Tag Archives: Lent

I Am the True Vine – Sermon on John 15:1-8 for Midweek Lent 5

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 92:12-15; Isaiah 5:1-7; Galatians 5:16-26; and John 15:1-8.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

One of the beautiful things about these “I Am” statements of Jesus is that, as we learn about who Christ is, we also learn about who we are. The first week, we heard Christ say, “I Am the Light of the world” (Jn. 9:5). That means we sit in darkness but are enlightened by Christ. The second week, we heard Christ say, “I Am the Door of the sheep” (Jn. 10:7). That means we are the sheep who have access through Him. The third week, we heard Christ say, “I Am the Good Shepherd” (Jn. 10:11). That means we’re His flock. Last week, we heard Christ say, “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn. 14:6). That means we are the ones who are on the Way, who are given the Truth, and who are made to live in Him.

Tonight, Jesus says, “I Am the True Vine,” but before He even calls us the branches, He adds, “My Father is the Vinedresser” (Jn. 15:1). That means God the Father prunes us. Being pruned isn’t always pleasant. It often comes with pain and confusion. Branches don’t know why, or to what end, they’re being pruned. But the vinedresser, the gardener, does. Pruning is rarely comfortable, but it is always purposeful.

Most of you know a lot more about plants and gardening than I do, so know that I’m open to any tips or suggestions you may have for me after the service. Again, I’m not a gardener, but I have done some pruning. At our house, we have a couple of lilac bushes – one of which is at the corner of our house where we have our two biggest windows. If we want to be able to see out of those windows, we need to keep that lilac bush in check, so we prune it.

‘Prune’ might be too delicate a word. At least twice in the sixteen years we’ve lived in our house, I’ve taken a chain saw, gotten as low as possible to the ground, and hewed that sucker down. I’m no Paul Bunyan. But give me a chainsaw and I can fell a lilac bush. The first time I used the chain saw, I thought the bush would die. (There was a part of me that hopedit would die so we could plant something that is less work.) But, sure enough, the bush came back. More shoots sprouted off the stumps. Leaves budded. I don’t remember if the bush flowered the next year, but it certainly did the year after. Often, we hack it down, about to the bottom of the windows. It’s at least a biannual battle between us and the lilac bush. It’s amazing how resilient some plants are.

I hack away at that lilac bush just so I can see out of a window. But a good gardener prunes with a higher purpose. He doesn’t prune just so he can see a lot of dead stuff on the ground. He prunes so the plant will bear more fruit, and he knows how much pruning a plant can handle.

The pruning we endure only makes sense when we remember that Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches. We are not separate from Him. We wrongfully tend to think that Jesus is unaffected by the difficulties we face in this world. We imagine, since He has overcome death and has ascended into heaven, that He’s ‘semi-retired.’ It can seem that the risen and ascended Jesus is separate from our troubles, our difficulties, and our pain. That is not the case.

Dear saints, when the pruning comes – and it does come – Jesus is not watching from a distance. He is the Vine, and we are the branches. When there is difficulty, when there is pain, when there is pruning, Christ is right there in all of it. Remember when Paul encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus. Paul was persecuting Christians, throwing them into prison, and overseeing some of them being executed (Act. 8:1-3, 9:1-2). Jesus appears to him on the road and says, “Saul, Saul,” (using Paul’s given name), “why are you persecuting Me?” Jesus takes Paul’s persecution personally because it is personal. What Paul was doing to the Church, he was doing to the Church’s Lord (Act. 9:4-5).

When you are pruned, so is Jesus. Now, Christ doesn’t need pruning because He’s the Vine. We need pruning because we’re the branches. Dear saints, know that when there is pruning, Jesus is right there with and in all of it. So, when you face anything painful, know that your heavenly Father is using that thing, whatever it is, as His pruning shears. And He is much more skilled and intentional and purposeful in pruning you than I am when I hack away at our lilac bush.

Dear saints, your Father’s pruning is painful. And it’s hard for us to imagine that things that are painful are good for us. When we go through those painful things, we often only see them as painful and difficult. You can hear that pain throughout the Psalms and in Job. A person is suffering and asks questions like, “How long?” or, “Why?” Those are fine, Scriptural questions to ask. But don’t just stop at that question, “Why?” because you won’t learn more.

Here, Jesus tells you why. He tells you that there is a purposeful plan. Your heavenly Father, the Vinedresser, prunes you so that you may bear more fruit. When there is pruning, it is so there can be fruit bearing.

If there is no pruning, no hardship, no pain, that’s the worst sign. Jesus says, “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” If you’re just growing in whatever direction you please and aren’t being pruned, the end result is burning.

Pruning or burning – those are the two possibilities that lie before us. Jesus doesn’t give us a third option of forever escaping things that are uncomfortable. Either we can be pruned now, or we can be burned later. Consider the outcomes of the two disciples, Judas and Peter. By the time Jesus says this, Judas has already left (Jn. 13:21-30) and has stopped abiding in Jesus, the Vine. Even though Judas feels the pain of betraying Jesus, he doesn’t repent. There is sorrow, but there’s no repentance. No repentance means there’s no pruning. So, Judas’ eternal destination is the fire (Jn. 17:12).

On the other hand, you have Peter. He promised that he would abide in Jesus (Jn. 13:37), but before the sun can rise, Peter denies Christ three times. Right after his third denial, the rooster crows. In Luke, we’re told that Jesus simply looks across the courtyard at Peter, and that glance is enough to make Peter weep bitterly (Lk. 22:60-62). There is pain there, but that glance from Jesus is enough to prune Peter. After the resurrection, Jesus doesn’t chide and scold Peter. That glance was all it took to trim off the suckers that would have kept Peter from bearing fruit. Peter’s pain turns into Peter’s repentance. Peter’s repentance turns into Peter’s faith. Peter’s faith turns into Peter’s restoration (Jn. 21:15-17), and Jesus tells Peter, “Follow Me. I have more pruning in store for you” (Jn. 21:18-22).

This kind of honesty from Jesus – that there will be pain, either from pruning or burning – it isn’t something I like to hear. But Jesus speaks truth. And a hard, honest truth is always better than the sweetest-sounding lie. In these verses, Jesus doesn’t promise comfort. He promises pruning. That pruning is proof that you abide in Him. And that pruning results in you bearing much fruit and revealing to the world that you are His disciples.

The promise of bearing fruit, much fruit, is already comforting. But Jesus gives you a further picture of what His goal, His endgame is. We didn’t read it, but down in John 15:16, Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.”

Dear saints, your fruit does not wither and rot. It abides. Always green. Always bearing fruit that is always abiding (Ps. 1:1-3; Jer. 17:7-8). Listen again to what Jesus says, “I Am the Vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5). What Jesus intends for you, His branches, is bigger and greater than you can ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20). 

Dear saints, abide in Him the True Vine. In Him is the eternal Spring, in Him is fruitfulness, and in Him is life everlasting. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.

I Am the Way, the Truth, & the Life – Sermon on John 14:1-7 for Midweek Lent 4

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 25:4-10; Isaiah 30:19-23a; Colossians 2:6-10; and John 14:1-7.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

This text is so rich and beautiful. If it were a gemstone, it would glimmer and glisten in the light. If it were a meal, it would be a perfectly seasoned, 90-day dry aged ribeye cooked to a perfect medium rare. If it were a touch, a two-hour massage on a pristine beach. You can add any other sensation you’d like. This text is so comforting that it is has been used in a high percentage of the funerals I’ve officiated. In this text, Jesus, your Lord and Savior, says to you, “Let not your hearts be troubled. I’m preparing a place for you, so you can be with Me forever.” It’s absolutely wonderful and beautiful.

