8/7/11 - Martyrs 4: John the Baptist - Malachi 3:1

JOB WELL DONE

John in Jail

John the Baptist ended up in jail at the ripe old age of 30. Did you know he was that young when he was sent to prison? He was only 6 months older than Jesus, after all. Of course, you know that John the Baptist never left that prison cell. John’s head ended up on a platter in that jail because of an ill-advised promise Herod had made to his stepdaughter / niece. And so my question for you is this: Was the work that John did a job well done? John’s job was multi-faceted: he had preached countless sermons along the banks of the Jordan River; he had baptized hundreds - if not thousands - of people in its waters; he had convicted hearts with the law; he had soothed souls with the gospel; he had pointed everyone he met to “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” But for all of his efforts, after all of the time and the work he had put in to doing what he was supposed to do for his Lord, his Lord allowed him to be arrested and locked up and held indefinitely by King Herod. In fact, The Lord allowed John to be murdered in the prime of his life. But it wasn’t because the Lord didn’t like him. And it wasn’t because he had messed up or had committed some awful sin to get on God’s bad side. No, when Jesus spoke to the crowds about John the Baptist he said that there was no other prophet like him on the face of this earth. Jesus loved John, appreciated John, commended John for what he had done. The Lord wasn’t punishing John by letting his head be cut off at 30 years of age. It was just the opposite. John’s work was a job well done. It was just time for him to go home.

Job Well Done

The job that John had done so well was an important one. It was a simple job in a way, but it had far-reaching implications. In fact, his job was clearly laid out for him over 400 years before he was born. Through the prophet Malachi the Lord predicted what the job of his messenger would be: “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.
The Lord’s messenger, this special man who would come before Christ, was to prepare the way before him. That’s it. He wasn’t called on to lead an entire nation through the Red Sea like Moses or rain down fire from heaven like Elijah. John was to get the people ready for the entrance of Jesus into this world so that they would be set up to see him as their Savior. And that’s exactly what John the Baptist did. He faithfully prepared the people with the Word of God by preaching and teaching and baptizing. And he did that work well until Jesus officially began his public ministry in this world. Because when Jesus began to teach and to preach and to reveal himself as the Son of God, John’s work was done. Even though he was a relatively young man and he had not lived a “full” life in the normal sense of the word, the time for preparation had passed. His important work was now over. And so he was arrested; imprisoned; martyred; and taken to the place that the Lord had already prepared for him. John’s job was finished. And it was a job well done.

We Each have a Job to Do

We too have jobs to do for our Lord or “callings” if you will. They might not be as challenging as preaching on the banks of the Jordan River or as exciting as baptizing entire groups of people or as dangerous as confronting a king with a specific sin, but our jobs are just as important. And in our second Scripture reading this morning we saw that the Lord mentions a number of different things that people can do to praise him depending on their station in life. Wives are to submit - they are to willingly and joyfully support - their husbands. Husbands are to unconditionally love their wives. Children are to obey their parents. Slaves (or “employees” in our day and age) are to loyally work hard for their employers. And those who have been given authority over others are to treat their subordinates well. And one of the key phrases in that section of Scripture from the book of Colossians is 3:23: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.”
I have three younger brothers. My youngest brother is a Lutheran grade school teacher. His twin brother is a pastor like I am. My brother in between my twin brothers and me is a Border Patrol Agent. And so who do you think the Lord appreciates more? None of us! Or all of us at the same time! Just because three of us are called workers in the church and one is not doesn’t mean that the Lord commends one more than another. We are all using our gifts and talents to the best of our abilities “as working for the Lord.” You don’t have to be John the Baptist to contribute to the Lord’s work. You don’t have to preach or teach or baptize or stand up and speak out against a blatant sin of a powerful person who has the ability to take your life if he so chooses… As a spouse, as a parent, as a child, as a sibling, as a neighbor, as a friend, as a citizen you have a number of jobs and responsibilities that the Lord has given you to do. Some may seem small and some may seem a little bigger and more significant, but all of them are important. All of those little jobs that you do as Christians on this earth are important because they can be all done out of praise and thanks to your Savior. They are all ways in which you can show your appreciation for everything he has done. And they are all ways about which the Lord will one day say: “Job well done, my dear child. Job well done.”

