October 3, 2024 • 27 mins
No matter what you have done, who you've hurt, or what you've said, Jesus saves us. But what does that mean? What do we do afterwards? Pastor Tim Lindeman addresses these questions and more in his sermon today.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
He bids us to repent and to turn to him
and to come to him, and when we do, he
forgives us all of our sins. It's a free gift.
He breathes his forgiveness into our lives. And then what's
our natural response? What are we compelled to do to
exhale and to share that with other people?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good morning and welcome to peace to you from Peace
Lutheran Church in Ourvada, Colorado. Jesus saves that is a
truth upon which we can rely and be certain. Through
his forgiveness, we are saved from our sins, and he
continues to save us each day. Made right with God.
Through this forgiveness, he saves us from our sinful paths
(00:51):
that we take, the messes that we make, in the
relationships that we break. As we live in his pattern
of repentance and forgiveness, God continues to save today. Pastor
Tim Lindemann explores God's saving work and how he saves
us every day. Now here's Pastor Tim.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
So. One of my most fond or vivid memories of
as a child was going to Sunday School. And one
of the things about Sunday School that I remember the
most is sitting there and looking at the large posters
that they had of life size images that reflected the
(01:33):
story that we were studying for the day. Now you
would make it makes sense me being having a hearing problem,
that I would be a visual learner, and so I
would gaze at these pictures. And one of my favorite
stories of all of them is the story of Zakias. Now,
there are a couple of reasons why I might have
related to Zachias. First of all, he was a little man,
(01:56):
and I could understand what it was like to try
to see over the heads of other people. It happened
every Sunday in church. My mom and dad insisted that
I would sit quietly in church, But the problem was
sitting quietly in abew is I couldn't see over all
the heads in front of me. I understood what it
was like to be a wee little man. The other
part of it is that I think there was a
(02:16):
song that went with it. And my family music was
a huge part of our home, and so there was
a song that maybe some of you are familiar with.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Keillus was a wee little man. A wee little man
was he? He climbed up in a sycamore tree for
the lord he wanted to see and as a save
your pass that way, he looked up in the tree
and he said, Zakias, come on down for I'm going
(02:50):
to your house today, or I'm going to your house today.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Well, thank you for singing, but I could get you
to clap huh. You know, as I was thinking about
that on story, as a child, I could relate. I
could relate because of a little child. You're small, right,
And as I would look at the picture, I would
(03:19):
oftentimes just look at the facial expressions, like look at
the guy down in the right hand corner of the
bottom on the right hand side, he's looking up in
the tree, like what is this crazy guy doing up
in the tree? That's child's play, right, And here this
guy is in his well dressed he's all ready to go,
(03:40):
and there he is in the tree. And then the
guy on the far left over there, he's looking at
Jesus wondering why are you talking to this guy? And
some of the others that are around there are have
angry expressions on their face like don't you know who
this is? This is a guy that we don't like
to hang around. He's not a savory character, all right.
(04:04):
And then I would oftentimes gaze at Zechias's face as
he's looking down at Jesus with surprise, and then look
at Jesus a look of kindness on his face, and
he's reaching out, inviting himself into Zechias's life. As a child,
(04:28):
I still remember, even as a young age, that I
learned the lesson that Jesus saves. And I remember even
as a child of that Bible verse at the very
end of our gospel reading the pastor guy just read
a little bit ago. I'd like you to read it
with me today. Salvation has come to this house, for
(04:50):
the son of Man came to seek and to save
the lost. I learned that Jesus saves. He saves us
from our sins. When we disappointment, we walk outside the
boundaries of his grace and his design for this world.
And I also learned something else. As a child not
(05:11):
able to spell that word weed in my mind's eye,
later on I understood this that I wasn't spelling at wee,
I was spelling at w That he was a we
little man, he was a whole lot like you and
I are, and that he came to save us Jesus saves.
(05:40):
Last week, Pastor Guy shared with us the ABC's, the
three ABC's of life as a disciple, the life of faith,
and what it looks like. The first one is it's
all his as we look out in this world, all
that we see out there, the mountains, the skies, the
heavenly hosts at nighttime, all that we are, all that
(06:03):
we have, even that last paychecks, it's all his. And
this week we're learning that He saves. We've already talked
about that with the children, and next week we're gonna
be talking about the fact that His will is what's
best for everyone. So today we're talking about He saves.
