You Shall Surely Die

Genesis 2:7-17

Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. And the LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. And the name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die."

Sermon for Seventh Sunday after Trinity 7/26/20

You Shall Surely Die

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

A little child asks "Why?" They are new to the world and most things are curious to them – they want to know why. Why is the sky blue? Why does Grandpa have hair growing out of his ears? Why is Mommy crying so much, Grandma has gone to live with Jesus? Why is sauerkraut so sour? And when you answer a child's question, you usually get another "Why?" in response – wanting to know why what you have just said in response to their first question is so.

Adam doesn't ask the question in our text. God places Adam in the Garden of Eden, and He tells Adam that if he eats of a specific tree, he will die. To his credit, Adam did not ask the question. We want to look at it this morning, however. Our theme is "You Shall Surely Die."

Our Old Testament lesson this morning is the account of the creation of Adam. This is before Eve comes on the scene. This includes the story of the planting of the Garden of Eden and the command concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The part about the planting of the Garden is historical information, but it does us no good. We cannot find the Garden. We cannot find it, because it isn't there any longer. The geographical data is from before the flood of Noah when there was just one continent.

How do I know? The description of the placement of the Garden tells me. The river that flows out of the garden splits into four rivers which flow to or around various lands – and the lands named are no longer all on the same continent. I don't know for sure where Havilah is, but the river once known as Pishon which our text says flows around it is today called the Ganges – the river in India. The Gihon flows around Cush, which is modern-day Ethiopia, which means that the Gihon would be the Nile, and the Nile does not flow around Ethiopia. The Tigris and the Euphrates are also known rivers today, except that the Tigris in Eden flows to the east of Assyria, and the Tigris we know today flows on the west side of Assyria. In short, these rivers, which all have their origin in Eden, identify rivers and places on three continents today, and they do not all share a common source today, as they did in the times of Eden, when the Bible tells us there was only one continent and only one sea. It would appear that the flood of Noah changed the earth's geography significantly, and scrubbed the Garden of Eden clean off the face of the globe.

So the part of this account that tells us something we can use today is the part which describes Adam's unique creation, and sets before Adam the command of God, coupled with the warning that on the day that he would eat of the forbidden tree, he would surely die.

God created Adam in a unique way. All other creations were simply "spoken" into existence. God planned them with almost unimaginable wisdom, intelligence, and complexity, and yet when they were created, the creation is spoken of as merely "saying" "let there be . . .", and they sprang into existence according to the wisdom and plan of God. Man alone is spoken of as being "formed" by God. How He did it, and precisely what difference that makes, we cannot say with certainty. The human body shares a great many design features with other creatures. That makes sense. If you build things to live in the same environment and eat the same sorts of foods, you can use similar design features. Why "re-invent the wheel" each time, so to speak?

Man's creation, however, was different, by design. God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the "breath of life", and man became "a living soul." The word for "breath" is also the word for "spirit." God gave man unique physical attributes and unique mental abilities, and then He gave man a spirit, and man became more than just an animal. He became a living soul. It is not said in this place in Scripture, but it is in other places; the spirit in man is eternal. The "living soul" part of this is the eternal part of man – the part that either lives forever, or dies forever. It is in connection with the soul that the flesh of man was to live forever because God had created man to be both flesh and spirit.

The warning about eating from the forbidden tree spoke about the life and the death of the spirit. The death of the body was incidental. It is absolutely sure, but it is connected to the spirit. God did not say, "if you eat of it, your flesh will die." The living soul – which was comprised of that marvelous body and the spirit of the man – would die. And since the spirit is eternal, that death would be eternal also – not just dead and gone like the road-kill we pass every day, but eternal death. Scriptures have taught us that this eternal death is what we call hell - unending torment and suffering of body and spirit, and complete, final, and lasting separation from God, who is the Source and Fountain of Life.

The will of God towards man at creation was good and was about life and communion - some sort of sharing and conversation together. Look at the Garden! It was filled with beauty and food, readily and freely available. "And out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food." Sin is mankind's rejection of God. God told Adam what would happen. I don't think the tree had an intrinsic quality that gave the knowledge. It was the Word and command of God. When Adam avoided the tree, he knew by personal experience what "Good" was and what it was to be good. When he ate from the tree, he learned what evil was, and what it was to be evil, and so the tree gave him the knowledge of both – filling in the blank of the one he had not known.

Sin does that. My sin does that. Your sin does that. If you end your time in this world and this life in sin, you shall surely die. Your death in that case is not the one we observe here, with weeping and funerals and such. It is the one God has warned us about when all flesh shall rise from the grave, and bodies and souls re-united shall go to their final and eternal reward. And we have no power to stop it, or to turn ourselves away from it. It is like trying to resist tasting that delight when you are on a diet – only far worse, far less possible. We cannot even cry out for help effectively by our own powers.be good to us or have a good will toward us, as He says He does. So we take control. We do what we should not do, or say things that we know we ought not to say. The result of our unbelief is, as it was with Adam, sin.

When we sin, we are rejecting God in favor our ourselves or someone else. When we sin, we step away from the Fountain and Source of life. That is why You Shall Surely Die. Sin breaks the connection between the sinner and Life itself. It doesn't break the chain of existence, however. That is why we face an eternity of death, of "fire and brimstone", according to Jesus, "of weeping and gnashing of teeth", "where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED."

Sin does that. My sin does that. Your sin does that. If you end your time in this world and this life in sin, you shall surely die. Your death in that case is not the one we observe here, with weeping and funerals and such. It is the one God has warned us about, when all flesh shall rise from the grave, and bodies and souls re-united shall go to their final and eternal reward. And we have no power to stop it, or to turn ourselves away from it. It is like trying to resist tasting that delight when you are on a diet – only far worse, far less possible. We cannot even cry out for help effectively by our own powers.

That is why the Gospel is so precious! Without the Gospel, you shall surely die. God understood that all along. He warned Adam about it. Now that we have all sinned, and each one of us personally deserves to face that eternal death, about which God warned us when He warned Adam. The wages of sin is death. Praise God, our Epistle lesson did not end with those words, nor does God's Word to us end there!

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The will of God is still good towards us, and His will is for us to live, just as it was with Adam. Since we have sold ourselves into death by sin, God redeemed us, literally bought us back again, by the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He who is Life bore our sins to the cross and endured our death for us. Now, to all those who know the truth, trust God, and believe the promises of forgiveness, resurrection, and life everlasting, God pours out all of those blessings. It is life for those who believe God and take Him at His Word. Forgiveness, life, and salvation have been won for all people everywhere, but it is received and possessed only by those who believe. It is by grace through faith.

And just as God gave Adam all sorts of good things in the Garden, He gives us good things here and now. He has given us His Word, to teach us and through which He works within us. He has given us one another to love, and to support and encourage one another. He has given us this holy Meal. Here He feeds us with the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. He hides those very real treasures under the form of the bread and wine, but it is by the power of His Word and command that they are really here!

Our Old Testament lesson this morning is the account of the creation of Adam. This is before Eve comes on the scene. This includes the story of the planting of the Garden of Eden and the command concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The part about the planting of the Garden is historical information, but it does us no good. We cannot find the Garden. We cannot find it, because it isn't there any longer. The geographical data is from before the flood of Noah when there was just one continent.

Without those two blessings, you shall surely die. But we are never without those blessings with the Gospel! God gives them to us in our Baptism. He pours out His grace upon us in the absolution -- and in the sermon. He feeds us with the bread of life, as Jesus fed the four thousand in our Gospel lesson this morning. Over and over again, God pours out grace and forgiveness, life and salvation upon those who believe.

Adam faced a unique choice. He was holy and alive for eternity – unless he chose to turn away from God and eat the fruit which God had promised on the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. You, too, are holy, by the gift of God in Christ Jesus. You, too, shall live forever – unless you make the choice of Adam, to ignore the Word of God without which God's Word tells us you shall surely die. Come, let us walk together in faith, and eat together this holy meal, and live in Jesus Christ!

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

(Let the people say Amen)

Love Is Something that You Do

Exodus 20:1-17
Then God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you

out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 
"You shall have no other gods before Me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.  You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,  but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. 
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.   Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.   For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
"You shall not murder. 
"You shall not commit adultery.
"You shall not steal.
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house;
"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

Sermon for Sixth Sunday after Trinity                                              7/19/20

Love Is Something that You Do

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Clint Black recorded a song I like to use in Marriage Counseling - both pre-marital and during marriage.  The song is called, "It's Something that We Do."  He sings about his love for his wife and during the song he manages to poke at every cliche about love - it isn't  something that we find, it isn't something that we have, love's not just something that we're in, it isn't just those words we said, it isn't someplace that we fall, it's something that we do.  It is so unusual to find a popular song that speaks the truth so well.  I hope some day to thank him for it.

When I was a young pastor, one of the first really surprising and helpful things I remember learning from another pastor was that the Ten Commandments are not actually called "Commandments" in the original language.  The word for "commandment in Hebrew is "mitzvah", like in "bar-mitzvah", the "son of the commandments" ceremony that we have heard of.  The word used in connection with what we call the "Ten Commandments" – used in every case throughout the Old Testament, is "dabar" which means "a word".  "The Ten Commandments" are really "The Ten Words".

Now, don't let that fool you.  If God says it, it is true.  If God says, "This is the way you are to behave," He doesn't have to call it a "commandment", it still is a command.  I just found it refreshing to think of the Ten Commandments as something other than mere orders which we were to follow.

Then I discovered that the Ten Commandments were not so much about legal obedience as they were about love.  Did you hear it in verse 6?   It is part of what we Lutherans call "The Close of the Commandments," even though it appears in the Bible just after the First Commandment.  Blame it on Luther and his Small Catechism.  In verse 6, God says, "but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."  There we see it.  The commandments are not about rules, so much, as about love.  Our theme, as we examine this text in this light, with a conscious nod to Clint Black's hit song, is "Love is Something that You Do."

The Commandments are all about love.  They talk about what it means to love God and love your neighbor.  The first three, or four or five or six – it depends on how you number them – speak about love for God specifically.  We are never sure of how to number these commandments because the Bible calls them the "Ten Commandments" and yet they are not numbered, and there are twelve or thirteen "Thou shalt"s" in the Ten Commandments.  But the first three, as we Lutherans number them, tell us how to love God, or what the love of God looks like.

That's another thing.  Most people are not used to talking about what "love" looks like.  Americans have gotten used to talking about love as a feeling.  You don't see feelings, you feel them.  But in the Bible, love is not a feeling, it is an action, or at least it demonstrates itself in actions.  Love is something that you do.  You DO love.  Love that is not seen acting in love is not real.

The first three commandments describe how love toward God works – or how it looks.  You can read these commandments as de-scriptive rather than pre-scriptive.  Then they would read something like this;

Since you are My people, and I am your God
#1.  You will have no other Gods, and
#2.  You will not be taking my name in vain, or using it as if I did not exist, or hear you, and
#3.  You will always remember My Sabbath, My day of rest, and keep it holy, separate, and treat it as precious and unique, for My sake.

The obvious implication is that where we see those actions, we are seeing those who love God, and, where those behaviors are missing, we are not looking at those who have the True God as their true god.  Love for God is a something that you do, not merely something you think or feel.  Love results in behaviors.  It does things, and makes you do things.

The last seven commandments talk about love for God from a different perspective.  They talk about love for God as it demonstrates itself in our love for, or toward, our neighbors.  You can really only love God and serve Him by loving those God has given to you to love – that is, the people placed about you in the world – and serving them.  The Apostle John said as much in his first epistle, chapter 4,verses 20-21, If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.   And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

So, the next commandments tell us about loving God by loving one another: If you are my people, and really love me:
#4.  You will honor your father and mother, for they are my gift to you and they stand in my stead, and
#5.  You simply will not murder each other, or permit yourself to hate one another, and
#6.  You will not violate the marriage bed, or misuse the my gift to you of the delight and pleasure of sexuality, and,
#7.  You will not be taking from one another what I have give to each of you, but will be satisfied with the blessings with which I have blessed each of you, and
#8.  You will not lie about each other, or speak evil of one another, or gossip about one another, and
#9.  You will not long for the property I have given to another, and
#10.  You will not long for, or try to obtain the people and servants and animals I have given to your neighbor.

Doing any of the things described (or "forbidden") is not love - not love for the neighbor, and not love toward God.  Even when we speak of forgiveness, we acknowledge that these descriptions are true.  Those who behave as unbelievers and pagans are not loving God.  We are not loving God when we sin.  Once we have confessed our sins and received forgiveness, the Law is still true.  We cannot turn around and begin doing these proscribed things again, or keep doing any of them even while we ask God to forgive us, without demonstrating by our behaviors that we do not love God, and we do not care one whit what He wants or thinks. 

But then it is not the doing of the deed that is so damaging about sin against the commandments, it is what it means about our relationship with God as His people.  Remember, this is what love looks like.  If we are His people, these are the sorts of things that love for God works in us.  The contrary is also true – if we live in contradiction to these "Words" then the love of God does not abide in us and we are not Christians, no matter what we may claim.  We show contempt for Him and hatred, because in God's eyes, you either love Him or you despise Him.  There is no middle position.

Frankly, these descriptions are terrifying!  I know I do not live up to the love of God.  My life reflects way too much sin, and self-love.  I take comfort in the word in verse 6, "showing lovingkindness to those who love me."  Those words remind me of what God has done for me in Jesus Christ.  His steadfast lovingkindness has caused Him to send His Son into the world to rescue me – and you!  Jesus took all of my failures, all of my self-love, and all of my outright wickedness to the cross.  He nailed them there forever in His flesh, and died, paying the full penalty of my sins and yours.  When God raised Jesus from the grave, He was declaring by that action that our sins have been paid for and fully forgiven – just as Jesus declared, when He said, "It is finished!"

This lovingkindness is for those who love Him — those who take Him at His Word and trust in His grace and forgiveness for Christ's sake.  "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith."  But this redemption, does not invalidate the Ten Words of God.  They are still true.  They still describe the people of God.  God's people still love Him in action.  They love Him in how they deal with Him, and His name, and His Word and worship.   In other words, Love is something that you do!

Those who love God also love Him by how they love their neighbor.  You cannot love God while you are dealing with your neighbor in ways that deny love.  You cannot steal from your neighbor, injure your neighbor, or speak evil of your neighbor deliberately and consistently if you love God.  If you persist in malice and hatred toward your neighbor, you reveal a heart of malice and hatred toward God – a hatred made all the more heinous by hypocritically claiming to be a Christian, and professing love for God from a heart filled with anger and hatred. 

Jesus has taken sin and the Law out of the equation of salvation by fulfilling all things for us.  But the Law is still true.  It still tells us what love is like – love for God and love for our neighbor, whom God has given us to exercise our love for Him upon.  And love is not just a feeling.  It is not just a Sunday Morning, come-to-church kind of thing.  If there is love, it shows.  It acts.  It shapes the one who loves.  It blesses and benefits the one who is loved.  You see, love is something that you do!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
(Let the people say Amen)

Where Is God?

1 Kings 19:11-21

So He said, "Go forth, and stand on the mountain before the LORD."  And behold, the LORD was passing by!  And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind.  And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing.  And it came about when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. . . .  Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him."

Sermon for Fifth Sunday after Trinity                                              7/12/20
Where Is God?

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Let me begin with a confession.  I am not going to preach on the entire Old Testament Lesson.  I am going to preach on the first four verses and the eighth verse of the lesson.  Let me read just those verses, so you know what I am preaching on.

So He said, "Go forth, and stand on the mountain before the LORD."  And behold, the LORD was passing by!  And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind.  And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing.  And it came about when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave.  And behold, a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  Then he said, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, torn down Thine altars and killed Thy prophets with the sword.  And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away."  And the LORD said to him, "I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him." 

What we want to consider this morning is the angst of Elijah, the answer of God, and what God reveals about Himself and where He is and what He knows about our troubles.  Our theme, this morning, is Where is God?

Elijah was an amazing prophet.  God did things through Elijah that would take your breath away!  This account comes right after the trial between the prophets of Baal and Elijah.  He prayed and God sent fire from heaven to consume the offering of Elijah, proving that He and not the Baals was the true God.  Then Elijah commanded that the people kill the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of the Asherah, the fertility goddesses.  That is just short of a thousand people!  The people did that because the law of Israel said that the false prophet should die.

Then Elijah ended a three-year drought by prayer, and outran the chariot of Ahab back to Jezreel in a feat of God-given prophetic activity.  Of course, when Jezebel heard about the death of her favorite prophets, she promised Elijah that she would settle for nothing less than his immediate execution.  So, Elijah ran for his life.  He ran a day's worth out into the wilderness, and collapsed from exhaustion.  God fed him miraculously, and the text says that Elijah ran in the strength of that food for forty days all they way to Horeb - Mt. Sinai, the mountain of God.  That is where our text picks up.  Elijah is complaining to God that his lot is hard, and his enemies are powerful and they seek to kill him.  Our Old Testament Lesson repeats his complaint.

Then the Word of the Lord comes to Elijah and tells him to stand outside and face God!  This is all amazing stuff!  I have no idea how the Word of the Lord came to Elijah or what it was like.  The Bible doesn't give us that information.  It came, Elijah knew what it was, and Elijah obeyed.  The Bible says that the Lord was passing by.  Elijah stood there and a powerful wind blew.  It was so terrible that it broke rocks and tore up the landscape.  But God was not in that powerful wind.  Then there was an earthquake – but God was not present in the earthquake.  He caused it, but it wasn't the sign of His presence.  Then there was a terrible fire.  God often used fire, but He wasn't in the fire this time, either.

Then there was the sound of a gentle breeze blowing.  Elijah hears this gentle sound and knows by his prophetic vision that God is present in that still, small voice of the breeze, gently blowing.  Elijah wraps his face in his mantle, knowing that sinful man cannot come face to face with the holy God and live, and he steps out to present his case before the Lord.  Just as the blessings poured out on Elijah, and wonders worked through him, were great, so were his troubles.  All of God's prophets were gone.  He alone was standing for the Lord in an openly pagan nation.  Now the queen of Israel was seeking to put him to death.

Elijah felt defeated and hopeless.  We might think that it was odd, considering the miracles God worked through him, but we need to remember the threats and dangers he faced, too.  He obviously felt alone.  He felt exposed.  He felt in danger.  He ran to find God.  In his time of need, it would be reasonable for him to find God in the powerful things – the wind, the earthquake, or the fire.  But that is not where he found God.  He found God in the sound of the gentle blowing of the breeze.  The power of the Almighty God was concealed in the seeming weakness of the gentle breeze.

We also need to remember that God's presence is not evident in the big things, nor does His favor reveal itself in how well we are doing, or how comfortable things get, or how many people are in agreement with us.  The evidence of God's favor and love for us is the cross of Jesus Christ.  It was on the cross that God demonstrated His love by taking our guilt and shame and nailing it to the cross forever.  When Jesus rose from the grave, He demonstrated the truth of our forgiveness, and showed us both the power of God and the depth of His love for us.  Your sins have been forgiven!  God has poured out on each of us that believe His promises the free gift of eternal life.  Actually He has poured it out on all men and women everywhere, but it can only be grasped and possessed by faith – by trusting God to deal with us as He has promised to deal with us for the sake of Jesus Christ.

