Let God Come to You

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Isaiah 9:1-7
More than seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God had a quarrel with His chosen people, Israel.

Israel, of course was called to be a light to all the nations of the world regarding God’s goodness, love, and power. But often, the people of Israel forgot who they were. That was the cause of God’s quarrel with them.

But really, when you think about it, the people of Israel were no different from you and me.

When things are going well, we get so full of ourselves that we leave no place for God. When that happens, trouble starts.

A woman Ann and I knew came to faith in Christ as an adult. She got a good start on her Christian life. But then, we saw her less and less at church. Then her husband stopped coming to church. Finally, one night, the husband called me with sad news. The wife, who had gradually left no place for God in her life and had made it uncomfortable for the husband to any longer be in worship, had taken up with another man. “Why?” the husband asked her. “I got tired of being perfect,” she explained. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you never were perfect.”

When things are going well in our lives, we can fool ourselves into thinking that it all has to do with our goodness (our perfection), rather than with God’s goodness (and God's perfection). We can lose touch with God. And when you lose touch with God, without even knowing it, you can begin to lose your integrity, your morals, your relationships, and the life that only God can give.

Ancient Israel fell out of touch with God. The eight chapters of Isaiah that precede our lesson present God’s indictment of a people so full of themselves that they had no place for God anymore. Through Isaiah, God said that the people of Israel were rife with wrong:

• Bribery was an everyday part of their life.
• They were indifferent to the plight of widows who, in those days had no property rights.
• They didn’t take care of orphans, of whom there were many in those days of short life expectancies and of childbirths often ending in the deaths of mothers.
• They had become like Gomorrah in their sexual lives, taking an “anything goes” approach.
• Instead of worshiping God alone, they took a breezy attitude that all gods and all religions were really the same.
• They relied on other things to help them to make decisions, rather than relying on God alone. 

In Isaiah, chapter 8, God warns that for living like this--choosing the world's darkness over God's light, His people would be enslaved by foreign conquerors. Israel would see, God said, “only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish…[and] be thrust into deep darkness.”

That’s where our first lesson, Isaiah 9:1-7, begins. Would you pull out the special insert?

Notice that verse 1 actually begins with the word, “But.” God is saying, “Nevertheless…In spite of…Even though. Even though you’ve brought this darkness onto yourself, I’m nevertheless going to make something new and good happen. You don’t deserve it, but I’m going to send it because I love you.”

Read verse 1 aloud with me, please:

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

Zebulun and Naphtali, named for two of the sons of Jacob from Genesis, were regions of ancient Israel. They were well north of Jerusalem and bordered the region of Galilee where, seven hundred-plus years after Isaiah, Jesus would be raised. At the time Isaiah wrote, the people of Israel were in the clutches of foreign conquerors who stole the produce of their land and sent some of their best and brightest people back to Assyria to serve as slaves. Because of their geographic positions, Zebulun, Naphtali, and even Galilee often bore the brunt of foreign intrusions.

In this verse, God is revealing that He not only will free Israel from the Assyrians, but will also one day shine the full light of His glory and love in Zebulun and Naphtali. God will enter these places of slavery, God reveals through Isaiah, and offer freedom to the whole human race. From Galilee, a place where not only Jews, but also many Gentiles, lived, God’s light would be revealed. Gloom would be banished!

Read on, aloud please, verse 2:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. 

When I was in junior and senior high school, the light in my folks’ bathroom was a regular 100-watt incandescent lightbulb. Morning and night before the mirror that hung below that bulb, I’d slather on the Noxzema, scrub myself clean, and pop my zits. In that mirror, by that light, I looked OK. But I’ll never forget my first day of classes at Ohio State, Summer Quarter, 1971. I had a class on West Campus and needed to go to the restroom. There were fluorescent lights there and I caught sight of myself in the mirror. That was the first time I realized I had a major acne problem. Later, when a girl I was dating—Ann—told me about a dermatologist, my time in that light made me open to her suggestion.

Light can show us our flaws. Get close to Jesus, read about God’s will for our lives in the Bible, or ask God in prayer to show us how our lives can better reflect His love for us, and we see things about ourselves we wouldn’t otherwise know or acknowledge. When you’re in the darkness of your own sin, you need the light of God to show you your flaws. That’s the first step into relationship with God.

