Jesus Is The Path To Life

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen

Hallelujah! Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Hallelujah!

Today we are celebrating, we are celebrating that our Savior who once was dead is now alive that the stone over the tomb had been rolled away and he has come out.

Today we are celebrating we are celebrating that the death he died has no power over him that he has broken free defeated death forever. And today we are proclaiming that neither sin nor depth nor powers of hell or suffering or disease or poverty or anything else has power over us because Jesus is a lot. That is the resurrection story. The story that Jesus gives us today, the story we are celebrating.

Hallelujah! Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Hallelujah!

And we all know the story behind all of this. On Friday night, we read the powerful story of Jesus's death, how in his human body, God become man. He suffered. He died in a terrible, horrible way. And then he was buried in the tomb. But on Easter we see that tomb rolled away that Jesus died on a cross and is alive now.

And it relates to our Psalm for today:

“You make known to me the path of life and happiness. There is fullness of joy. At your right hands are pleasures forevermore”

Jesus walks before us on the path of life. That is what we celebrate on this Easter day that Jesus has opened the path of eternal life for us. And he did it by being one of us. That in his story of his death and resurrection, he leads us through the grave to resurrection from the dead, with the promise that we too will rise, even if we die.

Now, it's a little hard today for me to think of all of the celebration and get in the mood when I am looking out at a church full of empty pews. The celebration just doesn't seem like it's supposed to be right. There are no smells of breakfast wafting in With our dodgeball team getting ready to make my belly full, nobody is moving around getting ready to drop easter eggs outside so that the kids can go out and get all that candy and treats. Families aren't going to be gathering together around dinner tables to celebrate making their amazing feast of whatever it is they have every year on Easter.

It's hard to celebrate, hard to get in the mood. Today, Easter just seems well not as exciting.

But it's more important than ever, to shout unto the world that Jesus is risen, to force ourselves to be in that mode because it is a proclamation to the world that it has no power over us. Jesus has shown us the path to life By walking through death, into resurrection.

But I think that this time being at home can actually be good for us when we're thinking about Jesus's death and resurrection, because he has shown us that path to life, the only way that the world has that we can say that the world has no power over. And our present situation is an opportunity for God to help us see that right now, all of the things that we cling to, are falling apart. All of the things that we gather together to build our lives. They're just not working the way we expect them. families can't get together. Stock Markets crashing everything seems to be going bad. There's only one way one thing we can trust. That's the path to life revealed by Jesus who died and rose.

For you see, this Easter season, it reveals that our science just can't control as much as we think we can. You know, we have spent a long time getting used to being pretty good at staving off that we have surgeons who can do amazing things, replace joints and give us years on our life. We can heal diseases that would have killed killed thousands in the past and yet today, we're stuck in some all of that knowledge, all of the years of discovery, all of the scientists gathering together.

There's only one way to proclaim to the world Death has no power over us. And that's through Jesus Christ. The things that we claimed to just can't do it. it all falls away before our Savior, because he is the only one who can heal. The only one who can say the only one who leads us through that entire life because he is risen. We also see many of us, our economic futures are out of joints, aren't they? If you have any retirement savings, you look at the stock market and it was crashing, you must have lost what 10, 15% of your stock portfolio. If you're a young person you probably had mostly in stocks are wiped out.

Now, if you don't have that, it's likely that our economic future Other ways is also shaking. How many people are losing their jobs now? I think I read that there were 6 million jobless claims going out there. Isn't that crazy? Can you imagine what that will be like if this keeps up? Many of us have worked really hard to try to put together a life that we can, we can predict. We work hard. We gather things together. Our money buys us experiences and good things and all of that. And yet now, all of that hard work seems like it's going to go away. People who spent years building businesses might just lose. People who've worked hard and jobs to get promotions and stay there might be gone.

God is showing us these things. These things can't provide. There's only one person who can make sure our future is set up that is Jesus Christ Jesus who leads the way through death into resurrection, and he gives that to you. Jesus is the only one who can lead us through debt into line. This season is also helping us to see that politicians just aren't what we thought they would be. You know, very few people have a lower opinion of politicians than I, but they prove they are even less capable than I expected.

When all of this is going on, we thought maybe our leaders will be able to get out there and get ahead of it and help us and all they can do is say stay home and shiver in fear. None of our leaders really figured Without ahead of time we bungled our hospital system. We didn't get any tests out there. We didn't figure any of this stuff out that we should have. But I wouldn't just blame us in our state in our country. It looks like every country in the world really couldn't handle all of our systems, our politics, our governments, oh, it was shown to be worthless. When all of a sudden, out of nowhere, God sent a disease into the world. It shows us that these things that we get so excited about, they just don't mean much. We get so excited about who's in charge the red team or the blue team and what laws being passed or the next election, which is always the most important election of our lives.

Now it's not a big deal. Who's even talking about it?

All of this falls away.

There's only one thing that can keep us safe. One thing that will give us like, there was only Jesus, Jesus who died on a cross who went into the grave who broke free on this Easter Sunday morning and now lives forever.

This is what we cling to. This is what we hold on to the promise that you will live forever in Jesus. And I have to say, in some ways, I'm thankful that God is reminding me that all my control can do everything. God has reminded me that the only one I can trust the only one who can say is him This season when we consider Jesus's death and resurrection, we can say to ourselves, there is no power out there that can stop us. There is nothing that I can be afraid of because Jesus is raised from the dead. I don't have to worry about disease coming at me. I don't have to fear economic disaster. I don't have to pray and hope that my government leaders are just going to come and save me.

Jesus has already done. Jesus has already risen from the dead. Jesus has already destroyed the power of death for ever. And he's given that gift to you right now.