Sadly, unbelievers hate it. They find what Jesus says here utterly offensive. It chafes and grinds on them because of Jesus’ “I Am” statement. “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” For pagan unbelievers, that’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. And sure, to a degree, the reason they recoil from it is the exclusive nature of what Jesus says. Today, people get really uneasy when it comes to right vs. wrong. They hate the idea of exclusive claims and objective truth so much that they’ll say absolutely absurd things like, “You have your truth, and I have mine,” and “Two plus two may equal four for you, but it can equal five or three or 1,743 for someone else.” It seems like that kind of ridiculous, radical relativism is on the decline, but it still has a powerful hold on many in our culture.

But I think people hate Jesus saying, “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me,” for a different, but related, reason than its exclusivity. They find it offensive because they realize that statement implies something is deeply wrong with them, so wrong that there is only one way to fix it. If you walked up to a random person and shared the simple Gospel truth, “Jesus forgives you of your sins” (1 Jn. 2:2; Tit. 2:11), they won’t hear that as good news. Instead, they’re going to hear what lies behind it and will push back, “You’re calling me a sinner? You’re not perfect! Who do you think you are? You’re not the judge of me. I’m basically a good person.” When they hear, “No one comes to the Father except through Me,” they understand what lies behind it. What lies behind it is that they are so broken that it literally takes an act of God Himself to fix them. And that’s offensive to them.

They might not have minded if Jesus said, “I am a way, a truth, and a life,” as though there were alternative ways, truths, and lifes [sic.]. They will grossly accuse God, “If God were really loving, he wouldn’t be so closed minded. If he really loved people, he’d make sure there were many ways to be saved.” Sigh. Dear saints, you can’t out-Gospel God. You can’t out-love the God who is love (1 Jn. 4:8, 16).

Imagine everyone in the world was out wandering in the desert. It’s hot. Dry. We’re all getting sandblasted because of the wind. Suddenly, we see down in a valley, this beautiful city with pools and gardens and barbecue restaurants (see Is. 25:6). That city is where we want to be. But we see this tall, thick wall that goes all the way around it. We start to think that there’s no way to get in there. We start walking around the city scrounging for a way to get inside. Then, there it is. A door. A gate in that massive wall, and it’s wide open. There is a way in.

We start telling everyone else, “We can go in now. We can get out of this desert. We can cool off and wash and eat and live forever in the city!” But most of the people say, “I don’t want to go in that way. I want to go in over here.” We object, “But there’s no door over there.” “I know, but I’m not going through that gate.” “Why? It isn’t dangerous. You don’t have to crawl through a bunch of sewage or anything.” “I know, but I still don’t like it. Maybe the city council will put in another door over here. Or I’ll just keep walking into the wall and hope it disappears.”

There is a way to salvation and eternal life. Jesus is that way, and He is the only way. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Act. 4:12). When you talk with people who are offended and think there should be many ways, show them how ridiculous that is, but do it in a manner that is loving and kind. Don’t let them be deluded thinking that ‘one way’ is equivalent to ‘no way.’ There is a Way, and that Way is Jesus.

To get a better idea of why there is no other way, we have to do a little groundwork. Look at Jn. 14:2 again. Jesus gives this great promise, “In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” When Jesus says He’s going to prepare a place for you, He isn’t saying that there was something wrong with heaven. The problem wasn’t that Jesus needed to put an addition on because there wasn’t enough space. The problem wasn’t that heaven was messy and needed to get tidied up. The problem wasn’t that Jesus had to put new linens out and mints on the pillow. The problem wasn’t anything wrong with the Father’s house. The problem was in us. Jesus says this the night before His crucifixion, not His ascension. He is ascended as the King and Ruler of all creation. Right now, He is actively governing all things for your benefit (Mt. 28:18; Eph. 1:20-22; 1 Pet. 3:22). He isn’t doing some heavenly housekeeping.

This going to prepare a place refers to the cross. Jesus has to prepare a place for us in His Father’s house because God’s holiness and perfection is in that house. Sinners like us can’t survive that. The Father’s house is only for the holy, the perfect, the righteous. That isn’t us. Our sinful nature excludes us, and the fact that we continue to fall into sin slams the door in our face. 

So, when you hear Jesus say, “I go to prepare a place for you,” you can hear that as Him saying, “I go to prepare you for that place.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “I’m going to win your forgiveness. I am going to do everything necessary for your salvation. I’m going to take all your sin into Myself and pay for it all. Anything that would exclude you from being in My place by My side, I’m going to destroy. In return I’m going to give you My righteousness, My holiness, My perfection so that you belong there. By My work, you’ll fit right in.”

That’s the fix. That’s the solution. That’s the Way, and the only Way.

Because Jesus has died and risen again, He is the Way. All your law-breaking, all your sin, all the love you have failed to give has been taken from you (Jn. 1:29) and brought to the cross. There Christ prepared you for a place in the Father’s house.

Believer, when you die and show up at the door of the Father’s house, you’re going to find the door wide open. The angels will carry you in across the threshold saying, “This is where you belong,” because through faith, you are part of God’s family now. You heard in tonight’s Epistle (Col. 2:6-10), you have received Christ. You have been filled in Him, who is the Head of all rule and authority. Continue to walk in Him. Let Him gently guide you. I love how our Old Testament reading (Is. 30:19-23) put it, “Your Teacher will not hide Himself anymore…. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way. Walk in it.’”

Dear saints, your Savior is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. As the Way, He guides you to and in the Truth. As the Truth, He establishes you in Life. Tonight and every day of your life, Jesus says to you, Amen. “Let not your heart be troubled. I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.

I Am the Good Shepherd – Sermon on John 10:11-18 for Midweek Lent 3

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 100; Jeremiah 23:1-3; Hebrews 13:20-21; and John 10:11-18.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Picture a father and his daughter. The father works every day to provide food, clothes, and a house for his little girl. His daughter puts on a dress and invites him to her tea parties with all her stuffed animals. Every night, that father sings to his little princess, tucks her snugly under the covers, kisses her forehead, and whispers, “I love you.” All of those actions – his work, his play, and his care –are all ways that father tells his daughter, “I love you.”

Keep picturing that same father and daughter. Now, she’s a teenager and the father is going to meet her at the county fair. He walks through the grounds and sees a crowd standing in a circle. They’re shouting. Dust is flying in the air. The father pushes his way to the center only to find three grown men shoving his daughter to the ground. She’s scraped up and dirty. Her shirt sleeve is torn. That’s his precious girl. So, the father leaps into the fray hollering, “That’s my daughter!” He fights fiercely. He takes some punches in his gut and a few blows to the back of his head, but he begins to get the upper hand. With all his might, he shoves the first man headfirst into a trailer. He spins, winds up, and punches the second man square in the face, knocking him out cold. He locks the third in a chokehold until the man slumps face-down in the dirt.

Now, which version of that father is loving? Is it the father who provides, has tea parties, and quietly tucks the girl in with a kiss? Or is it the father who immediately jumps into a fight, even though he is outnumbered, and rescues her with violence? It’s both, isn’t it? It’s both, and equally so. Tender care and fierce defense are two sides of the same love. The daughter interprets both as her father saying, “I love you, my daughter.”

I mentioned this last week, but it needs repeating. When Jesus declares, “I Am the Good Shepherd,” here, He’s addressing the Pharisees. So, this statement isn’t initially directed to believers to comfort them. It’s judgment on false shepherds. But as Jesus’ sheep, you overhear them and are comforted by them – and rightly so. It’s like the father yelling, “That’s my daughter!” not first to her but to warn the attackers that he’s coming for them. But she hears it and recognizes the echo of him whispering, “I love you, dear girl,” as she is tucked into bed.

This metaphor of God as the Shepherd of His people is all over the Bible. Many of those passages are spoken directly to God’s people as comfort. Isaiah 40:10-11, pictures God tending His flock, gathering lambs in His arms, carrying them in His bosom, and gently leading His sheep. Psalm 78:52 recalls how God led His people like sheep out of Egypt and guided them through the wilderness. And Psalm 23, of course, is David’s song of the tender care of his Shepherd.

