Psalm 98

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Today’s Psalm, Psalm 98. Let’s take a deeper look at these verses. It says that we are to sing a new song. It’s a fresh song. It’s something that’s never been heard before. This means all the way back to Adam and Eve. No one has ever seen or let alone done this new thing. And again, that Hebrew word has got the sense of being fresh. In other words, it’s not old. It’s not moldy or mildew y. It’s alive, it’s fresh. And it’s a miraculous thing because God has revealed the sense of that word is unhidden or unveiled his salvation.

Now here’s something really cool that Hebrew word for salvation is also the Hebrew name Jesus. Or they would have pronounced it Yeshua. God has uncovered, unveiled, unhidden Yeshua. Salvation. Jesus. And he’s shown this dropping down to verse two, to all people.

In verse two we find a great word goyim. And that’s me. I’m from, my ancestors or from northern Europe, and that’s probably you. Goyim is everyone who’s not Jewish whose bloodline can’t be traced back to Abraham. We’re the filthy masses, the unwashed, we’re the Gentiles conceived and born in sin. But the Psalm says that there’s this new song of salvation, this new song, a fresh song of Yeshua for all people.

Because verse three says, God’s remembered. He didn’t forget his mercy, his love. All the ends of the earth are going to hear about this and see it for themselves. Verse nine, it says that he’s coming. The Lord is coming and he’s coming to judge the world. He’s going to decide about the world and its fate, but he’s going to do it in righteousness. Right before God. So how can the world, how can the people, the Gentiles, be judged to be righteous? Well, there’s a new thing. It’s Christ, the crucified and risen Christ. So that new song, that thing that’s now unhidden for all the world, that salvation is the risen Christ. So that new song, that unhidden salvation fresh and never before seen. It’s God the Son giving himself for you, dying and rising.

We usually hear, see, Psalm 98 on Easter morning. What better day of the year to sing about this new, this brand new, never before seen thing than on the day our Savior conquered sin and death for us? Read Psalm 98 for yourself and the Lord bless and keep you.

Hosea 13:14, Zechariah 2:8

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Our reading today is from Hosea the prophet, chapter 13, verse 14 And God says,

O Death, I will be your plagues!
O Grave, I will be your destruction!
Pity is hidden from My eyes.” (Hosea 13:14)

There are times when snakes will climb up into tall trees and go way up into the nest of, let’s say, an eagle or some other bird, and they might start eating the eggs or the little chicks that are in that nest. And those tiny birds are just completely powerless from such a deadly predator. And that’s really kind of symbolic of how we are that when it comes to death by ourselves, we are completely powerless to do anything about death. We can’t hold it off. We can’t keep it away from us. In fact, it frightens us to such an extent that we don’t even like to look at it or think about it. We even pay people a lot of money to take care of it for us when it happens to one of our loved ones.

And that’s why the Bible often speaks about death in Scripture as an enemy of ours. It describes it as a prison. It describes it with words like being a sting. And Martin Luther said about it, even the nature, he says, even the pig squeals at the slaughter. So there’s something inside of all of us that just recoils at the concept and the idea of death. Because we’ve been made to be alive, our bodies want to live.

There’s also a type of eagle that’s called a brown snake eagle, a brown snake eagle, and it actually likes to eat snakes as a source for food. And if a poisonous snake were to go up into the nest of this eagle and attack one of the small eagles in the nest, this mother eagle, the brown snake eagle will not only take and kill the snake, but consume it and swallow it whole. A lot of ancient writers in the church used to use that type of a bird to depict what Jesus has done. He’s gone into death itself, and he’s taken death on, going into the grave, on Good Friday we know he was laid in the grave, cold, dead, in order to go in and destroy it. By allowing himself to be taken into death he has now destroyed death and consumed it. And he’s done all of this on your behalf and my behalf. He takes absolutely no pity on death and the devil. That’s why he says here. Pity is hidden from my eyes.

But thank God he has taken pity on you and me. Because through faith in him we have this wonderful power now over death because of what our Savior has done. He wants you to be able to live forever without fear of death in your future.

