"Given Peace in God's Blessing" (Numbers 6:22-27)

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

“The Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

 The Lord bless you and keep you;

 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’” (Numbers 6:22-26)

 

We hear those words known as the Aaronic Benediction at the conclusion of each Divine Service. What do those words mean to you? We hear them Sunday after Sunday, Monday after Monday, year after year.

 

Like so many things, when we get used to it, we may forget its meaning. Yes, you may have the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed memorized, but do you know what you are saying? Or is it just rote memory?

 

So, what about the Aaronic Benediction? What does it teach? What do those three phrases mean? You may think: the service is over, so it’s time to go home! Well, that is technically true, but those three phrases mean more than the service is over. 

 

You see, those three phrases of God’s blessing confront the reality of our sin. And to receive the Lord’s blessing implies that we need His blessing. By nature, we do not want to admit our need for God and for His blessing. So many of us live by the motto: “God helps those who help themselves.”So often, we would rather follow the example of the Israelites in turning away from God’s sure blessing and look instead to our own abilities for “blessing.” 

 

Afterall, who really does all the work as we gather around Word and Sacrament? Now, we all know Who does the work. But we don’t always act as if He is doing all the work! Afterall, we come to the Divine Service. He isn’t literally dragging us in! (Although our parents may have something to say about that!) 

 

So, we come to the Divine Service. We pray. We sing. We listen. We stand. We sit. We stand. We sit. We give. That’s what it often looks and feels like. And you may be tired after a Divine Service with all that sitting and standing and singing and praying. We are so often tempted to think that ourparticipation in the Divine Service is the only good work going on!

 

In today’s Old Testament lesson from Numbers 6, the Lord gave us the words of the Aaron Benediction so that we would not forget who is responsible for every blessing.

 

So, God gave Moses a special blessing for Aaron to pronounce upon God’s people. In referring to Himself, God uses the special name He has chosen for Himself – Yahweh, which is why each letter of LORD is capitalized. Through His name, the Lord presents Himself to us as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7). As such a compassionate and gracious God, the Lord reaches out to us to bless us.

 

Also, we see in the Aaronic Blessing, three unique phrases where the LORD is repeated. What we have here is a reference to the Holy Trinity. As each of the Divine Persons carries out His work, the Triune God reaches out to bless all those who trust in the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ. So, all three Persons are involved in our salvation. So, let’s look at these three phrases to see what they mean for us!

 

First, “the Lord bless you and keep you” (Numbers 6:24). This first phrase focuses on the work of God the Father. This blessing from the Father includes all aspects of life. So, wherever you look, you can see how the Lord blesses us through physical and material possessions that He gives to us. 

 

Luther’s explanation of the First Article of the Creed summarizes these blessings from God the Father, noting that the Lord has “given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses.” … He also “gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have.”

 

So, with this first phrase, “the Lord bless you and keep you,” we need only to look at where we live. Look at the food and furniture, the children and cars, the dishes and dresses, the suits and sofas, electricity, natural gas, and water. Count the many ways the Lord blesses you with these temporal gifts!

 

And beyond these temporal blessings, God the Father blesses us and keeps us as He answers our prayer requests! Just think about how often the Lord keeps us by preventing problems and dangers from overwhelming us! How zealously does He work to keep us from going to those places where we will be tempted to sin! 

 

At the same time, how loving the Lord is when He allows tests to come upon us! For He promises that He will also make a way of escape and that all things will work together for the good of those who love Him! 

 

Oh, how much He blesses us as He keeps us faithful to the Gospel to the end of our lives. For it is He who will deliver us from this present fallen world into the perfection of His glory in heaven.

 

Second, “the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you” (Numbers 6:25). This phrase focuses on the work of God the Son.

 

We are all sinful. We were all born into sin. It is our nature to rebel against God. So, the only hope for us is in the fact that God is gracious to us.

 

How clearly we see God’s love for us in the work of our Redeemer, who is called Jesus. Again, Luther does a good job in summarizing the blessings given to us in Jesus, “who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I might be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.”

 

This is God’s grace! His undeserved kindness to us. For in Christ, God shows His love to us – a deep, profound love that loves us even when we don’t deserve it because of our sin. In such love, God makes His face shine upon us! So, just as the face of a glad new mother radiates love, so God looks at us, covering all our sins with the perfect redemption that Christ has purchased for us through His atoning death on the cross.

 

Third, “the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace” (Numbers 6:26). To no surprise, this phrase focuses on the work of the Holy Spirit.

