Genesis 1:2

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God has built a training into how life works into every moment of your day. This occurred to me recently, and it occurred while I was studying the Holy Spirit, and that the word that is translated spirit in the Old Testament in the original language is this word ruach. Hebrew is a really fun language. You get to clear your throat all the time. Ruach. You say it with me, Ruach. And it’s a word that literally means spirit or means breath or wind. And so you have this beautiful picture in Genesis one of the Spirit, the ruach of God, the breath of God, hovering, and actually that word too describes like a bird hovers. So here we get this beautiful already an image of the Holy Spirit right there, over the waters. And the breath of God as it’s breathed out is what’s there kind of stirring things up and getting creation started.

So as I was thinking about the breath of God, I realized, what do we have to do each moment of our lives? We have to breathe in.

We won’t live if we don’t breathe in this breath that comes from outside of us. If you hold your breath and try to do it yourself, you don’t get very far. We can’t manufacture breath in and of ourselves. Our very existence is dependent on breathing in something from outside of us. God’s training us every moment that we have to receive life from him. Isn’t it foolish, then, that we have this idea, this tendency to try to do it on our own? But that’s what sin is. Sin is trying to do life to live your own way instead of God’s way, acting like we’re God, not him. That’s what happened with Adam and Eve in the garden. That’s what we do again and again today. I’m going to live life my way. But really, that’s just holding our breath. And while it might work for a bit, it only gets us so far. Doing life for our own way, living like we’re God, it’s a path towards not just sin, but also death and eternity separated from God.

But we have a loving God who has made a way for us to breathe in life again. Jesus came, lived, and died and rose again. He has taken away your sin, your guilt, your shame, everything that separated you from God. He defeated death itself to give you life again. And now the Holy Spirit, the Ruach of God, has breathed new life into you. Spiritual life, the ability to believe in God again, to have life from him again. And he’s even built into our daily life as Christians a new way for us to really practice and exercise this. When you take the Lord’s Supper, the bread and the wine with it, you get the body and blood of Christ. What do you have? The life of God. You are taking it into yourself again.

So today, breathe in. Breathe out.

Think about your breathing. Not too hard, that’s when breathing gets weird. Is when we think too hard about our breathing. But just think about the fact that every moment you have to take in something from outside of yourself. And that’s something, is the life that God has given you. And God today has given you new life through the death and resurrection of His Son, and by the work of the Spirit. So breathe in this life that comes from God, today.

[This devotion is part of our series on The Apostles’ Creed, you can find all the videos in there series on our Apostles’ Creed Page. The devotions will be added as they are posted.]

Ephesians 2:1,8-9

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I believe in the Holy Spirit. With these words, we enter into the third and final part of the Apostle’s Creed, where we confess our faith in the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, who is co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Son. These three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together in everything that they do, especially in the work of creation. The Holy Spirit’s special job, his specialty, is to create saving faith in our hearts, making us alive through faith in Christ Jesus.

As we talk about the Holy Spirit’s work today, it’s important for us to discuss this idea called free will. In our life, especially according to our physical life, we experience free will. We have the ability to make our own decisions. When I wake up in the morning, I can decide whether or not I want eggs and bacon or toast for breakfast. And for the record, I always choose bacon. People oftentimes ask the question, well, does that mean I have free will to make my own decisions in our spiritual life as well? And this question was a question that really was at the heart of what we call the Reformation.

There are three different views in regard to free will. I’m going to explain those to you through using a story of someone drowning at sea.

The first view of free will sees God’s grace as a help that he offers to give us. So imagine this person in the ocean, struggling to stay above the water, and a rescue helicopter sweeps in to come and rescue them from the ocean and the rescue divers there. And the guy cries out from the sea. Help me, help me! And so the rescue diver hands him a personal flotation device and says, here’s your help. Here’s your grace. The shore is that way. Start swimming.

This view of salvation is that man has the free will to take and use God’s help, his grace, to swim to shore, so that ultimately one day, when and if they get to the safety of the shore of eternal life, if they were asked by a journalist, how did you get here? They would say, I used God’s grace to help myself.