We can be brave. We can be strong we can be sure and certain that when all of these collapse when everything else in the world goes away, we have resurrection from the dead. We have a savior climbing out of the grave, opening up that path to eternal life. Hallelujah!, Christ is risen, he has risen indeed Hallelujah!

In Jesus name Amen

He Took Up Our Infirmities

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Tonight is Good Friday. It is the night that we celebrate Jesus's death on the cross. And as much as we mourn over all of the suffering and pain that he goes through, we also know that it's good, because it's by his death on the cross, that we have eternal life.

Because He died for us. Our sin is taken away, our pain, our sickness, our hurt, and it's placed on him on our safe. Just a little while we're going to read through the whole story. We're going to see all Jesus's suffering and his death and his pain and the trail and all of that and when we look at the This story when we hear it, I think we see Jesus at his most human. See, we know that Jesus became just like us. God became man who lived in normal times. He had good days. He had bad days he, he was hurt, he was happy.

But there's something that everyone has in common. But there is only one thing that no matter what happens to us, all of us share. And it's that when we see Jesus being betrayed, judged, falsely accused, beaten, hurt, and finally executed. We see a savior who becomes just like us, and the only thing that unites us is death.

This is what it says. “Surely he took up our pain and our suffering.”

This is a Savior, who shows us that he came to be with us, even in that. So we could save us that because he came to join us in this pain, we can have eternal life with him. Right about now we are all reminded a little bit more of death in the world. We see all the difficulties around us and it just points it out to us.

If you watch the news, or read online or pay attention at all unless you've shot yourself inside your house and drawn your blinds, right now you're overwhelmed with reminders of debt. You hear about hospitals filling up. Everybody's told what they're supposed to do. I get frantic messages from people in my life telling me things like I need to sanitize all the groceries as soon as they come into the house, or if I don't go out with a mask, Hunter drones of virus will seek me out and find me. So panic, right? We're all scared of this thing. And as much as it is bad. Honestly, I don't think it's any different from any other day.

We in the church know that this is just how life is. We're not living in unprecedented times. The Christian Church has gone through epidemics like this and much, much worse. Martin Luther was alive during the black plague when 40% of people who got it died, can you imagine? Even in living memory, people who've gone through worse, Spanish Flu of the night 1918 I remember reading about a guy who was born during that time who just recovered from COVID. Even in the 1950s, there was something like this.

I hear other Christians getting excited because they think because the white horse of pestilence is riding. That means the end must be here. But of course not. We've seen it before. What we do know though, is that this just points us to the same thing the church has been preaching all the way from the beginning. That is the only thing that unites every human being on this earth. They asked, Where is God in all of this? Where is God in this terrible thing?

We see it in our reading from Isaiah. “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering.”

The Gospel of Matthew provides an even better example of this and applies it very much to our current situation. It says in Matthew chapter eight,

“and when Jesus entered Peter's house and saw his mother in law, lying sick with a fever, he touched her hand and the fever laughter. And she rose began to serve Him. That evening, they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. He took our illnesses and bore our disease.”

Matthew applies that to our human condition, not just pain and suffering and sin, but that Jesus took on his body, our very death itself. And this isn't just when we see sickness, we see it in everyday life. When this when we weren't all stuck at home watching our services through a camera, there was death all around us. People would die in a car accident. They were heart disease and cancer, could even get hit by a bus or a train or whatever. Sometimes you didn't even know at all.

Right now it's no different. But we know that in all those times, and all those places, wherever we see suffering and pain, wherever we see death Jesus's there because he came down to be with us. He came down to be one of us, even in that. And when we see him on the cross, when we see him buried in the tomb, we know that he is with us. He will not abandon us, no matter what is happening. Jesus is here, even in death. That's why the Christian Church has never really gotten excited about the terrible things that happened in the world. Sure, when we see suffering and pain, we mourn with the people who more we weep with the people who weep. We want to be there to love them.

We don't panic. We're not afraid.

It's just like But we know because Jesus came, but it doesn't matter how we go. Doesn't matter what happens. Jesus is with us through it all. In his name, amen.

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Drinking The Cup Of Salvation

Transcribed by AI from Otter.ai. Please forgive any errors.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today is Holy Thursday and on this night we celebrate a number of stories about Jesus Christ. We celebrate the Passover Feast where Jesus got together with his disciples, and He instituted the Last Supper. We remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he went with his disciples and then off alone to pray, and he prayed the word thy will be done. Not my will. Remember the story where Judas came to Jesus with all of the guards, and he betrayed him with a kiss. And then the disciples to they betrayed him by abandoning him. Jesus is hauled off before the priests for a trial before, finally, they bring him to Pilate in the morning.

Tonight is the celebration of Jesus Christ, betrayal, and abandonment. And today in Psalm 116, we hear the words, “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me, I will lift up the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.”

This passage, I think it was chosen because of that mention of the cup, I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. Of course, that reminds us of the story we talked about. And we read in our Gospel reading, where Jesus gathers the disciples together and gives them his body and his blood for the New Covenant. And where we literally would drink salvation as we drink his blood. It's a shame at this time we can't get there together and celebrate that on this Holy Thursday, the meal that Christ Himself instituted. But the cup of salvation doesn't always refer to that. When Luther wrote about Psalm 116, he wrote that the cup of salvation is God's word given to us to say that we can drink it fully and deep. Psalm 116, the bit before our passage, it talks about all the bad things that are happening around the psalmist people around him are hurting him… there's anger, there's wrath, there's pain, there's sadness.

But then he trusts in God and says, “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.” Luther tells us that the world holds up a cup of wrath. We instead drink deeply of the cup of God's word, we get spiritually drunk. So that none of that wrath can affect them.

What an interesting way of talking about salvation in God's word is that we can drink it in so deeply. That the eternal life of Christ fills us so that the rest of the world can't bother. Nothing like anxiety or pain or sadness.

Now, I think that as we're gathered on Holy Thursday, the difficulties of this global pandemic, actually can bring about some good things. We can't be here in person and that's terrible sadness. And so we don't get to celebrate the physical eating and drinking of the Lord. Something. But it has pushed many pastors and many churches to do new things. I know the first week of this global pandemic, when we were still having worship services, I had to rush in two days to figure out how to stream worship. It was non stop work, downloading different files and buying equipment and getting all the things that I would need to make sure people who are at home could hear God's word. So you could drink in the grace of God as He comes to you, even through the internet to bring you His salvation. And I know a number of pastors all over the country, we're doing just the same.

We who were happy just to lead worship in person, all of a sudden, we were forced to try something new. In addition to that, you probably know that we've been participating in night prayer services, where a church every night of the week takes up a worship service to offer it to the world where we pray for all the things that are going on. We sing hymns, we offer up prayers. We take prayer requests live through our Facebook feed, things we would never have done before this global pandemic.

And you know what's amazing about this? How many people end up seeing these videos? The last worship service that we did on Sunday had over 140 views yesterday when I checked two weeks ago, our prayer vigil, the recording of it has had over 2,000 views.

Now, I don't know how that translates to how many people watched it for very long, or how many people are staying tuned in. But I know that's a few more, a few more than Sit in our pews every Sunday. What an interesting thing that this pandemic has forced on us.

And we can see it in society, new people are figuring out new ways to connect with each other. neighbors are waving to neighbors as they walk by. Sometimes I think that in some of these neighborhoods will rediscover the value of the front porch, people who sit outside in front of their houses by the street to see their neighbors walking by, instead of all of us who are hiding in the backs on our decks. Will there be a new kind of community develop in our neighborhoods because of this? There are new and interesting things coming out of the situation that we're in. So when we lift up this cup of salvation, we rejoice in God. We can figure out new ways to Turn to the Lord, all His benefits. we render to him in our devotion and response to his grace.

And so that's what we do right now. And I would like you to to think about that, as you hear God's Word in this brand new way, as you hear that the grace of Christ and Jesus is salvation for you. Think about the ways that you can reevaluate how you can be creative in your own understanding of God's Word.

Many of you are stuck at home with family or children, trying to figure out some things to do. Might be a great time to start doing family devotion. In our emails that we would send out each month, there is a link to a devotional booklet that you can get together and it's really easy. It's just a couple of responses. him from our hymnal and the the apostles creed, the Lord's prayer and morning or evening prayer. short, simple, easy to do. But it connects you to God's word in a new way.

Maybe you can think about new ways to connect with your congregation. Have you called up the people who in the congregation who live alone? reached out to your neighbors, your friends, the people in our in our book? Have you tried to connect to people and see if they have all their needs? There are a lot of ways that we can use this time to be creative. We can connect to one another, serve one another, and even more importantly, drink deeply have the cup of God's salvation delivered to you through His Holy Word. In Jesus name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Good People Go To Hell. Bad People Go To Heaven.

This text is an AI transcription of the sermon. Please forgive any mistakes.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen. Tonight we are finishing up our series on a popular American belief system that people call moralistic therapeutic deism. Now this popular belief system is a religious worldview that is part of what the church experiences because we live in a culture that tells us that everyone is supposed to believe a certain way. And this belief system has five main tenets. The first one is that God created the world and looks down on it. The second is that God wants us to be good, nice and fair, just as the major world religions teach. The third one is that God wants us to be Be happy and feel good about ourselves. Number four is that God doesn't need to be involved in your life unless you have a problem. And the last one, the one that we're covering today is good people go to heaven when they die.

Good people go to heaven when they die.

It's a funny thing that in, in the broader society and in America, people still have rituals that they like to do with the church. Even if they're non Christians at all. They have no connection to do any formal religion. You can see it on on TV, when people get married, they still want to do it in church. I remember back to that series friends. Whenever anybody wanted to get married, they always would go and try to find a pastor to do it. Why? Well, none of them were religious. None of them had any affiliation with any kind of church. They were Basically secular, but for some reason they felt the need. They felt the need to tie that one ritual, to a church, to a pastor. We see that in a number of different rituals, things like baptisms Sometimes Sometimes though that's becoming less popular. Sometimes it's confirmations. But most of the time the important one are funeral. We want funerals to have a religious overtone. Even if the person who died hasn't been to church in years and years and years, we still want someone to do that.

And we ask why. It's because that last belief of moralistic therapeutic deism tells us that everyone who is goes to heaven. Now the big question about does it mean to be good? If good people go to heaven? If we think that just about everyone who is good is going up to the good place?

What does it mean to be good? Now, there are two ways that you can come up with the idea of goodness in a person. The first one is comparing ourselves to other people. And the second is comparing ourselves to a standard. And I think most of us when we think about being good people, we think about comparing ourselves to others. We are good people if we aren't as bad as others. And for most of us, that means we compare ourselves to what we think are really evil. Now, of course, the big comparison is that none of us is like Hitler. Are we? None of us is Stalin, we haven't gone around causing massive suffering and pain. In fact, I think that's how comparisons work is when we're asking, am I a good person, we think somebody else is much worse than me. Which means that I must be good.

Now, that works really well for everyone. Because then we get to the side, whatever it is, that means to be good. And we can look at only those people that are worse than us and say, yeah, I'm a good person, so I must be going to hell. Oh, Bible looks at it a little differently. According to the Bible, there is a standard that we must apply. And that standard, you can read in Deuteronomy chapter 30.