Note something here that death and the grave are not merely our enemies or the enemies of Christ’s church, but they’re also the enemies of Christ Himself. And he is the Lord of all life. And he’s more powerful than anything like a fallen angel the devil could ever do. And so to those who belong to Christ, the prophet Zechariah tells us from God. Whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye. (Zechariah 2:8) Isn’t that a great line? Whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye, your gracious God says. Amen.

Romans 3:23, 2 Corinthians 5:17, John 14:3

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If somebody tries to give you their phone number and they rattle off ten digits really, really quick, it’s almost impossible to remember. But if we break it down into those three sections that we’re so familiar with, it’s a lot easier. Our brain works that way. Where a long string of numbers is hard to remember, but short little segments are easier.

And so sometimes I feel like that with my life of faith as well. God’s word is rich and deep. It’s never ending. We can never find the bottom of it. There’s always more to learn. And that’s a wonderful gift. But it can also sometimes feel overwhelming. There’s so much to learn. There’s so much to remember. So when doubts creep in, or when we have questions, or when life gets confusing or a storm in life comes, break it down. Break it down. Into three simple things to remember.

Number one, who you were.

Number two, who you are in Christ.

And number three, what that means for you today and for your future.

So remember who you were. Scripture says in Romans 3:23,

Because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

That’s who we were. We were people who had fallen short of the glory of God. People who don’t deserve good things from him, people who are not good enough for him. People who have sinned.

But remember, number two, who you are in Christ. Second Corinthians five says this

So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

By Jesus’ perfect life, his death, his resurrection through faith in him. Remember who you are. You are God’s own child. You are righteous. You are holy. You are innocent in his sight. You are an heir of eternal life.

And then remember, number three, what that means for you today and every day. You get to live in the freedom of your forgiveness. You get to live with the knowledge that you are going to heaven. Jesus says in John 14,

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that you may also be where I am. (John 14:3)

That’s where he is bringing us. So when life gets complicated, break it down. Remember who you were. That we were lost in our transgressions and sin. Remember who you are in Christ. That we are God’s own children. That we are forgiven and free. Remember what that means for us, that we will be in heaven with him forever.

Three simple truths. Easy to remember. The ultimate comfort for when life gets complicated.

Matthew 1:20-21

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We know where babies come from, so we understand why Joseph was considering divorcing Mary. They were engaged, but they hadn’t been sexually intimate. And yet Mary was pregnant.

Joseph knew where babies came from. And so being a righteous man, he was going to divorce Mary quietly. As he was considering this, Matthew, in his first chapter, records that an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:20-21)

When Joseph was considering divorcing Mary, God intervened. God sent an angel to change Joseph’s mind and show him not only Mary’s innocence, but his will for Joseph and Mary. Mary was going to give birth to a son. Joseph was to give him the name Jesus. The angel even revealed why the son had to have the name Jesus, because he would save their people from their sins. God intervened in Joseph and Mary’s life. But there’s a greater intervention going on. It’s an intervention in your life.

Jesus was to be born of the Virgin Mary so that God could intervene and take away your sins.

God became man in the person of Jesus, lived the perfect life, died an innocent death on the cross in full payment for the world’s sins, and rose triumphant on Easter morning. That was God’s undeserved gift to you and to the world.

God didn’t like the direction your life was going because of your sins, so he miraculously intervened. He came in flesh, lived and died for you, so that now the doors of heaven stand open to you. That is God’s gift to you at Christmas. That is the gift that he wants you to possess today, so that you can know that God loves you and is going to do everything he can to get you to heaven.

So this Christmas, as you ponder again the story of Mary and Joseph and Jesus and all of the things around it being born in a manger and so forth.

Remember, the miracle is that God was intervening for you so that you could be with him in heaven forever.

Amen.

