Sermon Manuscript from January 24, 2016

1. Last Sunday, Iran freed five Americans that they had been holding prisoner. Jason Rezaian is a journalist for the Washington Post. Amir Hekmati is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. Saeed Abedini is a pastor. These three flew to freedom by way of Switzerland and Germany last Sunday. Nosratollah Khovari-Roodsari freely elected to remain in Iran following his release from prison. And Matthew Trevithick, a student, had left Iran by other means. The Americans had been held prisoner for unrelated reasons. Some of them had been in captivity since 2011. But their captivity came to an end last Sunday! They were free to return to their homes!

2. Can you imagine the sweetness of finally being able to come home after being held captive? I know I have a hard time imagining that because I can go home pretty much whenever I feel like it. I think that is true for most of you. But this is not true of everyone. Not everyone can go home whenever they want to go home. These captives who were released have reminded me to be thankful that God gives us an eternal home to which we will always be welcome and to which nothing can stop us from going.

3. God intends for you to belong. God made you to have a home. When God first made people, He made a home for them. He set Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, into the Garden of Eden. That was the first home God gave. That was where they belonged. They had food and drink there from orchards and streams. They had work to do there to tend the plants. They had a place to raise their family. He gave them a place to belong.

4. Into such a home God also put descendants of Adam and Eve, specifically the people of Israel. God intended for the Promised Land to be where Israel belonged. They would have fields and flocks and orchards and vineyards. They would have towns and cities. God gave them a place to raise a family and for those families to form a nation. He gave them a place to belong.

5. But what do people do when they have a place to belong? They ruin it! They wreck it! Adam and Eve, given a place to call home in the Garden of Eden, ate from the tree God commanded them not to eat from! He had told them that if they ate from that tree then they would die and they ate from it anyway! Israel, given a place to call home in the Promised Land, turned away from God, worshipped other gods, and disobeyed God’s Law. He had told them that if they worshipped other gods and disobeyed His Law then they would be exiled, kicked out, given the boot, and they worshiped other gods and disobeyed God’s Law anyway. Adam and Eve and Israel had been given homes, places to belong by God Himself, and they ruined them! They wrecked them.

6. So, what happens to these home-wreckers? What happens to these people who are no longer welcome at home? The Lord prepares the home for them again. The Lord picks up the pieces and makes anew the place where they belong.

7. The exile happened so that the Lord could regather His people by His grace. And in Isaiah 61, we hear about the Lord gathering His people again so they can come home to where they belong. Isaiah the prophet was appointed by God to deliver good news to the exiled people. They would be freed from their captivity in the land of exile to return home. They would enjoy the Year of God’s Favor in their homeland because the Day of God’s wrath against their sin had passed. They would be comforted with the joy of home after mourning its loss when they were carried off by their conquerors. They would offer praise to God for having hope and a future rather than praying their laments for their shame and loss. Their ruined and destroyed cities and towns would be rebuilt. And perhaps my favorite part of Isaiah’s good news is that foreigners would come among them again but not to destroy, conquer, and carry off but to live, work, and prosper together with them. This would be a home where all people belong! It would be a place where all worship the one True God. And in that true worship, all will lay claim to all the glories of the world because all know the glory of God who made and governs the whole world! Thus Isaiah announces to the exiled people, the people who have no place to call home, that God will bring them home again.

8. So, that is what happens to the exiled people of Israel. What about sinful humanity who have been exiled from the Garden of Eden because of Adam and Eve’s sin which we have all inherited and perpetuated? The Lord prepares the home for us again. The Lord picks up the pieces and makes anew the place where we belong.

