Isaiah 56: 6-7a “And to foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant–these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.”

Serving the Lord of heaven and earth isn’t dull, boring drudgery.  It isn’t the everyday, go-through-the-motions work of someone who simply wants to make a living or get the job done.  Isaiah’s words suggest several reasons why this is true.

First, the word translated “serve” doesn’t speak of any ordinary kind of service.  The task itself might not look different than work other people are doing, but this service takes on honor and privilege because of whom you are serving. I know many people who worked as cooks in a restaurant.  Many young people get their start at earning a paycheck by flipping hamburgers a few hours a week.  It’s usually not considered a glamorous job. I also have a relative who cooked meals for a living, but he did his cooking at the White House in Washington D.C. That job is considered very prestigious, all because of the people he served.

Janitors clean buildings all over the world. But Christians who clean their churches, clean their homes, or clean to make a living serve their Lord with this humble task. Teachers teach the “three Rs” to their students in thousands of languages in schools around the globe. But whether God’s faithful people are teaching Bible stories to their Sunday school classes, or algebra to a room full of bored teenagers, their efforts serve the One whose saving work is recorded on the sacred pages, and whose genius invented the math that orders our world. It is an honor to serve the one and only God, the Maker of all things, and the Savior of all the world, no matter the kind of activity that is involved.

A second special feature of this service is the force behind it.  Isaiah speaks of “foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him.” For believers, service to God is a labor of love.  What else could it be when we know how he first served and loved us?  Professor Siegbert Becker once wrote, “It is impossible to see ourselves as sinners deserving eternal damnation in hell and then to come to the conviction that the suffering and dying Christ has procured full and free forgiveness for us by taking our guilt upon himself and by giving his own righteousness to us as a free gift of his love, it is impossible to come to that conviction without coming to love him who gave himself into death that we might have everlasting life….To know him is to love him is more applicable to our Savior than to anyone else.” Love for the Lord who loves us sets a believer’s work and service apart.

To the prophet Isaiah’s original audience, perhaps the most shocking thing about the service mentioned was the people performing it. They were “foreigners,” Gentiles, non-Jews. These were not members of God’s chosen nation.

But they were people the Lord had chosen nonetheless. It turns out that good news about a God who dies to rescue lost souls, forgives sins, and gives his gifts for free works on human hearts regardless of race, culture, or nationality. It worked on our hearts, too. We have been given a place in God’s “house of prayer.”

May we find joy in serving him there.

Mark 4:26 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷ Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. ²⁸ All by itself the soil produces grain– first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. ²⁹ As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” ³⁰ Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. ³² Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.”

Sometimes growth is hard to see. When the grandparents haven’t seen your children for almost a year, they so often comment, “My, how your children have grown!” When you have been looking at them every day, you hardly notice the difference… until you have them stand against that closet door where you mark their height each year. Then you see that, indeed, each one is one or two inches taller than last time you measured.

The growth of God’s Kingdom is also hard to see. Our churches grow slowly. Visitors don’t come forward the first Sunday they attend and join. It’s a long process through classes. Even when they do join, faith is a matter of the heart, and we can’t actually see what’s going on inside. The same is true of our longtime members. Faith produces its fruits, but it is hard to gauge how much growth in faith has taken place in any individual at any given point in time.

Still, Jesus promises that his Kingdom grows. Faith still comes from hearing the message. His word does not return to him empty, but accomplishes what he desires and achieves the purpose for which he sent it. Even when the Church is experiencing its darkest days, and it seems as though the Kingdom may be on the brink of extinction, God’s Kingdom is growing. It always gets bigger. It never gets smaller, ever.

To understand the real size of God’s Kingdom, we must remember that every child of God who has received the big promotion, and has been transferred from earth to heaven, hasn’t been taken from the Kingdom. They have been made permanent members. The ranks of heaven keep swelling. That is all that they do. No child of God who ever makes it to heaven ever finds his way back out again. God’s Kingdom grows.

To understand the real size of God’s Kingdom, we must remember that the Kingdom isn’t limited to our little local congregation, or our little denomination, our little nation. We don’t see the explosive growth of God’s Kingdom taking place in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, or Latin America. It is estimated that by 2050 only one Christian in five will be a non-Latino white. God’s Kingdom grows.

We are not alone. Nor are our numbers dwindling, though they may be moving. We may not be able to see it, but we believe in the incessant growth of God’s kingdom until Jesus comes.

Deuteronomy 5:12-14 “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work…”

We don’t hear as much about this commandment as some of the others. With so much attention given to what God says about sex or what God says about the taking of life, the third commandment doesn’t get much press. It is worth noting, however, that before the Lord gave us those commandments that govern our relationship with each other, he gave us three commandments that deal with our relationship with him. “Remember the Sabbath Day” is one of them. If more attention were given to keeping this one, then breaking those others wouldn’t be so much of a problem. Let’s take a closer look at just what he is prescribing for us.

Understanding what God was asking of his Old Testament people here is easy. Six days of the week could be spent climbing the corporate ladder, or ploughing the back forty, or doing whatever else it took to pay the bills and put food on the table. But one day a week the work had to stop, and that was Saturday, the seventh day, the Sabbath day. The word Sabbath itself means rest or stopping, and that is exactly what happened on that day. The people rested, just as God prescribed.

That rest wasn’t relief for spinning heads and aching backs alone. This was a day of rest for the soul. The Lord wanted the day to be kept holy. This was a day to be a Sabbath to the Lord. On Saturday ancient Israelites were to direct their attention to God and his gracious gifts for them.

It’s no secret that New Testament Christians don’t use Saturdays the same way today. When Jesus came he fulfilled the Sabbath law for us. The Saturday part of the Sabbath law, the seventh day command, was part of God’s ceremonial law. It was in the same class with commands God gave forbidding people to eat pork or shellfish, or requiring people to offer doves and lambs as sacrifices. The Apostle Paul makes that clear when he says in Colossians 2, “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” All these things guided the lives of God’s people for a while. They helped prepare them for the coming Savior. They helped them look forward to Jesus’ day. But once Jesus arrived, they had served their purpose. People were not to be judged by whether they observed these laws, these shadows. The important thing is believing in the One to whom they were all pointing: Jesus Christ. God no longer requires that we make the seventh day our day of rest.

But that does not mean that the Lord threw out the whole concept behind the Sabbath Day. Jesus once reminded his disciples and the Pharisees, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath served people. It made sure they paid attention to their Lord, and that was something they needed.

Your God still prescribes plenty of rest for you today, plenty of time spent with him. It just isn’t limited to a single day. Jesus invites us, “Come unto ME all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” He says in another place, in John 6, “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” We still find relief from the sickness of sin, from consciences aching with guilt, in the spiritual rest only the Lord can provide.

Jesus gives you the freedom, and the opportunity, to find that rest in his word any time you open your Bible and begin to read. But there remains no better place to find this rest than gathered with God’s people to hear God’s grace preached, and to taste and touch it in Jesus’ Supper. Find your holy day, your “holiday,” of rest at church this week.

1 Corinthians 1:10 “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.”

To the best of my knowledge, the Lord God Almighty does not favor a particular decorating style. He doesn’t have a favorite color. He doesn’t care what kind of food we serve at church dinners. It doesn’t make any difference to him if people start worshiping him at 8 or 8:30 in the morning on Sunday, or if it is 10:30 or 11. He is equally pleased with a hymn written 5 years ago or a hymn written 500 years ago (as long as neither one says anything false or misleading about him).

But I know of churches that have blown themselves up about just these kinds of issues. This is not the place to pick up your marbles and go home. Here is where we can all “agree to disagree,” and then let it go. If we hold out for our own way too long, and whine and complain and keep people stirred up about the issue after the decision is made, we will only get in the way of the gospel work the Lord wants his church to do.

But how about the church’s response to incest? What about the idea that Jesus didn’t really leave his grave on the Sunday after he was crucified, and none of us are ever going to leave our graves, either? Those were a couple of the issues in Corinth. Can we really leave people with the idea that one person’s idea is just as good as another’s on these issues? Disagreements on the kind of behavior God has clearly commanded in his word, or the things God has done to save us from our sins, truly divide heart from heart and soul from soul. When God’s word has spoken on an issue, there is only one way to preserve the unity, only one path to true unity: agreement based on God’s word.

That’s not hard to understand, is it? Paul isn’t suggesting something that seems weird, is he? If we agree, then we get rid of divisions, and “you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” Isn’t that where we expect unity to happen? Real unity takes place when you share the same way of thinking. If you are looking for a mate, you don’t look for someone who thinks the opposite as you do on all the things you consider important, all the goals and purposes you have for the future. Opposites may attract in some ways, but not opposites on what’s important in life or what you expect out of the relationship. That’s a recipe for disaster. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Better have the important things in common if you want to stay united.

