Tomorrow Sunday August 31st at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine: “God’s Will, Not Ours” (Matthew 16:21-26)
Divine Service: 9:30 am
Bible Study and Sunday School: 11:00 am
Location: Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine: 12500 Sand Canyon Ave., Irvine, CA 92618
Directions: Exit Sand Canyon from the 405 or 5, head East towards the hills, cross Irvine Blvd., turn right on Saint's Way (this will put you on the campus of Crean Lutheran High School...we worship in the event center/gym)
Dear Christian,
“God’s Will, Not Ours” (Matthew 16:21-26)
For Your Life in Christ the 12th Sunday after Pentecost
August 31st, 2014
Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine, CA (LC-MS)
Pastor Espinosa
Introduction: Bonhoeffer Quotes Luther in Discipleship (Luther is writing as if God is speaking to you)
“Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend – it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension, and I will help you to comprehend even as I do. Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. My comprehension transcends yours. Thus Abraham went forth from his father and not knowing whither he went. He trusted himself to my knowledge, and cared not for his own, and thus he took the right road and came to his journey’s end. Behold, that is the way of the cross. You cannot find it yourself, so you must let me lead you as though you were a blind man. Wherefore it is not you, no man, no living creature, but I myself, who instruct you by my word and Spirit in the way you should go. Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is clean contrary to all that you choose or contrive or desire – that is the road you must take. To that I call you and in that you must be my disciple. If you do that, there is the acceptable time and there your master is come.” (The Cost of Discipleship, First Macmillan Paperbacks Edition, 103-104)
- On account of our sin, however, we constantly fight against the call to discipleship; we want to hold onto our comprehension instead of trusting in the Lord’s comprehension for us.
- Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah argued against God’s call to them even though the Lord knew exactly what He was doing.
- Moses said, “I can’t speak well enough!”
- Isaiah said, “I’m too unclean, not good enough!”
- Jeremiah said, “I’m too young!”
- God calls us to discipleship too! But what is our excuse? We must remember who we truly are and to whom we truly belong!
Part I: Your New Identity:
- We have watered down the word “Christian,” esp. in American culture.
- The word literally and actually means “Christ’s” … or in elongated form “one who BELONGS to Christ.”
- Notice how this concept is applied to the Church, the body of Christ:
1st Corinthians 6:19: “Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.”
- Discipleship begins with this fundamental truth: We do not belong to ourselves, we belong to God.
- The Christian, therefore, is a “disciple” – one who is a “hearer” of Christ and therefore (and as a result of hearing the Word of Christ and thereby being drawn to Christ) – is one who FOLLOWS Christ.
Matthew 16:24: “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’”
Part II: But In Order For This to Happen We Must Die
- Remember that Peter once denied Jesus three times. He said, “I don’t know the man!” That part of us is dead!
- We use these words against ourselves! The Christian is confronted with their sinful flesh that says, “I don’t want to follow!” And the Christian’s trained response is, “I don’t know the man!” “The man” = our sinful nature.
- You’ve heard the expression when someone is so hurt or ashamed of someone else, they say, “You are dead to me.”
That means the relationship is completely severed; it is over with! This is our daily call: die to yourself; die to your old sinful nature!
Romans 6:11: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Tomorrow Sunday August 24th, 2014 at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine: “The Most Important Question You’ll Be Asked”
Divine Service: 9:30 am
Bible Study and Sunday School: 11:00 am
Location: Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine: 12500 Sand Canyon Ave., Irvine, CA 92618
Directions: Exit Sand Canyon from the 405 or 5, head East towards the hills, cross Irvine Blvd., turn right on Saint's Way (this will put you on the campus of Crean Lutheran High School...we worship in the event center/gym)
Dear Christian,
“The Most Important Question You’ll Ever Be Asked”
(Matthew 16:13-18)
For Your Life in Christ the 11th Sunday after Pentecost
August 24th, 2014
Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine, CA (LC-MS)
Pastor Espinosa
Introduction: The Great Challenge of Our Time
- Alister McGrath in his book Evangelicalism & the Future of Christianity explains that the 18th century Enlightenment established human reason as the highest standard for knowledge and truth, but it gave way to the late 20th century into-the-present worldview called postmodernism (182f).
- Once upon a time, we thought we had everything figured out through human reason, but two things happened: 1) we discovered human reason isn’t as accurate as we thought (e.g. we thought that Newton’s physics was fairly seamless, then along came Einstein); 2) the reliance on human reason ushered in horrible atrocities like the Stalinist purges and the Nazi extermination camps. We are now no longer so willing to boast in human reason.
