Saint Matthew's

(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.

So why then did Jerusalem get sacked by the Romans in 70 AD?

Evangelical Christians have become the biggest supporters of the state of Israel because they contend that biblical mandates to support the country force Christians to back the Israeli government. This morning, the NY Times fronts this story, giving the impression that Christians are standing firm to back Israel because it will make Jesus come back faster.

Ugh.

To put it simply – when Christian leaders run around screaming at the top of their lungs that Christians must support the nation of Israel because the Bible says so, one can only say that they are intentionally misinterpreting Holy Scripture. These evangelical Protestant leaders always point to Revelation or other prophetic writings to prove a case that in order for Jesus to return, there needs to be a nation that rejects Him situated on the site of biblical Judah.

These evangelical Protestants get all hot and heavy and pour millions of dollars into building up Israel but pour nothing into doing the work of the Kingdom in Israel, namely evangelism to those who reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They blindly believe that faith in God means nothing when it comes to our Jewish brothers and sisters because they are God’s people and for that alone, they will be saved.

Again, biblical hogwash.

They take words from Scripture and interpret them so literally – when they want to, that is – they fail to see the grace and mercy of God found in Scripture. Evangelical Protestants read prophetic writings and contend that Israel has to be in place before God returns, but also that some great alliance must be made between Israel’s “enemies” in Russia and China and they have to sweep down to destroy Israel and that alone will cause Jesus to return … but not to return-return: only to start some convoluted 1000 year period when all believers will be raptured up into heaven and the people who are left will somehow have to fight it out with the forces of the antichrist.

Please. This is a bad Hollywood screenplay and has very little to do with Holy Scripture.

Just ask one of these evangelicals about the importance of the Lord’s Supper – they don’t see it as very important. The meal is a memorial meal and means little to the life of the Christian, they contend. But if one reads Scripture, when our Lord Jesus tells us to “do this in remembrance of Me,” He tells His disciples that the bread is His body and the wine is His blood and that this is all done for the forgiveness of sins. They won’t take the words of Jesus Christ, their Lord and Savior, very seriously, but they will take the prophetic writing of Saint John in Revelation with seven-headed beasts and candle stands as gospel.

Please. Cling to the cross of Christ instead to these wanna-be charlatans.

Some of our Christian leaders do give us a bad a name. They say things that are sometimes outlandish. They promote ideas that make little sense. But they pound their bibles and scream at the top of their lungs and sadly, people listen.

Trust in the Lord. Pray for the strengthening of faith in your life and those believers throughout the world. Pray for those who reject Christ so they may come to faith in Him. Pray for the church catholic that its teachings will return to the freedom found in Christ – for He paid for the sins of the world, only Him, and that faith in Him alone will bring eternal life.

The NY Times this morning posts an interesting article on the problems facing evangelical faiths in America: why are teenagers not buying into their form of Christianity anymore?

In America, these evangelical Protestants contend, the persuasiveness of the highly sexually charged society as promoted on TV and in music is driving teenagers away from God. They are finding fewer teens attending their “worship” services and in an effort to combat it, they are trying different marketing gimmicks to get them back.

Maybe they should consider their fixing their theology rather than how loud the music is played at “church.”

Protestant evangelicals heavily promote the belief that in order for one to be saved, one must change their lives and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. It is a very heavy sanctification message – one that attempts to get people to change their lives in order to believe that they can be saved.

This message is a very hard pill to swallow, no matter your age. Why? The central tenet of this Chrisitian theology is the notion that we can make ourselves over in order to get something from God, namely salvation. It is a very centralized message on ‘me and how I got my reward from God,’ something that truly never brings to one the confidence of salvation or the confidence that God loves you.

Lutheranism – or as several Roman Catholic friends have called us Lutherans, “reformed Catholics” – we understand our inability to follow the Law of God and our complete inability to accept the notion that we can change ourselves to follow that Law consistently. We believe that we can change our lives not because we are good enough, but solely because God can be there as our crutch and helper. And when we stumble, God isn’t there to condemn and to punish; He’s there to love and comfort and lead us back to the truth.

But we able to change ourselves because of the God-borne faith we have in our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who took the sins of the world on Himself in order to save the world. His life, death, resurrection and ascension is more than enough to pay our debt of sin – it is why He came in the first place. If our ancestors were able to fulfill the Law of God, they would have done it. But all of them were sinners, just like us, and because of that we rebel against God. We can’t fulfill the Law just like our ancestors couldn’t fulfill the Law.

The only one who fulfilled the Law was the Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord, the one where our faith is centered in solely.

As faithful believers, we do our best to live our lives according to God’s way. Why? Because we are a New Creation who doesn’t want to live in the utter sinfulness of the world. That is who we are – though, we aren’t perfect. We still fail and fall away. But we have a God and a Savior who leads us home.

We are imperfect creatures because of sin – and that sin was forgiven because our Lord Jesus gave Himself over to death. Faith in Him who saves – that is what gives us the gift of heavenly salvation.

Nothing we do can earn it since it has already been earned. We redeemed children of God live our lives in our faith – where we live differently than what the world promotes. All of us can watch MTV (why would you want a music channel that doesn’t play music?) or “The Sopranos” and know one thing: it is our faith centered in Jesus Christ that leads us. No matter what we watch or listen to, we are a New Creation.

Ours is a message of hope of a better future. Sadly, many evangelical Protestants miss this hope thing.

One of the issues that came up this weekend in our readings — something I didn’t preach about — is predestination. As we heard from our reading in Ephesians written by Saint Paul, God has predestined people for salvation. In simpler terms, before the foundation of the world, God knew who was to be saved. Scripture teaches this fact and it is something we, as Christians, believe without exception.