A united church that speaks Christ’s message with one heart and one voice, not all sorts of little competing messages and ideas, gives a powerful testimony to a world that desperately needs the gospel. For hundreds of years so-called “scholars” in Christian universities and seminaries have been picking away at the biblical account of Jesus’ life. “Virgins don’t give birth,” they say. “Water doesn’t change into wine,” at least not without a lot of grape juice added and a few months to ferment. “Dead bodies don’t come back to life and leave their graves,” except in zombie movies. “Modern, scientific people understand that miracles aren’t real,” they say. They think their words of human wisdom give Christianity a boost. In reality they are only emptying the cross of Christ of its power.

Do you know the most powerful story I ever heard? It’s the one about the father whose son rejected him and ran away from home with half of the inheritance. Or maybe it’s the one about the Shepherd who was willing to fight to save his sheep from the wolves. Or maybe it’s the one about the King who prepared a wedding feast for his son, but none of the people he invited were willing to come.

And the father didn’t just write his son off and turn his back on him. He waited for him to come home with open arms. And the Shepherd didn’t turn and run when the fight became dangerous for him. He laid down his own life to save his sheep. And the King didn’t come in wrath and fury to destroy the people on his guest list. He didn’t cancel the feast. He found others and invited anyone who would come. You know that these aren’t just stories. They are retellings of the true story, the history, of the God who so loved a lost and rebellious world that he didn’t destroy it. He sent his one and only Son to die on a cross to save it. He died on a cross to save me. Let’s all agree with what God has revealed, starting with his saving love. Then we will agree with each other, and the cross of Christ will show its power.

2 Corinthians 5:1 “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by hands.”

Tents are temporary shelters. Our family used its last tent for less than 50 evenings over a 10-year span. It’s not much use now. Along the way we had to replace polls, and zippers stopped working, and one seam looked like it could give way at any time.

Is the comparison with our earthly home hard to see? I don’t mean to complain about the generous accommodations God has given us. We are far better fed and sheltered than we deserve. But our lives in this world rarely feel deeply secure. We are no strangers to pain and discomfort. The world can be a cold place. It turns its back on us and leaves us helpless and alone. Relationships go bad. People just don’t care. It can also be a hot place. Problems and pressures press in around us. The “heat” we feel may be meeting the bills, the demands of our employers and deadlines at our work, people who persecute us, or fighting off temptation. Our earthly accommodations can become mighty uncomfortable.

Like a tent, our home in this world is temporary. It is constantly falling apart all around us all the time. My house needs maintenance. My car needs maintenance. Even my lawn is hard to keep alive. And to Paul’s point, my body needs more and more maintenance as it putters and sputters towards total collapse.

As a result, Paul said, “…while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened.” It’s hard. But why should our lives here be this way? We made our world this way with our sin. Every little body ache, family frustration, or office emergency is a reminder that we ourselves are sinners living in a world cursed by sin.

That is why we are longing to take the last step to a better home. “… we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by hands.” Paul describes our heavenly home as a house, a real building. It has all the climate-controlled comforts we desire. When we get there, we will at last know the feeling of safety and security we have always longed to have.

Because it is a solid structure, it isn’t falling apart all around us. It is eternal. Then Paul reveals something that may seem strange to us. The home we are longing for is better because it is “not built by hands.” It is not hand-made. All my life I have been accustomed to thinking that “hand-made” is the best. Hand-made automobiles, hand-made furniture, or hand-made clothing is the highest quality and far better than that stuff made by machine.

Handmade salvation, and handmade heaven, would be an unqualified disaster. Human hands make a mess of these things. But salvation comes with the hands of our Lord Jesus pinned to a cross. When those hands go limp and the life drains from his body, our sin drains away with his life. All is settled between us and heaven there.

Our house in heaven is better than hand-made. It is crafted by the power and perfect precision of God. It is untouched by sin, and untouched by sinners. It is an eternal home, the last one we will ever need.

1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

What kinds of things make you afraid? Maybe it’s a medical condition. My son’s cancer created a number of different fears for our family many years ago. Since I hit 50 my body doesn’t work like it used to. That suggest some fears for what the future holds. Maybe it has to do with finances. Few things create fear and anxiety like not being able to pay all the bills. Crime, the weather, relationships, various kinds of critters–all of these have produced fears in us at one time or another.

Why? Doesn’t God love us? John points out, “…fear has to do with punishment.” So much of our fear stems from the idea that God is paying us back for something. Maybe we have something specific in mind. Maybe we can’t think of what we could possibly have done to deserve this kind of treatment. Either way, the idea of punishment is in the background. Maybe we feel that he is actively working against us. Scarier still, maybe we fear that he has simply forsaken us and left us all alone.

Is that true? Would God really treat his children that way? Remember, God is love. There is no fear in love. God’s perfect love for us drives out fear. The reason we struggle with fear is that we have not been made perfect in this love God has for us. We struggle to believe and grasp who he is and what he has promised. This is why we can’t hear about the forgiveness of sins too often. This why we need to spend time in his gospel every day. This is why we need to receive his Supper when we can. When our minds and hearts are constantly barraged with messages of love from God, that builds faith. That drives our fears away. That allows us to look at life from an entirely different point of view, because we are convinced that God loves us.

Consider this, just by way of illustration. If your doctor prescribed some wretched-tasting medicine; if he scheduled an appointment to cut you open in surgery; would you perceive that as a sign that he was mad at you? Of course not! You know that he is in a helping profession. He is trying to make you better, not hurt you. “Love” might seem a little strong to apply to your doctor’s concern for you, but at least you believe he cares.

Isn’t God’s love sometimes like that? He is not punishing us with the things we fear. They may taste bitter, but even when they cut and burn, his love is still active. Better yet, then his love is especially active, helping us and caring for us. Surround yourself with God’s words of love–listen to them, study them, and take them to heart– and you will find that it frees us from fear.

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

We use the word fellowship in many different ways–everything from the informal fun and friendship we enjoy with our friends to the formal ties of cooperation between church bodies. The Greek word Paul uses refers to something shared.  We possess certain gifts and blessings together, and we use and enjoy them in common. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit speaks of  sharing in God himself, his family, and his gifts.

Sharing does not come naturally. Think of how often our parents had to reinforce the idea with us when we were children. We saw siblings or playmates as rivals for the things we wanted for ourselves. That self-interest hasn’t disappeared in adulthood, has it. We don’t like to be lonely, but there are times we would choose isolation over sharing life and gifts with others. Alone with our stuff we might be miserable, but at least no one else is using up or wearing out the little treasures we are guarding so carefully. Never mind the greater treasure we are missing in the love and joy of life spent together.

The “stuff” God wants to share, and the time he wants to spend with us don’t even look attractive at first. Grace, forgiveness, holiness, even heaven–these features of life with him are “acquired tastes.” His word must worm its way into our hearts so that we acquire the taste and desire the gifts he wants to share.

But the Lord is intent on living in fellowship with us. By his grace Jesus has taken away all our sins. By his love the Father has claimed us as his own children. By calling us to faith, the Holy Spirit has made each one of us sharers in these holy gifts and more. God himself now shares us and all our life. He is ever with us. At no time is he absent from our lives. We share in him and all he is and has. We even share in the family business, and he has given us a part in spreading this grace, love, and fellowship to others.

I know a place where we will always be able to find this fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Each time we share in God’s word at church, or at home, the Spirit is there with his fellowship. Each time we share in the Lord’s Supper, Jesus is with us personally, bodily. At the communion table, God is with us, with his fellowship. As we gather with those who share our faith, God’s Spirit continues to share his gifts and strengthen the ties that bind us to himself and to the whole church on earth and in heaven.

This holy gift, this blessed promise, is often the last thing we hear when our worship ends. Take it with you. It is yours to enjoy.

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

Paul is not merely repeating himself when he adds, “and the love of God” to “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” While this love is just as unearned, just as unconditional as his grace, the emphasis here is upon the deep and infinite concern and affection God has for you.

Maybe that is not difficult for you to believe right now. But times are certainly coming that will challenge that faith. A number of years ago I received a phone call from a man who was part of a Bible study group in another church. He was desperate for some assurance that God loved him. It seems that whenever this Bible study group got together, the other members were always celebrating the latest successes with which God had blessed their lives: promotions, raises, engagements, new children, new homes, etc. It seemed that they were marching triumphantly from one victory to another. This gentleman, on the other hand, had a life that seemed to be falling apart. He lost his job and couldn’t find another. His wife left him. He was behind on his bills. “Why doesn’t God love me?” he wanted to know. Or at least, how could he find some assurance that God did love him?

Did God ever say he didn’t love this man? Did he say he loved him less than anyone else? Where is that written? No, God never said that he loved this man any less. But sometimes we get the idea in our heads that God must love us less when it looks like he blesses the lives of other people more. If you haven’t experienced this already, there will be plenty of times when you will be tempted to think that God has turned his back on you because you aren’t as popular, or healthy, or rich, or talented, or happy as someone else.

Do you know that there is nowhere in the Bible where it says we should judge how much God loves us by how happy we feel? The only thing you need to know to know that God loves you is his promise. And we have that promise right here! “…the love of God… be with you all.”

God goes with you with his love. This is the love of the God who reveals himself to us as our true Father in heaven. As a human Father I know love sometimes required me to make my children unhappy. It would have been easier, but I would have loved my children less, if I let them get away with their naughtiness. I needed to make them unhappy when they sinned. It would be easier, but I would love my children less, if I solved all their problems for them immediately. They learned and they grew when they had to live with some things for a while. They also came to appreciate my help more. The very things that make us unhappy are often our heavenly Father’s tools to correct us and draw us closer to himself in a relationship of love.

Of course, that doesn’t mean his love is all hard-nosed and practical. He loves you passionately as well. Do you suppose that he isn’t moved when you are suffering in some way? Remember his words to Moses at the burning bush, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them…” Do you suppose that God is anything less than genuinely joyful to have you belong to him? Then remember the forgiving Father in Jesus’ parable of the lost son: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

Whether or not you think you can see it in your lives, God loves you all the time. Whether or not you can feel it inside, the love of God is with you, because that is what he promises.

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

What God has done for us, he does not because we’ve got it coming. He owes us nothing. Everything he does for us is a gift. That is “grace.” Even the concept of “gift” we hold in our heads may not fully do justice to the word “grace.” At Christmas, on our birthdays, at celebrations of milestones such as weddings or graduations, we expect to receive a gift. Maybe we don’t think of these as a direct payment for something we have done. And yet, isn’t there sometimes a sense that we are owed a gift because of the occasion?  They may not be a direct payment, but they feel like an entitlement. After all, haven’t we been good this year? Didn’t we achieve something by getting to this special day?

God’s grace is not that sort of a gift. It’s not for special occasions. It isn’t based on long standing customs or traditions. He in no way connects it to our good behavior, like the parent threatening to take away the birthday presents when Junior is being naughty. I would compare it to a random act of kindness, but there isn’t anything random about it. He knows exactly whom he is loving and forgiving. He knows how little we deserve it. Still he loves us, still he is gracious to us, anyway. Our Lord wants you to be sure he is with you with his grace.

Why should you need such a reminder? The fact that we can remember how the word is defined doesn’t mean that we will live with a day to day awareness of the good things it brings us. Even we can be tempted to try to have God on our own terms. We would like to stand before God on our own record. I must admit that I can hardly keep from wincing when I hear otherwise Lutheran Christians protest, “But I am a good person!” They may be decent citizens from the world’s point of view, but do any of us really think that the all-seeing, all-knowing God is going to buy such a claim from any one of us?

Over 900 years ago St. Anselm warned people who took pride in their own shallow morality, “You have not yet considered how great your sin is.” We do well to take that warning to heart. We face constant propaganda for a more positive view of ourselves. The advertising industry keeps pumping us full of messages that say, “You deserve more!” “You deserve better!” Dozens of talk show hosts reaffirm the myth of basic human goodness. If it were true, you wouldn’t need the Lord Jesus to promise you his grace.

Many would say that I am terrible for denying you such a sense of personal pride. But that approach to God and to life is a terrible merry-go-round to get on, and hard to get off. There is no peace there, only a life that is relentlessly driven by the quest to be good enough. There is no freedom there, only slavery to a set of expectations that is always beyond our reach, if we are honest. There is no confidence that God loves you there, only a nagging fear that you are falling further behind on his demands.

I want to spare you of this. I want you to know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at how Jesus gave! Was there ever a person, whether heartless Pharisee or public sinner, for whom Jesus ever wanted anything but the best and the kindest? Was there ever anyone he didn’t love with his whole heart? “While we were still sinners,” Paul assures us, “Christ died for us!” He fully intends to show that kind of favor to you for the rest of your life— no matter what you do! You cannot commit a sin so serious that he would no longer be willing to forgive it, or even wanting to forgive it. God has set his heart on you. In the life and death of Jesus that heart showed that no cost was too great to make you his own. Today he wants you to know that that same grace, that same gift, that same favor belongs to you without end.