“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2). The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews spent much of the previous chapter listing faithful members of the Old Testament Church: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Sarah, Moses, and many others. For space purposes, I won’t go over them, but I would encourage you to read through Hebrews chapter 11 sometime soon.
Those who have gone before us are great
witnesses to the fulfillment of God’s promises. I’ve noticed that many of us
modern Christians have had a tendency to see the history of the Church as
“Jesus and the disciples, then a big blank spot for 1900 years, and then our
day and age. As Lutherans, the Reformation gives us a bit of history upon which
to cling, but there’s still quite a lot out there—those who have gone before us
and are models to us of the Christian faith. Just to look at those whom our
church has traditionally noted in May, we’ve got St. Phillip and St. James
(apostles), Athanasius of Alexandria (leader in the early Church), Friedrich
Wyneken (Lutheran missionary to America), Frederick the Wise (Luther’s elector
prince and benefactor), C.F.W. Walther (1st president of the
LCMS), Job, Cyril and Methodius (missionaries to the Slavic peoples),
Constantine (the 1st Christian emperor of Rome), his mother
Helena, Esther, Bede the Venerable (English monk in the middle ages), and
Justin Martyr—all those in just the month of May!
Now, we do not worship the saints who’ve gone on before us, nor do we offer prayers to them or invoke them in times of needs. However, they are, as Luther wrote, good examples to us of Christian faith in God’s promises. Of course, we needn’t look only to those Christians who get their names on calendars and hymnal indexes. I’d imagine that every single one of us has had Christians in our lives that helped shape our faith. For many of us, it was our parents and grandparents; for others, an aunt, uncle, or older sibling. Sometimes it was a neighbor, or a teacher, or a pastor. Faithful neighbors and co-workers have often shaped our lives in the Christian faith. I’m sure we all have stories to tell about this person or that and how God used them to build you up in your faith.
But there’s one other thing I’d like to point out: you, too, are somebody’s model for the faith. Consider Paul’s words to Timothy, “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things [evil behaviors]. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen” (I Timothy 6:11-16). Live out your Christian life as God grants it, amen.
The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod
LCMS Stewardship Ministry – lcms.org/stewardship
Living Sacrifices
Stewardship is not just about giving money to the church. It includes this, to be sure, but it is not limited to it. Stewardship involves our whole life – everything we have and everything we are.
Let us not, though, fall into the trap
of thinking that because we give of ourselves in one area then we can neglect
giving in another. Stewardship is not stealing from Peter to pay Paul. It is
not a game that we play whereby we justify ourselves in not giving a tenth of
our income because we have given in some other way.
This is why our Lord warns: “Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and
have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and
faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”
(Matthew 23:23) We are given to do both – tithe of ourselves and what we have.
And so it is that St. Paul makes his
appeal to us: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is
your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will
of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1–2)
We are to present our bodies as a living
sacrifice to God. We are not to have the mind of the world, where we exchange
equal weight of this for an equal weight of that and think that we have done
what God has required. Our whole life is given over for service in and for the
Church of God. This is to be done in thanksgiving for what God in Christ has
accomplished for us. This is our spiritual worship, the reasonable response to
what He has done for us. Not one for the other but all in all.
But what does this look like? St. Paul
never lays down a general principle without also giving us some practical
application of what shape that principle is to take concretely. He gives the
general principle that our bodies are to be living sacrifices to God. And,
after admonishing those who have been given particular gifts of grace to serve
the church, St. Paul then speaks generally of what is expected of all. He says:
“Let
love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one
another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be
slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be
patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the
saints and seek to show hospitality.” (Romans 12:9–13)
This is what it looks like to present
your bodies as living sacrifices. This is how we live out the grace of God here
in time.
Let us then heed the apostle’s teaching.
Let us present our bodies – everything that we have and everything that we are
– as living sacrifices to God, our reasonable response to what God in Christ
Jesus accomplished for us by His death and resurrection. Through this, we have
forgiveness of sins, a new life in Christ, and eternal salvation. And through
this worship, the grace of God is made manifest in His saints – for the church
and the world.
Wyoming District Round-Up
May 2022
“...REMEMBERING YOU IN MY PRAYERS…” (Eph.
1:16) For Rev. Ralph Jaeger (emeritus, Laramie), health For our active-duty
chaplains, Rev. Lynn Christensen (Japan), and Rev. Ryan Mills (Colorado)
PASTORS AND CONGREGATIONS Rev. Travis Sherman (Grace, Gordon) is serving Grace,
Merriman, NE (Nebraska District) while it considers its future. Trinity,
Gillette served by Rev. John Christensen (emeritus, Thermopolis) called Rev.
