9/18/11 - Pentecost 14 - Revelation 7:1-8

SEALED FOREVER

Ancient Seals

In the early 1960s a seal carved in an opal stone was discovered in Israel. Which isn’t anything too out of the ordinary because thousands of signet rings and impressions and stamps have been dug up in that country over the years. But this one is special. It is an egg shaped seal about an inch and a quarter long with a sphinx-like character engraved at the top, a band in the middle, a cobra, a falcon, and a lotus plant on the bottom, and a few Hebrew letters interspersed between those pictures. These letters form the name of the person to which this seal belonged and, coupled together with the intricate symbols of female royalty along with the style in which they were engraved, scholars have determined with relative certainty that it was the seal of the infamous Queen Jezebel of the Bible. Jezebel was the one who had tried to kill the prophet Elijah; she was the one who had seized Naboth’s vineyard for her husband Ahab by hiring false witnesses against him so that he’d be stoned to death; Jezebel was the one who was eventually thrown down from her palace window at the command of Jehu and eaten by dogs according to the prophecy of the Lord. It was this Jezebel whose seal is now sitting in a museum in Jerusalem. And back when she was alive she would have used it to make an imprint in a variety of different things: clay jars, official documents, household articles, and the like. Because that is what a seal was used for: to indicate who owned the object or who authorized the command. A seal was almost used as a signature back then and so it was highly valued.
A seal could be a ring or a stamp at the end of a cylinder or a small disc that you would press into clay. And the sculptors that would craft these seals made sure that they were intricate enough that they could not be duplicated by anyone off the street. Because no one else had the right to anyone else’s personal seal. In fact, if you sold your seal to someone else you were not allowed to keep any instrument that could make that same impression. And there was apparently a practice of breaking your seal right before your death so that no one could use it (or misuse it) after you died. Identity theft happened even back in those days (!) and so people took great pains into producing seals, protecting seals, and paying attention to the imprint a particular seal made on any given object.

We are the Possession of the Groom

With this in mind, I want you to listen again to what John sees in his vision from the book of Revelation. It is a picture of the end of this world and of God’s seal of protection and grace. “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”
The vision that John is given here is a picture of the angels placing a seal on our foreheads, an imprint, an impression that indicates who we are and whom we belong to. And because of this seal we will be spared on Judgment Day from the destruction to be sent on this earth and will be able to rest safely and securely in our Savior’s arms. It truly is a comforting vision and an encouraging picture for us as we look forward to what is to come. And although it may sound strange that the Lord would put a seal on our foreheads, there is a similar custom in one of the cultures of our world today.
In the country of India, and even within the Indian culture around the world, many of the women in that society wear a red dot on their foreheads almost right in between their eyes. And when it is the traditional circular red dot it is called a “bindi.” A bindi is now used more for decoration and as a trendy accessory by those even outside of the Indian culture than anything else, but it used to have a very narrow and special significance: a bindi was only worn by a married woman. It was a wedding ring in a way, an indication that this woman was taken, she was no longer available to anyone else, she belonged to her husband as long as she lived.
The seal that has been placed on our foreheads has been placed on us by the authority of our spiritual Husband, Christ. The Lord uses that analogy throughout the pages of Scripture: we the Church with a capital ‘C’ - all those who believe in Jesus as their Savior - are the bride of Christ. He is our Husband. And he has claimed us as his own. We are taken, we are no longer available to anyone or anything else, we belong to him for as long as we live. And you can be certain of that because you have that seal on you right now. You can’t see it; you can’t feel it; but faith proves it. And what a joy it is to know that you are considered to be that special to the Lord, that precious to the Groom; and he will always treat you as such in this life and the next.

