St. Luke Ev. Lutheran Church
November 22/23, 2006
Thanksgiving Eve/Day
Sermon by Pastor Anthony E. Schultz
Luke 12:32-34

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

People of God—rescued from the flaming lake of fire in hell by the innocent blood of the very Lamb of God:

Happy Turkey Day! You hear that all the time. Happy Turkey Day! It’s almost as if this day is all about dinner. Turkey cooked for hours—squirted again and again with that big squirter thing—so the skin is crispy and the meat tender and juice. The stuffing with lots of seasoning and little chunks of giblets. The gravy is thick but no lumps. The sweet potatoes with the marshmallows all melted and golden on top. There is the cranberry sauce—from whole cranberries—cooked until they crack open—bitter sweet. There are those little dinner rolls all warm so the butter melts off the knife. There are potatoes squished through the ricer so there are even more places for the gravy to get stuck. Green beans with the mushroom soup—and those crispy onion rings. Happy Turkey Day! Sometimes it seems this day is about pumpkin pie and mince meat pie—with a big scoop of Wisconsin whipped cream—and then daddys falling asleep watching football while mommies do dishes. Then make cold turkey sandwiches with snooty mustard--chips and pickles and ice cold soda. And before you know it—it’s another turkey day over—fast followed by all the shopping and writing out of Christmas cards and baking cookies and going to parties and all the other stuff we do this time of year. And what gets lost in all this—is what Thanksgiving and Christmas are all about—thanksgiving to God—for his countless blessings! Thanksgiving to God for faith and forgiveness and an inheritance stored up in heaven—that not even the devil can steal from us! This thanksgiving Jesus says:

Hearts Are Where Your Treasure Is
1. Don’t be afraid
2. Don’t store up earthly treasures
3. Store up treasures in heaven

As we catch up in spirit with the Lord Jesus—his public ministry is fast drawing to a close. Luke chapter 9 says, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” Luke 9:51 There is a palpable urgency in all that Jesus will say and do as the time is short! Jesus talked about the cost of discipleship. “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” The time is short. Jesus sends out the 72 disciples. Jesus said, “Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves…Tell them, “The kingdom of God is near.” But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.” Jesus told them the parable of the good Samaritan to an expert in the law—who tried to test Jesus—what must I do to inherit eternal life? Go and show mercy like the good Samaritan did to his enemy! Jesus taught Mary and Martha that making Jesus a wonderful lunch with linen napkins and made from scratch dessert was not as important as simply listening to God’s Word! Jesus taught his disciples how to pray—that God’s name is hallowed, his kingdom comes, his will is done—also among us! Jesus cast out demons—not by the power of Beelzebub—but by his power as the Son of God! Six times Jesus said to the Pharisees—the teachers of the law—hypocrites! Jesus could say that, “Hypocrites!” Oh, people often accuse other people of being hypocrites—people who go to church on Sundays—and then do bad things on Monday mornings and Friday and Saturday nights. Christians do that. Think about it! We come to church and hear God’s Word read—Old Testament prophets—we sing a Psalm. We read part of a letter from our Heavenly Father. We stand up to hear about the words and works of the Lord Jesus. We see the gospel illustrated in a children’s devotion. We hear a sermon—scripture read and explained and applied to day to day life. And our faith grows. But we don’t stop sinning. We continue to make mistakes. Still we say with the apostle Paul, “I have a desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing…What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:18b f TNIV

Jesus and Jesus alone could call the Pharisees and the teachers of the law hypocrites—because Jesus and Jesus alone could see into their hearts. We can’t! We can’t see into other people’s hearts. When the Bible says again and again don’t judge—it’s talking about judging hearts. You dasn’t judge your neighbor’s heart. That’s God’s business. We need to make judgments—like the Bereans—the people who went home from church and read their Bible—to be sure that the sermons they were hearing don’t contradict God’s Word. That’s good—to read your Bible. That’s where you learn not to be saw dust inspectors—finding saw dust in your neighbor’s eye. Instead—be painfully aware of the barn board in our own eye! It is a sin—plain and simple—to stand in little clumps and bunches—complaining, criticizing, finding fault with others. It is a sin—plain and simple—to find fault—when what you are complaining about is a matter of taste! Different kinds of music—different styles of clothes—different kinds of doing lots of things are not right or wrong—any more than a pumpkin pie is right and a mince meat pie or an apple pie is wrong. When Pastor Mueller was my teacher when I was the Vicar taught me—if we are faithful to God’s Word—it was not his job to make me preach like he preached. Think about it! Thanks be to God—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did not write the same. Do you understand and appreciate the differences? Paul, Peter, James and John did not write the same as Moses—nor the same as the writer to the Hebrews. Do you understand and appreciate the differences? Thanks be to God for the rich variety of styles and strengths and weaknesses in all those who continue to teach God’s Word to us! As we all grow in faith—how important it is for us to encourage and build each other up. Let us be thankful for the priceless gift of encouragement!

