Pious Lutheran

Christ and the Woman from Canaan, Pieter Lastman, 1617 Prayer is based upon faith in God’s Goodness What is prayer? How do we pray? This season of the church year that we are in, known as Lent, is a penitential season. Meaning, that this is a time for increased meditation on our need for Jesus as our Savior. As such, the church has historically observed Lent with increased almsgiving, increased fasting, and increased praying. Among those three, the only one that really gets much traction among us today is increased prayer. Formally we offer things such as Lenten devotionals so that we might spend more time in Bible study and prayer, and we have midweek services so that again we might spend more time in God’s word and prayer. In order to perhaps further help us pray more regularly, I’d like to spend this sermon speaking quite directly about prayer. Explaining what prayer is and the driving force behind prayer, and also very practically talking about prayer so that we all might have a be...

Christ and the Canaanite Woman , Pieter Lastman, 1617 The endurance of humble faith Humble faith Enduring faith Faith which endures is strengthened Patience is a virtue. But the virtue of patience isn’t just being able to wait quietly for your meal at a restaurant for a few minutes, rather it’s the ability to endure trials without losing faith. So Jacob wrestled with God all night with the conviction: “ I will not let you go unless you bless me. ” Noah endured living in the ark for an entire year, trusting that the flood waters would subside and he’d be let out. The Israelites endured in the wilderness for forty years before reaching the promised land. The Israelites had to wait thousands of years before the Messiah was born in Bethlehem. The christian church has now waited thousands of years for Jesus to return and raise the dead, and we still patiently wait. Moreover, our patiently enduring faith is also a humble faith. Like the Canaanite woman, we don’t presume to deserve God’s favo...

Christ and the Canaanite Woman , Annibale Carracci, 16th Cent. Does demon possession still happen? Reading the Gospels there’s no shortage of demonic possession. Even into the New Testament era, after Jesus’ ascension into heaven, there are still accounts of Christians exorcizing demons. So what about today? Are all of the accounts of demon possession in the Bible worth reading about or are they just interesting stories of the past with no application to our modern world? The truth is demons do continue to afflict and possess people. We just tend to have a very narrow view of demonic possession, mainly informed by sensational movies and TV shows. We expect demon possession to be characterized by spinning heads, superhuman strength, speaking in strange languages, and berzerk manic behavior. There’s some of that in the Bible, with the man possessed by a legion of demons living naked among the dead with superhuman strength, or the child possessed by a demon who cast himself into fire and ...

  A couple weeks ago on Valentine’s Day we talked about one of the three great Christian virtues: love. Love is gentle and kind, it submits and gives in for the sake of the other. Love is sacrificial. In general, it appears we American Christians do a good job talking about love and encouraging this virtue amongst one another. However, faith is also a necessary virtue, and over the past few wealthy generations, we’ve not practiced this virtue quite as much. Faith is different from love. Love may be gentle and submissive, while faith is stubborn and unmoving. Faith endures. Faith is like glue which bonds two objects together. With high quality glue, the two objects become one, and the weak object gains the strength of the stronger object to which it’s become attached. So a weak and easily broken veneer becomes much stronger when glued to a thick surface. Likewise, the weak human becomes as strong as God when the human has faith in the Lord. To illustrate this we can look at Jacob wr...

Last week we considered the idiom “fighting your demons,” and how we really do fight against the devil when we fight against our temptations. This week we might consider another idiomatic term: a “prayer warrior.” It’s a term often used by evangelicals to refer to someone who prays for other people very fervently. A “prayer warrior” is someone who fights against the issues in this world through prayer.  That’s a good thing to do and prayer is a good weapon to use against Satan. In our texts today you might call both Jacob and the Canaanite woman “prayer warriors.” However, did you notice that they’re not fighting or wrestling against the issues in this world, but they’re wrestling with God? Indeed! A Christian wrestles with God in prayer, and through faith is victorious. What a strange and incredible and profound thing we see here in the scriptures! “ And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day... Then the man said, “Let me go, for the d...

Last Sunday we heard the Gospel lesson where Jesus was led out into the wilderness by the Spirit to be assaulted by the devil’s temptations. We heard how Christ went to battle for us, He fought our ancient foe, He strove victoriously and won the battle on our behalf. His battle with Satan began in the wilderness and it has been finished when He was crucified on the cross. From that lesson we furthermore learned that every Christian will do battle with Satan in this life as well. Job learned this lesson the hard way since Satan pushed him hard, such that Job said “ Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired servant? ” St. Paul struggled with the temptations of the flesh all his life, such that he told St. Timothy, “ An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. ”  The Christian life is a battle, make no mistake. It’s a grievous error when some pastors tell people that after a person is converted and has come to Chri...