WATER WORKING HOLY LIVES

The stream behind my brother’s home has tons and tons of gravel consisting of large boulders, all manner of rocks down to the finest sand filling in a good portion of the riverbed.

 One spring the Ozark mountain region in southern Missouri where my brother Billy lives experienced heavy rains. The rainfall cascaded down the mountains, hills and valleys carrying sediment down into the creeks, streams and rivers. The storm water uprooted and carried huge trees downstream. So much rain fell the tributaries were filled breaking beyond their bounds. The water became a torrent flooding land, homes, and Ozark villages.

As we are baptized into Christ and washed with the Word, the Holy Spirit cleanses us from the sediment of sin, guilt, shame, and brokenness. 

How can we speak of being cleansed when there is still the gravel of sin and shame in our lives? Granted, because of sin we are never as clean and holy as we should be. BUT you have been baptized which is pure. You also receive God’s Word which is also pure. Since the purity we receive in faith comes through Christ (who is brilliantly pure), we can certainly say we are whiter than snow, purer than a mountain spring. Even though the gravel of sin still is in the stream of our lives, our sin is covered by the purity and innocence of Christ. We are washed Holy, Pure, because Our God is Holy and Pure.

How can you have this? You receive this when we hear and trust God’s Word. Of course we know this purity comes from outside ourselves completely. Pastor Martin Luther wrote, “If we look at Christians apart from Christ and see them as they really are, we would notice how much they are contaminated by sin. Even if they were fine people, we would see not only that they’re thoroughly contaminated, but also that they’re covered over with a thick, dark film of sin. If someone tried to separate us from Christ and take away our baptism and God’s promises, we would no longer have Christ’s purity. We would be left with nothing but sin.”

This purity is also a process where the Holy Spirit washes our lives, especially through the Word. Sometimes we go through periods where the Spirit flows through our lives like a torrent moving boulders of brokenness and shame out of our lives. Most often the Spirit is gently flowing through us each and every day cleansing us of the nitty gritty sins.

Having a holy life – a life that is connected to our Holy God – encourages us to daily be washing the sediment of sin. Each day we are to drown the old Adam / Eve with repentance so the new person in Christ can be raised up. Each day we are being sanctified and purified for our Holy and Pure God.

As Christians we should never be content to have a shriveled up spiritual life like the Kings River in a time of drought. When you actively seek the LORD – being in the Word – coming into His presence in worship – daily living as Baptized child, you are filled to the brim life giving, nurturing flow of the Spirit in your life.

Since summer is a time of relaxation and refreshment, come on Sunday mornings to relax in the loving grace of your Holy and Loving God and be refreshed by the Word and Sacraments. Come for this worship series: Holy God, Holy Lives.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1Thess. 5:23)

Pastor Douglas