Colossians 1:3-5 “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints–the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven…”

One great obstacle stands between me and a more thankful heart: Discontent, dissatisfaction with what I have, who I am, and what I can do.

No matter where we are in life, we don’t have, we can’t do, everything we would like. Our discontent makes it hard to be filled with a sense of thankfulness.

The solution is to look for our contentment someplace else, like Paul does here: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints.” There is one great place to find the contentment that makes us thankful people. That is in the faith and love that come from God.

The faith and love that make us thankful people have a source: “…the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel…” Oh. I guess hope stored up in heaven sounds like good news…someday. Maybe we feel a little like the boy who was hoping for some great new toy or gadget from his favorite uncle on his birthday. Instead he gets a savings bond that doesn’t mature for five years. Whoopee.

But wait. God’s good news is far superior to the good news people think they want. It is something to be excited about right now. What if Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and forgave all our sins so that we could win the lottery? What if God’s Son left heaven, became a man, and surrendered himself to be executed by his enemies so that we could have fun, fun, fun? Now do we have a reason to be thankful? Now do we have good news we can be happy to believe?

What is going to happen to all those things? When I was a little boy, I had a large collection of Tonka Toys. Do you remember Tonka Toys– steel trucks, bulldozers, and cranes that were almost indestructible? I had my own miniature construction company in the sandbox. Then a neighbor friend discovered that if the rocks you drop on them are big enough, they really will bend and break. My collection ended up a pile of twisted metal. It was a sad loss, but a good lesson for life: Even the strongest and most certain things don’t last forever.

Except God’s gifts in the gospel. Because heaven is a gift of God’s love, the result of Jesus’ work not our own, it is stored up for us. It is being kept and prepared for us where no one can destroy it or take it away. It is certain.

When you have a good day now, when you have a string of successes, you sometimes wonder how long it’s going to last.Today I feel good, but the migraines will return. Today sales are up, but another slow period is inevitable. Today my manager is in a good mood, but tomorrow, or next week, he will be back to his cranky self.

But in heaven, our very last bad day will be behind us. Every tomorrow will only be better and brighter. Faith feeds on a promise like that. It grows from such a gospel. And where there is faith, love can’t be far away. Now there is something to thank God for.

(Picture By Roberto Ferrari from Campogalliano (Modena), Italy – Raggio di luce, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26291424)

1 Samuel 17:42-51 “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.”

Is it a sin to be afraid? Sometimes fear can be a healthy thing. About 15 years ago a man was fooling around with his children at the edge of the Grand Canyon. He saw a ledge just below the part of the rim where he was walking, pretended like he was losing his balance, and then intended to jump down and land on that ledge. Instead he missed the ledge and fell to his death. A healthy fear of the danger would have served him.

The difference between courage and cowardice is not the presence or absence of fear. Fear is appropriate where there is danger. The difference between courage and cowardice is the will or resolve to do the right thing in the face of fear and danger. And Christian courage is always the product of faith in the God who saves his people. That is what distinguished the future king David from so many of his countrymen when threatened by the giant Goliath.

David wasn’t throwing trash talk at Goliath. He knew the truth. He was absolutely convinced of the reality and power of our God. The God of the armies of Israel was the one who destroyed the chariots of Egypt and brought down the walls of Jericho without Israel having to fire a single shot or swing a single sword. This God could flick Goliath away like a fly with his fingers. He was as real and as present for David as any person sitting in the same room with you at this moment.

The God of the armies of Israel is the same God whose love and power have delivered us in way that makes all of this look tiny. Today we know him by the name Jesus. He has defeated giants such as the devil and all his demons. He canceled every one of our sins and destroyed death itself. In those battles we didn’t have to lift even a finger, for Jesus did it all for us by giving up his life for at the cross and taking his life back again in his resurrection.

This same Jesus is still present when we take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, out of its sheath and put it to use. Confronting sin and overcoming unbelief is not about our power. It’s not about our cleverness, our powers of persuasion, our skills in debate. It is about the power of Jesus Christ working in his word.

