5th Sunday in Lent

A Matter of Perspective

Lessons from Paul for Gaining a Humble Heart / Gaining the Prize Jesus Christ

At the end of the day what truly matters? Will it be the size of your home, the amount of acres you combine, the size of your heard, or the status you hold within your community or congregation? Where will all these gains lead you? What if you lose it all? When life smacks you in the face with a rotten sardine and you can barely pick yourself off the floor. Paul gained so much in his life. He had notoriety as a student of the law, an obedient persecutor of the early Christian church. Yet in all this he was missing something. In order for him to see this he had to loose everything to gain the one thing he lacked.

An English professor wrote the words “Woman without her man is a savage” on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.

The men wrote: “Woman, without her man, is a savage.”

The women wrote: “Woman! Without her, man is a savage.”

Were one saw Jesus wasting and indeed an opportunity for his own pursuits, ⁵“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” ⁶(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)” Jesus saw it as, ⁷Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. ⁸You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Perspective friends – it is indeed a matter of perspective.

hree preachers sat discussing the best positions for prayer while a telephone repairman worked nearby. "Kneeling is definitely best," claimed one.

"No," another contended. "I get the best results standing with my hands outstretched to Heaven."

"You're both wrong," the third insisted. "The most effective prayer position is lying prostrate, face down on the floor."

The repairman could contain himself no longer. "Hey, fellas, " he interrupted, "the best prayin' I ever did was hangin' upside down from a telephone pole.

What can we gain from the text today? What lessons can be harvest and apply to our daily lives? As we prepare ourselves to receive Christ what is God asking of us? To be real, to be authentic, to see how our lives can be truly lived free from the weight of sin and our desperate attempts at looking the part – as Paul suggests that he was all things to all people – but he was humbled so Christ would receive the glory.

Applying the Text

1. Perspective begins with seeing what truly matters.

a. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

b. Ever loose everything? My first time in a casino at age 18 I thought I was going to win a new car or something. With 20 bucks in my pocket I was set for a great time with my friends. What I latter realized that what little I gained it was lost in the end.

c. To be humbled causes us to see with perspective. Suffering the loss of all things in order to gain Christ.

d. It happened with Paul, with Judas, with me – and to us all.

2. Perspective calls us to see things from a new point of view.

a. ¹⁸Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. ¹⁹I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

b. ⁷Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.

c. Judas and Jesus

3. Perspective refocuses our minds and brings about change.

a. ⁹When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead

b. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

4th Sunday in Lent

The Ministry of Reconciliation

Do we truly get it – that this is a place where grace is found?

What is true reconciliation? What is it to be reconciled? According to our trusted friends at Merriam-Webster to be reconciled is to restore a relationship. To bring back to completeness – for us in the church we see this as confession and absolution. We come together and in the words of the confession – together we hear that we are sinners in need of a solution for our fallen nature and that solution is Jesus Christ. Jesus is that reconciliation. Our ministry then is to be a place where that can happen. But to do this effectively we need to know this reconciliation personally, we have to know what scripture teaches, and find ways that we practically be that place of forgiveness and grace. Maybe it comes in killing fatted caves and putting the best rings on those who have in our best estimation squandered a life’s savings – but in God’s grace and love even the sinners find grace and a place of welcome right?

A ministry familiar with reconciliation and its power to transform would be Prison Fellowship. Not everyone they come in contact with is a success story. There are plenty of examples of failed transformation and reconciliation. But listen here to this story of reconciliation.

'The man I ate dinner with tonight killed my brother." The words, spoken by a stylish woman at a PF banquet in Seattle, amazed me. She told how John H. had murdered her brother during a robbery, served 18 years at Walla Walla, then settled into life on a dairy farm, where she had met him in 1983, 20 years after his crime. Compelled by Christ's command to forgive, Ruth Youngsman had gone to her enemy and pronounced forgiveness. Then she had taken him to her father's deathbed, prompting reconciliation.

Some wouldn't call this a success story: John didn't dedicate his life to Christ. But at that PF banquet last fall, his voice cracked as he said, 'Christians are the only people I know that you can kill their son, and they'll make you a part of their family. I don't know the Man Upstairs, but He sure is hounding me."

John's story is unfinished; he hasn't yet accepted Christ. But just as Christ died for us regardless of our actions or acceptance, so Ruth forgave him without qualification. Even more so, she became his friend.

