Grounded in Christ — Sent to be a Blessing.

Zion Lutheran Church

Sharing Sacred Stories

Psalm 40

This week we finish our four-week series in the book of Psalms. We have touched the surface of some of the diversity in the book with praising God as well as low points of the writers, just as we experience in our own lives.

This week our Psalmist has experienced deep lows and found solid ground once again, knowing God has been instrumental in his situation, helping him through his challenges. As a result, he is signing a new song, one of hope. His life is different.  He has a story to tell and he is not shy about telling it!

We all have a story to tell; a sacred story where God is active and in the midst of it.  Are you aware of your story?  When in your life have you had a new song to sing? Perhaps right now your song is of struggle, that’s okay.  Just know that God is present and at work in your life. Your story is your story and it is connected to God’s story.  It is a sacred story and you have something to share.

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God can calm our fears

Psalm 27

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
    whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
    of whom shall I be afraid?  (Psalm 27:1)

One of the benefits of being a person of faith is the confidence that comes with it. Once you trust God over everything else and believe that God’s love can transcend even death, then there is nothing anyone can do to you to take away the most important thing you have.

Long before the resurrection of Jesus, the Psalmist wrote the above words. They are words of transformation that demonstrates the confidence that comes from trusting God. Martin Luther wanted us to know and trust this and as he talked about the meaning of the first article of the Apostles Creed he reminded people that God provides and protects us and is the source of all blessings. His hope was that as we remember that truth, we would feel blessed to have been given these gifts simply because God is generous

After the crucifixion, Jesus overcomes death and returns to the disciples who are very afraid. When he appears in their midst, he comes to offer them peace. Their fear turns into a calling to continue the work of Jesus.

What are you afraid of and what fear or anxiety is getting in the way of you doing something that you think really matters? The psalmist knows your struggle. The Psalmist also knows the way out of that struggle is God.

We have more info than the Psalmist had. The God who raised Jesus from the dead has demonstrated that this is a God who can be trusted. Allow yourself to enter into that gift and see your fears diminish and your commitment to pursue whatever God is calling you to do become a new possibility.

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Lord, Hear My Cry

Psalm 69

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me. (Psalm 69:13)

Struggle and alienation are sometimes part of our lives. We don’t search for it – we are miserable when it happens. But at some points in our lives we may have experienced the breakdown of important relationships and have felt the pain of feeling isolated and alone.

The problem is, sometimes when things break down in one place in our life, other places can suffer as s result. People we relied on in one chapter of our life are now distant and no longer available to us. We may need them more than ever, but we lose them and the relationships seem to simply rub salt in the wounds we are feeling. We can even wonder what’s wrong with us and be overly aware of our own brokenness.

The end result for the Psalmist is introspection. The writer of this Psalm has felt victimized but the result was looking inside and remembering all the mistakes that had been made. Guilt and self-doubt have set in. The Psalmist’s family has left.  Even fellow members of the faith community have become distant. Jesus’ disciples remember this Psalm when he clears the temple in of the money changers.

When life gets like this, only grace can restore it. The strands of the relationships are so fragile and tenuous that no one seems to even be willing to work at it. Only God can provide hope. Yet faith still whispers a confident voice in the Psalmist’s ear: “Your troubles may seem to big to be overcome, but God is still God. There is always hope.”

The ground of all our hopes is that even when the world seems to have turned its back on us, the God who made us and loves us continues to work to restore us and bring us new life.

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Raising Our Eyes to a Higher Vision

Praise the Lord

From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised. (Psalm 133:3)

For the next few weeks we will be turning our attention to the Psalms. This collection of prayers/songs is an amazing treasure trove of spiritual resources and depth. No matter what you are feeling and what you are going through, there is probably more than one Psalm in this collection for you to connect with at any given time.

The verse above is a joyous and celebrative one. It is a call to recognize that no matter what time it is, it is time to praise the Lord. God’s goodness and commitment to doing good are praiseworthy 24/7. While we can find ourselves in a number of situations, some of which as we go through them may not naturally elicit praise for us. But the following well know call and response is always true:

L: God is good.

