You Have Conquered With the Truth

How do you know? Just a few short weeks ago we cast our votes and our local and state representatives were chosen. But one of the parts of that process that got to be really frustrating were the ads. You would hear one ad saying “Bob Jones hates you and all people.” And with an ominous voice the ad would tell you how bad that candidate was. And then, the opposing candidate would do the same. And at the end of the month leading up to it you end up asking the question: how do you know what the truth is? The words we find ourselves in this evening have much the same context. But the issue the Holy Spirit brings to us is not politicians, but instead, preachers. In 1 John 4, we read: “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1 CSB17)

John the Evangelist tells us that just as we shouldn’t believe every ad we hear or every article we see on the internet, we also should not believe every spirit. And he makes it clear in this verse what he means by the word, spirit. The spirits here are false prophets. And here it’s important also to understand the context in which John is speaking. The false teachers aren’t those on the outside of the church. Those on the outside of the church were a real threat. But that’s not what he’s speaking about here. Here in these words he’s speaking about false teachers on the inside of the Christian Church. And so, what John says is true: We are not to believe everyone who calls himself a Christian and preaches some semblance of the truth of God’s word. Instead we are to test them. But what is the test we should use? John tells us: “2 This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.” (1 John 4:2–3 CSB17)

The litmus test, the knife that cuts through all the confusion is this: Does that preacher present all of who Jesus is? John places in front of us this amazing and massive truth that we celebrate this time of year. If we ask the question, “who is Jesus,” the answer is that Jesus is both fully and completely God and also fully and completely human. That’s the test. That’s the tool we can use to filter out false from true teachers. At Jesus’ conception there was one person, but there were two natures. Jesus was both fully God and fully human. And at the moment of his conception, Jesus continued to be both God and human forever.

Now all of this sounds like simple theology that we know already and can quickly pass over. But it’s not. There are two huge ways false teachers get this wrong. First, they are offended at Christ’s humanity. Long ago, Martin Luther had a long discussion and debate with a man named Ulrich Zwingli. And at the end of their long discussion, Luther and Zwingli agreed on 14 out of 15 theological points. That’s pretty good, right? But Luther refused to be in fellowship with Zwingli. He refused to commune with Zwingli becaus

What Does Righteousness Bring?

Some sentences seem simple, but are really scary. For example, let’s say that you get a letter from the IRS. And in that letter it says that they’d like to have a look at your records. You wouldn’t think there would be any reason to become afraid when you read those words. But all of us know there is more to those words, don’t we? Those words carry the unspoken message with them, “we’re checking your records. And if we find that your records are in error, there will be consequences.’” I mention this because, here, now, at the beginning of a new year, God’s word in our first reading from Jeremiah makes a statement that sounds fine on its own. But if you do even a little more study you realize that these words are actually quite terrifying. In Jeremiah 33, we read: “14 “Look, the days are coming”— this is the Lord’s declaration— “when I will fulfill the good promise that I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a Righteous Branch to sprout up for David, and he will administer justice and righteousness in the land.” (Jeremiah 33:14–15 CSB17)

In these words the Lord was promising to come to them with righteousness and justice. And what was terrifying about this is that the people to whom Jeremiah was writing knew what those words meant. For the Lord spoke those sorts of words in their grandparents’ time. In that time, about 722 BC, the Lord had the Assyrians come down and destroy the 10 northern tribes. And he did that in the name of his righteousness and justice. And if they missed the weight and meaning of those words in their grandparents’ time, then they could not miss the meaning of those words in their own time. For, in the name of his righteousness and justice the Lord brought the Babylonians down against the two remaining tribes. Their own armies were killed by the Babylonians. And the rest were enslaved. And thousands were forced away from their homeland to be slaves in Babylon. And all of this happened in the name of the Lord’s righteousness and justice.

Maybe we should take a step back and define this word. What is righteousness? And what does it bring with it? Righteousness is a word that means holiness and perfection. But there’s more to it than that. It’s the sort of perfection that cannot tolerate imperfection in anything it comes in contact with. It’s the sort of perfection and holiness that deals with those who have unholiness and non-perfection in the same way a bug-zapper deals with mosquitoes and moths. It consumes them. That’s why this seemingly innocent statement of the Lord establishing his righteousness and holiness would have been terrifying to those people who had been conquered and enslaved by the Babylonians. For the Lord had invited them to repent for hundreds of years. And for hundreds of years the Lord’s people turned their back on them. So he brought his righteousness against them.

