cannot say the Lord’s Prayer without being distracted and thinking about something else.” So the second monk took the bet. He took a deep breath to help clear his mind and focus his thoughts. He folded his hands, closed his eyes, bowed his head, and began praying. But before he even reached the petition asking that the Lord’s will be done on heaven and on earth, he stopped, looked at the first monk and said, “I guess you were right. Everything was going fine. I was focused and concentrating on what I was saying, and then I suddenly wondered if the saddle would come with the horse.”
How often doesn’t the same thing happen to us? How often don’t we begin speaking the words of the Lord’s Prayer when suddenly three or four different thoughts crowd their way into our minds and we simply stop paying attention to the words we are speaking? How often doesn’t it happen that we hear the Pastor say something like, “We join to pray the prayer that Jesus taught, and the next thing we realize is that we are saying, “Amen” and we are continuing on with the Communion liturgy or sitting down to sing the next hymn? How often haven’t we simply taken the Lord’s Prayer for granted? How often haven’t we simply prayed it without considering what we are praying for? How often haven’t we been upset because we were in a church that used that other version of the Lord’s Prayer, the one with which we are not so familiar, and we had to open our hymnals and read it, and think about the words we were saying; instead of simply reciting it verbatim without a care in the world? We’ve all done this! We have all failed to focus on what we were praying as we fervently prayed the Lord’s Prayer. It is for this very reason that we want to take a closer look at the Lord’s Prayer today so that we might grow in our understanding of what we are praying, and so that we might be better able to focus our attention on what we are so fervently praying to the Lord with these words.
To our text! Take a look at Matthew 6:9” “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,’” (Matthew 6:9, NIV). With these words, Jesus himself is inviting us to believe that God is our one true Father in heaven and that through faith in him and his Son Jesus, we are his true children. With these words, Jesus is teaching us that we can pray to the Lord God our heavenly Father as boldly and confidently as children speak to their parents here on earth. With these words, Jesus is teaching us that we can bring any problem, hardship, frustration, concern, item of joy or praise to our heavenly Father at any time and he will hear us, he will listen, and he will answer our prayer as we fervently pray to him and ask that his name be kept holy.
Now, if you think about it, God’s name is already holy in itself, even without our asking. But when we are praying that the Lord’s name be hallowed, we are asking that we too might keep it holy. We are asking for his help and his blessing in keeping his name holy, because God’s Name is hallowed, when his Word is taught in its truth and purity. God’s Name is hallowed when we, as God’s children, live holy lives according to his Word, and as we pray that his name be kept holy, we are asking our Father in heaven to help us do that very thing so that through our lives others might see our faith and have the opportunity to learn about their Savior through the message of the Gospel. This is God’s will for our lives that his kingdom comes to us and many others through the message of his Word. Join me in singing about his kingdom and his will in stanza’s 3 and 4 of hymn 410:
3. Your kingdom come, we humbly pray, That Christ may rule in us today
And that your Holy Spirit bring Still more to worship Christ as King.
Break Satan's pow'r, defeat his rage; Preserve your Church from age to age.
4. Your gracious will on earth be done Just as in heav'n around your throne,
That patiently we may obey Throughout our lives all that you say.
Curb sinful flesh and ev'ry ill That sets itself against your will.
Such beautiful words the hymnist uses to expound what we are praying in those two very beautiful petitions form Matthew 6:10: “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10, NIV). How strange it is that we as Christians should be praying such a petition as, “your kingdom come.” After all, we know that God’s kingdom will certainly come even without our asking, but when we speak these words, we are asking that God’s kingdom would come to us and to many others through the Holy Spirit whom the Father sends into our hearts through his Word and Sacraments. We are asking our heavenly Father to send his Holy Spirit into our hearts and the hearts of many others so that we all might believe his Word and lead a holy and godly life here on earth, through faith, and forever in heaven by God’s grace. This is God’s good and gracious will for our lives!
Again, God’s will would certainly be done without our prayer! Yet, whenever we pray, “Thy will be done;” we are praying that the Lord our God would break down and defeat every evil plan and purpose of the devil, this sin-filled world, and even our own sinful flesh. We are asking the Lord to strengthen us and keep us strong in our faith and firm in his word so that we might keep his name holy with our lives and his kingdom might come to others through our words and actions. That is God’s good and gracious will for our lives, that satan would be defeated, that the Lord would use us to spread his word to the nations, and that he would call many others to faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
This is our fervent prayer to the Lord as we speak the words which our Savior has given. Though the petitions, to this point, have been rather straight forward and easy for us to speak, as we come to the Fourth and Fifth Petitions, we find ourselves in a little more difficult territory. Though these words roll off the tongue so easily without a thought, when we stop to consider their meaning, they become that much more difficult for us to speak. Join me in singing these petitions from stanzas 5 and 6 of hymn 410:
5. Give us today our daily bread, And let us all be clothed and fed.
From hardship, war, and earthly strife, From sickness, famine, spare our life.
Let selfishness and worry cease That we may live in godly peace.
6. Forgive our sins, Lord, we implore, That they may trouble us no more;
We, too, will gladly those forgive Who hurt us by the way they live.
Help us in our community To serve each other willingly.
So how did you feel as you sung the words of these two stanzas? Did you find these words easy to sing or did you find them a little more difficult than you expected as they so clearly expounded on what Jesus tells us in verse 11 and 12 of Matthew 6: “Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:11-12, NIV). But why is it that these petitions are so difficult for us? The answer is quite simple; because we are asking our God not only to teach us to rely on him for all things, but to live in love and forgiveness for each other. In fact, just think about what we are saying when we ask our God to give us our daily bread. We are asking him to provide everything that we need for our body and life on a daily basis. We are asking him to help us realize that he graciously gives us all these things and more, even without our asking, even to those who are wicked. But we are asking him to help us realize that all our blessings come from him and that he will provide all that we need, which is something that so few of us do because it is so contrary to our human nature. All we have to do is look at our budget and calculate how much we are paying in credit card interest and other deferred payments for things that we may not have needed but simply felt that we couldn’t live without in order to find our level of trust in the Lord’s ability to know what we need and provide all that we need every day.
Yet even as we have sinned against the Lord by not trusting him, we are asking him to forgive us. Yet this is also where it becomes difficult for us. Though it is easy to pray that the Lord would forgive our debts, our sins; it is not as easy to pray, as we have forgiven our debtors—those who have sinned against us. This, too, goes completely against our human nature. We long to hold on to our grudges and remember what this person or that person did against us. We see it as a source of pride to withhold forgiveness from someone who sinned against us. Yet we fervently pray for our God to forgive us, we are asking him for the strength to forgive others as well. We are praying that the Lord would neither look upon our sins, nor deny our prayers because of our sins, even though we sin on a daily basis and deserve only his wrath and punishment. Yet, as we approach our heavenly Father, we ask him to act in mercy because of our Savior, forgive us of all our sins, and help us to do the same for those who have sinned against us. We ask him to help us reflect the love our Savior has for us by forgiven others, even as Jesus has already forgiven all of us.
This is the forgiveness in which we all live; the forgiveness that is ours through faith in Jesus, who poured out his blood and took back his life to save us. This is the forgiveness that now moves us to live in his love, love our neighbor as our selves, and forgive those who sin against us. This is the forgiveness that no moves us to pray that the Lord deliver us from temptation and all evil, just as we sing in stanzas 7 and 8 of hymn 410:
7. Into temptation lead us not. When evil foes against us plot
And vex our souls on ev'ry hand, Oh, give us strength that we may stand
Firm in the faith, a mighty host, Through comfort of the Holy Ghost.
8. From evil, Lord, deliver us; The times and days are perilous.
Redeem us from eternal death, And, when we yield our dying breath,
Console us, grant us calm release, And take our souls to you in peace.
Just as we sang so beautifully in our hymn we pray so fervently with those words from verse 13 of Matthew 6: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:13, NIV) Though we know that God does not lead anyone into sin or even tempt them to sin, with these words we fervently pray that the Lord our God would guard us and keep us so that satan, this sinful world, and our traitorous-sinful flesh would not deceive us, or lead us into false belief, despair, or any other sins for that matter. Instead, with these words, we fervently pray that with God’s help we may overcome these and other temptations and win the victory over them as God himself delivers us from the evil one—our enemy, the devil.