Titus 3:5-7

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When I first saw Nancy, she was sitting in the back corner of the church. That particular Sunday I was preaching on Titus chapter three, verses five through seven, where the Apostle Paul writes,

He saved us—not by righteous works that we did ourselves, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and the renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified[a] by his grace, we might become heirs in keeping with the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:5-7)

After the service that day, she was the last one to leave. And when I greeted Nancy, her eyes were filled with tears, and all she said to me was, pastor, I have not been baptized. In the course of our conversation, I found out that Nancy had been struggling with cancer for quite a while and that it did not look good for her. She had more questions about baptism and Jesus and wanted to talk more. And so we set up a time for the next day to chat. But that morning came and she canceled on me. Weeks went by, I tried to reach out to her again and again, but I never could connect.

And then a few months later, I got a phone call from Nancy’s sister telling me that Nancy was on her deathbed and that Nancy wanted me to come visit her. And when I got to her house, I shared that same passage from Titus with her once again. I shared with her what Jesus has done for her and the blessings of baptism. That through those waters our sins are washed away. What Jesus did on the cross to take away those sins becomes ours personally. That we are forgiven children of God who are heirs, having the hope of eternal life and it’s hope that’s more than just a wish or a want. It’s a certain hope. Life in heaven is ours. Even when our life in this world looks terrible. Even when our life is coming to an end.

Baptism gives that hope. And when baptism is recalled, it reassures the suffering and the dying of their hope of eternal life. When you seem to be struggling through life, or your life appears to be coming to an end, like Nancy, you might have hope that things are going to get better. And by God’s grace, maybe they will. But they don’t always get better. And yet, when you look back to the waters of your baptism, there you find true comfort. There you see something more than just wishful thinking or a desire. There you see that you are a forgiven child of God. There you see your certain hope of eternal life. You are an heir of heaven and nothing, nothing can ever take that away from you. Not even suffering. Not even death.

That day, I finally had the privilege of baptizing Nancy. And this time I saw different tears flowing from her eyes. Tears of joy. Baptism gave her comfort, peace and hope in the face of approaching death. And the very next day her hope became a reality. The risen Lord took Nancy home. He raised her from death to life in her heavenly inheritance where I know I will see her again one day.

Dear fellow baptized children of God. When you are faced with suffering and death, look to your baptism there in those waters you see and find comfort, peace and assurance and reassurance, again and again and again. There you see your hope every day until the day our risen Lord Jesus raises you from death to life in your heavenly inheritance. Amen.

Galatians 3:26-27

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A few years ago, I kept hearing ads on the radio advertising a carpet cleaning service which claimed to leave zero residue, and I was curious what that meant. And so I did a little investigating, a little research, and they claimed to do a superior job of cleaning your carpets, both because of what they don’t do or don’t use, and because of what they do use.

What they don’t use is regular soap or carpet shampoo. You see, soap, shampoo, works by binding to the particle of dirt or grease or some other grime, and then when it’s rinsed away, the soap and the dirt are rinsed away. Obviously, then you’d have to use enough soap to get all the dirt, but there’s a tendency for there to be left over, residual, soap. And that soap stays in the carpet. And maybe if you’ve ever shampooed your carpets, they seem to get dirty so quickly. According to this company that’s because of that residual soap that’s still there, and it’s actually attracting, grabbing hold of, new dirt where otherwise, you know, if there was nothing there, the dirt wouldn’t stick.

So this company claimed that they do a superior job because they don’t use soap or shampoo and because they use this: water. They just use water. Well, that got me thinking about our lives as Christians. We naturally tend to think of our status with God as something we’ve done. Some promise that we’ve made to him about how I’m going to live from here on out. And those are good things. Those are well meant, well intentioned things. I should promise to live my life according to Ten Commandments, but they don’t perfectly cleanse us. They don’t get us as clean as we need to be to be in God’s presence. We need to be completely cleansed of all our sin.

And so there’s this residue that’s left behind. But in baptism, in the simple water of baptism, we are cleansed. We are washed of all of our sins. Saint Paul said this to the Christians who lived in Galatia. Galatians 3:26 and 27.

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (Galatians 3:26-27)

That’s such a neat image that Paul gives us. Just as I am my mother’s son, a child of my mother, but I had absolutely nothing to do with that. And in the same way as Paul says, we are God’s children, sons of God through faith in Christ, the only begotten Son. Because as many of us as were baptized, as were washed with that water of baptism, have put on, have been clothed, covered with Christ. Covered with God’s only begotten child, God’s only begotten Son.

And so, while my works, my Christian life, certainly are important, and I must resolve to live a life in a way as God describes, that’s never going to cleanse me. Instead, baptism has already cleansed me. So put your faith. Put your trust, your hope in baptism. That’s not a symbol. It’s not a ceremony. It is God’s means of grace for cleansing you perfectly, completely, totally for creating you, recreating you to be one of his children, a child of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have been dressed in, have put on Christ.

Until we see each other again. God bless and keep you in that faith cleansed, washed, clean and pure and the waters of your baptism. God bless and keep you. Amen.

In part one, I dealt with the reliability of the transmission of the New Testament and the 5500 plus copies we have, have led scholars to conclude, quote,

That we can reconstruct the original words of the New Testament within 99% accuracy.

So, you know, what we have is what was originally written, but that doesn’t mean it was necessarily reliable historically.

For example, if I were to give you, my journal from yesterday and tell you to copy it word for word, and you did that, we’d have a a reliable transmission. But that doesn’t mean that my journal was accurate historically, or the copy was accurate historically. Maybe I exaggerated, or maybe I created a legend. Or maybe I just simply told some lies.

Are the New Testament writings accurate historically or are they myth, or are they legend, or are they fiction? Or are they purposeful lies? Many believe that the Gospels and the book of Acts are not reliable historically, and you might be one of them. Even Christians have doubts about the historical reliability of what’s recorded there, and you might be be one of them.

There are a number of things that we could point to that helps support the historical reliability of the Gospels and the book of aActs, but I’m just going to mention a few. This is not by any means exhaustive.

First of all, the Gospels and the book of Acts have details of various kinds that you normally never find in myths or legends or even fictions from that that time period.

For example, you have many people listed by name and described. A lot of these names are also confirmed by non-biblical sources, or they’re confirmed by archeology. You also have places and cities and mountains and roads mentioned by name, sometimes with the mileage listed in between. You have buildings and structures described in some detail. We have details about traveling by sea. The cargo, the rigging, the names of the seas. You have descriptions of currents, of weather, patterns, of storm patterns. In other words, what we have here in the Gospels and the book of Acts, they’re written not as if they’re myth or legend. They’re written as if they’re real historical events. And so the question is not whether or not they’re myth or legend versus history, but the question is, are they reliable history versus unreliable or inaccurate history?

Second, the author of Luke and the book of Acts, makes a very important statement concerning how he went about his research and his investigations. Here’s what he said.

Many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)

And so you know these words, they have the ring of integrity and truthfulness. Let me just give you one example from the book of Acts real quickly here.

You know, Luke was a companion of Saint Paul and some of its missionary trips. And Luke again admits that he he talked with the eyewitnesses many times. And one of the things that Luke records when he’s with Paul is what Paul does in making the case, making the defense for the truth of Christianity before a governor Festus and King Agrippa. And here are the words that that the Luke records of Paul. He says,

“I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. (Acts 25:25-26)

Again, Luke claims to have talked to the eyewitnesses, and sometimes he was there, as with the case of Paul here. And so if what he recorded was not true, somebody could have easily challenged him, because these were obviously public events that many people took notice on.

Third, we have at least three writers of the New Testament claiming to be eyewitnesses. Peter, for example, says,

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. (2 Peter 1:16-18)

Again, integrity. Truthfulness. That’s what we’re confronted with here. Now, just because someone says he is a eyewitness, that doesn’t mean he was. So here’s a fourth and final point I’d like to share with you today that help you know, you might say verify, the truthfulness or the reliability of the history that we find in the New Testament.

We have records of the lives and the deaths of the apostles recorded by early church fathers. They testify that the apostles went out right away for the rest of their earthly lives, preaching and evangelizing in order to convert people to Christianity. Have them come to the Christian faith. And when they’re out there evangelizing, they’re preaching, and they’re teaching as if everything recorded in the Gospels and the book of Acts is absolutely true. And they did this despite the dangers they would be facing, persecution, imprisonment, torture. And even death.