And it's indeed true that Jesus saves us from our sins. Right.
(06:26):
That was the message that I heard as a little child,
that Jesus saves us from our sins and saves even
somebody as small and insignificant as I felt, And sometimes
I still feel that way. But as I got older,
(06:47):
I began to understand the gravity of the whole situation
and who exactly this Achias was. This Achias was not
a nice guy. I mean, first of all, he's a
tax collector. Not very many of us want tax collector
knocking at our door, right, we don't want him giving
us a phone caller, sending us a letter in the mail.
(07:07):
Tax collectors, just by the nature of what they do,
are not popular people. But in there in Jesus day
and age, in that day and age, it was even
worse because he wasn't taxing the people that are collecting
taxes for the people of that country, their home country.
He was collecting taxes for the enemy, the Roman government,
(07:29):
who had come in and taken over. They weren't welcome
and neither was the fact that they were collecting taxes.
And so the people looked at Zakiyas and other tax
collectors as like being a trader, and they hated him
for it. And what made matters worse is that the
way that they would make their money is by charging
just a little bit extra, and that was their salary.
(07:51):
But it was really easy to defraud the people and
charge extras and a lot extra and get rich and
wealthy over that. And the people were looking at Jesus thinking,
who are you talking to? Don't you know that this
guy is a trader, he's a thief. We don't like
this guy. Why are you talking to him, But Jesus saves.
(08:18):
And then as I got older, I started realizing that
Jesus doesn't just save people like us, who I would
consider to be pretty good people, people that go to
church on Sunday and spend time teaching our children about Jesus.
Is Jesus came for everyone. Jesus came to save everyone.
(08:43):
And how did he do that. He took the sins
of every human being that ever lived and or ever
will live, and he put them on his shoulder, and
he carried them to the cross. And there on that
cross he bore our punishment, our death, our damnation for us,
so that we don't have to And three days later
he rose again from the dead, and through that he
(09:05):
conquered death. He saves us from sin, He saves us
from Satan, He saves us from death. Jesus saves, He
saves us from our sin. And God hasn't finished with
me yet. So this week, as I was spending some
time in his word, I started looking at it not
(09:29):
from the perspective of how he responded to the people.
And how did he respond to the people? What did
he do? He stood up and he said checking The
next Bible verse read it with me as the key
is stood, and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, the
half of my goods I give to the poor, And
(09:49):
if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. Now,
the first thing I was thinking is where how could
he do that? I mean, give half of what he had,
all right, and out of the remaining half to give
everybody four times what he defrauded him. All right, if
(10:10):
there was anybody I defrauded of anything, I'm thinking he
probably defrauded everybody. Right. He must have got a great
return on his investments during his business time. Right. But
here's the thing I started looking at it, not from
the perspective of how he responded to the people, but
(10:31):
how he responded to Jesus. Did you notice what he
calls Jesus. He doesn't call him his friend, although that
would be appropriate because Jesus wanted to be his friend,
inviting himself to his house. He didn't call him savior,
and that would be appropriate too, because Jesus said, Salvation
(10:54):
has come to this house, this household, all right, he
was the savior. He calls him lord? Why does he
call him lord? There were two reasons that came to
my mind this week as I was thinking about that,
(11:17):
first of all, out of gratitude for what Jesus had
done for him, the salvation that he had brought, the
forgiveness that he experienced. He was filled with a heart
full of gratitude. His heart was overflowing with gratitude to
the point where he wanted to be able to say
thank you as he followed and obeyed this savior. And
(11:41):
so not only then did Jesus become his savior, but
he became his lord, the one that he followed with
all his might and his power. But there was another thing,
and that is that Jesus had restored him to a
right relationship. He restored him and reconciled him back to
(12:02):
the way God intended him to be, and all the
way back in the garden of Eden. God is our Lord.
He's the one who set out those boundaries, those rules
that we talked about for our own good, and if
we live within those that we live in his grace
and his mercy. So this week, Pastor Guy and I
(12:28):
were talking about this, and we were just kind of
talking and he started going and we started talking about
what is it that God saves us from? Of course,
First of all, he saves us from our sin, but
he also saves us from the paths we take. You
look at the path that Zachias was on. He was
(12:53):
on this path to destruction. It was totally self centered,
It was greed, It was all about himself. And what
did it do? It damaged everything in his life. He
was on this path of destruction. And those that money
for all the money, and I want to goodbye, None
(13:14):
of it satisfied. He was on a path of destruction.