We are Sealed Together with Others

And so look around you. Look at your spouse or your children. Look at your parents or your grandparents. Look at your friends and all of those people who believe in Jesus as their Savior. They have been sealed as well. They have been marked with that same impression of our God and will one day join us in heaven. They too are precious to your Lord. They too are special and treasured by the God of all grace. They too are part of the prized Bride of Christ and are loved with an everlasting love by the Groom himself. Of course, that also includes those believers whom you don’t like. And that includes those Christians that you don’t get along with. And that includes those spiritual brothers and sisters who annoy you and upset you and make life difficult for you. Christ loves them. Christ has sacrificed himself for them and has sealed them to be with him forever right alongside of you. Do you treat those people just as well as Christ does? Do you consider those people just as precious as Christ does? Or is your attitude towards those people, as well as your actions towards those kinds of Christians, a little less than noble?
It must pain our Lord to see us treating some of those he has sealed in an unloving way. It must really be disheartening to our Lord to watch as fellow Christians with the exact same mark on their foreheads grumble about one another and complain about one another and speak poorly about one another behind their backs. We’re supposed to be on the same side! We’re supposed to be kind and patient and understanding to all people - but especially to those with whom we are sealed! And I am just as much to blame as the next Christian. My attitudes and actions towards others aren’t always commendable by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t always treat Christians who are sealed by my Lord like they are sealed by my Lord. I don’t always talk about them as coheirs with me of the glories of heaven. I don’t always think of the believers around me as people precious to my Lord and special to him. I apologize for that. I ask that you forgive me for that. I know that the Lord forgives me.

Sealed by Grace

Because that’s exactly what’s so special about that invisible seal I have on my forehead: It’s not there because I warranted it in some way; it’s not there because of how hard I try to treat others nicely or because I was able to get on God’s good side somehow. I wear that seal on my forehead because my Savior decided to place it there. There’s really no other scriptural explanation than that. The Lord sealed me for no other reason than he wanted to save me. He had mercy on a miserable sinner; he had compassion on a completely calloused soul. That’s why I proudly bear that seal. And that’s why you have the exact same mark on your forehead as well.
Mercy, compassion, love, grace. Which also means sacrifice, suffering, agony, death. Because is mercy for you led to a sacrifice for him. His compassion for you led to suffering for him. His love for you led to agony for him. His grace for you led to death for him. That seal didn’t come easy! The instrument to make that impression was not just resting near his throne so that he could simply pick it up one day and casually make that impression into our foreheads! No, that seal was sculpted with the nails hammered into a cross and stained by the blood of the Christ and chiseled into the stone taken out of an empty tomb. There was a lot of sweat that was poured into this seal! There was a lot of effort and exertion that was expended to craft this mark of our salvation! It was no mindless task! It was no half-hearted chore! This seal was produced by the unparalleled love of our God and the superhuman efforts of his Son. This is a one-of-a-kind seal. Never to be duplicated. Never to be ignored. And you wear it’s mark right now.

The Seal is Permanent

Scripture doesn’t say what this seal looks like. In fact, we can safely say that it doesn’t really “look like” anything. This was a vision, after all, and Jesus was just showing John in a picturesque way that all believers are “sealed” and secure when it comes to the judgment on the Last Day. But if you wanted to think of this seal making a physical impression of some kind, I guess you could think of a cross, perhaps - the ultimate symbol of Jesus’ sacrifice for your salvation; or maybe a crown of thorns - depicting a suffering Savior but also a mighty King; or maybe even the name of our Lord in the letters of the ancient Bible texts - an indication of whom we belong to, an undeniable sign of who has bought us. But whatever image comes to your mind when you think of this seal on your forehead, you can at least be sure of this: your seal is permanent. It will never be taken away. It will not ever lose its significance. It will not be overlooked when the Judge sits on his throne with the Book of Life open for all to see. The seal that the Lord has placed on your head will remain there until you reach the majesties of heaven and live forever with the believers who have gone before you.
Keep that in mind as you live this life. As you interact with your fellow Christians here, notice that same mark on their foreheads. You might not be able to see it and they might not always act like they have it, but you know it’s there by the grace of God. With that in mind it will certainly make it easier to treat them in a loving way. And when you go home today and look in your mirror, see that same seal on your forehead as well: that cross, that crown of thorns, that name of your Lord. Because you are a marked child of God. You are a decorated Bride of Christ. The Groom has claimed you as his own. And the wedding feast is soon to come.
Amen.

“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory. For the wedding of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready!” - Rev. 19:6-7

9/11/11 - Pentecost 13 - Matthew 15:21-28

"LORD, HELP ME!"