But a number of other passages use the same image as a stern warning. Our reading tonight from Jer. 23:1-3 thunders against the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of His pasture. God says, “I will attend to you for your evil deeds. Then I will gather My flock, bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful.”

As I prepared for these services, I had a hard time deciding between using Jer. 23 and another text – Ezk. 34. (I went with Jeremiah because you’ll hear Ezekiel on Easter 3 in about a month.) But as I wrote this sermon, I wished I’d chosen Ezekiel because it lies behind what Jesus says to here in Jn. 10. So, let me summarize it for you now. Ezekiel 34 begins with God’s woe against faithless shepherds. They weren’t caring for God’s sheep; instead, they were using the sheep for their own comfort and benefit. They didn’t strengthen the weak. They didn’t heal the sick or bind up the injured sheep. They did not bring back the strayed or seek the lost sheep. The end result was that God’s flock was scattered over the face of the earth with no one to seek after them (Ezk. 34:1-6). So, God says, “I am against the shepherds and will require My sheep at their hand” (Ezk. 34:7-10).

Then, Yahweh, the Great ‘I Am,’ promises, “I, I Myself will search for My sheep. I will rescue them. I will gather them into their own land. I will feed them in good grazing land and rich pasture.” Then in Ezk. 34:15-16, Yahweh says, “I Myself will be the shepherd of My sheep, and I Myself will make them lie down. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.”

So, when Jesus proclaims, “I Am the Good Shepherd” (Jn. 10:11), He’s echoing that warning and promise from Yahweh back in Ezk. 34. So, hear this text in that light.

When you lie in the dust, surrounded by enemies, Jesus says, “I Am the Good Shepherd” (Jn. 10:11). He has come to rescue you because you are His. Jesus says, “The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep,”(Jn. 10:11, 17). He has counted the cost and judged you to be worth His blood. Unlike the hireling who flees when he sees the wolf, Jesus stands firm by your side and will never abandon you (Jn. 10:12-13). Jesus knows you and you know him (Jn. 10:14). And notice how intimate this knowing is. Look again at Jn. 10:15, “Just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father.”Dear flock of God, you share that same, intimate fellowship with your Good Shepherd.

There’s one more beautiful aspect to this image of Jesus being your Good Shepherd. It isn’t directly from this text, so I’ve saved it for the end. In this text, Jesus only names the wolf as the enemy of His flock. But the wolf stands in for all your enemies of sin, death, and the devil. We can easily picture two-thirds of that. When the devil comes at you, Your Good Shepherd steps between you and his claws. When death and the grave opens its mouth wide, your Good Shepherd stuffs Himself into its jaws so fully that it gags and has to spit Him out three days later. It easy to picture how your Good Shepherd shields you from the devil and the grave.

But how does Your Good Shepherd stand between you and your sin? Your sin isn’t ‘out there’ like the death and the devil. Sin is the enemy within all of us – in our hearts and minds. In fact, we are sinners. So how could Jesus stand between us and sin? Well, it turns out that the Good Shepherd is also a sheep. Rev. 7:17 says, “The Lamb who sits in the midst of the throne [is your] Shepherd,” and He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29).

Dear flock, your Good Shepherd sought you. He drew near to you. He came so close that He became one of you. He took on your flesh and blood so He could stand between you and the punishment you deserve because of your sin. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, all your enemies are utterly scattered. They flee at the sight of your Shepherd standing by your side.

Dear saints, your Good Shepherd has arrived. He will never leave or forsake you. He has died for you. He forgives all your sins. He is risen and will shepherd you through all the troubles of this life until He brings you to the joys of eternal life with Him in pastures that are forever green. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.

I Am the Door – Sermon on John 10:1-10 for Midweek Lent 2

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 118:19-24, 28-29; Isaiah 26:1-3; Hebrews 10:19-22; and John 10:1-10.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

John 10 is widely known as the Good Shepherd chapter because it’s where Jesus has two “I Am” statements, “I Am the Door of the sheep; I Am the Good Shepherd” (Jn. 10:7, 11). Both of those declarations are comforting. Very comforting for us. But in context, dear saints, both statements are actually judgment against the Pharisees because they have turned their back on Jesus, the Shepherd of their souls (1 Pet. 2:25).

Last week, we heard the beginning of Jn. 9 where Jesus declares “I Am the Light of the world.” Then, He healed the man who was born blind. A tense exchange follows. The Pharisees pressure the formerly-blind man to deny Jesus (Jn. 9:8-34). They fail. Instead, the man boldly confesses that only someone from God could perform such a miracle. Later, Jesus finds him again, and the man worships and believes in Christ (Jn. 9:35-38).

John 9 closes with Jesus saying, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (Jn. 9:39). The Pharisees hear this and ask Jesus, “Are we also blind?” Jesus responds, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains” (Jn. 9:41). That conversation flows directly into our text tonight, “Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber” (Jn. 10:1-10). Notice that Jn. 10:6 says that Jesus is addressing this figure of speech to people who are identified only as “them” and “they.” The ‘them’ and ‘they’ are the Pharisees who have rejected Jesus as the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10:11). The Pharisees did not understand (Jn. 10:6).

Now, I admit that Jesus doesn’t explicitly say, “I Am the Good Shepherd,” until Jn. 10:11 – one verse after our text. But Jesus has implicitly said it. He begins by mentioning the sheepfold. In Jesus’ day, and still today, a sheepfold was often a cave that was partially closed by a rock wall along the opening. There was just a small gap so the flock could enter the sheepfold for safety or exit it to find pasture. The way that sheepfold was closed is that the shepherd would station himself at the opening and be the door himself. So, to reach the sheep, you had to go through the shepherd. If anyone tried to enter by a different way than through the door (i.e. the shepherd), that person was trying to harm the sheep.

Jesus is that Door because He is that Shepherd. Whoever enters through Him will be saved. When Jesus talks about going in and going out, He isn’t talking about being saved in the sheepfold vs. being not saved when you are out of the sheepfold. Instead, the saved are the ones who go in and the ones who go out and find pasture. The coming and going of the sheep (which needs to happen) is all through Him.

So, being in or out of the sheepfold isn’t equal to being saved or damned. The parable of the Lost Sheep in Lk. 15:1-7 is different in that way. Here, in or out doesn’t matter. Instead, the focus is on the fact that the saved have access through Jesus, the Door. That’s what saves. Christ is your Shepherd-Door. Because of Him, you are safe whether you are in or out. You have peace in the sheepfold, and you have freedom from danger when you are out in the pleasant pastures. Psalm 121:7-8 is a nice parallel to what Jesus says in Jn. 10:9, “The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

With this image, Jesus also recalls parts of our Psalm tonight (Ps. 118:19-24, 28-29). This text takes place when Jesus is in Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles (Jn. 7:2), when parts of Ps. 118 were sung. As the people entered the Temple during the feast, they would sing, “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it” (Ps. 118:19-20).

Jesus is the Door through which you have access to and encounter Yahweh, the Great “I Am.” By Christ’s blood, you can have confidence to enter the holy places. He has opened that way for you through His flesh (Heb. 10:19-20). 

Let me switch gears for a moment here. I can’t preach on this text without mentioning how the sheep hear the voice of the Shepherd, Who is also the Door.

In Jesus’ day, everyone owned a handful of sheep because that was how you got your clothing, milk, meat, and leather. But daily life – farming, cooking, chores – meant that people couldn’t tend the flock full-time. So, families in a neighborhood would combine their sheep into one larger flock of 60, 80, 100 sheep, and one person would shepherd them all. In large towns, there would be several different flocks that were tended by several shepherds.

