[Machine transcription]
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Oh, for a faith that would not shrink, though pressed by many a woe,
that would not tremble on the brink of poverty or woe.
Lord, give me such a faith as this, and then whate’er may come,
I’ll taste ye now the hallowed bliss of that eternal home.
And why is life so tough and difficult?
Sometimes it’s because of sin.
Our Lord Jesus, the Son of God,
lived at a time there was never a time
that He did not live.
He lived in eternity.
When God created the heavens and the earth,
Jesus and the Holy Spirit were there,
three persons, we did it. And yet there was Satan. Satan is such a real person in
our life, even today. He caused man to sin, and the wages of sin is death. Death
came into the world through sin, but God’s grace came into the world through
our Lord Jesus Christ. He kept his eyes on becoming a man because man had to be
punished, man had to suffer, man had to die, man had to pay for the sins of the
world and so our Lord Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was
born of the Virgin Mary and he became man but he was also God. He was the God
man that came into the world for us so that we might live forever in eternity.
As we read the Old Testament account of our Lord Jesus and
His work for us, we see man got into terrible amounts of sin.
God had to send a flood to punish man, and He saved people
so that we could be here today, praising God and thanking God
for sending us a Savior.
Throughout the Old Testament, he was called God and Lord.
He was called the angel of God,
but Jesus, the Son of God,
who lived from eternity to eternity,
was there to be with us,
to guide us, and to give us grace.
And what was the thing that he wants us to do?
He wants us to tell people about Him, to tell people that He is the one that paid
for their sins and their iniquities. We live in a city in which there are only
20% of the people in this city of Austin that go to church. Think about fields that
are white and to harvest. And he’s wanting us to go out into that harvest
field and win people for Jesus. There he was. He died. Before he died, he was able
to say, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said this, he gave
of the ghost. He did it for you. He did it for me. But his words have some great
strength for us, for we are going to die and we need to be able to say, Father,
into thy hands I commit my spirit. For Jesus went to the cross for us. Jesus
went to the cross but beware he went to the cross he was spit upon, beaten,
crowned with thorns. He was led away bearing the cross. It was so hard that
he gave up his cross to somebody to bear that cross along the way and then he was
nailed to that cross,
his hands and his feet,
he’s crowned with thorns.
Why? Because he had
you and me in mind.
When I think of the fact that 20 percent of the people in the
city of Boston only
Go to church now and then.
It makes me remember the fields are white at the harvest
and the labors are few.
He asked us to pray the Lord of the harvest
that he would send forth labors into his harvest.
The labors are to go out and sow the seed,
The seed that God was in Christ making friends with the world,
not charging them for their sins and their iniquities.
I remember my first summer out on field work.
I went to the city of Pawnee, Oklahoma,
and the task was given to me to canvas all around the city of Pawnee
to see whether there was anybody that could be one for Christ.
Pawnee was a city where there was a reservation for the Indians,
the American Indians.
In one of my journeys around that city,
I ran into a man I didn’t know at the time,
but he was one of the chiefs of the American Indian tribe.
I was able to talk to him for 15 minutes or so, and I forgot all about him.
Ten years later, when I was faster in Waco, there was an Indian family taking up two rows
in front of the pulpit.
And when this Indian family came to the door after service,
they said,
do you remember us?
I had no idea who they were.
And they said,
you came and visited us,
and you told us about Jesus.
And we become members of St. Paul Lutheran Church
in Fort Worth.
And we came here to thank you for telling us about Jesus,
Just think, 10 years later, the point is,
you and I are to tell people about Jesus.
We are to sow the seed so that they can say,
Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.
So that when we breathe our life,
last as Jesus gave his last breath,
we, too, will be with the Lord in Heaven.
All for a faith that would not shrink.
The devil is always after us
to cause us to have that faith shrink.
That’s the reason we attend church every Sunday.
That’s the reason we read the scriptures.
That’s the reason we go to our catechism.
And I’d like to suggest that you take your catechism
read the second article about Jesus Christ,
because there are so many passages in scriptures
that we can’t tell on a short sermon like this,
but they all have something to say to us,
and they all have something to give us strength,
so that we too can be able to say
when we breathe our last, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. Lord Jesus
who dost love me, O spread thy wings above me and shield me from alarm. Though
evil would assail me, thy mercy will not fail me. I rest in thy protecting arms.
Amen.
