What-is-Truth?
A sermon by Pastor Mark Anderson delivered on Christ the King Sunday, 2009
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Filed under: Pastor Mark Anderson, Sermon | 3 Comments »
Why did He come?
Posted on December 15, 2009 by theoldadam
To give us a blueprint on how to fix this world?
To be a shining example to us that we might finally ‘get it’ and whip ourselves into shape?
To give us something to shoot for?
Ah…no.
He came to save the people that He made who inhabit this fallen world. He came to save those complicit with the brokeness of this world. He came to save us.
There is a beginning and an end to this world, just as there is a beginning and an end to us.
The earth will pass away. Each of us will pass away. We are all dying people. There is no escaping it. We might be able to soften the reality of our deaths, but there is no escaping it. It is real and it is coming. It will be here before we know it. The older we get, the faster it moves towards us.
Each of us face the moment of our final breath here on earth.
His Word is what created this world. His Word is what upholds and sustains this world.
He made us, so He loves us. He wants to save us from an eternal death, an eternal darkness to which our estrangement from God has condemned us to.
Sure, I get political here…maybe too much. But we have to live in this place, don’t we? We have friends, families and neighbors that we are concerned about, don’t we? As with you, I want them to have the best possible life and experience the least amount of suffering in this veil of tears we call life.
But it will end. All of it will end. Whether it’s ten thousand years down the line, or this evening…it will surely end. And each of us will be lowered into the grave as well.
But our Creator, our Savior, our Redeemer is not content to leave us there. He wants us to live forever with Him. He wants us to have authentic life, the way it was meant to be before it all went South.
He came to save us. He wants to save us.
He knows us. He knows everything about each one of us, more so than even we know about our own children. He knows of our rebellion and our selfishness and our desire to exclude Him from our lives and become our own little gods.
But He loves us anyway. We wants us anyway. He died for you and forgives you all of your sin. He wants to heal all of the brokeness that characterizes your life and the life of this world.
There is nothing for you to size up and decide about. Indeed, we have already decided. We have decided to forget about Him, even as He decided to love us and save us.
Because He came, because He keeps coming, we don’t have to endure eternal darkness and death. Our deaths can’t keep us in the grave because His death on that cross couldn’t keep Him in His grave.
He came to open up a brand new future for the world. A future of wholeness, trust, forgiveness and love. A future with Him, where we will want for nothing. A future so wonderful that words cannot begin to describe it.
That’s why He came.
He wants you. He’s after you, even as all the forces arrayed against Him are after you, also.
We anxiously await His second coming and joyously celebrate His first coming.
May the Lord Jesus bless you and keep you this Advent season.
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Filed under: The point of it all | 8 Comments »
Why place the emphasis on the sinner?
Posted on December 12, 2009 by theoldadam
Why do so many insist on placing the emphasis in the church on fixing a problem that has already been fixed?
We need a Savior (and we’ve got one), not a self-help guru, or cruel task master that is trying to whip us into shape.
All over the place in the Christian blogesphere, I run into folks who are obsessesd with a perfect church.
Forget it. It ain’t gonna happen.
Don’t they know who it is that makes up the Church?
Don’t they know that the wheat and the tares grow together? Don’t they know that the wheat are still sinners, too?
The emphasis ought be on our need of a Savior (using the Law and our brokeness and the brokeness of the world), and then the Savior Himself should be emphasized. What He has done, what He is doing, and what He will yet do.
There is a big diffeence when you focus on the sinner and not the Savior.
Pride, self-righteousness, phoniness, and despair are all hallmarks of focusing on the sinner and whipping him/her into shape.
Repentance, love, forgiveness, and freedom are all hallmarks of focusing on the need for a Savior, and focusing on just who that Savior is.
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“Yeaaaaaaah but…..”
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Filed under: Religion | 2 Comments »
What’s Wrong with Christ…”alone”?
Posted on December 6, 2009 by theoldadam
Roman Catholics have Christ… plus the pope, and your good efforts 
and your penance.
Many Protestants have Christ… plus your ‘decision’ and your ‘seriousness’ (your fruits), or ‘your experience’.
The Orthodox have Christ…plus your ‘efforts’ to become better.
The Christ ‘alone ‘ crowd seems to be a pretty small group in comparison to the ‘plus’ groups.
Why is Christ alone, never enough for many of these folks?
Just wondering out loud.
Filed under: Jesus only | 14 Comments »
The Anabaptists
Posted on December 4, 2009 by theoldadam
Were the Anabaptists victims?
Or were they the perpetrators?
Who’s really to blame for the murder and mayhem and the deaths of close to 100,000 people?
Were the Anabaptists just trying to worship peacefully, in their own way, in the privacy of their own homes? Or were they radicals bent on overthrowing the status quo and imposing their brand of religion onto society?
There are documents supporting both sides, are there not?
Then who can we trust for the more accurate picture of the Anabaptists in 16th century Germany?
If the Anabaptists had won the day, would Christianity have survived?
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I appreciate any insights and comments you might have.
Thanks.
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Filed under: The Anabaptists | 42 Comments »
What title would you give this post?
Posted on December 3, 2009 by theoldadam
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. 
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 »
Now Thank We All Our God
Posted on November 26, 2009 by theoldadam
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Pastor’s class
Posted on November 21, 2009 by theoldadam
Here is a class/bible study that I’ve edited (just to shorten it a bit) , but still left the gist of the class in tact.
It’s about 40 minutes, but is long enough to ruffle a few feathers and may
be open some eyes.
No doubt there will be detractors…and that is quite alright.
Listen in to Pastor Mark Anderson as he starts us off with some general descriptions of the sacramental view, the symbolic view, and the Lutheran view of baptism, along with a critique of ‘free will’ theology.
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click on > baptism, ‘free will’, and other good stuff
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If you enjoy it…pass it along. Thanks!
(this is a re-post from last year)
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When it comes to believing in God, who’s will is determinant ?
Does God exercise His will in Baptism, or did He order us to perform an empty religious ritual?
Filed under: Baptism, Free will, Re-run | 8 Comments »
There’s something wrong with you
Posted on November 18, 2009 by theoldadam
That is a fact.
There IS something wrong with you.
Whether it is homosexuality, greed, arrogance, secret sexual fantasies, outright adulterous thought, indifference to the plight of the homeless and poor, idolatry of family or anything else, being lazy, being a poor steward of what God has given you, hating your brother, not loving your enemy, telling lies and half truths, hoarding money and material goods for yourself, etc., etc., etc..
There’s something wrong with me, too.
We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. I repeat… we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.
Can we overcome a particular sin here and there? Sure, it happens all the time. God does change people’s lives. But the truth of the matter is that we like sinning.
If you really didn’t want to sin, then you would refrain from it.
So then, what is God after?
How about a little honesty? How about owning up to what you know you really are? How about a little humility? How about a little more of the publican and a little less of the Pharisee?
After all, God knows all about you anyway. He knows who and what you really are. And He loves you anyway. He loves you so much that He was willing to be staked to two pieces of rough timber for you and prayed for forgiveness for you for your part in putting Him up there.
God, in Christ Jesus, loves sinners. He loves full blown sinners. He doesn’t love the fact that you are a sinner, but He does love you. He does forgive you.
If we won’t own up to who and what we really are, then the cross just goes away and the upward and onward project that characterizes the Pharisee begins. And then it’s all about us. The gospel moves over to the sidelines while we perform at midfield, making ourselves into little gods who are at the center of it all.
The Law and the Gospel place God and His forgiveness of sins, His life, and His salvation for us, at the center.
So be thankful, and proclaim this great gift of love for sinners to all who will listen.
Every now and then someone does hear it..and the angels in Heaven rejoice!
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Are you making good progress in your battle against sins?
Filed under: Law and Gospel, Sin | 10 Comments »
The Old Adam Lives! 