Blessed

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God, our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I'm changing things up a little bit. We will touch on Ephesians Chapter 1, but before we get to that, in our Old Testament reading. God asked Amos what it is he sees. And Amos says that he saw a wall with a plumb line in his hand. Now if a wall is built with a plumb line, how should the wall be? Should be plumb, right? Should be straight. And that plumb line against it, would show that straightness. What if a wall was built without a plumb line? How might that wall turn out? I can tell you from experience, how it'll turn out. References, whether you're hanging wallpaper or your building the wall.

A couple of fellows and I in college, we were building a wall. We are tasked with building a wall to separate an area from the rest of the undercroft under the chapel at Concordia. We measured twice. We marked on the floor where the sill should be. Two lines, width of a two-by-four, all you do is lay the two-by-four in between the two lines. On the ceiling, we made similar marks where the header should go. Two-by-four up in between the two. Then we set about constructing the wall, and one of the fellas came in, after we had already laid the lines where they should be, and he asked where the wall should be, because he was helping put up the wall after they've been constructed. I said on the floor between the two lines, on the ceiling between the two lines. Somewhere, he lost the words between the two lines up above. He had set the header to the inside of the line, so there was a lean to the wall. We didn't have a level, we didn't have a plumb line, we didn't have a square. Bad carpenters, aren't we?

We didn't realize it. We thought everything was, you know, nobody checked. And so then we put on the drywall, it was painted. And then we had this huge slate Blackley on the bottom of a board. And we realize that, then we looked and it's like, sure enough. He had... there was no line along the side, he had put the header in the wrong place and now it's too late to change anything.

Spackle is a lifesaver. We wadded up some paper and stuck it in there, and then we put plaster over it. If you didn't know it was out of square, you wouldn't have noticed, really. But those of us who knew it wasn't out of square - and particularly, if you're a perfectionist, it just drove us crazy. Cuz, every time you come down the steps, you would see that chalkboard. And you knew that the wall wasn't level. God specifically sets up this wall with a plumb line, because His people Israel are not are not plumb. They're not square with God's will for them. After Solomon died, his son that took over decided that he would much rather listen to his friends and cronies and their advice, then the sage advisors that his father had, which kind of upset a lot of people. And the Kingdom split. So you had the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.

And initially the people of Israel, they were worshiping Yahweh. They set up Bethel' as their place for sanctuary and worship so they didn't have to go down to Judah and Jerusalem. But over time, they got lax, they started following after the Bales and the false gods, and God sent prophets to get His people to turn. And one of those was Amos. Amos is from Judah, so he's like a foreigner in Israel. And not only that, but he's speaking against Israel because God told him go to these people and tell them. This is what's going to happen. The king's going to be killed by the sword, and the people of Isaac will be driven from their land. Amaziah, the priest, said, don't be saying those words around here.

We don't like it when our faults are pointed out, do we? We don't like it when the plum line is held next to us, and we realize, or we are told that we don't square up with God's will. Because we're sinful. Every human being sinful. There's not one perfect, not one except Jesus Christ, the God-Man.

And neither did the people Israel. Neither did Jeroboam, Amaziah. Go away, go back to Judah and prophesy down there. And Amos says, hey, I wasn't a profit but God said, go prophesy to My People Israel. And when God tells you to do something, it's best to do it, isn't it? Not be a Jonah and say, well no I'm not going to do it, because you end up doing it anyway.

So this plum line, this will of God. Saint Paul tells us that in the fullness of time, God revealed His will in Christ Jesus. That Savior promised long ago to Adam and Eve and continued to be promised to God's people, finally in the fullness of time, came into the world to redeem those who are under the law. And Amos is speaking law to the people of God in Isreal.

Now, some of you are parents. Why do you tell your children not to do certain things? Well, quite simple. You don't want them to get hurt. And when they do what you've told them not to do, usually, because it's resulted in them getting hurt, or something else being broken, or hurting somebody else. We discipline them in the hope that they learn.

God wanted to discipline His people. And He sent Amos: Hey if you don't stop it - you know, last week I think I had the 123, or the week before on my friend and his boys in church. But they didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to hear it. Now, when we are young, we really have no choice but to listen to our parents. But as we get older and we enter into adulthood, we think we don't have to listen to our parents, and we don't even need to listen to our friends, because we figure we can do it ourselves. But God's nature is not to punish, not to destroy. He didn't want to destroy Israel. He wanted them simply to turn back to Him. He didn't want to kill Jeroboam. He just wanted him to turn from his sin. Because God's desire is not that the sinner die, but rather that the sinner come to the knowledge of his sin, confess it and repent of it and believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ and live.

In our Gospel lesson, we see Herod. And Herod knows that the word that John is speaking to him - about it being unlawful to have married his brother's wife and live with her - he knows that it's a righteous word. Does he repet of his sin? No. But he acknowledges it. He acknowledges the word of John the Baptist as being true. The plumb line being held, and Herod doesn't measure up to it. But we're told that even thought that Herod was perplexed by the words John spoke to him, he still gladly listened to him. The problem is Herodias. She's got a grudge against John.

And she's not the only one that has a grudge against God's spokesman. Amaziah has a grudge against Amos. People had grudges against Saint Paul. People in our world today have grudges against the people who speak God's word of truth.

And as much as God wanted to save Herod from his sin, Herod continued in it and made a false oath, resulting in John's death, which he was sorry for, but it was too late.

And all this, then, reminds us that that plumb line is still set. That Jesus is the plumb line that God wants our lives to measure up against. But they don't, do they? We lean this way, or we lean that way. We're all wavy, crooked. Because we're sinners. And we don't deserve all those blessings in the spiritual realm that Paul talks about. But nonetheless, God gives them to us. In Christ, He blesses us in Christ.