Taking Days Off

Of course, I’m not so sure that the Lord would say that about my work on some days. There certainly are days in my life when the work I have in front of me and the jobs that I have been blessed with as a pastor and a husband and a father and a brother and a son and a friend and a neighbor and a citizen are left undone. And it’s usually because I’m a little lazy and a little (a lot) selfish and I don’t care to do what I’m supposed to do as a pastor and a husband and a father and a brother and a son and a friend and a neighbor and a citizen. I don’t act like I should for the sake of others; I don’t carry out my duties for sake of the name of my Lord. I don’t do anything worthwhile because I just don’t feel like it! I don’t gladly do those little things that make up my every day life because I’m feeling tired or cranky or out-of-sorts that day! And on those days, at those times when I am far from loyal to my calling as a Christian, “Job well done” would be a laughable description of my life. “Job not done; job still in progress; job on hold” would be about as nice as I could describe my life in those moments.
I’m guessing that you’re lazy on occasion as well. Maybe not as often as I am, but I’m sure that your selfishness gets the best of you from time to time and a lazy attitude overwhelms the need to carry out the responsibilities that the Lord has given you in the various stations of life. And when you are being lazy, at those times when you just don’t feel like being the spouse or the parent or the child or the friend or the neighbor or the citizen that you have the opportunity to be, do you think the Lord is happy? Do you think the Lord looks down from heaven and says to himself, “This child of mine is just like my servant, John the Baptist: so loyal, so faithful, so eager to carry out the assignments I have given him. I am satisfied with his efforts. I am happy that I have given those duties to her to carry out. Job well done. Job well done.”

Jesus’ Job Done Perfectly

You are smart enough people to recognize the difference between a job well done and a job done poorly. And I doubt that we could fool ourselves into thinking that the majority of our lives could be described as jobs well done. But realize that the majority of John’s life wasn’t a job well done either. Yes, he is described as a prophet of the Lord who faithfully carried out his duties and loyally performed his responsibilities even to the point of death. But he undoubtedly had faults as well. He had plenty of lazy and selfish moments too. But it didn’t matter. Because John’s job was not to get himself into heaven. John’s job was not to earn forgiveness or to get on God the Father’s good side. That was Jesus’ job.
Jesus, John’s own cousin, did his job perfectly. He is the one whom Malachi describes as the “messenger of the covenant” in that prophecy we read earlier. This Messenger of the “new” covenant had the all-important task of taking on a human body and fighting off every temptation and keeping every law and performing every duty and receiving every punishment and conquering every enemy and forgiving every sin and making it possible to save every soul. Jesus had the one job that actually counted, the job that eternal life depended on, the job that only he could do as both God and human being at the same time. His job was to be a substitute, a sacrifice, and, ultimately, a Savior. His job was to do his job perfectly, and that’s what he did. He selflessly and passionately carried out his role as our brother and God’s Son both on this earth and now in heaven. His job was to be hated, to be scourged, to be ridiculed, to be murdered, to rise, to ascend, to rule. His job was impossible. His job was accomplished. Job well done? No, job done perfectly. Job done for us.

Job Security

John the Baptist knew this was going to happen. He believed that Jesus was the Savior and trusted in what he was about to do. And so although John’s life was far from perfect and his jobs and responsibilities in this life were far from being accomplished in full, Jesus’ life covered up those faults; Jesus’ death washed away those mistakes; Jesus’ resurrection replaced those errors. John’s work was well done because he did what he did out of faith in his Lord. John’s work was well done because he believed he was forgiven for the work that he could not do.
Your life is a job well done, too. No, it’s not perfect and it’s usually not even pretty. But your work is done in faith. Your work is done out of trust in your Savior and belief in his accomplishments. And your work reflects that heart-felt appreciation for his sacrifice. There is no work your Lord loves more. There is no work your Lord would rather have you do.
And it will always be there for you to do it! As long as you are still on this earth, the Lord will supply you with many different jobs and many different responsibilities no matter who you and or where you live. In any situation in life, your Savior will provide multiple opportunities to do what you do to his glory. You calling is always unique, always changing, never stagnant. Whether it is sharing your faith with others or washing the dishes, building a church or changing a diaper, preparing the way for Christ’s coming or something as simple as picking up a piece of garbage off the street and throwing it away. Every single thing that you do can be done to the glory of the Lord. And no matter how commendable or how careless you prove to be in this life, your work will be viewed with pleasure by your Lord. Because your efforts will have been driven by faith and your endeavors will have been motivated by love for your Savior. And you can be assured that when your time is up, when your job is done, when your task is over, when your life is at an end, your Lord will smile upon the one he loves and will quietly and confidently say just as he could about John, “Job well done, my dear child. Job well done. Now it’s time to come home.”
Amen.

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.” - Jude 24-25

7/31/11 - Martyrs 3: The Zechariahs - Zechariah 7:8-14

IT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU

The Word Forgotten

There was a woman named Athaliah who was about as bad as they come. Because when she saw that her son, the King of Judah, had been murdered, she tried to kill off the rest of her family so that she could rule the country alone. She succeeded in murdering all of her relatives except one of her infant grandchildren named Joash. A priest named Jehoiada had hidden Joash in the temple of God and for six years that’s where he stayed. After that those six years had passed, Jehoiada the priest rallied the country behind Joash, placed this last grandson of Athaliah on the throne, executed Athaliah for her wickedness, and continued to raise Joash in the Word of the Lord. In fact, as long as the priest Jehoiada lived, Joash remained a believer and faithfully carried out God’s will according to his Word. But you now know what happened after Jehoiada died: Joash almost immediately forgot the Word of God and, consequently, fell away from the faith. And when Jehoiada’s son, Zechariah, confronted the king with the Word of God, Joash murdered him right there in the temple. And we wonder: How could that have happened? How could he have murdered the son of the man who had saved his life? How could Joash have forgotten the Word of God so quickly? He had been trained in it! He had been raised by it! It was right there in front of him and he threw it away!
Centuries later, long after Joash had lived and died, long after the Assyrians had come and destroyed the northern land of Israel, long after the Babylonians had come and decimated the southern land of Judah, even after a group of God’s people were allowed to go back to the Promised Land from their exile in Babylon, another man named Zechariah was sent to the people. This Zechariah was a prophet, not a priest, but he too preached the Word of God. And in his book of “Zechariah” near the end of the Old Testament, there are perhaps more gospel promises per chapter than in any other prophetic book of Scripture. He certainly preached the law too, of course, but the 14 chapters of his book are so rich in gospel proclamations that it can only be paralleled by Isaiah and the Psalms. But you now know what happened to this Zechariah too: Jesus mentions that he was murdered by the leaders of the people between the altar and the Holy Place of the temple. How could that have happened? Zechariah spoke such wonderful words about the grace of God and what he would do for their salvation! Zechariah’s message was largely one of hope and peace and deliverance! How could the leaders of God’s people murder someone like that? They killed Zechariah the prophet for the same reason they had killed Zechariah the priest 300 years before: they had forgotten the Word of God that had been preached to them. They had forgotten it even though it was right in front of them. And ironically, in the middle of the book of Zechariah the Lord warned them of that very thing so that they would not do it again:
The word of the LORD came again to Zechariah: “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’ But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry. ‘When he called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate behind them that no one could come or go. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’”
The Lord had warned them through the prophet Zechariah about what had happened to them in the past: they had once been driven away from the land of their forefathers because they had refused to listen to the Word. They had once been forced to live in different countries that they were not familiar with because they had rejected the Word. They had come back to a homeland years later that had been devastated by armies and was still wallowing in the after-effects of war because they had forgotten his Word. And the Lord did not want that to happen again. The Word of God was right in front of them; he did not want them to give it up as they had before. Unfortunately for Zechariah, they did.

