Lamentations 3:17-18, 21-23

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Sometimes as Christians we can get the impression that we’re supposed to feel and act happy all of the time. In fact we might wonder if we’re sinning when we don’t. Are we sinning when we grieve too long over the loss of a loved one? Are we sinning when we have feelings of melancholy and even depression? Are these sort of things unchristian?

The prophet Jeremiah certainly expresses such feelings and emotions in the book of lamentations. He does this especially on account of the children of Israel. That God has allowed to permit great suffering, destruction even, on account of their sin. Even though Jeremiah himself isn’t being punished by God yet he’s filled with great grief.

The prophet Jeremiah and the book of Lamentations expresses such feelings in his own life. Feelings of great sorrow, melancholy, depression, even hopelessness when he says this in the third chapter of Lamentations

I have been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what prosperity is.
So I say, “My splendor is gone
and all that I had hoped from the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:17-18)

Jeremiah is expressing here is true human emotion, grief over terrible things that have occurred. So is it wrong for us to feel sad sometimes? For us to experience grief and sadness, melancholy maybe even feel depressed at times?

We know our Lord Jesus at the graveside of his friend Lazarus expressed sorrow over his death. He wasn’t happy all of the time. Yet we do also know where God points us to for comfort during such times. As Jeremiah continues on just a few verses later he says this

Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:21-23)

He recalls God’s Word. It’s that word that gives him hope that reminds him that God’s mercies are new every morning.

So it’s okay sometimes to feel sad. To have great sorrow, feelings of melancholy, but also know the place where we find comfort. God in His Word whose mercies are new every morning. Amen.

What was your GPA in high school? How did you do on your ACT, SAT, or ASFAB test? How smart are ya? I remember back when I was in high school my GPA was something like 3.2 or 3.3. And I thought I was pretty smart, or at least above average. However, the wind was taken out of my sales when, my senior year, I came across a list of our class ranking and found that I was 40th out of a class of 66. Wow. I wasn’t as smart as I thought, in fact, I was below average.

Many people believe that wisdom or knowledge can be tested. And that if you do well on getting a high GPA in high school or do well on those tests that I mentioned before you must be pretty smart, pretty wise. However, God sets a different standard in the Holy Scriptures. In Proverbs chapter 9 verse 10 it says this

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10)

That tells us that true wisdom is found in knowing Him. In fearing Him. And that doesn’t mean being afraid of God and his punishment for your sin, but in respecting him, honoring him, worshiping him. This can truly only be done through faith. God has blessed us with the gift of faith. Knowing who he is, the triune God, of the Bible, especially what he has done for us through his Son Jesus Christ.

Even if you don’t score so well on those GPA tests or the other ones I mentioned know that you do have true wisdom in knowing the one true God, and what he has done for you, in Jesus. Amen.

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Have you ever thought to yourself I’d sure be a lot more happy if only I wasn’t a Christian?

Sometimes we can think of all the rules and commandments of Christianity and think that they subtract from our life and from our happiness, but is that really the case? Would we really be happier sinning? We consider the life of sin or sinful pleasure that is often seems appealing to us, would it really be better to engage in sexual promiscuity or use illicit drugs or maybe a life of crime or doing and saying whatever we felt like all the time to anyone in our life? Maybe those things might bring a little bit of sinful pleasure for a while, but it certainly isn’t going to bring us lasting happiness in our life.

There was once a father and his son walking down the aisle of a large Cathedral when the young boy looked up and said to his dad “dad what’s that plus sign in the front of the church?” He was referring to the cross. It’s kind of a strange way to think of the cross, but it’s true, right? That Jesus and what he has done for us is a plus not a minus in our lives. That Jesus and what he has done for us brings us true happiness as we know our sins are forgiven as we know the eternal joys that are ours through him. We also know of our incredible purpose in this life.

All of these things bring extreme happiness to us. So don’t think of Christianity as a negative or a subtraction sign, but only a plus. In Christ, amen.

It seems like advertisers are telling me all the time what I deserve. You deserve a vacation. You deserve luxury. You deserve the best. They’re trying to get at my inner self, that thinks that “yeah, I have worked hard. Oh yeah, I am a special person. So I shouldn’t worry about spending extra money on nice things for myself.” And buy their products.