It says, “If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God that I command you Today, by loving the Lord your God by walking in his ways, and by keeping His commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply. And the Lord God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.”

That's a standard. You have to love God and follow him perfectly. And that is the only thing that makes one good. Now, I think for many of us, especially outside of the church, when we hear that standard, we say, how is it possible nobody can be good. What is it if a sin is doesn't hurt anybody? How does it matter if we're just doing something, something little, how could God judge anyone for that?

Well, the Bible To look at sin differently than just saying, it's like having an account, where you just can't have too many sins and if you cross the line, then you're a bad person. The Bible looks at sin as being independent from the source of life. That's what we see in the Garden of Eden. It's the condition of humanity is that we are independent of the source of life. When Adam and Eve went and ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they became aware that they could make a choice that they could choose to turn away from God and just being able to make that choice cut them off from the tree that was next to the tree of the of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life and so they did not have that tree. To provide life they did not have that connection to God to live by his mind and his power and his grace. And so death came into the world.

And when we do things that are against God's will, it's not that these things are especially wicked, or horrible or should be criminal. It's because when we do these things, we are saying that we are independent from God. We are turning to him and saying, God, no, I do not want to be fully in your will. Instead, what I want is to make my own decisions and to be away from you. That means we end up being cut off from the source of life. Cut off from God who sustains us and gives us right. So moral, higher moralistic therapeutic deism tells us that good people go to heaven when they die. Christianity tells us the opposite. Good people go to hell, bad people go to heaven.

See, when we think that we are good people, when we think that we are just fine and we have everything that we need, when in our own decision making, everything is going great. We don't turn to ourselves and say my sin has cut me off from the source of mine. I need something. I need help. When we look at ourselves, and we realize that we're bad people, we look at ourselves and we realize we have sin that cuts To us off from God, we have to turn to Jesus who gives us the life sustaining bread that we need.

Jesus says, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast them. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

So it's people who know that they are sinners, who will turn to Jesus the bread of life. Because he is the source of life for people who aren't perfect for people who are cut off from God by our own sin and say, God, please save me. He sends us Jesus. You send just Jesus who comes into our own condition, who himself became cut off from God by dying on a cross and entering into death that we deserve. And then he raised himself to new life so that he will raise you up on the last day and all who believe in him. And then he doesn't leave you alone to just ponder that he gives you the very Bread of Life himself. When you come to eat his body and blood.

We become connected to the source of life, because we know that we need it, because we know that we need a savior tomorrow. bring us back to him. We become one with Jesus. And as it says in john chapter six, then he will raise us up on the last day and give us eternal life with him. Now we in the church, we struggle with this, we struggle with the idea that good people can go to hell. Because we think there's such a thing as good people. We look out at the world and we see all these amazing people doing amazing things. And there are if you look at the comparisons, in fact, many people outside the church are way better than those people inside the church. Sometimes they give more, they volunteer more, they do more, they care more. They're just wonderful people and I know a lot of and I'm sure you do too.

But what it is is for us to continue thinking that We are good to continue thinking that we have something. Eventually we do something that makes us feel guilty. And we have to justify. There's a song by Meghan Trainor that really runs through exactly how we do this. It's called walkashame.

“well, please don't judge me. It was mad late. I had a lot to drink, but I was only being safe. It was a walk of shame. Don't act like you've been you haven't been there. 7am with the bedhead? Everybody knows it's a walk of shame. But my Daddy Knows I'm a good girl. We all mistake make mistakes in the drunk world. everyone here’s done the walk of shame.”

Do you hear all the ways she justifies herself? It was it was late so you can understand I had a drink and I was being safe. It's not that bad. You done it. We've all been in the same place. My dad knows that I'm a good girl. There are all these reasons I shouldn't be judging myself. Why she has to tell herself that she doesn't believe it. And eventually there will become a point where you don't believe it either. Or you look at yourself and your justifications, just don't do it.

And when you're there thinking good people go to heaven, well, suddenly, you're not a good person. But you need then is to be connected, to learn to eat of the bread of life, that is Jesus. He gives this gift freely to you.

Now often, we continue thinking about this, and we say, but that just isn't fair. How could God judge people who are doing these He pulled I talked about. You know what that's like saying? That's like saying, How could someone starve if they refuse to eat? There's food all around them, but they say No, I will not be drawn into eating this food. I can live on my own. It doesn't work that way, does it? You need food to live. Or it'd be like saying, How could someone be thirsty if they don't drink any water? The only way to not be thirsty is to drink. And we know that so we do anything we can to get to it. We do anything we can to get the food we need to get the water we need.

And it's the same for Jesus.

So we do anything we can to be included in him to eat his body and drink his blood and become a part of his church because that's how we have life and without that We only hunger, we only thirst. We have nothing. The only thing we can look forward to is death and hell. So it's not that good people go to heaven when they die. It's just the opposite. Good people who are confident in their goodness and their independence. They're the ones who turn away from from life who don't eat it. They're the ones who end up in death and hell for all eternity. See, it's the bad the ones who repent, the ones who turned to God and say, feed me please, I can do nothing. That's when God connects them to life. For Jesus promises to raise us up on the last day in his name

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

God Promises Mercy To Those Who Repent

Watch the video here

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Well, it sounds like they're still working with the technology. It seems like there was a whole bunch of background noise before. Hopefully that will have been fixed. We switched to a different microphone. We'll have to figure all of that out again. We'll do our best.So please bear with us.

