church

INI
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity
October 5, 2008
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

A PATIENT SAVIOR FOR AN IMPATIENT WORLD
Luke 9:51-56

To Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or
think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by
Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Today we look to
our Savior's words in the ninth chapter of Luke beginning with the 51st verse,
as follows:

Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that
He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His
face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for
Him. But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to
Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord,
do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume
them, just as Elijah did?” But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do
not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to
destroy men’s lives but to save them.” And they went to another village. This is
the Word of God.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Who bids us Christians bring forth fruit with
patience, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

If there’s one disease that especially afflicts our world of 2008, it has to be
chronic impatience. Americans don’t like to wait. Our hurry-up culture places a
premium on speed and convenience, often at the expense of more important
things like kindness, and patience, and good manners. We don’t want to wait
until we get home to make a phone call, so many20of us carry cell phones.
Some people aren’t satisfied with a cell phone the size of a pack of cards, so
you can now buy a cell phone the size of a pack of gum. Some people are
evidently too impatient to raise and lower their cell phone to their ear, so they
wear a wireless earpiece everywhere they go.

Impatience may be worse than it ever was, but it’s certainly not new. In our
account for today we have a monumental example of impatience that took
place nearly two thousand years ago. By way of contrast, we’re also shown the
longsuffering mercy of God’s chosen Redeemer, Jesus Christ. If you’ve felt your
patience fraying at the edges lately – if you’ve found yourself impatiently giving
short shrift to someone you know, or even to God! – then you may find today’s
passage is especially helpful for you. This morning we consider the theme:

A PATIENT SAVIOR FOR AN IMPATIENT WORLD
I. The Samaritans were impatient to be rid of Jesus.
II. The disciples were impatient to be rid of the Samaritans.
III. Jesus patiently offers salvation to one and all.

It was not long before Jesus' passion was set to commence. The Savior was on
his final journey from Galilee up to Jerusalem. T his was the closing scene in
our Savior's life, that final period which would end with His glorious Ascension
back to the right hand of God in heaven. Jesus knew what awaited him in
Jerusalem. But he went calmly forward. He was patient. But he was about the
only one was. Everyone else seemed to be in a hurry. The Samaritans, for
instance. They were impatient . They were impatient to be rid of Jesus. Now it
came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He
steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face.
And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him.
But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to
Jerusalem.

The Samaritans knew who Jesus was. By this time everyone in Palestine did.
And because they were a sect at odds with the Jewish religion, they had no time
for this Jewish Messiah, who was on his way to the Jewish capital. Other
travelers they would receive, albeit grudgingly. But not Jesus. Once again for
Jesus, there was no room at the inn. Jesus once said, Foxes have holes, and the
birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
Here was the fulfilling of the prophesy in Isaiah, He was despised and rejected
of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with20grief: and we hid as it were
our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

So many people in our day and age have the same attitude toward Jesus. They
have no room for Him in their lives. They are offended by a Savior who forces
them to confront their own sin. So they tell him to keep moving, to take his
message somewhere else. As the Roman governor Felix said to Paul, I will call
for you when I have a more convenient time. But the more convenient time
never comes. Are we like that? Not receiving Jesus when we have the
opportunity? Shunting Him aside, allowing the rush of our daily lives to crowd
Him out, unwilling to accept the demands of real discipleship? Impatient to be
rid of Jesus? I pray we're not like that. The last passage in our text is one of the
most stark and chilling in all of scripture. And they went to another village.
Rejected by this community of Samaritans, Christ and his=2 0Gospel went
elsewhere. How would you like to be them on the Last Day? How terrible on
the Day of Judgment to be known as the town that rejected Jesus! Can you
imagine? "We had the Savior at our city limits, and we told him to go away!"
God forbid that we, through unbelief or indifference, may ever tell our Savior to
go away!

Jesus own disciples were little better. While the Samaritans were impatient to
be rid of Jesus, the disciples were impatient to be rid of the Samaritans.