But what do I truly deserve? When it comes to spiritual things sometimes we think in a similar fashion to those advertisers what they’re trying to get us to think, that “yeah I have been a good person. Yes I am special and so God should declare me to be his child. God should prosper me and bless me in so many ways. God should give me heaven because I’ve been faithful. I go to church every Sunday, I give a full 10% of my income to the Lord and his work, I deserve it.”

But God tells us in his word what we really deserve in Romans chapter 6 he says

For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)

See, for us, we so often focus on those good things that we think we do. Not often do we really do them. God truly expects us to do good things in thought, word, and deed all of the time, not just on occasion. When we use that as a standard we see we’ve fallen incredibly short. What we do deserve is really judgment, punishment for our sins and disobedience and failures to be perfect.

Thanks be to God, though, that he doesn’t give us what we deserve. In Psalm verse 10 it says

He does not treat us as our sins deserve.
He does not repay us according to our guilty deeds. (Psalm 103:10)

Instead of giving us the punishment that we deserve God has placed that punishment on Jesus and in Jesus we have forgiveness. In Jesus God gives us only the best: eternal life forever in heaven. Thanks be to God for not giving you what you deserve, but by His grace giving you an internal inheritance. Amen.

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This time of year there’s a lot of graduations. College graduations, high school, junior high, even kindergarten and preschool. And after all such graduations usually the individuals think “ah, I’m finished, I’m done, it’s over, I never have to go back to that place again!”

Sad to say the same mentality is sometimes used in the church. When kids maybe graduate out of Sunday School classes or maybe are finished with their catechism or confirmation classes to think “I know everything I need to know, I don’t need to go back there again. I am done, I have all of the knowledge I need.” However, God in His Word tells us this, in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 14

As for you, continue in the things you have learned and about which you have become convinced. You know from whom[a] you learned them and that from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:14-15)

The Apostle Paul is encouraging Timothy in this text here to continue in God’s Word. As he reminds him the importance of that Word that Word makes him wise for salvation through Jesus Christ. How easy it is to forget even that central truth of the Bible. When we’re away from church, away from God’s Word, for a while.

Yes we might think that we know it all, we can forget. We can begin to think again that our way to God, our way to heaven, is through the things that we do. The good things that we see in our own lives forgetting our need for a Savior Jesus Christ. Yet God’s Word reminds us of that all the time when we use it again and again and again. And how important it is to not just know that knowledge once, but to grow in it all the rest of our lives. To continually be brought back to the truth that Jesus Christ is your Savior from sin, amen.

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Why do bad things happen to good people?

Whenever I hear this question the Lutheran in me instinctively wants to respond “Aha! A trick question. There are no good people.” Because the Bible says “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” “There is no one who does good, no not even one.” (Romans 3:12,23)

Yet the question still remains, perhaps it just needs to be rewarded a little bit. Why do bad things happen to Christians? To Christians who know and trust in Jesus as their Savior, who has already been punished for their sins on the cross.

The book of Job undertakes this very serious question: Why do bad things happen to Christians? Job’s friends think that they know the answer, that it’s because he must have done something wrong, some secret sin that he’s not revealing to them. However, Job knows that while he is a sinner, he hasn’t done anything specifically wrong in recent years to cause God to bring now this incredible judgment upon him, this suffering.

So he asked: why? God reveals to us the why in Scripture as he shows us that all of that: Job losing his house, losing his family, his property, his health even, was a testing of his faith. To reveal that Job’s faith was not a fair-weather faith based on God really blessing him because Job was faithful, but rather Job trusted in his God as the God of his salvation.

In fact I think the most striking thing about the book is that Job never finds out why all of these bad things happen. God never reveals it to him that this is a test of his faith. God simply appears before Job and tells him to trust him because he is the all-powerful, almighty, perfectly good and just God, place his faith in him as he always has.

God doesn’t always tell us why suffering occurs in our lives, sometimes it could be a testing of our faith, but he does direct us to trust in him at all times to know that his will for us is good so that even in suffering, with Job we might be able to say

I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25-27)

Amen.

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Matthew 5:48, Hebrews 12:14, 2 Corinthians 5:21

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Do you know what a perfect score is in golf? It would be 18. Right? There’s 18 holes and if you got a hole-in-one on every shot, a perfect score would be 18. Can you imagine that?

I remember one time I got a hole-in-one in disc golf and I remember it was amazing. It was about 200 feet out on a par 3. And I threw the disc and it kind of found its way between the trees and all of a sudden [ching]. I couldn’t believe it. I could have thrown that shot thousands of times and not made it. It was amazing. It was impossible.

