The In Crowd

[00:00:00] Well, it was 60 years ago this past week, actually, that the in crowd, Ramsey Lewis, you know, the trio, bass, drums, and piano, made the number five on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. [00:00:21] Well, I can see that really impresses you. [00:00:24] Just let me put it in perspective for you. [00:00:28] Yesterday by the Beatles was number one that week. [00:00:32] Okay. Still a huge impression. I'm overwhelmed. [00:00:37] Okay, I'll round it out just a little bit more. The Eve of Destruction by Barry Maguire was number four. Catch us if you can. Dave Clark, five, number six. Okay. Are you with me? [00:00:51] Okay, so there we are. Kind of time crunched into this, and I want to go back to the Ramsey Lewis trio, the in crowd. I was. My head in junior high, was stuck in jazz. I knew Ramsey Lewis, and for Ramsey Lewis to be on Billboard Top 100 chart kind of knocked me over, because nothing of jazz ever made that, you know, pop list. [00:01:18] So actually, if you rode home with me to Bertha today, you'd probably get to listen to some more Ramsey Lewis. And on that cut, the in crowd is there. Okay, now you can see I'm kind of focusing there on the in crowd. [00:01:34] I never really knew there were words to the in crowd. And it's only in the last couple of weeks, I actually tuned in and listened to the words to the in Crown Mama Cast, for example, with the Mamas and the Papas. [00:01:53] I'm in with the in crowd. [00:01:56] I go where the in crowd goes, and I know what the in crowd knows. [00:02:06] In crowd dresses fine, makes time. [00:02:10] We breeze up and down the street. [00:02:12] And I look at those words, and I was trying to pay attention to what on earth is this song about? And I thought, man, this is somebody that's really full of themselves. They're just like, you know, the in crowd. We are the cool dudes and all of this. And then I read the backstory on the song. [00:02:32] And of course, songwriters out of the 60s, as only they could do, were actually making fun of the people who thought they were all that. You know, the song is just dripping with sarcasm and satire and ridicule. [00:02:50] And then I happened to think that could have been the theme song for those 10 lepers that we read about today. [00:03:04] You know, I go where the in crowd goes. Like they have any choice. [00:03:09] Those lepers had to just sort of stay together and stay out of the way. They were the in crowd because they were the only crowd that they could be in. [00:03:18] And they knew what the in crowd knew. And people made way for them day and night, and they were ridiculed and they were Scorned. [00:03:34] And they were shoved off and shunted off like they weren't even a member of society. [00:03:45] Would you pray with me, O Lord, help us to see how much we need you'd mercy and how willing you are to give it. [00:03:58] Amen. [00:04:00] So really, it was certainly no accident, no coincidence that Jesus interacted with these 10 lepers that day. [00:04:11] That's not the way things work with our God. [00:04:14] God came to earth in flesh and blood, in the person of Jesus Christ, on a mission of mercy. And he came to bring life to those who had no life, whether they were 1st century Palestinian lepers or 21st century dwellers of northern Colorado. [00:04:35] As the lepers cried out as we did today in our worship, lord have mercy. Remember we sang those words, Lord, have mercy upon us. [00:04:48] Our Lord is not bothered by those words. He's not inconvenienced by those words. He doesn't sit back and think, oh great, another bunch of deadbeat sinners calling out for help. Why can't they get their act together? [00:05:05] Did you ever have that thought come to your mind as you're driving past somebody with a little sign in the median help. [00:05:13] Why can't he get his act together? [00:05:16] But that's not the way our Lord reacts. He is in fact pleased with our cries for mercy. [00:05:24] For to give mercy is why he came. To give life and to give hope to those who have no hope at all, like us. [00:05:45] Well, okay, what is it for you? [00:05:50] What is it today that's causing you to cry out, lord, have mercy? [00:05:57] Might be for yourself or for others. Might be a big problem or a small problem. Might be a physical problem or a spiritual problem or an emotional problem or a financial problem. Might be problems at home or work or school. Family problems, personal problems. [00:06:14] What causes your doubts and fears? [00:06:20] What overwhelms you? [00:06:23] What's robbing you of life and of hope? [00:06:26] What have you gotten yourself into that you can't get yourself out of? [00:06:33] Did I leave anything out? [00:06:37] I know it's something, and that's the point. For as long as we live as Christians in this world, you and I are in the crosshairs of the devil. It's like he has a target on you and he's coming to attack you in one way or another, to rob you of your faith, to rob you of your hope, to take away those very things that Christ has come to give you and to give to me. He's the very Antichrist and he wants you for himself. [00:07:09] And so it's good that we modern day lepers have banded Together here this morning to cry out with one loud voice, lord, have mercy. [00:07:26] And it's good, because how often did we fail as individuals this past week to do that very thing? To ignore our neighbor in his need. Lord, have mercy. [00:07:41] To take our struggle only upon ourselves and forget about God. Lord, have mercy. [00:07:48] Getting so wrapped up in the things of this life, we forgot everything else. [00:07:54] O Lord, have mercy. [00:08:02] And so our Lord comes here today. It's not an accident. It's no coincidence. [00:08:13] It's not that he wasn't here for you this week, but. But he comes here today. He comes to us so that we might call out to him, lord, have mercy. [00:08:25] Like we did in this morning's liturgy, and for him to put right all that is wrong, for him to undo our failure. For those wonderful words, if we confess our sins, God who is merciful, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [00:08:54] Because despite our failure, our Lord does not withhold his mercy. He does not chastise us for our lack of faith during the week. [00:09:06] Look, we heard it in Paul's letter to Timothy. He says, if we are faithless, he still remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. [00:09:17] He is faithful. That's his very name. His very name. Faithful. The name that was given to you, well given to Jacob and James and all of us at our baptism, that I am with you always. Kind of name that was, is and is to be eternally. [00:09:39] That's his name. [00:09:41] He is faithful. [00:09:46] And so even though we may be slow to seek him or quick to turn away from him, even though we may fail to pray or fall into the same pits over and over again, and even though we may doubt His Word and His presence and his goodness, and even though we may forget him sometimes, his mercy trust never fails. It's not conditional. Jesus is not. [00:10:13] He's not the one who unhealed the nine lepers who didn't come back to give him thanks. [00:10:21] No, they were all healed. [00:10:25] He doesn't take his mercy away from us. [00:10:30] He's not like us. [00:10:32] We may stop giving when we don't receive a thank you note, or we may hold a grudge against those who we think are taking advantage of us or who we think might be ungrateful or undeserving of our gifts. But not our God, not our Savior, not the Spirit who lives and dwells with us and in us. [00:10:57] Remember, if we are faithless, he is still faithful. [00:11:07] And so there's Jesus on the road that day. Not by accident, not a coincidence, but because he was on his way to Jerusalem, he was on his way to the cross to lay down his life for the forgiveness of our sins. And while our Lord never fails to have mercy upon us, well, his mercy may not be exactly like what we think it ought to be. [00:11:36] We think it ought to be fairy tale, happily ever after, pie in the sky, by and by. [00:11:42] God's mercy is not necessarily what we expect, even though we like to tell him what his mercy ought to look like in our individual lives. [00:11:53] But look at the examples we have today. Look at Ruth. The mercy to Ruth, which came to her in the context of great sorrow and great tribulation. She experienced God's mercy. How? In Naomi and Abimelech. And as a result, she refused to go back to Moab, to her old way of life. [00:12:16] She was brought into the family of God. [00:12:20] Or look at the mercy to Paul, which it came in the context of great suffering and chains in prison. [00:12:30] He lived in persecution and trouble most of his life. Trials related to his faith, they came to him all the time. Yet he refused to turn his back on the mercy of God. The good news of salvation that he was called to share with all Gentiles, including us, which brings up his mercy to you and to me. [00:12:55] It might not be like you expect, but it will always be sure and certain. Look, those 10 lepers. They were not instantly healed by some sort of a magic wave of Jesus hand, but by faith in Jesus word as they went to show themselves to the priest. And by faith, his word is how we live. [00:13:21] The journey may be long. [00:13:24] Oh, the journey may be short, we don't know. [00:13:28] But his mercy, his love, his forgiveness is never in doubt. [00:13:34] There's that wonderful psalm. His mercy endures. [00:13:39] What? [00:13:40] Forever. [00:13:43] Never in doubt. [00:13:46] Never in doubt. [00:13:50] Here's why. [00:13:52] Because the seal on the tomb was broken on that Easter morning. [00:13:58] We didn't break that seal. In fact, our sin sealed Jesus up in that tomb. [00:14:07] But God broke the seal. [00:14:11] He broke the seal. There's no power greater than than our Savior. Because no sin, no death, no demon, no grave can hold him in its power. So that neither can they hold you or me. [00:14:28] No sin, no death, no demon, no grave can hold you. [00:14:32] Because as St. Paul has proclaimed to us, if we have died with him, we will also live with Him. Our hope is as sure as his death and resurrection, to which we were joined in our baptism. [00:14:48] Jacob and James this morning joined to him, and we heard these words. Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the Dead, so we too might walk in newness of life. [00:15:09] What a promise. [00:15:13] What mercy. [00:15:17] Oh, and did you see how his mercy impacted Ruth? [00:15:21] Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God shall be my God, she sang. [00:15:29] Or did you notice how God's mercy impacted Paul? He says, look, I endured everything for the sake of the. The elect, that they us may obtain the salvation that's in Christ Jesus. Or how about how that mercy impacted the leper? When he saw that he was healed, he turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus feet, giving him thanks. [00:15:54] You know, we belong to a kind of an in crowd. Okay. Only I think it's a. I think it's a good in crowd. [00:16:07] It's the crowd that's living in faith in Christ and His mercy. [00:16:16] It's the in crowd that receives all that he has to give. [00:16:22] Because, you see, we're the crowd that is in Christ. [00:16:28] And we are free therefore, to have mercy, to take the mercy that we have received and mercy the people around us, to be God's people in this place, to make Trinity Congregation a place that people would gravitate to so that they could hear for themselves this blessing of God's mercy and this blessing of all that God has to give to us now and eternally. [00:17:04] We've been mercied so we can mercy others. We've been blessed so we can bless others. [00:17:09] And so we can rise and go and live in our Savior's mercy. He came in flesh and blood in the manger at Bethlehem, didn't he? [00:17:22] And today he will come in a manger of bread and wine. [00:17:28] And he promises to come again in flesh and blood in the manger of his glory, his eternity that he's going to bring to us and when we will finally see him face to face. Yeah, that's the crowd that I want to be in you. [00:17:50] Yeah. Amen. [00:17:52] Amen.