Can Anybody Tell Me What Christmas is All About? - December 24, 2023

 Can Anybody Tell Me What Christmas is All About?

Good morning and Merry Christmas!

Let’s pray.

I know that I have a bit of a reputation when it comes to Christmas, I’m not exactly the Grinch though I do think he made some good points. 

But I will admit to you, as it seems that I do every year, that I do struggle with Christmas.

I’m curious, I want to hear your favorite thing about Christmas… 

Every year it seems we experience the pressure of getting enough gifts or making enough gifts, and making sure that the gifts for the kids are roughly equal, making it to all the concerts, decorating the house, putting a fresh spin on the birth of Jesus for church, planning out the gatherings, and being in a million places at once. And I know that I am not the only one.

But I came across a wonderful thought this year that has really been helpful to me and quite freeing: It’s not supposed to be a burden.

Over the years I have struggled with finding the joy and peace that Christmas promises. In the past I have even put up pictures to remind myself that there’s supposed to be joy, don’t forget the joy!

The problem for me, and maybe for you I don’t know, is that the joy and peace I was looking for in Christmas aren’t found in Christmas, they’re found in Christ.

I still love the family gatherings, the presents around the tree, all the food, and the new pajamas, they may be fun and bring a measure of happiness but they do not offer lasting joy and certainly do not offer any sense of real peace. But in the midst of all of that Jesus still does.

1 John 1:1-3 says,

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

This passage from 1 John echoes the first chapter of the Gospel of John,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God… 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

It is this Word made flesh, Jesus our Messiah, that we celebrate at Christmas time.

And while the world may pause to remember the baby born in Bethlehem in order to have joy and peace we must be sure to do more than just remember, more than just celebrate, we have to believe in Him.

In order to find any lasting joy and any real peace we have to believe in the Word made flesh.

Romans 15:13 says, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Hope, Joy, and Peace are what three of our four Advent candles represent, all of which are not truly possible without faith in Jesus Christ. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

And I guess that’s the secret to finding real joy and peace at Christmastime, it’s not in the activity and the hustle and bustle, real joy and real peace are only found in believing in Jesus, the One born to die to set us free from our sin.

One of my favorite things about Christmas is “Charlie Brown’s Christmas.” Charlie Brown was struggling with the real meaning of Christmas in midst of all the commercialism and finally cries out, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is really all about?!” Then that great theologian Linus VanPelt answers him from Luke chapter two…

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

The Good News of great joy for all the people was that a way to have peace with God had been given: 

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, and the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace in believing in Him, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Amen.

We are going to gather again tonight at 6 to remember our Saviors birth, to read the story, sing the songs, and light the candles, to celebrate through our simple traditions, and worship our humble King born in Bethlehem. 

Let’s pray.

What does the Bible Actually Say About Hell? - August 6, 2023

 What does the Bible Actually Say About Hell?

Good morning!

We are taking a detour away from the Gospel of Luke again today and Question 28 of The New City Catechism is going to be our topic of discussion for this morning.

“What happens after death to those not united to Christ by faith?”

It is very important to have an accurate understanding about what the Bible actually says about the answer to this question and not one that is based on tradition or outside sources such as Looney Tunes where Sylvester the Cat gets sent to Hell to be tormented by the devil portrayed by the big red Bulldog.

Unfortunately images like these have informed much of Christian tradition rather than what the Bible has to say about the destiny of those who die apart from faith in Christ. So my goal here this morning is two-fold: one, that we will get a clearer understanding of what the Bible actually says and why it’s important, and two, to magnify the grace of God based on our understanding of hell.

We are definitely going to need the Father’s help if we are going to accomplish that. Let’s pray.

So I’m curious as we get started, what do you think of when you hear the word, “hell?”

I imagine that many of you think of a place of fire and brimstone, filled with demons, and the wicked in torment, but is this what the Bible really says about it?

