What Does This Mean?

Worship Note Sheets: A Tool for Confirmation and All Members Alike

Some of you who have followed this blog have read my earlier series “A Walk Through the Liturgy.” I enjoyed writing that series very much as it helped me articulate what I deemed (and still deem) to be some of the more important aspects of why we do what we do in the worship services within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. But there are other things we can do to help us remember what we have heard in the service and get a better feel for the lectionary and church year in general.

As a confirmation student, I had to do sermon notes. Many of you probably had to do something similar. As a pastor, I have tweaked the formula. The entire service should demand our attention, because sometimes a sermon can be a dud. Thanks be to God that we hear His Word read, and that we are not reliant upon a sermon alone to receive the gifts of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the entire service through which we receive Christ’s gifts!

So what do I do? I encourage my confirmation students and members to read my “Walk Through the Liturgy,” but then I require worship sheets to be filled out by confirmation students. It is meant to help them get more out off the service, and it should help Moms and Dads lead discussions about what happened in the worship service.

My questions begin with church year and colors. Then I ask about their favorite hymn from the service. Then I ask for a summary of the readings of the day. I don’t want it to be a paragraph. I am only asking for a single sentence for each of the main readings for the day. Then I ask if they find anything that connects the readings together. Again, its not supposed to be a long answer. I want the students to be reading their catechisms in full to help the next question. I also try to make some connection explicitly in my sermon. The same goes for the questions concerning the connections between the readings. Only after these questions do I ask the standard “Law/Gospel” questions for the sermon.

These worship notes are designed to help people of all ages to better retain what they have heard and learned from worship. As attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, consider making your own sheets. While I am not gifted in design, my wonderful wife helped make a sheet that is confined to one sheet of paper. Again, these aren’t supposed to be long treatises, but they can be tailored to your own desires. Over the course of time, you might make other connections you didn’t make the year before, or you might see the same hymn sung on the same Sunday year after year. But why not take up a more active listening role in the pews, so you get as much out of the service as your pastor and organist put into as they planned the hymns around the readings of the day along with the Sacraments of our Lord.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana

Only Lutherans Are Going to Heaven?

Do you think only Lutherans are going to heaven?

On the heels of my writing that the LCMS and those in our global fellowship are the only right teaching church, folks will hastily and uncharitably say things like, “I bet you think only Lutherans are going to heaven!” or “Pastor’s gonna be surprised that there aren’t only Lutherans in Heaven.”

Of course, that’s neither what I believe nor what I teach. We think of ourselves as smart and witty when popping off like that. “There you sit, like butter in sunshine,” encumbered in wit neither by speed nor sharpness. (Luther’s Works AE, Volume. 40, p. 252, © CPH, St. Louis, MO) It’s really just the rude and disrespectful talk over to which our sinful tongues are given. The eighth and fourth commandments warn us against such idle claptrap.

There will most certainly be Non-LCMS Lutherans in heaven. We trust here not in the false teachings of other Christian churches. Instead, we trust in the felicitous inconsistency. Luther coined the term, but we understand its use better from Francis Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics (Vol. I: p. 6, 72, 84, 87-91; Vol. II: p. 156 © 1950, CPH)

The felicitous inconsistency is a happy accident, a result differing from what false teaching is likely to deliver: unbelief and hell. The felicitous inconsistency is the teaching in Christianity that where the Word of God is heard, true faith may spring-up in contradiction of false teaching. This is no guarantee. It’s our hope and prayer that the Lord grants faith to those who hear and preserves them in that faith. This hope and prayer flies against the false teaching in heterodox churches. It isn’t a thing we ought to expect or into which we ought to place our trust.

Loving our family, friends, and neighbors requires us to encourage them away from false teachers and heterodox churches. Simply being in a “Christian” church is good, but it’s certainly not good enough. In love, we ought to want our loved ones to hear only right teaching. We should want the Word of God AND right teaching entering their ears and hearts together rather than simply hoping God will preserve them.

Even in orthodox churches like our LCMS churches, Jesus warning about wheat and tares still holds true (Matthew 13:24-30). There will still be unbelievers gathered with the faithful until the last day. Only then the Lord will finally sort us into the fire and into salvation. Fear not! If this worries you, that’s great news. The unbelieving tares don’t care about their salvation one bit. That’s not you.

All that being said, there will certainly be non-LCMS Lutherans in heaven. But, in heaven we will all finally be Lutheran. In heaven we will all finally trust in grace alone apart from works. We will never doubt the salvation won on the cross, delivered in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and sealed with us in the bodily resurrection. And, there will not be one unbeliever among us.