What did God do? Jesus bid him to turn to repent,
to turn to him, and suddenly he was on a
path not of greed and self centeredness, but a path
(13:35):
of generosity and self sacrifice. Our God saves us from
the paths we take, and he also saves us from
the messes that we make. The keys. His life was
a mess. His reputation was in shambles. His relationship, yes,
(14:01):
did he even have any good relationships? His loyalty was gone,
His relationship with God was terrible. He wasn't walking with God,
and he wasn't walking with the people. He had made
a total mess out of his life, and he was
empty again. All the money and all the things that
(14:23):
they could buy didn't satisfy him. How do we know?
He was working desperately to see Jesus, to find something
that was going to fill that emptiness withinside of him,
to the point where he was willing to do away
with his own personal dignity and climb a tree like
a little child, just so he could see Jesus. And
(14:44):
Jesus came into his life, and he saved him from
the messages that he made. Our Lord God saves us
also from the relationships that we break. He had no relationships,
but they were healed in the end when he followed
(15:08):
the pattern that Jesus had established repentance and forgiveness. He
understood what it was like to have a good relationship
with God, and he wanted to share that with other people.
And so he did exactly what we just talked about.
He said, half of what I have I'm going to
give to the poor, and the other half I'm going
(15:29):
to use to pay everybody back four hundred percent what
I owe them. Our God saves I don't know if
you noticed, but his rhymes our God saves us from
our sin, from the paths that we take, from the
(15:53):
messages we make, from the relationships we break. I can't
take credit for that, Pastor Guy, I said, we were talking,
he just got on a roll and before he knew it,
he was a poet and didn't know it right. And
I said, can I borrow that? Because I was feverishly
writing it down. I'd like to borrow a page from
(16:13):
another preacher, The speaker of the Lutheran Ower, Michael Ziegler,
describes this healed relationship with God, and he compares it
to breathing. As we breathe, we breathe in life giving air. Right.
(16:35):
We inhale, and we use that oxygen out of that air,
and our body uses it as fuel. But we don't
just inhale. There's an involuntary response. We also exhale, and
as we exhale, we breathe out carbon dioxide, which feeds
(16:57):
plans and other organisms with the air that they need
for life. And then they do the same thing in return.
And here's the thing. Our God brethes his salvation into
our lives. He bids us to repent and to turn
to him and to come to him, and when we do,
he forgives us all of our sins. It's a free gift.
(17:19):
Here His forgiveness into our lives. And then what's our
natural response. What are we compelled to do to exhale
and to share that with other people, to exercise that
pattern of repentance and forgiveness so that we can live
in a right relationship with other people. Our God saves,
(17:39):
and as we follow him, as we share what He's
given to us, as we repent and forgive, and when
others repent and we forgive and return, our God saves.
He gives us a way out of those paths that
(18:02):
are wayward, those messes that are made, and the relationships
that are broken. So today I want you to remember
two words, he saves. Amen.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Good morning, pastor Tim Well, good morning as usual, very
thought provoking. I love your sermons. They just make me
think way too much. Sometimes I overthink things. But you know,
this whole idea of Jesus saves. Okay, we've heard that
a lot. But the forgiveness and the forgiveness that you
talked about in your sermon today, is this incredible because
(18:44):
you know I was thinking about that when you're talking
about Zuchias and is Achius like Matthew too, you know,
me and tax collectors just despised by the people, hated
by the people, but yet loved by God, by Jesus.
Jesus loves them even though he knew what they did,
he knew their sins, but he loved them, and zukey
(19:06):
is you know, even took that extra step to try
to make amends, tried to do what he could for
the people to pay back, you know, But Jesus he forgives.
He doesn't need that, He doesn't need that payback, so
to speak. He forgives us because he loves us. On
the right track here, well, there.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Is justice, right. We have a God who's definitely a
god of love, but he's also a god of justice,
and justice needs to be served. As we know from scripture,
the wages of sin is death. God told Adam and
Eve that in the garden of Eden, if you eat
of this tree, you know, you'll be going against my design,
(19:48):
my pattern, you'll be not living under my lordship, right,
and that will lead to death. And so death is
is definitely part of the justice. But he paid that
price for us. He came and he suffered, and he
(20:08):
died on the cross to do that. And why did
why did he do that? Why did was he willing
to pay the price for that.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Well, because we're his.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
He created us, he loves us, and it's purely out
of as Martin Luther said, botherly divine goodness and mercy,
that he would do this for us because we belonged
to him. And so we talk about the abcs of
the Christian faith. It's all his. He saves and his
(20:39):
will is what's best for everyone. Well, because we are his,
he loves us, and out of that love, just purely
out of his love, he was willing to come and
save and pay that price, and justice was served, but
not the right person paid the price.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Jesus did it for us, right, Yeah, we love our children.