C: All the time.

L: All the time.

C: God is good.

Praise in life does two things and both of these are important in our relationship with God as well.

First, praise orients us in a positive way toward the other. Studies show that as much as 85% of the interactions between parents and their children are either instructive or critical. Less than 15% are simply affirming – things like “You are doing well,” or “I am proud of you,” or “I love you.” In some families that 15% is even less. The smaller it is the less positively the parent and child are likely to be in their orientation with each other. They simply become objects to manipulate or direct and lose their humanity.

This is true with God as well. If you spend most of your time when you are paying attention to God giving instructions, even in the context of prayer, it is easy to think of God on a purely practical level. “Dear God, fix this…” reduces God to simply a magical go-fer. Being intentional about praising God, thanking God and celebrating God’s goodness reframes us and keeps us oriented in a more positive way toward God.

Second, praise and celebrating goodness elevates our vision. I was just in a group of leaders who said that it seems like every organization has someone who is mostly negative – an Eeyore character. A few bad days or just a bad break or two and we can become that Eeyore character. But praise reminds us that what God is dreaming and what God is up to is higher than or current experience. It lifts our eyes toward the vision and pulls our spirits upward with it.

So, at various times between the rising of the sun and its setting, you may find yourself in a less than perfect place dealing with less than desirable circumstances. Remembering this verse in the midst of that can reorient you, reconnect you to God, and reposition you to act in ways that take something that isn’t yet what it could be and somehow make it look a bit more like the vision we know God has for it.

There is never a bad time to raise your eyes toward a higher vision!

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The Holy Spirit – God’s Prodding Us to Action

Pentecost A

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. (Acts 2:1-2)

Jesus had promised this moment. He had told them to go to Jerusalem and wait and when the Holy Spirit came it would bring “power.” They were to simply wait for God to act and when the time arrived, God would give them what they needed to know what to do and the strength to do it.

This is the nature of the Christian life. Grounded in the promises of Jesus, God’s people wait and watch for cues from God, receive the Holy Spirit, and join in with the work that God initiates. We don’t do anything alone. God always leads and shows the way. If we are attentive, we simply say “yes” to God’s invitation and jump in.

This leads to a central idea of the Christian faith. God wants to use people and comes to us as Spirit to inspire us and prod us into action. While we might feel ill equipped to do the work or even feel inclined to turn God’s invitation down, if God has asked you to do something then you are the one who can do it. God wastes no effort inviting people to do things they can’t do. If God asks you to do something then you can. You may not yet know how, but just the fact that you sense God calling you is enough to know that if you dig in then God will find a way.

The events of Pentecost are a perfect example. 120 followers of Jesus were huddled in a room praying and waiting – for what they did not know. But they knew they were waiting for something because Jesus had told them so (and the believed him). When the Spirit came, everything changed, and a group of people who would never have envisioned what would happen next found themselves doing it – no planning involved. They simply responded and allowed the Spirit to use them.

This is a good reminder of how God often works in our lives today as well. God calls us to pray and live life watching attentively for signs from God. When God calls us to action, God’s Spirit stirs us up and sends us out to do what it is God wants doing. All the while, God is envisioning the work and leading the work. We simply need to respond to the Holy Spirit and live our lives as “yes, Lord.”

Pentecost is a reminder that if we all watched for God’s action and listened for God’s call, who knows what amazing things might happen in our live and in the world around us!

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The foolishness of the cross

Cross is foolish

“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  (1 Corinthians 1:18)

As we continue to unpack the Trinity in this three part series, we turn our attention to the second person of the Trinity, the one we know as the “son.” We meet the son in Jesus, a Jewish man who lived among us and taught and healed in an itinerant ministry. He understood the core of Jewish faith like no other. He challenged the people who were in charge of faith and government in ways that threatened them. His ministry, as powerful as he had shown himself to be, ended in a surprising place – at the cross.

