Straighten Up and Raise Your Heads!

[00:00:03] Come, Lord Jesus. Quickly come. Amen. [00:00:11] The verse for this morning. Straighten up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. [00:00:20] Jesus says this to his disciples after telling them the signs that will mark well that the end is near. Those signs were not fun. [00:00:34] Not the kind of thing that make you lift up your head, right? Straighten up, straighten up, Raise your heads. Oh, they're the kinds of things that would make you bow your head, and not in reverence, but in despair. [00:00:56] They would make you want to run away or fall asleep. [00:01:05] Avoid those things. [00:01:08] But Jesus says just the opposite. Straighten up and raise your heads like. Strengthen your weak knees. [00:01:17] The author of Hebrews says, it's a time for boldness, for courage, not despair because of Christ. [00:01:32] No matter what happens, we are Christ's people. We've been united to Jesus Christ through baptism, united to him in his death and united to him in his resurrection, so that we no longer live, but he lives in us, so that we are no longer simply who we are as human beings, right? But now we are Christ's. [00:01:59] We are Christians, which means a little Christ. [00:02:04] We belong to Him. [00:02:07] We live in him, and he in us. [00:02:12] That's our prayer today in the collect of the day. [00:02:18] Rule and govern our hearts and minds by your Holy Spirit, that we may live and abide forever in your Son. [00:02:27] Our life is in Jesus Christ. As we look to him, as our hearts are drawn to him through faith, our life is in Him. [00:02:40] But it's a struggle. [00:02:44] The struggle to live in Jesus Christ is the struggle of the Christian faith. [00:02:50] And that struggle, I think, has been hard to talk about a little bit in Lutheran circles, in Lutheran churches, as we've emphasized that we're saved by grace through faith, not by works. It's like, okay, well, then there's nothing to do because we're not saved by our works. We've become afraid of works. [00:03:17] And for good reason in a way, right? I mean, let's say the worst thing is to think that we can trust in anything that we would do to make God happy with us. [00:03:32] We've got a sin problem, and the only fix for that is forgiveness of sins and life that comes through Jesus Christ. [00:03:41] It's only by our Heavenly Father saying, I forgive you for Jesus sake, that we're right with him or that we can be said to be righteous. [00:03:55] But if we leave it there, then we can miss the seriousness that comes through in these readings. [00:04:04] I mean, there are serious things that we are being warned against. [00:04:11] Listen to this. [00:04:14] Paul in 2 Thessalonians. [00:04:20] Well, he says there's an evil one that needs to be. That we need to be guarded against. [00:04:25] He says, and we have confidence in the Lord about you. Nope, that's not the one. It's the line before. [00:04:35] He will establish you. [00:04:37] The Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. [00:04:42] Well, thank God that's in God's court. [00:04:46] It's God's power that would establish us and guard us against the evil one. But the reason he's saying it is that we need to be established and guarded against the evil one. [00:05:00] Because he's prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour, seeking to devour your children, seeking to devour your neighbor, seeking to devour you. [00:05:13] And Paul's talking about it because this is deadly serious. [00:05:18] He wants yours and my salvation. He wants the salvation of your children and parents and brothers and sisters and neighbors. [00:05:32] He wants the salvation of all. He desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. [00:05:42] But again, he says it because it's not a given. [00:05:47] It comes through faith. [00:05:50] And faith is not something that's stamped on you and then forgotten about. [00:05:55] Faith is this living thing given to you by grace. It's a gift from God, is something to be nurtured and grown, something that grows through the hearing of God's word, by which all spiritual things are received. [00:06:21] And so there's a lot in our readings about attention. [00:06:28] That's what Jesus means when he says, stay awake. [00:06:33] He's saying, don't fall asleep. [00:06:36] Don't forget. [00:06:39] Forgetfulness is a kind of sleep. He says, well, now I'm mixing up readings a little bit here. [00:06:48] No. Yeah, this is Jesus at the end of the Gospel reading, watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness. [00:06:57] Dissipation and drunkenness kind of go together there because dissipation is like the. I don't know, the evaporation of attention. It's attention just sort of going away, being scattered into whatever kinds of things would be our attention would go into. And drunkenness kind of does that with a fog. And you kind of lose. [00:07:22] Lose your conscious attention to some degree. But he's also talking about the cares of this life, which also dissipate our attention, maybe give faith in Jesus Christ a back seat. [00:07:41] And those come in the form of concerns and worries. [00:07:45] They come in the form of ambition, greed, distraction, avoidance. [00:07:56] Comes in all kinds of forms. [00:08:02] We need to take it seriously. [00:08:06] I think dissipation is a really great image for what's happening in our Society. And I think it's probably just been this way at every time. And right now it feels especially acute and maybe just because we're in this situation. But, you know, smartphones have only been around for like 20 years, but they're so good at grabbing our attention and dissipating it. It's like, well, here's another thing for my attention to go into, and another, you know, and I have a free moment and bloop and I'm awake and ah, let's read the news. [00:08:46] And in a lot of ways, at least for a lot of us, we're just letting it happen. [00:08:54] We need to take it seriously. We need to take our attention seriously because it's through the hearing of God's word that we receive every good thing from Him. [00:09:10] And hearing takes attention. [00:09:17] How do we guard against that kind of dissipation getting sucked into the cares of life? It's not just phones, it's the news, you know, maybe on cable tv. [00:09:35] Well, it's becoming absorbed with whatever we become absorbed with. [00:09:42] What's the next thing we feel like we always have to be doing something. [00:09:48] So today, maybe part of the message is slow down, rest. [00:09:58] Not just take a break, but the kind of rest that the Sabbath rest is. What that means that the Sabbath was designed for. The kind of rest that allows us to hear God's word maybe not doing for an hour. In order to hear God's Word, we need to slow down and receive from God through faith. [00:10:24] Look to Jesus. [00:10:26] Prayer. [00:10:27] Prayer requires slowing down. Jesus went into the wilderness all the time to pray because there wasn't anything out there. [00:10:40] He went out and he prayed because faith is deadly serious. [00:10:46] And, well, Jesus wasn't going to lose. [00:10:51] He probably didn't have to do that, really. But he was a human being and he showed us what it looks like to be a human being and to endure in faith. And we should look to Jesus who has forgiven our sins and given us his righteousness and every spiritual gift in the heavenly places, and who embodies perfect human steadfastness in faith. We should look to him whom we're following also as an example of what our life should look like. And when it doesn't look like that, we should repent and receive his forgiveness. And then we should look to him as the example of what human steadfastness in faith looks like. [00:11:49] Paul comes out and says it in a beautiful line in Second Thessalonians. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ Lord, make us steadfast in this time, make our children steadfast in this time, and all those we love establish them and guard them from the evil One. [00:12:24] All around us are appearances of things. [00:12:31] The disciples, they're looking at the temple and how beautiful and. And grand it is. [00:12:37] And we put our trust in other things, maybe successes at work or in whatever arena, maybe honor that you're being given for something. Or maybe just our own pride and tendency, inclination to look at ourselves and to take comfort in the good that we think that we have. [00:13:08] Those are the appearance of things. [00:13:14] But Malachi reminds us that the day of the Lord is coming, burning like an oven, and what doesn't belong is going to be reduced to. To stubble. What doesn't endure into eternal life is going to be reduced to stubble. [00:13:34] He says. [00:13:36] Don't get caught up with now I'm just blending readings and looking. Malachi doesn't literally say this, but yeah, don't get caught up with what you thought was valuable but doesn't turn out to be. [00:13:53] Well, really of ultimate import. [00:13:59] Wake up. [00:14:01] Stay awake. [00:14:05] Watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap, for it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man. [00:14:34] We should slow down with regard to the things of this world, the things that are passing away. But we should speed up with regard to spiritual things and things of ultimate concern. [00:14:50] Jesus said, there's one thing that's necessary, and commended Mary, who was resting at his feet and listening to His Word. [00:15:00] We should speed up in those things. You know, we have opportunities every day to spend our gifts and our attention and everything that we've been given, not on the things that lock us into a crazy routine where we make ourselves busy with the things of this world. [00:15:22] Some of those things that we make ourselves busy with should stay right. [00:15:28] It's not that all of those things are, well, don't work toward the goals of God's kingdom, let's say. [00:15:42] But there are lots of opportunities that we miss out on that I miss out on in daily life. Opportunities to look to God. [00:15:51] And not just individually praying, but praying with others, gathering together with others, whether it's with your family or church, family or neighbors or friends, whatever it is, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and giving thanks to God Looking to him, hearing his word. Here you are taking advantage of hearing God's word and looking to him together and singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and giving thanks to God. I mean, we're doing it. [00:16:26] This is a. [00:16:28] A microcosm, like a little picture of all of life in Jesus Christ. [00:16:36] Every moment staying awake, watching ourselves, lest our hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life. Straighten up and raise your heads because your redemption is. Is drawing near. [00:16:56] Jesus Christ is coming. [00:17:01] He's coming. And boy, a lot of things are going to be burned away. [00:17:07] This world is passing away and that could cause some disappointment. Perhaps insofar as we're not renewed by the Holy Spirit, maybe we've become attached to some of the things of this world. [00:17:29] But by grace we have another perspective. [00:17:33] We have Jesus Christ pointing us to the life to come, an inheritance kept in heaven for us. [00:17:42] Every good thing, the through Jesus Christ, resurrection from the dead, perfect unity with God and with one another, joy and peace in Jesus, all of that we have waiting for us. Straighten up, raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. [00:18:07] Encourage the person next to you, not just about their hairdo, probably other things that you compliment. Right? [00:18:19] That's just the first thing I thought of. [00:18:26] Encourage the person next to you in Jesus Christ and maybe before encouraging them, listen to them, ask them how they're doing or some other question that's likely to get a more honest response and share the love of Christ with them by listening and then by speaking God's word as he gives you the opportunity. [00:18:53] Straighten up, raise up your heads. [00:18:58] But don't just look to do and to solve problems, to fix problems, but look to receive from God, Rest and hear His Word. [00:19:15] And then don't worry about what you're going to say. [00:19:20] Jesus says all these things are going to happen and it's not a matter of abandoning all you're doing in the world. [00:19:27] And like gathering your activity and then putting it toward carefully planning out your response to those who are going to challenge you. [00:19:40] He points them to faith. [00:19:43] Receive from God. [00:19:45] He will give you everything that you need. [00:19:50] In Jesus name, Amen.