9. When you hear the story of Jesus you hear the culmination of the story of Adam and Eve’s sin. Jesus was not welcome in His hometown so that you will be welcomed into your eternal home where the brokenness of sin has been fixed. When you hear the story of Jesus, it makes Isaiah’s prophecy make sense in a different way. It turns out that Isaiah’s prophecy is not just about Israel’s return to the Promised Land after its exile but is also about humanity’s return to God’s Kingdom after its exile. Jesus is now the one appointed by God to deliver good news. Jesus frees you from the captivity of sin by submitting Himself to sin’s captivity on the cross. Jesus gives to you the year of God’s Favor by suffering the day of God’s wrath on the cross. By His resurrection, Jesus comforts you with joy after the grief of sin and death. And in Christ, all lay claim to the glories of God. All have a place in God’s kingdom! In Christ, all belong in His eternal home! Thus, Jesus brings sinful people, who have no place to call home, to the home where we truly belong.

10. You may know the pain of not being welcomed at home. Hear then that Jesus welcomes you into your eternal home by His death and resurrection that opens wide the gates of God’s Kingdom! You may have a friend or family member who is not welcome at home. Hear then that Jesus has suffered the day of God’s wrath so that we can live together in God’s Favor! You may know the hopelessness of being held in the bondage of sin. Hear then that Jesus releases you from sin’s power and captivity to live forever in His freedom! Hear the Word of the Lord, in Christ God brings all people to the home where we all truly belong.

Sermon Manuscript from January 3, 2016

Here is the manuscript for January 3rd's sermon at St. Paul, Manawa. 

(You can listen to the audio here.)

Intro - Paul pleads with the Colossians and now all Christians to make the right decisions about how they treat one another! He begs us to get the call right! Day after day and moment after moment, Paul’s desire for you, no, the Holy Spirit’s desire and leading for you, is to be merciful, good, humble, gentle, and patient for the people around you. Hmm, seems the Holy Spirit must not know the people in your world right?! It is hard to be merciful, good, humble, gentle, and patient with them! But the Holy Spirit does know the people around you. And for their sake, He leads you to these virtues that you may love them and He may love them through you. This is what happens when you are one of God’s people. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

1. It has been difficult to be a referee in the NFL lately. I just need to say, “The Seattle game,” and Packer fans know how important refereeing is and how much of an impact it has on the outcome of the game. Time and time again in the last years and there seems to have been a rash this season, bad calls have turned the outcomes of games. We just want them to get the calls right so the players and coaches can determine the result! But an offside call is missed. Too many men of the field is accidentally allowed. The clock is mismanaged so a team gets too much or too little time to run one last, game winning play. Or it happens for Seattle again when KJ Wright illegally knocks the ball out of the back of the end zone but instead of giving Detroit the ball on the 1 with a good chance to claim the victory that is rightfully theirs, the referees make the wrong call. These and even more mistakes have been seen all season. It has been difficult to be a referee in the NFL. We just want them to get the call right.

2. We know from experience how important it is to get the call right. When Paul talks to us through his letter to the Colossians, the Holy Spirit moves him along to tell us what the right calls are. You might call the selected verses from today part of the rule book for being a Christian so we can make the right call. For me, there are five good rules in verse 12: rule 1) mercy. Rule 2 is goodness. Rule 3 is be humble. Rule 4 is be gentle. And rule 5 is be patient. If we could get the calls right on those rules, we would be doing great! It is important for us to have mercy on our children. It is important to be good to others, especially those who are bad to us. It is important to be humble to our bosses and parents and other authorities. It is important for us to be gentle with those we disagree. And it is important for us to be patient with those people we have to put up with for a long time…I’m looking your way Sarah. I’m talking about spouses there. If we are going to throw NFL referees under the bus for wanting them to get the call right, then we have to acknowledge ourselves that we want to get the calls right in our lives too.

3. Admittedly though, in the heat of the moment, it is hard to get the call right. There is no other football that moves as fast as the NFL, so until these referees work at this level for a while, it will move too fast for some of them. And 1 in 5 of the referees working today have been working for less than 3 years. So, we are seeing a lot of less experienced referees. You know what else we are seeing? High definition replay. As that technology has improved, so has the public’s ability to scrutinize the referees’ calls. They see it live and at full speed. We see it 2 seconds later and slowed down to 1/32 speed. And then there is the high pressure moments. Mistakes glare in high pressure moments. We see the most talked about bad calls at the end of games because those are the calls that so directly impact the result. It is difficult to get the call right in the heat of the moment.

