Sermon on January 10, 2010

Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”— before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain; when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim; when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when men rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; when men are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags himself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 1/10/10

In Christ Jesus Dear Friend,

It seems to me that one of the things that some people joke about most in life is aging. We also joke about growing old with the ever popular, “you know you’re old if” statements. You know you are old if most of your dreams are re-runs. You know you are old if your knees buckle but your belt won’t…or You know you are old if you try to straighten the wrinkles in your socks and you find you aren’t wearing any. Like it or not, all of us grow old. Some enjoy joking about aging, but deep down inside growing old is something many want to avoid. Millions of dollars worth of books and equipment, showing people how to avoid growing have been sold. Health food manufacturers have built huge businesses producing special foods that promise it. Genetic scientists are researching ways to prevent it. But age still happens and there is no avoiding it. The Lord’s message to you and me today is Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come.  Don’t Wait Until You Are Old.

It isn’t a tragedy to grow old physically, but it’s inevitable. It is a normal part of life. All of our bodies grow old! Our text from Ecclesiastes says the same thing. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.”  What the Lord is saying is that we are not to waste the days of your youth. The time is coming when you will not be able to do the things you are doing today. The days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.”  You will get old. And you will find it difficult to enjoy life. An old man at the time of David says the same thing, 2 Samuel 19:35 I am now eighty years old. Can I tell the difference between what is good and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats and drinks? Can I still hear the voices of men and women singers? Why should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king?

Our text goes on to list the characteristics of old growing old and it does it in a very picturesque way. Let’s look at the picture and notice how accurate a description it is of growing old. The time is coming when the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark. The sun and light are pictures of the good times and the dark and the gloom are pictures of difficult times. Jeremiah says it like this Jeremiah 13:16 Give glory to the LORD your God before he brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills. You hope for light, but he will turn it to thick darkness and change it to deep gloom. For many growing old is not the best day of your life.

Old age carries with it more wonderful things and the clouds return after the rain; Usually after the rain comes the sunshine and a person feels better after the rain. In old age instead of the sunshine  after the rain the clouds of depression return and after the difficult times and instead of the sunshine there are more tears of rain.

In old age The keepers of the house tremble. The Keepers of the house are a person’s hands and feet, his mind and his internal organs. The keepers of the house tremble. Our hands begin to tremble.  Our feet shuffle. Our minds are not as sharp as before. And then our internal organs begin to wear out and we get sick more often. Our heart fails. It is not fun to grow old and recall how much we could do before and how little we can as we grow older.

Next in old age: The strong men stoop. Those who were The strong men now stoop. Once we were the strong men and women. Once we could lift a hundred pounds and now we can’t ever carry the groceies inside. Once we could run and now we need a cain or a walker to go somewhere. The older we get the less we can stand up straight. We try, but we stoop over. The strong men stoop.

Next in old age The grinders cease. Been to a dentist lately? I can still my mom and dad’s teeth sitting is a glass of water. And I can still see the look on my grandchilds face when mom took them out of the water and put them in her mouth. The grinders cease. It sure did change her diet and what foods she ate.

And those looking through the windows grow dim. Do you know where your glasses are? The time is coming when you will not be able to see like you used to.  You will need glasses to read and then they will not be enough and you will need stronger glasses to read. And then perhaps the time will come when you need glasses to drive or to see at a distance. And the worst is yet to come, when you have to have your glasses on to find your glasses.

Next: when the doors to the street are closed. When are afaid to talk because we can’t remember if we already said that. When the door, our lips, are closed and we can’t remember the person’s name.

Next: and the sound of grinding fades; when men rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; How frustraing to wake when the rooster crows and not to be able to hear it. How frustrating to ask again and again,” What did you say? I’m sorry but could you repeat that? I can’t hear as well anymore and this hearing aid just doesn’t seem to work like it did before. What did you say?”

Next: when men are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; This refers to fear of risks in life,  fear of challenges and new things. So, we are “old” when we want to keep things the same…to play it safe…when we are afraid to take chances …afraid of the future….afraid that tomorrow will be filled with dark days. Some old people look at life with anxiety and fear. Now it is certain that we are all going to grow old in body….but we do not have to grow old in spirit. I have known people in their 30’s who have all the mental characteristics of old age…they are crabby, bitter, hostile… Then there are others who are frail in body from the passing of years. But their attitudes are young, they are excited, optimistic, friendly.They are not old! They are not bored nor are they boring. They know that no matter what age they are the Lord is still with them.

Next: The almond tree blossoms. In the East the hair is mostly dark. The white head of the old among the dark-haired is like an almond tree, with its white blossoms, among the dark trees. The almond tree flowers on a leafless stock in winter while the other trees are flowerless. when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags himself along and desire no longer is stirred. When the stength is gone and he hobbles along and has no desire for any of the things of this world.  When a person reaches this point in his or her life, it is almost over. All that remains is Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. All that remains is the funeral service.

Now what is the point of this picture of growing old? Look at the first verse of our text again. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come.The time is coming for all of us that we will grow old. We are young and then we become old. And unless we die first we will all follow the same pattern that the writer of Ecclesiates did. His hair turned white or fell out. His hearing and eyesight got bad. He didn’t have the strentgth to do what he did before. His mind was not as sharp. All of his body and mind went down hill. The end of this section of Scripture picks up on the first section, Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, All of these are pictures of death. And the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. I wonder if it would make a difference in our lives if we knew ahead of time when we die. Would we do things differently?  I think it would. I  am reminded of a ledgend of a man who asked God to let him know when his life was nearing its end and when he would send the angel of death to get the man.  And God said, “OK I will do that.” Time when on and the man grew older and then one day he heard a knock on his door and he opened the door and there stood the angel of death ready to take the man out of this life. The man was really upset because God had promised to give him a warning before he send the angel. And he said,”But God promised. He promised.” And the angel said, “God kept His promise. Look at your hair, what color is it? Look at how slow you walk and move and how poorly you see and hear. Those were all God’s warning signs that the end of your life was near. God kept his promise. He warned you.”

My Friend, Don’t Wait Until You Are Old. The Lord gives you and me the same warning. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come… Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring. Why the warning? So we can be prepared for when He come back to get us. We need to realize that how you finish a race is more important than how you start it.

We must also know that There is no retirement from the Christian life.We will retire from our careers. And today I am announcing my retirement at the end of the year 2010 but we never retire from our main job in life which is to be a 7-day per week 24-hour per day employee of Heaven. We never retire from the Lord’s service. And the more we realize this, the younger we will be.

“They say I am growing old, I’ve heard them tell it times untold,
In languages plain and bold - But I’m NOT growing old,
This old shell in which I liveIs growing old, But I’m not the shell.

What if my hair is turning grey? Grey hair are honorable, they say.
What if my eyesight’s growing dim? I still can see to follow Him
Who sacrificed His life for me Upon the Cross of Calvary.

What should I care if Time’s old plough Has left furrows on my brow?
Another house, not made with hand, Awaits for me in the Glory Land.

My hearing may not be as keen As in the past it might have been,
I still, can hear my Savior say In whispers soft, “This is the way.”

The outward man, do what he can To lengthen out his life’s short span,
Shall perish, and return to dust, As everything in nature must.
The inward man, the Scriptures say, Is growing stronger every day.
Then how can I be growing old When safe within my Savior’s fold?

E’re long my soul shall fly away, And leave this tenement of clay.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop and rise To seize the ‘everlasting prize’ -
I’ll meet you on the Streets of Gold, And prove that I’m not growing old. “

 Mission Awareness Weekend

October 3 & 4, 2009

St. Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church – Sturgeon Bay, WI

Sermon by Rev. Dan Koelpin

“FOCUSED ON MISSION”

In Jesus’ name dear friends and co-workers in God’s kingdom.  “Focused” is one of those fashionable “buzz’ words that’s been around for awhile.  As a verb its primary and original function was to describe the activity that bends light rays so that they will converge on specific points and patterns to produce a clearly defined image.  Yet in modern jargon the term “focused” is more frequently used to depict the concentration of attention and resources in order to accomplish specific objectives.  A focused person is a person of purpose, someone who is not easily diverted, a person who knows what he or she wants to achieve and devotes an almost exclusive use of time, energy and talent and money in order to achieve it.  Top notch athletes like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Aaron Rodgers have been described as “focused” in athletic competition.  In today’s world a focused business is one which has set forth a well considered and clearly articulated statement of mission or purpose and then brings every resource into compliance with it.  A focused company is one in which everyone from the Chief Executive Officer to the custodial crew knows what the company is seeking to accomplish and what their part in it is.

