Questions in the darkness

John 3:1-17 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these miraculous signs you are doing unless God is with him.”

3Jesus replied, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”

5Jesus answered, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God! 6Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh. Whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be surprised when I tell you that you must be born from above. 8The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

9“How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.

10“You are the teacher of Israel,” Jesus answered, “and you do not know these things? 11Amen, Amen, I tell you: We speak what we know, and we testify about what we have seen. But you people do not accept our testimony. 12If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven, except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.

14“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Amen. (2 Corinthians 13:14)

My daughter, Lydia, is a sophomore at a private Presbyterian university in Iowa. A few weeks ago, Lydia’s theology professor assigned her class a paper on the gender of God. Throughout this semester, the professor has been leading the students to question God’s gender. She has stated numerous times in the class that God is at times male, other times female, and other times multi-gender or no gender.

Lydia had the inner conflict that all of us have when faced with such blasphemous theology. Keep her head down and her mouth shut to get a good grade or stand up and speak out and possibly tank her grade.

I’m going to read to you the last two paragraphs of her paper and let you decide what she did.

“I believe that the question of whether God has a gender does have implications for how we view ourselves and humankind. This is because the God of the Bible is unchanging. If humans try to change the gender of God, they are breaking the second commandment that God gave to his people from Mt. Sinai. The second commandment states, ‘You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God.’ If humans try to change the gender of God that God clearly gives for people to refer to him, then they are misusing God’s name and are blaspheming. The article from the Women’s Ordination, misuses God’s Word and twists it to make God appear as feminine. The Holy Spirit is clearly using a metaphor [about mother bears and mother hens] to demonstrate how God is carrying and protective like a mother. Not that he is a mother. If these passages were to be taken literally, then God would literally be a bear and a hen. That’s just silly. More than that, it’s blasphemy.”   

“There are many different ways that people think of God. People use many different names to refer to God. Referring to God as anything but male, is changing what God says about himself. God’s Word, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is very clear. The God of the Bible describes himself as male. To question, doubt, change, or twist God’s Word in any way to say anything different is - in today’s language - misgendering God.”

I tell you this story because this subject is not confined to one student in one theology class. These are the kinds of questions, doubts, debates, and outright denials of God’s truths that Christians are facing right now. It’s in our public high schools, colleges, and universities. This kind of language about gender has permeated businesses, penetrated the military, and saturated media, entertainment, and government.

This false theology about gender and God has even infiltrated churches. Here is a quote from a wolf in sheep’s clothing as he preached to his flock recently: “God is gay. God is a lesbian. God is trans. God is gender non-binary. God is straight. God is cis gender.”

God is none of those things!

There is a lot of spiritual darkness in our culture. Some people are sowing confusion and doubt. Some are preaching blasphemy and heresy. Others have legitimate questions. Jesus teaches us how to answer these questions in the darkness in his conversation with Nicodemus.

Nicodemus had a lot of questions as he came to Jesus at night. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a teacher of the Jews. Nicodemus is a rabbi who has come to see the Rabbi. He comes in the darkness because he is interested in the One who is the Light of the world.

Nicodemus was infected with the malady that infects all of humanity. We all think we are better than we really are. Most people see no need for the church, Christianity, or Jesus because they see no need for a Savior. They are living in the darkness of sin and unbelief, and often don’t even realize it. If they could form the question, it would be something like this, “If there is a God, he would see me as a pretty good person, wouldn’t he?”

This was Nicodemus’ question in the darkness, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh. Whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

It doesn’t matter how good we imagine that we are, God sees us as sinners by what we have done, by what we have left undone, and by our sinful nature. There is nothing good within us. King David puts it succinctly and accurately, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:3). We are by nature evil, vile, corrupt wretches of sin and filth.

But our Triune God loves us too much to allow us to languish in the darkness of our sin and death. Our Triune God created a way of salvation. Just as the new world was created through water and the Holy Spirit hovered over those waters, so we are created anew through water and the Spirit. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God!” Jesus is speaking about Baptism.

His Final Steps Led to a Tomb- Ash Wednesday Sermon

John 11:1-7, 11-15, 18-27, 32-44 Now a certain man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2This Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was the same Mary who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair.

3So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, saying, “Lord, the one you love is sick!”

4When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness is not going to result in death, but it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

5Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed in the place where he was two more days.

 7Then afterwards he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”

11He said this and then told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.”

12Then the disciples said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.”

13Jesus had been speaking about his death, but they thought he was merely talking about ordinary sleep. 14So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15And I am glad for your sake that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

18Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away. 19Many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.

20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, while Mary was sitting in the house.

21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24Martha replied, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the Last Day.”

25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even if he dies. 26And whoever lives and believes in me will never perish. Do you believe this?”

27“Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

32When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.