He loves us even more right as his children.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And as unlovable and unforgivable as the people of his day.
Thoughts A key as was Jesus still looked at him
as his beloved, as his child, and he wanted to
restore that relationship with us. So that's what motivated Jesus
to save, and that's what he motivates him to save
you and me as well, that he offers us that
(21:26):
same salvation no matter who we are or how small
we might be in the eyes of others. How sinful
we might be in the eyes of God.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Man is much more critical than God is of us.
You know, men can just really hate us and be
angry with us. But God's not that way.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
No, not at all, And that's why he continues to save. Right.
He wants not only that relationship to be made right
between us and him, and he may made that possible
through his death and his resurrection that he restored us
through faith as his children, but he also now enables
(22:09):
us to have that salvation play out in our relationships
with one another.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Right right, And you know later on we said it
in the introduction too, about God saves us from sin,
the path we've taken, the message that we make, and
the relationship that we break. Well, the question is, and
I heard somebody say, you know, so is our relationship
with God broken? Is Have we severed our relationship with God?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
We have, and it is, and it was severed by sin.
But He came to bridge that gap. He came to
save us, and he restored that relationship. And now he
continues to save as we practice that in response to
his love. Just like Zachiez. He came out and he said,
you know, if I've defrauded anybody anything, I will restore
(23:02):
it fourfold. He had that desire to make his relationships
with others okay. And now he wasn't paying restitution. That
kind of sounds like he's paying the price, right, But
that isn't it, because you can never buy back somebody's favor.
But what he did is out of response. He responded
(23:23):
in love. And so as we live by God's pattern
of repentance and forgiveness, if we live under the guidance
of his example of grace of undeserved kindness, as we forgive,
then we can restore all of those things. The broken paths,
(23:47):
the broken relationships, the messes that we make, they can
all be restored and made right through forgiveness and repentance.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
And all God asks us of us and Jesus of
us is to love him, to love him and tell
others about him, and to recognize that that love that
He has for us.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
And we're even incapable of that. Yes, And thanks be
to God that he sent his Holy Spirit as our
counselor as our helper, so that we might be able
to believe and come to faith in the first place,
and then empowered to be able to share that love
and forgiveness with other people.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Isn't that true? That you know?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And he.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I think it's just so hard for us to fathom
that kind of love because we are a vindictive creature,
we are sometimes an unforgiving creature. It's hard for us
to fathom that right.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Our natural inclination is to get even right, so we
can never get even that would just continue on and
on and on. His his goal is to heal and
and his is to restore and to reconcile, and that's
only done through forgiveness. And that's only we're only able
to do that through His help.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
What a friend we have in Jesus. Well, pastor Tim,
thank you so much for that message and blessings on
your week. And we hope that people come and join
us here at Peace Lutheran Church in Oravada on Sunday
mornings at eight o'clock and again at ten thirty in
the Bible classes at nine fifteen, and we'll hope they'll
join us here right at fifty seventh in field.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
God bless your wage, Thank you, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
A peace to you from Peace Church in our bat To, Colorado.
If you have no church home We would be delighted
for you to join us on any Sunday. Our address
is five six seventy five Field Street in our Bada, Colorado.
Our services are at eight and ten thirty am. Bible
classes for all ages are at nine to fifteen am.
(25:57):
You can easily access our sermons online at www dot p,
s Lucret dot M, or at Pasarbata at YouTube dot com.
Peace to You in Part is a listener supported broadcast.
If you would like to sponsor a broadcast in the future,
call us at three O three four two four four
(26:19):
four five four. If you would like a copy of
today's broadcast and no charge to you, contact us at
the same number three oh three four two four four
four five four. You can access our sermons at any
time by going to our YouTube channel, peaceharbatatube dot com.
