"The Bare Necessities"
Text:
Luke 24:44-53
"Now to
him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according
to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in
Christ Jesus throughout all generations. Amen." Ephesians
3:20-21
Dear Fellow Christians:
The coat is
what always gets me. For most of us there is a sense of nostalgia that
surrounds every abandoned farm in the declining rural areas of any farming
community. Whenever I come upon one, I always wonder about the life that used
to occupy that old farmstead and house – now the home of all manner of flying,
crawling things. How many hardy, strapping, North Dakota children gathered
around the family table? How many determined souls shivered their way under the
heavy woolen quilts in the tiny upstairs bedrooms through those long, dark,
frigid winters? What sort of joys and disappointments colored their lives? What
sort of hardships did they have to endure – and how would you and I hold up
under those circumstances?
That's where
the coats come in. Many times you can still find them in an entryway or on the
wall of a barn or shed – right where a human being hung it for the last time.
Have you seen them? More to the point, can you imagine facing a long Dakota
winter (most of it spent outdoors) with that as your best protection from the
cold and wind? Just what were those
folks made of back then, and what kind of struggles did they endure just to
survive?
As we are
blessed by our God with greater and greater material wealth and comfort, one of
the inevitable consequences is that "times past" become smaller and
smaller in our rear view mirror. We lose more than just a sense of history when
that happens; we lose perspective and appreciation. How, for example, could we
possibly formulate in our minds just how little is really necessary for this
life when we all have so much? How can we fix in our minds, with any sort of
accuracy, just what really does constitute the bare necessities of life, and
what then is all just extra?
This morning
we seek to establish some sort of realistic understanding of what really does
constitute the bare necessities, but not just in the way that immediately comes
to mind. The words of our text will clarify for us, found recorded in Luke's
Gospel, the 24th Chapter:
NKJ Luke 24:44-53 Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you
while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were
written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets
and the Psalms concerning
Me." 45 And He opened
their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. 46 Then He said to them,
"Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer
and to rise from the dead the third day,
47 "and that repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 "And you are witnesses of
these things. 49
"Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city
of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high." 50 And He led them out as far
as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. 51 Now it came to pass, while He
blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped Him, and
returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53
and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.
So far
the very words of God. May that same God who gave us these words fill us with
proper reverence for them, that each time we hear them we may gain the gifts he
desires to give us. To this end also we pray, "Sanctify us through Your
truth, O Lord; your Word is truth!" Amen.
Whenever we
hear talk of "bare necessities" our minds always think in physical
terms – the basic essentials to sustain life. Most of the time we rather glibly
boil it all down to food, clothing, and shelter. Yet almost the very instant
such words leave our mouths – if we are honest – you and I would have to admit
that that is not what we would
actually bare necessities in the real world. In other words, I can't imagine
anyone here today that would be content and well-satisfied with just such bare
essentials.
Yet there are
times, aren't there. Times when the distractions and complexities of life make
us want to back up the dump truck and shovel it all in. The sheer volume of
"stuff" beyond the basic essentials can get to the point that it no
longer serves us, we serve it. Even the unbelieving world around us
can get to this point, but Christians really ought to get there sooner, and
with more consistency. It is difficult in the extreme to avoid getting owned by
that which we supposedly own. Perhaps more than at any other time in history,
Americans face the very real danger of being buried by our possessions. We are
in danger of allowing what we have determine who we are.
The solution,
of course, is to downsize and refocus. We know that, of course, but we need to
be reminded. More than that, we need to actually act on those reminders.
Yet as
important as that is, we are here to focus on an even more critical area of
"bare necessity." Our faith and religion actually face similar
challenges, and it is into such matters that we are drawn by our text for this
morning. With rather startling simplicity, our text clears away all of the
religious noise and confusion and focuses our attention on that which is
refreshingly basic: "And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the
Scriptures. 46 Then He said
to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to
suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations."
Did you notice
how Jesus here talked of "necessity"? Interesting when you stop to
think about it, isn't it? He said that it "was necessary for the Christ to
suffer and to rise from the dead the third day." We could, of
course, spend the next several hours trying in vain to plumb the depths of
Jesus' statement here. Why, for example, did he refer to his death as "necessary"?
Necessary for whom? Certainly not for Christ himself, who lacked nothing in the
perfection of heaven prior to his incarnation (where he took on his human
nature). Nor was God under any obligation to provide a correction for what
sinful mankind had ruined. We can only then understand from Christ's words here
that "it was necessary" for us,
sinners. We know that to be true, of course, but it is certainly attention-grabbing
to hear Jesus say it this way. We would be wise to take this as a window into
the love of our Savior God. Though he enjoyed the perfect bliss of heaven, and
although he would have been perfectly justified had he allowed us to be
punished with hell for our sins, he nonetheless regarded our salvation as "necessary."