But what of the opposite? Did God predestine people to hell?

If you think this way, stop!

Those who follow in the theology of John Calvin (Presbyterian and other Reformed churches) believe in what is called ‘double predestination.’ It is the belief that God predestined people for salvation and others to hell.

This is a terrible, horrible, and disgusting idea to think about God.

Let me lay out an easy to understand route to take when it comes to predestination. Consider this a Cliff’s Notes version of a longer bible study:

1. Predestination is a Scriptural teaching. Read Ephesians 1:4 and Romans 6 through 8 for support. It is easy to understand – he knew before the world was created who would come to faith in His Son and thus graciously receive His gift of salvation with Him for all eternity.

2. The issue of predestination deals only with Christians — namely those who believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. The fact is — unbelievers think this whole God thing with predestination is fantasy. So it only deals with those who believe.

3. This doctrine of predestination is not one that is supposed to cause discomfort, but it is meant to comfort Christians during difficult times. Why? Because our salvation in Christ is guaranteed by faith in Him, and that this salvation is such a certainty that it was known by Him before the world was created.

4. We cannot forget the Gospel promise of God: faith in Christ, His Son, is what saves. Period. Nothing more is needed. Christ has done it all for us. He kept the law when we couldn’t. God graciously offers us salvation by faith alone, a faith built and sustained by His Holy Spirit.

Those who believe in Calvinistic theology are doing their followers such a horrific disservice. They are leading them off the path to salvation that is guaranteed by faith and putting them on a road of doubt. This teaching is not Scriptural. It cannot be found in the pages of the Bible. Predestination is a Godly-comfort; Calvinists have turned it into a fear. They are trying to use their minds and logic to figure out who is saved and who isn’t.

That is why you shouldn’t jump away from Holy Scripture says — when you leave Scripture and start using your mind to figure out theological issues, you reduce the Word of God and raise up the human mind. We are not smarter than God! I trust God. That is why when it comes to predestination, only use Scripture to answer any questions you have.

I know – it does make logical sense: if He knows who is being saved, then He knows who is going to condemned to hell. But logic can’t explain God. That is why predestination can’t be extended to people who don’t believe! Scripture tells us only that God predestines those to salvation, NOT to hell. Trust what God says, not what human minds tell us.

Remember: it is faith that saves. You have faith in Christ, you are saved. It is the promise of God. That is the comfort that is found in this doctrine.

Believe it or not, I raised this issue last night during our extended bible class:

For those who don’t know, Ann Coulter is an stallwart conservative political commentator who is not afraid to tell what she believes. In a culture that promotes love at all costs (regardless of repentance and whether loving someone means ignoring their sin) and accepting other’s opinions without question, actually having someone who says what she believes puts a smile on my face.

Coulter isn’t well loved by non-conservatives. She is viewed as a vile human being. At times it seems that her political enemies have attacked her more viciously than some of our nation’s enemies.

But this post isn’t about my feelings — it is about the notion that Jesus wasn’t “a pantywaist.”

(more…)

Great post by Pastor David Petersen of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana on viewing Jesus as our role model.

For some reason, prior to Morning Prayer at Saint Matthew’s (by the way, it is held every morning, Monday through Friday, at 7:15A), I was on the telephone talking with a friend (who just happens to be Roman Catholic) about the doctrine of justification within our churches. Considering it was just after 6A and I had forgotten to turn on the coffee pot, I could have gotten a little “snippy.” But I didn’t.

Our discussion centered around my sermon from last Sunday where I wrote about the differences of the importance of faith throughout Christianity and how Lutheranism encompasses all of what God tells us in His Word without adding human machinations to the formula. Or to put another way: Luther got it right. My friend said the opposite – Luther got it wrong. “Biblically, the (Roman) Catholic Church gets it right,” he said. He claimed that the RC believed in justification by faith, but even with that, we needed to live our lives in a state of love.

Even without a cup of coffee in me, I held my tongue. Asking the questions, “Where is that in Scripture? Where does it say that we need to work to prove our faith or our love of God?,” our conversation went toward Saint Paul and his doctrine of justification (look up Romans 3:28 for an easy and quick refresher).

It is without a doubt that Saint Paul understood what the early church believed – we are saved by faith alone in the work of Christ without any works on our part. If we had to work to prove our faith, we would be working for a long, long time without reaching any level of Godly satisfaction.

After Morning Prayer (our readings were Psalm 119:121-128 and 2 Thessalonians 2), I came back to the parsonage and read through “Revisiting Paul’s Doctrine of Justification” by Peter Stuhlmacher. I pull from my reading the following paragraph:

“…Paul built his doctrine of justification on the basis of the holy Scriptures and the doctrinal traditions that had already been developed before him, both in the early church in Jerusalem and in the missionary churches of Damascus and Antioch…He saw himself “accepted” (cf. Rom. 15:7) by the grace of the living Christ on the road to Damascus; he understood the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ that was entrusted to him to be the message of the revelation of God’s righteousness; and he gave the ‘word of reconciliation’ (2 Cor 5:19) which God had established as a direct counterpoint to the revelation at Sinai, its proper place within the global horizon of apostolic missionary activity.”

Saint Paul understood – it was God who saved, not man. If man could save itself, it would have been done long ago by using the law given at Mount Sinai. But we can’t. Only through faith in Christ can one be saved. Faith built not by human hands or minds but by God Himself through the Word and the Holy Spirit. It was what the early church preached and believed and it is what we believe, as Lutherans, today.