Tomorrow January 27th, 2013 at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine: “The Church — All of You — Are Christ’s Epiphany, Especially for the Unborn”
Dear Christian Friends,
Sermon
“The Church – All of You – Are Christ’s Epiphany…
Especially For The Unborn”
Rev. Dr. Alfonso O. Espinosa
Introduction: We’ve Been Talking “Epiphanies”…the Wise Men following the Star; The Baptism of Christ; The Holy Spirit in your life (last week); but there is another and it is our life together as the people of God, the body of Christ, the Holy Church esp. as we stand together to speak the truth in love -- even if we are persecuted -- in the face of evil in the world.
And it is important in this regard that we cut to the chase and speak of those things which are most difficult to address and stand against. Luther addressed this principle:
“Neither is it of any help if someone would say, ‘I will gladly confess Christ and His Word in every other article, except that I may keep silence about one or two that my tyrants may not tolerate…’ For whoever denies Christ in one article or word has denied the same Christ… [in] all the articles…” (Luther’s letter to Graf Albrecht von Mansfeld on June 3rd, 1523, Concordia Journal/Fall 2009, p. 356f)
- It is so easy to be silent about so many things nowadays!
- Why is it so sinfully easy?
- We like to avoid controversy, confrontation, and offense.
- Closely related is that we want to be liked.
- And frankly we all experience the gravitational pull of universalism in American religiously…the goal is to simply have a general “belief in God,” “to be a good person,” and to avoid absolutisms whenever possible. After all, if you do this, then you can maintain that you are not a “judgmental” person…after all, didn’t Jesus say, “Do not judge. (Matt 7:1a)”?! Answer: Jesus did, but He did not mean do not discern between good and evil OR do not take a stand against evil…He meant do not condemn (leave eternal destinies in the hands of God where they belong)…but on the other hand, you must take a stand…not in order to demonize people (for we are all sinners), but in order to be faithful to God and in order to truly love your neighbor!
- How important is this?
Matthew 5:13: “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”
- Part of our problem, is that we let way too much time go by and just put things off…and tomorrow never comes! Like I have been putting things off as your pastor and it’s been bothering me.
- For the first time in pastoral ministry and I’m sure only by the grace of God, I began to lead a “life-ministry” in my congregation at Living Word Lutheran Church, The Woodlands, TX while I served there from 2002-2010. We had a very simple and focused and pro-active approach: we participated in “40 Days of Life” with other Christian Churches (trans-denominational) in the Houston Area that organized to stand vigil at the local Planned Parenthood centers in the Houston area, including the largest complex of Planned Parenthood on the North American Continent in Houston, TX.
- As many of you know Planned Parenthood was started by Margaret Sanger who was the greatest modern advocate and leader of abortion in America in the history of our country.
- You know about the Holocaust and the 6 million Jews who were murdered by the Nazi’s. While I traveled in Germany recently, I saw a very large memorial to those Jews in Berlin…it was striking and commands an ongoing memorial so that the Holocaust would never be forgotten.
- Well there are other things that mustn’t be forgotten nor ignored by the Christian Church if we are to be Christ’s light in this world. A lot happened last week: the country celebrated the contributions of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, President Obama was inaugurated, but did you catch the significance of Tuesday, January 22nd? It was the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, when legalized abortion in America became a reality. Again, we remember the 6 million Jews who were the murdered victims of the Holocaust, but we cannot forget, we must never forget either the 50…the 50 million unborn babies who had no defenders when they were murdered (think of all the people in the state of California plus millions more, murdered)…and make no mistake about that regardless of the most or least sophisticated reasons for conducting those abortions, innocent human beings have been slaughtered in the womb. Let it said plainly and simply: abortion is a crass violation of God’s 5th commandment: “Thou shalt not murder.” As a country, we are without excuse.
I will continue this sermon tomorrow and lead us to the single, most important reason in Christ that we are moved by the Gospel to love the Lord's gift of life beginning at conception.
