How do we use our words? Do we strive to use them kindly, to build others up? Or do we tend to tear people down? Our reading from Ephesians today talks about how we speak to one another. Our speech is to be not corrupting. It is to be fitting to the occasion. It is to give grace.
It always amazes me when people decide they are going to follow Ephesians 4:25 by speaking the truth, but then do it in a way which is malicious and harmful. When we do that we make ourselves imitators of Satan rather than imitators of God. May we have grace to speak the truth but in a way and at a time to encourage and give grace.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Adult Bible Class 9/4/11
Here's a recording of today's Adult Bible Class. We started discussing the "slippery slope of conflict" with the "attack" responses. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23575548/110904AdultBibleClass.mp3
Sermon for 9/4/11 "Give What Is Due"
SERMON “Give What Is Due” audio link http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23575548/110904Romans13.mp3
Lord Jesus Christ, open our eyes to see your love and mercy toward us. Grant us repentance of our mistrust. Place our faith firmly in you. Make us like you, that we can be your ministers of mercy and grace in our world. Amen.
Our Epistle reading today talks about giving to each one what is due. We are told to submit to the authorities because God has placed them over us. We’re told to pay our taxes. And elsewhere in Scripture we’re told to do all this cheerfully. How are we to take this kind of command in today’s American culture? There’s a large segment of the population which is pretty deeply libertarian – keep the government out of my affairs, away from my bank account, out of my life. We’re taxed enough already. We’re over-regulated. We talk about the “nanny government.” We live in a climate in which it’s pretty hard to decide to go into business for yourself. Believe me. I’ve been there and done that. There’s hardly anything that will raise my hackles as much as receiving a form from the IRS or being told that I need to provide more information than I wanted to. The fact is most of us would rather be rugged individualists. We’d like to do for ourselves and be unregulated. Of course, we like the idea of government regulations, but those are for the other guys, not for us. We don’t need them for ourselves, right?
So what is God’s attitude toward our governmental officials? What is his view of the legislature? He says all these people and institutions are God’s servants and exist for our good and protection. This includes those we might not want to claim as our leaders of choice. It includes the departments which we’re pretty sure are regulating us to death. It includes the department of circumlocution. It also includes the department of redundancy department, where you fill out forms to verify that you know you need to fill out forms stating you want to fill out more forms. When it’s all said and done, these are God’s servants for our good. We may not always know what they are doing. We may think they are unnecessary. We may even find them annoying or potentially harmful. No doubt the apostle Paul, who wrote the letter to the Romans, found some aspects of his Roman government annoying or harmful. I don’t think he liked being chained to another soldier while going to his trial. I doubt he enjoyed the terms of his imprisonment when he was under arrest and was held because he had appealed to Caesar. Doubtless he had mixed feelings about being taken and executed in prison. This didn’t seem like the government was watching out for his good.
How are we going to deal with all this conflict? Let God be God. Let His word be true. If he has proclaimed that a situation is for our good, it is. We may not see the good immediately. But remember Romans 8.28-29? Everything is working together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. And that good is that God is changing us, bit by bit, into his image. He is remaking us so we will be like we were intended to be prior to Adam’s sin and its curse. He is working patience and perseverance in us. He is showing us his forgiving grace. He’s showing us our need for his work in our lives.
Our reading from Matthew offers a strong commentary on this idea. How are we to resolve conflicts? Before we end up taking them to our government authorities, who are there for our good, we’re to try to deal with conflicts lovingly and gently first. And how does that work? First we go to the person with whom we have a dispute. We ask the person to see it our way. If we are right, maybe the Lord will call the other person to repentance for his wrong. If we are wrong, maybe the Lord will correct us and help us see his righteous will. And most disputes can end right there. If both people cooperate, that will be the end of it. What if the one-on-one contact doesn’t resolve everything? Then we, still convinced that we are right, bring a few other people with us to plead our case. We try again. And we really try. We want to bring the other person to repentance. His lack of repentance and our lack of forgiveness are hindering both of us. It needs to be dealt with. What if that isn’t sufficient? What if our friends don’t convince either of us to repent and ask for forgiveness? What if we can’t resolve the conflict then and there? Then we bring the dispute before the church. It’s become pretty serious by this time. Maybe we’ve gone many times and begged our neighbor, our brother, our friend to repent. But we finally bring it to the church, not to harm our friend, but to help our friend. We seek to call our friend to repentance. And the church may call us to repentance instead. We never know. What’s the result of the church’s ruling? The one who is not repentant is treated like a sinner. May the Lord preserve us from having to make that judgment. May he rather give us repentance and show us forgiveness. Yet God’s restoring love is visible. We remember that God’s will is that none should perish but that all should come to repentance and faith. So our call to the unbeliever is to repentance. We call the unbeliever to trust in the Lord. This is our message. And it is a message of reconciliation.