When we're set up against Jesus, our faults, they show themselves, don't they? But God the Father, when He looks upon you and I, His beloved children, marked with the Holy Spirit, marked with a cross on our forehead and our breast to mark us as those redeemed by Christ the Crucified. What does the Father see? He doesn't see the crookedness. He doesn't see the sin. Why? Because He sees us through Christ.

A few moments ago, your sin was forgiven. Now, maybe you still remember it, but God looks at you. He does not see that sin. He looks at me and He does not see my sin. And boy, that's a wonderful blessing, isn't it, to know that peace of God's forgiveness?

And through Jesus, Saint Paul says, we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. I mean, it isn't enough that God blesses us with the things we need for our day-to-day life, but then He lavishes on us the blessings of heaven, and we don't even know what some of those blessings are. All because, all because He chose us. Paul says He chose us that we should be holy and blameless before Him, before the world's foundation. God chose us before the foundation of the world that we should be blameless and holy. And Adam and Eve, they were blameless and holy, until the old devil got in there and stirred things up and tricked them into doing what they were told not to do.

God still wants us to be holy and blameless, but Adam and Eve's sin comes to us and we sin, and we're lost, and we're condemned by God's righteous law. But nonetheless, we stand before Him, still holy and blameless, because He has adopted us as His children through Jesus Christ.

According to the very purpose of God's will, God knows everything. He knows what you're thinking right at this very moment. Good, bad or otherwise. He knows everything about you and me, even things that we may not even really know about ourselves.

And He knew Adam and Eve were going to disobey. He knew sin would come into the world, but nonetheless, in His great love for us, He had made plans preparations for our adoption as His children through His Son, Jesus Christ, that is the seed promised to Eve. That is the Son promised to Abraham, through whom all nations would be blessed. And we, too, are blessed. And yet, we live in the world that, much like the day of Amos in Israel, doesn't want to hear God's word, doesn't want that plumb line hanging there. Because they know, they know, they're living sinful and condemned lives.

They are not measuring up to God's will. They're like Amaziah and the Isrealites. We don't want to hear that. We don't want to hear about our sin. We don't want to hear what's going wrong, and because we don't want to hear what we don't agree with, we'll cancel it. We'll cancel it. Promise Keepers. Christian men of all races gather, pray for God, pray for the nation, pray for the people. They want to cancel them. As racist. And homophobes. And yet, all they want is to communicate the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to all who believe. Because God has desired not the death of the sinner, but rather that they live. And to the praise of His glorious grace, He has blessed us in the beloved. And in Him, Paul says, we have redemption through His blood. He redeemed us, He bought us back from sin. He bought us back from the devil. He bought us back from death. Not with gold or silver, but with His precious suffering and death. His body and His blood. That we might have the forgiveness of our trespasses.

Paul really loves the congregation at Ephesus. In fact, as he has to leave, he leaves in weeping as they're lowering him down the cliffs. Because even in Ephesus, there were those that stood against God's word, wanted to cancel out what God had to say.

But then, these beautiful words: In Him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will - Paul referring to himself and the early believers - so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. The first to hope in Christ. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon. Mary and Marthy, Lazarus. We who were the first to believe might be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also. That's you all. Someday, I'll know all your names. Because you're creatures of habit. You'll always sit where you sit. And I will get to know your names. Eventually. But every one of you, when you believed, when you heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation and believed in Him were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. Sealed.

We steal things to keep them, to preserve them, to mark them. We seal our asphalt driveways to keep them preserved, we seal our decks so that they don't rot. God steals us as His own, so that we might be preserved through His word in this most holy faith. And He gives to us the sacraments and His word to sustain us in that faith. In the old days, if you wanted to seal something, you didn't lick an envelope, but you'd fold the paper, and you'd drip some melted wax on it, and then you'd take your seal, or your signet, and you'd press it into that melted wax. And then the person who'd receive the letter, the messenger comes, and they'd look at the seal, and say "Oh! A letter from Pastor Ader!" And then you'd respond back, and you'd seal it with your seal, and "Oh! A letter from!" Because I'd recognize the seal.

God has sealed us. We're His own. With the promised Holy Spirit, He has sealed you and I, who He says is a guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. How do we know we have the Holy Spirit? Scripture tells us no one can confess that Jesus is Lord, unless you have the Holy Spirit. We confess Jesus as Lord, we have the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit, we have a guarantee of everything that God promises us in heaven. Wonderful blessings in heaven. But not only that, but we're reminded of God's great works to sustain us, and to create faith in us, and to redeem us.

In the opening hymn, we sang about an Ebenezer. How many of you know what an Ebenezer is? I bet you know somebody named Ebenezer. Scrooge. But Ebenezer - the word Ebenezer - means "thus far has the Lord helped us." And was the name given to the stone of remembrance that Samuel raised to God's glory so that when the people would look at that stone, that marker, they would remember how much God help them.

We need to establish Ebenezers in our life. Maybe Luther would suggest the baptismal font or our baptism, because it's there that God begins his gracious work of helping us. He doesn't desire the death of the sinner. But rather that all would come to the knowledge of their sin and Jesus Christ as their Savior and live.

The plum line still stands, and it will be that by which God judges us all. Believer and unbeliever. The difference is, for the believer, we stand in plumb with the line because of Jesus' grace and merit given to us, lavished upon us by our heavenly Father.

Yes, we will be prone to wander. We will be prone, at times, not to want to hear God's word. We may even, at times, find ourselves perplexed by God's word coming to us. But may we gladly hear it and learn it. And allow it to continue to work its gracious blessings in our lives. Not only for our Father in heaven's glory, but for the comfort of our souls, as well. Amen.

Now may the peace of God, which surpasses our understanding, keep our hearts and our minds in faith in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.