Today we are talking about the Psalm that we sang earlier, Psalm 130. This is a part of the song of ascents, as in going up. We believe that many of these songs were songs that people would sing or say, as they were heading up the hill to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was on top of a big hill and anywhere in Israel. If you're going up to Jerusalem, you went up to the city. And then from the city, they also said that the temple was on the holy mount. And so from even within Jerusalem, you would walk up to the temple.

So this was a song that they would sing on their way, maybe on Passover, when they would go together all sorts of crowds and people coming together, up to celebrate in the holy city, or maybe even when individuals came, and individuals would go to the temple to offer sacrifices, so that they could have forgiveness of sins. It was a place for worship. So they sing this song on the way.

It starts out, "out of the depth. I cry to you, oh Lord, oh Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy." This literally could be "out of the depths" right there coming up from the ground all the way up to the city of Jerusalem.But more likely, it's following the patterns and the songs where they "cry out of the depths" means out of the depths of their repentance, for pain, the crying out for Please, have mercy. And we know that Israel would be asking for mercy from God because of their sins.

And we do the same thing when we come to worship. We asked for mercy from God because of our sin. We know that God could judge. We know that we are sinners and we are in need. And so we cry out from the depths of our pain. I cry out for mercy. Now, I bet it's likely that you have heard some Christians somewhere or read something somewhere or even just thought yourself that this thing we're going through must be some sort of judgment from God. And wouldn't that make sense? God is a God who judges sin and we would think he must be doing that sort of thing because only bad people would get really bad things.

But we know that isn't the way God works. Jesus even says that himself in Luke chapter 13. He says, "there were some present at the very time, who told him about the galleons whose blood pilot had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, do you think that these galleons were worse sinners than all the other Galileans? Because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish, or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? Now I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise, Perish.

Jesus is telling us that when disaster happens, not just this kind of sickness, but when we don't have the things that we need when we get in car accidents or friends get hurt or anything is a problem around us. Not a judgment on specific sin. reminder that we are all sinners, we all deserve nothing but temporal and eternal punishment. And the only thing we should expect from God is death.Which is why Jesus says, repent or you too will perish.

Why, we with the Psalmist should cry out, "out of the depths I cried to you, oh Lord, oh Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy."

That's not what we get, only pain and death. We get so much better than that. The song continues if you are Lord should mark iniquities. Oh Lord who can stand When you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. If there was only the depths of pain and our sin, then they wouldn't be walking up to Jerusalem they wouldn't be crying out for please of mercy. Just like if it was just our sin in the depths we would not be walking into worship. We could not stand before our Lord God either in this church building or even at home and expect forgivenes because of our sin.

But they say, “if you would mark inequities, no one could stand.” There is forgiveness. Israel had confidence in that, because of the covenant of blood the God had made with his people. God said that he wasgracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding with steadfast love. And my God chose them as a people at the bottom of Mount Sinai, Moses sprinkled the blood of the covenant on them as a promise that God would be that way to them all, that when they repented and came to him, he would forgive them and give them grace. And he did it when they brought their sacrifices. As they came to the temple, they would take an animal and they would sacrifice it, the forgiveness of sins. And God was gracious and merciful. He didn't look at their sin but washed it away.

We see that same thing for us. We have a blood of a new covenant. Jesus Christ. When He died on the cross, he became the sacrifice for you. And for me. But God would not mark our iniquities or our sins. If he was looking instead of on our unrighteousness everything that we do wrong, and then he would look at Jesus's perfection, because Jesus died on the cross. We are God's people. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding its steadfast love for you. Just like Israel, when we would walk into the place where God is, we can say, you do not mark iniquities, Lord, but you give forgiveness.

That's why God sends the church he sends his a word that when you hear God loves you, God forgives you. Even through a camera. You get the Holy Spirit are not here sitting in the pews that are volunteer volunteers today. Well, we are hearing His Word scattered throughout our places. But he does give you this grace because his voice delivers.

Song continues."I wait for the Lord, my soul always in His Word. I hope my soul waits to the Lord more than watchmen for the morning. More than watchmen for the morning." Israel trusts. As they're heading up the mountain, they cry out to the depths to ask for God's mercy. They speak about how he forgives their sins and in the assurance of God's love, they wait. Waiting for the Lord is the only way that we can talk about God's salvation. We wait the Lord, because we can do anything. And every time there is some big problem, every time the world seems questionable, things get broken. This is what he points us to. When we look out at our communities, and we see empty streets to remind of that.

I've been doing a lot of running now that the trails are closed in Chicago. I've been running down city streets. And it is amazing. Running downtown and seeing how many cars there. Imagine being downtown and looking down one street and another Street and seeing nothing. Upper Wacker drive is usually crowded with cars flying by us three, four lanes thick. If you're walking, even with a walk signal, you'd have to dodge traffic sometimes. And that's scary. We feel so helpless. There's nothing we can do. And that's what our world needs. We Christians should see that and see. I can do nothing to bring myself salvation. I can do nothing to rescue me from a broken, sinful world.

All I can do is wait for the one who says, I am a resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will never die. And he who lives in believe in me even though he died, yes, shall We wait, just like Israel. We wait for Jesus to come to us and say, "Come out" and he'll raise us from the dead to give us life nonetheless. I was really hoping the Lord for with him the Lord there is steadfast love and with him is plentiful redemption. He will repeat Israel from all hesitant. This is the promise that God gives us. Through Jesus Christ, we are redeemed, we are forgiven. We do not have our sin counted against us, because of Jesus's death on the cross loves us and promises. So we have hope, no matter what.

In Jesus name Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: God doesn't need to be involved in your life unless you have a problem.