What if we need to bring a dispute before the civil authorities? The Scripture says they are there for our good. Yet in all things let us hope that we can resolve our differences by our Lord’s mercy and grace. Let us pray for repentance and forgiveness, that the body may be restored. We give our leaders what is due, but we first give due thanks to God who has redeemed us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We give thanks to our Lord who lived a perfect life on our behalf, died a perfect death in our place, rose from the dead as the firstfruits of the resurrection, promised us he would never leave us or forsake us, gives us his true body and blood as a promise that we are partakers of his death and resurrection, and who always intercedes for us before the Father in heaven. Let us give him the honor due his name first and foremost. And then let us rejoice that he has appointed leaders in this world. He has appointed order. There’s a time and place for the civil authorities to operate. And they are useful. They are for our good. We give them what is appropriate. Yet above all we look to our Lord and give ourselves to him, as he has given himself for us.
Let us pray.
Our Lord, we give you honor and glory. You have given yourself for our good. Let us always look to you, worship you, revere you, earnestly seek you in praise and thanksgiving. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, open our eyes to see your love and mercy toward us. Grant us repentance of our mistrust. Place our faith firmly in you. Make us like you, that we can be your ministers of mercy and grace in our world. Amen.
Our Epistle reading today talks about giving to each one what is due. We are told to submit to the authorities because God has placed them over us. We’re told to pay our taxes. And elsewhere in Scripture we’re told to do all this cheerfully. How are we to take this kind of command in today’s American culture? There’s a large segment of the population which is pretty deeply libertarian – keep the government out of my affairs, away from my bank account, out of my life. We’re taxed enough already. We’re over-regulated. We talk about the “nanny government.” We live in a climate in which it’s pretty hard to decide to go into business for yourself. Believe me. I’ve been there and done that. There’s hardly anything that will raise my hackles as much as receiving a form from the IRS or being told that I need to provide more information than I wanted to. The fact is most of us would rather be rugged individualists. We’d like to do for ourselves and be unregulated. Of course, we like the idea of government regulations, but those are for the other guys, not for us. We don’t need them for ourselves, right?
So what is God’s attitude toward our governmental officials? What is his view of the legislature? He says all these people and institutions are God’s servants and exist for our good and protection. This includes those we might not want to claim as our leaders of choice. It includes the departments which we’re pretty sure are regulating us to death. It includes the department of circumlocution. It also includes the department of redundancy department, where you fill out forms to verify that you know you need to fill out forms stating you want to fill out more forms. When it’s all said and done, these are God’s servants for our good. We may not always know what they are doing. We may think they are unnecessary. We may even find them annoying or potentially harmful. No doubt the apostle Paul, who wrote the letter to the Romans, found some aspects of his Roman government annoying or harmful. I don’t think he liked being chained to another soldier while going to his trial. I doubt he enjoyed the terms of his imprisonment when he was under arrest and was held because he had appealed to Caesar. Doubtless he had mixed feelings about being taken and executed in prison. This didn’t seem like the government was watching out for his good.
How are we going to deal with all this conflict? Let God be God. Let His word be true. If he has proclaimed that a situation is for our good, it is. We may not see the good immediately. But remember Romans 8.28-29? Everything is working together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. And that good is that God is changing us, bit by bit, into his image. He is remaking us so we will be like we were intended to be prior to Adam’s sin and its curse. He is working patience and perseverance in us. He is showing us his forgiving grace. He’s showing us our need for his work in our lives.
