3/28/13 Fifth Sunday of Easter

Fifth Sunday of Easter 4/28/13 Text: Acts 11;1-18 Title: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” This morning I have titled my sermon. “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done on earth, as it is in heaven.” Do you recognize the words? I hope so, for they are part of the Lord’s Prayer that we pray every Sunday and hopefully you pray every morning. “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” According to Luther’s Small Catechisms and I quote, “The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also. How does God’s kingdom come? God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.” And then Luther tells us the meaning of “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” when he writes, “The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also. How is God’s will done? God’s will is done when He breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come; and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die. This is His good and gracious will.” The Lord’s Prayer is the prayer that Jesus gave to Christian Church through the disciples who have passed it down to us in God’s Word. It is a prayer that can only truly be prayed by Christians. It states not only our belief in God but also our belief that everything we have; our earthly possessions, our food, and our salvation come only from our Triune God. And last, but certainly not least we pray that God will use us to bring others into God’s Kingdom. That my dear brothers and sisters in Christ is what our Acts reading is about this morning, the bringing of others into God’s Kingdom. Let’s take a look at the text to see what we can learn from God’s Word to us today. Notice in the first three verses Peter is getting some flack from those of the circumcision group. They are those who believe that since they have always had the law of circumcision it must still be done in order to be a Christian. They have forgotten the original reason for circumcision was not to make them favorable before God, but to separate the nation that God had made from the people of the pagan countries they were living next to. Circumcision was God’s outward sign that they were his people. They had turned the law of circumcision into a law of salvation. By saying what they did to Peter they were adding to God’s saving work, something that you cannot do, no matter how good the act or belief is, for God’s grace on account of Jesus’ saving act has to stand on its own. There are several questions that we, as a congregation must ask ourselves whether we accept the TCN recommendation or not. The first is, “Do we really care about those in our community, especially those living around our church building who do not know Jesus?” I mean really care, in that we don’t just talk about it or just study it, but become active in doing what our purpose for existing states: Our purpose as a congregation is to proclaim the Gospel, administer the Sacraments, and to reach outward into the community and world to help people know Jesus Christ as their Savior. We must first truthfully answer the question “Do we truly care?” before we can even ask the next two questions. The first being, “Have we as a congregation without even realizing it added something to the work of Christ in that a person must do something else to be a Christian in our midst?” The second question we must ask is “Are we putting up barriers between us and the people we are to reach in our community?” Both those questions must be asked and truthfully answered. We are not alone in asking those questions of ourselves, for every congregation must ask them, for the answers will tell us if we exist for ourselves or for others. Peter had to get the congregation at Jerusalem to answer the same questions. So he told them of his experience of how God had led him to go to the Gentiles in Caesarea. How when they got there the Holy Spirit had given them faith, the same faith that the disciples had been given on Pentecost. Peter told them, “If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?" Peter recognized that God was at work in their lives just as he was at work in the disciples’ lives. It was an aha moment for those who just before were demanding that the men had to be circumcised. They recognized that what they had been demanding was not necessary for one to become a Christian, for we are told that “they glorified God, saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life."” If the statistics are correct, and there is no reason to not believe they are the community surrounding our congregation is full of people who don’t know Jesus and his saving work. They, for the most part are not like us. They live in smaller older homes than most of us do. They are generally as not well educated as we are. They are college students and families struggling to survive, especially after the tornado. The are all those things, but they still need to hear about the love of God. They need to be loved unconditionally. Can we do that, can we love them as God loves us; unconditionally? On our own, no. With God, yes. I don’t know what we can do for the community. It is probably a complex community, for it is made up of sinful human beings like us. We have to go, ask, and listen, truly listen to them. Then we can better know how to witness the love of God to them, so they may become one with us. Almost ten years ago when I came to be first your Vicar and then a year later your pastor I had a vision for the congregation that I shared with the membership. It was a simple vision, one very similar to the TCN report. It is was based on God’s Word in that God’s people, that is us, are bound by our being adopted into God’s family to go and make disciples of all nations. That vision evolved into our Mission Statement which is printed in the front of your service folder each Sunday and the newsletter each month. It states, “Our purpose as a congregation is to proclaim the Gospel, administer the Sacraments, and to reach outward into the community and world to help people know Jesus Christ as their Savior.” That was my vision then and still is, but, I am afraid that for the most part, it has never become the congregation’s vision, at least in the congregation being active in doing what we said our purpose for existence is. We have spent time, sometimes discussing it, but never really acted on it. While I am grateful and give thanks to God every day for those who are taking part in our congregation as officers, board leaders and members, Breadbasket volunteers, LWML, those who attend Bible study, altar care, choirs, Bible Time and youth leaders, money counters and those who bring canned goods every Sunday for the food pantries we support. I wonder though, if we, as a congregation are not outwardly focused on the community around us, but inwardly focused on ourselves without our even realizing that we have become inward focused. Has our purpose become more about fellowship within our community and practicing Lutheranism correctly, whatever that means, for I would wager that if I asked everyone here this morning what being a Lutheran means to them, I would get as many answers as people here. Do we put so much emphasis on being Lutheran, at least practicing Lutheranism that we hinder our outreach, the little that we do in the community, so that only those who are like us want to join our congregation? That is something we will need to figure out. When we pray each Sunday, as a congregation, that God’s Kingdom come, let us remember that his will is that we are to take the Word of God though thought, word, and deed into the community, so that his Kingdom might come to them also. According to God’s Word that is our mission, our purpose, our reason for existing. Amen.