March 16, 2021
Dear friends,
Apologies to anyone who tried to listen in to the service on Sunday. Technology can be fragile, and I marvel that the streaming actually works as well as it does, usually all on its own.
Although I have been very grateful that folks can listen in to the service, I’m reminded again and again every Sunday just how precious it is to worship and receive Jesus’ body and blood together. It is something that listening on-line can never replace.
On Sunday, I preached about living for God’s promises as opposed to living for the flesh. The people of Israel were living for the flesh when they grumbled against God as soon as they got hungry in the wilderness (Exodus 16). They were slaves to their bellies, so that they even preferred slavery in Egypt to freedom in God.
They did not recognize that the one who promised to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey is also the one who gave them everything they had. Whether in Egypt or in the wilderness, any bread they had came from God. If he did not provide it, they would not have it. It’s trivial for God to supply bread — look at how easily he fed Israel in the wilderness, or how easily Jesus fed the 5000 in our Gospel (John 6).
The same is true for you. What a wonder it is that you have all the things you cherish – food, home, clothing, family, friends, health, comfort. You have them because God has given them to you! He’s your gracious, heavenly Father, and he wants to give his children good gifts.
But those things are not what we’re living for. They’re blessings, but they’re like bread that perishes. It gets moldy and rotten. If we devote ourselves to those things, then we begin to think that we have gotten them for ourselves and we lose sight of God’s promises.
Living instead for the promises means setting our hearts first on the gifts that God gives us by his Word – forgiveness, life, and salvation. It is to set our hope in the freedom that he has given us from sin, death, and the devil. It is to look forward to the Promised Land and not to complain or grumble when we begin to hunger or thirst in this wilderness. It is to hunger and thirst for righteousness and not for mere bread.
What are you living for? What takes priority in your life? What is unmovable and non-negotiable? What is worth sacrificing for? What is worth giving up even those things that everyone needs, like money, food, shelter, comfort, health? What’s worth losing your job for? What’s worth getting sick for? What’s worth dying for?
I’ll tell you, there is only one right answer: the promises of God. Live for the promises of God. Live in worship of him. Order your lives around his gracious provision of wisdom from on high. Order your days and weeks around his Word, the forgiveness of sins, and his instruction in righteousness. Make church that unmovable and non-negotiable part of your week. Make prayer and the Scriptures that unmovable and non-negotiable part of your day.
If you don’t go a day without brushing your teeth, then you shouldn’t go a day without reading the Scriptures. If, at the end of every day, you settle down in front of the TV, then there should also be some part of your day where you settle in with God’s Word. If you can’t imagine skipping your cup of coffee in the morning, then you shouldn’t imagine skipping your prayers. If it’s unthinkable that you’d go a week without eating, then it should be outrageous to imagine a week without the body and blood of Jesus.
This is hard because the world around us lives for the flesh. Living for the promises means giving things up that appeal to our flesh. But it also means freedom. If your life consists of a long list of things that you have to do or you cannot imagine going without, then you are a slave to those things. But if, instead, the first and only thing that you need for life is every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, then everything else finds its proper place as well because you are free.
Live for the promises of God. God has set you free for freedom. Live as people who are free!
God bless and keep you,
Pr. Buchs