The second view sees God’s grace as an offer, something that I have to either accept or reject by my own free will. So let’s go back to the ocean. There’s another man in the ocean, and the rescue helicopter comes to pick him up and save him and rescue him. The rescue diver drops down from the helicopter, but right before he reaches the water where the person is at, he stops just above the surface and says, do you want me to rescue you? At that point, the man has to either accept, he has to reach up and grab the diver for himself or he has to reject the offer of grace and drown. When that person is brought to the shore and interviewed by the journalist, how were you saved? That person would say, well, I was saved because I chose to be rescued. As if he had another choice to make.

The third view. The Lutheran view. We have to go back to the ocean, and instead we find that person in the water, floating face down in the water. They’ve already drown. The rescue diver drops down from the helicopter, grabs him, picks him up, takes him into the helicopter, resuscitate them, and brings them safely to the shore. When they’re on the shore, the interviewer comes up and asks him how were you saved? The person that was rescued simply points to the rescue diver and says, that’s the person who saved me.

You see, when it comes to our free will, at least spiritual free will, the Bible is very clear we’re already dead in the water. Paul says in Ephesians chapter two,

You were dead in your trespasses and sins, … Indeed, it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:1,8-9)

And when you look at that statement, grace isn’t a help. It isn’t an offer we have to accept or decline. Grace is God’s saving power to reach down and save us completely. This grace is yours through faith in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit brings you to life, resuscitating us so that we can joyfully respond to God’s gracious activity of rescuing us through Jesus.

When it comes to free will. The question isn’t what makes the most sense or what’s true to my experience, but rather what does the Scripture clearly teach? Start there, as we confess, I believe in the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Luke 9:51-56, Ezekiel 33:11

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I’d like to share with you a couple of verses from Luke chapter nine.

When the days were approaching for him to be taken up, Jesus was determined[g] to go to Jerusalem. He sent messengers ahead of him. They went and entered a Samaritan village to make preparations for him. But the people did not welcome him, because he was determined to go to Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. “You don’t know what kind of spirit is influencing you. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s souls, but to save them.” Then they went to another village. (Luke 9:51-56)

The relationship between Jews and Samaritans was stressed. It was very challenged. They were adversaries. And we know that especially from the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus uses that in that teaching of that parable, how they were at odds with each other, Jews and Samaritans. Part of that was just a religious disagreement. The Samaritans refused to acknowledge that they were supposed to go and worship and go to the Temple in Jerusalem, and they had their own holy site that they worshiped at. And so here they learned that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. And the Samaritans in this village in our text say, no, we don’t want you here. And so that angers Jesus disciples. They’re angry.

Especially we hear James and John, this poor reception, how dare these people reject Jesus! How dare they insult Jesus and insult us? And so they turn to Jesus and they say, Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to consume these people? So in other words, should we have these people destroyed and wiped out for this insult to you?

When you and I face adversity and when we face hostile people, that might be our first instinct as well. Vengeance. Let’s get even. Let these people be destroyed. Let these people face damnation and even hell. That’s a scary thing to think or to say. And Jesus, he gives a stern rebuke to James and John here, who suggested such a thing. And he points out to them, you’re not being led by the right spirit. Do you think that this is a godly spirit that would lead you to say such a thing, to ask for these people to be destroyed? No, this is essentially demonic. This comes from evil spirits, from the devil himself. God would not want his people to have this kind of heart or attitude in them. God does not have that kind of attitude that seeks the destruction of people. He doesn’t want that at all.

Here and in other places, we learn from Jesus that he does not want people to be destroyed. He came with the mission to rescue and to save people. Even in Ezekiel chapter 33, we hear.

“I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from their way and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11 EHV)

What should our heart and attitude be? Well, Jesus lays it out here for us in our text. And really, there’s honestly a little bit of irony in these words that James and John speak in our text. Lord, should we send fire from heaven to consume them? Now they were intending, should we destroy them? But do you remember what took place on Pentecost? What came from heaven? Tongues of fire that came and rested on the disciples heads as they went out and preached and proclaimed Christ. And elsewhere the work of the Holy Spirit is compared to fire, and faith is referred to as a burning flame inside of a heart. So take those words in kind of an ironic way. Lord, should we call down fire to consume these people? Well, God does, in fact want that. He wants the Holy Spirit and the message of Jesus to come and be kindled in people’s hearts, so that they might have faith, and so that that faith might then spread and be shared.

