May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your
sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. AMEN.
Let
us pray! Heavenly Father, You reveal
Yourself unto us today, not only in, through and by Your Word and meal we will
partake of, but clearly manifest in the creation around us and our personal experience
of You. Enable us to not only encounter
our World but come to a realization that You sent Your Son Jesus Christ, the
Word Who became flesh, to live among us and die for each of us in order that we
might live for all eternity with You and all of us saints gathered here at
Emmanuel to hear Your Word for each of us today. AMEN.
There
is a tower that stands outside of our church.
It has a sole purpose. What is
the tower to do? Hold the bell tower and
the speakers for the chimes? Look
ascetically pleasing as our pinnacle reaching to God? Or is it to hold highest what is most
important to us? This morning we begin a
series where we will be hearing about God’s gift to mankind that was given to
us on stone, but it all started with a tower.
In the coming weeks we will be learning about the 10 Commandments. For some of us, it will be a reminder of what
we learned in Catechism Class, for others it will be a new exploration of what
God gave to His people on two tablets.
These ten imperatives, written on stone, originally broken on their
initial journey down the mountain and rewritten because of being broken in
anger by Moses contain for Jews as well as us today the most important laws
from God for the people of Israel and for each and every one of us gathered
here today at Emmanuel.
For
our culture today here in Western Kansas as well as across Western Civilization
we have laws that are based upon these original laws of the 10 Commandments
written in statutes and other imperatives by our society. Whether speed limit signs, stop signs or
lights or even at the bank or ball park.
When we ‘break’ one of the commands of society and are caught, we usually
go to court, make our plea before a judge, have a verdict of our actions and sometimes
pay a fine and sometimes even spend time in jail. But the original intent of the 10
Commandments was clear, for as the explanation says, in order for all of us to
“fear, love and trust” God.
As
a reminder, hear again, the Commandment and its explanation as written by
Martin Luther. Follow along as I read
from the insert “You shall have no other gods.
What does this mean? We should
fear, love and trust in God above all things.”
It
is abundantly clear that this first commandment is to keep us from making gods
out of our possessions, people or our passions.
There are numerous stories that illustrate this extremely well from our
society and even our contemporary culture, whether our farms given by God that
we make more important than our faith, computers that we feel we need in order
to do our jobs better, toys like fishing rods and reels, bicycles or shotguns for
recreation or our sporting events, but the Old Testament contains the perfect story
about the First Commandment. God’s
people in Genesis 11 were ‘building a tower’ in order to ‘reach God.’ When the people came together they were not
only ingenious, but nothing would be impossible for them. With one language and nothing preventing them
from accomplishing anything, God deemed it better to not only confuse their
language, but also scatter them around the world. The reality is these people could accomplish
anything and God knew it. Since the fall
of man where sin entered into the world, God’s plan of salvation was in motion
and with the people building a tower and being able to accomplish anything this
could have potentially accomplished a goal with and by mans abilities and not
by God’s grace.
Therefore,
God not only destroyed the tower, He scattered the people and even scrambled
their language. What would have been
accomplished if they had completed the tower was what is called ‘works
righteousness’, or where man accomplished by his or her own ability the plan of
salvation. If this would have occurred
then there would have been no need of a Savior and therefore no need for us to solely
rely upon God and not ourselves.
Our
ego says, that is the way it should be, but the reality is that the tower
revealed to God not only what man could do, but the importance of what God
needed to accomplish in and for us. It
was God’s plan for His Son Jesus Christ to come into this world and walk among
us, eat with us, heal the sick and downtrodden and ultimately teach the people
what God wanted to accomplish through Him.
This is why Jesus Christ coming and dying on the Cross of Calvary for
all of mankind is ultimately so important.
But
of what consequence is that for us today?
I return to the tower outside of our church. What is on top of the tower of our
church? For those of you who may not
have looked up for a long time, it is a Celtic Cross. We here at Emmanuel lift high the Cross of
Christ today not only to honor Jesus Christ for His sacrifice for all of us,
but as a reminder for all of us of the First Commandment and the towers that we
build in our own individual lives.
Just
as the people in Genesis could not build a tower to reach God, we cannot by our
own self-righteousness reach God and work out our own salvation. We are unable to build a bridge between man
and God. We build towers today whether
as radio, television, buildings or even bell towers for churches or even
steeples. But our building a church or a
tower is only for what is under heaven, it cannot reach to heaven.
If
we build on Christ as our foundation and lift Him up and put Him at the top of
our tower in our lives, in our interaction with one another in our response to
what God has done for each of us then we follow the First Commandment and show
that we have no other God than Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God the Father Who created us, God the Son
Who redeems us and God the Holy Spirit Who sanctifies and keeps us in the one
true faith. This is our reality and why
our tower will never get to God, but by lifting God in His Son Jesus Christ up
not only as a reminder but as our witness of the salvation offered through
Jesus Christ for all of mankind, including all of us saints in Goodland and that
are gathered here at Emmanuel this morning.
AMEN.
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