Watch the sermon on Youtube

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. This lent season has been pretty crazy. As we are into our third worship service streaming online. We're still working out all the bugs. But here we are evening prayer trying to figure out how it works. Now evening prayer this season is all about an American vision of God. They've called it moralistic therapeutic deism, and it has five beliefs. The first is that God created the world and looks down on it. The second is that God wants us to be good, nice and fair, like all the major world religions teach. The third is that the goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself. The fourth That God doesn't need to be involved in your life unless you have a problem. And the last one, the fifth is good people go to heaven when they die. And tonight we're taking a look at that fourth one. The idea that God doesn't need to be involved in your life, unless there's a problem.

Now, we all know the classic story. There is a man who is in a shipwreck, he is out and alone, he's clinging to a piece of driftwood. And while he's out in the middle of the sea, he can see nothing in all the all directions. He has no food. He has no water. Everything looks terrible. And after a day of clinging to this driftwood, clinging out in the middle of the ocean, he cries out to God. Oh, God. I know I haven't talked to you very much. I haven't gone to church. In fact, I've been kind of a bad guy. But if you would just save me this once, I will dedicate my life to you.

At that moment, something shows up on the horizon, a ship coming by and they spot the man on the driftwood and they pull him out and he praises God for about a day and then it's back to life as usual.

That is the perfect example of the way that people feel when they think about God and the necessity of prayer. God doesn't need to be involved in your life, unless there's a problem. That's the therapist part of the moralistic therapeutic deism is that as long as we're doing just fine as long as everything is good, or at least manageable, then we don't need to pray because, well, everything's fine. You don't go to a therapist, if you're happy about life, if everything is doing great. You go to a therapist when you need therapy, when you need someone to help.

So often that's how we see God is that we we turn to him when things are bad. And we asked him for help, only at those times. Now, here's how you know that this is the way we do things in the church. If you ever look at a Church's prayer lists, what are the things that people are praying about? It's all about bad stuff, isn't it? Somebody is sick. Somebody needs help. Someone is facing a difficult, difficult problem. There's all sorts of family problems, different things like that that are going on. The list of requests is long and long and long.

What about the list of thanksgivings, pretty short, usually. But what about the list of, of asking for guidance? How many times have we heard a prayer requests where someone says, "I have a big decision coming up, help me face it." Or even this one, a prayer request that says, "everything is good in my life, God, please keep me focused." So often we treat that relationship with God, as if it's always gonna be there, then we can run to it if we have a problem. This idea that God would be here to help take care of our problems.

It's very different from what Scripture says. In our two readings today, we have a different way of looking at God's relationship with us and our relationship with In the Ephesians reading is that classic passage about the armor of God. St. Paul says, Put on the full armor of God and there's the helmet and the shield and the breastplate, and the sandals and the sword and all of that. But there's a reason he uses that. That metaphor. He wants us to stand, that having put on all of that armor, we will be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against rulers, against authorities against cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." You might looking look about at the way things are going right now, coronavirus everywhere everyone's sheltering inside the church pews are empty. Sounds like Evil doesn't it?

But I think that's not the time when things are most dangerous for St. Paul talks about a constant battle between the Spirit working in us and all of the evil demons in the spiritual forces in this world. And the battle requires constantly being prepared. And so we look at this world and we look around and we say, yes, the devil must be attacking, he is doing all these terrible things. We're anxious and upset, and but I don't think that's quite the case. Isn't it true that when national disasters happen, it draws us closer to God. We look at our own mortality and we say, oh my look at the look at it. What I can't do, I can't control the world out there. I can't stop this disease. In fact, no matter what we're doing, it just seems to be getting worse.

I need to turn to a God who could protect me. And even though there's all this evil doing this disease and people are dying, only God can keep me safe. promises that he can. He does it through Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for you, who rose from the dead for you. To give you the promise that because Jesus is alive, God protects. God gives you his armor to keep you safe.And what happens is when you have that armor on when you run into evil in the world, it actually makes you trust God more.

God uses his word. His grace to draw you closer to him, but the dangerous time isn't when we're scared or hurt. The dangerous time for salvation is when everything is good. See, when everything is good, we start to think, Well, you know, I don't really need to have this armor on right now. I can put it off to the side and wait. There are no enemies on the scene. There's nothing out coming to get me. I'll be fine.

What happens to a soldier who isn't ready to attack. It's even more important in times of peace and joy, to be with God and in his army, because that's when God builds you up and strengthens you for the day that you You need him again, strengthens you for the day when the devil attacks your spirit and soul so that you can cling to the armor that he gives you. Because that's what God does. He gives you His word, the place his very own armor on you. And that will protect you from anything that could try to come and get you.

And how do we do that? How do we be continually connected with God? It all comes through Jesus. That's what Jesus says when he says, I am the vine and you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Being prepared, being close to God being sustained by him, comes from being connected to Jesus and right Now, we may be struggling with that. You aren't here to give confession and receive absolution. It's been a week since we've offered the Lord's Supper. But you are here to hear is where you are gathered together around a computer screen somewhere or watching it on a TV. Maybe even your phone. You're here to be sustained by Jesus's work.

Apart from them, you can do nothing. Because we need the grace he gives us we need the love he gets so often during the times of great happiness, the times when we're we're overjoyed by things and everything is going well. That's when we say I don't need it. But it's important for us to be sustained by God through His grace, so that we can face Good and Evil times knowing that God is with us. And that promise that comes with it means that our Savior isn't about taking care of our problems now, but giving us life that lasts forever. It isn't about feeling good.