And what’s recorded for us is that all of the apostles, with the exception of John the Apostle, who died a natural death, all of them were said to have been martyred. If the events recorded about Jesus of Nazareth, his life, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection, if these events were not true, it is hard to explain their willingness to suffer and especially to die if these events were not true, because if anyone would have known these events were not true, it would have been the apostles.

Here’s the point. And here’s a good way to put it. People do not willingly submit themselves to persecution and to suffering and to death for something they know to be a lie. You know, a lot of people will die for something, but they’re dying for something they think is the truth. But if they know it’s a lie, then that’s a different story.

You don’t die for something that you know to be a lie. On the other hand, people might be willing to suffer and die for something they are convinced is not a lie, for something they know is is true. Especially if that something determines where they will spend eternity, heaven or hell. And that’s exactly what that something, the recorded events in the life of Christ, that’s exactly what those events determine. The difference between heaven and hell.

So these several things taken together, the many kinds of details that you don’t find in myth or fiction or legend, and the fact that we have people who are saying, I did the careful investigation or who were eyewitnesses, and the willingness of the apostles to suffer and die for something that they knew was not a lie. All this helps confirm the historical reliability of the Gospels and the book of Acts.

In other words, they confirm the virgin birth of Christ. They confirm the deity and the humanity of Christ. They confirm his miracles. They confirm his suffering and death and his resurrection, his ascension to the right hand of his father. And not only do they confirm these events, but they also confirm that these events are the factors that determine where one spends eternity.

So if you are a Christian, be assured that these these records are not only reliable, but they’re true. And therefore because of Christ, you are a forgiven child of God. Your eternal destiny is heaven, all because of Christ alone. And if you are not a Christian, you are invited to become one. Your eternal destiny depends on it.

My name is David Thompson. I’m the director for the center for Apologetics and Worldviews. Thank you for joining us.

Luke 2:11

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In the first parish that I served, there was a retired couple who had gotten married when they were very young, teenagers. They told me that the first Christmas of their married life, they had no money, they couldn’t buy each other gifts. And so the husband bought a jar of maraschino cherries that they could give to each other. Can you imagine that, being so poor that the only thing that you can have to celebrate Christmas is a jar of candied cherries? The couple also told me that from that year on, at every Christmas, they bought a jar of maraschino cherries to remind them of that first Christmas.

That begs the question, though, how much could you strip away from your Christmas traditions and celebrations and still call it a real Christmas? Could you get rid of all that food that the family shares for Christmas dinner? Could you get rid of the Christmas tree and all the ornaments and lights? Could you get rid of all the presents under the tree? How much could you strip away and still call it a real Christmas? On the first Christmas, there were no gifts that were shared except the gift that God gave. We’re reminded of that gift in the words of the angel to the shepherds. We read in Luke chapter two.

Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:11)

The angel said that a Savior was born. That was God’s gift to mankind that first Christmas. That was God’s gift to you. You needed someone to come and rescue you from your sins. And God sent Jesus to do exactly that. Jesus was born to die for you, but God raised him from the dead so that you can know that he is your Savior, that your sins are forgiven, and that you will be with God in heaven one day. If you remember that, if that is the only gift that you have at Christmas time, that’s a real Christmas. That’s the Christmas that God wants you to celebrate. May the birth of the Savior, Jesus the Christ, fill your heart with peace and contentment now and always. Amen.

Numbers 21:4-8, John 14-15

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Hi there, my name is Tony Pittenger. I’m a pastor at Bethany Lutheran Church, School, Early Learning Center, way out in Port Orchard, Washington. Out on the West coast, Puget Sound, we’ve got a lot of beaches, and out on the beach you find pieces of driftwood. And I picked this one up. I’ve got a few others like it because it reminded me of a snake.

So I’ve been whittling at it. I’ve been sanding it a little bit, but I want it to keep looking like a snake. It’s even got a little knot there for the eye, which I thought was cool, but I like, I like my snake driftwood, for two reasons. One is back in the Old Testament, when the children of Israel were wandering through the wilderness. There came a point in time where venomous snakes were biting them and the venom was so poisonous, people were dying. And they came to Moses and asked Moses for help. Moses goes to God and asks for help. God told Moses to make a snake not out of wood, but out of bronze or brass, and put it up on a pole where everybody could see it. And if people would just look at it, they would be cured. (Numbers 21:4-8)

Well, if they looked at it and believed that this was how God would cure them. Now there’s no medicinal, there’s no antivenom properties to a wooden snake or a metal snake. But the people that believed that was God’s way of dealing with that venom, they were healed. They were cured.

Well, I said that there are two places, in the Bible, that, reason that I like my snake, my driftwood snake. The second is in John chapter three. Jesus is talking to a man named Nicodemus, and they’re talking about heaven, how to get there, and so on. And Jesus refers back to the Old Testament, and he says, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

And so my driftwood snake reminds me of Jesus as the cure, not the cure for snake venom or some other disease like that, but the cure for sin that God sent his Son Jesus, who would be lifted up on the cross. That whoever looked to him in faith, they’d look to him as this is God’s way of dealing with our sin, with our mortality, with our impending death, and in what should be a condemnation, eternal condemnation. That our Savior Jesus lifted up on the cross is how God will deal with that. So listen again to John chapter three. This is verse verses 14 and 15.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. John 14-15

Well, my friends, believing in him, believing in Jesus as your Savior, you have eternal life as well. God bless and keep you. Amen.

Genesis 1-3, Philippians 3:20-21, Acts 17:31, Romans 8:19, Revelation 21:1-3

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Something’s off about the world today. Whether you’re a Christian or not, you probably agree with that. At least most people I talk to do. But what I hear from people about what to do about it varies. Some people are really passionate about how we need to figure out a way to kind of fix the world, or other people have kind of just given up on it. But thankfully the good news of Jesus gives us a better solution. It helps us understand what’s wrong with the world, but then also it helps us see, it points us to the solution for the world.

First of all, think about what’s wrong with the world. If you go back to Genesis 1 to 3, it helps lay out for us what’s really going on in the world today. It lays out for us the fact that God created this world to be this place where he and humanity would live together and partner together. He created humanity to be in his image and his likeness. Not that we would physically look like him, but that we could live in a way that looked like him.

It’s this really amazing thing, if you think about it. How does an invisible God visibly show what he looks like? Well, he creates people to live in a way that reflects who he is, to live in a way that reflects his character. Then he also gave us the opportunity to rule over the world in his likeness. So then to partner with him and ruling his world.

Well, people turn away from God. We now no longer live in a way that always looks like God or reflects God. And so since we, the rulers of his world, live in a way that doesn’t look like him, what happens? We have a world that is now broken. We have a world that doesn’t function right, because we don’t live in a way that looks like its creator. We don’t trust our creator. Instead, we try to do things our own way.

But now Jesus is the hope for humanity. We know that Jesus came into this world and he looked perfectly like God, partly because he is fully God, but also because he is the human who lived the way that we were meant to live. And then he went to the cross and died for our sins, to pay for those things we’ve done wrong, to take the justice on himself. And then he rose again to give us a new life. And our hope is ultimately of resurrection, where we can have restored to us the life we were meant to have in the beginning.

Think about Philippians 3:21. It says,

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to even subject all things to himself. (Philippians 3:20-21)

So we’re looking forward to a resurrection or restoration of what was lost. But it’s not just about us as individuals. In Acts 17:31, it talks about how God has fixed a day where he will judge the world in righteousness. So all the injustice we see in the world today, God will set it all right. And when Jesus returns, it also means liberation for the whole creation itself. In Romans 8:19, it talks about how the creation is longing for the sons of God to be revealed. That it has been subjected to frustration and to all the issues we see in the world today, so that at some point it can be liberated from it.

There will be a day that Jesus returns. This broken world as we know it comes to an end. And there is, as Revelation 21:1-3 describes, the new heavens and the new earth, there will be the new creation. Where finally everything will be set right. There is something wrong with the world today, but Jesus is the one who sets it all right.