By day, each shepherd would lead his flock to pleasant pastures. At night, the shepherd would bring his flock back into the village where there was a large sheepfold. And all the different flocks would spend the night together so most of the shepherds could go home and sleep. Only one of them would be the Door for the night as all the sheep slept in the pen.

In the morning, the shepherds returned to that pen where the flocks were all mixed together. You might think it would be chaotic to try and sort out which shepherd was responsible for which sheep. But, no. It wasn’t a problem. Each shepherd simply called his sheep by name, “Come, Long-ears. Up, White-nose. Let’s go, Stubby-legs.” Each sheep would hear the familiar voice of its own shepherd, and they would all follow him to go frolic in the fields for the day. That’s the picture Jesus uses throughout John 10.

Dear saints, you know the voice of your Shepherd. He softly, tenderly, and kindly calls to you in the Scriptures. Enter through Him and you will be saved. He calls you by name (Is. 43:1-2; Jn. 10:3), and He has called you to life – abundant, eternal life in Him. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.

I Am the Light of the World – Sermon on John 9:1-7 for Midweek Lent 1

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 27:1-4; Isaiah 42:1-7; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6; and John 9:1-7.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

When the disciples see this man who was born blind, they rightly recognize something is off. Blindness isn’t the way things should be. Eyes were created to see, but this man’s eyes are dark. That isn’t right. There should be light in those eyes, but they are dark with blindness. The disciples are correct in sensing the disconnect, but their answer misses the mark.

Notice that the disciples only ask a question, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” but their question assumes that sin is the answer for this particular darkness. Instead of playing “Pin the Tail on the Donkey,” they’re playing “Pin the Blame on the Sinner.” They suppose that some specific sin is the reason he had never looked into his mother’s eyes, never seen a sunrise, never seen anything. The disciples were simply trying to make sense of the darkness with guilt and blame. Too often, we do the same.

In a world that is darkened by sin, we want to make sense of why things are off-kilter. We grope around for an answer to why. “Why is there this darkness?” Sadly, the most common explanation we have for darkness is to try to assign blame. We do the same thing all the time. “Whose fault is this?” “Who can we blame?” Those kinds of questions are asked all the time in hospital rooms, at gravesides, when a marriage grows cold, and whenever things aren’t as they should be. It’s our vain search for an answer to why darkness exists.

Jesus’ answer is so wonderful. It’s a shocking answer that should lift our dark hearts. Listen to how it frees: “It wasn’t that this man sinned, or his parents” (Jn. 9:3). In other words, not every blindness, not every broken relationship, not every disease is the direct result of a specific sin. Sure. Of course. Suffering flows directly because of the Fall. Sin is what brought suffering and disease and death and darkness into God’s good creation. But Jesus doesn’t let us play the blame game that crushes others with guilt. Christ says, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Jn. 9:3). God is going to display His saving works in and toward and through the blind man.

This text we just read was not the first time Jesus said, “I am the Light of the World.” Jesus first said it back in Jn. 8:12during a tense exchange with the Pharisees that we aren’t going to rehash. Just know that Jesus had already said that He is the Light of the World, but He says it again before He heals this man who was blind from birth. 

We heard in our Psalm tonight (Ps. 27:1-4), “Yahweh is my light and my salvation.” Here, Jesus shows that He is that light and salvation. He is the same God who began creation by saying, “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3; Jn. 1:3), and here He proves that He is God in the flesh by doing something only the Creator can do. He heals the blind man with actions that replicate the creation of Adam.

In the beginning, God took dust from the ground that was wet from a mist; God used that mud to form Adam’s body and breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:6-7). Jesus doesn’t have that same mist to make mud, so He creates His own. Right there in the dirt of Jerusalem, the Creator is at work again. Our Lord spits on the ground and spreads that mud on the man’s eye sockets (Jn. 9:6). So, we should see that Jesus is not only healing the man – He is creating. He is showing that He is the One who spoke light into existence at the very beginning.

At the end of our Old Testament reading tonight (Is. 42:1-7), Isaiah spoke about Yahweh’s Servant who was coming as “a light for the nations, to open eyes that are blind, to bring prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness” (Is. 42:6-7). Jesus is that Servant, and He is doing exactly that here. A little bit later, John tells us that Jesus did this creative work on a Sabbath (Jn. 9:14). It’s a new Sabbath of a new creation that is free – totally free – from the darkness of sin.

Like this blind man, you and I were born spiritually blind. We stumbled around in the darkness of our sin and chased after the shadows. But Jesus has come as the Light and took on our darkness. As He hung on the cross, darkness fell over the earth, and Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mt. 27:45-46). God had forsaken Jesus so that your sin – every dark thought, every selfish choice, every time you blamed someone else for your pain – would be paid for completely.

Three days later, the Light of the World burst forth from the grave. Now, the risen Christ continuously shines out of the darkness and into your heart. In His brightness you have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Co. 4:6).

Dear saints, Jesus, the Light of the World, continues to display the works of God in you (Jn. 9:3). Look again at Jn. 9:4where Jesus says, “We must work the works of Him Who sent Me while it is day.” In the past, I’ve always assumed that Jesus is still talking to the disciples because He’s answering their blame and guilt question right before. But after He corrects their wrong assumption, the disciples drop out of the account. They aren’t involved in the healing of the man in the rest of our text or even in the rest of Jn. 9. In fact, the disciples aren’t even mentioned again until Jn. 11:7. The text doesn’t specifically say it, but the way John writes this, you are to see Jesus dismiss the disciples’ blame question and then turn to the blind man when He says, “We must work the works of Him Who sent Me while it is day,” because it’s the man who was born blind who works with Jesus for the rest of the chapter.

Jesus does the work of creating, healing, and restoring. The blind man does the work of receiving, going, washing, and seeing. And if you keep reading through the rest of Jn. 9 – which I strongly encourage you do – the now-seeing man does the work of believing, confessing, and worshiping (Jn. 9:35-38; cf. Jn. 6:29). But notice that all of the man’s works are a direct result of Christ shining into his darkness. And that, dear saints, is exactly how He still works in you.

Jesus, the Light of the World, has swallowed the darkness and buried it in His now, and forever, empty tomb. Christ’s light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not, and will not ever, overcome it (Jn. 1:5). Jesus is still in the world. He promises to be with you always, to the end of the age (Mt. 28:20). He remains in the world now as the unconquerable Light of the World (Jn. 9:5). Live in His light. Let His glory shine into and through you. And watch the darkness flee. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.

Aligned – Sermon on Matthew 6:1, 16-21 for Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1, 16-21

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

I thought about starting this sermon with a question, but I’m going to start with the answer first. So, here’s the answer, “No. Absolutely, positively, definitely not!” That’s the answer. You’re probably wondering, “Ok, pastor. What’s the question?” Here it is: “Is Jesus telling us to be hypocrites here?” Again, the answer is, “No way. No how. Nuh-uh.” One of the common definitions of a hypocrite is ‘someone who says one thing and does another.’ Or we can flip the order – a hypocrite is ‘someone who does one thing and says another.’

That definition is overly simplistic because here Jesus says that when you fast you are to make it look like you aren’tfasting. And Jesus isn’t telling you to be a hypocrite. So, we should probably get better get a better, more Biblical definition of what hypocrite is. A hypocrite is someone who removes God from the equation of everything they do.

Scripture clearly teaches that everyone knows that God exists. Ro. 1:19-21 says that God has revealed Himself in the things that have been made. But instead of acknowledging God, people do not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. The short way to say that is that atheists don’t exist. Sure, there are liars who falsely call themselves atheists. They claim to believe that God doesn’t exist, but they’re lying to themselves.

So basically, a hypocrite is someone who seeks the approval of men rather than of God. Jesus repeatedly says so here in Mt. 6. Christ says that hypocrites sound a trumpet before they give so that they can be praised by others (Mt. 6:2). He teaches that hypocrites pray so that they can be seen by others (Mt. 6:5). In this reading, our Lord says that hypocrites make themselves look gloomy and miserable when they fast so they will be seen by other people (Mt. 6:16).