34He asked, “Where have you laid him?”

They told him, “Lord, come and see.”

35Jesus wept.

36Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

38Jesus was deeply moved again as he came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39“Take away the stone,” he said.

Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, because it has been four days.”

40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone.

Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

44The man who had died came out with his feet and his hands bound with strips of linen and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus told them, “Loose him and let him go.”

We like to imagine that we would want to know the time, place, and way are going to die. But would you really want to know that information? What would you do with it? If you knew you’re going to live until you’re 102 and die of a heart attack on a Thursday at 2:45 pm, would you become complacent in your faith? Would you ignore praying and skip church until a week before your heart attack, and only then get serious about your faith?

Or if you knew you were going to die from cancer after years of chemo and radiation treatment, wasting away and feeling like a burden to your family and friends, would you sink into a deep depression?

There is definitely divine wisdom in not knowing the time, place, or manner that God uses to take us home to heaven. Our faith probably isn’t strong enough for that kind of information.

Yet, Jesus knew about the date, location, and manner of his death. Isn’t that astounding?! Jesus knew exactly what lay ahead of him as he took his final steps. Every twist; every turn; every plot of his enemies; every hateful word thrown his way; every lash of the whip; every tortured breath he would take on Calvary’s cross. Through the lens of his divinity, Jesus could see that his path ahead would lead to the most horrific pain and hellish agony. Yet Jesus took his final steps. Why? Because selfless love for his fallen creation moved his steps forward.

This Lenten season we are on what I hope is a memorable pilgrimage of faith as we watch our Savior take his final steps. This evening we examine the event that became the catalyst for our Savior’s final steps. Jesus’ miracle of raising Lazarus from the tomb sets the stage for God’s gracious plan to be completed: at the precise time the Lord had set from eternity, in the exact place the Lord had prophesied, and in the very way the Lord had planned it. Tonight, we see how Jesus’ final steps led to a tomb.

Jesus knew exactly what he was getting into by going to Bethany, the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. The village was only 2 miles from Jerusalem, the headquarters for all the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus’ enemies had been dogging his every step for three years, watching, waiting, and hoping for Jesus to make a mistake. Perhaps words they could rip out of context; maybe a teaching they could twist to be in conflict with God’s teaching; or a miracle performed on the Sabbath. Something, anything they could use to discredit him, or even worse, put him on trial and convict him for blasphemy - with the sentence being death.

Yet there was no misstep, not a single word that could be used against Jesus. And then when his enemies grew so desperate that they were about to take our Savior by force, he “eluded their grasp” and withdrew back across the Jordan River, somewhere remote, somewhere out of the reach of his enemies (John 10:39).

But now Jesus’ set time was approaching. His appointment with the cross was at hand. Mary and Martha sent word, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” Have you felt the pain that death brings? (One of the saddest images in my memory is one of my girls crying holding our dog before the pet was taken to the vet to be put to sleep.) Have you lain awake at night listening to machines pumping air in and out of your lungs? Have you watched sickness corrode and atrophy the body of your loved one? Have you held his hand or her head as life slowly ebbed away? That’s the way Mary and Martha felt about their brother, Lazarus.

Jesus heard the news about Lazarus and … he waited. John shares this insight: “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed in the place where he was two more days. Then afterwards he said to his disciples, ‘Let’s go back to Judea.’”

Why wait two more days? “So that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” So that Jesus could tell his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.” So, the disciples could respond, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.” Then Jesus could patiently explain, “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sake that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

Have you ever noticed that we’re not always much help when it comes to grieving? How often don’t we say things like, “I’m sorry.” “If you need anything, I’m here for you.” “Here’s a casserole.” Often when we see someone grieving, we either leave them alone or force them to move along too quickly. We may not be much help to the grieving, but Jesus certainly is. You see, if God is anywhere, he is in the face of death.

So, the Son of God goes to face death head on. Jesus waited two days before he took these final steps to Bethany because he knew what needed to be done for two grieving sisters, surrounded by friends who joined them in their mourning. Martha met Jesus on the road and broke our Savior’s heart with her words, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus knew she needed to hear him say, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha realized Jesus was talking about Judgment Day. She heard the words we hear when we stand in cemeteries next to the caskets of our loved ones as the pastor takes some dirt and sprinkles it on the casket saying, “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, earth to earth.”

Death has hounded mankind since the Garden of Eden and caused misery that God never intended for his children. When Jesus saw the effects of death on his loved ones, he wept with them, but also promised them that one day even this last enemy would be defeated. “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even if he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never perish. Do you believe this?”

Jesus knows what he must do. He had to take the next steps – to the tomb, to a cave with a stone rolled against it. Martha takes Jesus to the cemetery where her brother is entombed. Jesus wants the stone rolled away and the grave opened. Remember, it is the fourth day, so Martha objects that the decaying flesh would smell too bad. Jesus replies, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” When Jesus finished his prayer, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” He who called planets into existence and breathed life into man, called Lazarus back from the dead and gave him once more the breath of life.

Lazarus had no choice. He came out. Lazarus’ response to the command of Christ stirs the heart of every Christian who has stared at the ugly face of death – the dead man came out.

Jesus took his final steps to a tomb that needed to be emptied for Mary and Martha, two grieving sisters who miraculously got their brother back. He took those steps for Lazarus who from then on knew from experience how the Lord could indeed make all things work together for good (Romans 8:28)! Jesus took those steps for his disciples, the men who were eyewitnesses of the Savior’s power and glory, the same men he commissioned to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8)!

And Jesus took those final steps for us and for our faith! We need his words, “I am the resurrection and the life.” We need to hear Jesus’ shout, “Lazarus, come out!” We need to see the man who had been dead for four days come out of the grave.

Here is our proof that nothing is impossible with God. Here is our proof that the apostle Paul’s shout of triumph is forever true: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).

What happened at that Bethany cemetery is a prelude to what would happen in a few weeks in a Jerusalem cemetery. Jesus’ borrowed tomb was opened by the angel to show that Jesus was already gone. Jesus walked out of his own grave – alive. This is a prelude to what will happen to us on the Last Day when our graves are opened and we are called from our tombs. “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

When God speaks … people come out of their graves. They have no choice.

How comforting for you and me that our Savior’s final steps led to a tomb.

A few moments ago, I mentioned how Jesus’ enemies had been trailing him wherever he went, always hoping Jesus would say or do something they could use against him. They couldn’t find anything.

Then this business with Lazarus happened! This was the greatest of Jesus’ miracles up to that time. According to Jewish thinking recorded in the Talmud – a collection of writings that covered the full gamut of Jewish laws and traditions - the Jews were convinced that the human soul hovers around the body for three days after death. For three days the soul is lost and confused, hoping, and waiting to be reunited with the body in life. But only three days. After that, the soul is taken home to the Lord, and a resurrection can no longer happen.

Now do you see why Jesus waited two days before going to Bethany? Why he made sure that four days had passed since Lazarus had died? News of this miracle spread instantly, everywhere, like wildfire! The raising of Lazarus from the dead became the catalyst that caused the last stage of God’s plan of grace to be set into motion. John informs us, “From that day on they plotted to kill him” (John 11:53).

Jesus’ final steps led him to a tomb that needed to be emptied. Emptied so that the hatred of his enemies would boil over into an insane, diabolical plot to capture him, illegally try him during the night, and then crucify him on Calvary’s center cross. All this would happen on Passover, the time God had set from eternity for his Lamb to die for you and me.

We don’t really want to know when, where, or how we’re going to die, do we? But Jesus does. He knows when your time will come, too. That’s why he took his final steps. So that he can resolutely take his final steps to the cross. He will intrude on the enemy’s turf. He will enter Satan’s territory – the valley of death. He will be able to smell the sulfuric residue of the ex-angel. He will cry out in agony, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He will cry out in victory, “It is finished!” As he breathes his last, he will step down to crush the Ancient Serpent’s head under his bloody heel. The words he spoke loudly at Lazarus’ tomb will echo from his tomb on Easter morning, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Amen.

The Spirit Freshens Up Our Life

God is my Janitor. That doesn't quite have the same ring as "The Lord is my Shepherd," does it? It may even rub our conscience as disrespectful. Yet being a shepherd wasn't always that prestigious either, but we don't hesitate to call Jesus our Good Shepherd.

The Spirit is my joyful Janitor. Of course, you could misuse that statement. But consider how the two are alike. A janitor cleans up other people's messes. That's what the Holy Spirit does. He hasn't made any messes himself. He is the holy God. But he cleans up that sinful mess of your heart and mine. And what a mess we've made! Even the English names for their work sound similar. A janitor's work is sanitation; the Spirit's work, sanctification.

 Furthermore, just as a janitor's work is often taken for granted, how many dismiss the Spirit's vital work of cleaning hearts and instead run after what seems flashy and powerful in the eyes of the world? Even as we hear the events of David’s life, we might focus on the outward signs and miss the greater work the Spirit was doing. We see the fire of his faith as he burns a path of righteous anger toward Goliath. We hear the sound of rushing wind as he writes and sings the Psalms. His prophecies are translated into reality across thousands of different languages. All these are special miracles of the Spirit, but he uses them only as outward signs pointing his greater work. The great work of the Spirit that day was the repentance he worked in one individual heart. Through the Law packaged in a shepherd’s analogy, the Holy Spirit convicted the King of his sin and created faith in the coming Savior all over again. That's how he cleans hearts.

 The Spirit can produce some fabulous outward, miraculous signs as we watch him turn up the flames of fire on Pentecost. Yet he makes no promise of speaking in tongues, faith-healing, earthly success, health, or wealth -- all things that the world might applaud.

 So how do we know a janitor is at work? FRESHNESS… the smell / the sight.  What signs do we look for to know that the Spirit is busy cleaning hearts? This is what he has promised: Where his true, pure word is preached and taught and where his sacraments are properly used, there he is at work as our Sanctifier. He is cleaning filthy hearts, your heart and mine. For the word and sacraments are the Spirit's tools. And when he's cleaning our hearts, that also shows in our outward behavior. The fruit we produce in our lives is external evidence of the Spirit's inner work as he cleans our hearts through his Word and Sacraments

The Spirit Freshens Up Our Life

1. To keep bringing the freshness of forgiveness to you.

1.1 A murderer sought sanitization. Recall the history leading up to Psalm 51. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10). The Lord had made David king of all Israel and firmly established his throne. But David's heart wandered. He committed adultery with Bathsheba, while her husband, Uriah, was away fighting David's wars. She becomes pregnant. To cover up the sin, David invites Uriah back from the front line so that he'd think the child was his own. But after reporting to David, Uriah sleeps at the palace entrance. He doesn't think it right for him to enjoy the comforts of his bed while his fellow Israelites are camped in open fields for battle. How loyal a soldier! (2 Samuel 11:1-13)

 David sends him back with sealed orders for Joab, the commander. Joab was to place Uriah in the front line where the fighting was fiercest and then have everyone else withdraw. If Uriah somehow happened to be killed by the enemy, David could then marry Bathsheba and pretend all was fine. But this did not please the Lord. Yet for a year David lived this lie, hardening his heart. (2 Samuel 11:14-27)

 1.2 Sin runs rampant into more sin. This gives us food for thought. Our natural self wants to think: "Yes, David certainly needed his heart cleaned. What a mess of adultery and murder he made of it! I'm glad I'm not that dirty." But what do you think hurt his relationship with God more: His act of adultery and murder or his continual lying to God that he had not done anything that bad? Here's an illustration from the news. Maybe you've heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger's troubled marriage with Maria Shriver. What do you think hurt his relationship with her more: his infidelity over ten years ago or all the lies since then to cover it up?

 As soon as we try to justify ourselves and claim that our hearts aren't that dirty, at least not as dirty as some people's, we're following that path of lies and cover-ups before God. Our dirt is much deeper than just this or that bad act, even if that act were murder or adultery. Do you remember how Jesus showed that lust makes us guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:28) and sinful anger makes us accountable before God as murderers (Matthew 5:21-22)? But our filth is even deeper than our thoughts. How filthy the very nature we inherited from our parents! Filthy to the core! David confessed early in the Psalm, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5 NIV1984).  Our Messes… from Oatmeal to car accident to more.

 1.3 Sin no matter how small is an attack on God's holiness. Do you see that any attempt to downplay our sinfulness, excuse our offenses and failures, or lessen our guilt drives us even farther away from God? Any sin, no matter who it hurts, is first and foremost a sin against God. We certainly deserve any judgment God sends down on us. The punishments he pronounces are truly right. "Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge" (Psalm 51:4 NIV1984), David confesses.

 APP – We need to have our hearts “aired out.”  If he had died thinking he had covered up his sin from God, he would have gone to hell forever. That's what we deserve. We deserve to be cast out of the Lord's presence forever. We deserve for the Holy Spirit to be taken from us once and for all. That's what David deserved. But the Lord sent the prophet Nathan to confront him. See the Spirit do his work through the prophet's words. He told David of a poor man who had a pet lamb, in fact, much more than a pet. "It shared his food, drank from his cup, and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him" (2 Samuel 12:3 NIV1984). But when a guest came to the rich man's house, rather than taking one of his many sheep, he butchered the poor man's lamb.

David's righteous anger flared against this rich man. And the prophet said, "You are man!" (2 Samuel 12:7 NIV1984). The Lord had blessed him with so much, but he took Uriah's wife and murdered him. David's self-righteous arrogance is crushed. "I have sinned against the LORD" (2 Samuel 12:13 NIV1984), he confesses. "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die" (2 Samuel 12:13 NIV1984), Nathan answers. What joy of forgiveness! The Holy Spirit was busy as David's janitor, cleaning his heart through the prophet's words of forgiveness. Danger of Sin is like never cleaning up… germs lead to death.

 The Holy Spirit removes the germs even of sins like murder, adultery, and lying to God. So great is the Lord's mercy and love! No wonder David begins Psalm 51 saying, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin" (Psalm 51:1, 2 NIV1984).

 As you rely on the Lord's mercy and call out, "Create in my a clean heart, O God," the Holy Spirit is already at work. He washes you in the blood of God's Son, Jesus Christ. Day after day he cleans your heart to keep bringing you the joy of forgiveness. For the blood of Jesus Christ, God Son, "purifies us from all sin" (1 John 1:7 NIV1984). The Spirit washes you cleaner than any janitor could. In fact, washed in Jesus' blood and clothed with his righteousness you stand before the holy, all-seeing God, and he calls you his saints, his holy people. What great work the Holy Spirit does in your heart! What joy his forgiveness brings! The joy of salvation! "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation" (Psalm 51:10-12).

2. To sustain a willing spirit within you.

2.1 The Spirit cleans our hearts and makes them new so that our character and behavior change. David knows that the Spirit's work doesn't stop with forgiveness in the heart. He changes us from the inside out. This is the willing spirit the Holy Spirit works in us and sustains in us. This willing spirit shows itself in our attitude, words, and actions. David prays: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me" (Psalm 51:12 NIV1984).

 2.2 The joy of salvation shines out in willing obedience to our Savior. When the Holy Spirit cleans our hearts, why would we want to dirty our lives? Rather we desire to do what our Lord wants. As the Psalm continues David shows that willing spirit within him. He wants to teach sinners the Lord's ways. He wants to open his mouth to declare God's praises. He wants to offer God not just outward sacrifices but a broken and contrite heart that knows its sin and the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit.

 So many today imagine that once they know the Gospel of forgiveness, then they need to move on to other things if they are going to clean up their lives. So, they try to make themselves better Christians by running after seven rules or twelve steps or a forty day plan. But the vast majority of these leave the Gospel on the sidelines. Rather than focusing on what Jesus has done for us, they focus on what you should do. But that's not where a willing spirit comes from. They may have some helpful advice. They may talk a lot about the Holy Spirit. But when they sideline the Gospel of Jesus and his sacraments, they sideline the Holy Spirit, whether they intend to or not. Just as janitor uses his tools to clean, so the Holy Spirit uses the Gospel in Word and Sacraments to clean not only our hearts but also our lives, sustaining a willing spirit within us. TOOLS of the TRADE… compare cleansers to Word/Sacrament.

 2.3 With the Gospel he feeds your spirit empowering you to live a godly, righteous life. And just as the Holy Spirit uses the Gospel in God's Word and Sacraments to bring you the joy of salvation, so also he uses the same Gospel in Word and Sacraments to sustain the willing spirit within you. HEALED by the HYSSOP’S HANDLER -

 In Psalm 51, David prayed to be cleansed with Hyssop!  Being cleansed by Hyssop had a rich history with the Jewish people. The Hyssop was a plant with a straight stalk. Its leaves and branches were kind of hairy which made it very easy for liquids to adhere to them. They were used in various types of religious services. The Hyssop branch would be dipped into the sacrificial blood and sprinkled over a person who needed healing. The same procedure was used for the cleansing of mildew. And, it was also used to make people ceremonially clean. The most famous event that occurred in Jewish history using the Hyssop was during the first Passover. The Jewish people were still in bondage in Egypt. God had sent nine plagues against Pharaoh and the tenth plague, the plague of death for all the firstborn, was about to begin. God told Moses to tell the people to take a branch of Hyssop, dip it into the blood of the sacrificed lamb, and smear the blood on the top and sides of their doorframe - so the angel of death would “pass over” the house and not bring death - hence the name Passover!

 What I believe hurt and affected Jesus the most was the same thing that had helped, healed, and saved the Jewish people for centuries - the Hyssop Branch! The Hyssop branch with the blood of the lamb smeared on the doorframe that saved the firstborn of the Jewish people! The Hyssop branch was used in religious services for healing and cleansing! The Hyssop branch that David sought after, cried for, and prayed for - that did take away his sins! It was that same Hyssop Branch that came to Jesus on the Cross in John 19:29-30. Instead of being saved, healed, or cleansed by the blood of the sacrificed lamb - this Hyssop Branch was filled with the sins of the whole world - and all the despair sin brings to the world. Jesus, The Lamb of God - took on all of our sins and nailed them to his Cross. Jesus, who knew no sin, became the greatest sinner of all time - by taking on the sins of the world, and all sins of all time - being separated from God as sin does and having to die! I believe that was the hardest thing Jesus would have to suffer.
APP – In the context of the whole story, David progresses from lowly Shepherd to Great King.  How did this happen? God knew his heart. He was a man who asked for wisdom, and yet he too needed cleansing! We see David, throughout the blend of Psalm 51 with our text from 2 Samuel, seeking, crying out, and praying for - God’s grace and mercy. He sought to hear joy and gladness again and not feel and have the despair of a broken and crushed spirit. David was seeking to feel and have the glory he once had - and the freshness and freedom of his salvation restored. And so can we!

