WEEKLY SERMON
Pentecost 13 – August 30, 2009
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
Schools across our country are starting up again.
Our own Lamb of God school starts on Monday, along with the
freshmen at Wisconsin Lutheran.
West Allis public schools start on Tuesday along with a number of
the colleges and universities which our young people attend.
For most students it’s an exciting time of the year as they get
to see friends from the previous year.
And there might be some anxiety along with it as maybe they are
moving into a different school with new teachers and classmates.
But the whole purpose of school, no matter where you attend, is
to get an education, to add to your store of knowledge and skills.
The teachers are there to direct that process, to open up new
areas to learn and explore, to prepare our children for their lives as
productive citizens and, in the case of our Lutheran schools, to also
prepare them for their lives as children of God in this world and for
all eternity.
We should be extremely thankful to God for the excellent
opportunities we have for acquiring knowledge so that we can earn a
living and enjoy what can be called a pretty good life here in America,
despite the problems we may be having in our economy.
But there’s more to education than just compiling a head full of
knowledge. No matter how
smart we might be, or how skilled we are, many people in our day are
missing a key ingredient to having and enjoying the best life.
That missing ingredient was described for us in our gospel
reading today and was given a label in our OT reading.
It’s called wisdom, spiritual wisdom and insight into our
relationship with God. It’s
the knowledge of the true God that leads to trusting in him as our one
and only Savior. That’s
going to change the way we look at everything else, every aspect of our
lives, including the choices many of us make for educating our children.
In the words before us today, the apostle Paul shows us how to:
LIVE THE WISE LIFE
First of all, in order to live the wise life, Paul says that we
need to know what the wise life is,
Be very careful, then, how you
live – not as unwise but as wise.
Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will
is. Paul had just laid
that out for the Ephesians.
He had contrasted the lifestyles of believers versus unbelievers.
He said that believers will live a life of love, one of devotion
to God and to others, rather than indulging their sinful desires in
sexual immorality. Rather
than having their lives and their minds in the gutter, they will make
the choice, on the basis of their love for God, to treat their bodies
with respect and to follow God’s ways when it comes to sexual matters.
The only proper place to enjoy God’s gift of sexual intimacy is
in marriage, one man and one woman committed to each other according to
God’s will and the laws of society.
Anything else is the foolish life, the life of destruction and
disobedience. And people
who choose that life, the life of sexual and sensual gratification, will
never inherit the kingdom of God.
The second way that Paul describes this choice in life is the
life of light versus the life of darkness.
The life of light, the wise life, consists in all goodness,
righteousness and truth.
The life of darkness is the way of disobedience and sin.
And again, he says that that way of life ends in death, spiritual
death in hell.
So those are the choices set before us.
It’s God’s way, the wise way, the way of light and love, or it’s
the highway, the broad and easy way to hell.
Now, we must always remember that we have a sinful nature inside
us that cannot make the right choice.
We are all born with original sin which completely takes away our
ability to make the choices which are pleasing to God.
The unbeliever will always follow his natural desires.
At times that may look good and right, as people make choices in their
lives that coincide with some of God’s laws.
They may come to the aid of those who are being hurt, as Mayor
Barrett did a couple weeks ago.
And we will applaud people for that.
We call that civic righteousness. Unfortunately, those kinds of
actions lead a lot of people to think they are doing enough of what God
requires in order to get themselves into heaven.
Yet, if those choices are made without love for God, without
total reliance on Jesus for salvation, no matter how spotless and clean
a person’s outward lives might be, it’s not really living the wise life
that God wants of us.
So how can we do that, live the way of life that is pleasing to the
Lord? IT can only happen
when we are given freedom through the work of the Holy Spirit.
By the power of the gospel, now we can make choices that are
pleasing to God. The
Spirit, working through baptism and the Word, makes us children of God.
We become sons and daughters of the king rather than slaves to
our sinful nature. Now we
trust and rely on Jesus for taking us to heaven rather than relying on
our own abilities. Jesus
has freed us from our sins and given us a new spiritual life, given us
the ability to make the choices and do the things are pleasing in the
sight of God. It’s as
though we’ve gone from a dictatorship where our sinful nature will
always lead us away from what is true and right, to where we are now
living in a democracy where we can make choices that will have real and
lasting benefits. The
choice of the wise person, the one who knows and understands the will of
God, will be the choice that pleases his Savior and will be made on the
basis of our love for him.
So Paul says that we should be very careful how we live.
That’s because we still have that sinful nature inside of us
trying to get us to make the wrong choices, the choices of selfishness
and sin. But going in those
directions will only spoil our relationship with Jesus.
