Reformation 2012

Missed Reformation Sunday? Here is the link to the video sermon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuHNSjioPvw   Reformation Article from Lutheran Witness October 2009: October 31, 1517, the day on which Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, is remembered as the beginning of the Reformation. Luther protested the sale of indulgences, the then common church practice of selling the forgiveness of sins. His 95 Theses must rank with the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence as a world-shattering document. Unlike the writers of other pace-setting documents, Luther never intended that his theses would be so decisively ultimate. The 95 Theses turned Luther into the great reformer. He was not the first or the last to lodge a protest against church abuses, but five centuries after his birth, his reforms are influencing even the successors of those who rejected and condemned him. In the nearly 30 years that Luther lived after that fateful day, he was involved directly or through his associates in reforming the church and society. At first others were more aware of Luther’s world-shattering ideas than he was himself. What was for him the solution to an internal religious problem became for others a call for reformation. The printing press and the translation of his views from Latin into German spread his views so quickly throughout Europe that they soon came to the attention of princes, bishops, and even the pope. While Luther’s concern was the justification of the sinner before God through faith without works, the church authorities understood them chiefly as a direct attack on the church institution. This was so far from Luther’s mind at first, that he even appealed to the two popes as dear fathers in Christ. His religious concerns were, nevertheless, seen as treachery against the civil authorities, since the church and empire were unified under the pope and emperor. To protect this world, the authorities reacted to Luther’s concerns, first by debate and persuasion. Then on June 15, 1520, hardly a full three years after his original protest, he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X. After his courageous stand before Emperor Charles V on April 17, 1521, at Worms he was, until his death in 1546, an outlaw in most of imperial Europe. Bu this time Luther had set forth in many writings his ideas of reform. Because of his excommunication, Luther was put into the position of practical reformer, not his by personal inclination and education. He was trained as a scholar and teacher. His doctrine of justification, over which he had struggled for many years before 1517, especially in connection with his lectures on Romans and the Psalms, had unintentionally put him in opposition to the church’s understanding of itself as the only dispenser of salvation. The church’s hold on society from the humblest peasant to the emperor rested on this claim. This claim on Christians was exercised not only by indulgences but by the sale of masses for souls in purgatory, pilgrimages, prayers to the saints, and the maintenance of monasteries. Luther’s opponents, as the documents show, were not as concerned about his views on justification as about their negative effect on church structures. In a sense they led him to see the implications of his own teaching. This personal awareness turned Luther from a scholar with a solution to a theological problem into a great reformer of church and society. Many portraits and statues of Luther picture him holding the Bible in his hand as he is preaching. Recognizing the Bible as the sole authority in church life and making it available to the people in their language were some of the first reforms. Luther, like his contemporaries, recognized the Bible as God’s Word. However, they saw the Bible and teachings of the church, that were collected in tradition, constituting one authority, with the pope serving as the final arbiter. In a debate with John Eck in Leipzig in July 1519, Luther realized that popes, church councils, and accepted church teachings often flatly contradicted each other. Eck, wanting to show Luther that he was not a loyal son the church, led him in the process to the conviction that the Bible was the final authority. Luther also insisted on the Bible’s literal interpretation. Through the complex method of allegory, the priest exercised effective control over the people. Now the people--without the priests--could understand God’s will for themselves. This led later to Luther’s translation of the New Testament (1522) and the Old Testament (1534). Translation of the Bible into modern language began and has never stopped.

I do believe; Help me Overcome my Unbelief*

Title:  I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!* Sermon from *43 Matt Hoffmann sermons
Text: Mark 9:14-29  22 And Jesus said to him, “‘Everything is possible for one who believes.”  Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”.”   INTRODUCTION: My dear friends in Christ, Alexander the Great had supreme confidence in his friend and physician.  When the physician had mixed him a potion for his sickness, a letter was put into Alexander’s hand warning him not to drink the mixture, since it was poisoned.  He held the letter in one hand and the cup in the other and in the presence of his friend and physician he drank up the drought.  After he had drained the cup, he bade his friend look at the letter and judge of his confidence in him. Alexander had unwavering faith in his friend that did not include any doubt.  He said: “See now, how I have trusted you.” This is the assurance that the believer should exercise toward his God.  But so often it’s not the case.  Unbelief whispers in our ears calling us to hesitate and falter in our trust in Him.”
