Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

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“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” This morning, we continue our “walk by the Spirit” focusing on this facet of the fruit of the Spirit called “peace.”

‘Peace.’ Such a great, yet elusive thing. How many FORMAL ‘peace treaties’ have been painstakingly worked out between one nation and another only to be broken no sooner than the ink has dried? How many INFORMAL ‘peace treaties’ have been negotiated between husbands and wives, family members, between friends, which turned out to be nothing more than brief delays in the battle?

The problem with ‘peace treaties,’ is all that they can do is try to regulate the EXTERNAL conflict between two parties. “Don’t cross this line. Don’t fire that missile. Don’t push the button.” But they can’t control the INNER conflict that may well continue to rage if when the EXTERNAL conflict is under control. Truth is, unless the heart and mind are changed, even the most binding ‘peace treaty’ is a fragile thing. How many ‘middle-eastern peace treaties’ have their been over the centuries and peace is no closer because hearts and minds have not been changed.

On the other hand, where hearts and minds are changed and where an INNER reconciliation takes place, it’s amazing how bumps in the road are smoothed over and infractions are overlooked and transgressions are settled by forgiveness rather than retaliation.

Of course, this is where our ‘walk by the Spirit’ is leading us. It is the Holy Spirit who changes hearts and minds. That’s His business. As we said last Sunday, the work of the Holy Spirit is “conversion.” And the Word and the Sacraments are the tools of His trade. He works an ‘INTERNAL’ peace that produces an ‘EXTERNAL’ peace.

The Holy Spirit Creates Conflict and Peace

As we said last week, this ‘conversion’ that the Holy Spirit wants to work in us ‘internally’ so that we bear fruit ‘externally’ works in two directions.

Sometimes the Spirit works through the Word to create ‘conflict’ in us where we are currently at peace. There are some things that do not cause us conflict that should. We’ve acquired certain habits, certain attitudes, certain ways of going about things, what St. Paul calls, “the works of the flesh,” that should us a good deal of internal conflict in us but that we have made peace with.

Jesus Christ is the “Prince of Peace.” Yet He instructs His 12 disciples saying, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34). Where we have made peace the false gods and sinful ways of this world, Jesus intends to create conflict and disrupt our tranquility. The divine bringer of peace is also the divine disturber of peace.

Here’s a good example of how the Holy Spirit does this. St. Paul says he was living in perfect peace with his sin. It was only when the Holy Spirit, through the Word said, “thou shall not covet,” that the conflict began. What had been peaceful and tranquil life lived contrary to God’s Word, became an all out war inside Paul. “I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind.” (Rom.7:23). But it was in the midst of this conflict and war that the Holy Spirit created inside Paul that He led Paul to a real peace based on Jesus Christ.

So, as the Holy Spirit works to create His INNER peace in us, very often it is necessary for His work to begin by destroying the peace that we have created for ourselves and creating a conflict within us and our ‘works of the flesh.” The old must go so that the new can come. No one puts new wine into old wineskins. Especially not the Spirit of God.

The True Peace of Christ

In place of our old peace, which is really no peace at all, the Spirit works to produce in us the true peace that Jesus Christ has won for us by His suffering, death and resurrection from the dead.

To all who are sick and tired of conflict with others, family members, friends, enemies, spouses, Jesus says, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” His rest is His peace. For now, it’s not the absence of conflict and warfare, but His rest and peace in the midst of it all. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

To all who are weary of the conflict and the battle that rages within over our sinful ways and God’s holy way, the Prince of Peace says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.” (John 14:27) His Word gives what it says.

The peace that Jesus has won for us and established for us is a threefold peace.

I. First, He has established for us a peace with God.

In the Old Testament, God gave instruction to Moses for the offerings that the people of God are to make. They’re recorded in the book of Leviticus. There are basically three different kinds of offerings to be made and each has a different purpose. There are ‘burnt offerings’ that are for the forgiveness of sins. There are ‘grain offerings,’ that are for giving thanks to God for our daily bread. And there is a ‘peace offering’ that is for making peace with God.

The reason that God establishes a ‘peace offering’ is because we are not at peace with God nor is God at peace with us as long as we continue to rebel against His Word and put our trust in false gods. But by establishing a ‘peace offering’ for Israel, God was saying, ‘I want to be at peace with you and I want you to be at peace with Me. And here is the way of peace between us.’

The peace offering was an animal sacrifice, to be roasted over the fire and eaten by the priests and the people in the Temple. It was a holy communion with God. The eating of the ‘peace offering’ was God’s declaration that He was at peace with man AND the people’s celebration of the reconciliation of God with them.

