Not Religious But Spiritual

When people say I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual, what they mean is that they want a god that doesn't say anything. Because as soon as God talks, you have religion, you have doctrine, you have assertions, you have something you have to believe in. As long as God can be silent, I can get along with him just fine. As long as God never mentions things like "thou shalt not steal, remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, honor your mother and father," as long as God never mentions those things, he and I will probably get along just fine. This is what most people want, who are spiritual but not religious: a god who is mute, a god whom they have cut the tongue out of so he can't say anything against their own life. But God will not be silent! Romans 3 says every mouth is shut before God. It's not God's mouth that is shut in the end; it's our mouth, our own attempts at self-justification, our own attempts to stand before Him.

-Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

All 

Gathers

The eight verbs Luther's Small Catechism assigns to The Holy Spirit, which are drawn out from the Scriptures, are: calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, keeps, forgives, raises, and gives. Here is a closer look at the Holy Spirit's work of gathering.

The evangelical instinct to think about the Holy Spirit is very individualistic. Our Lutheran instinct goes against this. It is true the Holy Spirit works in each one of us to give us faith; each one of us believes, but we do not remain alone, and the Holy Spirit gathers us to the preaching of the Word. He gathers us through the preaching of the Word, and to the preaching of the Word, and this is what it's meant to be "Church," to be brought and adopted in the family of God, so that not only Jesus our brother, but we also have brothers and sisters in Christ in the holy Christian Church. The Church is the fellowship of all those who believe in Jesus.

We can't see faith, so the Church is made known by the preaching of the Gospel, which creates faith, and the right administration of the Sacraments, which creates faith, and those means the Holy Spirit uses to create faith is the way we also identify the holy Christian Church. Christians are gathered together people; we were never meant to believe on our own. Yet while it's possible to have faith and be apart from the visible Church, it's dangerous, and it's also sinful.* The Holy Spirit gathers His people, and He gathers so we can hear the Word together, pray together, give thanks to God together, and eat and drink the body and blood of Jesus together. This is all the Lord's will for us.

*Luther's Small Catechism - The Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we may not despise preaching and His Word but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

-Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

Receiving The Promise

It is the body and blood that Jesus gives that is received with the mouth, but the promise of the forgiveness of sins is always received by the heart by faith. So I can't eat a promise; I can't drink a promise. I can only believe a promise. So the promise of forgiveness of sins is received by faith, not by any activity or action or anything else like this. Same with baptism. Forgiveness of sins cannot be received by the head or by the body being soaked in water. The benefit is received by the heart that believes the promise that's spoken. The promise of Jesus is connected to those elements, those things, those physical things, to His body and blood, the bread and wine, and the water being splashed. So our faith believes simply the promise Jesus gives there. So baptism offers the forgiveness of sin; the Lord's Supper offers the forgiveness of sin, and faith receives that promise and rejoices in it.

-Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

The Three Estates

1. The Family

2. The Church

3. The State

The purpose of the family is to bring forth and support physical life. The purpose of the church and the church family is to bring forth and support eternal life. The purpose of the state is to protect life and prevent others from taking someone else's life. An important thing to remember is the state is the third and least important of the estates, though you wouldn't know that during election time because the state has a bit of a Napoleon complex and try to convince everyone it's the most important. If things are going good in the home and going good in the church, the way things go in the state matters much less.

The state can't bring forth life but only gives death in the smallest possible portion. So the purpose of the state is to destroy those who would destroy others. Its authority is the sword, the authority to bring death. The chief thing for the state is the police and the military. That's the sword pointed in, and the sword pointed out to keep order so people can live. The state can't give life. It can only stop people who want to take life. 

An example of this is war. When you go to war, you're pulling the state out of the sheath and bringing violence to another nation because that nation wants to bring even more violence and death to you or others. So you bring a little bit of death to prevent the bigger death. Or say there's some criminal who's assaulting life or assaulting property, or assaulting chastity or whatever, so you bring the sword to bear, and you've taken him to court and put him in jail, so you give him a little death to prevent the bigger death that he wants to cause. That's the goal and purpose of the state.

We should keep this in mind, and Christians should always keep the Ten Commandments in mind when voting, how can I love my neighbor by my vote? How can I support the institutions God has established and God's ordering of the world? The devil always attacks the works of God, and he's always attacking all three estates. We see him attacking the church with false doctrine and whatever. We see him attacking the family by tearing families apart, redefining family, putting husband and wife and setting them against each other, and all this sort of stuff. We see him trying to attack the state by putting tyrants and dictators in office so the state doesn't do its job. 

 A great thing to consider, we know these three estates established by God can't be overthrown, and they will stand because they are instituted by God. Marriage will stand; it doesn't matter if the state wants to redefine marriage because, at the end of the world, when Jesus comes back, there will be marriage. Now a lot of people might be destroyed and the devil banging his head against the walls of the state, church, and family, but you will be safe. Rejoice that the Lord uses your family to give life, your church to give life eternal, and the state to save us and protect us. God be praised for these three estates.

- Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

For You

It's true God is everywhere, but He is not everywhere for you. So He is in the fire, but you don't jump in the fire to get close to God. He is in the ocean, but you don't jump in the ocean to get close to God. As Dr. Normon Nagel once said, "We do not need a God who is everywhere is as useless as a God that is nowhere. What we need is a God who is somewhere."

You have to find where He has placed Himself to be a benefit for you. So we are always looking for those words "for you," and that is what we find in the Supper. This is my body given "for you." The blood of the New Testament poured out "for you." So we see the Lord Jesus has put His body and blood specifically in the bread and wine for Christians to eat and drink with the promise of the forgiveness of sins.

- Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller