FOUNDATIONS FOR PEACE

The weekly message delivered at St. Paul's Lutheran Church - New Ulm, MN

The Storm

Category: Pastor Smith's Sermons,Sermons — admin at 1:41 pm on Tuesday, July 11, 2006

July 9, 2006
Mark 4:35-41
5th Sunday After Pentecost
Pastor Tim Smith

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” 39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” 41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (NIV)

WHAT’S been the best year of your life? The year that, when you reminisce, you think about that year. Maybe for you, it’s a year of High School or college. Maybe it’s a time when you served in the military, or took a trip overseas. I think about 1995 – the year we got engaged and married, the same year I graduated from Northwestern college, the same year I started my time at the Seminary, and the year I go my first A in Greek. When we truly think about it, those great years in our past are often filled with change or transition. They’re years that define us later on. For Jesus, 28 was one of those years. I don’t mean when he was 28 years old (he was probably about 32). I mean the year 28 AD. We call it the YEAR OF POPULARITY, and it was more like the Summer and Fall of Popularity – the second or middle year of our Lord’s ministry on earth. Jesus had already spent a year preaching and teaching and performing a small number of miracles – that year is described in the opening chapters of John’s Gospel. Then, Matthew, Mark and Luke jump in and contract the events between Jesus’ baptism and the calling of the first four disciples, and it’s the Call of those four, Andrew, Peter, James and John that really began the second year of his ministry. This year, Jesus had called all Twelve of his Apostles, preached the Sermon on the Mount, and had begun teaching in a new way – through parables. And he had explained the Kingdom of Heaven – the way God gathers believers – through parables like the Sower and his Seed, the Lamp on a stand, the Growing Seed, and the Mustard Seed. Now, it seems as if it was the very same day Jesus preached the Parable of the Mustard Seed (or maybe he had preached all these parables on the same day) that as evening came down, Jesus wanted to cross over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus’ objective was an area called the Gerasenes, and he was going there to find a man in the tombs and heal him. But our text doesn’t quite take us that far today. Our text just takes us out onto the Lake, this remarkable lake we call the Sea of Galilee.

The Sea of Galilee is also called Lake Kinnereth because it’s shaped a little like a Kinnereth or “Harp.” It’s really shaped like your fist. Look at the palm of your right hand. Now make a fist but don’t move your hand. That’s the shape of the Sea of Galilee – and Jesus and his Disciples were traveling by boat across from the knuckle of your ring finger (Capernaum) across (East Southeast) to the base of your thumb (Gergesa).

It’s surrounded by high hills – and the geography of the area can help us to understand something about this story. There are cuts, ravines, through those hills around the Lake, and when the wind blows miles away there might be no warning on the lake at all – a blue sky above and a calm sea below. The facts of meteorology make sudden storms inevitable. Cool Mediterranean air is drawn through these hills and ravines and clashes with the low, hot and humid air that hangs over the Lake, and bang! Suddenly a storm will hit – and even experienced sailors, as most of the apostles were, can get caught.

This time, Jesus was sleeping in the back of the boat. The boat kept on repeated the same motion – rise on a wave, roll, then be caught by the wind, list over again, and dip down the back of the wave.

RISE–ROLL–LIST–DIP
RISE–ROLL–LIST–DIP
RISE–ROLL–LIST–DIP.

On and on, over and over again. It must’ve been hard to keep their footing and keep from getting washed overboard each time to bow dipped back down and the listing ship was engulfed in the green water, the deck sometimes completely under the spray of the sea.

You and I both know what happened. They woke Jesus up, he spoke – just spoke – to the wind and the waves: Silent. Be Still. And the sea became as smooth as glass.

This is the God who made the sea, and the wind, and everything else we face in our lives.

God solved the problem of the storm with his word – a word he spoke himself.

How many of our problems are to be solved, not by us speaking, but by God speaking? Our task in life isn’t to talk and talk and talk and give orders. It’s to listen to God.

Think about the troubles we sometimes have – all couples have – in marriage. When things are going the smoothest, it’s when we’re listening to each other. And on the other side of that, when things are the roughest – it’s usually when we’re not listening to each other, and on top of that, we’re not listening to God, either.Think about that – in the most difficult storms of our lives, the thing that brought the storm on in the first place is most often our own self-centeredness. And the thing that makes the storm get worse, it focusing on me – how bad my life is, how rough my day has been, how bad my problems are. And when the world doesn’t drop everything to help me with my problems, that’s when the RISE–ROLL–LIST–DIP of our lives becomes more than we can handle. We shut out everything else because the roar of our troubles and the gale of the issues coming at us are overwhelming. And it seems like it’s all we can do to hang on. And we’re not listening.

We’re not listening.

One of the problems that people have when they listen is that they don’t know how or when to listen. We tend to cram our own ideas in between the lines of what other people say because we think we can figure out more or jump ahead to the end before they get there with their words and have a solution. But we miss what they’re actually saying along the way.

Do we do that with God, too? Do we give up on listening to God because we think we know what he’s going to say to us, and therefore we can just skip ahead to the next part?God speaks to us in one place – in his word, the Bible. In our passage today, Jesus says five things. The first is “Let’s go over to the other side.” Then there are two short commands: “Quiet” and “Be still.” And then two questions: “Why are you so afraid?” and “Do you still have no faith?” Now, it might be tempting to string together a theology of storms from these five sentences from Jesus – but don’t fall into the easy trap of thinking that only Jesus’ words in the Bible are God’s words. Everything here is the word of God. Jesus was teaching his disciples about trust, and he was bringing their trust right into their faces with his last question: Do you still have no faith? But the whole story was recorded by Mark for us all to see that TRUST is an important component of faith, right along with knowing what God’s word says and knowing that it’s true. But also, we see the one we trust in – Jesus Christ.

Jesus has taken the messes we get ourselves into – the disintegrating conversations, the self-centeredness, the mistrust, the jumping to conclusions before sentences are finished – and all our other fatal relationship fiascoes – and he has removed our guilt. He has erased the blackboard tally marks of our sins and washed the board clean, even.

We are forgiven in Jesus. And Jesus keeps on telling us that. Don’t forget that the person you listen to today is also forgiven in Jesus – a forgiven child of God.

Let that be the hearing aid you listen with today: This person is forgiven, too.

Keep listening to God. His word – his, not ours, is what calmed the storm.

Our Future Freedom / The Challenges We Face

Category: Pastor Sutton's Sermons,Sermons — admin at 6:22 pm on Friday, July 7, 2006

July 2, 2006
2 Corinthians 5:1-10
4th Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Don Sutton

2 Corinthians 5:1-10
1) Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2) Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3) because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4) For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5) Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 6) Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7) We live by faith, not by sight. 8) We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9) So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10) For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

Devotion 1 – “Our Future Freedom”

As citizens of the United States of America we probably enjoy as many freedoms as citizens of any country on earth. But there is a freedom we don’t have and don’t enjoy. We are not free from the effects of sin on our bodies, souls, and the world in which we live. We are not free to live with the Lord in the glory of heaven and have a glorified body in which our soul can live.

So we live in an earthly body. St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 calls it “an earthly tent.” Our bodies are affected by sin and imperfection as a result of the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin. As and we experience the devastating effects of sin physically, spiritually, and emotionally. We are mortal beings.

How do you feel today? There are probably not many of us, maybe not any of us, who haven’t experienced some pain in the last 24 hours. Maybe it was the nagging pain of arthritis or the ache of a pulled muscle or bad back. Possibly it was the soreness of using some muscles you haven’t used in a while. Perhaps it was the pain that came from a bump, a bruise, a scrape, or a cut.

But then there is another kind of pain we experience. It may be the frustration or depression that comes with putting up with physical pain on an on-going basis. There’s the sadness we have when we lose a loved one or see a loved one suffer. There’s the pressure we experience from the fast-paced life many of us live trying to put 28 or 30 hours of life into 24-hour days. There are the heartaches we have because of rejection, loss and failure. There are the feelings of being overwhelmed by challenges we don’t feel adequate to meet. There is the guilt we bear because of the sins of which we are aware.

As a result, as St. Paul wrote, “we groan.” He wrote, “We groan and are burdened.” Can’t you relate to what Paul is writing about? While the life here on earth has good and happy times, sometimes it can leave us feeling weighed down and in hurting. Sometimes it can leave us feeling weak. Sometimes we may even feel helpless and hopeless. Sometimes our groaning may turn to murmuring against God and even being angry with him. Paul indicates that one of the reasons we groan is because the only way for the soul to get out of the tent of the body is through death. While at times we may be courageous in facing death, at other times many of us may feel fear when faced with our mortality.

But the fact that God wants us to take home today is that the trouble that comes with living in this earthly tent of the body in the earthly circumstances in which we live, are only temporary. That’s the idea of the tent. In ancient times nomads or Bedouins lived in tents and didn’t stay in one place. The time in a place was temporary. This Fourth of July weekend thousands of Minnesotans are camping in tents. But their stay in those tents is only temporary. So our stay in our physical bodies and our life on this earth are temporary.

God has in store for us, as Paul wrote, “a building from God, an eternal home in heaven, not built by human hands.” This is life in the glory of God without any pressures, pains or problems. In v. 4 Paul calls this “our heavenly dwelling.” At the death of our bodies our souls will go there. Even without a body life in the presence of God will be great. But when Jesus comes again in glory, he will raise our bodies and make them like his glorious body (Phil3:21). Our bodies will experience no more pain. There will be no more groaning. There will be no burdens, no problems, and no sadness.

But how can we be sure? We don’t see this yet. Paul reminds us that “we live by faith and not by sight.” We can be sure of this future freedom because God promised it and God is faithful. We can be sure of this freedom because Jesus rose from the dead and because he lives, we too shall live. We can be sure of it because God made us for this purpose. As Paul explains, God didn’t make people to die and be damned, but to live forever – “we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5) Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose… (v.5).” We can be sure of this future freedom because God has given us his Spirit as “earnest money” guaranteeing eternal life – “Now it is God who has …has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come (v.5).” As a result, even though we live in the “tent of the body”, we can be sure of the future freedom we will have in our heavenly home and with glorified bodies.

Be confident of this. Take comfort in this future freedom when you’re not feeling well, when life is not good, when you are facing death or are old and tired of life. One day you will be free from your body and your life so affected by sin. You will be free to live in God’s glory and have God’s glory in you.

Devotion 2 – “The Challenges We Face”

Paul wrote, “As long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.” He also wrote, “We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” The point is that as great as the future freedom in heaven is, we aren’t enjoying it yet. As a result we face some challenges.1) There’s the challenge of dealing with pain and heartache and the other burdens of this life. 2) There’s the challenge of waiting patiently for the Lord to take us from here to heaven and not knowing exactly when and how he’s going to do it. 3) There’s the challenge of dealing with death. As Paul wrote, “We do not wish to be unclothed…” – even though heaven seems great we may have some concerns about the death we have to go through to get there. 4) Twice Paul says “we are confident.” There’s the challenge of remaining confident and trusting in the Lord in the face of our challenges. 5) Paul also wrote in v. 9, “We make it our goal to please him (God) whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” This is no small challenge. 6) Finally, Paul mentions in v. 10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” These are great challenges. How do we successfully meet and handle them?

We don’t do it alone. Paul mentions two great Helpers in our text. The first is the Holy Spirit who God gave us as a deposit guaranteeing our future freedom. Not only is God’s Spirit a guarantee of our futures, he’s a helper in the present. Keep in mind that the Spirit of God works through the Word of God as well as through the Sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism. As we take in the word of God through Word and Sacrament the Spirit reinforces in us both the fact that God is love and the fact that God has loved us with an undeserved love. God has loved us so much that he sent his one and only son from eternity to be our Substitute and Savior. As we see the love of God in the person of Jesus and as we hear the assurances of God in his promises to bless and keep us, the power of God’s Spirit works in us to strengthen us. He gives us what it takes to meet the challenges of life – trusting in God, being patient with God, living to please God including loving others around us. So the first Helper is the Holy Spirit.

The Second Helper is Jesus Christ himself. Not only is he the Judge before we must appear in judgment, he is the Savior who has saved us from the judgment of hell we deserve. He is the one who taught that whoever believed in him would not perish but have eternal life (Jn3:16). He’s the one who was born under God’s law to be and do under that law what we could not be and do because of sin. He’s the sinless Son of God who took our sins and then sacrificed himself on Calvary’s cross to pay for our sins and win for us forgiveness and eternal life.

So when we stand before the Lord with faith in him, he will look into the Book of Life and not see the sin strewn about in our lives. That sin will all be erased by his holiness and his death on the cross. In the place of that sin will be his righteousness put forth in our behalf as well as our imperfect fruits of faith perfected in him. Jesus our Savior will judge us righteous in his sight in welcome us to the freedom that won for us and that awaits us in eternity.

Therefore, be confident and look forward to this future freedom.

Amen.

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