Those choices will jeopardize our place in God’s kingdom of
heaven. Because Jesus went
to all the trouble, willingly sacrificing his life to take our sins
away, we will want to make the right choices, choosing the wise life,
following the Lord’s will as he lays it out for us in his word.
What are some of those wise choices?
The first one Paul mentions here is this,
Do not get drunk on wine, which
leads to debauchery.
Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
A couple of weeks ago the chaplain from our institutional
ministries talked about how alcohol and drugs have ruined so many lives,
have led lots of people into lives of crime and violence.
Those addictions take a heavy toll on our society, and even among
families of faith. Two
thirds of all deaths on the highway are attributed to drunk driving.
We heard that 4 out of 5 prison inmates are in the House of
Corrections because of drug and alcohol related crimes.
When that dependence takes over, it ruins marriages and families.
It can cost you your job, your relationships with others.
It leads to debauchery, a life lived only to please one’s sexual
and sensual appetites. It’s
a choice that leads away from God.
The wise choice is to be filled, not with spirits, but with the Spirit.
That’s the choice that brought you here today, right?
The only way to be filled with the Holy Spirit is through the
Word of God and through the sacraments.
Those are the tools through which the Spirit of God comes to us.
That’s why we stress being here in God’s house to feed your soul
with the wisdom of God’s word.
It’s why we offer Bible classes a number of different times
throughout the week. We
will have a new series on the Sermon on the Mount beginning in
mid-September. It’s why we
conduct a Christian school and a Sunday School and catechism classes.
We want our children to be filled with the Spirit so they can
begin to make the choices that conform to God’s will, thus leading the
life of godly wisdom. It’s
why we also make available materials for family devotions and home Bible
study. These are all
different ways to show that you are living the wise life, that you are
filling your heart and your life with the good news about Jesus, your
Savior. You are making
God’s word the guide in your life, letting his will lead you to make the
choices of love and thanks to him for making you his child.
Those choices even extend to the kind of music you listen to.
Today there is so much garbage out there with gangsta rap and the
like which is filled with Satanic messages or which glorify drugs and
immorality. Making the
choice to listen to that kind of music is like letting an open sewer
flow into your house and into your heart.
It can’t help but stink up your life.
Rather, Paul says, Speak
to one another with psalms hymns and spiritual songs.
Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.
How many of you make use of your hymnals at home, gather as a
family or as an individual singing the psalms and hymns in it?
Music about Jesus and God’s love is something we want to teach
our children because it conveys the wonderful message of the gospel even
to those tender hearts.
Music touches the heart and it can touch the soul as well.
Let’s make wise choices and enjoy the music that reinforces our
faith in Jesus.
II.
That’s what Paul means when he says,
Make the most of every
opportunity. We are
faced with hundreds of choices during the course of a week.
They can range from the simple, like what we are going to eat for
breakfast, to the very difficult, like where we are going in our
careers. Many of them will
have spiritual implications, can have an effect on our relationship with
God, with our Savior Jesus.
We can make them on the basis of our sinful nature, always choosing the
selfish way, the easy way, the way that satisfies our sensual appetites.
Or we can make them for our spiritual good and the good of those
in our family, for the building up of our faith, for strengthening our
relationship with Jesus, preparing ourselves and our children for the
life beyond this world.
Make no mistake about it, the choices we make have far-reaching, eternal
consequences.
So make the most of every opportunity you have.
Make the choices which show that you understand what the will of
the Lord is and that you are living the wise life.
Let your choices be ones that mean feeding your soul with the
Bread of Life, getting to know Jesus better and better through his Word
and sacrament. Make the
choice to use your time to be in God’s house every week, to be involved
in studying that word, in feeding the faith of your children in Sunday
School and in our Lamb of God school.
Make the choices which show that your faith and your love for
Jesus have top priority in your life.
Let them be the choices which show your gratitude to God for
giving you both the good life and the wise life.
Make the choices which show that the love of Jesus is in your
heart and can’t help but shine out day after day.
Let yours be choices made so that eh name of Jesus is on your
lips as you tell others of his love and goodness, as you speak to one
another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
The wise life will not always be the easy life.
We need the help and nourishment the Holy Spirit gives us through
word and sacrament. We need
constant reminders of what Jesus has all done for us by rescuing us from
our sins, from death and damnation and giving us as his free gift the
wonders of salvation and eternal lie.
Live the wise life by getting into the word.
Practice the wise life here in God’s house with your fellow
believers. Then go out and
put it on display every day of your life.
AMEN.