Bless you dear Christian!
Dr. Espinosa
Tomorrow Sunday, January 20th, 2013 at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine: “The Manifestation of the Spirit” (1st Corinthians 12:7)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. As you know “epiphany” is about God being manifest. We need for this to be the case, because if God did not reveal Himself then we would never know Him, nor would we ever be saved. This is why we have to be careful when we encounter the popular objection to believing to God: “Why should I believe in a God that I cannot see?” This objection along with many other objections is used to keep a safe distance from faith and from entering into a relationship with the Living God, especially when it is presupposed that such faith is unreasonable and without warrant.
Unfortunately, the answers that come back from Christians to those who state this objection are often inaccurate. How many Christians with good intentions will answer the objection, “Why should I believe in a God that I cannot see?” with something along the lines of, “You just need to believe.”? What is perpetuated here is the idea of “blind faith”. Now it’s easy to be confused about these matters. After-all, at first glance it may seem that the Bible itself supports such an idea. Consider for example Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Well there you have it: faith is the conviction of things not seen. Case closed. Christians must therefore believe in blind faith. Not so fast.
There is a biblical context and backdrop to these words. To put it simply: if God suddenly appeared in all of His glory – in front of you and me right here and right now – we would all be in a lot of trouble. As sinful human beings, we would be overwhelmed. No one can see the full glory of God and survive. Even to Moses, God said, “Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33:23) The ancient church father Tertullian commented on this state of affairs: “It is not permitted us to contemplate the sun, in the full amount of [its] substance which is in the heavens, but we can only endure with our eyes a ray” (ANF3:609).It is in this respect that the Bible records God speaking these words in Exodus 33:20: “But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
This is why we sometimes explain this situation in terms of God “hiding” Himself. He hides Himself not in the sense that He is undetectable, but in the sense that we do not and cannot see His full glory. This is indeed an important biblical teaching. Listen to the words of Isaiah the prophet: “Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.” (Isaiah 45:15)
Tomorrow Morning January 13th, 2013 at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine: “The Baptism of Our Lord” (Luke 3:21-22)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
“With You God Is Well-Pleased”
(Luke 3:21-22)
Pastor Espinosa
“21Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’”
Introduction: There Are Many Ways to Approach Life
A. In the multitude of ways in which you strive by your own standard or righteousness OR by approaching life in accord with God’s standard and righteousness.
B. If we choose our standard or righteousness, we enter into a sinful maze that leads to disaster as we try to follow the vast-array of “god-substitutes”: (from Keller’s The Reason for God, 290-291)
1. If you center your life and identity on your spouse or partner, you will be emotionally dependent, jealous, and controlling. The other person’s problems will be overwhelming to you.
2. If you center your life and identity on your family and children, you will try to live your life through your children until they resent you or have no self of their own. At worst, you may abuse them when they displease you.
3. If you center your life and identity on your work and career, you will be a driven workaholic and a boring, shallow person. At worst you will lose family and friends and, if your career goes poorly, develop deep depression.
4. If you center your life and identity on money and possessions, you’ll be eaten up by worry or jealousy about money. You’ll be willing to do unethical things to maintain your lifestyle, which will eventually blow up your life.
5. If you center your life and identity on pleasure, gratification, and comfort, you will find yourself getting addicted to something. You will become chained to the “escape strategies” by which you avoid the hardness of life.
6. If you center your life and identity on relationships and approval, you will be constantly overly hurt by criticism and thus always losing friends. You will fear confronting others and therefore will be a useless friend.
7. If you center your life and identity on a “noble cause,” you will divide the world into “good” and “bad” and demonize your opponents. Ironically, you will be controlled by your enemies. Without them, you have no purpose.
8. If you center your life and identity on religion and morality, you will, if you are living up to your moral standards, be proud, self-righteous, and cruel. If you don’t live up to your standards, your guilt will be utterly devastating.