There is a time for the child of God to retreat when under attack. When the temptations that appeal to the lusts of our own sinful natures lure us, God’s word to us is “Flee!” That’s not the time to engage the temptation to see how long we can hang in there before we finally give in. That would be foolish, not faithful.

But David was facing an entirely different kind of situation here. The Giant Goliath had insulted God. He had called into question God’s power and grace. God’s reputation as the Deliverer of his people was at stake. And when God’s reputation suffers, so does the faith of his people. The real issue here was not the physical battle between an impetuous teenager and a godless giant. It was the spiritual attack on the hearts of God’s people. An entire army stood behind David. But their faith had been compromised by Goliath’s size and threats. That’s why they were behind David, not out meeting the challenge themselves. That meant that more than lives were at stake this day. Their very souls were in danger.

For that kind of battle you can’t get started fast enough. David ran to meet the giant. There is an appropriate sense of urgency for us to get going, to engage our spiritual battle with the world for the hearts of neighbors who don’t know Jesus or church members who are losing their grip on him. For this the signal is never “Flee!” but “Charge!” when we are acting on faith, not fear.

1 John 5:1 “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his children as well.”

Christians are people of faith. By ‘faith’ we don’t mean ‘optimistic wishfulness,’ or ‘the anticipation of possible success,’ or even ‘educated guesses,’ or ‘informed opinions.’ Christian faith is about certainties. The things which we believe are things of which we have become convinced, no less than I am convinced that I am alive, or that this chair in which I am sitting is made of wood, or that the grass outside is green.

This makes us… odd. To some who don’t share our faith we will seem backwards and naive because the things we believe are things we have never “seen” and cannot prove in the ordinary way. To some we will seem arrogant, because in being so certain about the teachings of our faith, we are discounting and denying the things that they believe.

One of these certainties we have by faith is the fact that we are God’s children, spiritually born into God’s own family. How do we know? What makes us so sure? I can think of  reasons that might give us doubts. Usually children resemble their parents in some way. If you looked at my four children, and you knew only my wife, you might think of the old Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others, by the time I finish my song?” One of my children gets his looks more from me, I believe. I leave it to those who know our family to decide which is which.

If we are born of God, do we look like him? Does our behavior suggest a family resemblance? Does it distinguish us from everyone else? We have to admit that many times it is hard to tell any difference based on how we act.

We worry about money, health, and safety just like people who don’t know God as their kind and loving Father in heaven. We don’t live every moment in absolute peace about the way in which he will provide and protect. Our lifestyles can be just as self-indulgent as those who don’t believe Jesus is anything special.

So how do we know? How do we know that God has given us birth, that we are his children? John says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” It doesn’t start with behavior. It starts with faith. We believe that Jesus is the Christ. For us he is not merely “Interesting Historical Figure,” “Founder of a Famous Religion,” “First-Century Philosopher,” “Mesmerizing Middle-Eastern Mystic.” Jesus is the Christ, our God and Savior. Everything we celebrate about Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, we believe. We believe it as something far more than a sad and tragic miscarriage of justice followed by a miraculous return to life. This death is God’s own payment for our sins. We are forgiven, freed from guilt, liberated from the debt in which we were trapped. This living and glorified God-man, this empty grave, is a preview of our own bright future. Like Jesus our bodies are going to be revived and glorified. We will leave our tombs behind us, and live and walk with God in a land where there is no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away, and God has made everything new.

This message, this promise, is the womb in which our faith is formed, the means by which the miracle of spiritual birth takes place. It is the power by which we believe that Jesus is the Christ. Person after person has fallen under its spell–sinners and skeptics, doubters and deniers: fully armed and ready to debunk the Christian story, but in the end, won by his love, and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. That faith, born of those truths, is how we know that God has given us birth, that we are the children of God.

Deuteronomy 4:7 “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?”

Life was not easy for Old Testament Israel, a nation of shepherds. For most of them, their entire life was a forty year camping trip in a desert. Imagine going camping with the entire population of metropolitan areas like Portland, Oregon; Orlando, Florida; San Antonio, Texas; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Las Vegas, Nevada; or Cincinnati, Ohio! Then remember that everyone wasn’t merely taking a dog or a cat, but entire flocks of sheep and goats. These people weren’t living in RV’s but tents, and there were no water or electric hookups, no bathhouse in the campground. Life was not easy.

