First Presbyterian Church Of Baton Rouge

There is peril in unforgiveness. Refusing to forgive someone is equated with asking to have back the entire debt of all your own mistakes, neglects, transgressions and sins. The king in the parable tossed that unforgiving servant back into prison until the last penny would be paid. In conclusion, Jesus speaks devastatingly clear words as he drops the mike, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”  

The astounding love of the Father works. Because Jesus has fulfilled all mercy and all justice. He left heaven to go to the far country of the rebellious world and seek prodigals. While here, Jesus has lived perfectly the righteousness the elder brother could only pretend to have. In his Father’s name, Jesus paid for all the wasteful squandering of all the prodigals.

That’s the news today. This is our God. The Father of prodigals who yearns down the road for our return. The heart of the universe is not indifference. The path to life is not our little candle of self-light. The truth is not a God who is out to get us. No, it is here. In the father who gathered his son to himself with relief and joy.

Jesus takes the public stage of his redeeming ministry as the guest rabbi in his hometown of Nazareth. He will now beat back the darkness, still the madness in our brains, overcome the disease unravelling our bodies, forgive the sins that destroy our relationships, and gather home the lost sheep and wandering children. Before his Father calls the whole thing to a halt, there is this season of mercy that Jesus has begun. But will the people of his hometown agree that they need spiritual salvation even more than they need political liberation? Will they accept such mercy from the man who grew up as the carpenter’s son in their midst?As the preacher, he gets to choose the Scripture for the lesson. He picks a passage from Isaiah and then gives his message. There are some things you just don’t do if you want to be a faithful and successful expositor of God’s Word.

How do you face temptation and the devil? With the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. We go to work, every day, to learn the signs, so that when everything is swirling, we can still see what’s going on. The commandments of God are not for the times that are easy, when we know what to do. His Word is precisely for the times when things are not clear.

As the years rolls by and as the Spirit works in you, you should not only experience a greater degree of victory over sin but also an increased hatred for sin. Some of you, as you’ve grown, have come to realize that with each passing year you learn to trust yourself less and less. It can actually feel, in this case, like sin is becoming more of a problem. But maybe your sin problem seems bigger now because you’re seeing it more clearly and that’s leading you into humility. Be encouraged when your conscience convicts you, Christian, and do not ignore God’s working in you.

This Christmas, each one of us will have a chance to make the words true for someone else. We can be the proof in the gospel declaration, “The Son of God has made us his kinfolk forever. He wants us with him always. The baby in the manger means, ‘It is good, so good, that you exist.’

The cross is the tree of life restored to us. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus reaches backwards in time as well as forwards. He redeemed the people of God who lived before him, who awaited him, though they only knew him in shadows and yearning. In taking all our death upon himself, Jesus reaches back to the very beginning of our human living and dying. In taking the hell due to us, Jesus undoes the curse and opens eternal life to us once more. The killing cross becomes the tree of life returned to us.

The God who flung galaxies across the field of space will touch, personally and directly, each eye that cries. He will take tears as his own. The God who hears the thunderous cataract of the multitude in praise, attunes to each sigh of his beloved. He attends to us like a father, like a spouse, like a friend. This is our God. We feel him do this from time to time in these dark days. Sometimes by the presence of his comforting Spirit. Sometimes through those he sends us. Revelation assures us that more is coming. None of these tears are lost. They will all be cared for.

No matter how much theology I read, I cannot scrub out the clear warning in passages like this one from Revelation. There is a judgment. There will be a lake of fire. No can survive it on his own merits. Jesus, however, has made a way. Will we answer his call and rely on him alone?

 The Church appears as a guttering and flickering flame in the West. But, this is the hour to which you have been called. For such an hour, the Church needs strength, courage, boldness, an unwavering confidence and a steady gaze to conquer. We must not fear to look into the eyes of the beast, clearly proclaiming the truth, genuinely imitating the pattern placed before us. And, come what may, our hope is the very hope that we commemorate every Lord’s Day. The hope of the resurrection, that out of death comes life.