Hang tight, there’s more to be said about this felicitous inconsistency concerning the false teachers too. In Christ all will finally be one, just not quite yet.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
And
Mission Planting Pastoral team
Epiphany Lutheran Church, Bastrop, TX

Worship as Reliance Upon Jesus

When you think of “Worship,” what do you see in your mind’s eye? What do you associate with the term? Do you see “pomp and circumstance”? Do you see a well ordered ritual activity? Do you see hymns and songs of praise? That is all fine and good. But none of that conveys what worship really is.

Worship is reliance, at least that is what Luther and the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church convey. It also is part of the first commandment. “You shall have no other gods,” implies that there is nothing or anyone else upon whom we ought to rely for the needs of body and soul or for the things which lead to everlasting life.

In the Old in particular we have a few instances were the Lord God wants Israel simply to be silent as He works to save them. Exodus 14:14 is a prime example. Israel need only to be silent while the Lord fights for them. Abraham and Sarah are also another example even earlier in the Pentateuch. In their situation, rather than relying solely on the Lord and waiting for Him to act. Sarai persuaded Abraham to take Hagar as a surrogate of sorts. Sarai sought to short-circuit the promise of God and bring it about in a quicker fashion. That is not relying on God. That is not proper worship of the Lord. To worship Him properly is to rely upon Him. What is proper worship is seen in the woman who seeks out Jesus when her daughter is oppressed by a demon. She relies on any word that Jesus speaks. She does not expect a full meal, but merely a bit of the crumbs of His mercy. She lives and breathes that come from the very Word of God made flesh. The woman worships Jesus as she relies upon Him to do what He has promised to do, which is to save her and her daughter from eternal death.

That is why Jesus is adamant when He cries out to those who are weak to come to him so they would have rest. He cries out that He is the bread of life. He is the one that one drinks from in order to have life. He wants you to rely upon Him for your very life!

Since He has accomplished your salvation, receive it from Him. Seek out His absolution. Seek the preaching of His Word. Pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread,” and mean it. To rely upon Him for mercy is to trust Him and His promises. To trust Him is to worship Him. Jesus always delivers what we need for both body and life. Hence, we too can and should see relying upon Jesus as worship of Him.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana

Is Lutheran The Only Right Church?

I frequently get some version of this question, “Do you really think the Lutheran Church* is the only right church?” (*the LCMS and those Lutherans in our global fellowship)

Yes, I do. And, you ought to thank the Lord if your pastor isn’t some unfaithful, vow-breaking squish, who believes one thing and says another. Summer is the season of installations and ordinations in the LCMS. Nearly every weekend from mid-June through August, there will be such an event at an LCMS congregation. The Vows taken by your pastor and the others like him are these:

“Do you believe and confess the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and practice? Yes, I believe and confess the canonical Scriptures to be the inspired Word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” (LSB Agenda, p. 165)

What does this mean? This means that the Christian faith must never embrace what scripture condemns and never condemn what scripture extolls. There are a good number of Christian churches and pastors falling outside of this first vow. Anyone denying infant Baptism or infant faith, denies scripture’s plain teaching. Anyone denying Baptismal regeneration, denies the scriptures. Anyone denying the forgiveness of sins and the true, bodily presence of Jesus in Holy Communion, denies the Word of God. Anyone engaged in the ordination of women into the Holy Ministry, despises the Word of God. Anyone teaching the re-sacrifice of Jesus in the mass, rejects the scriptures. This list is far from exhaustive.

“Do you believe and confess the three Ecumenical Creeds, namely, the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds, as faithful testimonies to the truth of the Holy Scriptures, and do you reject all the errors which they condemn? Yes, I believe and confess the three Ecumenical Creeds because they are in accord with the Word of God. I also reject all the errors they condemn.” (ibid.)

What does this mean? All heresies rejected in the creeds, we reject. In current terms, that means things like the constant, popular, gnostic view of death. Death is not a release of the soul from the body. Death is the unnatural, violent separation of soul from body. Death is not the final destination. The resurrection of all flesh and the restoration of soul and body together on the last day is the completion of all things promised to Baptized Christians. Also, the creeds may not be rejected by Christians, as some do (Joel Osteen, many Baptists, et al).

“Do you confess the unaltered Augsburg Confession to be a true exposition of Holy Scripture and a correct exhibition of the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church? And do you confess that the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Small and Large Catechisms of Martin Luther, the Smalcald Articles, the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, and the Formula of Concord—as these are contained in the Book of Concord—are also in agreement with this one scriptural faith? Yes, I make these confessions my own because they are in accord with the Word of God.” (LSB Agenda, p. 166)

What does this mean? This is where the rubber meets the road. The Lutheran Confessions are correct in their entirely. Lutheran Pastors vow this BECAUSE they are the right exposition of and in accord with the Word of God. As stated above, we can identify errors in other Christian confessions. In my short 47 years upon the Earth, I have neither discovered an error in our confessions, nor been shown one. If I or any other Lutheran pastor were convinced of such an error, we would be bound by the first vow to the scriptures alone to fight ceaselessly and publicly against the error, or leave the Lutheran Confession.

