Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
“O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.” Dr. Luther selected these beautiful but simple words of praise and thanksgiving from 1 Chronicles 16 to begin returning thanks to our gracious God after receiving our meals. These are good words for us to meditate on because they draw us back to what truly makes God good. It most certainly isn’t the abundance of stuff that He daily lavishes upon us. We are surrounded by far more than we either desire or deserve. And we have also been kept from things that are truly harmful for us. To be sure, there are some who have more earthly mammon than others. But that means nothing either for the one who has them or the one who doesn’t.
God is good because He is merciful. He isn’t good because He works on a reward system. He is good because He doesn’t hold your sins against you and give you accordingly. Instead, He held your sins against Jesus and freely gives life and forgiveness. Consider right now the ways in which God has shown you His mercy. Look around you at the daily bread you can see and then let your thoughts go out to the farmer, the good government, the mechanic, the truck driver, the entrepreneur, the roads, the contractors, the teachers – the countless people and things that have to do their jobs in order for you to have even a loaf of bread, let alone anything else. How quickly do you realize there are far more ways the Lord is providing for you than you can possibly begin to consider? And now, lift your eyes to the cross from which God bestows true, eternal life, the bread of heaven that if anyone eats, he will never be hungry again. There, on the cross, you see God’s goodness and why He deserves our eternal praise – He didn’t spare His only-begotten Son from death, but offered Him up as the atoning sacrifice for us all. Now, give thanks to the Lord your God who upholds you every day with His righteous and merciful hand.
So we see that truly nothing we have is actually our own. Neither our daily bread nor our eternal salvation. All of it is a free gift of God, a heavenly trust bestowed upon us in mercy. We are merely stewards, caretakers of someone else’s things, workers in the vineyard of the Lord. Not a single cell of our bodies, a stitch of clothing in our wardrobe, a morsel of bread on our plate, a penny in our pocket, or a moment of our day belong to us as a personal possession. They all belong to God who bestows upon each according to His good and perfect wisdom. And they are to be used to His glory and for His purposes. We are to distribute them according to the various vocations into which our Lord has graciously placed us – preachers and hearers of His Word, citizens and rulers, husbands and wives, children, employers and employees (look in the Table of Duties at the end of the Small Catechism). In each of these holy vocations, your Lord lays an obligation upon you – obligations of time, talents, money, and expertise. What God bestows upon you, He gives so that you can meet these obligations, provide for those given into your charge, and glorify His goodness and mercy.
And during this particular month of Thanksgiving, I give special thanks to God for each and every one of you and the faith that God has granted to you. He has bestowed upon you the desire for His righteousness and a love for His Word and the precious Sacraments. And as a congregation we are truly blessed in so many ways. In particular this year, as we have considered the question of Faith in Wylie becoming an independent congregation, we rejoice that the faithful have responded in their offerings to work on meeting the financial needs that accompany the goal of being self-sustaining and many new volunteers have arisen to help teach Sunday School. There is more work to be done but “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.” This is the Lord’s doing and it is truly marvelous in our eyes!
The need for the Word of God in our community is great and it is our great joy and privilege to be the stewards of the Lord’s vineyard in this place at this time. There are certainly challenges that remain ahead of us but the Lord is abundant in His mercy and takes no greater joy than in seeing His stewards put His treasures to the high and holy use of spreading the Gospel so that all might hear and taste for themselves His great goodness and mercy and call upon Him in faith.
It is my prayer that the Lord would continue to richly bless you with every good and perfect gift in Christ Jesus and that together we might daily be joyful and faithful stewards of all that the Lord has bestowed upon us in His mercy.
Pastor Ulmer