220724 Sermon on Colossians 2:6-19 (Pentecost 7) July 24, 2022

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Sermon manuscript:

Everyone wants a good life. Everyone wants health, wealth, entertainment, a fullness of meaning, love, peace, and many other things like these. Over the centuries there have been many traditions that have promised to further this endeavor towards life and having life to the full. The Greeks had their traditions. The Romans had theirs. The Chinese, the Japanese, all people everywhere have had their traditions that have promised to give the good things of life if the rules of their tradition were followed.

There is one more tradition that we must also talk about. It is not very old. It’s only about 300 years old. It is by far and away the most important and relevant tradition for all of us and for the entire world because it is the dominant one right now. Unlike the religions of other times and places the tradition that we are living in doesn’t really have a name. Sometimes it’s called modernism. Its main beliefs are in the study of science and economics. What this tradition has been teaching for a long time is that our greatest hope for happiness is in producing more and more. The way we produce more and more is by discovering things about nature and manipulating nature to get what we want out of it. Then there’s just the matter of how all the wealth should be managed and distributed. How does a person get the most wealth? That is where the study of economics comes in.

There’s certainly no denying that huge strides have been made in the last 300 years. We have learned so much about the laws and principles that govern the natural world, and how these can be turned towards our own advantage. What was especially impactful was learning how to use the seemingly limitless sources of power provided by coal, oil, natural gas, and so on. That was when we started to practically swim in merchandise. If a good life consists of wealth, health, entertainment, and so on, then it is as though this modern way of thinking as brought us to the endpoint of history.

That makes us believe that up until now, or about 300 years ago, people were poor and stupid. We modern people are of a different sort. We know better, and we have the technology to prove it. The only branches of learning that are taken seriously in the university have to do with science or economics. That is because these are the sacred subjects. If you want to have any hope of being blessed then master these hard sciences.

The belief that happiness comes from mastering the powers of nature or mastering the forces of the economy has taken the world by storm. This belief claims absolute supremacy for itself. Every other way of thinking about happiness is pre-modern and stupid and irrelevant. People can believe in God as a hobby, perhaps, but everybody knows that that’s like being a Liberal Arts major. You’ll end up working at McDonalds because praying, for example, won’t do you any good. In order to get ahead in life you have to drop all those old, disproven things. Get the right degree, start the right company, buy the hottest stocks. Then you’d be able to afford the newest and best. Then you’ll be happy, that is to say, blessed.

The power and popularity of this way of thinking is so pervasive that I’ve wondered if it is the fulfillment of Jesus’s end-times prophecy. He said that in the end-times the signs and wonders that are performed will be so powerful and persuasive that they should deceive the elect, if that were possible. Toilets and hydraulics and computers are so life changing that they are almost magical. Because they are so life changing, people take them as being proof that what ancient people used to believe in must be foolish. It is widely believed that the non-existence of God has been proven and that his revelation in the Bible has been proven to be false.

But this is a lie, a trick. Never, ever has the non-existence of God been proven. Not even close. There have never been any experiments or discoveries that have made God cease to exist or discredited his revelation in the Bible. You could look into such things for yourselves, if you were so inclined, but hardly anybody does, because it’s hard and it’s a lot of work. There’s almost no end to it. It’s much easier to just take other peoples’ word for it—professors and celebrities and YouTube videos and such. These other people will just give you their conclusions, and they want you to believe in them because of their clout and prestige. Generally speaking these other people have much more clout and fame than I ever will. Their popularity or power doesn’t necessarily mean that they are telling you the truth, however.

Consider poor, old, St. Paul. He didn’t have much clout or fame. He worked with his hands for a living, making tents—not a very prestigious job. He wasn’t the pastor of a mega church. His congregations were so small that they met in people’s houses. He was by no means popular. Neither the Jews nor the Greeks liked him. He was made fun of, beaten, whipped, stoned, thrown in prison, kicked out of one city after another, and finally he had his head chopped off as though he were an awful and dangerous criminal.

Why was he hated so much? Because he told people that the things that they were trusting in weren’t going to work. The Greeks, with their traditions, weren’t going to work. The Romans, with their traditions, weren’t going to work. So we must speak also today if we are going to be followers of Christ like Paul was. Our modern way of life isn’t going to work. The things that we are believing in are going to let us down. What won’t let us down is our faith in Christ, who has worked, who is working, and who will work to bring to completion his plan of salvation.

If you think about it, there are two ways a person can live. A person can go along with all the thoughts and rules and beliefs of the people around us or a person can live in Christ. A person can believe that happiness or blessedness will come from taking the advice of the world around us, or a person can believe that blessedness is theirs already in their Lord Jesus Christ who has purchased them and given them an incorruptible inheritance. You can’t really choose both, because no man can be a servant of two masters. One or the other will always be preferred over the other.

And so Paul’s words in our Epistle reading are directly applicable to us and to our times, even though he wrote these words nearly 2,000 years ago. He says, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, which are in accord with human tradition, namely, the basic principles of the world, but not in accord with Christ.” Now, a lot of people get thrown off by that word “philosophy.” Paul says, “Do not be taken captive through philosophy,” and folks think, “I’ve never cracked open a philosophy book in my entire life. I don’t have any philosophy.”

Oh, but you do! If you have any thoughts whatsoever about life, then you have a philosophy. If you have thoughts about what will make you happy, then you have a philosophy. Everybody is a philosopher, it’s just a matter of whether their philosophy is any good, whether it accords with the truth, whether the philosophy will actually be effective.

Paul says, “Do not be taken captive through philosophy and empty deceit. Such philosophies are in accord with human tradition. Such philosophies may even be in accord with the basic principles of the world. But they are not in accord with Christ.” These words are perfectly applicable to us. Why do we have the philosophies we do? It is because of tradition. We are taught by our teachers what we are supposed to believe about life. What is life all about? How do we get ahead in life? These are the things that our teachers teach us. The modern times in which we live have just as much of a tradition as any other time and place has had. We are taught our tradition for how to look at the world.

Furthermore Paul says that these philosophies that might take us captive can be in accord with the basic principles of the world. That is to say those philosophies might be true in some sense. They might match up with the how things are, the basic principles of the world. This, also, is extremely applicable to us. We pride ourselves on having a very fine understanding of how the world works, especially the natural world—and for good reason. Our civilization has looked into the tiniest of tiny things. Our newly launched telescopes have looked into the biggest of big things. We know many things about many things, and these may even fully accord with the truth.

However, as Paul says, our understanding is not in accord with Christ. That is to say, our understanding is not in accord with the greatest event in history that changes absolutely everything else. It is not in accord with Son of God becoming man, suffering, dying, and rising; ascending, and coming again to judge the living and the dead.

What would it profit a man to gain a perfect understanding of all things, to have that understanding be true to how things really are, but to fail to understand Christ? Christ is the great gem, the absolute centerpiece of everything. Jesus is the bread of life, the light of the world, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the greatest revelation of God, of who he is, and what his will is. What can it profit a man to understand creation perfectly, but to have no understanding of the Creator, because he has no understanding of Jesus? Paul says, “All the fullness of God’s being dwells bodily in Christ.” If you do not understand Jesus, then you cannot know God.

On the other hand, if you know Christ, then you know God. The wisest philosopher is foolish compared to the baptized child. The baptized child has been buried with Christ, and raised with Christ, and knows where true blessing and happiness is to be found, namely, in our Father who art in heaven.

The wisest philosopher may know many things about many things, but it is all vanity and a chasing after the wind. Their heart will remain polluted with self-interest and sin. There’s no way for us to purge ourselves of the guilt that we incur upon ourselves or to make our hearts pure and good. Wealth and prestige and power might anesthetize us so that we do not think about this. We might tell ourselves that it doesn’t matter and that we need not worry about it—that’s what those old people used to worry about, but they were poor and stupid. But does all this thinking really get rid of such glaring personal failings and flaws?

In contrast, note what Paul says that God has done in Christ. He says: “Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses.” How did God do this? He goes on: “God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. There was a record of our debts, our failings, our shameful wrong-doings according to God’s own Law. But God took this record of our sins away by nailing it to the cross.” Jesus was punished in our place, thereby bringing about reconciliation for the whole world with the Creator. Jesus has reconciled you. This is the greatest gem of knowledge: You are a forgiven sinner for Jesus’s sake, loved by God.

Since you have this bright, shining sun of truth in Jesus, you must not give yourselves over to philosophies or human traditions or even things that are in accord with how things work on this earth, but that are in the process of passing away. You might know all natural knowledge and all economic laws so that you may purchase a mountain and move it from here to there. One day that mountain will be no more, but the word of the Lord endures forever. You must understand your life in such a way where Christ is all in all, and everything else is but the small stuff that we can sweat if need be.