This, too, is our fervent prayer that God our Father would deliver us from every evil that would threaten our body and soul, even our property and reputation. Not only that, but we also pray that when our time comes, the Lord would grant us a blessed end by calling us out of this life to his side forever in heaven. This is our fervent prayer to the Lord our God who promises to hear us, answer us, forgive us, provide for us, and deliver us from every form of evil.
Thus, we come to the end of the Lord’s prayer as recorded in the Bible. Though it was a little different in the account in Luke than it is in Matthew, there is no place where the doxology is recorded in the Scriptures. So I cannot point to you any specific passage in the Bible where you can read, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.” But even though they may not appear in any specific passage of Scripture, they undoubtedly echo many of the praises found in the Scriptures which describe how the Lord’s kingdom, power and glory shall endure forever. Interestingly enough, these very words were included with the Lord’s prayer in the Didache, which was essentially the Catechism for Christians back in about 100 AD. They were the words that we sang in response to the reading of the Lord’s Prayer during the communion service back when we used The Lutheran Hymnal, and they are words that have stuck. They are words of praise and glory that we proclaim before we say Amen, which is our statement of confidence that the Lord will hear and answer our prayer. Thus we say Amen at the end of our prayer, for this simple word declares, “Yes, it shall be so.” Yes, it shall be so thus declares our confidence in approaching our heavenly Father in this way, for not only has he commanded us to pray and promised to hear us, but these are the very words that Jesus has given us to pray.
So now, as we continue fervently praying the Lord’s Prayer, each and every week, I pray that this brief explanation will help you more thoroughly concentrate on what you are saying as you speak those familiar words that our Savior gave us. Thus, as we bring this sermon to a close, let us join our hearts and voices in singing the Amen from stanza 9 of hymn 410:
9. Amen, that is, it shall be so. Make strong our faith that we may know
That we may doubt not but believe What here we ask we shall receive.
Thus in your name and at your Word We say, "Amen. Oh, hear us, Lord!"
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
Showing posts with label Compassion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Compassion. Show all posts
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
What is God Like?
May 30, 2010
Theme: What is our God Like?
Dear friends in Christ.
It has been said that what you know about a person usually affects the way that you feel about a person, and in most cases that seems to be true. Take, for example, Abraham Lincoln. He was the 16th president of the United States. He was the President in Office during the Civil War. He was the one who was determined that the United States of America should remain together as a single nation. He was the one who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing those who were salves from their forced servitude, and putting into motion the events that led to the 13th amendment to the US Constitution, which finally Abolished Slavery in the United States. He was the one who was assassinated at Ford’s Theater a mere 5 days after the Civil War came to an end. Because of this knowledge, there are many who love Lincoln and hail him as one of the greatest Presidents our Nation has ever seen. Though he was continually ridiculed and spoken against in his time, because of what we know about him from history, we are able to form our own opinion about him, and our own personal feelings about him have been affected in many ways by what we know. Well the same thing is true about the Lord our God, our opinion of him is very much affected by what we know about him. Thus, as we study the Scriptures before us today we will seek to learn about our God and answer the question, “What is our God like?”