So in a sense, it’s a good thing to say, Lord, send this fire from heaven, but not to destroy people. This fire from the Holy Spirit comes to rescue people. It proclaims and puts into us Christ Himself and the salvation that he won for us with his life. His perfect life lived for us in our place with his death upon the cross, where he paid for all sins with his resurrection from the dead. The Holy Spirit comes and gives those things that Jesus earned and gives them to us, and that’s the fire that we desire to be consumed with. Lord, please send us this fire of your Holy Spirit among us. Peace be with you.

Acts 2:3-11

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Do you remember the account of the Tower of Babel? These people shortly after the flood, they all had one common language, one common people, and they were determined to make a great name for themselves. They were going to build especially this tower, this great tower that would reach to the heavens. In a very real way these people were becoming arrogant and they were thinking, why do we need God? We can make ourselves God. We can reach ourselves into the heavens, and God comes and realizes this is not good. The people are not trusting in me. They’re not caring about having a relationship with me. They’re trying to supplant me and do without me. And so, God, it’s actually a merciful, loving thing, what he does, he causes them to depart from one another by confusing their language. And so at this point in time, as Scripture teaches, many different languages were created by God. And so the people had to depart and go their separate way by language.

What do we see happening though at Pentecost? Do you remember Pentecost? Let me share these verses with you about Pentecost from Acts chapter two. You remember this blowing of the wind. Tongues of fire. And then the disciples, they went out and they preached. It’s very interesting, this detail.

They saw divided tongues that were like fire resting on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, since the Spirit was giving them the ability to speak fluently. Now there were godly Jewish men from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. When this sound was heard, a crowd came together and was confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were completely baffled and said to each other, “Look, are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them speaking in his own native language?Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, and of Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya around Cyrene; visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes; Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring in our own languages the wonderful works of God.”

What’s going on here? Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes, he reverses what took place at Babel. At Babel, there were all these languages that divided people. But now at Pentecost, God brings them back, not for their own glory, not because they can supplant God, but because God knows that they need him and he desires us to gather together as his people. And so he shares with all these different, diverse groups of people a common thing, a common thing, and in their own languages. He shares with us something that we continue today with the saints throughout history to rejoice in together as one people. And that’s the Gospel message of Christ. The Holy Spirit comes and he joins us back together, not in a spirit of arrogance, where we try and supplant God, but we rally around and we rejoice in the God who has won our salvation. The God who was proclaimed on Pentecost by Peter as the one who has now forgiven us our sins, who has opened heaven to us. And that’s the message that the apostles were sharing.

And so we are invited too to rejoice in that common language of the gospel with all of our brothers and sisters, even though they might have different backgrounds, even though they might speak different languages, we rejoice in the fact that they are fellow Christians who are forgiven, redeemed citizens of heaven with us in Christ. So as we celebrate Pentecost, consider how God has undone that division that we caused and that man caused, and especially then that those people, in their arrogance, trying to kick God out of their lives, caused. And he now unites us around the gospel of our Savior Jesus. What a blessing that is. God’s peace be with you.

1 Corinthians 2:10,12-13

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Saint Augustine, one of the greatest Christian theologians, was writing a book on the Trinity and understandably, having a hard time with it. So he takes for a break to go out on a walk on the beach, and while he’s walking, he sees a little boy, and the boy has dug a hole in the sand and is using a seashell to scoop water from the ocean into the hole. Augustine asks him what he’s doing, and the little boy explains that he’s trying to fit the ocean into the hole. Augustine smiles a little bit and tries to explain to him that you can’t possibly fit the big, vast ocean into that little hole. The boy responds, and you could never possibly understand the Holy Trinity.

God is just beyond us. He’s so vast and big that we can never fit him in our little heads. We can never fully, completely understand him, but we’re in luck. We read from first Corinthians two,

But God revealed it [The Wisdom of God] to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. What we received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the blessings freely given to us by God. We also speak about these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual truths with spiritual words. (1 Corinthians 2:10, 12-13)

The Holy Spirit, who knows everything about God and is himself. God can communicate this knowledge and wisdom of God to us. Scoop by scoop. Drop by drop. He doesn’t do this through immediate revelation. We don’t get zapped with this knowledge, but it’s in words taught by the Spirit. What the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the Bible to write. The Bible is not man’s word, but God’s Word. It’s not man’s wisdom, but God’s wisdom, combining spiritual truths with spiritual words. Only through Scripture can we learn what God has done to save us.

From nature, we can tell that there is a God, and from our consciences we can tell that he has rules for us to follow. But only in the Bible can we learn what God has done to save us. Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross to forgive all of your sins. That’s something that we can never learn on our own. That’s something that the Holy Spirit working through the word can teach us. Amen.

