These Thy Gifts

The Newsletter Thoughts of Pastor Fish

Vol. 10   No. 2

What are you all about?

Jack LaLanne died on January 23, 2011.  He was ninety-six.  The article announcing his death described his eighty year obsession with physical fitness.  I remember seeing Jack on television when I was a grade-school-er.   He was all about exercise, even before it was cool.  He celebrated his sixtieth birthday by swimming from  Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco — handcuffed, shackled and towing a boat.  The last couple decades of his life, he sold power juicers and promoted the health benefits of fresh fruit and vegetable juices.  He was quite a remarkable figure.

I never knew anything about Jack LaLanne's spiritual life or religion.  He never addressed the topic publicly, that I am aware of, and the article about his life said nothing about it.  His life-long advocacy of fitness apparently won him a relatively long life on this earth.  He got what he paid for.  But now that is all over.  It is suddenly as if he never existed, or lived only a short time.  If he had a secret spiritual faith-life, it is not public knowledge, but he is with his Maker.  If he did not have such a secret life of faith, all of his life is gone, it is like a dream from which he has now awakened, and he faces the greater realities of eternity with the one who was, in truth, his lord.  I cannot judge the man, and have no desire to do so.  That is God's job, and He does it reliably, justly, and for every man and woman.  I am just mentioning Mr. LaLanne as an illustration.

He had a long life, and he seemed to be a decent human being, outwardly and in a social sense.  He had all that one could reasonably expect or hope for out of this world, but in an instant, it was all over.  If his public witness as I have seen it is an accurate representation of the man's spiritual condition, he is lost for all eternity, and the ninety-six years of his life were but a brief whisper, and now he faces eternal darkness and misery without end.  His legacy is exercise equipment, power-juicers, and a commitment to being in shape for as long as this life endures.  He stands as the symbol of a brief life of good health and physical well-being leading to an eternity of shame and sorrow.  The thought is truly sad.

It raises the question for each of us, though, "What are you all about?".  If you are reading this on paper, the chances are good that you are known to me as a Christian, but how would your notice to the public read?  What would you be remembered for by the people around you who observe your life, or parts of it?

More to the point, I suspect, is what would you want to be remembered for?

It is okay to hope to be remembered for the work you do, the things you create, or the passions in your life.  It would be strange if you did not want to be remembered for the things you spent your life working at, even if they were not of earth-shaking significance.  I would just hope that while someone is remembering you, your faith in Jesus Christ and the importance of eternal salvation in your life was also something that someone would remember and point to as one of the things that impressed them about you.  Such a hope sort of echoes the idea Jesus expressed when He said, "And I say to you, everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man shall confess him also before the angels of God; but he who denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God."

I choose to write about this as I approach the famous February 3rd surgery. I have no idea how it's going to turn out, although I anticipate a good result. Nonetheless, it would be foolish of me not to prepare for any result that might come, and this might be the last newsletter article I ever write. What I want to be known for is being the faithful pastor, a faithful confessor, a faithful Christian, And a good example of how to do the Christian life.  

I have, throughout my ministry, been accused of showing off, presenting myself as the perfect Christian, and trying to make myself look better than I really am. My goal, assigned to me by my call, is to set the example of a Christian life and a Christian faith. I confess that I am not perfect. I fall far short of that mark. I am not trying to put on a show, but what you see is what you get. If you think that I'm trying to be perfect, thank God. You have not seen all of my faults which lay before you. Should I be able to come back as pastor to this congregation, I hope to continue to try to show you how to do it, how to be a Christian in this world of pain and suffering and challenges. If the results of the surgery deprive me of office, I want you to remember me as a pastor, a Christian, one who tried hard to do it right and failed as all of us sinners do, but finding my comfort in the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

In the wisdom of God, it was made clear that there is nothing any man or woman can do to save themselves.  We are, by nature, spiritually blind, dead, and enemies of God.  We cannot sense our need, and if we were by some means able to sense it, we are unable to do anything to answer our need.  According to Scriptures, even if we were finally able to summon the ability to do something about our need at the extreme of life as we know it in this world, we would not, because we are, finally, hostile to God and enemies, even against our own self-interest.  God knew this and so He took matters into His own hands.  He saved us.  That is what the Bible says, in Titus 3:5, "Not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit."

Because of human nature in sin, God knows that He cannot depend on us to choose life and decide we will believe or follow Him.  He has placed the power of conversion and believing into His Word, which He causes to be proclaimed from countless pulpits and by numerous servants of His throughout the world, so that all men can hear the good news and believe it and be saved.  He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.

The second half of that verse, as you probably know, is "but he that does not believe shall be condemned."   That is why the question is so urgent for each one of us, "What are you all about?".

Yours in the Lord,

Pastor Fish

Totally Other

 Romans 12:16-21

Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.  Do not be wise in your own estimation.  Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.  Respect what is right in the sight of all men.  If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.  Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.  "BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS UPON HIS HEAD."  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany                                01/26/25

Totally Other

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Many people think that Christians are supposed to be better than others.  We are supposed to behave better, be more caring, understand more.  The difference is a difference in degree.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Christians are claimed by God when they are just as bad as anyone else.  God does not make us His own because we are better, or to make us better, but to save us.  God's aim in creating the Church was not to improve the world, but to rescue us out of it.  As His children, we are not expected to be better – God expects us to be totally other – totally different than the world.  That "otherness" is illustrated for us in our Epistle lesson, and so I invite you to look at the Epistle for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, with me, and consider how God expects His children to be – in the words of the sermon title, Totally Other.

There is nothing natural about being a Christian.  We do not have the power or ability naturally to become a Christian.  We cannot decide to be one, and we cannot keep ourselves in the faith once we are.  We depend on God.  Now the truth is that we human beings depend on God every day.  We count on Him to keep the air breathable, and we daily expect food and liveable weather.  And God is so good and so dependable that we can actually mislead ourselves into thinking that this is just how it is, that nature is this giant machine working on our behalf, that life just goes on this way and it is all natural.  God is consistent and consistently good and supporting and blessing us.  He is so consistent that most people have forgotten Him and cannot even see a need for Him.

But every day He is here, keeping the chemical reactions going that make life happen.  He is here protecting us from the thousand dangers that surround us.  He is here stopping the arrows of Satan that he shoots at us to destroy us.  He is opening doors of opportunity before us and blessing what we do so that we have success and satisfaction and joy in this world.  We depend on God, whether we acknowledge it, or even understand it, or not.  In matters of faith, however, God has so arranged things that we who believe cannot escape knowing that we depend on Him.  He tells us that we cannot choose faith – the best passage to make that point, in case you were wondering, is 1 Corinthians 2:14:  But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.  If we are to believe it depends on Him, Romans 9:16:  So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

God then tells us that His choices do not depend on us, but totally on Him and what He calls "Grace."  For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.  He even tells us in that verse that one of His reasons for doing things the way He does is that we know it is Him, and so not one of us boasts about ourselves in this regard.  That doesn't stop people from boasting, of course, it just stops those who believe and possess salvation (as His gift to them through faith) from boasting.  They know better.  They know they depend of God.

Depending on God is not natural, not since Adam and Eve fell into sin.  Their first sin was failure to trust God.  While we all people depend on God, not very many are conscious of it, or are willing to admit it, even to themselves.  Just Christians.  So when God tells us how He expects us to live, it isn't just different by degree – it is totally other.

I mean, if someone hits you, the natural response is to strike back.  That natural tendency surfaces in children – "I'm rubber, you're glue, everything bounces off of me and sticks on you!"  It sounds childish, because it is the way a powerless child tries to hit back verbally.  If I can't think fast enough to be clever, I can dump back on you!  Revenge.  It is the most natural impulse in the world.  So, God tells us never to pay back evil for evil, or take our own revenge, but to leave it in His hands.