The Word Ignored

We have the Word right in front of us too. And not just here. Not just right now this morning as we sit in the middle of a worship service. Not only do we have the Word right in front of us in a weekly sermon and Scripture lessons and in the hymns and psalms and songs and Bible studies; we have the Word of God right in front of us in our own homes every day. I made a quick count the other day of the number of Bibles we had in our house - different translations, different languages, kids’ Bibles, etc. And by my estimate we have at least 18 different Bibles! And that’s not counting the number of children’s books we have that tell only one story of the Bible. That’s not counting the commentaries and the volumes of dogmatics books and the lexicons and the catechisms and the hymnals and the publications and the devotions books that are in my office that utilize Scripture on every page. 18 different versions of the Bible! And although you might not have 18 Bibles in your home, I’m sure you have at least a few. Your own personal Bible, another one you picked up years ago, an Old King James version that was handed down to you by your mother… No matter how many Bibles you have in your house, you have access to at least one Bible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And even if you didn’t, even if you didn’t have a physical Bible in your home right now, we have plenty of them right here. Or you can go to the internet and find dozens and dozens of different translations that you can read through for free in hundreds of different languages. We have the Word of God right in front of us like no other nation of people has ever had before. It is available; it is in our common language; it is freely distributed without restrictions. Very rarely have all three factors happened at the same time. But they are happening right now in this country. We have the Word. And we can have it any time we want.
How often do we take advantage of that? Yes, we have weekly worship opportunities here each Sunday as well as five different Bible classes each week. But we also have the chance to visit God’s Word on our own every morning and every night, when we’re sad, sick, lonely, afraid, angry, frustrated, worried, happy, thankful, and during every other emotion that we might run across in a given week. Do we run to the Word every chance we get or do we simply dabble in the Word - and only as long as it’s not inconvenient at the time? Do we relish those moments spent one on one with the Holy Spirit or do we oftentimes pass up those invitations to do something else? Do we use the Word to guide what we say and the decisions we make or is God’s Word an afterthought because we don’t consider it as having a whole lot of application for our day to day lives anyway?
Maybe we need the same warning that God’s Old Testament people did during the time of Zechariah the prophet: when we ignore God’s Word, when we push it aside for other activities, when we refuse to listen to its directives or put it into practice, when we fail to give it the priority it’s due, our lives will suffer for it. And not only will we struggle on this earth more than we need to, the Lord will be angry too! The Lord is actually angry when we bypass his Word! The Lord is furious when his Word is looked over or left unopened because of busy schedules or skewed priorities. The Lord is livid when his own people don’t take full advantage of his powerful Word that is readily available to them at all times! The Word of God contained in Scripture is how God speaks to us. This is how God instructs us and teaches us and comforts us and informs us. And he can’t stand it when his Word is not as important to us as it should be.

The Word Given

Back when Zechariah the priest was murdered by King Joash for preaching the Word, when the leaders refused to listen to the Word, when the entire nation forgot the Word, what did the Lord do? He didn’t take the Word away; instead he gave the Word to them again. The very next king was brought to faith in his Savior through the Word of God. Another prophet was sent to the people to proclaim the Word of God. And for the next few centuries, prophet after prophet was sent with the Word of God to the people, through good kings and bad, whether in the Promised Land or in exile, to tell God’s people what God wanted them to know. The Lord did not give up. He did not hold his Word back. And even after Zechariah the prophet was killed many years later, the Lord still sent more prophets to his people. And not only prophets, but his own Son as well. Despite the rejection of his Word throughout the centuries, God kept his Word and sent Jesus. Because he refused to give up on his people. He was determined to demonstrate his love. And he still does so now.
No matter how many times we have ignored his Word, no matter how many times we have disregarded his Word or underappreciated his Word or blatantly avoided his Word in the past, he still has not taken it away. He has preserved for us the revealing and life-giving words of the cross. He has provided us with the comforting and incredible words of Jesus’ resurrection. He has supplied us with the powerful and effective words of the Holy Spirit. He has presented to us the encouraging words and the gracious words of our full and complete forgiveness as well as the guarantee of a heavenly home. Our Lord has not taken that away from us! Instead, he has showered us with his Word even more! Instead of pulling back in anger he reaches out in love! And he multiplies the ways in which we can be connected with his Word. Because this is it! His Word is the only way we can ever be forgiven or comforted or reassured of what he has done. His Word, read on a page, heard in a voice, felt in the waters of baptism, or tasted in the meal of the Lord’ Supper, is our salvation. And the Lord gives it to us - free of charge. And he will continue to give us his Word in all of these ways as long as there are souls to feed and hearts to sway.

The Word Used

Drink this Word up. Dive into this Word. Immerse yourself in this Word to such an extent that you saturated with it. There is nothing more important than God’s Word. Your own health is not as important as God’s Word. Your own family is not as important as God’s Word. The basic necessities of life are not as important as God’s Word. Of course, God’s Word encourages us to love our families and take care of our bodies and provide for ourselves what we need on this earth. And so all of those other important aspects of our lives will be taken care of through that Word of God. But nothing should replace that Word in the top spot.
There is nothing better I could encourage you to do than to read the Word, study the Word, sing the Word, hear the Word, live in the Word. As your pastor, as your brother in Christ, as your Christian friend, I desperately want you to find your way into the Word as deep as you can go. I want nothing more than to have your heart filled with the salvation that comes through faith in Christ so much that it permeates your words and your actions and your very being. I want you to be so solid on the foundation of your Savior that no temptation, no deception, no attack from the devil will ever be able to knock you down. But that can only happen we you are firmly grounded in the Word of God. Hold on tight. You cannot read it too much. You cannot study it, sing it, or hear it too often. It is your strength, your peace, your calm. It means everything in this life and in the next life. And it is right in front of you. Grab it. Open it up. And do not let it go.
Amen.

“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.” - 2 Peter 3:18