When Jesus sent out His twelve apostles He gave them these orders, "Take nothing for the journey except a staff--no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic" (Mk 6:8-9). Is that it? Other than the staff in their hand, they were to take nothing but the clothes on their back and the sandals on their feet?
Well, not quite. Jesus sent them forth with His Word and the authority and power to preach the kingdom of God and entry therein through repentant faith. And, if we include the longer directives in the parallel passages in St. Matthew and St. Luke, they took along as well His commission to heal every infirmity, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and drive out all evil spirits.
God would see to their needs. He would protect and sustain them. He would also deal with those who treated them inhospitably. He would shake these guilty parties out of His kingdom as His apostles shook the dust from their feet in protest against them. Indeed, "it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment" (Mt 10:15) than for these offenders. (And there are plenty of them today!)
For their part, the Twelve were to trust God and depend on Him exclusively. And God did see them through and blessed their service. And later, after He dispatched the seventy-two and likewise fostered their ministry and crowned their efforts with success and they returned with joy to report, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name" (Lk 10:17), after reminding them that He Himself had overcome the prince of demons, having brought about his downfall and seen him fall like lightning from heaven, Jesus sobered His disciples up with these sobering words.
"Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven" (v 20). The same goes for you and me--we who have submitted to the Holy Spirit and are subject to Him through the same faith He has called forth and preserves by the same Word whereby He calls and sends us. Rejoice that your name is written in heaven!
St. Paul discusses the ramifications of this in his Letter to the Ephesians, chapter one, verses three through fourteen. Because we are among the saints justified, forgiven and reconciled by the Father for Jesus' sake, because in calling us by God's Word the Holy Spirit has called forth the faith by which we believe in God and take hold of His inestimable gifts, we rejoice that God has written our names in heaven, writing His name upon us, making us and marking us His, and that the Holy Spirit has made us subject to God.
Hence, St. Paul greets us, "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph 1:2). God's having written our names in heaven and elected us to salvation and eternal life from all eternity begins with Him and His gracious disposition toward us finding expression in His gracious behavior.
This being the case, in the Psalms the psalmist petitions God, to begin with, to give and sustain life (Ps 119:88; 86:16) without which none of His salutary acts are possible, and then to hear prayer (4:1), to heal (6:2), to redeem (26:11), to establish (41:10), to pardon (51:1) and to save (109:26).
Appeal is made on the basis of God's love and will as manifested in His Word and testament and embodied in His conduct, His specific deeds. When God shows grace, thanks is forth-coming (5:7; 106:45). Much ado is made of it and it is remembered (94:18; 21:7; 59:10), pondered and adored. Parallels to grace are salvation (13:5), mercy (25:6), righteousness (36:10), redemption (130:7) and faithfulness (36:5). Miracles, signs and wonders abound where grace is (107:8).
Joy and praises spring forth from this fertile earth, this fecund furrow, this rich topsoil and richer bottomland, this common ground (31:7; 138:2) on account of grace. The round earth, like a pregnant womb, is full of it (33:5). It mounts up to heaven (36:5). It endures forever (89:2). And inasmuch as it is everlasting, if death seems to hem grace in (88:11), it bursts the seams. It is better than life itself! (63:3).
That is because, insofar as God is the Alpha and Omega, the source and substance of grace, He appoints it, sends it and Himself comes with it. Oh, it is most becoming, this divine thing called grace! Therefore, besides remembering and pondering it, we must as zealously yet piously wait for it (106:7; 48:9; 33:18).
In both the Old Testament as it anticipates fulfillment and the New Testament where it achieves fulfillment in Jesus Christ grace characterizes the Gospel--indeed, the Gospel is grace, grace active in love--as it entails the proclamation and bestowal of grace through the faith God thereby gives--the faith which appropriates all the gifts of grace summarized as forgiveness, life and salvation in those whom God thus justifies and reconciles on His Son's behalf for the sake of His atoning sacrifice.
Grace is proclaimed and conferred in the Gospel, then, because it is actualized at the cross (Gal 2:21) and embodied in the crucifixion and the Crucified. This grace is shown to sinners (Rom 3:23-24) who are saved by grace alone. Therefore it is the sum total of salvation (2Cor 6:1), the whole ball of wax. Consequently it is absolutely exclusive--as all-exclusive as it is all-inclusive.
There is neither more nor less of grace anymore than there is more or less of God. You either have it as God's free gift through God-given faith or you don't, having refused it and rejected God. It is either-or, black or white, not both-and. The corollary to this, the flipside of grace alone incarnate in Christ alone, is the faith alone He alone gives, not faith-and-works.
