UNDIVIDED ATTENTION
On the Majesty and Mystery of Our God
Holy Trinity

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.

Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.

Direct us now, O gracious Lord, to hear aright your Holy Word.
Assist your minister to preach, and let the Holy Spirit teach.
Let eternal life be found by all who hear the Gospel sound.  Amen.

(Because of technical issues, only part of the sermon was recorded in the video.  The following is what could be typed from the video linked to this sermon.)

… good.  So at the Last Day when Jesus says “Well done, good and faithful servant,” we will say “Yeah, that’s because of you.”  And we can confess that in the Athanasian Creed.  Those who have done good will rise to eternal life because we know it’s not our good that is getting us there but Christ’s good, what He did for us.  Because of this, you have peace with God.

That’s what Paul is saying.  … we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.  And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God.  Again, he uses the word “hope.”  That is his refrain here, and that reminds us that hope isn’t the same as the world’s version of hope.  This is not saying “Well, I hope the Brewers will do well this year” or “I hope the Packers will do well even though they cut that cornerback, Jaire Alexander.  I hope things go well,” where it’s kind of a pious wish.  This is the same kind of hope where we would say “I hope the sun rises tomorrow.”  You know you have no assurance that it is going to rise tomorrow, but you have that hope and that confidence.  That is a confidence that we have because of what Jesus has done.  We will one day be in heaven with Jesus because Jesus lived, died and rose for us.  The Father wants you to be His child, so He sent His one and only Son to suffer your suffering so that you would be with Him.

It isn’t just the Father and the Son working up hope in you but also the Holy Spirit.  Paul writes, Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope.  And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts (there it is) by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit’s work is often called “sanctification,” like “justification.”  We hear that word and maybe our eyes start to glaze over.  In short, “sanctification” means “to make holy,” and of course maybe our eyes are still glazing over.  But do you remember from confirmation, “to make holy” means “to set apart.”  It’s like when you are sitting there at your dinner table and you have your steak and potatoes on one plate but then you have a special plate that you have set apart.  This one is for dessert.  Dessert does not go on the same plate as steak and potatoes.  Dessert is set apart.  It’s different.

In much the same way, you have been set apart.  The unbelieving world, the sinful world is going where it is going, but now God has set you apart and said “You are different.  You are God’s child.  You are holy,” because He has made you holy.  He has poured out His love on you.  And this is especially true, Paul says, when we are undergoing adversity.  He says, we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope.  At first glance, it might seem like I have to go through a long period, like a workout session.  I have to work out really long in this session of patient endurance and then eventually I’ll get to character and then later on, eventually I will get to hope.  Finally I’ll get to hope.  But it’s a logical progression not a temporal progression.

Let me illustrate how that works.  Let’s say your loved one dies.  Someone really close to you dies.  And that is suffering, because you miss them.  But in that adversity, that is going to reveal your true character.  You are thinking I know I’m going to see them again in heaven.  So all of a sudden you’ve jumped to hope.  You may have that hope on the funeral day as you are giving comfort to people who are coming to visit you and you’re saying “Yeah, I know it’s a sad thing, but they are in heaven and I will see them again.  I WILL see them again because of Jesus.  As sure as the sun is going to rise tomorrow, I will see them because of Jesus.”

But throughout life, you might still miss that person.  It gets to the one-year anniversary of them being in heaven, the five years that they’ve been in heaven, it gets to all those difficult things like you having to go through your finances now because they used to do all the finances.  So you are going to continually be going through this cycle of undergoing suffering, but then God pouring His love into you through His Word and through the work of the Holy Spirit that develops something that wasn’t there before, which is endurance and character and hope.

This is what God does, this mysterious and majestic God, who is three persons yet one God, working hope in your life; hope for an eternal future but then hope when you are undergoing all the struggles and trials of life.  This is God’s promise to you.  When you confess the Triune God, this is what you are confessing—He is a God who does all of those things because He loves you.  The Triune God produces hope.  It’s not just a stuffy doctrine.  We have a wonderful God who works in us through His Word.  Amen.

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