When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us
to command fire to come20down from heaven and consume them, just as
Elijah did?” James and John were quite possibly the two messengers Jesus sent
into the town. In any case, they were outraged at the town's cavalier rejection of
the Savior. What do you think it was that made them think of the prophet
Elijah? They had just seen Elijah with their own eyes a few days previously, on
the mount of transfiguration! And they were well acquainted with the account
from II Kings in which Elijah called down fire from heaven and consumed the
soldiers sent to him by the wicked king Ahaziah. By the way, that "fire from
heaven" was not lightning, as some modern scholars try to explain it away.
Lightning indeed can kill, but it does not consume. It does not completely burn
up everything it touches, as did the fire which God caused to fall from heaven
in the Old Testament. And this consuming fire was the exact punishment that
the impatient disciples James and John had in mind for the Samaritans.

Again, as Christians, we need to be warned and admonished by the example of
these overzealous disciples. Some p eople call this the "brother of the prodigal
son syndrome," It describes the self righteous contempt that many religious
people bear toward the non-religious. But did Jesus commend James and John
for their zeal? No. Rather He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not
know what manner of spirit you are of.” We are not to be governed by the spirit
of revenge and anger. We are governed by the Holy Spirit. We want to adopt
that Savior's heart of forbearance and patience and love toward our fellow man,
even those who have rejected Christ so far. There may yet be hope. It is God,
not us, and who sets the time of grace for all mankind. Like the disciples, we
may become impatient with the indifference and scorn that our society shows
toward our Savior. But we can safely leave it in the hands of the Lord. As the
psalmist writes, Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret
because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked
schemes to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret—it only
causes harm. For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD,
They shall inherit the earth. Psalm 37:7-9.

As your pastor, I've admonished you as I'm bound to do. But I’m also bound to
say that I admire the patience this congregation has shown over the years. Since
the group was founded in 1992, quite a few people have come to our
congregation, and quite a few people have moved away. This congregation has
gone to great lengths – and great expense – in its efforts to disseminate the
Gospel and invite others to come and hear the Word of life. Nevertheless, for
over a decade, our membership roster has barely increased, from 36 souls to 41
souls. Many would be impatient with results like that. Many would say, “If the
people in this community won’t honor the Gospel, then we will take the Gospel
somewhere else.” Or worse: even condemning those people to eternal perdition,
as James and John wished to condemn the Samaritans.

But this group hasn’t given up. When others might have quit, Ascension kept
on. In 2003, after ten years of evangelizing the community with few visible
results, some might have said, “It’s not worth it! We’re giving up!” Instead, the
members of Ascension plucked up their courage and pulled out their
checkbooks, and built a church to glorify the name of Christ! And we have not
finished, not by any means. The great unchurched majority here is too needy,
and the treasure of the Gospel too precious, for us to stop now. We have to
keep trying to proclaim the Gospel to the people of this community. We have to
continue to tell them that here - in this graceful little chapel on Waller Road -
here is one place at least where sinners who labor and are heavy laden can still
come, and find rest unto their souls in Jesus Christ.

; What is it that compels us to be patient? Even in the face of a reception that's
been lukewarm at best, what is it that compels us to give Tacoma more time,
and keep preaching the Gospel here? That's easy. The love of Christ compels
us. We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. And in our
text for today we see and hear a Savior Who patiently offers salvation to one
and all.

