One Spirit, One People, One Peace

Texts:  Isaiah 2:1-5; Ephesians 2:11-22

WHEN I WAS A FRESHMAN IN college, I met a guy at a party who introduced me to the concept of world citizenship.  He said he was working with a group who were lobbying the UN to make my hometown of Kansas City a "city of the world."  Somehow, the very mention of this filled me with excitement.  There was something so big and thrilling about the idea, something larger and grander and more hopeful than anything I'd conceived of before, and the thought that I myself might be involved in it made it all the more amazing.

Well, nothing came of this plan as far as I know, and it's been a long time since I thought that humanity united under a single human government is a good thing.  Still, there's something inherently appealing about the idea of human oneness and unity.  How wonderful it would be-- No barriers, no conflicts, just perfect communication and peace between man and man.

But that's not how things are in this world.  In fact, it seems like parties, opinion groups, and factions are more polarized and more in opposition than ever before in human history.  You probably have friends you don't talk to much any more because every time you get together, you end up in an argument about some issue or other.  With some people you can't even talk about the weather without things getting political!  It wouldn't be so bad if people would stick to evidence and facts, but the dividing walls of hostility are erected so high and so thick things too often end up in name-calling and insults.  So we stay in our own camps with that figurative wall standing between us, and human oneness is only a dream-- if we think it's a good thing at all.

With the way things are today, it should give us perspective on the polarization between the Jews and the Gentiles in the Roman world, as we read in St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  But their conflict concerned more than current issues; it cut to the heart of created reality, for was over who or what should be worshipped as the true God and what that deity requires of us as humans.

This question is way bigger than the debate over, say, global warming or government-run health care.  In such matters let us take our stands based on the facts as we know them, but allow that more information may prove us to be wrong.  But in this matter of Jew vs. Gentile-- or, rather, Jew vs. pagan, the Scriptures leave us in no doubt as to who was and is right, or at least, more right, in this conflict.  The Jews absolutely were, before the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only people on the face of this earth who worshipped the true Lord and Creator of the universe, while the gods of the pagans were useless idols.  The Jews were the only ones who'd been given His laws to follow, the only ones whom the Lord had made His people through solemn covenant, the only ones to whom He had powerfully revealed Himself with unshakeable promises of blessing. And although the prophets spoke of a Messiah to come who would somehow bring benefit to the nations as well, they were also clear that it was through Israel alone that this Savior would come. When it came to the divisions between Jews and pagans, it was not a matter of each side giving up a little on the human level and coming to a friendly compromise.  Compromise was something Israel could not do and remain Israel.  For whenever Israel compromised with the Gentile nations, that's when they got into deep trouble.

No, as Paul writes in verse 12, time was when we who were born Gentiles were

separated from Christ [that is, the Messiah of Israel], alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

In fact, for many centuries the dividing wall of hostility was a necessary barrier to preserve Israel from total disobedience and dissolution before the Messiah could come.   It was essential that the pagans and their evil influence be kept at a safe distance from the commonwealth of Israel, and the further off the better.  But, Paul says, the time has come for the dividing wall to be taken down.  Better than that, the time has come when it has been taken down, and the two indeed have become one.

How?  By us holding interfaith councils and agreeing that all religions lead to the same god?  By us avoiding controversial subjects and just talking about puppies and kittens and blue balloons instead?

No.  It took Jesus Christ Himself to break it down and bring Jews and Gentiles together.  For as we see in verses 14 and 15,

He is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances . . .

Now when we read that Jesus has "abolished . . . the law of commandments and ordinances," we might conclude that the Jews were wrong all along and we can indulge in and celebrate all sorts of immoral behavior and do it with Jesus' blessing.  That'd save a lot of arguments, for sure!  But we'd be wrong if we did.  For Paul has just finished, up in verse 10, saying that God has created-- recreated, actually-- us in Jesus Christ for good works.  And all the Scripture tells us that a godly life is the only way to please our Creator.  So what is this abolition?

In such a case, it helps to look at the original Greek. The word translated "abolish" literally means "down-un-acting" and, in the case of this verse, scholars interpret it as "made ineffectual or powerless; nullified; invalidated."  So what was the law considered to be effectual or valid for previous to Christ?  Well, the Jews looked to keeping the Law as an effectual and valid way to please God and be justified in His presence.  And that is what Moses had said by the Spirit in Leviticus, "The man who does these things will live by them"-- that is, have life, peace, and fellowship with the Lord of life.  But by the same Spirit he also said in Deuteronomy, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."  And who can live up to that?  The Jews never could.  Certainly the Gentiles could not.  We cannot.  The Law which reflected the holiness of God only served to prove how unholy we all were.  But in His flesh-- in His perfect obedience in life and His sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus fulfilled the commands of the Law in our place and set it aside as the way to peace and fellowship with God.