“Do you promise that you will perform the duties of your office in accordance with these Confessions, and that all your preaching and teaching and your administrations of the sacraments will be in conformity with Holy Scripture and with these Confessions? Yes, I promise, with the help of God.” (ibid.)

What does this mean? All Lutheran pastors are bound by these vows to conform themselves to the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions of the Unaltered Book of Concord (1580 AD). We must condemn what they condemn and extoll what they extoll. There is no wiggle room or lateral movement. Lutheran pastors are or are not faithful.

Christians teaching a different confession are in error.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
And
Mission Planting Pastoral team
Epiphany Lutheran Church, Bastrop, TX

Sunday School: Ezekiel, A Prophet in Exile

Encore Post: We actually know a good bit about Ezekiel because he tells us as much about himself. He was the son of a priest in Jerusalem. Having that connection, he probably had great knowledge about the temple. He was married, and he lived in Tel-abib near the Chebar canal, and he had his own house. He paid attention to the words of Lord, that the exile was not going to be a short venture.

Judah was facing her worst defeat ever. People were being ripped from their homes and sent into exile. And we know why this was happening. God let it happen because of their manifest sin against him, particularly running after other gods.

This was Ezekiel’s message: Judah was ripe for the Lord’s judgment. One vision that he saw was that of the Lord’s Spirit leaving the temple. This may or may not have happened in “real life,” but what is clear in the vision is that gracious presence of the Lord was leaving the people of Jerusalem. As we remember from a few weeks ago, the people would know that a prophet was in their midst. And this came to be known as Ezekiel’s prophecies came true. The exiled community began to recognize their sin and need of forgiveness.

And the Lord, through Ezekiel showed mercy to the people. Ezekiel’s vision of the Glory of the Lord at the beginning of the book shows a throne with wheels within wheels, implying that the Lord is mobile. While the gracious presence of the Lord was not seen by Judah for a time, it did not mean that the Lord was far from them. The Law was doing its work bringing them to repentance making them ready for the Gospel.

What we see in Ezekiel is the promised hope found in Jesus, the Good Shepherd who would come and seek the lost. He would bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak. He would be the one to feed the sheep on good pasture.

Ezekiel, a prophet of the exile, gave comfort and hope to those people who had little hope. Through Ezekiel, the Lord promised comfort and future peace, peace that would come to full fruition in the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, IN

Blog Post Series

How Lutherans See Worship

1 — Lutheran theology teaches that worship is Divine Service (In German, Gottesdienst). God comes to us to give us his gifts: He puts his name on us (Invocation), forgives our sins in confession and absolution. He creates and strengthens our trust in him to keep his promises in the reading, reciting, preaching of his word in sermons and song. He gives us the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation in the Lord’s Supper, where he gives us his body with bread to eat and his blood with wine to drink. We respond in thanksgiving with our praise, offerings and the dedication of our lives to his service.

2 — Because God is absolutely holy and we are sinners, we cannot stand in his presence and live. So, because he loves us, while we are still living in a sinful world, God comes to us wearing masks. He became man in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Before his birth, he appeared in the form of the Angel of the Lord. He spoke to us through his prophets. He gives his grace through means — His Word, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and absolution. He uses the voice and the hands of men he calls to be Pastors to draw us to him, to sustain our faith and escort us to the hands of the angels who will carry us on our last day to be with Jesus forever. In Divine Worship, he literally comes to us, especially in the Bread and Wine of the Lord’s Supper, where he is really present to gives us his body to eat and his blood to drink for the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: Solomon Builds the Temple

In ancient times, temples were built as places where people could make sacrifices to their gods to win a favor, to convince a god to leave them alone or to obtain the power they wanted to get an edge over fate or their enemies. Most pagan temples contain a golden image of the god or goddess to which the worshipper bowed down or made a sacrifice.

Often priests would communicate with the god for the worshipper, obtain a prediction of the future for them, or engage in ceremonies that would act like magic While God’s temple was similar in shape and style to Phoenician temples, its purpose was quite different Here God Himself lived in the form of the Shekinah Glory — the pillar of cloud that followed the people of Israel during the Exodus. His people would make sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins — sacrifices that point to the sacrifice of God’s Own Son. People did not come to the temple to bribe God, but to strengthen their relationship to Him.

Yet that sacrifice was still in the future. God was separated from His people because of sin. Only priests could enter the temple itself. Everyone else stood outside. Even the priests could not ordinarily enter God’s presence in the Holy of Holies — only the High Priest entered once a year. For the rest of the year, a thick curtain separated the world from its God.

When Jesus completed the final sacrifice on the cross, the temple curtain was torn from top to bottom. God now lives with His people. In our churches, therefore, there is no barrier between the altar and the pews. God comes to be with us and lives with us each week. He gives us the forgiveness of sins in baptism and the Lord’s Supper. He feeds us with His Word. Now the gifts of God come to us first and without strings attached. Our gifts now are given with thanksgiving, so that God may use them to bless others. In a real sense, though, our churches are not temples. Our hearts our God’s temple. Churches are places we gather with God and each other.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: David and Saul

Encore Post: David was a good man. He was a soldier who defended his king and his country. The people loved him and loved King Saul because of him. Prince Jonathan was his best friend. Princess Michal loved him and married him.

Yet King Saul was jealous of him. Like most kings, he was afraid of anyone that might take his kingdom from him. Because Saul saw David as a threat, he missed out on the good things a loyal and talented son-in-law could bring him. So Saul tried to kill David. Jonathan and Michal warn David and help him escape Saul’s grasp. The future king seeks out Samuel and together they hide in the wild areas near Bethlehem. For awhile, he hid in various Philistine cities and eventually returned to caves near Bethlehem. Members of his family and four hundred fighting men gathered with him there.

Soon Saul would send an army to look for David and eventually led them. They played a cat-and-mouse game for some time. Twice David snuck into Saul’s camp and took a personal item from him. Each time he would display the item to Saul in the morning to prove his loyalty. Eventually, Saul gave up the effort to catch David and went after the Philistines. Saul, Jonathan and most of Saul’s sons died in battle with them.

David would have been justified to take the throne from Saul. No one would blame him if he killed Saul. But David loved God and Saul. He remained loyal until the day Saul and Jonathan died. Even when he had chances to kill Saul, he spared the king. After their death, he assumed the throne of Israel. For the rest of his life, he protected the disabled son of Jonathan.

Sermon on Baptizing Infants

A Thirty-Five year old sermon outline I found going through my papers:

Baptism of Wesley and Lucas Smith
Sermon on Mark 10:13-16
Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost
October 9th, 1988
St. Luke Lutheran Church
Winamac, Indiana

Text: “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have Him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, He was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. And He took the children in His arms, put His hands on them, and He blessed them.”

Baptism is for little children too.
a. Little children have a place in the heart of Jesus.
b. Above everything else, infants are people who trust.
c. God is the one who acts in baptism.
d. Baptism begins the life of faith in the heart of the Christian.
We sometimes keep children from coming to Jesus.
a. We adults are temped to make a career of telling children what they cannot do, because it is easier for us that way.
b. When we do bring children to baptism, we sometimes do not follow through on our promises to God to raise them as Christians.
c. We often undermine a child’s trust by our “experience” and by our failures.
d. We must take our responsibility to raise our children seriously, for He will call us to account.
Yet God calls children own in Baptism.
a. In baptism, God children as His own.
b. In the waters of Baptism, they are united to Jesus in His death and resurrection.
c. God has promised to care for them by His Spirit and keep them in the faith.
d. From these assurances, we draw the strength to bring our children to Jesus.
e. In all this, we can look forward to the day we are together with him forever.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

One God in Three Persons

Encore Post: “In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” These words are very familiar to us — especially those of us who grew up in a Christian Church. They are ancient, too. Jesus gave them to his apostles just before he ascended into Heaven. (Matthew 28:19) As simple as they are, they contain a riddle — a mystery as theologians call it. The word “name” is singular, but three persons have that name. As we have seen before, this should not surprise us. God is our creator and we are his creatures. Sooner or later, we are not going to understand him. So, Christians have come to the conclusion that we should accept the way God describes himself in the Bible and not try to put it all together when we discover it doesn’t make sense to us.

The first thing we observe is that the Bible is very clear. There is only one God. Here Jews and Muslims agree. But the Scriptures are also clear. At every turn in the New Testament, Jesus is called God and the Holy Spirit is called God. The church from the second century on used the word Trinity to describe it. For Jews and Muslims, this is blasphemy.

So, we believe that God is one, but that three persons are God. With the Bible, reject any view that tries to solve the riddle by saying there are three gods, that one or another are not God or turns god into one being with three states. We are content to marvel at our Creator and love him as he is.

Baptism of Wesley and Lucas SmithSermon on Mark 10:13-16 Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost October 9th, 1988St. Luke Lutheran ChurchWinamac, Indiana

Baptism of Wesley and Lucas Smith
Sermon on Mark 10:13-16
Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost
October 9th, 1988
St. Luke Lutheran Church
Winamac, Indiana