I.    Today our text from Mark 9 gives us words that express the tension that is more normal than Alexander’s faith in the doctor.
	A.  These Words spoken first by a man who had the courage to be truly honest with himself, and honest with God.
				1. Stripped of all pretense, he speaks so plainly, “I believe, help my unbelief!” This is real, gut wrenching truth, and it speaks to life in a real, gut wrenching world.
						a. The statement itself is loaded with tension. There is pretense in this man’s faith and unbelief. But he doesn’t hide it.   b. And I’m glad that he doesn’t, because don’t we all live with this kind of tension in our lives? We live as those who have the saving blood of Jesus poured out for us, and giving us the promise of forgiveness, life and salvation. And yet, don’t we still live with the daily struggle against sin? Don’t we still live in a very real world full of very real disappointments, and failures, and temptations? The truth is, in this world, we don’t always win.
				2.  What I love about the account of Jesus healing this boy is WHERE we find it in Scripture.  It’s important that we understand that this account is always found immediately following the Transfiguration of Christ.
						a. Why does this matter? Well, the Transfiguration of Jesus is where we are transported, along with Peter, James, and John to witness a preview of the heavenly reality that is waiting for those who have been redeemed by Christ’s grace.   b. But here’s the deal. At the VERY TIME that all this is going on, something very different is happening to the 9 guys who didn’t go with Jesus up that hill. It wasn’t other-worldly, it wasn’t heavenly. It was harsh reality,..
	B. The men walked down the mountain of Transfiguration, “And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them.” A heated argument is raging all because a man brought his boy to be healed of a demon possession, but the disciples were unable to help. So the scribes rushed in to take advantage of the situation, to make the disciples look silly, and trivial in front of this big crowd. It had to be a truly crass scene.
				1.  Grown men, religious men, shouting at one another. Men throwing theological arguments back and forth, all the while, one man in the crowd can hardly watch.
						a. You see, his heart had been broken once again. He knew the feeling well. But yet it never seemed to make it less raw and dark, no matter how familiar he had become with the disappointment after so many years. If he were just fighting to help himself, and for his own problems, he would have given up years ago. But he wasn’t fighting for himself, he was fighting for his son, trying to help his boy. He would allow himself to get his hopes up, knowing that more than likely they would be dashed, because his son needed him to, so he would always try one more time.   b. But so far, nothing had worked. So far, he had no reason to have faith that anything could work. It’s not that people didn’t want to help, it’s that no one knew how. His son’s problems weren’t normal. He had demonic, induced epileptic fits.
				2. It only makes sense that this man had a bruised faith. His faith had a fresh wound on it when Jesus comes because to the disciples had failed to make any kind of difference at all. The evil spirit still gripped the boy as tightly as ever. It takes courage for him to even ask Jesus to help, and in his pain, you can see why his request of Jesus starts out guardedly: “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” If you can…
II. Jesus responds to the heart of the matter, ‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” He says, the question isn’t about what I CAN do, the question is, “do you believe?” He doesn’t say this to be mean, or to challenge the man. Jesus says this because he knows what it will bring out of the man is something beautiful. A powerful confession of sin and a wonderful confession of faith. Both being exactly what this man so desperately needs.
