God Things (Luke 7:11-17)
Written by Pastor Fausel   
 Grace, mercy and peace be to you …

This weekend is home for an annual event here in Louisville, the WHAS Crusade for Children.   A lot of people are involved in this, as the focus of the Crusade yesterday and today is on fund raising … So you’ll see firefighters and other organizations and volunteers all out drumming up funds to support the work of the Crusade.

And as the Crusade has long been a major media event, the fund raising will highlight the other side of the Crusade … the many children who are, or have benefitted, from the funds raised … As well as spotlighting the many organizations that receive Crusade funds as part of their aid to children.

And at the end of the day … there will be a big number on a board … something well into the millions, reflecting the dollars that have been given or pledged this year.

And everyone involved will see this as the community’s outpouring of love and compassion.  And God will be thanked.

But is what has been accomplished really a “God Thing?”   We define a “God Thing” as something that we have seen or experienced in our midst that only could have been done by God Himself.  

We have a few examples of God Things before us this morning.  The first we see is in our reading from 1st Kings, Chapter 17.   
We see there the resurrection from the dead of a widow’s son with Elijah acting as God’s agent.   But what we are witnessing is something that only God could do.  Bringing a dead person … back to life.

Likewise, in Luke’s Gospel for today, we see Jesus raising another widow’s son from the dead.   Again, something acknowledged by the crowds that witnessed it as something only God could do.

And in our Reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we hear Paul’s testimony that the Gospel He proclaimed was not of His doing.  In other words, it was not something he himself had thought up … nor had he learned it from others … but that it was revealed to him from God himself.  

The way the people saw it … Here was this man Saul, persecuting the church to the best of His ability … And then He became Paul, who was defending the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all his might and reaching out to the gentiles.   

And so who gets the credit for that change?   We read that the People praised and glorified God … for they recognized that this about-face on the part of Saul/Paul could only have been God’s doing.

Now.  The consistent thing throughout all these experiences from 1 Kings through Luke 7 and Galatians 1 is that what was happening were things that could only be explained by God’s intervention in the life and lives of people that was only possible by Him.

Elijah didn’t have the keys to Life and death, but he fronted for the One who did.   Jesus was indeed God in the flesh, and so what He did had Godly character and results.
   
And St. Paul, the self proclaimed chief of sinners, was being used by God in such a way that only God could have been the one to turn Saul into St. Paul and be the source of his teaching

And as we heard … the people who saw these things appropriately gave praise to God.   They had indeed seen God at work in the world.   So…What about us?

Have we seen things happening to individuals in our midst, or in our church and school as a whole, that could only be explained by God’s intervention in the life and lives of people? And if we have … have we given praise where praise is due?

Let’s just talk about a few things.   There will be something going on in our Gym this noon that will look a bit like the Crusade you can watch on TV.    The similarities are that Children are being helped … and you’ll see a number with 7 digits.

But there the similarity stops.  Why?  Because the work of ministry of Our Savior Church and School is not supported by fundraising.  Roughly half the support comes from the sacrificial giving of the Members of Our Savior Lutheran Church.

Now giving is not to be confused with fundraising.   Giving is a response of the heart … to God.  Not to the Church nor to the school.

But, that’s easy to lose track of.  Especially as our offering envelopes have a drawing of the church on them.  And also, because we have been known from time to time to encourage “giving” for particular ministries of the church or school.

But, giving, tithing, offering, is a response of the individual heart to God.
 
We said it before … we’ll say it again.  Does God need our money?  No.  It’s all really His in the first place.   But, our hearts need to give back to God.  Even if this church and school had a 2 billion dollar endowment … we would still need to give in response to God’s love.  

And that brings us to the first “God Thing” we want to acknowledge.   This past year, from June of 2009 to this month, June of 2010, we saw a significant decrease in our Giving.   Now, attendance in church was not down from year to year.  People were here.  But for many, their fixed incomes had been affected by the economy.  Others had lost jobs.  Few, if any, salary increases had occurred.

Yet, the ministries of Our Savior were, and are, supported by God.  This is His Church, not mine … not our even ours.   And for His Church, and its work in spreading the message of His love in the Gospel, He will provide.