You know: Sweat the small stuff like the devil, like your own death, like your own damnation for the awful sins that you’ve committed. You can sweat stuff like that as being small because of the overwhelming power of Christ’s blood. Then, of course, we can sweat the even much smaller stuff like world peace, the progress of civilization, whomever it is that happens to be seated in the halls of power. And then, finally, we might mention the small stuff like what you will eat or drink or wear, or what you are supposed to do to be blessed and happy in this earthly life.

Christ is king. Christ is risen. Christ will triumph. He is your philosophy and way of life. Paul says, “Continue to walk in him. Be rooted in him. Be built up in him. Be strengthened in your belief that you will be blessed in him so that you will overflow with thanksgiving to God.” Among all the traditions, among all the philosophies, Jesus is the only way to almighty and everlasting life. Amen.

220710 Sermon on not being greedy (Pentecost 5) July 10, 2022

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Sermon manuscript:

Do you want to be a Christian or do you want to appear that you are a Christian? That’s a valid question. A lot of people want to appear to be a Christian. They want the status. They want the self-satisfaction that they are one of the good ones. They want the assurance that their life after death is going to be positive. On the other hand they don’t want the shame that might come upon from them from family or friends if they ceased to live as a Christian.

But those who only want to appear to be Christian are not going to be interested in living according to God’s or Jesus’s commandments. They want to appear to be a Christian, but they don’t want to live as a Christian.

Another way of saying this is that they want to be hypocrites. A hypocrite is someone who outwardly presents himself as being a certain way, but it is merely a façade. So a Christian hypocrite can come to church, receive the sacrament, fold their hands, and so on, but in everything else they live as they please. Of course, when I say they live as they please, realize that they have to stay within reason. You can’t be outside the norm, so you can’t murder or molest anyone or do something egregious like that. You can’t go wild, or, more to the point, you can’t get caught being wild. But otherwise if everybody else is doing it, the hypocrite figures it must be alright.

God says the opposite of this. You can’t live like everybody else if you want to be a Christian. God says in our Old Testament reading that his people, the Israelites, need to be different. They can’t be like the people of Egypt, the land that they had left. They can’t be like the people of Canaan, the land to which they were going. How were they to be? They were to be different than others by keeping the regulations and ordinances of the Lord their God. The will of God, expressed in his Law, is different from the way that folks normally live.

Our Old Testament reading then goes on to give some of these regulations and ordinances. We won’t go deeply into all of them. We will only look closely at one of them. You can consider the rest of them on your own.

The regulation that I’d like to spend our time on this morning might sound a little antiquated and agricultural, but it can easily be made applicable also for us. It says, “When you reap the harvest from your land, you are not to finish reaping all the way to the edge of the field. Do not gather up the gleanings of your harvest. Do not strip your vineyard clean, and do not pick up the fallen grapes from your vineyard, but leave them for the poor and the alien who live with you. I am the Lord your God.”

Now in our times we do not harvest the same way they did, and grapes don’t grow too well here in Iowa. But the general principle is applicable nevertheless. The principle is this: Although you might have the right and the ability to take as much as you possibly can, you shouldn’t. You should let others have some too.

You should let others have some too. So let’s talk about what it means to get a “good deal.” When someone says that they’ve gotten a good deal that usually means that they’ve paid little but gotten much in return. The common understanding is that a good deal is only a good deal for the person saying it. Maybe even the other party has lost money on the deal. That’s maybe the best deal of all good deals. Too bad for them, but good for you!

A sign that this kind of activity should be recognized by everyone as not being quite kosher is that we wouldn’t do this kind of thing with people that we love. Generally speaking parents do not try to rip off their children, nor vice versa. Close friends do not try to rip each other off, otherwise that might be kind of hard on the friendship. Oftentimes people like doing business with strangers because then they can treat the other party as shrewdly as they want with minimal negative consequences for themselves.

This greediness is taken to be normal among our people and no real shame is attached to it. If anything praise and admiration are given to those who do well for themselves. They are imagined to be superior human beings. But God speaks differently. If you want to be one of his people, then you should not live like those around you. You should not take as much as you possibly can. You should let others have some too. A good deal is one where somebody else benefits; the other party is enriched—and not just yourself.