It's about resurrection from the dead. And so our whole life is pointed towards being connected to Jesus. Use whatever metaphor you like, he is the vine We are the branches and we are fed and sustained by him. Or we are the church under constant attack by the world and by Satan. And God gives us the armor that we wait for Jesus. Either way, because can't just turn away from God until we need something. All we can do is constantly be turning towards him, receive the grace that he promises us. In His name. Amen Transcribed by https://otter.ai

With God, You Are Never Alone

God promises to be with us through every event and season in our lives. He isn’t with us as some far-away God, floating up in heaven. He comes as a human being, the eternal Son of God in the flesh, in Jesus Christ.

Jesus lived our experience. He rejoiced at the wedding reception at Cana, in Galilee. He mourned when his cousin, John the Baptist, and his friend, Lazarus, died. He struggled with God’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane. He suffered and died, so he could even be with us in our own suffering and death. Jesus is with all who believe in him no matter what.

Yet, Christians still feel alone. God gives a gift to Christians to remind us that we’re not. He gives us a congregation, filled with members who can show by word and action that God is with us.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: God Created The World And Looks Down On It

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a religious worldview that is different from Christianity, but it also affects how Christians perceive God. It has five basic beliefs:

1. God created the world and looks down on it.

2. God wants us to be good, nice, and fair like the major religions teach.

3. The goal of life is to be happy and feel good about ourselves.

4. God doesn’t need to be involved in my life unless there’s a problem.

5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

This sermon discusses the first belief, God created the world and looks down on it. On the face of things, this looks like it is Christian. God did created the world, the Bible regularly talks about God looking down on earth from heaven. But the Bible describes God’s active involvement in creation far more often. God is not a distant, jolly uncle. He isn’t some white-robed Santa floating on a cloud. He isn’t distant. He’s near.

We know that, because God shows himself in Jesus. He is God made flesh, who comes to be one of us. We see him, both God and man, and he gives himself to us in every situation. He lived through joy and sadness, pain and pleasure, rejoicing and mourning. He even wanted to be with us so badly that he entered death. God isn’t distant, he’s near.

Why You Should Go To Private Confession

Psalm 37:1-4

Lutherans have always practiced private confession and absolution, but most of us haven’t been taught that. If you are like me, you grew up in a church that only did public confession. You probably thought that private confession was something only the Catholics did. Nope.

This sermon makes the case that you should go to private confession:

1. Because God commands it in the Bible.

2. Because Lutherans have always taught it.

3. Because it gives you forgiveness for the sin for which you still feel guilt.

4. Because it breaks sins power of shame over you.

5. Because it helps you consciously turn away from sin.

6. Because it helps your pastor give you better spiritual care.

This sermon expands on each of these reasons to show the power and grace available in private confession.

Contact Pastor Huenink to schedule your private confession today.

Does God Work For You? Introduction to Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

This season of Lent, Concordia Lutheran Church begins a series about a world view called, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. There are five basic beliefs:

1. God created the world and looks down on it.

2. God wants us to be good and nice as taught by the major world religions.

3. The goal of life is to be happy and feel good about one’s self.

4. God doesn’t need to be in our lives unless we have a problem.

5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

Over the next five weeks, the congregation will explore each of these beliefs in our Wednesday night services, but on Ash Wednesday, we looked at the belief system as a whole. It boils down to a question: Does God work for you?

In Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, God is there to take care of me. He looks down on us from afar in heaven, and he helps us out when we need it. He wants us to be happy and successful, so he encourages us to follow our dreams and live our best life. In other words, God works for us to give us what we want.

That doesn’t work when compared to the cross. In the cross of Jesus, we don’t see a fulfilled happy life. We see the greatest human being who ever lived, God’s only son, die gruesomely. And God calls us to follow that same path to eternal life.

What Do We When Jesus Says Hard Things?

Psalm 119:1-3

This Sunday readings all pointed to the choice between being obedient to God and being disobedient. Deuteronomy 30:15-20 describes the path of life and of death, where God gives life if we obey his commands and death if we don’t. In Matthew 5, Jesus describes how much it takes to obey God’s law. He tells us that even to think about sin breaks God’s law.

Yikes! That means it’s impossible to obey God, because we have done something that’s wrong. So, how does the church interpret these difficult passages? How do they apply to our lives?

This sermon explores three answers to that question. Check it out.

The Beauty of God's Dwelling Place

Psalm 84

Psalm 84 is all about God’s dwelling place. In the Old Testament, God dwelled in the Ark of the Covenant. It was a box that travelled in the tabernacle with God’s people as they wandered through the wilderness. If you asked an ancient Israelite, “Where is God?” the people could respond, “He’s in the tabernacle.” Simple. After Solomon built the temple, the Ark of the Covenant moved there, so God’s dwelling place was the temple.

Now that Jesus has come, God’s dwelling place isn’t a box or a building. It’s Jesus, himself. So, God dwells wherever Jesus comes, and Jesus comets his people when we gather for worship. He comes through his word, through his body and blood. Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Matthew 18.

This sermon is about what God’s dwelling place means for us and why we come every week.

Wait For The Lord: Psalm 40

Psalm 40:1-11

Fortune favors the bold. Just do it. God helps those who help themselves.

These proverbs are part of the American spirit. We are optimists, go-getters. We want to be leaders, to take charge and forge a path through our own personal wilderness.

That’s what makes the message of this Psalm so difficult. The author, King David, tells us to wait for the Lord. We wait to be saved.

In this sermon, we’ll examine the lives of three people who waited for God with varying degrees of success:

• David, who waited for God to make him King

• Abraham, who waited for God to give him a son

• Jesus, who waited for God to raise him from the dead

How do their examples help us understand God’s mercy to us, that we must wait for God’s salvation instead of of taking charge.