Instead of evil for evil, we are to be good.  We are to love one another, and do good even to those who make themselves our enemies.  Isn't that just totally other?  Isn't that radically different from what ever seems to suggest itself to us?  Good is one thing, but this is something else.  With our fellow-believers, we are called on even to forget who we are in our own minds and associate with the lowly – the humble, with those we think are below us.  We are called on to make everyone else our equal in our own minds and thinking – or our better, essentially.  It is so unnatural.

Kind of like Jesus.  He is God.  He rules the world and created everything.  He could destroy us with a word, or choose to will it so and we would all behave like robots and do just anything He said.  But that isn't how He does things.  He gave us our freedom in the Garden of Eden, and when we got it wrong and chose death instead of life, He planned our salvation.  He didn't just wipe the slate clean, although He could have.  Who could correct God?  Who was watching that could upbraid Him?

But God didn't just pretend we didn't sin, or simply excuse our sins.  He kept His own counsel and followed His own sense of right and justice and worked out our salvation.  He planned to be both just and punish sin, and yet preserve us, who earned death and destruction by our sins, from the death and destruction we have earned.  To do that, He had to take our sins on Himself and suffer and die in our place so that the penalty was paid out for our sin, and yet we are preserved alive.  He associated with the lowly – US!  He became one of us, human in every respect, except sin.  He kept His own Law and earned what none of us has or could, everlasting life.  Then He exchanged what He had earned for what we have earned, and died on the cross in our place.

Then He rose from the grave.  The resurrection declared the completeness of our forgiveness and the sufficiency of the payment for our sins.  The resurrection demonstrated what is in store for us in Jesus Christ, and showed us clearly that God has the power to accomplish all that He has promised to do.  Then Jesus sent out His Apostles to declare this all to us and to hold out the free gift of resurrection, life and salvation.  It is a gift that is grasped and received by faith.  He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.  Our salvation is totally other – nothing one would calculate or expect – and human reason chafes against the free gift and the grace of God even today.  It just isn't the way we would have done it.

So God lays before us His own conduct as our example and invites us to be like Him, totally other.  This isn't a new thought.  It is the way it has been from the beginning.  You shall be holy, for I, the Lord Your God, am holy.  The only difference here is that St. Paul is describing what holy looks like.  It looks like humility – considering everyone else – at least every other Christian – to be our equal and worthy of our time and attention.  Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.  God did it for us, we can do it for each other.  It is often important that we do.

Then, we are to be like Jesus in forgiveness and compassion, showing love and goodness to those who never have any for us.  Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.  But even more than simply not paying back evil for evil, God wants us to be positively good toward those who are not good towards us – just as God was good toward us while we were yet enemies and hated Him.  "BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS UPON HIS HEAD."  

We don't do good to others just to cause them trouble, of course, but God says that our goodness in the face of their wickedness will work an even greater judgment on them, if they are not shamed by our holiness and brought to repent.  We never have to worry about them "getting away with" anything.  We don't need to seek revenge, but God will repay – Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.  There is no such thing as getting away with it.  Either you repent, and it is forgiven because Jesus has been punished in your place already, or you do not repent, and God exacts eternal retribution.  Which one finally happens is not our concern.  God alone is Judge.  WE have been rescued, forgiven, and set apart for eternal life, and that is our joy, and our motivation to be God's holy people in this way.

The rest of our Epistle lesson is simply good advice, divine instruction – the basic principles of living as God's child.  Do not be wise in your own estimation.  Never think you know better than God.  Simply follow His Word, and be faithful.  It works.    Respect what is right in the sight of all men.  We cannot be holy if we are not doing right.  Of course, God doesn't want us to accept their twisted ideas of what is right, as in abortion or euthanasia or homosexuality, but when something is generally and clearly seen as right, we should honor it.  That is why we would oppose those who kill abortion providers and bomb abortion clinics.  It is simply not right, even in the face of so great an evil as abortion.  Killing babies is wrong, but so is killing adults.  God will settle accounts, in the end.  We do not need to.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.  Peace with everyone is unrealistic.  Some people will hate you for being good, some will hate you for being faithful, many will hate you for being a Christian.  But that hatred is their problem.  As far as it depends on you, be at peace.  Don't look for trouble, and don't create it without a good cause.  Be at peace, peace with God because of forgiveness.  Peace with world events because God is with you.  Peace with sickness because God is with you.  Be at peace

Be humble.  God took on humility for you.  Be willing to go that extra mile.  God did.  He still does, in order to save us.

All of these rules are detailed instances of one overriding principle,   Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  And that principle is not just pie in the sky, or unrealistic – it is how God has dealt with us.  He forgives and He blesses.  He has rescued us from sin and death and given us the example that He invites us to emulate.  Don't just do what comes naturally, and don't just be different from the world around you by degree, but be totally other.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

The Purpose Behind Grace

 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God.  But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, "LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD."

Sermon for the Sunday after Epiphany                              1/12/25

 

The Purpose Behind Grace

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

In some ways Epiphany is a big thing - and in others, it is just another day, and really nothing special, except that we mark it as special.  We gather here for worship, so that we may thank God for the revelation of His grace and glory in Jesus Christ. So, really nothing other than what we do every Sunday. Epiphany also known as "Theophany" in the Eastern Churches and is a Christian feast day commemorating the visit of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the wedding at Cana.

In Western Christianity, the feast commemorates the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, and thus Jesus Christ's manifestation [or epiphany] to the Gentiles.  It is often referred to as "the Gentile Christmas."  Our text for our mediation today explains something that will be useful for those who seek to serve God - the purpose behind Grace.  And that is our theme.

Grace is one of those mysteries of God.  He tells us about it, but He doesn't explain it in great detail.  Why has God chosen me?  Why has God chosen You?  We cannot unravel that.  It is the nature of God's grace that He chooses us for His reasons, and not for any that we can identify.  He did not choose us for our rank in this world.  He did not choose us for our talents or our gifts.  They are all, in point of fact, gifts from Him.  Paul points this truth out in our opening verse of our text tonight, "there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble".  There was nothing in us that caused God to choose us in particular.  It was all in Him.  That is part of what we mean by "Grace".

In fact, God chose us because we are nothing special.  "but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised."  Far from deserving something, or being the best of humanity, we are the losers - sort of.  God chose us for what we are not.  We are not the great, the wise, the trusted, the clever ones, the ones with superior talents.  He chose us to be His own at least in part so that no one would boast before God.  The reason that we cannot name the cause of our being chosen is so that we must humbly recognize that our faith and our rank as His chosen people would clearly be on account of nothing special in us or about us.

God want us to know that He chose us, and not the other way around.  He wants us to be seen as incapable of accomplishing what God works through us, so that on some level, men would have to recognize that the Church is the work of God and not the result of the talents of those who make up its membership.  All of this was to nullify the pride of man, and teach us true humility.

Now that doesn't mean that there are no talented people in the church.  God gifts each of us with the talents we need to accomplish our part in His great work.  Some of us He gives wisdom.  Some of us He gives courage.  Some of us He gives worldly success – although you will note that they are few in number, and even they are generally not seen as the truly wise or courageous, or successful of this world.  In part, our lack of recognition is tied to the fact that we are part of something so un-appreciated and un-respectable as the Christian Church.  The other part is that God chose those as His own who have no identifiable reason to be chosen by God.

Haven't you ever heard the challenge, "Why should you be right and the rest of the world be wrong?"  Why should you know what is true when the wise men of the ages, and of different nations and religions, are all false?  The concept that there is an absolute truth has always challenged man's ego.  Each man always wants to think he has captured the truth, and that he is right.  Just listen to call-in shows on Radio or T.V. and you will hear that tone of expectation that others will finally see that they are right!  It is particularly hard for man today.  One of the foundational ideas of post-modern, post-Christian thought is that there is no absolute truth which is true for everyone.  The only heresy in our culture is to claim to have hold of that which is undeniably and universally true.