“But,” you say, “that means I’m going to have less!” Yes, I can see why you would say that. But maybe your thinking is a little short-sighted. In the short-term you might have a little less cash, but who is the one who is in control of the money that you have? Isn’t it God? Think of what you are saying about God when you believe that you have to get everything you possibly can for yourself. Aren’t you saying that you can’t be generous, because God is so stingy that unless you stuff yourself with everything you can possibly get your hands on that you will have a horrible life, poor, miserable and so on? Think of what you are saying about yourself when you are saying you have to get everything you possibly can for yourself. Aren’t you saying that you have the power to bless yourself? God is not to be trusted. You and your shrewdness, or, rather, your greediness, is what is to be trusted.

It is important that you take stock of what God is expecting of us. It is indeed true that you will have less in the short-term if you are generous in your dealings with others. Having less always feels worse than having more. We would feel happy and secure if we had a mountain of money in the bank. We don’t want daily bread. We want years’ and decades’ worth of bread stored up. It feels good to count our money. It hurts to have no money to count.

Consider those poor Israelites when they were wandering around in the desert. They used up and ate up all they had. They literally were given daily bread in the form of manna. How they would torture themselves because they would get hungry and thirsty from time to time. But think about what else was going on. Meanwhile the Creator of the universe was right there with them in the pillar of cloud and fire. This was kind of silly, at least from faith’s perspective. So it is also with our dealings. If you have to choose between being shrewd and thereby getting more for yourself, but disobeying God, on the one hand; and being generous, having a little less, but pleasing and honoring God on the other; you should always go with what is in accord with God’s will. This will be better for you.

How will it be better for you? This, also, is important to take stock of, so that your expectations are not inappropriate. When we hear that things will be better for us we often think in terms of money. And that very well may be too. If you are generous with others, then who’s to say that God won’t make people also be generous with you? In my experience I’ve always found it much more enjoyable to do business with people who aren’t trying to flay me alive, so your generosity might even be blessed with more business and financial success.

But money’s not the only way a person can be blessed. It’s not even the most important. This world is full of people who have huge amounts of money and property, but they love no one and are loved by no one. Always putting yourself first has even earthly consequences. So what is a loving family worth? What is a good conscience worth? What is peace worth?

You are not as rich as Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Elon Musk, and you never will be as rich as them if you want to live like a Christian, but all three of these men are divorced, hated by their children, and are enslaved to their riches. Like dragons they can only sleep when they are sure that their mountain of gold is safe and secure. Why do you want that mountain of wealth that poisons the one who sits atop it? The answer is our flesh. Our flesh believes more in what we have accumulated for ourselves than in the daily bread that God will provide for us tomorrow.

When God made this regulation for the Israelites, that they should not take for themselves every last thing they possibly could, but that they should leave some for others, realize that this would have hurt their flesh too. It was basically like they were leaving cash sitting out there in field, and who knows who might come along to pick it up? So how could they leave behind what was rightfully theirs in peace? The only way to explain it is that they believed that the Lord who had provided them with the crop that they were given would provide them with a blessing tomorrow too. They were better off putting their trust in the Creator, than they were in putting their trust in the accumulation of created things.

Idolatry is the belief in created things, instead of belief in the Creator. Idolatry has by no means gone away. It is just as common of a thing today as it was at the time of the Israelites. The Lord God told the Israelites that they were to live differently from the people of Egypt (who were idolaters), and that they were to live differently from the people of Canaan (who were idolaters).

The same thing is true for us. We live among people who believe in created things instead of the Creator. We are to live differently from them. It always has been tempting for God’s people to live as hypocrites. That’s where God’s people honor him with their lips, but their hearts, their faith, is far from him. They go through the religious motions that are expected of them, but they live how they see fit. When it comes right down to it, they believe more in blessing themselves by doing what they think, rather than in God blessing them for being obedient to his Word.

The reason why Christians choose to be hypocrites is because they believe that they will be better off that way. They don’t want to keep God’s commandments. Keeping them sounds painful or boring or ineffective. This, however, is a lie. The Israelite who left some behind in the field was better blessed than the Israelite who took everything that he could lay claim to. The Israelite who left some behind might not have been as rich as the Israelite who took everything. So what? Should we shovel all your cash into your casket when it’s time to go? What good will all your cash do you then? Being generous now puts that cash to work for blessing and enriching others.

So don’t believe the lie that you will be better off as a hypocrite than you will be by obeying God’s commands. Realize, also, that it will take some courage to live as a genuine Christian. It is super easy to live just like everybody else. It requires no effort whatsoever. To live differently, however, takes some backbone. People will call you a fool. They will say that you’ll never make it. You’ll be cursed. You’ll be poor. You’ll be miserable. That is to say, they will be your enemies, mocking you for putting your trust in the Lord.

