Reformation Freedom

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

John 8:31-36

Oct. 30, 2016

What does freedom look like?  The word may conjure images of arms breaking loose from the shackles that had bound them, or of birds flying skyward from an opened cage.  Freedom makes us think of a rugged mountain man dressed in leather and fur and living off of the land in the wilderness of Alaska.  Freedom looks like the patriotic minutemen standing up against the tyranny of the British crown and declaring themselves in servitude no more.  Freedom is a college freshman stretching and exploring in his new environment filled with choices and the latitude to make the ones he wants.  Freedom looks like a white sand beach, palm trees, an all-inclusive resort, and ten days of vacation with absolutely no agenda.  Freedom is eating and drinking and reading and watching what you choose when you choose to do it and going where you want to go, how you want to go, when you want to go there.  Freedom is living without constraints or restrictions or inhibitions.  Freedom is the great goal of the American experiment and the great virtue and aspiration that is supposed to well up naturally inside every human being.  This is what freedom looks like in our world.  This is the array of ideas that flood our thoughts when we think of freedom.

Today we arrive together at the annual church festival that we call Reformation Day, and again, we encounter the idea of freedom.  It’s easy to package this reformation freedom in all of our standard freedom images.  You know the story.  It all unfolded five hundred years ago, now.  Martin Luther was the devout Augustinian monk struggling to find peace with God, but unable to do so by following the path presented to him by the church of his day.  No matter how much he prayed, fasted, confessed, deprived himself of sleep and comfort, nothing he did could give him the assurance that he was right with God.  But, then, while working on his university lectures on the Book of Romans, everything changed.  He came to realize that God’s righteousness was not something he had to earn; rather, it was a wonderful gift that had been earned for him by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Luther learned that by God’s grace alone through his God-given faith alone, he had received the gift of righteousness with God in Christ alone.  His own works and efforts had nothing to do with any of it!  He was freed from the condemnation of his own sin.  He was freed from the guilty weight of his inability to keep God’s law.  This is, of course, the message of the Gospel itself, and it is the core of the teaching of the Reformation.  But, what happened next?  Well, it’s precisely here that we need to be careful with how we tell and understand the rest of the story.

Typically, we continue the story with something like this: So, Luther started to teach the truth about how a person is made right with God only by God’s grace.  But, the church leaders branded his teaching a heresy, and demanded that he retract all that he had written and preached about forgiveness of sins by grace through faith in Christ alone.  Luther refused.  Luther told the Pope that he would not listen to him or submit to his authority any more.  In fact, Luther told the pope a few more choice things, and by doing so he struck a sweeping blow for freedom.  Because of Luther, no one has to listen to what the pope says.  Because of Luther, no one has to learn how to read and understand the Bible, we can all just read it for ourselves and figure it out.  Because of Luther, no one has to follow rules made up by the church.  Because of Luther, the authority of the church is gone, now the focus is on the individual who has been set free.  Because of Luther, no one has to believe the things that they are taught, we are now free to think and decide for ourselves.  Because of Luther, all of those old superstitions and fears are swept away.  No more relics, no more, pilgrimages, no more fasting, no more purgatory, no more praying for penance.  No more slavery.  Because of Luther, people are freed from the tyranny of having to keep the law, now they have Christian freedom to do whatever they like.  Now, because of Luther, freedom reigns.  And isn’t it interesting that the freedom that Luther brings, looks virtually identical to the freedom that we cherish as Americans.  It’s freedom from constraint and restriction, the freedom to be and do whatever we like.  This is the way that reformation freedom is often taught and understood.

But this is not the freedom of the Reformation.  As wonderful or familiar as this account of the story may sound, its portrayal of Christian freedom is wrong.  Yes, the reformation brought freedom.  But, it did not bring the kind of freedom I have just described.  Reformation freedom, which is simply Christian freedom, is not the forerunner or the spiritual twin of the sort of freedom we have come to expect and cherish in our western culture.  The freedom that Luther uncovered and shared, is not the ancestor of the American ideal of freedom which is all about individual expression and fulfillment.  No, the kind of freedom that Luther learned and taught, does not look like American freedom at all.  It looks like the kind of freedom that is described and taught by Jesus.

John records for us one of the many contentious discussions Jesus had with those who were following him but weren’t his disciples.  In this case, Jesus is challenging and even provoking people who had believed in him, in other words, they had found his teaching compelling, and were hanging around and listening to him, but perhaps still with reservations and a studied distance that was well short of actual discipleship.  Jesus both invites and admonishes them.  He wants them to be more than interested spectators or nonchalant believers lacking commitment.  He wants them to quit holding back and taking him on their terms.  He wants them to recognize his authority and his identity as the Messiah and Lord.  He wants them to be disciples.  The time of their sitting on the sidelines and observing from a comfortable vantage had to come to an end.  Jesus was making clear that it was time to quit watching and evaluating and cautiously holding back.  It was time to be a disciple.  That’s what Jesus is getting at when he tells these curious but uncommitted spectators on the fringes: “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”  There’s the word: free.  Jesus does bring freedom.  But, it’s clear that what he means by freedom is not about shattering shackles and removing all restraints.  No, for Jesus, freedom is something else quite different.  The text explains it.

Jesus’ freedom comes one way: by knowing the truth, which is only learned by being his disciple and that happens only by continuing in his Word.  To put it another way, a person is free only when he is the disciple of Jesus.  Hear that again: a person is free only when he is the disciple of Jesus.  Now, suddenly, it becomes clear just how very different Jesus’ truth is from the ideas that are at work in the world around us.  There is no common ground at all.  Freedom is not about doing what you want to do when and how you want to do it.  Freedom is about knowing and following Jesus.  Obviously, this truth is not immediately reasonable or even accessible to most western thinkers.  It is certainly not compatible with an obsession on individualism and the sovereignty of the self.  Jesus is teaching a different definition of freedom altogether.  His definition hinges on what it means to “continue in his word.”  So, what does that mean?  The two critical words are the ones translated “continue” and “word”.  The first can also be translated as remain or reside.  In other words, it’s where a person settles and stays put.  The word conveys a sense of constancy and consistency.  It’s something that is done without wavering.  So we are to keep on staying put…but where, exactly?  Jesus tells us where: “in my word”.  The original term is one of those loaded Greek words.  It’s λογος (logos) which means an idea, concept, basic principle, or fundamental thought, or teaching.  So, what Jesus is saying is that those who are his disciples are those who keep on learning and living his teaching.  This is, he says, the world’s one great truth, and when you learn and live his teaching, the result is freedom.