I'd like to back up once again to verse 51 in our text. So much is revealed
there. Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up,
that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. What great patience lies in
that sentence alone! Think for a moment of some of the difficult experiences
you've gone through in your life. Now think how much more difficult they
would have been, had you known ahead of time all that you were going to have
to go through. I often think what a blessing it is that the Lord doesn't allow us
to see into the future. But Jesus could see the future. He could see every step
that lay before him. He knew exactly what was coming, and despite all that, our
text says, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. The word there in the Greek is
revealing: it means to make something steadfast and immovable, like setting a
post into concrete. Jesus had something wonderful to look forward to. He was
ascending again to His heavenly Father, but He knew that between now and
that glorious reunion lay a horrible ordeal. Christ's going to the Father meant a
pilgrimage through Gethsemane, Calvary, and Joseph's garden. And Jesus'
rock-solid determination was evidence of His great love for you and great
patience toward you. For He would allow nothing to sway Him from His
mission. As He said, The Son of man did not come to destroy men's lives, but
to save them.

So many people have the wrong idea about God, as if He were nothing but a
cruel judge, waiting for the first opportunity to pounce upon the hapless sinner
and condemn him. Nothing could be further from the truth! Peter says, The
Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is
longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. KJV 2 Peter 3:9. God wants all men to be saved, and to
come to the knowledge of the truth. That is why he is patient with us, just as
Jesus was patient with the Samaritans, and with his disciples. He did not
destroy the unbelieving Samaritans, and He did not cast out the vengeful
disciples. Nor will he cast us aside, For the Son of man did not come to destroy
men's lives, but to save them.

How patient our Savior has been toward us! Throughout lives marked by sin
and disobedience and rebellion, our lord Jesus has been with us. Every day,
from the rising of the sun to its setting, and through the long watches of the
night, He is there. Each day, when we cry to him in repentance that we have
failed again, we have fallen again, we have sinned again, he hears us. And he
responds each time, fear not, be of good cheer, you shall not die but live.
There’s a Lenten hymn that always gives me a lump in my throat, a hymn in
which we sang,

"O wondrous love, whose depth no heart hath sounded,
that brought Thee here, by foes and thieves surr ounded!
All worldly pleasures heedless I was trying
While thou wert dying." TLH 143

Truly Jesus is a patient Savior for an impatient world! He patiently bore the
suffering of the cross for our sake. He patiently forgives us day by day when we
turn to him in repentance. The grace just keeps on coming! C.H. Spurgeon tells
the story of how a wealthy patron once wanted to bestow a large sum of money
on a country pastor who was quite poor. Thinking that the amount was too
much to send all at once, the benefactor mailed a portion of it with a note that
said simply, “More to follow.” In a few days20the man received another
envelope containing the same amount and bearing the same message, “More to
follow.” At regular intervals there came a third envelope, and a fourth, and so
on for many weeks until the entire amount had been disbursed. And each one
was accompanied by the cheering message, "more to follow!" Spurgeon noted
that the grace we receive from God always comes with a similar message, "more
to follow!" When God forgives our sins, there's more forgiveness to follow.
When God bestows upon us the righteousness of Christ, there's more to follow.
He adopts us into his very family, but there's more to follow. He prepares us for
heaven, but there's more to follow. He gives us grace, but there's more to
follow. He helps us even to old age, but still the very best is yet to follow. In
fact, it struck me that that would be a pretty good theme for a funeral sermon:
"There's more to follow!"

So maybe it’s time for us believers to take a step back from the fast-paced rush
of our hurry-up world. Perhaps we should take a bit more time to savor the
grace, and the love, a nd the divine, long-suffering patience that our Lord Jesus
has shown to us. Maybe then we’ll be better able to reflect that patience
ourselves, in our attitude toward God and our fellow man. The time is growing
short. Renowned 19th-century preacher A. B. Simpson once said, “Beloved,
have you never considered that one Day you will not have anything more to try
you, nor anyone more to vex you ever again? There will be no opportunity or
need in heaven to learn or to show the spirit of patience, forbearance, and
longsuffering. If you are to practice these things, it must be now.” Each new
day will continue to bring us opportunities to learn patience from our Master.
Let’s not waste them. He has been patient and merciful with us. Let us
endeavor, with patience, to bring the Good News of His mercy to as many
people as we can before we join Him forever in heaven! In Jesus’ saving name,
AMEN.