Nathan Neugebauer (Revillo and Milbank, South Dakota). Rev. Dr. Ron Garwood is
serving Christ the King, Cody as the congregation prepares to enter the call
process. Rev. Gerald Heinecke (Prince of Peace, Buffalo) has received and
accepted the call to Hope Lutheran Church, Batesville and Zion Lutheran Church,
Waldenburg, Arkansas. Rev. Noah Fremer (Bethel, Lander) has received and
accepted the call to Trinity Lutheran Church, Howard’s Grove, Wisconsin.
The Christian in Community:
“The Woman You Gave Me”
In Genesis 4 we learn
that the first-born man, Cain, murdered his brother Abel. This sad event
provides a simple but powerful picture of community and how sin and unbelief
destroy it. Because of Adam’s sin (Genesis 3), the human race became a race of
sinners and was now under the wrath of God. But God is merciful. He promised
His own Son to be the Savior from sin and death, who would come as Mary’s Son
and destroy the works of the devil by bearing the punishment of sin in His own
body and soul and rising again to vindicate us before God (Isaiah 53). Eve
believed that their son Cain was that Savior, “I have gotten a man, the Lord,”
she announced at his birth (v. 1). In His mercy, God continued to give earthly
blessings to man. In Genesis 4 we see the blessings that belong to human
community. God produced the promised fruit of children from Adam and Eve’s
one-flesh union: Cain and Abel, with other children. With marriage and children
also came the blessings we associate with economics and organized community.
The growing community had diversified work. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a
shepherd and rancher. God blessed their work with grain and fruit, sheep and
livestock. The community had food, clothing, shelter, and peace. And even more
essential to their community life was its faith and worship. They were the
church of God. They had God’s Word and heard it preached when the sacrifices
were offered. Cain offered grain and fruit he had grown on the farm, and Abel
offered sheep from the flock. Abel’s offering was accepted by God because he
was a man of faith in the coming Savior. He trusted Christ’s righteousness, but
not his own. God receives our offerings and works only on account of our faith
in Christ. But Cain’s heart was not right with God. You can see the progression
of his sin in Genesis 4. First, because of his pride and unbelief, his offering
was rejected by God. Unbelief produced envy, because God rejected his offering,
while accepting Abel’s. Envy produced anger, which led to the Lord’s rebuke.
But Cain did not repent, and so his anger moved him to murder his brother. When
God came to him about the murder, he still refused to repent. We see that his
murderous anger produce a lie, that he did not know what happened to Cain. And
within all these sins was his lack of love and regard for his brother: “Am I my
brother’s keeper?” We do well to meditate on this awful deed. God pronounced
judgment on Cain, so that he was “cursed from the ground, which has opened its
mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground,
it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall be a fugitive and a
wanderer on the earth.” In these words we see the rupture and devastation of
these elements of our communal life: economic peace and cooperation, life with
family and neighbors, communal safety, and personal and family wellbeing. All
these things are damaged and destroyed when we commit sins, first in our
hearts, and then also in our deeds. And more important than all these was the
breaking of the church’s fellowship. Cain was driven from the faithful Church
of God’s Word. In his unbelief and rebellion, he would establish his own rival
church and religion. His offspring would invent and commit new and greater
evils. They would persecute the faithful Church of God’s Word. In the end, they
would all be destroyed from the face of the earth in the Flood. God’s sets this
history (our history!) before us so that we learn to fear God and hate the sins
that Cain committed in his heart and with his hands, and that we repent and
humble ourselves before God. In Abel’s example we learn that God accepts us and
our works on account of faith in Jesus. We learn also that God cares about
those who are persecuted and suffering and receives those who die in this
faith. God grant us this faith, that with Abel He would commend us as righteous
and make us pleasing in His sight (Hebrews 11:4-6).
REFORMATION 500 Although Luther had not returned to the university
classroom yet in May 1522, his return to Wittenberg from exile at the Wartburg
Castle was filled with labors. In addition to his preaching duties at the City
Church, he went on a preaching tour (like a District visitation) to a
distressed neighboring town. He was translating the Bible and writing sermons
for publication. He wrote a work, Avoiding the Doctrines of Men (AE
35.131–153), which basically served as a Bible study to bring comfort and
courage to those whose consciences were disturbed by all the changes taking
place in the Reformation. And he wrote a prayer book. In the years following
Luther’s confession at the Diet of Worms, three new books had great impact on
the average lay Christian: Luther’s German Bible, a hymnal with Lutheran hymns,
and Luther’s Personal Prayer Book. Many people read Luther’s writings, thanks
to the printing press and the eagerness of printers to publish Luther’s works.