So, when giving is down, how does God do that?  First.  He can increase our School enrollment.  And for the past school year He did just that.  Enrollment increased almost 10 percent over the year prior, peaking at one point with 211 students.  And that happened in a down economy when most parochial schools, including Lutheran schools in other communities, were seeing significant enrollment declines.
We see God’s hand in this, because other than being faithful to God in how we approach our school ministry, there’s not a whole lot we can do to increase enrollment by that much in one year.  But God can do it.  And He did.  He brought the new students in.  That’s one “God Thing.”  Praise the Lord!

And here’s a second one.  Besides our giving from Church Members and tuition from school enrollment … there are members and non-members who give one-time gifts to Our Savior.   That’s right, God can and does move people to give to the Ministry here.  

This past year, an insurance instrument that named Our Savior and two other entities as owners was surrendered by its original owner.  The cash value was realized, and Our Savior’s portion was in excess of $150,000.

The exact amount was virtually equivalent to the borrowing we had done from designated accounts over the past 10 or so years.  God had given us a gift.  That was one.   And there were others this year as well.  But perhaps these gifts come with a message.  That God will indeed give us everything we need… as we act faithfully in our call to serve Him.

However, He might not always give it in sync. with our need to fiscally close the books each year with balanced income versus expenses.  That need … to see income match expense on an annual basis … is our need, not His.   Especially, as He has given us enough money in the bank to float us over those times between His gifts.  

“God things!”     Giving was down, But God provided More Students that we even expected  …
and He gave us monetary gifts over and above that.   These were things totally out of our control.  Praise the Lord.

By the way, while we’re on this subject.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a church budget that projected a significant balance in the black at the end of the year.   Usually congregations are wringing their hands about having enough money just to pay the anticipated bills.  

But think about it.  If the budget, which is a plan for ministry, is designed to be well within the ability of the church itself to fund it … how does God get the opportunity to show the members and the world watching that He is truly the one who provides??

Could it be that God in His wisdom keeps Congregations on their knees seeking His Grace and supply … rather than letting them fall into the illusion that they can do it all by themselves??

Now, let’s get off the money … and look at one more God thing.  A personal one.  God’s care for individuals.  We see that in both our Old Testament and our Gospel reading for today.  God out of compassion raising the only son, the only means of support, for two different widows.

Talk about a time of despair in both widows’ lives.  A time many truly Question God’s care or even the question if there can be a God of love.

Does God step in and intervene in every case like this?  Obviously not.  There are tragedies on top of tragedies in this world.  
The Crusade this weekend is one way that we as human beings work together to try to mitigate some of the difficulties and challenges that come in life.

But, if tragedies didn’t happen … if long life with out any illness or difficulties was the guaranteed lot of the Human race… who would get the credit for that?   God?  Probably not.  One way or another, we’d take credit for it ourselves and write God even further out of the picture.

But, when all hope of human intervention in a tragedy is gone, where do people turn?  They begin to pray, they may even bargain and plead for God’s help.  Or stoically, they may accept the outcome as fate, or destiny.

But we know God says that HE wishes us to have life and have it to the full.  What He is saying is that He wants us to live each day in a loving personal relationship with Him … so that … when, or if, tragedy strikes … we’re not facing it on our own … and we know for certain that the outcome is in the loving hands of our God.

That confidence in God’s love even in the face of things that otherwise might plunge us into despair… makes a huge difference in how we live … and how our lives, then, give witness to God.

We just had a member diagnosed with a frontal lobe brain tumor.  Benign, but large enough to cause some subtle changes in sensory perception as well as behavior.   But no other outward or inward signs.

Finally, an MRI was ordered which exposed the culprit, and the necessity of a very invasive, tricky, 6-hour surgery.

And as much as the outcome gave glory to the talents of the surgeon, the patient’s and family’s faith gave a clear witness to where their hope and trust were, from beginning to end.

You could say, that the patient had been brought back from death, because undiagnosed, that’s where the tumor would have led.  Yet, with it gone, days for that patient are brighter than they have been in years.

A “God Thing?”   Ask the patient.  She’ll tell you of God’s might works.

God things.  We’ve only mentioned a few here.  Our Treasurer began his letter to us with a list of many things we have to give thanks for, several of which we could include in the “God Thing” category.

So, today as we meet as a congregation.   And we talk about the ministries God is calling us to carry out … Shall we wring our hands?  Or shall we raise them in praise?   To Him be the glory…   

In Him,
Amen.
 

Copyright 2006-2010, Our Savior Lutheran Church