Sequel

 

After much planning, preparation and delay a sequel is announced through movie trailers that reveal to us a new crises or challenge has arisen in that paradise or maybe it is a second, third, or fourteenth episode.  What is your favorite movie?  Does it have a sequel or follow on episodes?

 

Today, God recounts for us, through His faithful servants David, Isaiah and Matthew, the first of two sequels.  Each of these sequels is more powerful and encompassing than the preceding event. 

 

Genesis 1 – 2.

The original event was Genesis – in the beginning God created all things by calling them into existence by the power of His Word from nothing.  God then did something unexpected – He brought you and me into His confidence – His divine counsel – revealing He delighted to make mankind In His own image with His own hands breathing His very life into Adam and Eve and having fellowship with them.  Nothing in all that He created was made with such love and intimacy.

 

Genesis 3.

Unfortunately, Adam and Eve betrayed God’s love and fellowship for selfish and rebellious gain – forfeiting all that God offered them. 

 

Psalm 24.

We joined our voices to King David’s joyfully confession that God has not abandoned mankind but remembers His promise to send the Savior.  God affirms the Savior would be His own Son, begotten from before the foundation of the world, whom He loves and is well pleased to save mankind from foes that seek our suffering, anguish and death. 

 

Isaiah 7: 1 – 17.

God later sent the Prophet Isaiah, who spoke by the power of the Holy Spirit.  God Himself would give mankind a spectacular, undeniable, and divine sign of the new Genesis – the second beginning – the new beginning.

 

Have you ever waited for the sequel to come out and it not only did not meet your expectations but took you on a completely different journey than you hoped for or expected?  God the Father, being just and unwilling to put mankind to shame, resolved a second Genesis: His immortal and eternal Son would become true man, holy and righteous in His sight.  Unlike our expectations of a powerful and privileged savoir God sent  His Son as a suffering servant.  God the Son, Jesus, would exchange His sinless life on the cross for our sinful lives, dying so that we would have His true and eternal life with God. 

 

Matthew 1: 18 – 25.

There was no other way, no one else was capable and willing to embark on such an important and perilous task.  700 years after the Holy Spirit had spoken through Isaiah God fulfilled every detail of the Messiah’s, Wonderful Counselor’s, Mighty God’s, Everlasting Father’s, Prince of Peace’s birth and life. God is true to His promise and it is faithfully, truthfully and undeniably fulfilled in Jesus. 

 

Surprisingly, on that night approximately 2,000 years ago, God send His angel Gabriel to proclaim His peace and comfort to Joseph as he anguished over and wrestled with the reality of his betrothed bride’s pregnancy by someone not himself.  Gabriel comforted and reassured Joseph that salvation had come in a scandalous and righteous way.  God announced the imminent arrival of the long-awaited sequel – the birth of Immanuel through the virgin Mary. 

 

God’s people expected this baby to be the realization of their hopes and dreams – a mighty warrior King who would reestablish King David’s great and powerful kingdom by which Messiah would free them from their oppressors and establish a kingdom of unimaginable riches and peace.  Jesus would do this, according to God’s will and wisdom, establishing His kingdom: eternal, holy, righteous and peace filled. 

 

The one who created all things out of nothing, walked with Adam in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden and freed the children of Israel from Pharaoh’s tyrannical grip entered His creation as a baby, defenseless and dependent upon Joseph and Mary.

 

Jesus later emerged from obscurity as the 30 year old Messiah, not as a nobleman from a palace, arrayed in royal clothes and surrounded by a mighty army but from a scandalous birth and as an itinerant rabbi.  Jesus’ life is both a disappointment and an offense to those still dead in their sins.  Yet, Jesus’ life is both the delight and comfort to those alive in God.  

 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, there are movies that seem to get worse with each successive sequel while others exceed our imagination.  The reality is movies and their sequels are fiction, the product of someone’s fancy, meant for our entertainment.  God’s genesis events are reality.  The proof of His steadfast love and faithfulness for His fallen creation are meant for our salvation

 

God the Father calls us to prepare ourselves today to celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ which marked the second Genesis – Immanuel taking on human nature and abiding with us. 

 

Even more, God calls us not fear the confusing and dangerous days and years ahead for there is coming the third and final Genesis that will come suddenly when Jesus appears on the clouds with His holy angels to the eternal joy and peace of all who believe in Him and the eternal anguish and suffering of all who refused to believe in Him. 

 

The final sequel will exceed and eclipse all that has gone before.  In the final sequence, Jesus will appear in an instant, without warning.  He will eternally destroy sin and death and cast the evil one and all who refused to believe in Jesus into eternal angusih.  We, God’s children, will rise from death with immortal and incorruptible bodies like Jesus’.  Jesus will usher us into with our heavenly Father home  and recline you and me, as royal heirs, at His wedding feast which will have no end. 

 

Amen and Amen

Text:           Gospel Reading:  Luke 12: 49 – 56       

Title:          Divine Peace versus worldly peace

 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord and our God continues to teach us there is a stark contrast between the peaceful fellowship the holy God has with His children and the fleshly fellowship unrepentant mankind has with one another.  Jesus speaks to you and me this day, further illuminating the irreconcilable conflict between: the kingdom of God against the kingdom of the evil one;  God’s divine light versus sin’s obscene darkness; God’s pure and loving peace in opposition to the flesh’s profane and conditional peace.  The Prince of Peace testifies to the truth that the peace He gives to us, His brothers and sisters, is priceless, steadfast and trustworthy while fallen mankind’s peace is conditional, transient and suspect.  Our risen Lord’s words are both comforting and jarring.  Comforting for He speaks of the peace He has won with God with His bloody work, His fiery baptism upon the cross is the peace He gives to the children of God, His disciples, His brothers and sisters, you and me.  Jarring for the King of kings speaks of: fleshly conflict among members of temporal blood relationships that must give way to the everlasting spiritual familial relationship; a carnal peace within members of a family that must give way to the divine peace within the members of His body.  His peace was secured with His steadfast faithfulness to God and is this day sheltered in our heavenly Father’s steadfast love and faithfulness to His Christ.  The Lamb of God’s peace was tempered and proven true in the fiery baptism of God’s holy and righteous wrath for man’s rejection and rebellion and His payment for the wages of our sin – death upon the cross.  The Good Shepherd’s peace is vouchsafed by His reign at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

 

Jesus tells us that this spiritual and deadly division with mankind is the result of Adam’s rebellion and lawless behavior in the Garden of Eden and has since been perpetuated ever since by every descendant of Adam, including you and me.  Sin has so totally fouled our nature that we are neither able to see our sin, comprehend its offensiveness to God, overcome its complete defilement of our thoughts, our words and our deeds, nor combat and defeat its consequences.  It leads mankind into blasphemous notions that we arrive at a point of foolishness in this life where we believe “we have made peace with God,” living our lives as best we can while at peace with our fellow man.  The Lord warns us that the old Adam seeks not only to be God but to stand in judgment of God’s justice and holiness while overlooking or minimizing His perfect and steadfast love and mercy.  The world of lost sinners are under the bewitchment of the evil one who leads his people to self-righteously proclaim peace for all because they embrace and promote his lie that “God accepts everyone, welcomes all mankind into heaven, and would never cast anyone into hell.”  These and other heretical beliefs and blasphemous philosophies keep unrepentant mankind in insurrection and fighting against the almighty and merciful God.

 

Thankfully, Christ continues to reveal and teach us the truth of the stark and unfathomable division between God’s peace and man’s peace.  He again teaches us that this division is so deep, so vast, so insurmountable and so impassable by human reason or strength that only He, true God/true Man, correctly and completely understands and has spanned this split between heaven and earth, God and mankind. 

 

Therefore, He once more speaks of safeguarding God’s holy ones by dividing, separating, and distinguishing that which is conceived from above by the power of the Holy Spirit and that which is born of the flesh.  Jesus has recently spoken to us about the foolishness of accumulating temporal wealth as a means to peace in this life while ignoring the eternal wealth He brings to His church through His means of grace.  He spoke to us last week about the significance of keeping our hearts focused on God for He is our true, loving and priceless treasure that is eternal, non-negotiable and indestructible.  This morning He speaks clearly, concisely and forcefully that He has won for us true peace, divine peace, eternal peace, indestructible peace with God by His fiery baptism on the cross.  On that day He was constrained to walk the path of peace through the dark valleys of hostile sinners, ordained to endure the angry taunts and mocking insults of evil men and fallen angels, committed to confess the truth and reality of God’s salvation before unbelieving and unrepentant religious and civic rules, prepared to receive onto Himself the savage and unjust punishment for sins He did not commit by the hands of those He came to in peace with the gift of salvation that they would believe in Him and not perish in their own sins, and committed to be lifted high upon the cross as the most vile and profane sinner before the holy and righteous God, that His bloody baptism was the good, the complete, and the only acceptable payment for mankind’s sin, your sins and my sins.  Jesus achieved perfect and eternal peace between God and man by meeting every demand of the Law with His holy and righteous life and atoning death upon the cross.  God willingly and willfully exchanged the reward earned by His only begotten Son’s innocence and righteousness life to you and me and laid upon Him the punishment due our sin-filled and rebellious lives on the cross as divinely ordained before creation.  Jesus did all this in complete trust and unwavering faithfulness, confident that He would be the one, the only, and the perfect peace offering satisfactory and pleasing to God.  God confirmed and rewarded His faithfulness on the third day when He arose again, announced peace to His fearful, hopeful and faithful disciples, was received into the glory of God, and is now seated at His right hand.  Jesus is the living security that God is at peace with His people, you and me, this day and every day until He comes again in glory when He will judge the living and the dead.

