Sermon in Minneapolis 27.08.2006

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

And continue our services with that hope and prayer of faith that our rich Heavenly Father would yet again divide onto us of His Word as He has so richly already through our dear brothers today. I shall read from our mutual study from the first letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, the fifth chapter, verses 4-8. You hear these words read as follows in Jesus' name.

We are all the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night. They that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation. Amen.

This portion of God's Word came to my mind for a couple of different reasons: the wedding in Brockford yesterday evening, and then with the closing of our summer vacation, school soon starting, fall being almost upon us. It brings back to my mind, especially those years of study and the trials and difficulties that you, your young students and even older students can run into because of this world.

When we look around us at the times that we live, we see that we live a time that is both, on the one hand, so richly blessed. God has given to us a wonderful temporal gift to be born in this time, to live this time, to be born in this country, in this society that we live in, in the West. In this country, Western civilization, as it is sometimes called, it is a gift of God.

And that sort of hit home when we were in Finland. Brother Joko asked the brothers from Togo, it was after summer services that we were all staying at their house, and he said, Did you ask to be born there in Togo? They, of course, said, of course not. That's the way it happened. He said, that's right. And so it is for each and every one of us. God has placed us. He has set the time and the boundaries of our living and our lives.

And so, what is our responsibility? What is our duty? What are we required? What is required of us? It is that we believe. Having been given a wonderful gift of faith, given the grace to believe, being grafted into this vine tree, the Lord Jesus, as we are, as his followers, as his children, here, as Paul wrote, children of the day.

And that means, of course, that we cannot put our candle under a basket, cannot hide our faith, cannot take that portion or that thought, as Jesus in that one parable describes the person who received the one talent. He hid it. Buried it. He had the thought that if I hide it, I won't lose it. So in the sense that what faith is, what did that person do? He hid his faith. Never confessed it. Never traveled as a believer. Never.

And he thought that by, when his master came and demanded that talent of him, that gift to be returned, that he could simply dig it out of the ground and give it back, and he said, here's yours. And of course, he lost not only that, which he had, but he lost eternal life.

So it is an important aspect of believing believers that we don't hide our faith. And it doesn't mean, of course, that we're out on the street corners and the markets and places where we live and work and teach and study, hollering our faith out as if we had. I know many of you have gone to the different marketplaces. Some marketplaces have the custom that the sellers of different goods are constantly hollering and competing for customers, shouting out their wares.

And we've seen, I've seen, you have probably seen, such people in the spiritual marketplace professing their faith, trying to draw people in to their profession of faith. This is not the way of the Spirit of God nor the way of the Kingdom of God.

But what is it? Paul writes another place to be ready to answer of that foundation of hope that is in you. What does it mean? What does it mean to be ready to answer? What it means, dear brothers and sisters, that the righteousness of life that shines forth from your lives is a reflection of the righteousness of faith that you have in your heart.

And this came out again after their wedding at the reception we were talking and one of the dear sisters who had grew up in that same area of North Minneapolis, by the old church, has been babysitting for some of these family members. Many of them are not believing today in faith but they are following the Lord Jesus as we follow in the Kingdom of God.

Many people, of course, have a faith but it is not a faith that is a scriptural faith. But anyway, this one sister said that when her husband and boys were working for one of these men doing some construction jobs, remodeling whatever it was, and he had said that, you know, you people sing to a different drummer. He says, what do you mean? He said, well, you sing to a different drummer, sing a different tune than we did.

And she asked, well, what do you mean? And he said, well, when you get married you get married to start a family and we got married, we got married to have fun. This man and his wife had one child, they adopted another and they lost that first and only child that they had accepted into their lives.

Now as he looked back at what he knew of believers having been around services, and I don't know how much contact he had, was he in Sunday school or did he go to confirmation, those kinds of questions, but obviously he knew of the children of God and the believers because of relatives and because of those contacts.