But if we ask the question,

The Son of Man Cares

When I think of Grandma, I think of cinnamon roles. What you have to understand about me is that I am the youngest of four sibling. And my dad was the youngest of seven children. So three out of four of my grandparents were dead before I was born. And, by the time I came along there were so many grandchildren that I was more of a number than a name. But when we went to grandma’s house I could tell that Grandma cared for me. I could tell because I could smell it. As soon as I came in the front door of Grandma’s house I could smell fresh cinnamon roles. Grandma had arthritis. And Grandma had a hard time at 80+ years old talking to a little child. But I could tell she cared for me because I could smell it and taste it. In your life, what are the ways that the people around you show that they care for you? In the words we look at this morning we see so very clearly that Jesus, the Son of Man cares. But even more importantly, we see how he cares for us. In Mark 2 we read: “1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.” (Mark 2:1–4 NIV11-GKE)

As we read these word we see that these four men cared for their friend because they showed it. They cared for their friend so much that when they got to the house where Jesus was at, instead of turning home, they lifted their paralyzed friend to the top of the roof. They dug and tore the roof away. And then they lowered the man to lay at Jesus’ feet. But what’s interesting here is what Jesus sees. We read: “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”” (Mark 2:5 NIV11-GKE)

What does Jesus see? Jesus doesn’t as much see their effort as their faith. And what follows is fascinating. They go through all this effort to lay their friend at Jesus’ feet so that he would heal him. But Jesus doesn’t do that. Instead Jesus cares enough to see what they do not. Jesus cares enough to see that the most important thing this paralyzed man needed was not healing for his body, but instead healing for his soul. He needed forgiveness. So he says to the man, “Child, your sins are forgiven you.”1 These words begin to make sense to us when we have chronic, continual pain and sickness. When you have chronic pain and continual sickness. I came from a congregation where the people were much older than they are here overall. And when a person deals with cancer, COPD, and arthritis over the course of decades your body begins to wage war against your soul. You pray for relief, but there is none. And where you end up is asking the question, “Jesus, don’t you care?” You conclude that you are not saved from your sins. Why? Because you are

Trust in the Lord

Do the bible and sports belong together? Every now and then at a football game you see someone holding a big sign that reads, “John 3:16.” And I suppose, there’s nothing wrong with that. Of course it assumes that a person who is not a Christian has a clue what “John” is and what “3:16” is. But there are worse signs you can hold up at a football game. But there is a context in which sports and the bible do not belong together. Every now and then you hear of an athlete who either memorizes or even worse, tattoos the words, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13 NIV11-GKE) When you see a guy do that, take note of him. Because, most likely, if he’s a quarterback, he’s going to get sacked. If he’s a running back, he’s probably going to be the one to fumble the ball. Why? When Paul wrote those words the game football didn’t exist. And it’s wrong to take those words out of context and make them into our own image. All of this I mention because, if there’s any part of the bible in which we need to understand the context, it’s the book of Isaiah. In the opening words of this part of the bible we read: “Jacob, why do you say, and, Israel, why do you assert: “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my claim is ignored by my God”?” (Isaiah 40:27 CSB17)

God does not hear me. That is what the Israelites are saying in these words. That is their complaint. But again, what is the context. As you read the book of Isaiah, recognize that there is one author, Isaiah. But there are two distinctly different parts. In the first part Isaiah speaks to Israelites who despised God’s word. And so, through Isaiah the Lord invites the Israelites to repent. And then threatens them that the Babylonians will come and destroy them if they don’t. Those Israelites did not listen to the Lord. So the Lord brought down the Babylonians against them and they were carried off into exile. Then Isaiah writes to the second group of people. He writes to a despairing group. You see, the children of that rebellious generation grew up, not in Israel, but instead, in Babylon. And they gave up trusting and hoping in the Lord. And from a human perspective they had every right to do so. For the Lord had promised that the Messiah was to be born in Israel—and in Israel alone! And if the Jewish people were not in Israel then there was no Savior for their sins. So the Lord promised to this despairing group of people that the Messiah would be born of a virgin in Israel. And this Messiah would be both God and human.

The context in Isaiah 40 is despair. It is despair over sin and the consequences of sin. And that, my dear friends in Christ, is a context we know all too well today, don’t we? A guy begins smoking in high school. And decades later he sees how horrible of a habit that is as his lungs are destroyed. And he even, with every ounce of strength in him stops. But the consequences of his sin remain. His lungs remain damaged. The young man grows up and

Jesus Teaches With Authority

Beware of big words. Over the decade that I’ve been your pastor I’ve been teaching you that the danger in learning big words is that we think we know them, but the danger is this: that we either don’t know what the word means, or we aren’t able to actually tell others what the word means. And one is just as bad as another. This morning we bump into one of those words: authority. What does it mean to speak with authority? We might conclude that speaking with authority means that the person is really sincere and truly believes what he or she is saying. But that’s not how the word was used 2000 years ago. In the words we are just about to look at, we hear that the people were amazed that Jesus taught with authority. And I’ll give you a hint. That word does not mean that Jesus was just speaking authentically and sincerely. So what does it mean that Jesus taught with authority? Let’s read these words and find out: “21 They went into Capernaum, and right away he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and began to teach. 22 They were astonished at his teaching because he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not like the scribes.” (Mark 1:21–22 CSB17)

Here in these words we begin to understand what it means that Jesus taught with authority. We learn what authority is by contrast. Jesus did not teach like the teachers they were used to. You see, Jesus said the simple and clear words, “This is what the Lord says.”1 But the teachers of their own time would says words like, “I think, I feel, Some say…others say, I suppose.” Jesus would leave his hearers with a clear understanding of the truth. Their own teachers left them with a mountain of doubt.

So Jesus speaks with authority against the teacher’s doubt. And in this we see what authority is. Authority is simply saying what the truth is and taking your stand is. That is what authority looked like during Jesus’ day. And the same is true today. For forty years the Lord has blessed this congregation with faithful teachers who taught with authority. And you could tell that they taught with authority because, instead of saying , “I think, I feel, some say, others say,” they said, “This is what the Lord says.”

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this is something to rejoice in. But it brings up a real question. And that question is: why. Why is it that a pastor would change from saying “thus saith the Lord” to saying “I think, I feel, I suppose”? A pastor can very easily change from speaking with authority to thinking his own opinion when he speaks with authority and his own people don’t like it. It sounds good to have a pastor who speaks with authority…until he speaks with authority against me. When your pastor condemns your own laziness, lustfulness, gossipping, lovelessness, then, all of a sudden, having a pastor who speaks with authority becomes a bad thing. And when the people push back, sad to say, there are many pastors who change from “this is what the Lord says” to

Speak O Lord

The why is just as important as the what. Years ago when I was in grade school I was on the basketball team. And we did these runs where we would run out to the free-throw line and then the half court line, then the free throw line on the other side. And finally, we’d run all the way down, touch the line and run back. We were told to do it, and so we did it. But what was missing was why. And it showed. There were a number of kids who stopped running not as much because they were out of breath as the fact that they didn’t see the point. You could run laps around the outside and get in better shape. That is a danger we face as Christians. We can end up doing the what without remembering the why. For example, if a child asks the question, “why do I need to go to catechism class,” it’s easy to say, “because that’s what we do.” We haven’t answered the why question. This morning we have the answer to a why question. We emphasize how important it is to read, learn and hear God’s word constantly and continually in our lives. But these words answer the question, why. In 1 Samuel 3, we read: “1 The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions. 2 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. 3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called Samuel. Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 5 And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down. 6 Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” “My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. 8 A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”” (1 Samuel 3:1–8 NIV11-GKE)

If we ask the question, why do we read, study and savor God’s word, here in these words we begin to find an answer. Look here at the patience Samuel shows. He’s like the human hockey puck. We know that the Lord is the one who is speaking to him. But Samuel doesn’t know this. So we see this repetition, again and again, three times. And what you will notice is how the Lord could have stepped in at any time and cleared the matter up. But he didn’t. He let’s Samuel be the human hockey puck. And it’s good for us to look at Samuel, because the Lord does the same to us, doesn’t