And why you?  And why me?  We aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.  We aren't the clearest thinkers.  We are not recognized as experts in truth or morality or how anything ought to be.  Why should our little congregation stand?  How dare we be so brazen and bold as to think we can be something – or do anything – when those who know everything clearly do not agree with us?

It is that sort of question which underlines the purpose of God's grace.  Of course, His purpose is our salvation, but He tells us that His purpose is also that we don't get a big head about being ‘the chosen ones', as ancient Israel did, and that no one will look at us and say, "Why, of course God chose them.  It's obvious that they would be the ones chosen."  No, the world will look at us and say, "If their God is true and wise, He would have chosen me - He would have chosen us!"

The problem of grace – "Why some and not others?" – has plagued both believer and unbeliever alike since the time of Christ.  Many false starts at answering the question have given rise to various denominations and theologies that seek to answer the question on the basis of something in us.  —  God chose us because we are good people.  God chose us because He saw that we were the ones that would ultimately believe.  Or, God didn't choose any of us, He opened the way for everyone and left the decision up to us - decision theology.  Or, God saves those who are wise enough to find Him, or decent enough to do good works.

But He chose me when I was two months and five days old.  He named me His child and claimed me for salvation at my baptism.  Many of you were also chosen as infants.  Some of you came to faith through God's holy Word later in life, but it was still by His choosing and His work in calling you by the Gospel and enlightening you with His gifts.

Don't tell me it was because I grew up in a Christian home.  I have brothers and sisters - and they all grew up in the same home, went to the same churches, were instructed by the same pastors as I was.  But they are not all believers.  Not every child I have trained to confirmation has kept their promise and stood steadfast in the faith and resisted all temptations to turn away, even to the point of dying for the faith.  Some didn't last the summer after their confirmation.  Some have turned away and become enemies of the faith.  No, I made it up to today, and you have come this far, by the grace of God and nothing more.

Paul writes, "But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption."  It is by His doing - so that it cannot be denied that it is by His doing, and NOT because of who we are, or what we are capable of, or what we have done to remain steadfast and faithful.

You did not die on the cross.  Nor would it have served anything but your demise to have done so.  You did not earn eternal life.  Jesus did.  He came, and He lived with utter purity so that even those of dubious worth, such as me, could be rescued from our sins, forgiven, "purchased and won from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil.  Not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death."

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast."  God chose you to save you, and He chose you to show the world that it was His grace and not your worth, or your effort, or your talent, so that men could see Him behind the scenes - so to speak.

He pulled you all together to be a congregation.  He called me from Missouri to be your pastor.  He brought you to this congregation at different times and through different methods, and by different routes.  He prepared some of us for this, and others He just invited in.  But it is His doing, as we are His people.

Now Jesus is our wisdom.  He makes sense to us, while the wise men of the world call our faith "myth" or "superstition" and our redemption - the Vicarious Atonement - "barbaric".  Jesus is our righteousness.  He took our sin.  He left us with His perfect righteousness as our own, so that we stand as "beloved," and "well-pleasing" before God in Him.  He is our sanctification.  We don't get better and better - leastwise so as you might notice.  We continue to sin, but Christ is working in us that which is pleasing to God and that which builds His church, just as Paul once wrote, "For me to live is Christ".  And, just as Paul says in our text, Jesus is our redemption.  He bought us back from sin and death at the price of His own suffering, and "His innocent suffering and death", as the Catechism says it.

So that when we boast of being Christian, and when we boast of being Lutheran, and when we take pride in being confessional and faithful, we can only praise God and boast of His goodness, grace, and love.  ". . . just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.'" His glory is saving us, those who don't deserve it, because of His goodness and grace.  His purpose in saving us, is particularly to make that glory - His grace - abundantly clear and evident - to us, and to the world around us.

