Jan. 12 - 18, 2009
January 12, 2009
GOSPEL PREACHING SHEPHERDS
Bible Readings: Ezekiel 34:1-24 and Romans 3:19-31
Israel had some terrible and dishonest shepherds during Old Testament times. Then again, we have bad pastors, national leaders, and state leaders as well. God tells these leaders they will reap the rewards of their mis-leadership. They will either die or be exiled and deposed from leadership.
Many often question how we deal with dishonest or with downright evil leaders. What does on do with an Idi Amin or an Adolph Hitler? Let God depose them and take care of them. Some of what they do can be for the benefit of people. Some may be to teach a lesson to others. In any case, God can and does depose bad leaders.
What about pastors and church leaders? If they preach our saving of ourselves through what we do, they are preaching a false gospel. Those who preach one can get rich by being a Christian because God blesses good people are preaching a false gospel. Any gospel not centered in the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is false gospel. We justified (declared sinless) by God through Christ.
St. Paul dealt with a lot of work righteous people. He came from a group where wealth was thought to somehow mean one was righteous. The verses you just read from Romans 3 leave no doubt that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation. Our works are not the way. We have nothing about which to boast. As Christians, we wish to follow the Law to say, "Thank You" to God for His free gift of grace in Jesus Christ. The Law shows our sin. The Gospel shows our Savior.
Prayer. Lord, use the Law to show our sin so we remember to trust solely in Jesus Christ for our salvation from sin. Teach us to elect and to honor good and righteous leaders and to defeat evil and sinful leaders. In Jesus' name. Amen.
January 13, 2009
WHEN GOD CHANGES THINGS
Bible Readings: Ezekiel 36:13-28 and Romans 4:1-25
Israel was in Babylon. They had seen Jerusalem destroyed. They had seen many of their family and friends killed. They felt dead themselves.
Ezekiel came to them to offer comfort. His comfort was a promise of God to restore them to their former land. God's promise was to raise the dead and to make Israel live once more. God first made good on this plan in taking Israel back home under Ezra and Nehemiah. They operated under Cyrus the Great. Isaiah had promised Cyrus as a Messiah years earlier. The promise did come to be.
God also took Abraham from worshipping false gods to seeing Him as the True God. God took Abraham on a journey. Abraham started the long journey in Ur of the Chaldees, now part of Iraq. He wandered through Syria, came south into Egypt, and wound up around Hebron. There he and Sarah, his wife, lie buried.
Did they live because of their goodness? Anyone who knows the story of Abraham knows that isn't the case. Abraham was a wheeler and a dealer. He wasn't always totally honest. He even passed his wife off as his sister. But, God gave him the faith to continue the journey. God gave him the faith to see God's hand leading him wherever he might go. God had promised Abraham he'd be a great nation. Abraham laughed when God told him the promise would be fulfilled when Abraham was 98.
God delivered on that promise in the birth of Isaac nine months later. Isaac began the great nation. Jacob carried on the great nation and gave God's new name for him, Israel, to the nation born from his offspring. Now, God delivers on the promise through the believers in Jesus Christ.
God changes things. He can take your life and change it, too. He can make you able to face trouble. He can heal you from disease. He also changes your life through Jesus. Jesus' death and resurrection make us God's children. God brings us to be His children through Holy Baptism. He keeps us as His children through regular contact with His Word and through Holy Communion. He also uses fellow Christians to help our faith.
Prayer. Lord, change our lives through faith in Jesus. In Jesus' name. Amen.
January 14, 2009
THE LESSON OF THE DRY BONES
Bible Readings: Ezekiel 36:33-37:14 and Romans 5:1-21
Few people like visiting the cemetery. Graves just aren't a thrilling sight. They remind us we will die. Many are just flat plaques on a lawn with a hole in front of them.
God once told Ezekiel to go a military cemetery. The cemetery was the site of a battle that killed King Josiah in 609 B.C. Josiah had disobeyed God and had gone to battle with the Egyptians. The Egyptians caught the Isaelite army in the Megiddo Pass, a spot of high cliffs and no escape. The army was routed and Josiah killed. Ezekiel went to the cemetery, but not to honor the dead.
