Jesus Brings Joy Against Any Backdrop

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Pastor Aaron Steinbrenner delivers a sermon entitled “Jesus Brings Joy Against Any Backdrop” based on Philippians 4:4-7 at Peace Lutheran Church in Hartford, Wisconsin.

Delivered on Sunday, December 16, 2018

For a lot of different reasons, the professional photography field has really changed.  But back in 1989, when me and my classmates were getting our senior pictures taken, we went to a studio.  There the photographer set up his lights and cameras.  And he had backdrops.  You could pick from a brick wall background or a rustic wooden wall or maybe even train tracks and trees.  One moment you could be standing at the bright sunny beach and, a few seconds later, a new background would appear and you’d be in the dark of night, surrounded by skyscrapers and city lights.  It’s still you, just standing there, but the background can keep changing.  Isn’t that a little like life?  It’s you…you’re just standing there, living your life, but the backdrops keep changing…the circumstances in life keep changing.  Sometimes peaceful and calm and relaxed.  Sometimes manageable, but a little draining.  Sometimes hectic and out of control and even scary.  At the studio, you can choose the background you want; not in life – circumstances change, without checking with you first.

That can lead to stress.  Anxiety.  Yet, Paul says, relax.  Not just relax, rejoice.  Oh yeah, easy for him to say.  He’s the apostle Paul.  He met Jesus personally on the Road to Damascus.  He’s like a super-Christian.  Everything was probably easy and smooth for him.  Not quite.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet Paul’s difficult and stressful backgrounds were much more numerous and extreme than any of ours:

  • Flogged 5 times
  • Beaten with rods 3 times
  • Shipwrecked 3 times
  • Stoned once
  • And even now, as he writes this letter, he’s not on a beach or a quaint bed and breakfast…he’s in prison, under house arrest…not sure if he’ll get released or sentenced to more prison or worse.

Yet he says, rejoice.  In fact, as a point of emphasis he says, “I will say it again, rejoice.”

  • Rejoice because it’s Christmas time and you can almost feel the positive spirit in the air and all the family will be all together and there will be fires in the fireplace and presents under the tree?
    • But also rejoice if you’re going home to an empty house this Christmas or maybe these special holiday-cheer days heighten your recent loss or if your near-empty wallet means few, if any presents under the tree.
  • Rejoice because we just celebrated our wedding anniversary and things couldn’t be going better?
    • But also rejoice even though your marriage may be going through a rocky spell.
  • Rejoice because everybody’s health is good?
    • But rejoice even though you’re taking five different medications and that dull pain makes it impossible to get a good night’s sleep.

In other words, Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  You see, even the godless…the hardened atheist can look at his clean bill of health and his full cupboards of food and his garage with the nice car and his job promotion and feel happy about his good fortune.  But Paul suggests we can have a deeper joy…a joy that goes beyond having nice stuff and having nice things happen to us.  A joy that is ever-present.  A joy that dwells in our heart even though it might have to share space with other emotions like sadness and loneliness and heart-break…joy is still there.  Because this joy is rooted not in the ever-changing backdrops and circumstances of life but in Jesus.  Rejoice in the Lord always. 

Here’s one reason why:  The Lord is near, Paul says.  Some translations say, the Lord is at hand.  He is close.  Always right there.  One form of the word actually means guarantor.  A guarantor is the person who backs you up when you take out a loan.  He’s close.  He’s right by your side.  If you can’t pay your loan, he pays it for you.  So, rejoice….

  • There was a very special time in history when the Lord came near…took on flesh…was born in a manger.
  • There was a very special time in history when the Lord came near…took the debt you could not satisfy, and he paid it.
  • But that’s not all. The Lord still is near…he is close at hand to his believers.  So every moment of every day the Lord is near to you.  You may not feel it.  Life circumstances may try to convince you otherwise.  The devil will be sure to chime in, hoping you’ll see your problems as overwhelming and God as distant and disinterested.  But that’s not the reality.  Here’s what’s real: “This is what the LORD says…he who created you…he who formed you…fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine…when you pass through the waters…I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:1-3).

For this reason, since the Lord is near, there’s no need for you and me to be anxious or to worry. Plus, worrying doesn’t help.  Remember what Jesus said, Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  Well, then, what are we supposed to do?  It’s hard to just sit still.  I want to be active and do something that can help and be productive.  Awesome.  Then Paul has just the thing.  Instead of being anxious…instead of worrying…in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God.  For there is nothing too great for his power to handle and there is nothing too small for his Fatherly care and concern.

Does the name Corrie Ten Boom mean anything to you?  She was a Dutch Christian woman – she and her father hid Jews in their home so they could escape the Nazi holocaust during WWII.  She was caught and sent to a concentration camp.  There was a particularly down moment she had when she and her friend, Betsie, were jammed into an over-crowded living quarters.  It smelled horrible.  And it was infested with fleas.  It took some convincing, but Betsie urged Corrie to pray and to rejoice and to give thanks.  Afterall,

  • We are in the camp together – so we have each other. Let’s give thanks for that!
  • We have pages of a smuggled Bible – so we can read God’s Word every day.
  • It’s crowded in here…cramped – but see how many other people we can touch with God’s Word!
  • And even the fleas…these horrible fleas – the fleas are keeping the Nazi guards from carefully inspecting our barracks…and so we can read our Bibles ad even have quiet worship services.
  • And so they prayed…with thanksgiving…they even rejoiced. They weren’t magically transported away from that concentration camp, but they knew the Lord Jesus was near.  And so they had a joy, so deeply rooted in Jesus, that fleas and Nazi soldiers could not extinguish.

For Paul, floggings and shipwrecks and a stoning could not remove his joy in Jesus.  You also have a joy that cannot be extinguished no matter what your backdrop is right now or what any of your circumstances in life have ever been.  Nothing in your life…

  • can go back in history and keep Jesus the Son of God from being born in Bethlehem.
  • can undo or erase what Christ accomplished on Calvary’s cross.
  • Can plunge into the depths of the sea and retrieve your sins which have been buried there.
  • Nothing in your life can keep Jesus in the tomb or keep him from declaring, “Because I live, you too shall live” or keep him from returning on the Last Day to gather his sheep in his arms.
  • No backdrop can remove Jesus…for the Lord is near.   Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://vimeo.com/305770741

Prepare to Be Purified

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Pastor Jeremy Husby delivers a sermon entitled “Prepare to be Purified” based on Malachi 3:1-4 at Peace Lutheran Church in Hartford, Wisconsin.

Delivered on Sunday, December 9, 2018

Advent can be a difficult season of the Church Year to celebrate.  You may have your Christmas tree already up.  The stores have been advertising their Christmas specials for weeks already.  The music you listen to, whether in the car on the way to work or at home as you decorate for the season and wrap gifts, is all about the baby boy born in Bethlehem.  For much of this season, you find yourself looking forward to celebrating something that already happened two thousand years ago.  That paradox, in and of itself, can make this season somewhat confusing to celebrate.  But it even goes deeper than that, doesn’t it?

It can be a healthy, faith-focused journey to the Christ’ cradle when you put yourself in the sandals of God’s Old Testament people.  It can be soul-searching to discover the hope and anticipation that those people experienced when they considered and prayed about the coming Messiah. But, ultimately, your journey is different.  You already know that he did come, when he came, and what he did when he came.  It’s like watching a movie to which you already know the ending.  It can be good and worthwhile, but it is different and, therefore, a little difficult.

See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.  Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come, says the LORD Almighty.

With the eyes of faith, and two thousand years of history, it is clear to see that the promised messenger, who would prepare the way before God, is John the Baptist.  No need to look any further than the Gospel appointed for today.  He is the voice calling in the desert, who prepared the way.

And then, of course, it isn’t surprising to discover that the messenger of the covenant, the Lord they were seeking, who came so suddenly after John the Baptist, is the Messiah, himself, Jesus Christ.

God’s Old Testament people were waiting for those two men to arrive.  It consumed their thoughts and prayers.  The simple idea and promise of their impending arrival gave comfort to their sorrows and peace to their troubled hearts.  And, yet, their arrival didn’t actually happen for another four centuries after these words were written.

It may not have been lesson one in Peace through Jesus or your Sunday School lessons, but you didn’t have to wait years, let alone centuries, to have Jesus and John the Baptist revealed to you.

So, in this Advent season, how do you celebrate a prophecy like this?  How are you, in the words of the prophet, prepared for John and Jesus’ arrival?

To be sure, it is good and beneficial to study again and remind yourself of just how John and Jesus fulfilled these prophecies.  It’s good because, well, sometimes you just forget.  But, it’s also good because whenever you spend time in God’s Word, meditating and searching and growing in your spiritual knowledge, it will strengthen your faith.

It is good to be reminded that Jesus is indeed the messenger of the covenant.  He came not only to tell you of the deal and agreement that your God has made with his people, but to be the basis of it.  Rather than simply blessing the people who do good, in and because of Jesus’ perfect life and sacrificial death of substitution, God gives you everything that is his without expecting anything from you.

It is good to remember that Jesus accomplished that covenant by refining and purifying you, again, without any action from you.  He took on himself the impurities of your sin, removing them from you, and experienced, in his suffering and death, the pain and price for them that you deserved.

But, brothers and sisters, as you look at that analogy, that metaphorical explanation of how Jesus washed and cleansed you, do you see how it limps a little?

When silver is refined and clothes are laundered, does the refiner or the launderer feel any pain?  Not if they are doing their job properly!  The silver and the soiled linens, if they had feelings, would most assuredly feel the pain of the fire and the lye.  They are what get burned.  They are on the receiving end of the chemical reaction.  And, yet, when Jesus is described as refining and purifying you, he is not only the refiner and the purifier, who should feel no pain, but the fire and the soap, himself, as well and, therefore, should be the one inflicting the pain, not experiencing it.

Yes, taking this illustration in that way does indeed remind you of what the baby boy born in Bethlehem came here on earth to do for you.  That is good and beneficial for you as you prepare to celebrate Christmas.

But here, friends, is the beauty of the Advent season.  You are not only looking forward to the cradle of Christ, but, also, to when he arrives on the earth again.  And, in clear prophecy, Malachi portrays what needs to be done to prepare you for that coming, as well.

You are purified.  You are washed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus and you are going to heaven.  And, yet, like a three year old who sees a puddle, the temptations of this world continue to seem so alluring and, so often, the robe of righteousness that you wear is covered again and again with the filth offered by the Devil, this world, and your own sinful nature and you need to be kept clean.

That is why Advent can be not just a difficult, but even a painful, season of the Church Year to celebrate.  Advent reminds you that, like the silver and the soiled linens, you have, indeed, felt the fire in your life.

What has been burned off of you?  What stain, that was so deeply rooted in your fibers, has been scrubbed away from you?

Was it that job that you thought you would not be able to survive without?  Was it a relationship in which you found so much fulfillment?  Did you lose that loved one that was your rock?  Did your lungs, your heart, or your central nervous system; those basic fundamental functioning facets of your life fail you?

Your God, through the prophet, is not minimalizing the pain you experienced in losing those things.  In fact, for many reasons, those may have even been beneficial for you in your life and blessings bestowed upon you by your God.  But, in all truth, you did not and you do not need them.

In working what is best for you and keeping you and your faith pure and primarily focused on him, your God has allowed the fire and the lye to burn, but, as in all things, he did so for your good.

And, almost as if to put salt in your wound, the prophet explains how you are to react to that pain of purifying preparation that you experience.  After you see it, recognize it, and remember it, you ought to offer him a sacrifice because of it.

You may be familiar with some of the offerings that were to be sacrificed in the Old Testament.  The Passover Lamb, slaughtered and eaten.  The beasts of burden that were butchered.  The goats and lambs whose blood was sprinkled in the holy of holies and showered over the people with the hyssop plant.  Those sacrifices, in many ways, were sacrifices of substitution.  Their death was to remind God’s people of the death they deserved because of their sin.

However, that is not the type of offering that the prophet is preaching about in these verses.  Rather, looking at the purification you have gone through; what has been done to you and what has been removed from you, you then ought to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving.  A joyful response, coming from a happy heart, because of that purification.

That happiness and joy in this Advent season comes not because you are a masochist who enjoys the pain, but because you know from where and why that pain has come.  Your God loves you and wants you to be with him, forever.  He wants you to be refined, pure, clean, and holy.  Celebrate this Advent season by preparing for Jesus’ arrival.  Prepare yourselves, then, to be purified and offer your sacrificial hymns and prayers in thanksgiving because of it.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Story of Sodom Gives Us Advent Hope

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Pastor Aaron Steinbrenner delivers a sermon entitled “The Story of Sodom Gives Us Advent Hope” based on Genesis 19 at Peace Lutheran Church in Hartford, Wisconsin.

Delivered on Sunday, December 2, 2018

Some cities are so well known they get their own nickname…like Milwaukee – sometimes called Brew City because of the major breweries that were located there or Cream City because of the light colored bricks used on so many of the buildings.  If I gave you a few seconds you could come up with list of other nicknames for different cities: The City with Big Shoulders, Steel City, Mile High City, The City that Never Sleeps.  All those nicknames highlight some kind of characteristic or quality that city is known for and many times is kind of proud about too.

What is Sodom known for?  It certainly is known.  It was wiped out about 4000 years ago, yet just about everyone recognizes the name Sodom and its twin city Gomorrah.  Historians agree that Sodom was an advanced city…a wealthy city…a sophisticated city.  At one time the land was lush and rich (remember, Lot went to live there for just that reason).  But Sodom isn’t known for any of that; it’s known for perverse sin and extreme unbelief.  Whenever Sodom is referred to in the Bible it is being held up as an abomination…an embarrassing model of immorality.

  • In Genesis Moses tells us about their perverted views of sex and their abusive and violent behaviors.
  • In the book of Ezekiel we learn that the people of Sodom were well-to-do and they used their wealth to over eat and over drink and over indulge in whatever they pleased, meanwhile, neglecting the poor and needy.
  • In his second epistle, Peter talks about the filthy lives and the lawless men in Sodom.

