Author: Higher Things

J.L. Moseman

One of my favorite movies, which came out way before my time, is the film Easy Rider. I found something truthful about the way it looked at society and especially how it observed people’s attitudes toward those who did not fit in. We see the two main rough-around-the-edges characters and given the way they live we can tell that they do not fit in. Of course, in the 1960s, to be a rebel was to ride a motorcycle—one of the best examples of bucking the typical 9 to 5 job and responsibilities of family life.

Now there will always be something strangely attractive about being young and rebellious. In fact, you may not realize it, but I think those of you who still attend your grandpa’s church and Higher Things® conferences are a different kind of rebel. You, my friends, are the true rebels.

What does it mean to be a true rebel? Well, it starts with acknowledging that all of us are rebels and the only causes we ought to rebel against are the false notions about our society, about our Christ and what His mission is. Being a true rebel is to go against the norms of the day. So for young people that means still going to a church that has a liturgy that is not “relevant.” It means still reading a Bible that claims authority and holds to absolute truths. It means not falling for the lie that media and fringe groups try to sell—the claim that God is not cool anymore. It means shaking our fists at the most ancient and revered tradition, that of self-reliance, especially when it comes to our salvation.

Society today would tell us that to be rebellious is a good thing, but only if that rebellion is aimed at holy institutions such as the church and the family. The movers and the shakers would say that being a rebel is admirable if you are being a rebel against the things that are seemingly old-fashioned, out of touch, and—worst of all—unfair. A true rebel knows that these opinions are based on people’s own feelings and not on objective truth. A true rebel says there is only one God and that God is One who is always doing something counter culture. So what do we rebel against? Rebel against the old evangelicals who say that Jesus’ true Body and Blood are merely symbolic. Rebel against the skeptic whose skewed biases blind him to the evidence. Rebel against the moralistic notions that being a Christian means being a good person.

Truth be told, we all have a little rebel in each of us called the Old Adam. The Old Adam helps to create confusion between the things that are truly good and the things that feel good. The Old Adam wants us to be a rebel as long as we rebel against God. This means bucking against the doctrinal realities that come from believing in the true God. Unfortunately, we will all have to contend with the Old Adam for a long time. He will be there when you graduate high school and college. He will be there when you get married and when you have your first child. He will be there your whole life. We can try to manage the Old Adam but I can tell you now that everyone of us fails and that is why we so desperately need to be at church, confessing our sins and receiving absolution and Christ’s Body and Blood.

Having received the gift of forgiveness through water, Word and the Supper, let us be a different kind of rebel, a true rebel. To be a true rebel is to announce to the world that our baptism has made us children of God, in spite of what we do. Be a rebel against the rules that say “God only helps those who help themselves” and that “I am good person.” A true rebel makes the radical statement that it is only by grace through faith that am I saved—both of which are gifts. Don’t be surprised that if you declare these things people might distance themselves from you in the same way people did from the unconventional bikers in Easy Rider. But find your strength and rest in Christ, true rebel—knowing He has your back.

J.L. Moseman is a blogger and podcaster that lives in Grand Junction, Colorado. He attends Messiah Lutheran Church.

Rev. Eric Brown

When I was a young fellow, in high school and college, the president of the LCMS was Dr. Barry, and he had a little catch phrase that was fantastic. “Get in the Word, Missouri!” That was his admonition to us: Be in the Word of God, study the Word of God, be shaped by the Word of God. It was advice that helped me navigate all the strange days of my youth, and it guides me still. So, I would pass on to you that same advice: Get in the Word, HT reader!

But practically speaking, what does this mean? This isn’t just a finger wagging “read your Bible more” sort of thing. Rather this: Remember that the world is going to throw all sorts of assertions and ideas at you. You will get told by friends, by teachers, by media, by everything all sorts of “truth.” In response, as you evaluate all of these ideas, your thought should be, “What does God’s Word say?” And then we should pay attention to what the Word of God says.

And note, this is what the Word actually says—not what we think it should say and not what we assume it says. Get in the Word. What does God actually proclaim in His Word? In fact, this is how you ought to evaluate and judge those who claim to be speaking for God (that includes me, dear reader and how you should evaluate me and what I am writing here). Does it agree, does it confess (that is to con-fess, to with-speak) what the Scriptures teach?