To complicate matters, the translators use the word, “hell,” in place of three different Greek words in the New Testament which all mean very different things.

So let’s start at the beginning with the question, what was the Old Testament understanding of what happens after death to the wicked?

The Old Testament uses the word, “Sheol,” it appears 65 times in the Old Testament, the word, “Hell,” appears zero times in the Old Testament.

Sheol is described as deep, and dark, with bars, the slain go down to it, the root word means, to ask or demand, Proverbs 30:15 says that it is never satisfied. Easton’s Bible Dictionary defines it as the place of disembodied spirits. The inhabitants of Sheol are “the congregation of the dead” and it is the abode of the wicked dead.

The New Testament uses a Greek word that I’m sure you all have heard before for this same concept, the word, “Hades.”

In Luke 16:19-31 Jesus gave us this famous parable:

19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”

Now, it’s clear that Jesus didn’t intend that parable to be a definitive teaching on the nature of Hades and Paradise but rather the presence of the Gospel in the Old Testament. However, Jesus used the word, “Hades,” not, “Hell,” to describe the place where the wicked rich man was in anguish.

The word, “Hell,” is neither a Greek nor a Hebrew word, it’s not even Aramaic. According to Eastman’s Bible Dictionary, it comes from a Saxon word, “helan,” which means, to cover; hence the covered or the invisible place.

But our translators use the word, “hell,” 14 times in the New Testament. The English Standard Version that we read out of every Sunday uses the word Hades when that is what the original language says but there are still two other words translated into the word, “hell,” that we need to look at.

There is a single occurrence of the word, “tarturas,” in 2 Peter 2:4 translated into the word, “hell,” when Peter is talking about the angels who rebelled with Satan and were imprisoned with chains in gloomy darkness until judgment. The translators used the word hell to avoid any more confusion by adding the single occurrence of this angelic prison idea to this already confusing sermon.

The other 13 times the word, “hell,” is used it used for the Greek word, “gehenna,” and in most of its uses it designates the place of the lost.

But it is not just a far off metaphysical place. Don’t forget that we are not the only ones to ever receive the message of the Scriptures, and when we read the words of Jesus we have to remember that He was in a real place and talking to real people, and those people had a certain understanding of some of the things that Jesus pointed out and used as object lessons. 

The word, “Gehenna,” means, the Valley of Hinnom, or, the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom, and is a literal place.

The Valley of Hinnom is a deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the so-called “Hill of Evil Counsel.” It took its name from “some ancient hero, the son of Hinnom.” It is first mentioned in Joshua 15:8. It had been the place where the idolatrous Jews burned their children alive to Moloch and Baal. A particular part of the valley was called Tophet, or the “fire-stove,” where the children were burned. After the Exile, in order to show their abhorrence of the locality, the Jews made this valley the receptacle of the garbage of the city, for the destruction of which a fire was, as is supposed, kept constantly burning there.

(I have walked through this valley and even in 1997 there were rotting donkey carcasses in that nasty place.)

The Jews associated with this valley these two ideas, (1) that of the sufferings of the victims that had there been sacrificed; and (2) that of filth and corruption. It became thus to the popular mind a symbol of the abode of the wicked hereafter. It came to signify hell as the place of the wicked. “It might be shown by infinite examples that the Jews expressed hell, or the place of the damned, by this word. The word Gehenna [the Greek contraction of Hinnom] was never used in the time of Christ in any other sense than to denote the place of future punishment.”

So when Jesus is giving the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew five and is sitting on the Mount of Olives on the East side of Jerusalem, everybody there can see the Valley of Hinnom from that spot, it’s not even a quarter of a mile away, it’s even possible that they could see and maybe even smell the smoke from the burning garbage. So when He says in Matthew 5:29-30,

29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into [Gehenna]. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into [Gehenna].

When Jesus says these words He could have very well have been pointing to Gehenna, pointing to that never ending column of smoke rising from that garbage dump. Either way, He was very clear on what was in store for the wicked.

