Watching any large building being put together is probably close enough.  It’s such an amazing thing to see in process.  This morning as I was walking back from chapel I saw two cranes lifting up a huge truss for our new santuary and it got me to thinking.  There were so many people involved.  There were the men operating the cranes.  There were men standing on beams bring the truss to rest  There were guys with welders and bolts ready to go.  There were the men orchestrating the whole thing from the ground.  And then you can think of the people who designed it all, who made the beams, and even delivered them.  There are so many people involved in building a church.

Of course, this isn’t just true of a church building.  We’re used to talking about the Church as people and that’s true, but then it  makes us consider some important questions.  How are we part of the process of building the Church?  How should we be working together with other members to keep building the Church?  And by that, we don’t mean simply getting people into the building to join, but building up people in the faith and extending the Church into all the world, whether it has to do with a physical building or not.  

There are so many people involved and we need to work together.  We should be aware of what other Christians are doing, how they’re building, and think about how we can partner with them, how we can be part of the process.  You don’t worship in isolation, and we don’t reach out in isolation either.  We all need to be building together.

For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.  ¹⁰ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. (1 Cor. 3:9-10)

This is again one of those areas of history where there is much tradition and probably not complete certainty.  New Years celebrations themselves go back thousand of years with the ancient Babylonians who celebrated the New Year in March with some pagan festivals and very racous activities.  The Romans moved the New Year  and while many emperors tinkered with it, it finally did settle onto what we today call January 1st.  This month is actually named in recognition of the Roman god, Janus, who had two faces, one looking to the past, and the other toward the future.  It is said that Julius Caesar made New Years resolutions to honor Janus.  We know that this tradition became popular in Roman times with most focusing on some kind of moral betterment.

As Christian influence rose within the Roman Empire, there was a pushback against New Years celebrations, mostly because of the pagan and immoral activity associated with the revelry around the day.  The Church tried to focus people toward other celebrations such as the Feast of the Circumcision.  Of course, celebration of the New Year and resolutions never completely went away and the Church began to adopt and adapt some of these practices as well. By the 18th century many churches tried to influence their members to skip revelry but to do some real reflection on the past year and make resolutions toward improvement in the New Year. Thus resolutions rose in favor again.

There is certainly something good in the idea of a New Years Resolution.  Thinking about what God has done with you in the last year and also reflecting on places where you have not lived out your faith.  Thinking about places you’d like to grow in the year to come.  I’d encourage such reflection to focus on God’s Word, something like 2 Cor. 5:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.  ¹⁶ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

We are indeed a New Creation, every day, not just at the beginning of the New Year.  And this is all a work of Christ!  Indeed, the power to effect change in our life will come from him as well.  So yes, you can use little tricks to help keep yourself accountable, but remember to rest on the Lord’s strength.  Be in the Word.  Be in prayer.  And let your resolutions reflect Christ and as this text says, the ministry of reconciliation.

This is a pretty impressive though isn’t it.  To think that from the beginning of time God had a plan for sin. To think that it would mean sending his own son to earth.  To take on flesh (God become flesh- amazing!)  To think that the plan wasn’t just to incarnate on earth, but for his son to suffer and die on earth.

And so Christmas Day is a day that forever changes things.  It’s a day that looks back, that calls on people to glory in a God that is so powerful that he has perfectly controlled history to bring things together in this moment so that he could come to earth.  It’s a moment that celebrates that God took the risk of putting himself into flesh, and not as a mighty warrior or king, but in the flesh of a tiny baby, laid in a manger.

And Christmas Day is a day that looks forward.  It looks forward to the purpose of Jesus’ life, which was his death.  It’s a day that looks forward, knowing that his life and death would give us a chance for new life.

And I love love that this song just celebrates that.  The title , “I celebrate the Day” and the last line is perfect

“And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die”

That is what we should be doing in this season and on Christmas.  We should be celebrating.  We should feel it and sing it, and shout it, and let it really shine forth on that day, that we have something incredible.  We should truly be caught up in the joy of the season which is the Christ child and his purpose.

We think of turkeys and football, families hanging out, meals that are too big to eat, people dressed up in silly costumes trying to bring the story to life, all that good stuff.

But we also realize that it’s a day that’s supposed to make us think of something deeper, an appreciation for the blessings given by God.  The skit guys are pretty reliable in putting out something that combines these two elements, funny, but also a thought that pushes us to dig deeper.  I like this video because it reminds us this year, a year when many families are finding things tighter financially, a year when we all know others who are facing struggles, to give thanks to God, not just in times when the blessings are overflowing, but also when life is a little messy.

But there was one thing that you couldn’t help but notice.  We were united in so many things, but people like to praise God in different ways.  There were so many different sounds that came together that night and I loved it.  Ok, I’ll admit that not every style of music is one that connects with me most deeply, but they were all so clearly centered on God and his praise.  And as I looked out at the faces, you could see people being moved by the music, and by the simple act of being joined together.

Psalm 150 closes the psalms and one of the things I’ve enjoyed is listening to various Sons of Korah renditions of the psalms.  Part of what I liked was that they offered so many different styles of music in giving praise to God.  And that’s exactly what Psalm 150 is calling for.  Praise God with trumpets, tambourines, dancing, flutes, strings, cymbals….  The idea is simple.  Whatever the musical choice, praise him!!!

So as we close this series, I ask that you take a moment to praise him and appreciate the praise of God in so many different styles.  Here’s just a little bit of the diversity of praise given to God.

An African choir.

A “traditional” choral arrangement.

A modern “praise” team style.

I could include so many more, but I hope this makes sense.  The psalms are about God’s people reaching out to him.  Reaching out to him with their pain and sorrow, with their hopes, with their fears.  They’re about God’s people remembering his stories.  They’re about God’s people remembering his promises.  They’re about God’s people singing his praise, for all he has and will do for them. They’re about God’s people praising him in song!

Yes in our worship we’ll sing “A Mighty Fortress is our God”, and we’ll talk about the 95 Theses in the sermon, and all that good stuff, but one of the ways I think we can best honor Martin Luther is by applying some of his concepts to the way we carry out the faith.

We can see clearly in his teaching that families passing on the faith was very important.  He spoke often of how parents were supposed be teaching their children, the home was to be the first Christian school, and in part he wrote the Small Catechism to give parents basic questions and answers so they could be comfortable teaching their children.

He kind of modeled this in his own home with what has been called the “Table Talk”.  In the evening around the dinner table Martin Luther would speak with family, students, and guests about various questions and matters of the faith.  Yes it was dinner time, but it was also a chance to as a family or unit really dig into what they believed and apply it.  There are some wonderful little stories and teachings we have because students wrote them down during these “table talks”.

So we’re going to start combining those concepts at Messiah.  Every two weeks we’re going to pass out “table talks” at church.  These will be short devotionals that combine questions about church and Sunday School, with action points, memory verses, and prayer time.  It doesn’t have to take long and in fact, we’re designing it so that it can be done as soon as church is finished, when the family gathers around. . . you can guess it. . .

the table… for dinner.  Whether you’re a member of Messiah or some other church, it’s not a bad example to follow.  When you get together with people after church for dinner, why not take some time to talk about the faith, pass it on, in our families, and in all our relationships.  What a way to honor Martin Luther this Reformation Day and beyond!

Ok, so yes, it’s not true for everyone, but I think Psalm 131 focuses on something that is incredibly difficult for most of us.  Humility.  And I don’t mean false humility.  I don’t mean being depressed or thinking lowly of yourself.  I mean the stuff that 131 talks about.   Read it through.  Listen to the words.  It’s an interesting description of how we should be before God.

A big part of the humility here is that absolute trust in God.  The kind of trust that says you know God has everything in control and so you don’t need to worry about it.  Imagine that, God doesn’t need you to worry.  A kind of humility that gets that there are some matters that are just too great for us to understand, too wonderful for us.  It makes me think of the idea of trusting God’ s plans, really trusting them, even when it seems like he’s sending you and other people down crazy roads, with crazy pain.  In that circumstance, humility is still being able to rest on God’s will like a baby trust it’s mom.  I love that visual, of a baby that’s just been fed by it’s mom and just lays against her.  There’s nothing more peaceful or trusting than that image.

Oftentimes we don’t think of our worry or our constant grabbing of control as pride, but this psalm challenges us to think again about that hard Christian virtue. . . humility.

Psalm 121 (listen/watch it here)  is composed of words from people on a journey.  They were on a journey of ascent, heading up the hills below Jerusalem, on their way for the annual festivals held at the Temple.  And this journey could be dangerous.  Indeed, it was often quite treacherous as robbers lurked around corners ready to take advantage of pilgrims.  There could be problems with weather or any other issues that came up when a person was away from home.  But the words here show an incredible trust in the Lord to watch over them while on this journey.

There’s something important to consider that’s at the center of this trust.  Remind yourself where they were journeying. What was their direction?  Toward Jerusalem. Toward the Temple.  Their physical direction and spiritual direction was absolutely on target.

So the question that this begs of us is- do we know what direction we’re pointed in?  Is our physical and spiritual direction pointed towards God’s ends?  There’s a book, Chazown, I read that keeps hitting the basic refrain of this general idea- everyone ends up somewhere, but how many people are intentional in the direction their lives go?

If we’re intentional in placing our direction toward God, I think this psalm speaks profoundly to us.  Yes there can be problems and delays, detours, etc; the right direction doesn’t mean a lack of trials.   That was certainly the case for the pilgrims heading toward Jerusalem as I noted earlier, but because of their intentionality, because they knew without a doubt that they were heading in the right direction, they also knew that God was indeed watching over that journey and blessing it along the way.  If we think of our lives as the same type of journey, we should be able to take to heart the same assurances-

“He will not let your foot slip. . . The Lord is your shade at your right hands. . . he will watch over your life. . . both now and forevermore.”

I planned on writing the first in a series on Heaven is For Real today.  I did.  I have the book on my desk, but I can’t talk about that today (I promise to start next week).  My heart is somewhere else.

Yesterday our foster children who came to us for the third time (yes that means removed from their mom for the third time!) were sent back to that same mom because of a miscarriage of justice and some small-minded, jaded people.  It hurts.  And most of all, my heart hurts for the kids and what I know they will continue to experience.

I feel angry.  I feel tired.  I feel confused.  I am not sure what God’s plan is in all of this.  And yet, this morning as I look through my email I found a number of things.  First, I found countless messages of support and prayer from friends and family.  It is felt.  And I also found words from God that I needed, a forward with this video.  It’s a video that shows people and their very real stories of blessing and loss, but all of them speaking the same words, “blessed be the name of the Lord”.

You’ve all had experiences of blessing and loss.  I know I have.  This year the Lord blessed us with a little girl.  And when she was born we were blessed with a miracle that she came to us with no harm to her or Jessica.

The Lord gives- blessed be the name of the Lord!

And yet, for the past few years we have experienced profound sadness as the Lord has continued to take Jaime and Tim, not just from us, but in their own 5 and 3 year old lives, they’ve experienced more pain and loss than we want to experience in our lifetimes.  I don’t understand it.  I don’t like it.  And I know it pains my Lord as well, their heavenly Father.  And so even in not understanding it, but only knowing God’s grace, I am left with only these words this morning.

The Lord takes away- blessed be the name of the Lord!

I pray for the day when Jaime and Tim will again experience God’s profound giving, whatever that form takes.

First, it is essential that we pray to God and truly give thanks that he has blessed us with a national that has incredible freedoms.  Our nation is far from perfect, but no matter how often we see that in front of us, we need to give thanks for what we have and truly pray for God’s continued blessings on our country.

Second, we should be thankful that we had leaders who did let their faith influence their beliefs about their nation.  I’m not talking about joining church and state into one body, but we need to remember that faith can and should influence our beliefs about all aspect of life, and that includes the civic realm.  The founding fathers did find support in their faith as they made very difficult decisions.  This video reminds us of that fact.  While God can work through all leaders and he is over all (just look at the stories of Joseph and the Pharaoh or Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar), we are blessed when our leaders do find support and guidance from the Lord.