9/11 - Help

Ten years ago to the day the World Trade Center in New York City was attacked by terrorists. In fact, ten years ago to this very hour our country was right in the middle of it. Just over a half hour ago, at 8:46AM, American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into the north tower exactly one decade ago. And then at 9:03AM, only a few minutes after we started our worship service this morning - while we were singing the hymn: “What God Ordains is Always Good”, United Airlines Flight 175 was flown into the south tower. Before we finish worshiping together here we will have arrived at 9:59AM, the time at which that south tower collapsed. And in just over an hour from now we will see the 10th anniversary to the minute of that north tower crumbling to the ground at 10:28AM. This is a day of commemoration and a time of remembrance about an event that shook the very foundation of America’s sense of security and the feelings of invulnerability that almost everyone in this country once had. It is an anniversary of a tragic act of hatred, and many of us have not even come close to getting over it. Especially those who lost loved ones in the carnage of September 11th, 2001.
One of the many people that lost their lives that day was a man named Kevin Cosgrove. He had been working in the south tower that morning when the plane hit. And although his floor was not immediately destroyed at impact, he was close enough that all of the exits were destroyed in the crash and the office area he was in filled up with smoke. All Kevin could do was call for help. His 911 call has long since been released to the public and you can easily find it on the internet along with a video of the building he was in at the same time, smoldering from the airplane-sized hole in its side. During that conversation this man told the 911 operator exactly what floor he was on, what office he was in, how many people where there, what was happening around them… He told her what he could do and what couldn’t do, and he told her to hurry. But in the middle of that phone call the tower collapsed on top of him and, with a final scream into the phone, the line went dead. It really is a disturbing video. Because although you don’t see Kevin Cosgrove die, you hear it happening from the recorded message as the tower disintegrates into a cloud of smoke and dust and debris right in front of your eyes. And suddenly his cries for help are no longer there. And all of his detailed instructions about where he was and what he was doing and the urgency of his rescue didn’t matter anymore. He had needed help, he asked help, but there was really nothing that anyone could do.

A Humble Prayer

Many years before all of this happened, way back during the time when Jesus walked on this earth, there was a woman who lived in the area of Tyre and Sidon. It was about 40 miles northwest of the Sea of Galilee on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. And when Jesus made a special trip one day up to that part of the country, this woman ran out to him because she too was in desperate need of help. The well-being of her daughter was in danger because of an evil spirit that had possessed her and so it really was a matter of life or death. Listen to simple, powerful, and yet humble prayer for help that she prays: A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
“Lord, help me!” What a simple prayer. What a powerful prayer! What a humble prayer! She knew who Jesus was - the promised Son of David; and she knew who she was too - an unworthy sinner. But she believed that her Lord would listen; she trusted in what he could do; and she relied on his mercy and compassion. “Lord, help me!” And notice that she didn’t go into any details. She didn’t explain what kind of danger the evil spirit put her daughter in; she didn’t tell the Lord exactly what she wanted done; she didn’t give Jesus a time frame in which she would like to see him help her… she simply asked for his help and that was it. She left everything up to the Lord and his will, fully confident that he would do what was best at just the right time in just the right way for just the right reason. “Lord, help me.”

The Lord is Not Ignorant

We pray for help all the time, don’t we? We pray that the Lord would help us when we’re in trouble, when we’re hurting, when we’re worried… But rarely do we pray for help like this. We usually don’t stop with those three little words and end it with a period: “Lord, help me.” No, we like to say, “Lord, help me… in this exact way at this exact time in this exact place. And I need it to be done according these specifications or it’s just not going to work out too well and I really don’t see any better solution than the one I’ve proposed.” Now I hope that we aren’t that blunt and that disrespectful with our Lord, but we do tend to give him plenty of advice and a whole pocketful of suggestions and quite a few recommendations that, truthfully, are more like instructions than anything else.
We have to stop treating our Lord as if he were ignorant of the facts or as if he needed our opinions or as if he has just been waiting around for our brilliant insights and understanding before he goes ahead and does anything about the situation at hand. Our Lord is not ignorant; he is not unaware; he is not incapable of making a decision without your direction. The Lord is pleased with your prayers, but he doesn’t appreciate commands so much. The Lord welcomes your pleas and your petitions, but he doesn’t really enjoy being given ultimatums, time constraints, and other specific directions that he is supposed to follow. He is more than willing to help, but he doesn’t want to be ordered around.
And this is not just an act of disrespect - although that would be bad enough - it’s really an act of insubordination. We aren’t asking him for help when we pray like this, we’re demanding his service. We aren’t praying in a humble way, but arrogantly. We aren’t pleading with him as unworthy sinners, we are telling him what we want as if he owes it to us. This is not the way to pray. This is not the way to approach a perfect, almighty God who owns the world and everything in it. This is the way one approaches a child who doesn’t know what he is doing.