But Moses helped them to see the clear advantages of being people who belonged to God. First, Moses says, look at your God. Look at how real he is, and how closely he is involved in your life. The oldest people listening to him were in their late teens when God dropped ten miraculous plagues on Egypt, and then made a dry path through the middle of the Red Sea so that they could escape. They saw enough food and water for 2 million people miraculously appear in the desert. They heard God’s voice from Mt. Sinai. They followed the pillar that looked like it was made of cloud during the day and fire at night. Other nations had gods who kept their distance from their people, acted like spoiled children, and occasionally did magic tricks once upon a time in a land far, far away. Israel’s God lived among them and saved them over and over again. Which faith made sense to follow?

We serve and follow that same God. Now maybe we are tempted to think, “Our God doesn’t seem so near or so real today. We haven’t seen miracles like Israel saw.” Perhaps. But has he really grown fuzzy and distant? With Jesus, we have more, not less. We don’t have a mysterious voice thundering from a mountain, or an unapproachable pillar of fire out in a desert. We have God with flesh and bones, a man like us who laughs, and loves, and listens. He isn’t just present in our world. He is a member of our family, a distant relative connected to your very own family tree. It’s true, it’s been two thousand years since he came here to live and die to save us. But he lives again. There is an empty tomb just outside the old city of Jerusalem that says it’s so. We have the eyewitness reports of hundreds recorded by a half dozen or so recorders.

And he still shows up. We hear him speaking, not with one mouth, but with thousands. We hear his voice in the voice of our pastors confronting our sins and proclaiming forgiveness full and free. He has left us with hundreds and thousands of pages of his love letters to us–more than dead words on a page, but living and active words, words in which he himself is living by his Spirit, words full of life and of power. He still meets with us right here personally, bodily, really during those precious moments when we stand before his altar and receive the Supper by which he whispers to our hearts, just to you, “I am here. All is forgiven. All is peace. All the blessings of my cross are your very own.” He doesn’t hide himself in a tent or a temple. The same Jesus who walked the streets of Jerusalem now lives in your own body, in your own heart by faith–not as a happy memory or a collection of historical truths, but as a person who has moved in and made this place his home.

“Still,” we might think, “I would like to see the power. I would like to see the miracles.” Open your eyes, my friends! On the one hand, if you aren’t in imminent danger of death because some enemy army is hunting you down; if you aren’t in imminent danger of starvation for a lack of food, no miracle is required. That’s a good thing, right? Do you suppose God’s power isn’t involved in making your life so safe? And if you still want more, get to know some of the sober stories from your contemporaries on the front lines of God’s battles today. I am not thinking so much of the person who threw their crutches away after attending a tent revival. Talk to the missionaries and evangelists who see the gospel making disciples for Jesus out of the most unlikely candidates, humanly speaking. Is there a greater miracle than a story about a Jewish man who died as a criminal 2000 years ago winning the heart of a hardened atheist or converting devout followers of other gods in some place where the Bible isn’t even available in their own language?

The answer to Moses’ question is easy: “There is none.” No other people is so privileged to have a god like ours who lives with us and gets his own hands dirty in our lives. That was true for God’s chosen nation over three thousand years ago. It is still true for you and me, his “chosen people…a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9) spread across the earth today.

James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Religion is out. “Spirituality” is in. More than one family has excused themselves from my invitation to attend worship this way: “We’re just not very religious people, but we are spiritual.”

Movie stars claim to be spiritual. The Christian Science website is “spirituality.com.” Christian colleges are appointing chairs of the “spiritual theology” department. A book I like about Lutheranism is titled The Spirituality of the Cross.

But what does it mean to be spiritual? Tom Schaefer wrote a scathing commentary on modern spirituality for the Wichita, KS Eagle, several years ago. He sets it up as a lampoon of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” This game show is called “Who Wants to Be a Spiritual Person.” The contestant describes himself this way. “I’m a businessman who’s never quite found a religion that suits me. Besides, Sunday is my golfing day. I’m looking for a ready made, easy-to-follow spirituality that doesn’t make too many taxing demands and fits with my lifestyle.”