You see, Jesus does not give a freedom that turns you loose to do whatever you feel like doing.  The freedom of Jesus does not mean being able to do whatever interests you or excites you.  Jesus does not give you permission to pursue your passions or to fulfill your potential.  Instead, Jesus invites you to know him and his teaching, his reality, his truth.  Practically, this means that you study what he taught, and what he continues to teach through his church.  It means that you strive to live your life according to the truths that he showed us by what he taught and by what he did.  When you continue in the word of Jesus, you live your life with his reality as the basis of everything.  You conform your thinking, and your willing, and your acting to his purposes.  What he says is what matters.  And what he says is that we are to live the way that God has given us to live.  We are to live according to God’s will for his creation, in other words, we are to live according to his law.  And that’s what real freedom looks like!

This is the great truth that appears as a profound mystery—it’s something that seems incomprehensible to most people in our world.  Freedom does not come when you do what you want and choose your own path and your own life reality.  No, that’s not freedom, that’s actually futility, failure, and slavery.  It always ends with people turned in on themselves and living lives that are bankrupt—lives that end in hell.  Real freedom, the freedom that Jesus gives, the freedom that Luther discovered and taught, the freedom that we recognize today, is not a license to live as you please or to pursue whatever dream you deem important.  Real freedom is a life lived in sync with God and with God’s will.  Real freedom is doing what God created you to do, the way that God created you to do it. That’s freedom.  That’s what Jesus taught.  It’s what Luther discovered.  It’s what we celebrate, today, on Reformation Day.

Of course, you shouldn’t expect people suddenly to agree with you when you tell them that real freedom means living according to God’s law.  It seems like an absurd self-contradiction.  And arguing, or quoting the Bible won’t make much headway.  Truth be told, there will even be plenty of Christian people who will not accept that freedom is obedience to the teaching of Jesus.  They will remain convinced that the Reformation was really about Luther breaking away from the pope and striking a blow for freedom.  Don’t be fooled by this wrong thinking.  You know better.  You know that freedom means continuing in the word of Jesus.  It means knowing that you are forgiven by his life and death.  It means knowing that Jesus has done this for you so that you can be all that God created you to be.  You know that freedom means living within God’s plan.  And you know that this is real freedom.  You’ve experienced it.  You’ve tasted the incredible joy and peace that come when you do what God gives you to do.  You know the thrill and the deep satisfaction that you experience when you fulfill the hard task you’ve been assigned to accomplish.

This freedom is real.  This freedom starts, now, by the way that you live, now.  That’s why you come to worship.  That’s why you work hard to do things his way.  You know that freedom doesn’t mean doing your own thing, it means doing God’s thing.  And when you live in that freedom you provide a powerful witness to the truth of that freedom.  The life that you live is far more convincing than any other argument that can be offered for the truth of Jesus’ freedom.  The joy you have in knowing God’s perfect love and grace given to you in Jesus, and the joy you live when you follow God’s will and delight in his law is a profound witness to all the world that Jesus’ freedom is real freedom.  You are a witness to God’s truth.  Your life declares that it is real and that it is right.  Your witness shows what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  Your life shows that you know that truth, and that that truth has set you free—free for a life lived God’s way.  That’s what the reformation was all about.  That’s what we’re here to celebrate, today.  Amen.

Still Fighting

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
II Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

October 23, 2016

            Everyone loves fall.  The air is bracing and carries that certain tangy/sweet smell of fallen leaves.  Mornings are cool and evenings are chilly.  Orange and brown and yellow colors dominate, and the time of harvest generates feelings of contentment and accomplishment even for city dwellers who do their harvesting at the grocery store.  Apples abound: covered in caramel and nuts, baked in pies and cobblers, or straight from the orchard so crisp that they snap when you bite them.  There’s college football and we won’t talk about the World Series, and Octoberfests and pumpkin patches.  There are so many reasons to love fall.  Autumn is a time filled with great delights.  Everyone loves fall.  But, not Ilene.  Ilene was a wise and respected woman of many years with a sunny personality evident in sweet and sincere smiles worn before church and after church and most of the time in between.  But, Ilene hated autumn.  She told me so very clearly during a pastoral visit many years ago, now.  Where I saw fresh invigorating air, stunning foliage, and earthy aromas, Ilene saw the unmistakable signs of death and decay.  Falling leaves were dead.  Rustling grass was dead.  Bright blue skies brought killing frost.  Fall smells were the smells of decaying plant matter.  Fall meant the eleventh hour for all living things.  Death was in the air.  It was almost the end.  I had to admit that Ilene had a point.  A kind, gentle, smiling, great grandmother had undone my favorite time of the year.  I still love fall, but I never forget Ilene’s take on the season, and my delight in the days has been forever tempered.  It is almost the end.  The days hold a palpable note of melancholy.

            This seems to be the ideal time, then, to consider Paul’s words to young Timothy recorded in our text.  II Timothy is the Apostle’s final letter written at the end of a life that had been marked by significant accomplishments, remarkable joys, heart-breaking sorrows, shameful regrets, and an extraordinary amount of suffering in body and soul.  Paul had lived through much and had faced imprisonment and trials many times before; but, this time, things were different.  He knew it.  This time he was chained in a dungeon.  This time, the church in Rome had all but deserted him.  This time he was not going to be released to continue his missionary work.  No, this time the trial would end not with an acquittal but with an execution.  Paul could tell.  This was the end—or almost the end.  This was the autumn of his life and ministry.  This is not the way that we like to think of the great apostle.  We picture him operating at the full capacity of his energy and zeal for the gospel: traveling, writing, debating, preaching, spreading the news of Jesus to the Gentiles.  That’s our image of Paul.

            Yet, there is a wonderful consistency to Paul’s story all the way to the end.  Just after he’d been converted on the road to Damascus, God had declared, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”  And he did; and so Paul did…suffer that is.  God laid out a difficult life course for Paul to follow.  The apostle recorded his litany of suffering in his second letter to the Corinthians: 39 lashes—five times, beaten with rods—three times, shipwrecked—three times, stoned and left for dead—once, and the list goes on.  So, when Paul finally arrives at almost the end, when he arrives at his own autumn in a Roman prison, it’s quite understandable that he would reflect back on just how much he had actually endured in fulfillment of the Lord’s bitter promise and for the sake of that holy name.  Yet, as Paul thinks back over his life as a believer in service to Jesus and the Gentiles for whom Jesus had died, he regrets and resents none of the suffering.  In fact, his attitude is positively triumphant.  “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”  Indeed, he had. Paul had done what he’d been given to do.  The faith had been preserved, the course of a missionary life had been followed, the fight had been fought, all the agony had been endured, the crown of righteousness was waiting.  Paul was sure that his own death was at hand.  But, that reality did not challenge his trust in his Lord.  It confirmed it.  He could look back and celebrate, he could look forward with unshakeable confidence.

