3/22/09 - NELHS 30th Ann. - John 3:16

LOVE IN UNLIKELY PLACES
- From God
- To the world

The world has been against God ever since mankind fell into sin. The moment Adam and Eve ate from that infamous tree, the people of the earth became God’s enemies. Those first two people hid from God, they lied to God, and they even blamed God for what they had done. Later on, their first son, Cain, defiantly went against God’s will and killed his brother Abel - even refusing to repent. And as the years went by, more and more people fell away from the faith and turned away from their Lord. In fact, by Noah’s time, there were only eight people left on this earth who believed in the one true God. The world was so wicked and so filled with unbelief that the Lord completely destroyed the world and started all over again with those eight people on the ark.
But things did not get any better after the Flood. The world again grew into an intense hatred of their God. The next story after the Flood account in the book of Genesis is the Tower of Babel. A situation in which the people of the world directly disobeyed God’s command to inhabit the earth and decided to build a great city with a tower that reached to the heavens instead. And because of their blatant disregard for his Word, the Lord spread them out over the earth anyway by confusing their language. But even that act of judgment did not bring the nations of this world back to repentance. And by the time of Abraham the world was filled with unbelievers; and the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob constantly dealt with peoples and nations who did not care about the Lord or his will. And not only was the world against the Lord, they were against the Lord’s people. As Jacob’s descendants began to grow - and the Lord chose the Israelites as his own people - the world hated them from the beginning. The Lord’s people were oppressed in Egypt, attacked on their way to the Promised Land, harassed while they lived there, and taken into exile by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. The world hated the Israelites just as much as they hated the Israelites’ God.
Of course, it wasn’t just the foreign nations who proved to be God’s enemies. The Israelites themselves rebelled against their Lord time and time again! They grumbled, they complained, they turned away, they even worshiped other gods! And it got to be so bad that when Jesus finally arrived on the scene, the Jews were by and large the most vehement of unbelievers. The Lord’s chosen people hated Christ for claiming that he was the Lord! And the Gentiles weren’t much better. There were very few people on the earth that believed in Jesus while he was here; and the same is still true today. There are many more unbelievers than believers in this world, and it will remain that way until the end. The world has always been against the Lord. The world has always tried to thwart the Lord’s plans and go in the opposite direction of the Lord’s will. The world hates the Lord. The people of this world despise the Lord by nature. And you and I are part of that world. We don’t hate the Lord now. We don’t despise the Lord now. But we did. Scripture makes it clear that we were God’s enemies just as much as any unbeliever is now. Scripture makes it clear that the sin we were conceived with separated ourselves from God. Scripture makes it clear that as part of this world, we are constantly sinning and constantly going against what God demands. Even as believers in Jesus as our Savior we fail to live as we ought to live, think what we ought to think, and say what we ought to say. We are conceived sinners, born sinners, live as sinners, and we will die sinners. And so will everyone in this world.
Now with that in mind I want you to consider a passage of Scripture that you know well. A verse from the Bible that many of you memorized as a child: John 3:16. “God so loved the world…” God loved the world? Is that right? God loved the world? That shouldn’t be! God should hate the world because the world hates him! God should forget the world because the world has forgotten him! God should despise the world because the world despises him! But no, God loved the world to such an extent that he gave up his one and only Son that whoever believes in him will not be destroyed, but will have eternal life. God loved the world, he cared for it, he felt so passionately about the people of this world that he was willing to give up his own Son so that every person of this world would be saved. That is an amazing kind of love! That is love from a very unlikely place. It would make sense for the world to love itself. It would not be a surprise to find that the people of this world love each other. But for God to love a world that has rebelled and hated him since the Garden of Eden is beyond comprehension.
And not only does the Lord love this world for unlikely reasons - the Lord also shows his love for the world in unlikely ways. He shows his love to the people of this earth not by displaying his majesty in visible and impressive form - rather he points this world to the simple words of the Bible spoken in the world’s own languages, to historical facts and future promises that were written over a period of 1500 years. What an unlikely way for the Almighty God to demonstrate his power and love to sinners! With a book? With a Jewish man? With a cross? And then again, when water is used together with the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” God instantly grants the forgiveness of sins to the recipient of that event. What an unlikely way to show his love to the world! With normal every day water? With something a child is able do? And then still again, when we gather in front of the altar, and those dry frail wafers and little cups of wine are met with the words, “This is my body given for you… This is my blood of the new covenant, shed for the forgiveness of your sins,” God once again blesses thousands of people with his mercy and grace. What an unlikely way to show his love to the world! With food and drink? In a gathering that is so quick and common and nondescript? But that is exactly how the Lord shows the world his love: through the gospel in Word and sacraments. And it is a powerful love. It is a saving love. And he offers it to the world without exception.