For if salvation is by works, it is no longer of grace. Otherwise grace is no longer grace but just another work. "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ", Paul greets us. Indeed, peace to you, inasmuch as by His grace God has established His covenant of peace between Him and you, removing the obstacle of your sin by forgiving it and justifying and reconciling you.
Yes, God has forged His peace treaty with you, ratified by His Son's death and signed in His blood. Grace and peace to us dear saints, indeed, we blood-bought sinners! Rejoice, for our names are written in heaven! "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph 1:3).
Because He is His only-begotten Son, because He came from the Father "full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:14b), because in Him is life and light--our life and light, yours and mine--because He came to us and became one of us, one with us and for us, and made room in us for Himself and made us His very own, to us, to you and me He gave the right to become the children of God.
Because He is God's native Son He gave to us the high privilege of being God's naturalized children, adopted by God, born of Him anew. Grace to us and peace be multiplied from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Our names are written in heaven. Rejoice! "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ."
In Christ's exaltation--His resurrection, ascension and eternal session at the Father's right hand--and in the believer's union with Him and incorporation as His bodily member through the Sacrament of Baptism, ultimate issues are at hand--issues that ultimately end in salvation and life everlasting in union with God but that are already a present possession in Christ.
So that, by virtue of his merger with Christ, heir and treasury of all Christ has bequeathed him, even now the believer is virtually one with Christ where He is enthroned with the Father and Christ is one with the believer here and now and hereafter, everafter.
At stake are God's eternal and final purpose, writes one commentator, "and the titanic conflict between God and the powerful spiritual forces arrayed against him--a purpose and a conflict that come to focus in the history of redemption" and to fruition in the drama of salvation. Come what may, come to grips with that!
"Here (v 3) Paul asserts that, through their union with the exalted Christ, Christians have already been made beneficiaries of every spiritual blessing that belongs to and comes from the heavenly realm." Christ, having been elevated to that realm and seated over all other entities, "rules over all for the sake of the church. Those who have been 'made alive with Christ' share in Christ's exaltation and enthronement in heaven" (Concordia Self-Study Bible).
Praise be to God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world" (v 4). Our divine election from all eternity by God's sovereign, dynamic, proactive choosing is underscored here in our text in the Apostle Paul's very word choice and grammatical progression.
First, God the Father appointed us in Christ to be Christ's and His own, to be one with them where they are, before the world's foundation. It is for this that Jesus prayed on the night he was betrayed, "Father, I want those you have given me", those who have believed, those who do believe and those who ever shall through the message of the apostles and prophets, to be one through this means, one with the Father and Son and one with one another in them, just as the Father and Son are one with each other and them.
But this is more than a wish. It is His will! "Father, I will that those you have given me be with me where I am, and see my glory," the glory of the sole-begotten One who is one with the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, "who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
Oh, to see that glory, the glory the Father has given His Son because He loved Him before the world began--to bask in it and share it because in Him He has given us a share, because He willed it, He who before His Passion prayed, "not My will, Father, but Thine be done"! Because it is His last will and testament bequeathed to us and we are His beneficiaries and heirs, it is done! Share and share alike.
From the utter fullness of His grace we have received grace upon grace. All of us have, have-nots no longer. Praise be multiplied! Before the world came to be, God the Father chose us in God His Son "to be holy and blameless in his sight."
And don't forget how we came to be this way. To paraphrase Paul's words in chapter 5, Christ so loves us as His bride that He gave Himself up for us to make us holy, cleansing us by the washing with water through the Word to present us to Himself as a radiant bride, stain-free and wrinkle-free and without any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
And, lest we get the big head from being holier than thou or despair because we know only too well that of ourselves we are anything but holy and blameless or even stain-free and wrin-kle-free but badly in need of a spot remover and a permanent press, let us recall--and in recollecting, rejoice--that holiness and blamelessness are the fruit, not the basis, of God's choosing.
The basis, indeed, the holiness and blamelessness, is Christ. The ground of our being, the ground of faith and the base of operations, our saving face, is Christ and Christ alone--and God's having chosen us in Him.
In the depths of Love, Deep calling to deep, the depths of the deity calling those in the depths of sin and despair and woe, God the Father "pre-destined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ," not via our own devices, hand-held or otherwise, as though we co-opted Him when He opted out, but "in accordance with his pleasure and will" through His bringing us into accord with Him and not according to our misconceived merit, we misfits, but "to the praise of his glorious grace"--no self-adulation here--"which he has freely given us in the One he loves" (vv 5-6). No self-promotion either--up with people. Nonsense, up with Jesus!
Up, up, up and away. Far and away the best flight plan. Far and away the best flight path. Upward bound all the way. "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (v 7). Notice the progression. First, redemption wherein Christ freed us from the bondage of sin and its curse by becoming a curse and paying our ransom with His own blood.