When Elijah ran to God's holy mountain, God asked him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  He didn't ask because He did not know.  God had refreshed Elijah, and sustained him for the journey to the mountain.  No, the question was asked for Elijah, that Elijah could pour out his heart and his troubles, and then God could remind him that he was never alone.  God is always with His people, and He knows who His people are.

In the entire nation of Israel, several million people, I would guess, there were only seven thousand who were truly God's people.  They were the ones who had not turned to idolatry.  They had not bowed to Baal – that means to worship him or pray to him – nor had they kissed him – anther worship practice, showing devotion to the Baal.  In modern terms, they had not given up their confession, trusted expedience over God's truth, or given in to the temptation to be more "relevant", modern, or effective.

That's what the Baals stood for, you know.  They were fertility gods.  The Baals were the popular deities of the day.  They were fun to worship, and absolutely no one, but a few stuck-in-the-muds like Elijah, saw anything wrong with them, or spending their time and energy on them, or casually worshiping them.  It was the "in-thing" to do.  Many people probably did it without thinking much about it.  They couldn't see the harm.  They weren't really serious about it.  Like reading horoscopes today, everyone was doing it.

But God knew.  It was idolatry.  It was unfaithfulness.  It was the first commandment.  It made a difference with God.  Out of the whole nation, just 7,000.  Those were God's people.  The rest were not.  Bad news for the rest.  But good news (of a sort) for Elijah.  It meant that Elijah, who felt all alone, was not!  God was with him, and aware of his troubles, and protecting Him – and there were 7,000 others who were with Elijah.  They all felt alone.  They were a small and insignificant minority – insignificant to everyone but God, and one another.  And God had a plan.

So, we are Lutherans.  We are old-fashioned, confessional Lutherans.  We are not up-to-date.  We are not all modern and with it.  We still use the liturgy, still preach God's Word pretty plainly.  We sing antique hymns of the faith instead of modern "praise songs".  We cling to the ancient Christian practice of "closed communion."  And there are a lot of Lutherans, not to mention all the other Christian denominations, that don't still do what we do, and preach what we preach.  They are modern.  They are fun, or at least entertaining.  Women preachers, homosexual pastors, extra-marital sexual encounters, and open communion fellowship with just about anyone who want to come are all the rage in the other churches.  Our kind of Lutheran is rare today, even in the Missouri Synod.  We take a lot of criticism and mocking – and sometimes some downright persecution.

God still knows.  God is still with His people.  God still knows who is faithful and who is not, and which people have kissed the Baals of our age and which ones have not.  He knows those who are His and He knows those who are not.  And God still has a plan.

We do not need to run to the mountain of the Lord.  We are the mountain of the Lord.  We don't need to go anywhere to find God, but to His Word.  And God is still asking us, "What are you doing here? " He isn't asking because He doesn't know, and He isn't asking to accuse you of anything.  He is asking to invite you to pray, to pour out your heart to Him, and then to hear that He has you in His sight, He loves you, and He has saved you and forgiven you and has given eternal life to you.  He has a plan, and you are not alone.  God is with you, and all those other faithful people of God, many of them Lutherans, but certainly not all of them.  All who have not bowed to the false gods and ideologies and theologies and movements and fads of the day, and all who have not kissed the Baals – giving themselves over to that which is not faithful just because other have, or because it looks fun, or because it seems like it would work better in today's world.  God knows those who are His and who trust in Him alone.

