Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost August 31, 2008 The Rev. Charles Henrickson
Our Church Is a Loving Family (Romans 12:9-21) Our church is a loving family. Yes, it is. I am confident it is, and I am confident in appealing to you to think and act as such, because God says thats what we are--a loving family. Thats what he made us to be, thats who we are, so lets think of ourselves in that way and lets let our lives demonstrate that love in action. Thats kind of a summary of todays Epistle lesson, from Romans 12. Listen to some of the things St. Paul says to the church in Rome: Let love be genuine. . . . Love one another with brotherly affection. . . . Contribute to the needs of the saints. . . . Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. . . . And so on. This is how the Apostle Paul wanted, and expected, the Christians in Rome to think and to act. And guess what? It applies to us, too. Yes, it does. For the church in Rome was no different from the church in Bonne Terre. We have the same Lord. We have the same gospel. We have the same sacraments. We have the same Spirit living within us. We are no different from those first-century Christians. We twenty-first-century Christians have the same gifts from God. As the apostle could appeal to those Christians in Rome, so I as your pastor can appeal to you, knowing that God will enable you also to live as his people and be a loving church family. This is pretty exciting. It is exciting to see the church as a refreshing oasis from the coldness and impersonality of the world. Here is where people battered and bruised by the world can come and find care and compassion, which is love in action. Here is where the lonely can find a family. The Bible says, in Psalms, that God sets the lonely in families. Jesus says, in the gospels, that those who give up brothers or sisters or mother or father to come and follow him will receive, now in this life, a hundred times as many brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers. And thats because youre coming into the church, a worldwide family that God has established, where we love one another and care for one another in very practical terms. The church stands as a shelter, a haven, that stands out in the world by being a community of love. So this Epistle reading from Romans 12 applies to us. It has to do with our everyday lives and our everyday life together as church. Im not afraid to expect us to live like this. Now at the same time, I also expect us to fail. Why? Because this is Law, and we are sinners. Even as Christians, we are still sinners. We mess up. We dont always do what were supposed to do. We have this internal conflict going on inside us, all our life long, between the new man, alive in the Spirit, and the old Adam, who thinks only of himself. Its a struggle, its a battle. I know you feel this, too. You realize that you arent always the loving church family member you ought to be. Hey, youre not even the loving *family* family member you ought to be, either! We mess up in our natural families. And we mess up in our church family, too, not being as loving toward one another as we should. God have mercy on me, a sinner! Well, the good news is, he does! Have mercy on us sinners, that is. God loves you so much, he forgives you because of his Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus is your brother--your big brother, if you will--who came down from heaven, took on our flesh, and lived the life of love we dont. What mercy and compassion and love he showed! Healing the sick and the oppressed, forgiving sinners troubled in their conscience, lifting up the downtrodden, comforting the brokenhearted. If you want to see what love looks like, look at Jesus. And especially look at him going to the cross for you. There is love at its greatest, at its most profound. A love so great that the heavenly Father spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all. Christ willingly gave himself into death on the cross for our forgiveness and our salvation. This sacrificial love of God in Christ is not only our example of love, it is our source of love. It is a never-failing wellspring of love that wells up inside us and flows out to others. God planted this source, this wellspring of love, inside you when he baptized you. There you became Gods child and took on his character. Children of the heavenly Father share in the family traits, and those include love and mercy, compassion and forgiveness. There in your baptism God gave you the gift of the Holy Spirit, who calls you every day to put to death the old man of selfishness and sin and to put on instead the new man of love and service--which is to be clothed with Christ, for thats how Christ is, and you are his Christians. And today, once again, you are being nourished in this new life of love and forgiveness, because today you are partaking in the Lords Supper. As in this feast of love you bless us now, we sing in a Communion hymn. And we pray confidently that God would strengthen us through the same, in faith toward God and in fervent love toward one another. God intends for us to be a loving family, you see, and so he equips us and enables us to be just that. Now what does that look like, to be a loving church family? Its more than just talk; its more than just flapping our jaws with pious-sounding words. Love shows itself in action. When someone is hurting, we meet that need. Love is very practical. Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth, it says in 1 John. So lets put some flesh on those bones. What are some ways we can show our love? Well, youre already doing this. I see it. The many heartfelt expressions of warmth toward the Gielow family in their grief and distress. I as your pastor have been privileged to receive the thanks from the family members, but theyre really going to you folks for all your care: the cards, the visits, the lunch you ladies made for the funeral--these all were concrete expressions of your care and concern. What are some other ways we can put our love into action? I remember back in Nebraska, when I was serving a parish out there--Sally was pregnant with Anna at the time, and because of whats called placenta previa late in the pregnancy, she was ordered to strict bed rest for several weeks. What did the people of the parish do? They chipped in and helped out. We had people bringing over cooked dinners for our family. I had church ladies ironing my shirts--maybe they knew Id look like a slob if they didnt! Ill never forget the practical Christian love those people demonstrated, not for attention or praise, but just simply because somebody in the church family needed help. Well, there are situations like unto that that will happen here in Bonne Terre. And I know you people will come through. Maybe it will be a lonely person in need of friendship. Maybe it will be a family with a laid-up mom that could use some childcare or housework or home-cooked meals. Maybe it will be a family with a laid-off breadwinner that could use some of our surplus bread. The situations may differ in the details, and we each have different gifts that can be put into service in different ways, but we all share in the same Spirit, we all have the same Lord and Savior, we all belong to the same great big Christian church family that extends across all boundaries and through all centuries. Love one another. Im telling you today what you already know, I know that. And Im telling you what you already want to do, I believe that. For you are Christians, gifted with the Spirit, reflecting the character of your Father in heaven, and following your Savior Jesus in faith. The sermon today is very short and simple. Our church is a loving family. Therefore, love one another with brotherly affection. Its not complicated; its very simple. But its also extraordinarily difficult to do--no, impossible to do on our own, in the flesh. The sinful flesh wars against this. And we mess up, we sin. Thats why we always need Gods forgiveness, which he gives us, for Christs sake, here in church--in the absolution, in the gospel, in the sacrament. And we need Gods help. But he gives us that, too. God will help you to be that loving person you are in Christ. He promises to do so. Therefore we can be confident that St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Bonne Terre--and you as the individual members thereof--will continue to be a loving, caring, family. I dont go in too much for hokey plaques and greeting cards and such, but I remember a little card I used to carry around in my wallet that had on it something called A Family Prayer. It really sums up very well the lesson today from Romans, and it puts it into the form of a prayer. And thats good, because we definitely need Gods help to be the loving family he wants us to be. The prayer goes like this: God made us a family. We need one another. We love one another. We forgive one another. We work together. We play together. We worship together. Together we use Gods word. Together we grow in Christ. Together we love all men. Together we serve our God. Together we hope for heaven. These are our hopes and ideals. Help us to attain them, O God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. - - - - - You can listen to the services of St. Matthew Lutheran Church-Bonne Terre, Missouri, on the radio and over the Internet. Each Sunday morning, 8:15-8:45 (Central), we broadcast 30 minutes from the previous week's service on KREI, AM 800 in the Farmington-Bonne Terre area, and streaming online at: http://www.krei.com Charles Henrickson 4749 Melissa Jo Ln St. Louis, MO 63128 (314) 845-8811 (home) (314) 779-8108 (cell) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_ _attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author, as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster. Subscribe? Send ANY note to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe? 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