Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 8 (February 27, 2025)

February 27, 2025:  Thursday Bible Study on Psalm 8

May Blessing and Peace, by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, fill your life today.

Please continue the prayers shared earlier in the week.  The good news is that Sharyn's foster son, now an adult, was found after several days, did not know who he was, and had been injured, apparently again after his first trip to the hospital, where he is now.  Please pray for healing, and health for this young man.  Pray too for employment for all who have been recently separated from their government jobs, as well as everyone who is seeking work.  There is a great deal of upheaval in their lives right now.  Pray too please for the people of the Gaza Strip in Israel, as a second round of peace talks is about to take place, to stop fighting in their communities, as well as praying for the people in the West Bank where Israel is once again on the attack against those communities as well.  Every nation has a right to defend itself, it does not have the right to move in any way toward genocide of whole populations of people.  Please pray for unaccompanied minor immigrants who may now be sent out of the country to whatever nations might be willing to receive them.  These children will be left in places where they know no one, without any family support, where they will, in all likelihood, be forced to become members of violent gangs to survive.  Remember, this is our nation committing these kinds of inhumane actions.  This is my seg way this morning into the content of Psalm 8.

In the content of this Psalm, we find David talking about crying infants.  This kind of concern is usually, in the Old Testament, speaking of the victims of conflict, famine, and disease.  Of course, we have seen this kind of reality for years in nations of Africa that have been torn by upheaval and war.  Young girls are kidnapped, raped and imprisoned as slaves, young boys become warriors who kill others before the age of 10, and then of course there have certainly been periods of drought and starvation from around the world.  I hope that you can see how this connects to the coming actions of our own nation.  The Psalm tells us that there is a point beyond which God will not go.  In other words, though you and I have been created as the pinnacle of God's creative work, the nature of sinfulness in our world, reaches a point beyond which God will not move.  Such brazen sin has its limits before the Creator.  We have been given the right as stewards to care for all of God's creation, and perhaps because people are the top of the order of God's creation, we often step way out of the bounds which God has made for all of his creation, thinking that it is our right to do so.  These atrocities, which include the abuse of children in our own culture, and in others cultures, including now a likely move to discontinue meal programs for school age children, and seniors, may well be reaching the point where God's consequences for all of us, even those of us who come to God through the merit of Jesus Christ, who work diligently to be the people who God desires us to be, who are full participants in the line of people who have served the Lord's Truth, and helped to move God's plans for His creation forward, will also suffer the consequences of this brutality toward others, perhaps most especially those who are least able to defend themselves, who must be seen as the LORD'S treasure too.  David, the likely author of this Psalm, knew these realities in the world of his time too.  We must all remember that the LORD Almighty is to be honored, respected, and finally, seen as the One who is always in charge of all things.  Let's face it, you and I do not know the fullness of God's plan for His Creation.  We live such a short time, and see only a tiny part of What God is doing through us, and by the power of Christ's Spirit, however we must remember that we too are a part of that plan, and when anything that humans do that gets in the way of this plan, God has established a barrier beyond which it may not go.  I know, that in my everyday life, I am so thankful for the forgiveness that I am given through the Spirit's faith gift in my life, because as hard I as try, I know that like the people of all times past, present, and future, God is protecting His faithful children with that barrier beyond which the brokenness of the world may not go.  We must know that God's majesty and might will have its way.  Do we acknowledge God as the ultimate authority, or do we continue to open the gate of our hearts to allow for permissiveness the committing of such heinous crimes and offensive acts against the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Next week we move into Psalm nine where David continues to offer praise to the one true God because that is God's due.

Thanks for sharing with me today.  I know what I have spoken about today is a part of the polarization of our nation, and of many nations around the world, and that you may not see things the way I do, but I want you to know that I have worked for 40 years of serving the Gospel of Jesus Christ, called to be prophet and priest, and though Luther didn't really say it, I can do no other than stand on the power and truth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In His love, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 5:1-6 (February 25, 2025)

February 25, 2025:  Tuesday Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 5:1-6

May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ surround your life today, and may you bring Christ's Grace into the lives of all people with whom you have contact.

Please remember the prayers that we prayed yesterday.  They are all still needed.  A reminder today about Sunday's carry-in lunch after worship.  Our theme is Spring Salads and/or any other food to accompany the salads.  Thanks for being with us to participate in the Christ-fellowship which is always with us as come together around food. 

Today you and I are going to move into the 5th chapter of Paul's letter to the Galatian Christians.  It is in this chapter that Paul gets even more firm in the way in which he talks about there being no necessity for circumcision, or its being the measuring rod for escaping the inequality in the early church which the Jews have been teaching.  A good way of seeing this is to talk about people who come to the airport to take a plane to their destination in the Pacific Ocean, compared to people who have decided to drive their cars all the way.  The first group of people will certainly be rewarded with the completion of their journey when they arrive at their destination, however, the group who has decided to drive will only be able to sit at the ocean's shore thinking that their car will somehow get them there.  After all, the car seems to have supplied their travel needs in the past, but now it is completely inadequate for the travel task at hand.

The Jews, according to Paul, were like the people in their car.  The law was their means of being in a right relationship with God, but it was only right for the time of its use, but now completely inadequate for the work of getting them into God's Grace.   Now the people who stepped away from that traditional way of travel to accept and desire a new method of completing their journey, were the ones who came to trust in that new way for how their journey would be completed.  This group is the Gentiles the new Christians who come to God as He fulfills His promise to Abraham, giving faith in Jesus Christ as the only true way to come to the completion of being righteous before God.  No matter what a person may choose to do, trying to make a right way to God through the law is not possible.  Just like that car that sits at the ocean's shore, which is completely unable to complete the journey no matter how badly the driver might hope it could.  But those who choose to ride that passenger jet to their journey's end will succeed because this new means of travel is the only way to get there.  (I am aware that one might choose to travel by ship, but that is not an option that is available.  God did not give that method or make it available.) 

Next Paul takes the step to ensure that the Gentiles understand that you cannot be justified through works.  The works (the law) alone are not enough.  That means that when one comes to faith in Jesus as the Savior, it is by the love of Christ, that the work of the Savior gets done by the faithful.  It is Love that does the works of Christ, because Christ's gift of faith guides the faithful to let love guide the work to which all the Baptized are called.  To choose to live by the law alone isn't enough.  People of faith must live in, with, and surrounded by, the Love of Christ, and carry that Love to the LORD’S children.  I hope and pray that you are joining me in this journey in Jesus Christ so that lovingkindness might be how we live each day.

With love in Christ,   Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 4:21-31 (February 24, 2025)

February 24, 2025:  Monday Bible Study on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 4:21-31

Blessings and Peace be with you on this day.

In these past few weeks, we have had many guests in our community who were here for the gem show, the 100th anniversary of the rodeo, and a special bike racing weekend, along with a brewery crawl downtown this past weekend.  These are wonderful opportunities for us all to welcome and offer opportunities for people to give up an hour on Sunday morning to join us for worship.  I hope that when such an opportunity arises that you feel ready to offer that invitation.  In prayers this morning, please pray for Logan and Caleb for God's speed for them as they travel on their senior trip to California during this week.  Please pray too for Mark and Linda, as well as their son who lives in California.  He lost his home in the L.A. fires last month.  Continue prayers for Kandice and Lisa as Kandice deals with a very difficult to treat cancer.  Now prayers of thanksgiving are always important too.  Thanks to God for good friends who hold us in their care, thanks for a job interview for Jesse right after we prayed about it during service, thanks for safe travel for Ron & Becky from Minneapolis to Tucson this last week, thanks for our congregation's 75th anniversary of serving the Gospel of Jesus Christ, thanks for the Gospel's guidance for us in difficult times and presence with us too in times of joy and celebration, thanks for the joy of the music of hymns that fill our hearts with the Good News.  In a very special prayer, ask for safety for a now adult former foster child of Sharyn's, who has disappeared after a very difficult weekend of personal struggle.  His name is Brandon.  Prayers too for the homeless in our community, especially this morning for Tom, who Jesse and I assisted yesterday on the way home from church. 

Today we move on to chapter 4:21-31 in Paul's letter to the Galatian Church.  At the beginning of this letter Paul spends a great deal of time in the Christology and theology which lies behind Paul's witnessing to them about the nature of their relationship with Christ as the new Christians in the Church, and the issues which surround their problems with having listened to the Jews who came into their community and worked to convince them that they needed to adhere to the Jewish rules for living their lives in order to be the best, like the Jews, in the new Church.  Of course, one of those rules was that they needed to be circumcised in order to attain that "most important" in the church.  Today's reading continues to unfold the understanding by Paul that all of those rules for living that had to also be followed according to the Jewish Christians were God's old solution (Old Testament) for having a better relationship with the Jews, but they were never able to keep their part of that agreement due to the nature of sin in their lives.  Now the new solution (New Testament) of God has fully covered the old solution plus having brought a new solution.  That new solution is Jesus Christ.  Now, for them, and for you and me, there is no longer any need to attempt to keep all of those old rules for living that no one was ever able to follow.  Instead, now belief is key.  The Spirit's gift of faith is the means by which you and I now participate in God's new solution, and keeping God's 10 commandments is the means by which we give thanks to God for having already become the Saved through Jesus Christ.

For the Galatian Christians, because of their new understandings, were tempted to be led by the Jews who asked more of them than the faith gifted by the Holy Spirit.  That was a huge problem for Paul, who as a former Pharisee saw the old solution as an entrapment for the Jews which prevented them from coming to Christ in faith.  There is a good reason for the differentiation between being a Jew of the old solution of God and being a Christian of the God's new solution for the problem of believers who had already failed at completing their part of the old solution.  Paul makes it most clear that there are two families of Abraham, one which is born of the flesh, Hagar's son Ishmael, and one who is born of the Spirit from Sarah, Isaac.  Even though God offered both mothers a promise for their children, the first born of the flesh was frequently at war with those born of the Spirit.  A review of these stories can be found in Genesis 16 and 21.  The argument of the Jews in Galatia may well have been that they were the true superior Christians who came first, and those who came second only by faith, the Gentiles, were inferior until they became like the Jews.  Paul preaches and teaches that it is those who come by faith who are the true children of God.  Until the Jews can come solely by faith, they will remain the people of the flesh who can never participate in the new solution of God.

Tomorrow we will continue in chapter 5 of Paul's letter to the Galatian church.

In Christ's love, Pastor Kim