The Lord Knows Just What to Do

When that first plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center over 3000 911 calls were made from those two buildings within the first 10 minutes. 3000 calls for help, for assistance, for answers. At first, those who answering those calls didn’t know what was going on, then they didn’t know exactly what to say, and eventually they didn’t have anyone else to send. There came a point when the operators didn’t know what else to do. The problem had been identified, every available responder had been called, the situation for many of those people in the tower 100 stories up was impossible to change, and so no matter how many calls were made and no matter what kinds of things were said and no matter how passionately those people pleaded, the 911 operators didn’t know what to do. Everything had already been done, and it wasn’t enough.
I would hope that if 3000 calls were made to 911 in that first 10 minutes, at least three times that many prayers went up to the Lord by the believers in those buildings. I would hope that the Lord was inundated with calls and requests and urgent pleas from the Christians in that situation. Because the Lord actually could help. The Lord actually did help. Just like he heard the prayer of that woman in Matthew 15, Jesus heard the prayers of the people in those towers, he listened to them, he answered them. Maybe not in the way they intended, but he did answer them in the best way possible. The Lord certainly used that tragic event to bring many of his children home. He provided a way in which many Christians were taken out of this world of sin and pain and fear in an instance and were brought to a place of perfection and peace and joy in the blink of an eye. There were undoubtedly many cries to the Lord for help inside those two teetering towers on September 11th, 200l, and the Lord knew just what to do.
He always has. The Lord has always known just what to do in the worst of situations. Think of the terrible situation that Jesus himself was in at the end of his life on earth. He humbly prayed for help in the Garden of Gethsemane that night that his Father’s will be done, not his own. And his Father answered him by sending him to the cross. Jesus then asked his Father to forgive those who were crucifying him. And his Father answered him by making him suffer the pains of hell as he hung there. Jesus then cried out to his Father when he turned his back on him, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And his Father answered him by not answering at all - because that’s what being forsaken by the Lord is, after all. Jesus then humbly trusted in his Father to the very end, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And his Father answered him by taking his life. The Father knew just what to do. And so did the Son. Jesus displayed an incredibly humble attitude to his Father throughout those last few hours of his life - and he did it for us. Not so much as an example for us to follow, but as a sacrifice for us to believe. He humbled himself to the point of being tortured by those he came to save. He humbled himself to the point of becoming a corpse in a grave for three days so that we could be forgiven. And he did it long before any of us here even existed. He helped us when we didn’t ask for it; he helped us when we didn’t want it; he helped us before we even knew that we needed his help. The Lord has always known exactly what to do to help us with any problem in our lives. And he still helps us with every problem in our lives today.

Place It All in His Hands

And so place everything in his hands. Follow the lead of this woman northwest of Israel and place everything in your Savior’s hands with those three simple words, “Lord, help me.” You can pray more than that, but you don’t have to! You can pray for others, thank the Lord for his blessings, confess before the Lord your sins, but when it comes to those requests that you would like to see happen and those problems that you would like to see fixed, “Lord, help me” is about the simplest and the most humble way to go about it. Because that simple prayer demonstrates a trust in the Lord’s power, an acknowledgement of our own incompetence, and a confidence in the Lord’s love. In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if that simple prayer was prayed every day: “Lord, help me.” Unless, of course, you don’t need his help…
If you have an opportunity today to hear or read the transcripts of any of the 911 calls made from the World Trade Center 10 years ago, you’ll notice that most if not all of them include the phrase, “Please hurry” somewhere within the conversation - and many times that is the last thing the caller says before hanging up: “Please hurry.” But when you are asking your Lord for help - no matter how urgent the request may be - you don’t ever have to say “Please hurry,” because he’s already there. He is already with you, he already has the situation under control, he already has you safely in his hands. That’s why the Gentile woman in the gospel reading today could ask something so simple of her Lord so calmly: she knew. She knew what he could do and was confident that whatever it was, it was going to the best thing possible. Share that confidence, that calmness, that humility with that Christian woman. Be assured that he is powerful enough to do what needs to be done and loving enough to want to do it. And pray, every day, that simple, yet powerful prayer, “Lord, help me.” Because he will. He will.
Amen.

