2 Thessalonians 1:4-5 “Among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. All this is evidence that God’s judgement is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.”

The Christians who lived in the city of Thessalonica were severely persecuted people. Paul spent only three weeks in this city before those who opposed his teaching started a riot. He was forced to escape the city in the middle of the night.

After he left, the attacks on this little group of new Christians did not stop. Their former friends at the synagogue and their Gentile neighbors spread bad reports about them. They were no longer an accepted part of the community. Someone even forged Paul’s name on letters that contradicted Christian teaching and sent them to the church to deceive them.

Paul wrote them now not just because he felt sorry for them, but because he recognized the temptation they must feel. The same kind of temptation faces us in a world that rejects much of what we believe. One way or another we are tempted to deny our faith so that others will accept us. We become guilty of this a number of different ways.

Sometimes we just keep quiet about what we believe. We bite our lip and hold our tongue when the truth is under attack. Then others may think we agree with them. Maybe we find acceptance, but we are denying others the chance to know God’s truth, whether they accept it or not. Sometimes peer pressure may even lead us to say we agree with things we do not.

Ultimately, Paul was concerned that some Thessalonian Christians might leave and go back to the synagogue. What does Jesus say about this? “Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”

There is a second temptation that confronts us when people persecute us. We know that God is in control of all things. He may not approve of the sinful things someone else does to us. But he didn’t stop them, either. Is God’s judgment right, his decision to let this happen? Somewhere in every complaint we make we are questioning his judgment. We are opposing his ideas with our own. Our faith is slipping toward doubt. Paul was concerned that the Thessalonians not let their present persecution lead them to conclude, “The Lord doesn’t know what he is doing.”

But so far these Christians were holding their own. Their faith was intact, even growing. Persecutions can drive us more and more to God’s grace. The trials themselves are not a means of grace, but God uses them to lead us back to the gospel. Enduring them shows us that the message of Christ crucified for our sins, the promise of life God holds out in the resurrection, the forgiveness and love we find in the gospel is no dead theological theory. These have the power to change us and sustain us even when our beliefs come under attack.

The Apostle Peter wrote another group about their trials, “These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7). That is what was happening to the Thessalonians. The testing of their faith made them cling to God’s promises that much more. As a result, their faith was stronger, their Christian witness brighter, and their eternal future more secure.

The testing of our faith is a kind of discipline. It makes us better, and stronger, but it is never something we enjoy. “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful” (Hebrews 12:11). But like God’s people of the past, we can be confident that it still produces “a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

I have been involved in dozens of weddings, including my own. I don’t know of any that didn’t cause a few cares and anxieties for those tying the knot. My wife has dubbed them “blue cake” stories. At our own wedding, we wound up with a blue cake instead of the white cake with blue trim we had ordered. Other “blue cake” stories I know involve people showing up late, tuxedos or dresses that didn’t fit, members of the bridal party fainting, tornados causing power outages at the reception, brides lighting themselves on fire with the unity candle, and so on.

You realize that Peter is talking about things a little weightier than our party plans when he tells us, “Cast all your anxieties on him.” The people to whom he was writing this letter were getting a lot of grief from their neighbors and former friends for becoming Christians. Sometimes the persecution even turned violent. Needless to say, this created care and anxiety in the hearts of the people who first received this letter.

Life still brings many cares along with it. Parents worry about their children’s health, safety, schooling, or how their behavior reflects upon their child-rearing skills. Husbands and wives experience anxieties about their relationship: “Can we keep the romance alive?” “Can we make it last a lifetime?” The direction of our careers, the cost of living, health and healthcare, and our physical appearance can all become cares that take away our peace, or at least interrupt it from time to time.

No greater care weighs upon our hearts than the anxiety we feel because of our guilt. Cares and worries themselves are sins which merit God’s punishment, because they reveal that we don’t really trust his promises to take care of us. These same worries eat away at our faith. They undercut our relationship with him.

There is only one thing to do. Throw them all away. That’s not merely to pretend they don’t exist. Peter doesn’t tell us to cast them blindly to the wind, as though they will just blow away. He says, “Cast all your cares on him,” on your God, on Jesus, “because he cares for you.”

He cares for you. Those simple words border on understatement. No one has ever cared for you more truly, or more deeply. Others may make great sacrifices for us through life, but no one will ever give what our Savior has given. Long before we were even born, he had each one of us in mind. He took our sins to the cross with him, took all their blame, and let them kill him so that he could spare us.  He cares. He cares like no one else ever will.