And it's an essential continuing step for the maintenance of our relationship with God. Psalm 139: 23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”


This is why, if we will pay heed to them, even God's commandments are gifts of grace. Obedience to them cannot save us. But attention given to them will show us the places we need to grow in our lives, the sins of which we need to repent, the temptations we need to look out for. God's commands are a mirror that show us who we are and send us to God to help us be the people He has called us to be.*

But light does more than show us our flaws, the sins for which we need to repent. Light can also show us the way. God wants to light your way through the dark passages life sometimes brings. A woman came to me with a problem. “Have you prayed about it?” I asked her. “Yes,” she said, “but God hasn’t shown me how it will all turn out.” “God never will show you how it will all turn out,” I told her. “He’ll just give you enough light to take the next step.”

That’s not entirely true: God has shown us how things will ultimately turn out. If we follow Jesus, we’ll end up with Jesus for eternity. But, along the way, we just keep following His light.

Verses 3-5, show us that one day, beyond what you and I can see right now, God is going to bring an end to this age of violence in which we live.

• One day, murders with assault rifles will end. 
• So will wars. 
• So will selfishness and insensitivity to the needs of the poor and the hungry. 
• So will child abuse and spousal abuse. 
• So will unkindness. 
• So will abortion as a form of birth control. 

All the ways in which we kill others, in fact, will come to an end.

Jesus, Who has died and risen to bring life, will ensure that all who repent and believe in Him, will be freed from the violence of this world forever.

In Matthew 5, in a portion of His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Blessed are the meek; for they will inherit the earth." Eternity, He tells us, will belong to those bold enough to surrender their lives and wills to Christ alone, through faith alone, and God's Word alone. We can’t see the day foretold in the words God gave to Isaiah or those of Jesus yet, but that day will come when Jesus returns and makes His whole creation—including you and me—forever new.

Now, please read verse 6 with me:

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Seven hundred-plus hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God revealed that a particular child would be born and that, among other things, this human child would also be Mighty God.

Some are troubled that Jesus’ given name isn’t mentioned in the Old Testament prophecies about Him. I’m not troubled by that at all. If the prophecies had said, “Watch for Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, Whose mother is named Mary and Whose father will appear to be Joseph,” where would faith come in?

God wants us to have a relationship of love with Him, a relationship in which we choose to love Him for Who He is. And so the prophets, while never identifying Jesus by name, do identify Him by Who He would be.

That’s why people like Anna and Simeon, two people who knew God through His Word, could look at the baby Jesus when He was just eight days old and know He was the Savior, while doctors of theology, who loved earthly power and prestige, didn’t see Who Jesus was and passed a death sentence on Him.

Yesterday, in Catechism class, we watched the film, The Nativity Story, a deeply moving telling of the story of Jesus’ birth.

In one of the early scenes, the young Mary is shown with a woman in Nazareth who told the local children a part of the story of the prophet Elijah, as recounted in 1 Kings, chapter 19.

During the reign of King Ahab, an unprincipled compromiser who allowed his wife, Jezebel, to bring the worship of a foreign god called Baal into Israel, Elijah was used by God to defeat the prophets of Baal at a place called Mount Carmel. Elijah’s faith in God was vindicated.

But when Jezebel heard about what happened, she vowed to kill Elijah and, terrified, Elijah ran. He was certain that he was alone and that nothing could help him. In a panic, he desperately looked for God. After hiding in a cave, Elijah sensed God directing him to go to a mountain and look.

Then we’re told:

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake;  and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19:1-12, New King James Version)

Are you looking for God?

Be still.

Stop striving.

Quit trying so hard.

Let Him come to you, not only in prayerful silence as He did with Elijah, but most emphatically, in Jesus, the child and mighty God foretold by Isaiah seven centuries before Jesus’ birth.

Let Jesus come to you in His Word and in studying it with others as well as on your own (I wish that every adult here were in Sunday School class each week), in prayer you offer in Jesus' Name, in the fellowship of imperfect believers that is the Church, and in the Sacraments of Christ’s Church, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

You are not alone.

And in Jesus Christ, you are assured of an eternity with God.

Let Jesus guide your steps, one step at a time and you will see Him, know Him, and love Him because you know He first loved you. Amen

*In his introduction to a book of lectures from last year's conference, Seeking New Directions for Lutheranism, Lutheran theologian Carl Bratten writes:

The gospel does not nullify the law [God's commands]. After all, [Martin] Luther devoted a part of his Catechisms to teaching and explaining the Ten Commandments. It would come as a huge disappointment to him that Lutherans today are crediting him for replacing the law with the gospel...