            Paul’s confidence is remarkable, still, there is something about his words that strikes me as a bit odd.  In fact, there’s something about them that seems wrong.  Listen again: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”  You heard it.  The problem is that repeated first person singular pronoun: “I, I, I.”  It almost sounds egocentric.  Most Christian thinkers and writers are quick to insist that no true Christian can ever talk about achieving victory.  We all know better than that.  When it comes to assigning credit for a completed race and a victory won, we know that we don’t deserve it.  We can’t do what needs to be done.  Christians don’t talk about finishing and fighting and winning…do they?  Or, maybe my problem with the repeated “I’s” is not actually with Paul, but with myself.  Perhaps it’s just my own self-awareness that makes me so uncomfortable with Paul’s confident first person singular statements.  I know my own limitations, my temptations, my foibles, my failings, my sins.  In the face of my own daily reality, Paul’s words seem incredible, almost fanciful, or just plain impossible.

            How about you?  Do you resonate with Paul’s strong statements about fighting, finishing, and keeping?  Are you ready to use first person singulars the way that the apostle did?  “I have fought the good fight.  I have finished the course.  I have kept the faith.”  Can you say that?  If, today, was your own personal autumn of life, would you be able to say what Paul said?  It’s not easy to be that confident and certain isn’t it?  Those first person singulars are hard to use when claiming a victory.  The words kind of catch in your throat.  Sometimes the struggle of life takes its toll and you don’t emerge triumphant.  You grow weary of the relentless grind of the routine: too many meals to make, too many schedules to organize, too many bills to pay, too many errands to run, too many obligations to meet, too many demands to fulfill, too many people imposing their agendas on you, too many rules, too much temptation, too much tension, too much pressure, too much hassle, too much pain, too much too much!  It’s not easy to stay on task.  It’s not fun having to grind out life.  It’s hard.  It hurts.  Paul can say: “I have fought the fight, run the race, and kept the faith,” but my own first singular statements would have to be: “I have cowered from the challenge, I have quit the race, I have compromised the faith, I have sinned.”  What have you done?  What verbs follow behind your first person singular pronouns?

            Maybe the problem is that you’re fighting the wrong fight.  Instead of the good fight of faithfulness to God’s will, is it possible that you are actually fighting for your own self-preservation and self-promotion?  Instead of God’s fight, are you caught up in the relentless, impossible battle to justify yourself and to vindicate and affirm your own personal being and worth?  When that’s your fight, instinct will take over, and you will find yourself fighting ruthlessly to assert yourself and your ideas over others.  You fight to defend yourself from any perceived threat to your personal identity and worth.  You fight along with everyone else, you doing what comes “naturally” and fighting to promote yourself and to advance your own expectations and plans.  It’s the wrong fight.  Fighting the fight of selfishness always ends in crushing defeat.  So, what have you been doing?  Have you fought the good fight, run the course God has given you to run, and kept the faith?  Or, have you fought for yourself, dropped out of the struggle to follow God’s course, and neglected the faith?  What have you done?

            Of course, the contrast between Paul and you and me, is certainly not as stark as I have drawn it.  For all of the confidence and certainty that Paul was expressing as he contemplated his own death, Paul was also a man who knew acutely the reality of his own limitations, failures, and sins.  Even after he had become a believer, Paul still knew the hard truth about his own inability and sin.  He knew that he was the chief of sinners.  He knew that he didn’t do the good things he wanted to do, but all too easily did the evil things he did not want to do.  He knew the score about his own performance.  So, then, how could he do it?  How could he have such brash self-confidence to declare his accomplishments with first person singular pronouns?  Paul could do it, because while he knew his sin, he also knew the one who had appeared to him, claimed him, and delivered him from all of his sin.  He knew his failure, but he also knew the one who had come to him and flooded him with stunning grace.  When Christ met him and claimed him, everything changed forever.  Everything Paul did after that, he did in the forgiving and empowering grace of Christ and Christ alone.  Paul had already died.  Christ now lived in him.  So, at his trial, when he was deserted by all men, Christ stood with him.  And after he had won the fight, finished the course, and kept the faith, he did not claim or takethe crown of victory—God gave it to him.

            What we see in Paul, here at the end of his life is the wonder of the core dynamic that drives the Christian faith.  Paul was a creature given a fight to fight and a course to run.  He has a responsibility to keep the faith by proclaiming that faith to gentiles who had no idea what Christ had done for them.  It was Paul who was given that work to do, and it was Paul who did it.  And, he did it with relentless zeal until God brought his life to an end.  There was no such thing as retirement.  Paul lived with a razor-focus on what he had to do and what it would take for him to do it.  And yet all the while that he is giving absolutely everything that he has for the work that he’s been given to do, he knows with certainty everything that Christ has done and will do for him.  Paul knew that he was not earning his crown of eternal righteousness, but he was most definitely working hard for the sake of that crown that Christ would give.  There is no problem, then, with Paul’s use of first person singulars.  He is, after all, the one fighting and finishing—but, of course, he does it all only by the grace and strength of Christ.  This is the heart of the Christian faith.  Paul invests everything into doing what he has been given to do, and then rests in his faith, secure in the knowledge that what he does could never earn God’s grace or the crown of righteousness.  Everything is a gift given through Christ.  Paul works.  God gives.  This is Paul’s great reality.

            And, so it is for you.  You know your sin and your failure.  It weighs heavily.  But, you also know that Christ has come and claimed you.  At the baptismal font, at the communion rail, he comes and he forgives and redeems and transforms and stands by…you.  You.  It’s as real for you as it was for Paul.  Christ has come for you, and in the light of that reality, nothing is the same.  In the light of that reality, the first person singular declarations are also fully redeemed.  “I cower, I quit, and I compromise,” become, “I fight, I run, I keep.”  There’s nothing egocentric about it.  Like Paul’s confident declarations, you also declare the reality of what your faithful Lord works in and through you—in spite of your own inabilities and failures.  It is true for you, just as it was true for St. Paul.  It is true for you today as you sit here in the reality of a St. Louis autumn with death waiting just around the corner.  Today, you fight the good fight, you run the course, you keep the faith.  You live in faithfulness doing what God has given you to do and you delight in the reality of God’s grace to you in Christ.  Through you, God does his work.  Through you, he continues to reach those who still don’t know his love and grace.  You know those people.  When you care for them, and speak to them and share God’s truth with them; He finds them, claims them, and brings them into his church.  God uses you.  What was true for Paul is true for you.  You fight, you run, you keep.  You pour yourself out into what God gives you to do, until the day that your course is also finished.  And on that day God will give the crown of righteousness to you.  Amen.

What's there to Pray about?

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
Luke 18:1-8

October 16, 2016

You probably heard about the Texan named Darwin Day.  He's the guy who found a set of 1957 Topps Baseball cards in his attic this past spring.  One of the cards was a contest card.  The card listed two games to be played on July 19^th, 1957, one between the Milwaukee Braves and the New York Giants, and the other between the Baltimore Orioles and the Kansas City Athletics.  The entry contestant had to predict the final score of each game and submit the card before July 11^th.  It was a simpler, less litigious time, and the date failed to include the year.  With a sense of adventure and hoping for a Topps' executive with a sense of humor, Darwin did a quick check of the baseball archives, jotted down the two final scores, and sent his contest card and the required 5 gum wrappers to the CEO of Topps—the same company that still makes the Bazooka bubblegum that used to come with the cards.  Remarkably enough, the CEO of Topps is a guy who can take a joke, and he decided to play along.  Day was declared a winner, and collected the promised prize:  a Spalding fielder's glove.

After the story broke in the late summer, it quickly made the rounds of all the major news outlets, appearing in print, on TV, and radio.  It was the perfect end of summer, end of the baseball season, feel-good human interest story to round out an otherwise bleak newscast on a slow news day.  And, it almost seemed like news because the result was so unexpected.  When it comes to our interactions with big corporations, most of us have cultivated a rather callous attitude.  We have learned to be cynical about the motives and actions of big businesses.  We expect them to act always and only in their own self-interest, and we don't count on them to do the most basic and minimal things for the good of others, let alone something extraordinary and just fun like Topps did for Darwin Day.

The poor woman in Jesus' parable did not have an experience like Mr. Day's.  No, her encounter with the unjust and uncaring judge was not a happy experience at all.  Yet, her story is by far more recognizable to us.  Her interaction with the hard and indifferent judge is what we expect when we have to deal with those who hold some control over us—whether it's a business, a court, a government bureaucracy, an educational institution, or an insurance company.  The widow's situation was desperate because her need was great.  And only one man could help her—a judge who did not care in the least about her.  This was her problem.  And yet, the end result was that she also got what she wanted and needed.  The judge did step up, and he did the right thing.  The widow got justice for her cause.  Of course, there was nothing fun or light-hearted about any of it.  Her need was met only because she had made the judge's life so tiresome with her continual pleading and badgering.  He gave in and gave her justice only because he was sick to death of her and her complaint.  He'd had it.  She hounded him into doing the right thing.

Jesus' parable is a classic example of a "from the greater" sort of illustration or argument.  If something is true or right on a superficial or easy level, how much more true is it when it really matters?  If a selfish and uncaring judge will eventually do the right thing for those who keep asking, how much more will a kind, compassionate and caring judge give justice?  That, of course, is the point of Jesus' story.  If a rotten human who thinks only of himself can be persuaded to help those who ask, won't God who is infinitely loving and merciful certainly and quickly come to the aid of those who seek his help?  So, what does Jesus want you to learn from this parable?  Truthfully, the point of the parable is not difficult to grasp.  This is not an obscure or perplexing parable with a hidden meaning.  It's spelled out: Jesus wants you to pray.

But, you already knew that.  Prayer is one of the things that Christians do.  I wonder, though, how often we actually pray the way that Jesus tells us to pray.  The text says that you are supposed to pray at all times, and not to lose heart.  You're supposed to pray by crying out to him day and night with a persistence that is relentless—like that of the widow.  She is not presented as an extreme example or an exaggerated model.  She is meant to be the standard for the way that God's people pray.  The parable does not suggest that there was anything at all wrong with the way the widow prayed.  Clearly, the hinge in the parable is the judge.  In other words, the assumption is that God's people will pray like the woman prayed, but instead of a judge that doesn't care, their petitions will be heard by God who cares infinitely.  Having a just and merciful God who hears your prayers doesn't mean that you back off your praying, it means the opposite.  That's the point of the parable.

So, do you pray like the widow prayed?  I suspect that for many Christians this is not the case.  Indeed, it often seems that among Christians prayer is not that important and gets only passing attention.  There are, I believe, a number of reasons for this.  Perhaps the biggest reason that Christians often don't pray like it matters is the fact that their needs are not that great.  When life is comfortable, and problems are few, praying seems like an unnecessary activity.  It's just not that pressing.  Everything's fine…what's there to pray about?  In the West, the ease of life and the sense that things are basically under control seriously erode people's practice of prayer.  Why pray if nothing's that bad?  This may sound like an absurd thought—and it's certainly one that we immediately recognize as being out of sync with Christian truth.  But, let's be honest.  Enjoying a life of comfort and security is a reality that impacts the thinking of us all.  Praying with passion is a lot easier when there's something to pray about.  Perhaps we don't pray with the intensity and frequency of the widow, because we are simply too blessed with good things.

If the first reason that our prayers are so often half-hearted and listless is existential, deriving from what we experience, or what we don't experience; the second reason that prayer becomes infrequent and apathetic is logical.  It works like this: if God is fully in control of absolutely everything that happens in the world from the death of a sparrow to the loss of a single human hair, and if in spite of all human scheming and working, God's plan will unfold exactly as he intends, well, then, the prayers of humans seem to be completely unnecessary.  God is going to do what God is going to do, so why pray at all?  This line of thought could even be twisted into a perverse framework of faith: I trust God completely for everything, what he has planned is exactly right and perfect for me, so I don't need to ask anything from him at all.  I abide in his love and wisdom, and let him lead.  With faith and logic like this, what's the point of prayer?  Isn't it just a mere formality, an empty ritual or an exercise without significance?  The actual prayer lives of many Christians seem to reflect just this sort of thinking.

A third reason for detached and dreary praying is more alarming still.  It's that final rhetorical question that Jesus asks at the end of the parable.  "However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"  The question seems out of place.  The parable is about praying with persistence, the shift to asking about faith is unexpected.  But, it's exactly right.  The widow makes her repeated and impassioned appeal to the rotten judge because she believes that he can help her, and somehow, in spite of the judge's corrupt character, she never stops hoping that he will do it.  The widow has faith.  Prayer is an issue of faith.  Those who pray with conviction and commitment, have faith that God listens, cares, and answers.  They trust God.  When there is no faith, there is no praying.  That's the connection.  Jesus urges you to pray, but for there to be prayer, there must be faith.  So, Jesus wonders…will anyone do it?  When he returns, will anyone be left on earth who still prays, who still believes, who still clings to his promise, who still has faith?  It's a sobering question.  It's meant to be.  Does your lack of prayer reveal a lack of faith?

There are, no doubt, many other reasons why God's people fail to pray.  But, it's more important that we think for a bit about why we do pray.  The most obvious reason, is that prayer is what Christians do.  The logic for praying is much stronger and more compelling than it is for not praying.  Think about it.  You pray because prayer is a conversation with your Creator and Savior, who invites you to pray.  That's all the reason you need.  If the Lord and Emperor of the universe opens his door to you, you walk through it.  You speak to God.  There is so much you need to tell him and ask him.  It doesn't take much reflection to realize that the idea of an idyllic life in the technologically advanced West is more illusion than reality.  You face daily hurts and concerns, there are struggles in close relationships, bodies don't cooperate and begin to fail.  People let you down.  You let others down.  If you don't experience a pressing need to pray, you aren't paying attention to what is going on in this short, hard life.

In the face of such real need, your God is in control, and he invites you to tell him your needs, your anxieties, your sorrows, your hopes, and your dreams.  He wants to know it all.  He wants to hear from you about everything in your life.  Tell him about the struggle you're having in your marriage.  Tell him every detail.  He wants to know.  Let him know about the frustrations you feel at work.  Pour out your heart to him and tell him about your doubts and concerns about your children and your ability to parent them well.  Tell him your needs and fears and joys.  Every idea that crosses your mind, every experience that crosses your path, every person that crosses your life is a subject for serious and persistent prayer.  Pray for the salvation of those who are still living outside the church and outside the salvation of God.  Pray for the needs of your neighbors.  Pray for the needs of yourself.  Pray for it all.  God cares about it all.  It's not like sending an old baseball card and a few gum wrappers to an unknown CEO who may or may not care.  When you pray, you are not making a shot in the dark.  You are relating your needs to your Father who loves you and cares for you.  No one anywhere in the universe loves you and cares about everything that matters to you more than God does.  Take advantage of the privilege, and pray!

It is true, God is God and he will do what he chooses to do, his purposes will be accomplished.  And, yet, because of the amazing way that he has arranged this world, as his perfect plan unfolds, he integrates and honors the prayers of his saints.  Those prayers do shape and move the will of God.  What you pray does matter.  God hears and God heeds the petitions of his people.  Your prayers become part of his plan for the universe.  God highly honors your prayers.  Knowing that, how can you not pray?  Prayer absolutely changes things.  Because God listens, prayer changes things, prayer changes people, prayer changes you.

Much more important than the power of prayer to change your reality, is the power of prayer to change you.  Prayer gives you new ways to see your reality.  And by changing your perspective, it can profoundly change your life.  Prayer teaches you to see what is real.  It helps you reassess where you fit in God's plan.  When you pour out your heart to God, you are put into a right relationship with God.  You are reminded of who God is and where you stand in his plans and purposes.  By praying, you are praising and worshipping him as your perfect Creator and God.  By praying, you are admitting your need for what only he can give.  Prayer is a powerful tool for personal change, and that's a powerful reason to pray.

They will all be answered.  Every wish, every hope, every sigh, every groan, every dream, every yearning, every ideal of every prayer will all be answered.  Nothing that God's people pray is ever lost.  Just as he counts and collects every tear of his saints so that he can transform each one into a brilliant jewel to be prized for eternity, so he treasures and remembers every prayer so that they can all be stunningly and surpassingly fulfilled in his eternal and perfect kingdom.  That's how much your prayers matter.  The most important conversations you ever have are the ones you have with God—they matter forever.  God's eternal kingdom is coming.  Jesus is coming.  Pray for that day.  Pray for everything that matters to you, today.  Pray knowing that he is eager to answer.  He answers, right now, today, exactly as you need, and he will answer on that coming day exactly as he has planned.  No prayer is ever wasted.  Amen.

Fear Takes Practice

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
Psalm 111:9-10

October 19, 2016

Every year it seems to start just a little bit sooner.  Like it or not, the decorations appear well ahead of the actual holiday.  Colored lights are strung along porches and in store windows.  Familiar and fanciful characters from reality, fiction, and myth greet you at the grocery store and in the shops at the mall.  And perhaps most intrusive of all, giant inflatable creatures sprout on the front lawns of the homes in the neighborhood.  People can’t seem to wait to flaunt their holiday decorations.  Yes, it’s beginning to look a lot like Halloween.  I am aware, of course, that some Christians have a problem with Halloween.  No doubt, the holiday does have some unsavory associations with things that are dark and even evil, and I understand why some believers would shy away from the event.  But, it’s worth remembering that well before it became Reformation Day in the 16^th century, October 31^st was already “All Hallow’s Eve,” and the point was preparation for the celebration of all the saints on the 1^st of November.  Nowadays, though, it’s essentially devolved into just another excuse for excessive revelry, a chance for adults to play dress up with minimal embarrassment, and mostly benign and ineffective efforts to foster fear.  Of course, yard displays don’t provoke any real fear—besides the fear of having to drive through what some may consider a garishly blemished neighborhood, for the next three weeks, and more terrifying still, even into November thanks to procrastinating neighbors.  For most of us, the scariest thing about Halloween decorations is what they might do to property values.  Although…my 2 and 3 year-old grandchildren are certainly wary of the creatures appearing on lawns—a wariness enhanced, no doubt, a couple weeks ago by a store’s holiday display and a life-size skeleton that started rattling just as we walked by.  They jumped just a bit!  But adults are different.  For them, it takes a Hollywood film or a carefully choreographed haunted house to generate Halloween fear.

