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Christ Clarifies Confusion - Pastor Stiemke |
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19th Sunday after Pentecost, ??06 (10/15/06)
Sir, we would see JESUS!
Emmanuel, Asheville, NC
Mark 9:38-50
?¨Christ Clarifies Confusion?Æ
In the Name of JESUS!
Beloved,
will you pray with me? O Lord Jesus Christ, You entered our world to
draw all people to you in faith, but so many voices, enticements and
other things keep confronting us in our daily lives, so that it is easy
for us to become confused and lose our way. Shine in our hearts this
day with the light of Your Spirit and Word, so that we clearly see you
as the One thing needful and our only Savior. Then in response to Your
love and forgiveness, help us to show genuine love and concern to those
around us and to live in peace with one another; for we pray in Your
most holy Name. Amen.
In the name of our only Savior, Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace, dearly beloved:
We
unfortunately live in a confused world today. We??re surrounded by a
?¨gim-me?Æ society, where instant gratification is an assumed absolute
right by so many. Our media ?± TV, radio, Internet, printed materials,
cry out, ?¨GET IT NOW!?Æ In addition, our secular society has a wide
range of values that runs from perverted standards to no morals or
ethics at all. At the opposite extreme there are those super pious and
outwardly religious folk, who, like the Pharisees of old, think they??ve
got it made with God and that everyone else needs to be like them.
Yet,
this is not the worst of it. God reveals to us in His holy Word, that
all of us are involved in spiritual warfare not just with forces like
those already mentioned. We also wrestle with our own individual
corrupt, sinful natures. No wonder folks are confused and sometimes
find it difficult to know what to believe and how to act! I??ve said it
before, and I??ll say it again: THANK GOD for giving us the Bible to be
His light to end our own confusion!
Yet even with the divine
Word, we can still end up with distorted misunderstandings of what the
Lord wants to teach us until we take God??s complete revelation to
heart. That??s part of our spiritual depravity. We can learn this when
we see ourselves mirrored in John and the other disciples in today??s
Gospel reading. They had already been with Jesus almost 3 years. Over
and over Christ shared His Word with them. Yet they had just told a man
who was casting out devils in Jesus?? name to stop doing that. They
didn??t see him as one of their ?¨inner circle,?Æ that is, ?¨one of them.?Æ
In their minds he wasn??t their equal, nor was he qualified and
authorized to be offering that miraculous relief to others, even though
he was tangibly helping others in the name of the Lord.
How
often do we get caught in a similar trap? Looking through sin-clouded
eyes, we tend to see others as being of less value and not as good as
we are? Thoughts come like: ?¨Why, here I am in church today instead of
out on a golf course. I??m not off fishing or driving around the
mountains looking at the fall foliage, nor am I relaxing at home with
the Sunday paper and a cup of coffee.?Æ Often the temptation comes to
think, ?¨I??m not like some of those folks who hang out at (and then we
name a disreputable place or a street location in Asheville that has a
bad name).?Æ It??s far too easy to rattle off what we do at church and
find fault with those not as active. That??s what happens when one gets
into ?¨stinking thinking,?Æ losing sight of Jesus as our only Savior. And
we could go on and on listing our own sins and failures. So, rather
than fault the apostles, we need to learn from their failings and ours.
Thank
God Jesus in love and forgiveness didn??t give up on His disciples!
Jesus corrected His friends. Jesus responded, ?¨Don??t stop him,?Æ and
then added, ?¨Whoever is not against us is for us.?Æ [vs. 39-40] In the
same way the Lord does not give up on us! However, Christ does more
than just correct us. Day after day because He made the full payment
for all our sin and failings on the cross, He cleanses us from our
damnable transgression of God??s holy will and Commandments. We are
indeed 100% forgiven children of the heavenly Father when with the help
of the Holy Spirit we look to Jesus for His saving love and pardon.
But
because of God??s immeasurable love, we face a real problem in our
sinfulness. Since the Lord??s salvation is 100% a free gift in Christ
Jesus, Satan and our sinful flesh want to delude us into thinking this
means ?¨a free ride?Æ for us into heaven. In contrast, God our Father??s
love, which is beyond measure in Jesus Christ, calls us to seek His
guidance to change our sinful ways with the help of the Holy Spirit.
That??s why our Savior in today??s Gospel reading three times keeps
hammering away and hammering away at our hearts and minds to take sin
seriously. First He states that if someone causes a little child to
sin, it would have been better if he would have drowned in the depths
of the sea before that happened.
Secondly, Jesus also
indicates that we must take sin seriously by stating that if a part of
our body causes us to sin, it would be better that this body part be
lost than our ending up in the eternal torment of hell. However, these
verses must be understood in the light of the rest of the Bible. Taking
one??s own life is forbidden by the Commandment, ?¨You shall not murder.?Æ
[Exodus 20:15] The spirit of that same Commandment explained throughout
Scripture also forbids us to mutilate our own or others?? bodies. In
addition, maiming one??s body also violates our being good stewards ?±
caretakers ?± of all, even our bodies, as God commands. Thus, we should
strive not to hurt or harm our bodies. Besides that, cutting off a body
part would not stop our sinful thinking processes. Rather, these verses
call us to take sin seriously. Our Savior in effect tells us to get to
the root of the problem, to repent of our sin, to trust Jesus??
forgiveness, to acknowledge our own incapacity to change in our own
power, but at the same time to rely on the Lord to give us His power
and the heart to change and be more Christ-like.
Jesus again a
third time prods us to take seriously our sinning in His use of the
salt illustration. Initially our Lord??s statement about salt being
worthless if it loses its saltiness may be puzzling to us. For salt
today doesn??t lose its flavor or preservative power. We need to
interpret this as our Savior??s contemporaries did through their
experiences with salt. Writings from Jesus?? days on earth tell us how
salt taken from the Dead Sea and other places was tainted by gypsum and
other impurities. As a result, in time it became alkaline to the taste
and was of no use in enhancing flavor or in preserving food. To purify
their salt, people at that time burned out the contaminants with fire.
Only then did it remain pure for flavoring foods and preserving them.
More importantly, only this purified kosher salt was used with all
sacrifices offered to God in the Old Testament. In a parallel way even
our good works offered to the God must undergo the purifying power of
Jesus?? pardon for any taint of sin in them to be acceptable to our Lord.
Thus,
the force of Christ??s statements conveys what our Savior has said to
His people elsewhere in Scripture. ?¨Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.?Æ
[Matthew 5:16] While good works do not save us, with God??s help our
faith must show itself in our love for God, other believers, and our
world when our trust is truly genuine. Note also that Jesus forcefully
adds that our striving to do what pleases God is not to be done in an
effort to receive the praise of men. Rather Jesus indicates that our
good deeds should be done in a way that leads others to praise our
Father in heaven.
Beloved, since God has lavished His love
upon us by giving us the very best gift ?± His one and only Son, Jesus,
as our Savior, may Christ remove our confused thinking and values so
that we clearly see that Jesus is our only Savior. May we then be led
to see our dear Redeemer as the One after whom we strive to pattern our
lives! At the same time may our gracious God enable us more and more to
show genuine love and concern for one another in action until our Lord
makes it possible for us to do this perfectly in heaven.
Continue to help us, dear Lord, to live this way and thus to live at peace with one another. Amen.
To GOD Alone Be All Glory!
© The Reverend Frederick A. Stiemke, DD
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