Never before in the world’s history has it been so important to be focused.  Haven’t you noticed with distractions and amusements on every hand people are losing sight of what is important – their relationships with family members and with God, their sense of meaning in their lives.  That’s because today the scourge of our times is purposeless living. It’s not that people aren’t busy.  Their lives are a veritable blur of activity – eating at every restaurant in town, previewing every video at the video store, looking for every sale at the shopping centers, but much of this is “chasing after the wind” with no purpose or meaning to all of the activity.  Having a purpose for one’s life is one of the most important ingredients of living.  How many people do you know in hospitals and old folks homes that don’t die simply because they have no purpose for going on?  How many do you know that haven’t known for quite some time what they’ve wanted out of their marriage? out of their job? out of life itself? — and you wonder if they ever will.  So many youth are drifting into aimlessness, because they don’t have a focus on what’s important, a sense of purpose to their lives.  Is it little wonder then that one of the biggest book sellers on the market not too long ago was a book entitled “The Purpose Driven Life”?

The key to being focused is first to determine what’s worthwhile in life and then to give our time and attention to it.  If there are only so many books you can read in a lifetime doesn’t it make sense to read only the best?  If you only have so much time, isn’t it far more important to give it to worthwhile purposes than to squander and waste it on the non-consequential?  You and I have only one life to invest - only so many resources, so many talents, only so many years and that’s it  –that’s all.  It would be a tragedy to spend them on anything less than the most supreme, the most worthwhile of causes.  We need to either be convinced or continually reminded that the supreme values, those worth seeking and having, are those which meet our deepest needs.  This rules out the hoarding of money.  Money can buy comfort for the body, but not peace for the soul.  It can purchase a house, but it can’t turn it into a happy home.  It can secure a hospital room and the finest of physicians, but it can’t guarantee health or long life.  The same holds true for the amassing of possessions.  The minute a person buys into the premise that he needs things to make him happy, then it stands to reason that he needs more things to make him more happy and he is already on a treadmill that never stops.  Many of us might not believe that if we had two or three times as much as we have right now, we wouldn’t be any happier, but the truth is we wouldn’t.  Whenever we make something outside of ourselves the source of our joy (our house, our possessions, even another person our spouse or children) we’re setting ourselves up for a fall, because it can all (any person or thing) be taken from us— and then where is our happiness?  Contentment is not found in that which is without but in that which is within.  Do you want to ask yourself, “How much of your time is spent working for things, shopping for things, hauling things around, trading things, maintaining things?”  And what’s suffering in the meanwhile? – relationships, purpose.

Our greatest needs are not economic or material at all; they are spiritual.  Our supreme needs are a quiet heart and inward peace, a freedom from guilt the steady courage that comes from faith and a life of fulfillment and meaning.  Those are things only God can give us in Jesus Christ, but having them we can cope with everything else.  We do find peace in the salvation he has provided and we do find fulfillment and meaning for our lives carrying out his plan and purpose for us.

In the word of God before us today the ruler of the universe sets forth that plan for us both as a church body and as individual Christians.  It is the mission on which he has focused the entire church’s attention.  Unlike those who are always squandering their energies on the secondary, we Christians can know what is worth giving our time and attention to because Jesus tells us what it is. In his final directives to the disciples our Savior set forth in merely a few words the church’s mission for all time when He said, ‘therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” This mission was so all encompassing in scope, so universal in reach, so timeless in its application that it continues to stand to this day as the unifying focus of the church’s activity to all who take God’s word seriously.  This evening we want to emphasize the importance of keeping our focus on the clearly defined mission set forth by Christ and the tragedy that occurs when we fail to do that as well as the blessing that happens when we do.

As Christians we too are involved in a mission, a rescue mission.  The mission of God did not begin with these words of the Great Commission.  They began in the councils of eternity when God saw lost mankind and prepared a plan to save him.  His love reached out to the world in the person of his son Jesus who came to show us God’s love in human form and to provide salvation for us and all mankind through his suffering and death.  He came to live the life we could not live and to pay  the price for sins that we could not pay.  Yet the rescue mission did not end when Jesus laid the foundation of it.  Many still had not heard that they had been saved.  So he sent his spirit and moved his apostles and evangelists to go from region to region, from country to country, from century to centrury.  God’s grace was further shown to us in that he sent his holy spirit to bring us to faith in Jesus as their Savior of our sin.  We could think about it for an eternity and never figure out why it was that God chose us to have that truth.  We could’ve been born in places like India or Indonesia where people are steeped in superstition and poverty, whey the children fight with the animals over the scraps of food in the garbage dumps. By comparison we are about 8% of the world’s populace, we consume 35%s of its energy and material goods.  There is nothing in us that deserved us grace.  We’ll never know why we received such grace, but we do know one of the reasons for which we received such grace and truth.  We received it that we might pass it on to others.  Outside of the strengthening of our own faith one of the foremost reasons why we exist to spread the truth we know to others as Jesus directs us here in his commission.

A clearly defined focus is important.  Much confusion has been caused in Christendom because leaders and church members have often been focused on different goals than the ones set forth by Jesus.  There are those who believe that the primary focus of the church should be to provide fellowship opportunities where they can meet friends.  There are others who feel that the church should be primarily focused on providing works of charity, building hospitals, orphanages, and shelters for the homeless.  There are others still who are convinced that the church should be principally committed to effecting change in the political arena, but does it matter what everybody else thinks?  Who has the right to set the agenda for the church’s business?  Is it not the one who has all authority in heaven and in earth?  And his goal is the discipline of every person on earth?

Even among us who know and agree with die real intent of our Savior’s instruction to reach the lost, there is often an unintentional loss of focus.  Because the oceans of spiritually dying humanity are far removed from us, it’s easy to forget them and the work of the world and home missionaries who are trying to reach them.  On the other hand, because our personal needs and our local congregational needs loom large in front of us, those tend to be taken care of first, at times in Cadillac style, while multitudes which might be reached with a little more concentrated effort slip into a Christ-less eternity.  We establish Christian schools to disciple our youth, but if were not careful we make them havens where we can gather our kind of people, places where we celebrate our own academic and athletic talents rather than institutions where we train people to reach others.  We can with the best of intentions concentrate on producing inspiring worship services and understanding the word of God properly and then fail to do what the Word has instructed us to do, namely to get on with the work of permeating the unbelieving world with the saving truth we know.  We don’t only learn to know, we learn to go. 

There are those who believe that throughout history Christ’s followers have managed to do just about everything else but complete the basic task the Lord has given to them.  Down the ages the church has fought Crusades, built huge cathedrals, conducted elaborate ceremonies, erected hospitals and established prestigious institutions of learning, but it has not yet completed the  main task Christ has given to it.  We have to ask ourselves some basic questions.  How firmly are we convinced of Jesus’ words, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me”. (Jn. 14:6) or when he says “whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only son.” (Jn.3:18)  They together with his directive of the Great Commission indicate we cannot assume people are going to go to heaven apart from Christ.  We don’t want to be guilty of “functional universalism”  in which we say we believe that people who don’t know Christ are lost and then function as though they’re somehow all going to get to heaven on their own without any attempt on our part to make sure they have the gospel.

The need for getting out the Gospel is as great as it has ever been.  Never, to anyone’s knowledge, has the world had such a vast mission field.  The world’s population is 6.8 billion is screaming for mission attention.  It took from the time of Christ to the beginning of the 20^th century to reach 1.6 billion in population.   In just 100 years, and in spite of two world wars,  over 4.5 billion people have been added to the planet.  No longer are we under the illusion that we can reach the world’s millions with American missionaries.  We send teams of 5 – 7 missionaries over to a country and set up a bible institute and seminary and train the nationals to reach their own countrymen and that seems to be working very well. 

God will not allow us to forget those of other nations and other cultures even if we are inclined to do so, in recent decades he has brought the nations of the earth into our own neighborhoods, laying them like Lazaruses at our gate.  Our own nation also cries out for mission activity.  Living as we are in a country whose values have been eroded by aggressive forces promoting humanism, materialism and hedonism, the church can no longer afford to sit back and be reactive to events around it.  The time in the world’s history may be later than we think, the cause is urgent.  Our Synod so privileged, so blessed by God, is being called upon to use its God-given resources of a pure Word, well-trained ministers and teachers, lay talents and monetary wealth for the soul-saving purposes for which they were given.  There is a growing awareness in our church body that at the core of the mission of the church is the work of missions.  The closer we get to the heart of Jesus, the more we will want to share in his mission of seeking and saving the lost.

We have to be careful that we don’t only think of mission work as something that’s being done by missionaries for us.  God wants us all to be in tune with His mission.  Life’s highway is littered with the wounded.  There are those who are economically wounded, those who are physically wounded, those who are emotionally wounded, those who have wounded themselves by making the wrong choices in life.  Above all there are the spiritually wounded filled with guilt, afraid of death, unsure of what life is all about.  Some of them exist right under our noses in our own families, some are among those who enter and exit our lives in the course of our day-to-day work, some wait in the shadows hoping that we will notice them and help them.  Some we hear about second hand.  Some are across town, some are across the country and then some are across the ocean on the other side of the world.

If we fail to take up the challenge of focusing on Jesus’ mission we will be like the fig tree mentioned in one of the parables.  In spite of the fact that this tree was planted in a place of special privilege where it was cultivated loved and protected so that fruit was rightfully to be expected, it utterly failed to fulfill the purpose for which it had been planted and it invited destruction.  We should not for one minute delude ourselves into thinking that God placed us here in this land of affluence and provided us with the pure gospel so that we could go off and lead self-centered lives.  If when the Lord returns we dig up our gospel like the buried coin and give it back to him we are inviting his wrath.  To Jesus, one of the greatest sins was to remain useless when given the wherewithal to be useful.

We have to see our purpose, our mission on earth in order for us to fulfill our destiny as God’s people.  We are not to be like so many in our world today who are squandering their lives in watering holes and standing in line for entertainment tickets.  One of the most moving and powerful illustrations I’ve ever heard was that of beached whales.  There are a number of whales which die each year on the shores of our eastern seacoast because they had chased minnows for food and had gotten into water levels that were too shallow for them.  One scientist made the comment that “here were creatures of vast power who were using their tremendous potential to chase after the trivial and perishing in the process.” What a comment on many in our American society, “using tremendous potential to chase after the trivial and perishing in the process.” Thank God as his children we have a purpose!

If we take an honest look at the overwhelming mission of the church, which is to disciple every nation, every person on earth, the sheer enormity of the task might cause many to throw up their hands and despair.  Yet the Lord doesn’t expect us to do it all by tomorrow, only to do our best each day.  He gives us life on the installment plan, a day, a week, a month at a time and as we commit ourselves faithfully each day to the task he has before us we get much more done than we think.  Yet too many of God’s people have forgotten who they are-how special they are, how needed they are to be different, to be shining lights in this dark world.  People will take note if you don’t use profanities, if you have a good work ethic, if you are honest in your dealings, if you mention the Lord as the source of your blessings.  They are particularly impressed when this becomes the pattern of our lives over months and years.  To such people others in crisis will turn in their times of trouble.  How can I relate to all of you that the pulpits from which you proclaim the Gospel are every bit as important and the ones from which it is proclaimed in church. We know what it means to have the peace of forgiveness, the certainty of heaven, the love of God in Christ, a sense of purpose for our lives, but others may not know if we aren’t concerned about having them know.  If we are concerned it will make a difference in our lives.  The encouragements to holy living in the New Testament are not meant to show us the way to earn heaven, but they are encouraged so that we might show others the God who loved us.

Now certainly you and I may have not been called in the same way as the 12 Apostles to leave our jobs for full-time service in the public ministry.  Still, as Christian disciples, we have been called to be not merely mechanics, but mechanics who have a soul-winning purpose.  Not only teachers and nurses, but men and women who have been placed in a unique position to touch lives and lead them, even if it be ever so indirectly, in the direction of Jesus.  You’re not merely fathers and mothers bringing home the bacon and putting the meals on the table, you’re people who are in a position to shape the mindset of future generations and show them how they can be part of the great mission too.  You’re not only employers, managers and supervisors, you’re men and women who have it within your power to help people grow.  You are not merely church members, but rather important soldiers in the vast army known as the Christian church.  Your efforts combined with those of other Christians in our synod’s 1200 churches can accomplish together what we cannot do individually, namely to support the work of over 70 overseas missionaries and hundreds of missionaries in the U.S.  God hasn’t asked us to die for others; his son has already done that.  We don’t even have to go in person to tell everyone on distant shores they have a savior; we have missionaries to do that for us. Yet we can go through our purse, our offerings that support their important work.

Yes, we are all part of the mission.  We even know what it is.  Our challenge is to keep focused on it right where God has placed us so that every day and in every way we continue to see our important part in the great mission of God and function effectively in it.   May God enable us to do so and thus further his rescue mission and be a vital part in helping his Kingdom to come.  Amen.