Welcome to worship today at Morrison Zion Lutheran Church.  We exist to glorify God.  We have set out to do this by gathering around the Gospel so that we may grow in the Gospel and go to others with this Gospel.

Now is the time of God’s favor.  Now is the day of salvation.  Amen.

In Christ, dear fellow redeemed:

You guys (talking to the Confirmands) have heard me quote my dad a lot in class.  I talk about my dad a lot.  My dad said a lot of things that have stuck with me throughout my life.  One of them that I heard all the time is when things were going bad.  At times they were going bad when I was growing up.  He would say “The Lord will take care of us.  He’ll get us through this.”  And at other times when things were going really good, he’d say “The Lord has been really good to us.”  That stuck with me my whole life.  Like I’ve told you guys, I remember more of what my dad said than what my pastor said, so I’m guessing for you guys it will probably be the same.

But my dad said something else that I think kind of fits with what I just read to you a little bit ago from Luke.  Hopefully you guys were listening.  In there at the end when the Pharisees started yelling at Jesus about “Don’t let them call you the Son of David!  That’s a term of the Messiah!  You’re not the Messiah!” and they were getting all upset, Jesus looked at those guys and said “If they keep quiet, the stones are going to cry out.”  God expects that people will praise Him.  He tells us if we don’t, He’ll find something that will, like stones.  Every time I read that, I think of what my dad used to say to me.  When I would do something stupid, when I crossed the stupid line and would get myself in trouble because I screwed up, dad would look at me and say “What have you got, rocks for brains?”  That stuck with me forever too.  The truth is, at times I do.  At times, you do.  We’re all sinners.  The new self at times fires our synapses as much as rocks would because our sinful nature at times controls what we’re doing so that we aren’t living to God’s glory, we aren’t putting Him first, we aren’t praising Him, and God says “If you’re going to be that foolish, I’m going to make the stones yell my praises.”  We heard it in the Psalm.  “Lift up your heads you mighty gates.”  He talks about the gates of Jerusalem praising Him.  God talks about how He is worthy of praise.

The question we have to ask ourselves today is why?  Is God just some big, egotistical guy in the sky and He demands praise of us because He just loves Himself some Him?  Or is there some other reason why you and I would want to Keep the Stones Quiet in our life, for the rest of our lives?  So we have to think about that and then think about how we do it because the answer is yes, we want to Keep the Stones Quiet because of why Jesus went into Jerusalem.

Throughout the Sundays in Lent in our Gospel, we’ve been following Jesus as He journeyed to Jerusalem for the last time.  We’ve seen different things He has done, different things He has said, different things He has taught, and all the while, it’s there in the back of our minds that we know He is going to Jerusalem, not to be received as a king like they received Him this day.  He is going there to give His life to pay for the sins of the world.

Sometimes you and I might forget that truth.  We might think God owes us something.  Or maybe we’ve grown up always knowing that God loves us and has taken away our sins.  We’ve never lived wondering what is going to happen when we die.  So maybe we start taking this for granted and we think God owes it to us somehow.  Or God is lucky to have me.

It’s easy for you guys (Confirmands) to have a big head today.  Relatives are all gathered today.  We stick a flower on you and make you wear a gown and all this kind of stuff, so it’s all about you.  It’s not about Jesus.  Today is all about you!  It’s kind of easy to think that, isn’t it?  If you do that, the stones are going to yell because you aren’t keeping them quiet.  It isn’t about you!  It’s about Jesus.  You didn’t enter into Jerusalem to die for anybody.  He entered in to die for you and anyone that has ever lived and ever will live.

The people might have had a mistaken idea thinking He was coming as a conquering king, but Jesus knew why He was there.  Jesus reminds us also in not only the big way of coming to live and die for our sins why we should Keep the Stones Quiet by living to His glory and putting Him first and praising Him, but we see it in the little things too.  Don’t ever forget that God is involved in the little things in your life.

When they get close to town, He tells them to “Go and you will find a colt, the foal of a donkey that no one has ever ridden.  Take it and untie it.  The guy is going to say ‘What are you doing with my donkey?’  Just tell him the Lord needs it.”  They go there and that’s exactly what happens.  Then Jesus hops on this young donkey that no one has ever ridden and people start throwing stuff at it.  That doesn’t sound like a comfortable ride.  The donkey would be really upset by this loud noise if they never had anyone on their back before but Jesus, in His power, keeps the donkey calm.  They go in.  The people praise Him and all this, but notice the little things Jesus does.  He knows exactly where that donkey is going to be.  He knows exactly what that guy is going to say.  He keeps the donkey calm.

If God is that concerned about a little donkey, do you think He isn’t going to be concerned about you when you go through stuff in life?  There is a lot of stuff in life that is scary.  We’ve talked about that.  There is an awful lot of scary stuff in life and it isn’t just mom and dad being upset.  There is scarier stuff than that.  You live in a sinful world.  The world isn’t perfect.  The world isn’t going to go the way you want it to go.  There are going to be times when you will be tempted to think this means God doesn’t love me because He is letting things into my life that don’t make me happy and things that make me struggle.  He has already told you that is going to happen.  You’ve heard me say that a million times.

