Romans 8:13
First Sunday in Lent
25 February 2007
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
What do you most value in life? That might be a tough question because maybe you’ve never thought about that before. What do you most value in life?
In answer to that question, some of us perhaps pointed in our minds to some “thing,” some possession – maybe a house or a vehicle or a special collection. In answer to that question, some of us perhaps pointed in our minds to some “one,” some person – a spouse or a best friend or a child or a grandchild. In answer to that question, some of us perhaps pointed in our minds to some quality – happiness or health or contentment or freedom.
Now, let’s take that question one step further. What do you most value – not in your own life – but in the life of the person sitting next to you? With very few exceptions, the person who is sitting next to you is sitting next to you because you wanted them to sit next to you or you wanted to sit next to them, so there is something about them that you value. What is it?
I can tell you in my own life, the thing that I value the most is my relationship with Jesus Christ. As your pastor, you would expect me to say that – in fact you should expect me to say that – but it is also very true. Next to my relationship with Jesus Christ, even though I also value things like possessions and people and qualities, the thing that I value the most is my reputation, the truth about me.
A couple of months ago, a seminary classmate of mine who is now serving as a pastor in Texas brought my attention to a blog – an online article that is posted on the internet for just about everyone to see – that had been written about me and about our bishop, Dr. Stoterau, and about this congregation. The blog had been authored by a member of a neighboring congregation – a man who truly believes he is always doing the right thing, a man who aligns himself with the ultra, ultra, ultra conservative faction of our church body, a man who truly believes he stands on the side of truth and who believes he has the duty to enforce the truth. Anyway, this blog contained some hurtful, blatantly untrue things about me and about Dr. Stoterau and about this congregation, all of it based upon shadings of the truth, but all of it spun in such a way that the truth could no longer be seen and all of it posted without the courtesy of following Matthew chapter 18 and asking me or Dr. Stoterau if any of it was true before airing it before the world.
Few things have hurt me as much as that blog. Few things have angered me as much as that blog because we live in a day and age where things found on the internet are often regarded as true. Fewer people today use dictionaries or encyclopedias or newspapers or news magazines or the television news for the source of their information. More people today will “ask” or “google” or “yahoo” a subject on the computer as will take as true what they there discover.
Jesus didn’t have that luxury two thousand years ago. When, after His baptism, He was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert [Luke 4:1-13] for a time of prayer and fasting before starting His ministry of calling disciples and healing the sick and speaking in parables, Jesus carried no computer with Him. There were no “hot spots” there in the desert. Jesus also carried with Him no dictionaries, no encyclopedias, no reference tools. All He carried with Him was what had been put into His mind from the time He was a child – the living and active and powerful and truthful Word of God. Some would say that Jesus was under-prepared for what lay ahead. However – this has been mentioned in many sermons through the years – every time Jesus was tempted by the devil, He successfully and victoriously countered the temptation by simply and solely using the Word of God. Go back through our Gospel today and you will see exactly how Jesus did it and how effective it was. To every temptation the devil threw at Him, Jesus walked the road of truth and calmly stated Scripture and the truthfulness of Scripture won out hands down every time over the tempting lies of the devil.
I say all this to us this morning because I know many people wish they could do what Jesus did. I know many people wish they had an intimate knowledge of Scripture, where the Word of God just bubbles up from deep inside them and comes out naturally in conversations. I know I wish that for myself.
Our Second Reading today [Romans 10:8-13] tells us that we can do what Jesus did. Our Second Reading today tells us that we can have an intimate knowledge of Scripture because “The Word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart.”
God has planted that knowledge, that truth, within us and we need to just walk that road of truth. Let’s test that out for a second. If I say “John 3:16," what just popped into your mind? Probably for most of us came the words, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The Word is near you! It is in your heart!
Instead of using dictionaries or encyclopedias or computer search engines to gain our information, we should be asking ourselves in every situation, “What does God’s Word say about this?” We will at first have to use some tools – the little dictionary or concordance in the back of our Bibles, but let me tell you, when we start doing that and when that becomes an automatic response to every question we have in life and every challenge we face in life, suddenly some of that information will start sticking to our gray matter and we will begin to allow God’s Word to interpret the way we see life and the way we walk the road of life.
Let me get us started this morning with the last verse of our Second Reading today – “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.” Say that verse along with me: “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.”
That’s a powerful verse! It’s an easy verse to remember. It’s a verse that is easy to repeat. Beyond that, it is true! It’s God’s Truth! “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.”
We live in a world where the world likes to divide us. We are divided by age, by color, by economics. We are divided by country of origin, by native language, and by political affiliation. We are divided by education, by collar-color of employment and by what figure goes on lines 7 and 37 of our federal tax forms which we are just 6 weeks away from filing. We are divided by address and zip code. We are divided by what church denomination we attend and sometimes even by what branch of what denomination we attend. With all that division in our world, look at what God’s Word does. God’s Word unites us with His Truth that “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.”
I want you this week to walk that road of truth. I want you to allow God to plant that verse in your mind. I want you to look at the person sitting in the pew next to you and think that verse. I want you to look at the cashier at the grocery store and think that verse. I want you to look at the person driving the car next to yours at a red light and think that verse. I want that verse to pop into your mind when someone makes you mad this week. If we walk that road of truth – God’s Truth – and allow that verse to permeate our thoughts and our actions, we will begin to live the way Jesus lived. We will begin to do what Jesus did. We will begin to have an intimate knowledge of God’s Word and God’s way of acting.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena