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And when the fight is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song
(The Lutheran Hymnal #463, stanza 5)

The hymn entitled “For All The Saints” has that phrase describing “The distant triumph song.” The word `distant’ is where I would like to begin today. Doesn’t the victorious message of Christ often seem distant to you during the week? The triumph of our Lord Jesus, the mighty conqueror who ascended above all rule and authority, above all power and dominion, can seem so far away. The triumph of the saints, you and I who have been given the promise of things that “eye hath not seen nor ear heard,” that triumph can seem so distant from our lives.

• It seems so distant when a husband or wife storms out of the house, slamming the door on the way out.
• How distant the triumph of Christ seems when you hear a conversation laced with profanity.
• When a person fancies himself as a good church member, but friends and family regard him (or her) as a busybody and a gossip, how distant the triumph song becomes.
• How distant it is when your body is wracked with physical pain that modern medicine cannot alleviate.
• How distant when your outlook on life is soured by bills that cannot be paid.

The triumph song of Jesus and his saints seem far away when we hear our Savior say: for from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.'” (Mark 7:21-22)

 Satan wants the triumph song of Christ to become so distant from your daily life that it becomes inaudible. He doesn’t want you to hear it at all. He stands behind all of the battles we find ourselves in. Paul reminds us of this by saying:

“our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:11)

There is more facing you than an occasional problem here and there. Satan is your ultimate enemy. He stands at the head of a powerful, invisible army of evil spirits who are intent upon your eternal destruction. Luther refers to this in his hymn of the Reformation, “A Mighty Fortress”:

Though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us.
(The Lutheran Hymnal #262 stanza 3)

The enemy is not just that quarrelsome person you can’t get along with. It is not just improper conduct and conversation. We are not just struggling against our bodily ailments and financial woes. Those are just the front men that Satan uses to pull you away from God. If the triumph song of Christ and the saints seems distant at times, it is because the devil is trying to take them completely from your heart and life. And you know that at times, he is successful–he takes your focus away from Christ.

Followers of Jesus need to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus, the one who has already triumphed over the devil and death and the grave for us. Tomorrow I will start sharing a solution Jesus gives to help us continue hear that distant triumph song.

Acts 2:11  …we hear them declaring the wonders of God …

The first disciples were thoroughly convinced of the message they proclaimed. They had been with Jesus. They had seen and heard Him. They could testify that He had performed miracles and signs and wonders. They watched Him fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament. They had seen Him betrayed, tortured and crucified. Then they saw Him alive again. With the Spirit’s power, they understood these wonders, wonders performed by a loving God. They knew that God was reaching out to save the souls of all who would repent and believe in Jesus as their Savior. So they shared this with those that they met. It was a one-on-one approach.

In the early church, this one-on-one system worked well. It got results. The book of Acts tells you that. History tells us that by the year 300, this one-on-one system had worked so well that it appeared that the entire civilized world would be converted by 500 A.D. This “one-on-one” system worked so well because the Holy Spirit used plain ordinary folk, caring people, to share the wonders of God’s love. However, this system all but stopped when the Emperor Constantine decreed that everyone in his empire was already Christian. After that, people developed the opinion that declaring God’s love was the job of the church, not individuals. Since that time, the church has become larger, and perhaps better organized. But without this one-on-one system–people sharing the wonder and love of God with each other–the church has suffered.

There is still hope because there is still the Holy Spirit. He can renew the church and individuals so that they can once again know the wonder and power of God’s love. As those who have experienced this renewal and have come to faith in Jesus Christ, we want to be His instruments. We are those who have been with Jesus because of our faith in Him. We need to exhibit the zeal of those first disciples. We need to declare the wonders of God!

We dare not declare a watered-down version of God’s Word. The message we proclaim is that which is found in the Bible, that which has been handed down to us and which we have taken to heart. The Scripture tells us that all men have sinned and deserve to be damned, separated eternally from God and His love. That is what we have earned by our actions. But God does not leave us in that state of despair with no hope. He reached out to us in love made flesh, sending His dearly loved Son into the world. Jesus Christ was born as a man in order to take the sins of all men on Himself. He could do that because He had lived a perfect life. Paul wrote about that:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

He took our sins and paid the penalty for them through His death on the cross. That is why we display the cross so prominently–as a reminder of what Jesus did for us there.

But that is not all of the message. After our Lord took the sins of all men on Himself and paid the price for them by dying in our place, He rose again to live eternally. He proclaimed His victory over sin and death, and offers His righteousness to all who believe in Him. Through faith in Jesus Christ, God sees you as being without sin, since the righteousness of Jesus gives you a covering. Even though you continue to sin, God does not hold your sins against you if we trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior. And this forgiveness is open to any and everyone. All you must do is believe that Jesus Christ lived, suffered, died and rose again for you, and you will be forgiven, redeemed, and restored.

It’s simple. It’s free. It is God’s promise. It is the message that we will continue to proclaim. God has shared this wonderful blessing with us, and we want others to share in it, so that they will be among the faithful in the joy of eternal life with our God. So we will continue to declare the wonders of our God.

ACTS 2:1-12  When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.  Utterly amazed, they asked:  “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?  Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?  Parthians, Medes and Elamites;  residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya near Cyrene;  visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism);  Cretans and Arabs–we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”  Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Years ago, a Lutheran Pastor entered a tavern in his town. There was a man there who wanted to embarrass the Pastor, so he stood up and shouted, “Es gibt keinen Gott!”  For those of you whose German is rusty, that means “There is no God.” Upon hearing this, the Pastor went calmly over to the man, laid a hand on his shoulder, and said, “My friend, what you have just said is not at all new. The Bible said, ‘There is no God’ over 2000 years ago.” The skeptic was taken aback and said, “I didn’t know the Bible said that!” The Pastor continued, “Psalm 14:1 tells us, ‘The fool says in His heart THERE IS NO GOD. However, there is a great difference between that fool and you. The fool in the Psalm was quite modest–he only said it in his heart. He didn’t show what a big fool he was by going around and yelling it in a tavern.”

We live in a world of fools. And it is not just the drunks in a tavern who say “There is no God.” People both inside and outside of the church have no problem these days loudly asserting “There is no God!” And having made that assertion, they then declare that there really is no such thing as sin, and they criticize the church for condemning sin and sinful  behavior.

People deny their sinfulness because that allows them to deny their need for a Savior. They reject the truth of God’s Word and deprive themselves of its promises. They do not experience God’s love and cannot respond to it. And this problem I am describing is not just outside the Church, but in many denominations and congregations. The end result is that much of the church has become cold and lifeless–a dramatic contrast to the vibrancy of life in the early church.

In our lives as God’s people, we should be His instruments in bringing warmth and life into what might otherwise be a cold and lifeless church. Through the ministry of Word and Sacraments, through the proper use of our gifts, we have learned that God does indeed equip us to be his caring people. It is our mission to reach out and touch others with the message of the wonders of God.

The passage above is describing the first Christian Pentecost. That day started with believers gathered together, and then the Spirit manifested himself in an extraordinary manner. Wind and fire were the visual signs that something beyond the normal was happening. A crowd gathered to investigate. The promise of Jesus to send the Holy Spirit was fulfilled. The disciples were enabled to speak in foreign languages, and they did so in order to share the Good News of Jesus. They spoke of the Spirit’s power given to them. They declared the wonders of God’s love, the truth that Jesus Christ, crucified by sinful men, has been raised again to life by the power of God. They revealed that He was not just a man from Nazareth, but the Son of God and the Savior of all men. They spoke of how He took the sins of all men on Himself. They told the people that all who would repent and be baptized would be saved. They declared the wonders of God: Jesus Christ, and salvation only through His Name. Forgiveness not because of our deeds, but by the grace of God.

To be continued…

Scripture affirms that hope is ours in Christ. We have it. It was something all the followers of Jesus knew and shared and spoke about.

Peter, that disciple who gets a lot of bad press, was one who had been with Jesus, saw Him face to face, sometimes misunderstood what Jesus was saying, but still believed that He was the Son of God. Peter knew what it meant to have hope in Christ. He got out of the boat and walked on water. He felt the hand of Jesus pulling him to safety when he doubted. And after he denied knowing Jesus, he was forgiven and restored and assured of his place in God’s kingdom. He knew all about hope. And God would lead him to write these words in his first letter that has been passed down to us today:

1 Peter 3:15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

You and I have this hope because of Jesus. We know that He came into the world to take our place in punishment. He lived in obedience to all the law of God and then offered His perfect life as the payment for the sins of the world. He promised that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life. That is our confidence. That is our certainty. That is our hope. No matter what the world throws at you today, you have this hope, and nothing can take it away from you.

Because of the confidence I have in Jesus, these are some of the things I hope for:

• I hope to spend eternity with my Lord and Savior.
• I hope all of you reading this will do the same.
• I hope more people will come to know Jesus as their Savior because of what we do as followers of Jesus.

When Matthew was describing Jesus, he quoted from Isaiah 42, saying this was a clear prophecy of and reference to Jesus:

Matthew 12:21 In his name the nations will put their hope. (Isaiah 42:4)

Jesus is our Hope. We know what He did for us through His life and death and resurrection. We should not expect the world around us to understand what we have.  Paul was God’s chosen messenger in the early church to take the message of Jesus to the Gentiles, the non-Jews. Paul knew the world would have a hard time understanding our hope as believers. At one of his trials, when he was on his way to Rome, he was appealing to a King who understood Jewish teachings and this is what he said.

Acts 26:6-7 And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our fathers that I am on trial today. This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. O king, it is because of this hope that the Jews are accusing me.

Those who have not been led by the Holy Spirit to know and believe in Jesus will not understand the hope that we have in Him. But that does not negate our hope. It is real because Jesus earned it for us.

Paul wrote about this a lot, especially throughout his letter to the believers in Rome.

Romans 4:18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Romans 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Romans 15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Hope is ours in Christ. While the world around may not understand it – yet – if we keep living in that hope and speaking of the hope that is our in Christ, the Holy Spirit will work through us to lead others to know and believe in Jesus as well.

Colossians 4:16–18 ¹⁶ After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. ¹⁷ Tell Archippus: “See to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord.” ¹⁸ I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.

While the letters of St. Paul were addressed to a certain city or individual, they were meant to be shared with others. He makes that clear at the end of this epistle.

“After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea.”

 The letters Paul wrote, while addressing issues in a given situation, were beneficial for others to read, including those of us removed by 2000 years. They speak to problems we still encounter today. And they point us to the timeless solution to sin: Jesus. His life was lived in conformity to God’s will. That perfect life was then sacrificed for the sin of the world. And He rose to conquer death for everyone. That is the message all need to hear, and what Paul was trying to do through his life and ministry. Writing letters was part of that.

When he mentions the letter from Laodicea, that could have been another letter he wrote that is lost to us, or it could have been the one he sent to Ephesus, which then made its way to Laodicea, and now was coming to Colosse.

Paul mentions Archippus, a coworker he call a “fellow soldier” in his letter to Philemon. His encouragement to him was to stay the course, remain faithful and do you work. He then tells the people that they should recognize that he had personally written the end of this letter. Most of the letters were written dictated and written down by his helpers.

As he concludes, he again requests prayers. He is under house arrest as he writes this letter, and hopes to be set free to continue spreading the Good News about Jesus.

I think the concluding phrase is terribly important: “Grace be with you.”   Paul was all about sharing the grace of God. Grace is the undeserved love of God that gives us what we did not earn and does not give us what our sins deserve. It is an underlying theme in all of his writings and messages. Sure, he speaks the Law as necessary because it is also God’s Word. But the predominant message that comes through Paul is God’s grace. It is what we all need to hear.

I leave you with these passages for your pondering today.

Romans 6:14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Galatians 2:21  “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

Ephesians 2:8–9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Colossians 3:18–4:1 ¹⁸ Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. ¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. ²⁰ Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. ²¹ Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. ²² Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. ²³ Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, ²⁴ since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. ²⁵ Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism. ¹ Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

Paul wrote similar words to this passage in his letter to the Ephesians (5:22 ff.). They give some good instructions for how we should live no matter what our station in life is. We remember that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and that status should be the motivation for how we live our lives.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,  since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

Remembering who we are in Christ and what we have received from Him makes all the difference. When you see those around you as people for whom Jesus died, that influences how you treat them.

All too often we forget this. That is when we let our anger and selfish desires take over, and our actions are less than pleasing to God. That is why Paul repeatedly encourages us to remember who we are.

It is possible for us to live this way when we live by faith in the one who gave Himself up for us (Gal 2:20), our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Colossians 3:15–17 ¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

I have read and commented on these verses many times throughout my ministry. There is so much wisdom and encouragement and practical application for our lives in this passage. Today I just want you to consider a few of the phrases

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts

When you have the peace that comes from knowing who you are in Christ Jesus, you have freedom and comfort in your life. You know He has won the victory and given it to you. You know you are His now and His forever. You will one day be in His presence. That confidence changes who you are and how you live.

And be thankful.

I don’t pray many prayers anymore that don’t tell God how grateful I am for all He has done for me. I recognize the blessings I have in my wife and family. I have more material blessings than I ever thought I would have. I have been blessed with travel and experiences that have enriched my life. And most of all, I know I have a Savior who did everything I needed to have forgiveness and life everlasting. I am grateful. I should not have to be reminded to “say thank you,” but I don’t mind the reminder. It needs to be part of my daily routine.

Let the Word of Christ dwell in your richly

 Having a Bible or a Bible app is not enough. You need to Be in the Word so that the Word is in you. That is why I always required memory work when I taught confirmation class, and frequently suggested it when I taught Adult Bible Class. If the Word is not in you, it cannot come out of you. God Himself has revealed Himself, His grace, His salvation, and His Will for you in His Word. That is why Peter encourages us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). That happens through the Word.

Do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus

 When you strive to live in the name of Jesus, you are striving to do His Will. Followers of Jesus will not sin and try to act as though that is His will. Those who live that way are not following Jesus. We know that we should endeavor to do His will in all things as a part of expressing our thanks to Him for being our Savior.