(26:39):
Now from the entire broadcast team at Peace Lupmchurch and Arbada,
I am Reuben Holiday and may the Peace of Our
Lord be with you today and always
He bids us to repent and to turn to him
and to come to him, and when we do, he
forgives us all of our sins. It's a free gift.
He breathes his forgiveness into our lives. And then what's
our natural response? What are we compelled to do to
exhale and to share that with other people?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good morning and welcome to peace to you from Peace
Lutheran Church in Ourvada, Colorado. Jesus saves that is a
truth upon which we can rely and be certain. Through
his forgiveness, we are saved from our sins, and he
continues to save us each day. Made right with God.
Through this forgiveness, he saves us from our sinful paths
(00:51):
that we take, the messes that we make, in the
relationships that we break. As we live in his pattern
of repentance and forgiveness, God continues to save today. Pastor
Tim Lindemann explores God's saving work and how he saves
us every day. Now here's Pastor Tim.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
So. One of my most fond or vivid memories of
as a child was going to Sunday School. And one
of the things about Sunday School that I remember the
most is sitting there and looking at the large posters
that they had of life size images that reflected the
(01:33):
story that we were studying for the day. Now you
would make it makes sense me being having a hearing problem,
that I would be a visual learner, and so I
would gaze at these pictures. And one of my favorite
stories of all of them is the story of Zakias. Now,
there are a couple of reasons why I might have
related to Zachias. First of all, he was a little man,
(01:56):
and I could understand what it was like to try
to see over the heads of other people. It happened
every Sunday in church. My mom and dad insisted that
I would sit quietly in church, But the problem was
sitting quietly in abew is I couldn't see over all
the heads in front of me. I understood what it
was like to be a wee little man. The other
part of it is that I think there was a
(02:16):
song that went with it. And my family music was
a huge part of our home, and so there was
a song that maybe some of you are familiar with.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Keillus was a wee little man. A wee little man
was he? He climbed up in a sycamore tree for
the lord he wanted to see and as a save
your pass that way, he looked up in the tree
and he said, Zakias, come on down for I'm going
(02:50):
to your house today, or I'm going to your house today.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Well, thank you for singing, but I could get you
to clap huh. You know, as I was thinking about
that on story, as a child, I could relate. I
could relate because of a little child. You're small, right,
And as I would look at the picture, I would
(03:19):
oftentimes just look at the facial expressions, like look at
the guy down in the right hand corner of the
bottom on the right hand side, he's looking up in
the tree, like what is this crazy guy doing up
in the tree? That's child's play, right, And here this
guy is in his well dressed he's all ready to go,
(03:40):
and there he is in the tree. And then the
guy on the far left over there, he's looking at
Jesus wondering why are you talking to this guy? And
some of the others that are around there are have
angry expressions on their face like don't you know who
this is? This is a guy that we don't like
to hang around. He's not a savory character, all right.
(04:04):
And then I would oftentimes gaze at Zechias's face as
he's looking down at Jesus with surprise, and then look
at Jesus a look of kindness on his face, and
he's reaching out, inviting himself into Zechias's life. As a child,
(04:28):
I still remember, even as a young age, that I
learned the lesson that Jesus saves. And I remember even
as a child of that Bible verse at the very
end of our gospel reading the pastor guy just read
a little bit ago. I'd like you to read it
with me today. Salvation has come to this house, for
(04:50):
the son of Man came to seek and to save
the lost. I learned that Jesus saves. He saves us
from our sins. When we disappointment, we walk outside the
boundaries of his grace and his design for this world.
And I also learned something else. As a child not
(05:11):
able to spell that word weed in my mind's eye,
later on I understood this that I wasn't spelling at wee,
I was spelling at w That he was a we
little man, he was a whole lot like you and
I are, and that he came to save us Jesus saves.
(05:40):
Last week, Pastor Guy shared with us the ABC's, the
three ABC's of life as a disciple, the life of faith,
and what it looks like. The first one is it's
all his as we look out in this world, all
that we see out there, the mountains, the skies, the
heavenly hosts at nighttime, all that we are, all that
(06:03):
we have, even that last paychecks, it's all his. And
this week we're learning that He saves. We've already talked
about that with the children, and next week we're gonna
be talking about the fact that His will is what's
best for everyone. So today we're talking about He saves.
And it's indeed true that Jesus saves us from our sins. Right.
