Love Your Enemies Perfectly

Over the last several months of substitute preaching I have had a number of requests for audio copies of sermons, but different churches have had so many different methods (or lack of methods) for recording that I haven’t ended up with a lot of files to offer. Last Sunday I just plopped my iPod on the pulpit and left the mic from the headphones sitting on top. I hope it sounds okay and pray that you find the message edifying.

Mt 5 38-48 Love Your Enemies Perfectly

Be the Dog

A sermon based on Matthew 15:21-28.

 

Be the Dog (click to download or listen)

It is with some trepidation that I post this audio sermon recorded more than two years ago. I am reminded of the text whenever I am surprised by the “treatment” I’m receiving from the Lord. And the theme is one I’ll never forget because many members have quoted it back to me over the years. It doesn’t help that I also tried preaching this same sermon at a pastoral conference, and the host pastor still reminds me how he brought my manuscript back to me afterward with a wry smile on his face. Why? Because his dog had taken a bite out of it.

Despite this sermon’s colorful history, however, the Lord has comforted me many times through many difficulties by reminding me about what I learned as I prepared it. I pray that it is encouraging to others, as well.

Reasons I Didn’t Resign

Brothers and sisters in Christ, especially my family at Michigan Lutheran Seminary-

I can’t say it’s been a surprise, but it’s certainly been an experience listening to friends and families share their conjectures with me. Sometimes it’s what they’ve heard from others and sometimes what they’ve personally thought. I wanted to put up this post to try to ease some tensions and to try not to lose the value of my resigning for the good of the ministry.

We have a few terms in our circles for describing different kinds of resignations. A resignation for cause is the one that I think people fear the most. Resignation for cause means that a called worker has done something sinful that disqualifies them from serving. A clear-cut example would be teaching heresy. Other more complicated issues would be getting caught in some big, public sin like adultery or embezzlement. The distinguishing mark of resignation for cause is the repentance that everyone will be hoping for. The forgiveness the resigned called worker receives is the same forgiveness we all receive—complete and unconditionally paid for by the blood of Christ. However, the called worker still must leave their post because leaders in the church are held to a higher standard than those who serve as members. “Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap” (1 Timothy 3:2-4,7). There is the possibility that the called worker might return under some circumstances, but the reputation requirements do make it difficult.

A called worker may also resign for personal reasons. Due to circumstances in his life, he cannot do the work. Perhaps his health is failing. Perhaps his family can’t handle the pressures of the ministry at this point in their lives. Perhaps it is an issue in which his wife needs extra attention so that he does not feel he is able to offer due attention to his work. These things could certainly be addressed in a way that allowed a return to the ministry if the the worker desired it.

There are some circumstances that are much more difficult to parse. There is no great, public sin. Inability to serve is not the issue. As a leader the called worker has a decision to make in a difficult situation and reaches the conclusion that the best thing for the ministry of the gospel in general and the ministry of the calling body in particular is that he simply step away, confident that the Lord of the church will provide another worker to take his place.

That’s where I am. I came here to offer myself in whatever service the school needed most. I can’t say that I thought this was the service my alma mater would need most from me, but I’m confident that is the very best service I could offer under these very unexpected circumstances.

What were the circumstances? That’s the thing, my friends. I can only serve the school by this resignation if I am able to take the reasons with me. I can only tell you why I didn’t resign. Did my marriage need intensive counseling? I’m happy to take the free counseling that the synod offers to help us deal with the upcoming transition, but I could have gotten that without resigning through the Member Assistance Program that operates right out of the school, too. Plus, that would be a resignation for personal reasons. Does it have to do with my hospitalization last spring? That’s an interesting coincidence, but that issue has been corrected (and, again, that would be personal reasons). Did I do something wrong? I do plenty, but nothing to disqualify me from serving in the ministry. Last but not least, is there something going on in the synod that a poor, naive parish pastor couldn’t handle looking at and so he had to walk away? Brothers and sisters, walking away from that wouldn’t be for the good of the ministry, would it? Of course not. There’s plenty I’d still like to work on in the ministerial education system and in the synod, too, and, quite frankly, I wanted to keep working on those issues as the president of MLS and as a delegate to the 2011 convention (I was up next for the first time in my ministry). Those things were hard to give up.

It was very hard to decide that it was better for the ministry to leave than to stay. I would not have imagined a situation happening where my service was better in resigning rather than in staying and working on the issues I had been most concerned about. Nonetheless, the situation occurred. If you can come up with it by guessing at what happened, then you’re smarter than I am—a possibility I certainly concede. However, this post is as much as I can ever say in terms of confirming or denying whether or not you actually came up with the right situation. Otherwise my service in resignation becomes useless and the school is not served by it. Seeing as I’ve already seen the positive effects of my resignation in action, I’m definitely not going to say more than I have. It’s the hardest service I’ve ever performed, but it’s still a service to the Lord, and I can still honestly say that there is joy in it.

So thank you for your concerns and prayers. I still have my CRM status, which means that I am still eligible to preach and receive a call. But I will be looking for a job while my family heals from this. We will be mourning the joy of serving at MLS. Will I go back to the ministry? I’d like to, but I want to be sure of my family’s feelings first. Resignations like this are rare but still possible, no matter where you serve. I can tell them how unlikely a similar situation would be, but first I want to make sure that it won’t sound to them something like talking about the rarity of a plane crash to someone who has just survived one.

Thanks again for your support and prayers, and God bless you all with the peace that comes from knowing that the omnipotent Father in heaven was more willing to let his perfectly faithful Son die innocently for our sins rather than see us die in them—and especially with the peace of his victory over our death.