 

The phrase, “the Lord lift up His countenance upon you” shows that the Lord gladly looks upon each of us as individuals.

 

How sad would it be if God would turn His back on you, ignore you, and leave you to what you truly deserve: eternal death apart from God. Thanks be to God that He does not do that! So, how wonderful it is that the work of the Holy Spirit is to turn us rebellious people into His children by leading us to faith in Jesus Christ!

 

The Holy Spirit gives the spiritually blind – sight by leading them to Christ, who is the Light of the world. As the Giver of life, the Holy Spirit gives life to the spiritually dead in their trespasses and sin. We – you and I – are miracles of the work of the Holy Spirit! As Luther says, for it is the Holy Spirit who has “called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”

 

In this miracle of conversion, the Holy Spirit gives us peace as we know that through Christ alone we are reconciled to God. In this miracle, the Holy Spirit gives us certainty of faith. Now, we have a peace that will stand up to the fiercest trials. With the Holy Spirit anchoring us in faith, we can say with St. Paul, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

 

I also pray that you enjoy this peace each time I conclude my sermons as I say these words: “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen” (Philippians 4:7).

 

What marvelous blessings the Lord gives to us in the Aaronic Benediction! The Lord’s Divine power and His love stand behind each of those words!

 

To such a benediction, Christians of all ages have gladly said: “Amen!” So, may you no longer take those words for granted! To this blessing, we can say “Amen” to God the Father, our Creator and Preserver, who blesses and keeps us! We can say, “Amen” to God the Son, our Savior and Lord, whose face shines upon us and is gracious to us! We can say, “Amen” to God the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, who turns His face toward us and gives us peace! May the name of the Lord bless you in this New Year – and all the days of your life! Merry Christmas! Amen.

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

 keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.  

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

"Friendship with the World" (James 3:13-4:10)

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

“You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

 

What a fine way to begin a sermon! Do I have your attention? Today, we conclude our Epistle series on James as he – as inspired by the Holy Spirit – continues addressing our conduct in the church.

 

Today’s epistle text can be seen multiple ways. It can be seen as proverbs with its various gems, reminiscent of Solomon’s Book of Proverbs, or it can be understood as stern law preaching. Either way, the Holy Spirit inspires James to guide his readers in what it truly means to be Christians in a profoundly un-Christian world. Today, James calls on us to live in this world, but not be of this world.

 

The expression “You adulterous people!” likely caught your attention and likely for the wrong reason. Is James indicating that these people he is writing to are breaking the Sixth Commandment: “You shall not commit adultery”? Are his original hearers not living sexually pure and decent lives? Well, what is the context?

 

No! James is not accusing them of having adulterous sexual relationships. But he is still accusing them of adultery. But instead of sexual adultery, he is accusing them of spiritual adultery, that is, giving love and attention first to something other than the one true God. 

 

You see, for God, He pictures Israel as His bride and He as Israel’s husband. For God, for Israel to disobey Him is like breaking the marriage vow. It means that all sin is against love. It means that our relationship with God is not like that distant relationship of a king and a subject or a master and a slave or a boss and an employee, but our relationship with God is like the intimate relationship of husband and wife. It means that when we sin, we break God’s heart, just as the heart of one partner in marriage may be broken by the desertion of the other.

 

Jesus says in Matthew 6: “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). We can use the world or be used by it. We can live in the world by loving God and serving our neighbor. Or we can be used by the world as it controls and dictates our life and in doing so, we become an enemy of God.

 

The triune God speaks of Himself as a jealous God. He says:

§  “You shall have no other gods before Me” … “for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:3, 5). 

§  “For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14).

 

In the Old Testament times, God often lamented the way faithless Israel despised His love and chased after the Canaanite gods Baal and Asherah. Now, James’ readers were probably no longer tempted by Baal worship, but Satan still arranged that there would be plenty of new idols to take Baal’s place. So, just as the Old Testament prophets accused Israel of infidelity, James indicts the church of the “New Israel” as unfaithful to the Lord who redeemed her to be His bride.

 

In the Old Testament, God redeemed Israel through the exodus to be His wife, and although her promiscuity would lead to the exile as a kind of divorce, God would marry her anew. The Prophet Isaiah expresses this marriage relationship: “For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you” (Isaiah 54:6-7). Jeremiah the prophet also told of the Lord’s remembrance of their exodus nuptials: “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown” (Jeremiah 2:2). Every Old Testament prophet considered Israel’s rebellion against God to be adultery.