If this God could carry our sins and get rid of them, then there is no burden too heavy for him to bear. Has a relationship hit a bumpy spot in the road? Pile the problem on his shoulders. He can take it care of it. Are we having trouble making ends meet? Leave it to the Lord to lead us to an answer.

We can’t shovel a mountain of problems onto his back so high that he won’t still be inviting us to give him more. We can’t go to him for help so many times that he won’t be eager for us to come back again and again.

At no moment does he stop thinking about you or caring about your needs. Give it all to him: your sin, your worries, your life. He cares for you.

Luke 20:27-35 “Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?’ Jesus replied, ‘The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage.’”

 The Sadducees believed that they had come up with a scenario that made the idea of a resurrection and an afterlife nonsensical. Part of the welfare system in the Law of Moses required an unmarried brother to marry his brother’s widow if his brother died. This provided support for the widow, an heir for that branch of the family, and a way to keep the land in the family.

It also raised a problem in the afterlife in the minds of the Sadducees. Who would be married to whom? It wouldn’t be right for all these people to be married to each other. Marriage is between one man and one woman. It wouldn’t be right for the woman to be married to any one of these men in contrast to the others. None of them had a greater claim on the relationship. It seemed better to the Sadducees not to believe in life after death at all.

Jesus, however, affirms its reality. Marriage is a major part of how things work down here. But the Sadducees made a leap of logic by assuming that our marriages follow us into the life to come. It doesn’t, it turns out.

Jesus reaffirms the resurrection in another way. He highlights its desirability. The Sadducees did not desire it. They were the ruling class of their day. They were generally wealthy. They were on top now, and that was as close to heaven as they needed to get.

We may not be so satisfied with our present life as they were, but we are also tempted to settle for less than God offers. We become too obsessed with improving our current conditions. That may show itself as rank materialism. It may even become an obsession with improving our world’s morals. We try to find our heaven in better behavior rather than more things.

The resurrection, by contrast, is a gift of God’s grace. When Jesus says, “Those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age…” there is a special emphasis on the word “considered.” Our worthiness is not earned.

I once saw the side of a truck with an advertisement for the U.S. Marines. It had one of those swords the marines receive as a part of their dress uniforms. And the caption above the sword read, “Earned. Never given.” That’s the way our world usually thinks things should be.

But that’s not the way it is with the resurrection. Here the caption should read, “Given. Never earned,” at least, not earned by us. Eternal life is a gift that God freely gives. He gives it by giving his Son, who gives his life at the cross, so that he might give us forgiveness of all our sins. That is why we are considered worthy of taking part in the life to come.

Those Jesus raises to life with God, then, can no longer die. In place of death he promises, “They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” We are all children of God right now by faith. But do we always look like his children? I don’t always act like one. Sometimes my behavior makes me look more like I belong in that “other guy’s” family.

And life doesn’t always treat me like I am a member of God’s royal family. Sometimes my life is worse than ordinary. Problems can almost make it look like someone is out to get me. Is that what we expect for God’s children?

But in the resurrection, our new identity, the one we have now by faith, will be clear to see. Our status as God’s children will no longer be hidden behind sin and suffering. We will be glorious. We will be holy. We will be fantastic successes in all we do. Doesn’t that resurrection sound desirable to you?

Romans 3:21-24 “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Each year Chapman University publishes a survey of America’s greatest fears. Any idea what more Americans fear than anything else? Almost two out of three of us are afraid of corrupt government officials. Other fears in the top ten include running out of money, terrorism, identity theft, and healthcare. Most of the remaining 70 fears involve things like natural or manmade disasters, crimes, or personal phobias. You might be surprised to learn that one out of ten of your fellow citizens is afraid of zombies. (And yes, these are adults who take the poll).

When we celebrate the Reformation, it is worth mentioning one fear that is notable by its absence. No one seems to mention fear of God’s judgment. If people are afraid of what will happen when life is over and they face God, they aren’t saying so. This was the fear that haunted Martin Luther’s early life, that drove his search for peace, and eventually led to his discovery in the Bible that we can face God’s judgment with confidence.

Luther’s solution for the problem of God’s judgment still needs to be discovered today. It is not by keeping his laws. God gave us his law to be our accuser. He gave us his law to make us conscious of our sins. He gave us his law to tell us, “My friend, you are a damned sinner, and you are going to hell.” I’m sorry, but there is not a nicer way to put that. God’s law can only make us guilty. And I am just as guilty as you are.

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”

Righteousness is not something we do. It is something we receive through faith. In the Bible such a faith is not a strongly held opinion about whether or not something exists. There are those who claim there never was a Jesus of Nazareth. He was just a legend like King Arthur, or Robin Hood, or Paul Bunyan.

They say this in spite of the fact that First and Second Century rabbis didn’t deny his existence. They criticized his teachings and questioned heritage. Second Century Roman writers like Tacitus and Pliny don’t question his existence. They complain about the ideas he has inspired in his followers. If his strongest enemies didn’t question his existence, why should we?

We have every reason to believe there was a Jesus, then, but this is not the faith through which we receive the righteousness from God. Bible faith, saving faith, is essentially trust. If Jesus speaks, we know it must be so. His ideas, his words count for more than all our own opinions, even the things we have seen with our own eyes.

Such trust does not receive God’s righteousness because he is rewarding us for making the right choice. It is not some small, inner, moral act that makes him happy and leads him to respond by giving us something. “Good job, guys! You get Jesus right. Here, let me take away your sins and give you heaven for doing so.”

That would put righteousness back on us. Because righteousness comes from God, faith can only receive God’s gifts. How does God justify us? He does it “freely.” There is no charge to us at all. There is no “if” involved, “if you do this for me,” or “if you make this sacrifice.”  It’s not, “You can have this one free if you buy three more at regular price.” There is no, “This is free if you sign up for our premium plan.” Free means free.

How does God justify us? He does so “by his grace.” God gives us a righteous, sin-free status as the working out of his love for us, love that we have not earned or deserved. The Lord looked at sinful me and said, “You know, I have decided I like you. I am going to treasure you and treat you as though you have never committed any sins at all, just because that’s what I want to do.”

The one thing in the world that is truly, absolutely free, then, is the one thing that is more important than anything else there is: to be regarded as holy and sinless by God himself, loved by him as his very own, and promised a place with him in heaven forever and ever. We don’t have to fear God’s judgment, because righteousness is a gift he gives through faith.

Matthew 9:3-7 “At this some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, ‘This fellow is blaspheming!’ Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, ‘Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’… Then he said to the paralytic, ‘Get up, take your mat, and go home.’ And the man got up and went home.”

Jesus’ question is an interesting one, isn’t it. Which thing is easier to say? Forgiving sins may seem easier to say, but harder to do. Only God can forgive sins, and those he has chosen to speak for him. But can anyone challenge the statement? Sins don’t wash out like a visible stain. If I say, “Your sins are forgiven,” how is anyone going to prove it one way or another? You can’t see that they are gone.

On the other hand, it may seem harder to say, “You are healed. Get up and walk.” Healing or forgiving both take miraculous power. But the healing you can see. The person is either better or they are not. If you are going to say something like that, you better be sure you can do what you are saying, because everyone is going to know.

Jesus intended to use the second to prove the first. Have you ever wondered why Jesus did so many miracles during his ministry? Certainly, he did them because he loved people and he wanted to show them mercy.

But especially in John’s gospel, Jesus’ miracles are called “signs.” They weren’t just acts of power. They weren’t just acts of mercy. They were messages, indicators, communications from God about the real identity of the man who so easily bent and broke the laws of nature.

Miracles play a special role in our faith, then. Professor Peter Kreeft has made the observation that you can take the claims of miracles out of all the other world religions and you are left with essentially the same faith. But all the essential features of Christianity involve something miraculous: the virgin birth of Jesus, and God becoming a man; the atoning value of Jesus’ death on the cross; Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead; his ascension into heaven, to mention some of the highlights. All of these tell us that Jesus was more than a prophet, no ordinary man.

And in the healing of this paralyzed man, a miracle is more than just a fascinating act of power or demonstration of God’s love. It is a message proclaiming: “This is no ordinary man. This is your Savior. He has the power to forgive your sins and heal your soul.” The miracle was important, because it proved the power of Jesus’ words. But it still takes second place, because the needs of the body aren’t as urgent as the needs of the soul, the forgiveness of our sins.

This is still true. God may use his church to feed a hungry family or reconcile a hostile relationship or strengthen a struggling marriage. But we are still a collection of broken souls with one great need: the forgiveness of our sins.

Matthew 9:2 “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

What do you hope to find when you come to church on Sunday morning? Maybe some of you come hoping to pick up helpful tidbits on how to manage your out-of-control life. Maybe you come hoping to find a little inspiration, something to pick you up after a week of office politics, and whiney kids, and home repair projects gone sour.