(06:26):
That was the message that I heard as a little child,
that Jesus saves us from our sins and saves even
somebody as small and insignificant as I felt, And sometimes
I still feel that way. But as I got older,
(06:47):
I began to understand the gravity of the whole situation
and who exactly this Achias was. This Achias was not
a nice guy. I mean, first of all, he's a
tax collector. Not very many of us want tax collector
knocking at our door, right, we don't want him giving
us a phone caller, sending us a letter in the mail.
(07:07):
Tax collectors, just by the nature of what they do,
are not popular people. But in there in Jesus day
and age, in that day and age, it was even
worse because he wasn't taxing the people that are collecting
taxes for the people of that country, their home country.
He was collecting taxes for the enemy, the Roman government,
(07:29):
who had come in and taken over. They weren't welcome
and neither was the fact that they were collecting taxes.
And so the people looked at Zakiyas and other tax
collectors as like being a trader, and they hated him
for it. And what made matters worse is that the
way that they would make their money is by charging
just a little bit extra, and that was their salary.
(07:51):
But it was really easy to defraud the people and
charge extras and a lot extra and get rich and
wealthy over that. And the people were looking at Jesus thinking,
who are you talking to? Don't you know that this
guy is a trader, he's a thief. We don't like
this guy. Why are you talking to him, But Jesus saves.
(08:18):
And then as I got older, I started realizing that
Jesus doesn't just save people like us, who I would
consider to be pretty good people, people that go to
church on Sunday and spend time teaching our children about Jesus.
Is Jesus came for everyone. Jesus came to save everyone.
(08:43):
And how did he do that. He took the sins
of every human being that ever lived and or ever
will live, and he put them on his shoulder, and
he carried them to the cross. And there on that
cross he bore our punishment, our death, our damnation for us,
so that we don't have to And three days later
he rose again from the dead, and through that he
(09:05):
conquered death. He saves us from sin, He saves us
from Satan, He saves us from death. Jesus saves, He
saves us from our sin. And God hasn't finished with
me yet. So this week, as I was spending some
time in his word, I started looking at it not
(09:29):
from the perspective of how he responded to the people.
And how did he respond to the people? What did
he do? He stood up and he said checking The
next Bible verse read it with me as the key
is stood, and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, the
half of my goods I give to the poor, And
(09:49):
if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. Now,
the first thing I was thinking is where how could
he do that? I mean, give half of what he had,
all right, and out of the remaining half to give
everybody four times what he defrauded him. All right, if
(10:10):
there was anybody I defrauded of anything, I'm thinking he
probably defrauded everybody. Right. He must have got a great
return on his investments during his business time. Right. But
here's the thing I started looking at it, not from
the perspective of how he responded to the people, but
(10:31):
how he responded to Jesus. Did you notice what he
calls Jesus. He doesn't call him his friend, although that
would be appropriate because Jesus wanted to be his friend,
inviting himself to his house. He didn't call him savior,
and that would be appropriate too, because Jesus said, Salvation
(10:54):
has come to this house, this household, all right, he
was the savior. He calls him lord? Why does he
call him lord? There were two reasons that came to
my mind this week as I was thinking about that,
(11:17):
first of all, out of gratitude for what Jesus had
done for him, the salvation that he had brought, the
forgiveness that he experienced. He was filled with a heart
full of gratitude. His heart was overflowing with gratitude to
the point where he wanted to be able to say
thank you as he followed and obeyed this savior. And
(11:41):
so not only then did Jesus become his savior, but
he became his lord, the one that he followed with
all his might and his power. But there was another thing,
and that is that Jesus had restored him to a
right relationship. He restored him and reconciled him back to
(12:02):
the way God intended him to be, and all the
way back in the garden of Eden. God is our Lord.
He's the one who set out those boundaries, those rules
that we talked about for our own good, and if
we live within those that we live in his grace
and his mercy. So this week, Pastor Guy and I
(12:28):
were talking about this, and we were just kind of
talking and he started going and we started talking about
what is it that God saves us from? Of course,
First of all, he saves us from our sin, but
he also saves us from the paths we take. You
look at the path that Zachias was on. He was
(12:53):
on this path to destruction. It was totally self centered,
It was greed, It was all about himself. And what
did it do? It damaged everything in his life. He
was on this path of destruction. And those that money
for all the money, and I want to goodbye, None
(13:14):
of it satisfied. He was on a path of destruction.