And as Paul writes in verse 13, in Christ Jesus we (and we're included with the Gentile Ephesians here) who were far off from Israel and alienated from God's promises have been brought near by the blood of Christ, shed for us all on Calvary's cross.  In Christ the vision of Isaiah is fulfilled, when the nations would miraculously stream up to Mount Zion and know peace walking in the ways of the God of Jacob.

I've heard that outside the United Nations building in New York there's a sculpture called "Let Us Beat Our Swords into Plowshares," frankly taking its title from the verses from Isaiah 2 that read,

They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks.

In other words, let's bring about peace on earth.  Well, people, if you're trying to achieve that by what goes on in that building, good luck.  You'll be at it a long, weary time.  No, the Scripture is clear: Man cannot end hostility: Our peace is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.  In Him is the one and only peace that can make Jew and Gentile one and create one new man out of the two warring peoples.  It took the Son of God made Man to make peace between God's covenant people and those who before had been excluded from His covenant, and He did it by His atoning death.

But His death accomplished even more.  As wonderful as it was that Jesus should make one people out of the warring human factions of Jew and Gentile,  He also reconciled humanity to Almighty God.

And we all needed reconciliation to God.  Because as we can read in Ephesians 2:3, by nature-- fallen human nature-- we are all children of wrath.  In our natural sinful state we are at war with God and God is at war with us.  But in Christ and through Christ and because of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God who is rich in mercy chose us in love to be saved through Him.  And so now, as verse 16 says, He has reconciled both groups "to God in one body through the cross, bringing the hostility to an end."

But how does this come to be true for you and me?  Verse 18 answers that question: it is the work of the Holy Spirit who gives us access to the Father through Jesus Christ our mutual Lord.  By His gracious work we're no longer illegal aliens who deserve no amnesty; God Himself as in Psalm 87 has declared us to be born citizens of the heavenly Zion and by Christ His living Word it is so.  In Jesus we are made fellow-citizens with the saints-- and by that Paul would have meant the holy men and women of faithful Israel-- and members of the household of God.  In Christ the earthly nation of Israel is redeemed and rebuilt together with the elect Gentiles into the spiritual Zion, founded upon the apostles and prophets with Jesus as the head and cornerstone.  The dividing wall has been broken down, and in its place one building rises under His power.  Together we are that building, and it is no ordinary house: it is a holy temple intended for the dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

I hope you have a sense of how beautiful this is!  But beyond that I want us all to understand the power these beautiful truths must have for our lives in this fallen world.

First of all, we were not saved to be lone-wolf, individualized Christ-followers.  Back up in verse 11, the apostle begins this passage with the word "therefore."  In the previous verses he was reminding us of our salvation in Christ and God's will for our lives in consequence of that.  But we are not on our own.  God raised us up in Christ to be incorporated into one holy people by the ministry of one Spirit.  It is absolutely false that you can be a perfectly good Christian without being part of Christ's church.  Membership in Christ's church is a fundamental part of what you were saved for.  Indeed, everyone who has been reconciled to God in Jesus Christ is a member of His Church whether he or she is able to sit in a pew or not.  Therefore, let us support and build up and act in love towards one another, for Jesus Christ is our peace.  In Him and in the power of His Spirit we can demonstrate that we are one new man, as we look out for the good of on another just as we would for ourselves.

Second, we cannot take our position as citizens of the heavenly Zion for granted, as something that simply comes with our living in our particular time and place.  No, for if things had kept on going as they had for hundreds of years, we who are not ethnic Jews would have remained strangers and aliens, unforgiven sinners, with no hope and without God in the world.  It is by grace you have been saved, just as it is by grace that the Jews who believe in Jesus as their Messiah have by grace come to know that reality.  This should give us all a sense of humility before God and a heart of compassion towards our unsaved pagan neighbors.  For we were once as they are, and the blood of Christ that brought us near to God will, in His mercy, one day bring them in as members of the household of faith, too.  So let us conduct our lives in the power of the Spirit so Christ indeed will be seen in us, that through us others might also be reconciled to the God who made them.

