I want you to imagine you are part of the mob that really hates the apostle Paul. Your mob preaches circumcision, blood sacrifices and eating clean foods. Paul preaches Christ crucified. Your mob preaches the Jews are God’s chosen children. Paul preaches that people from all nations are God’s children through faith in Jesus. Your mob preaches salvation by works. Paul preaches salvation by grace alone.
You and the mob really hate this guy! He preaches everything exactly the opposite from you.
At the beginning of every adult confirmation class, I give the people three warnings. First, I warn them that there are 14 lessons in the class. That’s a 3 ½ month commitment. Second, I warn them that there’s homework. (I don’t tell them about the homework until they sign up for the class.)
The third – and most serious – warning is that the devil is going to come at them hard. I’ve seen it for over 20 years of teaching these classes. I tell them that if they weren’t Christians before, the devil wasn’t concerned about them because they already belonged to him. If they were only nominal Christians before, the devil still wasn’t all that concerned about them because, although they were in the Enemy’s camp, they weren’t doing anything over there.
How important are you? How much status do you have on the grand scale of life? Are you a person of power and influence who is above certain things in life? Isn’t that the goal of some? To attain the level of being “on top”? Head of the division at work? Supervisor? Lead? So you don’t have to do the work that no one really wants to do anymore. So that you can call the shots and others have to jump when you say how high?
Does that ever happen in the life of a Christian? Are there levels and ladders to climb? Where you eventually get to the top and you are above it all? That’s what we are going to ponder today as we explore the prayer our Savior taught us.
I learned about the Keto diet from Stacy. If you haven’t heard about the Keto diet, it is very low on carbs and very high on fats and proteins. This was good information to have because, as part of my pastoral mentoring duties, I took Pastor Scoggins from New Hope to breakfast this week. We ate at the Blue Bear restaurant down the road.
I was interested in their signature breakfast, the Blue Bear Benedict. For $4 more, I could have it Keto style. I asked the waitress what that entailed. She said, “You will still have the poached egg and Berkshire ham, but your potato pancakes will be made with cauliflower.”
Sally (not her real name) wanted me to share her real story with you. Sally and her husband have been married for several years. They are ready to enjoy the blessings of children. But from their human vantage point, it looks like they are not going to be able to have children of their own.
They have examined various fertility methods, but they have learned that many of them are not God-pleasing or will be ineffectual for their infertility issues.
Jimi was planning on finishing the last two lessons in our adult confirmation class so he could join the church with the others in the class in July.
But God had other plans.
In May, Jimi suffered a stroke.
Jimi is a young man with a wife and children. The stroke left him incapacitated for several months.
Our Epiphany members helped Jimi and his family with groceries, gift cards and prayers for healing.
Julie is a college freshman. Her parents are very proud of her since she is the first of her family to go to college. But behind the pride, Julie can sense her parents’ apprehension since they took out some big loans to pay for her education.
Julie is taking an overload of credits to finish school sooner. She is working every weekend in the campus bookstore to make some money to help pay bills. With her education and work schedule, she has no free time for clubs, sports or student organizations. She hasn’t been able to develop any new friendships.
On top of all this, Julie’s high school sweetheart broke up with her.
Julie feels alone, separated, isolated.
Danny was a five-year-old boy who was given the honor of praying at the restaurant. He prayed, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our Guest and let these gifts to us be blest.” Then he added, “And, Lord, if Mom would add the gift of fruit pies for dessert, I would be even more thankful. God, this is your friend, Danny, signing out for the entire family. Amen.”
Most of the people at the other tables smiled, especially at the last part. Most did … but not all.
It was the evening of October 27, 312 A.D. Constantine was going into battle the next day against Maxentius. It is called The Battle of the Milvian Bridge, which was an important route over the Tiber, the third-longest river in Italy. The battle would determine whether Constantine or Maxentius would be the Emperor.
According to two contemporary historians of that time, Eusebius of Caesarea and Lactantius, the battle marked the beginning of Constantine’s conversion to Christianity. Constantine’s parents had been Christians, but Constantine himself was a pagan. Before the battle, he decided that he should do what all rulers do before a battle – he should pray.
When I started as a home missionary twenty years ago near Ft. Knox, Kentucky, the members of Faith Lutheran Church and I were out regularly doing outreach work. We knocked on doors, put flyers on door handles, did phone canvassing, had a booth in festivals and marched in the parade. One family that came from all that outreach work were Rick and Mandy. They lived in the apartments behind our storefront church.
Rick and Mandy came to our church in search of assistance from our food pantry, but they found so much more. Rick came for anger management counseling and both came for marriage counseling. Our members helped them out with food, rides to the grocery store or hospital, babysitting, and moving from one apartment to the next. They came for worship services and Bible studies but were inconsistent in their attendance.