Guard the Holy Sabbath Day! (Deuteronomy 5:12-15)

June 10, 2012

Dear friends in Christ.

I don’t know about you, but in the past few years, I’ve started receiving quite a few “Save the Date” postcards.  These postcards most often come to me as an announcement of a wedding to be held on a certain date six to even nine months in the future.  I don’t know if “Save the Date” postcards are just the new and popular thing to do for weddings these days, or if it’s become necessary because we are all so busy.  After all, if you are like me, then you have any number of activities going on during any given day.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you often find yourself double and triple booked when it comes to family, children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren.  So it seems that the idea of sending out a “Save the Date” postcard months before a wedding would be a great idea; especially if one couple is looking to guard against another couple snatching up their special day.  Yet, even though we often times receive those special postcards designed to guard the date of a wedding, so often we are not able to guard that date for a wedding because we are already guarding that date for another event to which we are already committed.  Or, if we have the date open, we put the card in a special place to remind us of when the event will be, but we do not necessarily enter it on our calendars until we know for certain that nothing else is going on that day and we can guard it for a wedding. 

Sadly, this is how so many people treat the idea of coming to church.  Though Sunday is the day when so many congregations gather to worship the Lord how often doesn’t it happen that people only come if they have nothing better to do?  How often doesn’t it seem that fewer and fewer people in our congregation, in congregations throughout our fair city, even congregations throughout the world are finding it of any value to Guard the Holy Sabbath Day!

Yet, what does our God have to say about this?  Well, let’s take a look at it together.  I invite you to open your Bibles to our lesson today in Deuteronomy 5:12-15.  Now, as you are turning to Deuteronomy 12, let me set the stage for you.  Israel was camped on the Eastern Side of the Jordan River.  They were most likely somewhere around Mt. Nebo with the city of Jericho basically due west of them.  It was the spring of the year, forty years and eleven months had passed since the Lord had led Israel out of the slavery of Egypt, and now Moses was giving his farewell address because the Lord would not allow him to enter the Promised Land with them.  (See Deuteronomy 1:1-5; 3:21-29; 34:1 and Joshua 3:15-17; 4:23-24; 5:10-12)  It was there, on the east side of the Jordan River that Moses began teaching the Israelites the Law of God, giving it to them a second time, which essentially what the word Deuteronomy means.  Our lesson begins with verse 12 where Moses says, “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”  (Deuteronomy 5:12a, NIV84)

Now, does anything strike you about that?  Does that wording seem right?  Or are you thinking to yourself, “I learned, ‘Remember the Sabbath Day!’  I didn’t learn, ‘Observe the Sabbath Day.’ What’s going on here?”  Why is it different in Deuteronomy 5:12 than it is in Exodus 20:8?  Well, quite simply the wording is different because the situation is different.  In Exodus 20, when the Lord spoke to the people Israel from the Mountain, they had just come out of the land of Egypt.  They were being led by the Lord, and after they left Mt. Sinai, they would continue to be led by the Lord through the wilderness.  In that time, and indeed for the past forty years of their wandering, it was the Lord who led the people and made sure that they were able to rest on the Sabbath.  It was the Lord who saw to it that the people would rest on the Sabbath so that they might be refreshed physically by taking a break from their travels, and so that they might be refreshed spiritually as they had the opportunity to worship the Lord and remember his great blessings to them. However, now, as Israel was on the eastern side of the Jordan preparing to cross and conquer the Promised Land, things would soon be different.  Soon they would be living in houses and cities that they had not built.  Soon they would be prospering in the Land the Lord had given them.  Soon their way of life would be changing and the Lord inspires Moses to tell them, “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”  (Deuteronomy 5:12a, NIV84)