This brings us to the third and final truth I believe we should take from our Scripture readings today.  Despite our compassion, there will always be plenty of people around us who are perfectly content to be without God in this world.  We Christians, they charge, are the ones who are unenlightened.  Indeed, when we conduct ourselves as citizens of God's holy nation and stand up for His righteousness in this world, we will be reviled as fools, bigots, even as enemies of humanity.  It can be hard living as a Christian in this world, the way things are going.  It may threaten your position, your income, and your reputation.  But you are members of Christ's one holy nation, and our heavenly citizenship takes precedence over all other loyalties.  Yes, let us be good Americans, good members of our political parties, good trade union members, good service club members, good members of our families.  But when any direction or practice or mindset of our nation, party, union, club, yes, even of our own families contradicts the will and nature of God as we know it from His revealed Word, He calls and commands us to stand firm in the Spirit and hold fast to the truth of Christ.

It won't be easy, but we can do it.  We can do it because we are God's one new people through His one Holy Spirit.  And the one peace we rest in is Jesus Christ Himself.  He is the Peace that will always last and never fail.  He has already accomplished the cosmic work of making peace between Jew and Gentile, and between both of us and God.  And so we can find our peace in Him, no matter what our conflict with the world may be.  Rejoice, Church of God!  We are His people, bought with His blood and brought together by His Spirit.  We are God's holy temple, His dwelling place on earth, and He will see to it that His temple, His spiritual Zion, stands forever, to the glory of His name.

Father, Give Us This Day

Texts:    Proverbs 30:7-8; 1 Timothy 6:3-10; Luke 11:1-13

    WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION JUST a few weeks away, there's a lot of debate over the sorry state of the national economy.  Both sides disagree on who's to blame for it all, each claims it's the other side's fault.  This morning we won't get into who's right and who's wrong on the question, but one thing I think we can agree on is that the economy is still in trouble.  People are still losing their homes, their jobs, their savings.  Experienced adults are having to make do with part time and occasional work, and it's not enough to live on.  Many people having given up on finding gainful employment altogether.  People are scared, even panicking.  Some of those people might be folks you know.  Some of those people might be you.  We hear about the working poor.  Our times have given us the hidden poor-- those who still appear to be middle class, but they're desperately hanging on by their fingernails, knowing that if something doesn't develop, if something doesn't change, they'll soon slide down into ruin.  What do our Scriptures for today say to people in that condition?  What do they say to us as we struggle with our own financial worries, or worry about the struggles of those we love?

    We could be superficial.  We could take our passage from 1 Timothy with its verse about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil, and conclude we should feel guilty about wanting to provide materially for ourselves and our families.  We could imagine we're being told that money doesn't matter at all and we shouldn't bother to provide materially for ourselves and our families. 

    And then our passage from Luke 11.  As it winds up, Jesus seems to be saying that whatever we want, we can ask God for it and He'll give it to us.  That's what the prosperity gospel preachers say.  That you can have anything you desire-- houses, cars, wealth-- if you just ask God with enough faith.  So if we don't have the material things we want and need, does that mean we don't have enough faith?  Is that what Luke is teaching us?  And are St. Luke and St. Paul at odds with each other, one saying God wants us to have money and the stuff it'll buy, and the other telling us that money and possessions are somehow evil?

    We know better than that.  The Holy Spirit is the Author of Scripture and He does not contradict Himself.   And it's not the purpose of the revealed Word of God to give us financial advice.  No, these passages and all the verses of the Bible that talk to us about money and material things speak with one voice, and they all intend that we should have the right attitude toward these things, because we first have the right attitude towards our holy Father God. 

    Lest we should say great riches are always a sign of God's blessing, or conversely, in case we should claim that poverty is  good in itself because God only favors the poor, let us take our verses from Proverbs 30 as our keynote.  They say,   

    Two things I ask of you, O Lord;
            do not refuse me before I die:
     Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
            give me neither poverty nor riches,
            but give me only my daily bread.
        Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
            and say, ‘Who is the Lord?'
    Or I may become poor and steal,
            and so dishonor the name of my God.

    You probably remember the Prayer of Jabez fad a few years ago.  We were told that the formula to a happy, God-blessed life was to be found in a prayer prayed by an otherwise unknown Judahite mentioned in 1 Chronicles.  I suggest that we in our times might take this prayer of Agur son of Jakeh especially to heart.

    "Keep falsehood and lies away from me," he implores, and aren't we surrounded by untruth and even active opposition to the Truth every day we live?  But beyond this, see what Agur prays regarding material possessions.

