Is God really all that interested in our efforts to make Him our own?

Posted on November 29, 2009 by theoldadam

I don’t think so.   In Safe Hands by Dave Hayward

I think He is busy trying to kill off our efforts.

I think our efforts at making God our own are misguided at best and very damaging at worst.

We are His own. He makes believers out of us. The person who believes he is still in charge needs to be killed off. That’s what God does in Baptism. That’s what God does in His Supper and in His preached Word.

But since we are inveterate non-believers, we find it hard to give up the religious projects that makes little gods of ourselves. And we continue to sin. So we don’t abandon, or forget our Baptisms, but rather we return to Baptism, “daily” as Luther said. Baptism moves through life with us. It carries us.

You may not like it, but our God really is…God. He is in charge. He creates, and gives life where there was none.   

Baptism is a gift of God. He kills off the old sinner in us and clothes us in Christ. St. Paul said that “all of us who were baptized have put on Christ.” That doesn’t sound like a mere ‘symbol’ of something to me.

One would think that would be  Good News for people.(It is)

But many just can’t give up their “free will”.

“Free will” is not the solution…it is the problem.

God’s will, in His Word (and that includes the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion which are visable Word) IS the solution. 

Ironically, rejecting the real presence of God in Baptism, or Holy Communion, doesn’t make one less religious in that self-centered way… but more so!   Now the whole project revolves around you, and what you say, feel, think, or do!

I guess that’s it for now.

Thank you.  Have a nice day.

 

PS- In trusting in our Baptisms, we can concentrate on what God has done, is doing, and will yet do for us…and we can take the onus off of ourselves. And we are free to concentrate on our neighbors. That’s where our “free will” can do some good, if we aren’t so obsessed with staring at our navels and cultivating our own holiness.

 

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Filed under: Baptism, Free will, Sacraments | 13 Comments »

No Next Level Attained

Posted on October 20, 2008 by theoldadam

Well, yesterday has come and gone. My wife and I went to worship the Lord Jesus and receive from Him (as my Pastor likes to say) “what the world could never buy…forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.”

We sang hymns, we confessed our sins, we received absolution, partook of the Lord’s Supper,  confessed our faith publicly in the Apostle’s Creed and recited the Lord’s Prayer together. We prayed for the world and the Church. The sermon laid us bare for putting faith in anything less than the Living God, such as political parties (or the princes of this world), and clothed us again in the White Robe of Jesus with His death and forgiveness of our foolishness. We learned, once again, that we ought render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but we learned that God has His hand in all of it…including what Caesar does. We learned (once again) that the Triune God is actively and intimately involved in not only the goings on of this world, but in every moment of every day in our own lives.

No next levels of spirituality were attained (at least that I know of). No secrets to more Godly living were revealed. No “breakthroughs” were sited. Just the unmitigated love of Jesus Christ in His Word and sacrament for sinners…that’s all. That’s enough.

Thanks be to God that He is enough.

Filed under: Sacraments, The Gospel, Worship | 16 Comments »

In a Nutshell…

Posted on May 24, 2008 by theoldadam

My last post was probably a bit convoluted. The examples maybe were not the best.

What I was trying to get across is that so much of today’s pHMMMM, WALNUTS !reaching and teaching regarding the Christian faith is nothing more than ‘law’ . St. Paul  tells us that there in no life in the law…only death.

So when a person goes into a worship service and the law has had it’s way with them all week, at work , at home, and in society, the last thing that person needs is more law trying to get them to improve. It’s like pouring gasoline on the fire! That old, tired, sinful self needs to be killed off (not propped up!) and the new man or woman put in it’s place…by the gospel!

The problem is that so many churches have no idea of this. Their theologies are ‘man’ based to start with, and so they just naturally progress from there along the path of man’s efforts to become more Christlike. They don’t understand the objective nature of the sacraments and the comfort that they bring to real sinners. So the comfort they are seeking and that they need must come from themselves. It has to come from their feelings, their sincerity, their good fruits, as proof that they are really in Christ.

That we are Christians has nothing to do with what we say, think, feel, or do.  It has everything to do with what Christ has done, is doing, and will yet do…FOR US!

This is a real problem for folks in the law churches. For them, the whole enterprise is about what we say, think, feel, or do. According to St. Paul, this way of thinking about the Christian faith is very dangerous.

The question is how do we get them to realize this?

Filed under: Assurance, Doing, Dying to Self, Law and Gospel, Sacraments | 8 Comments »

You are Invited to Dinner!

Posted on May 4, 2008 by theoldadam

I hereby am inviting you to dinner at my place this evening.

Come on by!  It will start at 6pm and it will end promptly at 6dinner for eight:10 pm.

Oh, and by the way…I won’t be there. And you might as well bring your own food, because how can I offer you anything if I am not there.

Is that ridiculous, or what?

When Jesus says, ” eat my body and drink my blood”, when He tells us to “do this…” He is inviting us to dine with Him. He wants us to feast on the True Bread which has come down from Heaven for our sakes. If He’s not even going to be there… then why bother?

Of course He’s going to be there… it’s His Supper for cryin’ out loud!

He never told us to do anything where he would not be present. How can He be present? After all,  He has ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.  That’s right, He’s up there, so how could He be down here with us?

What!  He’s God!  He can be anywhere and everywhere He wants to be! Simultaneously!  He is inside every molecule of every thing in the universe and beyond.  But He can’t be, or wouldn’t want to be present at the meal which He’s commanded us to attend?

That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.  And that goes for Holy Baptism as well!

If I ever invite you over for dinner, don’t worry, I’ll be there, and I’ll serve up plenty of vittles as well.                              

           – Steve Martin

Filed under: Sacraments | 13 Comments »

’68 People “Got Saved” yesterday…and today…and tomorrow…

Posted on April 7, 2008 by theoldadam

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 »

‘Brother Martin Speaks…’

Posted on March 28, 2008 by theoldadam

Martin Luther said of the Anabaptists of his day:

“They view baptism the way a cow looks at a new gate.”

 They cannot imagine anything that  is beyond their His Blood Shed and Body Broken for Me!own nose. (I threw that last part in)

Martin Luther didn’t think too highly of those that would deny us the assurance that the good Lord Himself was trying to give us.

 Look at the way we are. One could surmise that it is precisely because of that old Adam and Eve who still lives within us, that our Lord instituted the sacraments. He knew exactly where we would want to go if left to our own devices.

Take a look at any mega-church (although the phenomenon can be seen anywhere…Lutheran churches not withstanding). That’s where we go when left to our own devices. Bigger, bigger, better, better, more entertainment, more of me, more of my “doing”, more of my comfort zone. The constant need to prove my worth, if not to God, then to others and to myself.

“This is my body…this is my blood…broken and shed for you.”

That is the only worthiness that I need. He alone is worthy. He gives His worthiness to me, totally apart from anything that I can do, say, think, or feel.

This is where I return to when I feel unworthy, day after day (I return to my baptism as Luther said). I return to the Lord’s supper. It is there that I am accepted. It is there that I am forgiven. It is there that I am declared worthy. It is there where the last will and testament is read, and lo and behold…I am included! It is there that I recieve a full share of the inheritance.

We also recieve these gifts in the preaching and teaching of His Word, and in the words of Christian encouragement spoken between the brethren.

But the sacraments are something tangible. Something that we can actually see, feel, touch, smell, and taste.

These things, along with God’s Word of Promise (we mustn’t forget that!) are not rabbit’s feet that we rub like some superstitious pagans. These things carry God’s Promises when we excercise faith in that  “what God promises to do, He will do.”

So I say, break down the ‘gates of your own making’, and imagine that God can, and will act for you, not because of you and your worthiness, but rather in spite of you and your worthiness. Believe that He can not only live inside your heart, but that accompanied by His Word, He can also be present in the life giving waters of baptism, and in the life giving bread and wine of communion. 

In His Holy, Loving, and Forgiving Name, Jesus Christ our Lord.

             – Steve M.

Filed under: Assurance, Sacraments | 3 Comments »

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