Maybe you come for the people– your church has become your personal answer to the longing described in the theme song for the TV series Cheers: “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came, you want to be where you can see our troubles are all the same; You want to be where everybody knows your name.”

 And you can find some of all of that, I hope. But that is not where Sunday worship begins. Week after week, after singing an opening hymn, Lutherans start in the same place. We confess our sins, and the pastor, speaking for our Savior, forgives them. This is how it goes week after week, 52 Sundays per year. We start with forgiveness, and then we look to our Lord for the other things he has to offer.

Jesus did it the same way with the paralyzed man they brought to him. Before he did anything else, he forgave his sins. In doing so, he was teaching us something about our spiritual priorities, or rather, his spiritual priorities. By forgiving sins, he is seeing to our deepest personal needs.

Jesus calls this man “son,” literally “child” in the Greek. Maybe something inside of us rebels at being referred to that way. “Child” can make us feel incompetent, dependent, and needy. “Child” makes us feel like we can’t take care of ourselves.

But that is just how we need to feel. Spiritually, that is what we are like. Then we are ready to receive what God is giving. I have often thought that 4 years old is about the perfect age to be. So little is expected and so much is received. When I was 4 my parents took care of everything. They paid the bills, put the food on the table, put the Band-Aids on my owies, and tucked me into bed at night. They watched me to make sure that I was safe, carried me when I was tired, and held me when I was scared. I was the object of their affection, the center of their concern. Being 4 years old wasn’t too bad.

Children of God, you are the objects of his affection and the center of his concern. As children in his family, you can be sure that he is there to take care of everything. Do you know why you can be so sure? Because he forgives all your sins. This is where he starts with you. This same Jesus has taken every one of them with him to the cross. No sin stands between you anymore. You enjoy your Savior’s unchanging and unlimited love. No matter how many hurts and heartaches lay you flat on your back, you can be sure he loves you .

Matthew 22:39 “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

God’s commandments direct our love away from ourselves. With this commandment the Lord is establishing a priority of God first, others second, ourselves after that.

“But doesn’t this command say we are to love them as we love ourselves?” Some might object. “Doesn’t that put us on the same level as others?” Maybe Whitney Houston had something there when her hit song claimed, “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”

But no, Jesus is clear about the order: Love God first, love your neighbor second. He doesn’t say we are to hate or neglect ourselves. But “as you love yourself” is a description of how we love our neighbor. It’s shorthand for “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is not another way to think about the priorities God has established.

So Jesus is also showing us that the law of love is generally a call away from ourselves. He calls us to be less concerned with ourselves so that we can live a life of serving others. There is a subtle temptation to take interest in commandment keeping because we expect blessing for ourselves if we do so. Paul even points out that the fourth commandment, “Honor your father and mother,” has a promise attached to it: “That it may go well with you and that you may live long on the earth.” In other words, do what your parents say, and you will have a better life. You might even live longer.

We could create a list of blessings that line up with each of the commandments God has given. Live life God’s way, and there are specific problems you can avoid. Specific blessings wait for you. Even our government’s laws work that way. Perhaps you have seen this sign in construction zones: “Don’t hit our workers, avoid 10,000 dollar fine.”

Popular preaching often approaches God’s law like this. Do what God says, and your family will work better, you will get along better with your friends, your body will be healthier, your career will take off, and your life will be blessed.

It’s not that this is entirely false. God designed the world so that when we do what he says good things happen. But if that is our main reason for doing what he says, doesn’t that reinforce our selfishness in a subtle way? If all we care about is finding blessing for ourselves, we aren’t really loving God or our neighbor. We are only loving ourselves. That is nothing like the love that passes the test.

Because we struggle to love our neighbor so, we need the one who loved his neighbor more than he loved himself, who sacrificed his life to spare ours. We need Jesus to pay for our sins and set us free from them. If these commandments help us see our need for a Savior, they have done us a far greater service than distinguishing right from wrong. They have made us ready to meet Love himself. They have made it possible to see how great God’s love for us must be.

Matthew 22:35-38 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.’”

Popular atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris insist that people can be good without God. You don’t have to believe in God to be moral. If by “good” and “moral” they mean “live as decent citizens and good neighbors,” we don’t have to argue with them. Not every atheist is a criminal, not even most of them.

But if God exists (and we know he does), you aren’t being good by denying the existence of the One who gave you your life and everything else. Would I be a good child if I denied the existence of the mother who gave me birth, or the father who provided for me all the years I was growing up? Everything we are and have starts with God. Everything good and right starts with him as well.

