Christ Is the Truth that Sets You Free Indeed

Reformation Sunday

October 30, 2016

John 8:31-36

Christ Is the Truth that Sets You Free Indeed

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Today is an accident. We shouldn't be here today. I don't mean that we shouldn't remember the Reformation, but rather that the actual day that became “Reformation Day” isn't a day Lutherans picked. (Ask me about this accident at the potluck.)

The proof's in the pudding that we never actually eat, so to speak, since you have never read the 95 theses, today or any other day. Now maybe this because we are Americans, who have been taught to disdain the actual happenings and documents of the past. For example, how many of us read the Declaration of Independence on Independence Day? (Or have ever read it?)

We are lazy Americans and like to keep things simple: the British were bad, George Washington was good, we won, fireworks. We are also lazy Lutherans: the pope was bad, Martin Luther was good, we won, trick or treat and/or potluck.

Jesus didn't set us free to be hazy about what truly happened in the past. In fact Jesus sent His Holy Spirit and His unworthy pastors and parents and grandparents to speak the Truth to us. This Truth—which isn't a what, but a who—is Jesus.

³¹To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, "If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. ³²Then you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.” ³³They answered Him, “We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” ³⁴Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. ³⁵Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. ³⁶So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31-36 NIV 1984)

Just before this back-and-forth between Jesus and the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus explained their big problem: they loved the big lie that the Devil had planted in their hearts. This lie said that they were going to heaven because they had the right family tree: Abraham was their father! (Abraham lived 2000 years before Jesus was born. The Lord promised that the Savior of the world would be born as one of Abraham's descendants. We call the family tree of Abraham the Jewish people and the Jewish baby born in Bethlehem, Jesus.)

These Jews speaking with Jesus thought they were protected from hell by Abraham's biological blood flowing in their veins. They thought they were the chosen sons, the princes who would inherit heaven simply by momentum.

Jesus exposed this big lie and He told them that He is the always-existing God. His holy blood would save them, not Father Abraham's. And so they tried to murder Him right then and there:

⁵⁸Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I AM!” ⁵⁹At this, they picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus hid Himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. (John 8:58-59)

Whenever Jesus as the God who dies for sinful humans is preached, either by Jesus Himself or by one of His followers, suppression of this Truth, sometimes by the attempted or successful murder of the Truth-tellers, always follows. But these attempts to stop the Truth always fail. The Word always remains and the preaching of Jesus' bloody dying and then His rising from the dead will endure on earth until Jesus returns, hopefully sometime later today, but you never know.

Just as the Devil twisted the fatherhood of Abraham—a good thing—into a false sense of security for Abraham's lazy children, so the Devil also twists Luther into something he is not. The world hates and loves Luther, but they are always hating or loving a Luther that they have fabricated.

Let me offer an example by way of explanation. George Washington is someone who tells the truth. How do you know this? Because he cut down the cherry tree and when confronted by his daddy, little George confessed: “I cannot tell a lie—it was I.”

This story is completely made-up. It was invented by one of Washington’s first biographers, Mason Locke Weems. After Washington’s death in 1799 people were anxious to learn about him, and Weems was ready to supply the demand. Weems’ biography, The Life of Washington, in its fifth edition (1806) included this completely made-up story. (mountvernon.org/digital-encyclopedia/article/cherry-tree-myth/)

Luther did actually post these 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church. These theses were 95 logical points against selling God's forgiveness for money. And as Luther's preaching and teaching declared in the years that followed, God's forgiveness is a free gift to us that Jesus earned with His blood and death on the cross. And then this forgiveness is given freely to sinners of all shapes and sizes—sinful babies, sinful kids, sinful grown-ups, and sinful seniors—through God's Word with water, with speaking, and with Jesus' true body and blood.

The Devil and the unbelieving world tries to use Luther to proclaim anything, but Jesus. They demand that Luther symbolize freedom from Jesus. Next year you will hear much about Luther as a genius who introduced the modern era. Don't buy it. Luther cared about Jesus, the One who first cared about him and died for him and rose for him and baptized him as a little baby in a little church over 500 years ago.

The Reformation was not about making it easier to get to heaven. No, if anything the Reformation showed us just how hard it is. For man, it is impossible. Not an indulgence or offering, not a pilgrimage or mission trip, not circumcision or uncircumcison, not a monk's prayer or prayers of prayer warriors, not an active life in the church or just having your name on a membership directory, no, nothing you do can improve your standing before God.