The funny thing is that one could argue that the word “observe” isn’t really the best translation of the Hebrew word.  Yet, it seems to be the most popular translation as 7 of the 8 Bibles I looked began this verse with “observe”.  In fact, it was only the King James Version that was different using the word “keep” instead of “observe”.  While this could be said to be a better translation than “observe” I would argue that an even better translation would be “guard”.  Guard the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.  The reason I say this is because the Hebrew word that the NIV and 6 other Bibles translate as “observe” is actually the very same word that describes the job of the Seraphim and the flaming sword in the Garden of Eden.  They were placed there not to “observe” the entrance to the Garden, but to guard it, to keep a close watch on it, to make sure that Adam and Even nor anyone else entered the Garden and ate from the Tree of Life. (Genesis 3:24)  Thus I would argue that from the context of our lesson today, though the word “observe” does fit, and does convey God’s will for his people that they remember and observe and keep the Sabbath, the context suggests more.  Take a look at what the Lord is saying in verses 13 and following, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath [a day of rest] to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. 15 Remember [same word as exodus 20:8] that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe [same word as verse 12] the Sabbath day." (Deuteronomy 5:12–15, NIV84)

Now, did you hear the importance of what the Lord is proclaiming to his people?  They are about to enter the Land and conquer it.  Their whole lives will soon be changing from wanderers to city dwellers.  They are about to get just as busy, if not more busy than you and me.  So the Lord is calling on them to guard the Sabbath Day.  Guard the day of rest so that they will not miss it, so that they will be refreshed both physically and spiritually on a regular basis.  The Lord is calling on them to block that day off in their calendars, to set it aside as a day for the Lord, to guard it as the most important day of their week, because on that day they will have yet one more opportunity to hear the Word of the Lord proclaimed to them.  They will have yet one more opportunity to worship the Lord their God.  They will have one more opportunity to offer their sacrifices to the Lord.  They will have one more opportunity to grow in their faith in the Lord their God and find their eternal rest in the promises of the Savior who will come to free them from their sins.

So why have I taken so much time to teach you about the Sabbath Day and how the Lord was calling on his people to guard it and keep it as holy?  Because this is exactly what the Lord is calling on each and every one of us to do today!  He is calling on us to not merely remember it, not merely observe it; rather he is calling on each and every one of us to guard the Holy Sabbath Day.  He is calling on us to mark it off on our calendars and set it aside as the most important day of our week, because it is on that day that we have one more opportunity to gather with other believers.  We have one more opportunity to hear the Word of God.  We have one more opportunity to worship the Lord our God, grow our faith and our trust in Jesus as our Savior, and be strengthened and built up before we walk out those doors and go back in to the spiritual war-zone of this sin-filled world!

Now, please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying when I’m talking about the Sabbath Day.  I am in no way saying that we ought to go back to holding to Saturday as the Sabbath and keeping that particular day holy by calling it the only day that we can ever worship.  Not at all!  After all, the Bible clearly teaches that when Jesus went to the cross and freed us from our sins by his death and resurrection, he also completely fulfilled God’s Law for us.  So, by his death and resurrection, Jesus completely fulfilled the Sabbath, and its rules and regulations no longer apply to us.  In fact, even the Apostle Paul assures us that the Sabbath Laws have been fulfilled as he writes to the Colossians saying, “Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ." (Colossians 2:16–17, NIV84)  Rather, what the Lord wants us to do is to guard the Sabbath Day and keep it holy so that we do not “despise preaching and the Word, but regard it as holy and gladly hear it and learn it.” 

But how do we do that?  We guard the holy Sabbath day, when we set aside the day of worship as the most important day of the week.  Whatever day that might be, when we set it aside and make gathering with other believer a priority for our lives, we guard that day as the day when we will grow in our faith.  We guard the Sabbath when we take time out of our busy schedules to sit down and read God’s Word for ourselves, whether that be from the Bible, from Meditations, Portals of Prayer, or other devotional books.  We guard God’s Holy Sabbath when we teach our children the precious truths of salvation; when we bring them to worship with us and teach them that worship is what we do each week.  We guard God’s Holy Sabbath when we bring our children to Sunday School and bring ourselves to Bible Study.  We guard God’s Holy Sabbath when we sacrifice our self-love and stop lazily sleeping in on Sunday mornings, or skip out on worship because of vacation plans.  We guard God’s holy Sabbath when we take the time to rest in him, grow in our salvation, and find in him the spiritual rest that he longs to give us in the assurance of the forgiveness of sins and the salvation that is ours through faith in Jesus. 