Where is God?  He is in His Word, and in the Sacrament.  He is in His holy people.   He is here today – and in the midst of all those who call upon Him in humble faith.  Therefore, fear not!  God is not in the trappings of power and success.  He is hidden in the seeming weakness of His Word, of His Sacraments, and of the humble-looking groups of those who faithfully call upon Him.  He is hidden in the humility of Jesus and the apparent weakness of the cross.  But the weakness is only an appearance.  He is still the Almighty God, who has a plan, and that plan is our salvation!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
(Let the people say Amen)

But God Meant It for Good

Genesis 50:15-21
When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph should bear a grudge against us and pay us back in full for all the wrong which we did to him!"  So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, "Your father charged before he died, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to Joseph, "Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong."' And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father."  And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.  Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, "Behold, we are your servants."
But Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid, for am I in God's place?  And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.  So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones."  So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Sermon for Fourth Sunday after Trinity                                              7/05/20
But God Meant It for Good

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

This is one of the toughest lessons to get straight.  It flies in the face of our emotions, our natural reactions, and our reason.  It is the lesson of God's care and providence.  It should be part of our thinking by the time we make it to our age, but it is often not.  In our society, because the Word is free and the right to worship is so common, the devil had to come up with another stratagem to hinder faith.  This time he used wealth and ease, comfort and free time.  He accustomed us to our comforts and gave us a sense of entitlement, and then when anything goes wrong, we feel it all the more acutely.  We measure our basic minimum tolerable conditions by standards far above the best that most of mankind has known throughout history, so it doesn't take much to make us feel really miserable.  And when we feel miserable it is difficult to keep the message of the Old Testament lesson in mind.  Our theme this morning is, but God meant it for good.

Joseph is one of the true heroes of the faith.  He was put through the proverbial mill and kept the faith, and acted with dignity and morality and faith.  He is taken by his older brothers when he is just 17.  He is first tossed into a dry pit to die, and then they sell him to a passing caravan into slavery.  He is taken from there to Egypt and sold in the slave market.  Then, in whatever circumstances he finds himself, he simply does good and right and does the work appointed to him.  And because of his steadfast faith, God is with him and blesses everything he does.  Before long he has worked his way up to head of his master's house, second only to Potiphar himself.

Then Potiphar's wife is attracted to him, and tries to seduce him, and, failing that, she tried to trap him into compromising himself.  Joseph does what is right and good, uttering those faithful words, "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?"  His faithfulness is rewarded this time with punishment and prison, because Potiphar must take his wife's side against a mere slave.  While in prison, Joseph rises to taking care of the entire prison, second only to the keeper of the prison.  He interprets dreams for some of the more important prisoners, only to be forgotten when the interpretation proves true, and the cupbearer is returned to his original post.  He languishes in prison for another two years.

Finally, when he is thirty years old, Joseph interprets the dreams of Pharaoh, and is made the highest ranking officer in the court of Pharaoh, second only to the Pharaoh himself.  And you know the story of how he saved the food and rescued his family, and brought them to Egypt.  His goodness and holiness cost him just as dearly at times as it brought him success.  He had done nothing wrong, but His brothers had sold him into slavery and told his father that he had been torn to pieces by a wild animal.  At the point of our text, His father is dead and his brothers are facing the reality of what they did, and what they deserve, and what Joseph has the power to do to them.  They come to Joseph pleading for their lives – dishonestly even at this point, or so it seems.  Joseph, on the other hand deals with them in dignity and faith, as he always seems to do everything.  What a hero of the faith!

Then he teaches his brothers, and us, the truth that whatever we may face, and whatever God may put us through, God meant it for good!  All the troubles of his life were real and painful and frightening and frustrating, and what was done to Joseph was done from evil motives to hurt him – but God meant it all for good.  He said,  "Do not be afraid, for am I in God's place?  And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive."

It didn't matter who did it or why, Joseph knew that God's hand was behind it all.  The evil they did was still evil.  They were still accountable for their actions before God, but Joseph understood God can take the evils we do and turn them for good, using our wickedness to accomplish His holy will!!  And so, Joseph forgave them instead.