Conclusion:  Learn to recognize the great work of the Holy Spirit. What a janitor he is! He cleans our hearts. Through the Gospel, he brings us the freshness of forgiveness, no matter how torn up, beleaguered, or messy is our sin. Through the Gospel, he sustains a willing spirit within you, so that in your behavior and life you can freely serve your Lord, whose blood has washed you clean.

Be Salt and Light

Matthew 5:13-16 13You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its flavor, how will it become salty again? Then it is no good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people. 14You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden. 15People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket. No, they put it on a stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16In the same way let your light shine in people’s presence, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

At one time you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. (1 Peter 2:10). Amen.

Hody Childress was a small-town farmer and Air Force veteran on a fixed income. Ten years ago, Childress walked into Geraldine Drugs in the small town of Geraldine, Alabama. He asked Brooke Walker, the owner, if anyone ever came into the drugstore who couldn’t pay for their prescriptions. Walker answered that, sadly, it happened very often.

Childress handed Walker a folded-up $100 bill. He said, “Don’t tell a soul where the money came from. If they ask, just tell them it’s a blessing from the Lord.” Childress also asked her not to tell him who the money went to help, just to use her judgment about who needed it.

He faithfully gave his anonymous donation every month until last year when he became too weak to make the trip personally. At that point, he finally confided in his daughter about his monthly donation and asked her to take it to the drugstore on his behalf.

Childress died on New Year’s Day at the age of 80. His daughter shared his anonymous good deeds at his funeral. Since then, several people have come forward telling the family how Childress’ donation had helped them over the years and inspired them to pay it forward.

As a Christian man, Hody Childress was salt and light to his community.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its flavor, how will it become salty again? Then it is no good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people. You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden. People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket. No, they put it on a stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. In the same way let your light shine in people’s presence, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Salt in Jesus’ time was precious. Salt was used to preserve food since there was no refrigeration. Salt was used to disinfect wounds and was rubbed on the skin of newborn babies to protect them from various diseases. Egyptians used salt for preserving the corpses of the dead for mummification. Sacrifices were sprinkled with salt to purify them before they were offered to the Lord. Salt was seen as killing the sinful rot and decay and preserving life. The salt showed the people that no matter how “good” they thought they and their sacrifices were, sin and death still clung to them.

Salt is useful stuff. A little salt can be sprinkled on a dish to tickle the tastebuds. Road salt is useful after the snow and ice of this last week.

Light shines and brightens dark places. It can be a small candle or a simple oil lamp bringing light to a dark room in Jesus’ day. It can be the sun shining and chasing away the darkness of the night every morning. It can be children walking through the house and turning on lights in every room. Then dad doing his fatherly duty of walking through the house and turning off all the lights.

Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “You need to work on your saltiness” or “You need to become light.” No, Jesus says that through your Baptism, through your conversion to Christianity, through your faith in him who is the true salt and bright light, now this is what you are. So be salt and light.

This world is rotten and corrupt and needs to be salted. The world is shrouded in the darkness of sin and death and needs to be lighted.

Where do you encounter this rot and feel this darkness in our culture? As salt and light Christians, we notice this rot and darkness as we are living and raising our children in an amoral culture. It used to be that we were living in a moral culture – one where people did wrong things, but they knew and believed in the difference between right and wrong. Today we are living in an amoral culture where people no longer believe in or care about right or wrong. They just do whatever comes naturally to them and feels good to them. And what is natural is evil and what feels good is sin.

We are living in a culture that relishes the rot and delights in the darkness. They don’t know any better. They’ve tasted this world’s tainted garbage so long that what is good, right, and healthy is a shock to their system. They’ve lived in the shadows so long the light hurts their eyes. Now they want us as Christians to not only tolerate their amoral behavior, we must accept it and promote it. They want to drag us into their decay and darkness.

We fall victim to these scare tactics by Satan and his devilish followers. We’re afraid of being called names, canceled, persecuted, prosecuted, classified as “unloving,” “bigoted,” or “hypocritical.” We are tempted to fill up our shakers with sugar. We are in danger of losing our saltiness. We are tempted to cover our light under a bowl. We are in danger of letting our light go out.

We don’t want to scare anyone off or offend anyone or cause any problems. It’s much easier to mind our own business, keep quiet, and keep to ourselves. It’s much more convenient to compromise God’s truth than to shake out Christ’s salty judgment upon a corrupt world. It’s more pleasant to hide in the shadows than to shine Christ’s light into the darkness. It’s a whole lot easier to go with the flow than to stand against the tide, standing on the solid rock of the cross of Christ.

When we do that, we are not being what Christ has made us to be – salt upon the earth and lights upon the world.