But if God's Son sets you free, you are free indeed. These words are Christ's words and He is the one who inspired Paul to write the little word “indeed.” Everything needed for forgiveness is in deed done, for our dear Lord has done it, not on accident, but on purpose for you.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

Christ Died and Rose for His Brother

St. James of Jerusalem

October 23, 2016

John 7:5 & 1 Corinthians 15:7

Christ Died and Rose for His Brother

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Today the Church remembers James of Jerusalem. James was a half-brother of Jesus and for the first part of his life, an unbeliever.

³His brothers said to Him, “Leave here and go to Judea so Your disciples can see Your works that You are doing. ⁴For no one does anything in secret while he’s seeking public recognition. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.” ⁵(For not even His brothers believed in Him.) (John 7:3-5)

Before Jesus' crucifixion His own brother James rejected Him as Messiah. James did not think that Jesus was God's Son, born of their mother Mary. James did not believe that Jesus had come to pay for his sins and the sins of the world. And he was not alone in this rejection of Jesus as the Savior.

⁵⁴Coming to His hometown, He [Jesus] began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. They asked, “Where did this Man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? ⁵⁵Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't His mother's name Mary, and aren't His brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶Aren't all His sisters with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?” ⁵⁷And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” ⁵⁸And He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. (Matthew 13:53-58)

But everything changed for James after Jesus died and rose from the dead. Paul noted that after Jesus' resurrection:

⁷Then He [Jesus] appeared to James, then to all the apostles. (1 Corinthians 15:7)

We know that in the days following the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, James became a believer. And he was to become a leader of the Church in Jerusalem. He wrote the Epistle that bears his name. In this letter he urged his fellow Christians to remain steadfast in the one true faith and constant in holy living. His letter may be thought of in terms of this old Lutheran axiom: “Faith alone saves, but faith is never alone.”

James also rejoiced to hear the work of the Holy Spirit among non-Jews. When Paul returned from his first missionary journey, Paul and James together thanked God for His mercy to all mankind through the Preaching of Christ and Him crucified.

¹²Then the whole assembly fell silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul describing all the signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. ¹³After they stopped speaking, James responded: “Brothers, listen to me! ¹⁴[Peter] has reported how God first intervened to take from the Gentiles a people for His name. ¹⁵And the words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written: ¹⁶After these things I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again, ¹⁷so the rest of humanity may seek the Lord—even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, declares the Lord who does these things, ¹⁸known from long ago. (Acts 15:12-18)

After Jesus died and rose from the dead and showed Himself to His brother, James knew that His brother is the Son of David, the Messiah, whose death and resurrection brings life to the world is for all people, Jews and Gentiles alike.

The Church calls Christians, who are murdered for witnessing the truth of Christ's cross, martyrs. An ancient account of the end of James' life reported that he was put to death by stoning by a small group of his fellow Jews in the year of our Lord 62. James and all the saints and martyrs are waiting around the heavenly throne of God for the dawn of Earth's youngest day when all flesh shall be raised in glorious triumph by the Word of Christ.

Until that day dawns, we rejoice to see how Jesus raises up the most unlikely people to do His holy will. James was at first the last person who would have followed Jesus and confessed His Cross as the way of salvation.

Jesus and James were brothers and Jesus died and rose to save his brother. As Jesus wonderfully declared:

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

Or his brother.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

We Need to Go Where God Is For Us

Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity

October 16, 2016

John 4:50

We Need to Go Where God Is For Us

*

The good thoughts in this sermon come from Pastor David Petersen. Fantastic insights! Thank you! Listen to him directly here: issuesetc.org/2016/10/10/2832-looking-forward-to-sunday-morning-1-year-lectionary-jesus-heals-an-officials-son-pr-david-petersen-101016/

In the name

of the Father and of the ☩ Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

It's true that God is everywhere, but that doesn't do you much good. If you stick your hand into a campfire, God is everywhere doesn't do you much good. If you jump into a pit of tarantulas, you won't die, but God is everywhere won't do you much good.

The point of today's lesson is you need to go where God has promised to be for you. That means you need to go to Jesus and you find Jesus in His Word. So that's why you came here. Jesus promised to be for you at church. If you try to get Jesus in another way, you will die.

