Tired of Jesus showing up dressed like Moses? Tired of having to ‘kick in’ something of yourself to make all this stuff work out ? Wouldn’t you like to just hear that “your sins are forgiven” once in awhile, and just leave it at that?
Me too.
Here’s a sermon with plenty of Christ. The Savior Christ, handed over freely…no charge to you…
click on “I came that they may have life “
Filed under: Sermons | Leave a comment »
In case you haven’t noticed lately, there seems to be quite the assortment of Jesuses offered up to us in the culture, in churches, and in our own minds.
There is Jesus the great teacher. Jesus teache
s us all about life, ourselves, and God. He fills in all the blanks so that there will be absolutely nothing keeping us from knowing all that we have to know in order to fulfill our humanity.
There is Jesus the great example. Jesus shows us (by example) exactly how we should act (WWJD), so we will always be in the will of God, pleasing Him, and serving others.
There is Jesus our master. Holding all power over us, commanding us to do tasks, to live a certain way, to give up our possesions, to withhold nothing, to serve and obey Him at all times and in all things.
There is Jesus the great comforter. Jesus soothes our aching souls, and calms us in times of trial. Jesus encourages us to hang in there and not to give up. He lets us know that He will always be with us, through thick and thin.
There is Jesus the judge. Jesus will sort everything out. He will make sure that there is real justice and punish the evil doers. The liars, the cheats, the fornicators, the drunkards, the murderers…they will all get their just deserts. On that last Day Jesus will kick some you know what.
All of these Jesuses are real. He was and is all of these things. We may want, or not want Jesus in some or all of these aspects of His being.
But there is one aspect of Jesus that for us should rise far above all the others and that should eclipse all the others in import, not only in our churches and in our hearts and minds, but also in the culture, insomuch as we have any say in the matter, and that is that Jesus came to save us from eternal death.
He didn’t come to be a teacher. He didn’t come to be an example. He didn’t come to bring the law to bear on us. He didn’t come to be our therapist. He came to be our Savior. He came to die…for us. That we might live someday with Him, in eternal glory. That’s why He came. To save us from sin, death and the devil. This version of Jesus, the Savior Jesus, is, in the end, the only one we must have.
‘ We preach Christ crucified” – St. Paul
– Steve M.
Filed under: Theology of the Cross | 2 Comments »
When we read the Holy Scriptures, do we read them as though every single line has huge theological importance?
Do we assign the same level of value to each verse because they are all in the Bible, therefore they must all be weighed the same?
Isaiah 37:36 “And the angel of the Lord went forth, and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.”
Romans 10:4 “For Christ is the end of the law, that everyone who has faith may be justified.”
Should the two verses above be regarded equally as to their impact on the reader, or hearer?
I certainly don’t think so. And I have a feeling that you don’t either, even if there is some fundamentalist nerve inside you that becomes raw at the thought of viewing scripture in this manner.
I think the verse from Romans has a much greater value for us and I believe that we need to also think this way about the books of the Bible. Some are of greater import than others.
Luther thought that the most important books of the Bible were the Gospel of John, 1st Peter, and Paul’s letters, with Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, coming first.
Conversely, Luther didn’t think too highly of the Book of James. James didn’t focus so much on Christ and His work for us, but rather put a focus on us, and what we might be doing…therefore Luther called it “the epistle of straw”.
Does this make sense to you, or does something about what I’ve written here make you uneasy, and if so, why?
Filed under: The Bible | 2 Comments »
“Joe Blow and Mary Googlanivich got saved yesterday.”
No foolin’?
And just how did that happen?
“Well, the same way it always happens…they decided to.”
Hey that sounds pretty easy…why didn’t I think of that!?
Now, since they’ve done the deed, they can just tool along on their merry way. I’m sure there won’t be any dying going on from here on out. It’s a done deal.
“Not so. Now they’ve got a lot work to do. The spiritual project has just begun!”
Right.
It never ceases to amaze me how folks that elevate the Bible to the status of a paper pope, can totally ignore all the verses that say, without a doubt, that becoming a Christian has nothing to do…with you.
Filed under: Doing, The Sovereignty of God | 4 Comments »
I have many friends that are really doing all they can to live the Christian life. They tell me that they are living by Biblical principles and they are being faithful, as best they can, to be obedient to the Father.
In light of these efforts by my friends, I have decided to help them out by letting them know of a few areas( that maybe they haven’t thought of ) where they could be living out their faith.
Here goes:
1) Spend a few hours at an old folks home, or convalescent hospital each week.
2) Visit the terminal cancer patients in a children’s hospital, once or twice a month.
3) Don’t just give money to homeless people on the street, but take them home to eat a meal with you and your family. Maybe they could stay a few days and you could clean them up a bit and buy them some new clothes.
4) Turn off your television set and forego watching the games this weekend and invite all your neighbors over for a Bible study.
5) Set your alarm clock to go off two to three hours earlier and get some good prayer and Bible reading in before you start your day.
6) Instead of going on a vacation where you and your family are basically the only ones getting something out of it, try spending a week or two handing out Christian materials and talking to people about Jesus.
7) Live on a thin margin of income ( affording yourself and family just the basics ) and give the rest to the poor in your community.
Those are some things (there are many, many more) that Christians could should be doing if they decided to use their time, energies, and resources in a way that would be showing good stewardship of the gifts that God has given them.
I’m sure the desire to serve God and the neighbor is so strong that many of my good Christian friends will be greatful for seeing this list of suggested acts of love for the sake of the other.
Filed under: Doing | 6 Comments »
Yes!
And again…and again…and again…and agai
n…and again…and again…and again…
Until that day when I finally run out of ink(life). Then I will be born again for the last time and live in eternity with my heavenly Father and my Lord.
Thank you Lord, for your graciousness. Thank you for coming to me in water and in Word, in bread and wine. Thank you for adopting me, before I could do anything myself.
Thank you…thank you…thank you…thank you…thank you…
Filed under: Assurance, Baptism, The Sovereignty of God | 5 Comments »
Luther said, ” If they use the scriptures against Christ, then we will use Christ against the scriptures.”
Can the scriptures really be used against Christ? Was Luther talking about a group of atheists, or those inside the Church?
Filed under: Law and Gospel, The Bible | 2 Comments »
Yesterday was an awesome day at the Lutheran Church of the Master congregation in Corona del Mar, CA. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 
68-70 people accepted the Lord Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That was about the number of people in worship. Pretty good, huh?
Well, it really is exciting. This ‘born again’ experience happens all the time at LCM (as it does in congregations large and small all over the world)
In our congregation it’s usually the same people, more or less, that are being saved (as St. Paul puts it in 1st Corinthians 1:18). But that does change now and then when we get a visitor or two, or when someone is brought to the font for baptism. And, as always, we must remember that only God knows for sure who the believers are.
During the week we reject Jesus, but out of the goodness of His heart, the Holy Spirit leads us to repentance, and we are born again and again and again. On Sunday, the same thing happens. We are slain by God’s law and brought to repentance, where once again, we are raised by the promise of the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.
On Sunday we were also invited with other baptised Christians to share in recieving the actual person of Christ in the Lord’s supper. He accepts us and gives us life, the forgiveness of sins and salvation. In addition to His supper, we return to our baptisms, another place in our personal history where God has acted for us and made a decision for us, and where we can return with confidence and trust that His promise is true and is still in effect in our lives. So we don’t just remember our baptism and then move away from it, but rather we live in it. “We are being saved.”
In goodness and mercy the Lord has called and chosen us to be His children. That we might not rely upon our own actions or feelings, He has given us His sacraments that we might have the blessed assurance of knowing that He will never leave us, nor forsake us, no matter what havoc is wrought by the world, the flesh, or the devil.
Filed under: Assurance, Sacraments, Theology of the Cross | Leave a comment »
Addendum: Here is a short article, the likes of which rarely (if ever), for the reasons stated below, would be seen in ‘The Lutheran’. click on Easter Faith
I had the dubious opprotunity to peruse the pages of ‘T
he Lutheran’, the other day. It exhausted me. So many articles on doing. We lutherans are doing this, those lutherans are doing that, digging wells, planting rice, rearranging somebody’s finances, investing here, building a home there…doing, doing,doing.
I had to look long and hard to even find the name ‘Jesus’ anywhere in the publication.
I did find it, in an add, where the church was trying to raise money.
Even there, the name of ‘Jesus’, was associated with doing…your doing.
‘The Lutheran’ is the poster boy for “Christian religion.” But virtually nowhere in those pages do you see anything about what Christ has done for you. What that cross was all about, or the importance of telling people about the One that came to save them. In this day and age that would be just a bit too pushy and judgemental. “Save us? From what ?”
What the folks at ‘The Lutheran’ have figured out is that it is much safer to feel good about yourself and the things you are doing than to actually hand over the Living God to someone and take the risk of being called “intolerant”, by mentioning that name that the whole world just loves to hate, namely… Jesus, the Christ.
Filed under: Doing, Religion | Leave a comment »
The inerrant Bible or the infallible Bible?
Are these the same thing?
I don’t think so. Inerrant means without a mis
take and infallible means not capable of being wrong.
I believe the bible has mistakes in it because of the involvement of man, and I believe that the message of the Bible is not capable of being wrong because of the involvement of God.
The text contains errrors pertaining to the particular order of events as noted by particular commentators. Knowledge of the world and the universe is restricted to particular time frames and may not accurately reflect the current accepted norms. The compilations of thousands of manuscripts certainly lends itself to errors of omission or addition of punctuation, translation, edition, or other miscues of human involvement.
In addition, certain writers of scripture (the Apostle John comes to mind) may have employed literary techniques that were not so much concerned with a chronological recording and a blow by blow accounting of events, but rather tailored stories theologically as to make sure that there was no doubt as to who Jesus was and what He came to do. Not that He made them up, but rather that he modified them to suit his purpose.
So what?
Do the things I’ve mentioned, whether you might agree with them or not, so shake your belief that the Bible is the Word of God that you would consider chucking the whole enterprise overboard if you found them out to be true?
What about faith? What about realizing that God uses earthen vessels? God uses fallible human beings to get His message across in preaching. In the administering of His sacraments. In the written story of His coming and acting for us, that our falliblity might not be held against us.
A Bible with a few factually errant contradictions in it is not a barrier to God being able to deliver His message. As a matter of fact it just increases the realization of our Christian freedom, that our faith does not need to be welded to inerrant notations in a book, the way Moslems view their religious book.
The Word of God is “living and active.” It is not dependant on the perfection of man in any way, shape, or form.
The Bible is the infalible Word of God to believers. It is our guide in all matters of faith and life, but more than that is is the instrument that God has chosen to inform us that His Word is living and active and cannot be contained by the likes of us or anything else, and that He will use it to accomplish His purposes.
– Steve
Filed under: The Bible | Leave a comment »
The Old Adam Lives! 