Your brother in Christ,

Aaron

Loved and Used

Romans 10:16

Ro 10 18–11 6 Loved and Used

Romans 10:18-11:6 (NIV)

¹⁸But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did:
“Their voice has gone out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.”^{[a] 19}Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says,
“I will make you envious by those who are not a nation;
I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.”^{[b] 20}And Isaiah boldly says,
“I was found by those who did not seek me;
I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.”^{[c] 21}But concerning Israel he says,
“All day long I have held out my hands
to a disobedient and obstinate people.”^[d]

Romans 11

The Remnant of Israel

¹I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. ²God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: ³“Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”^[e]? ⁴And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”^{[f] 5}So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. ⁶And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.^[g]

Mom hears the door slam and the sound of her sixteen-year-old daughter running up the stairs. Mom stops what she was doing and listens more carefully. Was that a sob?

As she heads to the stairs herself, she can hear the door to her daughter’s room slamming. This can’t be good, mom thinks to herself. Her daughter had been at a school dance, and Ryan, the object of her biggest crush yet, had taken her to it. She had left the house giddy and nervous, but already, as mom climbed the stairs, she could hear that her daughter was, in fact, crying. The sob that forced its way out as she ran up to her room had been followed by a flood of tears.

Mom stood outside the door for a couple of minutes, not knowing whether she should knock or just let her daughter cry it out. Wondering wasn’t necessary for long, though. Her daughter somehow knew she was there, and she got up to let her in.

“He used me, Mom,” she said between heaves. “He used me. He doesn’t care about me at all. It was so obvious. He only took me to the dance because he wanted to make Sarah jealous. I feel so stupid.”

Breaks your heart, doesn’t it? No one would ever want their child to go through something like that. People want to be loved, truly loved. They don’t want to be objects, something that someone else deceptively uses to get at another person that they actually care about. That’s a disgusting use of emotional manipulation, and it really hurts.

So what if I told you that God was using you to make someone else jealous? Did you understand that as I read from Romans 10 and 11 just now? “I will make you [the Israelites] envious by those who are not a nation [Gentiles, non-Jews]; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.”

There’s no doubt about it. The words are very clear. God is using Gentiles like me and you to get at the Israelites. Paul was seeing more and more Gentiles come to faith in the one, true God, and he had to ask: “Did God reject his people?” Did he reject his chosen ones? No. They were still his chosen ones, and the rest of the nations in the world were not. He was using the Gentiles, Paul was saying, in attempt to get to the Jews.

And Paul was not the first one to say it. He was actually quoting from a song that God gave Moses to sing aloud right before he died, right before the Israelites entered the Promised Land. The song predicted that the Israelites would fall away from God. Like a wife who would become ungrateful toward the husband who loved her, like a wife who took her husband’s loving and abundant care for granted, Israel would be (in Moses’ words), “filled with food” and become “fat and sleek.”

That’s what the song says. I’m just quoting it. God could see this sad future so clearly that, even as he prepared to shower his joyful and (currently) obedient people with blessing upon blessing in their new home, he spoke of Israel’s future rebellion in the past tense: “He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior. They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God—gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth” (Deuteronomy 32:15-18).

And because they would make him jealous by running after false gods, God would teach them a lesson, he said, by taking the blessings that were normally theirs as his own, special people on earth and showering them upon other people scattered throughout the world. “I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.” Those others are the mix of peoples gathered around the Word of God here this morning. God is using you to get to them.

How does that feel? Does it upset you? Does it make you mad to hear that God is using you in this way? Do you feel something like the teenage daughter from the story I told a moment ago? Do you feel like he doesn’t really care for you, that this is all just a show to make his chosen people jealous?

Well don’t feel like that. The story I told earlier is not a true parallel to the way in which God is using all the Gentiles who are here to get to the descendants of Abraham. It’s just not the same.

And how is it different? Well, for one, this is not a boyfriend-girlfriend situation here. This is the relationship of God to all the creatures that he made in his image. This is the relationship of God to those that he created to enjoy a life of service to him as he serves us with all our needs. Those two aren’t really the same.

For another thing, the boy in that story didn’t really care for that poor girl. He only cared about the other one. That is so not true with you and God. God doesn’t just want Israel to be saved. As Paul wrote to the young pastor Timothy, “God our Savior wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3,4). He doesn’t just want them. He wants you and he wants them. So he’ll love you with every ounce of love with which he loved Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and the Apostle Paul. And he hopes that the sincere love he shows to you will also remind the Israelites of the sincere love he showed to them—and make them want him back!

Actually, the key to understanding what makes this using and loving different from the using and loving of sinful humans is the big Bible word used four times at the end of our text: grace. Surely you remember hearing that word before. Grace.

When I say that God is both loving you and using you to get to his lost people, I’m talking about the same kind of love that Paul is talking about. I’m talking about grace. Grace is not the love of boyfriends and girlfriends. Boyfriends and girlfriends get together because they find one another attractive. When they get serious, they get exclusive. The message is, “I find you so attractive that I don’t want to date anyone else. I’m most attracted to you.” That’s why a girl involved in a story like the one I told before would be so brokenhearted. Being used like that is to feel as though the boy has just said to you, “I only want you here because I’m really attracted to her, not you.” That is cold and sick.

The difference with that special love called grace is that attractiveness doesn’t enter into it. Grace is a love that is undeserved. Grace is a love of commitment that is not based on the attractiveness of the other. It is the only love with which God can love our race, because we are all sinners. By the rightful judgment of his own Word, the expression of his heart to the world, he hates sin. He hates disobedience. He hates rebellion. Yes, he even says in his Word that he hates sinful, disobedient and rebellious people (Isaiah 61:8; Jeremiah 12:8; 44:4; Hosea 9:15; Amos 5:21; Zechariah 8:17; Malachi 2:16)!

But his chosen he has chosen. Do you understand? He chose his Old Testament people to be his own. They did not deserve it. They were not less rebellious or more noble than the other nations of the world (Deuteronomy 7:7; 9:4-6; Ezekiel 20:44). Nonetheless, he chose them. He called them his own, and he will not go back on his Word!

Likewise—and I do mean, “in exactly that way”—he chose you. He has chosen you and loved you with the same eternal love: grace. If he did not choose you as he chose them, how could his relationship with you drive them to the kind of jealousy he wants, the kind that reminds them of God’s promises to them and makes them long to rejoice in the comfort of those promises once again?