That doesn’t mean it is enough to acknowledge he exists, or to give him a few moments of our time now and then. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” Jesus says. He underscores the idea that God is our first and ultimate concern. Beginning with our heart, the center of all our desires and affections; spreading to the soul, the source of our life and self-consciousness; and including the mind, our entire thinking and reasoning, God wants our love for him to permeate our entire selves. There is no part we get to hold back for ourselves or someone else.

Jesus is actually quoting Moses’ farewell speech in Deuteronomy. In it Moses gives a few practical examples of how this works. Such love for God is the first thing we want to impress upon our children. It is infinitely more important than getting them into a good school, taking them to music lessons, or involving them in sports.

When we get up in the morning, or when we go to bed at night, this is what we should be thinking about, so this is what we should be talking about. The same goes for when we are hanging out at home, or when we are traveling someplace else.

Because we love God so much we wouldn’t think of holding a private opinion that contradicts his. Instead, we might paste his words in front of our eyes to keep our thoughts in line. We might tie them on our hands so that we can’t use them without thinking of him. We might even decorate our homes with reminders of what he says.

How are we doing, by Jesus’ standards? Do we love him above all? Be honest. We can go hours, even days, hardly conscious he exists.

Whose “word” means the most to us–some politician, a friend, a so-called “expert in the field,” our own? Be honest. Do we want what he wants, no matter what we have to sacrifice, no matter what the cost? Or do we keep a reserve cellar in our heart’s basement filled with vintage vices? We may not be enjoying them at the moment, but we have no intention of dumping them out, either. Be honest.

This may be the greatest commandment in the law, but that doesn’t mean we come anywhere near keeping it. Failure to admit we fall short only compounds our failure. We are like sin addicts living in denial. We resist treatment. We fear the demands of recovery.

That is why Jesus was sitting there on that day. His love, and his love alone, passes the test. He was just three days away from the cross when he answered this question. He was in Jerusalem not so much to show us how to distinguish right from wrong, as he was to rescue us from the wrongs we have committed. He came to make us right with God.

Jesus’ dying love forgives our sins and removes our guilt. We may not love God above all, but he has loved us as though we were first and dearest to him. We have no greater reason to love him.

1 Peter 5:8 “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.”

Do you see the strength of the promise God gives? There are no conditions attached. There are no words that allow him to wiggle out of this. He doesn’t say he might do this, or he could do this. He says he will.

The Christians to whom Peter wrote lived under persecution. They were slandered by their neighbors. They were considered unpatriotic, un-Roman, because they didn’t offer sacrifices to the emperor or the traditional gods. Their leaders were imprisoned, beaten, and sometimes even killed. We face one set of worries when living in a society in which it seems the criminals are out to get you. It is more discomforting when the government is worse. These people suffered.

We don’t face persecution on the same level as those early Christians. Perhaps some of us look at our lives and don’t see much trouble. We are comfortable, healthy, and optimistic.

But many have the feeling we are living in the worst times ever. We see America’s moral fabric unraveling. We see our country polarized, our economy teetering, wars around the world that threaten to pull us into the conflict.

At some time or other, we all suffer through a personal crisis. Health or money or family problems make us lose sleep at night. They haunt our thoughts during the day. We find it hard to imagine anyone has suffered more trouble than we have.

Jesus warned that only through much trouble would we enter the Kingdom of God. Peter reminds us a few verses later that “brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”

But the Lord never asks us to deal with this all by ourselves. He promises a future in which he has restored us. He will take care of the work of putting things in their proper place in our lives. Through it all, he will support us so that our faith remains strong, firm, and steadfast. It’s a future he promises.

Is there a clue about how he intends to do this when Peter tells us he has “called you to his eternal glory in Christ”? That eternal glory already belongs to each one of us by faith, though we don’t full enjoy it in this life.

Death, on the other hand, may seem like one more of life’s troubles to suffer. Perhaps someone suffering chronic pain or terminally ill can see it as a deliverance from trouble. We may struggle see it that way when we are still strong and healthy.

But we who know how Jesus rose and promised return remember that death is God’s final deliverance. It is the only way to the eternal glory to which we have been called in Christ. There is no fuller restoration than the one we will find on the other side of the grave. There is nowhere we can be stronger, firmer, or more steadfast than our home with him in heaven.

So we take our suffering in stride, and we trust God’s grace to make his promise sure, and our future glorious.