In other words, hypocrites do good works. But they do those good works to get the approval of other sinners instead of God. Again, they remove God from the equation. Ultimately, hypocrisy is idolatry. It makes people into little gods. And if you do good works for people, Jesus says that you already have your reward which won’t last. But Jesus promises that if you do your good works for God, you will be rewarded by God, and that reward will be eternal treasure that will last forever (Mt. 6:4, 6, 18).

With all of that said, I’m going to give you the entire sermon in one sentence. Ready? There is a spiritual benefit to the bodily practice of fasting because fasting helps align our body and soul.

Christian, you are justified and saved by grace through faith and not your works (Eph. 2:8-9). Faith is not just something that happens in your heart and that’s it. No. Faith changes everything about you. Faith changes both your soul and your body. In other words, faith is lived out. We know this because God works on you to sanctify you, to make you more and more holy.

There are two aspects of sanctification. First, sanctification comes about when the Holy Spirit comes to live in you and gives you the strength to love God and love your neighbor. Sanctification is that growth in good works and acts of love. The second side of sanctification is that the Holy Spirit gives you strength to fight against your sinful flesh. Ro. 6:12-14 puts it this way, “Let not sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” In other words, don’t go on sinning. Don’t let yourself to continue living in sin.

That’s where fasting comes in. You can think of fasting as practice. Just like a basketball player will run ‘crushers’ and do dribbling and shooting drills so, when they face an opponent in a game, all of those things come naturally. Fasting is like doing those drills. It gives you the endurance and discipline and skill that you need to fight against sin when it really counts.

Before I go on, I have to add this. You can’t fast when it comes sinful actions. If you’re a kleptomaniac and habitual liar, you can’t say, “I’m going to fast from stealing and lying.” No! Those are sins; don’t do them. Fasting is temporarily denying yourself and not doing things that aren’t sinful. You do that so that you know what to do when you stand face-to-face with sinful lusts and desires.

Normally, we think about fasting as not eating. That is one way to fast. When you fast from eating and your stomach growls and starts preaching to you, “Hey, you should feed me,” you say to your stomach, “You’re not the boss. Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt. 4:4; Dt. 8:3). Then, instead of eating, you read Scripture or pray. That discipline helps bring your body in alignment with your redeemed and forgiven soul.

So, I would encourage you, give fasting a try. It doesn’t have to be giving up food. Use your God-given wisdom to pick something that you regularly do and don’t do it for a certain amount of time. Let me give you a few possible examples:

Maybe, you decide that you won’t go on YouTube or social media for a few days, or you decide to limit yourself to a certain amount of time on those apps each day, or only during a certain window of the day. You get to pick. Then, when you have the desire to go on them outside of your window, read your Bible or pray or sing a hymn instead.

Maybe, you decide to give up watching a news program for a while. Instead of watching it, read the Psalms to remind yourself that God is in control. This will help you learn that the world won’t fall apart just because you don’t know what’s going on. Use that time to pray for our leaders.

Maybe, you normally listen to something on your headphones while you’re plowing snow. Instead of doing that, meditate on a passage of Scripture. Maybe, you set your alarm 15 minutes earlier and deny yourself that bit of sleep to pray for your family and friends or text them a Bible verse.

The possibilities are endless. By doing those things, you train your body and mind and bring them into alignment with your redeemed soul. You gain self-control and see that you have the strength to fight when you have desires that are actually sinful.

Yes, keep your fasting secret, but remember that Jesus promises that your heavenly Father sees your fasting and will reward you. In other words, fasting lays up treasures in heaven for you. And where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Mt. 6:21).

Dear saints, know this – God loves you whether you fast or not. He has come to win your forgiveness and salvation, and His work is finished, complete, and perfect. Certain of that restored relationship with God, know that you are His, and you are free. Free to spend your life on things that matter. Free to store up eternal treasures in heaven. 

And your Savior freely invites you now to His table to receive the greatest treasure of His Body and Blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.

Beautiful Time – Sermon on Ecclesiastes 3:1-15, 22 for Midweek Lent 3

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 31:14-15; 145:17-19; 16:7-8; Ecclesiastes 3:1-15, 22; 1 Timothy 6:6-11; and Mark 12:41-44.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Last week, we heard how God gives us Christians joy in this life in two simple things. He gives us joy in our leisure or in our eating and drinking; and He gives us joy in our work – not from our work but in our work (Ecc. 2:24). Scripture is clear, you won’t to find enjoyment in the fruit of your work by getting money that buys you things. That won’t work. Instead, you are to find enjoyment in the work God gives you to do. Your work and the effort you expend on all your God-given tasks is a gift from God’s hand. There is goodness and joy in you doing that work. If you didn’t hear that sermon from last week, I’d encourage you to go back and listen to it.

Tonight, as we consider this portion of Ecc. 3, I’d like to pick up our thinking with some words that you heard last week, but you need to hear them again because they set up these verses which, probably, are more familiar to you – even if it’s only because of the song “Turn, Turn, Turn” by The Byrds.

Ecclesiastes 2 closed with these words, “[T]o the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God” (Ecc. 2:26). This is an amazing thing for God to say, and you have to have this clear in your mind. You, Christian, are one who pleases God. You please God because Christ has forgiven you and made you His child and because the Holy Spirit has made you holy. But to the sinner (and, yes, we are all sinners in a general sense, but ‘the sinner’ here refers to who is one who does not have faith in Christ’s forgiveness) to the sinner God has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give what’s been gathered and collected to one who pleases God.

In short, people who aren’t Christians only gather and collect, but they don’t get to keep anything. People who aren’t Christians are always working to try and get some future joy that they will never achieve or attain because they try to find joy apart from God. So, they can’t enjoy either their work or their leisure.

There are really wealthy unbelievers who have a lot more than any of us here have. Dear saints, you are far better off than the richest people you can think of if they aren’t a Christian. Just because they have all that stuff doesn’t mean they are able to enjoy it. They might have a house with way more rooms than your house has, but they – just like you – can only be in one room at a time.

That’s where Ecc. 3 comes in. The simple fact is that we creatures of God are only given one moment at a time. Time comes to us moment by moment. Just as you can’t cling to those moments and make them stay, you also cannot reach out and grab future moments to make them come sooner. They only come in God’s timing.

Solomon summarizes this in v. 11 saying, “[God] has made everything beautiful (or ‘pleasant, right, fitting’) in its time.” Each moment is beautiful in the time that God gives it. And notice, that also means when something is outside of that time, it’s no longer beautiful, pleasant, enjoyable.

In that little poem that opens Ecc. 3, Solomon gives sixteen pairs of opposites: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted; and so forth. Those pairs encompass everything in life, but to make sure that point gets across, the Holy Spirit inspired Solomon to preface all those pairs with, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter (or ‘activity’) under heaven.” So, you could add anything to this list.

There’s a time to drive a car, and a time to be chauffeured everywhere. There’s a time to be active and play sports, and a time to sit and watch sports. There’s a time to make a grocery list, a time to go fill up your shopping cart, a time to prepare food, a time to enjoy the food, and a time to clean everything up. Everything you do has a time to do it, and the time to do it is when that thing is before you to do.

Again, this sounds so simple, but think of how many people do not realize this and hijack and sabotage their joy by trying to live in moments that aren’t given to them. God gives a season to be a child and play with dolls or Lego’s and be joyful as a child. But children want to be older, get their driver’s license, and be independent. The young want to be older instead of enjoying the joy of childhood. You’ve heard the saying, “Youth is wasted on the young”? There is some truth to that. But what might be even sadder is when adults try to clutch and hang on to their youth and long-gone ‘glory’ days. We all easily fall into the trap of not having joy in the season of life that God has given.