He loves you because he loves them and wants them. But it’s the same love with which he loves them, not a pretense or a ruse. Therefore, although I can say that he loves you because he loves them and wants them, it is also true that he loves you because he loves you and wants you. That is the love of grace that finds no righteousness in you just as it found no righteousness in them (otherwise, Paul says, “grace would no longer be grace”).

“I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means!” He can’t and he won’t. He is perfectly righteous. He is perfectly faithful. He has always reserved a remnant of his people, as Paul both indicates and himself exemplifies. He does not change his mind. He still shows his grace to them, still seeks and redeems them.

And the same is true for you: Used for their sake, but truly loved. He has sought you. He has paid for all your sins. He has called you his own in baptism. “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God” (1 Peter 2:10). Now live as people of God, holy and noble, as together we prepare for the day when all his people will be gathered to his side, to live with him in perfect righteousness and joy forever. Amen.

Epiphany 4                                                                            Loved and Used

January 31, 2010

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Romans 10:18–11:6

Speak Up. You’re Not Wrong.

 Acts 4:24-31

Ac 4 23-31 Speak Up. UR Not Wrong

Acts 4:24-31 (NIV)

²⁴When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. ²⁵You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
   ” ‘Why do the nations rage
      and the peoples plot in vain?
 ²⁶The kings of the earth take their stand
      and the rulers gather together
      against the Lord
      and against his Anointed One.^[a]‘^{[b] 27}Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people^[c] of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. ²⁸They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. ²⁹Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. ³⁰Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” ³¹After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. 

Footnotes:

1. Acts 4:26 That is, Christ or Messiah
2. Acts 4:26 Psalm 2:1,2
3. Acts 4:27 The Greek is plural.

It’s that time of year when it’s hard to be a football fan.

You may think that I have it backwards, but I meant what I said and I said what I meant. This is a hard time of year to be a football fan. It’s not hard to be a fan of football in general, but it’s a hard time of year to be from anywhere but New York, Indiana, Louisiana or Minnesota. After all, if you’re not from one of those areas, who are you supposed to be rooting for?

So people get together for the big games and they feel the need to declare allegiances and defend their choices. I’ve seen a room full of steamed people watching championship games before. It’s not pretty. I’ll tell you what’s interesting about it, though. What’s interesting is the way that the people in the room will suddenly grow quiet when something big happens on the other team.

When the game is up in the air or their side is winning, they talk up a storm! They hoot and they holler! They even make fun of the fans rooting for the other team. But when it starts to look like they’re going to lose the game, all that goes away and they quiet right down. They don’t want to make fools of themselves by talking about what a sure thing it is that they’re going to take the game.

Is that why Christians are so often reluctant to speak up? Is it possible that they’re not as sure about the outcome of the “game” as they say they are? Well, Speak Up. You’re Not Wrong. Pray like the Christians in Acts 4 did that we may all speak boldly about our Savior and the fact that, in the end, no matter how things look in the meantime, “he will stand upon the earth” and that “in my flesh I will see God” (Job 19:25-27).

You might think about that a little bit as you watch the last few games of the year now. Think about how it would be if you were absolutely certain of how the game would come out, no matter what happened. It would make all the difference in the world, wouldn’t it? You’d absolutely speak up about it. Really, you could be as boastful as you wanted and still know you were okay. I suspect you would even put money on the game—that is, assuming there was someone who would still want to bet after you told them that you knew how the game was going to come out!

That’s like the early church, isn’t it? They totally knew how this was all going to come out. These were the very people who personally saw Jesus rise from the dead. They absolutely understood this. And since Jesus had risen there had been the miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. There had been the conversion of 3,000 people in one day. More and more had joined the church until, at this point, there were actually 5,000 people who believed in Christ, and it looks like all this had happened within a few months of his execution. Of course they could see that all of this was working toward some great victory! And why would they not be bold to speak up about it?

Sure. They knew they weren’t wrong. I mean, Peter and John had just been released after an arrest by the Sanhedrin, but what were they arrested for? They had miraculously healed a man born lame and given the credit to Jesus. It was pretty obvious to them that they weren’t wrong.

So why did they even need to pray for boldness? Wasn’t the “big game” going in their favor? Wasn’t their team scoring all the touchdowns? And didn’t they know that they were the ones destined by God to win? So why did they have to pray for boldness? Why weren’t they naturally bold, like a superfan watching his team trounce all over the opposition at the Superbowl?

That’s because the prophecies that spoke of their destinies as winners also spoke of circumstances that would make them look and feel like losers. We look at their time and we think, “Miracles—cool! Wouldn’t it be neat to have those?” I’m sure they would have looked ahead to our time (if they could) and thought, “Wow! Peace and freedom to speak of the gospel. Wouldn’t it be cool to have those?”

Okay, so perhaps you’ve never seen a disciple of Christ reach out his hand and perform a genuine miracle of physical healing.  So what? You’re still not wrong. You’re still on the winning side. Do you really doubt that? Do you think it’s disheartening to have people belittle you for speaking up about Christ and that’s the reason you don’t want to say anything? Really? You cave into peer pressure and live like the rest of the world because you want to be popular with the people who live like nothing but self-righteous and rebellious sinners, but all this time you could have been using your freedom of speech to offer them the truth, to show them that they are the ones on the losing side. You could be telling them that the ultimate winner, Jesus Christ, has already purchased them a ticket to sit on the winning side and that he has left that free ticket in their names at the will-call window. Speak up! You’re not wrong about this. Those who do not believe and mock Jesus with their sins are wrong—and if they stay that way, they’ll ultimately be damned. Why would you live like them? You’re a child of heaven! Speak up!