To answer this question, we want to take a look at what the Bible has to say about God’s Characteristics and learn two basic ways that God’s nature is different than ours. So, I invite you to grab your Bibles and turn to Matthew 28:19 which can be found on page 989. As you are looking it up, let me give you the context of this passage. It had been 40 days since Jesus rose from the dead, and Jesus and his disciples were standing on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus was giving them his final instructions and blessings before he would ascend into heaven. While he was speaking to them he told them, (and we’ll read Matthew 28:19 together): “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28:19, NIV)
Just as Jesus began his ministry with the Father’s blessing and the Holy Spirit’s descending upon him, so also Jesus returns to heaven instituting the Sacrament of Baptism, proclaiming that all of his disciples should baptize people in the name of the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thus, Jesus reveals that our God is three distinct and separate persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, when we look at our God we know that the Father is not the Son. We know that the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and we know that the Holy Spirit is not the Father. Yet, even as we worship our God in three separate and distinct persons, we know that we do not worship three separate Gods but we worship only one God, as Moses tells us in Deuteronomy 6:4. Turn with me, if you would, to Deuteronomy 6:4, which can be found on page 178 of your Bibles, and we’ll read this passage together also. Again, as you look up the passage, let me set the context. The Israelites have completed their 40 years of wandering in the desert and they are preparing to cross the Jordan and take the land of Canaan. As they prepare, Moses is reminding them of all that the Lord has done for them. In Chapter 5 Moses reviewed the Ten Commandments and now, in verses 4 of Chapter 6, Moses speaks about the Lord whom we serve as we follow his commandments. And we read together: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4, NIV)
With these words, the Lord God reveals a very specific distinction between his nature and our nature. He is one! Though, He is three separate and distinct persons these three separate and distinct persons make up one individual God. How this can be, we do not know we simply believe it and accept it by faith, because God himself has told us that he is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons yet one God. So, if we should ever take the Father out of the picture, would we still believe in the true God proclaimed by the Bible? No, because we would only have the Son and the Holy Spirit and not all three. What if we took the Son out of the picture and believed only in the Father and the Holy Spirit? The same thing would be true. We would not have the True God spoken of in the Bible. What if we took the Holy Spirit out of the picture and only believed in the Father and the Son, would we still have the true God proclaimed by the Bible? Again, the answer is no. even though the Bible never uses the word Triune to describe our God, the Bible makes it clear that the God we worship is three persons (tri) yet one God (une), which gives us our Triune God 3 person in one God, just as Jesus tells us in our Gospel Lesson today: “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. ” (John 16:13–15, NIV)
From all of these passages, we can clearly see the two basic ways that our God’s nature is different than our own. Not only is the Lord our God Triune—Three Persons yet, One God—but also, as we have been taught since we were little Children, the Lord our God is spirit. Because the Lord is Spirit, he does not have a physical body. Even though Jesus came to the earth and took on our human flesh and blood, when he ascended into heaven, he returned to his spirit form. Yet, the Lord our God is not some distant force sailing around the galaxy, he is a real personal being who hears our prayers and understands our needs. He desires and even demands the most important place in our hearts and our lives. He calls on us to worship him, praise him, and thank him for all that he has done for us. He forgives us each and every time we fall in to temptation and sin against him, and he has chosen to reveal himself to us through the pages of the Scriptures so that we might gain a better understanding of who he is through the many characteristics that he reveals to us in his Word.
So, let’s take another look at the Scriptures to see if we might discover all that the Lord our God wants us to learn about himself. To do this, we will turn to Psalm 139 which can be found on page 618, and as you are looking up Psalm 139 on page 618, let me give you just a little bit of an introduction. Psalm 139 is one of the many Psalms that King David wrote by the inspiration of the Lord. It was given to the director of music for use as a song for worship in the temple. It has even been called the Psalm of the All knowing and Ever Present God, and the reason for this will become clear as I read. In fact, due to the length of the Psalm I invite you to follow along with me as I read: “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. ” (Psalm 139:1–24, NIV)
In such a beautiful way the Lord so clearly reveals that he is omniscient—all knowing—and omnipresent—present everywhere. He reminds us that not only does he know everything that we say and do, he also knows us better than our friends, our family, even our own fathers and mothers. He knows what we need when we need it, and he is always present with us, watching over us, protecting us, helping us, and ready to comfort us. He is also the all-powerful God who created our inmost beings, who knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. He is the God who can and will use his unlimited power to punish those who do not believe in him in the fires of eternal damnation, and he is the God who can and will use his unlimited power to bring those who believe in him to the halls of eternal life where we will live with him forever.