Ephesians 2:8-9

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Our Bible passage today comes from Ephesians chapter two, verses eight and nine.

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 2:8-9)

A number of years ago, I took some college students over to Ukraine to teach vacation Bible school in the summer, and I was teaching in this small church. I had about 30 children in front of me, and there was a lady who was not from the church, but she was a professional translator, and she would translate my English into Russian so that the children could listen to my lesson.

And while I was speaking with them, I had brought along a little gift, a packaged present with a bow on it. And I was trying to teach the children that God has given us the gift of going to heaven as a free present, just like I just read from Saint Paul that going to heaven is a gift from God. And I had just made that statement and my translator, who was not from the church, turned to me and said, “Are you sure you want me to say that?” And I said, “Yes, go ahead and say that.” So she did. That heaven is a free present, that God just gives us this because He loves us for the sake of what Jesus has done.

And afterwards I said to the translator, “Haven’t you ever heard of that before?” “No,” she said. Now she thought of herself as a Christian, but her church taught that part of what gets you to heaven is how good you are. And she knew very well about herself that she wasn’t always so good, just like all of us aren’t. There was a pastor nearby who had a Russian Bible and he sat down with my translator and showed her this very passage from Ephesians two verses eight and nine. That getting to heaven is a gift from God, not by our works, so no one can boast.

And I remember she looked up at me and was so surprised that she had never seen or heard of this before. Sad to say, there are probably many people who would call themselves Christians who really don’t depend on Jesus and what he’s done and His grace in order to get to heaven. They still feel it has to do with their own goodness. And all of us know we haven’t been good enough to be let into heaven. So she was so relieved to hear this.

The next year she ended up being the translator for my brother and she saw the same strange name, Moldstad. And she said to him, “Are you a relative of Don Moldstad?” He said, “That’s my brother.” And she said, “Could you please tell him that I have now joined the church? And because of that lesson, I learned that getting to heaven is just a present from God.”

And what a wonderful thing that is that God teaches us in His Word. That God simply gives us this gift because of His wonderful grace in Christ. And our gratitude to God should be for our knowing this and understanding this so that someday we can all be in heaven with those who love this grace. Amen.

Hebrews 4:9

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Today I want to talk about rest. Rest is something that I think that we have an uncomfortable relationship with. Rest should be easy. It should be a simple thing. It should come naturally to us. But so often it doesn’t. In America, in our country, half of workers, more than half do not take their full allotted vacation days, which is a shocking statistic to me.

More than half of those people who are given an opportunity to rest do not take that opportunity. They would rather work than than take those days off. Rest feels like it should come natural, but it doesn’t. In our culture, it seems like productivity, busyness is a virtue. And so even those rare occasions, those rare instances where we get a chance to rest, we feel guilty. We feel like we should be more productive, we should be getting more stuff done.

Wouldn’t a little bit of rest be so wonderful right now? And not just physical rest, but spiritual rest. Rest from worries and sickness. The stress of getting things done. Rest from feeling divided from people that we should feel united with instead. Rest from guilt. Rest from fears. Rest from doubts. Rest from the hardness of our own hearts. Hebrews 4, verse nine reminds us that Jesus offers this rest to you right now. Not just at some point in the future, but today.

So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9)

Jesus won that rest for you and he offers it to you right now. And he won this rest for you by doing everything. By accomplishing everything, by doing all of the work necessary to give you this rest. He came to Earth and then he lived among us. He took on our human flesh and he lived perfectly. He fulfilled the law of God. He never once sinned. He never once fell into temptation. He went into battle every single day against the devil and won. And then he goes to the cross and he lays down his innocent life. And there he wins that victory over Satan through his death, and then makes us heirs, co victors with him through this awesome gift of faith by making us his people.

So now we get to rest in the knowledge that all of the work of our salvation has been completed. There remains today a Sabbath rest for you, for the people of God. Freedom from fear and worry and guilt and sin. This is what Jesus has won for you. Know and believe that the work is complete, that the victory has been won by Christ, and that in his grace, in his mercy, he holds out to you this wonderful free gift of eternal rest, both now and forever. Amen.