Third midweek sermon 3/7/12

Third Midweek Lent sermon 3/7/12 Psalm 38 Title: Make Haste to Help Me. Last week we heard in Psalm 32 about some of the harm to the soul that does not confess its sin. This week in Psalm 38 we see a whole flood of problems that weigh us down. No health to the body, overwhelmed by guilt, festering wounds, bowed down, searing pain, feeble, crushed, failing strength; the list could go on and on. Psalm 38 presents the picture of a man who has been deeply wounded and crushed by his sinfulness. But David’s problems get worse: his friends abandon him, and his enemies use David’s weakness to try and destroy him. What a true picture of life under sin! While we might not have health problems, be overwhelmed by guilt, have festering wounds, or be bowed down by life, or have searing pain, or be feeble, crushed, and have failing strength; spiritually speaking, as far as our sinful nature is concerned, we are sick with sin and quite often that sin sticks out like a festering sore that those around us can see, except for our self. Our pride won’t let us see the plank sticking out of our eye. Peter could not see that his pride led him to a great fall by denying Christ to the world. In the same way, we are all by nature spiritually blind and dumb and incapable of seeing our sin for what it truly is. When that is the case and it quite often is God deals with us through his Law and Gospel. David, in our psalm, has God’s Law lying heavy upon him. The arrows of God’s Law have pierced him. The Law has awakened in him the knowledge of his sinfulness. As Paul said in Romans 3:20, “through the law comes knowledge of sin.” David finally sees how his sin has destroyed his life. His health his gone, his friends have abandoned him; his enemies are at the gate. It is not good and he is desperate for salvation. Saint Augustine once said the strangest thing regarding this psalm, “But happy he is who is wretched after this manner!” Sounds weird doesn’t it? Who wants to have any of the stuff King David is describing, much less be happy about it. But Augustine is only saying what the words of Jesus, as they are recorded in Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”. David mourns and laments his sins. He recognizes the depth of his sinfulness and the harm that his sinful nature does to him in both body and soul. So the question for us today is this. It is a hard one, one that our pride might not let us see or even ask for that matter. Do you see yourself in this psalm? I know I do because God’s Law has found its way into my heart. I mourn with David, as he fears God’s just wrath. Maybe you do maybe you don’t mourn with David, for we live in an age where no one is responsible for anything. It’s in my genes. I am not that bad we say, and to a certain extent that is true. We are not as bad as those who purposely do evil. But God’s Law will not let you or I pass the buck. As David prays in verse 18, “I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.” Notice in this psalm that David never tries to pass the blame. These troubles of body and spirit weigh heavy upon him because of his sin, not someone else’s. That is why confession is so critical to living our Christian lives, for confession is saying the same thing about ourselves that God says about us. We are sinners who are desperately in need of forgiveness. Through the lens of the Law we can see ourselves in this psalm. Crushed, broken, alone, forsaken, apart from God. We only thing we have left is the cry of the beggar David in verse 22, “Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation.” That is the Law. Now look at this psalm through the eyes of the Gospel, Jesus for he alone is the Gospel. Isaiah said of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53:5, “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities.” And from Paul in 2 Corinthians 5: 21, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” And most importantly from Christ as he cries out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” a quote from Psalm 22. This same Jesus who shed tears of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane prays this psalm with you. So pray this psalm again in light of confession and forgiveness. Remember what Jesus gave up for you. He took your sin upon himself. He groans, he suffers, he bleeds, he has no health in his body, he is abandoned by his friends, betrayed by his disciples, his enemies rise up around Him. His back is filled with searing pain. His strength fails. The light left his eyes in death. The one who had no sin bore that sin, that wretched pain and death for you on the cross. The Law struck and killed Jesus thus giving you the gift of forgiveness. Today you and I still suffer the earthly consequences of sin. We still hurt. There are still aches and pains and even worse consequences for our sins. We die. But those consequences have no teeth. Ultimately, they cannot harm us, for we are in Christ, and his words of forgiveness have released us from our bone crushing debt. Those words of forgiveness were bought with a terrible price; the death of God’s Son. But God gives this forgiveness to you freely with joy! He claims you as his own. You are not abandoned. You are his. So in verse 22 of Psalm 38 we pray with David, with Jesus, and with all the hosts of heaven and all those who recognize their sinfulness, “Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!” We pray this with repentant joy because we know that God comes, and he forgives your sins and my sins and makes our lives new. Amen.