Besides, if you think that seeing some miracles—or even performing some miracles—is the ticket to speaking boldly, think again. This prayer for boldness came from people who were already performing miracles. They were performing miracles, but they were also witnessing great evils. They themselves were witnessing the unholy alliances that were always working against the Christ, the “nations raging” and the “peoples plotting,” all of which was prophesied in Psalm 2, which they quoted. They had seen it directly and powerfully through the collaboration of two men: a Jewish King over the peoples of Israel (Herod) and a Gentile ruler over Palestine (Pontius Pilate). They not only saw them plot against the Anointed One, but they saw the rulers murder him!

If this was a Superbowl, then it was looking like a blowout in the other side’s favor. At least, it would have appeared to be a blowout for the majority of the game. If this was a Superbowl, most people would have started watching the commercials and skipping the game a long time ago. They would have assumed that the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh had gotten this game sewn up almost before it was started.

Remember that this is how it would have looked to them, since that same council that killed Jesus was still in charge of God’s people Israel. The side that would ultimately win it all, then, was in danger of giving in to the opposition and clamming up in the face of their mockery and persecution. We know that would have been foolish when we look back now, but that’s only because we live in the future and we know how this is all going to work out! But, as far as they were concerned, this was the situation: The rulers of the world had plotted against the Christ and—guess what—they had actually killed him. Now, he rose from the dead, so at least the home team was answering these big scores in spades, but now what? Jesus arose and had ascended into heaven, and now all that ire that had been directed against him was being directed instead against his much weaker followers!

So they prayed for boldness. They prayed for the courage to speak up. God had told them how this was going to end. It didn’t matter which way the game was going at any given moment. They needed to speak up because they weren’t wrong about the outcome of this “game,” and the Holy Spirit demonstrated how true this was by shaking the place where they were meeting, and “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

And now, you. Now, us. Disheartening things have happened to us. Temptation has stricken many blows among us. It has even gained some victories. Perhaps most frustrating of all is that, under much less pressure, we have prayed for help much less often than the early church did, and we have become far too much a part of this world, rather than being the bold witnesses to the truth that we are called and privileged to be. How can we speak under such shame?

By the power of the Spirit. By the power of the Spirit who shook the room where the early church met. We can speak up because the Spirit comes to us through this earth-shaking message: As incredible as it sounds, you are forgiven. Despite your failures, God does not count you as wrong; he counts all of your wrong against his Son for your salvation. Jesus was a perfect witness that God may see a perfect witness in you for Jesus sake. Now that makes you a personal witness of his forgiveness and salvation.

So speak up! You’re not wrong, so speak up! You know the salvation of God. You know his forgiveness. You know how this story ends, so speak up, and God will surely bless. Amen.

Epiphany 3                                                                Speak Up. You’re Not Wrong. 

 January 24, 2010

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Acts 4:23-31

He Can Do Immeasurably More Than You Imagine

Eph 3 14-21 Immeasurably More

(click the link above for the originally published pdf)

Ephesians 3:14-21

¹⁴For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵from whom his whole family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. ²⁰Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

He Can Do Immeasurably More Than You Imagine. That’s good to know. He can do immeasurably more than you can imagine. Nowadays, that’s awesome to know!

Just look at what’s happening in the world around us. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, died in that earthquake in Haiti. They keep talking about an economic turnaround, but I’m not seeing it around here. Our loved ones are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The morality in this world is dropping deeper and deeper into a dark, fathomless hole. And our church, which made a miraculous recovery in offerings at the end of 2009, is starting out 2010 with two of the lowest totals we’ve seen in recent memory, launching us into a new year with a surprising and disturbing deficit—and we haven’t even voted on a budget yet!

But He Can Do Immeasurably More Than You Imagine, and that’s what the Spirit of God and his inspired Apostle would have us know as we meditate on Ephesians 3 this morning. 1. Paul’s life makes it clear just how true this is, that God can do immeasurably more than we imagine. And 2. Paul prayed that we all may understand it as he did.

Now, you may not know Paul’s life well enough to know how it helps us to understand that God can do immeasurably more than we imagine. You should, though. It’s fascinating stuff. It’s all recorded in the book of Acts. I mention it specifically because our text starts out, “For this reason I kneel before the Father.” “For this reason” refers to his life up to that point, especially the fact that (as he wrote a few verses prior to this), although he was “less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given [him]: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

That’s cool. That’s amazingly cool. It was an unimaginable privilege and honor for Paul to serve God and his people as the Evangelizer of Gentiles. But that’s not entirely the reason that Paul was dropping to his knees before God. The thing that he’s actually focusing on more than anything else was what he had said earlier about being “less than the least of all God’s people.”

What proved to Paul that God could do more than any of us can ask or imagine is the fact that he now believed in the “troublemaker from Nazareth” as the one, true God and his own, personal Savior. Never forget what Paul had been doing that brought him into contact with the Good News about Jesus! Paul was a Pharisee, an enemy of Christ. He was the star pupil of one of the leading members of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council that had dragged Jesus before Pilate in order to get him crucified. Paul had been trying to impress the faithless religious leaders of his day and the figment of his imagination that he thought of as the God of Israel by chasing down followers of Jesus and throwing them in jail. He even had a hand in killing some of them.

So I guess you’d say that Paul knew of what he spoke when he talked about what a miracle it was to become a Christian. He never should have been one. He should have been shut right down and thrown into hell for letting his sinful pride be the boss of what he believed instead of simply listening to the message of Christ and believing him. What a different life he was leading all those years ago when the Savior appeared to him and said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5; 22:8; 26:15)! And now he was Jesus’ number one man for bringing the Good News to the Gentiles of the world! God truly can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine! Paul was living proof!

On the other hand, this text isn’t really about Paul. Paul we just a starting point. Paul’s life makes it clear just how true it is that God can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, but the point of what he’s saying here is that he is praying for the Christians in Ephesus (and ultimately us, as well) to understand the love, grace and power of God the way that he himself does—better, in fact, because he is praying for all Christians everywhere to understand the love of Christ better: “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Now, how can you come to understand the depths of God’s love as well as Paul, the great persecutor of the church who was saved by Jesus Christ’s direct intervention on the road to Damascus? The simple answer: Recognize that you are not really different from him. Neither is your story.

What Paul said about the Christians in Ephesus earlier in this letter applies perfectly and directly to all Christians without exception: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (2:1-10).

Miraculous intervention. For a lot of us, those miraculous waters of regeneration touched us when we were too young to even remember the change that it made in our hearts, but that doesn’t matter. It was miraculous intervention nonetheless. It was spiritual life from spiritual death. It was the pure, undeserved love of God (grace) performing a spiritual resurrection toward which we could contribute absolutely nothing.

And if you are one of those who can’t remember that initial intervention in your life, I can still give you a very vivid illustration of this grace that you can relate to right now. Do you want to know what it is?

You’re looking at it. It’s right here. I mean me, but I don’t just mean me. I’m talking about all of us being here in this holy place.

Look back on your week. Was it abundantly clear to everyone in your life at all times that it is not your old, sinful heart that is in the driver’s seat in your life? Or, as you think about your angry responses, your impatience, your worldly goals, your grudges and bitterness and your backbiting tongue, do you see all too clearly someone who has forgotten the waters of their rebirth and stooped to live like those still controlled by their sinful natures? As you see those failures more and more clearly, do you not also see more clearly how appropriately Paul’s description of himself also fits you: “less than the least of all God’s people”?

Don’t run from the truth, even when it shocks you with images of your own failure in the face of temptation and shallowness in your thinking. Through a genuine understanding of the depths from which God saved us, God is teaching you to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know the love that surpasses all knowledge.” You are beginning to understand the full measure of God’s forgiveness and grace “together with all the saints” for whom Paul prayed, that we may be strengthened in our “inner being” through that message.

It’s good to remember that God can do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine when we see rampant disaster and immorality in this dying world. It’s good to remember that. But to understand that he does immeasurably more than we ask or imagine requires looking at the disaster and rebellion caused by our own sinful nature, the disaster and rebellion from which our gracious God and Savior has delivered us through his life, death and resurrection— disaster and rebellion from which he has personally delivered each one of us individually through the Spirit working in the Word of salvation and through the sacraments to which he has attached the power of that message. You need look no further than right here to say that God can and does do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, for here we see that God has saved us—even us—and will deliver us to life with him in eternity. Amen.

Epiphany 2                                        He Can Do Immeasurably More Than You Imagine January 17, 2010

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Ephesians 3:14-21

No Wonder Jesus Was Baptized!

Luke 3:15-22

We thank Professor Norv Kock from Michigan Lutheran Seminary in Saginaw for bringing us today”s Epiphany message.

Bless God for Christmas

 Luke 1:68-75

Lk 1 68-75 Bless God for Christmas

Luke 1:68-75 (NIV)

 ⁶⁸“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
      because he has come and has redeemed his people.
 ⁶⁹He has raised up a horn^[a] of salvation for us
      in the house of his servant David
 ⁷⁰(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
 ⁷¹salvation from our enemies
      and from the hand of all who hate us—
 ⁷²to show mercy to our fathers
      and to remember his holy covenant,
 ⁷³the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
 ⁷⁴to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
      and to enable us to serve him without fear
 ⁷⁵in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 

Footnotes:

1. Luke 1:69 Horn here symbolizes strength.

The English Bible quoted in your bulletin translates the first verse of our text, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel.” A number of older translations say, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.” I like that, not necessarily because it’s a better translation per se, so much as it is a more thought-provoking one. We talk about praising God all the time. He is most worthy of praise. That’s a good thing. But how do you bless God? How do you give anything to him that isn’t his already?

First let me settle any confusion there may be about the word bless. This particular word is not the same one you find in the Sermon on the Mount, where God says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…. Blessed are those who mourn…. Blessed are the meek,” etc., etc. That word certainly does mean what we tend to think of blessed as normally meaning, which is “favored with gifts from God” and such.

But the word in our text for “blessed” (“praise be to”) actually means something more like “spoken well of.” So when Zechariah says, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel” here, what he’s saying is that he would like for people to speak well of the Lord, to say good things about him. Why? “…because he has come and has redeemed his people.”

In other words, bless God for Christmas. Speak well of him because he came into the world to be born as one of us. Say great things about God, because “He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he said through the prophets of long ago).” And since a horn was, for them, a sign of strength and might, that’s as much as saying that God has just sent himself into battle as the ultimate weapon against the enemies of his righteous people. Only God himself in human flesh could fight this battle. Bless God for Christmas!

So who doesn’t bless God for Christmas? We might well think of Herod, of course. He’s the king of Judea who slaughtered all the babies in Bethlehem in an attempt to eliminate the Christ before he became a threat to his precious throne. He’d be an easy one, although I doubt any of us would compare ourselves to him. More likely than not we really wouldn’t compare anyone to him.

So think of the people who got angry with Jesus most often. Think of the religious officials from Jesus’ day. They certainly didn’t speak well of Christmas. They didn’t bless God for sending Jesus into the world. Now, you may be thinking, “Yes, but they didn’t understand him. They weren’t angry about Christmas because they didn’t know that Jesus was the actual Christ.”

If you’re thinking that, I would only ask that you reconsider one word, and that is understand. And I only ask you to reconsider it because there were many occasions on which the Pharisees, Sadducees and teachers of the law understood perfectly well that Jesus was absolutely right in what he was saying. That was what made them so infuriated, in fact: They couldn’t trap him in his words. Also, they understood that he was doing legitimate miracles, as well. They had investigated his claims and his powers many times and had never been able to discount anything.

So to say they didn’t understand who he was is surprisingly inaccurate. The word you’re looking for there is believe. They refused to believe he was the Christ, evidence to the contrary.

That’s an important distinction when it comes to blessing God for Christmas. We all pretty much understand what God did at Christmas. We know the story well. In fact, we have to remind the student in the Christmas program every year not to look bored when they tell it just because the know it so well!

But the point is that understanding isn’t really the issue when it comes to blessing God for Christmas. Faith is. In fact, a better example of blessing God or not blessing God for Christmas is Zechariah himself, the man who originally spoke the words we have recorded here. Do you remember how he originally responded to the Christmas announcement? He responded in disbelief, and the angel Gabriel got upset with him and took away his ability to speak. In fact, as far as we can tell, these inspired words were the first words out of his mouth once his ability to speak was restored! And what does he say once his ability to speak and his faith are restored? “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people.” Bless God for Christmas!

But people often ask, “So what was the difference between Zechariah’s “How can this be?” and Mary’s “How can this be?” In short, the answer is faith, but I want to point out that that is exactly the right question to be asking this morning when you’re trying to understand what it means to bless God for Christmas. And not only is it the right question because it gets to the heart of the matter (faith vs. understanding), but also because both Zechariah and Mary were believers. So we’re not talking about faith vs. sheer unbelief when we’re talking about truly blessing God for Christmas. We’re talking about trusting in him all the more, having strong enough confidence in him that we are outwardly moved to bless him for Christmas.

You see, Zechariah called Jesus “a horn of salvation,” which, as we discussed a moment ago, describes him as an offensive weapon in the fight against the enemies of God’s people: “salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” But think carefully about those words and tell me: What enemies is Zechariah talking about?

You see, now, Zechariah got it. He was truly blessing God for Christmas. He knew this was about being rescued in the sense of being able to serve God “without fear in holiness and righteous before him.” The enemies his words have in mind are sin, death and the devil—not just people who don’t like you.

Are we going to bless God for deliverance from sin, death and the devil? I know your instinct is to immediately say yes, but think carefully about how subtle the difference was between Mary and Zechariah’s reaction. Look carefully for subtle signs of disbelief, not just in outward action but in inward attitude.

Often the obviously two go hand-in-hand. For instance, you’re not really blessing God for Christmas if you are not outwardly and actively fighting against sinful actions in your life. Christ was not sent into this world to tell us that sin was okay and God doesn’t really care about it. He was an offensive weapon in the fight against sin—”a horn of salvation” against sin! He came to take sin and temptation on and to destroy them! There is no tolerance for sin in the story of Christ. Sin is a horror and an insult in the eyes of our holy God, and Jesus’ mission specifically included dying for that offense because that was the only way to set things right between us and God. You’re not blessing God for Christmas when you say that the gift of his Son in mortal flesh was really unnecessary and barbaric, when you say that sin is really okay and that people shouldn’t make such a big deal of it.

The difference between blessing and not blessing for Christmas can also be more subtle, like the difference between Zechariah’s and Mary’s response to the words of the angel Gabriel. Sometimes we do not respond to the Word of God with the proper joy because we don’t trust every word of it to be absolutely true. Outwardly our response to it may not seem very different because we’re going to church and singing hymns like everyone else, but inwardly we are torn up by some of the things that God says in his Word, looking for a way around them and uncomfortable with what God is really saying.

Fellow Christians, throw these worthless doubts and unhealthy attitudes toward sin behind and rejoice all the more loudly and proudly in the gift of a Savior from sin this Christmas! We have only proven how much we need it, and yet God was still faithful in providing him! What love! What graciousness! What faithfulness, that I can say to a room full of sinners with years of evil practices, “You are forgiven.” We are forgiven! That is our Christmas gift! Bless God for that!

Others may not like it because they think God should just tolerate our sin and accept it. Others may not like it because they want to believe what they believe and not be told what is true and what is not. And even we have felt that horrible, distrusting attitude always trying to get a deeper foothold in our own hearts, but don’t you worry. God has sent a horn of salvation to deliver us from sin and unbelief. We are washed, we are clean, we are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. Bless God for Christmas! Amen.

Christmas 2                                                                   Bless God for Christmas 

 January 3, 2010

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Luke 1:68-75

I Am Is Not New

Exodus 3:13 

Ex 3 13,14 I AM Is Not New

Exodus 3:13

Listen to this passage 

 ¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 

Exodus 3:14

Listen to this passage 

 ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am . ^[a] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” 

Footnotes:

1. Exodus 3:14 Or I will be what I will be

So, are you guys ready for 2010? What do you think it’s going to be like? They say the economy is turning around. Do you think that’s true? And even if it is true, do you think it will be true for Michigan?

Of course, Michigan just got on the map as being the latest target for terrorism. And what with my grandmother’s funeral in Minnesota and all, I was even more aware of the threat level than I usually am. How’s that going to affect us in 2010? Is this the year for another 9/11? And will our troops ever be coming home to us?

Then there’s the continuing pandemic scare. Then there’s this new health bill. Then there are the new technologies that make every day seem different and confusing when compared to the last. And people die. And relationships grow sour. And innocence is lost. And everything changes. It almost makes you wonder if a phrase like “Happy New Year” started as an ironic joke.

Well, one thing isn’t new, and it’s cause for celebration. One thing isn’t new, and, thanks to that truth, you can be certain that your ultimate future—and even your immediate future—will be full of blessing. All sorts of things are new, but I Am Is Not New.

And when I say, “I Am,” keep in mind that I’m not just referring to a couple of words strung together. I’m talking about the personal name of God. Remember me mentioning that a week ago on Christmas Eve? When we considered the name of Jesus, that no other name would be as sweet, we looked at what Jesus’ name meant: “The Lord Saves.” And we talked about the fact that the Lord is a reference to God’s personal name. So no name could be sweeter for the Son of God in human flesh sent to deliver us from the consequences of our rebellion than “The Lord Saves.”

But, as I just said, the Lord is really just a reference to the one, true God’s personal name. It is not the name itself. The personal name of the one, true God that he chose for himself and revealed to the world in his Word is Yahweh, or, as we often say in English, Jehovah. It sounds something like the Hebrew word for “He Is,” and a little like the word for “He lives.” In our text he explains it not by saying Yahweh, but Ehyeh, or Ehyeh a’sher Ehweh: I Am or I Am Who I Am.

Could there be a more perfect name for the one, true God? He is. He is and that’s just the way it is. He is and no one can change that. He is even if people don’t want to believe that. He is without need for anyone else to make him be or to sustain his existence. He just is, and that’s all there is to it.

Some people say that’s not a good enough explanation, but those people are not listening to the name well enough. He doesn’t require your explanation. He is whether you can explain him or not, whether you can understand him or not.

Besides, such people ultimately know that something has to just be. They understand it both instinctively and logically. Don’t believe me? All you have to do is ask them!

Those of you who have been in my Bible Information Class or my catechism classes, bear with me for a minute while I share this with the rest of the people who have not heard it before. You see, I used to be sort of embarrassed to argue that God simply is without any explanation. I went to public school through eighth grade, and there was no end of text books, articles and people who were willing to argue that belief in a God who simply is is illogical. That it is dumb, shallow, superstitious thinking.

But then I started carrying the conversation out logically with people. Note, I said logically. I didn’t have the benefit of a Lutheran Elementary School education, so I didn’t think I had the passages on hand to argue it any other way.

The conversation would generally go like this. Someone would say, “Where do you think everything came from?” And I would say, “God made it.” They would say, “Oh yeah? Well, who made God then?” I would say, “No one.” And they would smile at me like they just proved what a fool I was.

Then I would say, “Where do you think everything came from?” They would say, “It evolved over billions of years. Everyone nowadays knows that. It’s a proven fact.” I would say, “What did everything evolve from?” They would say, “We can’t say for sure, but life seemed to start in the oceans, or perhaps in some mud.” I would say, “Where did the mud come from?” “Earth and rain,” they’d say. “Where did the earth come from,” I’d ask. “It formed from cosmic dust and matter that was drawn together through the natural forces of gravity and attraction.” “Where’d the dust and matter come from,” I’d say. “From a hyper-concentrated, infinitely dense ball of matter that blew up into the emptiness of space long, long ago.”

“And where did the lump of matter come from,” I’d ask. Their answer? “It was always there.”

You see? Everyone knows that something has to have always been there. They just need to decide whether they believe that to be a loving God of order and providence or a super-dense lump of stuff that blew up a long time ago. I think you know where I stand.

I Am, God says. “Before Abraham was,” Jesus said, “I am” (John 8:58). They wanted to stone him for saying that, you know. They wanted to stone him because he was equating himself with the one, true God. He was saying that he existed before everyone, that he existed before everything, but they didn’t believe him and thought that he was mocking God.

But they were missing the most basic truth of all Scripture. They were forgetting this conversation between Moses and the one, true God, who had appeared to him out of the burning bush. They were forgetting that God identified himself by his personal name not just to show that he was real, that he existed, but especially to show that he had always been there for his people! God told Moses to go deliver the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and “Moses said to God, ‘Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” Then what shall I tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.”’”

They didn’t just need an existing God. They needed a helping God, a delivering God, a faithful God, a saving God. And that is what the unchanging, unbreakable, self-sufficient, independently existent, one true God is. He Is a Savior.

Now back to the matter of this evening. Have you figured out what this sermon on the name of God has to do with you and this little New Year’s Eve commemoration tonight?

Think back to all the things that have changed, all the things that are worse, harder—more evil, treacherous and scary than ever before. The economy has gone south. Retirements are disappearing. The health care system is in trouble. Terrorists are trying to blow us up. Why do I want a new year when each new year seems to be worse than the last one?

Because of the one thing that is not new and that does not change: I Am. Because the science can change and turn our whole understanding of the make-up of the universe over on its ear, but the Lord still is. Because the Lord was there for Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, Peter, Paul, John, Justin Martyr, Athanasius, Luther and all those who trusted in him no matter what the age and no matter what the trouble. This is not new, nor will it change.

And if you have betrayed him, changed on him, turned your back on him, sinned against him? Well, you sure can’t excuse it. You’ve turned your back on the one person who will always be faithful to you, the one person for whom even death is not an issue when it comes to keeping his promises. Disobeying him is turning your back on the I Am, turning your back on the very source of goodness and life. An eternity with the death we choose when we turn our back on that is the only appropriate punishment.

But when does the Lord say that we understand his name best? It’s when we need deliverance. It’s when we need help and protection. “The Lord Saves.” That’s what Jesus’ name means. “The Lord Saves.” As he did for Moses and the Israelites, as he did for you, me and the whole world when he died on the cross under the punishment our sins deserved: “The Lord Saves.”

This is not new, and a new year won’t change it, either. “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (Psalm 46:2,3,7). This is not new and will never change. Amen.

New Year’s Eve                                                                     I Am Is Not New   

   December 31, 2009

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Exodus 3:13,14

Unashamed Weakness

Hebrews 2:10-18

 Heb 2 10-18 Unashamed Weakness

Hebrews 2:10-18 (NIV)

 ¹⁰In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. ¹¹Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. ¹²He says,
   “I will declare your name to my brothers;
      in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.”^{[a] 13}And again,
   “I will put my trust in him.”^[b] And again he says,
   “Here am I, and the children God has given me.”^[c] 14Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for^[d]the sins of the people. ¹⁸Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. 

Footnotes:

1. Hebrews 2:12 Psalm 22:22
2. Hebrews 2:13 Isaiah 8:17
3. Hebrews 2:13 Isaiah 8:18
4. Hebrews 2:17 Or and that he might turn aside God’s wrath, taking away

 

It was really my brother who talked me into playing football. I think I can fairly say that I never would have done it if he hadn’t pushed me. I just had too many reasons to feel embarrassed about it. I mean, I never played real football. It was always two-hand touch out on the Kinney Elementary playground. And even then there was always some argument on the field about the actual rules of football, and I never had any idea what they were talking about. Downs, receptions, touchbacks—I pretty much had end zone and touchdown handled, and that was about it. I couldn’t even imagine trying to figure out a real position with real pads and real tackles and real rules. I figured that I would be too ashamed of my ignorance, too ashamed of my weaknesses.

No doubt there’s been something in your experience that has produced much the same feeling. Perhaps you struggle with multiplication or fractions, so you’re ashamed to do math in front of the class. Maybe you’re no good at public speaking, so you’re ashamed to get up in front of people. Perhaps you’re really out of your element watching over little kids, so you don’t like to get caught doing any kind of babysitting—or even watching over little tykes for just a couple of minutes.

We’re ashamed to admit when we’re weak, ashamed to admit that we need help. We would like to believe that we can take care of ourselves. Our heroes are self-sufficient because that’s how we want to be. We want people to turn to us when they need help, not the other way around. Who looks up to a person who needs help from them? Thus we become ashamed of weakness.

In that sense it’s understandable that the Jewish people to whom the Epistle to the Hebrews is addressed had a hard time seeing Jesus as a hero. You may not feel that way yourself, but when you consider how much shame there is among us—especially among the adults—when we appear before people all needy and desperate, you may understand how these descendants of Abraham struggled with that baby being more important than angels. He was helpless. He needed to be fed, coddled, changed and bathed. This baby couldn’t even bring the blessings of a warm hotel room to his parents on the night of his birth!

You know, we may well understand their reluctance to honor him in his weakness better than we think. Check out your bulletin cover, for example. It sports a feature of religious art that I was really trying to avoid when I looked for a fitting picture on Friday. See the little glow around the boy Jesus’ head? That’s called a halo, as you are probably aware. Why is it there? Did Jesus’ head really glow like that? Of course not. But we can’t help but think of his power and holiness when we picture him in our minds, so we think of things like that.

And what about the people who lived in his time, who knew him by name and saw him day to day? You see, they wouldn’t even be able to picture a halo being there. Do you know why? Because it wasn’t there. What they knew wasn’t even a particularly good-looking kid. “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,” Isaiah prophesied, “nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (53:3). The people who knew Jesus by sight knew someone who was so normal in appearance that he was not physically noteworthy at all. No glow of power. No attractive outward qualities. Just a baby (or a kid or a guy).

Besides which, we do the same thing with his Word. It’s not flashy or full of pictures, so we have great difficulty paying attention to it, despite the fact that it is the powerful Word of Life. I doubt we would enjoy seeing a tally this year of how many hours we have spent studying God’s Word versus reading news stories, novels, or even watching TV.

Somebody who didn’t know us might well think that we were ashamed of this plain-looking guy and his boring, old book. Yet he as God was not ashamed to have his infinitely wise and powerful thoughts expressed in plain, human language for us. Likewise, the book of Hebrews says, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect [reach his goal] through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy [referring to Jesus, the Savior] and those who are made holy [us] are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” And he has three Messianic quotes to demonstrate it, too.

The Jews that the author of Hebrews wrote to had some trouble with that, as evidenced by the fact that they were having difficulty ranking the all-too-familiar and all-too-human Jesus of Nazareth as more important and powerful in their minds than the bright, flashy angels who announced his birth and appeared and disappeared all over the place throughout the salvation story. And we have trouble with Jesus of Nazareth being as weak as we are as evidenced by our inability to imagine him not looking handsome or glowing or doing a miracle—despite the fact that the Word of God speaks of only three years that he actually did miracles but ten times more where he just ate, drank, slept, studied, learned a trade and was generally just human.

But he was not ashamed. Despite the fact that saving us meant being the Almighty God on his heavenly throne ruling all things and then in the very next moment becoming a helpless, thoughtless, microscopic, single-celled fertilized egg, he was not ashamed of that weakness. Even though saving us meant being so weak that there were times when his strength actually reached its limits and he had to be helped by angels (whom he created and whom he sustains by his very will!), he was not ashamed. Yes, even though our salvation meant that he would have to subject himself to death—“even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8)—he was not ashamed. He was not ashamed because that was the only way to “make men holy,” to set us apart from the sin we were born in and the death we are by nature destined for. He was not ashamed because being clothed in our weakness was the only way he could be faithful to his own Word about sinners deserving eternal death while still having us live with him forever in heaven.

There is a lesson in this about ourselves that is hard to learn. It’s about our pride and about the ridiculous foolishness that follows it. It’s about that desire I spoke of earlier, about the desire to be self-sufficient, to not to have to need help from anyone else because we can figure things out for ourselves, handle things ourselves. We want to be important by being strong and heroic, and, you know what? This is going to be hard to hear and you may not immediately understand it, but I’m going to have to say it anyway: Our heroes are self-sufficient, independent and always able to think their way out of their own problems because we are still tempted by the original deadly desire that Adam and Eve allowed themselves to fall prey to back in the Garden of Eden. And do you know what that original deadly desire was? It was the desire of creatures to be like God, to be independent of God, to not need God. It was being ashamed of our weakness and wanting to have God’s unique, almighty, completely independent way of being. We want to be gods and resent that he “took the job” first.

It’s just so evil. And it really makes no sense, but it’s the way we are. We are so corrupted by that evil that we need his help now even more than we needed it before our race fell into sin. We not only need him to supply for our existence, which we always needed, but now we also need him to supply deliverance by joining us in our weakness, living the perfect life of trust in God that we owe him but never at any time actually provided him, and we need him to provide a way out of the eternal separation from him that wanting to live independent of his power and providence truly deserves.

And that is why he was not ashamed to show up in our world just as weak as we are. That is why he was not ashamed to be a helpless, cold little baby. That is why he is not ashamed to call us brothers. For “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

I tell you, by all outward appearances, that boy in the temple was truly just a boy—a weak, normal boy. But we needed true, human flesh and blood to destroy sin and death. We needed it for our salvation, and God, without shame, provided it. Amen.

Christmas 1                                                                    Unashamed Weakness    

 December 27, 2009

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Hebrews 2:10-18