What did God do? Jesus bid him to turn to repent,
to turn to him, and suddenly he was on a
path not of greed and self centeredness, but a path
(13:35):
of generosity and self sacrifice. Our God saves us from
the paths we take, and he also saves us from
the messes that we make. The keys. His life was
a mess. His reputation was in shambles. His relationship, yes,
(14:01):
did he even have any good relationships? His loyalty was gone,
His relationship with God was terrible. He wasn't walking with God,
and he wasn't walking with the people. He had made
a total mess out of his life, and he was
empty again. All the money and all the things that
(14:23):
they could buy didn't satisfy him. How do we know?
He was working desperately to see Jesus, to find something
that was going to fill that emptiness withinside of him,
to the point where he was willing to do away
with his own personal dignity and climb a tree like
a little child, just so he could see Jesus. And
(14:44):
Jesus came into his life, and he saved him from
the messages that he made. Our Lord God saves us
also from the relationships that we break. He had no relationships,
but they were healed in the end when he followed
(15:08):
the pattern that Jesus had established repentance and forgiveness. He
understood what it was like to have a good relationship
with God, and he wanted to share that with other people.
And so he did exactly what we just talked about.
He said, half of what I have I'm going to
give to the poor, and the other half I'm going
(15:29):
to use to pay everybody back four hundred percent what
I owe them. Our God saves I don't know if
you noticed, but his rhymes our God saves us from
our sin, from the paths that we take, from the
(15:53):
messages we make, from the relationships we break. I can't
take credit for that, Pastor Guy, I said, we were talking,
he just got on a roll and before he knew it,
he was a poet and didn't know it right. And
I said, can I borrow that? Because I was feverishly
writing it down. I'd like to borrow a page from
(16:13):
another preacher, The speaker of the Lutheran Ower, Michael Ziegler,
describes this healed relationship with God, and he compares it
to breathing. As we breathe, we breathe in life giving air. Right.
(16:35):
We inhale, and we use that oxygen out of that air,
and our body uses it as fuel. But we don't
just inhale. There's an involuntary response. We also exhale, and
as we exhale, we breathe out carbon dioxide, which feeds
(16:57):
plans and other organisms with the air that they need
for life. And then they do the same thing in return.
And here's the thing. Our God brethes his salvation into
our lives. He bids us to repent and to turn
to him and to come to him, and when we do,
he forgives us all of our sins. It's a free gift.
(17:19):
Here His forgiveness into our lives. And then what's our
natural response. What are we compelled to do to exhale
and to share that with other people, to exercise that
pattern of repentance and forgiveness so that we can live
in a right relationship with other people. Our God saves,
(17:39):
and as we follow him, as we share what He's
given to us, as we repent and forgive, and when
others repent and we forgive and return, our God saves.
He gives us a way out of those paths that
(18:02):
are wayward, those messes that are made, and the relationships
that are broken. So today I want you to remember
two words, he saves. Amen.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Good morning, pastor Tim Well, good morning as usual, very
thought provoking. I love your sermons. They just make me
think way too much. Sometimes I overthink things. But you know,
this whole idea of Jesus saves. Okay, we've heard that
a lot. But the forgiveness and the forgiveness that you
talked about in your sermon today, is this incredible because
(18:44):
you know I was thinking about that when you're talking
about Zuchias and is Achius like Matthew too, you know,
me and tax collectors just despised by the people, hated
by the people, but yet loved by God, by Jesus.
Jesus loves them even though he knew what they did,
he knew their sins, but he loved them, and zukey
(19:06):
is you know, even took that extra step to try
to make amends, tried to do what he could for
the people to pay back, you know, But Jesus he forgives.
He doesn't need that, He doesn't need that payback, so
to speak. He forgives us because he loves us. On
the right track here, well, there.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Is justice, right. We have a God who's definitely a
god of love, but he's also a god of justice,
and justice needs to be served. As we know from scripture,
the wages of sin is death. God told Adam and
Eve that in the garden of Eden, if you eat
of this tree, you know, you'll be going against my design,
(19:48):
my pattern, you'll be not living under my lordship, right,
and that will lead to death. And so death is
is definitely part of the justice. But he paid that
price for us. He came and he suffered, and he
(20:08):
died on the cross to do that. And why did
why did he do that? Why did was he willing
to pay the price for that.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Well, because we're his.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
He created us, he loves us, and it's purely out
of as Martin Luther said, botherly divine goodness and mercy,
that he would do this for us because we belonged
to him. And so we talk about the abcs of
the Christian faith. It's all his. He saves and his
(20:39):
will is what's best for everyone. Well, because we are his,
he loves us, and out of that love, just purely
out of his love, he was willing to come and
save and pay that price, and justice was served, but
not the right person paid the price.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Jesus did it for us, right, Yeah, we love our children.