So Jesus is visiting Cana again. Earlier He had come to a wedding in Cana and turned water into wine. A local nobleman has a very sick son, and when he heard that Jesus was in the area, about 25 miles away, he went to see Jesus. He begged Jesus to heal his son.

Jesus is blunt with this rich man.

“Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe.” (John 4:48)

Jesus is telling this man, in effect, “Okay, you're looking in the right place, but you've come for the wrong thing.” The nobleman wants signs and wonders, but he isn't seeking the kingdom of God because he's made an idol out of life, specifically the life of his son.

We do this all the time, too. We want the good things that God gives, but we want them by themselves apart from God.

So at home we want the pleasures of married life, but we don't want to the responsibilities of being married: we don't want to take out the trash, we don't want to listen to our spouses, we don't want to be limited to one spouse. In the church we want unity in the church, but we don't want church discipline and right doctrine and practice.

So we want the good things, but we take them out of the context of God's mercy and goodness. We want good things on our own terms. We make them idols. And your idols are not made out of stone and wood; they look like you.

So back to Cana. So the Devil is tempting this nobleman with the idol of his son's life. Idols are the things we can't live without and the nobleman couldn't live without his son. He fears, loves, and trusts in his son's life above all things, above God. So he comes to God and tells Jesus what Jesus to do. And if God doesn't do this miracle, then the nobleman has no use for God.

We can't see the nobleman's heart, but the faith we will assume was there was imperfect because of his trust in his idol. It's as if he saying, “Look, Jesus, You can lecture me about doctrine later. Right now we have an emergency! All that matters is that my child lives!” Life and fatherhood, what good things! But they don't get to trump God, who gives life and fathers.

The nobleman thinks that as long as his boy lives, there's hope. But if his son dies, then all hope will be lost. This man's idol, worshiping the life of his son, was this man. This is true for all good things. Life is no good apart from God. Marriage is no good apart from God. Family is no good apart from God.

We might think that the Devil is the one making this child sick and near death; but that would have been the last thing he wanted. The Devil was happy to keep this father trusting in his idols and spiritually sleepy.

Instead God used this sickness to expose this man's idol to save him. We call this the theology of the cross. God is shouting at the nobleman through the sickness of his son to wake up and the nobleman cannot ignore Him.

And Jesus simply says,

“You may go. Your son lives.” (John 4:50)

It's unfortunate that the NIV translates this Greek present tense verb as “Your son will live.” This makes it seem that Jesus is promising a miracle. But all Jesus says is that the nobleman's son lives at that moment. So there are two miracles: the son is healed, but the greater miracle is that

The man took Jesus at His word and departed. (John 4:50)

He believes Jesus' promise that his son is alive and will stay alive forever, even though he dies. This is the greater miracle of trusting Jesus where He wants to be found. Jesus gave this man just want he needed, not a miracle, but faith.

The miracle wine that Jesus created in Cana at the wedding is long gone, but the nobleman from Capernaum and his son still live, even though they died long ago.

You are on the same road as the nobleman. You have only Jesus' word, given to you here at church, and you go home. And you pray at home, “Jesus, don't let my friend die, don't let my wife die, don't let my children die.” And God says to you in His Word:

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies” (John 11:25)

He is saying, “I know them and I love them more than you do. I baptized them into My name and they live, even when they die.” So we live in hope, we mourn in hope, we wait in hope, taking Jesus at His word.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in Him

we might become the righteousness of God.

Alleluia! Amen!

The Selective King Who Chose You

Twentieth Sunday after Trinity

October 9, 2016

Matthew 22:1-14

The Selective King Who Chose You

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Imagine treating your wedding banquet as though you were trying to get your used car lot off the ground. Wedding guests are selected with great thought and care; used car salesmen will take anybody with money.

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. (Matthew 22:2)

This is how Jesus' story starts: the king prepares a banquet for his son. He carefully selects the guests and when the time comes, he sends messengers to tell them. But they all declined—some just walked away and other got violent.

The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. (Matthew 22:6)

Then the king does what we'd expect any king to do.

The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. (Matthew 22:7)

So far two regular things have happened (a king throws a party and a king punishes murders) and one mildly unexpected thing (all the king's subjects refuse to go to his party).

But then Jesus' story gets very strange.