God knows what is going on in your life.  He knew where the donkey was.  He could keep the donkey calm.  He knows where you are and what you are going through and He desperately wants you to keep focused on Him so that you can stay calm, so that you can know you have a God who loves you.  If you paid any attention at all when we studied the Ten Commandments (we’re right in the middle of them right now); do you even know what we are studying right now in class?  You’re just nodding because I said something, aren’t you?  You know then how much He shouldn’t love us because we are through and through sinners.  We put ourselves ahead of the First Commandment.  We talked about that.  The biggest idol we have is not money.  It’s not other people.  It’s ourselves.  If it makes me happy, God must want me to do it because God would want me to be happy and He knows the universe revolves around me.  That’s an idol—it’s yourself, it’s your mirror.

If you want to Keep the Stones Quiet, you have to fight against that urge to put yourself at the center of the universe and keep Jesus at the center of the universe.  Not only did He love you enough to promise to always be with you as you go through difficult things, and you will, but He lived and He died in your place.  This is the love our God has for us.

How are you going to do that?  How are you going to keep Jesus at the center of your life?  The three of you, on Wednesday afternoon, what do I usually drink when I’m teaching you on Wednesday afternoon in class?  Can someone tell me?  Coffee; why am I drinking coffee at 5 o’clock in the afternoon every Wednesday?  Because I’m old and I’m tired and if I fall asleep, it looks really bad, so I drink a lot of coffee.

This last Wednesday as we talked, you guys amazed me.  You guys talked about things with a maturity I did not expect from you.  I didn’t even need coffee the rest of the class.  You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?  We talked a bit about it and we talked about it on Monday with the other guys.  We talked about Good Confession Sunday last week.  I know some of you were really, really nervous.  What did I tell you ahead of time?  Once we get started, it is just going to be like class.  I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to talk about Jesus.  I said “By the time you get done, you’re going to think that wasn’t so bad.  And as you look back on it, you’re actually going to say ‘That was kind of fun.’”  You agreed with me on Wednesday, didn’t you?

Then we went into the part of the conversation that I thought was fascinating.  Remember what we talked about next?  Right now you guys have people dropping you off to class and you have people sending you to the school.  The day is going to come when no one is going to be using that plastic-covered spoon saying “Open the hanger.  Here comes the airplane” anymore.  No one is going to be spoon-feeding you the Gospel.  You are going to be responsible for feeding your own faith.  So we talked at length about how you better start doing that now.  Even if you aren’t here in worship every week, you all have smartphones.  You can worship online if you can’t make it here.  You can make God a priority in your life and stay close to Him and grow in faith.  I can’t do it for you.  I can share God’s Word with you when I see you, but I can’t make sure you’re connected to the Word anymore.  You aren’t getting dropped off for my class anymore.  Well three weeks from now and then you won’t be here anymore.  Now it is going to be, if you want to Keep the Stones Quiet, the only way you’re going to be able to do it is if you continue to grow in your faith because really, what we’re celebrating right now is that you’ve learned the alphabet.

In your spiritual life you have learned the very basics.  You can sing the alphabet song spiritually speaking right now.  You have the basics so you can be a responsible communicant.  You can come up here and see the body and blood of Christ and know what is going on.  You have a basis of knowing who God is and who you are that you can build on to know Him more and more so that you Keep the Stones Quiet by continuing to live for Him.  But if you don’t continue to build on it, the stones are going to start shrieking in your lives.  That’s literally what that Greek word there means.  The stones would shriek.  I’ve heard some of you.  You guys can shriek.  You know how painful that sounds.

So what God is asking you to do is to Keep the Stones Quiet by growing in your faith and then by living it; not because you have to, not because otherwise you are going to get in trouble, not because otherwise you’ll get a bad grade.  Do it because you have a Savior that loved you so much that He lived and died in your place and said “Heaven is open to you because I did everything!”  If you ever get bored with that, someone should turn you around and remind you.

This love God has for us, how we can become bored with it, I don’t understand.  But we all do it.  We all do it at one point or another because we all are sinners.  Don’t make excuses when you sin.  Don’t blame somebody else and play the victim.  The victim is Jesus.  He died for our sins.  He is the victim.  We get the blessing.  And this blessing is the knowledge that we have a God who loves us and has promised to be with us always, through whatever we go through in life.  He is going to be there.  He is going to love us and He is going to point us to His love in Christ.  He is going to give us His body and blood in, with and under the bread and the wine for the forgiveness of our sins.  He clothed us with His perfection when we were baptized into His name.  He isn’t going to turn His back on you.

You need to stay close to Him.  Every Christian does.  And I’ve told you countless times how scared I am on this day.  I’ve heard so many people say “I’d rather die than fall away from Jesus” and I haven’t seen them again.  Don’t let that be you.  Stay close to your Savior.  And then remember how He can use you to share Jesus with others, like you did last week.  That’s what He has called you to do.  Live your faith.  Praise your Savior, so the stones keep their mouths shut.  Amen.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.^{(Philippians 4:7.)} Amen.