But while these other writings may have helped persuade people to the Lutheran
Reformation intellectually, it was Scriptures, hymns, and prayers, together
with good preaching, which shaped their hearts, minds, and piety. His prayer
book was immensely popular and was reprinted many time with various
modifications throughout his lifetime and long after his death. Luther intended
the Personal Prayer Book (AE 43.11–45) to replace the error-filled prayer books
of popular Roman Catholic piety. He used the same format but filled it with
basic Biblical teaching. The core consisted of prayers and meditations on the
10 Commandments, the Apostles Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. To these were added
at various times some books of the New Testament (Titus in the third edition,
1522), psalms (eight in the third edition), the Hail Mary (!) with a Lutheran
explanation, sermons on various topics (e.g. prayer, the suffering of Christ,
Baptism, Confession and the Lord’s Supper, preparing for death), in 1529 his
Small Catechism, and a Passion History (50 woodcut pictures of Bible Stories
from the Old and New Testaments accompanied by a brief Scripture). The Ten
Commandments are given as an explanation and aid in preparing for confession,
teaching the various ways each commandment is broken. The Creed is given as an
extended personal statement of faith, thereby explaining each article in
greater depth.The Lord’s Prayer is given as extended prayers on the mattercontained
in each petition. Here follows a sample from the Fourth Petition, “Give us this
day our daily bread” (pages 34-35), in which our daily bread is primarily
Christ and His Word. “This bread is our Lord Jesus Christ who feeds and
comforts the soul [John 6:51]. Therefore, O heavenly Father, grant grace that
the life, words, deeds, and suffering of Christ be preached, made known, and
preserved for us and all the world. Help that we may find in his words and
deeds an effective example and mirror of all virtues for every phase of life.
Help that we may be strengthened and comforted in suffering and adversity in
and through his suffering and cross. Help us through his death to overcome our
own death with a firm faith and thus boldly follow our beloved Guide into the
life beyond this one. “Graciously grant that all pastors preach your word and
Christ throughout the world in a way effective for salvation. Help that all who
hear the preaching of your word may learn to know Christ and thus sincerely to
lead better lives. May you also graciously drive out of the holy church all
foreign doctrine and preaching which do not teach Christ. “Be merciful to all
bishops, priests [i.e. pastors], and other clergy, and to all in authority that
illumined by your grace they may lead and teach us aright through speech and
good example. “Protect all who are weak in faith that they may not be offended
by the bad example set by those in authority. “Protect us against heretical and
apostate teachers so that we may remain united in one daily bread—the daily
teaching and word of Christ. By your grace teach us inwardly to contemplate
Christ’s suffering in a proper manner and rejoice to copy it in our lives. At
our life’s end do not let us be deprived of the holy and true body of Christ.
Help all priests [pastors] to administer and use the sacred sacrament worthily
and blessedly for the betterment of all Christendom. Graciously help us and all
other Christians to receive the holy sacrament at the proper time. “And in
brief, give us our daily bread so that Christ may remain in us eternally and we
in him [John 15:5], and that we may worthily bear the name of Christian as
derived from Christ.”
The next Roundup will
be delivered to congregations around May 20 (June 2022 Issue).
May 7 Dirk Strauch Birthday
May 9 Patty
Landreth Birthday
May 13 Kim
Schledewitz Birthday
May 17 Virginia
Engebretsen Baptismal
Date
May 17 Dallas
and Janet Ewald Anniversary
May 21 Jean
Strauch Birthday
May 21 Janet
Ewald Birthday
May 24 Roxane
Humphrey Baptismal
Date
May 25 Helen
Engebretsen Baptismal
Date
May 31 Ashley
Wagoner Baptismal Date
If your name does not appear, it is because these were taken from Trinity’s directory for which we have permission to use names and dates. Please notify the office to have a date added.
The Gift and Memorial Committee gratefully
acknowledges with heartfelt thanks the generous contributions of these members
toward the cost of our new sound system.
These donations amounted to $2850.00.
Along with the use of the Memorial funds of:
Eldon Holthus, Randall Ritz, and Charlotte Herrell which totaled $5327.90.
We now have a modern, updated sound system
for many years. We also want to thank
Pastor Humphrey for donating an tablet, which will allow remote use of the
system.
Gift & Memorial Committee
Gloria Gibbs, Manuel Strauch, Chuck Gibbs,
Karen Ritz,
Susan Williams ( Secretary/Treasurer) and
Gerald Ritz (President)
To
God the Glory!