Parents long for the days when their children can cut their own food and clean themselves and do some chores. Then, when the kids become teenagers and let their parents know how much they hate doing the chores, a parent longs for the former days of diapers, baths, and mushed peas.

Again, the problem is, when you try to find your joy in the future or in the past, you rob yourself of the beauty and joy of the present moment. But God makes everything beautiful (or ‘fitting’) in its time and in the season in which God gives it.

Imagine you’re on a camping trip in late August. The sun has set; you’re zipping up your tent and climbing into your sleeping bag. Suddenly, a massive fireworks show starts. You’d probably be fairly perturbed. It’s not the time for fireworks. But if you’re camping on the 4th of July, you’d disappointed if there wasn’t fireworks. You see? The fireworks aren’t the problem in August, it’s the timing. Or try this, if one of you right now started pitching a tent here in the sanctuary and rolling out a sleeping bag, we’d all look at you like you’re a crazy person because you would be. Same thing – it isn’t the tent that’s the problem, it’s the timing. Firework shows, tents, and sleeping bags are all fine and good and right and enjoyable – in their proper time. Which leads me to this…

Right now, dear saints, God has given us the moments that are mentioned in Ecc. 3:4. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. And we’re going to be bouncing back and forth in those. With Jesus (Jn. 11:35), we weep because of the passing of our sister, Ros. We miss her. Rightly so. And as we weep, we share memories and laugh and mourn and weep again. And in the midst of that, we can dance because we know that she is with Jesus and we will see her again.

All of that leads me to the other part of v. 11. Hear it again, “[God] has put eternity into man’s heart.” This phrase is difficult to understand, but try this: We humans have a capacity that other creatures don’t have. 1) We can remember the past, and 2) we can anticipate the future. But those abilities can be dangerous if we use them for the wrong reasons. God allows us to remember the past so we can give thanks to Him for it. And God allows us to anticipate the future so we can have hope for what lies ahead.

Even though you can’t hold on to a moment. It’s here one second and gone the next. But God has given you memory. What the Holy Spirit wants you to do with that gift of memory is to use it to thank God for what He has done and given. Even though you can’t reach into the future and force those moments to come sooner, God has given you the capacity to anticipate the future. And the Holy Spirit wants you to use that gift so you can have hope, which is a good thing.

In other words, you can remember the past and be thankful. You can anticipate the future so you can have hope. But Ecclesiastes is clear. You can’t have joy either in the past or in the future. Joy is only given in each present moment, and God makes those moments beautiful in their times.

So, dear saints, receive the beauty and joy in every moment God gives you. When you have past joys, thank God for that gift, but don’t try to go back because you can’t, and you’ll miss the beautiful moment now. Don’t try to pull the future into the present. Don’t do that first, because you can’t. But also, don’t do it because that moment hasn’t ripened yet. Leave the future in God’s good and generous hands so He can deliver those gifts to you in the right, beautiful time.

Finally, dear saints, let the beauty and the joy that God gives in each moment give you a hunger and a hope for the eternal joy that God has promised to give you. What a joy that will be. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Life’s Sacred Rhythm – Sermon on Ecclesiastes 2:18-26 for Midweek Lent 2

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 127:1-2, 104:24-25, 29-30; Ecclesiastes 2:18-26; 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12; and Matthew 11:25-30.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

How you talk matters. The words you use shape how you and others think. You can call a house “small” or “cozy. Someone who has lived several more decades than you might be “over the hill” or have “a lot of life experience.”

Think about the words you use for eating. You eat many different things of many different qualities for many different reasons, and the language you use reflects that. You might “have a snack” of carrots and hummus. You might “treat yourself” to a candy bar or a bowl of ice cream. You might “pig out” and eat an entire bag of chips. All of that language refers to eating. But the purpose or result of eating is always the same. Eating gives your body calories and fuel to function.

At Thanksgiving, Christmas, or when grandma makes her pot roast for your extended family, it’s “a feast.” Everything tastes wonderful, there’s more than enough for everyone, and it is great to be at a table with people you love. Now, is the food you eat at that feast going to give your body the energy and fuel that it needs to function? Yes, of course. Again that’s the purpose of eating. But when you thank grandma for all of her work preparing that meal, are you going to use words and phrases only reflect that? “Grandmother, you have given my body the calories I need to live”? Of course not! You’ll say, “Grandma, what a tremendous, tasty feast!”

Tonight’s verses from Ecclesiastes focus on our work. How we talk about work matters. You might talk about your “job” or your “work.” Both of those terms can be fairly neutral. But you might also use the word “job’ in a negative sense. “This is my job, but I don’t want it to be my career” because that shows a lot more commitment. You might refer to your work as “the daily grind” or “my 9-5.” Those types of phrases make your work sound like toil.

One of the Hebrew words for ‘work’ (there are several of them) comes up ten times in the text. And, to it’s credit, our translation is quite consistent in how that word is translated – 9 of the 10 times that word occurs, it’s translated as ‘toil’ and one time (in v. 20) it translates it as ‘labor.’ But do the words ‘toil’ and ‘labor’ have a good or a bad connotation in your mind? Probably bad. The word ‘toil’ probably puts an image of a witch stirring pot of glowing green stuff over a fire, “Double, double, toil and trouble.” And ‘labor’ might make you think about being sentenced to decades of difficult life in Siberia. But the Hebrew word simply refers to putting effort into something. Exerting effort isn’t a bad thing. All sorts of things we enjoy require effort.

Maybe some of you went outside close to 2:00 AM this past Friday to see the ‘blood moon’ eclipse. That required effort, both to get out of bed at that time (or to stay up that late) and then to push through the next day. Baking, gardening, knitting, reading a good book, playing an instrument, camping, jogging, cheering your favorite sports team – all of those things require degrees of effort. Everything you do requires effort – even sleep.

With that simpler meaning of the word that gets translated as ‘toil,’ I want you to follow along as I slightly rephrase v. 21, “Sometimes, a person puts in effort that requires wisdom and knowledge and skill, [but] must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not put in any effort for it. This is breath [vanity] and a great evil.”

Sticking with food analogies: imagine that you’ve spent hours of effort making a brisket, prime rib, or turkey. It’s cooked and is just resting on the kitchen counter before you serve it so you don’t lose all the juices. But you leave the kitchen for a minute only to come back and find that Fido has devoured the whole thing. This is, indeed, a great evil. All your effort and toil has become like a breath that’s instantly vanished.

Are there times when your work and effort is wasted and done in vain? Sure, of course. But that isn’t always the case. It doesn’t mean that all your work and all your effort is vain, meaningless, and evil toil. Not at all! Look again at v. 24-25. These are the verses we’ll focus on for the rest of the sermon because, in them, Solomon gives us one of the ingredients for a life that is filled with God-given joy. “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the effort he expends. I saw that this [joy] is from the hand of God, for apart from God, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”

This is so beautiful and comforting. Under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Solomon wisely tells us how to find joy in life. Joy comes from eating and drinking and finding enjoyment in your effort. This is God’s design. It is the holy, sacred rhythm of your life. God gives you moments when you need to work, sweat, and strive with all your strength. Then, God gives moments when you live quietly. The point Solomon is making here is there is joy in both (1 Thes. 4:11). 

Notice especially that Solomon says that joy comes in your effort. This is so simple, but it’s the opposite of how we often think. We think that we work and work and work to get a paycheck. Then, we take that paycheck and use it to buy things that we think we will enjoy. In that perspective, we enjoy the things that come from the work we did, but not the work itself. What that does is it makes our work a sort of punishment, a penance or purgatory, that we have to endure to eventually, maybe, get enjoyment. Our typical mindset that we work to get something from our work that we hope will bring us happiness. But it doesn’t bring happiness.