"Behold
what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us…"
Not
surprisingly, when God decides that something is necessary, he always provides
for that necessity. In this case he did so by sacrificing himself. Amazing when
you stop to think about it. By our sin, man created what God then regarded as a necessary action
on his part, and he fulfilled that necessity by suffering and dying for our
sins.
Our Lord in our
text then completed the simple, beautiful picture of the Christian faith when
he went on to tell us that "repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in His name to all nations." Talk about
spiritual bare necessities. There you have it. This is the basic substance of
the Christian faith. By the law, mankind is crushed by his sin, leading to
repentance, and the gospel of "remission of sins" is
then proclaimed to every repentant sinner.
Did you happen
to notice the complete lack of any qualifiers in Jesus' statements of fact? No
one is left out. Those who repent are to hear the proclamation of forgiveness
in Jesus Christ. Repenting of your sins, forgiveness is also your own personal
possession in Christ Jesus.
These are the
simple truths that Jesus taught when he "opened their understanding, that they
might comprehend the Scriptures." Some would think that having
provided this special insight and wisdom, the Lord would then have talked of
weightier, deeper matters with his disciples. Hear this well: there are no weightier, deeper matters. The
simple truths outlined by Jesus represented the bottom line – that which was necessary
for mankind to be saved. For you to join the rest of the saints and angels in
the eternal joy of heaven, you need nothing more than "repentance and remission
(forgiveness) of sins."
The message of
our text could not come at a better time. In the past weeks you have
undoubtedly heard the angry, bitter rantings of Rev. Wright. To me what was
most telling was that this man justified his ridiculous statements and sermons
on the basis of a system of Bible interpretation known as "Black
Liberation Theology." In fact I heard him summarily "disqualify"
both questions and criticisms from others simply because they were not familiar
with the tenets of Black Liberation Theology.
Understand that
this is just another in the long list of false teachers who pervert and
disguise the truth character and nature of the gospel and the Christian faith
according to some manufactured "theology." True theology is literally
the study of God. Since we know that God has revealed himself in the pages of
the Bible, it is through the study of his inspired words in the Bible that we come
to know him. Yet from time to time false teachers spout something new and
rotten on the basis of what they claim is a higher understanding of God and his
Word. "Theology," for them, becomes a filter that serves not to
clarify but to distort what God is really teaching us about himself on the
pages of our Bibles.
In this most
recent case, Black Liberation Theology is the idea that the entire Bible in
centered on liberation from earthly, human slavery – which then becomes the basis
for their religious beliefs and the filter that distorts everything that they
read in their Bibles. That means, for example, that God's rescue of the
Children of Israel from 400 years of Egyptian slavery was not a testament to
God's determination to keep his promise to send the Savior from the Jewish race,
but a simple righting of yet another instance of slavery – the ultimate evil or
sin. Jesus' deliverance from the slavery of sin then becomes just another
metaphor to teach us about a greater good, freedom from earthly slavery. God's
Word, in reality, teaches us just the opposite.
Again, the
greatest problem with all such man-made systems of theology is that they not
only serve to distort the truth of God's Word, they immerse their followers
into a labyrinth of strange and distorted arguments and rationalizations. Among
the first things to be lost is the simple, basic "repentance and remission of
sins" message of truth that we read in our text for this morning.
Man becomes too busy, too engrossed in the righting of the various social ills
of his society to bother with that one simple truth that can save his immortal
soul.
There are many
such filters or distortions. If, for example, you make up your mind that man
essentially brings himself to faith by "deciding for Christ," you
will naturally (and wrongly) twist every applicable passage to fit your
preconceived "theology." If your "theology" convinces you
that infants can neither sin nor believe, even clear and easily understood
passages will take on an unnatural meaning in your eyes. If your
"theology" tells you that you are able to pay for your sins by your
own good works, even those clearest of gospel passages suddenly take on a
perverse and distorted image. "Theology," however, must never be
permitted to distort theology. The study of God must never pervert the study of
God. A belief system must never be allowed to distort the truth of God's Word.
True Christianity
never does. It is not that the Scriptures lack complexity and depth. We should
expect nothing less than great wisdom and insight from the omniscient Creator
of heaven and earth. Yet the basic truths that are needed for salvation are
given to us in childlike simplicity. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
you will be saved." "Repentance and remission of sins."
– the bare necessities by which we gain eternity. Amen.
