Divine Direction
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Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 7516 Typical American
A United Press survey found that the “typical American” is a twenty-seven-year-old who does not read one book a year. He is materialistic, satisfied with small pleasures, bored with theological disputations. Although he may attend church twenty-seven times a year, he is not interested in the supernatural. He is concerned with neither heaven nor hell. In fact, he has no interest whatever in immortality. His principal interests are football, hunting, fishing, and car-tinkering.
Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Here is a strange question: Why are you here? No, I don’t mean, “here at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church,” although that might be an interesting discussion in itself. No, I mean the more fundamental question: “Why are you here?” Why do you exist; what is your purpose? Does your life matter, and if so, why?
This is the ultimate question about which men concern themselves. It is the reason that philosophy exists - engaging and attempting to answer that question. It’s an important question, because once you embrace an answer, everything that you do flows from that answer. Some people choose a particular answer, while others sort of drift along, going with whatever answer is most dominant in their culture.
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.
Some people, not many, but some, are born in a position of privilege, not needing to know what it is to struggle or suffer lack. Others are born in families that struggle to survive from day to day. In between those extremes are those who, while enjoying the blessings of sufficiency, know that a single unforeseen event can put them into a desperate situation that they might not know how to navigate. Those who are on top fight to stay there, while those who are beneath them fight to join them - or replace them.
Whatever is most significant to you will determine your direction.
We say that we know that death is the great equalizer.
For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!
Until that moment, however, on earth, most people, even those who don’t give much thought to the Bible, will say amen to
Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything.
That was not the Preacher’s final assessment in Ecclesiastes, but perhaps it did reflect the views of one man who came to listen to Jesus’ teaching:
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”
How do we fix our mouths to tell God what He should be doing? And yet there are those who name the name of Christ, those who claim the gift of teaching or the office of pastor, who teach that it is meet, right, and salutary, to demand that God do things in response to the paying of tithes, or the living out of certain lifestyles, or other things that, in essence, are based upon works of the Law rather than the hearing of faith.
We cannot think that we can either earn God’s blessing or know, better than God, what should be our lot. We can know, based upon God’s declared will, that God wills to save sinners. We can know, based upon God’s declared work of creation and sustaining His creation, that God created the world with sufficient resources that we might all live in joy and peace.
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
We do know, based again upon what God has revealed to us in His Word, why we do not do so.
We do know, based again upon what God has revealed to us in His Word, why we do not do so.
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
The world is driven by, bound to, and given over to, corruption. Deliverance is not found in our acquisition and possession of material resources, as much as the world would have us think that it were so. The world says “Happy are the wealthy, for theirs is the kingdom of this life. Happy are those who avoid sorrow and suffering by placing self above others and acting accordingly for they shall avoid grief. Happy are those who ignore the needs of others because the ultimate purpose of life is self-fulfillment and self-actualization, which is the only way to self-transcendence.”
In short, unless you get you right, you cannot help anyone else get right. Now, If I said that last statement without giving your the others, you would probably agree with me, because it just sounds right. It is, after all, the same concept expressed by the flight attendant who says, “before you attempt to put an oxygen mask on your child, put one on yourself. Then you will be better able to help your child.” In such circumstances, it works quite well.
In larger terms, however, we have a problem in that we have a flawed sense of right and wrong. Our hearts are deceitful above all, and desperately wicked. We sin without thinking, while doing good seems like finding an oasis in a desert.
And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Sin reigns as a result of the Fall, and although Satan stands defeated through Christ’s vicarious death and glorious resurrection, he yet walks about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour. As baptized children of God, we submit to God with repentance and resist Satan based upon God’s command and promise:
Sin reigns as a result of the Fall, and although Satan stands defeated through Christ’s vicarious death and glorious resurrection, he yet walks about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour. As baptized children of God, we submit to God with repentance and resist Satan based upon God’s command and promise:
Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Where do we find the ability to do this, this humbling, this submission and this resistance?
In short, unless you get you right, you cannot help anyone else get right. Now, If I said that last statement without giving your the others, you would probably agree with me, because it just sounds right. It is, after all, the same concept expressed by the flight attendant who says, “before you attempt to put an oxygen mask on your child, put one on yourself. Then you will be better able to help your child.” In such circumstances, it works quite well.
In larger terms, however, we have a problem in that we have a flawed sense of right and wrong. Our hearts are deceitful above all, and desperately wicked. We sin without thinking, while doing good requires planning and preparation.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Where do I find the power to do this? How do I serve the Law of God with my mind, when my mind struggles with the sin that is in my flesh?
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, given to us by God as we are united to Christ through Holy Baptism, and working in us both to will and to do according to God’s good pleasure, empowers us and equips us. God works through the Law to show us our need, works through the Gospel to meet our need, and works through the gifts and fruit of the Spirit to enabler us to meet the needs of our neighbor. As we pray, God directs our hearts and minds through His Word. As we walk in the Spirit, God orders our steps according to His Word to bring us into situations that provide opportunities to become instruments of righteousness. As we continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God, through Witness - Mercy - Life Together, we continue to show the presence of the Kingdom of God. The Law of Prayer becomes the Law of Faith as God inhabits the praises of His people, and His Kingdom comes into lives and situations that were formerly trapped in the darkness of this present evil age.
It’s so near that I can feel it, so close that I can taste it, so real that I can see it. It’s the Gospel, the power of God unto salvation! It is for us, it is with us and it is in us through Christ Jesus our Lord.
So let the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
19 Bread is made for laughter,
and wine gladdens life,
and money answers everything.