On His recognizance God our Father forgives us our sin, justifies and reconciles us "in accordance with the riches of [his] grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding" (vv 7-8). Rejoice, rejoice, believers! Rejoice that your names are written in heaven where Jesus is at the Father's right hand, His right-hand Man and ours, and where we are with Him, in Him, and ever one with both. Amen.
- Pastor Erickson
The Sundays during the Pentecost cycle develop three great themes. The first is Baptism and its graces. We are baptized and grounded in the graces of Baptism. Every Sunday is a reminder of Baptism and a small Easter.
The second theme is preparation for the second advent of the Lord. It is treated in detail on the final Sundays of the season. The remaining theme, the burden of of the Sundays midway after Pentecost, may be summarized as the conflict between the two camps.
Although we are placed in the kingdom of God, we remain surrounded by the kingdom of the world. Our souls are laboring under Adam's wretched legacy and waver continually to and fro between two allegiances.
By these three great themes the liturgy covers the whole range of Christian life. In Baptism the precious treasure of the Spirit was conferred. Through it we are God's children and may call God Father. Through it we have become temples of the Holy Spirit, heirs and brothers of Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless, Baptism has not translated us to a paradise without toil or trouble. Rather, we are sent out into a troubled world to work and struggle. We must guard the holy land of our souls against hostile attack. We must learn to know and conquer the enemy, and such is the task that will continue until we have taken our final breaths.
The Church serves as both the heroine, who teaches us the art of warfare, and our strong fortress and shield in the conflict. Through Holy Communion, she bestows aid that repeatedly frees the soul from the entanglements of temptation.
How does she do this? Courage and strength and perseverance flow from the Word of God in the Service of the Word, and they flow in even fuller measure from Holy Communion. Of ourselves we are helpless creatures, wholly unable to withstand the attack, but in Holy Communion another battles for us.
The Mightier, Christ, vanquishes the mighty. By means of Holy Communion, we are enrolled in our Captain's forces. And thus Christ's battle becomes our battle and His triumph our triumph, and His wondrous strength renders us invincible.
Such is the drama, the divine drama, of the second half of the Church Year, the long green meadow or growing season called Ordinary Time. Here we live out the life of the faith with which we have been so richly gifted in the festival cycle, and which extends from The Feast of The Holy Trinity until the First Sunday in Advent. We are privileged to do so by means of the tried and true pattern, yes, the familiar rhythm of the Divine Service:
Holy Communion on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Sundays; the Order of Morning Service on the 2nd Sunday and Matins on the 4th Sunday, and the Orders of Morning and Evening Prayer (Matins and Vespers) during the week and their corresponding Ordinaries and Propers intended to prepare us for the Holy of holies, the Lord's Day in the house of the Lord together with His holy people.
And whatever the occasion, regardless of the day, join us at Peace each Sunday at 10:00 AM for an hour of true peace in Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace. Make it two hours well spent. Come at 8:45 AM and join us for adult Bible study and Sunday School!
Join us for the adult Bible study hour on Sunday mornings at 8:45 AM in the Parish Hall. We are studying the appointed Gospel lessons for each Sunday of the Church Year, which this year mainly come from the Gospel According to St. Luke.
The Lutheran Study Bible offers this helpful introduction to reading St. Luke. During the 23-mile journey up to Jerusalem, a rise of more than 3,300 feet, the people fall silent. After leaving Jericho, the melodies of joyful ascent toward Zion give way to the somber percussion of sandals on stones.
Dry throats pant as weary feet plod and ache. Yet, when they reach the crest of the Mount of Olives, joy springs anew. They shout "Hosanna!" as the temple mount comes into view across the Kidron Valley.
Luke presents the story of Jesus' life as a journey. The story begins at the Jerusalem temple (1:8), climaxes with Jesus teaching at the temple some thirty years later (19:45-21:38), and ends at the temple (24:53) after Jesus is crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended outside the city. Arthur Just characterizes Luke's account as follows: Luke's Gospel is a book of the church, written for the church, to be used by the church in its proclamation of the Gospel to the unbaptized and the baptized. The community that receives Luke's Gospel is a catechetical and eucharistic body that already in the first century had a method for making Christians. That method originated in Christ's own ministry, then was continued by the Jewish followers of the Christ. Thus, the context in which Scripture is received is liturgical, that is, a church that worships Christ, who is present in the reading and preaching of the Word and the receiving of the Sacraments. . . . Luke's Gospel was written with a specific context in mind. The evangelist was recording the ministry of Jesus (A.D. 30) for a community (A.D. 55-60) that worshiped in a particular way and in a particular space. . . . Luke's writings provide most of the NT information about house churches. Jesus sets the precedent for a mission to houses when He sends the Twelve (9:1-6) and the seventy(-two) (10:1-24) into various houses. Jesus institutes what would become a natural pattern for early mission activity. (Arthur A. Just, Luke 1:1รณ9:50, CC [St. Louis, Concordia, 1996], 5, 7, 16)
Let this continue to whet your appetite for our full course meal, our feast of fat things, as we banquet on God's bountiful buffet afforded us in the Gospel According to St. Luke, and as we savor this preview of next month's offering. . . "The Lord's journey--which returns again and again to the temple--begins in heaven, comes to earth, and returns to heaven. The Church's creeds summarize this journey as Jesus' work of salvation."