It’s strange, isn’t it, that our culture invests so much in fostering artificial fear, when close at hand there is no shortage of real things to fear?  Life is a tenuous and precarious thing, and the accidents, and diagnoses, and tragedies that can upset and destroy life are so common and routine that fear seems to be an altogether reasonable response.  Cancer, cultural decay, bankruptcy, tornadoes, hurricanes, terrorism, sharks, career failure, family failure, loneliness, slow and humiliating dying: big and small, universal and intimate, real threats generate real fear.  But, not for you, right?  No, you know better.  You know that Christians aren’t supposed to fear.  In fact, you know that for a Christian, fear is tantamount to sin.  After all, in his first little letter, St. John directly asserts that perfect love surpasses and drives out fear.  For a believer, fear, we believe, is not possible.  It is excluded on principle.  And, while we will all readily admit struggles to live the ideal, and acknowledge the encroachment of worry and even fear into our lives, we remain convinced of the basic truth of the idea.  We believe that of all people, Christians, have absolutely nothing that they should fear.  So, it’s not surprising that we begin to believe the idea that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself is actually a deep and profound Christian truth.  Fear, we are quite sure, should have no place among us; and the noblest and best Christians, we conclude, simply don’t fear at all.

But this idea is completely wrong.  And it’s not wrong because no Christian is able to do it; it’s wrong fundamentally.  It’s wrong theologically.

FDR’s famous saying may have been the right thing to say to a nation contemplating the horror of an all-out world war, but he was wrong.  Well, he was mostly wrong.  He was right that there is only one thing to fear.  But, the one thing to fear is not fear itself.  No, the one thing to fear is God.  Yes, that’s right.  Jesus said so…and I’ll take Jesus over Roosevelt any day.  “Don’t fear those who kill the body,” Jesus said, “fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell.  Yes, I tell you, fear him!”  There is only one who has the authority to damn someone to hell.  It’s not Satan.  The only one with that kind of authority is God himself.  God is the one who condemns people to hell.  Eternal damnation is a potent terror.  Hell is a very good reason to fear.  And so, this brings us directly to the very center of the confusion that Christians have when it comes to fear.  For you and for me, hell is no longer a threat, right?  We have been redeemed by Christ, claimed in Baptism and sustained in Absolution and Holy Communion.  We are not doomed for eternal torment.  So, it would seem, for us there should be nothing to fear.

But, that’s not true.  Even now, even as a Christian living in grace, you are still supposed to fear God.  Jesus’ words still apply.  He is, after all, still God; and you, well, you certainly are not God.  God is still the Creator and the Lord of everything that exists; and you are only a creature.  He remains the unflinching standard of all holiness and justice; and you are still a very sinful person who can never measure up to his expectations of moral perfection.  As long as you live as a broken creature in this world, your Creator always holds a fitting degree of terror for you.  That’s why in the gospel accounts, Peter and the disciples routinely reacted with crushing fear when they glimpsed the divinity of Jesus.  When Jesus stilled the storm, they were terrified of him.  When Jesus filled their nets with fish, Peter asked Jesus to leave—his holy presence was too frightening.  And even the beloved disciple, John, the dear friend of Jesus, collapses in holy fear when he sees Jesus, revealed in full heavenly glory in the vision recorded in the book of Revelation.  Even Christians, even disciples, also are still fully creatures, and creatures are built and designed to fear their Creator and Judge.  It’s the way that it’s supposed to be.

Yes, Jesus is your friend.  Yes, God is your father.  Yes, the guilt you carry no longer condemns you or damns you.  It has been wiped from you.  That’s all profoundly and beautifully true.  But, there is a tendency among Christians to focus so much on Jesus’ kindness and love, that we forget that he is also God and Lord.  He is the righteous judge of all people.  When Jesus becomes only our buddy and God our pal, our theology is in trouble, and our Christian life will suffer severely.  Far too often such familiarity breeds contempt, of at the least, a shallow and superficial understanding of God, God’s law, and what it means to follow God and his ways in your life.  God is you loving Father and Jesus is your caring savior, but that doesn’t mean fear is now ruled out.  Even for Christians who know the love of God, the fear of God lingers, as it should, simply because God is God.  God, the Creator, always provokes a healthy and appropriate fear in creatures.  C.S. Lewis understood this better than most people.  In his famous Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis presents a figure who represents the ultimate Lord of Narnia—one who is fully in control even when not present.  This Christ figure is named Aslan.  And if you’ve read the books, you know that Aslan is a lion.  Even when he is showing perfect kindness and great mercy, Aslan always remains an enormous and terrifying lion.  Those who know him and trust him are able, when he chooses, to walk with him, talk with him, celebrate and laugh with him.  Some even embrace him.  Yet, all the while he remains a lion and his very being and presence always trigger a shock and a shudder in creatures.  One fears Aslan much as you fear electricity or fire or a narrow mountain pass—if you’re not careful, you could end up dead.  So it is with Aslan.  He exudes majesty, beauty, joy, grace, and kindness, but also always awe and wonder, and at least a twinge of terror.

This is the relevant point of the strong admonition in Psalm 111—a word of exhortation that appears quite frequently throughout the Bible.  It’s the text I read: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  Right, but, this is not just a thing that’s one and done.  You don’t once experience fear and then move past it.  Fear is not left behind once you arrive at the Gospel.  You do not move through fear and then dismiss it once you settle into the goodness of grace.  Fear is the beginning of wisdom, but it’s also the middle and the ongoing life of wisdom.  The fear of the Lord needs to be practiced.  It’s an ongoing, continuing venture.  It’s the mark of a good and right life.  With the fear of God in place in your life, wisdom begins, grows, and thrives, and good understanding is the consequence.  In other words, when you practice the fear of God on a regular basis, it helps you maintain a right outlook on God, on yourself, and on your place and purpose in life.  The fear of God keeps everything in your life in the right order—including you.

Knowing that God holds you accountable, knowing that you can still make a mess of things, knowing that your sinful self is quite able to squander God’s gift and wander from God’s grace, knowing that God is still God—all of these things can serve as powerful restraints on your old sinful self and also help to keep your new self rightly centered on God’s plan for you.  Fear has a remarkable way of generating focus and alert action.  You know how that works.  You’re driving down the interstate on a long road trip.  It’s late at night, and things are getting a bit fuzzy.  And then a semi that’s passed you only about halfway suddenly veers into your lane and forces you onto the shoulder.  You ride it out, and get control, quickly steering back onto the road.  Just like that, you are instantly wide-awake and wired for the duration of the trip.  The fear of God works that way.  You need that fear to help you stay on track in your Christian life.  So, we need to salvage and rehabilitate fear as an essential component in the Christian life.  You need to give it the place it deserves in your own Christian life.

And while we’re rehabilitating fear, maybe we should see what we can do about rethinking the holiday that goes with it.  That day is coming.  We should figure out what to do with it when it gets here, and perhaps make the most of it.  Soon we will be confronted with the holiday marked with bodies and bones, blood and gore, spirits and torture, demons and death.  Yes, soon enough, it will be Good Friday.  Odd, isn’t it, to think of Good Friday in connection with Halloween?  The truth is that of the two, Good Friday is far and away the more terrifying.  The image of Jesus’ lifeless corpse nailed to a cross is hardly appealing—no wonder people would rather not see it.  It’s hard to look at it.  But the holiday is not only offensive to our tender human sensibilities, it is intensely and insanely frightening.  The cross means death.  Of course, that’s the whole point of a cross.  It was a particularly nasty means of killing someone.  But, the cross means more than the death of Jesus.  The cross also means your death.  It’s not safe. The cross either condemns you in your unbelief and your personal complicity and guilt in the rejection and death of God, or it demands that you join Jesus on your own cross in your own agonizing death to yourself.  That’s what it means to believe—one must die with Jesus.  There is no escape.  The cross is the end.  The cross is the end of your self-regard.  That’s shattered. The cross means that your sense of positive self-worth is slaughtered.  The cross means that your autonomous independence is exposed as a lie.  The cross means that your personal worth is trampled and tossed away.  Nothing is left.  The cross forces every creature to realize his desperate need.

There is plenty to fear at Golgotha, the place of the skull.  But, that fear is not the end and only word.  The fear of wrath, the fear of losing yourself in the cross, the fear of Good Friday is all caught up and consumed in the feast of Good Friday.  Jesus is a corpse no more.  The grave has been robbed.  The demons are driven away.  The horror is gone.  All the fears of this world and all the fears of self-loss are swept up and brought into the new reality of Jesus as Lord.  He is your Lord.  He is your God.  Fear him.  Love him.  The cross reveals the deep reality that the fear of the Lord is truly the beginning of wisdom—wisdom that is fulfilled and made perfect on the cross.  You have nothing to fear, my friend, nothing but the crucified and risen Lord, your Lord.  Fear him.

Amen.

To Live by Faith

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4

October 2, 2016

Several Sundays ago, my wife and I began our morning routine with an unwelcome surprise: no hot water.  I assumed that our water heater’s pilot light had gone out and headed downstairs to re-ignite it.  I read the instructions on the tank.  I followed the instructions on the tank.  I lit the pilot and waited the full required minute before releasing the gas flow button.  And, as soon as I did, the little blue flame vanished.  Hoping for a Sunday morning miracle, I repeated the scenario three more times…with the same result each time.  I’m not particularly skilled at mechanical repairs, but I once heard someone blame a malfunctioning pilot light on a thermocouple.  So, I diagnosed that as my problem.  At church, my ever-resourceful wife made a passing comment about our predicament to just the right person, and soon a considerably more mechanically-inclined friend of mine actually confirmed my diagnosis.  And, then he did a very brave and noble thing: he volunteered to make my pilot light his afternoon project—I had a Sunday miracle after all.  Driving home from church, I told my wife our grand plan to fix the water heater.  And she communicated to me, without saying a,  word, what she always communicates to me when I embark on a home repair.  It was quite clear and unmistakable: “I hope you know what you’re doing.”  Of course, I didn’t, but I was sure that my friend did.  On schedule, my friend and expert arrived with his smile, and his tools…and his Reader’s Digest Guide for do-it-yourself home repairs.  It turned out that he’d never replaced a thermocouple either.  As we descended into the basement, even I began to wonder: do we know what we’re doing?

It’s a good question.  Of course, it’s probably better to ask the question before you disassemble the entire gas hookup to your water heater…but it’s a good question.  Does he know what he’s doing?  We have frequent opportunities to ask.  It’s 4^th and goal from the 2 and the coach calls a passing play.  Does he know what he’s doing?  It’s Christmas at the mall, and a guy is trying to ease his extended cab dual-wheel pick up into a crooked parking space between two Suburbans.  Does he know what he’s doing?  Your neighbor decides to line his driveway with Bradford Pears planted 18 inches apart.  Does he know what he’s doing? We ask the question often—maybe not always out loud, but we ask.  Habakkuk was asking the question.  A pious prophet of God, eager to see God’s truth upheld and justice extended, Habakkuk looked around at God’s chosen nation of Judah and at every turn he saw injustice, violence, and wickedness.  Why was such a thing allowed to happen?  Did God know what he was doing?  Habakkuk had his doubts, and he prayed, or more accurately pleaded with God to provide some sort of answer to alleviate his fears and ease his crisis of faith.  In the face of all the contrary evidence, the prophet’s faith needed help.

It might seem a hazardous and rash thing to look heavenward and demand: God, do you know what you’re doing?  But, Habakkuk is hardly the first or the last creature to put the question to the Creator.  Centuries and millennia go by, but the world changes little.  There is still violence in the streets.  There is still injustice in the courtroom.  There is still greed in the marketplace.  There is still corruption in the government.  There is still dishonesty in the business deal.  And even more alarming, the world now seems increasingly determined to defy God’s moral commands about protecting life, honoring marriage, and caring for the neighbor.  Look around at our world today, and in your unguarded, honest, moments you wonder: does God know what he’s doing?

But the decay of the world is only the beginning of the questions.  Look around at the church and the picture is hardly encouraging.  Shrinking numbers, disappearing young people, lackluster participation, aging demographic, and a society that responds to the church with hostility or, even worse, with simple indifference.  The church seems irrelevant at best.  More troubling still, far too often, the church actually bears a remarkable and unsettling resemblance to the surrounding culture.  All of the ills that afflict the decadence of the world make a parallel appearance in the church.  Petty quarrels, envy over the blessings enjoyed by others, apathy toward the pain and sorrow of others, self-absorption in trying to get what you need from those around you: it’s embarrassing, but we know it to be true, all of these worldly sins are quite as at home in the church as they are in the world.  You see the church and can’t help but ask, “Does God know what he’s doing?”

And, then you tighten your gaze a little more, confine your view to your work and your home, and you wonder again.  Your job is largely uninteresting and unfulfilling, and you’re always underappreciated and underpaid.  Your dreams of what marriage should be haven’t materialized—not even close, and you feel cheated by what you do have.  The children you worked so hard to raise, routinely respond with disrespect or even animosity. You do your best to do the right thing as a spouse, a parent, and an employee, but it never seems to make any real difference.  You seriously wonder about the point of it all, and then you wonder why God doesn’t do something about it and make things better.  You wonder if God knows what he’s doing.

