Author: Higher Things

Mark Veenman

King David is our kind of musician. King David is our kind of poet. He was a songwriter. He played stringed instruments with “all his might.” He wrote love songs. He was once a teenager too, with all the struggles you have! He was acknowledged as “‘the sweet Psalmist of Israel’: The Spirit of the LORD speaks by me, his Word is on my tongue”. (2 Sam. 23) King David is also the author of 73 of our Psalms. He is therefore the Church’s chief writer of hymns!

We chant from the Psalter every Sunday in the Introit. Our Divine liturgies are saturated with the language of the Psalms. Did you ever stop and ask yourself why you sing from these old-fashioned poems set to antiquated chant modes? And what do the Psalms have to do with church music?

The Psalms are first and foremost prayers. When we sing the Psalms, we pray. Who prays? David prays. The sons of Korah pray. Moses prays. Christ prays. The early Church prays. The whole community of Christ prays. Through time and space, we are united to Christ and His whole Church of all times and places when we pray the Psalms in song. You sing them with your dead Christian ancestors. Hymns may come and go, but the Psalms are sung perpetually by the Church on earth. So our loving God wants to teach us to pray by singing the Psalms. There are many times when we don’t know how to pray. Have you ever said to God in the darkness of your room “I don’t even know what to say”? Even in your dark silence the Holy Spirit will pray to the Father for you in groanings that are too deep for your little words. It’s enough to pray “Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy”. To deepen your prayer life, pick up the Psalter. This is a spiritual exercise you will not regret.

The Psalms are also meant to be sung! “Song” or all related words like “to sing” appears 345 times in the Bible. It is remarkable that the first song recorded in Scripture is immediately after the Israelites were saved miraculously by the crossing of the Red Sea. Mere speech is not enough when His people are saved by Him! And year after year we rejoice with the Israelites and all God’s people at the Easter Vigil as we repeat scripture’s very first song: “The Horse and its Rider He has thrown into the Sea!” And in St. John’s Revelation, it is prophesied that we will sing scripture’s first song again at the end of time: “And they sing the song of Moses… and the song of the Lamb” (Rev. 15:3). For Christians, of course, the death and resurrection of Christ is the real Exodus! Christ strides through the Red Sea of Death, through the shadows of hell, and breaks down the gates and takes us up in his train! (Psalm 68 and Ephesians 4) And it is in our baptism that we can celebrate the Exodus in the present, and rejoice with Moses and Miriam and the whole Christian Church. What do you have to do? “Be still, and know that I Am God”. He will save you, and you will sing.

The Psalms are all about Christ! We read in the letter to the Hebrews one of the most astounding texts in the New Testament: “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise”. (Heb. 2) These words, ascribed to Christ, are first uttered from the mouth of King David in Psalm 22; the same words that first David sang are now prayed by Christ. But it is a greater mystery that in this text we can say it is Christ who prays this Psalm in his forerunner David! It’s clear that Christ is the true David, that David in the Holy Spirit prays through and with the One who is to be his son. The Holy Spirit, who inspires David to sing and pray, moves him to sing about Jesus, and this enables us to sing through Christ to the Father! Let that sink in! What a gift from God we have in the Psalter! The Lutheran church has preserved for itself a priceless treasure in this book of prayer and song. When we utter the words of King David in the Psalms, we are breathing the very words of Christ back to Christ who says in Luke 24:44 “Everything written about me in… the Psalms must be fulfilled”. And our dear Lord, before his death on the cross, could cry to heaven with the very words of David in Psalm 22 written 1000 years earlier: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. In the Psalms we can sing and pray with the full range of Godly human emotion: joy, pain, rejoicing, torment, forgiveness, guilt, life, and death. It is your prayer, but with it you pray and sing with Christ.

Who can sing and pray the Psalms? The Psalter is only for sinners, and in the Psalter you will find an overflowing reservoir filled with the pure life-giving water of the gospel. So sing with Jesus. Pray with Jesus, for “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit”. Psalm 34:18

Mark Veenman is a member of Grace Lutheran Church LCC in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.

Rev. Steven Flo

Many ask, “How do I conquer a ‘pet sin’ I struggle with daily, that gets me down and depresses me so?”

I tell them, “Only when you are free to fall, are you free not to fall!”