Through all of ch. 2 prior to this text, Solomon talked about all the wealth and stuff he accumulated in an attempt to find joy. He had more than we can even imagine, but Solomon says that those things didn’t bring him joy or satisfaction. Solomon even tried saving for the future, but it didn’t bring joy because you can’t enjoy the future. The future isn’t here. You can only enjoy today, this present moment.

Solomon’s correction for us, and the wisdom he gives us is that we are not to work so we can get joy from our effort; instead, find enjoyment in our effort. That’s a big difference. God gives us work to do, and He wants us to find enjoyment in the work – not from it, but in it. A more literal translation from the Hebrew of v. 24 goes like this, “eat and drink and see in your soul the good in your effort.” In other words, open your eyes and see the good in all the things where you spend your effort and work because that work is given to you by God’s own hand.

I remember being in school and thinking about all sorts of subjects, “What’s the point of all this? When will I ever use this information?” Do you see how that orients things? It assumes there can only be a benefit in the future, which, again, isn’t ours to control.

Christian, is it true that God is in control and directs all things? Yes, “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Act. 17:28). And is God good? Yes. So, if God has put you in a classroom where the teacher wants you to be able to locate Djibouti on a map, calculate the volume of a sphere, diagram a sentence, or identify the parts of a flower – your loving, heavenly Father has given you that task from His good hand. The effort you spend on that task is good. Your opinion of the importance of any task is irrelevant. God is the One who put that task in front of you. And because He is good, that task and the effort you spend on it is good. This is true for all your efforts. It includes your job, the ways you serve your parents and family, the ways you volunteer, your prayers, etc. Seeing your tasks, whatever they are, is a gift from God’s hand, and recognizing that will give you joy.

And God doesn’t only give you work and tasks. He also blesses you with the leisure of eating and drinking. This is how God has ordered and established the rhythm of creation. The God-given rhythm of your life is work and eat and drink, you can think of this as having time to enjoy the gifts God gives you. Have a little leisure and enjoy God’s gifts. Get a bit of sleep. And wake up again and go, enjoy your work. Again, this might sound simple or even naive, but this is what the Bible gives us to find joy in. This is all a gift of God.

Finally, dear saints, notice who receives this wisdom and knowledge and joy. Your told who in v. 26. This joy is given to the one who pleases God.

And you are pleasing to God because Christ has removed all of your guilt. In Jesus, God absolves your sins by His death and resurrection. Jesus is your Savior so you can have joy in your work and in your leisure. This is the kind of rest Jesus talked about in our Gospel reading. Christ places His easy yoke and light burden upon you. In Him, and in Him alone, you find rest and joy for your soul (Mt. 11:28-30). Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

What You Can & Can’t Fix – Sermon on Ecclesiastes 1:1-18 for Midweek Lent 1

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 37:1-9; Ecclesiastes 1:1-18; Romans 12:1-3; and Luke 12:22-32.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

In a world that is broken by and full of sin, everyone wants to have joy, meaning, and fulfillment. Now, you can find all sorts of books, podcasts, and 90 second reels on social media that will offer advice on how to find all of that. Some of them are good, some are fine, and some will lead you in the wrong direction – a completely wrong direction.

The Bible is full of God-inspired wisdom so you can have joy, meaning, and fulfillment, and the book of Ecclesiastes is especially loaded with all of that. But the wisdom of Ecclesiastes is given in a somewhat twisted way. And I say ‘twisted’ because, when you read Ecclesiastes (which I highly recommend that you do), you’ll likely see the book as pessimistic, a book filled with gloom, despair, and meaninglessness. Part of the reason Ecclesiastes is so pessimistic is that the majority of the book tells you all the ways you won’t find joy.

Let me try this as an analogy: Have you ever come across a link that claims to have the secret for the juiciest hamburger ever? When you tap on it, you quickly realize that the recipe is buried way down at the bottom and is almost the last thing you’ll find. You have to flick your thumb half a dozen times and tap the little ‘x’ on several ads do you get to the end of the page to finally find the ingredients you need and the steps to follow. Those online recipes are frustrating because they’re filled with all sorts of nostalgic stories and anecdotes that have nothing to do with cooking whatever you actually want to make. Online recipes make me yearn for the good ol’ days of 3×5 index cards with grandma’s nearly illegible, faded handwriting in pencil.

In a lot of ways, Ecclesiastes is similar to those online recipes. The book is Solomon’s recipe for joy, but he also tells you about all the futile ways he tried to find joy but never achieved or attained it. You can think of Ecclesiastes as an online hamburger recipe that begins by going on and on about all sorts of ways to not make a hamburger. If Ecclesiastes were a hamburger recipe, it would be paragraph after paragraph of Solomon saying, “Don’t mix rocks or dirt or pavement into your meat.” Eventually, Solomon gives you a couple ingredients for a life of joy. And then, he goes on with long sections about not storing the meat on the counter at room temperature for days and days, then give you a couple more ingredients.

But don’t get impatient and skip over those long portions that tell you the ways you won’t find joy. Even in all the negative sections, you’ll find important, Holy Spirit-inspired wisdom. So, don’t skip, unless of course, you want to waste your time, waste your effort, and have no joy. Tonight, we’re going to spend some time in Ecc. 1, which is one of those sections.

One more important thing before we dive in: I’ve already mentioned this, but Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon and likely near the end of his life. The reason that is important is this: other than Jesus Himself, Solomon was the wisest person to ever walk this creation. He had a God-given wisdom (1 Kgs. 3:5-14) that even Jesus recognized and praised (Lk. 11:31). And since Solomon was divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit to write Ecclesiastes, the wisdom he gives us here, and in other portions of Scripture, should be even more precious.

Ok, to the text. Solomon begins by lamenting, “Vanity of vanities; vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” Immediately, you can tell that this is one of those negative sections.

That Hebrew word that gets translated as ‘vanity’ is used 72 times in the entire Old Testament, and 37 of those uses are in Ecclesiastes. Because it’s used so often, it’s important to get a good handle on what the word means because when we normally hear the word ‘vanity’ we think of a piece of furniture where a woman puts on make-up, or it’s used in a song that you probably think is about you. 

The word simply means ‘breath’ or ‘vapor.’ It refers to something that is fleeting. Think of a cold morning (probably this morning) where you step outside, exhale, and see your breath. It’s there but only for a moment. Then, it’s gone. Just because that breath is gone doesn’t mean that it’s not real or doesn’t exist. It certainly is real, but it’s insubstantial. Solomon will also use a phrase that’s related to this word; he’ll talk about ‘chasing after the wind.’ Many things in this life are, as wise Solomon recognizes are a ‘breath,’ a ‘vapor,’ and a ‘chasing after the wind.’

In other words, most of life is filled with things that you can’t control. You can’t grab or hold on to it. Generally, you can’t put parts of your life in your pocket and deal with them when you decide. It’s here one moment and gone the next. Simply recognizing that most of life is like a breeze that you can’t control helps you orient your life in a wise, godly way.

Look again at Ecc. 1:12-17 because, there, Solomon makes a wise application in light of everything in life being fleeting. That wisdom is simply this: You can’t fix things in this world that God hasn’t given you to fix.

In those verses, Solomon says three things. 1) Solomon was the king, and probably the most powerful king in the entire world. 2) He gave his attention to wisdom and knowledge. In other words, he wasn’t a politician who was trying to govern for his own benefit. And 3) he couldn’t fix things. There were problems that Solomon wanted to fix and tried to fix. But he was unsuccessful. He comes to the conclusion, “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted” (Ecc. 1:15). This world is crooked and bent. This world is lacking so many things that you can’t even calculate everything that is missing. We live in a sinful, broken world, and not even Solomon could fix it.

Imagine we had an election and unanimously chose the perfect person to be the president. Everyone loved this new president and decided to give him ten consecutive terms. He has plenty of time to fix all the problems of our country. Here, Solomon is saying, “That’s me! I had all the resources, all the authority, all the wisdom, and forty years of ruling over my kingdom. But I couldn’t fix our problems.”