Christian writer Eugene Peterson sees the same thing infecting Christians. Spirituality has little to do with repenting of sins, receiving forgiveness, believing the gospel, and serving my neighbor. It has much to do with getting more out of life. It’s all about me. “With Christ, you are better, stronger, more likeable, you enjoy some ecstasy.”

If that is spirituality, maybe religion deserves a second look. The Apostle James uses a word for religion that deals with the external practice of your faith. The kind of religious practice our heavenly Father desires reflects two of the great concerns in the commandments: a life of unselfish love for our neighbor, and an unselfish life of personal purity before God. Looking after widows and orphans is a practical example of the first. Keeping oneself from being polluted by the world is a general exhortation to the latter.

We Christians tend to emphasize one to the exclusion of the other. Some of us immerse ourselves in lives of good works. We are “activists.” Raising funds for a food bank or shelter, volunteering at an inner city youth center, building homes for the poor, mission trips to third world countries-this stands in line with concern for widows and orphans. But do we excuse ourselves for satisfying every sinful craving? Ignoring personal purity, neglecting the practice of self control, is another kind of selfishness. Real spiritual harm comes from being polluted by the world.

Conservative Christians may have more trouble in the other direction. We still believe and preach what God has to say about sex and marriage. We talk about materialism and greed, though it has a greater hold on us than we like to admit. But we excuse ourselves for overlooking the plight of the less fortunate. We forget that Jesus does not summarize the commandments by saying “Be good.” He summarizes them by saying, “Love.” Go find someone to whom you can show your love. God has put us here to help the widows, and the orphans, and anyone else who needs what we can give.

Jesus lived both sides of this style of religion. No one’s life was ever purer. He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin. He loved the widow of Nain and all the needy people who came to him for healing or help. He looked after an entire world of spiritual beggars when he gave his life to remove our debt of sin.

That was not merely a great example of pure and faultless religion. That is the redemption that sets us free from our less than pure, and fault-filled, religion. That is the reason that God accepts you and me as pure and faultless.

Whether we call it “religion” or “spirituality” or “sanctification” or  simply “Christian life,” let’s live our lives for him who lived this way for us.

First Picture: By Andreas Praefcke – Own work (own photograph), CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14635674

Second Picture:By Tom Corser http://www.tomcorser.com, CC BY-SA 2.0 uk, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=312971

 

Romans 1:16 “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”

The word “power” conjures up distinctive pictures and feelings. Friends once took me to an Indy Car race at Texas Motor Speedway. The scream of the engines was so loud that I could feel the sound pushing on me. Together with the speed of the cars, the power in those machines was tangible.

When I was 10 years old I attended a Lutheran camp along the Whitewater River in southeastern Minnesota. The last night of the camp it rained so hard, so fast, and so much that the river went from a bubbling and gurgling stream about 4 feet deep to a roaring monster many feet over its banks. The roar of the water rushing past the cabin on highest ground to which we retreated, the sight of the river tossing around the picnic tables and propane tank, left all of us campers feeling rather small and weak next to the power of the river that had invaded our camp.

The gospel is the power God uses for our salvation. Our Lord has other powers for other things he has done. There is the power by which he spoke and an entire universe suddenly burst into existence. There is that power by which he killed the first-born of the Egyptians and divided the waters of the Red Sea. There is the power by which he changed water into wine, calmed storms, and gave life back to dead people. There is that power by which someday he will destroy this present world with fire and bring an end to the universe as we know it.

In all these things the working of God’s power is dramatic and awe-inspiring. It works with an irresistible, nearly violent force that overwhelms and overruns any obstacle in its path. It is a power which leads people to tremble in fear.