“What?” they say! “Shall we sin that grace may abound? God’s Word spoken by the Apostle Paul says, ‘Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live in it any longer?'” (Romans 6:1-2).

“True!” I say, “Then quit falling!”

They say, “Well, it’s easier said than done. I keep trying and trying and trying, but I keep stumbling over that same sin.”

“Do you believe God loves you no matter how much you sin?” I ask.

“Well, I suppose I should” they say, “but I don’t.”

I tell them, “Then that’s the root of your problem! God is allowing you to fall flat on your face over and over again to teach you something bigger than the victory you desire. He wants you to be convinced that you are loved and forgiven by His Son unconditionally, no matter how much you sin or don’t sin; no matter how much you obey or don’t obey; no matter how much faith you have or don’t have! As a matter of fact, He forgave you, me, and the whole world from the cross even before we believed, obeyed, or had any faith in Him at all. He forgave us while we were killing Him! He said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34).

It’s only by this powerful message of forgiveness, given before we believe in Him, that our belief is created by Him in the first place. We love because He first loved us. It’s only by this powerful Word of Christ’s unconditional love and forgiveness that our hearts are made clean and our spirits are renewed within.

So, should we sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! God doesn’t want us to sin.

But if we do sin in weakness and we’re sorry for it, frustrated by it, and feel like we have a ton of rocks on our back weighing us down, does God still love us in Christ? The answer is: yes! Nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8). God’s love is not based on our obedience, but rather on the obedience of His Son! (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Only when we are free to fall, knowing that Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us when we do, are we free not to fall! Only then will our hearts be filled with the Love of God in Christ. Only then will our coldness melt and the love of sinning be taken away.

Charles Wesley expressed this liberating love beautifully when, in his unforgettable hymn, he wrote:

Love divine, all love excelling,
Joy of heaven, to earth come down!
Breathe, oh, breathe thy loving spirit
Into every troubled breast;
Let us all in thee inherit;
Let us find thy promised rest.
Take away the love of sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.

Rev. Steven Flo serves as pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in DeSoto, Missouri. He can be reached at: stevenlflo@gmail.com

Josh Radke

In the final part of The Lord of the Rings story, The Return of the King, Gandalf and Pippin are huddling together during a grim point of the siege of Minas Tirith. Pippin looks to Gandalf and admits he had hoped for a different end to their lives. Gandalf sees Pippin is discouraged with fear and weariness, that the hobbit is on the edge of hopelessness. It is a dramatic scene; one that many persecuted Christians experienced before their martyrdom, or during terrible battles in war.

In the story, Gandalf offers a comforting smile to the hobbit, “End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take.” Then Gandalf proceeds to tell the young hobbit of the celestial, undying lands that await them after death. Indeed, many Christians under duress were also comforted by such words of hope-words with true value; words that a fairy tale can only echo. Those words are the Apostle’s Creed.

Although the Creed is commonly understood as a confession about our faith, this is not its primary function. The Creed is the summary of the whole Gospel, which comes from Christ Jesus our Lord. Through the Creed, God places His saving acts into our mouth for us to speak. Thus, it is appropriate to recite the Creed during private confession with your pastor. In the Divine Service, the Creed is spoken after the sermon but before Jesus’ Words consecrate bread and wine, where we receive Him into ourselves for the forgiveness of sins, and renewed spirits in the True Vine.

Through the Creed, our Father provides us a sanctuary from attacks against our faith by the world, the devil, our rebellious nature. Through the Creed, we are reminded that our salvation was obtained in real history; it is not a myth or a legend. Moreover, through the Creed, God reminds us of His promises given to us, by grace, in Holy Baptism for the sake of Christ: justification by faith alone, in Jesus alone; the preservation of our faith and the Church, by the Holy Spirit; the resurrection of our bodies at the Last Day; eternal life in the new creation.

We are reminded in Scripture and in our hymns that hardship, suffering, and struggles of the spirit will remain throughout our lives; sometimes it is because of the sins we commit, sometimes it is from the cross we must bear as Christians, and sometimes it is simply because we live in a broken cosmos that can only beget more brokenness. Whatever the instance, the devil hopes to use these to ambush us like a murderous thief, to rob us of Christ and the fruits of His cross given to us in God’s Word and Sacraments. As often as these times come, seek refuge in the words of the Gospel; bear the shield of faith in your Lord God and speak the Creed, and the arrows of the evil one shall be extinguished.

Rev. Michael Keith

I didn’t grow up going to church. At all. Ever.

But then in my late teens I did start going to church. I’ll not bother you with the details of how that happened. But it did. I started going to church. I went to a lot of churches. Lots. I checked out churches from all different kinds of denominations and talked to the pastors. I needed to find out what they believed and why they believed it. At first I started going to some evangelical style churches with some friends. I was so ignorant of what went on in a church that one Sunday I walked in and they handed me a little piece of a cracker and a little glass of grape juice. I thought that was weird, but kind of nice that they were handing out snacks, so I went to my pew before the service began and ate my little cracker and drank my juice. Everybody around me looked at me like I had just farted. Apparently there is this thing called “Communion” that this church did a couple times a year and you eat and drink the cracker and the juice in the pew later on in the service to remember Jesus. I didn’t know that. I felt pretty stupid and just faked it when it got to that point in the service.

Later I ended up attending a Lutheran church and staying. I’ll not bother you with the details of how that happened. But it did. However, that experience with the cracker and the grape juice made a big impression on me. I never wanted to feel stupid like that again. So, I asked my Lutheran pastors questions about everything. Everything. Why do we do this? Why do we do that? What does this mean? What does that mean? I wanted to know and understand. I had to learn the ABCs of Church.

One of the first things I asked about was the sign of the cross. I noticed that some people in the pews around me would make the sign of the cross at certain points in the Divine Service. I thought only Roman Catholics did that! What’s going on here? So I marched up to my pastor after Service one Sunday and asked what that was all about? He explained to me that was a way to help remember your baptism and the gifts that Jesus gave to you there. That blew me away. I had never heard that before. That seemed to me like a good thing to remember. I’ve made the sign of the cross several times daily ever since.

Why is it so important to remember that you are a baptized child of God? Because the devil wants you to forget. The devil wants you to doubt it. He will raise up the guilt of sins past and ask: “Would a child of God have done that? You must not really be a child of God.” He will work on you to cause you to question God’s love: “Sure, God loves her – she is pretty and nice and comes from a good family – but His love is not for you. Of course God loves him – he gets picked first for all the sports teams – but God isn’t really interested in you at all.” The devil continues to ask the question “Did God really say?” today to raise doubt and uncertainty just as he did in the Garden of Eden.

In Holy Baptism Jesus gives you something solid to hang on to. When everything else in life seems shaky – Jesus gives you something solid. In Holy Baptism Jesus gives you something that is sure and certain. You are a child of God because God said so in your baptism. And God does not lie. If He says it is so, it is so. Don’t argue with God. His Word stands forever! You are a beloved child of the heavenly Father!

In Holy Baptism your sins are washed away for the sake of Jesus. Your sins are removed from you as far as the East is from the West. When doubt creeps into your mind about God’s forgiveness of your sins remember His sure and certain promises given to you in your baptism. Through water and the Word He made those promises to you, personally. Directly. The water was poured on your head. Not someone else’s. God’s promises in Holy Baptism were made to you. God made those promises to you in a specific place and at a certain time. Making the sign of the cross reminds you of what God promised you at that time and place.

The devil deals in doubt and uncertainty. Jesus deals in the sure and certain. By remembering your baptism and the gifts Jesus gave you there you are on solid ground.

I had a lot to learn as I began attending church. By God’s grace I have had opportunities to learn from a lot of very faithful people. I still have lots to learn. Maybe we can talk about some more of the things I have learned along the way sometime in the future.

Rev. Michael Keith serves as pastor at St. Matthew Lutheran Church and SML Christian Academy in Stony Plain, AB Canada. He can be reached at keith@st-matthew.com.

Rev. George F. Borghardt

The Gospel is hyperbolic. Well, it seems like hyperbole anyway. It’s so over the top! It can’t be true! It can’t be real! It’s unbelievable and simple all at the same time. It’s too awesome and too good to be true. It’s amazing! Because it’s all Jesus-y goodness.

In Christ, your sins are forgiven-all of them. There’s not a sin that Christ did not die for; there’s not a sin that He leaves still on you. All of them-from Adam’s sin that you inherited to all the sins that you commit from the moment you were conceived to your very last breath. He has taken them all. He has redeemed you from them all.

You have been given everything as a gift. All that belongs to Jesus belongs to you. You have eternal life. You have heaven. He prepares a place just for you. You are a kingly, royal, holy priest, who sings the praises of the One who brought you out of darkness into His wonderful light.

You don’t earn it. You don’t deserve it. Jesus gives His Father’s entire kingdom away! He just gives it away for free-all of it. Forgiveness, life, salvation-all as a gift. He saves not holy people, but sinners. God reconciles the whole world to Himself in the death of His Son. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!

The world certainly doesn’t work that way! You only get what you pay for and nothing is free. The Gospel is just foolishness to the rest of the world! The Gospel is absolutely moronic!

But the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. God knows that we cannot save ourselves. He knows we can’t dig ourselves out of the hell we’ve earned. We can’t think ourselves out of the hell we deserve.

The LORD was working to save us throughout the whole Old Testament. He sent prophets and preachers. He preached through them. He promised salvation. We believed-at first. But then we did our own thing. We silenced all His messengers-beat up and killed His messengers! We didn’t want to hear a single word.

So God goes and does something ridiculous: He sends His Son. Jesus is the Lord God Himself. And He is true Man, born of the Virgin Mary. He healed the sick. He preached the Good News that God was going to save us. And we rejected Him, too. We beat Him. We even executed Him on a Cross.

God shows His love in the giving up of His Son. That’s real love! He doesn’t love like we do, with empty promises. He put His love in our midst and let us nail it to a cross to save us. Jesus was crucified for our sins. And God raised Him from the dead for our forgiveness.

To make your salvation sure, the Lord places the certainty of it outside you in the external Word of the Gospel. He doesn’t leave you to look inside yourself or depend on your feelings to see if you really, truly, cross-your-heart believe…or not. You have been saved in the waters of your Baptism. God’s Word reminds you, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” And you are forgiven in the words of Holy Absolution. The sins your pastor forgives really are forgiven. You are fed the very Body and Blood of Jesus. Jesus says in Scripture, “Whoever eats the flesh of the Son of Man and drinks His Blood has life and God will raise Him up on the last Day.” His gifts are the certainty of your salvation making everything Gospelly good!

When God has done everything imaginable to save you, you really have to work hard to lose your salvation. You’d have to despise Jesus’ forgiveness and love and make everything about yourself. You’d have to seek to save yourself and make everything about you-what you do and don’t do, how you feel, and what you are doing for God. You can read about life without Christ and its end in the other articles about the Law in this magazine.

But the Gospel! God wants to deal with you by the Gospel. He wants to be merciful. He wants to forgive you. He wants to give you life that goes on forever. He wants to deal with you, not as you deserve, but as His Son earned for you. So, in Christ, He does.

In Christ, there is no condemnation from God, no Law, no judgment. Christ’s Gospel trumps the Law’s demands, for Christ is the end of the Law for all who believe. In Christ, your salvation is as sure as Christ’s own death and resurrection. In Christ, you are unconquerable. You are saved.

You can’t get around it; there’s no better way. This is the way you and I are saved: Christ died for the sins of the world. Faith, which is born of the gifts of God, trusts that Christ died, not only for the sins of the world, but specifically for you. You are saved. You are forgiven. You have eternal life.

No hell; you get life. No judgment from God; you are let off, Jesus-free. No condemnation from the Law; now the Law itself has become almost Gospelly! The Law, in Christ, now provides a guide for you to love and serve your neighbor. It drowns your Old Adam and makes you alive to serve others.

It seems like hyperbole. But it’s definitely true. You are saved. You will be saved. Things are going to work out for you. They have to-all things are yours in Christ. Your good will be better. Your bad is going to turn out good. Your wins are real wins-eternal wins. Your losses are going to end up as wins in Christ. All things, even death itself, will work out to save you and those around you. That’s the unbelievable, hyperbolic, but completely true Gospel.

Rev. George F. Borghardt serves as the senior pastor at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in McHenry, Illinois. He is the president of Higher Things. His email is revborghardt@higherthings.org.