    First of all, he does pray regarding material possessions and his prayer is recorded in Scripture as an example to us.  There is nothing shameful or guilt-inducing about wanting our material needs to be met.  God created us with physical bodies.  They were part of us when Creation was still "very good," and our heavenly Father knows we need food and clothing and shelter from the elements.  He knows it's good for us to have and enjoy things to delight the eye, to stimulate the soul and to rejoice the heart.  Of course we are in need of material things, and it is right and holy that we should ask the Lord God for them.  For when we ask, we're acknowledging that we depend on Him, that we know that every good gift comes down from Him in heaven, even our life itself.

    But what shall we ask?  Shall we ask to win the lottery and be rolling in cash?  Shall we beg God to give us a higher salary than anyone else in our company, not because our work earns it, but because we want to feel how much more important we are than anyone else there?

    No.  By the Holy Spirit Agur prays, "I may have too much and disown you and say, "Who is the Lord?"  That is the snare in riches.  That is where the love of money proves to be the root of all kinds of evil.  It's when money and possessions come between us and God.  Money can so easily become an idol, especially when one has so much of it he believes he is entirely self-sufficient and no longer needs his Lord.  Indeed, in his letter to the Colossians St. Paul frankly labels greed as idolatry.  The person who on an earthly level has earned his or her fortune is particularly in danger of falling into this pit, for if he will not exalt God as the Giver, he begins to raise up himself as the author and perfecter of all he has acquired.  You may have heard the expression: "He's a self-made man, and he worships his Maker."  But rich or poor or in-between, we have only one Maker, who is the divine Creator of heaven and earth, and only one Provider, who is our Father in heaven, and only one Master, who is the triune Lord.  And if we deny Him; if we stand on the highest pile of possessions the world has ever seen and stick our paltry human noses in the air and proclaim that we are the captains of our fates and the masters of our souls, we are poorer than the frailest, sickest, most starving Christian child in the refugee camp at Darfur, for we, unlike that child, have lost God.

    At the same time, Agur prays that the Lord not give Him poverty.  God certainly is described in the Bible as the special Defender of the poor, but there's nothing noble or virtuous about poverty in itself.  Like riches, it offers its own temptations to idolatry.  Agur feels that if he should become poor, he might be driven to steal.  And what is theft?  It's another way of refusing to trust God, of preempting His right to give you what He wills for you in His good time.  Theft, too, is driven by greed, which is idolatry.  When a child of God descends to stealing to provide for himself, he dishonors God not only in the crime itself, but in what the theft says about God's ability to provide.  It declares that the Lord is not to be trusted.  But when one is poor and desperate, waiting on the Lord is a difficult thing to do.  "My family and I are hungry now!" we might protest.  "I have the right to take what I need!"  With Agur we pray we will never be led into such temptation.

    In all of this prayer, the main thing is not the petitioner's material state, the main thing is his relationship to Almighty God.  Agur knows his weakness.  He also knows God's strength: up in verse 5 he writes, "Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who trust in him."  But how easy it is in our weakness not to trust!  And so, he prays that the Lord will give him "neither poverty nor riches, but only his daily bread.  "Give us this day our daily bread," O Lord.  Assure me that I will have enough for my needs, and may I trust You to do the same thing for me day by day,  tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, not because I see the provision, but because I see You.

    And so, hundreds of years later, when the Son of God walked the earth in human flesh, His disciples came to Him and asked Him to teach them how to pray.  What comes first in the prayer our Lord taught?  It is that we may be given to acknowledge who God is and be fully submitted to His will.  He is our Father: kind, loving, benevolent-- and in charge.  May we always hold His name holy-- that is, may we realize that God is never a means to an end; rather, He is the end and purpose of all things in Himself.  May His kingdom, His everlasting dominion come, and may it be established here and now in me.  Once we understand the greatness of God, we can properly ask Him to fulfill our material, spiritual, and emotional needs.  Like Agur, our Lord teaches us to pray each day for our daily bread and for preservation against temptation to sin against God.  And Jesus teaches us to pray for our greatest need of all: for forgiveness of our sins, and for grace to forgive those who sin against us.

    Jesus commands us to pray believing in the goodness of God, trusting our relationship with Him.  He tells two parables to illustrate this.  We haven't time this morning to examine them in detail, but the point is clear: If a friend will bother himself to help a friend in need, how much more will our loving God open the door to us and give us relief.  If a human father, even an evil one, will give his son good things, how much more will our Father give good gifts to us, the children He has adopted in His Son?  And not just good things, but the best thing-- The Holy Spirit, who is His very presence with us.  If we have nothing else in this world, if we're being starved to death in a prison someplace but have the Holy Spirit living in us and ministering Christ and His benefits to us, we have all we need.

    I pray that you and I can get our hearts and minds and desires around this.  This same truth is what the Holy Spirit through Paul teaches Timothy-- and us-- in the First Letter to that young pastor.  "Godliness with contentment is great gain," he writes.  "For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that."  "Godliness" is far more than an aspect of our own character or personality.  It's not walking around being holier-than-thou or bragging about all the things we don't do.  No, godliness is a state of being in continual fellowship with God in Jesus Christ, continually seeking His will and trusting in His love.  If that is how you know and walk with your Provider, if you have learned the happiness of trusting Him for your daily bread, you are way ahead of the game when it comes to material wellbeing.  If the Lord should grant you more than food and clothing-- and I suspect He has favored all of us this way-- rejoice in His gifts and thank Him for all He has done.  But wanting to get rich for the sake of getting rich can cause us to fall, as Paul and Agur son of Jakeh say, into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that can plunge us into ruin and destruction.

    Brothers and sisters, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be successful at our work.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to be compensated fairly for the labor we do and the work product we produce.  St. James in his letter condemns those who withhold wages from the workman, and the executive in his suite is just as much a workman in what he does as the lowliest sweating ditch digger.  The hazard, again, is lusting after wealth for its own sake, so you can sit back and rely on it and not on God.  The danger is learning to despise the riches that is God's Holy Spirit living in us.


    But how shall we stand in this world of lies and falsehood, in these times when financial uncertainty tempts us to try to get rich quick or to take matters into our own hands and steal?  We stand on Jesus and His death and resurrection for our sakes.  God gave up His Son for us: is there any other needful thing He will withhold from us He loves?  As Paul says in Romans 8, "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

     Not all at once, and not everything we are convinced we need, not necessarily even what we think is best.  We may pray the prayer of Agur son of Jakeh in faith, and the Lord may say No, and give us riches and the responsibility that comes with them.  He may will that we taste poverty, and learn to trust Him not merely for our daily bread, but for our very breath hour by hour.  In all our prayers, may we seek to know God, His graciousness and His glory.  May we desire above all things to be found in Christ, who died for us.  May we rejoice in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, now and in all eternity.  For however the economy is going, whatever our fate on this earth may be, that is a prayer that our Lord will always answer with a gracious, loving Yes.  Amen.

True Discipleship, True Satisfaction, True Life

 Texts:    I Corinthians 10:1-17; Mark 8:27-37

    WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF you were a young man of 34, with a beautiful wife and two young children, you had your whole life ahead of you, and the authorities said you must hang?  And not because of any crime you'd committed, but because you were a practicing Christian and pastor who helped others live their lives as practicing Christians? If the authorities told you you could save your life if you denied Jesus Christ, would you do it?  What if they told you you didn't even have to revile Jesus, you could say Jesus was a great prophet but not the eternal Son of God who shed His blood on the cross for sinners, and that'd save your life.   Would you do it?  For the sake of your wife and children, would you compromise the truth about Jesus your Lord?   For the sake of your own life, would you be ashamed of Him and His word and deny that He is your Saviour and the only Saviour of the world?

    Or would you take up your cross and follow Him?

    This is the decision faced by Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran, but for him, it is a decision he has made.   He has decided in the face of all earthly pains and earthly joys to follow Jesus his Lord and Saviour, even if it means the death of his flesh in this world.

    Our Scripture texts for this morning ask us, can we, will we, make the same decision?  Brothers and sisters, it's useless for us to say that we aren't like Pastor Youcef, that we don't live under a cruel Muslim regime where converting to Christianity is a capital crime.  Even if we lived under the most Church-friendly government possible, we'd still have to decide whether to take up our crosses.  Because denying ourselves isn't something that starts with facing death for the sake of Jesus Christ and the gospel; no, it's something we have to do every day.

    In 1 Corinthians 10 we read how our spiritual forefathers came out of Egypt.  They were all followers of God through Moses.  They all shared in the blessing of God's people.  They ate the manna the Lord gave from heaven.  They drank the water that sprang miraculously from the rock in the wilderness.  But their hearts were committed to the Lord and His will.  They weren't willing to trust the Lord and His servant Moses to lead them into the Promised Land.  In the desert, not certain where they were going, the children of Israel were called to deny themselves and follow God through hardship to true satisfaction and true life.  But as St. Paul reminds us, most of them chose to deny God instead.