OR you can put all of the man-made systems of righteousness aside and go with God’s plan…
C. But here’s the rub (the impossible challenge in one respect at least), God’s plan is the “righteousness of God.”
1. This teaching in God’s Word has multiple facets. It has the facet of God’s saving righteousness, esp. as we know it in St. Paul’s “righteousness of God (Rom 21f.),” but it is a concept that is also alongside of God’s justice. (Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume II, 195-197)
2. It had a very precise sense, however, when in a parallel to our Gospel in Luke 3 this morning – in Matthew 3 – Jesus said as he approached John the Baptist (who is practically beside himself and aghast at the idea that Jesus would come to him for baptism):
Matthew 3:15: “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
D. At Jesus’ baptism Jesus is touching on that aspect of the “righteousness of God” that expresses itself in “the right conduct of man which follows the will of God and is pleasing to Him, for rectitude of life before God, for uprightness before His judgment. (Kittel, 198)”
1. In other words, “the righteousness of God” includes the idea of doing what is pleasing to God.
2. And at this juncture in which the righteousness of God might be isolated in accord with this biblical and legitimate definition, we find ourselves still in a mess.
3. All of the man-made systems of righteousness only lead to satanic confusion and sinful addictions, so we try to do the right thing and turn to God’s way…
4. That is, the effort to do what is pleasing to God; to live in the righteousness of God.
a. We try to think the right way, but our thoughts betray God’s righteousness.
b. We try to desire the right things, but our hearts are found to be corrupt in light of God’s righteousness.
c. We try to commit ourselves to right ways, but our sin keeps rearing its ugly head, and we fail in accord with the standard of God’s righteousness.
d. God knows how His righteousness in our lives should be expressed: we should love Him with all of our hearts (with all that we desire); with all of our souls (with all that we commit to); and with all our minds (with all that we permit to characterize our thought-lives), but we fall-short. In sin, we love ourselves more than God…our own desires, our own commitments, and our own thought-lives betray God...for all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Ro 3:23).
Part 1: All of These Reasons Are Why Jesus’ Baptism Was Vital for Our Being Rescued from These Terrible Circumstances!
[The rest of this sermon explains the power of Christ's baptism for us!]
Tomorrow Morning at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine January 6th, 2013: The Epiphany of Our Lord
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Introduction: Popular images that don’t quite represent Scripture. Case and point: The Epiphany “Kings” or “Wise” Men Who Followed the Star:
- Calling them “kings” is something that did not occur until the 6th century; calling them “wise” did not occur until the 8th century! (Gibbs, Concordia Commentary: Matthew 1:1-11:1, 123-124)
- But our cultural images have built up these popular ideas about the magi who came to pay homage and adoration towards the baby Jesus (who was about two years old and was now being raised in the house of Joseph and Mary). This also corrects our typical “manger scenes”: the magi never made it to the manger, but traveled for many months to see the baby Jesus when much time passed after His birth. So the shepherds worshipped at the manger, but the magi bowed down before Christ in the humble home of Joseph and Mary many months after the birth of Christ.
- In the typical manger scene we have the poor shepherds and then the elaborate magi right there with them, but the biblical evidence states that the magi arrived long after the shepherds and furthermore Scripture will not let us be too terribly impressed with the magi.
- Magi were often servants of rulers who oppressed the people of Israel as we seemingly have depicted in the book of Daniel. They were most certainly not kings, but again, servants.
- Furthermore, any good Israelite would never admire their so-called “wisdom.” Ancient astronomy was often associated with the occult. From a Jewish perspective, this was a form of false and idolatrous knowledge and learning. For the people of God at the time, this would be something to be shunned.
- But even more fundamentally disturbing is that these magi were Gentiles…they were outsiders in relation to the people of God…they did not belong in association with the Holy Messiah!
- So who were the magi…they were not really kings, but servants; they were not really wise, but were known for occult science; and they were not even among God’s people, but Gentiles! How much should these men – in terms of their own persons and credentials – be admired? Not at all! And yet…these are the ones who came seeking Christ!