This was Lot’s home.  This believing man, nephew of Abraham, lived smack dab in the middle of this godless and immoral city.  And yet, The Story of Sodom Gives Us Advent Hope.

Sometimes it’s not always so easy for me to relate to some of the believers in the Bible.  It’s hard for me to put myself in the shoes of the shepherds who were in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night, and all of a sudden – surrounded by a great company of angels.  That just doesn’t happen to me every day…or ever.  But I can relate to Lot.  He was surrounded by people

  • who were comfortable taking advantage of others
  • who over indulged in food and drink and desires of the flesh
  • who hoarded their wealth and stepped on and over the less fortunate
  • who had a perverted and ungodly view of marriage and family and sex.

 

You’d think Lot was living in America in the year 2018.  So pervasive the sin and wickedness, I wonder if sin started to feel kind of normal.  Do you ever feel that way?  Do you ever feel like you are so surrounded by wickedness, it starts to seem normal?

  • Is it normal that there are 40-50 million abortions each year, worldwide?
  • Is it normal that 12% of websites on the internet are dedicated to pornography?
  • It is normal that about $5billion is spent on pornography each year?…Americans spend over half that. Just imagine what that is doing to our marriages and the development of our youth.
  • Is it normal to have same sex marriages?….to have sex outside of marriage?…to have debates about whether or not homosexuality is a sin or whether or not there are only two genders?
  • Is it normal to allow our society and our media and our entertainment industry to shout in our ears, telling what is right and wrong and telling us what relationships should look like and telling us how we ought to view human life and human sexuality?…and if we’re not careful, the more we listen to them, the less we are listening to our God…and the duller our conscience becomes.

Unfortunately, I can relate to Lot.  He was a believer, a sinner himself and surrounded by sin.  How could he survive without getting gobbled up?  God rescued him.  When [Lot] hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. It wasn’t the strength and virtue of Lot that delivered him.  It was the mercy and the love of God.  In fact, the angels needed to grab hold of Lot and his family and pull them away.  Again, I can identify.  I was a product of this sinful, evil, wicked, ungodly place….weren’t you too?  Weren’t we all conceived and born in this filth?  And yet God, in mercy, grabbed hold of us and pulled us away…he pulled us into his family of believers.  It wasn’t our virtue that saved us, but his mercy and grace.  Today, a burning Sodom reminds us – that’s what could have been…should have been our fate…fire and brimstone.

Fire and brimstone.  Lot ran away from that.  I would too.  Who would run into the fire?  Who would purposely go to great lengths are run smack dab into the middle of God’s fire of judgment?  Jesus would.  Jesus did.  Evil.  Wickedness.  Over-the-top, pushing-the-boundaries, perversions – that’s what Jesus was accused of…those were the offenses, along with so many others, that were nailed to the cross. Every bad decision, every bad thought, every bad word, every bad example….those were nailed to the cross with Jesus too…and the fire and brimstone of God the Father rained down on the Son, so we could receive the smile and favor of the Lord.  Today, a burning Sodom reminds us – God is serious about sin…he’s also serious about providing a payment for that sin.

You know, archeologists have some minor disagreements on where exactly Sodom and Gomorrah were located so many years ago.  Some say the remnants are now buried under the southern half of the Dead Sea.  Others, based on some fairly recent findings, believe the ancient cities were a little further west.  In fact, one of the excavation sites unearthed shards of pottery, buried under 3 feet of ash.  The pottery, they say, is covered in a frothy, glassy substance, suggesting that the temperatures may have been as high as 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.  Again, disagreement by historians.  Some say a meteor hit Sodom.  Some say it was an earthquake that caused some kind of unusual volcanic eruption.  Some say, we’ll never know how Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

And we say, Oh yes we do know.  The Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah.  When we are tempted to think lightly of our sin, let the burning Sodom serve as a reminder of God’s law and judgment.  God is God and he will not be mocked.  When you are tempted to feel overwhelmed at the wickedness that surrounds you and to worry about your kids and grandkids and how will they ever make it through this cesspool, let the burning Sodom serve as a reminder of God’s hand of grace.  In 2 Peter, we are reminded:  the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. 

The Lord gave Lot and his family a safe haven in a place called Zoar.  What safe haven has he given you?  What is your Zoar?  Hasn’t the Lord given you safe haven within this family…this gathering of believers?

  • Here you are surrounded by not perfect people, but sinners like yourself…but they are seeking to help one another in our faith walk, not sabotage each other’s faith.
  • Here you have God’s law which identifies sin – it may make you feel uncomfortable but that’s far better than celebrating sin and thinking it is normal and ok.
  • Here you have God’s gospel which assures you that those sins have been washed away.
  • Here you have the Lord Jesus himself who says, Have no fear, little flock, for the Father has chosen to give you the kingdom. And he knows how to rescue his own.