⁹[Then king said to his servants:] 'Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' ¹⁰So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. (Matthew 22:9-10)

The king's servants are sent out and scoop up anybody they can find. So the story begins with the king being very selective in a way we understand. We understand thinking about all the people you know and selecting which of them you want to spend time with a very special day. We get that. We can relate to it.

But then the king becomes selective in a very different way. We might hear Jesus' story and assume that the king in his anger has become careless and thoughtless. We might think that guests who end up at the king's banquet for his son are there by accident. Listen to verse nine.

[Then king said to his servants:] 'Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' (Matthew 22:9)

He very deliberately sends out his servants to select anyone they can find.

Jesus' king is the one true God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—and God doesn't select in the same way we do. We hear the king bringing in all these corner bodies and we sinfully see a mistake. (Some of us might know that the corner bodies are us, so we end up getting ahead of ourselves and missing the point.)

The point of this story isn't that Jesus will take anybody. (He does because He died for all, but that isn't the main point here.) The point is that God carefully chose You to be with Him.

He doesn't love you just the way you are.

He doesn't select you because of the way you are.

He hates you the way you are.

But He selects you for His feast and

makes you new and lovable and desirable.

Why?

Because of His Son's death and resurrection.

Jesus makes you into a good guest by putting good clothes on you.

He has clothed [you] with garments of salvation and arrayed [you] in a robe of His righteousness. (Isaiah 61:10)

These garments of salvation and this robe of His righteousness is placed on you at your Baptism. Jesus takes His death and His rising from death on you; He writes you into His story.

This explains the end of the story here. We already know that the king can be harsh when the circumstances call for swift action. At the end the king gets harsh again.

¹¹But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ¹²He asked, 'Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. ¹³Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' (Matthew 22:11-13)

In those days the rich would provide clothing to their banquet guests. Garments were provided for the days of the feast. And in the story the king sees a man who was not wearing the clothes that he had been offered. When confronted, the man has no answer. And the king has him thrown outside.

What's the unexpected thing here? It's that the man thinks he pulling this off. He's walking around like John C. Reilly wearing a tuxedo T-shirt and clown pants. He just looks ridiculous.

Or to picture it another way, following the words of the story, he was naked. “He wasn't wearing wedding clothes.” Just like the Emperor's new clothes, a man struts around shamefully thinking that he looks good. But the king calls out his arrogance.

The ridiculous-looking man at the banquet symbolizes those who think they can be a Christian based on their own goodness.

The person who thinks they are a Christian, but refuses to go church is a sham Christian.

The person who thinks they are a Christian, but doesn't receive Jesus' body and blood for forgiveness is a sham Christian.

The person who thinks they are a Christian, but hates their parents is a sham Christian.

God will expose these fakes in His time and He will cast them into hell. Praise be to Christ that you are able to look into the mirror of Luther's Catechism daily and examine what clothes we are wearing: Jesus' wedding clothes, His righteousness or our own invented goodness that rejects Jesus.

We have been trained to be very selective. Another word for this is that we are picky. God is picky, too. Carefully listen to Jesus' final thought at the end of the story:

For many are invited, but few are chosen. (Matthew 22:14)

God has called many, indeed all, to be with Him, but few are chosen. This means you. You are chosen. Not because you are worthy and righteous on your own, but because

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might [wear as wedding clothes] the righteousness of God.

Alleluia! Amen!

The Lord Comes Down to Jacob

Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

October 2, 2016

Genesis 28:10-22

The Lord Comes Down to Jacob

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Here's the history of the world . . . part one . . .

In the beginning the Lord God created everything, including Adam and Eve. They sinned and passed on their sinfulness to their children. Their children had children until a baby boy named Noah was born.

Noah was a sinner, but he trusted in Jesus. God saved him on the ark and then after the flood Noah's three sons had children. Shem was one of Noah's sons and Shem's children had children and eventually Abraham was born.

God promised to be with Abraham and bless him; He also promised to use Abraham to bless the whole world. He would do this by having Jesus be born from Abraham's family tree. Abraham had a son named Isaac and Isaac had twin sons: Esau and Jacob.

Jacob was an interesting person. He didn't get along with his brother. His mother Rebekah liked him, but his father Isaac liked Esau. Jacob was a home-body and Esau was a macho man. Eventually Jacob got Esau to promise to be treated like the firstborn son.