Jesus is the salt that preserves your soul by pointing out your sins against him. He is the salt that purifies you with his perfection. He is the salt that never loses its saltiness. He is the salt that heals your wounds, both physical and spiritual. He is the salt that prepares your body for death and life beyond death. He seasons your speech with salt (Colossians 4:6).

At creation, God did not leave the earth wrapped in darkness. He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light that pushed against the darkness (Genesis 1:3). Nor did God abandon his children to sin’s darkness, either. Since the darkness is not disappearing, our Savior Jesus stepped into the darkness. “[God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13,14). Now that we have been rescued from this darkness and brought into the Light of Christ, we need to keep following the Light. Jesus teaches, “I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Jesus calls you salt because you are precious. You serve a purpose. You are baptized to be the salt of the earth. You are baptized to be the light of the world. Jesus calls you salt not because of how much you can do, but because of how much he has done. He loves you. He declares you forgiven of your sin. He has spared you from hell. He chases the devil away from you. He has rescued you from death. He has made you his own. He sets you apart from the rest of the world for his purpose.

That purpose is to simply tell others what Jesus has done for you. Your privilege is to talk about all the wonderful things Jesus did out of love. This is your purpose as the salt of the earth. This is your purpose as his lights in the world. As Jesus has confronted your sins, now you are to confront the sins of those around you. As Jesus has shined the light of his grace upon your life, now you are to shine the light of Jesus’ grace upon others. As Jesus has forgiven your sins, now you are given the opportunity to forgive the sins of the repentant around you.

We take on the difficult task of being salt in an unsalty world. Even if people don’t listen, we have done our duty. Then we have honored what God has made us to be. However, if we do not do our duty, then we will stand before the Lord on Judgment Day and we will observe those on Jesus’ left pointing at us and accusing: “They never told me!” Then we will hear Jesus’ sentence of judgment: “It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

As Christian parents, Christian citizens, and members of the Christian Church, we are called to be a part of a counterculture which works hard to shine the light of Christ into the shadowy corners of the world and the dark recesses of people’s souls. You are light, shining the Light of Christ. You are the moon, reflecting the greater light of the Son.

The Bible says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the people who are God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). You have been called out, set apart, chosen for a purpose. Wherever God has shaken you out – in your home, your school, your work, your community – there you are salt, seasoning your little corner of the world. Wherever God places you in the shadows, there you are light, shining the light of Christ into the darkness that threatens to envelop those you love.

This is your identity. This is your calling. It is consistent with whom Christ made you to be. No one else has this calling – only children of God in Christ Jesus. Because the Holy Spirit has enlightened you in Christ, you are to be whom Christ has created you to be. Let your light shine and “Live an honorable life among the Gentiles so that even though they slander you as evildoers, when they observe your noble deeds, they may glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:12).

Brooke Walker, the owner of Geraldine Drugs said about Hody Childress, “His kindness motivated me to be more of a compassionate person. He was just a good old guy who wanted to bless his community, and he certainly did. He established a legacy of kindness.” The drugstore has now set up the Hody Childress Fund for others to donate to.

May we also be such salts and lights that when others experience our saltiness and witness our shining lights, that they may praise our Father in heaven. We pray that we are what Christ has made us to be – salts and lights. Amen.

At one time you were not shown mercy, but now you have been shown mercy. (1 Peter 2:10). Amen.

God included you in his building project.

Emotions run high around building projects. Zerubbabel discovered that. He wanted to rebuild the temple. The Babylonians had torn down Solomon’s temple. But now, under the Persian Empire, King Cyrus told the Jews they could go back and rebuild their homeland. Zerubbabel the governor made the temple a top priority.

But this stirred up powerful emotions for people. In Ezra 3, it said: “When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests, dressed in their robes, stood by with trumpets, and the Levites, the descendants of Asaph, stood by with cymbals to praise the LORD as prescribed by David king of Israel.” Then they let loose with music and singing. “All the people shouted loud praise to the LORD.” At the same time, the older priests and leaders started weeping loudly. They had seen the previous temple. Everyone had a hard time telling apart the sounds of weeping from the sounds of the praising.

Zerubbabel and his leaders had neighbors, who said: “We’ve sacrificed to your God even before you got here. Let us build with you.” But Zerubbabel and the others said: “No, you don’t really believe in our God. We’ll build this temple on our own.” So, those neighbors started undermining the project any way they could.

Within such a short time, a building project sent Zerubbabel and his team through an emotional rollercoaster of excitement, sadness, discouragement, and frustration. Zerubbabel must have thought more than once, “I’m exhausted. This project is a mess. It hardly seems worth it when we won’t come close to Solomon’s temple.”

This brings up another building project; a modern one, the project of building you up. That project is also exhausting. It also takes a toll.