4. You know it is difficult to get the call right in the heat of an argument. It is difficult to do the right thing in the heat of temptation. It is difficult to make the right choice in the heat of the moment. Like an inexperienced NFL ref at the end of a game, in the heat of the moment, when our edges are at their most raw, it is hard to make the right call. You know this intimately. Paul says that you Christians are noticed for your mercy, goodness, humility, gentleness, and long patience. You are clothed in them! But isn’t mercy hard to give a child whom you told five times not to climb on that chair and now he has fallen and bonked his head?! Isn’t it hard to be good to your coworker who has submitted complaints about you to the boss? Isn’t it hard to be humble to your boss whom you know has made errors that cost everybody? Isn’t it hard to be gentle with your argumentative brother in law? Isn’t it hard to be patient with your husband who still doesn’t get that you are bothered by the toilet seat being left up? You know it well that it is difficult to make the right call because so many times you have made the wrong call.

5. We love referees that make the right call. A referee that make the right call is worth his weight in gold. We much appreciate when we see that the well-respected, level-headed referee has been assigned to the game we care about watching. And we appreciate when the crew takes advantage of communication technology to talk with New York about the play. Isn’t that neat these days? A referee in a room in New York watching on his monitor helping the referee on a field in Green Bay who is being screamed at by 80,000 people. If the heat of the moment makes it difficult to get the call right, this tactic of talking with a fellow referee who is not in the heat of the moment helps make the right call. However the right call comes about, in this game full of bad calls, it is refreshing to see the right call being made.

6. And even more than we need good referees working football games, you need a good referee working your life. We need a referee that will get the call right every time. In Jesus of Nazareth, we have that referee. Jesus of Nazareth came and established the rule of salvation and peace with God. God the Father sent His Son in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring about peace between God and man. The rebellion of sin caused you and me to be enemies of God. We could only ever get the call wrong. But by the seed of woman, by the son born to the Virgin Mary, peace with God was re-established. The cost of rebellion, the guilt of sin, was paid by the blood of the perfect Son of God who had been born miraculously on Christmas. He is the referee that always gets the call right. And what He says concerning you is not, “15 yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct and ejection from the game,” which is what our sins deserve, rather Jesus, the perfect and eternal referee says, “Forgiven! By my life, death, and resurrection, you are forgiven!”

7. When Jesus comes to be the referee in your life, His rules not only make peace between you and God but they also make peace between you and others. This is the total peace of Christ that Paul writes to the Colossians about in his letter. And the translation we heard of Paul’s letter to the Colossians tells us to let the peace of Christ reign in your minds. But another way to translate that is to say “let the peace of Christ referee in your minds.” So, if you have been wondering this whole time why I am talking so much about referees, it is not just because it is the last weekend of the NFL regular season. It is because Paul tells us to let the peace that Christ gives to us referee our lives! He has forgiven your sins and made peace between you and God! And He leads you to forgive those who have sinned against you just as you have been forgiven! When Jesus is your referee, He makes peace in your life.

8. Then, let the peace of Christ referee in your life! He gets the call right! He does not just dictate His rules to you! He does them to you! Mercy! He has had mercy on you to give you the riches of heaven when you can offer him only your filthy sins. Goodness! He has been good to you when it was your sins that nailed Him to the cross. Humility! He, who is God, humbled Himself to take on the form of a servant so that you may have everlasting life. Gentleness! He does not snuff out the dimly burning wick, which is to say His message is gentleness for you when every other bit of news is harsh. Patience! He calls to you and comes for you over and over again even as you run away from His love to seek love and acceptance in the wrong places. He plays by His own rules.

