Brent Kuhlman

+ Jesu Juva +

Loads of interest in God these days.  Ask someone if they believe in God.  And the usual answer is:  “Sure.”  But then ask the crucial question:  “Which god?”  And then come all kinds of different answers.  And most of them are wrong.  The most common idolatry is the lie perpetrated in the Garden of Eden:  “You will be like god.”  Or many simply worship the creation rather than the Creator.   

Do not run after the false gods of this age.   They promise life but they only deliver death.  They promise heaven but only provide hell.  Ask Israel of the Old Testament to whom Isaiah preached.  Israel put her trust in false gods.  Her heart clung to false gods of their own creation.  False faith.  Perverse hearts.  Living not in freedom but in slavery.  This is the temptation of the NT Israel, the church.  And all that’s left when our idols crack is anger, despair, and exile.

Do not despair O Israel of the New Testament!  The one true God and your Redeemer speaks:  “I am the first and the last.  No other God except me.  No other like the one true God.  I know what I’m doing.  You can trust me.  Don’t worry.  Don’t be afraid.  I’ll take care of you.  Is there any God besides me?  Is there any other Rock of Refuge like me?  I don’t know any.  Do you?  I didn’t think so!”

God speaks.  God acts.  God promises.  God saves.  God cares.  And it’s all FOR YOU.
 
Because Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father took on your flesh and blood.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.

In Jesus, who the first and the last, God lives FOR YOU, not for Himself.  He sits in the Virgin’s lap.  He nurses from her breasts.  At His Baptism He is identified as God’s beloved Son FOR YOU.  In Jesus all of heaven breaks forth FOR YOU.  Complete and total access to the Father through His suffering under Pontius Pilate, His bitter sufferings, and His innocent suffering and death. 

As He does His Good Friday, the first and the last God Jesus, bears all your sin and all of its ugly consequences.  Suffering with all your sin He becomes the sinner.  The idolater.  The murderer.  The thief.  The adulterer.  Hanging on the tree --your sin – all of it – is His!  And so sin’s damnation!  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?  Why are you so far from Me?  Don’t you hear Me when I call?  Why don’t you answer Me?” 

First and last God Jesus takes your sin and its damnation.  He does it FOR YOU!  For your salvation.  You are forgiven.  You are saved.  Redeemed.  By His Good Friday.  God is FOR YOU.  That’s His promise. 

God speaks.  God acts.  In Jesus.  FOR YOU. 

God speaks.  God acts.  In Holy Baptism.  FOR YOU.  You are baptized into First and Last God Jesus’ Good Friday death.  Saved by the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.  "He who believes and is baptized will be saved."  What a promise! 

And more!  First and Last God Jesus declares:  “My Body.  My Blood.  For you!  You’re forgiven!  The benefits of My last will and testament.”  

There’s no other God like that!  No other merciful and loving God than First and Last Jesus who died for you.  Who redeemed you lost and condemned persons not with gold or silver but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. 

You can always trust in Him.  In everything.  In every circumstance of life.  Things happen in your life for a reason.  So that you’ll have every opportunity to cling only to Him and His bloody wounds.  Who or what else would you trust?  

Thus says the Lord, King Redeemer, God Jesus:  “I am the first and the last.  And there is no God except Me.  Who is like Me?  Let him proclaim and declare it.”   

Thank you Jesus.  We’ll only proclaim and declare you.  And today we’ll do it this way:  “as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup of your testament we’ll proclaim your Good Friday death for us until you come on the last day.  You are our Rock and our salvation.  You alone are our God.  There is none like you!” 

In the Name of Jesus.

+ Jesu Juva +

Romans 12:1-21 Higher Things “Amen” Conference”

What a fool!  The apostle doesn’t seem to have a clue.  You can just hear Napoleon Dynamite:  “Idiot!”

After all, the religion of the world is:  YOU”VE GOT TO LOVE YOURSELF.  Take care of number one!  Climb to the top of the mountain.  And kick in the teeth of anyone who gets in your way.  Someone hurts you.  You demolish him in return.   Life is a battle royale of establishing yourself as king.

Paul, on the other hand, writes:  “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world.” 

Why?  Because you’re mercy-ed in Christ Jesus.  Good Friday-ed.  Died for.  Baptized.  “In view of God’s mercy,” there is the freedom from the love of self to love for members of Christ’s body, your neighbors.  Love even for your enemy.

“In view of God’s mercy,” there is now the life of self-sacrifice.  Putting yourself last and others first.  Using your body not for self-indulgence but for sacrificial service. 

“In view of God’s mercy.”  That’s faith in Christ.  When that’s right, then you have room to move around in the world.  To be the Lord’s instrument for good.  “In view of God’s mercy … don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought.”  You’re nothing.  Jesus is everything.  And now Good Friday Jesus has good use for you to be His hands and mouth for service in the world.  “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual worship.”

That’s done as Jesus uses you in view His Good Friday mercy to be of help for people. 

Paul’s list is quite long.  Let’s review just a few.  “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with God’s people who are in need.  Practice hospitality.”  “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.  Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.  Live in harmony with one another.  Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.  Do not be conceited.  Do not repay anyone evil for evil . . . Do not take revenge . . . If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink … overcome evil with good.”

Why?  Because you’re mercy-ed in Christ.  All is forgiven.  You are right with God for Christ’s sake.  He loves you.  Proof is His Son’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament given and shed for you for forgiveness, life and salvation.  Realigned with God via Christ’s Calvary sacrifice, you are restored for loving, sacrificial service to your neighbor in this world through your body.  Jesus brings you into a proper relationship with God the Father AND with those all around you.  God is worshiped by faith.  The neighbor is served by acts of sacrificial love, our spiritual act of worship done in our vocations.  This is “God’s good, pleasing and perfect will.”  Or as Jesus Himself puts it:  “Apart from me you can do nothing.”

Thanks be to God for using Paul for the “renewing of our minds” and the good use of our bodies.   In the Name of Jesus. 

+ Jesu Juva +

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Seed Jesus.  Buried in the tomb of the earth from His Good Friday death for all.  Planted dead in the ground. And then from the furrow of His grave Seed Jesus sprouts and breaks out of the tomb alive!  Risen from the dead!  The Word made flesh does what He says.  He accomplishes what He came to do.  He succeeds in His mission.  Achieves and wins salvation for the world.

And so the Parable of the Sower.  It’s not about principles for farming.  Instead, it’s about what every congregation experiences in its life.  Jesus suffers Himself to be rejected.  Adults and children are baptized, catechized, and confirmed.  Jesus is preached and taught as their Savior.  One would hope that they’d stick with it.  But it doesn’t always happen.  Many fall away.  We experience this every year.  It causes us great pain.  Many sleepless nights.  Great heartache. 

Why does this happen?  Jesus tells us in the parable. 

Some people don’t get it.  They’re the path people.  They check out the church.  Come to church a few times.  Maybe because a friend recommends it.  They hear the sermon that proclaims Seed Savior Jesus but they don’t understand.  Incomprehensible the message of salvation is.  A totally different matrix from the world.  And then the evil one comes and snatches away what was preached.  And we never see them again.

Others hear the Seed Savior Jesus sermon.  Receive the sermon with great joy.  You know how it is with new converts.  They are excited about coming to church.  Have a fervor that kind of makes us envious.  They take the instruction class.  But what they learn and believe does not take deep root into their lives.  So when the scorching heat of trouble comes into their lives they wither away immediately.  No deep root of faith.  Just shallow infatuation.  Maybe all they paid attention to was the pastor’s personality.  So when tribulation or persecution happen, (as simple as:  “You go to church?”  “You became a member of that church?”) they can’t, they won’t, trust Jesus anymore.  No more of this Jesus for them. Won’t let this Jesus and His Good Friday death and His Easter morning resurrection interrupt their lives anymore.  And so we never see them again.  Rocky ground people.

Then there are the thorny people.  They hear the sermon of Seed Savior Jesus.  Baptized.  Confirmed.  But the cares of the world choke the word preached.  Cares of the world do not allow a Seed Savior Jesus into their lives.  Don’t have time.  Can’t take the time.  Won’t take the time.  Just too busy.   

And then the cares of the world’s choking twin:  “the deceitfulness of riches.”  The relentless effort of serving idol Cash never gives you rest.  Idol Cash demands 24-7-365 attention.  Idol Cash allows no room for any other God, and that includes Seed Savior Jesus.  So Seed Savior Jesus and the Word that proclaims Him gets choked out.

Exactly what Isaiah and all the prophets encountered in the Old Testament.  Precisely what Jesus Himself had to deal with.  And times still haven’t changed.    Path people.  Rocky ground people.  Thorny people.  Seeing but not seeing or perceiving.  Hearing but not hearing or understanding.  Calloused hearts.  Deaf ears.  Eyes closed.  Don’t get it and they don’t want to get it.

But you do.  Good soil people.  You believe in Seed Savior Jesus.  Blessed are your ears because you hear.  Blessed are your eyes because you see.  You know exactly what God’s up to in His Son Seed Savior Jesus.  That He died precisely for you.  That all your sin is forgiven.  That He reigns for you for your salvation in His Word and sacraments.  Behold the kingdom of God is among you in the divine service every Sunday.  

And the more you hear Seed Savior Jesus preached, the more you receive His gifts of forgiveness, the more you get it.  The more joy.  You want Him all the more.  More than you ever realized.  More than you could ever imagine.  All the more trust in Him no matter what happens in your lives.  Whether it’s the devil that tries to snatch Seed Savior Jesus away from you -- whether it’s tribulation or persecution -- whether it’s the cares of the world or the deceitfulness of riches – you will trust only in Jesus and His forgiveness and care.   

He’s got you in His grip.  And He won’t let you go.  That’s His promise. 

In the Name of Jesus.  Amen    

+ Jesu Juva +

Matthew 11:25-30

Some people just don’t get it.  Jesus that is.  He’s an enigma.  People just don’t know what to do with Him.  Have a hard time with Him.   Can He be the Christ?  Can He be the Savior?  So few believe in Him?  So few receive His gifts?  He appears to be a total failure.  A flop.  A washout.  

No wonder.  The Lord Jesus has a one-track mind.  He insists on being betrayed, brutally beaten, and then hung graveyard dead on a cross.  To all the world a failure!  And yet He comes in “failure” gift.  To do the salvation job for sinners in what appears to be a failed mission. 

Well, you know what that means don’t you?  It means that when Jesus does the salvation job all by Himself, that leaves you, me and every one else out of the equation.  And this is as exclusive as you can get.

Then Jesus bursts forth with a strange prayer of thanksgiving.  Should Jesus be praying this way?  Some might says no.  But He does anyway.  Listen again.  “Thanks Father.  Thanks be to you!  You’ve hidden what you’re up to in the world with me for the salvation of sinners.  You’ve hidden salvation in Me.  My suffering.  My Cross.  My death.  Underneath all this is the world’s redemption, the world’s recreation.  Thanks to you, O Father, that you’ve hidden these things from the salvation know it alls who insist on a do it yourself salvation.  Thanks to you, O Father, that you have revealed what you’re up to to little children.  Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” 

Insist on a Jesus who is not totally Savior and you’re in the dark.  Reject Jesus as Savior and you’re about as religiously stuck on stupid as they come.  No matter how much you boast about your theological sincerity, wisdom, and understanding.

But you’re the little children.  God reveals Himself for you in the suffering, beaten, and dead Body of Jesus.  There, in that broken and dead body, is the fullness of the deity.  In Jesus God reveals Himself to you as God FOR YOU for your salvation.

And that is precisely what Jesus claims for Himself.  “Absolutely everything has been handed over to me by my Father; and no one really knows the Son except the Father, and no really knows the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” 

Want to know who God is?  What He’s like?  Whether or not He cares for you at all?  Then you don’t climb the escalator to the heavens and peek through the clouds.  You won’t find Him there!  Instead, hold on to the man Jesus who’s all the way down here.  He’s God in the flesh.  To whom absolutely everything has been given.  He is the All Authority In Heaven and Earth Given To Me Jesus. 

Don’t know Jesus – then you don’t know God.  It’s really that simple.  And really that scandalous.  Most people know and believe that God exists.  But they make up for themselves who God is.  Most believe the satanic lie:  “you shall be as god.” 

But Jesus says:  “No one really knows the Son except the Father.  And no one really knows the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”   

And you, little children, you little Christians, have been given the revelation.  Only Christians know who the one true God is through the revelation of Jesus Himself.  The Father, at immense cost, gives Himself to the sinful and rebellious world in the birth, suffering, death and resurrection of His Son Jesus!  God exists not for Himself but FOR YOU in the Man conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary!

The suffering, dead and risen Jesus is the revelation of God on the earth.  Only in that Jesus do we know the Father.  And only in that Man Jesus and His Cross is there salvation.  Mormons, JWs, Christian Scientists, Hindus, Buddhists secularists, agnostics or atheists, no matter how sincere, no matter how “religious” they appear to be are idolaters.  They are not Christians. This is not arrogance.  It is simply what Jesus Himself says.  And still it remains the scandal.  The stumbling block. “No one really knows the Son except the Father.  And no one really knows the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”         
   
Jesus alone is the revelation of God in the flesh and in the world.  Know Jesus and you know God.  And He’s God for you.  That’s why He says:  “Come to me.”  When Jesus says “come to me,” you are invited into God’s presence.  To the true God Himself.

