B, Christmas 1, New Year's Eve - 1 Peter 1:22-25 "The Word of God"

1 Peter 1:22–25 (ESV) Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,  since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;  for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

In 2023 the Lord God has given, and the Lord God has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21)!   Whatever it is he has given you in 2023, he has given so you look to him and give thanks.  Whatever it is he has taken from you, he has taken from you, so you turn and learn to trust in him.

In 2023 God has given you, his Word!  His Word is given, and the Holy Spirit has moved in you with his Word, to discipline and disciple you, so you abide and remain living with Jesus, the Word made Flesh. 

If you have been faithful to God’s Word, the Holy Spirit brings comfort through the forgiveness of your sin.  If you have fought against being brought to repentance in the Word of God, or you have failed to hear the Word through disobedience, or have used God’s Word to your own glory, the Holy Spirit will let you suffer, to save you and return you to God’s Word, and his one true church.

It is the Holy Spirit’s job to call and gather you, enlighten you in the Word of God, and make you holy by keeping you united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.  Push against the Holy Spirit from bringing you to Jesus Christ, and you place yourself on sinking sand, and in grave danger of sinning against the giver of faith.

God wants what’s good for you!  He wants to work his goodness for your good.  The Holy Spirit has been sent from God the Father, and God the Son, to bring you to our Father through the Son.  The Holy Spirit does this work by gently walking beside us, like a friend walking with his arm around our shoulder, comforting us as he moves us to the safety of the cross.  But sometimes he needs to walk behind us, giving us a sharp swift kick that might hurt a bit!  But it’s done for our eternal benefit returning us in repentance to the cross and worker of our salvation!

As individuals the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes us holy as God’s one church.  We remain in God’s church when we allow the Holy Spirit to set us apart. 

However, when we, the church of God, set ourselves apart from the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, we place ourselves in corporate danger.  Collectively gathering as one human spirit, we may think we have the Holy Spirit, but end up sitting in authority over the Word of God, judging the Word of God with a human spirit.  In other words, we use our powers and principles, which are our works and will, and not God’s!

Do you think that a loving Heavenly Father, will not seek to return us to him?  God indeed will fight for us, to correct us, and lead us back to Jesus Christ, to the Word made Flesh, so we re-submit to the written Word, from where he gives us light and life!  All prodigal sons and self-righteous sons are called back to our Heavenly Father through “the Son of God”, with his Sonship, worked within, by the Holy Spirit!

Like a fig tree that hasn’t been bearing fruit, we have been allowed to continue as the Lutheran Church in Australia by our heavenly Father.  Faithful pastors have dug around the roots and fertilised the tree of the church with the Word of God.  Some however have chosen to fertilise with a compromised word, leaving out the call to repentance, rather encouraging God’s children to follow their feelings. 

But Jesus says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  You will recognize them by their fruits.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”  (Matthew 7:15–16a, 19–20 ESV)

And again he warns “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:36–37 ESV)

God calls us to return to the Word of God over against the feelings, the opinions, and the words of our hearts.  Our fleeting words will not save us.  Like rotten fruit will be thrown out or a fruitless tree will be taken to with an axe, those who persistently deny God and his Word, dangerously put themselves on the wrong side of God’s Word and his judgement!

If you think there are no ravenous wolves in the LCANZ, you need to wake up to the reality of the world and the church.  Do not accept what any pastor says, just because they are a pastor, me included! 

Submit what every pastor teaches and preaches to the glory test!  What is the glory test?  Does it glorify Jesus Christ eternally, or does the glory go somewhere else, dying before the fullness of time?  Investigate and judge for yourselves with a right judgement, to where the glory is going!

2024 will be a year of chaos for the LCANZ.  Many other churches of Christendom have chosen to walk away from the Word by following the ways of the world.  Modern heresies abound in the denominations of the Reformation, where the Word of God is watered down more and more to accommodate the confusion and chaos of the world.

The light and life, of God’s one true holy apostolic church gathered around Jesus Christ, has been diminished in many denominations, including the Lutheran Church of Australia.  The cult of the LCA has been caught up in the chaos and confusion of the world. 

The powers and principles the church has sought to trust, has moved from God to man, from trusting God and his Word, to seeking popularity and approval from the world, by reading the world into the Word, to make the Word and the LCANZ more accommodating to Australia’s sinful society. 

The LCANZ has realised it cannot discern from the Word of God that women should be ordained.  Yet because the desire is strong, we’re making the same mistakes as others and are stepping away from the Word, to become engaged in wilful mischief, deliberate sin, and self-glorifying righteousness. 