Now in these New Testament days we no longer make a ‘peace offering’ to God. And that’s because Jesus Christ is the ‘peace offering’ to end all ‘peace offerings.’ God the Father has provided the sacrifice. And the Lamb has been slain and roasted on the spit of the cross over the fires of hell. And now, in Holy Communion, as we eat the sacrifice here, God declares His peace with us and we celebrate the reconciliation that He has been established between God and man by that same sacrifice.

So, St. Paul writes to the Romans saying, “therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom.5:1). The peace treaty between God and us has been worked out between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Written in the blood of His beloved Son. Signed and sealed signed upon your forehead and upon your heart in your baptism, marking you as one with whom God is at peace. Therefore it is a firm and solid peace that is lasting and eternal based on the grace of the Triune God.

II. Second, Jesus has established for us a peace with one another.

The Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton once wrote, “Man is not at peace with his fellow man because he is not at peace with himself. And he is not at peace with himself because he is not at peace with God.”

The foundation for peace with one another is our peace with God. The ‘peace offering’ that Jesus made was for true reconciliation between God and all mankind. Through the offering of His Son, almighty God is at peace with you and at peace with your neighbor, and at peace with your enemy. This means that the way is opened up for us to be at peace with one another.

St. Paul explains that the peace that we have with God is the basis for our peace with one another like this. “He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility… that He might create in himself one new man in place of two, so making peace.” (Eph.2:14).

So, this peace that the Holy Spirit is at work to produce in us is not just a peace with God. There’s no room here for us to seek peace with God but not our neighbor. Jesus instructs the crowd about the right reception of the ‘peace offering’ when He says, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)

The peace that we have with God through faith in Jesus Christ brings the power for reconciliation in our human relationships. His offering for our peace means that our conflict and warfare with others is not just between us and them. Jesus is right in the middle of every conflict and war with His peace to make peace on earth.

III. Third, Jesus has established for us a heavenly peace.

When the promised Prince of Peace was born of the virgin Mary, the angels announced that He had come to bring “peace on earth.” And He has done just that. But it is a peace on earth that is comprehended and experienced by faith alone.

But our faith is weak and we’re filled with doubts that cause us to stumble and fall. We desire to walk by the Spirit in the bond of peace but our selfish desires and stubborn pride get the best of us. Rather than seeking peace with God or our neighbor, we seek to justify our actions, protect our position and prove that we are right and you are wrong. As long as we live in this sinful and fallen world, peace is always going to be elusive and fleeting.

Also, we may strive to live at peace with God and by His power working in us, strive to be reconciled and live at peace with our family members, our friends and enemies, our spouse. Yet sometimes, it’s the other party that doesn’t want any part of it. So we struggle to live with an INNER peace even while we face EXTERNAL conflict.

And so we look forward to that “peace of God which surpasses all understanding.” We can’t understand it because we have never experienced it. But there will come a time when our INTERNAL peace will be perfected, matched by a perfect EXTERNAL peace. And what has been so elusive in this world will be an abundant harvest of fruit in the world to come.

For now, “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.” “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Col. 3:15 Philip. 4:7)

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Even though official beginning of summer is still two weeks away, the summer season has already begun. Summer is the time for lots of things, vacations, summer camps, Vacation Bible School. Summer is also the time for gardening. It’s when things grow. The grass grows; the seeds you plant in your garden grow and produce their fruit. Come fall, we’ll enjoy them. Or the rabbits and deer will.

It’s so appropriate that the Church’s season of Pentecost coincides with nature’s season of summer. The color of the season is green, which represents growth. Through the festival half of the Church year with Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter, the seeds of new life in and through Jesus Christ are planted in our hearts through the preaching of Christ’s birth, death, resurrection and ascension. Now, through this season of Pentecost, the theme is on the growth of what has been planted and the fruit that it is to produce. Once again, all of that happens through the preaching of the Word even as it is watered and fertilized with Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Throughout the Old Testament, the prophets talked about God as though He were a farmer who plants, not flowers and vegetables but people. The people of God are His “planting.” Isaiah puts it like this, “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting.” And as strange as this may sound, God doesn’t always get the kind of fruit that He expects or enjoys. “He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!” (Isaiah 5:7)

Being the Old Testament prophet that he was, John the Baptist told those who were coming to him to be baptized that they needed to “bear fruit.” And not just any fruit, but the fruit that is “in keeping with repentance.” (Matthew 3:8)

Being the prophet par excellence that He is, Jesus taught His disciples about the work of God as a sower who sowed seed. Some produced no fruit at all, “and some grew and yielded a hundredfold.” (Luke 8:8) God expects His people to bear fruit that He planted them to produce. The parable about the man who finds no figs on his fig tree is the story of what the Father looks for from His people. When the fig tree is found to be barren, He demands that it be cut down and thrown into the fire. The vinedresser prays for time, but in the end, it needs to bear fruit.

So just what is the fruit that God expects His planting to produce? Through this summer season, we’re going to take a close look at the “Fruit of the Spirit” as St. Paul details them in his letter to the Galatians, chapter 5. Paul specifies nine fruit of the Spirit. We’ll spend nine consecutive Sundays considering them one at a time.

To begin then, I’d invite you to take your bible and turn to Galatians chapter 5 beginning at the 19th verse. That’s page 975 in your pew bible.

It’s interesting that when we start a new congregation, we say that we’re PLANTING a congregation. We expect it to GROW, not just numerically, but also spiritually. Paul PLANTED a congregation in the region of Galatia. It did fine while he was there but shortly after he moved away, someone “bewitched them” with a bunch of false doctrine. And the false doctrine produced bad fruit.

Follow along with me as I read vss.19-21. “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Jesus once told a parable about a field full of weeds where good seed had been planted. Here they are. These are the weeds that spring up from the seeds that the enemy has sown. If you do any gardening at all, you know that you don’t have to plant weeds in order for them to grow. You don’t get tomatoes or cucumbers or zucchini unless you plant tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini. But weeks grow up all by themselves as though they were a part of the ground itself.

Paul calls these weeds, “works of the flesh.” These are the things that we, according to our sinful nature produce naturally. Leave us alone and this is what you get and all that you get.

Now verses 22-23. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

These are the things that God desires to see in our life. These things don’t happen automatically or naturally. As strange as it sounds, for sinful men and women like you and me, these things are unnatural. The only way you get these things is if they’re planted. And they have to be carefully nurtured and cultivated and protected. The weeds chock them pretty easily. Paul calls this the “the fruit of the Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit not only plants these things in us, He is these things in us.

The first of these nine fruit of the Spirit is LOVE.

There are several different kinds of LOVE that the bible refers to.

There’s what’s called, ‘family love.’ The love of a parent for a child and vice-versa The Greek word is “storegay.” The bible is all for this kind of love. It teaches us a lot about the meaning and value of family love. It says that this is the kind of love that God has for you. He calls you His children and wants you to call Him your Father.

“Philos” refers to a brotherly love, sometimes called ‘friend love.’ (And there’s nothing homosexual about it.) The bible is all for this kind of love too. Jesus came into the world and entered into our human situation to be our friend through it all. He says, “I call you my friends.” Like a best friend, He’s with us in everything, participating in all of our joys and struggles, victories and defeats, standing up for us as His friends before the devil himself.

Then there’s “Eros” which is usually referred to as ‘romantic love.’ It’s the passionate, physical, sensual side of love. This might surprise you, but the bible is all for ‘eros’ too. The bible talks about the love of the lover for his beloved referring to God’s love for His holy bride, the Church. If you think the bible couldn’t possibly be ‘steamy,’ you ought to read ‘Song of Songs’ sometime together with your spouse – after the kids are in bed. In the bible, this kind of love is almost always described within the context of husband and wife.

Then there is “agape” love or ‘unconditional love.’ It’s the word that’s used here for the that’s the Fruit of the Spirit. The Bible is all over this one. It’s the love that Jesus defined so clearly when He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13). The emphasis here is on “laying down your life,” not on, “his friends.” Jesus also says that we are to “love our enemies,” with this same ‘unconditional love.’

It think it tells you something that when you search for these four words for ‘love’ in 1st century Greek literature of the philosophers and historians of the time, you can find lots of uses of ‘storge,’ and ‘philos’, and ‘eros,’ but the word ‘agape’ is very rare. But in the New Testament, ‘Agape’ is the most frequent of the four. Like we said, some things just don’t happen naturally and ‘self denying love that has no conditions attached to it, is one of them. In other words, this is a love that the world doesn’t understand and has a hard time relating to but which the Christian understands and strives for because we know that this is the love that God has for us as demonstrated in our Lord, Jesus Christ. St. John writes, “By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us.” And because He has done this and because God has planted us in Christ through Holy Baptism, we too love with His love. John says, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11).

When St. Paul writes to the Corinthian congregations, he describes this fruit of the Spirit in such a beautiful way. First, he lists a lot of things that this love is not. “Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing,.