What greater encouragement could the Lord our God give us today than the encouragement to guard his holy Sabbath Day.  Though there are many things in this world that seek to keep us from gathering in worship of the Lord our God, I pray that you would heed the encouragement of your Savior.  I pray that you would continue to make this day and this time of spiritual rest the most important time of your week. I pray that you would continue to guard your time with the Lord in worship and in personal Bible readings.  May the Lord continue to bless you as you worship him, grow in your faith in him, live in the forgiveness of sins with which he has blessed you, and especially as you seek to guard his holy Sabbath Day.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN

Who is the Holy Spirit? (John 16:12-15)

June 3, 2012

Dear friends in Christ.

If I asked you this morning to take out a sheet of paper and write down exactly who the Holy Spirit is, what would you write?  How would you explain exactly who the Holy Spirit is?  Even though we know who the Holy Spirit is, when it comes right down to it, it seems that of the three members of the Trinity, it is the Holy Spirit about whom we know the least.  Though we have a pretty good handle on who the Father is, and we are very confident that we know who the Son is, when we seek to explain who the Holy Spirit is, many times it seems that the explanation eludes us.  Part of this may stem from the fact that there are quite a number of different explanations from different religious groups in our world today.  When it comes to the Holy Spirit, there are some who believe that he is nothing more than the wind of God—a divine, but impersonal force that does the will of the heavenly Father.  There are others who believe that the Holy Spirit is more of an idea, a phase of God, so to speak, or even Jesus in disguise.  But on top of that there are even those who believe that the Holy Spirit doesn’t really exist at all.  It is because of all of this that we want to take a closer look at the Holy Spirit today, study what Jesus has to say about him so that we will be easily able to answer the question, “Who is the Holy Spirit?”

So, “Who is the Holy Spirit?”  Quite simply, the Holy Spirit is the third person of our Triune God.  The Holy Spirit is the Counselor or the Advocate whom Jesus promised to send to his disciples after he, Jesus, had returned to his throne in heaven.  In fact, as Jesus spoke to his disciples in our lesson today, he reminded them that the Spirit of Truth who would come to them, whom Jesus would send, was indeed truly God, just as Jesus was.  Take a look at what Jesus says, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 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. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 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 16:12–15, NIV84)

With these simple and beautiful words, Jesus assured his disciples that the Spirit of God, about whom they had learned from the pages of the Old Testament Scriptures, was, in fact, the Holy Spirit—the third Person of the Trinity.  This Spirit of God, or Spirit of Truth, as Jesus had called him, was the Holy Spirit.  This Holy Spirit, who would be sent to the disciples by both Jesus and God the Father, was indeed true God just as Jesus and the Father are.  This Holy Spirit, who was promised to come to the disciples after Jesus had departed, was the one who would bring glory to Jesus, to the Father, and to himself as he took what belonged to Jesus and made it known to the disciples.  For in the same way that Jesus did not speak on his own accord when he was here on earth, but only spoke what his Father had commanded him, so also the Holy Spirit would not speak on his own behalf but would speak only what he had heard Jesus speaking.  In the same way that Jesus had taken what belonged to his Father and made it known to his disciples, so also the Holy Spirit would take what belonged to Jesus and make it known to his disciples. In the same way that everything that belonged to the Father also belonged to Jesus, so also everything that belonged to Jesus belonged to the Holy Spirit as well, because the Holy Spirit is, indeed, true God and one of the persons of the Trinity, which why Jesus said in verse 14 and 15 of our lesson today, “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 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 16:14–15, NIV84)

How incredible it is to hear Jesus speak about the Holy Spirit in words like these!  For in these two verses, Jesus confirms that the Holy Spirit is a member of the Trinity to be worshiped and adored as the Lord and God that he is.  Though Jesus doesn’t go into dogmatic details as to just how the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity, he tells us that we can be certain that he is truly Lord and God, just as Jesus and the Father also are.  Though the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct and separate persons of the Trinity, they are never-the-less, God Almighty!  They are our Triune God who has revealed himself to us as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Though the Holy Spirit may be the member of the Trinity about whom we seem to know the least, we know from what Jesus tells us in our lesson today that it is the Holy Spirit who brings us glory to the Father, the Son, and to himself, as he proclaims to us the truth of God’s Word and calls us to faith in our Triune God.