So let us celebrate Epiphany with thanksgiving for His grace, and pray that God will continue to bless us and hold us in His grace and love.  Let us pray for His blessing on our congregation, that it may shine brightly with His grace, and let us live this coming year in such as way, as much as it depends on us, that we live deliberately and knowingly in His grace and fulfill the purpose behind grace! 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Do Not Be Surprised

 1 Peter 4:12-19

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation.  If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.  By no means let any of you suffer as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God.  For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?  Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Christmas                       1/05/25

Do Not Be Surprised

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Many people think that their religion ought to be insulated from the attacks of others.  That is part of the American dream.  We dreamed, as a nation, of the freedom of religion, where you could be any religion you wanted and practice any faith freely, and no one could or would do anything about it.  You are free!

That is a dream.  It has never been quite true.  Sadly, there are also many who would use precisely that freedom to destroy that freedom for others – such as those who practice Islam - although they are not unique in this regard.  The right to practice whatever religion you wish is a goal, but it is not one we are likely to actually achieve, because some people will use that liberty as a tool to attack others and to undermine our liberties.  Besides, the devil does not want us to practice our religion, freely or otherwise, and his agents, which is pretty much the whole world, will work to make sure that it cannot happen.  Jesus promised us that while He walked among us, so we should not be surprised.  And that is the theme of our sermon this morning: Do Not Be Surprised.

Jesus promised that if we faithfully followed Him, the world would hate us and we would be persecuted.  World history has demonstrated the accuracy of that prophecy.  Christians in every age, and in every corner of the world have been hated and persecuted, even to the point of their deaths, for their faith. Even here, in America, it is considered narrow-minded and rude, not to mention hopelessly backward, to stand firmly on one's faith and not go along with the socially approved ecumenical spirit of our times.  Anything may be Christian, in the opinion of our culture, and anything is okay, except, of course, standing firm on the faith once delivered to the saints, and refusing to recognize the validity and worth of the random thoughts of others on the topic of religion.  If you stand firm in the true Christian faith you are ridiculed, mocked, verbally assaulted now and again, and sometimes physically assaulted even here in the United States.  In other places in the world, people are dying for simply calling themselves "Christian".  One may assume, with an anti-Christian progressivism dominating our culture, that things will only get worse for those who faithfully confess Christ.

Peter says, do not be surprised!  He was talking about "the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing."  That was the persecution of the earliest Christians.  They, too, had thought that if they were God's chosen and favorites, that life ought to be good, and the pains and troubles of life ought to flee from them, and blessings should be the order of the day.  That is how the human mind works – patronage and favoritism and that sort of thing, which we see so commonly in politics.  After all, what good is position and favor if it doesn't work out to feather your bed, so to speak?

Well, things didn't work out the way they thought that they should.  They had persecution, and poverty, and pains.  They could not make sense of it, just like you cannot make sense of some of the things that happen in your life.  Peter was reminding them that being the child of God in the devil's kingdom was not going to be easy, or fun, necessarily.

Our nation has a different way of persecuting the truth, and the faithful of God.  We don't face physical violence so much as we face ridicule and disapproval and dismissal, and the sort of attack that says you should not be so narrow-minded and you should not hold yourself and your religion up as something special.  We face the disdain of others, and the dismissal of our values and our confidence and our truths.  Everyone knows that you cannot be right and all those others wrong.  Everyone knows that to hold too tightly to your truths and your values is radical, and fundamentalistic, and terroristic and, well, just wrong!  Our culture is prepared to embrace a deliberate and, well, a publicly identified lie as true, but if you stand on your religion as true and theirs as in error, well, that is judgmental and discriminatory and unacceptable - and can be legally actionable.

Our persecution is peer pressure, to which we are all trained to be sensitive.  And we all hate pain.  So, we just naturally tend to bend away from suffering.  I know that I do!  But when it comes to suffering on account of your faith, you should not be surprised.  You should rather expect it.

That doesn't mean that you will enjoy it.  You won't.  Pain hurts.  Ridicule is difficult to bear.  The unexpected attack for nothing in particular that seems worthy of attack is hard to handle.  But when it happens, we are to learn to say, "Ahhh!  Here it is.  I knew this was going to happen at some point."