And want a strange invitation indeed!  He invites sinners to Himself!  His kingdom is for sin sick and sin weary sinners!  “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy with burden.”  In other words, “If you’re bogged down with sin, if you’re burned out on religion, sick to death of the principles for living, health, wealth and success spirituality of American preachers, devastated by trying to save yourself by always being good,” then Jesus says, “I’m the man, the God-Man, FOR YOU!” 

And Jesus gives a promise.  Yes, that’s right, a promise.  A promise that you can count on.  A promise that you can hang your hat – no – your life on.  “I will give you rest.”

His yoke of forgiveness finally gives you rest.  He’s answered for your sin.  All of it.  He’s made everything right with the Father once again.  You can’t.  No matter how hard you try.  So stop.  Knock it off.   

To you, “gentle and humble in heart,” God Jesus says:  “I forgive you.  See my wounds!  Settle there.  I died for you.  See the bread and cup of wine.  It’s my Body and Blood that I offered on the Cross for your salvation.  Eat and drink it.  It’s for you.  For your forgiveness.  Enjoy the ‘rest’ that I give.  Enjoy my gifts.  Live from them.  And from my giving out of my Good Friday benefits, little children, you know who God is:  ME!”

In the Name of Jesus.       

+ Jesu Juva +

Matthew 28:16-20
Baptism of Easton Russell Roeber

Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  Did you hear that?  Jesus has died.  Jesus has risen from the dead.  He has been given all authority. 

He is the author of the world’s salvation.  He did the Good Friday work.  Salvation’s achievement.  “It is finished.” 

And now He’s the author of salvation’s bestowing.  Salvation’s gifting.  The benefits of His Good Friday dying are given by the crucified but risen Savior.  Jesus is the author of Holy Baptism.  The authority of Holy Baptism comes from Him.  He instituted Baptism.  It’s His.  His gift.  His giving.  And so we properly say,  “Holy Baptism.”  After all, what’s holy is His. 

What All Authority in Heaven and Earth Jesus institutes, He does and gives.  Through means.  In this case through the men He puts into the Office of the Holy Ministry to be done in Christ’s Holy Church. 

So Landy and Meggan have brought Easton to receive from the All Authority in Heaven and Earth Jesus.  Good Friday and Easter Sunday Jesus is the Giver.  And He is the Gift.  For to be baptized in the Triune Name is to be baptized by the Lord Jesus Himself.  Where Jesus puts His Name there He is.  And He not there by Himself.  The Father’s there.  And so too the Holy Spirit with all His gifts.  Baptism, then,  is Jesus’ own act.  And not just His own acting but His own giving.

Easton was given the Triune Name in Holy Baptism.  God’s Triune Name is the gift of God Himself.  And not just any God but God the Father who created Easton, God the Son who died and rose for Easton, and God the Holy Spirit who rebirthed and regenerated Easton in the Worded-water of Holy Baptism.  God is totally for Easton and for you who are baptized in the Triune Name.  God lives and exists not for Himself, but for Easton and for you!  For your lives now.  And for your lives forevermore.

Jesus died for you.  Jesus died for Easton.  For all sinners.  And so Jesus mandates baptism for all.  “Make disciples of ALL NATIONS . . .”  Who would dare to exclude anyone from the “all nations” mandate of Jesus?  Not Landy and Meggan.  Not your parents.  Who would dare to say to Jesus “all nations” doesn’t include Easton, you, or me?   All are sinners.  All need Savior Jesus and His benefits.  And so He mandates:  “Make disciples of all nations by baptizing in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  

Faith receives what Jesus says.  Faith receives what Jesus gives.  And what He gives in Holy Baptism is the Triune Name.  So now Easton and all of you who are baptized belong to the one true Triune God.  You don’t belong to yourselves.  You’re His.  And everything that is His like:   “victory over death and the devil, forgiveness of sin, God’s grace, the entire Christ, and the Holy Spirit with all his gifts,” (LC V 461:42). 

So how do we use this gift of Holy Baptism?  Every day.  Draw strength and comfort from it when your sins, the devil, or a guilty conscience oppress you.  You use Baptism properly when you say:  “Yes, I have sinned.  Big time.  Against God.  Against my neighbor.  And I do deserve God’s temporal and eternal punishment.  But All Authority in Heaven and Earth Jesus died for me.  He took my sins in His Body on the Cross and answered for them.  And this Jesus who rose from the dead has baptized me into that very sin forgiving Good Friday death.  So sin, devil, and death, go see Jesus.  Leave me alone.  I am baptized.  And because I’m baptized I have Jesus’ promise that I am saved.  That I have eternal life in body and soul.” 

Happy Baptism Day Easton.  Happy living in your Baptisms every day dear members of Trinity.

In the Name of Jesus.