(This is part two of a four part devotion series. We’ll be posting the next parts of this series in the coming weeks. You can find the other parts on our Born Again Series page. )

John 3:8, Titus 3:5-6

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Last week we talked about the second birth that God works through faith in Jesus Christ. But today I want to ask a question how can we be certain that that birth has actually happened?

One of my favorite things to do when I meet people is I like to ask them, what’s your birth story? And what I find is, though, every single person alive has been born, we each have a unique birth story. Some were born early. Some were born late. Some were born naturally, others by C-section, some born at home, some born at the hospital, and all of us at different times and different places. You see, this is what Jesus means in John three when he’s speaking with Nicodemus and he says,

The wind blows wherever it wants. You don’t know where it came from or where it’s going. So are those who are born of the spirit. (John 3:8)

And what is Jesus saying? He’s saying, just as you can’t put wind in a box, we shouldn’t try to box up the Holy Spirit. This is important because every person has their own spiritual birth story. Every Christian story is different. Some came to faith as little children and never remember a time when they didn’t believe. Others came to faith later in life and could point to the exact moment when the Holy Spirit worked faith in their heart. For some, coming to faith was like a slow, subtle sunrise as the day gets brighter and brighter and you can never point to the moment where it began. You just know when the sun is finally out. They know they believe, but they can’t identify when that process started. Others might have always known Jesus, always known God in a certain sense, but they didn’t come to a full realization or understanding of the gospel until much later in life.

What the Holy Spirit is teaching us here is that just because he worked one way in my life does not mean I should expect that he must work the same way in someone else’s life. We cannot put the Holy Spirit in a box. At the same time, the Holy Spirit wants you to be certain that you are born again, and he wants your certainty to not rest in a memory that can change or go away, or an emotional feeling or something that can change. He wants your certainty to be anchored in God’s sure promises. And that’s why Jesus says that we must be born of water and the spirit.

And there Jesus is speaking about Holy Baptism. If you look at the promises that God makes to you in baptism, he says, baptism now saves us. Or in Titus chapter three, he says,

He [God] saved us through a washing of rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on you generously through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (Titus 3:5-6)

You see, you are, you have been born again, and God, through Holy Baptism, has delivered all those gracious promises to you, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life through faith in Jesus. Amen.

Deuteronomy 6:4, Matthew 28:19

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Have you ever heard of the word Triune or Trinity before? If so, you’ve maybe connected it to the Christian church. You maybe know that it’s a way that the Christian church uses to describe God as triune, or that he is the Trinity.

What does that word or what do those words even mean? I’ve often described it in this way to little kids. I’ve told them to picture a tricycle, and I asked them how many wheels are on a tricycle? And they say, well, three. And then I ask them, well, do you know what a unicycle is? And maybe some of them do, maybe some of them don’t. Then I asked them how many wheels are on a unicycle. And they will say one if they know what a unicycle is.

I make the point that if you take the first part of each of those words tricycle and unicycle, you really kind of get that word triune, right? And so it shows us what that word means. It means 3 in 1. We think about the word Trinity. It means a unity of three. And that’s a good term that we use to describe God.

Fun fact though, did you know that the word triune and the word Trinity are not found anywhere in the Bible? Maybe wonder where did they come from and why do we even use them? Well, they were words that were made up centuries ago by early Christians. They’re good words for us to use, even though they’re not found in the Bible, because they describe what the Bible teaches about God. In Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four. It says this

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God. The Lord is one! (Deuteronomy 6:4)

There is one God. There isn’t a multitude of gods, but only one God. Then we think about Jesus own words in Matthew chapter 28 as he instructs his disciples.

Therefore go and gather disciples from all nations by baptizing them in[c] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (Matthew 28:19)

It seems a bit odd, doesn’t it, that Jesus instructs his disciples to baptize not just in the name of the Father, but of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He really gives the Son and the Spirit equal footing, equal honor with God the Father. And there are many other places in Scripture that testified to the fact that the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God as well.

And so that term has been used in the Christian church to describe the God of the Bible, that he is a Trinity, or that he is Triune, three persons and one divine essence.