When Paul wrote about building you up here, he did not mean “you” as a lone individual. Listen to all the plurals in this verse. “So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household.” For his project, God wants to use more than one building block. He calls us: “fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household.” If there’s one thing teenagers crave (or if there’s one thing any of us wants), it’s to be included. You don’t like missing out. You don’t like being unaware or on the outside when your peers make plans.

Quite often, people get excluded from a friend group because they excluded themselves. Have you ever seen a little child alone on a playground while the rest of his classmates cheerfully shoot hoops or kick a soccer ball? If you go up and ask that kid why he’s by himself, he might say: “The other kids won’t let me play with them.”

So, you investigate. Maybe you ask other kids or the victim himself and you find: he’s not such a victim. He calls it a foul when anyone so much as looks at him funny. Or he has controversial ideas for improving the game and now he wants to be in charge like a hotshot. You could tell his classmates to put up with and include him, but you can hardly fault them when you find out what a jerk he’s been.

It’s like that also with bigger kids and adults. Some of us like to do nothing except complain all the time about how rotten the world is and how sinful the people are in it. But like the kid who ruins the game by calling fouls all the time, the whistle-blowers basically get what’s coming to them when no one enjoys their company.

Or, like the kid who hogs the ball or makes new rules for the game, don’t let it surprise you if you get excluded for trying to be a trend-setter. Christ did not make it his Church’s job to be on the cutting edge of anything. If

you act like your life’s goal is being different from conventional wisdom, you’re not really listening to fellow believers and you’re asking them to treat you like someone foreign to them.

Even if you haven’t done anything to exclude yourself, getting excluded was your status with God. There have been girls who gave birth and put the infant in a dumpster. In ancient Greece, people put an unwanted child in the woods to die. In some countries, parents will let a child starve to death in a crib if they think they can’t afford it.

We know God’s mercy so well we might feel it makes sense that God took us in. That’s what we would do. But in the real world, it does not automatically make sense that a powerful person would take pity on some dying little wretch. God also had every reason to ignore us.

After we got engaged, my wife did student-teaching out of state. She made friends there with other teachers and their families. I visited her and one evening we went to a party at one of her new friends’ house. Imagine how I felt. I didn’t know them. They all got along without me. They had no reason to include me. My fiancée didn’t want to spend the whole night babysitting me. I felt doomed to spend the evening alone.

But some of the guys didn’t let that happen. They included me in a game. They didn’t have to. I didn’t have much in common with them. I struggled to make conversation. But they didn’t let that stop them. They taught me the rules and coached me how to play. By the end, I had new friends, but also a sense of family.

That’s what God described for you here. He made you a fellow citizen with the saints and a member of God’s household. Jesus didn’t just bring you into the party. He made the party enjoyable for you.

This is why we say the Church is not a building. It is people who trust Jesus saved them. Forgiveness does not depend on your good deeds. So too, building the Church does not depend on your good deeds.

At a recent conference, a pastor talked about a young woman he served in Canada. She was the least likely person to become Christian. She had hard questions about God. She had openly homosexual family members. She attended a college that spewed anti-Christian messages. When the pastor offered her classes to join his church, she had her schedule swamped. She needed to testify in a trial against one of her high school teachers. Also her former high school started defaming her on social media because they sided with the teacher.

There was no reason for her to keep taking Lutheran instruction. Yet, the pastor told us she did continue his classes and she remains a faithful member of that church to this day. Paul wrote in verse 21, “In him the whole building is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” We trick ourselves into thinking we are the builders. We convert unbelievers for Christ. Paul relieves that pressure when he says the whole building grows…in the Lord.

The Church is not a campus in Racine or Caledonia. Shoreland is not the Church. The Church is a gathering of believers in Jesus, which meets at Racine and Caledonia and Shoreland campuses.

Since the Church is not the buildings, but the people, let’s expect God to keep bringing in people. He promised that in verse 22. “In him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” He keeps adding building blocks to the structure, new friends.

We can expect more from God. The true Church is people. God knows people cannot gather in Wisconsin during January outside. They’d be too distracted to hear his Word. He knows projected enrollment at Shoreland next year is too big for us to attend chapel or religion classes without getting distracted by the tight space.

Let’s expect God to care about visible buildings. They are not the Church, but we can trust God to provide solutions when it comes to things like our parsonage or our early childhood center. We can rely on him to build the physical structures we need. He’s already done that by giving a generous purchase of land to Shoreland. He’s already done that by letting WLS buy a building for expanding our classroom space.

He’s already doing the most important building. He gave us Jesus the cornerstone along with apostles and prophets who wrote about Christ. He already built you into his Church by baptizing you and he keeps cementing your place with Holy Communion. He keeps stacking up new members that he joins to his Church. So, we can count on him to give us the visible buildings where the Church gathers too.