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ST. PAUL LUTHERAN CHURCH
17200 E. 39th Street
Independence, Missouri 64055
THE VOICE
AUGUST 2010 NEWSLETTER
Emphasis: “STRUGGLING IN FAITH”
Have you ever seen a blacksmith work with a piece of iron? He holds it in the fire to soften it and make it pliable. That is exactly why God permits the testing of your faith by temptations and trials. He wants you to acquire patience, to acquire pliability. If you and I are constantly out of the fire of affliction, we become stiff and useless. God wants to reshape us according to His image, for in the fall of Adam we lost our divine shape, our divine image.
People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage—so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then are you grown old—and then, indeed, as the ballad says, you just fade away.
Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, a product of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure. Nobody grows old by living a number of years. People grow old when they desert their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, self-doubt, fear, and anxiety—these are the culprits that bow the head and break the spirit. Whether seventeen or seventy, there exists in the heart of every person who loves life the thrill of a new challenge, the insatiable appetite for what is coming next. You are as young as your faith and as old as your doubts. So long as your heart receives from your head messages that reflect beauty, courage, joy, and excitement, you are young. When your thinking becomes clouded with pessimism and prevents you from taking risks, then you are old.
When we tell ourselves “I can never change,” or “That will never happen,” we presume too much and believe too little. In Jesus Christ God renders all of our final conclusions premature and all of our talk of determinism as simply bad faith. In Christ, God opens closed doors, brings resurrection, reveals possibilities, reclaims the lost, liberates the cursed and possessed, and changes the unchangeable.
The grounds for belief and disbelief are the same today as they were two thousand or ten thousand years ago. If Joseph had lacked faith to trust God or humility to perceive the holiness of his spouse, he could have disbelieved in the miraculous origin of her Son as easily as any modern man; and any modern man who believes in God can accept the miracle as easily as Joseph did.
C. S. Lewis
Sweeping across Germany at the end of World War II, Allied forces searched farms and houses looking for snipers. At one abandoned house, almost a heap of rubble, searchers with flashlights found their way to the basement. There, on the crumbling wall, a victim of the Holocaust had scratched a Star of David. And beneath it, in rough lettering, the message:
I believe in the sun—even when it does not shine;
I believe in love—even when it is not shown;
I believe in God—even when he does not speak
Robert Schuller
A nine-year-old who had leukemia was given six months to live. When the doctor broke the news to her parents outside her hospital room, the youngster overheard the doctor’s words. But it did not become obvious until later that she knew about her condition. To everyone’s surprise, her faith in Christ gave her an attitude of victory. She talked freely about her death with anticipation in her voice. As she grew weaker, it seemed that her joy became more radiant. One day before she sank into a final coma, she said to her family, “I am going to be the first to see Jesus! What would you like me to tell Him for you?”
Imagine, if you will, a wire stretched between the bank building and the city hall on the square in our town. A lone individual stands atop the bank building and announces his intent to walk across the wire to the other building. Of course, a crowd has gathered below because what he intends is a bit strange (needless to say). The tightrope walker asks the crowd if they believe he can make it across. They nod in assent (who would be dumb enough to try without a reasonable chance?). Carefully, slowly he teeters his way across almost falling. Reaching the other side he holds up a wheelbarrow and asks the crowd if they think he could push it across before him. Some nod in assent. Some shrug their shoulders in response. The tightrope walker then singles out a man and yells down to him, “Sir, do you think I can make it?” The response is affirmative so the walker says, “Then prove your faith by riding in the wheelbarrow.” Christ calls to us personally, saying He will guide us over life with its dangers. Life is riding in the hands of JESUS each and every day! Would you ride in the wheelbarrow?
Some time ago we noticed that a tree planted at the sunny end of a house had large and beautiful blossoms. It was a feast to the eyes; but what an amazing difference in some of the branches trained round the corner of the house where they got much less sun. The blossoms were starved and drooping, and there was little promise of fruit. They had the same root and stem in common, but while one part of the tree was in the full glorious light, the other branches were in the shade. Our character is affected in the same way by insufficient enlightenment. The dark places produce unfruitful branches: strange weaknesses, distortions, immaturities, indirection, failures in practical life and conduct. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Gal. 5:22, 23). If we are to bear all manner of precious fruit, each in its rightful season, we must trustfully and joyfully lay open our whole soul to the full expanse of God’s light shining in the face of Jesus Christ, revealed in God’s Word as we study it, read it, and take our direction from it.