The prophet Habakkuk got his answer from God.  It turned out that God was well aware of the injustice and evil in what was supposed to be his chosen nation—no surprise, there.  What was surprising, was the answer that finally came.  God’s answer to the prophet’s accusing prayer only made things much worse.  God’s plan, announced in detail to the prophet, was to send a murderous, greedy, pagan nation to punish the wickedness in Judah.  He was sending the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, to do his work.  Poor Habakkuk.  It made no sense at all.  He could only wonder all the more: does God know what he’s doing?  When you ask the question, today, God’s answer isn’t much easier to take.  He may not announce a planned alien invasion by a pagan people and subsequent national destruction, which is, I suppose, a good thing.  But, the answer you do get, is hardly comforting or encouraging.  You get silence and more of the same.  God chooses not to intervene.  He doesn’t shut down the evil.  He doesn’t rebuke the injustice.  He doesn’t turn the tables and come to the rescue of the righteous.  Instead, he’s silent, and the world and the church and your life all continue their long slow slide into desperation and futility.  Does God know what he’s doing?

But maybe…maybe, there’s something wrong with the question.  Maybe, instead of wondering if God knows what he’s doing, you should be wondering if you know what you’re doing.  That’s where God led Habakkuk.  God’s answer did not waver.  His plan was set; it would not change.  What changed was Habakkuk’s response to the plan.  God reminded him that he was still God, and that he would make everything right in his time.  Babylon would not be blessed.  They were not in control.  They were not the lords.  Babylon was nothing but a tool in God’s hand, a tool that would receive God’s righteous judgment and punishment in full measure.  Habakkuk was asking the wrong question.  God certainly knew what he was doing.  He always does.  Habakkuk needed to ask himself if he knew what he was doing.  Clearly, he didn’t!  Confronting God and questioning God’s plan was the wrong thing for Habakkuk to do.  Creatures don’t challenge the Creator.  There was only one thing Habakkuk needed to do: he needed to trust God.  He needed to live by faith.

So, do you know what you’re doing?  Are you right to despair over the injustice of the world?  Are you right to fret over the marginalization and decline of the church?  Are you right to grieve over the disappointments that invade your life?  Do you know what you’re doing?  You know that you don’t.  God’s response to you is precisely the same as it was to Habakkuk.  Like the ancient prophet, you are called to live by faith.  That’s it.  I’m concerned, though, that by telling you to live by faith, you get the wrong idea altogether.  Most Christians, I suspect, are very confused about what it means to “live by faith.”  So, let’s be clear about what it means for you to live by faith.

The first point should be obvious.  To live by faith means that you stop wasting time wondering if God knows what he’s doing!  He does.  He’s God.  His answers are always right.  His timing is always perfect.  His plan is always on target.  Don’t doubt it.  All that happens in this world and in your life is his plan.  He knows what he’s doing.  Always.  He proved it in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  So, be a good creature and trust your Creator.  He’s got everything under control.  To live by faith, is to trust God, and to receive all the gifts of grace he has for you in Christ.  Don’t get impatient with his plan.  Don’t start looking around for alternatives.  Don’t ever, ever, check out other possible answers to your problems and worries.  Any alternative to God’s provision, whether it is a philosophy, a scientific discovery, a social savior, or a nostalgic dream of American exceptionalism is nothing but an idol.  There is nothing in this world that is going to fix this world.  There is no strategy that is going to salvage the church.  There is no man or woman who is going to make your life everything that it is supposed to be.  Only God can do these things, and in Christ, he does.  Trust him.

Ok, now the next thing.  Yeah, there’s a next thing.  There is more to living by faith than trusting God and receiving his gifts.  The next thing is that you get busy.  God delivered his answer to Habakkuk not so that the prophet could sit back and say, “Ok, God’s in control, I can coast.”  No.  God spoke his truth to Habakkuk so that those who read the vision would go and proclaim the vision.  When you live by faith, you’re active.  You do stuff.  To live by faith is to do.  The Christian life is not passive.  This is a mistake Christians often make.  They hear, “Live by faith,” and they assume it means that they don’t need to do a thing.  That’s wrong.  When you live by faith you do the things that God gives you to do.  And God does give you things to do.  When you see the world crumbling into decay, you live by faith.  You trust that God will do what he has planned for his creation; and then you do what he gives you to do.  You speak his truth about the world to your friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors.  You do what you can to influence and form them with God’s reality.  Whenever and however you can, you bring as much of the world as you can into line with God’s Law.  You read, listen, speak, work, pray and vote.  In your home when things tear you down, you live by faith.  You double down and do your best to be what God has made you to be: strive to love and respect your spouse, work hard to guide and shape your kids and grandkids.  At work, you invest in the prosperity of those you serve: encourage your coworkers; respect those in authority over you.  And when what you see at church brings sadness and discouragement, you live by faith.  Yes, you trust God and his plan for his church, but you also do what he has given you to do, there.  You worship every week.  You stay for Bible class and dive into God’s Word with your church family.  You speak words of admonition and words of support to brothers and sisters who walk the Christian walk with you.  You don’t focus on what’s wrong, you don’t pine for what once was, you don’t dream of a distant better day.  No, you live by faith.  Trust God for today, do what he gives you to do, today.  Sing the liturgy.  Belt out the hymns.  Pray the prayers.  Study the Word.  Build up your brothers and sisters.  Receive the body and the blood.  Be the church.  That’s what it means to live by faith.  That’s what God calls you to do.  Together, this is what we will do.

Don’t wonder whether God knows what he’s doing.  He does.  Ask yourself if you know what you’re doing.  Ask yourself if you are living by faith.  When you live by faith, you live in that delightful place where God delivers his grace.  Savor it.  When you live by faith, you’ve got things that need to be done.  Do those things.  Truth be told, my friend and I did not really know what we were doing that Sunday afternoon in the basement.  My wife was quite right to wonder about our competence.  The project took far too long, but after some mistakes, the requisite trip to Lowe’s, and a few steps that had to be done, re-done, and then re-done again, at last the thermocouple in my water heater was replaced.  The pilot light is still burning its delightful little blue flame even now.  Pooling our meager knowledge and trusting the guidance of Reader’s Digest, somehow, we got the job done.  And that’s how it goes.  When you get right down to it, and when you’re honest, you know it’s true: you don’t know what you’re doing.  But, God does.  And he will do what he plans to do, and use you in the process.  Be sure of it.  That’s what it means to live by faith.  Habakkuk learned it.  You learn it. 

Amen.