 

My brothers and sisters, Christ has mightily exerted Himself and victoriously achieved peace between God and mankind through His bloody baptism.  Yet, unbelieving and unrepentant mankind continues to rebel against God and remain hostile to His children.  Jesus speaks to you and me this morning that we would hear and believe that we have peace with God for His sake.  Yet we are not to be hypocrites, expecting true and meaningful peace with rebellious and unrepentant relatives, friends and neighbors that are bound in unbelief, ensnared in unrepentance, and confident in the fleshly peace with which they embrace others. 

 

Christ calls us not to tire or lose hope but to persevere in prayer for their salvation.  The Prince of Peace exhorts us to focus our eyes on Him even as we experience religious conflict and hostility with those we love and desire to have true peace.  He assures you and me God faithfully and lovingly inclines His ear to receive our prayers for loved ones bound in unbelief.  His heart compassionately receives our cries for those lost in error’s maze.  Therefore, the Holy Spirit emboldens us to cast our burdens and cares upon Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith even as He warns us against the hypocrisy of claiming astuteness in worldly understanding while remaining indifferent in spiritual wisdom. 

 

Jesus is the faithful and true Prince of Peace who will never leave us nor forsake us but abide with us through the fiery and blustery trials and afflictions with which the Holy Spirit sanctifies us as He leads us upward on the Path of Life to the perfect and eternal peace with our heavenly Father and all His holy ones.  Rejoice, Jesus is the very divine peace through whom our heavenly Father gives His peace to us and with each other during our exodus from this fallen world of conflict and hostility.  Rejoice, Jesus will on the last day completely and eternally divide God’s holy ones from the profane ones, casting all who have refused to believe in Him as their Savior into eternal darkness, anguish, and hopelessness and reclining all who believe in His name, our brothers and sisters, you and me, at His table in our heavenly Father’s lodging where we will enjoy perfect fellowship with Him and each other in eternal peace.

 

How Much More?

 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord gathers us together offering much more than we dare ask or expect.  Each Sunday He calls us to sit at His feet, encouraging us to rejoice that our names are written in the Book of Life that is in heaven, exhorting us, heirs of eternal life, to go and give His unmerited mercy, His steadfast love, His dearly paid for forgiveness to those fallen upon by the evil one, beaten and stripped and left half dead, and to receive Him into both our hearts and homes where He gives us the one thing needful – Himself – the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

 

Today, He calls us to boldly ask, to unhesitatingly seek and to faithfully knock where justice and mercy are found.  Abraham was an imprudent friend who beat on the heart of God, shamelessly petitioned God to be true to His Name and not destroy the holy ones with the profane ones, boldly negotiated for the better deal by confessing God’s nature is just and merciful, unhesitatingly reminded God of the holiness of His name that must be kept holy, and faithfully acknowledged and praised God’s steadfast love and unmerited mercies.  Abraham’s shameless petitions for justice and mercy were successful for God promised not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if there were fifty, then forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, ten righteous among the wicked.  God mercifully spared Lot and his family from the divine justice that fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah – His holy ones were not destroyed with the wicked.  Do you and I grasp how much more God did than what Abraham petitioned?

 

Now Jesus shows us “how much more” God gives than we are inclined or able to ask of Him.  At that moment Jesus was moving steadfastly and intentionally toward His death in Jerusalem, faithfully praying to His Father, steadfastly doing His Father’s will, and tirelessly preaching, teaching and healing those imprisoned in the darkness of sin, death and the power of the devil.  On that day a disciple came and asked Jesus to teach them to pray like John taught His disciples.  Like the seventy-two that returned exuberant over their work of healing and casting out demons and the scribe who sought to test Jesus with the question of inherit eternal life” this disciple asks a question that also falls short of the mark, seeking to put the disciples on a level with John’s and completely oblivious to the fact that He knocked on He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  Up to this point they have thought of God as the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Father of the fatherless (Psalm 68: 5), and the Father of the Messiah (Psalm 89: 26).  Jesus responds with much more – just as God’s response to Abraham’s petition so Jesus’ to the disciple’s request.  Jesus reveals that God the Father calls all mankind into an intimate, a familial, and a Baptismal relationship to Himself through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The God of creation beckons His holy ones to call Him – Abba – Father – for He owns you and me as His own children for Jesus’ sake.  The Teacher does not allow any ambiguity to enter His prayer but clearly identifies our heavenly Father as He who reigns over all creation.  From whose hand every living creature receives its sustenance, strength, protection, contentment, and salvation.  The Messiah further drives home the fact that our heavenly Father is the Holy One whose name the Jews dared not speak but now Jesus boldly instructs us to call our heavenly Father, raising us up as His brothers and sisters.  Yet, much more it is also the name of Jesus.  It is also the name of the Holy Spirit.  It is the name with which you and I were baptized.  It was the name God has placed on all His children, you and me.  Jesus unites heaven and earth in Himself for He, the exact radiance of God, knows and accomplished the will of God by taking upon Himself your sins and my sins and the sins of every man, woman and child that has lived, is living today, and will live until He comes again as He hung upon the cross and paid for them once and for all – completely and fully.  Our heavenly Father’s will was to validate Jesus’ salvific death by raising Him on the third day and seating Him at His right Hand, both guaranteeing us that He completely and eternally cancelled the record of our debt AND that having joined us to Jesus in a death like His He will surely raise us up to eternal life just as He did for Christ Jesus.  Jesus, true God and true man, ensures we believe, teach and confess we are both mortal and immortal creatures with our cry to our heavenly Father for our daily bread for both the body and the spirit, richly providing our food that we eat at our tables for physical strength and health and the true manna from heaven and His life-giving blood at this altar that gives us true and eternal life, salvation, forgiveness of our sins, and freedom from the power of sin, death and the devil.  The Lamb of God calls us to exercise our forgiveness from our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds by humbly, joyfully, and immediately extending our forgiveness to anyone who has sinned against us in thought, word and deed.  The Suffering Servant then reminds us that our faith and the new creature in Christ must be strengthened and safeguarded through daily testing as He leads us on the upward Path of Life to our heavenly Father’s home even as the evil one schemes and plots to tempt us to question God’s steadfast love, unfailing truthfulness, unmerited mercy and unwavering faithfulness as revealed in Holy Scriptures,  to seek paths that gratify the flesh and lead through the many deceptive entrances into unrepentant sin, death and the slavery of the devil.  How much more is His prayer over John the Baptizer’ or any other person’s.

 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, God has heard our cries this week and answered our prayers according to His will and with His means.  He has seen our struggles against the many dark and profane forces that sought to enshroud and blind us and shined the light of His justice and mercy into our hearts that we would see clearly with the eyes of faith.  He who teaches us to pray calls us to see, believe and embrace how much more God gives above and beyond our requests or expectation.  He does not teach us to pray as John’s disciples to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but as His brothers and sisters to our heavenly Father.  He does not teach us distant prayers to the Holy God but boldly, confidently and unashamedly brings us into the very throne room of God.  He does not give us old and tired formulas and matrixes as “helps” to pray but gives us the Holy Spirit who “helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. ²⁷ And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8: 26)  If we, who are evil, know how to pray for good things, how much more God the Son knows how to teach us to pray to God the Father, giving you and me His prayer that by the power of the Holy Spirit we would pray for every good thing for body and spirit. 

 

Amen and Amen

Ponder The Genesis

     Have you ever thought three things that appear to contradict each other could be true?  Human reason and logic tells us that truth is relative and what is true for me is not true for you. 

 

     Yet God’s wisdom does what is not possible with human wisdom or logic.  God calls us to do something and then to do something that appears to be in direct conflict with the first thing:  Love God with your whole heart, mind, and strength.  To do this means all your love is directed and given to God.  Then God calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves.  What?  God, you have told me to love you with my entire being and there is nothing left with which to love my neighbor.  God the Holy Spirit affirms this impossible with man but possible with God.[1]  Therefore, we can only do this with an alien or external love that is not our own: the love of Christ.

 

     For the next few minutes let us ponder the Genesis.  There are three?   Which Genesis are we to ponder?

 

     While we may ponder those things that are irreconcilable between us and a friend, we can rejoice this day that God never contradicts Himself.  The babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, helpless and defenseless, IS the Genesis of the New Creation.  God desires us to rejoice and savor Jesus’ birth two thousand years ago AND celebrate it.  Yet as we ponder the Word of God made flesh it is good, right and salutary to ponder the Genesis of the Eternal Creation that even today awaits our arrival with joy and anticipation.

 

Amen and Amen

[5] 2 Corinthians 5: ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.^{Read more...}

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