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Living Worthy of Our High Calling - Pastor Stiemke |
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10th Sunday after Pentecost ?± 8/13/06 -- Sir, we would see JESUS!
Emmanuel, Asheville, NC -- Ephesians 4: 1-7, 11-16
IN THE NAME OF JESUS!
?¨LIVING WORTHY OF OUR HIGH CALLING?Æ
Beloved,
will you pray with me? Lord Jesus Christ, merciful Savior, You are
indeed the living Bread from heaven. With the Father and the Holy
Spirit You daily open Your hand to meet the desires of all living
creatures. You even opened Your hands to be nailed to the cross that
You might pay the full penalty for our sins and transgressions. In that
trust we are bold to ask that as we listen to Your Word today that You
would fill us with the power of the Holy Spirit that we may live lives
worthy of our high calling in Christ Jesus. This we ask for Your name??s
sake. Amen.
The holy, inspired Word of God that forms the basis of my remarks this morning is the Epistle reading for this day.
In the strong name of Jesus, our faithful Savior, who loves you dearly, precious people of Christ:
When
one ponders prayerfully today??s Epistle reading, it is very clear that
God??s gracious call to His people is to live in unity. First and
foremost such harmony springs from being intimately bound in our faith
and life to our Lord Himself. That union then is to be seen and
experienced in our life together. Our heavenly Father??s earnest desire
and will is that we live in genuine unity worthy of our high calling in
Christ Jesus.
But we live in a sin-fractured world. It is a
world of many nations, languages, cultures and customs that pull us
apart. Sad to say, racial and ethnic backgrounds tend to divide people.
The amount of wealth a person has or doesn??t have determines one??s
class and those with whom one primarily associates. In our own country
we see how various political persuasions tend to divide rather than
unite. The world has so many religions. Not only is the Christian
Church split into a myriad of denominations, but most denominations
including the Lutheran Church are divided. Look at the many homes and
families that are torn apart. There are many demonic forces seeking to
divide people. In our sinfulness we are prone to see the problem as
those people and forces out there instead of owning our own individual
part of the problem. God, help us to see our part!
To aid us in
seeing ourselves better, let me just cite the following. If a very
haggard, filthy, smelly, unshaved man with tattered and dirty clothes
walked into our church this morning, what would your reaction be if he
headed in your direction to find a seat? Would you be somewhat
uncomfortable if he sat down next to you? Would you be comfortable in
shaking his hand and extending to him the peace of Christ? Or would you
see him as another person so precious to God that Christ died for him,
too, and welcome him?
Considering our reactions, we can
hopefully begin to see with horror the results of Adam??s and Eve??s sin
and its aftermath in our own sinful nature that??s at war with the new
man in Christ Jesus. Sin left to itself strives to drive a gulf between
God and ourselves and a wedge between others and our self. That??s true
in our everyday life situations, in our families, and even here in our
life together at Emmanuel.
Because we still carry our old sinful
nature with us, the easy, natural thing for us to do is just to look
out for one??s own self, to hurt God and each other. Our natural
tendency apart from God??s intervention is to use people or treat others
as if they don??t count, that they are nobodies. ?¨ME! ME! ME! ?± MINE!
MINE! MINE!?Æ readily seeks to become the dominant force by which we
live. Sin leads to impatience with others and meager attempts to
understand and to be kind and helpful to one another, as well as our
striving to control things so that we get our own way.
But,
beloved, Jesus, in love that can??t be measured, has not left us to
wallow and drown in our sin and rebellion. He came to earth to seek and
to save the lost. He took the punishment we deserve for our sinful
rebellion and eternally nailed it to His cross. You??ve heard it before,
but it??s oh so true ?± If you were the only sinner on earth, you still
are so precious to Jesus that He would have come to earth to suffer and
die in your place. Now, repeatedly day by day, hour by hour He cleanses
all of us from every guilty stain. Now, in spite of all our sin and
shortcomings, for Jesus?? sake our heavenly Father sees us as being
clothed with our Savior??s own holiness and perfection. That sounds
almost too good to be true, but throughout the Bible the Lord tells us
that if we trust in Jesus as our Savior, we are His own forgiven,
redeemed, precious children of God.
However, Jesus didn??t just
come to take our sins away. He has also called us, as I said before, to
respond to His love by being imitators of Christ. The chief
characteristic of Jesus?? life on earth is that He always ?± without fail
- put His Father and the Father??s holy will in first place in His life.
