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New Year’s Eve

by steve Posted on December 31, 2011
New Year's Eve [ 19:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is the sermon for New Year’s Eve. The sermon text is: Psalm 116:1-11. The sermon theme is: Call On The Name Of The Lord. Here is the Written Sermon.

New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve

Call On The Name Of The Lord


Call on the name of the Lord. When I think of this phrase I think of a story I heard years ago. The story was about the art of translation. A person told me that translating one language into another is like biology class. You’ll remember back to those days in high school. And how was it that you were supposed to learn about how beautiful and wondrous God’s creation of a frog was? The first thing you did was kill it. Then after there was no more life left you then took out a scalpel and cut it apart. Translation can end up being the same sort of thing. There is the danger that when we take these words from their original language and try to convey the beauty of it in english we can end up killing the meaning of the word.


I mention this because there is so much meaning and beauty in that phrase, call on the name of the Lord. We first see it being used in the book of Genesis. The descendants of the unbelievers went to work learning about food, technology and arts. That was their life. That was their god. But the believers—what did they spend their time in? They began to call on the name of the Lord.1 That phrase means more than you might expect. It means to call to the Lord. It means to call based on the name of the Lord. We would call this preaching. In other words, while the world was so busy and engaged in its hobbies and work, what did the believers spend their time doing? They set aside time for public worship. That is what it means to call on the name of the Lord.


This evening, our psalm is really quite simple. In these words the psalmist invites us to call on the name of the Lord in the fullness of its meaning. He invites us to call to the Lord and speak based on the Lord and his name. And, after giving us the invitation, he gives us real reasons for calling on his name: “I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me; I was overcome by trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, save me!”” (Psalms 116:1–4 NIV)


The psalmist says “I love the Lord and I called out to him.” Why did he do this? Why did he call out to the Lord? He called out to him because “The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me” (Psalms 116:3 NIV) You’ll notice something in how he speaks. He doesn’t give us many details, does he? We might like to know more about what he went through. But, what we do know is enough. What he went through was enough to bring him to the brink of death.


Now this torment could have been an anguish on the outside. It could have been a physical problem. He could have had a disease. He could have been wounded. But the Lord rescued him. But this problem could have instead been a problem on the inside. He could have had something so traumatic happen to him or someone around him that it caused him to doubt his faith and tempt him to despair. And so, the death he speaks of here could have been spiritual death, hell, instead of physical death.


We don’t know all the details. But what we do know is enough. What the psalmist went through was bad—very bad. But the Lord heard him. And perhaps it’s good for us to not know the details. For if we knew the details we might be tempted to say “Well, I didn’t go through that. So this part of God’s word doesn’t apply to me.” But with the wording as open as it is we can find find ourselves in them. For, if you have a pulse and if you live in this sinful world, then whether physically or spiritually, all of you have had times when death was at your door or despair almost overtook you.


And our great sin, especially tonight, as we look back at the past year, is that we know two things. We know that we have had this deep anguish in the past. And we know that the Lord has delivered us. We know these things and yet we forget. We forget that these evil events happened to us. We forget to praise and call on the one who rescued us from them.


And even when we ponder this fact these words very quickly become important to us, don’t they? For here in these words the Psalmist is doing what we so very often do not. The Lord rescued him because he called out to him. And because the Lord rescued him, now he continues to call out to him.


And with these words he invites you to call on his name too. Call on his name because you can look back in the past and see many times that he has rescued you from strangling and entangling of death. And even more times he has rescued you but you can’t see him working with his angels. All that much more so, call out to him because of what he did.


The psalmist continues though. And he answers another question we might have. If we have the question “why did the Lord rescue him,” notice what the answer is: “The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. The Lord protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need, he saved me. Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” (Psalms 116:5–7 NIV)


The Lord didn’t rescue the psalmist because he was good enough or smart enough or in any way deserved his help. The Lord rescued him because of who he is. Notice the three words the psalmist uses to describe the Lord:


  1. Merciful:2 Mercy is this amazing quality where God looks down on us, his fallen creation. And he has pity on us. It’s like all those people out there who never planned on having pets. But, either on the street or in their back yard they saw a dog or cat. And they knew that if they didn’t didn’t take care of it, then it would die. That is the same sort of attitude our Lord has for us.