9. And the more and more He plays by His own rules in your life, the more you play by His rules! You know when the flags will be thrown. You know when the plays will be whistled dead. Parents, you will notice I preach about being a parent a lot. Go figure right? Parents, when you have had a long day at work, maybe it was a good day and maybe it was a bad day, but it was a long day. The peace of Christ referees an extra measure of mercy, gentleness, and patience from you because you are especially vulnerable at that point for some unsportsmanlike conduct, I mean unrighteous conduct. The child does not clean up after dinner like you tell him to every single night and the rage bubbles up that he is willfully ignoring this rule of the house and you just want to shout and carry on…like you do every time he does this. The peace of Christ throws the flag on that berating shouting tirade. Rather, rule Colossians section 3 line 12 clearly states to this effect, let your children see mercy, goodness, humility, gentleness, and patience when they look at you. And this goes as well for being a spouse, sibling, friend, and whatnot. The more and more you let the peace of Christ referee your homes, neighborhoods, sports stands, workplaces, parties, and wherever else we find ourselves, the more we play by His rules to be merciful, good, humble, gentle, and patient.

10. The game tonight between the Packers and the Vikings is kind of a big deal. Both teams are 10-5. The winner will be the 3 seed in the NFC and will host a first round playoff game. If ever we want the referees to get the calls right, it is today. So, as you watch that team of referees try to apply the rules to today’s game, I want you to be thankful that these clowns are not the referees of your life. You have the perfect referee who rules by the perfect rule of love for you that gives you a life that is even better than a Super Bowl victory.

May the peace of Christ referee your life now and to eternity.

Sermon Manuscript from January 17, 2016

Intro - [sing “How Sweet It Is” by Marvin Gaye.] How sweet it is to be loved by you. How sweet it is to be loved by you. I needed the shelter of someone's arms and there you were. I needed someone to understand my ups and downs and there you were; with sweet love and devotion, deeply touching my emotion. I want to stop and thank you baby. I just want to stop and thank you baby. How sweet it is to be loved by you. How sweet it is to be loved by you. Perhaps the romantics among us have sung this to that special someone. You do such sappy things because your heart is so warmed by the presence and love of another. But really, I sing this song to begin the sermon because this song, like any good love song, can be understood as being about God’s love for us. His presence and love warms our hearts. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

1. I went to the bowling alley for lunch this week with Pastor Jeff Smiles of Symco. I got to meet the bowling alley’s owners, Matt and Jenny. We had a great conversation! It was no time at all before he was telling me about his daughter’s skills and successes at bowling. She recently rolled a 299! He got out his tablet and was showing me videos of the good bowling form she uses. And he even had the last roll of her 299 game on video! Boy, it was neat to see and hear Matt’s pride and joy, and love as he gushed about and exulted over his daughter. Isn’t that pride and joy and love a neat thing?

2. Isaiah alluded to it in chapter 62. He pointed out a groom rejoicing over his bride. Have you ever talked to a groom before the wedding begins? A lot of times he is a nervous wreck! Why? Because he cannot believe that this gorgeous, smart, funny young woman is going to marry him! He is awed by his bride. If he could stop his emotions running wild on him and put together a coherent sentence, he would praise all of her virtues and charms. And you see all of this on his face when he finally catches sight of her as she comes down the aisle to take him as her husband. You have seen that look right? The look of joy that a groom has for a bride. Isaiah writes about that when he writes, “as a groom rejoices over a bride, so your God rejoices over you!”

3. As much as this “God loves you” word is the word you have come to expect to be preached from the Christian Church, this is an important word. It is important because so many are missing this message and word in their lives. It is important because we are often counted among those who miss this message, “God loves you.”

4. I mean, consider a wife, not a bride. It has been years since her wedding day: years of being taken for granted, years of being yelled at, years of yelling back, years of disappointments, years of failures, years of sin broken life. We all know, men and women, young and old, what it is like to feel unloved. It’s just that the picture of a sad, old wife is such a stark contrast to the pictures of the smiling bride on the mantle. She sits there alone in her living room with a bottle of light beer. She’s lost that loving feeling.