Jesus Makes His Enemies Friends

Psalm 2

Psalm 2 seems like a strange passage to read on Christmas Day. A king fights and destroys rebellious nations, and God enables him to win!

What does that have to do with Jesus’ birth? Jesus is God’s king, but he doesn’t smash rebellious sinners with a rod of iron. Instead, he becomes one of them. Jesus becomes a human being, and he feels all of God’s anger, beginning with the small pains of his birth and ending when God vented his wrath on Jesus at the cross. He was broken by a rod of iron. He was smashed like a clay pot.

But Jesus used this to gather a people who used to be his enemies. He turns them into friends, and he gives eternal life to everyone who believes in him.

The Infant Priest Comes To Bring Together God And Man

Psalm 110:3-4

The Bible calls Jesus “a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” Priests stood between God and man, to connect the two. Pagan priests tried to reach up into heaven to grab the attention of one god or another. They used sacrifices to try to bribe a god to bring them some sort of good thing. They tried to get the god of rain to send rain. The god of fertility would get someone pregnant.

Old Testament priests were different, though, because God wanted to be with his people. He yearned for a close relationship, but sinful humanity couldn’t accept him. Holy and unholy don’t mix. Old Testament priests sent God’s blessings to the people. They sacrificed animals to take away their sins. But it didn’t take, so they had to sacrifice over and over again.

Jesus, the baby in the manger, is the perfect priest, who sacrifices himself as the perfect offering for the forgiveness of sins. He brings together God and man in himself, the child in the manger.

Your Word Is A Lamp To My Feet And A Light To My Path

Psalm 119:97-105

God’s word guides us through dark paths and shows us the safe way to walk in God’s grace.

Let God Handle It: Psalm 146

Psalm 146

Problems. Stresses. Obstacles. They are never-ending. As soon as we solve one problem, another one pops up. As soon as we get over one obstacle, an even bigger one looms before us.

What is the old proverb? Man makes plans and God laughs. Here’s the way the Bible puts it: “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

What can we do? We can let God handle it.

Because God is the creator of heaven and earth. He promises to use his power for our good.

Because God lifts up the lowly, the broken, the sinner. He sent Jesus to lift us up, even from the grave.

When we let God handle it, we stop needing to stress out. We do our best, and God handles the results. Then we have the peace only God can give.

Here’s what St. Paul says about that in Philippians 4, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Check out the whole sermon.

Great Leaders Always Fail Us

Psalm 72

The Kings of Israel and Judah embodied their nations. When the King was faithful, God considered the whole nation faithful. When the king chased other gods, God considered the whole kingdom unfaithful. In Deuteronomy 28, Moses says what happens when the nation is faithful. God will bless them in the land he has given them. Moses also says what will happen when the nation is unfaithful. God will curse them.

When Solomon writes this Psalm, he knows what a king is supposed to do: Justice and Righteousness. These words were the king’s job description. Justice: To support the rights of the poor against the oppressor. Righteousness: To ensure right worship of God at the temple in Jerusalem.

The kings always failed. King David failed. King Solomon failed. Even the best king, Josiah, failed wise people, too.

Great leaders always fail. They let us down, and the people who follow them are left empty.

Jesus never fails.

The Heavenly Jerusalem

Psalm 122

The Old Testament promises centered around God’s covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David. By the time of Solomon, these promises centered on the city of Jerusalem and especially the temple. That’s because the whole nation was focused on the way that God’s presence in the temple interacted with the king of Judah in David’s line.

Psalm 122 is called a psalm of ascents, which means that the psalm was part of God’s peoples worship as the ascended to Jerusalem. No matter where you were in Israel or Judah, the city of Jerusalem was upwards. We talk about going north as going up and going south as going down. But Jerusalem was literally uphill from the rest of the country.

So, God’s people sang psalms on their way uphill to the city of Jerusalem. This song rehearsed the feelings they were supposed to have while they turned to Jerusalem for worship. They were glad, even when their hearts weren’t in it. Maybe they were stressed about their fields. Maybe they needed to repair their homes. Maybe they just weren’t up to it. But they still sang the words, “I was glad when they said to me/ Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

But the city of Jerusalem and the building of the temple were always in danger. Armies attacked the city and threatened to steal the items of worship in and around the temple. It culminated when the Babylonians destroyed the city and tore down the temple. What were God’s people to do after that?

Well, God sent Jesus to be our temple. And God established a heavenly Jerusalem, the city. of the promises of our God. The king reigns there to protect us and deliver God’s promises to us forever. No enemy can strike it. No one can tear down the body of the temple. And our salvation is safe there.

Listen to the sermon to hear more.

Christians do not have a real city that embodies God’s promises to us. There is no building that God gives his name and establishes his presence among us. There are no enemies

How Can God Be Just And Forgiving?

Romans 3:21-26

Justice and forgiveness are opposites. Justice happens when someone corrects an injustice. In the Old Testament, they called that “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” You’ve probably heard the quotation, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” While it sounds nice, it’s not true. An eye for an eye limits retaliation to the crime committed so the punishment fits the crime. Justice is just that, when the punishment fits the crime.

St. Paul says that God wants to also be the one who justifies. Justification is the opposite of justice. When someone is justified, they don’t have to pay for the injustice they caused. The punishment is gone. The guilt has been taken away. Do you remember this story in the news? A police officer comes home to her apartment building. The rooms all look the same, and she accidentally enters someone else’s apartment. Thinking she was in her own home, she shoots the guy. At the sentencing, the man’s brother told her that he forgives her and he thinks she shouldn’t go to jail. Then he asks the judge if he can hug her. That’s justification.

How can God be both? How can he do two opposite things at the same time? You’ll have to listen to find out.