In the year 1873, Horatio Spafford, a Christian lawyer from Chicago, placed his wife and four children on the luxury liner Ville de Havre sailing from New York to France. Spafford expected to join them in about three or four weeks after finishing up some business, but with the exception of his wife he never saw them again. The trip started out beautifully. But on the evening of November 21, 1873, as the Ville de Havre proceeded peacefully across the Atlantic, the ship was suddenly struck by another vessel, the Lochearn, and sank a mere thirty minutes later, with the loss of nearly all on board.
On being told that the ship was sinking Mrs. Spafford knelt with her children and prayed that they might be saved or be made willing to die, if such was God’s will. A few minutes later, in the confusion, three of the children were swept away by the waves while she stood clutching the youngest. Suddenly the youngest child was swept from her arms. Mrs. Spafford became unconscious and awoke later to find that she had been rescued by sailors from the Lochearn. But the four children were gone. Back in the United States, Horatio Spafford was waiting for news of his family, and at last, ten days later (after the rescue ship had reached Cardiff), it came. “Saved alone” was his wife’s message. That night Spafford walked the floor of his rooms in anguish, as anyone would have done. But this was not all. For as he shared his loss with His Lord, a loss which could not be reversed in this life, he found, as many have, that peace which indeed passes all understanding. Toward morning he told a friend named Major Whittle, “I am glad to be able to trust my Lord when it costs me something.” Then, sometime later, as he reflected on the disaster at sea, he wrote this hymn:
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea-billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin—Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought,
My sin—not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
And, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend,
“Even so”—it is well with my soul.
A minister traveling on a train in Europe was the sole occupant of a compartment, save for a young man reading a newspaper. The youth was also a Christian, but so weak was his faith, and so many were his temptations, that he told the minister he did not think he would be able to stand life a week longer. The minister took from his pocket a Bible and a penknife and said, “See, I will make this penknife stand up on the cover of this Bible, in spite of the rocking of the train.” The young man, thinking that this was some conjuring trick, watched the proceeding with interest, saying, “I am afraid that it will not be very easy to do that , sir.” “But,” said the minister, “I am doing it.” “Oh, but you are holding it,” retorted his fellow passenger. “Why of course. Did you ever hear of a penknife standing up on its end without being held up?” “I see,” was the young man’s comment. “I see you mean to teach me that I cannot stand unless Christ holds me. Thank you for reminding me of that.”
Chrysostom, the ancient Church Father, was a beautiful example of true Christian courage. When he stood before the Roman Emperor, he was threatened with banishment if he still remained a Christian. Chrysostom replied, “You cannot, for the world is my Father’s house; you cannot banish me.”
“But I will slay you,” said the Emperor.
“No, but you cannot,” said the noble champion of the faith again, “for my life is hid with Christ in God.”
“I will take away thy treasures.”
“No, but you cannot,” was the retort; “in the first place, I have nothing you know anything about. My treasure is in heaven, and my heart is there.”
“But I will drive you away from man, and you shall have no friend left.”
“No, and that you cannot,” once more said the faithful witness, “for I have a Friend in heaven from whom you shall not separate me. I defy you; there is nothing you can do to hurt me. For all of my life is hid with JESUS.”
Two gentlemen were crossing the river in a little boat. They began to argue about faith and works. The man who was rowing them across the river was a fine, enlightened Christian and on hearing their discussion he turned to them and said, “I believe I can solve your difficulty. I hold in my hands two oars. The one I call faith and the other works. Now watch it. I pull the oar of faith alone. You see, we can only go around and around; we cannot go forward. Now I pull the oar of works; again we move around and around. Now, see, I pull both of them together and on we go.” Then the Christian ferryman added his conclusion, “In my opinion, a faith without works is dead, or works without faith will not suffice” (James 2:26).
In Jesus’ name.
Pastor Gary D. Stolle
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