The cross seems an odd place for Jesus to finish. That’s why Paul talks about the cross as such a watershed in our understanding of God. No one had an image of God that could suffer and die. Such things were for mortal failures, not for amazing Gods.

The cross turns our image of God on its head. We still struggle with this. We all want the almighty and powerful God, especially when it is our turn to line up and ask for a miracle. But all of us have stories where we were disappointed that it seems like the all-powerful and almighty God failed to come through for us. How we make sense of those times (or don’t make sense of them) ends up determining a lot about our faith or lack of faith. Many a person has had their faith crushed when God didn’t do what they hoped and wanted to happen. If we aren’t careful, we can turn God into a genie who grants us wishes.

The cross reminds us that God although God is strong, God is also weak and even vulnerable. Sometimes God’s action or failure to act leads to the surprising loss of something dear to us. God is no stranger to that. Jesus shows us that God’s greatest commitment to us can be found in love. God will be with us in all things, loves us in all things, and bears all things. Each of our mortal lives will end in death – that is a given. But the God we meet in the cross stands with us in that death and experiences it with us and for us. We need not fear it. Jesus has gone there first. We need not give death the last word. The risen Christ returns to witness that love and life are more powerful than death.

This can seem foolish to those who wish for a God who would simply fix our problems. But the God of the cross lives with us and loves us in the midst of the realities of life. If you want a genie, Jesus is not the answer. You will have to keep searching for the magic lamp. But if you want a God who will stick it out with you, what seems foolish to many in our world will bring you hope and life. This is the message of the cross. This is the God we meet in Jesus.

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God is Present and Active

Gd at Work

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth… (Genesis 1:1)

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? (Matthew 6:30)

These two verses both deal with God’s creativity and oversight of creation. On the surface they are very different.

The Genesis text is past tense. God “created.” This is the most common way that we understand creation. It is something God did and it is done. The arguments between fundamentalists who believe in a literal six twenty-four days creation versus people who think it could have taken a lot longer emphasizes this historic dimension. This can impact school curriculums and all sorts of things. But sadly, this big focus is all about the past. It’s interesting but the biggest issue is not how or how long creation took to happen. The focus of the Bible is WHO created and the attention is given to God.

The Matthew lesson points to another, equally or even more important reality. Jesus doesn’t care how long creation took or how long ago it was. Jesus’ real concern is that people trust that God is still working. It isn’t enough to believe that God did something a long time ago. God is active and present in our world today and Jesus’ deepest desire is to help people see that, trust that, and live out of that promise.

This week we begin a series for three weeks that will unpack each person of the Trinity. The goal is not to gain some esoteric understanding of the Trinity and the metaphysics of the “Three in one.” The goal is to spend time exploring a God whose essence is too big for any one person to contain, whose core identity is a loving relationship, and who is active and at work in our lives.

The lessons we share this week point to a God who was active, is active and who will always be active in our world and in our lives. Knowing that and trusting that stands at the core of Jesus’ teaching. Knowing that and trusting that provides the core for us to live faithfully and confidently today. The God who made the world, has come to us in Jesus and the risen Christ keeps us alert and connected to God who works in the world today.

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The Bible – The bottom line is grace!

Revelation

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.  (Rev 22:17)

Anyone who has read through Revelation knows that it is a complex book that is filled with a wide range of imagery. It can be overwhelming to deal with it all. And making sense of it can take a lifetime. This week’s post won’t solve all of that, but hopefully it will help.

By the late first century, many Christians found themselves in difficult situations. The author of Revelation (also known as The Revelation of Saint John) says that he is in prison on the island of Patmos. He is not unique. Many Christians have found themselves in prison, in the arenas with the lions, or being killed as martyrs for their faith. Being loyal to Jesus has put many of them at odds with the Roman Empire and its leaders. The book of Revelation is written to people like this – people who are struggling and wondering what will become of them if they remain faithful Christians.