Now, that doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense for us as human beings. It’s something that we can’t fully comprehend or understand that God is three in one. For our human brains we want to say, well, which is it? Either he’s three or he’s one. He can’t be both. Right? And this is certainly a mystery, but it’s a mystery that we accept because God declares it in his Holy Word. And it’s a mystery that’s essential for us as Christians too.

We might wonder, can’t I just believe in a Creator God that there’s one Creator God such as the Muslims? We think about Jesus own words that he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Think about how we need to know who Jesus is, and we need to know and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, because only the Son of God, only his payment on a cross for us, could actually atone for our sins.

We also need to believe in God, the Holy Spirit, because he’s the one that brings us faith to believe in Jesus Christ. And so this is a precious teaching of Scripture. Not an easy one, certainly, but we believe firmly that God is Triune or the Trinity. We know that he is the God of our eternal salvation. Praise God, the Triune God of the Bible, for revealing himself to us, and that he is the only God of forgiveness and eternal life. Amen.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6

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Could you imagine what it was like to be in a church service in the days of the early church? Saint Paul addresses the Corinthian congregation, and in First Corinthians, Saint Paul points out all these different gifts that the people there in that congregation had. Amazing supernatural gifts of the spirit, even. Gifts of healing, gifts of speaking in tongues, gifts of interpreting tongues, gifts of prophecy, all these different things.

But this also gave rise to some issues for the Christians within that congregation. Some became envious of others because they looked at others who might have had some special spiritual gifts, and they thought, why couldn’t I have that gift myself? And then they began thinking, maybe that person is a better Christian. Maybe God likes that person more than me. Saint Paul addressed that issue and pointed out that that’s not the kind of attitude or heart that we as Christians should have. And he writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, this encouragement to them concerning spiritual gifts, he says,

There are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of ministries, and yet the same Lord. There are various kinds of activity, but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

Even still today, within our churches, people possess different skills, different talents, they have different spiritual gifts. And we might be tempted to look at other people and think, oh, I wish I could do what they do. Don’t look at it this way. For us as Christians, we understand as Paul goes into and he explains in the section right after those verses, we are one body in Christ. And just as our body has different things that it does, it has different parts, we count on each other. We need each other. But Paul also points out something to the Corinthians that we need to keep in heart as well.

Regardless of what gifts we might have or might not have, what we all have together is the greatest gift of all: the love of God. In First Corinthians chapter 13, Paul goes on to explain and he says, you know these, supernatural gifts and these gifts of the spirit, they will come to an end. There may come a time when we don’t see these anymore in the church, but the greatest of all gift will continue to be found in our midst and will be continually given to you. And that is the gift of God’s love.

What a great gift we have in the love of God that we find in our Savior, Jesus Christ. How Jesus, the Son of God entered into our world. He became our brother. He takes on human flesh and blood. He lives a life of perfect love. Never was he envious of other people or anything like that. He came. He obeyed the law of God so that he might earn righteousness, that he shares with all who believe in him.

And as for all of those times where we have fallen into sin, maybe being envious of other people or thinking about other people and what they had, being jealous of them, Jesus takes those sins upon himself. He takes them to the cross so that we might be forgiven. And of course, our Savior is not dead. He is risen from the dead. He lives. And that gives us the assurance that we belong to him and that we will be with him forever.

That’s what moves us to use the spiritual gifts that we have been given, whatever they are, whether they’re great and impressive, or whether they’re small, lowly, humble. We want to use the talents, the gifts, the abilities that God has given us to the glory of God. We want to be part of the body of Christ, and we fit in different places. We do different things, and yet we are together and we work together as a congregation. And that’s what Paul was encouraging the Corinthians. That’s what he continues to encourage us with today as well.

Rejoice in being one who possesses the love of God, rejoice that you are part of the Body of Christ. Rejoice in the spiritual gifts that you and that our other brothers and sisters in Christ have and share. God’s peace be with you.

1 Corinthians 12:3

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Well, a portion of God’s word that I would like to expand upon today is one that you may know from memory, and it’s from 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse three, in which God’s Word says

No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:3)

And so today I just want to talk a little bit about how the Holy Spirit works in our lives. And I want you to think of the front of a sanctuary. At the front of the sanctuary, there are three pieces of furniture, and that is the pulpit and the baptismal font and the altar. And what is it that happens at the pulpit? Well, that’s where God’s word is proclaimed as the pastor reads from God’s word in the scripture readings and in the sermon. And there the Holy Spirit is working through the word to point us to our Savior Jesus and to connect us to Him.