  2. Righteous:3 This right here is the word that Luther stumbled on for months and years. God is righteous. God is holy. God is without flaw or sin. And the only way we can come into his presence is we are holy. And Luther was so joyous and so thankful to be taught by the Holy Spirit that the Holiness God demands he gives to us in Christ. This is the sort of God we have—one who knows how helpless we are, so he declares us “not guilty.” Then in our baptisms he clothes us with the righteousness Jesus won for us.


  3. Compassionate:4 This word is a very motherly sort of word. It describes the tenderness, the care and the concern a mother has for her children.



The psalmist invites us to call on the name of the Lord and worship him. He invites us to do this because of what he has done in the past. But, even more so, he invites us to do this because of who the Lord is and what he is like. He is merciful, righteous and compassionate. And then, just so that we know what he means, in the next verse, he moves on from abstract adjectives and gives examples of how the Lord shows that he is merciful, righteous and compassionate: “The Lord protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need, he saved me” (Psalms 116:6 NIV)


Simple and small. These are the two types of people the Lord guards and guides. These two words describe the humility we have. As Christians we know how weak and helpless we are. We also know that it is not our job and task to get vengeance. It is not our goal to get even. So, day by day, we learn to call on the name of our Lord. We learn to go to him when we need justice. We learn to cry out to him who is perfectly able to make things right and fair.


Years ago, I remember visiting one of my shut-ins. She was a widow. But every month I stopped over to visit she had her bible on the desk and the offering envelope on top of her bible. She suffered from health problems on the outside and loneliness on the inside. But she had joy and strength in her Lord. For she had learned what the psalmist here sings about. Her goal in her life was not to be more and more self-sufficient. No, instead, her goal was to be more and more Christ-dependent. And so she called on his name daily.


My prayer for you this evening is that the Holy Spirit would continue to give this sort of attitude to you. Call on the name of the Lord. Call on his name because of what he has done for you in the past. But also call on his name because of who he is. He is merciful, righteous and compassionate. And he shows it by guarding the simple and small. Amen.


1 Gen. 4:26

2 חַנּוּן

3 צַדִּיק

4 מְרַחֵם

Image courtesy of Stock Xchnge

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Trinity 5

by steve Posted on August 7, 2011
Trinity 5 [ 18:24 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is the sermon for the fifth Sunday in the Trinity season. The sermon text is: Luke 14:25-33. The sermon theme is What Does It Take To Be Jesus’ Disciple? Here is the Written Sermon.

The Boy Jesus with the Teachers in the Temple
The Boy Jesus with the Teachers in the Temple

What Does It Take To Be Jesus’ Disciple?


Hate is a strong word. If you say that you don’t like someone, nobody may notice. Nobody might care. But, if you use the word, hate, people hear you, don’t they. Hate is a strong word. And yet that is the exact word that Jesus uses in these words.1 Jesus says: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26 NIV)


How strange it is that Jesus would tell people that they had to hate. And even stranger still is who they are supposed to hate. He tells them to hate their own family members—their moms and dads, brothers and sisters. How do we understand these words?


The key to understanding why Jesus uses the word, hate, is the words that begin this section of scripture. Luke tells us that there were crowds that were following Jesus. And even more than that, there were many crowds that were following him.2 You see, when Jesus had a smaller group, he had the time to teach them. And they had the willingness to learn. Now that there are masses and seas of people following him, it is difficult to teach them what they need to know. And the more people there are following him, the more people there are who are either following him with the wrong motivation or with and incomplete understanding of what it means to follow him.


So, Jesus sets aside the time to teach these many crowds of people coming to him what it takes to be his disciples. He uses that word, hate. And then he lets them know that there will be times they will have to hate those closest to them to be his disciple. And as he so very often does, he tells a story to teach them. In fact, in this section he tells two stories.


In the first story there is a guy who builds a tower. But he didn’t have the common sense to see if he had enough money to finish the tower. So he couldn’t. And for years after, everyone laughed at is unfinished tower. In the second story, there’s a king. He is going to war with 10,000 soldiers. But if he does not know how many he is fighting against or if he can win with 10,000 he will lose the battle and everything.