 

Then we come to the New Testament era as Christ, the Bridegroom, purified His Church to be His virgin bride as He suffered and died for His bride. Christ cleansed His bride, the Church, through the washing of water with the Word. And this wedding will take place upon His return.

 

Although the Church is betrothed to Christ, our status as a pure virgin is in danger through the seduction of the serpent known as Satan and the seduction of the fallen world. Satan tempts us to disregard God’s Word. And as evil as Satan is, James is more concerned with the fallen world, which also is under Satan’s control. 

Again: “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

 

Now, this friendship with the world doesn’t mean that Christians cannot be friends with unbelievers. What “friendship with the world” really means is conforming to the fallen world. It means having misplaced trust.

 

Martin Luther speaks of the human heart as an “idol factory” that is ready to trust the newest god on the block. That newest idol could be money and possessions, so you feel secure. It could be your children or grandchildren. It could be your cat or dog. It could be sports. It could be an athlete, politician, or celebrity figure. Now, all those things are not evil in themselves, but how often do those things become an idol – a false god? An idol becomes an idol when those things become more important than God Himself.

 

Another way of looking at “friendship with the world” is living your life for the Facebook likes and shared posts. Or you live your life following the winds and ways of this fallen world. “Friendship with the world” is a life devoted to wealth and selfish ambition that has no room for God. “Worldliness” has no love for your neighbor. “Worldliness” is wisdom that is “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (James 3:15). 

 

The fallen world and its prince Satan are at war to wound and kill Christ’s bride, the Church. The fallen world wants mass casualties. The fallen world desires that the Church prostitute herself to the world through acts of false doctrine, including redefining marriage, redefining humanity, and saying all roads lead to heaven.

 

Satan and his fallen world are coming after us and our sinful nature often just eats it up. There is a war going on inside us. So, what are we to do? James gives us seven healthy, humble attitudes to replace the poisonous, sinful attitudes of selfishness and pride:

§  First, “submit yourselves therefore to God” by fearing, loving, and trusting in God above all things. We do that by acknowledging Him as first in your life and subordinating your will to His.

§  Second, “resist the devil.” Armed with God’s Word, you are stronger than Satan and he will flee from you.

§  Third, “draw near to God.” Through the miracle of God’s grace, a repentant sinner is neverturned away. 

§  Fourth, “cleanse your hands.” Faith in Christ gives Christians clean hands.

§  Fifth, “purify your hearts” by being single-mindedly devoted to God as our faith influences our day-to-day life.

§  Sixth, “be wretched and mourn and weep.” Repentance affects the whole person, so grieving, mourning and wailing are appropriate for people who have previously found joy in sinning.

§  Seventh, “humble yourselves before the Lord.” There can be no spiritual health and soundness in a person until he acknowledges sinful failures and asks God for mercy instead of demanding wages.

 

But no matter what, God refuses to lose us to this war going on within us. He refuses to lose you! Remember, our God is a jealous God. But He’s not like a jealous boyfriend or girlfriend, who may be someone to get away from. God is not abusive. He is not controlling. But He is jealous. But for Him, to be jealous is to say that He wants you all to Himself, and He wants no one else to have you – no false god or false idol, no false doctrine, no false hope, or even the devil himself to have you.

 

Jealousy, in most cases, means that the jealous person does harm to another, because keeping you is all for my benefit. But God’s jealousy is a protective jealousy. A guardian jealousy. An exclusive on loving you with a perfect love, with no exception to treating you kindly. And that’s for your benefit. This is why James, talking about God’s merciful and holy jealousy, puts it in terms of grace: “But He gives more grace … God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). We, humbled by our sins, are seen by our God who wants us only for Himself, and He, without hesitation, gives us more grace, so as to strengthen the relationship.

 

Our evil foes – Satan, the fallen world, and our own sinful nature – will certainly continue to accuse us before God, but God’s jealousy for us triumphs. Christ’s forgiveness is crucial. Each day our forgiving Lord calls us to go to those against whom we’ve sinned and to seek to be reconciled, and the devil’s chaos gives way to God’s order. Forgiveness is God’s wonderful way of neutralizing the devil’s accusatory protests against us and having him flee from you and me. 

 

Our jealous God is greater than any sin you have committed. Jesus is proof of that! His cross is His payment for your well-deserved punishment. His empty tomb is your guarantee of eternal life. Amen.

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

 keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.  

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +