Rejoice!

This is the day that the Lord has made;

Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Psalm 118:24

There is an interesting story about world-class violinist Joshua Bell from January 2007.  A couple days after playing to a packed house where people paid up to $200 for a ticket, Bell changed venues.  He put on street clothes and played outside the L’Efant Plaza Metro station.  Bell was taking place in an experiment from the Washington Post.  During Bell’s 45 minute performance outside the metro station, only 7 people stopped to listen.  A stampede of tourists passed by in that time frame, but only 7 had stopped to listen to this world-class performer play the violin.

The point of the story is that a lot of times we miss the blessings that God gives us each day!  Part of it could be that we don’t notice them or that we simply take them for granted.  Thanks be to God – for He still daily showers us with His grace every day…even when we don’t notice or acknowledge it.

Every day we can say along with the Psalmist – “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!”.  Each and every day we can rejoice that we are children of God – His beloved!  We can rejoice in God’s promises to take care of our every need of both body and soul.  And we can rejoice in the accomplished fact of our salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ!

 

The Value of Life

I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.  (Psalm 139:14)

This Sunday we celebrate Life Sunday – a day that we set aside to look at the value of life as a wonderful gift of God.  When you look in the mirror, do you say along with the psalmist, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”?  Did you know that you are wonderfully made?  It’s true – God personally created each and every one of us!  Psalm 139 tells us that God knitted each of us in our mother’s womb.   

The fact that God has created us each by hand and breathed into us His life-giving breath shows us just how valuable life is – and how valuable you are!  What an amazing difference that makes in our lives!  Satan though, loves to show us the effects of sin – to show us our frail bodies that are slowly dying.  The devil says to us, “How valuable could you be?  You sin constantly, your bodies are full of imperfections, you fight and quarrel even with your closest family members – how valuable could you really be?”

God answers that question by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Savior.  We are so valuable to God that we couldn’t be bought with silver or gold – but only by the blood of Christ.  1 Peter 1:18-19 tells us, “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” 

So the next time you look in the mirror, remember the words of Psalm 139, and rejoice in the gift of life our Heavenly Father gives us – and rejoice in the fact that you are His creation – fearfully and wonderfully made!

 

Resolution Check-Up

How are you doing on your New Year's resolution?  I know we are only twelve days into January, but that doesn't mean resolutions are still being followed.  The statistics are pretty amazing when it comes to New Year's resolutions.  Almost half of Americans make a resolution each year.  Out of those, only one out of three keeps their resolution through January.  Over the course of a year the statistics say that only 8% of people are successful in keeping their resolutions.

With such low success rates when it comes to New Year's resolutions, we can be thankful that our life in Christ is not lived in that kind of way.  As Christians we can rejoice in the fact that we are not saved by how well we live up to God's standard for our lives.  We are saved by grace alone as Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-9. 

We are all sinful and in need on God's forgiveness.  That is why we take joy and comfort in what Christ has done for us through His life, death, and resurrection.  The victory over sin, death and the devil and the forgiveness and salvation Christ won is given to us - free of charge, without any merit or worthiness in us.

So back to New Year’s resolutions.  We’ve all made them, and we’ve all broken them.  Some of us have made new ones and already broken them, and some of us have given up on the whole idea.  But instead of making a resolution that is all up to you - make one that relies upon God to be at work so you can do everything in Christ.

Our resolution, then, is not the one we make and fail to keep, but the one God has made for us.  God the Father made a resolution to send His Son to secure us unto life everlasting.  Jesus made a resolution to live, die, rise and intercede for us 24/7 - and He does.   The Holy Spirit made a resolution to create and strengthen faith within us.  God is faithful and He does it!

 

 

Baptized into Christ

A lot of times we talk about the gift of life – and it certainly is a precious gift.  But, we don’t hear much about the gift of death.  Perhaps that’s due to our realization that death really isn’t much of a gift.  At least, its not a gift we’d typically want, and with good reason – death is our enemy.  But St. Paul speaks to us about Baptism in such a way that it gives the gift of death….and life!

In Holy Baptism, Christ bestows on us the gifts of His death and resurrection.  Holy Baptism is all about gifts – gifts from your Lord and Redeemer to you.  And yes, those gifts include both His death and His resurrection.  Without Christ’s death, Baptism would have no power, for the forgiveness that it bestows is dependent upon His sacrifice on the cross.  Likewise, without Christ’s resurrection, Baptism could never give you life everlasting, because the power of sin, death, and the devil would be proved stronger than even God.

We’ve been rescued from sin, death, and the devil – not by our work, but by the Lord’s work and mercy.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has become flesh in order to die for our sins on the cross.  But, Christ is risen!  He lives forever!  He has died and risen for all the world – and for you and me.  That is what Holy Baptism is all about.  In Baptism, we were buried with Jesus Christ into His death.  In His death, He suffered God’s judgment for our sins; in Baptism He joined you to that death.

Instead of the scourge and nails, you only felt a splash of water.  But by that water and His holy Word, when God looks at us, He no longer sees our sin: He sees those whose sins are gone, because – with Jesus – we’ve already died to sin.  And “the one who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom 6:7)

In Holy Baptism, Jesus also joins us to His resurrection.  While God originally created Adam and Eve to live eternally, the wages of sin is death – death of the body and soul.  Jesus has conquered death, and conquered death for us!  While our body must suffer the wages of sin in this world, we already have eternal life in Christ Jesus.  We are alive!  We have new, eternal life!  That’s what it means to be baptized.

We do not declare, “I was baptized”, but “I am baptized”.  It is the difference between saying, “I was alive” and “I am alive”.  We are baptized and so we are alive – forever!  We live in the newness of life right now.  It makes a difference in how we face the day – knowing that not one failure, not one mistake, not anyone’s words of hatred – nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord – for we are the Baptized children of God – His beloved.

Your baptism birthday is the most important day of your eternal life.  It is our defense against satan who accuses you of your sin.  It’s our spiritual marker that defines our identity.  It’s our frame of reference to see the world from an eternal perspective rather than merely a temporal one.  We bear the mark of the cross of Jesus claiming us for eternity.

As long as we have sinful flesh, we still face death of our body unless the Lord returns first.  The spector of death is a haunting thing, and as it approaches we can be sure the devil will use it as his final attempt to make us doubt our Lord’s promises.  At such times, should you wonder whether or not God loves you, remember the answer and say, “I am baptized.  Jesus has joined me to His death – and He also joined me to His resurrection.  Just like sin, death is not my master – for is death no longer has dominion over Jesus, then it has no dominion over me.  Just like sin, death is like that would-be robber who would seek to destroy me; but it is also a conquered enemy, one that Christ will use to deliver me from this world and raise me up to eternal life.”

Thanks be to God – the gifts of Christ’s death and resurrection are real, certain, and everlasting.  Without any merit or worthiness in us, Christ our Lord has suffered death on our behalf – taking all the power away from sin, death, and the power of the devil and all the circumstances of life that discourage us.

Beloved of God, it’s not that you were baptized – but you are baptized.  It’s not that you were alive in Christ, but that you are alive in Christ.  It’s not that you were forgiven for all your sin, but that you are forgiven of all your sin!

All this is yours, because Jesus has joined you to Himself, to His death and resurrection.  Baptism is all about the gifts and all those gifts remain yours – now, and forever!

 

Connected to the True Vine

“As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” 

The image of the Vine and the branches is one that has great importance in our day to day lives.  Each day we are confronted with the truth of what would happen if we are separated from the Vine:  we die!  What happens to a body that’s separated from its head?  Apart from the Vine, branches can do nothing!  We have no life apart from Christ.  The sap that flows from the vine nourishes the branches.  We confess that our very lives sprout forth from our Heavenly Father, and that by our sin, we have cut ourselves off from our source of life.  Yet, by His grace through the blood of His Son, shed on the cross for the sins of the world, our sin, we have been reconciled to God, grafted back into the true vine!

The life that flows from the side of Christ Crucified and Risen now nourishes us with His life and forgiveness, so that by faith we might live in union with Him.  The message of the Vine and the branches gives us hope!  Through being grafted into the Vine and by the care of the Vinedresser – we bear His fruit!

So how can our lives be altered, changed, transformed?  Remember, we don’t produce fruit – Jesus does.  When our lives are so consumed with all sorts of things other than bearing the fruit of Christ – then we are the branches that need to pruning of the vinedresser.  The word for pruning in Greek means “Cleanse”.  It takes this pruning – this cleansing – to remove bugs and disease that will cause the branch not to produce fruit.  It’s for that reason that we need pruning.  When we experience this pruning, we must trust that God is in control and the Vinedresser knows that He is doing – He’s working for our very best!

Satan would love for us to think otherwise though.  Satan works very hard to convince us that we don’t need pruning – that He would never cut into our lives – that we would be in compete control.  But jointed to satan – we are dead!

Thanks be to God – for we are alive in Christ.  One of my favorite parts of God’s Word is Galatians 2:20 which says, “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  We are alive in Christ – the true Vine – and through Him we produce His fruit.

That fruit that we produce is what Paul speaks of in Galatians chapter 5 - the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”. These are, above all, characteristics of our Savior in his relationship with us.  But they are also the fruit that He produce in us as we are joined and grafted into Him.

Being grafted into the True Vine, may the Holy Spirit use the good fruit we produce to be a blessing to each other, our families, and our community and to give the glory to God the Father.

 

Heart Transplant

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”  Proberbs 4:23

God looks at each and every one of us and proclaims that we need a brand new heart.  He’s not talking about the organ beating in our chest – but that which really makes us tick from the inside out.  God wants us to have a new heart that recognizes sin, mourns and repents of this sin, and treasures God’s forgiveness.  Having this heart transplant is literally a matter of life and death.

The process for this heart transplant begins with repentance.  What is the definition of repentance?  To turn away from sin – to believe what God says is the truth about you.  We were all conceived with a heart that doesn’t want to take responsibility for sin, a heart that doesn’t believe that sin is worthy of death.  The wages of sin IS death.  We know that we are powerless to turn because we are dead in sin, incapable of returning to God.

God reveals that our problem (as his people) is not outright disobedience – but its with the heart.  There is no such thing as a “safe sin”.  We tend to justify our sin because we haven’t done anything terribly disobedient or we haven’t done anything that isn’t being done by everyone else – or my sin is far less than what so and so has done!  But God is blunt, saying, the soul that sins shall die.  God demands perfection.  Every last one of us falls short of that.  Therfore, the result is death.

Our self righteousness can even run so deep that we find ourselves blaming God for the mess we’re in.  It’s as old as Adam saying to God, “The woman who YOU gave to be with me…she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate.”  Things haven’t changed.  Every one of us at one time or another has pointed the finger at others, even God, as the reason for our wrong-doing – as if this excuses our sin or removes us from any accountability before God.

Only in repentance can we be restored so that our thoughts, words, and deeds match God’s will.  It is not repentance that saves us; but rather repentance is the sign that I realize what God has done in Christ Jesus.  We are made right with God because prior to all else, Christ lived, died, and rose for us.  Sinful men and women can only be changed into new creatures by the marvelous work of God in Christ Jesus.  Through the atoning work of Christ, we are able to do the will of God – to answer gladly when the Lord calls.

The true and reliable source of life is in Jesus Christ.  How does God give us this new heart for life?  It’s a lot like the way you would receive a new heart if you checked into the hospital for a heart transplant.  Before you can receive a new heart, someone has to die.  Not only that, the person must be willing to give of their heart and it has to be a match or your body will reject it.  You see the similarities with Jesus, don’t you?  Jesus give us the new heart that God demands.

He made that possible by living the perfect life that God demands and dying the death our sin deserves on the cross.  An organ donor is only willing to give you their heart once they’re done with it, not a moment before.  Jesus willingly went to the Cross so that you could receive His heart – now!

And how do we treat this new heart?  We treasure it!  We treasure the new heart and forgiveness God has given to us.  We “cast away all our transgressions” or as Luther put it – our entire lives are lived in repentance – treasuring our relationship with God above all things.  We nurture our new heart with the Word and with the life-giving food of Christ’s body and blood.

Therefore, when we face sin and temptation, we TURN away from it and rejoice in the promises of God that give us strength.  When we face doubts and circumstances that take away our confidence, we TURN to the promises of our Baptism and the sure and certain truth that we belong to God and we have been given a clean heart and have been restored in salvation.



Clothed with Christ

In the month of October we often times talk about dressing up.  Usually we are speaking of dressing up for a Halloween celebration.  The real reason I want to talk to you about dressing up is because of what the Bible says we, as Christians, are clothed with – Christ’s righteousness.

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ lived the perfect life that we are totally unable to.  He died the horrible death that our sin deserves.  He then rose victorious from the grave to ensure the promises of forgiveness, life, and salvation for us!  This is good news!  It’s even better news when we realize that through Baptism, we have been clothed with the very righteousness and innocence of Christ.  This Good News affects everything we do as renewed, redeemed, and reformed children of God.

We have been clothed with Christ!  Galatians 3:27 tells us, "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ."  As Christians who have been clothed with Christ’s righteousness, we have the awesome opportunity to give witness to the forgiveness, life, and salvation found in Christ alone.  May the month of October serve to remind us of the most important garment we have – the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.