What more beautiful and comforting words could the Lord give to us as he reveals himself to us through his Word! Yet, there are so many more passages we could chose today to teach us more about the Characteristics of our God. The problem is, we are running out of time this morning, that is, if we feel we must keep our service as close to an hour as possible. However, since that is our custom, perhaps just one final passage. Turn with me to Exodus 34:5-7 on page 88. Again, let me give you the background for these verses: Moses had been with the Lord on the Mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, during which time the people persuaded Aaron to make a golden calf for them to worship. When Moses came down and saw what they were doing, he broke the tablets, burned it in the fire, ground it to powder, sprinkled it on the water and made the Israelites drink it. Now, he had returned to the mountain with two new tablets of stone for the Lord’s commands where he had also asked the Lord to show him his glory, which is where we pick up as we read together: “Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:5–7, NIV)
In such a beautiful way, the Lord our God reveals to us some of his most incredible characteristics. We know of his compassion for us in his sending Jesus to be our Savior. We know of his Graciousness that he does not treat us as our sins deserve, but he shows his love and his patience for us by giving us this time of grace in which to come to faith. He shows his love and his faithfulness by continually protecting us from all harm and danger, and forgiving all our sins for Jesus’ sake. Though the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished, through faith in him, we live in his love and faithfulness. We see the Lord our God as the loving, caring, and gracious God he is.
Thus, today, in the same way we have learned about Abraham Lincoln from history, we have learned what the Lord our God is like. For from the pages of Scripture, we have come to know that our all powerful Triune God is a Spirit who reveals himself to us in the Scriptures.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
Theme: What is our God Like?
Dear friends in Christ.
It has been said that what you know about a person usually affects the way that you feel about a person, and in most cases that seems to be true. Take, for example, Abraham Lincoln. He was the 16th president of the United States. He was the President in Office during the Civil War. He was the one who was determined that the United States of America should remain together as a single nation. He was the one who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing those who were salves from their forced servitude, and putting into motion the events that led to the 13th amendment to the US Constitution, which finally Abolished Slavery in the United States. He was the one who was assassinated at Ford’s Theater a mere 5 days after the Civil War came to an end. Because of this knowledge, there are many who love Lincoln and hail him as one of the greatest Presidents our Nation has ever seen. Though he was continually ridiculed and spoken against in his time, because of what we know about him from history, we are able to form our own opinion about him, and our own personal feelings about him have been affected in many ways by what we know. Well the same thing is true about the Lord our God, our opinion of him is very much affected by what we know about him. Thus, as we study the Scriptures before us today we will seek to learn about our God and answer the question, “What is our God like?”
To answer this question, we want to take a look at what the Bible has to say about God’s Characteristics and learn two basic ways that God’s nature is different than ours. So, I invite you to grab your Bibles and turn to Matthew 28:19 which can be found on page 989. As you are looking it up, let me give you the context of this passage. It had been 40 days since Jesus rose from the dead, and Jesus and his disciples were standing on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus was giving them his final instructions and blessings before he would ascend into heaven. While he was speaking to them he told them, (and we’ll read Matthew 28:19 together): “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28:19, NIV)
Just as Jesus began his ministry with the Father’s blessing and the Holy Spirit’s descending upon him, so also Jesus returns to heaven instituting the Sacrament of Baptism, proclaiming that all of his disciples should baptize people in the name of the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thus, Jesus reveals that our God is three distinct and separate persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, when we look at our God we know that the Father is not the Son. We know that the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and we know that the Holy Spirit is not the Father. Yet, even as we worship our God in three separate and distinct persons, we know that we do not worship three separate Gods but we worship only one God, as Moses tells us in Deuteronomy 6:4. Turn with me, if you would, to Deuteronomy 6:4, which can be found on page 178 of your Bibles, and we’ll read this passage together also. Again, as you look up the passage, let me set the context. The Israelites have completed their 40 years of wandering in the desert and they are preparing to cross the Jordan and take the land of Canaan. As they prepare, Moses is reminding them of all that the Lord has done for them. In Chapter 5 Moses reviewed the Ten Commandments and now, in verses 4 of Chapter 6, Moses speaks about the Lord whom we serve as we follow his commandments. And we read together: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4, NIV)