You know what the Guinness Book of World Records record is for the lowest golf score ever? It’s a 55. That is an incredibly low golf score, but it’s nothing compared to 18. Right?

Quite often we think of God’s standard for his law, what he requires of us, is simply trying our best, doing our hardest, being good enough. But is that truly God’s standard? In Matthew chapter 5 Jesus says

So then, be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

and in Hebrews chapter 12 it tells us

Pursue peace with everyone and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

You see God’s standard isn’t to “do your best” or “try your hardest” but to get a perfect score. A hole-in-one every time. Be perfect and holy just as he is perfect and holy. That’s impossible, right? How can God hold us to such a high standard? Doesn’t he realize were human beings after all?

God can hold us to the standard because he himself is perfect and holy in every way. This is why we need Jesus. Jesus did the impossible in every thought word and deed he never sinned once. He perfectly loved God and perfectly loved his neighbor as himself, yet God tells us something incredible in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 where he writes

God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

This describes a great exchange. That Jesus who is perfect and holy in every way, took our sin and was punished for him and in exchange he gave us his holiness, his righteousness, his perfection. This occurred on the cross and the benefits of it become ours by faith in him.

Will you ever get a hole-in-one in golf or even disc golf? Maybe not, but we can be sure that God views us as perfect and holy in his sight because of his Son, Jesus Christ, and what he has done for us. Amen.

Genesis 50:20, Romans 8:28

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Have you ever read the story of Joseph? It’s quite a long story, some twelve chapters, at the end of the book of Genesis, but it’s exciting. In fact it has everything that you’d want in a story, twists and turns, tragedy and struggle, and of course the happy ending. The basic story line is this that Joseph is mistreated by so many people in his life, though he has done nothing wrong. And yet God elevates him to a position of authority in the end.

In fact Joseph suffers much. Death threats from his brothers, to selling him into slavery, to accusations, to being thrown into prison wrongfully, to being forgotten, but yet in the end God brings him to this position of power to preserve the lives of so many people by storing away food for a famine that is coming.

At the very end of Joseph’s life, after his father has died, his brothers are worried that maybe Joseph’s gonna now use his power against them, but Joseph says this

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. (Genesis 50:20)

You see as Joseph looked back at his life, as he saw all that suffering that he went through, he saw God’s good plan and purpose. That God was using it for his good. Certainly there must have been times in Joseph’s life though when he wondered “why is this happening to me? “What have I done wrong? Is God punishing me?” God wasn’t punishing him, rather he was using the evil intention of so many people to carry out this purpose of saving also many people.

That’s an important point too, to see that God didn’t just say “Joseph, okay, you’re gonna suffer now because later I’m gonna make you rich and famous,” no he elevated him to this position in order to save people not the least of which was the line of the Messiah. To preserve that line that the Messiah might come and through him save the world.

God doesn’t always tell us why we suffer in our lives, but he does tell us this in Romans chapter 8 verse 28

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

And we really need look no further than the cross to see the truth of this passage and in the midst of evil, suffering, and death, God used that all for his good purpose of eternal salvation. Be comforted in these words even in the midst of your own suffering to know that God is working it together for the good of those who love him. For your good, amen.

I’d like to ask you mothers out there how many of you love your children? I would think that most every mother, without exception, would probably say that they love their children.

What about this question: how many of you enjoyed pregnancy and childbirth? I’m guessing their are far fewer that would say they agree with that statement. I’ve been told that pregnancy and childbirth are miserable. It’s pain and sickness for nine long months or, as my wife often reminds me, nearly 10 months of pregnancy, to end in what? The horrible pain and agony of childbirth.

And yet, after that, what happens? A newborn baby, your child, that you’ve been carrying with you is now placed in your arms. Many women would say that enduring all of that pain and sickness and suffering and childbirth was worth it to hold their new little one in their arms. Jesus uses this as a picture for us of the joy that we have as we think about heaven. In John chapter 16 he writes this

“A woman giving birth has pain, because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of her joy that a person has been born into the world.
“So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” (John 16:21-22)

When Jesus ascended into heaven his disciples were, to some degree, sad. They could no longer see and interact with him the way they had before, and many of them experienced much sorrow and suffering at the hand of evil individuals who wanted to suppress the message of Christ.