So we have Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and the final picture, the lake of fire.

The Lake of fire is also often confused with Hell just as Hell is often associated with Satan’s headquarters.

Here is what Revelation 20 has to say about the lake of fire and its purpose.

10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, (they’d been thrown in there already) and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. 

11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

The lake of fire is the final destination for Satan, the beast, the false prophet, not their headquarters. It is the final destination for Sheol and Hades.

It is also the final destination for all those who die and are not united to Christ by faith, the second death.

So, here we are, at the point of the sermon when we have to ask the question, “so what?”

Well, I’ll go back to the two goals for today: one, that we will get a clearer understanding of what the Bible actually says and why it’s important, and two, to magnify the grace of God based on our understanding of the final destination of those who are not united to Christ by faith.

What the Bible actually says is important. When we allow our thinking about Biblical principles to be informed only by traditions, or TV and movies, or books and articles outside of Scripture, instead of what the Bible actually says we are in danger of misunderstanding the Word of God and misapplying its truth. God’s Word is God’s words and we should measure all that we think and believe by it.

Nothing that I’ve said this morning is secret or hidden wisdom, you can read these commentaries, you can find most of this information with a Google search. But we can’t just settle for what we’ve been told, we have to know the Word of God ourselves.

Secondly, if you remember Will’s sermon from last week on the Roman Road, you’ll remember that:

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, that God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because if you confess with your mouth  that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

Saved from Sheol, saved from Hades, saved from Gehenna, saved from the lake of fire all of which we deserve to experience because of our sin. 

But we are not only saved FROM the second death but we are saved TO a wonderful and growing, eternal relationship with God our Heavenly Father who saves us from all that by His grace through faith in Jesus for His glory.

Ephesians 2 says, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Amen.

The Better Samaritan - Luke 10:25-37 - July 2, 2023

 Luke 10:25-37 The Better Samaritan

Good morning! Turn with me to Luke chapter 10. We are going to look at verses 25-37, on page 869 in the pew Bibles, a passage well known as the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Often times when we look at parables and accounts in Scripture we tend to identify with one or more of the characters in the story. It’s popular in the church today to paint ourselves into the picture, and if we’re honest, we try to identify with the hero.

When we read about David and Goliath we turn the story into one about us and how we should face our giants with faith like David had.

This makes for engaging sermons to be sure, but I’m not sure how true and helpful they actually are.

This morning we are going to look at another one of those accounts and examine the layers of it, the parable of the Good Samaritan, one of the most well known parables of Jesus.

Let’s read it together.

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” 

29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Let’s pray.

So here we have a lawyer questioning Jesus. Now first of all we have to remember that this is not a lawyer like we have today, this was not an attorney, or a trial lawyer, or prosecutor. This was an expert in the Law of Moses, a religious leader and scholar of the Jews.

But, like any good lawyer would, when he questions Jesus to put Him to the test, he asks a question that he already knows the answer to.

“Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now we can’t go another inch further without recognizing that this is one of the most fundamentally important questions anybody could ever ask, what do I have to do to get eternal life?

Maybe some here, if you thought about it for a moment, might struggle with the answer to this question. How do we get eternal life? I hope by the end of our time here this morning that there will be no doubt as to the answer to that fundamental question.

So what does Jesus say in response to this man’s question? As He often does, He answers his question with another question, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

And the man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

He is quoting directly from Deuteronomy 6:5, also known as the “Shema,” as well as Leviticus 19:18.

This is known as the Great Commandment and Jesus affirms it as such when he tells this guy, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”

Now this points directly to a question that perhaps you may have never considered, how were people in the Old Testament saved, how did they inherit eternal life? Here is the answer: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Loving the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength meant trusting Him and trusting His promise to send a Redeemer. Even in the Old Testament people were justified by faith in the Messiah, Messiah that was coming just as we are justified by faith in the Messiah that has come, Jesus Christ.

