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.

Possessed By The Holy Spirit

Acts 2:1-4

The Pentecost story is pretty crazy. The Holy Spirit descends with the sound of rushing wind, even without a wind blowing. Fire appears, floating in the air, and it floats about the disciples’ heads. Then, filled with the Spirit, they are driven out into the streets to preach in every language imaginable. What an amazing, awe-filled experience!

It’s so powerful, so crazy, that it reminds me of other events when the a spirit comes on someone and causes them to do something crazy. It sounds like possession. Most of the times we read about a possession, we read about demons. In this sermon, I contrast demon possession and Holy Spirit possession to show the blessings of being filled with the Spirit.

Christians Overcome The World In Christ

1 John 5:4-11

The victorious life. Many Christians talk about it, that Jesus gives us victory over the world. What does that mean?

For much of the ancient world, victory meant conquering others. The Roman Empire didn’t believe in stable borders with her neighbors. Every chance he had, the emperor sent out his armies to take new land or fight off a rebellion. Victory meant taking what you wanted from others.

Victory can also mean living a successful life. Victory is when our family does well, our career is on track, and our life is under control. The victorious life is “the good life.”

For Christians, however, victory is not conquering others or gaining “the good life” from the world. Christian victory is the battle that Jesus won with the world, a victory he won on the cross. Jesus gives us that victory through faith, through the word and the sacraments.

But the world wants to convince us that we have no victory in Christ. There’s the guilty voice that tells us God could never love us. There are the problems that weigh us down. We think, “I could never have victory when everything is going wrong.” We have temptations that pull us away from living the way we want to. We can even come to believe that we have no victory in Christ.

But we should never believe our own thoughts over what God says to us. God’s word always trumps our conscience. St. John tells us that God has given us witnesses to prove that we have victory in Christ. The Spirit, the water, and the blood. That is, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit through them. We don’t trust ourselves. We trust the promise of God.

Called To Holiness

1 Thessalonians 4:1-7

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.

Through Jesus Christ, God has made all Christians holy. In baptism, we are clothed with Christ, and his holiness and faithfulness become ours. So, God calls each of us to live holy lives, sanctified lives. We are to spend our whole lives learning to live out what God has already made us.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7, St. Paul tells us and the church in Thessalonica to abstain from sexual immorality. Just like the Thessalonians, the culture surrounding the church presses us toward sexual immorality, celebrating passions of lust rather than discipline over our bodies.

It used to be different, though. Only 60 years ago, Christians could count on the rest of society to reinforce sexual morality. We all believed that sex was supposed to be reserved for marriage. Now, however, people see it as weird to abstain from sex until marriage.

So, the church has to talk, really talk, about sex. Why did God create it? What are we supposed to do with sex? How does it relate to our Christian calling? Listen to the sermon to find out more.

The Greatest Of These Is Love

1 Corinthians 13:13

Everyone knows 1 Corinthians 13. Most people know the passage from weddings. Couples love (pun intended) to have this read at their ceremonies. It speaks highly about love and the amazing things that love does.

But Christians understand that 1 Corinthians 13 has little to do with the kind of love shared between a husband and wife. St. Paul writes 1 Corinthians 13 to urge the Corinthians to live in unity with each other, and he calls upon them to use love to do it.

But that is not exactly what concerns us, today. At the end of the chapter, then, St. Paul writes, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Faith and hope are important for Christians, so why is the greatest of these love?

To understand that, we need to know what the terms mean. This sermon looks through the New Testament to see how the authors use faith, hope, and love. Here’s a quick definition, but you’ll have to listen to the sermon to hear it more deeply explored.

• Faith: Trust that God’s grace is for me.

• Hope: The expectation that Jesus will return and raise us from the dead.

• Love: The act of serving each other with our words and actions.

Why is the greatest of these love? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Are We Pleased With Ourselves?

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

People have always been obsessed with status, both now and in ancient times. Much of St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians struggles with their own obsession with status. Paul describes several divisions in the church:

• Spiritually “strong” vs Spiritually “weak:” Some thought that their spiritual gifts, such as prophecy, made them better than other Christians. 1 Corinthians 12

• Rich vs Poor: When they had the Lord’s Supper, the rich often went first, eating and drinking everything so some couldn’t get anything. 1 Corinthians 11

• Noble vs Low: While most of the church would have been poor and lowly, some were highborn. Gaius, one of the leaders, probably had a house large enough to hold the whole congregation for worship, perhaps 100 people. 1 Corinthians 1

Paul tells them that their calling was the same despite these differences. God didn’t call the rich differently than he called the poor. He didn’t call the strong differently than the weak or the noble than the low. They were all called by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

There is no difference, then, because God doesn’t care about the things about which we care. He doesn’t see wealth or status. He just sees our sin. He calls all people to him, because all are in the same state: We need a savior. No human being should ever be pleased with their own qualities. The good we do or the status we have is nothing before God.

What’s true for Corinth is also true for us. Most of us don’t think about the rich having more access to Jesus than the poor, like the Corinthians might have. We do, however, get pleased with our own things. We think that our actions might count for something.

We could say:

• I volunteer. That must count for something.

• I read the Bible. That must count for something.

• I give to the church. That must count for something.

• I’ve been attending here for 40 years. That must count for something.

But it doesn’t. Only Jesus matters.