5. As people who are broken sinners, we can identify with the old wife who no longer feels loved. We know how undeserving we are of love for the wrongs we have done and the mistakes we cannot stop making. As people who have suffered tragedies, we know the feeling of being abandoned to suffer our fate alone. We know loneliness and lowness when a loved dies or when we face our own mortality. As people who have been betrayed, we know the harshness of that bitter pill. We know the uncertainty that comes from losing a job or being stabbed in the back by a friend. As people who fail, we know we are unworthy to be loved. We know the accusations of our own conscience that says any rejection we suffer is deserved because of our own failures of word and deed. We sit alone in the living room. We’ve lost that loving feeling. Even though we hear this message that God loves us, the brokenness of our sinful nature makes us feel unloved.

6. So hear the truth again! God loves you! How do I know? How do I know God loves you? Because God loves and rejoices over His Son, Jesus! And how God feels about Jesus is how God feels about you who are in Jesus! He rejoices over His Son like a groom rejoices over a bride!

7. God was not silent about His love for His Son. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptizer. When Jesus came up out of the water He saw heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove. A voice spoke from heaven and said, “You are my beloved Son. In You I am well pleased.” God declared that again on the Mount of Transfiguration. God was not silent about His love for Jesus just as Isaiah had prophesied that God will not be silent about His people nor just spectate quietly. He declared so the nations would see Jesus’ righteousness and so the kings would see His true glory. God was not silent about His love for Jesus. Like when you ask a groom about the bride he is about to marry, he will declare love and joy.

8. And like a groom goes to the lengths he does to make the wedding day special for the bride, God went to great lengths to exult over Jesus. Chiefly, God the Father exulted over Jesus by raising Him from the dead. Jesus lived in perfect obedience. Jesus gave His life as the perfect and total sacrifice to save the world from sin. The beloved Son of God had completed God’s plan of salvation! In exultation God exalted Jesus by raising Him back to life!

9. And how God feels about Jesus is how God feels about you who are in Jesus. As God declared Jesus His beloved, God declares you His beloved. God says, in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, “I baptize you in My name, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I wash away your sins and filth that you may be pure and radiant! You are my beloved! I will not let your sins soil you but I make you clean by the blood of Jesus!” Because God calls Jesus beloved, He calls you beloved.

10. As God exulted over Jesus by raising Him from the dead, so God exults over you. You who are baptized in Christ have been joined with Christ into His death. So now, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too will live in newness! As we have been united with Him by baptism into His death, we will certainly be united with Him by baptism into His resurrection! You are so much God’s pride and joy that He will raise your dead bones back to life in order to bring you into His eternal home! God exults over you like a groom over a bride!

11. So, in those times when you do not feel loved, I pray that you know the whole truth. God exults and delights over you. He exults and delights over you because He exulted and delighted over Jesus. How God feels about Jesus is how God feels about you who are in Jesus.

12. And finally, in those times when you feel loved because of how sweet it is to be loved by God, I pray your heart will be warmed toward the people around you. These are they whom God loves because He loves Jesus! The people around you in your church are they whom God loves! So, I pray you love, appreciate, work, and live together with them as fellow beloved. And the people around you in our community are they whom God loves. So, I pray you will love, appreciate, work, and live together with them as one whom God loves in Jesus. As the Lord warms our hearts with His love for us in Jesus, may He warm your hearts toward the people around you.

Sermon Manuscript from January 10, 2016

Below is the manuscript from the sermon delivered at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Manawa the weekend of January 10, 2016.