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” It is because of Jesus’ unconditional love that we are his little flock. This figure of speech goes all the way back to Isaiah chapter 53. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:8 TNIV Because the LORD is my Shepherd—I don’t need to be afraid. Read the papers and it sounds like a pretty scary world out there. People are so determined to get their hands on a new video game player that they can buy for $600 and then turn around and sell for 2 or $3,000 that they are literally breaking their faces running into poles in a mad dash to get one! People are so determined to save parking spaces at the mall that they are literally standing in the way of SUVs—literally sitting down in parking spaces—and almost being run over by diesel pickup trucks! It’s a scary world—when they have this thing called “mean mugging”! Do you know what that is? “Mean mugging” is when you give someone a dirty—I mean a really dirty look—or maybe you just look at them—stare at them a moment too long. And they say to you, “Are you looking at me? Are you looking at me?” And if you are—they shoot you! Was it three people in Milwaukee just the other day that were murdered—because the guy with the gun didn’t like the way they were looking at him? As horrible as the physical dangers might be—the real danger is to our heart and faith—to our mind and our soul. Only Jesus can keep us safe from the dangers that harm our faith. That safety is found in being close—closer and closer to God’s Word!

Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. There is frustration and danger if you put your stock in earthly things. Take for example asbestos. Asbestos comes from a Greek word—sbestos—which means extinguishable—plus the “a” in front which means not—so asbestos means not extinguishable. Doesn’t that sound backwards? But it’s not. Asbestos used to be used for wicks—wicks in lanterns because it didn’t burn up. It didn’t go out. It was not extinguishable! It was used by Charlemagne for his table cloth. He’d throw it into the fire with all the table scraps and crumbs. The leftovers would burn up—but the table cloth didn’t! People made such durable fabrics from asbestos there was a time when asbestos was as valuable as gold! Not today! Today there are estimates that asbestos litigation will cost $200 billion just in the United States! So much for putting stock in earthly valuables! Instead store up a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” People who live down the street from us are moving. I don’t know those people who lived in the really beautiful house on the corner—but I know they are moving—because parked out in front of their house was this ginormous moving truck. All day long people carried out “things and stuff”. There were appliances on wheels—rolled out of the house and up the ramp into the truck. There were lots and lots of brown and gold colored quilted blankets. Then came furniture—couches and daddy chairs—then tables and their unattached legs. There were boxes full of dishes—boxes full of towels and sheets—boxes full of books—boxes full of stuff from the garage! Before you know it—people are sitting everywhere having something cold to drink—literally wiping sweat from their foreheads. All the things and stuff of this family—packed into the back of one semi. Things and stuff—that’s all it is—things and stuff. If someone should drive that truck off a cliff and it all burns up—what would be lost? Things and stuff! Our friends the Koepkes in Dundee have a beautiful home. One of the best things about it—is the fact they used the front door from Aunt Lula’s house as the back door of their new house. They used one of the old doors from Aunt Lula’s house as the foot of one of the beds! The Koepkes would be the first to tell you—the best thing—the only thing that really matters is that Matthew Koepke is in a mansion in Heaven. And so—one day—the new earthly house they live in will be gone—no matter how carefully they take care of it. But their extreme make over in heaven—that will last forever!

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I was in Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee this week. If you park by Froedert—you have to go to the lower level. The halls down there are covered with art work done by little children. I love little people self-portraits. Little people don’t have an understanding of their body—the main pudgy part. They understand their head and their arms—so they draw their arms coming out of their ears—with their legs coming out of their chin—really really long wiggly legs with feet that go out sideways! There are two really really difficult parts of children’s hospital. The part where the signs say oncology. That’s of course the cancer ward. That’s where you see lots of little people with no hair. Lots of little boys and girls wearing baseball caps—pulling along their IV pole—lots of very harsh chemicals going into their bodies. Dark circles grey around their eyes. Their fingers often tremble. But there is a smile on their face. A grim determination to get better. The other most painful part is the burn ward. Here are little people, too—who because of some terrible accident—in a moment were terribly burned. They have thick layers of ointment on their bodies—to try and keep the air off their skin. Most of the time—it’s easy not to think about these little people and their families—their lives so difficult—one day at a time. People in that situation would be the first to tell you what matters between now and New Year’s Eve is not the food the presents the parties the days off of school and work. What matters—all that really matters is that Jesus was born into this world to save us from all our sins. All that really matters is one day we will come home to heaven where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain—for the old order of things has passed away. Jesus will make everything new. That’s where our treasure is—in heaven. And that’s where our heart will be also. Amen!

To God alone all glory!
Rev. Anthony E. Schultz