So the bottom line in the book Revelation is a relatively simple message told through vivid images, stories and metaphors. Here is the message: in a world where God’s work is often opposed by sinful and even evil forces, the God we meet in Jesus has triumphed. Ultimately, clinging to Jesus will result in life, even (especially) for those who have suffered or died for the faith. The powers of evil have been defeated and those who trust Jesus already live out of that reality, even if evil hasn’t yet received the memo and is offering up painful last gasps. So don’t give up. Don’t quit. God is going to finish this and it will be a spectacular finale. Followers of Jesus will be rewarded for their faithfulness.

That’s why the book ends on the note it does. The verses above are near the end of the last chapter of the last book in the Christian Bible. In spite of all the complex imagery in Revelation, they are very clear. God is inviting anyone and everyone to come and drink from the waters of life. And we drink, not because we earn or deserve it. We drink because God gives it to us as a gift.

That’s the gospel: In a world where life is confusing and even rough, God is at work bringing life to us and that life comes to us through faith and is offered freely as a gift. So, if the book of Revelation confuses you or even makes you nervous, just go to the bottom line. In the end God has already won, and the rewards of that victory are offered to you by Jesus, no charge!

The Courage to Be Heard

Witness A

For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”  (Acts 13:47)

The Apostle Paul was one of the first missionaries in the early church. Originally someone who opposed Christianity, Paul had an amazing experience when he encountered the risen Jesus while traveling on the road to Damascus. By the time he had come through that encounter, Paul was transformed from a persecutor of the church to a proponent of Christian faith.

While Paul usually started by visiting Jewish communities when he arrived in a new town, response to his message was often mixed. Some would believe while others would not. This is not surprising.

But what was surprising was that in spite of a mixed response at the synagogue, Paul felt called to keep preaching and eventually came to believe that his main work was to take the gospel to more than his Jewish colleagues. He was to invite Gentiles (non-Jews) to believe in and follow Jesus.

Most of us at Zion come from Gentile ancestry. While some of us also have some Jewish heritage in us, all of us would fit the biblical definition of being a Gentile. Paul’s work was the platform on which all of us became Christians. While Elgin is at the center of our ministry and for most of us reflects the central place we spend most of our life, it was an unimaginably long trip from where Paul did his ministry to here.

Yet here we are, a community of believers who have been invited in to continue the ministry of Jesus and to invite others to believe and join in too. Our lives and witness are living examples of just what Paul was talking about. Through you and me, we are living witnesses to the ongoing work of the risen Christ. So be bold. God is using to you complete the work started by Paul almost 2000 years ago. Wow!

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God Uses Us to Get the Word Out

Witness B

Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

This simple sentence is the charge that Jesus left to his disciples before he ascended to heaven and left them to take over his work. It is preceded by a promise that they would receive “power from on high” when God sent them the Holy Spirit. In other words, the work that God was charging them with, God was taking the lead on as well. It was simply their job to bear witness to what God was up to and help others to see it too. God would do the rest.

That same promise and charge comes to us today. We receive the Holy Spirit and God empowers us to be part of what God in Christ is up to. We bear witness to that and God will do the rest.

Of course, in spite of the simplicity of it all, we seem to often fall short of the hopes that Jesus lays out. In the book of Acts, where the above verse sits right at the beginning, the faith seems to spread like wildfire. And there have been revivals throughout history where that seemed to happen again. But we seem to live in a time where faith and faith-life is declining and perhaps that clouds our judgment and dampens our spirits. So we stay quiet rather than speak up and share our witness.

This week’s lesson reminds us that God is using each and every one of us to advance God’s work. Our lives matter and the words we share with others matter too. Take some time to think about what God is up to in your life and how God in Christ has made a difference to you. Think about how to say it and in what ways you can share it with others.

Faith comes by hearing. Your voice is the primary vehicle by which many people in your life may come to hear about who Jesus is and what Jesus is doing. How can you be a more effective witness as God calls on you to share the good news?

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