I know that sounds depressing and fatalistic, but it isn’t. Well, it shouldn’t be. Instead, this is a God-inspired key to finding and having joy in a broken world. You can’t fix the world or our culture. You can’t do that because you can’t fix sin. Whether it’s our culture’s morality and violence, whether it’s our nation’s broken view of marriage and life, whether it’s the economy, racism, etc. You can’t fix it. You can’t solve it.

Before I go on, I need to be clear. Yes, you are assigned all sorts of important vocations, and God uses you and your work to do important things. There are things that God has put under your care. But those things are minuscule to all the things in this world. So, be faithful in all the callings God gives you. Be a good spouse, parent, grandparent, child, friend, employee, coworker, etc. Do all the things, all the tasks, all the duties you have in those areas. But, at the same time remember that there are things you can’t fix because you aren’t God. You were created in God’s image and created to have dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:28-30), but you and I gave up that dominion by  way of our sin. So, God has relieved us of that dominion. And this is good news.

Fixing what is broken is not what God has called you to do. God has not called you to the office of being the world-fixer or the sin-minimizer. Instead, God has given to His own, dear Son the office of being the Savior of the world. And as the Savior, Jesus has and will fix the world’s problems, by His death and resurrection. But you cannot.

In tonight’s Gospel reading (Lk. 12:22-32) Jesus says the same thing as Solomon does here, but in a different way. What Solomon says in a ‘negative’ way, Jesus says in a ‘positive’ way. What I mean by ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ is this. If I’ve just pulled out a fresh batch of cookies out of the oven and I want my kids to enjoy them, I could tell them to have a cookie in a positive way, “Cookies are done! They’re warm and fresh. Come enjoy them.” Or I could tell them to have a cookie in a negative way, “Don’t let your cookie get cold.”

Solomon, in a ‘negative’ way, says, “You can’t fix things.” Jesus in a ‘positive’ says the same thing, and I’ll paraphrase: “Your heavenly Father already knows what you need. So, seek His kingdom, and everything you need in this fleeting, breezy life will be given to you. And know that it is your heavenly Father’s good pleasure, He is absolutely delighted, to give you the kingdom.” Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Christ’s Obedience – Sermon on Romans 5:19 for Midweek Lent 1

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 16; Isaiah 50:5-10; and John 6:35-40.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Tonight, as we begin this series contemplating Christ’s suffering, we need to have a couple of things straight in our minds.

First, to contemplate Jesus’ suffering isn’t just about knowing facts, events, and details about Jesus’ Passion. For example, there are books and articles you can read about the horrors of what crucifixion does to a person. Doctors can tell you about what happens to the body and the pain that those who are crucified experience. There can be a benefit to those sorts of things because it can add shed light on certain Biblical texts like Psalm 22 which talks about being “poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint, … my tongue sticks to my jaws, … I can count all my bones,” etc. So, to be clear, the point of this series is not just to see how great Jesus’ suffering was or how much He suffered as He gave His life on the cross. Instead, the point of this series is to see that Christ’s suffering is for you and for your salvation.

The second thing we need to have straight is this: Tonight’s sermon is titled “Christ’s Obedience.” Obeying God does not cause Jesus to suffer. Not in the least! 1 Jn. 5:3 makes it clear that God’s Commandments, along with keeping and obeying them, are not burdensome. Yes, because we are sinners, we think God’s Commands restrict us. We don’t always want to do what the Commandments require of us and think they cause us suffering, but that’s not the fault of the Commandments.

The Commandments are simply how creation works. People who have never heard the Commandments know that murder, stealing, and lying is wrong (Ro. 2:14). All of the Ten Commandments are written into the fabric of creation just like the laws of physics. Think back to right after Christmas when we had a couple inches of ice on everything. You knew that you needed to be careful moving around because there wasn’t the normal amount of friction between your foot or tire and where you were stepping or driving. And if you didn’t compensate for how slippery everything was, the laws of physics meant that things could go wrong very quickly. The same is true for the Commandments. Whether a person recognizes them as God’s Commands or not, life goes so much better if the Commands are kept and observed because they keep us in line with how creation works.

Jesus perfectly kept God’s Commands and was completely obedient to them, and it was His delight to do so (Ps. 1:2, 119:113). Don’t get the sense that Jesus was groaning and complaining because He had to obey. Now, His obedience did bring Him to suffering because He was the Savior of us disobedient sinners. But Scripture is clear that Jesus wanted to be on the cross to save and rescue you.

Luther draws on this in his great hymn “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice,” in two of the verses. “God said to His beloved Son: ‘It’s time to have compassion. Then go, bright jewel of My crown, and bring to all salvation. From sin and sorrow set them free; slay bitter death for them that they may live with You forever.’ The Son obeyed His Father’s will, was born of virgin mother; and God’s good pleasure to fulfill, He came to be my Brother. His royal pow’r disguised He bore; a servant’s form, like mine, He wore to lead the devil captive.”

In other words, it was Jesus’ obedience to God’s will and His desire to He deliver you from sin, sorrow, and death that led Him to suffering. But obeying God’s will wasn’t what caused Jesus to suffer. I know that is a little nuanced, but I hope you get the picture.

So, tonight what I want to highlight is that Jesus’ obedience to God’s will is what makes His suffering even more profound and precious because, again, He willingly does it for you. Php. 2:5-8 gives us some insight into this: Even though Jesus is the eternal Son of God, He, “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Our Gospel reading (Jn. 6:35-40) sheds light on this. Jesus came and was born to do God’s will. Christ obeyed His Father’s will which was to be your Savior. Your heavenly Father’s will was that Jesus would win you for His own and raise you up on the last day. God’s will is that everyone who beholds Jesus and believes in Him would have eternal life. Doing all of this was Jesus being obedient to His Father’s will, and it was His delight. It was for the joy that was set before Jesus that He endured the cross despising its shame (Heb. 12:2).

So, when you think of Jesus’ obedience, remember that includes everything He suffered. And recognize that it was all for you. So, what did Jesus suffer, and how is it a benefit to you?

Jesus was born in a stable (Lk. 2:7) so you could be reborn as a child of the King of creation (Jn. 1:12-13).

Jesus was raised in the home of a poor carpenter (Lk. 2:40, 52) so you could have eternal riches (Eph. 1:18).

Jesus got tired (Jn. 4:6) so your soul could be refreshed and restored (Ps. 23:3, 5).

Jesus had no place to lay His head (Mt. 8:20) so you could live in a mansion that He has prepared for you (Jn. 14:2-3).

Jesus was arrested (Jn 18:12) so that you would not be eternally captive to the devil (2 Th. 2:26).

Jesus was bound (Jn. 18:12) to release you from the chains of sin (Mt. 18:18).

Jesus was forsaken by all His closest friends (Mt. 26:56) so you could be reconciled with God (2 Co. 5:18).

Jesus was falsely accused (Mt. 28:59-60) so that the Law could not accuse you before God (Ro. 8:1, 33).

Jesus was sentenced to death (Mt. 27:15-26) to release you from eternal death (Jn. 5:24).

Jesus carried His cross (Jn. 19:17) so you would not have to bear the burden of your sins for all eternity (Heb. 12:1).

Jesus was nailed to the cross (Jn. 19:18) so your sins could be cancelled (Col. 2:14).

Jesus was stripped (Jn. 19:23) so He could clothe you in His righteousness (Gal. 3:27).

And Jesus was forsaken by God (Mk. 15:34) so you would not be rejected by God (Ro. 5:10).

Dear saints, Romans 5:19 says, “As by [Adam’s] disobedience the many were made sinners, so by [Jesus’] obedience the many will be made righteous.” That is what Christ has done for you. His obedience, even through suffering, has made you righteous now and forever. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.