That also showed itself in the way He dealt with other people. Our
Savior didn??t treat others as nobodies or persons of lesser value who
did not fit into His life. He was humble in His relationships. He
valued all who came to Him. Christ didn??t hurt others. He only turned
aside from people who adamantly had no use for Him and His saving love.
Call
to memory how Jesus, when the day was getting late, miraculously fed
the 5,000 there on the mountainside instead of pushing them away to
fend on their own. He was gentle and kind. Recall how Jesus took the
little children into His arms to bless them when His disciples wanted
to push them away. Think of what He did with the dying thief on the
cross, who pleaded just to be remembered by our Lord after His death.
Christ did much more than that for which the condemned man asked. Jesus
assured that dying criminal, ?¨Truly, truly I say to you: Today you will
be with Me in paradise!?Æ [Luke 23:43] To Peter, who denied even knowing
Jesus when our Savior was on trial, our Lord after His resurrection
said, ?¨Feed My lambs! Feed My sheep!?Æ [John 21:15-16] Thus He not only
forgave Peter but also restored him as one of His chosen apostles.
Indeed our Redeemer was patient, ever so patient, forbearing with
others in forgiveness and love. Christ did everything in His power to
maintain the unity of Spirit in the bond of peace. In great love and
caring, this same merciful Savior has called you ?± you ?± you and me ?±
to walk worthy of our high calling in Christ Jesus.
So, how do
we do this in greater measure? Beloved, we can??t do this by ourselves!
Didn??t Jesus say, ?¨Without Me you can do nothing?Æ? [John 15:5c] At the
same time, St. Paul confessed, ?¨I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me!?Æ [Philippians 4:13] And that strength comes through the
power of the Holy Spirit as He walks on with us.
To that end, in
the Epistle reading this morning, St. Paul again shows us the love and
patience of our Savior. To help us in our continued striving to walk
worthy of our high calling in Christ Jesus, the Lord has given us
special gifts. Among them our text today tells us are apostles,
prophets and evangelists. Where do we find access to them? In the
Bible! The inspired Word of God they wrote is there to equip us for the
battles ahead in striving for genuine unity and living worthy of our
Christian calling. Scripture is indeed the lamp for our feet and light
for the path we need to walk. God??s Word is as it were the Holy
Spirit??s spark that ignites the gasoline in our engines. But it does us
no good if the Bible is closed in our homes or if we willfully miss
worship services, Bible classes, and daily devotional time in the Word.
To further assist us, our gracious and caring God has given us
pastors and teachers and other helpers to equip His people, to build up
the body of Christ, His holy Church. Yet, dear people of Christ, all of
us who are called servants of the Word or volunteers are only fallible
sinners like everyone here. So I cannot urge you strongly enough:
Remember your pastors and teachers and helpers in your prayers. In
these days especially pray that the Lord of Church will send us that
faithful pastor of His choosing as the next under-shepherd of this
flock called Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Asheville.
St. Paul in today??s epistle reading tells us that God??s purpose in giving us these helpers is ?±
? That we continue to grow in unity of the faith in Christ Jesus,
? That we are better equipped for service in Christ??s Church,
? That we continue to grow in our capacity to be imitators of Jesus in our daily life,
? That we are solidly united in our Biblical doctrine and practice, giving all glory to God, and
? That we grow up in every way into Christ, speaking His truth, doing everything in His love.
To
put it more simply, God??s desire for us is that through the aid of the
Holy Spirit we grow in being genuine lovers in action of our Triune
God, His Word, and of all people, while having a wholesome appreciation
of how special we and all others are in the eyes of the Lord.
To that end, will you join me in prayer?
Come,
Lord Jesus; come! Continue to befriend us with Your love and the gift
of the Holy Spirit. Help us more fully to love our God and to be even
more helpful, caring friends to one another and all others whom our
lives touch. Remove from us our sin, our biases, our self-centeredness,
and anything that separates us from our Lord, so that we may better
love You and one another as You first loved us. Until You call us home
to Your side in heaven, help us to live more and more worthy of our
high calling in Your most holy name. So help us, Lord! Amen.
To God alone be the glory!
© The Reverend Frederick A. Stiemke, D.D., Vacancy Pastor
Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Asheville, NC
Sunday, August 13, 2006
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 10 April 2007 )
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