There are things you can do, of course, to make people attack you.  Doing bad things, for example.  That is why Peter writes, "By no means let any of you suffer as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God."  Christians are not always above crimes, or bad behavior.  They should be, but they are not.  There is no glory and no benefit in suffering that you bring on yourself by evil conduct or stupidity.  But if you are hated, spoken evil of, attacked, or dealt with poorly on account of being a Christian or making a faithful and clear confession, there is no shame in that, only glory - and you should give the glory to God!

There were times in the history of the church where people deliberately sought out pain and trouble, believing it was a mark of blessing and a good thing to be a Christian who suffers.  The monks in the monasteries would deny themselves food, beat themselves, torture themselves, believing it was a holy thing to do.  That was wrong.  It is not a good thing to suffer.  Suffering is only a good thing if the suffering is occasioned by your clear and faithful identification with Christ and with the Gospel.  Early in the history of the church, some believers would attack Roman Soldiers in order to be martyred.  They were thinking that suffering and death as a Christian was blessed - without any notice of its cause.  Peter says, don't let it happen to you on account of your bad behavior.  It is only filled with glory if it comes as an attack on Christ in you.

And it will, if you stand firm in your faith, and confess Christ.  Family members will tell you to get off your high horse.  Friends will tell you to keep your religion to yourself - and will distance themselves from you if you don't.  Employers may tell you that your faith - and it symbols - are not welcome around the work-place.  People will find things to criticize and nit-pick on you because you are supposed to be something special, they say, better, without any flaws, real or imagined.  It may be that bigger things will happen among us as persecution in time – we cannot tell.  One thing we do know, our faith is not welcome out in the world, and not really even among many others who style themselves as "Christian."

But when this sort of thing happens, even though it hurts and irritates, count yourself blessed.  First, it means that someone can see that you are really a Christian.  That is a good thing.

Second, imagine how it will be for those who do not believe, when they face the wrath of God, if being a faithful child of God, and one of His favorite people, can be so irritating and painful here and now.  Peter wrote: "For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?" Imagine how disquieting and uncomfortable it will be to have never stood up for Christ, and have never confessed Him.  If this suffering in this present age is part of heaven, what must the agony of hell really be?

"Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right."  The answer in any suffering is prayer, and entrusting yourself to God.  He has promised to keep you and not permit you to have to endure more than you are able.  So you do what is right.  You do what God lays before you to do. If it brings pain or persecution, what of it?

How can you do that?  By remembering what Jesus did and endured for you.  You do it by keeping the love of God for you before your eyes.  You do it by constant prayer, faithful attention to His Word, regular participation in the fellowship of the saints, by eating and drinking of this holy meal, set before you for your forgiveness and strengthening.

Jesus died for you, and your sins have been forgiven.  We remember as life becomes difficult, particularly when it becomes difficult on account of your faith, that God loves you, and nothing is for nothing.  God will bless you for your troubles, and He will return the pain and difficulty given to you upon the heads of those who cause such trouble.  They may not be able to connect the dots right away, but their troubles are part and parcel of the troubles they cause the children of God, and if we suffer as God's elect now, what will it be for them on that great and terrible day?

So, let us be clear.  When your faith and your confession brings ridicule or any other pain on you from the world around you, do not be surprised.  It is likely to happen, and Jesus predicted it.  Don't do anything to bring it on yourself.  It will find you of its own accord.  Remember that this is part of the plan of God, and remember that they will ultimately bear the fruits of their evil, unless they repent.  Remembering the pain of ridicule and persecution, we should be eager to spare our attackers the pains they are bringing on themselves by bringing them the good news of Christ and forgiveness.  And finally, when trouble and pain does come, pray, and entrust your soul to God, and just keep on doing what you know you should, what God has given you to do.  He will tell you when it is time to stop.

And do not be surprised – it is to be expected when you are God's child living in the devil's kingdom.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)