But the Gospel is the power by which God carries Jesus’ saving work into our hearts and makes it our own by faith. There is something quiet and hidden about the way in which it works. Our Lord does not cut and slash, push and shove, thunder and threaten to plant this faith within us. It is rather the gentle, winsome movements of the Holy Spirit in his Word, at our baptisms, and in his supper. It woos and wins its way into our hearts and works the miracle of faith. There is a power at work here, to be sure. It is a miraculous power that accomplishes what no forces of nature, no weapons, no laws-of-physics-bending supernatural strength can: it turns doubt and denial to belief, changes fear into trust, and rebellion into faith. But it does so in ways so quiet, so subtle, so appealing, so filled with love that we are often unaware that it is happening, even when it is happening to us.

Maybe you know the words from the last verse of the Christmas hymn Where Shepherds Lately Knelt, words that describe the gentle, faith-building power of the gospel:

Can I, will I forget how Love was born, and burned

Its way into my heart, unasked, unforced, unearned.

Jesus’ love finds its way into our hearts unasked. We were not looking for him, but he came looking for us, uninvited, and found his way in. Yet that power works unforced. He did not violate us. He did not smash the door to our hearts down and take us hostage like a terrorist breaking into a room full of people. His miraculous love unlocked and opened the door, making our unwilling hearts willing. And he does all this for us unearned. He doesn’t wait for us to become worthy before he comes to us in his gospel. He comes to us just because he has chosen to love us, and he desires nothing more than our salvation.

Many have celebrated the “power of love.” I know of at least three pop songs by that title (Sung by Huey Lewis, Celine Dion, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood). In the Disney cartoon The Sword in the Stone, Merlin the magician tells a young King Arthur that love may be the most powerful thing in all the world. Of course, they are all talking about romantic love. The gospel brings us a love far more powerful:  God’s forgiving love, love the Holy Spirit brings to us wrapped in the words of Jesus’ story.

John 16:33 “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

“Take heart,” would be a useless command, or a cruel taunt, if Jesus had nothing more to say. Does it help to tell a weak person, “Be strong”? Does it help to tell a sick person, “Be well”? Does it help to tell a hungry person, “Be full”? Only if you have strength, and health, and food to give them. Jesus has “heart” to give us–the courage and faith that come from knowing that he has overcome the world.

Jesus has conquered sin and death. What more can the world do to me? Accuse me? Condemn me? By what standards? If it uses its own twisted standards, where goodness and purity become evil, and its filth and perversion become virtues, Jesus has already settled that. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We gladly plead guilty to breaking the sinful world’s code of belief and behavior. Even if we do, we are still innocent in the eyes of Christ.

But what if the world discovers our real sins, and its self-righteous charge is, “You’re no better than me. You’ve broken the same commandments of God. You are guilty”? Though we are not proud to say so, the answer is, “It’s true! It’s true!” But Jesus has overcome the world, and by the grace of God I can say with the Apostle Paul, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died–more than that, was raised to life–is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”

No, really then, what can the world do to me? Kill me–and in doing so complete my escape from this prison in which we live and hurry me to the end of my journey home to heaven? Thank you! Thank you for this gift! You have given me the one thing I have longed for since the moment Jesus claimed me for his very own–to see him with my own eyes and live with him in his loving presence forever.

If the world can’t accuse me, and it can’t destroy me, then what is left? Torment me while I am here? Bestow on me the same honor it once bestowed on my Lord as it fills my life with misery? Then it will drive me deeper into his Word, and deeper into his love, to survive. It will drive me closer and closer to my Savior and make me more and more like him. It will strengthen my faith and hope, because “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” That’s not so bad, now, is it? In the end, it still ends in glory. Since Jesus has overcome, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

By bringing us troubles, by making us suffer, the world has done all it can do. In spite of our troubles, Jesus has overcome, and so will we. Take heart!

“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”  (Romans 8:31-32)

Do you dote on your children? What won’t parents sacrifice to give their children the best? Look at the time parents give up to shuttle their children from soccer practice to dance rehearsals to piano lessons, and then to games and recitals. I know parents who have paid tens of thousands of dollars every year to send their children to the grade school of their choice. Then there are the toys and electronic gadgets and outings to amusement parks we lavish on them. There is little we spare to benefit our children.

Jesus once observed that we do this even though we are basically selfish and evil. “Who of you, if your son asks for bread will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children…” Generally speaking, we want to look out for number one. But when it comes to our children, we are willing to put ourselves second to give them what is best, even into adulthood. There is little we would spare to help our children.