He loves us even more right as his children.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And as unlovable and unforgivable as the people of his day.
Thoughts A key as was Jesus still looked at him
as his beloved, as his child, and he wanted to
restore that relationship with us. So that's what motivated Jesus
to save, and that's what he motivates him to save
you and me as well, that he offers us that
(21:26):
same salvation no matter who we are or how small
we might be in the eyes of others. How sinful
we might be in the eyes of God.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Man is much more critical than God is of us.
You know, men can just really hate us and be
angry with us. But God's not that way.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
No, not at all, And that's why he continues to save. Right.
He wants not only that relationship to be made right
between us and him, and he may made that possible
through his death and his resurrection that he restored us
through faith as his children, but he also now enables
(22:09):
us to have that salvation play out in our relationships
with one another.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Right right, And you know later on we said it
in the introduction too, about God saves us from sin,
the path we've taken, the message that we make, and
the relationship that we break. Well, the question is, and
I heard somebody say, you know, so is our relationship
with God broken? Is Have we severed our relationship with God?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
We have, and it is, and it was severed by sin.
But He came to bridge that gap. He came to
save us, and he restored that relationship. And now he
continues to save as we practice that in response to
his love. Just like Zachiez. He came out and he said,
you know, if I've defrauded anybody anything, I will restore
(23:02):
it fourfold. He had that desire to make his relationships
with others okay. And now he wasn't paying restitution. That
kind of sounds like he's paying the price, right, But
that isn't it, because you can never buy back somebody's favor.
But what he did is out of response. He responded
(23:23):
in love. And so as we live by God's pattern
of repentance and forgiveness, if we live under the guidance
of his example of grace of undeserved kindness, as we forgive,
then we can restore all of those things. The broken paths,
(23:47):
the broken relationships, the messes that we make, they can
all be restored and made right through forgiveness and repentance.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
And all God asks us of us and Jesus of
us is to love him, to love him and tell
others about him, and to recognize that that love that
He has for us.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
And we're even incapable of that. Yes, And thanks be
to God that he sent his Holy Spirit as our
counselor as our helper, so that we might be able
to believe and come to faith in the first place,
and then empowered to be able to share that love
and forgiveness with other people.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Isn't that true? That you know?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And he.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I think it's just so hard for us to fathom
that kind of love because we are a vindictive creature,
we are sometimes an unforgiving creature. It's hard for us
to fathom that right.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Our natural inclination is to get even right, so we
can never get even that would just continue on and
on and on. His his goal is to heal and
and his is to restore and to reconcile, and that's
only done through forgiveness. And that's only we're only able
to do that through His help.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
What a friend we have in Jesus. Well, pastor Tim,
thank you so much for that message and blessings on
your week. And we hope that people come and join
us here at Peace Lutheran Church in Oravada on Sunday
mornings at eight o'clock and again at ten thirty in
the Bible classes at nine fifteen, and we'll hope they'll
join us here right at fifty seventh in field.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
God bless your wage, Thank you, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
A peace to you from Peace Church in our bat To, Colorado.
If you have no church home We would be delighted
for you to join us on any Sunday. Our address
is five six seventy five Field Street in our Bada, Colorado.
Our services are at eight and ten thirty am. Bible
classes for all ages are at nine to fifteen am.
(25:57):
You can easily access our sermons online at www dot p,
s Lucret dot M, or at Pasarbata at YouTube dot com.
Peace to You in Part is a listener supported broadcast.
If you would like to sponsor a broadcast in the future,
call us at three O three four two four four
(26:19):
four five four. If you would like a copy of
today's broadcast and no charge to you, contact us at
the same number three oh three four two four four
four five four. You can access our sermons at any
time by going to our YouTube channel, peaceharbatatube dot com.
(26:39):
Now from the entire broadcast team at Peace Lupmchurch and Arbada,
I am Reuben Holiday and may the Peace of Our
Lord be with you today and always
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