In Great Commandment we have the summary of the two tables of the Law, the two halves of the Ten Commandments. The first four Commandments have to do with loving the Lord our God, and the second six have to do with loving our neighbor.

So this lawyer knew the answer to the question already, he knew the Law, but what he didn’t know was himself.

The lawyer asks, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 [Jesus] said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” 

How should the lawyer have responded? He should have admitted that it was impossible for him to do this, that he had never been able to do this, and never would be able to do this. He should have asked Jesus how it was possible and I’m sure that Jesus would have instructed him on the grace of God that was at work even at that moment… But that’s not what the lawyer said.

29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

It’s important for us to be aware that the Jews in the First Century had very defined rules regarding who their neighbor was because of what the Law said about loving their neighbor. The trouble is that they got it wrong. Their definition of who their neighbor was was anyone who they thought was worthy of being their neighbor. This excluded Gentiles and Samaritans who they considered their enemies.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:43-45, 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

Loving your enemies was totally contrary to what they had been taught, loving those who you considered your neighbor was fine though. 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was around 17 miles of steep rocky terrain, a true wilderness, a home to robbers and thieves looking to prey on unsuspecting travelers. The victim in Jesus’ parable was a Jewish man traveling alone through this treacherous wilderness and fell victim to robbers who robbed him, stripped him, beat him and left him for dead. In those conditions he certainly would have died unless someone came along and helped him.

The Priest and the Levite, traveling separately, most likely on their way home after their service in the Temple, came upon the man on the road. They knew this road, and they both knew that if they stopped to help they would most likely be next. What if it were a trap and this guy was the bait?

JJ van Oosterzee wrote, “Neither the voice of humanity, nor that of nationality, nor that of religion, speaks so loudly to their heart as the desire for self-preservation.”

They didn’t care who that guy was or what happened to him. Their hearts were hard and completely devoid of compassion so they left the man there to die.

 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’

 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

The lawyer whom Martin Luther calls, “a haughty hypocrite,” won’t even say the word Samaritan in his response, only, “the one who showed him mercy.”

So let’s consider the layers of the parable.

On the surface the lesson is very clear: all mankind is our neighbor regardless of race or creed or anything else, and we are commanded to love them as we love ourselves.

We turn the priest and the Levites into the bad guys and the Samaritan is clearly the good guy. And of course with every good story we want to identify with the good guy so we imagine ourselves as the Samaritan and remind ourselves to do good for people regardless of where they are from or what they are like because that is what Jesus said to do.

The end, right?

But maybe there’s more to it. And at the risk of turning this parable into an allegory, which not a lot of Biblical scholars are fans of, maybe there is more to learn from this than to just be nice to everybody.

Maybe we aren’t the hero of the story even though we might like to be.

Maybe we are the victim. Maybe we are the guy on the side of the road that has been beaten and stripped and left for dead. But instead of the robbers being random strangers, the robbers are our own sin, our own inability to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to say nothing of loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Maybe the Priest and the Levite are religion and good works, unable and unwilling to do anything to help our dire condition, passing by on the other side of the road to get away from us and our wretchedness.

Maybe Jesus is the Good Samaritan, the Better Samaritan, that forfeits His own life and safety and comfort to tend to our wounds, but instead of wine and oil He pours out His own blood that by it our wounds would be healed.

Jesus is always the hero of the story and we are the ones in need of rescuing, and so was that lawyer.

He asked the fundamental question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

In the parable, along with you and me, the lawyer is the one in the ditch dying, and the answer to the question for him and for us is the same, trust the Rescuer, the Better Samaritan, Jesus Christ, to bind your wounds and pay for you to have a place in His eternal kingdom with His own blood on the cross.

To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is only possible through faith in Jesus Christ and the help of the Holy Spirit, that’s the only way it’s ever been possible.

Go and do likewise!

Amen.