Scripture Readings and Sunday Bulletin
for May 4, 2008
NKJ Acts 1:4-11 And being assembled together with them, He
commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the
Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; 5 "for John truly baptized
with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from
now." 6 ¶
Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord,
will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7 And He said to them, "It is
not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own
authority. 8 "But you
shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be
witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of
the earth." 9 Now when
He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud
received Him out of their sight. 10
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men
stood by them in white apparel, 11
who also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?
This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in
like manner as you saw Him go into heaven."
NKJ Ephesians
1:15-23 Therefore I also, after I heard of
your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease to give thanks for
you, making mention of you in my prayers:
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
Him, 18 the eyes of your
understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His
calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the
saints, 19 and what is the
exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the
working of His mighty power 20
which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at
His right hand in the heavenly places,
21 far above all principality and power and might and
dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that
which is to come. 22 And He
put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things
to the church, 23 which
is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
NKJ Luke 24:44-53 Then He said to them, "These are the
words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be
fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the
Psalms concerning Me." 45
And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the
Scriptures. 46 Then He said
to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to
suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,
47 "and that repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 "And you are witnesses of
these things. 49
"Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city
of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high." 50 And He led them out as far
as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. 51 Now it came to pass, while He
blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped Him, and
returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53
and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.
ST. PAUL EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH
2510 E. Divide Ave.
Bismarck, ND 58501 (701) 223-4885
Cell: (701) 425-5483
Website – www.bismarcklutheran.org
Mr. Mark Johnson, President (222-1855) Mrs. Eileen McEnroe, Organist
Michael Roehl, Pastor
The Sunday after Ascension – May 4, 2008
|
The Opening Prayer by the Pastor
The Opening
Hymn ‑#738- (Brown Hymnal)
"Alleluia! Sing
to Jesus"
The Order
of Service – Supplement page 12ff. (Brown Hymnal)
The
Scripture Lessons: (Printed on the back page of this bulletin)
The
First Lesson: (Acts 1:4-11)
The wisdom that God demonstrated in the plan for our salvation dare not be
underestimated. Since man could be trusted to provide nothing positive, God
himself did the providing. Not only did He send His Son to pay for our sins, He
also knew that without the Holy Spirit, mankind could not understand and accept
the saving truths of the gospel. From first to last our salvation is a gift
from our God.
Psalm 2 (Supplement
page 30) (Brown Hymnal)
The
Second Lesson: (Ephesians
1:15-23) As we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus, we are here reminded of the power
and glory that has been returned to Jesus when he returned to the glory of
heaven at His ascension. What a comfort it ought to be to know that the One who
is over all principalities and powers here on this earth is, even now, our
ally.
The
Confession of Faith ‑
The Apostolic
Creed – page 15. (Brown Hymnal)
The
Pre-Sermon Hymn ‑#212- (Verses
1-5)
(Red Hymnal)
"A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing"
The Sermon – Luke 24:44-53 (Printed on the back page of
this bulletin)
"The Bare Necessities"
The
Offertory – (Supplement
page 16 insert)
The Post-Sermon Hymn ‑#212- (Verses
6-7)
(Red Hymnal)
"A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing"
The Offering
The Prayers
of the Day followed by the Lord's Prayer
The Benediction
The Closing Hymn ‑#216- (Verses 1 & 3) (Red Hymnal)
"On Christ's Ascension I Now
Build"
Silent Prayer
Attendance ‑ Last Sunday (52) 2008 Average (52)
This Week at St. Paul:
Today -10:00 a.m. – Worship Service
-11:00
a.m. – Fellowship
Hour
Monday -10:00
a.m. – Pastoral Conference
in Pierre
Wednesday -6:00 p.m. – Confirmation & Bible
History
-7:00 p.m. –
Midweek Bible Study
Next Sunday -8:45 a.m. – Sunday School and Bible Class
-10:00
a.m. – Worship
Service w/ Holy Communion
-11:15 a.m. – Fellowship Hour
CLC News – The
Prospectus for the upcoming CLC Convention this June has arrived and is
available to anyone who wants a copy.
Liberation Theology
– No system of "theology" can ever be used to justify sin. Since
"theology" is simply "God's Word," every Christian armed
with his Bible is qualified to judge a system of theology as Biblical or not,
and therefore as true or false. Based on the following definition of Liberation
Theology from one of its founders, you be the judge: "Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified
totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against
white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of
black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ...
Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the
destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in
Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors
here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in
this holy activity, we must reject his love." A Black Theology of
Liberation by James H. Cone.
Voters' Notes – Minutes from
last Sunday's Voters' Meeting are available from Secretary Fred Adams.
Pastoral Study
Conference in Pierre – Pastor Roehl is scheduled to attend a one-day
conference in Pierre on Monday, returning late Monday evening. The cell number
is (701) 425-5483.