Intro - Let’s do a little exercise with one another. Raise your hand if you think you are richer than half the people in the world. If you think you are in the top 50%. Do not be modest! Alright! Keep your hands up now, if you think you are in the top 25%; that you are richer than 3 out of 4 people on the planet. Yeah, you think I lost some of you there. But if you still have your hand up, do you think you are a top 10 percenter? Keep your hand up if you are richer than 9 out of 10 people in the world. You with your hands up are truth tellers. You who do not have your hands up are probably misinformed. According to CityData.com, the median income of Manawa in 2013 was $42K. A person making that much is in the top 10% in the world according to GiveWhatYouCan.com. And if your income is below the median for our town, then know that even a person making $20K is still in the top 20% of richest people in the world. And so, by these very real measures, you are the richest people in the world. But that is not the good news the Word of God tells us. The good news of the Word of God is that by even more real measures, you and the other billions of Christians in the world are the richest people in the world. The riches Christ gives you will still be yours long after the riches of the world become worthless. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

1. Consider the wise men who came to worship Jesus soon after His birth. They won the genetic and social lottery. They were the men who were born into privilege in ancient Persia. And yes, I say that without direct historical evidence, but I say it with the circumstantial historical evidence that shows that the upper class in ancient time was nigh unreachable from below. You were born into it or you weren’t. The wise men were. And so as part of the upper class they were also privileged to receive high educations in the lessons of the day. Hence they became knowledgeable about the  stars and astronomy. They were men who had won the genetic and social lottery.

2. We see this play out when they show up in Matthew’s story of Jesus’ life. We know their astute observations led them to a long expedition from the east to show up in Jerusalem and then to go to Bethlehem. The privileges of their educations and their births allowed them to make such a trip with such precious cargo. They took from their riches and their privilege to find the infant king the stars had revealed and presented the child Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. As a quick aside, some church tradition holds that the gifts held symbolic meaning. The gold identified Jesus as king. The frankincense identified Jesus as priest who would offer fragrant sacrifice to God. And the myrrh identified Jesus as the sacrifice Himself because myrrh was used to anoint dead bodies. So, the men who won the genetic and social lottery offered their riches to Jesus.

3. But here is what we learn about the gifts of the wise men after we hear the rest of Jesus’ story: Jesus is the one who actually gave them riches. Compared to the riches Jesus gave them, the gifts of the wise men were rocks and dust. Paul writes to the Ephesians that the Gospel of Jesus gives to all the nations unaccountable riches, riches so great they cannot be counted! You cannot get to the bottom line of these riches for they are so vast! They are inexhaustible these riches! Jesus gave the wise men the riches of His Gospel.

4. Here are the unaccountable riches of Jesus Gospel: salvation, forgiveness, and righteousness. These are the riches that Jesus gives to all nations, that He gave to the wise men, and that He now gives to you. He gives you salvation. He saves you from sin’s eternal punishment. He saves you from the lake of fire that is prepared for the devil and his angels. He saves you from your body of sin that is frail and perishable. He gives you salvation. He also forgives you. He forgives the wrongs that you have done to hurt others. He forgives the wrongs that others have done to hurt you. He forgives you. He leads you in righteousness. He leads you to righteous love of your family and friends. He leads you to righteous and honest work in your employment. He leads you in righteousness. The unaccountable riches of Jesus are salvation, forgiveness, and righteousness.

5. They are greater than gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But they do not look the same. You know what the riches of Jesus actually look like? I will tell you. They look like a baby that needs to be wrapped quickly in cloths otherwise He will freeze in the stable where He was born. The riches of Jesus look like a preacher that wanders around the backwaters of ancient Israel. He did not make a nice little home for Himself. He slept in other peoples’ homes or just out in the open. The riches of Jesus were not a house or otherwise recognizable as earthly wealth. No castle for this king! His was a kingdom of mercy for the weak and forgiveness for sinners. The riches of Jesus are a healing hand on a leprous body. The riches of Jesus are a crooked tax collector amending his ways and giving away the majority of his earthly wealth because he now has heavenly wealth in Jesus. The riches of Jesus are the cross and grave. On the cross, when Jesus was stripped of everything He had, we see the riches of Christ. And in the grave, when Jesus reclaimed life for Himself and now for all who are in Him, we see the riches of Christ! That is what the riches of Jesus look like.