- So what are the implications of the new view? We can’t really know anything with certainty and what is true and what is real depends on a person’s personal view. Postmodernism is the age of relativism. Welcome to the present!
- Interestingly enough, our post-Christian era is looking a lot like the pre-Christian era. During that era (before the establishment and explosion of the Christian Church), Jesus asked this as recorded Matthew 16:13:
Matthew 16:13: “When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’”
- Various disciples chimed in to give answer. These are translations of the relativistic answers recorded:
- Jesus is a great king who has come to threaten Herod’s rule. That is a political figure, but still a man.
- A great herald of Messiah who had returned to continue the work of preparing for the true Messiah, but still a man.
- A great prophet who is legend who perhaps had risen from death, but still a man.
- What do all of these have in common? Jesus = still a man!
- As one theologian put it, “They thought well of Him, but not well enough.”
- In our sin, we think well of Jesus…just well enough to coax our consciences, but in sin we limit who Jesus is…we do not want to answer to Him as Almighty God, we want His Word to be relative. In our sinful hearts, we don’t believe in truth! Just versions of the truth! We don’t think of Him well enough!
- In his book The Case for the Real Jesus, Lee Strobel refutes among other things the popular assertion, “People should be free to pick and choose what to believe about Jesus.”
- This is exactly what we do, but here’s the problem:
From Strobel: “…truth is true even if no one knows it, admits it, agrees with it, follows it, or even fully grasps it…The problem is that people can have beliefs that are ‘useful,’ maybe temporarily and for certain ends, but they may be completely false (236).”
- In today’s Gospel, the Word asserts that there is an authoritative viewpoint: God breaks onto the scene and asks the single most important question you will ever be asked in your life:
Matthew 16:15: “He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’”
Part I: While You Still Live and Breathe, What Do You Say of Jesus?
- As for the foolish opinions about Jesus, Jesus didn’t even care to discuss.
- There is only one answer Christ commends:
Matthew 16:16: “Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’”
- Jesus praises THIS answer, because it is THE answer!
Matthew 16:17: “And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’”
- Crucial components of what we’ve just read:
- What is that revelation from God? (from vs. 16)
- Jesus = “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
- Epiphanius the Latin (5th or 6th century): “If Christ is the Son of God, by all means he is also God.” (Ancient Christian Commentary, Ib, 45)
- The Venerable Bede (c. 672/673-735): “He calls Him the ‘living’ God by way of distinction from the false gods which heathendom in its various delusions made to itself to worship, either of dead men, or – greater folly still – of insensate matter.” (The Lutheran Study Bible, 1616)
- That is, since Jesus the Son of God is God, then He is also the Living God which means that Jesus is the source of life!
- Do we believe this? When we doubt and we seek answers for our burdens under every rock and yet all the while refuse to worship Jesus Christ and call on His Name. Instead we rely on “flesh and blood” = “[the] mortal state of weakness and fallibility.” (Lenski, 623)
Tomorrow Sunday August 17th 2014 at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine: “The Great Thing About Little Dogs” (Matthew 15:21-28)
Divine Service: 9:30 am
Bible Study and Sunday School: 11:00 am
Location: Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine: 12500 Sand Canyon Ave., Irvine, CA 92618
Directions: Exit Sand Canyon from the 405 or 5, head East towards the hills, cross Irvine Blvd., turn right on Saint's Way (this will put you on the campus of Crean Lutheran High School...we worship in the event center/gym)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Sermon
“The Great Thing about Little Dogs” (Matthew 15:21-28)
For Your Life in Christ the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 17th, 2014
Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine, CA (LC-MS)
Pastor Espinosa
Introduction: No matter how you cut it, this morning’s Gospel is very challenging: There is a woman in desperate need, and there is no question that she has true faith in the Lord (she calls Jesus “Lord” three times), and she is truly an example of faith, love, and humility, and yet this is a rough summary of what happened:
- It appears that Jesus completely ignored her first request. She came crying out, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” (22) And then Scripture records, “But he did not answer her a word.” (23)
- Then after Jesus’ disciples seemed to have insinuated that the Lord should just help her out and send her on her way, Jesus essentially said that he had not come for this woman (23-24). Jesus answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (24) You see the woman who was begging him was a Cannanite, a race that in the Old Testament Israel was commanded by God to exterminate because of their idol worship (Dt 20:17). The point is that the woman was seemingly rejected a second time!
- The Scriptures record what happened next: “But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’” (25) And it was to this that Jesus after seemingly ignoring her and then seemingly avoiding her, finally actually speaks to her, but notice what he actually said to her: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”Wow! First, the woman is seemingly ignored; then, the woman is seemingly actively avoided; and then, Jesus called her a dog!
Part I: How Would You Have Reacted?
A. I will never forget the story of what happened with my dad (of blessed memory) when my parent’s first baby – my big brother who I never met – was only three days old and because of the extreme heat and his difficulty breathing, died as an infant. My parents were very young and devastated of course. My dad went out walking and went to find the local pastor. He found the pastor and told the pastor what had happened and asked the pastor if he would conduct the funeral for his baby boy. To which the pastor responded that he couldn’t because he was essentially too busy. Needless to say, that didn’t go over too well with my dad. He had recently been honorably discharged from the U.S. Marines after fighting for our country in World War II. When the pastor said this, my dad basically used some colorful language to tell the pastor what he could do. As my dad walked away, the pastor realized the seriousness of what had just transpired, and he literally went running after my dad. He did the service.
B. This true story has made a deep impression on me. People need their pastor’s to be there for them. I am humbled by my limitations, but I pray that I will always be able to serve you faithfully. If I do not respond to the real needs of my people, not only would I hurt them, but I could hurt their faith in the Lord. But what happens when it seems that THE pastor, the Shepherd of our souls, the true God, the Lord Himself is the One who does not answer us? There are times when God is silent, and there are times when we feel that we are being ignored. And it hurts and it can hurt so much that we are tempted to tell God what he can do as we walk away in anger and confusion. Does this ever happen? It happens more often than we think.
II. But Faith Looks Past Appearances:
- This Gospel is given to us this morning dear Christians so that we would learn from the Canaanite woman. She did not give up on God even though many people would reason that she should have. That’s the problem with us, we don’t want to live by faith, we want God to do exactly what we think is right when and where we say and we prove ourselves to be sinners, because we are always putting ourselves first.
- This woman in our Gospel, however, brings out the truth about God. It has been said about this account from Matthew 15 that it really wasn’t the woman who was looking for Jesus, but it was – all along – Jesus who was looking for the woman.
- What we take as ignoring her, Luther has a different take:
“Look how Christ drives her faith deep into her heart that it becomes strong and firm.”
Tomorrow Sunday August 3rd, 2014 at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine: “How The Lord Feeds You” (St. Matthew 14:13-21)
Divine Service: 9:30 am
Bible Study and Sunday School: 11:00 am
Location: Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine: 12500 Sand Canyon Ave., Irvine, CA 92618
Directions: Exit Sand Canyon from the 405 or 5, head East towards the hills, cross Irvine Blvd., turn right on Saint's Way (this will put you on the campus of Crean Lutheran High School...we worship in the event center/gym)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
“How the Lord Feeds You” (St. Matthew 14:13-21)
For Your Life in Christ the Week of the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, August 3rd, 2014
Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine, CA (LC-MS)
Pastor Espinosa
Introduction: Jesus our Savior had and has compassion!
- The word in the original language is splagchnizomai. It means that “his gut moved” or his inward parts poured forth. His heart goes out to you in a deep, personal, and true way. He really, really cares and it always leads to His acting; doing something about it!
- Notice how St. Matthew tracks His observations, compassion, and action:
Matthew 4:23: “And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.”
Matthew 9:36: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
Matthew 14:14: “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”
- These Scriptures describe more than just sympathy (sameness of feeling) or empathy (the ability to share in another’s emotions, thoughts, or feelings). Christ is so deeply moved when He sees His people in real need that He is so internally moved, it causes Him to act and help driven by deep love.
- How does He act; what does He do?
- He preaches the good news.
- He heals disease and sickness (remember what has been promised to us all at the end).
- He intervenes for and helps the harassed and helpless.
Part I: Where Does This Ministry Take Place?
- Matthew 14:13 = “[Jesus] withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place…”; Matthew 14:15 = the disciples say, “This is a desolate place…”.
- We too are in a desolate place in the sense that we live in a place impacted by the desolation of sin, the world, and the evil one:
- Think of the desolation represented by the Ebola virus and the havoc it is causing in West Africa.
- Consider the desolation of continued war, airline disasters, and the nightmare of kids taking the lives of others before taking their own.
- Consider your own desolation as you face the daily battle against your sinful nature and the guilt, shame and fear it produces in your heart.
- 1st Peter 2:11 calls us “sojourners and exiles”!
- The hymn “I’m But a Stranger Here” stanza one: “I’m but a stranger here, Heav’n is my home; Earth is a desert drear, Heav’n is my home. Danger and sorrow stand Round me on ev’ry hand; Heav’n is my fatherland, Heav’n is my home.”
- These are indications of desolation. Jesus does not avoid the desolate places, but enters into them. He comes to us.