	A. Desperation is the right word. The years of emotion well up from deep inside; all of the hopes that fell down so hard, all of the nights of tears, are forced to the surface, through his vocal chords, and come crashing out of his mouth:  and He said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
					1. It was the only thing he could say. It was all he had left in him to say, all that was left of his battered faith. All he had left laid bare, in just a handful of words, “I believe, help my unbelief!”   2. But where this man was weak, he found that Jesus was strong. That Jesus still heard his cry, and responded to weakness of faith in strength of love.
						a. And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”   b. And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
		B. In the end, we see what really matters. What matters is that Christ is strong, not us. What matters is what God can do, not us. What matters is that we come to realize that we can’t help ourselves, that we aren’t as in control as we thought.  Cartoons at times will have a scene where a character, let’s says Wild E. Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons, falls off the edge of a cliff. As he falls, he grabs hold of a twig sticking out of the side of the cliff. He hangs there for a short time. Then the twig snaps and he falls. It doesn’t matter how strong his grip was. When the twig breaks, he falls.  It doesn’t matter how strong we are; all that matters is how strong God is.
					1. Where are you today? What do you think when you hear those words, “I believe, help my unbelief?”
						a. If you’re like me you’ve had doubts. You’ve had hopes built up and then smashed. You’ve wondered at times if God even hears you when you call on him. We’ve all been there. Because we are real people, we live life in this real world, and we’ve experienced real pain, and real fear, and real heartache.   b. This man’s simple words strike us so deeply because they are our words. They are honest words, they are real words, the words we’d like to shout ourselves, but are maybe too afraid what others might think.  The questions swirl in our minds.  It is really OK to admit that I have doubts? Is it really OK to say I need help with my faith? It is it really OK to be completely transparent about my struggles? The answer is YES!
					2. This is life, and this is what the journey of faith looks like sometimes.
							a. And this is a remarkable description of what happens in Holy Baptism: A sinner, who by definition is a child of the devil, is brought to the Lord God commands the evil one to release the sinner.  The sinner is killed. The sinner is raised to new life in, with, and by Christ Jesus. The father's confession, "I believe, help my unbelief" is the daily life and struggle of the Baptized. It was the struggle of the disciples. It is your struggle and mine.   b. I would love it if the path of the life of faith looked like you were baptized and launched out of a cannon in a straight line, and straight up to heaven. How great would that be! But that’s not how it goes for any of us.
			C. This is what the real journey of faith looks like sometimes. Sorry, but it’s true. Actually, I’m not sorry. Not sorry at all. Because something important happens in these dark moments.
					1. In these dark places, in these shadowy corners of our hearts we come to an important realization: That faith can’t be all about us. We have to fix our eyes on something greater, on someone greater.
							a. Help, faith, salvation. These things aren’t rooted inside of us. They are gifts given to us from our God. They are gifts rooted in our rescuer, our Messiah, our Savior. They are gifts found in the bloody soaked sacrifice on the cross for our sins, they are found in the empty grave clothes that once wrapped the body of the killed Christ now risen.   b. If you feel that all you have to offer God is a bruised, and battered, and beaten faith. It doesn’t affect at all what he has to offer you. It doesn’t matter if you feel that you are on the edge of your faith. It doesn’t matter if you struggle with deep doubts. It doesn’t matter if you have doubts about how long you can hold onto your faith in the storm.
					2. Because Christ will NEVER let go of you. Christ never has doubts about you. He never has questions about what you’re worth to Him. He knew what it would cost to make you his. He knew the price he would have to pay. He knew how far you’d wander from Him, he knew how much you would sin, he knew how much it would hurt.
							a. But he also knew he didn’t want to live without you. So he made your salvation real. As real as a cruel wooden cross. As real as a cold stone tomb, a place of darkness and death, that he would turn into a symbol of light and life for you.   b. And he hears you, he knows you, he loves you. Even in those moments when all you can say is what that man said so many years ago, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” Understand that even this is amazing. Even this is a gift from God. Even this is a blessing.