6. These are what you hang on to my dear people. These are the riches that will endure when all the gold, frankincense, and myrrh in the world has lost its value. And how do we take ahold of these riches? By faith! See, these riches are totally unlike the riches of the world! The riches of the world you have to do something to get. You have to work hard. Or you have to be in the right place at the right time. Or if you are born into wealth, you have to manage it well or you will lose it. But the riches of Jesus are held by faith in Jesus. And lest you think even this faith is something that you must do and try at then hear this: faith is a gift of God, so that no one can boast that they earned it! The Gospel riches are simply given to you freely that you may have them!

7. In Christ, you have all won the lottery! In Christ, you are all the richest people the world has ever and will ever know. We have salvation from death. We have forgiveness from sin. We have righteousness for all time! We have won the lottery! We have riches beyond what the world has ever or can ever give.

8. Now, if then, your hope is that you win this lottery [show Powerball ticket], then you will have riches that will fade and fail you. If your hope is to gain the riches of the world, then you will have riches that will prove treacherous. Whether you gain the riches easily by the lottery or other get rich quick schemes or if you gain your riches the “right” way by diligent work and astute investments, the riches of this world will prove as nothing. In fact, we cannot count the number of people who have been ruined by the acquisition of worldly riches. It is a well-documented fact that lottery winners wind up in terrible financial crises and rue the day they won the lottery. So, I say again, if your hope is that you win this kind of lottery or gain immense amounts of worldly wealth, I warn you against that kind of ambition! Down that path lies destruction and misery. Down that path lies eternal poverty.

9. Rather then, hold on to the riches that look nothing like riches. Hold on to the riches that Jesus gives to you by His life, death, and resurrection. I know they do not look like much. I know they look like the opposite of riches. I know that hanging on a cross does not look like the kind of life we want to live. But see the whole story. See how God revealed that these are the enduring riches He has given to the world! In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, you have the riches of salvation, forgiveness, and righteousness!

May the riches of Christ work contentment and abundance in your heart and your mind until He comes again to bring you into His eternal kingdom!

How to reply: "It Is Too Hard To Bring Children To Worship."

This concern is near and dear to me. As a pastor, I force my wife to be a single parent in worship 99% of the time. And she is doing a great job considering that she is outnumbered 4 to 1 every Sunday. Most Sundays after worship, though, my wife is done and ready for a nap. On the more difficult Sundays, there will be tears and anger and expressions that say, "I hate Sundays. I hate taking the children to worship." So, for those of you who resonate with this struggle of bringing children to worship, you have to know this is a part of my life as well. 

So, how to reply? The valuable things are not always the easy things. Parents will do what it takes to give their children what their children need. That is why you get up in the middle of the night when your children need you. That is why you do the jobs you'd rather not do. It is what we do as parents. The valuable things are not always easy. 

Giving your children the experience and skills of worship is valuable. Yes, it is a skill to worship well and that skill can be improved with practice and coaching.

Here is a suggestion for parents with children in worship: do you see that other family over there? Especially the one with children of similar age to yours? How about you two families sit in the same pew? Then it is not one or two parents against the children, it is three or four parents against the children. Those are better odds. And you know what else? The children will like their time in the sanctuary more if they get a chance to be with other children who will become friends. Also, the older children who are better at worship than the younger children will not only be role models but they will be active disciplinarians. Look at that! Even less work for the parents to bring their children to worship!

Finally, those who do not have children with them in worship can have a huge impact on those who do. If there is even a hint of resentment from those without children for the disturbances that children cause, that will have a negative impact. If there is a hint of welcome from those without children for the presence of children in worship, that will have a positive impact. So, here is a suggestion for those of you without children, engage the parents in conversation about their children for a few weeks so the parents and children know you value them. Then if there is a growing sense of friendliness between you all, ask to sit in the same pew. There is little better than "church" grandparents and "church" aunts and uncles from both the parents and the children's perspectives.

The Lord commands us to worship Him. Yes, that is a command. That is also a promise and grace that in worship you receive His life and salvation. You want that for yourself. You want that for your children. You want that for other peoples' children.