So be it. You are better off having mere human beings as your enemies than having God as your enemy. With God as your friend, you will be blessed. I 100% guarantee that. The blessing might not look how you expect it to look. You might look like our Lord Jesus Christ, whose life was not a bed of roses. But it will be good, just as Jesus’s life was good, because our Father who is in heaven is good.

220703 Sermon on the overturning of Roe vs. Wade

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Our goal as Christians is to inherit heaven. Since this is our goal, we should be heavenly minded people. We should not seek to please ourselves or our fellow human beings. If we or others are pleased, then that is all well and good, but it is not what we are to be after. We seek to be pleasing to God. What is pleasing to him is his commandments. God’s commandments are good, and they are always for the good.

However, it does not always seem that God’s commandments are for the good. Take, for example, “Honor your father and your mother.” We don’t always agree with our parents and other authorities. Honoring father and mother often means that we can’t do what we want to do. Or, on the other hand, we have to do what we don’t want to do. That’s no fun. So even though God’s commandments are for our good, they often don’t seem that way to us. That disconnect is maybe the primary reason why we don’t do what God’s commands us to do.

Since our flesh often doesn’t see the value of God’s commandments, and since every human being has this sinful flesh, it isn’t surprising that the same kind of thing that happens with us as individuals also ends up happening with groups of people, such as with states or with nations.

Let’s consider our own nation. God commands us not to steal. Folks know this because he has written this truth on everyone’s heart. But there is no end to the swindling, corruption, fraud, and so on that happens on a daily basis.

This has gotten quite sophisticated, in fact. The worst criminals among us are not the petty thieves or embezzlers that make it into the papers. They end up getting 10 year prison sentences. The worst thieves are the ones that never get prosecuted. The real big shots, throwing around billions, take whatever they can get while accomplishing nothing productive or helpful to others. They are basically a bunch of gamblers. When they win with their rigged bets in stocks and trades they are happy to take the profits. When they lose they get the government to bail them out.

These thieves do not go to jail. They are highly exalted. They are hailed as great philanthropists. After their life of crime, screwing over whomever they possibly could, they hand out a small portion of their ill-gotten gains as charity. They get buildings named after them.

To summon a nation to take up such fraud and corruption is a huge ask. Only the most youthful and vigorous of nations—nations that still have a sense for right and wrong—will dare to do it. Fighting wealthy and powerful people who can bribe and appoint and finagle, with the best lawyers helping them all along the way—that is dangerous and thankless. It is much easier to let things slide. So that’s what we’ve done. That is what we will continue to do. We’ll let things continue to decompose.

That’s how it is with so many other matters of right and wrong too. When it comes to marriage and family our nation has almost completely checked out of its responsibility to regulate that area of life. Judges used to be involved in keeping marriages together. There used to be no such thing as a no-fault divorce. People were not allowed to publicly present themselves as sexual partners with whomever they wanted.

But, you know what? That’s a lot of work! Getting involved in such matters is messy. It’s dangerous and thankless. For several generations now parents, as God-given authorities, have also not wanted to touch the issue of their children fornicating or living together with someone to whom they are not married. God’s commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” is for our good, but it often does not seem that way. It often seems much more sensible to say, “Live, and let live.” There’s no question that “Live, and let live,” is vastly easier.

This laziness and apathy are also what is most important when it comes to the fifth commandment: “You shall not murder.” It seems much easier to terminate the life of an unwanted, unborn child than to be saddled with the burden of raising such a child. Unborn children who suffer from diseases are especially prone to being unwanted, and therefore murdered. A horrifying statistic that I learned when Edith was still in the womb is that 90% or more of the children who are identified as possibly to having Downs Syndrome are aborted. Caring for a child who has that condition is certainly daunting, but that is no excuse for strangling them or poisoning them.

The same thing is true also at the other end of life. Several states in our nation already have laws legalizing physician-assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide is when physicians prescribe poison to people who no longer want to live. When a disease is terminal it can seem easiest for everyone involved to just “get it over with” when it comes to a person dying. Why should family or friends waste their time keeping vigil at the death bed when they could be making money?

The commandment stands: “You shall not murder.” But it doesn’t seem like it is for our good. Ending lives quickly, easily, painlessly, and privately seems to be better for everyone involved.

