Sermon Tone Analysis

Final Sermon

*St.

Paul’s Lutheran Church, Hale, Michigan*

!

December 26, 1999

*Numbers 6:24-26*

 

                24 ““‘The LORD bless you and keep you;

                25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

                26 the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”’

The blessing and keeping of the Lord is the sum of my feelings for each and every one of you.

It is the sum of what I believe God wants for each and every one of you.

So where is the blessing when a pastor leaves a congregation to go to another?

That could be answered in a number of ways, I’m sure.

But, I believe the blessings intended for a congregation are always with the Lord.

The pastor is only an instrument God uses to bring those blessings to them.

The best blessings that can be given to any congregation is the blessing of God’s keeping.

Sometimes we get confused and think of the pastor as the blessing.

It’s not true.

That’s why when I came to you it was wrong for you to think I could be made to be just like you.

If I became just like you, we would have all missed God’s blessing.

The reason why is that the focal point would center on man, not God.

You see, it is not possible for anyone to keep you as the Lord does.

When the Lord keeps a person, a congregation, a church, He protects and guards it from the evil one.

Yes, there is such a thing as the Devil.

Yes, there is such a thing as spiritual deception.

Yes, there is such a thing as spiritual death, and these all prefer to keep you and me blind, dead, enemies of God so we cannot obtain the blessings of God.

To keep us safe, the Lord has given us His Word of Truth.

So even if a pastor goes to another congregation, the blessing of the Lord does not go with him.

It stays with you in His Word of Truth.

It has the power to keep your focus centered on Christ.

Seek your blessings there.

Hear the Word of Truth say, /“Behold, I am coming soon!

Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book.”/

(Rev.

22:7).

You see, the Word is where we meet the shining face of God.

/“The Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you.”/

Some of you have had no compunction about pointing out that it is not my face that shines, but my head.

That’s okay though, God knows where every one of those hairs are that once kept it from shining.

But what does it mean to see God’s shining face.

If we look at Scripture we will find many references to God’s face being hidden from his people.

When that happens, it’s gloom and doom, sadness and sin, for His people.

And that might be the way some of you are feeling about my departure.

Has God turned a deaf ear to you? Has he turned has face from you so as to bring harm to you? Absolutely not!

My staying or leaving has nothing to do with the Lord’s face shining or not.

When the Lord’s face shines on a person, congregation, or church, it is the sign of His keeping.

To understand this properly, we must know the way of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Although, to the world it looks like God’s punishment on a man, it was, instead, God’s face shining on all mankind.

Suffering many trials and temptations does not mean that God is not shining on you.

To think so is to be a bit shortsighted.

For it is through trials and temptations that faith is proved and strengthened.

This is why Peter writes, /“now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”/

And why is faith so precious?

It serves to shield us with God’s power against spiritual harm and uselessness.

Faith is nothing more than trust that God is able and will do whatever he has said.

So when the word condemns you and your behavior, do not think God has turned his face from you.

He is disciplining you to keep you safe unto eternal life.

He seeks to destroy everything in us that leads to spiritual death.

Considering our sinful human nature where everything evil lives, we are truly blessed to be pointed in a different direction.

And yes, that means change.

If we are not willing to change as He would change us, we in effect turn our face from His.

Then who and what will we be dependent on?

/“The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”/

You see, even if we should at some time turn our face from God, He will turn again toward us.

It is for our repentance and safe keeping that he does this.

We experience it as a release from condemnation.

And that alone can bring us the peace we desire.

It isn’t as though there will be no more wars or rumors of wars in the world.

Not at all.

It means that in the midst of the greatest warfare, the spiritual warfare against sin, death, and the devil, we can experience a restful peace, knowing that it is for the sake of Jesus Christ that we are forgiven and declared right with God.

This also has nothing to do with my staying or going.

It has everything to do with you staying with the truth in Jesus Christ, and him staying with you.

So, what should a pastor say to a congregation of people he loves when he is about to depart?

I could have talked about the good times we have had together; there has been many such times.

I could have talked about the bad times we have had together, there are few such times.

But in the end there is only one thing that really matters.

It really matters that we have been together as a family of faith, a family blessed by God and kept by him through the word of truth, a family that has experiences the light of God’s face shining in graciousness, a family at peace with God and each other for the sake of Christ our Lord.

So, what else can I say that would bring a greater blessing to you than this:

24 ““‘The LORD bless you and keep you;

25 the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

26 the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”’

Amen.