This is a co-ed group, facilitated by Annamarie Kolodziej, a fellow participant and friend of the congregation who is a member of our sister congregation, Faith Lutheran Church in Plano. This friendly gathering meets to study the Scriptures on the first and third Tuesdays of the month (July 6th and 20th) from 9:30 to 11:00 AM in Room 1/Nursery, directly across the hall from the Pastor's Study. We're currently studying 1 Corinthians.
One of the themes of this Bible book is Christian maturity--growing and maturing in the faith. "Becoming a mature Christian can be a painful process", write the authors of the study in the Enrichment Magazine which accompanies the course material.
"In his novel The Hammer of God, Swedish Lutheran bishop Bo Giertz describes how God hammered three young pastors into shape (Jeremiah 23:29). The hard realities of parish ministry and the gentle tutoring of older pastors gradually humbled and matured them.
"Above all, God's Word--His holy Law--served as the hammer that shattered their pride and prepared their hearts for the Gospel of Jesus, the Rock of our salvation. God uses His Law in our lives the same way: to show us that we are helpless infants doomed for death without the strong nourishment of His Word."
By this means, "God nourishes our faith with the pure milk and the solid food of His Word. It is by this Word--the Word of Christ crucified and resurrected for our sins--that God strengthens us and grows us in the faith (Romans 10:17)." Just in time for Pentecost, the long green growing season of the Church Year! We heartily welcome all comers. So do come!
The Men of Peace meet at 7:30 AM on the third Saturday of each month (July 17th) in the Fellowship Hall for breakfast and a Bible study that continues our investigation into the nuts and bolts of the Christian faith, "Law and Gospel"--amidst animated, brotherly conversation. All men--and your friends--are welcome!
The Women's Guild meets the fourth Thursday of the month (with the exception of November, December and July, when they do not meet) at ten o'clock in the morning in the Parish Hall for a devotion on women of the Bible, a brief business meeting and fellowship and refreshments. All women of Peace--and their guests--are welcome!
A diners club meets the second Saturday evening of each month, by reservation, at a local eatery to savor new culinary delights and fondly revisit old ones.
LUTHERAN MISSION ALLIANCE, of which our congregation is a member, now helps to support two missions: Our Redeemer ($500 per month grant), Palacios, TX; and Peace ($300 per month), Texarkana, TX. (Such have been our Lord's blessings on Living Savior, Montgomery, TX, that the congregation, in thanking LMA, has informed the Alliance that it may direct its support to another effort!)
These missions are traditional, liturgical and truly Lutheran. They emphasize the Bible in preaching; hymns from the hymnal; thorough Catechism instruction for new members and close(d) communion. Like your grandfather's church, but with air conditioning.
This is a step of faith for this new mission organization, so your support is needed. Pray and give for these missions. Make your contributions out to: Lutheran Mission Alliance. If you wish to give a gift to either of these missions, simply write "Our Redeemer" or "Peace" congregation in the memo line of the check. If you simply want to give a gift for the work of the Lutheran Mission Alliance, then write "Lutheran Mission Alliance" on the memo line.
And speaking of the work the LMA does and the contribution this Evangelical Lutheran mission alliance makes, check out their web page at www.l-m-a.org.
WORSHIP SCHEDULE
Sundays at 10:00 AM
JULY 4 - Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
10:00 AM Communion Service
Scripture Readings: 1 Kings 19:14-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; St. Luke 9:51-62
JULY 11 - Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
10:00 AM Morning Service
Scripture Readings: Isaiah 66:10-14; Galatians 6:1-10, 14-16; St. Luke 10:1-12, 16-20
JULY 18 - Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
10:00 AM Communion Service
Scripture Readings: Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Colossians 1:1-14; St. Luke 10:25-37
JULY 25 - Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
10:00 AM Matins Service
Scripture Readings: Genesis 18:1-14; Colossians 1:21-28; St. Luke 10:38-42