CONCLUSION: It takes courage to be that honest. To say out loud that things aren’t perfect, that my faith isn’t perfect, that I need God to intervene in my life, even now. Can you say those words? Can you let down your guard? Can you trust that the cross is enough for you? Can you look past yourself to find comfort in the empty tomb, in what Christ has done for you? Let’s say it together: “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!”   Christ’s response is always the same. “I know, I love you, You belong to me.” AMEN
*Reference: Raw Honesty Matt Hoffmann 43 Matt Hoffmann sermons Topic: #345 of 715 for Sermons on Doubt Scripture: Mark 9:14-9:21

God is a Giver-We Give to be like Him

Text: Corinthians 8: 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.   INTRODUCTION: My dear friends in Christ, A pastor in Tennessee tells about Nathan, a precocious three-year-old in his church. Nathan’s parents were trying to introduce him to what it means to be in church. One Sunday they gave him a one-dollar bill that Nathan was to place in the offering plate. When the plate moved down Nathan’s pew, his parents held it in front of him and told him to place the dollar in the plate. Nathan balked. Finally his mother gently took the dollar from him. She placed it in the plate, and it was passed on down the pew.   Suddenly the offering music was overwhelmed by a voice demanding, “I want my dollar back! I want my dollar back!” In Nathan’s eyes, he had been robbed and he wanted everyone to know it. His parents tried in vain to quiet their son, but he was insistent, “I want my dollar back!” Everyone in the congregation was fighting a losing battle against laughter. Throughout the remaining strains of the organist’s meditative tune, the only thing most worshippers heard was, “I want my dollar back!” Eventually, his parents gave Nathan another dollar to hold and he was content enough.  The Pastor knew he needed to talk about what had happened. Looking out at the smiling faces he said, “We shouldn’t laugh. It may be that Nathan is only voicing the feelings that many of us have after having given to God. We do so, not joyously but out of a sense of obligation. We do so unwillingly. We may not say it, but some of us think it, ‘I want my dollar back!’” In our text Paul is calling for us to learn about giving in a greater way than those parents were trying to teach little Nathan.  And often the same reaction is encountered as we learn.
I.    Why does Paul try to teach us about giving?  Why do we react in a tight fisted way?  How should we react to the idea of Giving?
	A.  Could it be that Paul calls for giving because God needs our money? Does God need our money? Ponder that idea for a second — could that really be the reason? No, not if we have any understanding of God at all. When you really think about it the idea that God would need our money is totally ridiculous.
			1. First, that idea is arrogant, as if we were indispensable to God, as if God could not operate without us.
					a. I'm sorry to burst any bubbles, but God can get along just fine without our money, or our time, or our talents.   b. If God needed to He could take whatever we have without our consent if necessary and leave us as a greasy spot where we used to be.
			2. And second, this idea shows a conception of God that is far too small.
					a. You see, God owns everything. At His word the universe came into being. At His word the world was made. At His word all the beasts of the field were made.   b. The Psalmist writes: "The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; . (Psalm 24:1] "Every beast of the forest is Mine." He says, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. [Psalm 50: 10-12]   c. No, God does not need what we have — actually we really don't have anything that's not already His.
	B. Could Paul be calling for giving because the church needs the money?
			1. Of Course, there is some truth to this — the church always needs money. When it stops needing money then it is dead.   2. Yes, God does often do his work through churches, but again God can supply whatever the church would need without any of us. We limit the church not God.
II. But all this is putting the cart before the horse —It’s not the overall reason for giving.  The real reason for giving is not for God, it's not for the church. No, God wants us to give "for us" What?? To explain that we have to get a little background.
	A. Remember God is a "Giver."
				1. He made the world, but not for Himself. What did he do with the world he had just made? He gave it to Adam and Eve. He told them to rule over it.   So He gave the world to mankind!  And now he continues to give the world to us as He preserves it.   2. Not only did He give mankind the world, but he gave us His image.
					a. This is a concept that defies explanation, but we can get a glimpse of what it means.   b. We can sum it up by saying that We were like Him in every way, except being a spirit.
	B.   But Adam and Eve rejected this image and sinned.
				1. They and all who came after them are broken.  We lost far more then we realize when we sinned and lost the image of God. We are no longer like God.  Now we no longer know God.   2. Now we don't see Him as the Giver He is.  Now we grasp – become tight-fisted because of sin, and because we don’t recognize who God really is.
III. But fortunately God's giving did not end with our turning from Him. He now works to redeem us from sin. And to this end He continues to give in special ways
		A. The first and most important thing He gave was His Son, Jesus.
				1. And our text says: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." [2 Corinthians 8:9]   2. Jesus — God's Son came from the riches of heaven to the poverty of a stable in Bethlehem. He gave and He gave. He even gave His life on a cross, paying for our sin. He took the punishment we deserve. He redeemed us — or paid the price to help us.
					a. There is a story I like to tell.  I’ve told it before but it bears repeating.    There was a young boy who lived in a New England seaport and loved to watch the boats come in from their daily catch. One day he decided to build a little sailboat all of his own. He worked for weeks, making sure each detail was just right. Finally the big day arrived. He went down to the wharf and proudly put his boat into the water. As he triumphantly observed his new sailboat. But then the wind suddenly changed, and the tiny boat was swept out of sight. The little boy was heartbroken. Every day for a month he went back to see if his boat had been washed up on shore. Finally, one day in the market he saw his boat in a store window. He excitedly ran into the store and told the storeowner that it was his boat. The woman only responded by saying that the boat would cost him two dollars. After pleading with her to no avail, the boy finally pulled out the money and gave it to the storeowner. As the boy was leaving the store, he said, "Little boat, you are twice mine. You are mine because I made you, and now you are mine because I bought you.”     Likewise God did the same for us through Jesus. We are twice His — once because He created us, the second because He redeemed us. This redemption is given to us through his Word and Sacraments
				2.  Now that we are His children He begins to restore His image in us. He begins to gives us back what we once had (although we will never quite have it all back until we are in heaven).
					a. We begin to be like Him again,    It’s like this: One professor at a University was a delightful man with a good sense of humor. He was also bald. One night he and his wife decided to go out to dinner and hired a babysitter to take care of their little children. While they were gone, the babysitter got interested in a television program and wasn't watching the children very carefully. Their little boy Peter Andrew, got into his father's electric shaver and shaved a big landing strip right down the middle of his head. When his father came home, he was furious. He said, "Peter Andrew! I told you never to play with my shaver. Now you are going to get a spanking that you will never forget!" He was just about to give the spanking when Peter Andrew looked up at him and said,-- "Wait until you see sister!" The prof. said they were horrified. They went into the next room and there was their little four-year-old daughter with hair shaved off of her head. She looked like a little skinned rabbit. By this time the prof. was really furious. He grabbed up Peter Andrew and said, "Now you are really going to get it." Just as he lifted his hand and started to bring it down Peter Andrew looked up at him with tears in his eyes and said, "But Daddy! WE WERE JUST TRYING TO LOOK LIKE YOU!" There was one little boy who didn't get a spanking that night. Instead he got an explanation and a hug.      Now I’m not condoning the precocious behavior of this boy but here we see a profound truth about children. They want to look like their Daddy. And as we live as Christians He moves us to be like him. We are brought to be more and more in line with His original intent for us. Part of that is to be Givers like our Father.  Giving does not save but it draws us to reflect what the Giver had already done in us.   b. God moves us to be givers like him for our good. It doesn't seem like it should be so, but it is. It's like returning to his original intentions for us. As we Give He moves us to be a little closer to what He has designed us to be. As we give he works to fulfill His game plan for us.   c. And since Christ is the ultimate picture of what it’s like to be the image of God we are moved to be like Him.  But we can't be Christ-like if we don't give, because He is a giver. Giving is now part of how God is shifting who we are. We are made less selfish. Our greedy hearts are reformed. Less selfish people make better husbands, wives, employees, employers.   d. Because His image is being restored we are happiest and most fulfilled when we are giving as the Giver does. We give up what the world says would make us happy and by doing that we become more fulfilled.
CONCLUSION:    Why does Paul want us to be givers? Why does God want us to be givers? It's not for His sake. It's not for the church. But it is for us. It’s for us because it’s an indication of His image being restored in us.  And when we reflect Him we benefit above and beyond what we would expect. Yes, as odd as it may sound we are called to be givers for our own sakes. Amen