And now when he looked back at it and he saw this next generation of young people, and he said, you have reason to be very proud of your sons. This is the righteousness of life that shines forth from each and every one of you because it speaks so much greater in volumes more than that which a person could attempt to confess by the mouth.

So many are people here in this world who profess faith but their lives, their words, their actions and everything else, but they deny their faith by their deeds and by their words.

And so it has been so important also even these brothers from Ecuador, the brothers and sisters both in Ecuador and Togo have said that this is one of the aspects that they wanted to see, wanted to see that do these people who profess faith also live faith.

But that is what it means to be children of the day, to be sober in faith and to be followers of the Lord Jesus in life and in suffering and in doctrine.

And so that is why when Paul says to be always ready to answer that foundation of hope that is in you, it means that because our lives are such that we do follow a different master. People of this world, the wretches who are not in the kingdom of God, they follow a master but it is the enemy of souls. He leads them by the nose from one sin to the next and of course they cannot find peace.

But you follow the Lord Jesus in life and suffering and in doctrine even though so often failing and sinful as we heard through our dear brothers today. We are not able to be such followers as we would like to be because we are too sinful and too failing.

But God gives to such to you dear brothers and sisters preaching every one of his children the gospel where you can believe in endeavor and faith and make it to the destination.

So it makes no difference then when we are weak. Paul says, as our brother referred to when Jesus said to be satisfied in my grace, Paul said I will rejoice in my weaknesses for when I am weak then I am strong.

And the power and the success of the journey is not in myself and not of what I am or what I am capable of but it is in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his gospel that is what will bring you dear brothers and sisters each and every one of us. It will bring us to the destination. He has begun this good work in you and he will one day finish it when he takes you home.

So whether it is a personal departure or a mutual departure is a great victory for each and every one of us because we leave this land of sin and death and woe and go to be with our Savior. That of course is what we hope and wait for.

And at the last portion that I read Paul talks about them being children of the day and he says to be sober putting on the breastplate of faith and love. So he ties it to the concept which he also did to the Ephesians to the weaponry of a soldier.

And we certainly have to admit that we are often in battle and in battle we are often wounded, wounded by the enemy because we fight a threefold enemy. So it is not easy.

It is necessary that we surround our hearts with a breastplate of faith and love. It shields our hearts from the attacks of sin.

Oh how sad it is to see, as we heard just recently again, of a father who gave up faith and deserted his family. Sin is such deceitful and corrupting substance that if we play with sin we eventually lose faith.

So how important it is that it always is and appears in our lives to be such a substance that we fear it and we fight against it with the power of the Spirit of God and of faith.

Only in that way can we be victorious. Only in that way can we shield our hearts with love and faith.

And that is why, as our brother said also, that we are surrounded by escorts so that these brothers and sisters around us can preach unto us the gospel and we receive strength to endeavor.

And so dear boys and girls in going to school, even to study, and dear young people in studying at school, remember to take faith with you. We don't leave faith at home or at church but faith is with us every day every step.

The Lord Jesus is with us and he gives us strength and power to believe and power to fight against all such onslaughts of the enemy.

And then the second piece of our remember that Paul writes here is the helmet. For a helmet he says the hope of salvation.

Especially in the time we live in, I think it has probably always been but it seems because of the flood of information and different philosophies that are out there in the world today we are surrounded by so much of the rational approaches of mankind and of man that it is necessary dear boys and girls that you don't mix the wisdom of the Spirit with the wisdom of man.

We need some of the wisdom of man for this life, for our lives here, for our employment and for being citizens of our societies and of this world but that will never bring us to glory of heaven.

And so we don't allow that which is the wisdom of man to corrupt that which is the wisdom of the Spirit.

And so what have the saints of old done? Just think of Noah in the ark floating upon the waters close to a year and finally he sends out a bird to see where that bird would go.

And the first bird he sent out is a raven, a bird of prey, but it pictures also in that sense the corrupted rationale of man.

And that raven flew to and fro, didn't come back, didn't bring him any message.

So finally seven days later he sends out a dove which now pictures of course the Spirit of God and the faith.

And that dove, I think if I remember correctly, you dear boys and girls probably remember better than I do, I think the first time he didn't bring anything back or did he bring a leaf back?

And the second time then that dove did not return and so he knew that now the waters were starting to abate from the earth and eventually that ark landed on a mountain.

And compare that also to father in faith Abraham getting to be an old man already when God renewed his promises to him that he would have a son through whom all the nations of the earth would eventually be blessed.

And Abraham was commanded to build an altar and to sacrifice thereon and so he built the altar and laid the animal sacrificial animal on that altar.

And the scripture says the birds of prey came to disturb the sacrifice.

In the same way as Noah, Abraham also had to fight against those trials and temptations of the carnal mind.

What did he do? He didn't allow those birds of prey to make a nest in his sacrifice to disturb his worship of God.

And so also we dear brothers and sisters in the same way, dear boys and girls in the same way, we chase away with the power of the Spirit of God that which is of the flesh and of the mind of man.

We don't let them build, let those thoughts build nests in our heads.

God gives us power and grace also for that that we can drive out that which is of this world and which is of the rationale of man so that that which is of the Spirit can edify and upbuild strength.

And so the helmet that you wear dear boys and girls is in the same picture as the Levitical priesthood in the headdress that he wore or it had a golden emblem that came down upon the forehead of the high priest where it was written sanctified unto the Lord, made holy unto God.

And so you also have that stamp in your forehead. God has given you the correct understanding of this doctrine of justification.

In other words, the doctrine of how a person is saved.

Isn't it miraculous to note, as Paul writes it in another place, this mystery of godliness, this mystery that people throughout time have sought for, studied and researched and attempted to understand how does God justify, how does God make righteous, how does God give peace to a sinner.

And people by studying, by researching and by reading the scriptures cannot find and understand how that happens.

Some think it is by prayer, others by good works and so on and so forth.

And there have throughout history been all manner of false doctrines and heresies even separated from the kingdom of God over these issues as we heard through our dear brother about Gnosticism.

But isn't it amazing to understand that you dear boys and girls, even the youngest children here, you understand how to justify, in other words how to make righteous someone before God.

You know that if someone came to you and asked to have their sins forgiven, what would you do? Would you tell them no, I can't do that? No, you wouldn't.

You would say your sins are forgiven unto you in the name and blood of Jesus.

Just think, it makes no difference who it is here that is saying it, from the littlest of you to the oldest service guest here.

God doesn't look at who said it but he looks at only that a believer, someone who has the Holy Spirit spoke those words.

Then those words have the power of God and they free a soul from sin and death and hell.

So great is your power and so great is this mystery of godliness that the mind of man will never comprehend it but you understand it because you have the Spirit of God and that Spirit leads and guides you into all truth as it has led and guided you to this day.

So God will also by his Spirit lead and guide your lives and so you can freely go to study, study those things that come before you that you find interesting and necessary for your own lives.

And oftentimes you will hear teachings, philosophies and things that are contrary to faith but they won't destroy your faith because you are able to differentiate that which is of the mind of man and that which is of the Spirit of God.

God gives to his own such power, might and understanding and Paul writes to the Romans that when man by wisdom knew not God, would please God by this foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

It is your power dear brothers and sisters, young and old, onto salvation, the power of God.

And so this helmet, this hope of salvation shields this understanding from the onslaught of the enemy, from all those fiery darts, from all the different rationalities and philosophies of man so that we are preserved in faith until the day that our turn comes to leave this land.

Sins are forgiven to your brothers and sisters unto peace, freedom and joy.

I also ask for myself and I believe my own sins and faults again so I desire to live together with you in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Lord bless us and keep us. Lord make his face shine upon us and be gracious unto us. Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us his eternal peace in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.