The same thing is still true today.  How do I know? – well, for one thing, God never changes.  If He did it back then, He will do it today.  Secondly, God tells us in His Holy Word that He is with His holy people to bless us and keep us and work His holy will through us and for us and in us in this world of sin and trouble and pain.

So when people turn on us, and do evil to us, and events conspire against us and cause us frustrations, pains, and troubles, we may take comfort and be confident in the truth that God is at work none-the-less.  God sometimes pushes us to do things we don't want to do, and He takes us to places that we don't necessarily want to go.  He works through events and people – even the wickedness and evil of people around us – to put us in places and situations where He will use us for His purposes.

Again, the sin and wickedness of others is not created by God, nor does His use of them to accomplish His holy will change their evil to good or give them some excuse for being wicked.  They must face their wickedness, and answer for what they have done or said.  But God is still so wonderful and wise that He can take their evil and use it for good, just as He did with Joseph.  Most of the time we may not even know what God is doing, but He is there to bless us, and to protect us, and to work His good will in all things -- even things that are not good or pleasant.  And what is the will of God for us?

(Our salvation.)

And like Joseph, we are to be holy.  We are to see the will and hand of God by faith, and trust Him, and forgive those who sin against us.  How do I know?  The Bible tells me so.  We have the example of Jesus.  What Christ endured was not good or pleasant, but it was by the will and hand of God, even though evil men did their worst.  The men who sinned and crushed Jesus and crucified Him were still guilty of their evil.  But God meant it for good.  And Jesus prayed for their forgiveness, even as they killed Him.

Because of that great evil, because they put the very Son of God to death, though innocent, you and I are forgiven.  They meant it for evil, but God meant it for Good!  Your sins, whatever they may be, have been paid for.  You have been redeemed at the price of the suffering and death of the only-begotten Son of God.  You are forgiven!  He that believes and is baptized shall be saved!!

So, now, you are free to imitate Joseph, and imitate Jesus.  You can trust God, that in all things He means it for good. You don't have to know what it is that God is doing.  Joseph didn't until the very end.  But you must forgive.

How do I know?  Jesus said so.  In Matthew 6, just after teaching us the Lord's Prayer, in verses 14 and 15, Jesus says, "For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions."

Mind you, the act of forgiving others does not earn forgiveness.  Jesus did that on the cross.  But the hardened heart that will not forgive will turn away the grace of God.  It is a strange truth.  You cannot really forgive unless you are changed by the gracious working of the Holy Spirit, and yet, once you are a Christian, you cannot but forgive.  Besides, when you understand that whatever evil they may have done was used by God for His holy purposes, then it is evidently unbelieving to withhold forgiveness.  The Apostle John wrote about that when He says that "if you do not love your brother whom you have seen, then, how can you love God whom you have not seen?"  Jesus said "first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

You might want to ask, "How can we tell when God is using the wickedness of people around me for good?", or "How can I tell what good God is doing?"  The answer is, you cannot, any more than Joseph could.  God doesn't ask us to figure out what He is doing.  He asks us to trust in Him and to walk by faith.  The lesson is not that we should be patient and forgiving when we can see what God is accomplishing.  The lesson is to live out our faith, and trust God to do what He has so often promised He will do.  Our concern is not primarily with what God is doing or what those other people are doing.  Our concern is with our life and our faith and our forgiving others.

Look at the altar.  There God is doing something for our good.  He is feeding us the food of eternity, the medicine of immortality.  This is the holy meal that brings us our forgiveness and salvation.  Here is Christ's true body and blood, to eat and to drink.  Christ paid an enormous price for it, He endured evil and violence against Himself, and carried all our sins to the cross – but God meant it for good, and pours out that good on us through this Holy Supper.  Through Jesus, God has taken our sins and used them for our blessing – calling us children of God.  He has made more of us and promised us more than we may have known if there were no sin.  That doesn't make sin good, or even desirable, but it shows God to be the great and wise and loving Father He truly is.  You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
(Let the people say Amen)