Taking Care of Yourself

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

I'm going to be a little interactive this morning. So, that means I'm going to ask some questions and I want you to respond and because we're in a big area and it's hard, sometimes for me to hear, be sure to shout out your answer, okay? No need to be embarrassed.

So, you may have heard that the Brewers are in the playoffs. If I just showed up at American Family Field for the game, would they let me in? No! Why not? Need a ticket. Okay. Well, if they're going to be that way in Milwaukee, maybe I'll just fly to Atlanta. Will they let me on the plane? No! Why not? I need a ticket. I need a ticket.

How many of you remember Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Okay. Goodly amount. What did Charlie need to get into the factory? A ticket. A golden ticket. Yes.

We need a ticket to get in just about most places, don't we?

Do we need a ticket to get into heaven? No. But we do need to have something, don't we? Not a ticket, but we have to have faith in Jesus as our Savior, correct? And we could simply boil that all down to belief. Belief in Jesus as the Son of God and everything that we confessed in the Apostles Creed.

Now, say I did buy a ticket and I'm on that plane to Atlanta. I don't know that I'd go to the ballgame. There's plenty of other things to do around Atlanta, I hear. And while I'm sitting in my seat, waiting to take off, the flight attendant is going through a whole bunch of safety information: like look at the little card in front of you and the seat behind you, open it up, and there it shows you how to pull off the seat so you can make a life preserver out of it. May or may not be necessary flying from here to Atlanta. If it turned into a parachute, that would be really good, wouldn't it? And then she talks about where the exits are for in case we need to leave emergency exits, and then talks about the air masks. And what did she tell us about the air masks? What are we supposed to do when they drop down from the ceiling? Take care of yourself first. Have you ever wondered why does the flight attendant tell us that we need to take care of ourselves first?

Maybe you've never wondered that. She's an authority, or he's an authority figure. I'll just do what they say. What is our natural instinct when we see those things come down? Our natural instinct is to help somebody else, because most other things, you know, we're not supposed to be selfish, we're not supposed to be thinking about ourselves. But that one time, it's good to be thinking about yourself, because you can only help your neighbor if you've made sure that you yourself are safe, taken care of. And that's really what is driving the writer of the letter of the Hebrews, in what we read this morning from the third chapter. It's also illustrated in our Gospel reading and in our Old Testament reading.

In that third chapter beginning at verse 12, the author, we don't know who he is, but he says: take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the Living God, but exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So he's talking brothers and sisters: he's talking plural. Take care, lest there be in any of you - and we don't talk this way up north, but if we were down, maybe Atlanta way, they'd say - lest there be in any of y'all - you all - an evil heart, leading you to fall away from the Living God. But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

He's saying, take care of yourself, but not just yourself, but take care of you all.

Because we're all susceptible to having an evil and unbelieving heart that leads us away from the Living God. And so, the antidote to that is exhorting one another everyday as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ if indeed, we hold our original confidence firm to the end, as it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the Rebellion. So, if you hear His voice, don't harden your heart against it. Now, how do we hear Christ's voice? How do we hear His voice?

Well, you're hearing it right now, in the preaching of God's word. You hear it in the reading of scripture. You hear it when your brother or sister in faith says to you: should you really be doing that? Or, I've noticed you're going down a different path. Or, life isn't going real well for your with those choices, is it? Because what they're doing is trying to point out that, hey, you're not listening to His voice.

You are maybe beginning to develop hardening of the heart, due to the deceitfulness of sin. Because sin is always deceitful. Everything always looks pleasurable. Everything always looks like it's good for us. And it's after, you know, that fruit looked really good on that tree until after Adam and Eve took the bite. And then it wasn't so good to look at. And it wasn't so desirable for the gaining of knowledge.

And so, we should listen. The word for the day at St. John was behoove. Behoove. That's an old word. But it's basically what the author's getting at here, when he talks about exhorting one another. It should behoove us to be concerned about our neighbor, our brother and sister in faith and their spiritual well-being. But it also behooves us to be ourselves, first and foremost, concerned about our own spiritual well-being. Putting that air mask on ourselves, and sometimes, yes, sometimes, that means that we have to be open to hearing our brother or sister in faith, or the pastor, or anyone else saying: so how's your relationship with God? How's the journey of your faith? I've noticed you've been acting a tad differently. Trying in a polite way to say, hey, I got my eyes on you and you're not walking the walk.

But what's our reaction, as soon as somebody wants to point out a flaw or a sin? What happens? We get defensive, don't we? Our wall goes up. Who in the world do they think they are pointing out my sin?

I remember telling one of the confirmation students, you know, you shouldn't point the finger at somebody else. And he goes, why? I said, cuz you got three pointing back at you. He goes, well I'll just point my thumb at him. I said, that's even worse, because now you've got four pointing back at you.