Think of the baptismal font and what it is that happens there. There water and God’s word comes together to bring a child or a person to faith, to believe in Jesus as their Savior. And so at the baptismal font, another piece of furniture in the sanctuary, the Holy Spirit is working to connect us to our Savior Jesus.

And then thirdly, the altar. At the altar is where the Lord’s Supper is consecrated and distributed, and the Holy Spirit is working through Jesus body and blood connected with His Word to point us to our Savior Jesus. And all three things give us exactly what we need, the forgiveness of our sin. So we are with our Savior, Jesus in Heaven for all eternity.

Today, I also want to talk to you about the relationships that we have in our life and whether it’s a mom or dad, a brother or a sister, a friend, a boyfriend or a girlfriend, a husband or a wife, and that person is either going to draw you closer to your Savior Jesus, or that person is going to take you away from your faith in Jesus as your Savior. And if in a relationship we are pulled away from our faith in Jesus as our Savior, it could have eternal consequences where we are separated from Jesus for all eternity.

And so in our relationships, to find those people that draw us closer to our Savior Jesus and to work through those means that I talked about just a little bit ago of the Holy Spirit working through the word, working through baptism, working through the Lord’s Supper.

Now, primarily, where do we find those things? We find those things in church and where is it that I want to be so that the Holy Spirit can go to work? I want to be in church. And so my encouragement for you is to also be in that place where the Holy Spirit works so that we can be built and strengthened in our faith, in Jesus as our Savior and receive the very thing that we need, the forgiveness of our sins so that we have everlasting life with Him in heaven. Amen.

Romans 8:26

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Have you ever been punched in the gut so much that you’ve just had the wind knocked out of you? I used to play a lot of basketball when I was a kid, and I was rather tall and big for my age. And so I was the big center underneath the hoop and on more than a couple occasions, I mean, it was a very physical game and elbows would be thrown and, so you’d be hit in the stomach. And when we knocked out of you for a little bit, you be struggling to breathe and you start to panic a little bit and just need some time to rest and recuperate.

Well, there’s a lot of things that can knock the wind out of us when it comes to a spiritual and an emotional standpoint. Maybe it’s a diagnosis that you have received or that a loved one in your life has received and you’re just not ready to deal with it and the ramifications of it. And the wind just gets knocked out of you.

Maybe there’s an exam that you had to take that you really need to do well on to pass the class or to get into that grad program you really wanted to be admitted to, and yet the score wasn’t quite up to match.

Maybe you’ve been applying for job after job after job because you want to provide for your family, make sure that there’s ample food on the table, and yet you’re getting rejection notice after rejection notice and well, the wind’s been knocked out of you again.

And a lot of times when we get into those situations, it’s very easy to panic, is very easy to worry and feel anxious about the future. And when we get in this situation, we get so disoriented that, well, we don’t know what to do, we don’t know what to say and when we don’t know what to say one thing we also don’t know what to do is to how to pray. What words to offer up to our Heavenly Father?

Well, Christians have been granted a wonderful gift through our baptism. We have received the full and free forgiveness of our sins. The blood of Jesus Christ has been applied to us. So we have been made clean through the blood. And because we’ve been made clean, because we’ve been declared holy by God, the Holy Spirit dwells within us. And even later on in First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. And our text gives us a lot of comfort whenever we have the wind knocked out of us in Romans Chapter eight, in verse 26. The Apostle Paul writes,

In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we should pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that are not expressed in words. (Romans 8:26)

And so the Holy Spirit dwells within you. And whenever you become so disoriented that you have no idea what on earth you should pray for, what you should tell God. The Holy Spirit who lives in you, takes your concerns, takes your anxieties, and then he brings them before the throne of God. He translates them into a prayer that is more articulate, more comprehensive, and more to the point than anything that you and I could ever imagine to say. And we know that it’s a wonderful, perfect prayer because the Holy Spirit is God. And he knows our situation far better than we know it ourselves. So he knows what to pray for.

So whenever we feel disoriented, whenever we don’t know what to pray. Trust in the Holy Spirit. Trust in his presence in you because he is praying for you. He is interceding for you. And he loves you more than anything else. Amen.

Romans 11:33-36

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When we consider the Triune God, sometimes it makes our minds hurt. It is a mystery how there can be three persons and yet one God at the exact same time. And for many people this bothers them because they can’t wrap their minds around it. How about you? How do you deal with these mysteries that we find in the Bible? Mysteries like the Triune God?