Consider what folks in the world say to you. Do they say that there is no right and no wrong, or do they say that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God? Do they tell you to do what your heart tells you, or do they note that it is out from out the heart that all sort of sinful desires come? Do they treat good and evil as just “social constructs” that don’t really exist, or is sin and temptation something that lies crouching at your door? Be in the Word, so that you know what God says is right, rather than doing what you think is right in your own eyes.

Likewise, as you end up leaving home, go out into the greater world and have to find a place to hear the Word preached, what do they preach to you? Is the point to help you realize your best life now, or do they tell you that you will have hardship but take heart, for Christ has overcome the world for you? Do they use the Word of God as a club to beat you down, or do they teach that these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you have life in His name? Do they tell you that you have to jump through hoops to make God love you, or do they say that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us? Be in the Word, so that you know whether or not the pastor is selling filth of his own devising, or implanting the Word which is able to save your soul.

It’s a big, wide world out there, full of lots of ugliness and lies and falsehoods, even from folks claiming to speak for God. Be in the Word, because it’s not by your own reason or strength that you’ll get by. Rather, the Holy Spirit will call you by the Gospel, enlighten you with His gifts, sanctify and keep you in the truth faith. And the Spirit does this by taking that Word and using it in His Church to daily and richly forgive all your sins. If that’s not what you’re getting, then it’s not for you. You, be in the Word. That’s where God keeps you safe.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois.

Grace German

Church seems rather ancient. There are a lot of traditions and words in other languages. I can’t even pronounce half of the words I heard in the Old Testament reading, and there seems to be fewer people in church every Sunday.

Plus, didn’t I heard this all last week? The words certainly haven’t changed. We’re still using same book. We’re still sitting in the same pew. For some weird reason there’s an unspoken seating arrangement. I think every church has one, you know—the one that nobody talks about, but it’s always observed. You know everyone’s watching and waiting for someone who dares to switch spots.

There are the same people in church. The “ten minutes early is right on time” front row people, and the new family (whom I’ve never actually met) who comes in during the opening hymn and sits in the back row.

It gets kind of old, doesn’t it? It’s always the same. So, what’s the point of going to church every Sunday? That would be true if church were simply a social club.

I watch the news, and the world scares me. Terrorism, diseases, and natural disasters seem to happen every day. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a worrier. I know that I could wake up tomorrow and everyone I love could be gone. Everything I have could be taken away from me. That’s not just a little different. That’s a lot different. And then I think, “I could use a little of the same old thing…some stability.”

Jesus and His church is more than a source of stability. He’s the only constant in our changing world. He’s unwavering. He doesn’t falter under Supreme Court decisions or the cries of a mob. He “is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

And where is Jesus? He’s where He said He would be: Wherever two or more are gathered in His name. He’s in the sacraments: Baptism and The Lord’s Supper. And where are the Sacraments? They’re in that ancient, unchanging place of stability—His church. Every Sunday.

It’s Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper.
It’s your Baptism and the assurance of salvation.
It’s still Jesus…for you.
And that will never change.

Grace German, a 17-year-old Lutheran farm girl who loves music, baking, and chai tea, is a member at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Ida Grove, Iowa.

Jessica Jenson

What should young people know about the church? While the question is a broad one I hope that readers of any age can see these common themes: In church, we experience God physically on earth where He has promised to be. We gather as His redeemed and beloved people to hear with our own ears His Word in Scripture—the two-edged sword that brings us to humility and repentance with the Law and lifts us up again to new life, cleansed and comforted by the Gospel. We hear our sins delivered up and forgiven in Confession and Absolution. We touch, taste, and see the very Body and Blood of Christ, given and shed freely for us to feed our starving souls and give us life. We see precious children of all ages enter God’s Kingdom in the waters of Holy Baptism.

The church is not a building. It is not a social club made up for perfect people to display their talents or obedience once weekly. It is not the sum of a congregation’s music, a pastor’s talents, squabbling members, altar cloths, small group studies, mission opportunities, or size. The church is Heaven on earth—where the eternal God comes down to meet us in Word and Sacrament.

The church is a family, comprised of all those adopted by God and made His heirs through Christ’s sacrifice. Its members reflect the light of God like mirrors in the darkness. It is a community—a house of living stones. Within it, we, as imperfect living stones, can support and uplift each other only because we rest on Christ, the perfect cornerstone. Whether you find yourself far from your home congregation, in a small town, or in a big city, the church remains constant. You can find the church by these marks: the Word spoken and taught in its truth and purity and the Holy Sacraments of Communion and Baptism. You can find true comfort in this reality about the church, no matter what your age.

Jessica Jenson is a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Marcus, Iowa and is a graduate of Concordia University Chicago’s deaconess program.

Rev. Christopher Raffa

High school and college is an awkward time, even as it is joyously blissful. Largely, you live life in the moment, trying to put the past behind you and wonder about what the future holds. With the advent of social media, you are instantly intertwined with a host of relationships, yet you can often feel quite small and alone. There is so much to see and experience and so little time to ponder and digest it all.

The church often takes a backseat to your fast-paced life. Often what you want are soundbites, text messages that condense difficult and tough subjects into a small number of characters and expressive emojis. Conditioned by your culture you want to be entertained not taught, inspired not instructed, driven by the inward heart rather than the external Word of God. And you are sure of one thing: The church isn’t perfect and she is full of a bunch of hypocrites. And you know what? Your right.

One of the most important things you need to know is that the church, the bride of Christ, is a sinner. She is not without immorality and error. She is not without hate and hardness of heart. She is not without deception and death. She appears before your eyes and the world as forsaken, small, afflicted with all sorts of divisions. In the words of Martin Luther, “there is no sinner as great as the Christian church.” She is broken. And she doesn’t hide this. She herself confesses her sinfulness before her bridegroom as she earnestly prays for the forgiveness of all her sins.

At the same time, you need to know that the bride of Christ in all her sins, warts and warfare, is forgiven in the Bridegroom’s blood. In His Word, in His speaking to her, she is beautiful. She is holy when she abides in His Word. She is beautiful in Christ—not beautiful in the self-wrought works of her hands. Her holiness and beauty is a gift, wedded to her slain yet risen Bridegroom.

Sin doesn’t define her in the same way as holiness defines her. For while sin wracks her, what truly defines her is not her own word, but the Word of her beloved Bridegroom. The world wants you to believe that the church’s reality and life are defined by her works and deeds. But her reality and life are defined by the works and deeds of her Christ.

To believe this, you must accept that she is sinful yet holy is the struggle of faith, and that although there is a tension between what your eyes see and what your lips confess, holiness shall prevail for she is precisely beautiful in the Word of her bridegroom. Her holiness and beauty does not rest in herself or in her members, but solely in the holiness and righteousness of Christ. As Luther declared in his Galatians commentary, “If I look at my own person or at that of my neighbor, the church will never be holy. But if I look at Christ, who is the Propitiator and Cleanser of the church, then it is completely holy; for he bore the sins of the entire world.”

Broken yet beautiful, that is the church. The beauty of the church rests in its willingness to confess its brokenness—to embrace sinners and to serve them with its blessings and gifts. The church, you should know, is at its best when it lives among sinners, for Christ only dwells in sinners. The church, you should know, is not a place of spiritual perfection but is an infirmary for the sinner who desires the forgiveness of sins.

The beauty of the bride of Christ must always be understood as a gift given to her and a promise spoken to her. It’s never a matter of her doing, but always a matter of her receiving the gifts of her Bridegroom in penitential humility. You must also know that this beauty of the bride of Christ is always hidden in the world. It lies beneath and in the cross. You won’t see it but you will confess it. “I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”

Growing up is awkward, difficult and hard. And here is something you should never forget: The broken yet beautiful bride always beckons you to bring your habitat as young people to the table of Holy Scripture, to her Bridegroom’s external Word of God. She wants you to bring your nerdy and explicit playlists of music, your sappy novels that induce all sorts of daydreaming, your fantasies of your future life and your regrets of your past life. She wants you to bring your flesh in all its quirkiness and shatteredness, and sit under the Word of her Bridegroom as you wrestle with questions of truth and faith, love and loss, identity and death, the world you live in and the eternal world that is yours by the gift of baptism and of holy supper.