In a lecture included in the book, Braaten speaks of "the gospel" and notes, "I do not mean the "gospel" in the narrow sense as opposed to the law, but in the wider sense that comprehends the whole counsel of God, the twofold Word of God, both law and promise." One reason that my own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has fallen into error is that it dares to denigrate God's inviolable commands, subordinating them to a culturally acceptable "gospel" that doubts or denies the need for repentance, faith in Christ alone, or an understanding of the Bible that stands under the Bible as the authoritative source or norm of our life, faith, and practice. I pray to God that this will change.

The Way of Life

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Galatians 3:23-29
Occasionally, when our two kids were small, Ann and I would go out for an evening with friends, usually something glamorous like bowling and dinner. Most of the babysitters we used in those years were very good. While none of them loved our children like Ann and I did, of course, they were responsible and Philip and Sarah both knew that we had delegated our authority to the sitters to ensure that, at the least, the house didn’t burn down while we were away. No matter how good a job our babysitters did though, if our kids were still awake when we got home, they would always run to us and give us big hugs the moments we walked through the door; they were happy to once more be in the embraces of the parents they trusted.

I bring this up not to engage in Father’s Day sentimentality, but for another reason.

Two weeks ago, we began to look at the New Testament book of Galatians. You may remember that this "book" is really a letter written by the apostle Paul in about 53/54 AD to Christian churches in Galatia. That was a region whose population was made up of Gentiles, non-Jews, and it was located in what is today central Turkey.

Paul had planted congregations there, bringing the good news that God’s plan for setting sinful humanity right with God and for destroying the power of death over us had come to full fruition in the Messiah—the Christ—Jesus of Nazareth. Through faith in what Jesus had done for all in His death and resurrection, Paul taught these Galatian converts, they could have their sins forgiven, the promise of everlasting life, and become new people empowered by the Holy Spirit to live in the dignity and freedom that go with being children of God.

The Galatian converts turned from sin (that is, repented), came to believe in Jesus, and were baptized. On this sound basis, the church in Galatia flourished and grew.

Later though, with Paul gone to other regions to spread the gospel and to start new congregations, a group known as Judaizers began to infiltrate the church in Galatia. They taught the Gentile Christians that being baptized and having faith in Jesus wasn’t enough to ensure their salvation. They convinced many of the Galatian Christians that to be certain of their relationship with God, the men must be circumcised and that all of them must submit to the ritual laws of the Jewish faith from which the Messiah had come.

Paul was, as we saw two weeks ago, incensed with the Judaizers. But he was also upset with the Christians who made up the Galatian churches. They had been living in the new freedom Christ gives to forgiven sinners who trust in Him and then submitted themselves to laws that, at most, could only demonstrate their distance from the holiness and purity of God. They had been living as true children of God, growing up under the grace of God, but now were enslaving themselves to laws designed merely to convict them for their human imperfections.

In the opening two lines of our lesson from Galatians for today, Paul says this:

Now before faith came—that is, before the way to new life for all who entrust themselves to Jesus Christ appeared—we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified—that is be made right with God—through faith.

Here, Paul is describing two different ways of life: the way of the law and the way of faith in Christ. He had taught the Galatians the way of faith, but many of them were falling away from Christ and losing their grip on grace by pursuing the way of the law.

Now, let's be clear: The law we’re talking about is God’s law. God’s laws aren’t bad things. The laws that command us to love God and to love neighbor, the laws embodied in the Ten Commandments, even many of the ancient Levitical laws governing the behaviors of believers toward each other and toward the strangers in their midst, aren’t bad things. We teach our kids the Commandments in Catechism class, for example, because they reflect God’s will for how human beings should live, they identify the parameters within which life is good.

And, at some basic level, history and experience demonstrate that every human being knows something of God’s law even if they don’t know God or even show any interest in God. Several years ago, in an interrogation room here at the Hocking County jail, a young man broke down to confess to thievery, fearful, he said, that because he had stolen from a church he would go to hell.

We all know God’s law. And it’s good insofar as it goes. But God’s law can’t give us life. It can only show us how far we are from God, how desperately we need God. Paul himself writes about this in the New Testament book of Romans. “I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,” he says, and then confesses himself incapable of keeping the law. Whether in his heart, his mind, or in his actions, Paul says, he falls short of keeping God’s law. So do you and I.

So, it's fair to ask, what good is God’s law? Well, it turns out that mostly, it’s a very good babysitter.*

That’s essentially what Paul is saying in those words I read to you from Galatians a moment ago. The word translated as disciplinarian in verse 24 and later in verse 26, is, in the original Greek, paidagogon or as it’s been transliterated into English, pedagogue. Literally, in the original Greek of the New Testament, it means one who leads a child. Martin Luther, in his translation, rendered the word as schoolmaster. The term, pedagogue, was widely used in the first century Greco-Roman world of specific slaves in wealthy households who were in charge of ensuring that the sons of wealthy fathers did their schoolwork. Their job was to nag their young charges to do the right thing.

Until Jesus showed up, Paul is saying, God’s law acted as a pedagogue—a babysitter, reminding us of right and wrong, prodding and pushing us to do God’s will. But now, we don’t have to depend on the babysitter. Instead, through Jesus we have direct access to our Father God. We can trust that, despite our sins, through what Jesus has done for us and through our faith in Jesus, we are acceptable to God, set free to live not as the students of some slave tutor, however well-intentioned or correct, but as children of God saved by grace.

Paul hoped that his words to the Galatians would come as good news. Jesus was all they needed to be right with God. As he puts it in our lesson, “Now that faith—that is, the life of trust in Jesus Christ--has come, we are no longer subject to a paidagogon—a babysitter, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.”  

In Christ Jesus, we live in a freedom and a life of open-ended possibility that scrupulous attention to religious lists of dos and don’ts could never bring!

That freedom that God gives us to discover our own niches in His kingdom, to live out our love of God and neighbor in our own unique ways, can be disturbing to us. A part of us doesn’t like the open-ended freedom that Christ gives; we would rather have dos and don’ts than live in the mystery of relationship with an infinitely loving God Who allows us to try and sometimes fail. We're like two of the characters in The Shawshank Redemption who were so accustomed to being imprisoned, that they found it hard to handle being set free.

More than one frustrated Christian these past two-thousand years has prayed, “Lord, just tell me what to do” and felt themselves engulfed by silence. But, silence is sometimes what Christian freedom sounds like.

We see this even in our human relationships. A young man, in love, considers whether to ask his sweetheart to marry. He asks his father and mother what he should do. The law might mete out advice; but love will keep silent. A young woman of great talent has the opportunity to take a year away from school and study under one of the great masters of her art. She asks a friend what she should do. The law might proscribe a particular route; but love will just listen.

This is a lesson that the prophet Elijah learned hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. He sought God’s voice in a great wind, in an earthquake, and in fire, in urgent, commanding realities. But 1 Kings says that the Lord wasn’t found by Elijah in anything but sheer silence, in a place beyond commands, in the grace of God where he experienced the intimate presence of the God Who wants to be our Father, Who silenced Elijah’s feverish seeking and anxious fears by assuring Elijah that He was with Him and always would be.

Five hundred years ago, Luther was inspired by words from Psalm 46 in the composition of his hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. It contains these words: "Be still, and know that I am God!" 

And it was from the silence of a cross on which the Author of all life gave His life for us that God's love gave its ultimate expression.

When you’re living the life of faith rather than the life of the law, it will change every decision you make in life, not because the outcomes will necessarily be different, but because one path will bring decisions you feel you have to make and the other path will render decisions that God lets you make. God doesn't force you to make righteous decisions, he sets you free from slavery to sin so that you can make righteous decisions.

Luther was once asked about how to know the decisions we make are the right ones. He replied that we should consult the Bible, pray, and speak with trusted Christian counselors. Then, if the answer still isn’t clear, we should “sin boldly.”

What he meant was that if our intent as children of God is to do the will of God, if we have prayed about it and sought God’s will, we will make a decision pleasing to God.

The law constantly points out our deficiencies, what we need to do, who we need to be. And I need the law because, if I will let go of my resistance, the law will always point me to my need of the Savior Who gives forgiveness and the power to live. Jesus said that He didn’t come to do away with God’s law, but to fulfill it. And every time you and I violate God’s law, it indicates some lack of trust in the God we know in Christ. That’s why we have an ongoing need to measure ourselves against the law and to live in daily repentance and renewal.

But, unlike the law, God’s love, given in Jesus Christ, assures us that we are loved and gives us the freedom to be all that we were made for. Only the life of faith in Christ can do this.

Small wonder though, that some of the Galatian Christians and some people even today would rather live in the easy certainties of legalistic religion (or the laws of the marketplace, or the shifting conventions of society), rather than to trust in the love of God shining through the fog of uncertainty in this dying world.

Faith is trust. When you hitch your wagon to Jesus’ star, you know how the story will end, you know you will one day be in eternity with God, but you have no idea what the ride between here and there will be like. You have to be willing to live with that mystery and to learn to pray, “Thy will, O Lord, be done.”

The way of faith isn’t easy; but it is the way of life.

Trust in Christ and live!

*The babysitter image is suggested by N.T. Wright here.