Regardless of our actions, acceptance of God’s grace, or even acknowledgement of God’s action to bring about reconciliation God is still acting. God is at work in the prayers of mothers praying for their sons who are caught up in sin. God is moving through his spirit in the hearts of troubled women and men who have found themselves knee deep in the criminal court system because of drugs or violence. Can anything ever separate us from the love of God? Not according to Romans 8

? 33 Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

These are words of POWER. These are words of GRACE. Can you hear them today? Where is your heart beloved? Listen to the Savior today who calls out to you in your distress, in your moments of sin and regret. Have you been in the shoes of the prodigal son – on your knees believing that you are not worthy to be called a child of God? Is that the end of the story? By no means.

So how do we make this a place of grace? How do we establish the church as a place for reconciliation to happen?

Applying the Word

1. A matter of perspective – Christ’s perspective.

a. 15Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

b. Careful beloved. We too can be caught up in this as well. Some sinners are in while others are not. We are all sinners who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If Jesus was sitting and eating with tax collectors and sinners – well shoot, he’s sitting with me.

c. If we see the world through the eyes of Jesus what do we see?

d. ¹⁶From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

e. A man in a bar sees a friend at a table, drinking by himself.
Approaching the friend he comments, "You look terrible. What's the problem?"

"My mother died in June," he said, "and left me $10,000."

"Gee, that's tough," he replied.

"Then in July," the friend continued, "My father died, leaving me $50,000."

"Wow. Two parents gone in two months. No wonder you're depressed."

"And last month my aunt died, and left me $15,000."

"Three close family members lost in three months? How sad."

"Then this month," continued, the friend, "nothing!"

f. Do we get it? Truly? It is a matter of perspective.

2. Be intentional and authentic to create a safe place.

a. Can you be real and authentic with the person sitting next to you in the pew. Could you tell them the deepest and perhaps darkest sins that you struggle with? If not what would it take?

b. Relationships. We sometimes take this for granted in the rural church. Everyone KNOWS everyone, or do we? Do we know truly what struggles our brother or sister may be going through? How can we build such relationships of authenticity? Where we can truly bear each others burdens, honestly hear each other and listen, offer guidance and love, and give to each other pardon and peace. This is grace and this is the place I believe God is leading his church to be.

c. You create a safe place for us pastors to make MANY mistakes. Take the people of Marion Lutheran in Gunder, Iowa.

d. ! ¹⁸I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ ²⁰So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. ²¹Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²²But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; ²⁴for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.

e. The son expected to find hostility and would be happy with “being a slave” and “eating the pods pigs eat”. Expectations were very low. But the father did what was unexpected. Instead of judgment he found grace. A place of celebration because – “the lost has come home”. This is our Heavenly Father’s response – grace.

3. God will instruct us in His ways and lead us in the way of grace.

a. ⁸I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

b. ¹⁷So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

c. If God has rolled away the disgrace from our eyes then why do we hang our heads so low?

d. This is a place of grace – amazing grace. A place of transformation, and place of new life.

1. Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,

grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!

Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured,

there where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.

Refrain:

Grace, grace, God's grace,

grace that will pardon and cleanse within;

grace, grace, God's grace,

grace that is greater than all our sin!

3rd Sunday in Lent

The Reality of the Christian Life

What happens? We do so well for so long and then the shoe drops. We stop coming to church. Our lives get busy. How do we persevere in the midst of great challenges? What about facing the inner demons that seek to pull us down?

Someone has calculated how a typical lifespan of 70 years is spent. Here is the estimate:
Sleep................23 years...........32.9%
Work.................16 years...........22.8%
TV....................8 years...........11.4%
Eating................6 years............8.6%
Travel................6 years............8.6%
Leisure.............4.5 years............6.5%
Illness...............4 years............5.7%
Dressing..............2 years............2.8%
Religion............0.5 years............0.7%
Total................70 years............100%

We are consumed by the desire to find the cure for sleeplessness (thank goodness for Lunesta), we pass legislation to spur jobs and keep the economy afloat, I cannot begin to tell you how much energy is spent on the consumption of food – dieting – and equality when it comes to food, we love to travel thanks to Travelocity.Com … but at the end we hear about religion.

Priorities have run amuck. I wouldn’t be so quick to blame those who find themselves sleeping in on Sunday morning. We have done little to discourage such a hurried life in America.
On a recent day off I spent some time with a spiritual director in La Crosse. A person whose sole responsibility is to listen, pray, offer some guidance, but mostly pray. This was at the Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse. While touring the facility I was shown the chapel where the nuns pray 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I asked, “They seriously pray all the time?” “Yes, that is their vocation.”