As you grow up in this crazy and constantly moving world, you should know her doors are always open to you, and when you walk through them you will always find rest and peace for your body and soul. No matter how boring you think this churchly world is here, no matter how uncool or out of touch, it stands open with an ocean of forgiveness grace and mercy. Her hold on you as sons and daughters is not so much a matter of the Law as it is the gentle hand of the Gospel.

There is nothing more beautiful to the Bridegroom when His sons and daughters come broken, so that He can declare them as beautiful. The testament of Bridegroom’s hold on you is that He has baptized you to be a beautiful bride, fed and nourished unto death and into the eternal light of His heavenly country. This what you should know, that the bride of Christ, stands here broken—holding the doors open to broken ones, only to be declared beautiful in the pew and at the altar rail.

Rev. Christopher Raffa is Associate Pastor of Pilgrim Evangelical Lutheran Church in West Bend, Wisconsin. You can email him at revcraffa@att.net.

Dr. Jack Kilcrease

When talking with various Christians about how they define the church, one is often surprised by the wide variety of answers. For example, Roman Catholics believe that the church is primarily an institution headed by the Pope. As an institution, is has a vast set of rules and regulations compiled in a book called the Code of Canon Law. Similarly, Reformed and Baptist Christians often speak of the church as a community of people who have agreed to join themselves together in order to hold one another accountable to the law of God.

On the surface these answers may seem very different. Nevertheless, what these views of the church all have in common is that they understand it to be a community held together by certain regulations. By contrast, when Luther and subsequent Lutheran Christians talk about the church, they primarily speak of the church as the holy people of God who have faith in Christ. The holiness which the church possesses is not based on human works, but on the holiness that Christ shares with the church through Word and Sacrament.

Because the holiness of the Church is not its own but comes from Christ through faith, the church is primarily invisible. To be clear, the church is not invisible sense that we cannot see the people of God. Rather, the church is hidden in the sense that we cannot directly observe its holiness. Since the holiness the church possesses is received by faith and not by works, it cannot be seen. We cannot look into each other’s hearts and minds and see our faith. If the church’s holiness were based on its works of holiness, then it would be visible, since one can see works. This is why the alternative views of the church referred to earlier see church as at least partially visible as an institution or a community of accountability.

Although the holiness of believers is invisible because it is received by faith, Lutheran Christians still believe that there is a way to discover where the church is. In one of Luther’s later writings, “On the Councils and the Church” (1539), the Reformer claimed that there were essentially seven marks by which one could discern the church. The first four marks of the church (the Word of God, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the Office of the Keys) are all instruments through which Christ gives His holiness to the church. Luther shows that God is faithful to His Word, and if He has promised to give people His holiness through these means, the presence of the Word and the sacraments are an absolutely clear sign that Christian people are gathered together as the church.

The last three marks of the church are the effects of the presence of Christ’s holiness in the church. The fifth mark of the church is the ordination of ministers. Ministers are necessary in order preach the Word and administer the sacraments. Through the first four marks of the Church, God works on the hearts and minds of His people so that they empowered to call true ministers of the Word. In the same ways, the last two marks of the Church are the fruits of becoming a holy person by faith. People who have faith call upon God in prayer and praise because of the gratitude they feel at having received holiness (sixth mark). People who have faith suffer rejection from the world, and therefore, like Jesus, bear the cross (seventh mark).

From this description of the church and its marks, it should be clear that the church is very different from any other human community. All other communities are based on rules that people agree to obey and which are enforced. This is the glue that holds the community together. The church is not like this though. Although Christians seek to be obedient to God and His law, their obedience is not the glue that holds the church together. Rather, the church is held together by the presence of the risen Jesus, who, through Word and Sacrament, binds the people of God into a fellowship of holiness and grace.

Dr. Jack Kilcrease is Adjunct Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Institute of Lutheran Theology, Fellow at Wittenberg Institute, and Adjunct Philosophy Professor at Aquinas College.