But we get defensive. And maybe because we don't want to offend or make our fellow believer defensive, we don't come forth and say hey, you know, I got to do a little rebuking with you. Now, that isn't pleasant. You know, elsewhere, the author of Hebrews talks about discipline, and it's never pleasant. When you have to discipline your children, and you say "this is hurting me more than it's hurting you," and they say, "yeah, right." That really does pain you to have to discipline your child. But you know, without it, they're not going to learn, they're not going to learn that there are things that are dangerous. That there are things that aren't acceptable to do or to say.

And we put our defenses up, and we do that for other things besides sin, but it really illustrates itself. I'll share an example, real life example. And I share this with other pastors, because we sometimes get suggestions. Criticisms. Intended, I think, to be constructive but not necessarily always worded that way. And so, the defenses go up right away. And there's an example, real life couple, real life members at St. John, they're passed on, so they're with the glorious company in heaven. And when I first came, Lolita is her name, said to one of the elders, and that was proper channels, I guess. Would have been better if she'd have come to me, but she went to the elders and said, you know, Pastor Ader doesn't use enough scripture verses in his sermons. And I really don't care for all those stories he's always telling.

So the elder comes, and he relays this to me, and of course, initially my defenses go up. It's like that's the way I do it. But gracefully, I realized, you know, it's going to take her a while to get used to me. I stepped back. I went home. Mulled it over in my head. Okay, now what in there is something I can do? Something I can change? It's like, okay, I'll make a concerted effort to throw in more Bible verses and less stories in the sermon for a couple weeks. The intent was longer, but you know how it is. You slip back into your old habits. So after about a month or so, I slipped back into my old habits, and everything's good. Everything's good.

And that just always stuck in the back of my head. And nothing was ever said, you know, after awhile. Well Lolita became sick. She had cancer. I went to visit her at her home shortly before she passed away. And we were chatting, we're talking, and just before I left, she said, "Oh Pastor, I want to tell you, I just love your sermons. I love those stories." She had gotten used to me, and she got to understand that, hey, those are, you know, his way of communicating, illustrating the scripture.

And the point is is that how when we're being confronted by our sin, we need to step back and say, hey, am I being deceived by sin? Have I put something else in place of God? Am I not being faithful in my calling as a child of God? And the reason isn't that they want to be mean, and usually it's done quietly, one-on-one. The whole reason is they want to share in God's kingdom with you. Just like this woman, and I tell other pastors the same: you know, just step back. What can you do? And then implement it, and then they'll know that you've heard them. You listened, then you put it in practice. That's the same way we should be receiving that rebuking by our brothers and sisters. And it's also how you should be receiving it when you're not only the receiver, but the giver. Not doing it in a mean-spirited way, but "Hey, I'm doing this because I care about you. I love you as a brother and sister in Christ, and I want you to enter into God's promised land.

In the Old Testament, the people of God were trampling on justice. They were not listening to the ones who were speaking the truth. They're turning away justice, they were mishandling and abusing the poor. They weren't living as God's people. And they're being worned by Amos. To make the story short, they didn't listen very well, and they got carted off. In the Gospel reading, this young man comes to Jesus and says "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" That's a good question. Jesus asked "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God in heaven." And he says, "What are the Commandments? You know, them: do not steal. Do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother.

And he says, "I've kept these all since my youth."

Did this young man really keep all those Commandments from his youth? Yes, no, maybe so.

How many of you think that he kept them? How many of you think he didn't keep them? How many of you are unsure and you're hoping Pastor will tell you the answer? Yes. Yes, you'll get accustomed to me asking that from time to time. It's impossible for him to have kept them from his youth, because he's a sinner! The only one who's kept the Commandments from his youth is Jesus. The God man. He's without sin.

He's kept all of those Commandments. He's kept them for this young man's sake. He's kept them for your and my sake. Because that's part of what God the Father sent Him in the world to do for our redemption. It isn't just dying on the cross, but it's also living that life that, because of sin, we can't live, cuz that's what God demanded. He demanded that life, and He demanded that punishment for not keeping it. And so, Jesus lives the life for us. And then He takes our punishment on Himself when He dies on that cross. Now, this is where I'd ask the catechism question. But for the sake of time, I'll just answer it.

In those Commandments that Jesus lists off to that young man, every one of those Commandments was in the second table. It deals with his relating to his neighbor. Jesus does not mention anything of the first table, nothing about you shall have no other gods. You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain. You shall remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Jesus does not mention any of those first table Commandments. Is that because they're not important? No.

But He gets at those first table Commandments in what He says to the young man next. Which is the dead giveaway that he hasn't kept the other ones. Cuz if we could keep the First Commandment, we'd have no problem keeping the other nine. He says: go sell all your property, give it to the poor, and then you'll have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.

And we're told he went away sad because he had great possessions. Now, the key there is not that possessions are bad. The bottom line is that he couldn't give them up. They had become his god. They stood in the way of his attaining eternal life. Your sin, my sin can lead to unbelief that then keeps us from entering into eternal life. The unbeliever's hardness of hard because of the deceitfulness of sin keeps them from entering into that eternal life. Because their heart is hardened because of the deceitfulness of sin.

You see, we all suffer from the same affliction. The difference is, is that God's word has come to us and His Spirit has worked in us to believe all that we confessed in the Apostles Creed. And trust that and to believe that with all our heart. And it's that faith in Jesus, then, that allows us to enter into the eternal rest. The people that were denied entrance into the Promised Land in Moses' day were those who left Egypt with Moses. And none of them were allowed to enter into the Promised Land.

Now, it's difficult to wrap our head around the number of people that Moses let out. But let's make it a little closer to home, and we take the population of Wisconsin Rapids, give or take a couple hundred. It's right around 18,000 people. At least that's what it said on the sign the last time I looked. And imagine 18,000 people. The entire population of Wisconsin Rapids is headed to the Promised Land. Out of that 18,000, only two get to enter into the Promised Land. All the rest died. They were killed off because of their disobedience. They worshipped a false idol.

And God said - He was provoked by them, and He said - "You're not going to enter." And so for 40 years, they got to wander around, because that generation, those generations, they have to die. They have to die. So anyone that was living, even the first baby born, is there, you know, heading out of Egypt, they're not allowed in the Promised Land. And we might say, well, geez, that's not really very fair. Just like we might say to Mom and Dad, hey, that's not really fair. And maybe it isn't fair, but it's God's way.

Even Moses didn't get to enter because of his disobedience against God. He got to see it, but only two entered in. And he says, and who are these that were unable but those who were disobedient? And we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Unbelief.

Sometimes we get this false sense of security that because we're a baptized child of God, we can't ever fall away from faith. And yet the reality is, is that if we go down a road, lined by sin and the deceitfulness of the devil, then we can lose faith.

The Holy Spirit is not going to remain where its unwelcome. He'll leave. And in His leaving, there goes belief. And the only sin that can't be forgiven is driving out the Holy Spirit, because there is no faith to receive that gift of forgiveness.

And that isn't the end-all. As we have concern for that brother or sister, and we continue to rebuke them, and, you know, we're not working them over with clubs and such. But we're trying to win them over out of their deceitfulness and the hardness of their heart, so that the Holy Spirit can come in and work faith again through the word, that they acknowledge their sin. Confess it. Repent of it. Turn away from it.

You know, the whole reason we call it church discipline is we want to win back the brother and sister. The whole reason you discipline your children is because you want to win them back from going down errs way. You don't discipline your children to drive them away and say, "Oh, good riddance. I'm done with them. I don't have to worry about paying for that college education now." No. It's an act of love. Just as our young people up front here a few moments ago recognized. And so the whole point in exhorting and rebuking our brother and sister is not to get rid of them and say good riddance. And the purpose isn't for them to get all bent out of shape at the congregation and say, "Well fine, I'm going to go somewhere else," because you see, they haven't really dealt with the sin. It's still there. The purpose is that they can be welcomed back and receive that forgiveness and live in that forgiveness. And we're all, we're all in need of that exhortation and that rebuking. Because we all are susceptible to the deceitfulness of sin.

That young man. I'm sure he didn't see himself as caught in the deceitfulness of sin. He earnestly wanted eternal life.

I suppose there are times when you and I, we don't want to admit that we're mired down in sin. But at the same time, we don't want anybody else to recognize that and correct us, rebuke us.

And so the whole thing of taking care of ourselves, myself, first and foremost and then you, is, hey, you should be able to come and rebuked me. Exhort me, encourage me. I mean, not just pointing out: hey, you're doing something wrong. But we also need to be encouraging and exhorting in our journey as we walk.

You know, several years back, I was on the Elroy Sparta bike trail. And fortunately, we went uphill when we were fresh, so that we could just come down hill after we were wore out. And the amazing thing, it didn't matter how, what kind of bike a person had, how skilled of a biker they were, if you were going up, the people coming down were saying: just keep going, keep going, don't, you know, if you need to rest, rest, but it's worth going. It's worth going. And they kept encouraging. And so then, guess what? When we were on our way down, you know, there were people there needing encouragement. Hey, keep going. Keep going. I know it seems like you're never going to get to the top of this hill, but you will. You will, and you'll have a nice coast to the next one. Unfortunately, it isn't enough of a coast to get you up the next hill, but to rest. And the same with our upward journey toward heaven. We need to take to heart those words. Take care, lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the Living God. But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if indeed, we hold to our original confidence, firm to Him to the end. I guess I can get over not being allowed into the ballfield without a ticket. And I can understand not being allowed on the plane without a ticket. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - that's just a story.

Eternal life: that's real. The destination is real, the place is real, the eternal rest is real.

So, let's take care of ourselves, lest there be in any of us an evil unbelieving heart that will lead them to fall away from the Living God and thus be excluded from entrance into the Promised Land. The Eternal Rest, Eternal Life.

Because that's one thing that I don't think any of us would get over: being turned away from the gate of heaven because of unbelief. I don't know that there's an opportunity to say hey, that's not fair. But it's God's way.

And He warns us again and again in the scripture through various examples. And encourages us also through various examples in the scripture that in the end, we may all attain to that for which Christ has taken hold of us, given His life so that we might have eternal life.

For His glory and that of His Father with the Holy Spirit, 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.