As we examine ourselves and our lives during Lent we see that we have it all wrong. When it comes to sin we see it that “living in sin is the new thing” according to the gospel of Britney Spiers. We are burdened by the quest to have it all but now see the great failure in that comes when the shoe drops.

A minister was planning a wedding at the close of the Sunday morning service.

After the benediction he had planned to call the couple down to be married for a brief ceremony before the congregation.

For the life of him, he couldn't think of the names of those who were to be married.

"Will those wanting to get married please come to the front?" he requested.

Immediately, nine single ladies, three widows, four widowers, and six single men stepped to the front.

It is a time for us to remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Remember our sins are forgiven and remembered no more. Remember that Lent is a time for us to embrace a God who is merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. We forget often the grace of God. We also forget that our life as Christians is not without challenge, not without hard times, not without moments of doubt, but is enfolded by the God who spreads a banquet before us today.

Applying the Word

1. Seek the Lord during those moments of doubt, regret, sin, and frustration.
a. 6Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 7let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon
b. 12So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. 13No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

2. Cling to the hope and promises God offers to you today

a. 8My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
b. Word and sacrament.

3. This is a season of pruning.

6Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

2nd Sunday in Lent

Reaching for the Goal

The Power of Transformation - The Power of the Gospel

Is change really possible? Can a person knee deep in the muck of sin find release and new life? How can Paul be so confident in the power of the Gospel to transform lives? To go from humiliation to glory?

Think of what brings about change. You may have a life altering medical emergency. Heart attack, stroke, a bad health report - maybe emotional stress in your home with a spouse or child. You know in your heart that change is needed. But what now? How can I move from humiliation to glory? From sin to becoming healed, renewed, and forgiven?

Change is hard beloved. Making that move to change takes courage. Real courage. It takes making the first move, stepping out in faith - realizing that there is no going back. To grasp the glory Christ offers means embracing the freedom of that the cross gives and knowing that life lived in this freedom is what Christ intends for us.

For we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We say it but do we believe it? That we have sinned against God in thought, word and deed by what we have done and what we have left undone. We have not loved God with our whole heart, we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. This is the journey of Lent. That we realize our sin and that which distances us from God and know the glory that awaits us - the heavenly prize as Paul declares.

Two construction workers had taken a lunch break and opened up their lunch boxes. One of them looked inside his box and said, "Not baloney again! I can't believe it. I hate baloney. This is the third time this week I've had baloney. I can't stand baloney!" The other one said, "Why don't you just ask your wife to make you something different?" He replied, "I don't have a wife. I made these myself."

Its hard not to keep serving up the same old baloney. We are creatures of habit and masters of comfort. It is counter cultural to break from the idea that in our sin that we can be who we are and not who God would want us to be. What is it that God sees in us? If we are “made in the image of God” what now?

Applying the Texts to Daily Life

(1) Press on towards the goal of the heavenly goal.

14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. 15Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you.

So often we hold on to what is comfortable. We want to look forward to what may be possible but catch ourselves looking over our shoulders at the past.

What can we hold onto when faced with change? One word, covenant.

18On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates

The same God who made a promise of a future for Abram wants to grant to you and to me a new life. A life lived beyond the grasp of sin, death, and the devil. A life of glory - the heavenly crown, the salvation promised.

Take that first step today. Know that when we press on towards the heavenly goal Christ will be with us every step of the way. We need to be on the same page when it comes to sin and the reality of a new life lived in grace.

(2) Never under estimate the power of influence.

16Only let us hold fast to what we have attained. 17Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

You hold the power to change lives in your hands. In your voice, your heart, and within your reach. Years ago in an effort to engage the congregation in the confirmation journey I required students to find a mentor in the congregation, someone they are not related to. Hard in a rural community. But what happened was nothing short of transformation. Elder men having influence to encourage and engage the lives of younger men setting examples in being fathers, leaders in the church, and finding forgiveness in the cross. Elder women showing younger women the power of humility and grace, on being wives and mothers.

Be fully aware beloved of the other kinds of influence afoot. Glory is In their shame? Minds set on earthly things? Where is our citizenship? Is it in heaven? Then we need to live like it is and hold fast to what we have obtained.

(3) Stand firm in the Lord.

21He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. 4Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings

Create in me a clean heart O God.