And He lists the things that this love is. “Love is patient and kind; Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [It] rejoices with the truth. Love never ends.” (1 Cor. 13:4-8).

What the Scriptures show us is that this unconditional, selfless love connects to all the other loves and makes them good and right and salutary. Family love, brotherly love, even romantic love are all taken to a higher level, to a truer more genuine quality when they are blended together with ‘agape’ love. The opposite of that is also true. Family love, brotherly love and certainly romantic love can become terribly selfish and unloving apart from ‘agape’ love.

So, it’s the unconditional love of Jesus Christ that is to shape our family love and our brotherly love and our romantic love. It’s all the fruit of the Spirit.

So, the question we want to know is, ‘how does love grow?’ We want to grow in the love of Christ for our family, our friends, our lovers, even our enemies. How does it work? How does it happen?

First of all understand that this is not natural. It doesn’t grow in us unless it is planted in us. Works of the flesh grow naturally. The fruit of the Spirit grows supernaturally. Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in Him, he it is who bears much fruit, apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) This is the work of Jesus Christ in you by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit works through His Word and Sacraments and it is by being in the Word and receiving the Lord’s Supper that we abide in Christ and He abides in us.

Second, I do find it interesting that as Paul lists the “works of the flesh,” sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, etc., etc., he does not say, ‘stop doing these things.’ He does not say, ‘before you can grow the love in you, you’ve got to get rid of all those weeds.’ You need to work at cleaning up your life so that the Holy Spirit can do something with you.’

No, he says, “walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” “Walk by the Spirit.” In other words, Paul doesn’t point us inward to ourselves, he points us outward to the Spirit. “Walk by the Spirit” means, concentrate, be intentional about doing the things of the Spirit. And since love is the first on the list, it’s the place to begin. As we ‘walk by the Spirit,’ that is, as we concentrate and devote ourselves to imitate the Christ love that He has given us, we begin to loose our interest in the works of the flesh and the Holy Spirit overcomes our sin and produces in us the fruit of Christ’s love.

This is what real repentance is all about. It’s not just a turning away from the works of the flesh. Repentance is a turning away from sin AND a simultaneous and positive turning to the Holy Spirit and the fruit that He wants to produce in us. As we turn to the Holy Spirit and “walk by the Spirit,” our life becomes an abundant harvest the fruit of the Spirit, to the point where it crowds out and overcomes the “works of the flesh.”

Even now, through the blood of Jesus Christ shed for the world on the cross, God the Father in heaven sees an orchard of fruitful trees, a field full of ripe fruit, an abundant harvest which He calls His “Holy Christian Church.” Jesus has taken all of our ‘works of the flesh’ onto Himself and He is the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ with whom the Father is well pleased. For His sake, all of the weeds weeded out and burned. All of the “plantings of the Lord” brought into the barn for Him to enjoy.

But for now, its summertime. Time for us to grow.

Her obituary read, ‘Sylvia M. Amon (Langer), 73, passed away on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009, at Maine Medical Center in Portland following cardiac surgery.’

Sylvia died of a troubled heart. Stints, bypasses, leaky valves are all indications that she had a troubled heart. But Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” He was, of course, talking about a different kind of heart trouble than kind that Sylvia had.

When Jesus said, “let not your hearts be troubled,” He was in an upper room with His disciples and they were worried. Continue reading →

Ezekiel 37:1-14 / Revelation 21:1-7 / John 16:16-22

As far as the eye could see, all that Ezekiel could see was death. Ezekiel found himself in the middle of a cemetery. A very strange cemetery for sure. You might call it a burial ground, except for the fact that none of the bodies were buried. Death was right out in the open ? nothing to cover it up, nothing to hide it from view. Nothing to disguise it either. Nothing to pretty it up and make it look presentable. No embalming. None of the skillful treatment of the body to make suitable for a viewing. No caskets, cushions or flowers.
Just skeletons. And very dry ones at that.

The point is, there was absolutely no sign of life, either real or imagined. As far as the eye could see, all that Ezekiel could see was the absolute absence of life.

The question we are tempted to ask in the face of death is ?why?? ?Why did this happen?? ?Why did she die?? ?Why didn?t the treatment work the way we hoped it would?? ?Why didn?t we try different treatments than we did?? And then there?s the big question ? ?Why didn?t God make it turn out differently??

I?m not exactly sure why we want to know why, but I suspect it?s because we think that if we knew why, then we?d feel better about death. If we knew why, then, maybe somehow it?d be less painful.

The truth of the matter however is, Continue reading →