Our reading from Matthew offers a strong commentary on this idea. How are we to resolve conflicts? Before we end up taking them to our government authorities, who are there for our good, we’re to try to deal with conflicts lovingly and gently first. And how does that work? First we go to the person with whom we have a dispute. We ask the person to see it our way. If we are right, maybe the Lord will call the other person to repentance for his wrong. If we are wrong, maybe the Lord will correct us and help us see his righteous will. And most disputes can end right there. If both people cooperate, that will be the end of it. What if the one-on-one contact doesn’t resolve everything? Then we, still convinced that we are right, bring a few other people with us to plead our case. We try again. And we really try. We want to bring the other person to repentance. His lack of repentance and our lack of forgiveness are hindering both of us. It needs to be dealt with. What if that isn’t sufficient? What if our friends don’t convince either of us to repent and ask for forgiveness? What if we can’t resolve the conflict then and there? Then we bring the dispute before the church. It’s become pretty serious by this time. Maybe we’ve gone many times and begged our neighbor, our brother, our friend to repent. But we finally bring it to the church, not to harm our friend, but to help our friend. We seek to call our friend to repentance. And the church may call us to repentance instead. We never know. What’s the result of the church’s ruling? The one who is not repentant is treated like a sinner. May the Lord preserve us from having to make that judgment. May he rather give us repentance and show us forgiveness. Yet God’s restoring love is visible. We remember that God’s will is that none should perish but that all should come to repentance and faith. So our call to the unbeliever is to repentance. We call the unbeliever to trust in the Lord. This is our message. And it is a message of reconciliation.
What if we need to bring a dispute before the civil authorities? The Scripture says they are there for our good. Yet in all things let us hope that we can resolve our differences by our Lord’s mercy and grace. Let us pray for repentance and forgiveness, that the body may be restored. We give our leaders what is due, but we first give due thanks to God who has redeemed us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We give thanks to our Lord who lived a perfect life on our behalf, died a perfect death in our place, rose from the dead as the firstfruits of the resurrection, promised us he would never leave us or forsake us, gives us his true body and blood as a promise that we are partakers of his death and resurrection, and who always intercedes for us before the Father in heaven. Let us give him the honor due his name first and foremost. And then let us rejoice that he has appointed leaders in this world. He has appointed order. There’s a time and place for the civil authorities to operate. And they are useful. They are for our good. We give them what is appropriate. Yet above all we look to our Lord and give ourselves to him, as he has given himself for us.
Let us pray.
Our Lord, we give you honor and glory. You have given yourself for our good. Let us always look to you, worship you, revere you, earnestly seek you in praise and thanksgiving. Amen.
Psalm 90.13-17, 2 Kings 2.1-18, Ephesians 4.1-24 - Lectionary for 9/4/11 - Commemoration of Moses
Today is the commemoration of Moses.
Today's readings are Psalm 90.13-17, 2 Kings 2.1-18, and Ephesians 4.1-24.
The Christian life is full of the idea of "putting off" and "putting on." Today in Ephesians we see that we put off our old self and put on the new man in Christ. We do away with all manner of sinful attitudes and behaviors, putting on the kind of conduct which brings honor to our Lord.
How do we do this? We confess that in ourselves we are not able to conquer sin. We claim that salvation is of the Lord so we don't take that salvation and wrestle it onto ourselves by our goodness or merit. Yet in our lives we do see God glorified by our choices. When we realize our sin we repent. When we see ourselves coming short of the call of Christ we ask for his strength to do his will. In this way we put on Christ and we trust that he will bear fruit in us.
May the Lord grant us this day to do his will as he brings his kingdom to come and will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
Today's readings are Psalm 90.13-17, 2 Kings 2.1-18, and Ephesians 4.1-24.
The Christian life is full of the idea of "putting off" and "putting on." Today in Ephesians we see that we put off our old self and put on the new man in Christ. We do away with all manner of sinful attitudes and behaviors, putting on the kind of conduct which brings honor to our Lord.
How do we do this? We confess that in ourselves we are not able to conquer sin. We claim that salvation is of the Lord so we don't take that salvation and wrestle it onto ourselves by our goodness or merit. Yet in our lives we do see God glorified by our choices. When we realize our sin we repent. When we see ourselves coming short of the call of Christ we ask for his strength to do his will. In this way we put on Christ and we trust that he will bear fruit in us.
May the Lord grant us this day to do his will as he brings his kingdom to come and will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Psalm 119.57-64, 1 Kings 19.1-21, Ephesians 3.1-21 - Lectionary for 9/3/11 - Commemoration of Gregory the Great, Pastor
Today is the commemoration of Gregory the Great, Pastor.
Today's readings are Psalm 119.57-64, 1 Kings 19.1-21, and Ephesians 3.1-21.