How dearly God must love us, then, to spare his Son no evil, to spare not even his own Son’s life, to save us and make us his own! What heavenly advantage did the Father not strip away from Jesus when he sent him into this world? He replaced a glorious throne with a stinking stable and a prickly hay manger. He concealed unlimited power under a weak and vulnerable infant’s body. He replaced endless worship from the angels with death threats and ridicule and betrayal and denial and condemnation by creatures not worthy to grovel at his feet.

But all of that pales in comparison to making his holy Son dirty with our sins, and letting him agonize in our hell, and making him a corpse with our death. When we consider just how far the Father went in not sparing his own Son, it almost makes Cinderella’s wicked stepmother look kind by comparison. But God is no wicked stepfather. The difference lies in this perfect Son’s willingness, even eagerness, to go along with his Father’s plan.

Why? Why would the Father do that to his only Son? “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all…” He gave him up for us all. He did not spare his own Son because in the infinite depth of his love he was not willing to lose us. He so valued us, so desired to have us back, that there was no limit to the price he would pay. And there was no greater price he could have paid than the one he did pay. He did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.

This isn’t mere abstract theology to be pondered theoretically, a hobby for those who find that kind of thing interesting, a theology that has little impact on our hearts or lives. Christmas changes everything. Good Friday changes everything. Easter changes everything. “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all– how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” God gives us all things. In poverty we are still rich. Terminal diseases are no longer terminal. Even when they bring us to death, that is no longer our termination. God denies us nothing that will truly serve us. He gives us all things.

We may think our expectations of God are too high. Actually, they are too low. We are ready to settle for a few cheap trinkets when God wants to give us real treasures. The gift of God’s Son brings true treasure into focus. In Jesus our Lord has given us all things.

“But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.” (Luke 21:14-15)

I’m not a particularly quick wit. Sometimes I think of a great snappy comeback to something someone has said to me. Unfortunately I think of it hours or even days later. All I can do then is hope I get a chance to use it in the future, and that I still remember it when the chance comes.

Jesus words here are for those times when the faith of the disciple is put on trial, when we are called upon to defend his message and our convictions in front of those who just want to shut us up. The immediate context suggests a court of law or a religious tribunal of some sort. Maybe we can stretch the intent of Jesus’ promise to other times the gospel is being challenged and we are called upon to defend it, even in more intimate settings.

Jesus’ words don’t rule out preparation when our turn comes to defend the gospel. But they do point out a temptation that is all too easy for us to fall into. We put too much of the burden for the message we speak upon ourselves. We fall into the mindset that what is really important when it is our turn to speak is how clever we are, how carefully we have crafted our words, how engaging our delivery, how powerful our illustrations.

That’s not to say that the gospel doesn’t deserve our best efforts make it clear and to hold the attention of the people who might be listening. There is nothing wrong with engaging delivery or powerful illustrations. But Jesus hasn’t called us to invent a message. He has given us a message to proclaim. He has called us to tell the truth. It is also possible for too many of our words to obscure the message rather than making it more clear.

Worship guru Robert Webber tells this story of a seminary student doing some fill in preaching: “ I once heard a young guest preacher preach an exegetical sermon on the holiness of God (Isaiah 6:1-6). No illustrations, no gimmicks. Not even polished. The people rushed him. The thirst for God’s Word watered a barren land.”

The temptation to confuse our own words for the gospel is a serious one. It jeopardizes souls. But Jesus has also given us words and wisdom. We have the word which is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. We have the word that does not return to God empty, but accomplishes what he desires and achieves the purpose for which he sent it. We have Jesus, the Mediator of a new covenant, whose blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. That blood speaks the forgiveness of our sins. We have the word of the prophets made more certain, and like those to whom Peter once wrote, we do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place. Jesus has given us the words of salvation by grace through faith.

August Pieper once encouraged: “Not as a salesman buys his wares in order to sell them again, but as a bee sucks honey from blossoms so as to nourish itself at the same time, so we by our studying ought to draw the gospel out of the Scriptures in order to save ourselves and those who hear us.”