²⁷When the boys grew up, Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman, but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home. ²⁸Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for wild game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. ²⁹Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field exhausted. ³⁰He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, because I’m exhausted.” That is why he was also named Edom. ³¹Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” ³²Esau said, “Look, I’m about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?” ³³Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to Jacob and sold his birthright to him. ³⁴Then Jacob gave bread and lentil stew to Esau; he ate, drank, got up, and went away. So Esau despised his birthright. (Genesis 25:27-34 HCSB)

Jacob ended up running away from home, but not until much later. Several other events take place in chapter 26 and only then we come to infamous incident where Jacob dresses up like Esau and lies to his father about who he is. Then Jacob skedadles just before Esau comes in. We pick up the story:

³⁰As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob and Jacob had left the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau arrived from the hunt. ³¹He had also made some delicious food and brought it to his father. Then he said to his father, “Let my father get up and eat some of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.” ³²But his father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am Esau your firstborn son.” ³³Isaac began to tremble uncontrollably. “Who was it then,” he said, “who hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it all before you came in, and I blessed him. Indeed, he will be blessed!” ³⁴When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, my father!” ³⁵But he replied, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” (Genesis 27:30-35 HCSB)

We might think, “Big deal. Just call a do-over. The blessing was given under false pretenses. Surely that can't count.” But it did. First of all, in our time words don't mean much. Promises don't mean much. They should, but most people treat words carelessly.

Christians shouldn't be careless with words, but often we treat them just like unbelievers do. Just like Esau did, “Sure, sure, whatever, you can have my birthright, just give me a Big Mac or perhaps a delicious lobster bisque.”

We don't have birthrights to sell, but we still would rather eat than listen to the Word of the Lord. At church in my younger days, I remember being confused when so many of the grown-ups would come to church, and make their children stay for Sunday school, but they would instead go out for coffee and Danish instead of remain for Bible study. That regular habit of skipping Bible study with your pastor always confused me and I hope it confuses you, too.

Jacob wasn't confused, at least not that his life was in danger. As long as Isaac was alive, Esau didn't make a move. But Esau was counting the days until his dad died and then when the official time of mourning was over, he was going to get revenge. Rebekah heard about Esau's desire for payback and warned her beloved son. And now Jacob is running away from home in Genesis 28.

¹⁰Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. ¹¹He reached a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set. He took one of the stones from the place, put it there at his head, and lay down in that place. ¹²And he dreamed: A stairway was set on the ground with its top reaching heaven, and God’s angels were going up and down on it. ¹³The Lord was standing there beside him, saying, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your offspring the land that you are now sleeping on. ¹⁴Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out toward the west, the east, the north, and the south. All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. ¹⁵Look, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:10-15 HCSB)

The Lord God had come to Jacob's grandpa Abraham in several strange ways and visions. He had also come and visited Jacob's dad Isaac. All these visits repeated the promise that the Lord would be with the children of Abraham and blessed because of Jesus. Listen for the term “your offspring,” which refers to the descendants of Abraham's family tree, but also is singular and refers to Jesus. He is the offspring, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. Mary is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

²The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you about; ³stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky, I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring, ⁵because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My mandate, My commands, My statutes, and My instructions.” (Genesis 26:2-5 HCSB)

God came to Jacob in this unique dream that showed the reality of the Christian life: He keeps us alive by coming down from heaven and being with us. Since God is perfect, never selfish, never greedy, never cruel, never proud, and we are the opposite, there's a problem. Opposites can't be together. So God came down and became us and our sin and by dying washes away our pride, greed, cruelty, and selfishness. He speaks us clean and perfect with His voice. He is the Offspring that blesses believers from all the nations.

And so He came down to Jacob and promised to be with him and his children. This means you. You are a child of Abraham not by blood, but by faith.

⁶Just as Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness, ⁷then understand that those who have faith are Abraham’s sons. ⁸Now the Scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and told the good news ahead of time to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed through you. ⁹So those who have faith are blessed with Abraham, who had faith. (Galatians 3:7-9 HCSB)

And to His people God comes down to us in certain places. We can call them little Bethels. Beth-el means house of God. Where are those? Where God's Gospel Sacraments are heard and received: our churches and our homes.

Jacob was running away from home to find a new future. We don't need to go that far, for just like Jacob, Jesus comes and find you and bring you His everlasting promise: “I will never leave you.”

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Alleluia! Amen!