Of course, the whole world doesn’t accept that love. Not everyone believes in that love or even wants that love. Throughout history the appreciation of God’s love has shifted from place to place and country to country. It moved from the Garden of Eden to a boat floating on water. It went from a nomad called Abraham to the land of Canaan. It went from Egypt back to the Promised Land. It went from Jerusalem to Constantinople and then to Rome.
And as the love and the Word of God was slowly and steadily suppressed by the papacy over the centuries, who would have ever guessed that the renewal of the truth of God’s Word would be championed in a little town called Wittenberg or spearheaded by a former Roman Catholic monk? Who would have ever guessed that this true Word of God would eventually leave Germany and be sent to a relatively new and arrogant group of people called “Americans”? Who would have ever guessed that the hub of Christian orthodoxy for the 20th century and now for the first part of the 21st would be found in a little Lutheran synod begun in Wisconsin? Who would have ever guessed that more scripturally accurate preschools and grade schools and high schools would be built here than in any other country during our time? Who would have ever guessed that God’s love would remain in this part of the world for so long? Who would have ever guessed that the Lord’s love would allow this small group of Christians not only to spread coast to coast and border to border, but beyond the seas? Who would have ever guessed God’s love would be found someplace like Waco, NE?
Nebraska Evangelical Lutheran High School in Waco, NE is a quintessential example of God’s love in unlikely places. If you’ve ever been there, you’d know why I say that. It is a small Nebraska farm town of a little over 200 people. It doesn’t have a gas station. It doesn’t even have a stop light. It’s in the middle of corn fields on the side of a two-lane highway. But God’s true and eternal Word and his teaching of young men and women and his never-failing love have been there now for 30 years. For three decades students of different ages and backgrounds, teachers, pastors, and tutors have gone in and out of those doors feeding and being fed with the Word of God. And from that small town in the middle of Nebraska, the Word of God has been spread throughout the world. There have been over 40 called workers to come out of Nebraska Lutheran over the years, not including those currently in our worker training system. And that’s not to mention the rest of the 550 graduates, most of whom have gone on to be solid Christian men and women in their respective congregations. Waco was and remains an unlikely place for a Lutheran high school, an unlikely place for a concentrated shower of God’s love. But there it sits. And there it strives to reach out to the lost by training and sending and growing and praying. Nebraska Lutheran, as well as the other 25 high schools in our Synod, has been a valuable blessing to our work as a church body and the Lord has used that institution to further his kingdom in many different ways.
Don’t forget to thank the Lord that he has shown his love to us in so many unlikely ways and in so many unlikely places. Don’t forget to thank the Lord for that school. And I’ll admit: it has been a long time since I have thanked the Lord for Nebraska Lutheran - and I went to high school there! In fact, I went to grade school in those buildings from kindergarten on! I spent 13 years of my academic life on that campus and I rarely thank the Lord for it. Isn’t that sad? Isn’t it sad that I don’t on a regular basis bring to mind the place and the people that the Lord used to show me his love in so many ways? But I suppose that’s the great thing about the Lord’s love: it’s not dependent on my faithfulness; God love depends on his own faithfulness. And, of course, he will never let me down. And he will never let you down either.
Because “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” What a fitting passage to use as the sermon text of an anniversary service. Because that is the theme of our salvation. It is the theme of our lives. And it is the theme of every congregation and preschool and grade school and high school of our fellowship. “God loved the world.” That means God loved us. God loved you. And God loved me. He loved us so much that he sacrificed his Son to die in our place so that we who believe will go to heaven. What a beautiful message! It frees us from guilt. It releases us from sin. It guarantees our home. Continue to help this message be taught to young men and women and to be spread to a world that by and large doesn’t even know God loves them. Support the work of his kingdom with your prayers and with offerings, with your talents and with your time. For Nebraska Lutheran, for the Synod as a whole, for all of the Christians you share fellowship with on this earth, and also right here at home. It is a noble and consuming undertaking. But is an eternally important one. “God so loved the world.” What beautiful thing. What an unlikely thing. And so let us make sure that it does not go unknown.
Amen.

“May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” - 2 Cor. 13:14