ST. PAUL'S LUTHERAN CHURCH & SCHOOL, MUNSTER, INDIANA
  • Home
  • Church
    • Discover >
      • Sunday School
      • Resources
    • Disciple
    • Connect
    • Youth
  • School/Preschool
    • Parents
    • Students
    • Preschool >
      • Summer Fun
    • Extra-curricular
    • Admissions
    • Faculty
    • Alumni
  • About
    • What We Believe
    • History >
      • Rededicated
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Church
    • Discover >
      • Sunday School
      • Resources
    • Disciple
    • Connect
    • Youth
  • School/Preschool
    • Parents
    • Students
    • Preschool >
      • Summer Fun
    • Extra-curricular
    • Admissions
    • Faculty
    • Alumni
  • About
    • What We Believe
    • History >
      • Rededicated
  • Contact

April 2: Clever Servant, Insufferable Master

4/2/2020

0 Comments

 
You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:30

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea. Psalm 46:1-2


No matter how hopeful we try to be, it is hard not to think that spring of 2020 is likely to prove a turning point for the nation. I’m reminded of the famous poem Shine, Perishing Republic, which contains the line, “And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.”

A clever servant, insufferable master. People have adapted that line from the poem to many things, most notably money and technology. They are tools and servants that have a tendency to take charge of our hearts and begin to dominate us. That’s how the first commandment gets messed up. The good gifts God gives us to possess end up possessing us instead. The creation displaces the Creator as the thing we rely on. We end up putting our faith in false gods.

Fear, panic, and despair always result when the false gods (which are often good things in themselves, just in the wrong place in our lives) fail us. The government. The economy. The scientists. The environment. Even our physical bodies—they’re all excellent servants, all terrible masters, and all prone to become the false gods of our lives. When everything goes wrong, God is still God. It is our false gods that have proven themselves incapable of saving us.

The pain of all this upheaval is real and nothing to take lightly. The things God gives us to serve us are all good gifts, and He knows all our needs. Trusting the true God does not mean disdaining good government, or treating people’s economic livelihoods as nothing, or downplaying the importance of good health. It means accepting the good things of creation as gifts, but keeping everything in its place.

We take very seriously the spread of disease, the stability of the economy (which is in unprecedented territory in terms of unemployment numbers), the ramifications of politics and elections, and so forth, without letting such things become gods. These are the mountains of our lives, the things by which we’ve always navigated and assumed would also be there. Now they’re being uprooted and tossed into the sea. Perhaps they’re just being put back in their proper place.

Money is not God. Science is not God. Physical life and health are not God. When people panic, they tend to think that you either have to treat something as the most important thing or else you’re not taking it seriously at all. Christians refuse that choice. We neither deny the goodness of, nor put our faith in, things like science, money, health, or government. We keep everything in its place, knowing that even the mountains are not eternal.

One translation of A Mighty Fortress, Luther’s great hymn on Psalm 46, it this way—“And take they our life, goods, fame, child and wife, though these all be gone, they yet have nothing won. The kingdom ours remaineth.” We shall have no other gods before the Creator. We receive the things of creation—government, technology, finances, health, etc. from His hand as undeserved gifts, as servants, not masters. And when they give way and fail us, we need not fear, for we know that our God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
0 Comments

    Author

    Rev. Peter Speckhard, Senior Pastor at St. Paul's Ev. Lutheran Church, Munster, Indiana

    Picture

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    March 2017
    October 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015

    Topics

    All
    Anchored
    Art & Music
    Authority
    Bible Study
    Budgets
    Callings
    Catechism
    Challenge
    Christian Living
    Church Building
    Citizenship
    Communion
    Congregation
    Connection
    Cycles
    Death
    Denominations
    Direction
    Disappointment
    Discipline
    Disruption
    Education
    Endurance
    Eternity
    Evangelism
    Evil
    Faith
    Fear
    Forgiveness
    Fruits Of The Spirit
    Frustration
    Future
    Generations
    Gratitude
    Growth
    Heaven
    History
    Identity
    Idols
    Injustice
    Inspiration
    Isolation
    Joy
    Kindness
    LCMS
    Legacy
    Lent
    Liturgy
    Luther
    Memory
    Milestones
    Passover
    Patience
    Peace
    Perfection
    Pilgrimage
    Prayer
    Priorities
    Promise
    Protection
    Reading
    Rededication
    Reformation
    Rest
    Resurrection
    Sacrifice
    Safety
    Salvation
    Scripture
    Self
    Self-destruction
    Serving
    Shepherding
    Sin
    Stewardship
    Strength
    Suffering
    Synod
    Technology
    The Word
    Trinity
    Trust
    Truth
    Unity
    Vigil
    Vocation
    Wisdom
    Worry

    RSS Feed

©2022, St. Paul's Ev. Lutheran Church & School
Munster, IN