Saint Matthew's

Just a couple of things:

1. My Thanksgiving Eve homily is up.

2. We have church tonight @ 7pm. Location? Saint Matthew’s Lutheran, 225 Center Street, New Milford, NJ 07646. Google Map it for directions.

3. I’ll be back in a little while. Yes, my schedule has been a little hectic. However, much of the December service planning is out of the way. I think I’ll give myself two thumbs up for that one.

Last night during our church’s Elders’ Meeting, I made an admission — I am not very good at receiving thanks for anything. I just believe that if I do something I am supposed to do, completing the task deserves no recognition. When people thank me for something, I always get a little clammy. Inside, I say to myself that thanking me is not needed. My unease is, at times, very pointed. I make a face … I interrupt the person or the people I am speaking with who are complimenting me … My shyness begins to come out. I know this sounds overwhelmingly funny, but this is my reality.

This morning, while on the telephone speaking with a friend, I mentioned my little “unease” with being thanked, and as I spoke about my restlessness with receiving the two words “thank” and “you,” she began to laugh. “Normal people don’t have a problem with being thanked, Anthony. In fact, they actually like it.” After she finished, I tried to explain myself – if I do something that I am supposed to do, I don’t believe I need to be thanked. She immediately fired back, “When you help someone, they say thank you.”

When I was younger, I was exceedingly shy. I think my inability to accept thanks stems directly from my shyness, something I thought I had conquered years ago. On the flip side, I’ve always found thanking people so much easier. I know, I don’t thank people enough, but it is more apparent that my heart gives thanks much easier than receiving it.

As Christians, it is central to our core to give thanks not only to those around us who help us, but more importantly, to God for all that He’s blessed us with — with the most important thanks being given to Him for the salvation he graciously grants us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our hearts are always filled with thanks when we ponder the goodness our Lord showers us with each day.

The primary reason we give thanks is that we’ve been blessed by God even though we don’t deserve it. We continuously fail Him, yet out of His love for us, He still provides for all our needs of body and life. In lives filled with humbleness, knowing we deserve nothing yet we receive everything, we thank our Triune God for everything.

That is our goal every time we come to church — to thank Him for all that He has given us. This is our goal each day when we awake, when we prepare ourselves for sleep, before we eat, after we eat, before we head out to work or school or play, etc. Our hearts are geared to thank Him for all that He gives us each day.

This Wednesday evening at 7, please join us as we take special time out of our national Thanksgiving celebrations to give thanks to God our Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

(Cross-posted from reviovine.com)

No matter what people tell you, getting something for doing nothing goes against the intrinsic nature of our human core. America was founded on the idealism of rugged individualism that struggles against the handout and promotes self-determination. Even when government promises something for nothing, we know that the ’something’ really costs us a lot.

Our nature believes the same when it comes to religion.

Justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ innately goes against our internal “do something, get something” impulses. It is hard to believe that our God would declare us sinners righteous if we constantly break His Law. Yet, that is what God promises us in His Word. He has done it all to bring us to Him for eternity. He sent His Son to suffer and die for our transgressions. He sends His Holy Spirit to us to place us on the true path of faith and light. And He promises to forgive us our many sins solely based on His Son’s sacrifice at the cross.

Our collective minds cannot accept this blessed grace and mercy. It drives us back to our internal impulse to believe that we must do something to get something, even from God.

So we cling to the Law instead of the cross.

Our thoughts wrap around the belief that one must ‘do good works’ as the Law demands to prove our love for God in a sort of ‘righteous thanks’ to Him to saved us. In this ‘righteous thanks’ we very quickly lose sight of the Gospel. The Law spouts in our heart while the blessings of the Gospel are weeded. Our trust in God and His promises to us are minimized and replaced with acts of human love. And when this happens, we miss the central point of God’s love for us.

Lutheranism clarifies this religious struggle in all of our hearts. We clearly state that if we live our lives by the Law, we must be judged by the Law; but if our lives are lead by the Gospel and the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, our lives are different, more fulfilled, and deeply rest on the very foundation that God each one of us and has done everything to save us from eternal damnation.

Justification is an act of God – a judicial act that declares sinner innocent because of the vicarious atonement bought by Jesus Christ at the cross. Given to us freely yet paid for by our Lord Jesus, it is imputed to us through faith by work of the Holy Spirit through the blessed means of grace, the Sacraments of the church. For what do we say about faith? We don’t buy it at Wal-Mart. We receive it at our Baptisms. Our hearts believe because of the work of God through that sacrament.

And that is what scares people.

It is like we do nothing yet get the greatest gift ever. We think we have to do something to get it; God tells us otherwise.

(Cross-posted from reviovine.com)

This afternoon, I met with someone to discuss some of his spiritual problems. As a former Roman Catholic now embarking on a Lutheran journey, this gentleman had a number of concerns about the central theology of the church, namely justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ. He, as someone raised within the Catholic Church, is having problems understanding why we leave out THE primary factor of the life of a Catholic – living lives according to God in love.

For people outside of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (sadly, I am finding that many “Lutherans” out there don’t accept this blessed understanding of the theology behind justification), it is spiritually troubling to understand fully that God does the justifying solely and we have no part in the justifying act. It is done by God by His grace, mercy, and love. Our Lord Jesus Christ does the work of redeeming humanity from sin; nothing we can do can accomplish even the tiniest bit of what our Lord did. In a love we’ll never understanding as long as we walk on this earth, God the Father gave over His Son to His enemies to suffer and die for us, to take our place of punishment for our sins for us. But first He fulfilled the Law by living His blessed, holy, and innocent life.

To us sinners, God imparts the victory that Christ won at the cross to us not because we’re all nice people and listen to Him all the time. He does so because He loves us and showers us with His mercy and grace. He gives us faith to believe in His Son and to believe wholeheartedly that what He did was enough to pay for our sins. As Saint John reminds us, God loved us so much that He did it all to save us and to bring us to Him for all eternity.

Now, to believe as we Lutherans do about justification doesn’t mean we should act like thugs and live lives as wanton sinners. We struggle to be better than that. We fight those internal and worldly external urges that push us to break the Law of God, acts that bring a smile to the devil every time. We know of our sinfulness and plead with God not to look upon our failures. In repentance we come before God and our loving Father forgives us our sins, reminding us how much we mean to Him.

And in forgiveness, He forgives forever.

So, this afternoon as I explained this very important theological point in as basic a way as possible, he said to me:

“But I still have to show love to my neighbors, right?”

I have found that Lutheranism scares people – it really isn’t for wimps. We espouse the greatness of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, not the power of the individual over sin. If we had any real power over sin, we’d be like Christ. And if you can find anyone who is like Christ in this world … well, you can’t so don’t try looking.