With these words, the Lord God reveals a very specific distinction between his nature and our nature. He is one! Though, He is three separate and distinct persons these three separate and distinct persons make up one individual God. How this can be, we do not know we simply believe it and accept it by faith, because God himself has told us that he is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons yet one God. So, if we should ever take the Father out of the picture, would we still believe in the true God proclaimed by the Bible? No, because we would only have the Son and the Holy Spirit and not all three. What if we took the Son out of the picture and believed only in the Father and the Holy Spirit? The same thing would be true. We would not have the True God spoken of in the Bible. What if we took the Holy Spirit out of the picture and only believed in the Father and the Son, would we still have the true God proclaimed by the Bible? Again, the answer is no. even though the Bible never uses the word Triune to describe our God, the Bible makes it clear that the God we worship is three persons (tri) yet one God (une), which gives us our Triune God 3 person in one God, just as Jesus tells us in our Gospel Lesson today: “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. ” (John 16:13–15, NIV)
From all of these passages, we can clearly see the two basic ways that our God’s nature is different than our own. Not only is the Lord our God Triune—Three Persons yet, One God—but also, as we have been taught since we were little Children, the Lord our God is spirit. Because the Lord is Spirit, he does not have a physical body. Even though Jesus came to the earth and took on our human flesh and blood, when he ascended into heaven, he returned to his spirit form. Yet, the Lord our God is not some distant force sailing around the galaxy, he is a real personal being who hears our prayers and understands our needs. He desires and even demands the most important place in our hearts and our lives. He calls on us to worship him, praise him, and thank him for all that he has done for us. He forgives us each and every time we fall in to temptation and sin against him, and he has chosen to reveal himself to us through the pages of the Scriptures so that we might gain a better understanding of who he is through the many characteristics that he reveals to us in his Word.
So, let’s take another look at the Scriptures to see if we might discover all that the Lord our God wants us to learn about himself. To do this, we will turn to Psalm 139 which can be found on page 618, and as you are looking up Psalm 139 on page 618, let me give you just a little bit of an introduction. Psalm 139 is one of the many Psalms that King David wrote by the inspiration of the Lord. It was given to the director of music for use as a song for worship in the temple. It has even been called the Psalm of the All knowing and Ever Present God, and the reason for this will become clear as I read. In fact, due to the length of the Psalm I invite you to follow along with me as I read: “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. ” (Psalm 139:1–24, NIV)
In such a beautiful way the Lord so clearly reveals that he is omniscient—all knowing—and omnipresent—present everywhere. He reminds us that not only does he know everything that we say and do, he also knows us better than our friends, our family, even our own fathers and mothers. He knows what we need when we need it, and he is always present with us, watching over us, protecting us, helping us, and ready to comfort us. He is also the all-powerful God who created our inmost beings, who knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. He is the God who can and will use his unlimited power to punish those who do not believe in him in the fires of eternal damnation, and he is the God who can and will use his unlimited power to bring those who believe in him to the halls of eternal life where we will live with him forever.
What more beautiful and comforting words could the Lord give to us as he reveals himself to us through his Word! Yet, there are so many more passages we could chose today to teach us more about the Characteristics of our God. The problem is, we are running out of time this morning, that is, if we feel we must keep our service as close to an hour as possible. However, since that is our custom, perhaps just one final passage. Turn with me to Exodus 34:5-7 on page 88. Again, let me give you the background for these verses: Moses had been with the Lord on the Mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, during which time the people persuaded Aaron to make a golden calf for them to worship. When Moses came down and saw what they were doing, he broke the tablets, burned it in the fire, ground it to powder, sprinkled it on the water and made the Israelites drink it. Now, he had returned to the mountain with two new tablets of stone for the Lord’s commands where he had also asked the Lord to show him his glory, which is where we pick up as we read together: “Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:5–7, NIV)
In such a beautiful way, the Lord our God reveals to us some of his most incredible characteristics. We know of his compassion for us in his sending Jesus to be our Savior. We know of his Graciousness that he does not treat us as our sins deserve, but he shows his love and his patience for us by giving us this time of grace in which to come to faith. He shows his love and his faithfulness by continually protecting us from all harm and danger, and forgiving all our sins for Jesus’ sake. Though the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished, through faith in him, we live in his love and faithfulness. We see the Lord our God as the loving, caring, and gracious God he is.
Thus, today, in the same way we have learned about Abraham Lincoln from history, we have learned what the Lord our God is like. For from the pages of Scripture, we have come to know that our all powerful Triune God is a Spirit who reveals himself to us in the Scriptures.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church Le Sueur, MN
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