0412 Proper 28 Veterans' Day (Trust God in Traumatic Times!)
Title: Trust God in Traumatic Times!
Text: 14 Nov Proper 28
Mal 3:13-4:2a, 5, 6
2 Thess 3:6-13
Lk 21:5-19
Ps 98 or 95:5-10
File Categories: Jesus/2nd Coming
Central Thrust:
Ill:
Hym:
Theological Concern:
Point of Immediacy:
Probs in Comm:
Sermon in a Sentence: Can’t predict the end
Attribute of God: Trustworthy
Preached: 041114 St Michael’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, Carlsbad, CA
0745, 0900, 1030 services
(title)
I. Text summaries.
A. Mal—day will come when God will vindicate the righteous.
B. 2Th—work like we did; don’t be idle.
C. Lk—signs of the end and you will be God’s witnesses.
D. Ps 98—Sing celebration to the LORD who comes to judge the righteous!
E. Ps 95—Bow and worship God; don’t resist and miss entering God’s rest.
II. We get tired of human suffering and try to work things out for ourselves.
A. E.g. Moses striking the rock when God told him to speak to it. (c.f. Ps 95)
2 Now there was no water for the congregation; so they gathered together against Moses and against Aaron. 3 The people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had died when our kindred died before the Lord! 4 Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? 5 Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to bring us to this wretched place? It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; and there is no water to drink.” 6 Then Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting; they fell on their faces, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. 7 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 8 Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and your brother Aaron, and command the rock before their eyes to yield its water. Thus you shall bring water out of the rock for them; thus you shall provide drink for the congregation and their livestock.
9 So Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he had commanded him. 10 Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” 11 Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff; water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their livestock drank. 12 But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” 13 These are the waters of Meribah,a where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and by which he showed his holiness.
[1]
1. Bailey Gillespie story of striking ground in the Negev and having water pool up.
III. When do we use our resources and when do we rely on God?
A. Don’t be idle.
B. Worship and celebrate the God who saves!
C. Find a way to combine the two.
IV. Our experience with theodicy.
A. If attribute too much to God, He becomes responsible for the evil as well as the good.
B. If we rely too little on God, we become deists at best or agnostics at worst.
C. Balance preserves a God who suffers with us in the present but promises justice in the end.
Mal 3:13-4:2a, 5, 6 NIV
13 “You have said harsh things against me,” says the LORD.
“Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’
14 “You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? 15 But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.’”
16 Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.
17 “They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. a I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. 18 And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.
The Day of the Lord
4 “Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. 2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. 3 Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,” says the LORD Almighty.
4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.
5 “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”
[2]
2 Thess 3:6-13
Warning Against Idleness
6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching a you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. 9 We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
11 We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. 12 Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. 13 And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right.
[3]
Lk 21:5-19 NIV
Signs of the End of the Age
5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6 “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
7 “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”
8 He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. 9 When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
10 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
12 “But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 This will result in your being witnesses to them. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 All men will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By standing firm you will gain life.
[4]
Ps 98 or Ps 95:5-10
Psalm 98
A psalm.
1 Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
2 The LORD has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
3 He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to the house of Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
4 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
5 make music to the LORD with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
6 with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the LORD, the King.
7 Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
9 let them sing before the LORD,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.
[5]
Ps 95:5-10
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, a
as you did that day at Massah b in
the desert,
9 where your fathers tested and tried me,
though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
“They shall never enter my rest.”
[6]
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a That is Quarrel
[1]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 . Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville
a Or Almighty, ``my treasured possession, in the day when I act
[2]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
a Or tradition
[3]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
[4]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
[5]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
a Meribah means quarreling.
b Massah means testing.
[6]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) . Zondervan: Grand Rapids