In God’s word, Saint Paul, he emphasizes how this isn’t something that should throw us off. It isn’t something that should surprise us. It’s something that we should expect from a God who is bigger and greater than we are. If he’s bigger and greater, more powerful than we are, well, then we should expect there are things about him that we just don’t understand that we can’t ever comprehend. And Paul emphasizes that in Romans Chapter 11, beginning in verse 33, he says,

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how untraceable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his adviser?” “Or who has first given to God that he will be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36 EHV)

God’s wisdom far surpasses our own. And that’s the kind of God that we want to have. We want a God who is bigger, smarter, wiser than we are. If we understood everything about God, well, that would mean that we are just as smart as God. And that would be scary because I know my limitations. I know that I’m not very smart. I want a God that understands things that I can’t understand, who sees things that I can’t see. I want to put my hope and my trust in him. And that’s what Christians do. So we don’t get thrown off when we come across these various mysteries that the Bible speaks about things that go beyond our understanding. We say Amen. God knows, and I trust in him.

This is the way God has always worked. Even the message of the Gospel itself goes beyond our understanding. Who are we to deserve what God gives to us? It’s incomprehensible how God would send His Son into this world to die for unworthy people. And yet that’s what God does. Glory be to God and for His plan. We put our trust in that plan. And we pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your great wisdom that you shower forth in this world. Continue to guide us and lead us. Help us to put our trust in you. Even in these times when we might not understand what you were doing or these things about you. Help us to put our trust in you. Oh, Lord. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Romans 11:33-36

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Our Bible reading today comes from Romans Chapter 11, beginning with verse 33.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

When we try to comprehend a little bit of who God is, it’s really difficult for us. It’s such a tremendous contrast to who we are. You know, we can think of the power of a level four tornado and how immense that seems to us. And yet to God, that’s just like the motion of his little finger. Or think if you went to the beach, if you were to scoop up a huge pail of sand and try to imagine sitting down and counting out all those little grains of sand as if that was somehow representative of years. And to think that God has been around longer than any little pebble of sand in the world. Or we think about feats of strength, human strength that people can do, trying to pull vehicles and trucks, some of these really strong men that do that. But to think of the awesome power of God that he can move mountains simply with his breath. Or I think of a sixth grader who can just spell words amazingly with just tremendous knowledge. And yet how tiny that gift seems to be when you compare it to God and all of his knowledge. Or the size of the universe, and to think that the Earth is so small that we can’t even think about how tiny it is and everything else out there. And to God, that’s just part of the great expanse of his entire creation.

No wonder Paul, in the book of Romans, says, Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. What a contrast between this enormous, immense being God and us frail little human beings. And a lot of times, because we cannot see God and we sense this huge contrast between us and Him. It’s easy for us to be very afraid of God. It’s very natural thing. In fact, if you look at most religions that are designed in the world by people, you’ll find that they try to figure out some way to appease this God. They try to find some way to make this God happy because there’s a sense that somehow he’s angry with us and there’s something just not right.

But when we look at biblical Christianity, when we look at how God has designed a religion for us, it’s completely the opposite. When he comes and speaks to us, certainly he makes us aware of our sinfulness, but when he comes and speaks to us, it’s nothing but his love and his grace and his mercy. It’s coming from an and completely different perspective, rather than trying to build a ladder from us up to God to try to reach Him. He has dropped down a ladder through the work of his Son and all the wonderful things that Christ has now come to accomplish for us.

And so this enormous God out there has chosen to find you and to find me through the message of the Gospel. I remember one of my seminary professors used to say it like this. The plan of salvation. In other words, to get us to heaven. The Plan of salvation is so personally designed that even if you were the only person to have ever lived in the world, he still would have carried it out. He still would have sent Christ, even if you were the only person that had ever lived. He chose to enter world history for us. Become our brother. Take all of the guilt of my sin and your sin on himself. When he suffered and died on the cross to rise again, victorious from the grave, and then ascend back up into heaven and promises to go there to make an amazing place for us.

In the book of Romans here that I’m reading from Saint Paul talks about how all three persons of the Trinity have been involved in this amazing work to ultimately get us to our home in heaven. And that’s why Paul concludes with these words. When we see a reflection of the Trinity, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom we glory forever. Amen.