And, after telling these two stories, he ends with this statement: “In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:33 NIV) No doubt there were those who liked Jesus’ story, but didn’t want to undertand his point. Don’t make the same mistake they made. What does it take to be Jesus’ disciple? The cost is very clear, isn’t’ it? The price is everything.


But my brothers and sisters in Christ, is this what you have done? When it comes to choosing either Jesus or what you have, do you choose Jesus? Or, to put it a different way, would those around you—your friends, neighbors and family—would they be able to see you choose Jesus over them? Husbands and wives, does your spouse see you deliberately spend time away from you so that you can read God’s word and pray? Children, when you go to your friend’s house on Saturday night and the sun goes down, when was the last time your friends heard you say “I need to get home because what happens tomorrow morning is more important than you are.”


If ever there is a time hear these words and take them to heart, it is right now. Years ago, the question of the times was “where were you when JFK was shot?” The question people ask today is “where were you—how old were you when your parents told you they were going to be divorced?” And these hurt, damaged children grew up. And they vowed that they would never treat their children how their parents treated them. And what happened? Instead of neglecting them, they worshipped them. So, instead of bringing them to church Sunday after Sunday, they bring them to Kennywood. Instead of bringing them to Sunday School, they take them out of Sunday School so that they can be in their sports. Instead of sitting down and reading God’s word to them, they read them Harry Potter. Why do they do this? To them, their children aren’t treasures to train in God’s word. They are objects to worship.


And there is a real result from this real sin. The will laugh at you. Just as the people laugh at the man who could not finish the tower, so also Satan and all his evil angels and all unbelievers will laugh at you. They will laugh at you because you were so stupid. You see, at least they are smart enough to realize that you can’t have both. You can’t worship both your family and your Savior. They willingly, gladly worshipped the people and things in their lives and said goodbye to Jesus. How foolish you are if you think you can have both. Either the people in your life are first or Jesus is.


What does it take to be Jesus’ disciple? It takes everything. If our Lord delays in coming, there will be that day. There will be that day, whether you are eight days or eighty years old, when the Lord brings death to you. And he will demand that he is first—not your your child, not your parent, not your husband or wife, not any friend.


Our Lord demands everything. How thankful we are that the same Jesus who demands everything gives everything. What if there are those times we choose Jesus instead of someone in our lives, how will Jesus deal with our pain, our great agony? In the gospel of Mark, he answers our need: “Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.” (Mark 10:28–30 NIV)


If you have had to say ‘goodbye’ to anyone in this life so that you can keep Jesus, notice what Jesus says. Whatever you gave up the Lord will repay 100 times more now and forever. What a gracious Savior we have. He demands everything from us. But he gives everything to us. This is true when it comes to the relationships in our lives. But it is also true when it comes to the redemption from our sins that we need. In Romans 8, Paul tells us: “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? … Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Romans 8:31–35 NIV)


Who will be able to separate you from the great redemption, forgiveness and love that Christ has for you? No one! There are so many times we put ourselves before our Savior. There are so many times we put others ahead of our Savior. How thankful we are that Jesus gives us all of his love and all of his forgiveness.


And so, my brothers and sisters, I invite you to live out in your lives what Jesus shares here in his word. Let people know—let people see that they are important to you, but you don’t worship them. Parents, love your children, but don’t worship them. Children obey your parents, but remember that Jesus is your God. And let all of us find ways of showing our friends how truly and sincerely we care for them. But even more than that, let us show them that we don’t worship them. We worship Jesus.


And how can we not do this? For we know the sort of savior we have. One of my most favorite sections of scripture is the boy Jesus in the temple. Mary and Joseph lose Jesus. And they find him in the temple. Mary asks Jesus that ever-important question, “why!” And Jesus says: “Don’t you know that I need to be doing what belongs to my Father?”3 And Mary, instead of rejecting his words, she treasures them. She ponders his words and actions. For he did what cannot. He put his Father in heaven first. And through this gift of faith God sees his obedience, not our disobedience.


What does it take to be Jesus’ disciple? Jesus demands everything from us. And Jesus gives everything to us. Amen.


1 μισεῖ
2 Συνεπορεύοντο δὲ αὐτῷ ὄχλοι πολλοί
3 ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός μου

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