This nation has grown old and tired. The nation, of course, hasn’t grown tired of making money, but that is how it is with people, too, in their old age. Greed is a vice that afflicts the elderly. We as a nation are zealous for money, but care very little about what is right and wrong. This makes us very utilitarian about moral issues. If it doesn’t appear as though some activity is harmful to others, then, by all means, indulge. Anybody who would dare to make judgments about such things is unhelpful, because we all know that what is really important is the economy. So long as we continue to be the richest, most powerful, first-in-the-world nation, then we must have our priorities straight.

This, however, is a very earth-bound judgment, purposely neglecting the one who is in heaven. God does not care if a person lives in America or if a person lives in Haiti. Neither being an American nor a Haitian matters. What matters is being a new creation, created by the Holy Spirit. Greatness is not defined by the amount of money or influence a person has. Greatness is a matter of keeping God’s commandments. We should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves.

To make America great again we do not need this politician or that politician, but a deep change of heart. We need to learn, perhaps for the first time, what true greatness is. True greatness is not democracy or earthly peace. True greatness is following after our Lord Jesus Christ. We are to deny ourselves, study God’s commandments and keep them, and bear the cross that will inevitably come as a result of keeping God’s commands.

There’s no way of accomplishing this with some political movement. There’s no way to compel anyone to live as a Christian. This is only dealing with individuals. We all, as individuals, must repent of our cold, lazy, apathy towards God’s commandments—the cold, lazy apathy that I hope you have seen in yourself even with the few commandments that have been pointed out today. We as individuals are guilty in such matters. We must leave behind our old, selfish attitudes and seek anew the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Let’s finally get to the topic I promised you I’d speak about today: Since we have such deeply entrenched spiritual problems in our country, I can’t get overly excited about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Overturning Roe vs. Wade was a very good thing. Roe vs. Wade was wrong. There is no such thing as a constitutional right to end another person’s life. Now states are allowed to decide for themselves whether abortion is legal and under what circumstances. That might save some babies’ lives. That’s good. But this ruling hasn’t done much to change the overall downhill direction our country has been going, spiritually speaking.

I’ve included in your bulletin a letter from our Synod’s president, Matthew Harrison. It seems to me that he struck the right tone that we should have as Christians regarding this ruling. He says we should rejoice that something which has done so much to bolster the unjust killing of innocent people has been torn down.

He says we should also not be intimidated by those who gnash their teeth and will be working hard to make the murdering of the unwanted easier. Some people will never be convinced that God alone has the right to determine who lives and who dies, and that we should not take that into our own hands.

Finally, president Harrison’s letter tells us that we should repent. In a way, very little has changed with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Our lovelessness and spiritual bankruptcy has not been altered. Our failure to care for troubled and helpless women is just as egregious as it ever was. He ended his letter with: “Lord, have mercy.”

This is the way it is with Christianity. We must stay the course that we have been given as Christians. We fight against evil, not just by looking for evil people over there, but by seeing that same evil within ourselves. We repent, believe the Gospel of forgiveness for Jesus’s sake, and, God willing, walk by the Spirit.

The source of true blessing and happiness has been the same ever since the beginning of creation. That source has always been the Lord our God. He is the one from whom all blessings flow. Adam and Eve were harmed by breaking his commandments, just as anyone and everyone inevitably and always will be harmed by breaking his commandments, even if it doesn’t seem so. Adam and Eve were saved through faith in the Lord’s promise of a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.

As it was then, so it is now, and so it ever shall be for each one of us individually, as well as collectively as a state or a nation. A nation, however, cannot repent. Only individuals can repent and believe. If you really want to be helpful and patriotic on this holiday weekend, you would do better to examine your life according to the Ten Commandments than to read the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was written by mere men. The commands and promises by which we live as Christians were given to us by God.

God’s Word is a sure and certain path for us Christians. It is impossible for us not to be blessed if we follow God’s commandments and believe his promises. God is God. He will bring it about. No such promise can be made concerning politics or even our fine American system of government. No human measures can ever get deep enough to strangle the evil at its source.

God’s working is quite different. He makes a new creation. You, as Christians, are new creations. You have been raised with Christ. You are the salt of the earth. See to it that you don’t lose your saltiness. Continue on loving and forgiving your family and your friends. Continue with your work, not working for money or for praise, but for the good of those whom God puts into your life.

As a summary we might close with these words from Paul: “Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”