We never know what our Lord will appoint for us. Elijah followed his circumstances and fled from Ahab and Jezebel. But God appointed him to establish a successor to Ahab. Paul had persecuted the Church then was sent as an apostle for the Church. Both of these men spent considerable time encouraging others and appointing people to posts where they would serve God.
What is the appointment God in Christ has given you? Maybe, like Paul, he sends you far from home and will remind you that he is the one who is always with you, the closest family you can ever need or have. Maybe he has you living and working in mundane circumstances. This too is a way we can honor our Lord. He has one body, his Church, but it is full of different members with different gifts.
Whatever the gifts God has given us, may we use them boldly and faithfully, giving all praise to the Lord.
Today's readings are Psalm 119.57-64, 1 Kings 19.1-21, and Ephesians 3.1-21.
We never know what our Lord will appoint for us. Elijah followed his circumstances and fled from Ahab and Jezebel. But God appointed him to establish a successor to Ahab. Paul had persecuted the Church then was sent as an apostle for the Church. Both of these men spent considerable time encouraging others and appointing people to posts where they would serve God.
What is the appointment God in Christ has given you? Maybe, like Paul, he sends you far from home and will remind you that he is the one who is always with you, the closest family you can ever need or have. Maybe he has you living and working in mundane circumstances. This too is a way we can honor our Lord. He has one body, his Church, but it is full of different members with different gifts.
Whatever the gifts God has given us, may we use them boldly and faithfully, giving all praise to the Lord.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Psalm 138, 1 Kings 18.20-40, Ephesians 2.1-22 - Lectionary for 9/2/11 - Commemoration of Hannah
Today's readings are Psalm 138, 1 Kings 18.20-40, and Ephesians 2.1-22.
Demolition and construction - they seem to go together. We tear one thing down to build another. In 1 Kings 18 we see God tearing down Israel's altars and priests of Baal, a regional fertility god. What is God building? Look to our reading from Ephesians. He is building his household. It is constructed on Jesus, the cornerstone. This household of God, the Church, is built according to God's covenant and promise. It is founded on the peace and reconciliation of God in Christ, who is called "our peace" (v. 14).
May the Lord sweep away the rubble of our attempts to redeem ourselves. Rather, may he construct his own temple, of his own design, for his glory. Amen.
Demolition and construction - they seem to go together. We tear one thing down to build another. In 1 Kings 18 we see God tearing down Israel's altars and priests of Baal, a regional fertility god. What is God building? Look to our reading from Ephesians. He is building his household. It is constructed on Jesus, the cornerstone. This household of God, the Church, is built according to God's covenant and promise. It is founded on the peace and reconciliation of God in Christ, who is called "our peace" (v. 14).
May the Lord sweep away the rubble of our attempts to redeem ourselves. Rather, may he construct his own temple, of his own design, for his glory. Amen.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Psalm 47, 1 Kings 18.1-19, Ephesians 1.1-23 - Lectionary for 9/1/11 - Commemoration of Joshua
Today is the commemoration of Joshua.
Today's readings are Psalm 47, 1 Kings 18.1-19, and Ephesians 1.1-23.
When Ahab approaches Elijah in 1 Kings 18 he accuses Elijah of troubling Israel. In recent years our culture in the United States has been increasingly critical of Christians, saying they are revolutionaries, bringing trouble upon the country.
If we consider our reading from Ephesians 1 seriously we can see why Christians should be so interested in their message. It is decidedly good for our society to become those people who are blameless before God, forgiven and walking in forgiveness, full of hope, and looking to God in Christ as the ultimate good and gracious ruler.
Who is troubling Israel? "Not I," says Elijah. He points the blame at the one who is denying God's merciful rule. May we also have the grace not to trouble our society but to help it to raise our neighbors up in the mercy of God.
Today's readings are Psalm 47, 1 Kings 18.1-19, and Ephesians 1.1-23.
When Ahab approaches Elijah in 1 Kings 18 he accuses Elijah of troubling Israel. In recent years our culture in the United States has been increasingly critical of Christians, saying they are revolutionaries, bringing trouble upon the country.
If we consider our reading from Ephesians 1 seriously we can see why Christians should be so interested in their message. It is decidedly good for our society to become those people who are blameless before God, forgiven and walking in forgiveness, full of hope, and looking to God in Christ as the ultimate good and gracious ruler.
Who is troubling Israel? "Not I," says Elijah. He points the blame at the one who is denying God's merciful rule. May we also have the grace not to trouble our society but to help it to raise our neighbors up in the mercy of God.
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