    He summarizes how this played out: They committed idolatry, worshipping the Golden Calf, claiming it was a statue of the Lord Yahweh who'd brought them out of Egypt.  They committed sexual immorality.  They doubted God, even the Lord Christ, and put Him to the test as if God could somehow come up lacking.  They grumbled and griped about the food and the conditions, even though the Lord never let them go hungry, never let their shoes or clothes wear out, even though He worked amazing miracles in their sight and over and over assured them that He could always to be trusted.

    "Idolatry" truly describes all these sins, for what is idolatry?  It's worshipping anything or anybody more than the triune God who made heaven and earth.  Idolatry is selfishness, especially the selfishness that goes against what we know God wants for us.  It's gaining the whole world though it should cost us our souls.  Idolatry puts loyalty to ourselves, our wants, even to our fears ahead of faith in the God who made us.  We don't have to be following a pillar of cloud around in a barren wilderness to be tempted to idolatry.  It happens every time the will of the Lord and our will comes into conflict.  And tragically, like the Hebrews in the wilderness, we give into the temptation.  We know the Lord wants us to do good to another and we can do good to that other person, but we choose not to because it's inconvenient.   We let our anger and annoyance boil over because it's so satisfying to "express ourselves," instead of showing forgiveness as the Lord Jesus has forgiven us.  Idolatry is at the heart of the current debate over government-funded contraception. Idolatry claims us when we eat or drink more than we should, when we watch too much TV or surf the Internet too long though we truly have better things to do.  It's idolatry when we snipe at and gossip about one another because it's so satisfying to feel superior to those we're complaining about.  And I know exactly how it is because I am guilty of many of these things myself.

    Like St. Paul, I don't remind you of these things to make you feel down or discouraged.  Rather, like him I speak to you as sensible people who have the mind of Christ.  The first thing we need to accept is that we will be tempted to deny our Lord for the sake of ourselves and our own satisfaction.  But as we read in verse 13, "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man."  When you are tempted, there's no need to panic and say, "Oh, no one has ever faced this issue before, God cannot help me overcome it."  And there's no excuse to say, "This temptation is entirely new; God hasn't come up with a plan for this one."  No, God is faithful and God is strong.  He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.  He will provide you a way of escape, so you will be able to endure the temptation and not give in.

    In our Gospel reading from St. Mark It's significant that our Lord warns His disciples and the crowds about taking up their crosses and following Him shortly after Peter has confessed that Jesus is indeed the Christ.  If He were not the Christ, this command would be meaningless.  He'd have no right to ask us to override our own wills and even give up our lives for Him.  Peter would have been justified in trying to deter Him from going to Jerusalem and certain death.  If Jesus were not the promised Messiah and King, He could offer us no help and no reward when we take up our crosses daily for Him.  But Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  His blood did take away the sins of the world.  He is truly the One who has life in Himself, who can give it to all who believe in Him.  He is worthy that we should override our wants and desires to obey and give honor to Him and Him alone.

    Last night as I was putting the final touches on this sermon, I read online that Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani had indeed been executed, yesterday afternoon.  The report was not yet confirmed, but if it is true, our sadness for our brother is mixed with joy.  He has lost his life for Jesus' sake and the sake of the gospel, and therefore he has saved it.  You and I probably will not be called upon to shed our blood for our Lord.  Nevertheless, taking up our crosses begins and continues every day as we choose to love Him and our neighbor more than we love ourselves.  This would be too much for us, but it is not too much for Him.  Jesus Christ is He who took up the great cross for you, and He is with you always to help you carry your cross for His sake and the sake of the gospel.  In our time of decision He gives us everything we need to choose Him over ourselves.  We have the word of Christ to read and remember and apply to our own situations.  We have the Holy Spirit to strengthen us when we are weak and failing.  We have His sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, where we can see and feel and taste the truth of His love for us, where He renews in us the sacred reality of His death that wiped away our sins and His resurrection that gives us life forever more.

    Since this is so, come to the Table Jesus spreads for you.  Trust Him and know that even as you can taste and swallow the bread and the wine, just as surely His broken body and shed blood has purchased the forgiveness we need every day.  Come and take part in Jesus Christ and all His blessings, won for you on the cross.  Here with joy submit yourself to Him as His true disciple, and receive a foretaste of the true satisfaction and life that awaits you when the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.  In thankfulness and joy, decide for Him, for in grace and love Jesus Christ denied Himself and decided for you.  Amen.