Where God is silent, some have become presumptuously boisterous, actively scoffing, and seeking to shame those who seek to follow the Word of God!  How have we got to a point where the spirit of the world reigns over the Holy Spirit?   Many refuse to repent, but rather travel the way that’s wide, that leads to eternal death!

The chaos that is unfolding in the church, is evident.  God is handing us over to our will, withdrawing and leaving us to our own devices.  Synod in Melbourne in February saw due process and the Word of God held ransom to the procedural direction of a few.  Chaos and confusion reigned, but submission to the Word was fleeting at best!

Rather than God speaking through gathered congregations in synod, a top-down directive occurred.  Where congregations once got together as synod to do what they could not do individually, now a small group of individuals has usurped the authority of the Synod, the Pastor’s Conference, but more importantly God and his Word.  Just like what happened in the Garden of Eden, the authority has been reversed!

It's no surprise that in 2023, a small group, without the authority of the synod, decided to secretly change the call of lecturers at the seminary without their consultation and has decided to sell off the seminary and national office in Adelaide.  In its best light, it’s a poor business decision, at its worse it is the complete mismanagement of God’s gifts to continue supplying confessional Christ centred pastors to feed, forgive, and prepare God’s flock of Lutherans to bear God’s Word in the world. 

2024 will be a year of chaos for the LCANZ as it continues on its path against God and his Word.  While the LCANZ follows the flesh, its glory will fade and fall like that of grass flowers.  “The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” 

Jeremiah talks about good figs and bad figs.  Just as we have taunted God for twenty-three years since the 2000 synod, Jeremiah informs the bad figs, the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, saying, “For twenty-three years, …to this day, the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.  You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the LORD persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets… Yet you have not listened to me, declares the LORD, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.”  (Jeremiah 25:3-4, 7 ESV)

We might say, “But we have Jesus, we have Jesus!”, just as they said, “We have the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” (Jeremiah 7:4)   But where is that temple of the Lord today?  It’s gone!  It disappeared into the echelons of time.

God calls you to follow his Word, and not the world, as he has done throughout the history of mankind.  We are no different to any other generation.  Moses called Israel to choose life and live!  Jesus calls us to abide in his Word, as branches live in the vine (John 15:1-9).   Paul and the Apostles proclaimed Jesus Christ, so we choose life and live.  Luther also calls us to choose life in the Word of God, and so too do many others. 

They all call us, to not stand over God’s Word for our short-term gain, but rather call us to remain in submission to God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, and the Holy Spirit who truly works the Word within for our repentance and salvation.  Amen.

B, Christmas Day, The Birth of our Lord - John 1:1-14 Hebrews 1:1-4 "Light and Life"

In the first and third verse of Genesis chapter one, we hear, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”  (Genesis 1:1,3 ESV)

All who hear these words should recognise their similarity when we hear John chapter one. 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”  (John 1:1–4 ESV)

Hebrews chapter one draws from the beginning of Genesis and the Gospel of John, as Christ being the Word of God, speaking the word of God, who created the world. 

From Hebrews chapter one, we hear of Jesus Christ, the Son of God our Father, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”  (Hebrews 1:3a ESV)

The true light and life of Christmas is Christ Jesus.  In the beginning at creation, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God the Son, not yet human, was the Word not yet made flesh, and he is the light and life of all things - everything.

But the Word of God, the Son of God, who is God, who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of God’s nature, was enfleshed into a human being, as a man.  Jesus was born, in the incarnation of created human flesh.  God the Son, was born as the Son of Man, born into a world in which God created for fleshy humans to dwell.

The Creator became created.  God became man.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary, the carrier of the Christ.  A fragile human woman, carrying a fragile human baby.  The eternal Son of God came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became a human, a baby boy, to be the Son of Man, the servant of humanity!

Jesus came as the light of life for his creation.  “He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.”  (John 1:10 ESV)

Hebrews chapter one does not dwell on the beginning, as does John and Genesis chapters one, but rather picks up the theme of Jesus’ beginning and power, to point us to God’s purpose and destination.  We hear, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3b ESV)

Succinctly and without hesitation the writer of Hebrews, confesses the Son of God, as he who covered sin with his purity and is now seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, which is God the Father.  He did this for his own people, the people of God, and they did not receive him. 

Brighter than the sun, the Word made Flesh, now shone in the darkness of the womb, in the darkness of the stable, amongst the darkness of his very own people.  And despite their darkness, the darkness did not overcome the Light of the World, the Life of the World, the Word made Flesh!

We Christians, ones who are being made holy through this work of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, joyfully rejoice over the coming of Christ at the first Christmas.  And we eagerly await and willingly confess our sins, to our Father in heaven, through the help of the Holy Spirit, who fills us with patience for Jesus’ second coming.  We endure in the darkness knowing our destination is Jesus the Christ, light and life of the world.

Not so the world.  You will not hear anything about God the Father, or God the Holy Spirit.  And what you hear of Jesus is minimal, at best.  You will not hear that he is the Son of God, or that he is the Christ, the Messiah.  When he is sung about in carols, they’re sung as a sentiment for feeling a certain way at this time of year.

Thanks be to God, Christmas is called Christmas.  The world cannot separate Christ from Christmas no matter how hard they try.  And thanks be to God our Father, he has given us voices to sing carols about Christ, and mouths to proclaim, the name of Christ, as our Messiah and as the Messiah for all people.  Despite Saint Nicolas and his charity being dragged into the harlotry of ho, ho, ho, happy holidays and desperate desires for the latest craving, Jesus Christ is still the true light and life of an ever-darkening world.  

In fact, Jesus’ light shines brighter and brighter as the true messianic gift to humanity, the true salvific servant of man, as the world seeks to dwell in darkness and deception, which is the lie that our commercialised Christmas has become.  Yet the darkness cannot overcome the Christ in Christmas!

Those seeking popularity on television will not tell you who is the Christ in Christmas!  Nor will the singers proclaim who the holy child is, so meek and mild. 

No, they are living the lie that the worldly Christmas has become, as they continue to add deceptive words to deceptive words to keep the lie going.  And we all know what this lie is!  We all participate in the lie, when we entertain the dark spirit of the Christmas lie by putting our faith in our desires for silver and gold – gifts that are gods made with human hands.

As the psalmist says, “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.  They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.  Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” (Psalm 115:4–8 ESV)

But you and I are being made holy and set apart by the holy Christ Child.  He grew and made purification for your sin!   Jesus Christ is the one true holy gift of God, shining in the brightness of eternity, in the holiness of purity to cover all darkness in you this Christmas! 

This is your gift from God for all eternity to not only dispel the darkness the world has without him, but the darkness you have within.  Jesus Christ is the Word made Flesh who dwells amongst us but also tabernacles within each of us, enlightening us with grace and truth.  Let the Christ be born daily in you, knowing the promise, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:16 ESV)

He is the gift that keeps on giving, from the beginning to the end, through the darkness of death into eternity.  The one true gift that shines into the future and gives hope in a holy destination for you and all humanity who believes in him.

Let the Holy Spirit be the true Spirit of Christmas which can freely give the gift of the Christ of Christmas to all.  Those of you who have been deceived by the darkness into seeing this season as a season of personal pleasure-seeking with its gathering and giving gifts of greed, and that’s all of us, know the gift of forgiveness is for you!

Receive the gift of grace upon grace this Christmas!  The gift of Christ upon Christ!  The gift of God from God, Light from Light, very God of very God, made Man, to serve you, a child of God.

Hear the promise from John chapter one, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11–13 ESV)

Our right to be children of God is not a human right, but a freedom given to us as the gift of God.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and Christ was the light and life of the world.  At the end Jesus Christ is the gift that leads from darkness into a destination of light and life. 

The Word made Flesh is the gift of light and life for you!  Amen. 

B, Advent 1 - 1 Corinthians 1:3-9, Psalm 80:17-19, Isaiah 64:5-9 "Pots and Moulds"

It’s an ugly mess.  It has no form; it’s a great big pile of brown goo.  It’s sticky and damp; good for nothing it seems.  It’s dirty; perhaps to some it’s even a bit smelly; and if you get it on yourself it can stain.  But someone is looking for exactly this; a useless formless piece to be formed into something that is good and pleasing to the eye.

This someone takes the goo and plonks it on the table.  The table begins to spin, and his hands descend on the formlessness to mould it into something pleasing to the eye; a thing pleasing to the one who turns the tables on something so seemingly useless.

Clay can be troublesome stuff.  It can cause heartache for anyone who comes across it.  When it’s dry it’s like rock and jars the arms of those who try to break it.  But when it’s wet, it’s so sticky, it seems to latch onto anything that touches it, and it won’t let go.  Anyone who wants to use it has their work cut out for them; such is clay in its natural environment.

However, to the potter clay has a use, a very good use.  He knows just what to do to work the goo into something exquisite.  The stickiness is worked with wet hands, so the clay moves and grows into something good.  Its stickiness actually is a quality that keeps the pot adhering to itself.  And when it’s put in the kiln and baked the clay is returned to a state that is rock hard to keep its form so it can be used to hold things, perhaps even water.

But clay being what it is can still be trouble.  As the potter caringly tries to mould it the clay can collapse and become misshaped.  It has to be returned to the lump in which it was originally found, and the potter starts again.  When the clay becomes a pot, its hardness also makes it brittle and if the pot is not treated right it can shatter into a myriad of pieces.  Even if it gets a fine crack, the owner takes to it with a rod reducing it to pieces of potsherd.

When we consider that God is in fact the potter and we are the clay and the pots that he moulds to hold his holy presence we are encouraged to examine ourselves and see the imperfections that cause us and our Heavenly Potter trouble.  Isaiah did exactly that when he lamented over his people Israel.

You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.

Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people. (Isaiah 64:5-9)

Perhaps you have noticed the imperfections and cracks in the shell of your being. You worry that you’re in danger of being dashed to pieces and thrown on the scrapheap of life.  Maybe like Isaiah you see the reality of your hidden human nature — the content of your fragile fatal life — and tremble because you know God sees the sin within. 

So, hiding the sin is fruitless; it still oozes out the cracks.  And even your most honourable and worthy acts can’t exist without containing just a hint of self-centeredness.  So, you know in the depth and core of your being you can do nothing righteous in God’s all-seeing sight. We look in the pot knowing we were moulded and formed to hold something so much better than the pot of filthy rags we have become.

Like the Psalmist we are reduced to see the reality of who we are before God Almighty as we plead…

Restore us, O Lord God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.  (Psalm 80:19)

The fact of the matter is this: we need to be saved.  Without intervention and restoration, the potter will return and take to the pots with an iron rod and dash us into pieces of potsherd.

Knowing this the Potter sets to work at the wheel yet again and moulds another pot to contain the core of his being.  Just as in the days of old when Solomon used clay moulds to cast precious metals for the temple, Almighty God cast Christ Jesus, his holy and precious Son, into the same fragile clay shell as you and me.  And in this mould was veiled the depth and breadth of God’s complete holiness and generosity. 

This is very good news for us full of cracks and imperfections who know we need restoration so God will look on us favourably.  Our prayer should be the same as that of the Psalmist who also sees he cannot save himself…

Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself.  Then we will not turn away from you; revive us, and we will call on your name. (Psalm 80:17-18)

So, God sent his Son; he cast Christ as one of us.  The Son of Man at his right hand, the one on whom God’s hand of blessing rested, was sent, and born a baby, a fragile clay pot, capable of the same failures as you and me.  Yet he did not crack under the pressure that show us for who we are.  He stood the test of time, a fragile pot holding the holiness of God, more precious than any silver or gold. 

But then the Potter took his rod of wrath.  The rod we know we deserve and having his Son raised up, let him be smashed to pieces.  The pot was broken, the mortal mould and holy contents was made to die.  Christ was cast; then Christ was crucified!  God’s hand fell on Christ so the prayer of the Psalmist, together with your prayer, is answered.  You are restored!  We are revived!  God’s face shines on us and we can call on the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  We can confess our sins, our brokenness to God.  And even more, God wants us to see ourselves and seek him in confession, so he can forgive the guilt of our sins.

Jesus was poured out like water, he was dried out like potsherd, he was cast as Christ but then he was cast out, the outcast.  On the night before he was betrayed and crucified on the cross, he said…

This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. (Luke 22:20)

And so, God’s pot was broken like bread and the cup was lifted up for the forgiveness of your sins.  God has wet his hands in baptism to mould your mortal clay, so you carry what was poured out of the cup of his Son for your salvation.  You now contain the life blood of Christ himself in you, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins.

So, as we hear from Paul from the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians, grace and peace has come to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  That God can be thanked for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.   You can trust that in him you have been enriched in every way.

Therefore, know, you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. Also know as you struggle with your fragility, only Christ who continually sends the Holy Spirit through his written word will keep you strong to the end, so you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.  He won’t let you down, but he will allow you to be poured out and broken so Christ might flow onto others.  But after it is done those who trust his faithfulness will be raised like Christ, to be with Christ, restored and revived, in all the holiness and peace of eternal life, forevermore Amen.