“The Lord will rescue us from every evil attack and will bring us safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.” - 2 Tim. 4:18

9/4/11 - Pentecost 12 - Matthew 14:22-33

BE BOLD

The Normal Prayers of a Normal Person

I’m interested to know what you normally pray about. I’m curious to find out as to whether or not you usually ask for the same kinds of things that I ask for - and I would guess that you do. I oftentimes pray for my family and for the Lord to bless this congregation. I pray specifically for individuals who are hurting physically or members who might be struggling spiritually. I ask that the Lord will give me strength and guidance and wisdom to carry out my responsibilities as a pastor and a father and a husband and every other role he has placed me in. I regularly thank him for the blessings he has given me and I usually ask him to continue to give me those same blessings in the future. In short, I pray the normal, everyday prayers that I would assume almost all of you pray on a daily basis. Nothing too big, nothing too extraordinary, nothing too earth shattering, just the basic requests for the simple necessities of this life.
And I would never want to downplay those good and very God-pleasing prayers that we pray almost every day, but I do wonder why we stop there. I do wonder why we normally only pray for the bare minimum and not for anything more. We might pray that the Lord allows us to be able to pay those bills somehow someway, but we usually don’t pray that the Lord blesses us to such an extent that we are now able to give back to our Lord five times as much as before. We might pray that a loved one is able to recover from an illness or a surgery, but rarely do we pray in that same situation that this person would not only recover but end up stronger and healthier than he/she has ever been in this life. We might pray that the Lord would allow us to make it through a difficult situation, but do we ever pray that instead of just surviving it we actually thrive and grow and mature because of it? I don’t know if we are very bold in prayer. Because sometimes we ask for just enough to scrape by or hang on or fight through. And sometimes we seem a little hesitant to ask for anything more than that.

A Bold Prayer of a Bold Man

The disciple Peter was a man who was anything but hesitant. He was confident, he was brave, he was bold. And you can see that even in his prayers. Listen to what he asked of his Lord one night when they were in the middle of the Sea of Galilee: During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said.
What a bold prayer! What an astounding request! Peter didn’t simply ask that Jesus would calm the wind and the waves. Peter didn’t ask that the Lord might help them safely to the shore. Peter didn’t even ask Jesus to join them in the boat so that they wouldn’t be so scared anymore. Instead Peter actually wanted to come out to him on the water! Peter asked the Son of God, who was in the middle of performing an amazing miracle, to give Peter the ability to do the exact same thing! This was above and beyond the normal prayers of a sinful human being! This was not a timid request! I think that we would all agree that this was a very bold appeal to the Almighty God!

Be Bold in Prayer!

And there’s no reason why we shouldn’t pray like that too! There is no reason why we can’t be just as bold and just as confident in our prayers as Peter was. Because we know who it is we are praying to just like Peter did. We know that we are praying to the one whom Peter saw change water into wine without so much as a blink of an eye. We know we are praying to the one whom Peter saw heal blind people and deaf people, cure those who were demon possessed and raise the dead. We know that we are praying to the one whom Peter just saw feed upwards of 20,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish the night before he had stepped on that boat. Peter knew the kind of God he was approaching in prayer and we have the privilege of approaching that same God. Your God can do anything! Your God has done everything! Be confident when you fold your hands and close your eyes and bow your head. Be fearless in your request! Be bold in prayer!

Walking or Sinking

Of course, Peter wasn’t just bold in prayer, he was bold in believing it too. When Jesus answered his request with a “yes” and told him to come out onto the water to him, Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. Peter did not hesitate. He immediately left the relatively safe confines of the boat that he had been protected in all night, stepped out onto the water, and trusted that the Lord would give him the ability to walk right on top of it. What a bold move! Against his better judgment and contrary to the very laws of nature themselves, Peter stepped out onto the chaotic surface of a raging, storming sea and began to walk. Because he knew what his God could do. And he trusted in what his God had said. Peter was just as bold in life as he was in prayer.
Of course, that boldness wavered a bit: When he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Peter’s boldness quickly turned to panic when he lost sight of his Lord. As long as he was looking at his Savior and relying on his Word, Peter was confidently walking on water. But the moment he took his eyes off of his God and began to look at the wind that was whipping through his clothing and the waves that were crashing down all around him, his mind overtook his heart: What was he doing out there! People can’t walk on water! Seasoned fishermen don’t jump out of a boat into the middle of a lake during the height of a storm! It was tough enough on the deck of the ship; now what was he going to do? There was no way he could survive! He was going to die out there! What was he thinking?
When Peter trusted in Jesus’ words, he walked. When he forgot about Jesus’ words, he sank. It was as simple as that. And granted, it was an extreme situation. But the Lord’s words stand regardless of what else is happening. Peter certainly knew that; he just lost sight of it in the heat of the moment. We know that too: we know that the Lord’s words stand no matter what else is happening in our lives; but we also lose sight of the reliability of God’s Word when we are right in the thick of things. And so instead of walking confidently forward, we shrink back and sink. Instead of bravely facing the difficulties and problems of this life, we frantically look around for a way out. Instead of boldly trusting that the Lord knows exactly what he is doing, we begin to worry that we can’t do it or we can’t handle it or we can’t survive whatever lies ahead. It’s not as if the Lord has ever let us down before. And it’s not as if we are unaware about the promises of protection and preservation that he has given to us in his Word. We just seem incapable of trusting him when things don’t go according to plan. It’s one of the basic flaws of our sinful human nature. And we’ll never get rid of it completely in this life until we make it to the next.

“Lord, Save me!”

Peter had to deal with this basic flaw right in the middle of a lake. Can you imagine the great apostle Peter desperately splashing around in the water, submerged by the waves, sprayed by the wind, calling out to Jesus, “Lord save me! Save me!” just moments after he had walked on water right in front of the disciples back in the boat? How quickly the scene changed! A confident Peter one second; a sinking disciple one step later. A feeling of joy and excitement that he had never experienced before to complete terror and alarm. But when Peter cried out in fear, “Lord, save me!” that’s exactly what his Lord did. He reached out his hand, pulled Peter up out of the water, and saved him. The Lord was the one who did not hesitate this time. The Lord did not pause. He immediately rescued Peter on the spot. He did scold Peter a little bit, but only to remind him about what Peter already knew: “You of little faith, why did you doubt? You asked me to perform a miracle on your behalf. I told you to come. I gave you the ability to walk on water. I was standing in front of you the entire time. What happened, Peter? Why did you look away? What made you forget my word? What does this wind or these waves have that I don’t have? O you of little faith, why did you doubt my power, my promises, my love? They have always been here for you. They always will be. And here they are again.”
The Lord has to constantly remind his children that his power, his promises, and his love are always here for us. Because we sink and shrink and think about the worst possible scenarios far too often. And so our Lord, through his written words, gently says to us time and time again, “You of little faith, why did you doubt? I have secured your eternal life by what I have done; what possible reason do you have anything to worry about in this life? I have guaranteed your salvation by the pain I went through; what pain on this earth could make you forget that? I have promised to be with you so that you will never have to undergo something that is too much for you or anything else that would harm your faith; and so what wind or wave, trouble or torment could pull you away from me? I am always here for you. My forgiveness is always available. My hands will forever hold you firmly in their grasp. You do not have to cry out to me, “Lord, save me!” because I already have. But if you do find yourself in a situation that prompts you to call on my name, I will reach out my hand and pull you up. I will save you again - every time.”

Be Bold in Life!

Those are the Lord’s promises to you. And the Lord’s promises prompt us to be bold. Bold in our prayers, but bold in life too. We can weather any storm, we can take on any trouble, we can handle any difficulty because the Lord is standing right there. He has solved every one of our spiritual problems long ago, he has promised to solidify our eternity one day soon, and he is standing right by us every step of the way to make sure we get there. Be bold in this life! Be confident of what your Lord can do! And unflinchingly move forward with a courageous stride knowing that whatever comes your way the Lord can lift you high above it.
The Bible is not a book to boost your self-confidence. It is not one long motivational speech to help you reach your potential or simply a set of moral standards that will make your life better if you can just follow them. But the Bible is a book to boost your Christ-confidence. It does motivate us by the works of our Lord. It does promise us a peace of mind in this life based on what our Savior has sacrificed for you. And so you can be bold! Because your happiness in this life doesn’t rely on you. And your comfort in this life doesn’t rely on you. And your victories in this life don’t rely on you. They rely on your Lord who walks on water and calms storms and constantly reaches out, grabs you by the hand and saves you. Your entire life is in your Lord’s hands. Be bold in it. There’s no reason not to be.
Amen.

“The Lord will rescue us from every evil attack and will bring us safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. - 2 Tim. 4:18