We too suffer much in our own lives, sometimes for the sake of being Christians, but we know the joy that’s ours, eternal life in heaven, won for us by Christ on the cross. Even as we endure much in our own lives, let no one steal your joy from you. The joy that is yours for ever and ever in heaven. Amen.

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Have you ever prayed for something that you really wanted? Whether it was to be healed from a sickness or maybe financial concerns to be relieved or a conflict that you had in a personal relationship for there to be peace? Maybe your prayer was answered, or so you thought, but then the conflict or the trouble happened again. Then you really wondered did God answer my prayer?

In second Corinthians we hear about the Apostle Paul who tells us that he had a thorn in his flesh. We aren’t told exactly what this was, it appears it was some physical condition, whether a reoccurring disease or maybe a problem with his speech. We don’t know, but we do hear that Paul prayed many times, three times in fact, he prayed that God would take this thorn in the flesh away from him. You know what God’s answer was?

It was a big bold NO.

In fact God told Paul

“My grace is sufficient for you, because my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

My grace is sufficient for you. It seems very difficult for us to accept that as a response to our prayer. Especially when we’re struggling so hard. How could we possibly have the faith of Paul who accepted that answer from God in his own life and in fact rejoiced in his trouble and affliction that the Lord continued to allow him to have? Yet we can, because God’s grace is enough for us.

It is enough for us to know that God has paid for all of our sins. He has done everything necessary for us to be right with him, to know where we are going when die. Sometimes God does choose to answer our prayers with a “No.” Oh may we learn to trust his word, to believe what he says that His grace is sufficient for us. Amen.

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The final verse of Psalm 23 is perhaps the most comforting of all of them. In this verse we really see comfort for both life and death. As I mention in a previous video Psalm 23 has sometimes been associated with death and dying. Yet it is true there’s so much meat in there for us to consider even for our life, even for our time here on earth.

David writes in that final verse

Surely goodness and mercy will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23:6)

What incredibly comforting words, but it often doesn’t feel that way for us. Our lives are filled with so much sorrow, suffering, and pain. We think to ourselves we deserve so much better than this.

You know what do we truly deserve from God? We really deserve only his wrath and punishment for our sins and yet God provides. His goodness and mercy pursue us all the days of our life. In fact God even provides for the wicked, even those that don’t care a thing about him, he still provides for their physical needs.

But how much more so for us, who trust in him is his dear children? As He pours out for us his blessings of mercy upon us not giving us what we deserve for our sins, but instead bestowing upon us grace through His Son Jesus Christ. Reminding us again and again, reassuring us that we have an eternal home awaiting us forever in heaven.

Yes this Psalm is comforting not just at the time of death, but even in life. Be comforted in knowing that the Lord is your Shepherd. With him you lack nothing. Amen.

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Psalm 23 has a lot of imagery of shepherds and sheep. However in verse five the picture kind of changes a bit to that of a man who’s provided for by God.

You set a table for me in the presence of my foes.
You drench my head with oil.
My cup is overflowing. (Psalm 23:5)

It’s the imagery of a feast, maybe we can think of a Thanksgiving meal spread out on a massive table and how the person of honor is invited to come and to eat, despite the fact that his enemies are looking on in scorn and disgust.

When I read these words it’s hard for me not to envision a picture of the New Testament sacraments: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. It’s not so much of a stretch for us to imagine that table laid out before us a reference perhaps to the Lord’s Supper, that cup even overflowing as in the Lord’s Supper God gives to us bread and wine, yes, but also with it the true body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, an abundant blessing.

It’s not too much of a stretch to think about this one who’s anointed with oil. Could it be a reference even looking forward to baptism, as even Jesus own baptism was referred to as anointing? We think about what happened there the Holy Spirit descended upon him the father spoke of him

“This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” (Matthew 3:17)

As we think about the blessings for us in baptism we can be reassured there we are God’s dear children. That we received the forgiveness of sins all while the scoffers and enemies of God and His Word and of the church look on.

There are many who say there’s nothing more there than bread, wine, or water. It doesn’t benefit you any more than maybe stilling a little bit of hunger or washing your body clean from dirt, but there is. As we trust God’s Word and what it says that through those things God provides for us abundant blessings not the least of which is the forgiveness of all of our sins.

Yes, rejoice in this table spread out before you. Rejoice in the sacraments that God has given to you to provide these incredible blessings. Amen.

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