When Ezekiel came to the cemetery, God asked if the bones could live. Ezekiel answered that God alone knew. God asked Ezekiel to preach to the bones. He did, and the bones had breath blown into them by the Holy Spirit and they lived. It was an instant replay of creation in Genesis 1 and 2. God then told Ezekiel the bones were Israel and that He would raise Israel and they would live again.
St. Paul tells us how this works in our lives. Romans 5 begins with our access to God because Jesus has suffered, died, and risen from death. We now have all we need to survive the world through Christ. Jesus died for us when we were yet sinners, yet apart from God. He reconciled us to God through His blood.
The effect of Jesus' reconciliation for us is that the sin which started with the first Adam in Eden is now forgiven by Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection. We die and are buried because of the sin of Adam. But, Jesus brought new life to all through His work of obedience and sacrifice on the cross. While the sin brought more and more death through the Law, Jesus brought more and more grace. We live again because God called us in baptism to live as Jesus' own people. The Holy Spirit gives us all we need to live and to deal with any problem we may meet. That, friends, is the lesson of the dry bones.
Prayer. Lord, help us to live as Your children through remembering our baptism and looking always to Jesus. In Jesus' name. Amen.
January 15, 2009
BAPTISM AND YOUR DAILY LIFE
Bible Readings: Ezekiel 37:15-28 and Romans 6:1-23
Religion is often pigeon holed. People often go to church, think about their baptism, and consider their life in Christ on Sunday, then do whatever they need to do the rest of the week, whether or not it fits with their faith. We call this, "Pigeon hole religion."
St. Paul and Ezekiel disagree with such religious thought. They both say that to be God's people one needs to act like a Christian. St. Paul tells the Romans very simply not to divorce their baptism from their daily lives. We don't want to sin more because we suddenly get more grace the more we sin. God never said such a thing in Scripture or to His people. He isn't saying such through St. Paul or through Ezekiel either.
St. Paul asks the question, "If we have become God's children through baptism why do we want to sin/" It makes no sense at all to want to sin after we've had our sin washed away by Jesus' blood in baptism. We would be acting as if we were ungrateful for the gift of grace God gave in washing away our sin.
Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection set us free from slavery to sin. Why do we want to pigeon hole such a gift and sin the rest of the week? We don't!
Pigeon hole religion and baptism just don't mix. We've either been baptized and become new people by God's grace or we have retained our old sinful ways. Pigeon hole religion shows our wanting to retain our old ways and stay away from Jesus.
So, which is it? Do we wish to follow Jesus by the power of baptism? Or Do we want to continue as slaves to sin and death by pigeon holing religion to Sunday only? Only as we daily come to God in repentance and come to His Word for growth and strength will we truly remember our baptism and use its power to live.
Prayer. Lord, help us to remember our baptism by daily repenting and renewing our relationship to You. In Jesus' name. Amen.
January 16, 2009
WE CAN'T DO GOOD BY NATURE
Bible Readings: Ezekiel 38:1-23 and Romans 7:1-20
Santa Claus has a problem when we read Romans 7. Santa makes a list of naughty and nice people. Unfortunately, St. Paul has blown everyone's cover. By God's Law, nobody qualifies for doing good. We've all done so much evil, our good is overshadowed.
God's Law was given so we could see our sin. It is like a mirror showing us the sinner we really are. We just can't keep God's Law.
The Law isn't the problem. The Law is God's Law. It is perfect and without sin. We're the sinners. The Law was given to curb sin and to keep it from recurring.
The always accuses. It keeps telling us what we do wrong. It can only produce death. Death comes in two forms. We die and are buried. We also die when we spend eternity apart from God. Both are true if there is no one to win the battle against evil for us.
Ezekiel talks of the battle with evil in Ezekiel 38 and 39. The first battle was with physical Israel's enemies. That battle was won when Israel returned temporarily when Israel returned from exile. Their enemies were conquered for a while then.
We have the hope of an eternal victory over sin, death, and the devil. Jesus won the victory on the cross. When Jesus said, "It is finished," He told all the price for sin had been paid and the devil lay defeated. God the Father agreed in Jesus' resurrection. Even death is now conquered. We nave nothing to fear.
The Law now stands as a guideline to help us to know how to live. We are led by the Holy Spirit because of our baptism to obey it as a "Thank You" to God for His love shown in Jesus Christ.
What about Santa? He needs to act out of the same grace driving God to save us. His gifts need to be shadows of God's gifts. Grace wins the day-even with Santa.
Prayer. Lord, give us Your grace so we may abbey the Law as a "Thank You." In Jesus' name. Amen.
January 17, 2009
SIN'S CONDEMNATION REMOVED
Bible Readings: Ezekiel 39:1-10. 17-29 and Romans 7:21-8:17
The evil done by Israel had been forgiven. Now they could go back to the Holy Land in peace and joy. Their enemies, here Gog and Magog, were defeated. All is re-established.
We also have a life history a lot like Israel's. We also sin and do wrong against God. The sin and wrong bring God's condemnation upon us as He must condemn evil.
Enter Jesus Christ. He took away the condemnation we had standing against us for sin. He now stands, as it were, before God's judgment seat in heaven as our Defense Attorney. Satan stands as our Prosecuting Attorney. God asks for the charges against us. Satan reads them. Jesus tells God He died for those sins. God immediately removes the condemnation and the charges. We are now totally innocent and righteous in God's ;presence. This we call forensic justification.
Jesus fulfilled all of the Law perfectly for us. In fulfilling the Law, Jesus removed our need to fulfill the Law to gain God's favor. He'd already done that! Jesus suffering and death finished the job. His resurrection put God's eternal stamp of approval on Jesus' work.
God now gives us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in us. He guides and leads us through our lives. He reminds us of our baptism so we remember we are God's children. He brings us to fellowship with other Christians in church. He keeps us God's through the Bible and Holy Communion. He even prays for us so we pray to God as we ought.
Sin's condemnation has been removed. We now can live as God's children with the Holy Spirit leading us. Evil will eventually be defeated as Jesus returns to take us to our eternal home.
Prayer. Lord, give us Your Holy Spirit so our condemnation may continue to be removed and we can be led by Him to pray as we ought. In Jesus' name. Amen.
January 18, 2009
HOW TO CONFESS JESUS
Readings: Acts 4:8-13 and Mark 8:27-35
Every Sunday we confess our Christian faith. We use a creed, the English form of the Latin word credo, "I believe." Our basic Lutheran documents are also called Confessions because they state the basic beliefs of the Lutheran branch of Christianity. There are seven such documents in The Book of Concord, the secondary basis of the Lutheran faith.
Peter had no document with which to confess his faith. He couldn't look up some creed, although Jewish people do have a creed called the Shema, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One." That wouldn't have fit this situation very well.
We need to understand that Jesus was standing near to the mountain containing the temples of false gods, including Caesar, when Peter makes his statement. The setting of the statement should give us a good idea why Jesus tells the disciples to keep His identity a secret. The Romans would kill anyone challenging Caesar or claiming to be a god. The Jews simply didn't get it and wouldn't listen, so they weren't able to hear either. Even the disciples didn't really get it, so their telling the news would be a problem as well. So, Jesus tells them to be silent.
Jesus also tells the disciples and the crowd what His Messianic mission means. The simple meaning is death. He will suffer at the hands of the religious leaders and their employees. He will suffer at the hands of Pontius Pilate and Roman soldiers. He will die on the cross to forgive our sins and to make us God's children again. Then, He will rise from death.
Peter has his own ideas. His ideas were likely shared by most of the crowd and the disciples. They were looking for a military superman to drive out the Romans. They wanted Israel to become a world power again. Peter represents their interests well by scolding Jesus.
But, human ideas of Messiahship must give way to the basic need for reconciliation through the forgiveness of sins. The mission of the Messiah is to save humanity from sin, not to start a war with the Romans. We see the need for God's way in the Epistle Lesson for today.
The Holy Spirit came to the apostles at Pentecost. Peter became a fearless spokesperson for Jesus. Acts 3 and 4 show Peter and John getting the message right before the Sanhedrin. There they tell the leaders of Israel, "God has spoken through Jesus. We have seen this message and can not be silent about it or not act upon it." The Sanhedrin warns them and send them away for the time being. They later wind up in prison because they won't stop preaching the right message. How do we do in confessing Jesus?
Prayer. Lord, give us Your Holy Spirit so we can confess you in the proper and right manner. In Jesus' name. Amen.