Second Sunday in Lent 3/4/12

Second Sunday in Lent 3/4/12 Text: Mark 8:27-38 Title: God’s Plan or Your Plan? While there is a lot to preach on in our gospel reading for today my sermon is based on the words of Jesus, as they are written in verse 33 where Jesus is saying to his beloved disciple Peter, the same Peter that he told earlier, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." He now says, “Get behind me, Satan!” I can’t even imagine how Peter must have felt when Jesus said that to him in front of the disciples. It had to be terrible; at the very least embarrassing. What would make Jesus call Peter his beloved disciple Satan? Jesus gives us the answer in his next sentence. “For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” You see Peter, the rest of disciples, and the crowds were not really listening to Jesus when he said, “that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” They had their own plan for Jesus. The suffering and rejection by the religious leaders, while probably puzzling, might even be expected, but Jesus dying was not in their plan. How could a dead Jesus overthrow the Romans and restore Israel to its glory? He couldn’t die. It was that simple and so Peter, as our reading tells us took Jesus aside to straighten him out; you know get him back on the right plan. The problem is that Peter’s, the disciples, the crowds, or for that matter our plan is not Jesus’ plan. Their plan and our plan is for Jesus to be there when we need him to heal, protect, or make sure what we want done happens. Jesus’ plan on the other hand is to save the lives of his human creation so that they can be, as he created them live forever in a perfect relationship with God, each other, and God’s creation. That is his plan and he willingly died for that plan. All his plan requires of us is to believe in his plan so that we are saved from the wrath of God. For, as he tells us in our reading this morning those who are ashamed of being his; that is those who reject God’s forgiveness on account of Jesus’ saving act, Jesus will be ashamed of. In other words he will reject those who don’t believe, when he comes back in his glory on that day when the world as we know it will come to an end. That is Jesus’ plan, the perfect plan that he designed just for his fallen creation. In his plan he does everything. He takes God’s wrath that should fall on us. He gives us faith, so that we receive God’s forgiveness. He keeps us in the faith by his Word and Sacraments. He protects us from those who would spiritually harm us. And last, but not least, he is preparing a place for us, so we can be with him forever. That is God’s plan; the perfect plan. Since it is God’s perfect plan why is that we struggle so much with accepting his plan? We struggle with his perfect plan because it doesn’t work with what we consider to be the perfect plan. For our plan has us living lives, as we want to live them yet being forgiven and loved by God. Our plan makes God into a loving grandfather type of God who surely will not punish us, as long as we try hard enough. Our plan is that God will bless us with material things if we do our part to please God. Our plan says that the Triune God is not the only way to forgiveness; it is just our way, for how could God punish those who have never heard about him or understand him in a different way. That is our plan for God and we stake our lives on it. We stake our lives on it because deep down we put more trust in our plan than we do in God’s plan, for after all the Bible was written a long time ago and things are just so different today. To prove our point we will quite often take his words out of context or even put a different meaning to them, so we can say that God’s plan is aligned with our plan. Using God to make sure our plans work out is common today, particularly in what are called the prosperity churches that while they might teach that Jesus is your Savior have turned his teachings from saving us from death to saving us from being poor and having problems in life. They teach that if you only believe enough, give enough, worship enough God will make sure your plan of prosperity works out. If that plan does not work out then you go to plan B. And if that plan does not work, well you are not living your life right. Get yourself right with God and then you will be blessed. That is what is taught and that is what is believed by those who believe that their plan is God’s plan. The problem is that when we rely on our plan for security and peace no matter how well it is thought out or followed the plan will always end in death, for neither plan A nor plan B is God’s plan. God’s plan is what is what I call plan C; the crucifixion of Jesus, for in his death he gives us life. I say that because after three day Jesus rises from the dead proving that he is more than death. He dies and lives forever, thus giving us life. Now that is a plan. Jesus told Peter his plan, but Peter did not like it. Peter did not trust that it would work or that it actually made sense. Peter thinks his plan is much better. But Jesus, risen again promises Peter, lose your life for the sake of the gospel, and for the sake of Jesus, that is, lose your plan for life and follow God’s plan for life. His plan works, for it is his plan and not ours. He does it all. Jesus dies, taking the wrath of God instead of letting God pour out his wrath on you. Jesus is raised from the grave and ascends to heaven, so you are assured of your resurrection and eternal life. God gives you faith so that you can believe and be saved. Our plan as well thought out as it might be; no matter what promises it makes will always place demands on us that in the end we cannot meet. God’s plan on the other hand through the saving act of Jesus replaces the demands and empty promises our plans make. That is not to say we are not to make plans, for we have to otherwise we have no direction in our lives. We just, while carrying out our plans need to carry Jesus’ plan of life with us. We carry it; that is we trust Jesus plan, for his plan in the end is what makes the day a good day, no matter how many things go wrong and, as we know things do go wrong in a day. And because we now know the plan of Jesus is the right plan we trust in that plan over our plan, so that when the plans of other people fail to make them good, or make everything go right in their relationship, or fail to keep them healthy, or safe in their home, or give them that dream job we offer them Jesus’ plan, the perfect plan for our lives and their lives. Amen