April
23, 2017
“We can believe in God's testimony!”
“We can believe in God's testimony!”
What
joy to behold as last Sunday we heard and proclaimed the triumphant
proclamation, “He is Risen! He is Risen
Indeed! Alleluia!” Here at Emmanuel we had 171 people joining us
in our proclamation of the Easter message.
Many people near and far have personally commented to me about how great
that was for our church. After church
the kids engaged in the annual, joyful and energetic Easter Egg Tradition, with
the joyful squeals of the children and the adults reconnecting with one another
and sharing and making memories with one another. All of this comes simply because one Man was
willing to die in order that we might live and have eternal life. This is the fulfilled promise of God that we
have heard clearly from Holy Scripture.
This truth we can hold dearly simply because, “We can believe in God's testimony!”
Holy
Scripture, the Bible, we here at Emmanuel give to our children as part of our promise
and responsibility when they are baptized.
Holy Scripture we as individuals affirm at our Confirmation and we as a
congregation reaffirmed our belief in the Promise of the Gospel at my
ordination. And we Emmanuel Lutheran read
and hear from Holy Scripture and the Gospel weekly in worship. Holy Scripture points us to the simple fact
that “We can believe in God's testimony!” For God is not a liar and God does not mislead
us, for God’s testimony is true, because God’s testimony in Holy Scripture points
to God’s Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ and His Sacrifice on Golgotha is the centrality of the
Gospel message and is the one event looked for from the Garden of Eden and that
we look back to even today.
With
our pointing to Jesus Christ, His life, death and resurrection, Jesus Christ
clearly not only sacrificed Himself, but we remember yearly, monthly, weekly
and should daily think upon and thank God for His Son’s payment on the Cross of
Calvary for the sin of all of mankind. This
is why ‘God’s testimony’ not only is central, but treasured, solely, because it
is with an eternal perspective in mind.
Our being with God for all eternity.
And we are promised our entrance into eternity, simply because of Jesus
Christ willingness to go to the Cross of Calvary and die so we can live
eternally. And this reality becomes ours
because “We can believe in God's
testimony!”
In
and of ourselves we are incapable of belief in the promises of God, but by
grace and through the work of the Holy Spirit as Martin Luther reminds us in
the Explanation of the Third Article, God ‘calls, gathers, enlightens,
sanctifies and keeps us in the one true faith’.
This work that the Holy Spirit does for us is a direct result of the
grace that God offers us freely and without our own merit from Jesus going to
the Cross for us. These reminders for us
are in order that we can as one of our themes from Pre-School VBS a few years
ago reminds us, we can ‘Fully Rely On God’!
And “We can believe in God's
testimony!”
In
the latest installment of the Marvel movies of the Avengers arc, “Captain
America: Civil War” Steve Rogers, Captain America is reminded clearly what
truth really means and what and why he was willing as a young man during World
War II to fight for his country and his God.
At the funeral of Peggy Carter, his first love of his life, Peggy’s
niece reminisced with the following advice she was given from her aunt. “Compromise
where you can. Where you can't, don’t. Even if everyone is telling you that
something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to
move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and
say, 'No. You move.”
We
to as children of our heavenly Father through our Baptism into Jesus Christ,
life, death, but especially His resurrection are similarly called to plant
ourselves ‘like a tree’. For just as the
tree on Calvary was planted and Jesus refused to be removed, but was willing to
die to set us free. We to are called, to
be planted like a tree and refuse to allow the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His
Grace to be soiled because of self-interest and self-serving goals. This is why Jesus Christ died for truth to
set us free from bondage.
Since
“We can believe in God's testimony”
as truth and God is faithful, we are empowered to stand and be faithful to what
God’s testimony is and has been from Creation to today. We look back to the truth of Jesus
willingness to die on the Cross of Calvary and we are emboldened to be the
Church and stand up and testify of God’s faithfulness on the Cross and His
death to set mankind free from sin, death and especially the devil. These are the promises of God for us and
clearly, firmly and faithfully we, Emmanuel Lutheran Church are called as the
Body of Christ, gathered as a community of faith and enabled to be the Church
of Jesus Christ, by the grace of God so “We
can believe in God's testimony!”
AMEN.
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