What an amazing and most important office that is given to the Holy Spirit!  He is the one who proclaims the Word of Truth.  He is the one who calls us to faith in our Triune God.  He is the one who lives in our hearts and speaks to our hearts, helping us to grow in our knowledge of the Lord through the Word of Truth.  He is the one who uses the Scriptures to strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ, our Savior, He is the one who comforts us in all trouble and reminds us of the Truth by calling to our memories the very passages of Scripture that we need to know in a specific moment, or even guiding us in the direction that we need to go in our lives, just as Jesus promised in verses 13 and 14 of our 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. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you." (John 16:13–14, NIV84)

This is exactly what he did for the disciples on the Day of Pentecost!  For as we heard this past Sunday, when they heard the sound of the rushing wind and saw the tongues of fire separating and lighting on their heads, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to proclaim the Wonders of God in languages they had never before spoken or learned.  On that day, when Peter stood up before the crowds and gave his extemporaneous sermon to the people who were gathered there, it was the Holy Spirit who guided him in the truth and gave him the words to say.  On that day, when 3,000 people were added to the number of believers, it was the Holy Spirit who worked through the word being proclaimed and created faith in the hearts of those people who believed.  Later, when the Apostles and the Evangelists sat down to write the words of the New Testament, it was the Holy Spirit who guided them and breathed into them the Words which they wrote down for our learning.  Even when Paul, John, Peter, and others were writing about the things that would happen in the last days, the Sprit was with them telling them what was yet to come so that through their work, we might believe!

But even though the days of the Apostles are long past, that in no way means that the Holy Spirit’s work has come to a close!  Not in the least!  For he is the one who is still guiding us in the Truth of God’s Word whenever we read it, study it, or simply gather together to hear it.  He is working even now as I am proclaiming the Word to you so that through this Word that you are hearing, your faith may be strengthened and you might come to a more thorough knowledge of our God and his Word.  He is the one who is present as simple water is connected with God’s Word, forming a conduit for the Holy Spirit to enter the hearts of infants and create faith there.  He is the one who lives in our hearts uttering prayers to our heavenly Father when we haven’t the words to speak for ourselves.  He is the one who helps us to understand the Scriptures.  He is the one who moves the hearts of young people to train to serve him as Pastors, Teachers, Early Childhood Educators, and Staff Ministers.  He is the one who presides at call meetings, be they the assignment committee that met just a few weeks ago, or be they voters meeting in a church to call a new worker for the congregation.  He is the one who is at work in the hearts of those whom he calls leading them to the best decision for the Kingdom of God.  He is the one who as at work in the hearts of each and every believer, speaking to our hearts with the Word of God, encouraging us in our faith in Jesus, and even leading us through this life, directing us and our lives so that we might serve the Lord as he sees fit.  Yes, it is the Holy Spirit who is at work in every nation, among every people, speaking every language so that through the Truth of God’s Word many more might come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ their Savior, and receive the free gift of everlasting life to live with our Father, our Savior, and the Holy Spirit for all time and forever more.

How amazing the Work of the Holy Spirit is!  Though we may have been especially clear on who the Holy Spirit is and what his work is when we began today, I think it’s safe to say that all of us have been reminded of who he is and all he does.  Though there are many different ideas floating around as to who the Holy Spirit is, today we have been reminded, from the Bible, exactly who he is.  So now, when someone asks you to tell them about the Holy Spirit and who he is, you can deliver a simple answer.  You can tell them that the Holy Spirit is true God, the third Person of the Trinity, the one who works in our hearts, creating and strengthening the faith that trusts in Jesus as our Savior.    Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN

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